#game reviews

[repressed-n-depressed]

suuuuuuuuper disappointed with Fashion Dreamer, but I'm still having fun with it and don't regret buying it. it's such a step back from Style Savvy in every single category. literally does everything worse.

there's zero narrative or storyline

customization of clothing is literally just changing the colors, there's no textures or emblems or anything to add

sorting through your clothes is an utter nightmare. the old games let you filter by like… aesthetic type, category (not just "is a leg item" but getting as specific as "leggings" or "tube socks"); in this, all you can do is filter by the broadest category and since you have tons of stuff it's a nightmare

the gender binary, booooo

tons of categories of items are missing from old style savvy games, no handheld items whatever and it doesn't seem like necklaces, gloves, bracelets or any hand accessories whatsoever are there either

you can't save outfits. wtf!!! in ALL of the old games you can save a bunch of outfits you made, in this one you simply cannot. good luck remembering all the items you used when you have 7000 of them and no way to sort.

can't zoom in while dressing up, so good luck guessing what color a lot of those really thin eyeglasses and the like are. thought they were pink? nope sorry they were brass actually

there's no layering whatsoever. you used to have an outer layer and an inner layer, and you could wear all kinds of dresses, shirts etc over the inner layer to make nice looking combinations of things like corsets and stuff like that. and you could wear skirts over pants. now, nope, just one layer for tops (not counting jackets) and bottoms, and anything that looks "layered" came pre-made that way

the coolest items are locked behind a fricken GACHA

it is absolutely still a fun game to play if literally all you want to do is dress up a character to make numbers go up. i'm enjoying myself despite literally all of this. the Photo Egg is fun, the drone to take photos around the areas is a good feature. most of the clothing is very cute, and i'm glad to be able to customize them so that they aren't gratingly different shades of grey or whatever and make a coordinated outfit.

but whoof, without the store aspect and the little character storylines from dressing your various customers, the whole thing feels just as empty and hollow as i expected.

i will still be playing way too much of it though. anyone wanna be Fashion Dreamer friends? lol

#fashion dreamer #style savvy #game reviews #rambling #nintendo switch

[exquisite-steam-reviews]

#lethal company #steam reviews #funny #steam #game reviews

[blerdyotome]

Sympathy Kiss Otome Review - Find Your Work/Love Balance

Sympathy Kiss is a slice-of-life office romance otome game developed by Otomate and published in English by Idea Factory International. Move over Voltage Inc., Otomate is coming for your bag! Balance work and play with Akari and her coworkers at Estario in this mature office romance.

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#game #Game Reviews #Idea Factory International #Nintendo Switch #otomate #otome #otome games #Otome Review #Sympathy Kiss

[pixelplantgamer]

My November set up! 🍂🙌🏼

I decided to take out all the pumpkins and go with a more neutral pallet and I love it! I’m obsessed with the cute little leaf garland and all the pinecones -I love using natural materials on my set up! 🎮🌲

#gaming #gaming setup #my setup #setup #gamers of tumblr #tumblr girls #cosy #cosy fall #cosy games #cosy gaming #video games #pc games #cozy games #fantasy games #mobile games #games #gamer #game reviews #gamer fun #gamercommunity #gamergirl #gamerlife

[autolenaphilia]

I finally finished Black Mesa, the 2020 remake of the original Half-life from 1998.

It really is an impressive achievement. It started as a fan-lead project to remake the original Half-Life in the Source engine used in Half-life 2. Valve had their own source engine port of the game in 2004, but it was a basic port that didn’t take advantage of the engine and pretty much made the game worse, due to adding bugs. So fans decided that year to do what Valve did not, and do a proper remake. The result was Black Mesa. The first release was as a free mod in 2012, which contained a remake of all the chapters actually set in Black Mesa. The developers Crowbar Collective got official blessing from to release it on Steam as a commercial product, which happened in 2015, still without the Xen chapters of the original, so it was an early access title. But after several years of development, the Xen chapters was added as a beta in 2019, and the game finally fully released in 2020, after about 16 years of development. It’s an incredible story alone.

