I really enjoyed Moon Mystery. For anyone (like me) who is a fan of both first person puzzle games (Portal, Talos Principle) and FPS, you will like this game too! Pros: * Huge variety of interesting puzzles to break up the gameplay. Puzzles run the gamut from physics-based to symbolic and everything in between. As soon as you're getting a bit bored of the combat, the game will throw another puzzle at you. Unlike most games, Moon Mystery does not repeat the same few puzzles ad nauseam but constantly keeps it fresh. * Huge number of vehicles to use, from flying ships to all sports of ground vehicles. The game goes to great pains to make this fun - you can choose what POV (1st or third person) to view the vehicle in, you can usually get out whenever you want, and it's not easy to cause huge amounts of damage to the vehicle. * Wide variety of environments/worlds, rendered quite beautifully. * Combat is at a good difficulty level and usually requires an element of strategy in terms of what weapons to equip and how to approach a battle. Some clear "combat puzzles" are included. * More focus on story than most FPSes, story has some interesting developments. Writing and acting are usually pretty good. Those complaining about the childish writing didn't play the whole game. Cons: * Enemy variety leaves something to be desired. I completed the whole game but I never encountered the "other, more terrifying and mysterious foes" mentioned in the description. Robots are fine (and there are some cool robot designs) but more could be done here. * The game is really missing some sort of powerful RPG-style weapon. I thought I'd encounter this towards the end but did not. * I liked the ending but it felt a bit rushed. There needed to be some more exposition and some more grand battles near the end. * Some minor bugs and annoyances. Overall, I really enjoyed Moon Mission. It's not perfect but I would recommend it due to the FPS/Puzzle blend.
This was a good value - for $2 (on sale), I got several hours of puzzle solving out of it. There was also some unexpected benefits, such as some truly beautiful vistas throughout the game. There is definite thought put in to much of the art style etc. The core mechanic underlying the puzzles was just ok. As others have said, most of the puzzles weren't very challenging, although the latter ones involved lots of steps. I never felt like a "fun" new mechanic was introduced, although it was satisfying to make progress and see things coming together. The worst part of the game is the story. It starts out interesting but none of the revelations make sense and they are all "told" instead of "shown". Seems like the developers realized they needed a story for their puzzle game but didn't leave much time to implement it. Overall, looking back at the game leaves a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. There are some great moments and it was a decent way to pass the time, but it could have been so much more if shown some love by the devs.
Ever forward is a simple, short puzzle game (took me a little over 5 hours to complete). Given the length and simplicity, I wouldn't say it is worth $15 but if you can pick it up on sale I recommend it! Apparently the game is not too popular (only a handful of reviews since it came out in 2020), but that is a shame as I enjoyed it overall! I felt like it has a good balance between visuals, puzzles and story. The game is truly beautiful. The animations on the girl you play as are very good and lifelike - I can tell a lot of work went into modeling and animating her. The surroundings are quite pretty as well. This helped keep my attention even when stuck on a puzzle. It's clear that the developers really did work hard at trying to think up puzzles that would be tricky, even given a fairly limited set of mechanics. Many require careful timing and quick reflexes, but also tax your brain a bit. I got through all the puzzles without referring to any guides, though some took me a bit of time to puzzle out. There was only 1 puzzle where I felt the solution was a bit due to chance - I tried to execute the same solution (which made logical sense) several times and only when I was about to give up did it work. If you enjoy puzzles and have a bit of patience I think you will have plenty of fun with this game! Story is good as well - it definitely had some emotional notes and makes you want to keep playing to see what happens next. Only issue is I wish some things had been stated more explicitly - this game leaves a lot of blanks for you to fill in. Also, I wish I had known to check the English dubbing option under "settings", for most of the game I played with subtitles only.
I had a lot of fun with Boltgun, I would recommend purchasing it! But I also think there is some missed potential here. Pros: + Makes you feel truly powerful throughout the game + Very beautiful artstyle, especially for the enemies + Good creativity of enemies overall - plenty of variety in terms of size, weapons, abilities, etc. + Gunplay is entertaining - guns feel appropriately powerful and different weapons are a good fit for different situations. There's only one gun I found mostly useless. It's really fun to use these weapons to defeat enemies. + Bosses are giant + Some bosses have some nice "tricks up their sleeve". + The taunt button is amazing (when I remember it exists!) Neutral: +/- Story is bare-bones but at least gives a reason to keep playing Cons: - Not enough new content to sustain the length of the game - you see almost all the enemies in episode 1, after that almost everything is a repeat. - Level design is acceptable but one can tell that clever level design wasn't really the focus. The places never feel real and essentially boil down to corridors between "arenas". - Environments are mostly your generic evil bases. There is a little variation, but not much. - It's insane that this game has corpses disappear. Part of the reason I like this 2.5D artstyle is that there should be no need for corpses to disappear to save on memory, reduce rendering time, etc. Especially in 2023, having 2d corpses disappear is absolutely ridiculous! - No puzzles or story development to break up the action. The few times the developers tried to put in some interesting puzzles that required thought they were bashed for making it "not clear where to go" (what a shame!). - I think the idea of arenas with respawning enemies is ok once or twice, but in this game they are a bit overused - and basically the only time you will face a challenge is in an arena. I also think it wasn't the best move to have all bosses with arena-style respawning enemies around then.
