Lopes_Doria
2022
DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
I went in expecting expecting a top-down metroidvania, but I got a side-scrolling metroidvania instead. That is my fault, though, as I mistook this game for Crypt Custodian, which is this developer's upcoming project.
I find this game's upgrade system very interesting. Every time you find an upgrade point hidden somewhere in the overworld you get to choose between three possible upgrades. This makes every secret equally as important and valuable, be it in the begining of the game or close to the end. The only problem I find with this system is that the pool of upgrades does not match the amount of upgrade points in the game. If I understand corrwectly, this is so that you can always prioritize upgrades for the abilities that you commonly use, and ignore the ones you rarely utilize. But going into the game without this knowledge, I assumed I would eventually have to get the upgrades I didn't care about, therefore wasting points I could have spent on base stat upgrades like health.
Additionally to these upgrade points, you can spend currency to buy base stat upgrades (health, sword damage, and arrow damage) which increase in price with each purchase. This makes sense until you realize that the prize also increases when you upgrade these stats with upgrade points, therefore making it more profitable to buy upgrades in the shop first and only THEN getting upgrade points rather than the other way around. These shop upgrades also seem to lack a ceiling. This means that the game always has a place to sink your currency and also allows you to farm currency in order to get stronger in case you are struggling against a boss. This would make for a great accesibility option, but it should be advertised as such, because in my case I bought these upgrades without thinking much about it and, despite playing in hard, I still ended up demolishing through bosses before they could even change into their second phase. This made later fights a bit of a disappointment. I could have refrained from attacking in order to experience the fights correctly, but I believe it shouldn't be on the player to balance their own experience.
Currency can also be used to buy a couple upgrades for your map, like markers. But once you buy all three of them (which are quite cheap) money can only be used on stats. The only other upgrades you can buy are for your airship, but these take no currency and instead use macguffins, so they end up working just as metroidvania gating mechanics.
The upgrades your character gets generally improve your movement, which might be this game's greatest asset. You also get two different types of arrows which are needed to get through certain sections. They are, however, very cumbersome to use and quite useless during combat. I see this as a missed opportunity since the airship upgrades are definitely necessary during bossfights and they make for great attack patterns.
Most bossfights had interesting attacks and having healthbars is appreciated. Minor enemies, though, felt just like annoyances during exploration. The world was well designed with secret paths abound, though the puzzles were a bit lacking. Having islands connect together creating new paths where there were only dead-ends made for a great "explore-get upgrade-connect island-more to explore" loop, particularly during the third and fourth islands.
The story was mediocre, though there might be more lore than what I managed to gleam; but the characters, on the other hand, were amazing. Each of them filled with personality, backstory and character arcs. A smile came to my face every time one of them showed up. I never manged to unpetrify that one character, I don't know what I missed, but I still feel bad about it.
Overall, despite my complaints I enjoyed this game quite a bit. I recommend it to all metroidvania fans, just go in with two things in mind: Try to keep your shop upgrades to a minimum in order to not have a completely unbalanced experience; and when getting upgrade points, always prioritize the ones you care about and ignore the ones you won't use.
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
I went in expecting expecting a top-down metroidvania, but I got a side-scrolling metroidvania instead. That is my fault, though, as I mistook this game for Crypt Custodian, which is this developer's upcoming project.
I find this game's upgrade system very interesting. Every time you find an upgrade point hidden somewhere in the overworld you get to choose between three possible upgrades. This makes every secret equally as important and valuable, be it in the begining of the game or close to the end. The only problem I find with this system is that the pool of upgrades does not match the amount of upgrade points in the game. If I understand corrwectly, this is so that you can always prioritize upgrades for the abilities that you commonly use, and ignore the ones you rarely utilize. But going into the game without this knowledge, I assumed I would eventually have to get the upgrades I didn't care about, therefore wasting points I could have spent on base stat upgrades like health.
Additionally to these upgrade points, you can spend currency to buy base stat upgrades (health, sword damage, and arrow damage) which increase in price with each purchase. This makes sense until you realize that the prize also increases when you upgrade these stats with upgrade points, therefore making it more profitable to buy upgrades in the shop first and only THEN getting upgrade points rather than the other way around. These shop upgrades also seem to lack a ceiling. This means that the game always has a place to sink your currency and also allows you to farm currency in order to get stronger in case you are struggling against a boss. This would make for a great accesibility option, but it should be advertised as such, because in my case I bought these upgrades without thinking much about it and, despite playing in hard, I still ended up demolishing through bosses before they could even change into their second phase. This made later fights a bit of a disappointment. I could have refrained from attacking in order to experience the fights correctly, but I believe it shouldn't be on the player to balance their own experience.
Currency can also be used to buy a couple upgrades for your map, like markers. But once you buy all three of them (which are quite cheap) money can only be used on stats. The only other upgrades you can buy are for your airship, but these take no currency and instead use macguffins, so they end up working just as metroidvania gating mechanics.
The upgrades your character gets generally improve your movement, which might be this game's greatest asset. You also get two different types of arrows which are needed to get through certain sections. They are, however, very cumbersome to use and quite useless during combat. I see this as a missed opportunity since the airship upgrades are definitely necessary during bossfights and they make for great attack patterns.
Most bossfights had interesting attacks and having healthbars is appreciated. Minor enemies, though, felt just like annoyances during exploration. The world was well designed with secret paths abound, though the puzzles were a bit lacking. Having islands connect together creating new paths where there were only dead-ends made for a great "explore-get upgrade-connect island-more to explore" loop, particularly during the third and fourth islands.
The story was mediocre, though there might be more lore than what I managed to gleam; but the characters, on the other hand, were amazing. Each of them filled with personality, backstory and character arcs. A smile came to my face every time one of them showed up. I never manged to unpetrify that one character, I don't know what I missed, but I still feel bad about it.
Overall, despite my complaints I enjoyed this game quite a bit. I recommend it to all metroidvania fans, just go in with two things in mind: Try to keep your shop upgrades to a minimum in order to not have a completely unbalanced experience; and when getting upgrade points, always prioritize the ones you care about and ignore the ones you won't use.
