Reviews Rate the game you finished/retired

[Mivey]

I finished Chaos Child, wait sorry, need to use the proper Engrish spelling: Chäos;Child

I can't help but compare this title to its spritual (and kinda literal) prequel, Chaos;Head. We have a protagonist, Takuru, who is still a pretty obnoxious nerd, except this time he actually believes he is somehow so much smarter than everyone else. While on paper he should be more annoying, what elevates him miles and miles above Takumi from Chaos;Head, is the fact that Takuru actually feels like a real person. He (not so secretly) wants to be more popular with girls and (to his deserved shame) reads up on pick-up artist magazines. He doesn't spend every waking hour of his free time locked in his shitty one-room apartment. He has motivations and ambitions that are easy to understand and due to his inherent helplessness (very ineffectively masked by his ego), you can't help but root for him.

Now maybe it's just that Chaos;Head lowered my standards so much, but this game felt so much fucking better than its namesake prequel. The plot revolves again around a bunch of crazy murders, but this time the game spends enough time to put the actual mystery front and center, with our heroes doing everything they to solve it. The story also takes a much darker turn this time, with real stakes, that don't simply get (all) undone in the final path. I was especially fond of the bittersweet ending, where Takuru and Serika decide to go their different ways for the forseeable rest of their lives, and Takuru going to jail for murders he did not commit, though was ultimately responsible for (can't even go into that one in a spoiler, just go play the game!)

I know some people recommend playing CHaos;HEad before going into Chaos;Child, but I can't agree, not after having finished Chaos;Head. It's a bad game. Just read a plot summary somewhere and you will be fine. As for Chaos;Child, this game I can heartily recommend to any fan of Visual Novels. It's a perfect standalone entry to the "science adventure" series, which it shares with other great titles such as Steins;Gate and Robotics;Notes. In the overall order, I would say it's not quite as amazing as Steins;Gate, but a lot more enjoyable than Robotics;Notes (even if it's a bit darker, whereas Robotics;Notes felt much more saccharine overall.)

 

[fantomena]

Finished


It's a big, complex game with tons of mechanics and stuff to talk about, but Im just gonna say that it's a masterpiece of a game. There are 3 acts, I liked act 3 the most and act 1 the least, act 1 was just not as intriguing as the other acts. I got a good ending where I romance Shadowheart and the only one I seem to not hae manage to recruit was Karlach, I think. Other negatives are pretty much that there are some technical issues with the gam and some bugs, but if that get's fixed in a Definitive Edition or something, I will be back. The game is really long, but I loved the world, story, characters, lore, gameplay, exploration and level design. I see the familiarities from D: OS 2 on this game, but not all that much.

I see myself coming back either when a "definitive edition" is out or more patches and will be trying to do other things in the game, but certain things I did in this playthrough felt very good so I will hopefully not change all that much next time.

Fantastic job by Larian.

Score: 9.1/10

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Candleman - The Complete Journey (Candleman Games, 2017)

2.5D puzzle platformer that starts with an interesting concept (a little wax candle in a candle-holder with two legs is the player character) and then just keeps throwing in little tweaks to the level design (both in terms of the platforming and puzzle mechanics as well as the art and design) - per chapter at first, and then, as the game works up to its climax, pretty much from stage to stage.

The basic gameplay is simple: Walk, jump and run to the end of a stage, light candles you find on the way (and get achievements for finding every candle in a stage), don't fall and avoid dangers. The wax on the player character is only good for a 10 second continuous burn, so to make it to the end in the (quite dark) stages, only flicking the light on very briefly is key. The game keeps things interesting by rapidly introducing and then discarding again additional mechanics - pressure plate sequences, physics objects, hostile candle-spirits, poisonous spiky plants that are triggered by light, a mirror-world, segments that mix 2.5D platforming with 2D platforming on the projected shadows of the 2.5D level geometry, water levels, ice levels, the list goes on.

The effect is that for the first 7 chapters of the game, it feels like a chill "downloadable" indie game from the 7th generation consoles, i.e. a PSN/Xbox Live Arcade game from 2010-2013, and for the remaining 5 chapters celebrates showing off all the advanced concepts that indie platforming games have come up with since those days, making it more contemporary and occasionally somewhat challenging, too, especially when trying to find every candle in every stage. After completing the game once, additional timed challenges with online leaderboards for each level are unlocked.

I have had Candleman sitting in my library for almost four years and had no idea what a fantastic little game it is - 9 hours of indie puzzle platforming perfection, with flawless controls and a minimalist but beautiful visual aesthetic and great sound-design to match.

Anybody who likes 2.5D puzzle platformers at all should add this little gem to their collection immediately. I was really tempted to rate this a 5/5, but there were a few instances where the checkpoint placement was a little less than ideal, hence:



4.5/5

 

[Mivey]

I just finished The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails.


don't have too much to say about this one. This feels a bit like Falcom making a "greatest hits" album of their non-Trails catalogue (and then calling it a Trails game anyway, feels like an in-joke). There's elements from Zwei in the mission structure and cooking parts, there's lots of platforming that reminds me a bit of Gurumin, and more tactical combat that reminds me of Ys. Revisiting the same levels in different seasons is a new feature, but it just ends up making the game feel even more repetitive, by reusing existing levels more.

My biggest gripe is how combat just isn't fun. In Zwei, it was about effective crowd control, where the individual monsters where fairly easy to handle and didn't require much in terms of evasion or combat technique. Nayuta still has large mobs, but now adds complex moves, evasions and guard mechanics that turn combat into a slow, grindy mess. Add this to the platforming parts, and it's just super annoying. The game holds up for the first four chapters, and starts to seriously overstay its welcome in the final stretch.

The plot also feels like something that was spat out by an LLM that was trained on the plots of Falcom games and other JRPGs

I think I would be less harsh on this game if it was maybe 10 hours long, but at over 20, it just starts to get annoying. Despite its short length by Falcom stnadads, it has a ton of padding. So often in levels you just do the same thing over and over again. This game would have needed far more time and iterations, to find something fun and unique. This is honestly the first game from Falcom that just feels soulless and it really, really shows that they are churning these out in a year or two.

 

[C-Dub]

Just completed Alan Wake II

Shit's good, yo.

