Supergiant's best game yet. It's a good Diablo clone, and it's a good roguelite. Still very repetitive, but does numerous things to mitigate the repetition, so the fun lasts longer. Unlike some roguelites which feel limited in what you can do on a single run, Hades wants the player to go nuts and try different things. The weapon variations provide a great variety of play-styles. The environments are highly detailed with nice colours, and visually diverse. The quality of the art/visuals and sound is high enough that it's basically a playable cartoon. However, although there's tons of dialogue that reacts to a surprising number of specific situations, the narrative as a whole is puddle deep. It's aimed squarely at pre-teens, and while its borrowing of Greek myth is thorough, it's content with merely referencing things to make its audience feel smart. Anything it has to say about the mythology is expressed more so in their artistic vision of the characters, rather than the character/story arcs - with a couple exceptions. Very minor insignificant spoilers in this paragraph: For example the story of Achilles and Patroclus is given a lot of attention (Achilles is an NPC and friend of the player-character), and it amounts to Patroclus moping around all day in Elysium because he misses Achilles, his lover. Now I hate to say this, but it has to be said because of how the devs have chosen to interpret this through the lens of their own politics: Achilles and Patroclus, characters from the Iliad of Homer, are not portrayed as homosexuals in the Iliad. They are buddies. It's only in the 20th century that college profs practicing revisionist history have strongly pushed for the idea that there is a hidden homosexual relationship between those characters. There's no evidence for it, you'd have to project that onto it yourself, which is what happened with the academics and is what happened here. So at the end of the day you have a storyline that the devs give a lot of attention to, yet it's so shallow and goes nowhere that in practical terms it's kind of just there to be there, and it's factually questionable. To me that leaves the only purpose for its existence is to send a message. And this is just one major example. So without going into endless detail about all of that, in which case I should rather just make a youtube analysis or something, I just wanted to give that short explanation of why the game is subversive - because it is. And it's so subversive that there's more to say about what Supergiant has accomplished, in terms of subversion, than what they've achieved in the game design itself. The quality of the game only makes it more insidious. The last thing I have to mention on that topic: The women. There are no young women in this game. There are no busty women in this game. We're talking about goddesses with idealized forms, and literally every single one ticks multiple of these boxes: a) 40+ age, b) face immediately recognizable as masculine, c) small bust that slopes and sags. This would be easier to accept if they had thrown boys a bone and at least made Aphrodite a babe, but no, it's as if it were stipulated in a contract that they must portray women a certain way. It's honestly frightening. This is coming from people who want you to think that Achilles and Patroclus were homosexuals and make it a central plot of their game, yet they're avoiding any depiction of a human breast drawn with a round line (and that's not an exaggeration). And for those who will say it's not important and the game should only be judged for its gameplay, I disagree because it's clearly important to Supergiant games. They have gone out of their way to offer such a treatment of Greek myth, so much that it must be as important to them as it is to make the game good. Just something to think about.
I'm not a fan of roguelite progression, but Synthetik has deep enough gameplay to justify it. Mechanically it's superior to other top-down shooters, but the RPG elements with the 8 different classes with their own unique mechanics makes it even better, and allows you to approach the game at your own pace. And because it's more skill-based, I feel Synthetik is the most forgiving roguelite I've played which is a good thing. It's lots of fun with minimal frustration. I was surprised how easy it was not only to learn the controls but also understand the mechanics intuitively due to the feedback from the amazing audiovisual design. In particular Synthetik has a remarkable visual aesthetic. It contrasts the highly detailed, futuristic military setting, with bright pastel colors which gives it a minimalistic, modern art kind of look. So in summary it's an all-around excellent game in terms of gameplay, controls, graphics, and sound. It's very approachable, it has a lot of content, and it has multiplayer co-op.
Pros: +knockoff Judge Dredd, great setting for a top-down shooter +fun RPG elements to customize your judge +surprisingly good level design for a short, mission-based game +likewise a surprising level of detail and polish, visually and thematically Cons: -the UI, despite being visually polished, is counter-intuitive to navigate while switching mods/weapons and is a source of frustration -the stealth mechanics are not up to par on the higher mission difficulties, you can have a mod that makes you invisible in the dark, but there will be random patches where you're visible that can't be visually distinguished -other mechanics are similar in this way, for example you can get a weapon mod that makes you invincible while reloading, but enemies know you're invincible and stop firing which actually creates more difficulty because you think they cannot see you, and you're no longer getting visual feedback for where their bullets are -the mission design in general is flawed because the three objectives for each mission can't easily, or sometimes at all, be completed at the same time, which begs the question why are they grouped together arbitrarily? -at the very end of the game, once you've gotten enough medals to unlock all the weapons, there's very little incentive left to keep playing and finding secrets, because all the medals left will probably involve objectives that you've been avoiding up until that point
My experience with the game: I create a character, get control and start looking around the menu. I accidentally back out to the main menu while trying to resume the game. I can't load back into my character, despite him appearing in a save slot under "Load Game," there is no option to load. So I create the character again, and start looking around the menu again. While I'm tinkering with the resolution, the game bugs out and I can no longer exit the menu. I can't continue playing, and I can't leave the game. I have to use the task manager to close the program. Uninstalled.
