Momodora was quite exactly what I imagined it to be: a nice little Metroidvania with retro look. Maybe it's a bit too much on the retro side regarding menus/inventory etc. Things like leaving the game with Escape or better menu control would have been nice, but it's not a big issue. Design wise, it was a pleasant surprise to see that the game was not utterly frustrating like many other retro titles. There are enough save points, usually there's one close to each boss room and even your items are restored at save points which is a nice touch. From what I can say, there is no possibility to get stuck but it still would have been nice to save some control over your save game(s) like changing the slot or copying save games to other slots. It's possible manually from OS level though. Anyway, Momodora plays nice, the boss battles are not the peak of clever design but also not very frustrating. There were only about three boss battles which I needed to repeat more than a few times to learn attack patterns etc. It's not a perfect game of course. The story is forgettable, there are some slightly unfair places and most of the bonus items are more or less useless. It's relatively easy to reach 98% or 99% of the map, from what I can tell, I missed only one room because I hit some spider early in the game. Plus some items can only be acquired by flawless boss battles (not getting a single hit). I'm not a big fan of this kind of game design, but it's only one room and a few items, so I don't think that I missed much. I needed a bit more than 8h to play the game in the default difficulty and played it again ("Game+") in around 7h to unlock a few more secrets - which shows that I actually enjoyed the game quite a lot. So yeah, not a perfect game of course, but I'm very happy with my purchase and had a good time playing this.
This is a very beautiful game with great world design, lighting and use of shaders. The animations are very smooth and detailed and the character design is simply amazing - especially for a crowd founded indie game. Still, it's very visible that this isn't an AAA title. There are no movies/cut scenes or even voice overs. Also the game lacks polishing here and there. Like there are "holes" in the world, some climbing is too fiddly, the save menu is buggy etc. Game design wise it's an action adventure with some RPG elements like training a few abilities, wearing armor with certain attributes etc. Progress is made by solving quests where some of them are a bit poor (e.g. collecting mushrooms and beetles). There are no quest markers and only vague hints but you can buy maps and clues from the smith Rolo. I got stuck a bit now and then since I didn't find certain items or didn't realize a new dialog option appeared somewhere. There's a proper save system with manual, quick and auto saves but you can only save in hiding spots and manually choosing a save slot is a bit buggy. The world is not very big and you will revisit locations repeatedly. Early in the game, most doors are locked and can only be opened if you proceed in the main quest. Also, you need to run and hide a lot at first. Later on you find armor which allows you to roam freely - yet very slowly. Which is a bit annoying since it makes exploration a bit of a struggle. Only close to the end there is a chance to get an armor that lets you walk freely in the presence of guards without sacrificing speed. Fighting is not really a thing. You can only temporarily knock down guards without helmets which almost all of them wear. Which limits fighting to a few spiders and a centipede. It took me 15h to reach the end (only 8% of players did) which felt a bit rushed and the final fight was somewhat annoying. With a bit more polishing and a proper ending, I'd have given 5 stars. Still, I enjoyed it quite a lot.
I was deeply impressed by Outcast when it came out in 1999. Even though the height map based (falsely called "voxel") engine was a bit out of time even back then (Drakan was released the same year with Direct3D support), it was groundbreaking in so many ways. It's still hard to name any other action adventure in a colorful and fantastic alien world that would come close. At its time though, the organic levels, the freedom of movement (swimming, diving, climbing, riding Twon-has), the size of the levels and the semi-open world design were unique. It even featured some kind of software bump mapping for the characters. Admittedly, not everything aged so well. The characters look pretty much terrible (low poly, lores textures), the "voxel" landscape is a blur as are the textures. The dialogs try too hard to be funny, some of the Talan voice acting is pretty bad. All the animations and cut scenes are very basic and wooden, some even look totally silly (running animation). Also the game design is pretty outdated. Like there are no quest markers, you need to repeatedly find tiny objects or specific persons while there are only a few different character models etc. The version "1.1" is mainly intended to run on modern PCs and e.g. offers higher resolutions which however lead to barely readable text and a map that is hard to see. I also didn't like what they did with the water: in the original, it was opaque and shiny, now it's nearly fully transparent. As a result, the water animation that struck me with awe in 1999 is nearly invisible. Navigating menus and dialogs with the keyboard or even saving a game feels clumsy. This version also crashed on me a few times, most annoyingly in the cutscene after the collapsing palace, so I needed to skip it to continue. Also the cutscene after the prison camp seems to be missing. Still, if you want to relive your memories on a modern PC/OS without the changes from "Second Contact", there is more or less no way around v1.1.
