Psychopomp is a quirky oldschool linear dungeon crawler that doesn't offer much substantive in terms of gameplay, but has really fantastic visuals and some fun writing. It offers a grimy trudge through the surreal underbelly of the public sector, uncovered by the protagonist donning her newest invention: the Psychopomp. The game leans into horror quite a bit, and often features crass, edgy, and gross themes. However, it's also pretty humorous at times, dark as it may be. The atmosphere is thick as sludge here, with both creepy auditory and hypnotic visual stimulus out the wazoo. I'd say as a free game, if you have an hour or two lying around it's easily worth knocking this out just to experience the unique art.

Sheepy: A Short Adventure, as the name suggests, is a short and sweet little platformer. Going into this, I expected something Limbo-esque, and while it was unsettling at points it was overall a quite cute and actually somewhat fast-paced experience. Expectedly, as a game produced by someone majorly known for their music (MrSuicideSheep), the original tracks present in the game are very good. The pixel art here is also really pleasant, everything felt fun and looked fluid. The platforming can be basic, but is really forgiving and enjoyable nonetheless. The game's atmosphere is very compelling and I was very intrigued by the impressive set pieces and interesting tid-bits of lore the game throws at you every now and then. The story is nothing ground breaking, but solid enough to keep you wondering where the game will take you next, and has a pretty satisfying conclusion. Being a short game it does a good job keeping a brisk pace, and keeps each distinct section relatively fresh and unique, as well as still leaving room for exploration. My favorite section was easily right after you get the running power and the level is designed as such to where you can just run out without stopping. Once outside you just keep going and going, covering a massive distance, extremely satisfying and really puts you in the shoes of an animal finally allowed to run free. Also, the fact that the upbeat music has a sort of record scratch whenever you stop in this section is a funny touch. I actually laughed a few times during my playthrough. The game can have a good sense of humor when it wants to, even despite the sort of dark subject matter. Back on exploration real quick, there are a few scattered collectibles and such, as well as challenge and other achievements to go for if you want an excuse to play it again. My only personal gripe is that the first two boss fights are a little too simple and easy, making them unfortunately a bit boring. Overall though, it's just a nice title that I can't really say anything too negative about. It's free, it plays well, sounds good, looks good, and it doesn't overstay its welcome.

Setting whatever moral opposition I have towards Palworld aside, I think its biggest crime is ultimately that it's just plain boring. For all the things it's derivative of, it doesn't especially exceed at anything. The base building and automation involving the Pals is probably the most unique concept the game has to offer, but it's extremely shallow. There's no real strategy, or depth to any of the gameplay whatsoever really. Gunplay is unchallenging and very dull outside of few instances where you may acquire a new toy, such as a Foxparks flamethrower or Mossanda bazooka. However, these moments are few and far between, and their magic fades very quickly. The level of customization allotted to the player in terms of what Pals to use and how to use them is straight forward and uninteresting. It's very obvious what passives are best on what Pals, and you'd build most Pals exactly the same no matter what. Half of the Pals are simply mounts, and the other half don't do anything particularly interesting. The most you get is bland passives like "Water Pals drop more items when defeated," or a flat damage increase for a certain type, there's not really any feeling of meaningful party synergy. Pursuing said customization is also a discouraging process, as on default settings you may be waiting up to 2 hours real time for eggs to hatch late game - an absolutely absurd time sink. I don't feel this way about the other time gated activities in the game, like crafting, because it's encouraging to find a Pal that can craft faster - that's progression! In general the game isn't too terribly grindy, but it definitely picks up later on. I will say that there are a ton of handy adjustable option sliders for tweaking these issues to fit what you want, as well as other things like difficulty. This is very appreciated, but probably not going to be a perfect solution for everyone. Moving away from customization and optimization, lets shift our focus now to collection and exploration. First of all the map is not procedural, which does mean it was actually thoughtfully crafted, but also means that once you've seen it you've seen it. This is especially bad in the "dungeons" because they use the same repetitive handful of tiles over and over again, which makes them super tiresome, and quickly. I actually forgot they existed for like my first 40 hours of gameplay, and they only do so you can get practically meaningless accessories. There is no real story, no lore, no proper world building, or really any other goals or reasons to care about the world you are plopped into. You are only vaguely pointed towards towers, and they end up just being anticlimactic boss fights which are basically just normal Pals with more stats and an irrelevant NPC on their back. Collection isn't much more interesting either unfortunately, as the pool of fresh Pals to discover dries up pretty quickly. They don't evolve, and there's no sense of growth or any feeling of a meaningful relationship building between the Pal and the player - it's all very disappointing. There are a few cool Pal designs, ironically enough they're usually the least obviously plagiaristic (Cawgnito my beloved). Something I would like to genuinely praise the game for is the Pal animations, many of them are quite charming. Despite the aforementioned distance between the Pal and player, they can still be endearing due to the level of character expressed through their animations (Cawgnito my beloved, again). They aren't all perfect, and the non-Pal animations aren't nearly as stellar, but proper good animation work is one of the main things series like Pokémon have been sorely lacking as of late I feel. Speaking of the art generally, the style is all over the place. Having highly stylized, cartoony Pals, anime-inspired character models, photo-realistic guns, and semi-realistic environments all thrown together really makes you feel like you're playing a disjointed asset flip! Music is also completely unremarkable, but inoffensive I guess. I feel like a lot of the game's long term draw is going to be banking on the PvP being worthwhile, because there's no real replayability, value, or depth in any of the present systems. Overall, the game is fun for maybe your first 10 hours at most until you get truly settled into your first base and start to ask yourself "why?" I understand that the game is in early access, and it has some decent foundations. There's a lot of potential here, and as big as those shoes are it should have the funding to fill them. However, I cannot recommend Palworld in its current state to anyone who has any respect for themselves or their time.

I give it a half star for every Pal design I actually like.