This is a faithful remake of Seiken Densetsu 3, the SNES sequel to Secret of Mana that was never released outside of Japan. Everything good about that game is here, they didn't mess anything up, while also expanding the late-game content a little bit. It's impressive how successfully they adapted the visual style of the 2D game to 3D, which is the best reason for a remake to exist IMO, and which they could have easily messed up like they did with the Secret of Mana remake from a couple years back. So let me tell you about this game. It's extremely simple, easy and linear. You might expect it to be boring, so why is it so fun? Why have you heard people recommend the original? Because of the class system. Upon beginning this game you choose three party members from a choice of six, and each party member gets to change classes twice during the game. The options for forming a party and choosing classes for each of them is extremely engaging, and makes this comfy little game that should be boring into something infinitely replayable. It's one of the most replayable JRPGs ever. The bad: -some of the English voice acting is repulsive, thankfully it's also funny and charming most of the time -no co-op play -party AI is dumb, and could be more customizable than it is -bosses are too easy later on, they need more HP or something -the price is a little steep -options to disable the minimap, making exploration more rewarding, but no option to disable the objective marker (in the original, you could actually get lost despite the game's linearity) The characters in this game look nice. It's fun and relaxing to run around the comfy environments, fighting monsters and enjoying the music.
The fact this game almost has a green user score, despite being unfinished and unpolished, shows how solid it is. I want to say it's underrated, but it's not! It has the score it deserves. Is it a spiritual successor to Planescape? It certainly scratches the itch, which you would hope for considering how much of Planescape it rips off, but no. Tides is a pale shadow of the game it cribs from. Is it worth playing though? Absolutely. I was surprised how decent it was in terms of party members and the combat system, given what some of the other reviews say. The technical problems are real, however. Game crashed on me a couple times, and it's riddled with small quality-of-life issues, such as the camera jumping to the wrong area of the screen at the beginning of each turn in combat - just to name one. At one point, taking a skill that made one character immune to flanked somehow made my entire party AND every NPC immune to all positive and negative status (this includes entering stealth, and buffing with cyphers), which I thought was permanent but lasted until I restarted the game. But let me say what I like about Tides of Numenera. The setting is ***ing gorgeous! I love the setting SO much, it's making me interested in the tabletop game. The environments you'll explore are alien, exotic, varied, and so, so gorgeous. It's better looking than Pillars 1 or Tyranny by far (all use the same technology). Its other major strength is reactivity. This is the most reactive CRPGs I've played, it's far more reactive (and less railroaded) for example than the much-praised Disco Elysium. So what's wrong with it? Well it kind of falls apart towards the end. A lot of what happens in the game's two city hubs don't make sense if you can't revisit them later, and you can't. And beginning with the second hub, it becomes clear the later portions of the game were not playtested as much as the early ones, because the coherency of the dialogue trees breaks down somewhat when the options at the bottom 'spoil' the responses to the ones at the top. Some of the quests aren't great either. My least favorite quest is one of the first ones, for recruiting the party member named Tybis. There is no way to save Ris while also punishing Tybis, which I found extremely bizarre and unsatisfying, given how much of a straightforward scumbag Tybis is immediately revealed to be by listening to his story when he gives you the quest. Somehow, for some reason, they didn't expect players to take issue with this un-charismatic, un-charming, unlikeable rogue. Thankfully most of the quests are not like this. What else is bad? The player can easily steamroll every skill check, starting around the midway point of the game when you've levelled up a couple of times. The battles are also pretty easy, but the biggest issue with that is how often the player is asked to resolve environmental interactions during battles, often with respawning enemies slowing them down. See, in this game you only have one action and one movement per turn. You can use your action to move further, but more often than not, you want your one action. Well, in many cases interacting with environmental objects during battle to resolve objectives requires consuming your action in dialogue after reaching and interacting with the object. This can become frustrating when you have to wait another turn to do the action, sitting through another turn for all the enemies on screen. At the very least it provides some tension and challenge, but I don't think it was tested much. Finally, there are choose-your-own-adventure sequences which play like visual novels. Most of them are optional, and some are fun, but they're removed from the rest of the game which makes me wonder why they're there in the first place. It feels like a consolation for cut content, and the art style of these sections is amateurish. So to wrap up, it's a decent game. I can't recommend it for full price, but if you've been sleeping on this one then it's worth checking out.
