First of all, things that I like: - Open Source - Available on most devices - Amazing depth and diversity - Awards tactical planning and thinking - Active development Things that I don't like: - Starvation mechanic - Thieves that steal items in a way that is eventually unrecoverable - Many annoying monsters that force movement in one way or another - Too many cursed items - Regular armour too weak for level that it belongs to. - Combining food items costs alchemy points.
The story is charmingly relatable and the art style is vibrant. The protagonist is a Tamil woman from India emigrated to Canada along with her husband. You follow her through the stages of her life and whenever there is a eventful change, it's spiced up with a cooking mini game featuring real recipes. It's rather short, but the atmosphere is great. She does not have an easy life, so in that sense the subject matter can be considered mature. I had hoped for a bit more cooking lore, but I did enjoy a taste of a culture I'm not familiar with. The recipes are included with the game as an extra from the menu, which is a nice touch. One star deduction for sometimes having to guess during cooking and I would love it to be a bit longer.
This game is about starting with a sugary pastel world and halloweenising it by simply moving near things. It's a tug of war between the player character of corruption against bringers of cleanliness and joy. In the beginning you can only stun the goody-two shoes, but after you have corrupted enough of the world, you are strong enough to corrupt them as well. There is also some 3D platforming included, because some of the corruption, notably lava, will kill you. The game loop is hopelessly repetitive as your your character gets hints where to corrupt things most effectively and saying a few lines over and over. I uninstalled this after playing two levels because it was not entertaining or engrossing (pardon the pun here) enough to spend my time on.
First of all: I love identifiying plants in real life, so I was overjoyed to see a game that featured that. I would like a bit more complexity and steps with identification rather than vague descriptions in the book that describes them. The atmosphere in this game is incredible. There is a beautiful soundscape and the drawings of both people, plants and the map feel consistent, beautiful and immersive. The puzzles in this game are logical and mostly quite original, which is quite hard. I would liked to be able to save my game and branch decisions rather than playing this game anew. Recommended to those with an inquisitive and curious mind.
First of all: I really like this game and I would give it 4 stars if not for 4 issues I have with this game: Issue 1 : Insane amount of back-tracking Issue 2: major impact throwback after being hit. Issue 3: timed spoils upon defeating enemy. Issue 4: This game cannot be completed on Linux due to a game-braking bug first reported on Steam in May 2015: see: https://steamcommunity.com/app/230700/discussions/1/620713633846327367/ Last reply from the devs: first august 2016. No resolution or viable workaround so far that I know of. Issues 1-3 are matters of opinion. Issue 4 is a blocker bug that should have prevented the release of the Linux version in the current state. This is such a shame, because the game does have a lot to offer: The pixel-art graphics are top-notch and improve quite a lot on the MSX-styled original. While the game is quite hard, the game is consistent within it's world rules. I just love the action-based riddles that are presented to you, although some puzzles are a bit too obtuse for my taste. La-Mulana is quite big and has distinctly different segments of the map when it comes to atmosphere and monsters. The in-game music is catchy and I like the software concept, but not the menu controls. Every pressable button should have been in the button reconfig. So all-in-all, a good game that could have been great with a little polish in the controls. One star deduction for a game-braking Linux bug version that still has not be addressed.
This review has been written after playing for 8 days in the game. First the positives: 1. The graphics are gorgeous, apart from animation stutter. 2. Sneaking in dangerous situations is handled well. 3. The game hasn't crashed yet (using Ubuntu 18.04) The negatives: 1. Both the characters and the story feel flat. 2. The required social interactions annoy me, since your fellow students are not fleshed out enough to make this enjoyable. 3. Time flows far too fast. If I needed tight deadlines, I would go to work. This feels like doing chores. 4. I don't like the abundance of pun humour. Probably because I generally don't like the American style of humour in general, but I can't hold that against the game itself.
Warning: The game expansions still contain active SecuROM DRM. Do not buy and if already bought, refrain from installing lest you end up with an unwanted and extremely diffcult to remove DRM malware.
