Crying suns has lots of style but lacks depth. The core principle borrows heavily from FTL, the battles, story and presentation stand on their own. The art is well crafted, the art direction seems inconsistent to me though: the animated sequences and characters are pixel art and everything else is high res 3D. This resembles the storytelling - the world and factions are worked out in far more detail than the characters, which is kind of typical for science fiction writing. Gameplay is ok, smooth and without any noticeable bugs, very repetitive though. Once you learn the controls and the very basic mechanics of the battles and events nothing new will happen. Basically each of the 6 chapters are exactly the same with some random events and slight story progression. Also, boss-fights are the same as normal fights, just lightly harder. The final fight is just a few boss-fights after each other. Design-wise I don´t like that you can´t load a saved game after you die, but have to start over the entire chapter. So for example, when you are taken down by the boss at the end of a chapter then it´s 2-4 hours of gameplay you just have to repeat. That should give you some sense of urgency I guess. But for me it just results in playing on "easy" all the time because I don´t have that much time to waste.
There is a lot to like with this game, but there is also a lot that can and most likely will put you of. The unique story, setting, world building, storytelling and the beautiful 2D-graphics are amazing. It was a very ambitious game for it´s time and it shows. Negatives are the butt-ugly, unpractical, clumsy, unnessesary 3D-engine, and the unforgiving difficulty at the beginning. My guess is that these very high barriers to enter an otherwise wonderful classic game will most likely deter anyone who has no nostalgia for it.
I love the setting, the ambition and many of the games elements, clearly much love was put into this. But for me this just didn´t work. Unfortunately one of the core-mechanics - the card-based fighting-system - is completely intransparent and no fun at all. You can skip it though and have the game calculate the outcome of fights and challenges automaticly. I really wanted to like Thea, because it does many things I like in games, but after a few hours of playing, the fun just wasn´t there. It seemed more like a grind through a generated map, a time eater that tries an combines many things, but does none of them very well.
The game is a classic that has aged very well. Visuals, sound and controls are very nice, the writing and the atmosphere are terrific. The expence is severely impacted by grafic bugs and random crashes, at least on my system. Overall the game itself gets 4-5 stars from me, I have to grade it down to 3 because of those incredibly annoying bugs. Ein Klassiker mit technischen Problemen. Das Spiel selbst ist wunderschön. Grafik, Sound, Steuerung, Atmosphäre, Geschichte - alles top für ein etwas älteres Spiel. Es gibt aber massive Grafik-Bugs und häufige Systemabstürze, jedenfalls auf einem PC, die den Spielspaß erheblich dämpfen.
This one feels very nostalgic. It´s a solid game for it´s time, the grphics are crisp and functional, but everything feels very repetetive and clunky.
The game looks great, game design, graphics and sound design are very well done. Plenty of atmosphere and challenging screens but never unfair. The controls work well but take some getting used to. Everything is desinged by hand by a passionate team, no repetetive procedurally generated bullshit. As an occasional gamer I like that the experience is short but tight and well crafted. I experienced a few bugs, sometimes I "fell through the screen" for no reason, but that worked itself out after reloading.
Dex is an odd game that combines a variety of good things we have already seen to create a something compelling and unique. Jump´n un, Metroidvania, RPG, Brawler - it´s all there and is surprisingly well done and coherent. The story is engaging and the motivation level is high since th game itself is very rewarding. It took me a while to get used to the controls but once I figured them out the game was non stop fun to me. It is also well presented and runs like a charm.
The game runs well, looks good and has lots of mechanics that sound cool - but is very confusing at best. So there are 50 factions, but it would make no difference if it had just been 5 since they don´t have anything that sets them apart from each other except their label. The controls feel awkward and most of the time enemy ships fly just out of sight, while your laser turrets take them dowm automaticly. The story fails to captivate and the characters don´t mean anything to you, while the endless mode is pointless and generic. I love space-sims, but this one is a mayor disapointment. Maybe the game´s meant for experienced gamers that have plaed the first part of the series, but to a newcomer it´s just a mess of joyless features that would have benefitted from a much tighter design, a tutorial or first chapter that actually introduces players to the gameplay and the in-game-world and from a story that gives you something to care about.
Titan Quest does the ARPG-formula very well and offers a unique setting and atmosphere. It runs as smooth as silk due to continiuous updates and improvements. However, the story is rather thin and the action is not very challenging, but quite repetetive. The different chapters are too long in my opinion, more challenging quests and more interesting story elements could have spiced them up. The graphics are done with lots of care and attention to detail and aged very well. Overall a very well made casual hack-and-slash experience in a great setting.
