I backed the campaign and didn't expect too much but surprisingly, Dreamfall Chapters ended up absolutely wonderful. It not only tries to tie up all the loose threads that Dreamfall left open but it's actually a very good game on its own. It's a beautiful modern adventure game with large locations to explore but doesn't annoy you with pointless collections tasks, inventory puzzles or hidden objects. Most riddles are exploration based, which is a good thing as you want to explore the wonderful environment. Almost everything bad in Dreamfall was improved: the locations are larger, no more stupid fights or logic puzzles and this time the mouse/keyboard controls work perfectly. The graphics are more or less state of the art with nice shaders and lighting. However, the quality of facial details varies a lot. While Zoë looks stunning and Enu or Saga still look great, some important side characters like Hanna or Nela lack any detail and look cartoonish. And some characters like Commander Vamon or Warden Murron have exaggerated facial features that make them look like caricatures. There are also some issues with the shadows and I had a few crashed while loading new chapters. Even worse, there are story bugs: e.g. though the player decides to kiss Anna etc., the game concludes that Kian is gay. That makes the player's decisions feel somewhat worthless. Also displaying names of backers for extras felt wrong and distracting - especially in Marcuria. Anyway, my main point of criticism is the lack of any kind of save or sub chapter restart system. The people of RTG should take a look at the outstanding "Life is Strange" to see how to implement a sensible chapter/save system that allows you to revisit parts of the story without destroying your main save game. But well, despite of these points, I still had a lot of fun playing Chapters. I'm so happy that this Journey has finally come to a good end and still hopeful that I might return to the Dreamfall universe with Saga one day.
Since the 90s I have a deep love for 2D arcade shooters like Metal Slug. The problem is that in the end, these games aren't nearly as much fun as they look since they are designed for arcade machines. Like in the end, you can't play through them anyway, there is no proper level/save system and actually you are just supposed to insert tons of coins. Now BroForce finally manages to deliver the promised fun. The levels are short but furious, the boss fights are just about right: neither too easy nor extremely frustrating. Also this is the only game I know where the dozens of different characters with different abilities actually make sense. Usually you'd pick your favorite character and never switch. BroForce however just switches all the time (when you die or free a Bro to collect an extra life) which forces you to cope also with characters you don't like (as that stupid guy with dynamite and turkey bombs). So you'll die lots of times because you get the dumbest hero in the wrong moment, but then you just try again. It's also worth mentioning that the levels are nearly completely destructible which usually allows different solutions for reaching the target zone. And yes, sometimes this means you bomb away the only path left but then you just die and retry. And you really want to because even dying is part of the fun. Hell, that bloody nonsense made me smile most of time.
I played Dreamfall in 2006 when it was released and had very fond memories of it. At that time, it was beautiful and one of the first 3D adventures where you could freely move around. Actually it impressed me so much back then, that I bought and played Longest Journey to learn more about April Ryan. However, that game was technically horrible even in 2006 though I still liked it, especially for April and Crow. So I happily pledged for Dreamfall Chapters on Kickstarter in 2013 and now that all chapters are released, I decided to replay Dreamfall before starting Chapters as I forgot most of the story's details. So now, after ten years, I played Dreamfall again and of course it looks a bit aged now. The environments and characters are all very low poly where some locations still look nice but the faces of most main characters are somewhat scary due to complete lack of detail. Also all of the locations are very small and you get a (short) loading screen every few meters. Worst of all is that the mouse look is completely screwed up. Even when fixing the inversion etc., you still can't look up and down which makes it impossible to fully inspect the scenery and which is totally annoying in a longer dungeon sequence. Game wise, Dreamfall is somewhere in the middle between an interactive movie and an actual adventure. There are some typical adventure puzzles but most of them are extremely obvious and straight forward. Some locks involve puzzle games but they are very simple. Also the few fight sequences are total crap. And there are a lot of scenes where you do nothing at all but running and talking. And yes, there is some stupid running around but as the maps are all very small, it's not that annoying. Well and there's one totally screwed up puzzle (musical runes) which is just bad design. Still, even without Dreamfall Chapters I think Dreamfall is worth experiencing though it's certainly not a perfect game. For every owner of Chapters, it's a must play anyway.
Yes, some pieces of the story are interesting, but as everything in this game, it's not executed or finished properly. Apart from some vague drivel about a moon child, an angry sun and a magician trapped in an endless cycle, there is not much substance to the story. And unfortunately, the same is true for the rest of the game. The non-gamepad controls are so-so: keyboard only, no mouse look, still you need the middle mouse button to looks around!? Anyway, the feature is so extremely limited that it's pointless anyway. Towards the end there are some blocks to be moved around and grabbing them works almost never at first attempt. During the into, there are some control instructions displayed, but almost all of them are cropped and more or less unreadable. Like "Hold .." .. but the key is missing. Dunno how something like this can even survive an alpha testing phase. Also the graphics were a big disappointment. On the screenshots, they looks stylized in an artsy way but in the real game, they just look hastily done. Whatever you look at, textures, models, lighting, animations, everything looks subpar. That extends to the levels which are all very, very small. Well, plus the game is extremely short. Actually one of (if not) the shortest I ever player. I didn't note the starting time, but I don't think I needed much more than two hours. There is really not much substance there. So yeah, it's not total crap and if you buy in while it's on sale and are aware of all the issues, you might even to some degree enjoy the two hours or so it lasts. On the other hand, it's nothing you mut have played either and the normal asking price is much too high for something that would be considered a demo of the 1st level in other games.
