While I will start with some cons, I will up front that I do like this game quite a bit and very much recommend it for the atmosphere alone, which I'll get into towards the end. Issue 1: While you will certainly die quite a bit in this game, I wouldn't exactly call it challenging. Enemies very much can and will sneak up on you if you aren't keeping an ear out, and it's not uncommon for this to occur so close to death; the issue more is that there is no real penalty to dying, and in some cases it may actually be easier to rather die and respawn at a shrine than it is to walk across the level, as you don't lose anything on death. With the exception of the very end as well, while enemies can be challenging bosses by and large are almost too easy, in part because once you've gotten the combat mechanics down they don't have much to trick you up. This lack of challenge does take away a bit from some of the tension in the game once you start to realize it's not all that difficult to get through, with only the very end of the game possibly being where dying can matter. Issue 2: There is some obtuseness and bloat in the gameplay department primarily when it comes to your equipment. You have a plethora of weapons, all of which can be upgraded, and while you will see the effects of the upgrades they also don't feel like they change combat encounters all that much; damage types seem to matter more than the actual upgrade level of your weapon, but with several weapons to choose from it does feel like many of the options are somewhat redundant. If this was more of an RPG ala Kings Field or Shadow Tower this would make sense, but it is closer to a mix of Silent Hill and Condemned where the motion of combat makes more of a difference than the tools being used. This is especially true with armor where you have several options and can even upgrade your armor but you don't have any visible stats tied to this; there seems to be a scale of speed vs stamina regen vs defense tied to the armor but with no stats to compare to its hard to tell how much difference there really is and whether or not the upgrades make much of a difference. Issue 3: The game isn't necessarily all that long, I would say first time through could take about 8-10 hours, but perhaps more pressingly is that the game feels most thought out in the first area while the subsequent areas afterward feel a bit rushed and can be played through rather quickly. The level design is good, I just wanted more of it, especially more opportunities for secrets; you are told to keep an eye out for secret passageways but this only really appears in the first area while the areas after don't appear to have any real secrets near as I can tell, even after checking online after beating the game I was surprised to learn that there isn't much else beyond what is already on the beaten path in those levels. Issue 4: This is less significant and for myself I actually enjoyed this element of it, but I will say upfront that the story is also fairly obtuse in its presentation; it does feel like there are elements that are intentionally being left out to creat that sense of uneaseness, but I think combined with the short runtime could leave a taste of unfinishedness to it. Now, all this being the case, I really like this game; mechanically its solid and the combat actually controls much better than I thought it would given the intentionally retro style. The atmosphere is where this game absolutely kills it, the sound design and music are perfect at keeping you on edge the entire time, it very much has that Silent Hill 1 vibe specifically with the harsh noise and industrial, but in a way where it sounds more like sounds in the environment which really amp up the tension. Each enemy has some audio cues tied to them, and when you can hear a hint of something around the corner it can immediately put you into a guarded state even if the sound may have just been some abience. Visually this game is near perfect for me; graphically while I could see the heavy pixelation being annoying, for me it really gives off the feeling that you are playing something that is corrupted or rotten to its core, which ties into the decrepit and almost "crunchy" environements you are wandering around in. The enemy designs also play well into this; they're scary less in a "This looks horrifying" way and more in a way where you can almost recognize where they may have once been human but have been cursed and twisted, the enemies laughing at you actually adds more unease than if they just simply growled or roared, its as if they actually enjoy wanting to hurt you. While the story can be obtuse, the writing plays well into evoking this feudal era Japanese story that appears to draw more from Budhist themes than Shinto; the idea that each area you are wandering in relates to the concept of the Budhist Hells is an interesting concept you don't see many games go all in on the way this does. The characters that you do meet as well, despite not having that much dialogue, all have very distinct personalities to them, and the notes you find do a fantastic job of helping to establish additional ambiance. I am looking forward to any additional content that is coming to this game and would definitely be eager to keep an eye out on this developer's next title; while I think there are definitely some gameplay pieces that can be improved upon, I have no doubt that they can nail the overall feel and experience.