It also got a native linux version, which is nice.

And the end result is a very slick, professional product. It’s far more than a graphical update, but often redesigns both the story and the level design.

It’s remarkably faithful at times, the game plays pretty much the same as the original, there are no modern fps mechanics. And I was surprised at the first-person platforming, a controversial part of the original game, is not only there in Black Mesa, but expanded upon. There is a lot of silly platforming design in Half-Life, like the crates hanging over a bottomless pit, the rivers of radioactive green goo, the ridiculous waste processing plant in the chapter Residue Processing, that is still there in Black Mesa. Xen was a platforming extravaganza in the original, and it is in Black Mesa too, and it’s even longer and more involved. And honestly I kinda liked the platforming more than the original. There are some quality of life changes, like simplified long jump controls and automated crouch jumping as an option, and some solid redesign to make it less frustrating.

Still there are major changes, and I was most impressed by the changes in how the story is conveyed. There is so much added to the story to make it more detailed and vivid. So many details are added, big and small. There is lots more npc dialogue, often specific to various situations. There is an incentive to keep guards and scientists alive, they will reward you with special dialogue for doing so. You can catch emergency radio broadcasts on radios that give you a picture of how the invasion is proceeding outside the Black Mesa research facility, something the original doesn’t give you a picture of. And in Xen, the situation of the vortigaunts being enslaved and forced to fight, hinted at in the original and explained in the sequel, is expanded upon and shown more vividly. There is even a new combat mechanic, where the alien controllers from the original now literally control the vortigaunts forcing them to attack you. Human intrusion into Xen is expanded upon as well, including hev suit-wearing headcrab zombies.

I really like the story changes, and I do think they meaningfully add to the story without making it a different one. The general idea is to make Half-life’s story more in-tune with Half-life 2 and its episodes, and it succeeds at that.

The level design varies in fidelity to the original. Sometimes it’s remarkably faithful, recreating large parts of the original levels, sometimes it’s radically different, bearing only similarity to the original at certain points. It’s most obvious in “On a Rail” which has been cut down and rearranged, and in the Xen chapters of the game. Xen has been much expanded upon, and radically redesigned. It’s the length of a full game, and took me about six hours to beat. It’s probably a bit over-long, the three levels seem to meander forever sometimes, but it’s good.

The revamped level design often takes inspiration from HL2 and its episodes, which makes it feel more coherent with the franchise. There are cable puzzles inspired by the episodes, for example.

The graphical update honestly was the bit that least impressed me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s impressive as a technical achivement, and Black Mesa can often be a very pretty game. It pushes the Source engine farther than its creators ever did. It does however demand more of the hardware than Valve’s Source games do, the system requirements are way higher than for Half-life 2 or the Portal games. And due to the game it is remaking it has to spend most of all that graphical firepower on rendering rather plain corridors, tunnels and offices. In the original Half-life, Black Mesa the facility is deliberately a drab place, with lots of quotidian details like coffee cups and office chairs to convey a sense of realism in spite of the graphical limitations and the sometimes outlandish level design.

And now Black Mesa can render its namesake facility in realistic detail, you can pick up the chairs and coffee cups now and throw them, because we now have physics. But that’s the problem with “more realistic” graphics, what is realistic is often not very visually interesting. It’s the story and level design changes that justify Black Mesa more so than the graphical update.

It’s illustrative that Black Mesa gets most visually interesting, can most justify its graphical hardware requirements, is when it abandons realism and the art design of the original game for the “Xen” chapter. Xen in Half-life was a very drab place as well, barren rocks floating in space. In Black Mesa, Xen is reimagined as this lush, surreal Roger-Deaneque Alien world, teeming with vegetation, water and wildlife. It has great art design and it is beautiful to look at. It is a welcome break from both the sterile human-made artificial environment that precedes it and the H.R Gigeresque alien factory environments that follow.

