This DLC may bring a new stage, which in all fairness is alright, but the new hidden area is A LOT harder than the rest and the new "deals" spice up the difficulty quite a bit. If you thought the game was easy and you are a master of parkour, this new content will put those skills to the test, worth getting.
This is extremely unfair for me to say, since I didn't play the new stage yet, but given that I bought this for the sole purpose of playing online with my friends... well, you can't, you have to stick to the Steam version for now. I didn't know about that when I pre-ordered and the video trailer misled me into believing so. Stay away from this version, go get the Steam one if you want to play the Online Party mode.
TL;DR: A 2D Minecraft game that has A TON of things to do. If you liked Minecraft, this game is right up your alley! A 2D sandbox that doesn't seem like much at first but once you dig deep into it, you realize you're in for a huge adventure! If you like Minecraft and 2D pixel-art, this game is for you. - World creation. You can have a small, medium and large world and you can also create multiple worlds, each having its unique characteristics, although these are picked at random; - Character creation. You can create as many characters as you want. Plus you can pick between Softcore, Mediumcore and Hardcore, which defines what kind of punishment you get from dying; - Lots of NPCs. You start off with a Guide man that will give you hints and tells you how to craft items depending on the material you show him. Once you find out you can build houses to attract more NPCs, you get even more people, like a nurse, a merchant and a demolitionist; - Bosses and events! It has quite a handful of bosses that unlock more stuff after defeating them. Some of them can be summoned and others will show up out of nowhere. The events bring a new set of enemies and rewards. They mostly happen at random, but you can make them happen too. - Normal and Expert modes. Normal mode is the base difficulty, but Expert mode lives up to its name, you have to know the game upside down or be stupidly brave to attempt it. Enemies hit harder, they resist more damage and bosses behave differently. Extremely tough, but they give you new rewards. - Online multiplayer. You can play with your friends online or join any server and progress through the game that way. No console cross-platform though. - Mods. Thanks to tModLoader, you can make an already-extensive game even more extensive, the mod community is fantastic and it's worth trying out new stuff. I had to cut out stuff because of the length restriction on GoG, that's how MUCH I love this game. 100% recommendable!
The game is, at best, a 3D platformer with beautiful visuals, a nice backstory told throughout the game, a nice soundtrack and a large environment. At worst... where do I begin? The main story is average, the combat system is riddled with a lot of combos you have to memorize, there aren't that many enjoyable puzzles, the routes to take feel too straightforward for how large the different areas are and... no matter how hard you try, dying is not possible in this game, because you have your companion Elika (that not only assist you in combat, but also in platforming) that will rescue you EVERY SINGLE TIME. What makes it worse is the ending, without spoilers, it ruins the entire purpose of the game. Don't bother with this one, I'd recommend playing the trilogy.
The game at its core is interesting and a lot of fun with its combat style and their fair share amount of references, although it reaches to a point where you are a bit too OP, but the New Game+ helps fixing it. Now, the thing is that you can get this game on mobile devices, which is where this game originates from. To be honest, I don't think this game is worth investing in the PC version, especially with the limitations that implies: playing at home and the interface looks off. While playing it on your phone suits it way better, since the vertical view crops it well enough to pay attention to just that (and you can still tilt the phone 90º to get the full view). As the title of my review suggest: get the mobile version. You get to play it on the go at any time.
(Just in case, I don't own the GoG version, but I have played the game through 'til the end) This NES reboot may look interesting at first, it has a lot of potential and the character selection is quite varied, but the more you play, the more you realize it's THE SAME ALL THE WAY THROUGH. The good: The graphics and music are quite nice, it may be a little too dark on some areas (except for the dark dungeon, which is completely dark), but enjoyable with that British voice-acting that we all love in these kind of games. The gameplay is interesting, like it was in the NES, move around, kill everything that pops up and use spells or moves to help you out. It has 3 modes: go from point A to point B, endurance rounds and boss fights. You can even play online co-op, which (for me at least) plays wonderfully, up to 4 players. The controls are good, a little hard to comprehend at first, but soon enough you get the hang of it, and the character selection is quite varied. The bad: You don't earn EXP, but rather hunt for gold to buy stuff, and the game demands an excessive amount of grinding to get any kind of equipment, from different weapons to outfit to abilities. Sure, RPGs are like this, but by the end of the game, I barely had enough to buy some weapons and a couple of spells. The outfits, forget about it, way too expensive, not a chance in hell to get them in my first run. The gameplay, though I said it's interesting, ends up being repetitive and monotonous in a long run, to the point of becoming a chore to play. It throws a couple of puzzle solving to keeps you busy, but you ain't going to see anything innovating. The game is rather short in normal mode, about 4 hours. You can replay the game in harder difficulties, but what ruined the entire game for us was the final boss. It's unfair, unnecessarily long and it was an obvious plot-twist that you would see coming half way through. Bottom line, I can't recommend this game, not even for nostalgia.
One game that could be easily called a classic of this current generation, a game that, for as simple as it looks, it demands absolute reflexes and near-to-perfect timing. You can easily pick it up and play, with a short yet effective tutorial to follow that explains exactly what you need to know about it. The gameplay is exquisit! A plantformer-shooter with tight and customizable controls, constant flow and intense shooting with adding bonus of bullet-hell moments. The game is very hard, but fair, if you mess up, it's your own fault. Also, the game includes a shop where you can buy permanent and selectable power-ups, helping the player to go through with more ease. The graphics are by far the best feature of the game: beautifully drawn and stylish, all going for the 30's style, making it appealing to the eyes right off the bat. Not a single 3D model is used in this game, as stated by the creators, every single sprite is drawing, avoiding the use of animation tricks, although they do use pictures as background in some stages, but still adding to the charm. The music is brilliant! Up-beat and engaging, enjoyable at any moment, woth the purchase of the OST, and the sound effects are very good too, again, with the sweetness of the 30's. The one thing I may find disappointing is the length of the game. Sure, the game compensates this by making the game hard AND giving a rating system, so either you have to repeat the stage over and over to beat it or get a higher rank, but the game can be beaten in less than 30 minutes if you know what you're doing. I know the game was originally meant to be a boss-rush shooter, which is appreciated by the developers they added a few from-point-A-to-point-B stages in. Bottom line, excellent graphics, tight gameplay, hard as hell, enjoyable music and SFX, absolutely recommendable!