At time of writing I am perhaps halfway through Act 2 and this is subject to change. The game is incredibly well made production wise, same great art style from the first game and smooth animations, great music, great performance, and controls rather well. There are also significantly more options in terms of your overall loadout compared to HK1 in the form of Crests that change your weapon movesets slightly; you can only change crests at benches but this does give some versatility and variety to the combat which was a small flaw during replays of HK1. The characters so far have quite a bit of personality and it is interesting that even the main character Hornet is not a silent protagonist; while the Igarashi Castlevania games had protagonists that conversed with other characters, it seems most Metroidvanias in the indie sphere go for the silent route ala Metroid, so it is refreshing to have a protagonist that is able to voice out their thoughts and goals. The story itself is not necessarily a pull but TBF HK1's story felt very endloaded as well so I don't hold that against Silksong for this first half. For most of Act 1 I would say I was having a lot of fun; it was certainly slightly more challenging than the beginning of HK1 but not in a way that felt unearned. However, towards the end of Act 1 and throughout all of Act 2, this has been a rather frustrating experience. The difficulty certainly ramps up, but I think part of that problem also extends to how the ways in which you improve yourself don't have nearly as much of an impact as it would seem, which also means the work needed to get upgrades feels like putting too much in relative to what you get out of it. Take health as an example; you start the game with 5 masks but a significant number of enemies will often deal 2 masks worth of damage, so even by the time you get a 6th mask (which is quite a ways in) this doesn't change your damage allowances by that much. It isn't until you get a 7th mask that technically your damage allowances increase, but by this point almost all bosses by default will deal 2 masks worth of damage for about 3/4's of their moveset, made worse too by how small your invulnerability window is; it's not unusual to get hit by one attack that knocks you into another projectile that knocks you into a hazard and all of which deal damage. This isn't also accounting for how for some bosses just simple contact damage will also sometimes deal increased damage, which is especially problematic for some animations that are not obviously going to clip the player until it has already happened. In short, in most battles in spite of how the health appears to work, you really can take maybe 1 or 2 hits before dying. While your healing is slightly stronger in that a) you heal 3 masks as opposed to 1 per charge, and b) you don't have to hold the charge button or be on the ground but can instead press the button once even in the air, this is also curtailed in that you effectively need the equivalent of a full Soul gauge to do one heal instance. Also on the topic of damage, most enemies and bosses have significantly higher health pools and are much closer to their amounts from endgame HK1; while there is a means to increase the damage your nail does much like in the first game, much like the health upgrades the nail upgrades are very sparse (though TBF they weren't super common either in the first game). The higher health pools are only noteworthy by virtue of the higher player damage and that this in turn just leads to longer and longer fights; you could be doing quite well for most of the fight, but because of the high player damage and much smaller invulnerability window can just lose the fight in a second, which can be especially frustrating in these fights as the bosses take that much longer to kill now. Enemy design however follows very similar patterns, and is arguably even more frustrating than the bosses in this regard; the healthpools for enemies are not as large but the player damage they deal is about the same. What's especially obnoxious however is the abundance of flying enemies with pinpoint projectile attacks; they all follow a very similar pattern of flying just enough out of your range and will always back away as you draw closer and will only really stop in the middle of their attack animation, which basically means you have to repeat this song and dance of "wait for attack, jump but not too high to get hit and then attack" 3 or 4 times, for a single enemy, in a group of enemies, that also all are throwing pinpoint projectiles. Now here's the thing, I'm not necessarily saying that the game being difficult is itself a problem; one thing HK1 is known for especially in its end game is its particularly challenging gauntlet of bosses. The only reason though I am focusing on the combat that has been made more difficult with it's system changes is because Silksong is SIGNIFICANTLY more combat focused than HK1; as a Metroidvania, HK1 was pretty balanced in terms of combat, explortation, and puzzles. While there is definitely still quite a bit of exploration and puzzles in Silksong, much more time is definitely spent in combat at most points. Rooms will have higher density of enemies, more often than not many of these enemies will be in groups of 2 or 3 other enemies, but worse yet are the significantly higher number of forced gauntlet fights where you will be locked into a room and be forced to fight a gauntlet of enemies. This hyper focus on combat unfortunately means that the sticking points with the combat difficulty are that much more felt, which is a shame because the game itself is otherwise well made. This review is subject to change depending on the end and I do plan to continue with it, but in conclusion I would say this; so far, although this game is well made and is a very fair price, I'm not sure if I would say I am having fun with it. Rather than feeling accomplished or relieved after getting through a particularly tough hurdle, I feel more annoyed knowing "It's only going to get more frustrating from here".