Gotta give it to Remedy, they keep going from strength to strength. Alan Wake II is a mind-bending jaunt through a weird and twisted world. I think I prefer RE4 as far as action horror games go, but Alan Wake II is a damned fine game - one of the best for 2023, and arguably one of the best games ever.

10/10

 

[fantomena]

Retired


For now. Really wanted to lake this game. Story was interesting, graphic style is gorgeus and the world overall was interesting, but the later portion of the game had a lot of plattforming which I found extremely frustrating and annoying. Basically you are always riding your bike, in other to jump and get to the side you have to use the shotgun, the shotgun shot will push you to side and dash up in the air and it did not work well for me.

I have so many other games to play, so I decided to retire the game for now.

Finished


Liked it a lot. Gret art style, good gameplay, very interesting story. Main negatives are that the story and the mysteriousness could have been explored a lot more, felt a lot of questions didn't get answered and that the gameplay has barely changed from the first game.

Score: 8/10

Finished


Another great game from Out of the Blue, their first and previous game, Call of the Sea, was also really great. This one was i nthe style of Truman show side scroller game with some first person gameplay too. A bit basic and simple on the gameplay side, but the story was good, sound was good, voice acting was good and the graphic style was great.

Score: 8.3/10

 

[xinek]

Finished Lies of P for the backlog blitz. Overall, a good soulslike with good characters, story, and combat. Very creepy mood and immersive art design. Some fantastic boss intros. Great ending. There are so many collectibles that I didn't find and have no idea how I could have missed them? I played most of the game with an early weapon that I liked a lot, and now I'm wishing I tried out more varied weapons. I also didn't engage much with some of the mechanics, like swapping weapon handles. I will definitely do those things in ng+ someday.

There were some things I didn't like. Some of the voice acting was questionable. Overall, the look of it was very same-y -- I'd say my overall impressions of almost every area was brown and usually wet. It dragged a lot near the end, where it just kept going and going with more and more elites and revisited bosses. It also falls victim to annoying af bosses -- multiple phases, absurd amounts of health, and seemingly infinite stamina. I eventually ran into a boss that I had trouble with, and after googling, people reported spending 6+ hours on it. I said fuck this and got a cheat to enable god mode to just dispose of it. I am way too old to put up with that. PC gaming ftw yet again.

 

[fantomena]

Finished


Short (1 hour), but interesting game. It's about a band. You solve some interesting and odd puzzles in a forest, most of them involving electricty. Good music, gooddesign and good graphics. However, I felt it was missing something, felt the game could have been deeper, more explored.

Score: 8/10

Finished


Very cool and fun puzle game about placing objects the correct way. Nice art style, fun puzzles, lots of puzzles, reminds of "Assemble with Care" by ustwo games. One puzzle however was extremely frustrating that negatively impacted my thought on the game (it involved stacking boxes in a certain way). Some puzzles have multiple way to be solved and you get a star for each successfully solved puzzle. There is also daily puzzles and some archives puzzles (I guess those are puzzles that didn't make it into the main "story", but you can still try to solve them).

Will get DLC when it's on sale.

Score: 8.5/10

Finished


Short (1.5 hours), but interesting and well made point and click game where you discover and learn about a woman's "life" story. Interesting concept about using objects to see through "the right way" in order to progress. Very basic gameplay though.

Score: 8/10

Finished


Very fun, short (1.5 hours-2 hours) and intriguing game about telling a story and being able to change it up. There are 16 chapters, each having 4-5 story parts to go through. You can add background and the characters and dependign what you add, the story changed. There are objectives (main goal) to follow to gain stars so you can get the epilogue which involved a fun gameplay addition, but it's also fun to mix the story up just for fun.

However, the game could have given you more objects/things to change the story up with, it's mostly the same characters and same background (forest, wedding, death etc.), so it can be repetive.

It's a fun game, neat concept that could have been explored even more.

Score: 7.8/10

 

[C-Dub]

Completed Moss: Book II (played on Meta Quest 2)


I was a bit bummed out on this for the first hour or so. It felt more of the same, with similar puzzles and perhaps even some less depth than the first game.

Then you start unlocking more weapons and abilities, and the game quickly opens up. Puzzles are more interesting, the action is more exciting, and the whole thing just plays like a continuation.

I really recommend picking this one up - it's a VR classic.

8/10

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Röki (Polygon Treehouse / United Label, CI Games, 2020)

What starts as a fun winter's day outing by the lake for teenage girl Tove and her young brother Lars, quickly turns into a frightening adventure into the supernatural when an enormous monster destroys her house, incapacitates her father and abducts Lars. And it is up to her to give chase and deal with the magical creatures of the forest ....

This game ended up on my wishlist and later-on in my library purely on the strength of the trailer, which had me convinced that this game was either an action adventure or a puzzle platformer - but in fact it is a point-and-click adventure with action-adventure controls, i.e. the player character is moved directly with either a controller or the keyboard, there is no mouse pointer. Since this prevents classic pixel-hunting for interact-able objects, there is a button/hotkey to highlight them in a scene. Other than that, it's a surprisingly conservative adventure game, with lots of dialogue to read (no voice acting aside from a few signature noises and singular words), an inventory and inventory puzzles (i.e. combining objects with other objects), no hint-system and there even is pixel-hunting to a certain degree, as some interact-able objects are so small that they are easily missed - even with the object highlighting function.

The story is an original fairy tale with heavy influences from Norse mythology, Swedish folk-tales and even a bit of Native American folklore thrown in - and true to these influences, and despite the young age of the main protagonist, it gets pretty heavy and rather dark, featuring themes of death, despair, the loss of loved ones, rejection and ostracism, the cruelty and sheer force of nature personified by mighty spirits of the land, the power of family ties and heroic dedication to overcoming hardship.

Combined with a bright, picture-book art style, flawless animations and a great soundtrack by Jason 'Aether' Taylor, these days probably known to a lot of gamers from his great score for Viewfinder, this story captured me quickly and carried me easily deep into the second of the game's three chapters, but eventually the game runs out of steam and gets bogged down in typically frustrating point-and-click obstacles, where the player can get stuck for a long time over some tiny object missing in the inventory or a not-very-obvious puzzle solution. The third chapter is especially egregious in this regard - it introduces a new mechanic where the player needs to take control of two characters and switch between them to make them solve puzzles cooperatively, but the design of these puzzles often leads to tedium, requiring the player to waste tens of minutes just for walking both of the characters into the same location.