2021
DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
NOTE: I got this game free on Epic so price is not a factor.
I went in expecting some sort of escape room game. I got a point and click diorama solving game that is more akin to puzzle boxes.
The puzzles are never too hard, more like a sequence of finding the next available item and where to use it with the occasional minigame to change the pace. Nonetheless, it was satisfying to see the dioramas unfold and open up more and more crevices with items to use elsewhere.
I did enjoy having to find collectibles "hidden" in each level. They were generally in very visible places, but they were sometimes cleverly hidden and I had to replay a couple of levels to find them. It's worth noting that you can find a collectible and quit the level and it will be saved without having to re-do all the rest, that is very much appreciated. There are 3 collectibles in each level: a blue and red gem, all of which are needed to unlock the final two level for the order and chaos endings respectively; and a scroll with some text.
The scrolls seem to be trying to tell some sort of story, but they are such short pieces of text separated by a whole level that it was hard for me to follow what they were saying. But you do get to choose the ending, so it might be something important like the fate of the world, I'm unsure.
Overall, It's an ok, short and easy puzzle box-like game. Nothing extraordinary, but a good time killer.
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
NOTE: I got this game free on Epic so price is not a factor.
I went in expecting some sort of escape room game. I got a point and click diorama solving game that is more akin to puzzle boxes.
The puzzles are never too hard, more like a sequence of finding the next available item and where to use it with the occasional minigame to change the pace. Nonetheless, it was satisfying to see the dioramas unfold and open up more and more crevices with items to use elsewhere.
I did enjoy having to find collectibles "hidden" in each level. They were generally in very visible places, but they were sometimes cleverly hidden and I had to replay a couple of levels to find them. It's worth noting that you can find a collectible and quit the level and it will be saved without having to re-do all the rest, that is very much appreciated. There are 3 collectibles in each level: a blue and red gem, all of which are needed to unlock the final two level for the order and chaos endings respectively; and a scroll with some text.
The scrolls seem to be trying to tell some sort of story, but they are such short pieces of text separated by a whole level that it was hard for me to follow what they were saying. But you do get to choose the ending, so it might be something important like the fate of the world, I'm unsure.
Overall, It's an ok, short and easy puzzle box-like game. Nothing extraordinary, but a good time killer.
2016
DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
NOTE: This review reflects only my playtime on a new farm in the newest 1.6 update. My true cummulative playtime is currently about 500 hours.
Despite loving all the time I spent playing this game, I was not planning on playing any more Stardew Valley even with the 1.6 update on the horizon, but after having a quick look at the big change log with loads of new content (among which were new achievements) I figured it was actually time to do a playthrough in which I actually manage to reach perfection.
I, therefore, went in with high expectations for all the new things this update would bring and, although they all work together to improve on the base game experience, nothing stands out as big or as important as 1.5 felt. They all feel like minor quality of life features scattered throughout the progression.
The bulk of the new content comes in the form of "Masteries" which are basically a final level for each of the five skills that can only be unlocked by gathering tons of experience from any source after having reached max level. I say "tons of xp" but you get so much of it by doing literally anything that it doesn't take that long to achieve. It literally took me longer to get my foraging level from 7 to 10 to unlock masteries in the first place than it took me to get the experience needed to have all masteries. The rewards vary from good to mediocre, but none stand out as amazing. I feel like some of the items normally unlocked and bought in Qi's Wallnut Room would fit better as mastery rewards, but I also understand not wanting to change the content from previous updates.
I, personally, do highly enjoy the new festivals. Both fishing mini-festivals are cool in concept and require strategy to reach their golas effectively, however I feel they are lacking in useful and worthwhile rewards. The desert festival, on the other hand, is actually very good. Having multiple quests that test different skills and reward you with a currency that you can spend on the items of your choice instead of random rewards feels very good. (I might be a bit biased as I just so happened to get the last artifact I was having trouble getting by having Vincent show up in one of the vendor booths on the third day of the festival selling me the Skeletal Hand I so desperately needed.) And most of all I loved that Year 2 had different layouts and dialogues for all festivals (along with new dialogues after quests, events, bouquets, marriage, etc.) made everything feel fresh and townpeople more alive and less robotic and repetitive. Made me wish There were even more layouts for years 3 and 4, but I also understand that the first two years are what is considered the main story.
Regarding things that weren't from the update but it was my first time doing them: I married Sam, so that was a blast; I got as many events as I could and I actually read all of them instead of skipping the ones for NPCs I didn't care about; I finally beat Fector's Challenge (although I had to resort to the save-scummy method); I played and beat the new and improved version of Junimo Kart and I loved it, I don't know why it gets so much hate; I found all Golden Wallnuts and it's still my favorite part of 1.5, they feel very much like TLoZ:BotW Koroks; I did many Qi Quests, Special Requests and Help Wanted Quests, so I always had some goal or another I was working towards; I managed to use Farm Warp Totems more effectively than ever before; I built the Farm Obelisks for the first time in my life and didn't use them even once, I'm simply not used to them; and last, but not least in the slightest, I farmed the money to buy the Golden Clock.
Either my money farming set-up was very inefficient or I'm stupid, but I just do not understand why the Clock is so goddamn expensive. It was taking so long to get the money and I was long done with any other non-repetitive task that I simply gave up playing through each day and started sleeping through them. And even like that it took seasons for me to get to 10 million gold. Had I actually played through all that, my playtime would have been shot up to 200 hours easily. I think it's an unreasonable amount of gold and not worth at all other than perfection and it should be removed or at the very least its price should be significantly lowered.
With that rant out of the way, I finally achived perfection, reached the summit, watched the short cutscene and then came the credits... Wait, what?! This game has credits scene after you reach perfection? How did I not know about this? And why was Cow (White) included but not Cow (Brown)? That just seems unfair. Anyway, that was a nice surprise I did not expect at all and it really made everything worth it. I can now say that I am done with Stardew Valley once and for all. (or until I decide to do a run with remixed bundles enabled, if I ever get around to it)
Overall, what can be said about a game like Stardew Valley that hasn't been said before? It's good, great even. It's the epitome of farming simulator games. It's so good it's capable of hooking in players who are not normally fans of the genre. Highly recommend it to everyone with no caveats.
