As mentioned, plays much like Megaman network though it's a pure battler so there's no exploration. I hadn't known that going in but it wasn't too disappointing when I realized that. For the game itself, there's a wide variety of cards/spells, artifacts, and characters leading to a lot of different styles of play and approaches for deck building. It was also really tough at first, since the enemies and bosses throw a lot at you and it can be hard to track the new effects while also getting used to your own spells. That made it all the more gratifying when I stuck it through and could regularly get to the end, outside of some bad RNG, with characters that jived with me. Some marks against it would be the RNG deck-building can be very disappointing. As you unlock more things this leads to a larger card pool and more randomized card pulls. So you end up not being able to build decks or get power-ups that combine well as things go one since there's so many to pull form and not all are built equal. There were also a few cards I despised and it was always a loss when they came up. RNG is nice and some characters have leanings to certain ones more than others, but while a random deck and power up builder can be fun, it was a bit too much here leading too some runs that were fun and others that were an annoying drag as I got nothing that matches or cards I would never accept in my deck for cost/benefit not being worthwhile. Perhaps like cards games you can have a library where X ( like50?) number of cards are active in a run and you can pick those. So still have a large variety but also cut out some you hate. The music and sprite art were also a lot of fun. While the writing was sparse, such that I had little idea what was going on exactly, it was still charming in with some things. Such as Selicy's description. Overall, a fun experience and I'm glad I got around to trying it out. I hope to see more games using this approach to active rpg combat in the future.
First off, for real, the game has style in spades. I'm glad I picked up and played for awhile if only to see some of the great art and atmosphere they built with this one. I only played into the second floor, for context. About 4, maybe 5 hours in total. Some things that were great otherwise: Variety of character types to recruit, certain trap mechanics like disappearing doors, [SPOILER AHEAD] fighting previous party members that had died as undead [END SPOILER]. You could tell a lot of heart went into this game despite it's low key setting and story prompt. As to my title mentioning it is lacking, I've seen it praised for it's simplicity but I have the opposite opinion. I do like games with simplicity and great art, such as Kingdoms which I've spent far too many hours to be reasonable, but this game went a little too far given that it's a dungeon crawler. The game play loop was sorta fun at first but rapidly become rather boring. Some notable aspects that felt missing include it not having a search option from the party menu, being able to use skills outside of combat or boost spells, and certain things of interest like chests not being visually a part of the world. Items you get out of chest seemed mostly pointless. Potions that restored a small amount of hp/mp that resting could restore easier, or a boost to a stat you could just get into a fight to improve instead. Finding a chest was never exciting to me. Otherwise, a big turn off was how prevalent secret walls were. The first floor has over a dozen and this ruined their mystique immediately. To be clear, I'm a huge fan of this genre and the first thing I did was read the whole manual, and even run to the store to buy graph paper to make maps as soon as I realized I was out currently. So I really, truly, wanted to love this game. I'll be keeping an eye on what the developers come out with next, I just hope it'll have a bit more too it mechanic wise than this did. Here's hoping their next one is a hit.
The art, the story, the characters... I bought it and was immediately hooked on it. I have work in a few hours and only just managed to yank myself away to power nap before i have to go in. It has aspects of management simulators, deck building, and even roguelite story mechanics where going through things in past runs can be used to alter your current play through. The story is heart felt and intense at times. These writers do not pull any punches. It was all very motivating to do better and gratifying when I could change things in different runs. The music and art is gorgeous too, love all of it. A truly unique and interesting gem of a game, I love it!
I played it on the Playstation rather than PC, and it was an amazing experience. I can't attest to how it'd feel to play with a keyboard but I'd suggest a controller either way to get the full experience. The action was fast paced and intuitive with it's design. You end up balancing the need for defense and skill over a strong offense and if you're not careful it's easy to be defeated. I enjoyed this aspect, as even towards the end of the game, while my abilities and equipment improved, my greatest weapon was the skills I had developed along the way. The characters are interesting though not exactly in depth. The focus of the game is very much the gameplay, level designs, and visuals rather than in depth character backgrounds. The level design goes between 3 layers/floors that adds some depth to the levels as you can fall from one floor and end up in another. And there are elevators between them, making for some more interesting map navigation and exploration. All of it is done with excellent sprite art as well, including several animated cut scenes. The gameplay has RPG elements with equipment and augments to your character stats, but the game is first focused on playing and fighting with skill over just attacking repeatedly. So as you power up, you will find earlier enemies easier, but not so trivial that you outright ignore their actions. The game also has a core mechanic around every persons time running out that can add challenge to the the game if you are trying to save them all without any perishing. As you will need to gather a certain rare resource and divvy it out amongst the populace, and if you run out or take too long, they'll start to fade away. I found myself caring a lot for the NPCs as they could in fact die if I did not actively try to save them. I thoroughly enjoyed this game and recommended it to all my friends. Studio Pixel Punk did a great job with this and I'll be keeping an eye out for more from them!