I was very close to retiring the game at that stage, but thankfully chapter 3 eventually ended and the game proceeded to a swift and satisfying final conclusion.

For point-and-click fans (unless they are mouse-control purists), this game is an easy recommendation because of the relatively unusual setting and tone of the story, plus the great looks and music. For everyone else, the usual point-and-click caveats apply.

Previously reviewed in this thread here and here.



3/5





Finished Say No! More (Studio Fizbin / Thunderful Publishing, 2021)

A minimalist comedy game that satirizes open/affirmative corporate culture by putting the player in control of an intern in a stereotypical office of a large corporation, who learns to say "No!" by stumbling over a mysterious cassette tape recorded by a nonconformism-guru.

The bright low-poly retro graphics style of the game, plus the wacky character editor, the voice-acting and the first 20-minutes-or-so of the game's story were good fun, but unfortunately the game continued on for 2 more hours after that, and by the time it ended, it had run its one-note joke completely into the ground and my patience thoroughly exhausted.

There is no real gameplay to speak of, the only interaction is to hit a button (or decline to do so) that makes the player character say "No!" when prompted.



2/5

 

[Joe Spangle]

Finished Cocoon, first game of the year I've completed.


Quite enjoyed it. Nice looking puzzle/adventure game set in a weird sort of alien creature world with some tech type stuff. I found it a little formulaic at the start and was only playing in half hour long bursts but at about the half way point (its fairly short 4-5hrs i think it took me) it sort of clicked, the puzzles got a bit more interesting and i finished the last parts in one sitting. The main 'hook' is a worlds within worlds mechanic which led to some nice puzzle head scratchers. There were some times where it took me a while to work out what to do and a few moments of frustration where i knew what to do but had to go through the motions to progress but overall i enjoyed it.

7.5/10

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Hardspace: Shipbreaker


Well-designed and addictive game where you have to dismantle spaceships and salvage the valuable parts, preferably without causing a nuclear explosion in the reactor. To do so, you're equiped with a multi-mode cutting tool, explosives and a tether device to send parts the right way.

There are lots of different ships, and they are becoming larger and more challenging as you progress in the game. To keep things interesting, there's a decent story and you can upgrade your equipment by reaching certain goals.

The game was a few hours too long for me, since there aren't new gameplay elements after reaching level 15 or so. But the story convinced me to finish it. Great game, definitely recommended!

Score: 8.2/10

 

[lashman]

Finished Hardspace: Shipbreaker

congrats!

and welcome back, we missed you

 

[Durante]

I finished Momodora: Moonlit Farewell.


Took me a bit over 9 hours to complete. I like it a lot -- in terms of metroidvanias, it's somewhat the opposite of the previous one I played, Afterimage. Both are great, but Afterimage has a huge amount of weapons, systems, moves, spells, equipment and so on, and a massive map. Conversely, Momodora is a lot more focused and condensed, with fast pacing and a focus on very few moves, but all of which are important, well-implemented and feel good.

I could see someone liking one of these and not the other, but for me I really enjoyed both basically equally, but in different ways.

 

[Joe Spangle]

Finished Portal Revolution


A mod for Portal. It was pretty good. Follows a similar story to Portal 2. For a mod it has quite a high production value, voice acting was good (although I found the guys voice a bit annoying). Level design is also good, some interesting puzzle rooms. Overall cant really knock it for a free mod to a great game, if you like Portal then its well worth a play. Took around 8 hours.

7/10

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished The Complex (Good Gate Media, Little Jade Productions / Wales Interactive, 2020)

A present-day/near-future sci-fi FMV interactive movie. Dr Amy Tenant, leading scientist for a biotech firm, is in the middle of presentation of her groundbreaking cell research to shareholders when she is called to the scene of a young woman suffering from severe illness, who turns out to be an intern at the company and there is a strong suspicion that she was injected with Amy's research. And when taken back to the company lab, even more alarming things are revealed ...

Plot, script and acting here are good, but the production budget was clearly too tight for the ambitious scenario and it shows constantly. Music is competent, but nothing special.

There are 9 different endings to discover, but I didn't feel like going back and replaying the game to find them all. The game unlocks a button after the first playthrough to skip forward to the next decision point, but it does not work in scenes that have no interactive prompts in them, and some of those are fairly long, so the player has to sit and twiddle their thumbs on subsequent playthroughs quite a bit regardless.



3/5

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Tails Noir Preludes (Eggnut / Raw Fury, 2023)

The prequel to Tails Noir revisits the scenario of post-apocalyptic furry-inhabited Vancouver and tells the tales of some of the prominent characters from, and some background on the main mystery of, the previous game.

It does so by giving the player control over a character in little vignettes, roughly 10-15 minutes in length, before moving ahead in time and to another character. Every character is revisited four times - and the choices made in each vignette ultimately determine the events of the epilogue (which is presented in three paragraphs of text plus some still images). The game features the same gorgeous pixel-art of its predecessor, the soundtrack is again pretty nice and features more original songs and the game's dialogue system remains the same as well.

What is new besides the choose-your-own-adventure aspect with (slightly) different endings are a couple of mini-games, ranging from sorting shelves, washing dishes, feeding pets or performing lab experiments, unfortunately this new aspect of the game is also the most problematic, with controls that tend to break and sometimes even soft-lock, especially when using a controller.

The game ends up at about the same length as the first game, but for half the MSRP (which still seems somewhat steep for an at-best-four-hour game). I recommend waiting for discounts of at least 50%.

It's possible to play this game without having played Tails Noir and it's also possible to play both and play Preludes first without getting badly spoiled, although it will change the player's first reaction to Tails Noir quite substantially.



3.5/5

 

[Mivey]

Finished Outcast: Second Contact.