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
NOTE: This review reflects only my playtime on a new farm in the newest 1.6 update. My true cummulative playtime is currently about 500 hours.
Despite loving all the time I spent playing this game, I was not planning on playing any more Stardew Valley even with the 1.6 update on the horizon, but after having a quick look at the big change log with loads of new content (among which were new achievements) I figured it was actually time to do a playthrough in which I actually manage to reach perfection.
I, therefore, went in with high expectations for all the new things this update would bring and, although they all work together to improve on the base game experience, nothing stands out as big or as important as 1.5 felt. They all feel like minor quality of life features scattered throughout the progression.
The bulk of the new content comes in the form of "Masteries" which are basically a final level for each of the five skills that can only be unlocked by gathering tons of experience from any source after having reached max level. I say "tons of xp" but you get so much of it by doing literally anything that it doesn't take that long to achieve. It literally took me longer to get my foraging level from 7 to 10 to unlock masteries in the first place than it took me to get the experience needed to have all masteries. The rewards vary from good to mediocre, but none stand out as amazing. I feel like some of the items normally unlocked and bought in Qi's Wallnut Room would fit better as mastery rewards, but I also understand not wanting to change the content from previous updates.
I, personally, do highly enjoy the new festivals. Both fishing mini-festivals are cool in concept and require strategy to reach their golas effectively, however I feel they are lacking in useful and worthwhile rewards. The desert festival, on the other hand, is actually very good. Having multiple quests that test different skills and reward you with a currency that you can spend on the items of your choice instead of random rewards feels very good. (I might be a bit biased as I just so happened to get the last artifact I was having trouble getting by having Vincent show up in one of the vendor booths on the third day of the festival selling me the Skeletal Hand I so desperately needed.) And most of all I loved that Year 2 had different layouts and dialogues for all festivals (along with new dialogues after quests, events, bouquets, marriage, etc.) made everything feel fresh and townpeople more alive and less robotic and repetitive. Made me wish There were even more layouts for years 3 and 4, but I also understand that the first two years are what is considered the main story.
Regarding things that weren't from the update but it was my first time doing them: I married Sam, so that was a blast; I got as many events as I could and I actually read all of them instead of skipping the ones for NPCs I didn't care about; I finally beat Fector's Challenge (although I had to resort to the save-scummy method); I played and beat the new and improved version of Junimo Kart and I loved it, I don't know why it gets so much hate; I found all Golden Wallnuts and it's still my favorite part of 1.5, they feel very much like TLoZ:BotW Koroks; I did many Qi Quests, Special Requests and Help Wanted Quests, so I always had some goal or another I was working towards; I managed to use Farm Warp Totems more effectively than ever before; I built the Farm Obelisks for the first time in my life and didn't use them even once, I'm simply not used to them; and last, but not least in the slightest, I farmed the money to buy the Golden Clock.
Either my money farming set-up was very inefficient or I'm stupid, but I just do not understand why the Clock is so goddamn expensive. It was taking so long to get the money and I was long done with any other non-repetitive task that I simply gave up playing through each day and started sleeping through them. And even like that it took seasons for me to get to 10 million gold. Had I actually played through all that, my playtime would have been shot up to 200 hours easily. I think it's an unreasonable amount of gold and not worth at all other than perfection and it should be removed or at the very least its price should be significantly lowered.
With that rant out of the way, I finally achived perfection, reached the summit, watched the short cutscene and then came the credits... Wait, what?! This game has credits scene after you reach perfection? How did I not know about this? And why was Cow (White) included but not Cow (Brown)? That just seems unfair. Anyway, that was a nice surprise I did not expect at all and it really made everything worth it. I can now say that I am done with Stardew Valley once and for all. (or until I decide to do a run with remixed bundles enabled, if I ever get around to it)
Overall, what can be said about a game like Stardew Valley that hasn't been said before? It's good, great even. It's the epitome of farming simulator games. It's so good it's capable of hooking in players who are not normally fans of the genre. Highly recommend it to everyone with no caveats.
2023
DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
NOTE: I took a break from videogames for a couple of months which explaind the gap in my log dates.
I went in expecting a hidden object game a-la Hidden Folks. I got a linear narrative heavy hidden object game, a weird combination that worked surprisingly well.
You play as a seemingly omniscient being capable of working alongside an AI to re-write events in the past in order to fix anomalies in the space-time continuum created by several seemingly malicious entities that turn out to also be AIs. If all of that sounded confusing, is because it is and as the game goes on you will only keep getting more and more information thrown at you with little to no answers and will be expected to retain all past info in order to make sense of the new one, and with no text log it's hard to keep track of everything. (Maybe taking a 2 month long break in the middle of this game wasn't such a good idea.)
But enough narrative, let's get into the gameplay. You will be tasked with finding a crime in a big sprawling city with many things going on at the same time. And you will then need to follow the culprit, victim, suspects, witnesses and sometimes objects forward and backwards through time in order to piece together what happened and what you can change to fix it. You later get access to further tools like x-ray vision to spruce up the gameplay. There will also be minigames sprinkled throughout. They are not super engaging, but they are not too bothersome to deal with.
You might think it's a map too big for a simple crime, but you will be coming back to all 5 eras to solve multiple craimes in a set order. There is also a mode that lets you freely roam the map in order to find easter egg characters and follow them through the timeline.
All the ares are visually distinct and very appealing. It's incredible how much is happening in each screen at the same time.
I do have to mention that some quests require you find some sigils anywhere on the map with minimal guidance on where to look, and they would be an absolute nightmare if not for the existance of hints. I would in fact recommend to being afraid to use them as they have no penalty other than waiting a few seconds for them to unlock.
The narrative, although convoluted and cofusing, is clear on where it's going and satisfying to end. The AI companion is well written and its growth through the campaign can be easily noticed.
It could have used with a few more songs, as spending so much time with the same one becomes very tiring.
Overall, it's a neat twist on the hidden object formula with a heavy enphasis on storytelling, but searching through the same maps with the same song eventually becomes a bit boring, repetitive and dull. I still recommend it as long as you know what you're getting into.