3/26/20 edit, changing my score from a 9 to a 6. I played this game for the first time since 2018, and for all the content they added, they also changed a bunch of things that makes the game worse while not addressing any of the weaknesses it already had. Sure, some items are strong now, but some good ones were nerfed unnecessarily. This is not a multiplayer game, it's not an e-sport, it's a single-player roguelite and the devs are going in and changing things that already worked. Even the jump button is nerfed! I can't believe it, they made the jump worse. Can you imagine if you bought a classic SNES game, and two years later the developers changed the mechanics so it wasn't even the same version of the game? It's outrageous, I've never seen anything like it. The game is also easier now. Starting a new file, I cleared Normal and Hard mode on my first attempts. Only 2 runs. I didn't even have three heals by the time I finished on Hard. I'm pretty sure that's not my ninja gamer skills, they just made the game braindead easy. I could go on but yeah, the game has more content now, but is 90% the same experience except worse than before, with more flaws. I can't really recommend it. One of the best action-platform games released this decade. Great for fans of the MMX series. Polished game that runs perfect, 9.5/10 controls, and lots of cool abilities to play with. Because it's a roguelike, the exploration is weaker than in other 'metroidvania' games. However, it does almost everything else better. Each level is uniquely beautiful, both the art and the music are great. Not only the art, but the animation is notably of a very high quality. There are lots of optional secrets. Took me about 12 hours to beat the final boss for the first time, which unlocks progressively harder difficulties.
+Six playable characters who play very differently from each other and are all fun in their own way. +Unabashedly wholesome setting & story. +Masterful pixel art, especially in the degree of detail and in the colors. +Very easy to play co-op with one person using the mouse/keyboard, and the other using a controller. +It's on the easier side, compared to Wizard of Legend which is the only game I can closely compare it to, so it's less frustrating while still being satisfying. +The archer character, Linda, can move with the left analog stick while shooting in an independent direction with the right analog. I'm not aware of any other action RPGs that have done this, and for me this is very fun. +They animated Linda's boobs, as well as those of the pregnant mom in one instance. Think about how much you'd have to love what you're making to animate boobs using pixels. -The game ends too early. Honestly, it feels like there is one entire world missing (there's 3, with a couple extra things). It ends before you get to see all the characters' skills. -The difficulty drops off too much in world 3. Up to that point it's a fun and challenging, but the bosses are increasingly easy and the final boss goes down like nothing - literally, the easiest boss in the game. -The level up system is backwards. You only gain a level when you use the skill point you earned from gaining the level. It's called "skill level." In practice, say you unlock new skills at level 14. Well instead of getting to choose them, when you get your 14th skill point you have to use it on your lower level skills. Then your skill level increases, and unlocks the L14 tier of skills you want. So you have to wait a whole other level to get them. -There's no way for a player to challenge themselves after beating the game, all you can do is play the final area. You will max out all your global upgrades (using gold) very fast, while the experience points come too slow to be rewarding. There absolutely should at least be some kind of optional challenge dungeon, or at least the ability to make earlier levels scale to you. -Some of the mechanics are not balanced, and seem to exist for no reason. Charms a separate item category from divine graces, when most of them do the same thing (give a permanent buff). -The game's biggest flaw: The player never gets close to the characters. You can't even control them while at home between dungeons! The story is told by an omniscient narrator, at no point do the characters speak with their own voices. It's all very impersonal and it undermines the intention of connecting strongly with them - not completely, but a great deal. -Because of that I suspect that many players will just press B to skip the story, which is told exclusively through narrated cutscenes that can't be sped up or skipped line-by-line. -Suffers generally from the repetitiveness inherent to roguelites.
There are a lot of games that could be called 'love letters to Super Metroid', this is another one but is it good? Yes, but it's short. I blazed through it in 3.5 hours with 85% map completion. While everything about it is a metroidvania, the map/level design is like a linear piece of a full-length metroidvania. However it's otherwise an above-average one. The music and graphics are on point. The developers made the Shantae games and their experience and knowledge of the genre shows in the controls, and in the enemy design. While there aren't many bosses, there are a satisfying number of different guns for such a short game. In terms of difficulty, it's no problem for experienced players. There's a dark souls death mechanic where you have to retrieve your gear from an undead version of your previous avatar, but they don't put up much of a fight. So I'm not sure why this game exists, like why Universal Pictures went out of their way to get the creators of Shantae to make a licensed The Mummy game. It's cool though, and good quality, if you're in the mood for another metroidvania.