This one is a remake to the 1999 title Outcast, a cult classic which released on PC and was well known for the voxel rendering that is used for landscapes

For the remake, they basically use Unity as a rendering software only. The actual game code, is kept as-is and run via a bespoke plugin. Basically, the 2017 remake is pretty much the original game. This includes its incredibly rough movement and animation handling, the jumping that feels like a complete crapshoot, and all bugs and glitches the original had in its shipped code. As far as "remakes" go, it couldn't be more faithful. This is clearly a cost-saving move, as no self-respecting developer would pass on the chance to go back and fix some of their old (and embarrassing) mistakes. I respect the budget limitations that forced this options, and it is nice to see how the game played back in 1999.

As for the graphical side, Appeal has done a great job in modernising the vistas of Adelpha (the parallel universe the game is set in). Gone is the weird voxel look, but it is replaced by something that looks absolutely stunning for a 2017 title.

The gameplay itself a bit hard to describe. It's not quite an RPG. There are no levels or skills, and gameplay consists mostly of third-person shooting and puzzle solving. It does feature a large number of quests. Most of these are simple fetch quests, but they help to flesh out the world and backstory quite a bit, and they are so easy that you kinda stop thinking much about how they are all just fetch quests. I didn't go for a completionist run, did not even do all the "main mission" aparently, but still above 80% of all side missions just because I wanted to find out more about this world.

The music should also be mentioned the composer Lennie Moore did an amazing job. Each region of Adelpha gets a unique track that captures its vibe and feel, and despite hearing these tracks constantly, it just never gets old, which I think is quite the achievement.

What feels even more remarkable than this remake getting funded, is the fact that a sequel, Outcast; A New Beginning, is coming out just a bit later this year. It's done by many people who worked on the original game, including the main designer, the technical lead, and even the composer Lennie Moore will return to write music again. Looking forward to it, even if I can't imagine it's going to sell, sadly.

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Two Point Campus (36 stars)


Excellent campus simulator from the developers of Two Point Hospital. Build a campus with a wide variety of classes, a library and dorm rooms, hire a bunch of teachers and staff and try to train as many students towards an A+ grade as possible. Also important is to keep your students entertained in their free time as well: student clubs, beach parties and concerts will do the trick.

While not as memorable as Two Point Hospital, there are so many different classes, rooms and objects to decorate your campus that it will keep you busy for many hours. Every campus has unique goals and you'll be building and hiring all the time to keep everything running. There are a few bugs with students just standing there and some of the music tracks are annoying, but the good stuff in this game is tons of fun. Recommended!

Score: 8.4/10


Retired Age of Wonders III


Well designed 4x game with plenty of different factions, units and upgrades. There are huge maps to explore in the story campaign, and the turn-based combat is challenging but fun. The reason why I didn't finish the game is because it is very, VERY time consuming. Completing 6 story missions (out of 16) took me over 40 hours. I can't spend so many hours in a game with limited story telling, especially since I have hundreds of other games waiting for me in my backlog.

Score: 7.2/10

 

[Durante]

Yeah AoW3 is ridiculously long.

 

[MegaApple]

The reason why I didn't finish the game is because it is very, VERY time consuming

Awww I was hoping to get into this one.
Craving for fantasy turn based games.

 

[Joe Spangle]

Played a lot of Stranded: Alien Dawn...


Its basically Rimworld (my most played game on Steam) but in 3d without as much world building charm. I really have enjoyed my time in it. You basically crash land on a planet and have to survive by assigning tasks to the little people (exactly like Rimworld). Graphics are nice enough. There are a few interesting ideas in this such as having to 'observe' plants and animals before you know what resources they provide. It has good controller support for comfy couchers like me. There are different scenarios you can chose to reach different end goals. Id say if you like Rimworld (paging Aaron D. ) then it could be worth your time.

8/10

 

[Ge0force]

Awww I was hoping to get into this one.
Craving for fantasy turn based games.

Have you played Fantasy General II?

 

[MegaApple]

Fantasy General II

I don't have it.
How is it?

 

[Ge0force]

I don't have it.
How is it?

I loved it. Excellent combat, missions aren't taking dozens of hours.

Edit: here's my review


This game was a surprise for me, since I never heard about it but turned out to be one of the best turn-based strategy games I've played so far. You're playing with a lot of heroes and units at the same time, and the variety in attacks, upgrades, items, unit types and enemies is really great. This results in long but intense battles, with lots of strategic possibilities. The mission objectives could have been more diverse, but the superb combat kept me playing until the end.

The only thing that I didn't like is that units that are killed in battle are lost forever. This has a significant impact on your chance to win, since every unit gains experience in combat, which increases your health and attack power. I had to restart the entire campaign after almost 20 hours, because my units were to weak to beat the next mission. An option to heal slain units like XCOM does would have been a better choice imo. But despite this minor issue, this game is definitely a must play!

 

[fantomena]

Finished


Very fun and good looking action FPS in the style of Robocop. Main negative is really that the game does get repetive during the last bunch of missions. Still, very suprised with how good the combat is, how the shooting felt, how nice the game looked and how good the side quests are. A giant step-up from Terminator.

Score: 8.3/10

Finished


A lot of fun. Very slow and "empty" start dragged the game down for me at first. Good music, nice art style, fun gameplay, but the plattforming can sometimes feel janky and frustrating.

Score: 8.4/10


Really good boomer shooter that overstays it's welcome in the other half part of the game, game is basically too long for it's own good. Good gameplay, nice weapons, good level design (for the most part). Secrets however aren't as fun asn intriguins to find as in other boomer shooters.

Score: 8/10

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Retired Five Dates (Good Gate Media / Wales Interactive, 2020)

A romantic comedy FMV interactive movie about digital dating (that literally makes the player go through a series of dates) set during the COVID-19 pandemic. I bailed out of this one early (30 minutes) because I am not much of a rom-com fan in the first place and the setting feels outdated now, even though it was very timely at the game's release. Maybe I'll go back to it again in a couple of years down the line.


No Score



Finished I Saw Black Clouds (Ghost Dog Films / Wales Interactive, 2021)

After the unexpected death of a close friend, the game's main character Kristina returns to her hometown and her best friend Charlotte, looking for answers and finding much more than she ever expected.

This FMV interactive movie very boldly branches off two substantially different stories from a shared first act, but only one of them really works.

With the choices I made, I ended up playing the better story on my first playthrough and it really made me wonder why this game has very mixed reviews, until I went back and played the other story branch.