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
NOTE: I took a break from videogames for a couple of months which explaind the gap in my log dates.
I went in expecting a hidden object game a-la Hidden Folks. I got a linear narrative heavy hidden object game, a weird combination that worked surprisingly well.
You play as a seemingly omniscient being capable of working alongside an AI to re-write events in the past in order to fix anomalies in the space-time continuum created by several seemingly malicious entities that turn out to also be AIs. If all of that sounded confusing, is because it is and as the game goes on you will only keep getting more and more information thrown at you with little to no answers and will be expected to retain all past info in order to make sense of the new one, and with no text log it's hard to keep track of everything. (Maybe taking a 2 month long break in the middle of this game wasn't such a good idea.)
But enough narrative, let's get into the gameplay. You will be tasked with finding a crime in a big sprawling city with many things going on at the same time. And you will then need to follow the culprit, victim, suspects, witnesses and sometimes objects forward and backwards through time in order to piece together what happened and what you can change to fix it. You later get access to further tools like x-ray vision to spruce up the gameplay. There will also be minigames sprinkled throughout. They are not super engaging, but they are not too bothersome to deal with.
You might think it's a map too big for a simple crime, but you will be coming back to all 5 eras to solve multiple craimes in a set order. There is also a mode that lets you freely roam the map in order to find easter egg characters and follow them through the timeline.
All the ares are visually distinct and very appealing. It's incredible how much is happening in each screen at the same time.
I do have to mention that some quests require you find some sigils anywhere on the map with minimal guidance on where to look, and they would be an absolute nightmare if not for the existance of hints. I would in fact recommend to being afraid to use them as they have no penalty other than waiting a few seconds for them to unlock.
The narrative, although convoluted and cofusing, is clear on where it's going and satisfying to end. The AI companion is well written and its growth through the campaign can be easily noticed.
It could have used with a few more songs, as spending so much time with the same one becomes very tiring.
Overall, it's a neat twist on the hidden object formula with a heavy enphasis on storytelling, but searching through the same maps with the same song eventually becomes a bit boring, repetitive and dull. I still recommend it as long as you know what you're getting into.
2023
DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
NOTE: This review was written moths after I finished playing because I had forgotten to write it beforehand, so some details might be wrong but my general opinion of the game stayed the same throughout the experience.
I went in expecting a roguelite game with cool meta progression that would allow you to get further into each run and let you find more and more secrets. I found a mediocre roguelike with a couple of simple "secrets."
There are many spells, which would be a good thing if it weren't for the fact that changing between them is a real hassle, so you will probably end up using just a couple of favorites and whichever ones are required for the titular secrets.
These secrets take the form of mini puzzles that are guaranteed to appear in their respective rooms. These vary in difficulty and complexity, but they ended up feeling quite disappointing. See this chest behind a glass door? Throw something and break it. See this chest through a window? Fly in throught he window. See these colored plants? plant them in the same colored pots. All quite easy to find as soon as the map tells you there's a secret in the room. And then some other room hits you with having to turn, with no indication, one specific wall decoration that looks the same as the ones on every other hallway. Why? They are also not helped by the repetition. All of the puzzles stay the same, in the same rooms with the same solutions every run, and if you want to play optimally getting all available resources you will have to input the solution you already learned over and over again.
This repetition alsodamages the feel of the combat. Each enemy is well designed by themselves, and it's interesting when many of them attack you at the same time; but you can generally pick enemies off one by one, and I can only fight the same 7 enemies so much before I get bored of the same patterns. More variety would have been nice.
I didn't get to have that same repetitive experience with the bosses, but it might be because I didn't do enough runs. You only get to do a couple of boss fights per run, after all, while you fight basic enemies by the hundreds. The final bossfight I beat twice: Once I was so overpowered I just stunlocked him without even having to learn his patterns, and another in which I had a good run and I managed to pull it off by the skin of my teeth. All other 5 runs where I reached it with decent or mediocre set-ups, he demolished me without even giving me a chance.
And there's the thing, you can't control how good your run will be because of the random upgrades to your spells. The game tries to always give you upgrades to a couple of spells at the time in order to encourage creating synergies, but if you happen to get slight upgrades to your utility spells and none for your damage spells you WILL be in trouble. It sometimes felt like the more spells I unlocked, the less likely I was to get the upgrades I wanted/needed to succeed.
Which brings me to the meta-progression. Currency is scarce, and there are many places to invest it. You might choose to upgrade your base stats, upgrade the shop, buy new spells or slightly upgrade one that you already have. To learn new spells you must rescue teachers during runs and it gives you access to clubs which seemed neat, so that's what I chose to do, but they just allow you to start the run with one upgrade and one potion of your choice. You can also rescue classmates during runs and talking to them in the hub gives you... just some basic tips or flavor text.
The characters themselves had no personality, which is what happens when there's so many of them and they only have a couple of lines each. And the story seemed non-sensical, although it is given through a couple of lines at the end of each run, so I might have not seen enough of it to get it.
Every time you beat a run, everything gets a tiny bit harder and combined with worse upgrades because of too many spells made me not want to play more to get to the 10 runs I was asked to beat for what I assume is the end of the story.
Overall, too much spell variety makes it too RNG dependant and too little enemy and room variety made runs long, boring and tedious. Would not recommend unless extremely desperate for a magic themed roguelike.
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
NOTE: This review was written moths after I finished playing because I had forgotten to write it beforehand, so some details might be wrong but my general opinion of the game stayed the same throughout the experience.
I went in expecting a roguelite game with cool meta progression that would allow you to get further into each run and let you find more and more secrets. I found a mediocre roguelike with a couple of simple "secrets."
There are many spells, which would be a good thing if it weren't for the fact that changing between them is a real hassle, so you will probably end up using just a couple of favorites and whichever ones are required for the titular secrets.
