ProbablyNotABot

Fortune Summoners is probably one of my favorite platformers. The gameplay is amazing. The fighting game-esque inputs behind Arche's sword open it up to an increasingly varied arsenal of attacks. In order to make the most of it, you have to understand which moves easily lead into others and which will leave you vulnerable after. There's a lot of experimentation and a lot of satisfaction following execution. It's tempting to manually control one of the other two characters in your party and let Arche's godly AI take over, but I wouldn't recommend it. They mostly just stay out of the enemy's range, which removes any real interaction, which removes strategy and fun. However, the one section where you have to control one of the magic users by herself is plenty fun, since without Arche to keep enemies at bay, her fighting style works very differently than when she's in the party. I did die a lot, but the game is very forgiving with deaths, so it's not a game I would consider especially difficult. Not when you can just throw yourself at an encounter until you win with no consequences. Graphically, it looks like a well done 2D Saturn game, which is just about the pinnacle of graphics in my eyes. The music is fine, if a bit bland, and the environments can get a bit bland too (especially dungeons), but I don't find anything about it offensive. Everything is thoughtfully designed from a gameplay perspective, if not always an aesthetic one. The story is fine, though it's ultimately unresolved, which is a shame since the creator doesn't seem inclined to make any more games. The characters are likable enough, if you like this sort of thing, and the party's personalities are reflected in how they control and even in how their fighting styles interact when fighting as a group, which I enjoyed. It's a good game. Play the demo. If you like how Arche moves, then you'll probably like the rest of the game as well.

Plague Knight controls like a thing that's hard to control but is really fun once you've worked out the kinks. There's a huge amount of variability in what you can do with him too, from the bomb components to the relics. It does seem that they made up for the added difficulty to control with really strong relics to act as safety nets, which I thought was a shame, but is probably for the best. It's a bit lousy that the levels are largely the same as Shovel Knight's, especially in moments when they don't mesh too well with Plague Knight, but I honestly can't bring myself to complain much about the lack of content in a free expansion pack. if you haven't played Shovel Knight since near its initial release then it's fun to look back through those levels, but I would think it would be a bit dull if you've played it recently. I had expected to revel in the sadistic joy of a villain, but the story instead made Plague Knight's struggles relatable, and the character sympathetic. I was surprised and pleased. It's solid. Shovel Knight was a good buy before, and now it's even better.

I don't think this game needs my review's help, but I'm reviewing it anyways. This is a game with lots of shmup, EarthBound, and a bunch of other indie games that were also inspired by EarthBound. It has a lot of heart, a lot of bad puns, a lot of good times, and a lot of bad times. I don't think it's especially profound. I would say it's more profound than its idol, EarthBound, and I would say the story's more meta elements are certainly clever and fun to mess with, but it probably won't change your life. And it doesn't need to. It just needs to be an inventive and unique experience. I really don't have any complaints about this game. I just like it all. Play it.

It's not terrible, but it's also not Neverhood. I see a lot of people criticizing the length. I don't think it's a problem, personally, except maybe in the context of having spent 25 dollars for about six hours of playtime. I think puzzle centric games can do short just fine, and I think Armikrong would have driven me crazy if its repetition had gone on for much longer. The game is broken into four sections and you must complete the same basic set of objectives in each. At the risk of repeating myself, it's a tad repetitious. The game's puzzles are largely uninspired. Infrequently do you have to really analyze your environment and think about how things can interact to find a solution. Mostly you find some symbol or pattern in one room, write it down, and use it in whatever contraption just a couple rooms down the road. It's mindless. There are also block pushing puzzles, sliding tile puzzles, and a music minigame that comes complete with the shrill sounds of a crying baby. They're all serviceable, but not especially unique or compelling. Neverhood had a music puzzle too, but you only had to do it once, and you didn't have to listen to a crying baby. It is occasionally frustrating to control, which surprised me. The character switching mechanic is underdeveloped and underutilized. Outside of a couple of short corridors and buttons, the feature is never used, in spite of the wealth of interesting puzzle possibilities it introduces. There are many bright, attention grabbing buttons that you initially can't push for no immediately obvious reason, but there's fortunately not any pixel hunting here, so it's not all that bad. The music, visuals, and voice acting are good. I like the environments and I've been listening to the OST outside of the game. My only complaint is that they didn't do enough with any of them. With rare exception, our protagonists don't really have a chance to emote outside of the opening and closing cutscenes, neither with their voices nor their animations, which is a tremendous shame in a game where the art style is such a big selling point. I actually found it extremely jarring when their personalities resurfaced in the ending scenes after being mostly mute throughout the game. As for the music, the game fell silent often enough that I'm not unconvinced that it just wasn't looping as intended, so most of my experience with it has actually not been in the game. The story is fine. It's very reminiscent of the tapes in Neverhood, in that the pieces you collect don't make a lot of sense until you're near the end. The story's reveal is a rather extreme take on that idea. The contents of the story function, which is all they really need to do, in spite of the pompous presentation. You won't be giving this one any thought once it's over, but it's at least some motivation, I suppose. Again, Armikrog is not terrible. It's not an entirely unsatisfactory experience. It's just that it's a little too plain, straightforward, and easy. It's a point and click you can largely autopilot through, which is a very strange thing.