I always considered Outcast a classic so I was shattered when the KS campaign for the "Reboot HD" failed in 2014 and delighted when "Second Contact" delivered the promised remake. Actually, in a rush of nostalgia, I played Outcast v1.1 and Second Contact in parallel and will therefore focus on the differences. The remake sticks very much to the original. All the voice acting, cut scenes, game design and world design are almost 100% identical (+2 new rooms I consider easter eggs). Apart from some slight changes directed towards making the game more convenient to play, the main difference is the graphics. In a nutshell, they did an excellent job with the landscape and a solid job with the characters. I'm not 100% happy with the Talan design though as they look weirdly cartoonish. But of course it's still a giant step forward compared to the pixel/poly mess of the original. The whole game was sped up a bit, so Cutter always runs and can sprint shortly with Shift. While welcome, this makes riding Two-has kinda pointless. Cutter has a jet pack now for slightly higher jumps and can generally run/jump up steep ledges much better. The climbing works much worse though. Actually lots of places that could be climbed just don't work anymore. Also combat is quite a bit faster, targeting works much better but still, it feels a bit weird and not totally state of the art. The controls were simplified and stuff like dialogs and inventory are controlled with the mouse. The larger map view now fills the whole screen and shows names of known Talans. Also all inventory and quest related texts are much more readable. There's an autosave system now which uses save slots. IMHO there's even one save slot less. Lots of other things were removed for no reason (1st person view, zooming in/out, jumping with Twon-has, swimming up etc.). The removal of the weapon menu makes it hard to identify weapons in need for upgrades/ammo. Sadly, the party outro is missing, too. Still, a very good remake.
There are tons of design flaws and some serious bugs, but I still enjoyed playing "Seven" a lot. If the end wouldn't have been so rushed and badly designed, I'd have given it 5 stars despite all the issues. But let's start with the good: "Seven" is a real unique game. Saying it's an open world action RPG doesn't really do it justice. What makes it special is its fully isometric world with unprecedented three-dimensionality. There are lots of locations extending dozens of meters from the ground to the top which are fully accessible. Also, the strict isometric view gives it a distinct look reminding of pre-rendered games from the 90s while adding the freedom to zoom and rotate. Of course this also means that you can't actually tilt the view which feels very odd and limiting at 1st. So the mouse can actually only be used to rotate the view around the character in the sense that it's used for steering. The world and story is interesting, there are lots of diverse quests, good voice acting and great world design. You can jump and climb up ledges etc., there is some original but limited skill tree with special powers (invisibility, altering time), a pretty good inventory, a solid crafting system etc. Then there are the flaws: stealth kills just don't work (but bare-handed choking does), selling stuff is impossible since merchants are broke, looting is nearly pointless, crafting material is much too heavy, collecting items is annoyingly slow, quick load takes forever, save games are a mess, the game creates autosaves every minute until they can't be cloud synced anymore, the mouse cursor disappears in dialogues, several quests are broken if executed in wrong order, some safe/rune puzzles are broken etc. Besides, while marketed as stealth game, stealth just doesn't work (ten people in a room who never leave) or isn't worth it. Just killing everyone is much easier and not sanctioned. Still, I enjoyed most of the 60h I played. Just the end was a total letdown in any way.
There's a lot of good things to say about Torchlight II but it just didn't thrill me. I liked the cartoonish graphics, the levels are large and diverse, the fighting system is simple but well done, the inventory comfortable and the pet (which can carry stuff and sell it in town) is still a very good idea. There are lots of weapons, armors etc. to keep your interest in optimizing your gear, also the skill system is simple but effective. I didn't care much for the story, though. More or less the typical bad demon wants to take over the world. There is no voice acting apart from some speaker in the few 2D cartoon story scenes between the acts. Quest dialogs etc. are displayed as text boxes, but there is not much talking anyway. There are also only a few quest compared to other games. There is persistence of objects inside a level, but at some point the game forgets about your last visit in a dungeon and completely resets it (which also wipes out the automap). This is very annoying when going back later to finish the hidden quest (robot/three sisters). The fighting system is point and click which leaves the left hand for spells but also removes all tactics from fighting. Targeting enemies while running from them is tricky and since clicking left on enemies is an attack, you tend to get stuck when surrounded. This is not much of an issue at the beginning, when the game feels much too easy. In the later levels and during bossfights, this becomes a bit of PITA. Furthermore, enemies fade in/out at the border of the screen. Faded out they are invisible and can't be attacked while they still attack. This also means they kinda pop up and attack you before you see them. Anyway, the difficulty on normal is pretty low. I died only a few times during the ~23h I needed for all quests (including "three sisters"). I ended with hundreds of (collected) health and mana potions and an insane amount of money. Felt partly too casual and took away the suspense. So fun, but no milestone.
I'd call Masquerada a "light" version of an RPG set in a fantasy Renaissance world with magic Carnival of Venice masks. Some aspects reminded me of Dragon Age Origins, e.g. the pausable realtime fights, selecting two companions from your party for each mission and having lengthy conversions with your companions to deepen the relationship with them. However, Masquerada is strictly linear, offers no choices (not even in dialogs), has no skill trees other than for Mascherine magic and actually consists only of dialogs and fights. Like there is no real inventory or map or anything else you would expect in a normal role playing game. In a nutshell, each room is a hand drawn 2D bitmap where your cell shaded party can walk around to some spots marked in different colors where you can either collect an ink, a mask, story piece, trigger a conversation or leave to the next room. Now and then you will run into enemies which starts a fight where you can use several powers that come from magical masks called Mascherines. You can pause the fight and control every member of your party, but actually most fights are rather easy and a bit of a huddle so basically you use your best attacks, wait for your power to recharge and repeat that until all opponents are dead. There are a few (three or so) boss fights which need a bit of tactics (prevent healing of boss), but all in all the fights are pretty easy. I didn't really like the mix of somewhat blurry 2D background and sharp cell shaded 3D characters but the total lack of interaction with the static background is my main concern. There also isn't any lighting at all which makes everything look even more bland and static. While there is a system to make foreground objects transparent, it's rarely used in the 1st 75% of the game. So it wasn't really my thing and the Mask menu was broken for me, but it's obvious that lots of effort went into dialogs, story etc. and the nearly 12h I put into this didn't feel like a total waste of time.
