I love point & click adventures and I enjoy sci-fi dystopian settings, namely cyberpunk. This game was an obvious purchase for me, from the get-go. The pixel art looks great in trailers and screenshots, too, which is a sweet bonus. Then I installed and tried the game and... well... it's not bad, you can do way worse than VirtuaVerse, but it clearly isn't as good as it had led me to believe. Gameplay-wise, it's a traditional 2D point & click. If you ever played one of those, you should be fine with VirtuaVerse. Nothing wrong or broken, in this department. Puzzles, on the other hand, while not obtuse like some in other games of the genre, aren't the easiest, most sensible or even the most interesting ones around, and I found they DO, in fact, break the otherwise relatively good pacing of the game. kiralein said they haven't seen a single "stupid" puzzle in the game, well, I came across some pretty annoying ones pretty early on, already, so I guess your mileage may vary, on this subject. The game surely doesn't ease you in, it starts with pretty involved puzzles right from the start -- which is nice, if that's your thing, but it definitely isn't mine. Story is OK, writing is mediocre (I'm guessing the devs aren't native English speakers, because some of the dialog is very cringe-inducing), the protagonist is not very likeable, interesting or relatable. Art, well... it's subjective, but I was expecting something more like Desert Child (which I think has some of the best pixel art), and what I got was something that feels lazy and not that good-looking. Music is fine, if you're into this sort of thing. If you're like me, though, you can at least turn it off. The game is not well optimized. I more than meet the system requirements, but I always get huge load times between scenes (and you'll be switching scenes A LOT). We're talking roughly 10 seconds of black screen. Hopefully they address this. All in all, I recommend it. Just don't set your expectations too high.
It's not "so bad, it's good", don't fall for that. This game is just bad. Awful writing, all over the place puzzles, actions devoid of all common sense, unlikable characters, ugly presentation... you name it, this game has it. I decided to try it out because of the "hilariously bad" cult fame it garnered, boy, was I wrong. Stay the hell away from this one. Seriously. You've been warned.
If you are a Darksiders fan and/or were let down by Darksiders III, you owe yourself a go at Darksiders Genesis, despite the top down pseudo-isometric camera perspective. Don't be fooled by the naysayers and the fear-mongers out there, this game is NOT a Diablo-clone looter hack-n-slash, this is an action-adventure through and through. You traverse awesomely designed levels, you unlock abilities, you get a (shared) skill tree that you can build to your liking using dropped creature cores, you can replay early levels for completion with every new ability and power level you unlock, all packed into a neat little product that looks and sounds great -- especially considering Airship Syndicate were given an even smaller budget to work with than Gunfire Games did, when developing Darksiders III --, with artwork done, supervised and directed by the man himself, Joe "Mad" Madureira. If this is the way Darksiders is going to be, moving forward, I'm absolutely fine with it (don't worry, though, they'll probably go back to an over the shoulder freeflow camera when they go back to the main series titles). At the time of this review, the game does have some issues, none of them serious or gamebreaking, and I'm pretty sure the devs are working on fixes and patches as I type this, so, if you're on the fence or plan to buy the game down the line, I'm positive you'll be getting a version that has addressed and fixed whatever few issues it has. While it surely isn't a game for everyone (no game is), it's a good return to form in a series some of us love and kind of got lost with Darksiders III trying too hard to be a Soulslike and, ironically, kind of losing the series' soul along the way, so I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the series or a fan of action-adventures who isn't put off by the top down perspective.
First of all, let me get this out of the way: it's all down to opinion, so do take this "review" with a grain of salt. I'm not the biggest Goichi Suda/Grasshopper fan, especially not to the point of collecting his/their Japanese-only games, or the ones released on consoles I never owned. Having said this, killer7 is one of the best video game experiences I've ever had, and going from there I played other Suda 51 games I ended up loving straight away. Other people have talked about the technical side of things when it comes to Killer Is Dead, so I don't think there's much I can add to what they've already said. This Nightmare Edition addresses some control and gameplay issues the original edition(s) had, but the game itself is still pretty shallow. I could have titled this review "Not for everyone", but at this point in time, and considering the vast majority of GOG's consumer base, I don't think we need to keep saying that over and over again. No game is for everyone. If this game looks appealing to you in any shape or form, though, don't get discouraged by the middling reviews you might find: it's a good game within the genre, and the fact it has that distinctive quirkiness and style you can expect from Grasshopper is a bonus. The gameplay can be as simple or as invested as you want, if you find the base combat boring, invest in upgrades and the game becomes way more complex. If you don't care about any of that, and just want to let some steam off while enjoying an "out-there" story with dark, cynical, strange characters, you can definitely play the game that way. Also: the boss fights are some of the most interesting I've experienced in a game.It's far from being the best title Grasshopper Manufacture has developed, but is defnitely worth a go if it looks mildly interesting to you. *At this launch discount price, especially, I'd definitely nab it.* Hopefully if KID sells well enough, Grasshopper considers releasing killer7 on GOG, too, so there's also that.
