I'm going to go straight into the details of Children of Morta gameplay since we already can see what a stunning looking game it is. The combat is not the deepest of all combats, the game definitely seems made for the more casual players than the hardcorest of roguelite players, but there's still a lot of fun to be found for them even if it can feel a bit repetitive at times. For starters, no this isn't a mindless button masher, you won't succeed just mashing away the LMB and your abilities and thinking you'll breeze through the levels, there is a strategic level to the game where you most focus on positioning and using environmental hazards to your advantage. Enemies come in hoards and their variety is good. They will bring in all sorts of trouble, so focusing on certain enemies first also adds to your decision making. Since you can't trade hits a lot since potions can be rare you need to focus on evading attacks as much as you can using your roll moves, so this element adds a nice feeling of pace almost like Dead Cells. Add in randomized items that can synergise with your characters kit, like black hole runes or a drone that stuns enemies, as well as runes that can alter your abilities (like making your critical attacks summon giant swords from the heavens) the game does a good enough job of making a simple combat feel fun and fluid, masking the repetitiveness nearly entirely. I don't even need to mention the other part of the game because everything else, visuals, story and music are superb.
Anodyne 2 is a weird game. The world is bizarre, the characters are creepy, the atmosphere is a bit omnious, is this Majora's Mask 2? Definitely has all the right ingredients. I find it fascinating how this game manages to nail the low polygon art style of consoles pre-2000 yet at the same time creates beautiful modern pixel art for its 2D section, that are very reminiscent of games like Zelda Links Awakening. I've only scratched the surface and I do feel the pacing in the beginning is a bit slow at first (just like old Zelda games) but the game just oozes with atmosphere and potential. The polish is notable, which is impressive for a 2 person team and just the whole idea of exploring the over-world in 3D and dungeon crawling in 2D is fascinating, even more so that it's executed so well.