This is a short game, about the length of a movie (little more if you're bad at puzzles), but it's worth your time. -The puzzle mechanics feel natural and familiar, despite being original. -It's a piece of visual art. -Its story is legitimately moving. If you're on the fence about buying such a short game, honestly, try to borrow it from someone you know. It succeeds as a puzzle, as art, and as storytelling. The only flaw is that it's not 5x the length.
An immersive game that simulates an underground future, hundreds of years post-apocalypse. Monstrous game, easily 150+ hours in addition to having branching story/faction quests typical for RPGs. Boasts an elegant character creation system where there's no dump stats, everything is desirable, but you can't have it all. You have to use your head to figure out how to do what you want to do, while also taking into account the harsh challenges of the game world. For example, traps kill you. There are a few ways of improving your ability to detect them, but if you overlook all of them then you're going to walk onto landmines. It has some pacing issues, specifically I felt like I leveled up too quickly after the game initially opened up following the 'intro.' It's like there were now 20 directions to explore, and after going down a couple of them I was already overpowered for many of the others. However there's an alternate game mode where you get experience for looting basically, not for killing. There are lots of nice quality of life features like that, such as being able to increase the game speed and the combat speed separately. I played Fallout 1-3/NV all the same way, by exploring, sneaking, killing, looting. This game gave me a lot of that, nice and pure, with a good story to back it up. Underrail gets a lot of attention for the combat, rightfully, but it's equally an exploration-focused game. You're constantly walking into darkness, and the map is only a big picture with little detail. Navigating is a challenge in itself, and it's an element of both the gameplay and theme, which feels rewarding when you find your way.
Blasphemous is a passion project that's rough around the edges. The appeal is mainly in the original world, inspired by some kind of esoteric and gnarly Spanish Catholicism, which carries the experience with its themes of penance, sacrifice, and a mysterious Miracle that blurs the line between pain and grace. This setting is brought to life by glorious pixel art, which features detailed cutscenes and large-scale, cinematic bosses. Writing helps realize the strange world of Blasphemous, and this game's writing encapsulates for me its best and worst qualities. Every ability and item you find has lore text that fleshes out the world. Despite feeling rough, as if they needed a couple more revisions, these small stories consistently fascinated me. Because of them, I had a very strong motivation to continue exploring, and to me this is a sign of true inspiration: The strength of Blasphemous' concept is enough to trivialize the weaknesses of the game's script that result from a native Spanish speaker writing in English. The bigger flaws lie in the gameplay. While Blasphemous is competent in the main pillars of metroidvania - being platforming, exploration, combat, secrets, and RPG elements - the balance is just a little off. Some examples: -Your currency (tears) is so easy to gain that it makes all items related to tears useless. Much of the time I was running around with tens of thousands of tears. -While the game features insta-death spikes, the punishment upon death is only to lose some of your maxmimum mana temporarily. The fact you don't lose your tears removes all fear from dying, and reduces it to an occasional annoyance when you miss a ladder grab or whatnot. -Most of the equippable items you gain aren't useful enough, the best ones simply boost defence vs. various attack types. -There aren't enough movement upgrades in general. The type of stuff I found is along the lines of, reduce the cooldown on the dodge/dash or fall, so you can take another action faster. Not very epic. -Likewise, the spells and sword hearts vary too much in quality. One spell is a lightning attack that provides the unique utility of hitting things at the top of the screen, while another merely increases attack speed for a short duration. -Ability upgrades are, once again, poorly balanced. The tears spent on most of them go to waste, as they're often less effective than smart use of the jump, dodge, and normal attack. The charge attack desperately needs to have freedom of movement, as it's too slow to be useful in the situations it should be. The dash attack consistently whooshes straight past enemies, missing them. The ranged attack and the falling attack are no more than utility skills, having no damage application during bosses. -The delay between actions is a little longer than other games, and takes some getting used to. I could go on, but I hope you get the idea. Basically, almost everything about the gameplay could use just a little tweaking, to tighten it up. But don't get me wrong, it's not a frustrating game. As I said the gameplay fundamentals are competent, and traversing the levels is fun, killing enemies is fun. There are almost a dozen interconnected levels, all with their own obstacles and enemy types. And regardless of any balance issues, the bosses provide a good variety of challenges. All in all I'm impressed with what the devs accomplished, and I look forward to seeing what they can make when given more time to refine their design ideas. And so, while The Game Kitchen's first dish tastes good, it's somewhat undercooked. There, I have made the joke. My initial playthrough was approx. 12 hours, 85/100% completion, meaning at least 15% of the game is optional.