It's quite obvious that Oceanhorn was inspired by Zelda, especially by its GameCube incarnation Wind Waker. Which isn't a bad thing and actually during the first few hours, I really loved it and hummed to the music while exploring its colorful isometric beauty. Yes, the 3D models are a bit simple and the animations pretty basic, but this didn't bother me. At least there is some voice acting (though the hero remains silent for some reason). While the world to explore is not gigantic, I loved to discovered new islands, explore them and solve some riddles. Even the 1st boss fight (the plant thing, I don't count the centipede as boss) was OK. From there on, my excitement was marred by flaws in the game design and bugs. Things like collected bloodstones bot being accounted and you need to go back to all the places on a island and try to collect the invisible (!) stones again. Or things like being forced to go to Sky Island just because you collected the weather cuckoo and thus having to fight the end boss there without the Coral Saber. Or treasure chests permanently disappearing because you ignited two flames before the game want you to. Or falling into death traps even though you just pushed a crate into the damned hole. There are also design flaws in the boss fights like Shadow Mesmeroth not attacking for a whole round so you're battered again by the laser turrets without being able to reflect even one of his fire balls. And yeah, the 1st part of the boss fight against Oceanhorn is a PITA. Last but not least, the game doesn't give you any hint what you're missing to reach 100%. Even the number of missing stones is only displayed now and then. I completed all islands, collected all available bloodstones (some of them twice due to bugs), caught a fair amount of fishes, completed all visible challenges (and even some more I think) and still ended with only 87%. No idea if this is a bug or if there are things to do that are not communicated. Anyway, it's a bit frustrating.
I was somewhat disappointed that despite of the SciFi story most of the game takes place in the late 80s. Still, I kinda liked the story and the two main characters - unfortunately most side characters are stereotypes or annoying or both. Graphic style is OK, but it's quite obvious that animations were reduced to a minimum. And the existing ones aren't great either. Besides, the partly sketched backgrounds make it hard to make out smaller objects. Which brings us to game design: as to be expected, there are a lot of "distract person to get item" puzzles. And a lot of "I am a game designer, what do I care about physics or common sense" ones (like antenna cables setting things on fire). As there is no way to highlight usable objects and it's impossible to detect them visually, there's a lot of searching for usable stuff. Furthermore, several objects have multiple examination options like "look at" and "read" where in 99.9% of the cases, using them will repeat exactly what you heard when you took the object, yet there are a few cases where only reading/looking makes it possible to continue. The inconsistency is the problem here. Worst of all are the mini-games which are puzzles of varying stupidity. Admittedly you can skip them, but this somewhat shows that the designers messed them up so badly that they added a skip button instead of fixing them. E.g. the bomb defusing and turbine activation show strange detail behavior which hints to either bugs or stupid design. Worst of all is the binocular puzzle which is simply utter crap. Last but not least, for a "final cut" version which was released in 2010, there's a ridiculous amount of bugs and glitches. There are audio hiccups, spelling mistakes, nonsense text either spoken or as subtitle and dozens of cases where suddenly the wrong language is used. I had everything from German, Spanish, French to Russian. Where Cyrillic script is especially great to read. Still liked it but it's not really a great game and needs fixes.
Valdis Story could be a great Metroidvania despite of the uninspired story and lacking interest in the characters. Graphics and music are nice, it has smooth scrolling, good movement controls and is not as unforgiving as La-Mulana. There is an automatic savepoint in each room, so you can retry instantly when you failed. It has RPG elements, different weapon/armor sets and loot to collect to upgrade weapons, armor etc. Then again, the armors/weapons don't affect your look and the scrolling areas are small. Worst of all the game has serious design flaws. E.g. you run into bosses without any warning, most of the time without any chance of winning. As the automatic savepoint is the boss battle, you need to reload the save game from the main menu and lose all progress you made from there. The game also locks you in areas without telling you when and why. Usually you need to kill the boss which can leave you in the same situation of reloading and losing progress. If you saved your game inside the locked area and can't kill the boss, you're stuck. If there was any kind of savegame management, you could at least reload another one, yet there isn't. The level map is somewhat pointless and there is no world map or quest log. Fast travel is only possible between the three villages. So you run around the same rooms quite a lot. All puzzles are based on timed switches. Some involve wall jumping, moving platforms or cascaded switches. Ranges from tiresome to annoying. The level design is boring to terrible, some areas seem unfinished, there are very frustrating moments when you fall down three floors and have to traverse like 20 rooms with ultra-annoying time-triggered doors. Boss fights tend to be exhausting. Especially the final one. Also the combination of Metroidvania and RPG doesn't really work well. To level up you run through the same rooms and kill the same crabs. If you're too weak for a boss, you need to reload the last save game and kill more crabs. Meh.
