Vitten23

A mix of Musou and Mech, this game offers little in terms of variation or depth but more than makes up for it by just being plain fun.. at least for a few hours until the monotony of repeating the same actions over and over sets in. Fortunately, there are nearly endless possibilities to keep upgrading and improving your mech and the game also offers endgame arena fights which might keep you interested for a little while longer. All in all not a bad fun and mindless game, especially in couch co-op mode with a friend. + smooth gameplay. + couch co-op + bright colourful graphics with lots of on-screen action without slowdown. - can get monotonous fast. Lacks variation.

Aerea is a colourful couch co-op dungeon crawler aimed at a younger audience and which at first glance looks like a nice game: The handdrawn graphics and classical concert hall theme give the game a charming look and the orchestral soundtrack sounds very pleasing to the ears. Unfortunately the game has more than just a few problems; For starters it's riddled with annoying bugs like your character constantly firing after opening the menu screen or sometimes refusing to fire, enemies suddenly only taking 1 HP of damage ( infuriating when it happens with a boss), falling or being kicked out of bounds, getting stuck behing those annoying swinging doors etc.. etc.. Was this game even tested ? Then there is the repetetive nature of the game itself where it forces you to run through the same levels again and again from start to finish each time with a slightly diferent objective. This gets annoying fast and with the lack of a complete map you run around in circles and make the experience more frustrating then it should be. The game also has some weird dificulty balancing issues: it all gets far too easy way too fast, there's zero use for all the dozens of diferent potions it throws at you and upgrading the different stats of your character and upgrading your special attacks feels pointless. With all that said and despite all its issues, there is still a decent game in there somewhere especially if you play couch co-op with young kids. My 5 year old was oblivious to all the problems (as kids are) and couldn't stop playing this game for a long time .. Not a bad deal in the end as it only costed 2 EUR. So Aerea is a very mixed bag: a soft recommend if you plan on playing it with young kids, avoid if otherwise. A bit of a shame because you can obviously tell that a lot of effort was placed in some parts of the game and it had potential, If only they had done some proper testing and balancing.

Catastronauts is a fun variation of the Overcooked games in which you and your friend(s) occupy a small spaceship and you have to battle it out against a relentless AI opponent. The object is to constantly repair your ship and shoot your cannons to reduce your opponent's energy to 0% while they try and do the same to yours. As me and my 5-year old kid greatly enjoy playing Overcooked together and this game feels very much the same we immediately felt right at home here and had a great time. Unfortunately there's one annoying problem if you're playing with a young kid and that's the dificulty. Whereas Overcooked gently eases you into things and allows plenty of room for error as one skilled player can pick up the slack of a less skilled player, making progress in this game was harder as it demands both player to play well and it can get all get a bit too frantic after the first easy hubs. An easy mode with an opponent who doesn't fire 37 times per minute would have been welcome ! Otherwise, it's a very OK party game that is sure to keep you and your friends entertained..