JulyMonday

About as perfect as you can get for a game like this. Like Oregon Trail meets Smash TV. Gets a bit deeper the more you play. Wry humor and genuinely funny moments.

So … this pixel art mashup plays like Hyper Light Drifter with elements of Zelda/Metroid/Dark Souls. The experience of playing is okay, but the story is very weak - particularly the writing. As the game progressed, I found myself caring less and less about the useless NPCs dying all around me. Because the game is a same-y slog with 5-6 different enemy types, then an insanely difficult last few bosses. Watch the multiple endings – the language is so badly written, and really nothing surprising happens or changes between the half dozen conclusions. I dunno. Play everything else on your list before trying this one.

So … this pixel art mashup plays like Hyper Light Drifter with elements of Zelda/Metroid/Dark Souls. The experience of playing is okay, but the story is very weak - particularly the writing. As the game progressed, I found myself caring less and less about the useless NPCs dying all around me. Because the game is a same-y slog with 5-6 different enemy types, then an insanely difficult last few bosses. Watch the multiple endings – the language is so badly written, and really nothing surprising happens or changes between the half dozen conclusions. I dunno. Play everything else on your list before trying this one.

Immersive and mind-blowing. The last ten hours are one big cut scene, otherwise this score would be a 10.

Starts poor. Gets worse. Then slowly becomes a great stealth game with subtle dialogue and immersive visuals. But halfway, you start playing as a different character. The writing begins to ****. Characters act improbably. The whole thing turns into a total mess. Then … you switch back to the original character to finish off the story. And the game becomes totally absorbing again, with a satisfying finish.

Just not enjoying my time with this game. Honestly the cut scenes + lore are the most elegant part. Combat and exploration are rote, boring, tedious. Your witch can endlessly jump-roll across the screen, which breaks all suspension of fiction. Pass.

An absolute banger. The ending is abrupt and slightly unsatisfactory, but otherwise a blast of a play-through.

A f**king masterpiece. End of story!

Perfect gameplay. Cut scenes are a little plain. And story is just okay. But otherwise a masterpiece.

Play Citizen Sleeper, this developer’s more recent title. In Other Waters (his earlier game) feels like an ambitious misstep and is a total chore to play. The two games are the same price; go for Sleeper. Just got fed up mining for Shrillsacs for the ten thousandth time.

A computer virus masquerading as a video game, this title is incredibly clever – but that’s about it. The true trick is getting anyone to pay $25 for a $4 experience. I paid $12 and was underwhelmed – the “extra content” turns out to be developer gripes about the gaming industry, which reduces the title’s already flimsy grasp on Descartian notions of choice. Only buy if greatly reduced – if you want to be trolled, there are cheaper ways of doing this.

You should absolutely play this engrossing atmospheric sci-fi game, especially if you’ve finished Disco Elysium and want a similar experience. And yet this title has a look and feel entirely its own – rewarding gamers who love slow burns and rich prose. The ending was an emotional gut-punch for me, despite creaky late-game storytelling.

A side quest that becomes the full mission. Ori is teaching a baby owl to fly. They get separated in a storm. Then Ori spends the whole game trying to get the owl out of the forest. But in the process (SPOILER) Ori transforms into a mystical tree narrating the game. Huh? The graphics and gameplay and visuals are spectacular. The script? Not so much.

A great game that I just hated to play. The themes are so grim and the violent world just wore me down after a while. It’s a murderer simulation disguised as a secret plot to save the world. It just wore me the f**k down.

An atmospheric and intriguing game that just doesn’t come together. Basically, you just walk around a deserted Scottish island while a narrator drones on about cryptic events including a car crash, an old shepherd, a dead wife, etc. Halfway through, the visuals start becoming more and more dream-like, which distances the player instead of drawing them in. There’s no real reason to “play” this game as there is only one path, really – watching a Dear Esther playthrough on YouTube would not be much different than doing it yourself. Apparently, the text and circumstances change with each playthrough, but I can’t imagine anyone wanting to experience the game twice.

Difficult to put into words the hypnotic trance this game induces. You play as a “shade” waiting 400 days in endless caverns for a slumbering king to awake. You spend your days walking around, reading, gardening mushrooms, decorating your room, creating art, sitting, staring. Little by little, your backstory begins to unfold in unexpected ways. There’s often nothing else to do for long stretches of time – a built-in mechanism to force you to stop and just wait while the game-clock keeps ticking. When I wasn’t playing, I found myself thinking about the main character – how he was doing, if he was lonely, what he was going to do next. And then I thought about myself – how my life wasn’t that much different. We are all just trying to fill time. Definitely not for everyone, but perhaps one of the most existential and absorbing video games ever made.