This game went under everyone's radar, probably because it has NES-style pixel graphics. Or maybe the low price convinced players it doesn't have a lot of content. Don't let the simplicity fool you, this is the best designed Metroid-like game of the 2010s. Well I guess Hollow Knight does some things better, but it doesn't have the aforementioned NES graphics which make a huge difference in gameplay, in terms of navigation and finding secrets. Just be warned the game is pretty hard. It was designed with experienced Metroid players in mind. The bosses will frustrate you, some room traversal challenges are brutal, and you are expected to find false walls to progress. (However on that latter point, you don't have to randomly shoot every block looking for secrets. There are visual/environmental cues.) But this genre is notorious for having awfully designed bosses (look at Axiom Verge, or Iconoclasts for examples), so ESA is still much better in that regard. The music is great too, directly inspired by Metroid. So if you like this genre, and you haven't played ESA, try this one. It's exemplary.
Respect to Steel Mantis for making a proper retro game. This plays like something that could have been on SNES, but unlike most pixel graphic titles they've gone above and beyond with the colors and detail. Visually every screen feels handcrafted, so that even while the game is linear, the environment tells the story of the world of Valfaris. Likewise the gameplay feels handcrafted as well, it's carefully balanced so that adjusting your position by a couple pixels can make the difference. You will die often in this game, I had 300 deaths in my 8-hour playthrough. It uses a checkpoint system where you find items that let you activate checkpoints. You get extra ones by finding secret rooms, and by skipping checkpoints intentionally to make the game more difficult. You can then convert the checkpoint items for weapon upgrades at certain points, if you have extra. The only thing bad I can say is that it's one of those games where you wish they had a huge budget. You can tell they wanted to put all kinds of stuff in, like a section where you ride a giant insect, and just didn't have the resources. A fully-fledged metroidvania (which this game is not) Valfaris with twice the playtime of this one would be an *astounding* game. But that would've been a huge ask for this dev, considering how much care and detail they put into what is present in the game.
This is a strange one. It's different, not original, just different cause it's derivative of numerous other intellectual properties. It's clearly a Fallout 3/NV type of game, except instead of open world it's got hubs on various planets like in Jet Force Gemini, uh, I mean Mass Effect. The visual design takes some inspiration from Bioshock and No Man's Sky. A lookalike of Rick from Rick & Morty is the first character we meet, and HAL 9000 is chilling in your ship. Obsidian makes it all come together due to a high level of polish and a determination not to take itself seriously. This is a silly game. The story is about a cartoonishly evil yet wacky corporate dystopia in space where all the women look like boys. You can do basically anything with no consequences, which somewhat makes up for everything being very ugly and cluttered, so I don't even know what to say right now. It seems to have a shockingly adequate amount of stuff in it. It's barely an RPG yet there's lots of factions and dialogue. It hurt my eyes the first time I played but I'm ok now.
I'm surprised how short, small, and linear the game is. If Revachol is not smaller than Sigil, it does feel smaller. The developers said there is an extensive underground area that requires a flashlight to explore, it seems that must have been scaled down massively. They said that Revachol would be full of guns, and it's not. You get a skill for improving your shooting, but you can't actually find a gun outside of one specific point in the story. There are numerous side quests that are unresolved or underexplored. And once you trigger the story's climax, you are locked in and railroaded until the end. Politics are a big part of the story, but every political dialogue you can choose is played for laughs. At no point do YOUR political choices affect the story, yet it's thrown in your face constantly. It's like they couldn't decide if they wanted the game to be a satire or not. This game has a **** of typos, way more than in any RPG I've played, and way way more than I expected of a writing team that's led by a published author. It's like they couldn't afford a proofreader. It's also buggy. At a certain point one of the four types of drugs in the game stopped functioning in my menu/UI, it's just disabled for the rest of the playthrough. Many of the thoughts are also bugged and don't work, and there's no way to tell unless you invest in them first, at which point you have to invest more to get rid of them or revert to a previous save. And the saves are also buggy. Beating the game seems to have broken the save system. Now the game either doesn't allow me to manually save, or it lets me then freezes. Autosaves sometimes trigger like normal, but won't show up. This game is saved by its excellent art, its large amount of solid writing, unique skill system, and the high points of its world & story. It's a breath of fresh air in the CRPG genre, but I would have been disappointed had I paid full price. It's no Planescape: Torment.