These secrets take the form of mini puzzles that are guaranteed to appear in their respective rooms. These vary in difficulty and complexity, but they ended up feeling quite disappointing. See this chest behind a glass door? Throw something and break it. See this chest through a window? Fly in throught he window. See these colored plants? plant them in the same colored pots. All quite easy to find as soon as the map tells you there's a secret in the room. And then some other room hits you with having to turn, with no indication, one specific wall decoration that looks the same as the ones on every other hallway. Why? They are also not helped by the repetition. All of the puzzles stay the same, in the same rooms with the same solutions every run, and if you want to play optimally getting all available resources you will have to input the solution you already learned over and over again.
This repetition alsodamages the feel of the combat. Each enemy is well designed by themselves, and it's interesting when many of them attack you at the same time; but you can generally pick enemies off one by one, and I can only fight the same 7 enemies so much before I get bored of the same patterns. More variety would have been nice.
I didn't get to have that same repetitive experience with the bosses, but it might be because I didn't do enough runs. You only get to do a couple of boss fights per run, after all, while you fight basic enemies by the hundreds. The final bossfight I beat twice: Once I was so overpowered I just stunlocked him without even having to learn his patterns, and another in which I had a good run and I managed to pull it off by the skin of my teeth. All other 5 runs where I reached it with decent or mediocre set-ups, he demolished me without even giving me a chance.
And there's the thing, you can't control how good your run will be because of the random upgrades to your spells. The game tries to always give you upgrades to a couple of spells at the time in order to encourage creating synergies, but if you happen to get slight upgrades to your utility spells and none for your damage spells you WILL be in trouble. It sometimes felt like the more spells I unlocked, the less likely I was to get the upgrades I wanted/needed to succeed.
Which brings me to the meta-progression. Currency is scarce, and there are many places to invest it. You might choose to upgrade your base stats, upgrade the shop, buy new spells or slightly upgrade one that you already have. To learn new spells you must rescue teachers during runs and it gives you access to clubs which seemed neat, so that's what I chose to do, but they just allow you to start the run with one upgrade and one potion of your choice. You can also rescue classmates during runs and talking to them in the hub gives you... just some basic tips or flavor text.
The characters themselves had no personality, which is what happens when there's so many of them and they only have a couple of lines each. And the story seemed non-sensical, although it is given through a couple of lines at the end of each run, so I might have not seen enough of it to get it.
Every time you beat a run, everything gets a tiny bit harder and combined with worse upgrades because of too many spells made me not want to play more to get to the 10 runs I was asked to beat for what I assume is the end of the story.
Overall, too much spell variety makes it too RNG dependant and too little enemy and room variety made runs long, boring and tedious. Would not recommend unless extremely desperate for a magic themed roguelike.
2024
DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
Went in expecting 20 small mazes and maybe some meta puzzle involving them. When I played I found myself with 20 miniscule mazes and that's it.
Listen, it's not a bad game by any means. Every puzzle has an interesting idea and it's over before it overstays it's welcome. And the best part is that it's free.
I probably just disappointed myself by creating expectations in my mind, but I can't be blamed. I was spoiled by other free games/puzzle books like CERT, HOUSE or 12 Word Searches. Go play those, they are great.
Overall, it's a free 45 minute time waster. So go play it when you have the spare time and then move on. Just remember to go in with no expectations.
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
Went in expecting 20 small mazes and maybe some meta puzzle involving them. When I played I found myself with 20 miniscule mazes and that's it.
Listen, it's not a bad game by any means. Every puzzle has an interesting idea and it's over before it overstays it's welcome. And the best part is that it's free.
I probably just disappointed myself by creating expectations in my mind, but I can't be blamed. I was spoiled by other free games/puzzle books like CERT, HOUSE or 12 Word Searches. Go play those, they are great.
Overall, it's a free 45 minute time waster. So go play it when you have the spare time and then move on. Just remember to go in with no expectations.
2023
This review contains spoilers
DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
I went in with high expectations having heard so many people talk highly about it, and I have to say I was a bit let down by it. Let me try to explain why.
Firstly, I will say for clarity's sake that I did 3 playthroughs being as thorough as posible in all of them looking for all the items and dialogue I could find by backtracking quite often. I started with a pacifist one, then I got a neutral ending by accidentally aborting a genocide run in the last area, and I finished by correctly acquiring the genocide ending. I then looked up online some secrets and FUN value events, though I might have missed a few.
The premise is interesting, the surprise when the path diverts from that of Undertale is well executed and having Flowey helping you throughout the journey makes sense.
The Dark Ruins were fun to play through. The enemy designs and attack patterns start out strong, very varied and great; though the writing, the jokes and the puzzles fall a bit behind. The miniboss is a good tutorial for blue and orange. The Micro Froggit/Golden Pear secret was particularly good and satisfying, and although it's a recurring joke, it never gets as complicated and fun to find again. Dalv felt like a nothing character, and even further in the story he stays being just tangentially related.
Snowdin continues with great enemies and lackluster puzzles. The addition of NPCs makes for more opportunities for jokes and side-quests, which is great. We meetTom Nook Mo, who is a simple but funny enough recurring character. The mail feels like a good addition, but ends up being heavily underutilized, it might just be an excuse to have fast travel at the end of the game. The Resort is pleasant enough with good foreshadowing. And we finally meet our main companion on the adventure, Martlet. I've read comparisons like "we have Papyrus at home", but I disagree. She has more personality, backstory and takes a lot of actions. She even has a character arc no matter the run you choose to do. This might be a good opportunity, however, to mention that all bossfights boil down to "dodge until they run aout of dialogue" with no puzzle to spare them.
We then take a detour to the Dunes. Basic enemies knock it out of the park, as usual. NPCs take a bit of a backseat until the Mines, where combat is the one that disappears.Moving on... oh, right! El Bailador exists. It's a nice change of pace, but it could have been so much more. Oasis Valley is very mediocre and forgettable except for:
a) The Mew Mew arcade game being good practice and foreshadowing for all final bosses (though it lacks a reward for beating it).
b) Undertale Red making an appearance. It's very minor, but it meant a lot to me so I HAD to mention it.
