There's a lot of games that purport to allow you to design your own magic, but most of them just involve deciding how powerful you want your sparkles. This game has puzzle element in how you built your spells and how you optimize them, which allows for complex, multi-layers spells that's just fascinating. The combat is fine; the real point of the game is the puzzle elements. Given how much of the game relies on its fascinating magic design system, the earliest parts of the game are the roughest parts, where you're forced to contend with the weak combat mechanics and clunky handling, but once your mage gets to the point where she can start unleashing some real devastation, you'll find the game really hits its stride. It's definitely not a game that overstays its welcome. By the end, as you've collected all or most of the runes and essences, you'll feel like you're really just getting started, but you're actually reaching the end, which is unfortunate. A highly recommended, overlooked gem.
"...but aren't they all?" - Jim Sterling This is yet another game about someone struggling through grief via an internal struggle and surreal imagery. If you like that sort of thing, you'll probably like this game, though it does occasionally forget that this is all in someone's head and veers into some fascinating sci-fi and horror imagery. As a Point-and-Click, it's competent. I only had to check a guide once or twice to progress, and when I did, the answer was obvious enough that I felt dumb for checking a guide, so I never got stuck and "moon logic" was kept to a minimum. It is, however, a bit short and repetitive. The second half is rhymes with the first half, and to me, a lot of the appeal of a point and click is unlocking new situations and new puzzles, new parts of the world. This had pretty few things to unlock. It has nice enough art, when you do go into a particularly weird situation. It's a fine and serviceable adventure. It's not one of the greats, but I've definitely played worse. It's fine.
My first step into AOW was Planetfall, so this was my first real foray into their fantasy offering, and it took me awhile to grasp, but I really like it. It has the same deeply fascinating customization, but much of that customization happens as you play the game. It has the sense of exploration, mystery and discovery that I never would have expected out of a strategy game, capturing the essence of the fantasy genre very well. Like Planetfall, I am obsessed. I dropped my coin on the deluxe edition and to my delight, it's been totally worth it. The production values are also top notch. The characters look great, the game looks great. There is, however, no voice acting, I don't know why. Planetfall had voice acting, it added a lot, it's weird that this one reduces characters to grunts and hmms. This does hurt the experience. The game has story arcs, which is wild. You don't have to play the story realms, but the design of each scenario is fascinating: they're not just interesting and unique scenarios with which to play the game, but narrative arcs as well. The design depth of this game is just crazy. The combination of faction, culture, aspect and then world means every game feels unique. It really does it for me. Totally worth checking out if you like the 4x space.
This is a very evocative, very frustrating game. I bought it because it looked amazing, and I'm such a sucker for metroidvanias. This is, however, a brutally difficult game. It requires pinpoint precision with the platforming, and it's designed with some sadism in mind: the creator knew what you would probably do in a situation and doing that will kill you. You were die, a lot. And when you do, you will have to backtrack quite a distance. When a game demands so much of me, I tend to demand a lot from the game and it's.. not quite up to the challenge. It's no Hollow Knight. I've played worse, but there are little glitches and the occasional screwy hitbox, paired with level design where you often have to go in blind and just die repeatedly to figure out what needs to be done. It feels unfair at times, to the point I've considered putting it down. Is it a bad game? Naw. It's definitely better than 3 stars. Is it a masterpiece? Naw, it's not worth 5 stars. I wouldn't pick this up unless you're really into crazy creative settings and metroidvanias and punishing difficulty levels. If you are and you had to pick ONE game, this wouldn't be it. But if you had to pick TWO games, definitely give this a shot. It's not the best in the genre, but it's definitely worth trying. It's also surprisingly expansive and was very well supported by the dev after its release.
When playing an RPG and NPCs get in your way, do you wish you could just kill them? Well, then this is the game for you! The game consists of wandering around an extremely small world map and maneuvering around monsters to stab them in the back. The only difference between monsters is their HP, their damage, and the sort of damage they're most vulnerable to (which can be changed with the press of a button). It's not challenging at all, and the only thing stopping you from bypassing every area is whether or not you want XP. Because of the total lack of variety, it gets very tedious at spots, and dying to the end boss is especially tiresome, as you must travel across the entire world, go through a long dungeon, and then another long and confusing dungeon, and do the fight all over again. Its only 5 hours long, but I was quite ready to be done with it by the end. It's not a bad game. It's cute. It's got a neat concept. It feels more like a prototype than a finished game, and kids might like it better than adults, given its simplicity. It's competent, and never crashed and it was interesting enough that I actually finished it. But you're not missing out on much if you don't play it.
It's been a delight to play. I wouldn't call it challenging, ground breaking, breath-taking, or innovative. It's a pretty normal story, with pretty typical graphics, a fine combat system, and it's a bit grindy, in that you'll go back to the same areas over and over again for resources, and all the fetch questing, but despite that it's not especially tedious and doesn't really outstay its welcome. It's good. It's not GREAT, but it's good. If you like this sort of game, I think you'll find it a worthy addition to your collection, and the price lines up with the typical "1 hour per dollar" guideline most people have, so it's likely worthwhile even at full price. I will admit, it's made me more curious about the Hundred Heroes, so I'll probably follow it up with the main game, once it releases. You won't sing its praises or demand your friends play it, but you won't regret buying it either. Definitely worth considering.
It had sat on my backlog for awhile, and when I started playing it, I couldn't stop! Great little game. Having also played Shadow Hand, I'm going to be contrarian and say this is the better game. It's very tightly designed and leaves me with more of a satisfying sense of winning with skill than dragging along with luck. It's not an an amazing game, but it is a solid one.It's not especially challenging, the art is fine, the story isn't terribly interesting, the world building is nothing to write home about. You could strip out all the fantasy elements and replace them with some other theme and you would lose nothing, so I really can't give this 5 stars. But based on the strength of the gameplay alone, I can definitely give it 4 stars. The gameplay itself is really great. Heartily recommend! It's about 10 hours of gameplay, so price accordingly.
This will sound negative, but I give games five stars if I intend to archive them and revisit them, and because more nuance than that tends to be lost on the internet. It has flaws and those flaws detract from it, but while I'll pick at those flaws, understand that the game succeeds. It's good! It's worth the money. It's a puzzle shooter that wants to be a thought-provoking in the vein of Portal. Does it succeed? That's in the eye of the beholder, but I'd call it a "worthy successor." The puzzles are good, though sometimes you end up fighting with physics-on-physics puzzles and those get messy and random. It has platforming in a first person puzzle shooter which is hmmm. It also wants to have these exciting psuedo-combat sections that feel like cinematic action pieces, but these moments are pretty mixed: often more frustrating than fun, but sometimes it manages to hit the sweet spot. I've also run into some technical issues and crashes, so it's not entirely stable. But even with those flaws, it held me all the way to the end. I personally wouldn't call this the best game ever, but it's a worthy addition to a collection. It's not an instant classic that you're missing out on if you skip it, but it's totally worth the asking price and you won't feel like you wasted your money. If you're into the genre, it's a must buy.
