What can I say? I heartily enjoyed the 117+ hours I spent with Enderal. I really can't say one bad thing about it. It's just so damn well made. It has superb writing, a cast of widely varied and interesting characters, and overall a very well designed world setting. I was also surprised by its excellent English translation - no real typos, grammar issues, or any awkward phrasings throughout its entirety - and the voice acting is pretty ace too considering it's more or less still an amateur production. I've played games with real budgets that don't have anywhere near that kind of quality.
This is more or less what I wanted out of the first Everspace. It has a more structured game world that doesn't rely on complete randomness with the same satisfying gameplay of the original. Gotta do those high-risk missions! Yeah, better gear is nice, but its all about them extra colors and ship parts options! ;) Perfect game for playing around with photo mode, too. Yup, I'm definitely liking the gameplay, and the story campaign ain't bad either even if the writing seems a little on the contrived side at times. Eh. Either way, I quite enjoy the banter between Adam and his ship's HIVE AI, which can be genuinely funny. The side quests (not jobs) are fairly entertaining as well, and they can provide some great unique gear. When I first heard about level-scaling being in the game I was a bit wary, but it turns out it's actually good thing. Because of it I can be still be kept on my toes in engagements. Without it I'd probably be laying complete waste to everybody, and that would make the game a complete bore. That said, I always seem to be a few levels above the story missions so they tend to be fairly breezy. It becomes quite comical when Adam proclaims how difficult a time he's having in his radio chatter while I've already obliterated this "very tough" opponent before the dialog has even played out. I can heartily recommend this one to our fellow space pew-pewers.
Quite the fun little card game with bits of deckbuilding (but unlike games such as Slay the Spire/Monster Train) and some choose-your-own-adventure-style story progress. Considering practically most of the story is presented via small dialogue boxes, it's actually fairly well written and pretty funny at times. The narrator (only voiced "character") is quite enjoyable, too, although some of his non-story quips become somewhat repetitive after a while. The card art is gorgeous and they did a superb job at imitating ye olde Disney's Robin Hood's style. I also failed my first run (of 9.5 hours) which very much seems to be an intentional game mechanic - I was stumbling a bit here and there throughout the run as I was still figuring out new things as I was nearing my inevitable doom. Unlike a previous reviewer though, I don't view that actually as a bad thing since due to its branched-story nature I will now get to play so many of the other missions I missed the first time around and likely with a somewhat different character/card selection as well. Lastly, I like that the combat most of the time does not actually need to be a fight to the death as the game lets me bribe, bedazzle, or intimidate opponents if I have enough points for each. It's definitely doing its own thing rather than being one of the usual card games that are made by other indies, and I'm looking forward to my second run.
Another fun and somewhat streamlined JRPG from Stegosoft. Quality-wise it's a noticeable step up from Ara Fell. It's a fairly linear game and the overworld looks bigger than it actually is, which really is more of a vehicle for some of the sidequests than anything else. It has a good and very-well-written story, likeable cast of characters, and some really nice music. While I found the cartoony character portraits a little weird at first, I grew to actually like them as I kept playing. Also there's no need to grind much if at all. I'm looking forward to whatever game Stegosoft will come up with next.