Arkane Studios has defined themselves as the successor of the "immersive sim" genre (basically old Looking Glass Studios games plus the original Deus Ex). In fact Arkane's Dishonored series, and now Prey, are the ONLY modern games that try to create that kind of experience - aside from Ubisoft Montreal's Deus Ex prequels. That means I can play them using a controller, which is a big deal for me personally due to ergonomic issues. I also don't want to describe the game's premise and setting too much. In the event that you're reading reviews without learning much about the game so far, I think the experience would be even better if you go in knowing as little as possible. But if you don't know what this niche genre is all about, it's basically a FPS with RPG elements and a heavy focus on exploration and player freedom. For example if there's a locked door, you can almost always bypass it in two or more of the following ways: 1) find the keycard, 2) find the code, 3) hack it, 4) find an alternate entrance, and more. Stealth is very important because enemies can kill you fast, and guns need to be upgraded before they feel nearly as effective as guns in a typical shooter (and even then, it's not the same - it's not a shooter). A lot of the game is optional, and the story is told mostly through bits of lore from notes, emails, and audio logs. It has skill trees and inventory tetris. There's a lot of freedom in how you play. If you go straight through the main story, it could be pretty short. For reference, I play these games by exploring meticulously, collecting all the items, and killing all the enemies, and my current playtime is 30 hours with an estimated 15 or so remaining (and this is not including the DLC). Criticisms of the game so far: -Hard mode as well as the optional 'Survival' mechanics are too easy for me -Because there's so much freedom, many items of loot are found in multiple places, which means players who explore 100% will find redundant equipment -The game crashed once In summary my opinion is it's a sweet-ass game, and there's basically nothing else like it.
It's a horror walking simulator. You can't fail, but it's still scary because you don't know what's going to happen. The story is generic but strongly realized, and the graphics are detailed and immersive. It took me a long time to get around to playing this game, but I will definitely try the devs' other similar games.
Another gorgeous retro pixel art platformer. It has a large variety of detailed levels with great music. Gets a yellow rating from me for two reasons: 1) inconsistent difficulty, the majority of the game is so easy you barely have to think, but one specific challenge room at the end of the game (the last one you need) made me extremely frustrated. The bosses also become easier as you progress which makes it feel anticlimactic. Reason 2) is the backtracking. There are 'points of no return' in some levels, which close you off from backtracking and instead force you to warp out, backtrack to the entrance of the level, and play it over again from the start. Combine that with the too-easy gameplay that sometimes lapses into frustration, and you have tedium. The only other flaw I'd point out is that the story does not take itself seriously at all, which makes me as a player not take it seriously either.
Despite what some reviewers have said, this is a SoulsBorne game in many important ways. However there's a very good reason why FromSoft specifically stated that Sekiro is unrelated to previous titles, and that reason is why there are so many negative reviews of this game right now: The combat is even more different than it seems at face value. Meaning SoulsBorne fans are picking up the game, being familiar with everything and feeling right at home, then playing the completely wrong way and getting frustrated. That's also why the game has so many tutorial pop-ups even hours into the game, to introduce every new mechanic in detail, but if you skim read these then you will miss out on critical information which makes the game no more difficult than DS3 or BB. There is no parry in this game, it's called deflect and it's a different mechanic. In the DS titles you had to choose between blocking and parrying, it was a risk, but in Sekiro you can deflect while blocking by pulsing the button in rhythm to your opponent's attacks. This makes blocking more important than it was in any SoulsBorne game including Demon's. Moreover, because the posture bar for your block/deflect replaces the stamina meter, your ability to dodge and run is not hindered by how much you block. In other words, you can pressure with R1 while blocking all damage (as long as you don't try to attack when you should be blocking or vice versa), while at the same time deflecting, while also being able to run away forever at any time. The Perilous Attacks, the big red letter attacks that some people are complaining about, are perilous specifically because they are attacks that can't be blocked/deflected and have to be dealt with using your other options, which is why they are very obvious and telegraphed. Well, FromSoft tried to warn us. Sekiro has all of the design elements that made Dark Souls great, it just presents them in different ways. Aside from all that, the level design is top tier as it is in every FromSoft game. Exploration is a joy. I also think this game is noteworthy for a reason that no one else is talking about. Team Ninja tried to make a Soulslike game with Nioh. Sekiro is FromSoft's way of thumbing their nose at Team Ninja, by making a better feudal Japan action game than Nioh in response.
