The gameplay is a loop of purchase/upgrade/position units followed by an autobattle which usually lasts from 3 to 20 seconds with no input from the player. The campaign consists of three worlds, and each world is a linear progression through about 15 battles culminating with a boss fight. There are minimal choices to be made regarding progress through the world (usually you get to choose twice per world from two alternatives like shop or elite fight). The core of the game is the selection and upgrade of troops. Before every battle you are presented with a "shop" of 6 units. If you have 3 zombie squads, you could position them separately, or you could merge them into one level 2 zombie squad. Early on you use tier 1 units, but later you probably should exchange most of them to higher tiers. Most units have special abilities of the type "at the start of combat gives +1 defense to all neighbors" - these are cumulative from battle to battle. It is using and abusing them that creates your strategy and there are a lot of options to play with. What makes this game fun is that it is difficult - by sheer luck I managed to beat the campaign on the normal difficulty level on the first try, but now I am stumped to repeat this feat. There are two more difficulty modes, about 10 commanders to unlock, an arena mode, and GoG achievements that look interesting.
This is a relaxing puzzle game that gives you challenges that are hard, but reachable (on the "giant" difficulty, at least). There are always many ways to accomplish your tasks, but it is not trivial to figure them out. There is very little time pressure, and it can be turned off altogether with the "pacifism" mode. You will create a planet that will typically have about 30 patches of ground and 3 to 5 cities, each governed by a different leader. Typically up to 2 biotica (i.e. plants, animals, and minerals) fit in each patch. There are complex interactions between available items and you have to build up your position to use the strongest ones. The progress of the cities is governed by acquisition of food, science, and wealth - these come as abstract numbers given by biotica - as well as completing the individual quests of the leaders. A full playthrough consists of a prelude and three acts, and depending on act choices game rules may be modified. There are achievements and a ton of new game elements to unlock. The game is a true successor to Reus 1. It keeps the same general idea and theme, but its mechanics is new and very interesting. After about 20 planets I feel I am still learning the game and am eager to come for more.
The main gameplay consists of acting out combat in two 3x3 grids, one occupied by your character, and the other by monsters. You typically have different attacks and skills that affect enemies in a horizontal or vertical axis, or a combination of the two, and the monsters have their own attack patterns. The attacks you can use have a cooldown, so usually you strike and have to move around a bit, dodging blows and using support skills. A typical run into the cave will consist of up to 25 battles and will take between 30 and 60 minutes. In between combats there will be opportunities to acquire new skills and items. There is a lot of stuff to unlock. You start with a single character, but there are two more; each character needs to be played a bit before he is at his full potential in future runs, and, once you beat the game, additional difficulty levels will open up. This game will not be for everybody, but if you enjoy roguelikes, like to find OP combinations, and don't mind pixelated graphics, you can have a lot of fun here - I did. Once you do find the winning strategies the game becomes relatively easy to overcome, but still satisfying. An interesting and novel mechanic is to limit the number of available moves in a battle. Once you exceed this quota, you start losing health.
A party of 4 heroes out of 6 uses 4 skills out of 12 to plow through about 50 battles arranged in a linear order, each battle having between 1 and 6 phases. Contrary to the description, there are no RPG elements whatsoever or story choices to be made. Strategy layer is rather shallow, too - I never needed to switch my initial selection of heroes or skills. A lucky tile cascade can kill anything, including bosses, so instead of strategizing it is quicker just to replay until you get lucky. The game can be finished in two evenings, and the gameplay is a loop of fight/upgrade statistics. One can't help the feeling that the project was more ambitious, but the randomness of the game mechanics steamrolled over the nuances the authors wanted to bring out. There are control problems: one move in about 4 will not register immediately and will need to be repeated (tested on two computers). Also, the game is not suitable for the 4:3 displays. Having said all that, playing this game was fun for me, and the price is reasonable. You can pick it up for a short session of a few minutes of casual fun, it doesn't tax your brain too much, and even defeats give you a noticeable progress.
