Paikia

To make this short - Fading Hearts is much more a visual novel than a game. Just so we're on the same page, as far as I'm concerned, Long Live The Queen and Magical Diary are games, as they offer plenty of interactive content, where you actually get to play, make decisions and influence what happens next. In Fading Hearts, though, the communication is mostly one-way - most of the time you watch and read, and occasionally make a choice. It took me around 20 minutes of scrolling through animations and text boxes, until I got my first choice, and that is only to have the game throw at me more and more information. Obviously, I'm disappointed, as I was expecting more to do. Despite my disappointment, though, I'm not rating this game too low, since it was completely my fault, that I didn't get what I wanted. I should've done some reading before buying something I had thought was something else. I just figured I'd post something about it, so others wouldn't make that mistake. Only get this if you want to watch and read a visual novel. It's nothing like Long Live The Queen!

I love simulation games in general, and while Sid Meier's Railroads does have a few problems and drawbacks, I am having a lot of fun with it. I read many complaints about crashes and technical problems, but I rarely encountered any by now (15-16 hours of gameplay). The game did crash once for me, but it seems to have been an isolated incident. Generally - the game plays just fine (Windows 7 64bit). I don't have much to say about the graphics and music, which I suppose has a lot to do with this game being 7 years old by the time this review is being written. Obviously, I can't expect it to look and sound like games released during the last couple of years, so this is not a issue for me. As for the gameplay - I really love the general idea of building a railroad network, connecting cities and industrial sites. The game does offer a fairly deep, balanced and complex gameplay, but I must admit, that as a Civilization series veteran, I was expecting more. In every scenario I play, I usually end up with quite a network and a lot of money, so I start working on the scenario goals, but I can't escape the feeling that something is missing. I'm not sure if the problem is a lack of challenge, or maybe the scope of each of the scenarios is too small, or maybe something else that I'm missing. In conclusion, I love this game, I wish I had discovered it before, but what I'd really love - is an improved sequel. I doubt Firaxis games are even thinking about it, but maybe someone else will step up to the challenge.

Superfrog HD is a fun to play 2D side-scrolling platformer. There's nothing really fancy or extraordinary about this game, but it does feel balanced all-around. I've experienced none of the control problems some other reviewers have mentioned, everything feels exactly like it should be. All in all - a nice platformer. I paid $10 and I feel like I made a decent deal.

'Magical Diary' is a cool japanese simulation game. You play a girl during her first year in magic school. The idea in the game is to make friends, get along with your teachers, solve some puzzles (exams to be solved with magic), and maybe get a boyfriend or even get married. There are quite a lot of options to explore, so beating the game once isn't all there is to it. I've gone through three different branches, although one of them ended prematurely, as it was my first game and I didn't bother to read any of the instructions or guidelines, so I got myself expelled from school and didn't get far. The graphics aren't anything special, but aren't bad either. The music is nice, the story has both funny, serious and dark elements, and all in all - the game is fun to play. In my own personal list of favorite japanese simulation games, Magical Diary gets the respectful third place (where Long Live The Queen is the runner up, and Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the winner).

I only bought this game because it's a japanese simulation game, and I'm a real fan of the genre. The idea is cute, pretty much like in Magical Diary - you make friends in order to recruit members for your club. The problem is, this game seems dull and boring. After playing more complex games, such as Long Live The Queen, Recettear and even Magical Diary, this game simply pales in comparison - *big time*! I'm not completely sure, I'm only been playing for an hour or so, so I'm probably going to give it some more time, hoping it'll surprise me. I promise to update this review if I ever change my mind about this game, but so far, I don't like it at all. If you like games like that, better go for a better one, such as the examples I mentioned above.

Just like the first Ace Patrol, "Pacific Skies" is a casual strategy game. You get to play as either US Navy, US Air-force, Japanese Navy or Japanese Air-force, and fly on missions against the other side. The point in the game is to use tactical airplane maneuvers to your advantage and shoot down the enemy airplanes. Unlike what I expected from a game with Sid Meier's name on its title, both games on the series are quite easy to learn. Having that said, they do get really challenging on the harder difficulty levels. A part of the fun is, you can change the difficulty level while playing, and practically choose the difficulty level of each and every mission. The thing is - the points you get for completing a mission depend on the difficulty level, so for anyone trying to compete for a place on the leaderboards and for some of the achievements, playing on a high difficulty level is a key. As far as graphics, music and sound effects are concerned, Pacific Skies doesn't offer much beyond the original Ace Patrol. There's nothing fancy or extraordinary regarding those aspects of the game. The gameplay, however, is a lot of fun. I recommend this game to anyone who's into airplanes and strategy.