The good story branch quite elegantly works around the usual limitations of the budgets that these games are produced on and had me very engaged and sometimes genuinely surprised for the roughly two hours of playtime for one playthrough. The not-so-good story branch on the other hand feels cobbled together from b-roll and has some major continuity issues.

I applaud the game for trying though - one of the most common complaints about any choice/consequence game with branching story lines is that the stories don't diverge enough and often end up coming back to nearly the same conclusion and this game really does not, despite the restriction of having to tell two different stories (so different, that they're in entirely different genres of fiction really) while somehow using the same set of filming locations and mostly the same characters.

I already mentioned the budget limitations showing - the actors are doing their best (even though makeup & wardrobe are not making them look their best), but the overall production quality is consistently sub-made-for-TV-movie.



3/5

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Skábma™ - Snowfall (Red Stage Entertainment / PID Games, 2022)

I found this game 3 years ago through a Steam Next Fest demo and really loved the setting and presentation and thought the somewhat rough controls would be improved in the final game. Sadly, that turned out not to be the case.

This game, which is set in a small Sámi village somewhere in Lapland a few centuries in the past and follows the Sámi-folklore-inspired adventures of young orphan reindeer-herder Áilu, still looks and sounds great, but the 3D-platforming core gameplay unfortunately covers the whole range from barely acceptable to annoyingly almost-broken and just sucks the fun out of it, especially towards the end, when all the platforming abilities are unlocked and need to be put to use.

The end credits very confidently announce a sequel to the game, and I really wish the developers the opportunity to get a second chance to get it right, but considering the reviews and seemingly low sales, I have my doubts whether we will ever see it.



2.5/5

 

[dummmyy]

Finished: Game was fun, but man it was so frustrating towards the last 4-5 hours. Saved all the little sisters, but for whatever reason the last elite rosie wasn't dying so i had to do the last hour or so like 3 or 4 times, it was really annoying haha. Regardless of that, the game was really fun. I couldn't really pay attention to teh story more closely because of the way its exposition was set up, but the game was so fun I didn't really mind.

4/5

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Night Book (Good Gate Media / Wales Interactive, 2021)

Another FMV interactive movie (listen, I bought the big bundle and I'm going to at least try to play all of them ...).

This one was also shot and produced during COVID19 lockdown, but the story does not directly reference it, so it has aged much better than Five Dates. It is a horror story about evil spirits possessing people, in particular and rather obviously the father of the main protagonist Loralyn, who works from home as an English-French interpreter for phone calls and video calls.

The first playthrough of this was a lot of fun and really good - the game works around the budget and location restrictions by cleverly making the whole game take place on the computer desktop of the main protagonist, mixing footage from her webcam she uses for work, a home security system, emails, instant messages and video calls. The special effects (a good deal of them classic practical horror stuff like books flying off shelves) work very well in this context and do not come across as cheap or unconvincing like they did in The Complex.

It is very, very short though - one run through the story barely fills an hour and the replay value comes from the usual interactive movie game of finding the correct choices to branch to different endings (and get missable achievements along the way) - I have had enough after finding 3 of the 15 endings. Good performances from all the actors in the game.



3.5/5

 

[Mivey]

Finished Secret of Mana.


The first Mana game to be released in the West, and also the first to actually use the Mana title in the West (it's predecessor was released as Final Fantasy Adventure in the West). I think I began playing the original SNES games via emulators quite a number of times, and then always quit. So a lot of the music and elements in this game are strangely familiar, if not really nostalgic. I stuck with the game this time, as I wanted to experience this "classic" game for the first time. While the remake adds 3D graphics, it still feels very faithful to the original in its gameplay that mimics the the soft ATB nature of the original, where you can strike as often as you like, but you really want to wait until you charge up to 100%, so it still feels pretty turn based in nature. Not sure this idea really worked here, I think more directly mimicking Zelda would have been a better idea overall. The gameplay then is pretty serviceable, but also never particularly good. Inoffensive is a word i would use.

What is a bit harder to wrap my head around are the many strange decisions in how the plot progresses. Quite a number of times you are expected to just go back somewhere, pick up some items and only then proceed in the fairly linear story. This is, of course, never explained, leaving you to wander around aimlessly. I switched to using a walkthrough around half way through, and that was clearly a good choice. So many times the game just expects you to find a random NPCs that gives your heroes "vital advice" and only then can you actually proceed. I understanding wanting to stick to the original game's structure, but I feel they could have taken some liberties with this archaic nonsense.

the overall plot is incredibly basic and the setting with the 8 magical crystals feels pretty much like a carbon copy of old Final Fantasy games. It is funny that this was developed by Square Enix then. Like they are cribbing from themselves. Then again, it was a game from the early 90s, where most JRPG plots weren't much more complex then "there bad guy, he burned down your village, you go save the world". I guess not having anything happen to the starting village is the big innovation with Secret of Mana then.

Overall an ok, and pretty forgettable game. Will explore Trials of Mana some time in the future. I remember that game quite a bit more (again from emulating the SNES version) but also never finished it before, so looking forward to getting to it in modernised form

 

[fantomena]

Finished


Decent 2D sidescroller plattformer that is somewhat fun. Nice pixel graphics and sound. However, the plattforming is "uneven" and janky. The hit detection is awful and you are quickly to get one-shotted by enemies which made the game really frustrating. Thanksfully it is like a 2 hour game.

Score: 6.8/10

Finished


Really fun fast-paced plattformer where the main negatives are that the game is a bit short and the levels could ahve you used some more variation with the environments. Also the grappling hook can be quite finnicky and frustrating to use sometimes. Otherwise, a lot of fun.

Score: 8.5/10

 

[fantomena]

Retired


Did around half the main quests and decided to quit. Came over too many game breaking quest bugs where the NPCs you have to interact with to progress either didn't appear or wasn't interactable. It's a nice looking game with some decently made mechanics, but the realism part of the game steps on the fun factor too much for me + the amount of bugs made me very annoyed.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Bloodshore (Good Gate Media / Wales Interactive, 2021)

This FMV interactive movie transposes the classic plot of a deadly TV game show (think of Death Race 2000, Rollerball, The Running Man) into a modern day Reality-TV contest format, and it is just as cringe as that sounds.