I have to talk about the music too, because Black Mesa’s composer follows a different philosophy from the original. Kelly Bailey’s music for the original game is very low-key, it’s quiet and ambient. In fact, any kind of conventional music is mostly absent for long stretches, replaced by quiet or sound ambience. The stretches of silence are still there in Black Mesa, but composer Joel Nielsen’s music is not quiet at all. In fact it’s outright bombastic at times, setting big firefight setpieces to rock guitar to convey how badass things are. Xen has Nielsen conveying the eerie beauty of the place with wailing woman vocals similar to Lisa Gerrard’s work on the Gladiator (2000) soundtrack. It’s well-done, but it establishes a very different musical idiom for Black Mesa than the original. It's more in tune with Bailey's more bombastic musical moments from later HL games like the hospital fight from HL2: EP1.

So while Black Mesa often remains remarkably faithful to its source material, I don’t think it replaces it. It’s a different game, a remake than a remaster. The differences do often help it rather than hinder it, and justify its existence when we already have Half-life.

But it’s no drop-in replacement for the original classic. The system requirements alone make it less accessible than the original Half-life. And Half-life is an objectively important game for its influence on other games, that Black Mesa can’t hope to replicate, and it’s a classic that you can still play with full enjoyment even today. Still Black Mesa does keep the core of what made Half-life so good to begin with. Intelligent, immersive and subtle storytelling mixed with engaging action and intuitive level design. Black Mesa is in that regard an excellent remake.

#black mesa #half-life #my writings #game reviews

[talesfromthebacklog]

Tales From The Frontlog: Princess Peach Showtime.

7/10

Princess Peach Showtime is good. It’s a game I’m willing to bet will be overlooked in the sea of Mario titles that exist on the Switch. It’ll probably be even a bit pricey down the line. The smaller weird titles like this tend to do that.

The best way to describe this game is that it’s a game about a being magical girl who uses various transformations to help people. When you look hard enough almost all the tropes are there and that alone makes this worth a pickup. Because games that are so blatantly like that are rare.

But you really feel like it’s missing something that could’ve made it truly special. Which is weird because it does offer a very complete experience. I guess the best way to put it is it has trouble feeling like a “Mario” world title. And not because Mario is missing. Give me some credit.

I had a fantastic time playing, but we’re about the dissect what I think Princess Peach Showtime is missing.

Firstly I want to get aesthetic out of the way. Partially because there were a lot arguments online if Peach was “fem” enough. Which was peak stupidity. Peach is the fem of fems. It was insane this was even an argument. Also these outfits rocked.

But more importantly her game really lacked that Mario pop. Peach is fun, the premise is great, but you really could swap out Peach for a different magical girl and the premise/world still work. Peach just sells better. And she’s cute. Just look at her.

And I’m not complaining about the absence of most of the Mario cast. Characters as individuals should be able to shine on their own. Peach being the only main cast member used was a great decision. But you don’t feel like you’re in that high fantasy Mario environment. Even when away from the Mushroom Kingdom mario still has a very specific look to it.

Mario is high fantasy in its own way. I wanted to see that better reflected in Princess Peach Showtime. Every once in a while you do see glimpses, specifically in a Paper Mario way. Where the backgrounds are obviously set dressing, the horses have strings, some thorns were cardboard cut out, etc.

I think they needed to lean into this more. In a way I think the environment needed to be less immersive. I get that “there’s evil magic” but I think it should’ve looked a bit more hokey like real plays. Also put some people in the audience watching Peach rescue people. Have curtains close at the end of levels instead of it fading to white and then closing. You’re closing the curtain. You don’t need the fade to white. They’re small details that would’ve gone a long way to really increase the look. Maybe even bring some of the lighting in as part of the platforming where you’re running on the equipment and then reenter on a stage over.

It might be a useless complaint. I think this might’ve been more of a quick budget title for Nintendo at the end of a console life cycle, but don’t quote me on that.