Next is the Wild West. I just didn't like it. The Feisty Four were good, Starlo is ok, Cebora doesn't exist until later in the pacifist run. But the whole plotline felt both rushed and dragged on. I had more fun seeing what the minor NPCs were up to between each Mission than with the main story during this section. (This is where the joke that made me laugh the hardest occurred. At one point looking through the hospital window results in something along the lines of "The doctor is cowering in the corner while a patient eats an apple.") The fight with the Feisty Four seemed good, but I wish I had died so I had to do it again with more dodging and less tanking so many hits. Their team attacks were fun, would have enjoyed more of them, other combinations and maybe all of them at the same time. The fight with Starlo, however, was very good. The lasso was a good mechanic (although I don't recall him having one before. Missed opportunity to foreshadow it). The conclussion was ok, leading to Ceroba taking the leading role replacing Martlet.
Steamworks is a place. The enemies suddenly feel uninspired. AXIS feels like a Mettaton rehash with no personality. Even the vendor fails at being an entertaining character and it had every chance to be one, being a tsundere vending machine. I can't imagine how boring this area must be in a neutral run without Ceroba dropping lore bombs left and right or Flowey starting to become scared of Clover. Having Cebora give you protection from a hit regularly is fun, but wholly unnecessary. Maybe if the faights were harder it would be more justified. Apparently the path changes in the netral route, but still quite boring. The bossfight shield mechanic is fun both on the ground and on the circle. The only problem is that the RNG of the attacks and the lasers sometimes makes damage unavoidable. Not my biggest gripe since I don't usually care for no-hitting, but it's annoying when it happens multiple times in a row.
Onto the finale. The revelation of Ceroba being untrustworthy took me by surprise. Chujin's house and tapes were nice. The small Hotland andMTT Hotel UG Apartments were well used without reusing every joke from Undertale. Martlet helps us chase Starlo and Ceroba to New Home and she attacks everyone. Her fight has a lot of RNG but it also has many checkpoints so it never really feels impossible, just difficult. Very fun seeing how powerful she is and all her phases. We get flashbacks of her past, Chujin and Kanako. Her motivations are then clear and reasonable. After beating her, choosing to spare or to kill leads to two different endings in which Clover sacrifices themselves in order for mosters to be free when the next human falls. A just ending.
Before moving onto the genocide route let me briefly mention that in the neutral route Flowey betrays you at the very end killing Martlet and absorbing Clover's soul. The Meta Flowey fight is pretty much an Omega Flowey redux, not much better nor worse, but fun nonetheless. He toys with us pretending to be beatable but ends up offering resetting the timeline to find a different ending.
As for genocide, every enemy has a hurt sprite which makes everything sadder. Interestingly the stock of items you can steal is limited, which makes resource management a thing you have to worry about, since there are 4 relatively challenging bossfights.
1) Martlet is no pushover, she doesn't go down easy. You are not high level, so health is low, your items are trash that barely heals and she hits like a truck. You have to learn to dodge them. Fun fight, took a couple of attempts.
2) Ceroba (wait already? Yes, and you are only level 11) is arguably harder/easier than her pacifist counterpart. I don't know if I found it easier or harder since they took about the same amount of attempts, but I can definitely say that this one was WAY more fun. No RNG, just hard patterns you have to memorize and learn how to dodge. She has attacks that freeze you in place, attacks that reduce your max health and a second phase at half health where her attacks become tougher and the walls reduce your max HP without a checkpoint in between. I loved this fight so much I beat it twice and I'm sure that I coul beat it heal-less if I tried hard enough. And I might.
3) AXIS is a surprise because instead of being chased by him, you chase him around to finish him off while he warns the other robots to hide. And instead of you using a shield, you have to attack him until you break his by learning to shoot with your soul and magically getting like 7 levels out of nowhere. Not super tough, but healing items were used.
4) Martlet is no pushover, she doesn't go down easy. This is what I meant, she's back and with a syringe with what I presume is DETERMINATION taken from Alphys' True Lab. She has two phases with a checkpoint in between, thankfully as both of them are hard on their own. The first involves using your new shooting ability and an even newer dash to take down her armor preventing you from attacking. You have to use your healing items wisely because her attacks are chaotic and you have to split your attention on shooting dodging and dashin and it's too many buttons to do it perfectly. The second phase involves using your shots and your attacks to reduce her health to zero, but you can't attack too often because most turns will be spent on "Endure" in order to try to outheal the damage you receive in increments of around 20. It's a good fight, but I probably would have enjoyed it more in auto-shooting mode to be able to focus on actually dodging and dashing instead of spamming, tanking and hoping not to get hit too much.
After that ends you absolutely anhilate Flowey overriding his save powers, then blast through Asgore and leave with the other 5 souls. The Genocide run was more fun for me than the Pacifist, which may be true for Undertale too because I'm a gameplay first type of person, but at least there I enjoyed the pacifist story too.
Lastly, the overall story was good. I enjoy that everyone (even Dalv) has a connection to Chujin, though I'm not sure I know where his hate towards humans came from. I might be forgetting something. (Oh, right. Kanako's friend was attacked by the blue soul. Eh, seems like a weak motive. Maybe Kanako being attacked would have made it more impactful and logical.)
Music was ok but it obviously can't reach the standard Toby Fox has set. I felt like there weren't enough motifs (if any) but I may have missed them.
Overall, this is too much of a fan-game and does not do enough of its own thing. I'm glad to have played it, but it just doesn't reach the expectations I had based on other people's comments. I'd recommend this to players who are starved for more undertale content if they are not satisfied with just Deltarune, or two people who had a big Undertale phase in the past and are nostalgic to have a fresh but familiar experience. If you played Undertale and thought it was just ok, skip this one. If you haven't played Undertale, go play that instead and come back to this in a few years.
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
I went in with high expectations having heard so many people talk highly about it, and I have to say I was a bit let down by it. Let me try to explain why.
Firstly, I will say for clarity's sake that I did 3 playthroughs being as thorough as posible in all of them looking for all the items and dialogue I could find by backtracking quite often. I started with a pacifist one, then I got a neutral ending by accidentally aborting a genocide run in the last area, and I finished by correctly acquiring the genocide ending. I then looked up online some secrets and FUN value events, though I might have missed a few.
