I played the original, Clear Sky, Call of Pripyat back in the day. I was never really "good" at them, but persevered because of the thick, amazing atmosphere and story. Now, I've only dipped into this latest one for a bit, but the old feels are back.
A few interesting puzzles, but mostly the game focuses on interactively telling a lovely little fairy tale with some fourth-wall-breaking. I particularly enjoyed playing it in the original German ... Werner Wilkening's voice acting really brought back old "Hoerspiele" vibes
Captures the spirit of old SNES games quite well, including some slightly tricky/frustrating sequences (the mine cart ride brought back memories of Donkey Kong)
Nostalgia, packaged in a modern gameplay sensibility. Some of the boss fights were a bit infuriating, but overall reasonably fair difficulty. The pixel art and music are outstanding, as can be expected by this developer.
The controls do leave a lot to be desired, but nonetheless a very atmospheric horror survival pastiche with a great story.
The setting and story were fun, particularly with the nordic slant. Got stuck on three slightly obtuse puzzles that didn't really give sufficient clues, and the fact that some actions/options only become available after doing certain things/talking to certain people. Overall though, a fun experience. One major flaw: even though I saved before the choice/point of no return at the end, the save was overwritten after the choice, so wasn't able to load it to see the other ending ... and no, not going to play through the whole thing again just for that.
A very simple skinner box, but nonetheless it's great to roam the streets of Kamorocho grinding more experience with the constant fights
Having grown up with all the big robot/mecha TV shows in the early 80s in Italy, this took me right back to my childhood. And you can tell the developers were true fans as well. Yes, gameplay itself gets repetitive quite early on, and ranges from ridiculously easy to unfair (when fighting larger groups of robots with their individual "shields" that need to be broken in a specific way first). Some of the auto-targeting manages to be consistently wrong, which makes some challenges (the ones where you try to destroy the orbs that power one central hub) unnecessarily difficult. And yes, there's quite a few visual glitches when fighting near mountain ranges, with enemies or your own robot clipping into the landscape/under mountains...but at least you never get actually stuck. I'd have liked some sort of rewards - like an extra fight - for doing the post-ending completion destroying all the bases for good...but it's all good, and for the price, I had an absolutely nostalgia-drenched blast. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbPjl9UGMTyeRJ56E7mHwgPA7jxjqTPwc
The entire map offers a variety of uniquely designed environments, all with very different feel. The environments are nicely detailed, and help the immersion. While the story takes a bit of a tonal turn in the last third, and has moments of cheese, it's still very enjoyable (except for some of the long "walk with me" pseudo-interactive cutscenes. Very similar to Mad Max in its overall gameplay loop, and I wasted hours on that one back in the day as well.
A wholesome and lovely adventure. Sends you back to the days of summer adventures as a kid.