I enjoyed this expansion a lot! It improves on several aspects of the original, but it still has its flaws. What was improved: * New experiences. The original lacked anything "new" to differentiate itself from other shooters of this type. But the addition of the vehicle in this one really feels fresh and adds a lot of fun gameplay. * Better and more diverse level design. The mall level alone has a ton of detail and is one of the best mall levels I've seen. There are several environments, including city, rural areas, volcanos, etc. * The final boss. This one actually has a unique final boss enemy - the design is pretty cool. What still needs improvement: * The story. Ion Fury had no story and I saw this as a major drawback. When I started I had high hopes - there is actually some very interesting plot and character development at the start of this. Unfortunately, this stops partway through, when it gets back to the generic "Heskel yells at Shelly" stuff. And just like the last one, you still have no idea why you are fighting! "Heskel is evil" is basically all the player is told. * Enemy design . There still aren't really any interesting enemies besides the centipede. Most "new" enemies in the expansion are just small variations of ones that already exist. * The ending - despite a good design, the fight with the final boss is a major letdown. Doesn't feel like a proper ending. * While shorter than the original, the game still doesn't deliver enough "new" elements to justify its length. There is one major new element (the vehicle, which isn't always available), the rest feels like stuff we've seen before in many other games. An inventive new weapon, more complex puzzles, or *something* would have helped a lot. * Still too many fairly generic bases, especially towards the end. * Music and sound are still just "okay" for the most part. Maybe 1-2 good new music tracks, the rest is pretty bland.
I was really looking forward to this game for a while - I was tired of waiting for it to go on sale so I just went ahead and bought it. It did give me some entertainment, but not as much as I hoped. Took me 6 hrs. Graphics: This are very impressive - the game generally looks great, with lots of fancy lighting effects and reflective surfaces. Story: There is a bit of story but it never really goes anywhere. You will be just as mystified moments before you finish the game as you are at the beginning. It gives a reason to advance, and that's all. Mechanics: The game mechanics are all mostly things that puzzle gamers will have seen before - fans, magnets, jump pads, etc. The only exception are the oil and fire, which are cool but overused. They needed to add some more unique mechanics to the game. Puzzles: As other reviews mentioned, most of the puzzles are fairly easy. There are a few that make you think a bit near the end, but that's all. The puzzles never feel as fun as in other games of this genre - they are all pretty short and the solutions are rarely fun to execute. Often frustrating backtracking is required because one part of the solution was not executed properly. There is little reward for completing a puzzle, besides (sometimes) a few lines of cryptic dialogue. Environments: This is where I feel feel very much misled by the advertising. The image at the top of the page shows a vast landscape of cubes, covered in dense foliage with majestic trees etc. Nothing remotely like this appears in the game. The environments are virtually all claustrophobic indoor rooms made of blocks. Foliage appears in sparse amounts for a short period of time. But there is very little variety in environments. Not worth the $25, and this never goes on sale here on GOG. I don't feel inclined to spend another $14 for the "season pass", which has even less about it that is new. If you are looking for something similar that is a MUCH better value, try Relicta.
The game started strong: The Hand of Necromancy powerup is a nice idea (resurrect your enemies to fight for you), some of the weapons are pretty inventive (the way the magic sword works is great). And changing between forms is really nice as well. I had no problem with the hub system or getting lost. But I'm almost through the second episode and I'm getting quite bored. You see the same enemies over and over. Most are pretty generic (ice man, stone man, wizard, gargoyle) and are not very well drawn or designed. The first boss was a major letdown - there was nothing special about him at all. The level design is okay but most of the levels aren't too memorable and they all mush together after a while. Even the changing between forms begins to just feel like equipping a different weapon/powerup. I think this is one of the cases where having a story (even a simple one) would help a lot in making me interested in continuing. But despite a promising intro, there is basically no story here. So I don't see the reason to continue - the gameplay loop is very standard Doom, and while I love that kind of game I really feel like it needs some interesting monsters, interesting story, interesting gameplay elements, or really good level design to keep my interest. It feels like the developers just started with "let's make a fantasy-themed GZDOOM game" instead of having a vision for some new and innovative game and executing it. It's not a bad game to play if you're desperate for another Doom-like, but just be warned it does get quite old after a while.
I was really enthralled by this game. It has a great atmosphere, good sound effects, strong level design, and a lot of attention to detail. The intro is meticulously crafted and every room is well-thought out. The developers resisted the common temptation to turn things into a mindless shoot-fest and packed the game with interactive computer terminals, puzzles, and even encounters with NPCs. The monsters feel like a lot of thought and effort was put into them. The artwork is superb - there are a TON of beautiful hand drawn sprites in this game, both for the enemies and even for the bodies littering the station. There are many special touches here, including even having flies start buzzing around corpses after a short time! However, the gameplay is rather frustrating, which kind of spoils things. I am quite familiar with this kind of game and I started it on "Normal". But here it was nearly impossible to make progress - even on level 1, the enemies with guns can drain your health extremely quickly, while your guns have almost no effect on them. You have very limited ammo and health, and save points are relatively scarce. So things are very challenging - for me, nearly impossible. When I learned headshots were possible (a surprise!) it made things a bit easier, but even if you aim accurately it's all up to random chance whether it is effective or not, so it doesn't help that much. I changed it to the lower difficulty (casual) but then things were way too easy - there is tons of ammo and health and enemies don't put up much of a fight at all, making progressing through the game feel almost like cheating. So there are a lot of balance issues to address. There are also some serious bugs - when reloading a save, often the audio will drop out with no way to get it back. And upon completing one level I was jettisoned into outer space with no walls, floors or ceilings and nowhere to go. Hopefully the developers can fix these issues - if so it could be a gem!
