Slightly better than The Banner Saga 1 in almost every aspect and the original was already a great game. The only thing was a bit disappointing is the ending: it is even more of a cliffhanger this time.
Slightly better than The Banner Saga 1 in almost every aspect and the original was already a great game. The only thing was a bit disappointing is the ending: it is even more of a cliffhanger this time.
Rime is puzzle/platformer mixed with this still unnamed genre that Journey or Abzu belong to. The closest comparison would be Inside and, while having a lot in common, Inside has very different atmosphere(and is overall a better game in my opinion). Pretty much everything in Rime is good except for the gameplay itself. Character movement is very basic and puzzles are too easy, while the game itself is a bit too long. But the last level and ending are so beautiful and moving, that they make the whole journey worth taking.
Ziggurat is good old school shooter with projectile based weapons mixed with well implemented rogue-lite elements. Shooting is satisfying, but it would be much better with at least some gore. There are plenty of weapons and character classes, but most are quite similar. Randomness is not too crazy, which makes runs more skill-based than luck-based, but at the same time lowers replayability. Visuals are simple but stylish and fit the theme well. Overall the game completely delivers on its promises, making the most out of FPS|rogue-lite mix.
Amnesia provides even more polished survival horror experience than Penumbra Black Plague. It has very little jumpscares and a lot of atmosphere.
Starcrawlers is solid grid-based dungeon crawler with mostly procedurally generated levels and items and surprisingly good story. Second half of the game gets a bit too grindy and grinding with turn-based combat is really boring. I would always prefer smaller maps designed by person over poorly generated repetitive giant ones. Overall Starcrawlers is worth playing especially if you like dungeon crawling and/or cyberpunk.
One of the best mixes of TBS, RPG and Collecting Card Game genres. It is a bit too reliant on random like any CCG, but still provides a lot of challenging and tactical gameplay.
You will be surprised how much depth can have RTS game where you can't control units directly. It is calm and meditative experience on low difficulty where you can just watch characters roam around and interact with environment and each other. And absolute chaos on high where your kingdom will be constantly ambushed by dragons, vampires and ogres. Main campaign is great enough by itself and than there is Random Map Generator providing countless hours of gameplay.
The Banner Saga got beautyful hand drawn style, great characters, impactful choices, solid tactical combat and intense atmosphere. It is not perfect: resource management is weak, numbers of people in caravan do not mean anything, some consequences of the choices are impossible to predict, images in dialogues and cutscenes are mostly static. But all those flaws are unimportant compared to how engaging The Banner Saga is.
Icewind Dale is good team-based RPG with huge focus on combat. The plot was very simple and straightforward but still engaging, combat - interesting and tactical enough on Hard difficulty, only the final fight was very dissapointing. Beamdog has done really good job 'enhancing' this one: the game looks decent and feels comfortable to play. Except for pathfinding, it's still terrible)