There’s small aesthetic nitpicks I have too.

Like what the fuck is this? And they do this with the green and blue dresses too where they add this clashing purple. I’m not going to sit here and tell you she looks hideous. She doesn’t, but let us have a dress that is completely blue! And they don’t match the shoe color to any of the dresses fyi. Those stay her traditional red. I know that’s a nitpick, like a really small one, but it still… bothers me. I understand why they put it there. I just don’t care. Purple and yellow? And so lazily executed? Hmpf.

And she obviously looks better when everything matches to some degree. Look at that! Why did they restrict the color palette on the dress options so much. I get that pink is her color but… come on. The costumes are allowed to break the mold but the dresses aren’t?

Also just missed opportunity for some simple easter egg dresses. Especially since some of those challenges are tedious as all get out. I did all that to earn this ⬇️ and not something genuinely cool. Fucking ick. It’s not bad looking but not worth doing a frustrating to control challenge for. I’m not even asking for new dress models. But let us put her in a Daisy dress or something. I don’t know.

And the levels… are always fun on a first play through. But if you’re playing without a guide as a completionist you’ll need to run through them more than once because it is easy to miss stuff. And it can be more time consuming than it’s worth. And when you’re on a fourth attempt that shit gets old quick.

Don’t get it twisted though: this game is short, sweet, and regularly mixes up the gameplay to keep gamer’s on their toes. There are no costumes or game mechanics that overstay their welcome. Whenever I walked into a new stage I was uncertain what I would be walking into and the costumes are all equally fun in different ways. They do a good job balancing out the adventure and recreation costumes too. So you get a break from faster paced action by baking instead. Smart. My favorite is you get a magical girl transformation for each new costume you get and only for the first time you get it.

The transformations are fun. Plain and simple.

From a gameplay perspective I don’t actually have that many complaints. It’s not complicated by any means, nor is it hard. But it’s not meant to be those things. Princess Peach Showtime is just a fun cozy game getaway. Maybe even something you play in between other games.

Then there’s Madame Grape. I get what they were going for. They wanted a fruit villain because they have a “fruit” protagonist. (I think there is an homage to Dionysus as well.) But it’s just very eh. I don’t know how to fix that to make it less eh. I think it’s a core design problem. Additionally Madame Grape, despite being mentioned throughout the entire story, isn’t very important. She is a vessel for the plot to exist. Which isn’t inherently a bad thing, a lot of Nintendo villains fill this role, but she also has no iconic qualities to her either. She’s just kind’ve this purple blob that shows up from time to time. I do like that Nintendo didn’t use Bowser though. It keeps the game female centric. So that’s cool.

I can’t get over how she needs to look more grape themed. I know Peach doesn’t necessarily have Peach themes but like… you could’ve told me she was the fucking plum queen and I would’ve believed you. But I’m nitpicking again.

Stella the helper is… nothing. She exists as the vessel to make Peach a magical girl. Stella is the magical girl pet/wand/narrator for the adventure. She’s not bad. She’s just nothing.

The other NPCs (both friend and foe) fall into that Nintendo hole of being the same cardboard cutout person in different costumes over and over too. (At least they had different costumes…) Which is to be expected at this point, they’re just “not Toads”. And I know not every game can have a Mario Odyssey budget but I feel like we needed more visual variety within the NPC cast. Though this is an old ass complaint folks have had about Mario titles for a while so I’m not going to dwell on it too much.

Also while “stars” make sense the little “not toads” should’ve been fruit themed too. That way you could at least swap out multiple colors and call them different “fruits” if you wanted to be lazy about it.

I guess that’s the issue with the game in general. The only real character that has any semblance of personality is Peach. Everything and everyone else is just set dressing so Peach can perform for the player. it makes sense but it leaves the world feeling empty. And I’m not asking for lore. This is not that kind of game. I think I just want more substance. Which is hard to do when you’re boiling down tropes into a 3 act structure for each costume.