The premise is interesting, the surprise when the path diverts from that of Undertale is well executed and having Flowey helping you throughout the journey makes sense.
The Dark Ruins were fun to play through. The enemy designs and attack patterns start out strong, very varied and great; though the writing, the jokes and the puzzles fall a bit behind. The miniboss is a good tutorial for blue and orange. The Micro Froggit/Golden Pear secret was particularly good and satisfying, and although it's a recurring joke, it never gets as complicated and fun to find again. Dalv felt like a nothing character, and even further in the story he stays being just tangentially related.
Snowdin continues with great enemies and lackluster puzzles. The addition of NPCs makes for more opportunities for jokes and side-quests, which is great. We meet
We then take a detour to the Dunes. Basic enemies knock it out of the park, as usual. NPCs take a bit of a backseat until the Mines, where combat is the one that disappears.Moving on... oh, right! El Bailador exists. It's a nice change of pace, but it could have been so much more. Oasis Valley is very mediocre and forgettable except for:
a) The Mew Mew arcade game being good practice and foreshadowing for all final bosses (though it lacks a reward for beating it).
b) Undertale Red making an appearance. It's very minor, but it meant a lot to me so I HAD to mention it.
Next is the Wild West. I just didn't like it. The Feisty Four were good, Starlo is ok, Cebora doesn't exist until later in the pacifist run. But the whole plotline felt both rushed and dragged on. I had more fun seeing what the minor NPCs were up to between each Mission than with the main story during this section. (This is where the joke that made me laugh the hardest occurred. At one point looking through the hospital window results in something along the lines of "The doctor is cowering in the corner while a patient eats an apple.") The fight with the Feisty Four seemed good, but I wish I had died so I had to do it again with more dodging and less tanking so many hits. Their team attacks were fun, would have enjoyed more of them, other combinations and maybe all of them at the same time. The fight with Starlo, however, was very good. The lasso was a good mechanic (although I don't recall him having one before. Missed opportunity to foreshadow it). The conclussion was ok, leading to Ceroba taking the leading role replacing Martlet.
Steamworks is a place. The enemies suddenly feel uninspired. AXIS feels like a Mettaton rehash with no personality. Even the vendor fails at being an entertaining character and it had every chance to be one, being a tsundere vending machine. I can't imagine how boring this area must be in a neutral run without Ceroba dropping lore bombs left and right or Flowey starting to become scared of Clover. Having Cebora give you protection from a hit regularly is fun, but wholly unnecessary. Maybe if the faights were harder it would be more justified. Apparently the path changes in the netral route, but still quite boring. The bossfight shield mechanic is fun both on the ground and on the circle. The only problem is that the RNG of the attacks and the lasers sometimes makes damage unavoidable. Not my biggest gripe since I don't usually care for no-hitting, but it's annoying when it happens multiple times in a row.
Onto the finale. The revelation of Ceroba being untrustworthy took me by surprise. Chujin's house and tapes were nice. The small Hotland and
Before moving onto the genocide route let me briefly mention that in the neutral route Flowey betrays you at the very end killing Martlet and absorbing Clover's soul. The Meta Flowey fight is pretty much an Omega Flowey redux, not much better nor worse, but fun nonetheless. He toys with us pretending to be beatable but ends up offering resetting the timeline to find a different ending.
As for genocide, every enemy has a hurt sprite which makes everything sadder. Interestingly the stock of items you can steal is limited, which makes resource management a thing you have to worry about, since there are 4 relatively challenging bossfights.
1) Martlet is no pushover, she doesn't go down easy. You are not high level, so health is low, your items are trash that barely heals and she hits like a truck. You have to learn to dodge them. Fun fight, took a couple of attempts.
2) Ceroba (wait already? Yes, and you are only level 11) is arguably harder/easier than her pacifist counterpart. I don't know if I found it easier or harder since they took about the same amount of attempts, but I can definitely say that this one was WAY more fun. No RNG, just hard patterns you have to memorize and learn how to dodge. She has attacks that freeze you in place, attacks that reduce your max health and a second phase at half health where her attacks become tougher and the walls reduce your max HP without a checkpoint in between. I loved this fight so much I beat it twice and I'm sure that I coul beat it heal-less if I tried hard enough. And I might.
3) AXIS is a surprise because instead of being chased by him, you chase him around to finish him off while he warns the other robots to hide. And instead of you using a shield, you have to attack him until you break his by learning to shoot with your soul and magically getting like 7 levels out of nowhere. Not super tough, but healing items were used.
4) Martlet is no pushover, she doesn't go down easy. This is what I meant, she's back and with a syringe with what I presume is DETERMINATION taken from Alphys' True Lab. She has two phases with a checkpoint in between, thankfully as both of them are hard on their own. The first involves using your new shooting ability and an even newer dash to take down her armor preventing you from attacking. You have to use your healing items wisely because her attacks are chaotic and you have to split your attention on shooting dodging and dashin and it's too many buttons to do it perfectly. The second phase involves using your shots and your attacks to reduce her health to zero, but you can't attack too often because most turns will be spent on "Endure" in order to try to outheal the damage you receive in increments of around 20. It's a good fight, but I probably would have enjoyed it more in auto-shooting mode to be able to focus on actually dodging and dashing instead of spamming, tanking and hoping not to get hit too much.
After that ends you absolutely anhilate Flowey overriding his save powers, then blast through Asgore and leave with the other 5 souls. The Genocide run was more fun for me than the Pacifist, which may be true for Undertale too because I'm a gameplay first type of person, but at least there I enjoyed the pacifist story too.
Lastly, the overall story was good. I enjoy that everyone (even Dalv) has a connection to Chujin, though I'm not sure I know where his hate towards humans came from. I might be forgetting something. (Oh, right. Kanako's friend was attacked by the blue soul. Eh, seems like a weak motive. Maybe Kanako being attacked would have made it more impactful and logical.)
Music was ok but it obviously can't reach the standard Toby Fox has set. I felt like there weren't enough motifs (if any) but I may have missed them.