The crowdfunding for Kentucky Route Zero started January 2011 and now, mid of 2015, there are still only 3 of 5 acts out. This means less than one act per year and at least 5-6 years of production. Well with the optimistic assumption that the 5th act will ever be released. Honestly, I wouldn't count on it. This being said, I really like the visuals and the mood. The thing surely has some truly captivating moments. But the game itself is pretty shallow and traveling on the (lame excuse for a ) map is simply annoying. Besides the acts are very, very short. Even if all five acts come together one day, this will still be a short game with little actual game-like interactions. And well, even after three acts, there isn't much of a story. There are some mysterious pieces thrown together which we all hope may one day culminate in an interesting story. At this point, this is not the case though and honestly, I'm getting the feeling that when/if this thing is ever finished, the story will be crude and disappointing. I somewhat fear the development resembles that of the TV show "Lost". I was enthusiastic after the 1st season, but after 2nd and third, things became weirder and weirder and it became clear that the authors hadn't really developed a plan to explain all of this. In the end, most of the things that appeared interesting and mysterious were either never revolved or in an utterly unsatisfying way. Anyway, my main concern is that the creators have lost the interest in this. Hell, even for a team of two people, the development speed for so little of a game is extraordinary slow. There are no expensive graphics, there is no voice acting, the revenues must be in the millions after all the hype. The only explanation is a complete lack of interest. I can somewhat understand that a developer who has earned millions with something that started as labor of love finds it hard to keep his interest for years. As a consumer, I have to expect that he delivers though.
The story is not nearly as clever as the authors thought it would be and honestly I guessed the final twist after a few seconds (when I tried to walk back the tunnel right at the start). There are too many obvious hints and the idea is not that new or clever anyway. However, from a visual point of view, this is one of the most beautiful games I ever played. Even though some of the object are heavily re-used, things like tree stumps or rocks are detailed and believable like I never observed this in a game before. Even the technically most advanced games tend to disappoint you with simple models and ugly or flat textures here and there but in Ethan Carter's world, nearly everything looks beautiful and the rest looks still pretty good. Which still is not what makes this game so beautiful. It's the extremely well designed environment. The small forest and bridge at the start are already very nice, but the area around the dam with the pictorially deteriorated buildings is simply one of the best world designs I ever saw in any game. And while I wandered through the woods up the hill towards the church and cemetery I thought multiple times that I this is really the most detailed and realistic environment I ever saw in a game. You can freely roam the whole scenario even though it is not very large and while this is really enjoyable, there is not an awful lot of things to do and most of the riddles are very simple and straight forward. There is only one place in the game where you can "die" but then you are just reset to the entrance of the area. And there's only one "secret" to be found (grenade -> sniper rifle.) Well, yeah, it's a bit too short and easy but honestly I also liked that part because my and patience are somewhat limited. I give it four stars instead of five since there is room for improvement, but I'm very happy with this purchase (especially as it was on sale) and consider to even play it again some time (and this time don't miss to throw the grenade).
Well, I finished the game. I even ventured into a few rooms the Hell temple. However without excessive help of Wikis and walkthroughs I would have been stuck at 30% of the game or so. And without some savegame cheating (money is at 0x10e5..0x10e6) I would have stopped playing a little later (Viy). That I continued despite of all the unfairness and stupid puzzles is not because of the quality of the game but because I find it hard to leave something unfinished. There are certainly good points about La Mulana: it has a lot of large animated bosses and sub-bosses, it's relatively large, it has a proper savepoint and teleporter system. Then again, there's a lot to not like about this game. Most enemies are either looking silly or unsuitably cute. Headless horses, cows that shit fire, submarine goats. Jeff Minter style. Some parts are ridiculously hard which is sharpened by the fact that there is only one save point per area. Sometimes you need to traverse several areas where you need to fight the same annoying foes and do the same jumping over and over again until you finally reach the place where you failed before. There is not even a save point before or after a boss fight. And after the final boss, chances are you will die trying to find a way out of the ruins and have to repeat the final fight several times. Also the puzzles are badly designed. Most of them are plain crazy and involve breaking or jumping into walls at random places. There are clues but usually the type that barely makes sense after you found the solution. Another example for bad design: your inventory is stuffed with quest items you need only once or twice, but you keep them forever. And you need to use them explicitly. Partly in combination with "software". Which is another annoying design idea. Combining software pieces you found improves weapons or enables certain things, so you need to re-arrange your software all the time. Heck, even leaving the game or loading a savegame is a pain.