Nevermind, was reviewing the wrong version. :X Shouldn't there be a 'delete' option somewhere? Should write a review for the website's user interface. :P

A cute old-school side-scrolling shooter, inspired by the 8bit/16bit era shooters. The graphics are nice (720p pixel-art), the music is cool, the controls are smooth and intuitive. All in all - a really fun game to play, and the best part - it has cats, so if you like cats, your amusement is guaranteed! :) The game is not as fast as Syder Arcade, but it does get challenging. There's 'easy mode' for people who want to take it easy and enjoy a casual shoot-'em-up experience, then there's 'Normal', which offers a balanced challenge level, and then there's 'Arcade mode', for anyone who's up for a real challenge. From my personal experience on Normal Mode, the first few levels are quite easy, letting you gradually figure out the game, but the difficulty level does pick up as you advance through levels. Also, there's an "Infinite Mode" continuous survival game mode, where you can test your skills over time and see how long you survive. My final verdict: Get it, meow! The milk must flow!

I'm generally a fan of old-school RPGs, I'm all in for supporting indie game developers, but c'mon! This entire trend of crappy games sold as "Indie", "Retro" or "Old-School" is really starting to get on my nerves! I don't mind the lack of voice acting, I don't need long and gorgeous cut-scenes, I can live with the shallow storylines, I can also deal with the ugly graphics in general. But what really drive me nuts are the small things, such as, for example, me being able to hit an enemy from 100 miles away.... with a melee weapon! Nevermind the fact that all I really hit was air, the monster on the other corner of the screen just dies and disappears. For me, this is a game breaker. It's like the game devs are telling me, "Hey, it's a fantasy game, right? You only imagine you're an adventurer, you only imagine you're fighting monsters, so what's wrong with imagining you really hit the bat right before it died?" Well, at this point I put on my Grumpy Cat mask and shout, "No! I won't friggin' imagine that! It's your job as game devs to illustrate at least the most basic stuff!". Needless to say, that if in the past I generously shelled out money for indie games without digging too deep, thinking to myself that even if I won't be enjoying the game, at least I'd be supporting the games industry, that is not the case anymore. I'm tired of lazy game devs selling me crap as "Indie". I'm willing to pay for good games, but I work hard to earn that money, and so should everyone else, including game developers. As far as I'm concerned, Anodyne is a bad game. I can't remember how much I paid for it, I just hope it wasn't much. Oh well, at least I'm wiser and more careful now, when it comes to choosing what games to buy, regardless of how cheap or expensive they are.

A fast paced, old-school side-scrolling shooter, inspired by 8bit/16bit era shooters. It looks great, the controls are accurate and intuitive and the entire game feels really balanced and fluid. Definitely one of the best shooters I've ever played!

I really like this game. It's a great combination of RPG and Strategy gameplay elements. As the name of the game suggests, the background is the historical event of the Spaniard expedition to America. The game offers quite a wide spectrum of morale choices. You can be the cruel conquistador who burns the villages and kill the natives in the name of god and the Spanish crown, you could choose to be the diplomatic scholar type, who comes to learn about the culture of the natives, or any path in between those extreme agendas. Either way, the game is designed to challenge your decisions. While you start with a group of loyal followers, they won't necessarily stay loyal, as every decision you make may affect their morale. Therefore, it's important to give it some thought when choosing people for your party and try to minimize potential conflicts, which will arise very often during the game. While some people give most of the weight to military and tactical skills when choosing party members, I think the characters of the people you choose is just as important, if not more. There's a lot more to write and explain, but trying and game and figuring it out for yourself would probably be a better use of your time. Expeditions: Conquistador is a great game, don't let it slip away!

