Summary: An adult visual novel with a theme revolving around pirates and cursed mesoamerican treasure. PROS + The puzzles are a challenge, but are not mandatory + High quality animations (more on this later) + Stable and no crashes CONS - Horrible, terrible writing. Contrived ways to throw sex in your face for no reason that would make sense. Some of the lowest quality slop I have forced myself to go through. - Boring, uninteresting characters. - Almost no decision or choice on your part. You are forced to interact with characters to progress the story, even if you would rather choose to not partake of what they offer. Even if you dislike those characters, or the activities involved. Even if everything. You have no choice. No alternative. - The whole game feels like one of those 90s sierra/lucas arts point and click adventures, where most of the time is either trying to decipher hints, if you use them, or simply trying to find what you need to click or what you need to combine. - No skip button, well, there is one, but it does not really skip the conversation, just portions. Subjective opinion: Would not recommend. The animation quality cannot be enough to justify this, because you can get better, faster, for free, on multiple places on the internet. This is a game, meant to be played, and as a game, it fails miserably. The writing is almost unbearably bad, and to try and get to the end was an effort I do not wish to repeat. Frankly, I do not understand how someone goes through such a huge effort to make a well developed game, but is also content to have a story that only ever rises above mediocrity in brief moments. I give this three stars only because it is obviously well developed, stable, well produced, and a finished product. But anything above that is an insult to quality games writing and gameplay.
Summary: A reboot of the franchise that while storywise is nice, leaves a lot to be desired mechanically. Suffers from pacing issues where far too long nothing meaningful happens. PROS + The story is given more emphasis than in the original games + More collectibles and secrets than in previous games CONS - So. Many. QTEs. So many. All the time. Everywhere. Seriously, this is not what tomb raider is meant to be. - Less combat than the original games - Less platforming and puzzles than the original games - ENOUGH WITH THE QTES ALREADY!!! - Puzzles are too easy Subjective opinion: Would not recommend. I quite liked the original games, the combat, historical/mythological inspirations and puzzles were quite an excellent combination. However, I do not like QTE-fests like this has become, and I truly dislike that the larger story presences came at the expense of gameplay. The franchise deserved better.
Summary: An adult RPGmaker game with surprisingly deep gearing and combat systems, plus excellent postgame and even new game+ PROS + Possibly the best postgame (including new game+) in any mature title I have played + Multiple builds all possible and viable + Interesting boss fights (Surprising I know) + Very large amount of zones + The game does not take itself seriously, but still presents you with an excellent challenge + Lots of reasons to play NG+: new zones, items, crafting recipes, story, etc + Almost full control of what happens to the main character, and you have three different endings depending on your actions during the game + Even if you are not here for the adult themes, the game is still very fun CONS - Flying sharks. You will know what I mean. - In new game+ you basically gain the capacity to do everything, making the different builds a bit redundant. - Not all possible build paths are equally balanced - It is not exactly self-evident how to begin the new game +. They should have done a better job there. Subjective opinion: Strongly recommend. There is a lot to do and see, and this is definitely a game worthy of at least one, but possibly multiple playthroughs. Well worth the price. This might be my favorite RPGmaker game on GOG so far.
Summary: An adult dating sim built on renpy with time and resources management mechanics, good story and characters, and a piece of music that has no business being that good. PROS + The deathless harpies battle of the bands song is simply too good to be in a renpy game. + In depth characterization with clear defined, well laid out personalities. + A cohesive story that ties together both the mechanics and the characters. + Appealing characters that are presented to you in a proper "show, don't tell" way, with good voice acting. + An ingame cheat and hints system to cater to every player's preference. CONS - A handful of very violent situations that frankly detract from the overall feel of the game and are completely outside the tone of the rest of the game. - Infrequently there are situations where the choices do not really fit the character, or where there is no choice at all. - Once you marry someone, the game ends. This is not explicitly stated anywhere. It would not be a serious problem, except that you can be proposed to and accidentally end your playthrough by accepting, forcing you to load a previous save, or worse, restart the playthrough. - Without using the cheat and hints system, sometimes things are grindy and random. Subjective opinion: Recommend strongly. There is a large amount of content here that is worth experiencing, the gameplay, the story and the characters complement one another, and this is simply a game that should not overlooked just because it is aimed at a mature audience. I also suggest you do not feel guilty about cheating or checking the hints to find out what you need to do if you find yourself stuck. Oh, and get the supporter pack for the awesome song ;)
Summary: A JRPG and crafting game mashup. Adventure to get materials to craft better gear, craft better gear to adventure and fight harder creatures! PROS + The gameplay loop is simple, yet excellently executed + It doesn't take itself too seriously, letting the story be both silly and fun + The oldschool JRPG style sprites actually are quite well designed + Surprising depth in the customization of a character's build! Classes+Subclasses, Orbs (think enchants), pieces of gear with innate powers, etc. CONS - You don't know what LUC does? Well, good luck finding out ingame, it will take you ages. Same for every other stat or keyword - Frankly bad multiclassing system. Some classes have very little to mix with others, while some can pair well with many - Terrible, and I do mean *terrible* balance. The game is far too much in favor of caster classes, physical is at a huge disadvantage, and the power level of subclasses varies wildly, with some being extremely weak, and one or two being absurdly strong. Subjective opinion: I played it on android. I just purchased it here as well. That should tell you that I loved it.