This is a pure action-platform gaming experience, based on the careful timing and spacing of your jump, attack, dash, and other abilities. The enemy variety and detail blows other metroidvania games out of the water! The bosses are more like something out of Mega Man, which is unusual in a genre of poorly balanced, janky bosses. It's a beautiful game with a gigantic world. I love the sense of exploration when first entering a new area, before I have its map. This is the least linear metroidvania I've played, and that's a good thing. There were so many places I wanted to investigate at once, that I missed things that I could have found hours earlier. Only I didn't really miss out, because I was exploring to my heart's content the entire time, mapping out uncharted territory, killing bosses, and discovering secrets. The difficulty might be overstated, I guess it depends on your previous gaming experiences. I grew up playing every platformer on the SNES, every Mega Man X game multiple times, SotN and most other metroidvanias. For me this is perfectly balanced gameplay..
This is a cool game, visually it's gorgeous, but it lacks content, and the difficulty level is for hardcore only. There are only 6 playable mechs to unlock, with 6 levels. The final level, the Cryptark itself, is so much more difficult than the rest of the game, that it pretty much is the game. Everything else before it is just a race to collect enough resources and gear to, maybe, hopefully, survive. A successful game takes 2 hours at most. The part that really kills the fun for me, is how you don't get to keep the weapons you unlock when you get a game over. What's the point of having a save file, if it gets deleted when you lose? Like I mentioned before, you can unlock new mechs to start with, but that's it in terms of gear that carries over to a new playthrough. The levels also have a time limit, which incentivizes you to rush, as well as bonus objectives that incentivize you to take additional risks. It feels low effort and random, and I can't help but think it would be more fun if it had actual level design and a thoughtful difficulty progression.
This game tends to go for extremely cheap during Steam sales, so now is the best time to play it. It's a direct upgrade to Human Revolution, making it strictly better than that game. Basically this game is smaller in scope than the previous DX games. The story is more localized, and the locations are fewer, but much more detailed. People who say the story is unfinished are liars, though. It has a full story with a clear rising action, climax, and ending. Again, it's just smaller in scope. Now that the game is so affordable, the slimy microtransactions are not a problem anymore. So show the game some love, because it's a good Deus Ex game, and Jensen deserves to have his story continue.
Do not believe the hype, this game is soulless. It has one redeeming quality, its visuals, however the emptiness of the experience make the quality of the visuals meaningless. It is designed like an advertisement, that pulls you in and promises something of value, but there's nothing underneath. Buyer's Remorse: The Game. Everything about this game feels tedious, probably to cover up how all the development budget went into making it look nice. It's grindy, it's unbalanced, there's no roleplaying, the loot is boring, the crafting is laborious, and overall it's just a supremely unrewarding experience. Anyone who tells you to wait until NG+ should be thrown in prison, there is nothing new or interesting waiting for you. This game is a huge timesink, and you're better off playing almost any other RPG.
A game being "Like Dark Souls" is a meme, but this is the only game that really deserves that label. If you've played DS1, yeah - it's that. That also makes it a 'metroidvania' because of the single gigantic map of interconnected levels. Except there's no map in this game, which is a brutal design decision. That said, I beat the game in 20 hours without guides, so it's not forbiddingly difficult by any stretch. This game has a lot of stuff that will feel unfair. Getting grabbed or knocked down is awful. Every enemy that flies is very annoying. The environments are sometimes so colourless that they are black and white, which is hard on the eyes. Also, notably, the ledge grab mechanic is clunky, which makes what should be easy platforming puzzles into deadly traps. The difficulty of the bosses varies wildly. For me, many went down on the first attempt, however, there are a few notorious bosses whose difficulty spike are among the most extreme I've experienced with a game. So I would rate this game very slightly on the masochistic side. However, it's still a must-play for Souls veterans because of how commendable a recreation it is of Dark Souls on a 2D plane.
In terms of gameplay, Iconoclasts focuses more on puzzles than on platforming and action, although it has those too. However the main draws of this game are its gorgeous pixel art graphics and its strong story. The narrative has much better characterization and plot than almost any other 'metroidvania'. There is one thing I don't like about the game, and that's the boss battles. I played on hard mode, and the bosses were extremely tedious trial-and-error puzzles where you die in 3-5 hits and have to retry over and over again before you realize what you're supposed to do. It's really not dependent on your skill with the controls. There is one particular boss near the end of the game that has multiple forms, and I was so pissed that there is no checkpoint between the first and second form. It was SO tedious. The game almost left a bad taste because of that, however, the last handful of bosses were much better, not nearly as annoying as most of the game. So to me the game redeemed itself at the end.