Let me start at the end this time, and say that this game offers quite a few hours of fun, but that's about it. I'm all about the nostalgic and indie feel that the game offers, but it looks like the developers took it way too far. Knight Of Pen And Paper +1" is a simplistic example of taking a trendy formula, and trying to milk it until it dries. Generally, I can live with a lack of eye-candy and with a simple battles formula, but c'mon! This is a pure attempt to disguise laziness as "Indie and nostalgic"! Add to that the in-game invitations to use real money on "gold" to spend in the game, and you get pure greed. While I did enjoy playing this game, I never bothered to finish the campaign, and I doubt I ever will. I can't remember how much I paid for this game, but in retrospect, I wouldn't pay more than $5 for it, and I'm not even sure it's worth that much.

A cool and impressive remake to the classic point-and-click adventure game, Leisure Suit Larry. This game is a lot of fun, especially thanks to the great work done and time spent on this quality remake. The only drawback, in my opinion, is the exagerated use of the narrator in the game. Wherever you go, whatever you do, everytime you click the left button of the mouse, you get a long and well-acted presentation from the narrator. Why is this bad, you ask? Because the long speeches get boring and tedious and kind of hurt the gameplay. At a certain point I started cutting the narrator mid-sentence, since I wanted to move on, thus missing some important information. All in all, despite the tedious narrator, I had fun. Definitely worth buying if you like point-and-click adventures, and especially if you've played one of the previous versions (the original from the late 80s, I think, and the point-and-click remake from the early 90s).

I love this release of the first two games of the Ys series. It's the old-school gameplay I love, with modern graphics and sound. The games are a little on the short side, that's true, but the reviewer who mentioned 2-3 hours probably never played any of the games. It took me a little less than 10 hours to beat Ys 1 on Normal difficulty level, while I know the game very well from the Sega Master System version. I also have quite a few hours logged in the second game, and I still have a while until I beat it. So 2-3 hours? C'mon... Not even close to anything realistic. Probably a troll. As for the bump system, it takes some getting used to, but once you're on top of it, it's actually fun and refreshing. All in all, those games are a lot of fun and definitely worth getting.

"A truck driving simulator"...? I was wondering at first. I wasn't sure a game about driving a truck would be any fun. Luckily, I decided to try it anyway, and I was pleasantly surprised big time! You get to to start your own truck deliveries company, hire drivers, deliver cargo over most of europe, and enjoy the quite realistic view. I've been playing this game on and off for a few months now, and it is really a lot of fun!

In a nutshell, this game is an uber-casual point & click errand-boy role playing game. It's short (5 hours), there are no fancy graphics, no orchestral soundtrack, no complex battle system and no deep storyline. You simply complete quests, collect items and follow the story click by click. Once you know what to expect (and what not to expect), the game is fun.

I wasn't sure about this game when I bought it. I figured there was a reasonable chance it would end up on my "wasted money Steam purchases" basket. Only a few days later, when I bothered to check it out, this game became one hell of a pleasant surprise. Recettear is a weird mix of simulation, hack & slash and role-playing, with the cute japanese kind of graphics and animations that I really love. You play Recette, the cute and naive item-shop seller girl, who's teamed up with Tear, the fairy, who at first seems like the tough business...fairy(?) personality, but already a few hours into the game, I'm getting the feeling she has a totally different agenda than the one she's letting out. As Recette, you need to manage your items shop and make money, so you can pay a debt to Tear's agency (whatever it is), so they wouldn't take your house. In addition to buying and selling routine, you can also hire adventurers and go to dungeons. In return for your payment to the adventurer, you get to keep the items you find in the dungeon, and sell them with nearly 100% profit. All in all, this game is a lot of fun, definitely worth its price, in my humble opinion.

Port Royale 3 is one of the best games I've encountered during the last couple of years. Despite starting to play a buggy and unstable release, I really enjoyed it. The gameplay is amazing, in my opinion, and by now all the bugs are gone (as far as I can tell, at least). The main idea in the game is to either be a pirate and build your own naval empire, or be a trader (my personal preferred choice) and build a huge merchant fleet, and later on gain control over cities. The game takes place in the Caribbeans, during the European colonization in America. Therefore, you can choose to be either Spanish, English, French or Dutch, but you're not limited to trading with just within your country's colonies. Also, even for people like me, who aren't die-hard fans of "Pirates Of The Caribbeans", it's impossible to miss the connection. :) The trading mechanism is quite realistic, and is a lot of fun, as you need to start small, trading stuff yourself, until you get rich and famous enough to buy more ships and more goods, so you can buy more ships and build businesses in cities, so you can manufacture goods yourself, which is obviously cheaper than buying them from someone else. If you're into trading simulation, get this game, it's definitely one of the best of the genre.

