1. Linux version available elsewhere. (Fix in progress y/n?) 2. Soundtracks, digital art, making-of sold as DLC. (Fine, I wouldn't waste money on them myself either, and I think it's dumb. I'd downvote the DLCs themselves if anything, though) 3. Game is reported to have issues running without Galaxy at the moment. (Judas is aware of this. Fix probably in progress, but I'm not 100% sure) The game itself has been on Steam for a long time, and it easily speaks for itself. It's a unique, challenging, well-done game with even more challenging alternate characters (including a "turn based" character for those who need time to think or want an easier mode). If you aren't concerned about points 1-3 above, then I personally don't know of any other reason to shy away from this title.
Lords of Xulima is old-school in some of the best ways, as well as some of the worst. It can be pretty addictive, if grindy and sometimes harsh. Some of the design decisions are mean, though. Once you've read some guides and learned how things scale, you'll realize that about half the skills in the game are dead-ends. An informed player can only decide whether to level them up once for immediate relief, or not at all for long-term viability. Mages in particular are level 7 or 8 before they can start spending points on spells, while Summoners get all of their skills almost immediately and have to pick two (or else spread points too thin to the point of them all being useless). While Summoners have to commit to their skill sinks, other endlessly-levelable skills, like the paladin heal, are dead ends (for much fewer skill points, a Priest spell does better later on). As a result, you can easily cripple your party, and adaptability is low - you can't reasonably swap weapons according to enemy type; at most, you can use the most appropriate character's mana more liberally and add in some consumables. The Amulet of Golot DLC is a mildly pay-to-win sort of add-on, perma-binding itself to an inventory slot on your main character and occasionally granting your entire team skill points. If you're thinking about Xulima, consider getting the Deluxe whenever it's on sale for a big discount. Microsoft Excel is the real must-have DLC for this game. There might be some joy in planning your stable of one-trick ponies, but the dead ends and lack of respecs make playing out a botched party unsatisfying on Normal and unworkable on higher settings. If you can accept that hazard, then have at it.
Desktop Dungeons is a fun and addictive RPG-puzzler with an unpredictable but surprisingly fair (for the most part) random component. It also has a nice and active wiki with a substantial page full of beginner articles followed by links to articles for races and classes, written by the game's veterans, any of whom have been playing since the early alpha builds. This same community was actively involved in bringing this game to its impressive state of balance, and continues to be active on the QCF Design forum. There are also some good YouTube play videos, such as those from JayPlaysGames. Inspired by the rogue-like Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, but having evolved into a sort of an RPG puzzler, Desktop Dungeons is the opposite of RPGs like Final Fantasy which are about endless grind and discourage using precious consumables. Instead, Desktop Dungeons frees the player to make bold and carefully planned decisions regarding inventory management, level-up heals, and even the worship of gods. Inventory space is precious and limited, but most items can be destroyed in exchange for its conversion points. Converting an item may please a god who hates that type of item, while the conversion points themselves count toward the gain of a buff or potion depending on the player's race for that run. Even unexplored tiles are a scarce resource, healing the player (but also the enemies) as they are uncovered. The game starts out easy and ramps up the difficulty and complexity nicely over time with an unfolding supply of unlockable content. While earlier dungeons are forgiving, in later dungeons it becomes important to pay close attention to the strengths and weaknesses of enemies and leverage every resource, casting very valuable spell glyphs one last time before sending them off for the conversion points at the end of a fight. The last-second considerations needed to stretch your resources for one more attack often lead to the sort of close calls that make gaming exciting.
I couldn't make myself finish Fire Emblem, and I won't get far with this game. The reason for this is derpy AI combined with perma-death mechanics that totally eclipse everything that PvE would have otherwise had going for it. A fun tactical game is one where you can barely win against a strong enemy. Fire Emblem, and now Telepath Tactics, is the kind of game where you play with AI derps and feel like you have to reload every time a single unit dies. TT has a ton of AI derps, including "lolol, I'll just walk onto that stun trap now." Occasionally they'll attack the trap instead of walking on it, but not often. Even Casual Mode has permanent penalties associated with deaths, which for me sends the message that yeah, you still have to reload every time someone dies, so is not helping at all. The battles lull you to sleep until you slip up and someone finally takes three hits in one turn and goes from 100 to 0 and then you start swearing. At any rate, what I wanted was a harder game without permadeath, not an equally easy game with soft-permadeath. Equipment breakage is also sort of annoying, especially when the interface facilitates swapping weapons much more poorly, but this is relatively minor and I can more easily see pros and cons to the approach. But perma-death in a squad composed entirely of non-renewable characters with plot lines? Ewww, no. Life is too short for Fire Emblem reload spam nonsense. It looked plot-wise and mechanics-wise that there was a good game in there somewhere, but the AI is super-derpy and the interface is bad, including dumb auto-pathing for your units (directly through traps, campfires, etc). The plusses are traps, position manipulation, etc. in fairly fresh forms. PvP might be good if you know anyone who's up for it, so I'm stuck attempting not to let one of my biggest pet peeves overwhelm my score given. If permadeath, interface, and derpy AI don't grate on you too much, give it a spin.