OWNED AND PLAYED ON THE PS4 (going to make it system neutral if I can) First, as others have mentioned, the game is riddled with glitches currently. This sucks, as it always does with Bethesda games, but as I have a coding background and understand the relationship a coder has with errors I'm going to look past that. Especially as I know this company will keep working on it until it's stable. My favorite RPG thus far is Fallout New Vegas and it had a terrible launch as well and then, once stable, became absolutely amazing. The obvious aside, you can tell this game was a labor of love. The level of details, the character writing, the plot itself... These people loved what thy were doing and put their hearts into it. I normally wait a month or two for big games like this so the worst of the glitches can be dealt with by then, but once I did the prologues I was hooked. The world is too interesting, the story engaging, to step away. I find myself standing in elevators for a few minutes just to watch news reels or driving around the city just to take in the sights. All the characters you meet in person are written well and engaging as I haven't seen a character yet that's boring outside of the more generic mission granting people that just call over the phone. Combat is quick paced with a variety of options. From hacking, shooting from cover, or just charging into the fray. The enemy AI can stand to be touched up some more as if you bum rush them they have a hard time dealing with you than if you hang back shooting from cover. They don't seem to be able to react as well when you're jumping over stuff and running around them. The guns can be difficult to deal with on a controller and I personally had to adjust the default dead zones. Otherwise, the combat is comparable to other FPS shooters, this is just the first one without a default time dilatation ability. All in all, amazing world/story/characters/art with ambitious game play marred, currently, by glitches.
I got this on Steam through a humble Bundle package and had no idea about the world/setting/lore but figured I'd fire it up and try it out. Had the typical point and click adventure style gameplay at the start but very quickly I picked up on the wonderful writing that every action elicited. The backgrounds are full of interesting debris that each has a story and the characters are well written quirky individuals you enjoy seeing nonsense from. The art, level design, and writing really make this game what it is. If you want some fun imagery, a journey to a kooky alien planet with a blood color based caste system, and a whole heap of witty comical writing I'd fully recommend giving HIVESWAP a play through. Been eagerly awaiting Act 2, though I understand this one faced a lot of hardships so time will tell.
I grew up on Sierra games and so was glad to see this homage to the old Quest for Glory series come out. The sense of humor and witty writing make this rather enjoyable along with the variety of things to explore and uncover. The lore of the world is also genuinely fun and interesting to look into. There are a couple ways to solve each problem as well making for an experience about tackling problems your on way. If you like a good old fashion point and click adventure combined with some RPG elements, such as stats, equipment, and sneaking past enemies (or fighting them), then this is an excellent game to consider. There were some negative points though and these include: The game is rather grindy for increasing stats and going through the motions of the day to day. Most of the problems that come up in the game are time locked and so you may not even proceed to solve the problem until a specific day making any work/time you put in before then fruitless. The ending was a let down as I expected a Report Card or Yearbook with comments to reflect my school year made me regret all the time I put into the game getting good skills and stats for Shawn.
This game has a lot of aesthetic charm to it with the visuals and story. I found myself very engaged while playing through. It also has a nice range of choice for ability and party customization with a wide array of characters to choose from and even a class specialization halfway through for your main character. The game is very simple over all. Between that each floor being very short while you have a reusable teleport to a sanctuary stone on hand, this game felt more like it was meant to be played on a tablet than a PC. My only wish is that the floors had been bigger and the battles less tedious. After a ways through battles, though somewhat limited in number, end up being 3-5 minutes long. Overall well worth getting and I hope they make a sequel eventually.
I really wanted to try this out, but I, like others before now, have been hit by the DX 9 incompatibility error which crashes the game as it tries to start. The fact that this has gone unsolved through a patch or update in over a year is disappointing to say the least. It sounds like the game doesn't support a number of integrated chipsets, so be careful when buying it. I have a Radeon HD 6xxxM card, if you do as well steer clear.
I got this after I heard it could be played with a controller, but sadly it doesn't seem to support logitech controllers (or possibly any non-xbox ones in general). I'm extremely disappointed in this, how can anyone make a game that only excepts one kind of controller? I state this first since I didn't find out till after I'd made the purchase since no one had said this before hand. That aside, the game play is essentially Asteroids with extreme graphics, maps and RPG elements. The story that I've seen so far is pretty funny and each mission has bonus objectives you can challenge yourself to complete for extra rewards. There is a lot of customization and personal choice in ships and weapon load outs that you can make which also makes it very nice in that aspect. I'd give this game 5 stars if playing with a mouse and keyboard wasn't so tedious and they had worked in support for controllers outside of just one one kind. This is actually the only time I've ever wanted to ask for a refund from GoG. Still, the game is simply too good to mark below three despite my disappointment.