(The bug reported in the review from July the 8th is now finally fixed in the GoG version and the game is playable again.) It is a pleasant rougelite game. You have 3 different warriors under your command in tactical battles on a 9x9 grid. Each battle lasts about 2 minutes, and a whole complete run takes between 1 and 2 hours. There are different upgrade options in between, and each run usually brings about new unlocks, encouraging you to try again with different party and different approach. There are challenges, achievements, and hard modes to keep you occupied even when you know the game well. I find the graphics charming and the mechanics interesting. Other games in this genre I've found on GoG are Warriors of the Nile 1 and Defend the Rook.
A typical run consists of playing up to 27 maps, each of which takes about 1 to 2 minutes once you are familiar with the opponents and mechanics. The game encourages trying out different things, and, as you play, you unlock new perks, skills, items, and characters, giving you a feeling of progress even if you fail to complete a run. Later on harder modes become available, with the last ones being a considerable challenge. A 100% completion takes some patience, luck, and about 1 month of evening playing. If you like turn based combat that feels a bit like a puzzle then it might be worth it to give this game a try.
(Review based on my DOS era gameplay experience) This flight sim differed from its contemporaries by trying to deliver a more realistic and immersive overall experience. This is not an arcade game, you do not get to jump right into action and shoot down 10 planes and bomb 5 targets in one go. First, you can tweak the mission plan (either for your flight alone, or, if you feel like it, you can adjust combat roles of all wings flying it, or pick a target and design your own mission). After take off, there is always a transition phase of the oversea flight, followed by building up tension, intense few minutes over target area, and a return leg home, sometimes damaged, sometimes chased. This game was played for period immersion, not arcade action. What made it feel different was that you couldn't just press T to cycle targets. You had to pick targets manually from radar clutter. There was no confirmation that the target was destroyed, you had to rely on visual observation. The MiG was hit and is trailing smoke, but is it down, or just damaged and limping home? Was that fireball the end of that power plant, or is it just damaged? The game makes numerous references to the "Flight of the Intruder" novel by Stephen Coonts - the pilots from it are actually present in the game - and my physical copy even came bundled with this book. To my tastes the graphics and visuals felt somewhat spartan in comparison to other flight sims, even back when it was released.
[A review from the point of view of the early phase of the campaign - there might be other stuff I haven't unlocked yet] This is a nice title, but I'd say the gameplay falls more along the lines of King's Bounty the Legend or HoMM Online than the HoMM series. You upgrade your town only in between playing maps, using resources gathered during actual tactical gameplay. Once you enter the map it is you against various immobile stack of monsters guarding resources and other map objects. There are opportunities to upgrade the hero and recruit creatures, but no town build-up happens on a map. I haven't seen enemy heroes moving on the map either. Food supply serves as a soft cap on the number of turns you can spend on the map. Each scenario has its own set of objectives and modifiers, making gameplay varied. There is an incentive to replay maps in form of various optional challenges. Judging by the file structure, there are about 40 scenarios. It doesn't look as if there is a random map generator.
The H scenes in game are restricted to 12 short, animated, noninteractive clips, with the quality of animation resembling early age of first generation of 3D graphics cards. The character development of the two main girls is nonexistent. There is also one image per extra character, but the art style of these is not consistent; some seem to be scans of pencil drawings. The crafting system is not balanced. There is no incentive to invest time to create something good if you can in the same time churn out four mediocre weapons and have bigger income. Some aspects of gameplay (conventions) exist, but can be safely ignored. This game looks like a community project that has not yet been given polish and shine, only a nice packaging.
I played this game in the DOS era. While it does have RPG elements, it is, at its core, an adventure game. There is no random content, all locations are predesigned. While set in the 20th century, the story immediately thrusts you into a rural region that has a low fantasy feel to it (Romania and Dracula spring to mind). Modern times references are sparse and do not spoil the mood of the story. Horror elements are present as elements of the story, but this game will not give you scares. In order to finish the game you have to complete multiple quests/puzzles that lead up to the confrontation with the final evil, but the order in which you do them is not predetermined and the story mostly does not have a linear feel to it. The adventure part of the game is of reasonable difficulty and I was never perplexed for what to do next for long. RPG-style combat is interspersed between them, but is not the main part of the game. I had very much fun discovering new locations, talking to interesting characters, and figuring out the puzzles. Sadly, as in most adventure games, there is no reply value.