90 minutes of pure straight-to-DVD schlock, with not too many pauses for making choices in it, and even less checkpoints (I made the mistake of quitting out on the game at a point where I was certain that there had to be a checkpoint and then ended up having to rewatch 20 minutes). Didn't go back to discover alternate story branches.

Enjoyers of action schlock might get something out of this, the acting is pretty good (relative to the genre) and there's goofy jokes and some splatter/gore for extra spice, too. I am not a fan though.



2.5/5

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Time Loader (Flazm / META Publishing, 2021)

Absolute hidden gem of a story-driven side-scrolling puzzle platformer with an unusual scenario and an even more unusual player character. The player controls a toy remote controlled car (the kind with a slim body and huge wheels that can do a complete cartwheel and still drive), which in the game's story has been modified to be a full-blown autonomous robot and gets sent back in time by its creator to prevent an accident that left aforementioned creator paralyzed from the waist down. But as usual with time-travel, things do not turn out quite as planned ...

The levels are made up of the robot toy car's creator's childhood home in the mid-1990s, so the player gets to traverse shelves, desks, kitchen tops, the winter garden, the computer desk (complete with MSDOS-PC) etc., all modeled with great detail and a lot of affection. Sound is all-around great, too, great sound-design, a nice original soundtrack and quite a lot of voice acting (mostly the robot car's "AI" talking to the player) with good performances all around.

The platforming action tends to be somewhat on the slow side, but gradually gets more involved and slightly faster as more skills (such as a grappling hook) and some skill upgrades (such as increased jump-height) get unlocked during the course of the game.

The story and setting makes this already unusual game really unique, the time-travel plot combined with (miss-able) collectibles provides for three possible endings. A chapter select unlocks after the first playthrough, so the exploration of alternate endings or the collectible hunt can be done in an expedited way.

Anybody who enjoys a puzzle platformer with a fresh concept and great art direction should check out the playable demo.



4/5

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Desperados III


Excellent stealth game from the makers of Shadow Tactics. You play 16 lengthy story missions with 5 different characters, each with their unique perks and abilities. Shooting on sight usually gets you killed by reinforcements, so not getting seen is the key in this game. Luckily there are plenty of ways to distract the enemies, and good timing allows you to avoid the guards. Almost every mission introduces a new mechanic, which keeps the game fresh until the end. Just prepare to die a lot, since this game is all about trial and error. This is fine because there's unlimited saving and loading. Very recommended!

Score: 8.2/10


Finished Saga of the Moon Priestess


Zelda: Link's Awakening and A Link to the Past are two of my favorite games ever, and I guess this is also true for Pixel Trash. The absolute majority of gameplay elements of Saga of the Moon Priestess are copied from the 2D Zelda games, including all the weapons, the graphics style, pushing blocks, bombing walls etc. The story and design of the overworld, dungeons, enemies and bosses are unique though, which makes this game worth playing as well.

Saga of the Moon Priestess does many things right: the game plays great, there's a nice retro vibe all over it and most of the dungeons and bosses are really fun. On the other hand, this game lacks lacks the charm and the clever dungeon design of the Zelda games. Link's Awakening stays always on my mind thanks to stuff like Marin, the flying rooster, bowbow the dog and the mysterious egg on top of the mountain.

This game lacks such memorable moments. There are some nice puzzles in the dungeons (especially the icy one), but also some annoying ones: putting 30 rocks in a room and hiding a button under one of them isn't quite fun. It is also rather annoying that you can't see which rooms you've already visited in a dungeon once you found the map.

Despite these issues, I enjoyed playing this game until the end. Recommended for fans of Zelda, but I'm not sure for anyone else.

Score: 7.0/10


Finished The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan


Excellent horror game from the makers of Until Dawn. Five friends go on a boat trip to dive for sunken ships, but end up on an abandoned ship haunted by some kind of mysterious evil. Most of the game is story-driven, with lots of jump scares and exciting encounters. Quick-time events decide the outcome of the action scenes, and at various times you'll have to choose between multiple options how to continue. There's also a lot of exploring to do, which is exciting thanks to the amazing level design, but also annoying because of the fixed camera angles. This makes it often hard to see where you can go to, which is used to "hide" most of the secrets that can be discovered. Despite this minor issue, this game is very recommended and it looks still amazing today thanks to the ray tracing.

Score: 8.0/10

 

[FunnyJay]

Finished

Now this wasn't at all that bad as its reputation.
I've played both Devil May Cry 1 and 3 back on the PS2, and this was quite good.
Not as campy as DMC3, and quite a bit tryhard in places, but the very best part is the constant They Live inspired references. That was awesome. I just wish they had done even more with that. As it stands right now it was mostly the truth about the energy drink and the Fox News inspired broadcast network. And of course the final reveal when everyone "wakes up" and sees the truth.

That said, the combat was serviceable (this is really not my preferred game genre) and the traversal puzzles were fun. The item system where each purchase lead to the increase of the prize was kind of meh.

Oh, and Vergil's heel turn kind of felt unearned in the story. It felt more tacked on like its something that has to happen in a DmC game since it's Vergil than something that really felt in line with his character. Sure, he was fine with sacrificing Kat for the greater cause, but to leap from that to ruling mankind is quite a stretch.

All in all, worth your time if you like the genre, or if you like They Live.

 

[Ge0force]

I enjoyed DmC more than DmC5. It's a great game imo.

 

[DrShrapnel]

Finished: Dead Island 2

Just watching footage of this one really pulled me in, and the game itself didn’t disappoint. Instead of a massive world this one’s broken up into smaller maps, where you can do some light exploration, hit up side quests, or just go through the campaign. Eventually fast travel is unlocked where you can bounce between the different areas in a day or night setting of your choosing.
Performance and visuals are very solid, with a wide variety of zombies to battle. The combat…oh the combat. Zombies have this “flesh” system where you can literally knock bits of flesh off them. Punch the shit out of a zombie and you’ll see the damage unfold, sometimes rendering that face into a bloodied jawless skull. I’m not a gore guy, but I’m very impressed with the impact you feel in combat. Enemies react to punches the way they should. Hell, you can even kick them just above the knee and watch that leg go out from under them. It’s impressive as hell to me.
Weapons gave me a Shadow Warrior 2 vibe as there’s just so many to choose from, with perks and elemental properties that can be added at work benches. It’s your usual dismantling/crafting setup, but I love that you can pay some cash to upgrade a weapon you love to your current level rather than just discard it.
There’s the usual uncommon, rates, and Epics, but Legendaries feel like true Legendary items. Some aren’t unlocked until after the game ends but there’s a couple you can get during a regular playthrough if you complete the required quests. There’s only several set Legendaries in the game, and they’re well worth it.
Another thing I like is the skill system. Instead of a tree, you’ve got cards that you unlock in different categories. These cards can be plunked down in slots (more slots are unlocked as you play), and you can swap perks in and out freely at no cost.