Bought this one for $8.50. That’s about what it’s worth. Trippy platformer with excellent pixel graphics and great music and immersive atmosphere. The experience of playing the game, however, feels a little flat. Essentially, you’re just a Tron clone running around collecting keys and slicing up red monsters with a sword. Worse, constant backtracking through the same beautiful environments makes the revolutionary visuals seem less special. If you’re a fan of beat-em-ups and retro games, Narita Boy might be worth your time. But by the end, I found myself speeding through the endless exposition to get to the predictable ending. WARNING: Be sure to turn on the soft light filter setting, or the blurry visuals will give you a major headache.

6.5. If you’re good at Metroidvanias, you’ll have no problem blowing through this one in a day. The game truly feels like it could have been released on an old-school Nintendo console. Yet … it never really grabbed me. The archaic world is incredibly atmospheric, but the lore (another poisoned kingdom where the rulers may or may not be the cause) feels shallow. The progression is on-rails – and backtracking through the same environments gets repetitive, especially when there’s little to spend your “money” on. Extra points for changing into a cat. But only buy this one at a discount.

An incredibly addictive actioner with satisfying graphics, music, characters. Even a bit of dark humour. Sadly, the game is let down by its repetitive design – you have to beat the entire thing without dying six times with nearly impossible difficulty to reach the true ending. And the revelation of the protagonist’s true identity made me retroactively dislike my experience playing the game.

A highly addictive game that gives you a skull-pounding headache due to the unrestrained chaos generated by hordes of enemies. My eyes were literally bloodshot from playing this admittedly great action title for hours on a long flight. Smooth 3D graphics and groovy music and lots of customised characters hook you into the alien world. But like the first one, the frenetic experience becomes overwhelming after a while. Like too much porn, continuing to play this game makes you feel overexcited yet hollow.

Addictive gameplay. And yet it’s like going to a buffet – starts great, but after a while it’s just too much. This platforming roguelike gets you hooked with impressive minimalist graphics and diversity of cool unlockable characters. But the hordes of enemies that stack up eventually make the experience feel worthless. Once you play through it fully once, you don’t really feel like picking it up again. Worth buying at a discount, but also worth putting down when you’ve had enough.

I paid $1.49 for this. That’s a good price for this quirky and enjoyable game. The graphics and controls are marvellous – but the world sometimes feels empty and under-designed. The novelty of a metroidvania featuring a fish piloting a medieval armour suit makes the adventure feel fresh. But the game really doesn’t pick up the pace until the latter half – and after figuring out the map and unexplained gameplay mechanics. At its worst, you’re just a clunky metal robot backtracking over the same sparse and repetitive environments again and again and again. But at a massively discounted price, Feudal Alloy is worth your time.

Criminally underrated title. An absolutely great gaming experience. You play as Death – a hitman taking out zombies, skeletons, demons. The stealth here is difficult and complex but highly rewarding. (Especially killing vampires on the toilet.) The minimal writing is fantastic, the music excellent, the retro graphics are perfect. At $10, Deadbolt is worth your time and money.

S&S has a hard learning curve, but is engrossing once you figure out your play-style. A perfect mashup of Dark Souls and Metroidvania, with a great soundscape and satisfying control scheme. Basically, you play a highly-customisable character shipwrecked on an island full of monsters who escapes or conquers by becoming a monster themself. Late game, your character becomes so powerful that enemies pose little problems – and you also find yourself running around wondering where to go next. (Use online maps and videos if you need.) But any shortcomings are made up by the immersive atmosphere and dialogue and lore and NPCs. A good value for fans of this genre, with high replayability that feels different with each play-through.

It’s a slog. Unlike the refined (and excellent) Disco Elysium, this isometric RPG features repetitive dialogue and clunky controls. Twenty years ago, this title might have been revolutionary. But it hasn’t aged well. Combat is confusing and imprecise. Graphics are blurry and unconvincing. D&D RPG quests offer lots of personalisation but zero relevance to any real-world human themes or emotions. You’re just a fake character in a fake world with fake problems. Reading the wikipedia plot synopsis feels like an exercise in “word salad” – but will save you money and lots of time. Some great ideas and lovely sonic textures don’t change the fact that Planescape: Torment is really only for hardcore D&D fans and dedicated retro gamers.

