Wandersong is a delightful game that provides a refreshing dose of positivity and charm. Despite not having a depth of gameplay, the core directional singing mechanic is well developed throughout the game and is cleverly used to reinforce the themes of the story.
This game is a love letter to old-school adventure games, cyberpunk and 90's hacker culture. It is beautifully presented with a score exactly as good as you would expect from "Master Boot Record". As a faithful recreation of traditional adventure games, it comes with all of the flaws of the old ways. Some of the puzzles are painfully obscure and I had to resort to a guide on a few occasions. It's not full "moon logic", but it get close at times. The story is self indulgent in a similar way to Ready Player One (what if my hyper-specific niche was necessary to save the world) but with general 80's pop-culture ephemera replaced with 90's hacker terms and references. As self-indulgent as it is, it does manage to remain charming for the majority of it's runtime.
Void Bastards combines the best elements of the rogue-lite and looter shooter genres to create an addictive (if somewhat repetitive) gameplay loop. The presentation is also some of the slickest I have seen from a small-scale studio. The 2D enemy sprites against the flat-shaded 3D environments look fantastic, the lore and humour of the narration had me chuckling throughout. The gunplay is decent, with most weapons having their time to shine at some stage throughout. Certain combinations of equipment and traits make the late game something of a cakewalk (which is perhaps the biggest weakness of the game), but the majority of my playthrough had really tense moments where I wasn't sure if I would make it out of the level alive. All in all, a very satisfying experience that is worth a buy just to see how great it looks.