Performance is solid and I think the visuals are very good. I honestly can’t say enough good things about this game, and I’m still going to keep playing despite finishing it. That’s something I rarely do. I only con I can think of is that it’s still Epic exclusive.

9/10

 

[FunnyJay]

Finished main campaign of

Fun. But really short. Only took about 4 hours to finish the main campaign, making it at least feel a lot shorter than Quake 1.
All in all, I'm in the "Quake 1 was better"-camp.

The later levels of Quake 2 felt like they were filled with the bullet-spongey mini-boss enemies that could take a lot of punishment and shaved off a lot of your own health, while health and armor was in very short supply.

Still, fun to experience since I never played more than the demo back when it was originally released.

 

[Eila]

Finished Iconoclasts:


Was not expecting the game to be so story heavy. I thought it was a Metroidvania. I commend the effort, great spritework, as I understand it's a one man job.

But the plot and the dialogue did not do it for me. It's still a good game, but I feel stumbled in a lot of ways that don't let it be great. The metroidvania elements were also a bit lacking I thought. Still happy to have played it.

Also finished Guacamelee 2:


Now that's a game that's a proper metroidvania. Dialogue goes by fast and so does the movement, Those levels are freaking huge, but somehow it feels awesome to get through the non-stop challenges. The game is still packed full of references and jokes, but I don't really mind that. It also runs amazing, I had it running 4k 120 fps and it looked and played so good. Very happy to finally have played this game, I don't know why I put it off for so long.

 

[mssq]

This was just an blast to play. At start I was little apprehensive about the movement as it's really fast and kinda slippery but the more I played the more it just clicked, this fast and manic playing style of sliding everywhere a shooting pretty much anything that moves.

Special mention for the level design and the soundtrack, they really nailed these aspects. This is one of the rare ones where the levels never felt confusing even though they can be vast horizontally and vertically. Also the music is great! There are so many different vibes in different levels. I especially enjoyed the Sunset Synthetica one with its spy movie and rock blend.

Only real gripe I have with the game is that the sliding might be little too overpowered and the guns feel secondary to these chainsaw legs of yours. Also some of the guns are not balanced that well. Especially the upgraded ones as I kinda stuck with my favorites in the latter half of the game instead of using the whole arsenal.

9/10

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished WALL-E (Asobo Studio / THQ, Disney Interactive, 2008)

This is a pretty faithful play-along adaptation of the plot of Disney-Pixar's 2008 feature film "WALL-E" and thanks to the solid port by Asobo (these days better known for their original series of "Plague Tale" games) and Disney Interactive salvaging the most popular Disney adaptations from the THQ bankruptcy, you can still buy and play this game on Steam today on modern machines(*).

Gameplay isn't too deep or hard, as can be expected by a game targeted at young teens. There's a bit of racing, a bit of action-adventure and some modest puzzling, but the charm of the movie works its magic in the game as well. XInput compatible controllers are supported out of the box, some controls feel like a little clunky, but since the game hardly ever requires true precision, I did not mind much.

Graphics are as good as can be expected from a game that was ported up from 6th generation consoles - the PC release got a bit of extra polish, but not exactly what you would call high definition these days (the Bink-Video-encoded pre-rendered cutscenes are the worst offenders there). The music and sound on the other hand are great, the songs from the "Hello, Dolly!" musical that were used in the film as well make a return and are accompanied by a catchy and fun original soundtrack by Bruno Coon.

This was my first time playing this game and I had a lot of fun with it, even without any nostalgia goggles on (apart from some pretty hazy memories of the movie). A charming little capsule from a time before Disney tried to corral all their adaptable properties into the Disney Infinity games, only for that whole thing to crash and burn after a few years (and almost killing off Avalanche Software in the process).



3.5/5

_{(*) I played on a single 1080p 16:9 display, which I guess is on the verge of becoming outdated these days. People with fancy multi-monitor, ultra-wide and/or high-framerate/variable-framerate/4k setups might want to check PCGamingWiki first.}

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Black Book


Promising card battle game with a lengthy story based on Slavic Myths. You play as a witch who can use the black book to cast spells. She can use this to defeat enemies in battle, but also on people to help them or curse them if they are annoying you. This allows you to play good or evil, which can affect the outcome of the story.

The combat is rather mediocre because the strategies you can use are rather limited. While there are several innovative gameplay mechanics, most battles can be won by just debuffing the enemies in combination with standard attacks. You unlock new cards every chapter, but lots of these are stronger versions of cards you already own, while enemies get stronger as well. I ended up finishing the game, but this was mostly thanks to the story and setting.

Despite the simple graphics, the game looks amazing. The use of colors and lightning is extremely well done. The game world exists of small areas where you can run around freely. This is a nice addition, but the invisible walls and uncontrollable camera are annoying.

Black Book is worth playing, but not without flaws.

Score: 7.0/10

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Norco (Geography of Robots / Raw Fury, 2022)

Main player character Kay returns home from road-tripping a disintegrating United States to the equally disintegrating refinery town of Norco, Louisiana, after the death of her mother. Trying to get ahold of her younger brother, who is nowhere to be found, events quickly start to spiral...

At its very essence, this game is a text-adventure told from a first-person perspective, heavily inspired by late 1980s adventure games that already incorporated a lot of pixel-art still images and simplified the traditional text parsers into menu-based multiple choice-systems, and it originally started out looking like one, too - but during its 7 year development cycle was scrapped and redone from the ground up several times, ending up as a heavy-on-text and light-on-puzzles point-and-click adventure with a focus on striking and beautifully animated low-resolution pixel art.