This game makes you want to break your Switch over your face. Seriously, don’t buy it. While the graphics and aesthetic and atmosphere and music are laudable, the controls are incredibly frustrating to the point where playing this game is basically self-harm. Everything good about Rain World is completely invalidated by the un-fun, on-rails, main-character-handles-like-a-shopping-cart difficulty. I love hard games like Dark Souls and Celeste – but those titles have a sense of payoff and accomplishment. Here, you just control a pathetic slug who keeps dying over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, replaying the same screens again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Reading the previous sentence is exactly what the game feels like. Keep your money and watch a 25 minute speedrun ... AND MY GOD, I wrote everything above before viewing the ending. This game completely abandons its own “small creature vs nature” premise at the conclusion, making the player endure navigating the sperm cat through quasi-mystical realms that are so dark and blurry you cannot even comprehend what is happening. Save yourself from this self-important nonsense. You only have one life. Don’t spend it on Rain World.

This game deserves more love. Like playing voxelated Blade Runner. Moody and atmospheric; little action. Some writing issues, but overall a solid title.

Look, this game isn’t deep. Retro run-and-gun with moderate difficulty and gorgeous pixel art. If you’re into 80s sci-if action flicks, there’s plenty here for you. Great voice acting. Nice cameo by Gizmo!

Disliked my experience of playing this unnecessarily creepy game. Watching a small boy being shot, crushed, eaten by dogs? Not a fun time. Ending has a nice twist. But the wonky controls and boneheaded puzzle-solving make this just a visually-impressive indie title with little substance.

An absolutely lovely experience. For a game that features a cast of blocks and shapes, it is surprisingly complex and astonishingly emotional. Basic platforming and puzzle solving. Amazing narration. If you like games with shooting and killing, this isn't for you. Everyone else will have a memorable journey.

The main character handles like a shopping cart. The voiceovers are precious. The writing is overly sentimental. The graphics seem 80% done. And yet ... the last few scenes of the game had me in tears. If you like Gone Home or Edith Finch or Disco Elysium, this "playable novel" will satisfy. Everyone else should rightfully stay away.

When there are so many other moody platformers to choose, why play this clunky game with half-finished art and terrible controls? Seems like a clone of GRIS, a much much better 2D puzzle game with a female protag that blows this limp title out of the water. Play that instead.

Only play this if you’ve beaten every other RE title. The last half is a repetitive slog of platforms and bad puzzles. The partner AI often ****. I just saw Rebecca get eaten by a giant frog while Billy stood there with a grenade launcher, watching.

I highly recommend this game DESPITE numerous crashes, long load screens, choppy frame-rate. What most reviews don't tell you is that this is a game that largely takes place in your own mind. It is a prose novel that you play. So the extended loading times and trekking across the same terrain allowed me to reflect on what had just happened to me. The gameplay depends entirely on you remembering what people said to you and imagining the mostly un-pictured world around you. You don't get to kill anyone. You can't act badly without being punished. You're just an insignificant individual trying to make his way in a harsh world that existed well before you and doesn't care if you succeed or fail. You will know IMMEDIATELY if this isn't the kind of game you want to play, then you will go online and score it a 1. Everyone else will be **** into its vortex.

Ending is a bit flat, but the journey until then is engrossing. Feels a lot like Castlevania made by Trent Reznor. A few glitches on Switch, but otherwise smooth gameplay. If you like these kinds of games, you’ll like this one.

If you’re an inventory-management junkie, you’ll love this game. Not fast-paced. Rewards patience and forethought. The visceral thrills of surviving in a harsh winter landscape make this game addictive. Sadly, the most recent episode 4 restricts the player to a stupid on-rails prison story. Where’d the open nature go? Why doesn’t the character just continue on his quest to find his ex-wife? Writing is poor throughout, but playing experience still shines.

Engrossing yet short, but don’t pay full price. At $10, I squeaked out barely 6 hours of gameplay. And the game itself is a riff on the industry’s habit of adapting movies into video games that have little to do with the source material. It’s fun, but forgettable. If you haven’t played The Messenger, Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, Salt and Sanctuary, buy those instead. Save this long in-joke for when you have nothing else to play.

Absolutely worth the $4 I paid for a two and a half hour short story. Not worth a penny more. Don’t read anything about it – and play it alone, in one sitting, in the dark. Nails the 90s vibe, with the exception of the vocal fry of Sam. (This way of talking literally didn’t exist then.)