I'm into walking simulators and can even accept if they are linear or short or technically sub standard - just not at the same time. And this is my main gripe with "The First Tree". While the dialog between the speaker and his wife revolving around memories of his father is well written and performed and actually creates a mood of sadness and loss, this is about all what the game actually offers. The connection to the fox searching for her whelps feels somehow random. Admittedly, I was mainly attracted to this game by its graphics which was also one of the biggest disappointments. While the cell shaded fox looks great, the levels seem to be somewhat carelessly designed with some terrain tool and filled with default props. Specifically the first area with its winter scenery looks bland due to automatically generated mountains, bad snow shader and tawdry colors. Later areas look much better due to grass and trees but the grass disappears much too early and the trees look all the same. Still in the later areas, the game looks kinda nice, sometimes even beautiful. Anyway, the much bigger issue are the animations. The walking/running animation is a fixed loop and always feels like the fox was hovering above the ground. When moving sideways, the fox just turns by 45° which looks and feels absolutely horrible. Even worse, you need to do double jump which is just silly in this kind of game and looks worse than it sounds. In a nutshell, all the mood created by the voice acting is kinda destroyed by the animations. Anyway, the "game" part consists of running through mid-size areas collecting stars and searching for light columns where the fox digs up a childhood memory of the speaker which triggers another short dialog. At a few points you need to collect butterflies to do super-silly butterfly-double-jumps which is like the zenith of silliness. And that's about it. It took me less than 2h to finish and I collected all story parts and most of the stars.
World to the West is a surprisingly well made game with substantial content. In its core it's a 3D action adventure with Metroidvania elements. The main focus is on exploring the large world with four characters by using their unique abilities - which they need to gain in the first third (or so) of the game. The graphics are cartoonish and remind of Zelda Windwaker. Which means they aren't really top notch but still pleasant to look at (most of the time). The view is fixed, so you can't look around which feels limiting at first for a PC game, but I guess it's OK for this kind of game. Unfortunately, the keyboard controls are somewhat sluggish and even buggy. E.g. when entering a new map area, the game forgets about keys being pressed and you need to release them to unstuck them. Generally, this is not a major issue but some of the boss fight are much harder due to the sluggishness. I stumbled over some more bugs but nothing really game breaking. The (surface) world is really large plus there's an underground world that's only a little smaller. The world is separated into relatively small areas though with a checkpoint every few areas. These checkpoints also serve as teleporters and allow to swap your characters, There are 36 secret tablets hidden in the world but you can buy hints later on to mark them on the (pretty good) map. The story is forgettable, the enemies are canon fodder and the boss fights mainly annoying but where the game really shines is using the specific abilities of your characters to discover the world, solving some puzzles and opening paths for your comrades. The designers took some shortcuts though by duplicating abilities (some obstacles can be removed by two or even three characters). All in all, it's a pretty decent action adventure which lacks some polish here and there to be really top notch. I put 27h in it and cursed it only a few times during boss battles. So for me, it was well spent money especially since I got it on sale.
Lake Ridden is a walking simulator with some puzzles that doesn't really shine in any regard. The story is nebulous, the world smallish without any exiting architecture or world design, graphics are mediocre at best plus it's usually dark and hazy. There is some voice acting (very few female voices, not a single male one) which is OK most of the time but gets weird when a woman intonates the diary/letters of a male as if she was that guy. There's an autosave system which doesn't work 100%. E.g. I stopped playing shortly after leaving a cellar which I had to unlock to get in but not to get out. When continuing later, I was in the cellar again and the door was locked. Still, Lake Ridden has its moments when you search a haunted basement or try to get some machine to work. Then again, there are not many riddles and most of them are weird, really badly designed or simply totally illogical. Like they are designed them from solution to clues and not vice versa. Plus there are tons of repetitive puzzles to open boxes etc. that are not related to the story in any way. Stuff like remembering key/music sequences or pressing buttons that changes only their neighbors. Stuff you've seen a thousand times in other games like this. I guess it would have been OK to have one puzzle of each type, but having to so the same crap over and over again is just annoying and a cheap way of increasing playtime without much effort. Towards the end, there are super-annoying puzzles where you need to draw lines on monoliths, but again they made it totally tedious by splitting the sequence in multiple parts, letting you choose between several monoliths etc. It's just that you get the feeling that they did everything to make the few lame puzzles as tiring as possible. So after I reached the bland and disappointing end after ~7h, I was kinda happy it was over. So yeah, don't spend much money on this and consider it only if you have played through all the good walking simulators.