The plot is a magical realist story in a dystopian near-future setting with a bit of cyberpunk sprinkled on top for flavor. The writing in general is clearly from a different universe than mainstream video game fiction, much more at home in the art-game and twine-fiction scene, and is the game's strongest feature - very literary and not particularly concerned with providing pleasurable entertainment, likeable characters or satisfying conclusions. It does however have all the qualities of a good thriller and the pacing pulled me in very quickly. It also provides multiple endings and plenty of optional content with associated achievements. I finished this game in two 3-hour-long sessions.

The many revisions and rebuilds of this game have left it with a very streamlined interface that can adapt to any speed, which I loved - I am a pretty quick reader and I hate repeated unskippable sequences in adventure games and this game has none of that.

The music and sound-design are probably the game's weakest point - just like Cats and the Other Lives it goes for a digital lo-fi sound that somewhat mimics the FM-synth sounds of early 1990s video game systems and PC sound-cards and by doing so gives away a chance to heighten the emotional impact of the story even more through the musical score.

I liked my time with this game very much, but it's hard to recommend to a mainstream audience who have not already heard of it. The best I can come up with is that people who are curious about Kentucky Route Zero, but scared of that game's length and slow pace, will find something here that goes for a similar genre of story and similar themes, but can be played at a much quicker pace and is roughly half as long.

Gamers on the other hand who already do regular deep-drives on itch.io and enjoy finding and playing odd-duck adventure games and twines from there, and may have occasionally wondered how such a game could look like with the budget of a publishing company and years of work thrown at it - here's the answer, ready to be played.



4/5

Previously reviewed in this thread here and here.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Retired Ratatouille (Asobo Studio / THQ, 2007)

After having had so much fun with WALL-E, I tracked down a copy of Ratatouille, which was made by the same developer/publisher just one year earlier, but the experience unfortunately was not so nice. This game is proper abandonware, but runs just as well on modern hardware as WALL-E - not a big surprise, since it's more or less the same engine.

The gameplay however is much more focused on classic 3D platforming than WALL-E, and to make up for the relatively detailed levels (reproducing locations from the movie, such as the restaurant kitchen), the platforming is heavily scripted and has those very typical 2000s faked physics, where no two jumps are quite the same length and no area is truly open for exploration. It also has challenge levels which are hilariously reverse-reminiscent of "Only Up" (anyone remember that meme-game that lasted for one summer?) - it's 3D platforming on platforms made out of food, floating in the sky. And it has another quality of cartoon platformers of that time: It gets really hard towards the end. I made it to the last mission, but couldn't beat it, thanks to some really janky quicktime-event-heavy mini-games.

Other than that, it has lots of collectathons to provide some replay value.

The graphics are about as charming as it gets for a 2007 video game, the music is sourced from the Pixar movie and is great as well and the original voice actors from the movie resume all their character roles.

Nostalgia goggles probably help with this game quite a bit, but once again, I did not have any.



2.5/5

 

[MegaApple]

Finished My First Game of 2024

Gravity Rush Remastered (PS4)

I'll be honest, there is quite a bit wrong with this game. But there's nothing like it.

Its clear devs tried to make something like this for the first, and being a handheld game-

• Mission design is very repetitive (DLC ones are bit better, not much). I was burnt out trying to do challenge missions to earn gems for upgrades.
• While everything around story is great, story itself felt half baked.
• Even the gravity mechanics (and camera!) broke during hectic encounters.
• Music is good but limited IMO.
• Art felt a mix of high and not-so-high quality even during story critical cutscenes.

But there's so much good here -

• Actually creative gravity shifting mechanic. Not only used in traversal but also combat and other stuff.
  I would just freely travel the world just for fun.
• Very original world. Different language and artstyle. You don't see such originality in bigger games.
• Despite a dreamy world, there are darker undercurrents to it.
• Great protag. Kat is klutzy, brave, cheery. Very feminine characters that I don't often see.

Japan Studios used to be powerhouse of creating or assisting in creative, innovative games. Playing GR just makes me miss them.

7/10

 

[fantomena]

Finished


A week ago. Still like the game a lot despite not being the best or biggest RPG I have played. But I liked it. Interesting story, fun gameplay and combat. Interesting characters. Wish the game was deeper though, felt it was too small and short for it's own good. The DLCs were pretty good too.

Score: 8/10

Finished


Very short (1 hour) visual novel-like cooking game. Cute/sad story, lovely art style, nice puzzle-like cooking gameplay. Nice music.

Score: 8.2/10

 

[The Dear Leader]

Finished Jusant (PS5), loved it visually, might be the most impressive use of UE5 and it's feature set in a game to date, and the tone of the game/world they made, super interesting and unique, although there might have been a few too many long notes to read, some of them I skipped over because of how many I would run into so frequently. But for a game that only took 5-6 hours I felt overly frustrated at more moments than I wanted to, towards the end of the game some of the visual sign posts that guide you through the world felt less noticeable and led to some frustrating trial and error, overall despite that it was a really cool little game and I always love see unique stuff being made that's outside of a studios normal wheelhouse.

7/10

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch/Ryujinx)

Remake of my favorite original Game Boy games, and even one of my favorite games of all time. I'm not a fan of the 'plastic' look of the graphics, but everything else is very well done in this remake. There soundtrack is amazing and there are many small improvements without changing the original gameplay. For example you can now run and lift objects without having to switch to the bracelet or feather.

Despite being 30 years old, the game is still a blast to play. The overworld is stuffed with secrets, challenges and funny characters, the story is the best of any Zelda game and the dungeon design is brilliant. I can't recommend this gem enough!

Score: 9.8/10


Finished Path of Giants


Lovely puzzle game where you need to bring 3 explorers to the exit of every level by making them work together. They can lift each other to higher ground, push buttons of the color of their outfit and balance cable lifts. The puzzles aren't very hard, but challenging enough to make you think for a while. Also plays great on the Steam Deck using the touch pads. Very recommended!

Score: 8.1/10


Retired Corrosion: Cold Winter Waiting


I found this game deep in my backlog and decided to play it because the story seems promising. But oh boy, this is an old school adventure game with a capital O. You can only move by clicking arrows on the edges of the screen, puzzles are very hard and often make no sense and most of the time you have no idea what to do next. I can't play this kind of games anymore in 2024.