And I have a lot of nitpicks here. Almost like I dislike the game. Which was not the case at all. I had a grand time. The costumes are fun, it’s fun to play all the way through, and the levels in the game itself also doesn’t overstay its welcome. At max you’re looking at a 12 hour experience if you’re a completionist.

Under ten if you just want to play it.

Visually the game is beautiful. The music was nothing to write home about.

But. I think because it’s a short experience I’m disappointed it didn’t push itself harder to be high aesthetic. Games that are both genuinely good and girly are hard to find. Often “feminine focused” games like this just fucking suck. You can tell Nintendo cared about this project.

But I think to be an 8 or 9 experience it needed to push its visuals a bit harder.

#princess peach #peach #princess toadstool #mario #mario bros #super mario bros #super mario #princess peach showtime #peach showtime #nintendo switch #nintendo #tales from the frontlog #magical girl #magical girls #video game review #game review #game reviews

[askagamedev]

How much, if at all, does how well received your games are affect your future job prospects? I understand that if you're new, it would be beneficial to show you've just pushed out something. What about a veteran dev? If you have bad reviewed games, does that factor into the hiring process?

A shipped game's reception really only affects the job prospects of the top leadership that made the biggest decisions about the game. If you weren't the executive producer or one of the top leads for a game, then your personal ability to affect the game's overall reception is actually very small - you do the best you can, but those kind of game-directing decisions are generally above your pay grade. The things a particular candidate worked on might not have anything to do with the bad reception a game got.

What is much more valuable is the experience you earned while building the badly-received game and how those lessons made you a better game dev. At an interview, the hiring manager will typically ask the key questions about your past game dev experience - what kind of work you did, what kind of difficult challenges you faced, what solutions you came up with to circumvent those challenges, and what you do differently if you had the opportunity to do it again. It speaks well of a candidate if they can show that they've learned their lessons and can apply those lessons to future projects.

Many of us veterans have badly-reviewed games on our resume. I've certainly got my share of stinkers on mine. I am actually proud of the work I did on the badly-reviewed games I worked on because I know that the work I did was well-done and that the quality of my work was absolutely not the reason the game was badly reviewed. If you ask me about any of them, I could tell you exactly what I did on that game, why I did it, how well it worked out, what worked and what didn't, and what I would do differently if I had a do-over opportunity. That's what I look for as a hiring manager too - I want to know whether candidates can overcome the challenges I expect them to face if I hire them. Most of this has very little to do with the reception a particular game got, especially for a candidate who isn't being considered for a leadership position.

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#game reviews #getting a job in the game industry #hiring process #game career advice

[but-a-humble-goon]

It's funny how game reviewers have stopped saying "this game doesn't have content" and started instead phrasing it as "this game still needs more content" because they're now thoroughly complicit with the new norm that modern AAA games are shamelessly rushed out the door unfinished and still expecting full price on the vague promise of it getting turned into an actual worthwhile experience eventually after a hundred content updates which will almost definitely never come. On a totally unrelated note the reviews for Skull and Bones have started dropping.

#gaming #videogames #skull and bones #game reviews

[jimquisition]

While I've often joked about hating videogames, there are many who claim my feelings are all too sincere, and those claims have increased since I returned to writing game reviews. Of course, I love many games, but here's the rub - the ones I love are the wrong videogames. 

Inspired by an amusing interaction I had in the wake of my Dead Island 2 review, I got to thinking about what is really meant when a critic is accused of hating the very medium they criticize. It's led to some interesting new perspectives on people who complain about game reviews.  

#game reviews #gatekeeping #game criticism #the jimquisition #James Stephanie Sterling

[the-goose-caboose]

Ok so slime rancher 2 is everything I hoped it’d be and more

(An early assessment by somebody who put upwards of 300 hours into the first game)

I tried to go in skeptical since i didn’t want for it to feel like a reskin of the first game but it delivered big time.