As the title suggests, this is a tentative review since the product is still in early access, so some issues that currently exist (typos, text allignment, missing content/mechanics, etc.) I'm holding off on until the game actually goes gold. All that being said, even if this was the final version of the game I would say it is a pretty solid title. It's a rogue-lite RPG that combines some elements of old Windows 98 adventure games, with an aesthetic and style meant to emulate the works of HP Lovecraft and Junji Ito. Right now, the primary gameplay loop is that you pick one of several pre-defined characters, and in essence need to make it the end of the game to stop an evil Elder God from being summoned (the god in question varying from run to run) In between this time you are tasked with solving five different and randomly generated ysteries currently plauging your town, all while trying to balance your Health, your Sanity, and your time before the Elder God is summoned. The aesthetic and presentation definitely sell the game, but what actually has me stick around is how surprisngly simple yet satisfying the gameplay loop is. Trying out all the different characters, as well as additional modifiers for each run COMBINED with the randomness of each run really does feel rewarding to 'crack' even if some runs are less fair than others. I would describe as the perfect game to play when you have only 40 minutes to spare, and I'm not saying that as an insult, the fact that it can be as satisfying as it is in a short amount of time is what keeps me coming back. As noted, the game could use some more content/some more QoL improvements, fortunately the developer does keep adding more on since it's initial release, and though a bit cumbersome to find and install at this time there is actually a pretty decent mod community forming around this game (all supported by the dev, and seemingly later within the game itself)
As the title suggests, this game may not have much in the way of content but what content it does have is quite fun. Mechanically solid with quick and easy to use controls, it also never lets up in terms of new mechanics to use or new environmental tools, so you always feel like the action is flowing from moment to moment. Combined with a charming art style and suitable (if at times unmemorable) soundtrack and you have the recipe for a nice little experience. It's only flaw is that by the time it ends you're still looking for more, though I suppose it's better to be good but short rather than long but bad. Realistically I would give it a 3.5/5
This rogue-lite is both incredibly fun and incredibly frustrating. To get it out of the way, yes, the RNG in this game can be quite brutal. Sometimes you travel to a new planet and you have a challenging but fair battle, other times you travel to a new planet and your crewmembers randomly die with no way to save them. Realistically what makes the RNG as brutal as it is is a) information isn't properly provided most of the time, and b) circumstances and responses in one run may not necessarily translate to another. It at first seems that unless you have equipment/crew members specifically designed for a situation (such as an advanced medbay for medical disasters) that there really is a random chance of the situation either going well or going belly up, but really this is also true even in circumstances in which you have the proper equipment, so there's little in the way of consistancy. All that being said, this is a great game to just plug in and play. Runs are usually pretty quick (for better or for worse), gameplay is simple yet deep, and assuming that the RNG at least doesn't devestate you there is a plethora of strategies to emply, each one surprisingly in depth and very rewarding. The game is also incredibly mod-friendly, with some fantastic mods that expand the scope of the game even further (Captain's Edition is probably the most known one) 4/5, would definitely reccomend. It can be incredibly frustrating to be sure, but when it all works it is incredibly fun
This game is somewhat similar to games such as LISA The Painful, OFF, and Undertale without any of the RPG elements and with more action/platforming. It combines the sprite design and overall look of Link to the Past with the more surreal and creepy imagery of dream sim games like Yume Nikkei and .flow. Now, is Anodyne as good as any of those games I mentioned? Probably not AS good, no. The controls are adequate, the mchanics are simple if sparse, but the writing is somewhat weak. It tries to be very vague about what's really going on, which is perfectly fine, but unfortunately doesn't stick the landing and feels more pretentious than it does ominous. Where this game excels though is in it's world design and exploration, especially in the post game. Without spoiling much, you gain the ability to essentialy break the level borders only to find much more than what you would expect. It actually fits quite well with the ominous feeling the visuals successfully convey and that the writing failed to convey. If that isn't appealing, then there isn't really much else to the game unfortunately. Visuals and music are great, gameplay is light, story is not told well. Overall I would give this a 3.5/5--it has some issues, and unless you like the idea of post game exploration then there really isn't much to recommend, however if that stuff is your jam and you like surreal imagery then there's quite a bit to work with here
As noted, this game does indeed have greats visuals, both the aesthetics and animations are solid and will probably still look great years later. The only negative on the visuals is that there is some repetition in the platform and room assets used, which was a bit dissapointing. Everything else unfortunately does not stack up. Music is adequate for the game, but nothing that you would have a burning desire to listen to afterwards. The game itself isn't that long, making the price tage a bit hard to justify but considering some of the negatives, maybe it's for the best it didn't overstay it's welcome. Though the game controls fine, the actual gameplay feels rather uninspired. It's not so much that the mechanics are too simple (they are) and more that the game does little with these mechanics. On top of that, the story itself is rather bland and obvious. If you relate to it in any way then maybe it works for you, however for myself I just didn't get pulled into it. Ultimately I would say I left this game feeling rather dissiapointed, especially after all the praise it's been getting. I get why for other people this works, but for me it just didn't click; there are other games that are definitely more visuals-over-gameplay in style that I like (such as NaissanceE) that I also would have trouble reccomending because it clicks with me for very specific reasons. Overall, 2/5 (2.5/5 is probably more accurate): if you are interested in this game, maybe wait for a sale or price drop, though even with that I'm not sure if I would fully reccomend it
While it starts off interesting, what with the setting, writing, and killer music, the game starts to fall apart when the RTS elements are introduced. Sure, that may be the core gameplay, but as RTS's go this is fairly weak and doesn't offer a whole lot of strategy beyond "All units, attack that guy!" It doesn't help that the writing and story starts to fall flat at around halfway through the game. I can see how this is Tim's love letter to heavy metal, and I can see an RTS with epic battles inspired by metal as something that can work. This game, unfortunately, is not that kind of game. If you're a Schaffer/Double-Fine fan waiting anxiously to play it then sure, I can't stop you, but for everyone else, I'd say this is a game you can pass up.
