I have a Current Let's Play here: https://youtu.be/3r7MzO7yHrs Neon Chrome is an cyberpunk twin stick action rogue lite with procedural generation of the lvls and destructible environments. Neon Chrome feels like a cyber Golden Axe, a neon-lit climb though tons of murder bots and goons, slowly ascending the wrenched tower of the future to overthrow the mastermind above; all backed by an 80s inspired synthwave soundtrack that reminds me of Farcry 3 - Blood Dragon; yep, it's that good. There are many different types of weapons, and they all feel different and change how you play: Shotguns, burst rifles, SMGs, etc. That is in addition to the different types of energy each weapon can use. Conventional weapons are the balanced option, ion weapons are better vs. bots, plasma is good for organics, lasers are very accurate, and purples weapons are special. There are many different classes to play; like a Corporate Soldier who has a riot shield, a Cyber Psycho who has more health and slots, or a Hacker who has a drone and can hack terminals and loot boxes. Each character will also have a special ability they can use, which consumes energy; abilities like a Laser Pulse, or Micro Missiles. Really Cool Stuff. The game has meta progression; the cash you earn during your runs can be used to upgrade your future character's health, damage, energy, luck (which effects drop rates and crit chance, and augment slots. It all that wasn't enough, it also has local co-op. Such an awesome game; if you like twin-stick rogue-lites, you'll probably love it.
I have a Let's Play here; It will NOT be on-going: https://youtu.be/oLDr3f-1w2Q Clunky is the name of the game here. Text is displayed in a little, slowing scrolling boxes, like on the bottom of cable new stations :(. Everything is a process, to going to one place to make your character, and another for forming the party (why?) rerolling stats for over 10mins to get a viable party (why not point buy?). In town, to even INSPECT your character, you have to go to the tavern; why?! So many stupid, pointless clinks to get anything done. The UI in the game is unforgivably stupid, and that alone is worth a 1 star review. But there is more! Everything in this game is just clunky and old, all for the point of being clunky and old! I don't care if wizardry did it this way a few times, doesn't mean you have to! Innovate you lazy developer! Then there is the combat, it is clunky, VERY basic, and just bad. I made a group of lvl 1 characters, when into the intro dungeon, and half of my character's couldn't attack! Maybe because they were in the back row? I guess they can't just step forward and attack? Not even presenting it as an option? Maybe an old Wizardry game did it this way, so Elminage Gothic will too! :( The icing on the cake is the music and sounds options; they are WAY TOO LOUD! For settings, you have 1; which is off for some reason, and 2 which is crazy loud, and it just gets worse from there. I do not recommend this game; I do not recommend it at all. I was hoping for something good like Wizardry 8, and I got this. Shame, I did want to like this one :(.
I'm sorry but no. This game feels like it should be on mobile, not PC. For a game called "Vertical Drop Heroes HD" it has very little depth to it, ironically. You run around spamming your attack button at the dumb-as-dirt enemies, all while trying to fall down to the bottom, collecting coins along the way, to buy upgrades. You fight a boss at the bottom, he is big and dumb as dirt; just spam your abilities. The enemies are boring and same-ey, the dungeons are boring and same-ey, the gameplay is boring a same-ey. Noticing a pattern? There are far better rogue-lite games with local co-op then this one. And around this price-point. Try "Zombie Party", A Wizard's Lizard", or "Hammerwatch" instead of this. The icing on the cake: No sound or music lvls; just on/off. Just let the utter laziness displayed sink in. Seriously, who does something like that? It is beyond Annoying. It is beyond Very Annoying, it is downright Unacceptable.