Compared to the first title, Inquisition, this game has less roleplaying and is more linear. The "shadow world" mechanic is about as shallow as it was last time around. Dialog and plot interaction is not as good or deep as in the first, and the "mysterious hooded dude" shtick seems disappointingly straight-faced, and you're stuck interacting him at every plot point for... at least two chapters, maybe more. Definitely a step or two down. The optimization in this game is indeed bad. Sometimes I can't tell whether I'm actually CCed, lagging, or if the game's movement control is a little buggy. I don't have a top-notch computer, but other games of similar graphic quality run smoother and without instilling doubt. Control is slightly better overall than in Inquisition, but it still feels a little clunky. Spells are mostly skillshots and seem to behave well, but trying to move your character, not failing to move, and not knowing why kind of sucks. And yes, as mentioned elsewhere, load screens are a bit long. Additionally, backtracking to waypoints to heal manually is a bit of a chore and weirdly antiquated, as well. Crafting as of March 2015 is a total craps shoot. You occasionally can find what you need to upgrade what you want, but usually not, and the only store in town that sells Leather stores one or maybe three of them, when you need 8-20 per recipe - same with Bronze, etc. Empty vials are in a similar place, so you end up crafting a few of your favorite potions and using crafting to make Weak Healing Herbs 99.5% of the time. You can't queue up a stack of them to craft all at once, either. The upside is a tag team battle system. The Devourer initially absorbs a character of your choice and acquires a varied collection of additional PCs throughout the game, highly varied in species and combat role. You choose three to bring along at a time, allowing for cooldown juggling antics and passive regen swap-outs. Definitely worth it on sale at the least.
I want to point out something I learned on the forums. If you owned the Gold edition prior to this release, then your Guacamelee Gold on your Account shelf includes a redeemable code for a one-time 66% discount for the Super Turbo Championship Edition. I do not know whether future buyers of the Gold edition receive the same code or not. The lowered rating is almost certainly a backlash against the thought of making people pay the full price for what should have been a DLC update. The update code accomplishes more or less the same end, though. However, I agree that this should have been packaged and advertised as a DLC. The lack of transparency could easily cause someone to not even use their code. (Four stars because I would have given more or less the same score to Gold. Lots of personality is in this game, but the mechanics didn't feel especially deep or innovative to me. I may or may not purchase Chamionship at some time.)
About ten years later, this game is a faithful continuation of its predecessors, not much more or less. There are some substantial core mechanics changes that will please some and displease others. Hero units are more nuanced and balanced than ever, though. The graphics are 3D, modern, and blingy. Unfortunately, they're a bit squinty and it takes some camera manipulation to find just the right scale where you can see the big picture without units looking like ants. The clarity and economy of sprites is something I miss, but the simple decision could have been made to make each unit be represented as one soldier instead of several would have helped. The fact that damage output is *not* changed after health is lost and "soldiers" in a "unit" die basically is there way of saying that yes, it's essentially just one unit for all intents and purposes, but we're going to make the game "epic" by making the game squinty to play. If you can get over that, there is probably a great multiplayer experience to be had, if you can find a good skill match. Unfortunately, the AI is frozen in 2004, and the campaign communicates with the player badly. You might be roleplaying as a hippie tree hugger based on the lore, but literally the *only* way to advance the campaign past a given map will be to goad your neighbor into a war. Earlier games at least told you who your enemies were up front. Otherwise the AI here is comparable to that from AOW1, 2, and SM in just about every way, and it's a pity. I would have paid $40 for an AI patch for AOW1, since a dumb AI that makes up for it by cheating (at higher difficulty levels) makes for a lopsided and frustrating experience. Veteran players will eventually find that the game is too easy when it's fair, but requires some wacky AI behavior exploits to win when it's not fair. + A legitimate AoW offering - Squinty battles in all but carefully-chosen camera settings - Needs better AI + Game mechanics changes are more or less good IMO