1. Graphics are beautiful even on lower settings

2. Early game is made more interesting, you start with slime science and running boots

3. Progression feels less grindy and more involved. Not only is slime science already unlocked but it’s how you upgrade your vac-pac and all other features like the jetpack. But the gathering of materials isn’t just putting a machine down and waiting, now you go and gather materials yourself!

4. Tar are a lot more common; I find myself running into tar way more often I did in 1 and in early game it becomes even more intense given that it takes more effort to get the water pack.

5. A lot of minor optimizations and adjustments that make the gameplay less frustrating. For me the first thing I noticed is that chickens reproduce quite a bit faster than in the previous installment.

6. The map feels fun to traverse and very interconnected. I constantly find myself discovering new shortcuts and secret areas, without having to look anything up.

The only issues i have with it are some minor bugs which only make sense given it’s early access status (and for those who have been burned before do not worry, the game will be completed as monomi park did with the first game) and these bugs very minimally have impacted gameplay.

And so, so much more. If you had looked at slime rancher 1 and weren’t entirely sold I definitely recommend giving 2 a try. It’s smoother, easier to explore and learn. And an experience I definitely see myself putting many hours into in the future.

And for my fellow fans of the first game it is definitely a worthwhile purchase

#slime rancher #slime rancher 2 #game reviews #long post #nd ramblings #neurodivergent rant #gaming #gamer #pc gamer #indie games

[arcticgraverobber]

I just finished: Deltarune Chapter 2!

It took me a loooooonnng time to get around to playing this, though perhaps it gave me a bit of distance to get a better feel for the game.

I played chapter 1 almost as soon as it was released, and at the time it really confused me - hot just because it originally purported to be a virus, but because I didn't really understand what it was going for: was this an Undertale sequel or not? Why are there Undertale characters here? Why does it seem to be okay to kill the enemies in this one?

Looking at Chapter 2 now I can see that it is a very distinct thing from Undertale, and fans of one could very easily not be fans of the other. In many ways Deltarune was what I expected Undertale to be before it came out, a much lengthier game with all kinds of puzzles to get around having to kill people. More of a traditional RPG experience, which I imagine possibly is what Fox wanted - and now with the funds and time to make it, is making slowly in parts with Deltarune. However - even if there are only 2 parts (out of seven, I think?) out, the games combined make a far lengthier game than Undertale was, which - unless you went for genocide - only took about 3hrs to beat.

Deltrarune doesn't seem to want to do anything super flashy, with Metanarratives and big twists like Undertale did - which is probably a very good choice, considering nothing is likely to stand up to the first time. This isn't to say it doesn't have anything like that, but the base of the game is just a good RPG - the world buidling is good, the characters are good, the puzzles and 'combat' are just good, not in some amazing new way, but they are GOOD.

I look forward to Chapter 3, and I expect I will feel very similar about to how I feel about this one and Chapter 1.

Grade: A

Significance: 1/3

#deltarune #undertale #deltarune chapter 2 #game reviews #games #reviews #videogames #rpg

[fridge-reviews]

Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate - Blast Review

Developer: PUNKCAKE Delicieux Rrp: £7.91 (Itch.io), £8.99 (Gog,com, Humble and Steam)

I've never been good at chess, I understand the rules but I just can't do that whole 'thinking several steps ahead' thing. But this... this I can do. You control the black king and you're trying to take your kingdom back one blast at a time.

You'd think that giving the King a shotgun would trivialise the game, and it would except each piece now has a health value and your shotgun deals inconsistent damage due to its firing spread. At the start of a run you can select which shotgun you'd like to use, as each has their own quirks. Of course, when you first start the game only one will be available to you.

Upon completing a level you have to choose between a set of cards, each set of cards has a black and a white card. The black card usually is beneficial to you, while the white aids the white pieces. These cards can completely change the way the game is played, from bishops that can move orthogonally to adding a Queen to the board every 10 turns.