1) The game claims that: "Choices are what the game is all about - crafting your own narrative via a variety of choices that alter the story, playing field, and your options down the road." Yet, if you are anything but a pure melee character; the game mechanisms massively encourage you to NOT spend skill points. Strange design decision, right? You Lvl up, and then DON'T spend what you get! If you do not do this, you WILL be unable to proceed in the narrowly focused arch of your selected character, as your skills will be not be high enough to proceed in your selected quest line. And if you dare step outside your quest line, you will be squashed, as you will lack the skills to complete, or to even take part in other quest lines, and so will likely be only left with 1 melee heavy quest line to complete the game. Which is a catch-22 for you! 2) Hope you like save-scumming, because this game treats it like a core mechanism. The game screws you on rolls (which it hides from you by the way, more on that below). Sometimes, it takes only 1 hidden, bad roll, and well, be ready to reload the fight. The game even auto pre-saves before the battle; every battle. See, save-scumming as a CORE MECHANIC! And don't think for 1 moment this only effects melee. You want to progress as a non-melee? Be prepared to NEVER spend your skill points, as you must save them until you reach a point where a higher lvl skill is necessary, load the game to right before you make the check, (yay, more save-scumming!) then pump your skill, 1 lvl at a time, to where you can succeed. If you do not do this, you will likely not be able proceed in the quest line which your character was designed. 3) The game claims that: "The Age of Decadence is an experiment, an attempt to explore a different direction, taking you back to the PnP roots of the genre." Well, if thats the case, I'd hate to play D&D with this guy! He might be the type who always rolls behind the screen, and is ALL about screwing over their players any way they can. That the problem, the sneaky screwing. If your gonna screw me, at least look me in the eye when you're doing it! You see, it feels like the game is screwing you behind your back. VERY often, I will miss on a 60% chance to hit, 3-4 times in row. Maybe I was just VERY unlucky, but it just felt like the game decided to screw me, like it was assigning a different, hidden, value to different attacks depending on how often I did them, making the stated chance to hit false. I would be fine if that game did that; encouraging different kinds of attacks and making it more like a real fight, but TELL me you're doing that! Don't lie to me about my chances, and screw me over when I use the false info! Show me the numbers game! I could critique this game further, but I'm getting close to the character limit. I beat the game twice, mercenary and loremaster paths, same ending both time because of the above problems, and I'm done with this game. There may be a bit more to see, but my interest in it is completed extinguished.
Playing this game again after many years, and am finding that that rose-tinted lens of nostalgia had blinded me to the games many faults. Biggest buggy area: Dragon's eye lvl 4: very buggy. Make a safe save at each lvl and do not override it! Weird "slowdown" bug: I run windows 7, and have a graphics card way over spec for a game from 97. When there is an ongoing spell effect going off like Cloudkill, alot of spell effects going off at once, or even just too many guys on screen, the game slows down to a near standstill. It make the game just painful to play, which is as you'd image, the very opposite of fun. I remember a specific fight where the game flat off stopped being fun for me due to this issue; the "Guardian" fight in the Far south; I also seem to recall this being a very nasty issue in the last fight in the game; from my last play though of this game many years ago. Also, I had forgotten just how bad the pathfinding AI is in this game, so be prepared to handhold your party around. Too lineal: You have no choice which areas you progress through, nor do you have a choice in the order you progress through said areas. These areas are usually cleared by killing everything that threatens you; red = dead. Areas usually have some blues; Blue = talk to. These sometimes provide a quest to do or not (do you want exp or not), sell stuff, or just provide info. The lineal nature of the game extends to the puzzles present in the game. Yes they are there, and they are almost always non optional (I only recall a few that grant extra treasure, the rest are necessary to proceed to the next area). The areas: Sometimes, you have a choice of how to clear an area, like using a lighting gun to blast the halls clear (more trouble than it's worth; also grants no exp), takeout drums to prevent spawns (not doing so provides more exp and gold, but eventually you will because the spawns are endless) or sneaking in to steal a key (as opposed to just killing the guys and causing a side effect). Verdict: 3 stars; -1 for bugs, -1 for lineal nature; would have been 2 stars if those 2 major issues of the game prevented me from finishing it, but they did not.
