The Mummy Demastered is a metroidvania. A genre where you get powers and backtrack to get into different areas using those powers. The powers you get are boring; running faster, jumping higher, grabbing on to the ceiling. A semi interesting power is walking underwater, which makes some areas harder as you can't actually swim. Before this point you would float despite wearing heavy armour. The art is beautiful, the music unmemorable. Of course like every Castlevania game this too needs a clock tower, one of the more annoying areas. Especially when you consider that getting hit will knock you back and make you fall. The worst part of the game though is the way death is handled. When you die you lose everything, health upgrades, weapons, everything. Now get back to where you were and kill the zombie soldier, while he's using your weapons. Kill him with the default gun. Due to this amazing disadvantage, I died 8 times, 7 of those were trying to get back what I'd lost the first time I died. Doors are not shown on the map, ensuring you'll have to backtrack more than you're required to. There's a lot of doors that require C4, there's no point equipping grenades or fire grenades once you've unlocked C4 due to this. I don't know why you're even able to switch back. Don't play this, play a great Metroidvania like Hollow Knight instead. Even during its best moments The Mummy Demastered is an average game.
I loved the story of Edith Finch, a story I do not wish to spoil. How it would end was obvious way before it ended, yet how it happened still surprised me. The controls are a bit weird, felt like they were intended for a controller; this does not mar the experience, it's something you can mostly get used to. The game is a walking simulator, telling of the curse of the Finch family. Short stories are told about each family member and what happened to them. Each story is told, shown and interacted with in a unique way. One story near the end stood out for me, though I liked almost all of them anyway. Edith Finch is a game I would definitely recommend you experience. Even if the pricetag and the runtime of two hours bothers you I implore you to pick it up when it hits the right price for you.
Last Day of June is a puzzle game in which you try to find a way to save June. Your wife June, not the month. The gimmick of this game is taking control of other characters during one day, changing the behaviour of characters to try and prevent certain events. The art is great, aside from the crazy amount of Depth of Field they used for some reason. Certain scenes just look extremely strange due to this. The few scenes where you drive a car just felt bad. The gameplay is just... walking towards stuff and interacting. There's a few collectibles spread out over the map which you'll get access to as you progress. The game can be frustrating as the nature of it ensures you will see certain cutscenes more than once. You cannot skip them or speed them up in any way. Even if a cutscene is 3-5 seconds this can get extremely frustrating. The slow walking speed of characters does not help either. The frustration I occasionally felt while playing Last Day of June did not erase the charm it has, definitely a game you should play.
Aer is a platformer where you can turn into a bird and fly. The problem that instantly shows itself is that you can only turn into a bird outside, forced to do platforming in caves/dungeons. The platforming is fine, but it feels disappointing that the flying wasn't made use of in the dungeons. The dungeons have very simple puzzles which only avoided boring me due to the short length of the game. The ending is terrible, when you get there you will see a cutscene of a fight with the final boss starting. Then it fades to the credits. I suppose they planned to make a sequel. This ending was especially annoying due to the dungeon preceding it just being a walk through the dark following a light with no interactables or puzzles. If they do make a sequel I hope they take advantage of the flying. Even if the game looks really pretty, I cannot justify recommending it on that basis alone.
A sequel to "The Ball". This one is a survival game with an actual story, a path to follow and lots of hidden secrets. Difficulty can be changed between 0-400%. As such it can be a grueling challenge to survive or a cakewalk. There's a helmet of sorts around the edges of the screen, mostly just annoying. Saving isn't frequent, though you can sleep at any time as long as conditions are good to save. The way text on tablets you find slowly appears is annoying. I get what they were going for with a machine translating it, however this doesn't make it any better dealing with this when every second gets you closer to dying. Like they couldn't decide whether it truly was an exploration or a survival game. Is the story worth it? No, it's pretty simple and not that interesting. It obscures details early on to keep you interested; this would work if not for the fact the game is 12+ hours long. If every location was shorter/smaller the game would've been better off. Currently the game just feels exhaustingly long.
Ruiner is a Twin-Stick Shooter and... it's ok. Combat feels good when you kill someone, but the process of getting there with bullet sponge bosses isn't great. Sometimes I wouldn't have been sure I'd hit a boss if not for the giant health bars. Combat got repetive about 3 hours in, the game took 5 hours to complete. The feeling of repetition in combat is also due to fights locking you in arenas for too long with no real danger to you. Kinda torn on whether to recommend this honestly, the main draw is supposed to be the combat and that has its issues. I would still recommend this if you're drawn in by the art style like I was. Just don't expect a story that will satisfy you
Pharaonic has "tactical" combat. What this means is that it's Dark Souls. Slow, well timed attacks. You can even parry. Now imagine that in 2D. It doesn't work, you keep getting stuck in corners, rolling everywhere to get away. The art is alright, Egypt looks decent. Too bad about the horrendous Depth of Field, sometimes even used on objects in front of the player. Levels are mazes, even when you have a map it's a hassle to access it. Open inventory, go to items, scroll to the map. I don't remember any of the music. I wasted 20 hours on this, at least while watching Youtube videos on my second screen to stop me from getting too bored. I didn't grind but did reach max levels due to having to repeat unfair battles. I have nothing else to say about the game other than that I can't recommend playing it and that I can see why it sold badly.
You can walk on walls, switch between two forms. Art style's pretty good, nothing else stands out.
You play as a student stuck in school, hiding from his teacher that wants to stab him. Collect resources for your inventory that can only hold 6 things. Collect money to buy specific things you need. Basically it's like Outlast, running from the killer while trying to accomplish your objectives. I liked this one, the art style is great and the plot is intriguing enough. Visual design with the killer and the environments is great. Got stuck for a bit due to a key item appearing in an area I'd already explored earlier than required. The gameplay gets a bit repetitive before the end. This doesn't get overly annoying due to the game being about 4-5 hours long.
Ever wanted to play a game where you don't control the character but you tilt the world? I've heard LocoRoco is good, play that instead. Welcome to a platformer(?) where you control liquid. Cry as your liquid disappears offscreen which you could do nothing about and thus lost forever. Weep as you fail the level right before the end due to this constantly happening. Isn't it fun when physics apply to your character(?) to such an extent that you don't feel like you have proper control? You would think so, but sadly when I actually played it I disagreed. There's quite a bit of content, game is fine until the latter half/third where the difficulty ramps up to ridiculous/annoying levels.