This game doesn't have me clamouring to play more chess but it definitely makes me want to play more of this version. Definitely worth a look.

----

If you’d like to support me I have a Ko-fi, the reviews will continue to be posted donation or not.

#game review #games review #game reviews #video games #games reviews #video game #video gaming #indie #indie games #indie game #chess #shotgun king #punkcake delicieux

[exquisite-steam-reviews]

The reviews for Pal World are looking rather... grim

At least this guy enjoyed the AI generated game

#steam reviews #funny #steam #game reviews #pal world

[blerdyotome]

Radiant Tale Otome Review

It's showtime! Check out my review of the latest otome game localization, Radiant Tale!

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#Aksys Games #game #Game Reviews #Nintendo Switch #otomate #otome #otome games #Otome Review #Radiant Tale

[bearinthebiggamechair]

Autumn Switch Games

Graveyard Keeper

You wake up in the middle ages and are a graveyard keeper. Tend to your church, make friends with the local witch, talk to inquisitors, enjoy fishing, raise zombies, and find a way home. This game is one of the more complicated farming simulators, and is especially fun if you're looking for more involved gameplay.

DorfRomantik

A delightful, soothing, beautiful puzzle game. Use tiles to build a charming town with a minimalist UI. As you play, you unlock new tiles and different color palettes. This is a game I like to play at family gatherings or other events, because it's easy to pick up and put down, and anyone can appreciate the sweet aesthetics.

Strange Horticulture

An occult puzzle game, in Strange Horticulture you unlock new plants, pet your cat, and solve mysteries in order to discover the story. This game has a rather witchy vibe, and I love all the plant information.

Alchemist Simulator

Discover new potions and spells in Alchemist Simulator! The game is a little janky, but it's so much fun uncovering new recipes and ingredients.

The Flame in the Flood

You and your dog are trapped in a camp during a great flood. Repair your raft, navigate a huge river, forage supplies, avoid wolves, find shelter in the rain, and try to make it to the end of the river. This game is darker than some of the others on this list, but it is decidedly autumnal and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Bonus Game: Dome Keeper

Currently only available on PC, Dome Keeper is a brand new game released this year. Equal parts tower defense and resource management, in this game you are sent to an alien planet where you must mine for resources in between defending yourself from monster waves. This game is incredibly well designed, and the retro look and color palette make it perfect for a chilly autumn day. I usually only play games on the switch, but this game is so much fun I had to get it. You don't need a ton of power to run it, and I would argue it's one of the best games of 2022.

#autumn #cozy game #gaming #gamer #bear thoughts #stardew valley #halloween #new games #dome keeper #graveyard keeper #dorf romantik #fall #flame in the flood #strange Horticulture #alchemist simulator #game reviews #streaming #streamer

[kaydegard]

Games at a Glance : Lunacid

I get into a catacomb and find a spell that summons an empty coffin. "I'm guessing there's some scripted instance where you use this?" several minutes later I find myself throwing coffins on the ground as makeshift reminders.

Earlier I had found a item: Banners that I could use as marks, but those items weren't sold anywhere and couldn't be crafted so I thought "wait I don't need to use the banners I can just put a coffin" Later, I find myself in a pit in the catacombs that I couldn't get out of earlier. And having just discovered one use for the coffin spell I thought "huh" and just kept summoning coffins underneath me until I'd piled them high enough to get out of the pit.

The game has taken a while to really get going, it ramps up slowly but it does keep ramping up and I want to see where it goes from here. This moment is far from an exception and I've found myself in these situations often enough that I think the design is intentional.

The combat is satisfying and more than what I expected, but I haven't really had any stellar fights and my one near boss encounter was me spamming fireballs at a demon that blinded me (being blinded makes the screen darken) so I think we're in that fromsoft space of the magic being there to bail you out of the melee, but! the melee is pretty good! So I'm happy with it.

#soulslike #fromsoft #lunacid #psx #low poly #game reviews