Summary: A short railroady RPG with no customization and QTE combat PROS + Absolutely none. Cons: - Extremely short (maybe 30 minutes of actual content if we are pushing it) - Linear, no sidequests, dungeons, and only six rooms in the entire game post-intro. Only. Six. Rooms. - Horrible combat. Clicking numbers in order. - The pixel art is actually of worse quality than regular 2D JRPGs - Terrible writing. - Repetitive gameplay. Go to arena. click five numbers in order. Teleported to room. Go back to arena. Repeat until game is over. Subjective opinion: I find it difficult to even call this a game. I do not understand how any serious publisher or developer would wish to be associated with something as lacking as this. It might just be the worst "game" I have played in my life. I recommend stearing clear of this, even if you are into adult games. You can find much better quality quite easily right here on GOG.
It is important to note that this game is severely incomplete, with both the main storyline and a large amount (at least 1/3) of quests marked as work in progress or "this quest ends here until a later version". Since this is not clearly stated in the game's description, consider this the most important bit of info you should get from this review. Summary: a story-driven RPG with no combat that is far from finished and crashes frequently, using a system of "is stat X greater than or equal to requirement Y?" Yes: You win. No: You lose. PROS + Interesting approach to an RPG "without combat" + Decent, if short, music + Somewhat decent writing at parts, the effort is at least visible there. CONS - Almost nothing is complete, be it quests, story, or even alchemy recipes. - A lot, and I do mean a lot of crashes (around 1 per hour - save often) - The "do you have enough stat" system becomes incredibly monotonous really quickly. - A lot of bugs. "THIS ITEM HAS BEEN DELETED" as the name of an item, "press enter to use bag" and it never happens and instead you just need to zone out and in, etc, etc. - The game with the lowest quality knives in the history of gaming: use it once and they break. Subjective opinion: Would not recommend. Even without the crashes and the fact that it is incomplete, it would be at best 3 stars. I would not have bought it if I knew it is incomplete.
Summary: An action platformer with higher focus on the combat and less on physical puzzles (which are heavily featured in the DLC, if you need that itch scratched) PROS + The best combat in the franchise, if you use classic mode + Superb level design + Very organic feeling world + Bosses which are interesting both visually and mechanically + Top notch voice acting + New game+ with additional fights and equipment upgrade routes + An absolutely ungodly amount of explorable side areas CONS - Actually mediocre combat if you do not use classic mode - No minimap - No ingame method to track missing collectibles - NO MINIMAP!!! How could you screw this up, devs! Subjective opinion: Strongly recommend. It is simply fun to play. The fights are fun, the platforming is fun, the puzzles are fun, finding the secrets and exploring side areas is fun. The new game+ modes are appealing and meaningful. It has traditional backtracking like many games of similar genres, to get to items which were unreachable before, but that can now be obtained with new powers. It is much closer to the original darksiders than to darksiders 2, and in my humble opinion, this is a very good thing. The gearing system in the previous iteration of the series does not feel like it belongs in this type of game.
Since I did not find a review saying this, I believe this needs more visibility: You cannot play this game if you have two monitors. https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212453189-Error-on-launch-Could-not-find-supported-display-mode Quoting from the article: "The game will not launch if two monitors are enabled. Therefore, you need to disable your secondary monitor. Windows 7 users should press WinKey+P to select only the primary monitor, Windows Vista and XP users should disable the secondary monitor under Display Settings, or unplug the monitor. Please keep in mind that turning the monitor off will not help, as long as the system still recognizes it." I do not think this is an acceptable limitation for a game, and if it is something that is unavoidable, should be explicitly stated so in the game page.