This game is a platformer strategy hybrid, which kind of reminds me of an old SNES game called "Act Raiser". Much like in Act Raiser, in "A Valley Without Wind 2" you split your game time between the strategic "map view" interface, where you have to think, plan ahead and prioritize, and the platforming-action based "area purification" phase. The game offers a variety of characters to choose from. I still haven't wrapped my head around the mechanics and differences between those characters, their classes or whatever it's based on, but it does look promising when considering re-playability value, as it looks like it could be interesting to try the game again using a different type of character. Also on the re-playability subject, you can choose different difficulty levels for the two different aspects of the game one for the action parts and another for the strategy part. This way, everyone can choose his or her favorite level of challenge for each part. Personally, I'm more into strategy, so I'm more likely to choose a higher strategy difficulty level, to make the game more challenging in that aspect, while I might leave the action difficulty level as it is, although at least during the first few hours of the game, the action is pretty easy and relaxed on the default difficulty level, so I might take that one a notch or two as well. So far (a few hours in), this game looks like it's a lot of fun.

One of the best games I've encountered during the last few years. The graphics are great, the soundtrack is awesome, the story is good, but most importantly, the gameplay is awesome. This game is just pure fun! Kind of reminds me of "Guardian Heroes", a Sega Saturn game from quite a while back. The game is a side-scrolling fighting platformer, with strong RPG elements (character progression, side quests and a deep storyline). Everything is in equilibrium, perfectly balanced. Don't miss on this one!

If I could divide my rating for this game between two different aspects, I'd give the core gameplay 10, while what I define as "delivery", for the lack of a better word, gets a mere 1. Just to clarify I'm not a troll, I don't tend to go around bashing games I don't like. I'm writing this review only because I feel the game could've been a true masterpiece, if it wasn't for the bugs and technical problems. As far as gameplay is concerned, this game is a gem. It's the best city planner I've ever played. It's balanced, deep, complex, yet graphic and easy to get into. So what's my problem? My problem is that the game is buggy on the verge of being broken. I won't go into the small and meaningless bugs, like missing building names and stuff like that. What I'm really talking about is the performance when managing larger cities. As long as your city is small and low on population, the game runs very well. The problem starts when your city grows and gains population, which is one of the goals in this game, I suppose. :P As soon as the city becomes large enough, the game starts to stutter like crazy, with the frame-rate dropping drastically, and I do mean *drastically*! To make it clear, I've been running the game on a fairly decent hardware, to say the least, that is a computer with an Intel i7 Quad-Core CPU, 16GB RAM and a Geforce GTX 465 graphics adapter. Such hardware can easily deal with much newer, heavier and resource-thirsty games. According to research I've been doing online, the games has major memory leak problems, and doesn't support multi-core CPUs, which apparently, nobody cares to fix. Regardless of the reasons, the fact remains, that this game doesn't play well, even on today's high end gaming configurations. All in all, I can't do anything but express my disappointment, since I'm sure I would've really enjoyed that game if it played smoothly.

I've been playing Agarest for only a few hours so far, but it's enough for me to decide I really like this game. Agarest: Generations Of War seems to be all about the tactics, pretty much like some of the Shining Force games, specifically the game(s) for the GameGear and SegaCD (partly the same games packed differently). It means that generally, the game is linear. While you can move around and go back and fourth between locations you've already visited and cleared, it's not like you need to explore territories, pick up battles or find treasures or clues, with the exception of the specific locations with that exact purpose. Coming up on mere 6 hours in-game I've only come across one such location, but it's safe to assume there are more. The back-story does seem rich and deep, although I admit I'm still kind of confused about what's what. There's that Light Darkness gauge, which is still a mystery for me. The graphics and animations are sweet, japanese style. One thing that bothers me is that the characters' lips don't move when they speak. Also, the voice acting is all in japanese. The written text in all in english, though (obviously). The battle system looks complex and deep, yet easy enough to learn (there quick and easy tutorials). All in all, the game looks good, so far. If you like Japanese Tactical RPGs, you might want to get this one, it definitely looks promising. I'll update this review as I keep playing and have a better perspective.