It feels like you're controlling a character from Naruto or Last Airbender. Top-tier pixel art graphics. The combat is technical and requires precise controls. Has two-player. Overall very polished and solid. The downside: By the time you learn the game well enough to be able to complete a run, you will have seen basically every enemy and boss encounter the game has to offer. However, you will for sure still have lots of different spells to try. So the reply value is still high. But they could add more levels.
The mechanics of this game are very solid, simple yet deep. If you enjoy them, you will have a lot to sink your teeth into. The story campaign is 10 hours long unless you're crushing it, but the unlockable missions could keep you busy for 50. The electro-synth soundtrack is great, but repetitive because the tracks are so short. They don't transition smoothly when looping, so you get some silence during missions. The retro-futuristic setting is hands-down gorgeous. Must play for any cyberpunk fan. The visuals give a lot of nostalgia for certain older games (such as MechWarrior, and the little-known Metal Warriors), and that alone makes it worthwhile, to me. Don't buy this game for the story. It's optional, and told entirely through text: item descriptions, mission briefings, and unlockable lore. There is no dialogue and no NPCs. If you want to read, it's there, and it's good, but the real meat of this game is in the satisfying and fun action. If you've been looking at this game and aren't sure whether it delivers, just letting you know it does. One caveat: The game is said to have controller support, however, aiming your guns with the right analog stick is so clunky, compared to the smooth keyboard+mouse controls, that it is basically not an option. I bought it thinking that I could use a controller, and I was disappointed. But the game is good enough that I played with the mouse anyways.
The only reason this game doesn't get a 10 from me is because it's short - easily doable in one sitting. I thought I was almost halfway through, but then it wrapped up. That being said, this is the best horror game I've played since Silent Hill 1 and 2. It is actually quite similar in theme to those games. The sound design specifically seems inspired by SH. It's a point-and-click game. Navigation is a bit different from other games in the genre because your character moves right and left, entering and exiting doors in the environment. I was able to remember all the locations in my head without having to make a map or take notes. The puzzles were very satisfying. They challenged me without stumping me, and most of the time I felt like I arrived at the solution through my own thought process, without being given an obvious hint.
[no spoilers] This is a special game because of its setting - a series of deep-sea habitats and science facilities - which gives it a dark and lonely atmosphere. You won't find this kind of environment in any other game. On top of that, the game has extremely immersive controls and sound design. Just keep in mind, it's the kind of horror game where you can't fight, you have to run and hide. The gameplay is mostly exploration and experiencing the story.
This is a good game that I want to like more than I do. It was very fun when I was progressing and killing bosses. Now that I got to the "Darkest Dungeon" final levels, I have nothing left to do in the game except to level up another 12+ heroes to level 5 so I can actually run them. This is proving to be a huge task, and by my estimates I will need to play the game for another 20 hours before I reach that point. That is taking into account modest losses during the level-up process. The thing about this game is that no matter how well you prepare, you will lose heroes, due to the randomness inherent in the gameplay. Everything could be going very well and then you get ambushed once and suddenly you're in a life or death situation because the enemy shuffled your party and crit you once. The best you can do is swallow your pride and retreat, and abandon the mission if necessary, at the slightest hint of danger. However from my perspective that is only marginally better than a party member dying, because the surviving heroes will need disease cures, stress heals, and quirk adjustment, requiring them to sit on the sidelines for up to three missions. Either way, you will have to grind. It has become so repetitive that even the voice of the amazing narrator is beginning to grate on me, because I've heard everything he says 100 times. I could go on but I think people get the gist from these low score reviews. The game is insanely punishing, period. It doesn't get any easier as you progress, in fact it gets much harder and requires you to know the strengths and weaknesses for each boss and particular area inside and out. That is why everybody who plays it uses the wiki.
How to describe this game: Cool, fun, interesting, and very challenging. I enjoy that I really have to think about what I'm doing if I want to reach my objectives without alerting enemies or setting off alarms. The writing is good and I can tell the writers at Eidos have a masterful grasp of the key themes of Deus Ex. The game is sufficiently large and open enough not to feel restrictive, in fact I know I've missed certain paths so far during my playthrough because I was trying to avoid danger or just progress faster. All of the gameplay systems like the weapons modding and the Praxis (skill) tree are deep and force you to choose between two or more awesome options. It's the kind of game where I won't mind going through it again on the highest difficulty setting because although you die very fast if you take direct gunfire, there are dozens of ways to meet every objective and if you play around and explore you will win.