"A JRPG, you say?" Well, yeah, sure, but not in the traditional sense of the term. This is a strange one indeed, but (mostly) in a good way. This game has a very strong japanese mythology theme. You play a swordswoman, whose main goal is to fight Tsukumogami, strange creatures which take shapes of common everyday items, such as a jacket, a broom and so on. When you get to fight a Tsukumogami, instead one of the traditional RPG battle systems, you need to zap the enemy with your special Gokon Sword in order to get clues about its identity and expose it. Once you exposed its identity (i.e. what item it really is), you need to hack it a few more times to finish it. The thing is all the clues are literal, in english and based on the japanese lore. For example, if you're fighting a broom Tsukumogami, the clues you get could be either letters from the item's name in uppercase (B or OO, for example), or details about the item itself, what it's being used for, what it's made of and so on ("wood", "cleaning" for example). Once you think you know the name, you "call it out" either by typing it on a virtual in-game keyboard, or by choosing it from a list you can get (and later upgrade for a price) as a part of the story. If you're wrong, the enemy gets a bonus attack and you lose HP. If you got it right, the shroud is lifted and you get to see the enemy for what it really is. A few more hacks and slashes, and it's usually gone. I've only been playing the game for 6-7 hours so far, so there might be more complicated stuff I haven't reached yet, but this is what it looks like, so far, and while it gets a little repetitive, it is fun.

"Hmmm... another city, colony, or civilization management simulator..." this was the first thought about Reus. Well, that thought turned out to be wrong. I was skeptical at first, but soon enough Reus turned out to be one hell of a pleasant surprise! While the game might look simplistic, childish or even shallow, because of the colorful visuals and the concept of giants ruling the world, I promise you this is not the case. Being a Civilization series veteran, I'm used to deep and complex games. While Reus might not compare with Civilization 5 or other games on that subject, it definitely provides a sophisticated enough mechanism to keep people like me interested, at least so far. The idea in the game is to contribute to the development of the colonies by supplying resources and improvements, mainly plants, animals and minerals of different sorts. But in order to unlock the better, more advanced resources and improvements (called "aspects" in-game), you must explore and use the more basic options, or you can't progress and reach the advanced stuff. Needless to say, I guess, that the more advanced your giants are, the bigger and more prosperous colonies they can sustain, support and control. ...yes, control. Sometimes a colony gets greedy and arrogant and attacks your giants, and needs a good kick in the ass. In some cases it's even necessary to destroy a colony, if it looks hopeless. Also, the humans in the colonies will try and develop projects of different sorts, and you're supposed to help them meet the required criteria (if you want that project to succeed). The trick is to choose the optimal combination of resources to supply to the colony, factoring in the resource's position, its level, and the level of synergy it might or might not have with other resources nearby, plus the project's criteria, of course. So far, most projects need specific amounts of either food, wealth or technology or any combination of them. Some projects, though, will also require one or more unusual conditions, such as winning a war with another colony or having another colony completely destroyed (either by going to war or by "divine intervention"). There are more aspects to the game, some of which I don't fully understand myself yet, but I promise to update if I feel l learn something important enough. For one, you have time limits, both for the "Era" type of game (what I've been playing so far) and for the projects. Obviously, it complicates things. Anyway, to summarize this this game is way more complex and rewarding than it seems, or at least more than it seemed to me at first. If you like strategy and colony management, get it, definitely worth it!

The concept of this game might be considered silly, childish or just plain boring. Well, in my opinion, it's none of the above. Once you give the game a decent chance, you realize that while it has its faults and disadvantages, it's actually a lot of fun, and can be quite complex. The basic idea in the game is to find a combination or a sequence or choices and decisions that will not only lead you to becoming queen, but also ensure the prosperity and safety of your kingdom. What makes this game so much fun and interesting, in my opinion, is the number of possibilities. It's not just a matter of winning or losing, it's also a matter of how. While the journey from the beginning of the game to the end might be a little short, the real point of the game, as I understand it, is to keep exploring options. Personally, I'm coming up on 20 hours in Long Live The Queen, and while I've explored most of the options, I still have quite a few to discover. The achievements list gives you some clues about how many more options you haven't explored yet (the achievements are available both in-game and on Steam). In conclusion, if you like strategy life simulation games don't pass on Long Live The Queen. Give it a decent chance, it's definitely worth it!