Overall, this is too much of a fan-game and does not do enough of its own thing. I'm glad to have played it, but it just doesn't reach the expectations I had based on other people's comments. I'd recommend this to players who are starved for more undertale content if they are not satisfied with just Deltarune, or two people who had a big Undertale phase in the past and are nostalgic to have a fresh but familiar experience. If you played Undertale and thought it was just ok, skip this one. If you haven't played Undertale, go play that instead and come back to this in a few years.
2019
DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
I went in with no expectations, really. In fact, I do not even remember where I found out about this game, I just know that it's been on my "to play later" list for a while and I finally decide to crack it open. And I'm glad I did, because it was highly enjoyable.
The game has around 150 cryptography puzzles that vary in both complexity and difficulty. This is to be expected as the game is intended to be a non-linear experience. Many times you will find yourself stumped on a puzzle that makes no sense, only to later find a clue in an unrelated thread that makes everything fall into place.
It's worth pointing out that the game gives you all the tools you need to solve puzzles without having to open a browser with 10 tabs to translate morse, binary, hex, etc. The only exceptions I had to make were for a couple of anagrams I was personally struggling with and for one morse code without spaces. (The ammount of possibilities is just to great to do it by hand)
The game does have a hint system. There are 3 hints available for each puzzle (that totals over 300 hand-crafted hints) and their only ! cost is time. First hint takes a minute to unlock, second takes 2, and third takes 3. I assume this is to encourage more thinking on the same puzzle or on a different one during the wait. The problem is that the hints' usefulness is highly variable. Hint 1 usually just points out what is the useful data you should be looking at, hint 2 tends to mention which tool to use or the amount of characters, and hint 3 tells you the specific trick of the puzzle without giving away the answer. So it's annoying when you are stuck on a puzzle and after waiting for a hint it just says "six red letters." Yes I know that, but what do I do with them? And then I have to wait for another hint to say "Use a tool." Of course, but which one?
Lore-wise, it's a very simple "AI gone rogue" story, but it does the job and it surprisigly doesn't seem to have evil intentions. Serviceable, but not a strong suit.
I would have appreciated it if the game had any sort of audio. A background track and some sound puzzles would have been welcome. So feel free to play this with a playlist of your choice running.
! The ending does take into consideration the amount of hints used, but after seeing all endings the difference is so minor that it's not worth bothering to avoid hints.
Overall, I had tons of fun with the puzzles and the non-linearity made it feel metroidvania-esque at times. If it ever gets a paid release, I'll buy it day one. Highly recommended for puzzle lovers.
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
I went in with no expectations, really. In fact, I do not even remember where I found out about this game, I just know that it's been on my "to play later" list for a while and I finally decide to crack it open. And I'm glad I did, because it was highly enjoyable.
The game has around 150 cryptography puzzles that vary in both complexity and difficulty. This is to be expected as the game is intended to be a non-linear experience. Many times you will find yourself stumped on a puzzle that makes no sense, only to later find a clue in an unrelated thread that makes everything fall into place.
It's worth pointing out that the game gives you all the tools you need to solve puzzles without having to open a browser with 10 tabs to translate morse, binary, hex, etc. The only exceptions I had to make were for a couple of anagrams I was personally struggling with and for one morse code without spaces. (The ammount of possibilities is just to great to do it by hand)
The game does have a hint system. There are 3 hints available for each puzzle (that totals over 300 hand-crafted hints) and their only ! cost is time. First hint takes a minute to unlock, second takes 2, and third takes 3. I assume this is to encourage more thinking on the same puzzle or on a different one during the wait. The problem is that the hints' usefulness is highly variable. Hint 1 usually just points out what is the useful data you should be looking at, hint 2 tends to mention which tool to use or the amount of characters, and hint 3 tells you the specific trick of the puzzle without giving away the answer. So it's annoying when you are stuck on a puzzle and after waiting for a hint it just says "six red letters." Yes I know that, but what do I do with them? And then I have to wait for another hint to say "Use a tool." Of course, but which one?
Lore-wise, it's a very simple "AI gone rogue" story, but it does the job and it surprisigly doesn't seem to have evil intentions. Serviceable, but not a strong suit.
I would have appreciated it if the game had any sort of audio. A background track and some sound puzzles would have been welcome. So feel free to play this with a playlist of your choice running.
! The ending does take into consideration the amount of hints used, but after seeing all endings the difference is so minor that it's not worth bothering to avoid hints.
Overall, I had tons of fun with the puzzles and the non-linearity made it feel metroidvania-esque at times. If it ever gets a paid release, I'll buy it day one. Highly recommended for puzzle lovers.
DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
I went in expecting a small metroidvania, but it turned out to be a big adventure game with a couple of metroidvania elements.
The beggining of the game is quite slow and linear as you get a grasp of the main mechanics, setting up the expectation that the whole game will be a linear experience, but soon after the game opens up allowing you to go and explore pretty much most islands, although most dungeons will be gated by either the shovel, its upgrade or the very versatile magic bottle.
Once you have gotten access to all 3 of these tools, however, you are enirely free to tackle the rest of the game in whatever order you wish and it will all start falling like dominoes. The NavPearl would be amazing if not for the fact that you can just find the items without them. It would be cooler if you had to dig in specific but incospicuous places so that the pearls were actually necessary.
The game is also full of secret crevices. They are fun and satisfying to find, although I wish they had had more unique collectibles in them since most of them contain just chests full of coins.
The coins themselves are used to buy a couple of hats with unique properties, which is cool, and to buy and decorate a house, which is really just a money sink. And even after having bought every single thing available, I finished the game with over 3000 coins to spare. I guess I was more thorough than most at finding secret coin chests, so I was surprised to see a money farming guide even exists.
Speaking of farming, one of the items you must collect are enemy drops. In my experience, however, they required no farming. Just killing all enemies on each screen the first time through was enough to have all of them dropped. I am unsure if I was just lucky or if it is hard-coded to be this way. If so, I am happily impressed.
Having the final dungeon be something that opens up slowly as you keep coming back with more mcguffins is a cool idea, but it was so out of the way that after my first visit I didn't go back until the end of the game.
Oh right, the story. It was... meh? The main character has no dialogue and no personality (two things that are not always linked to each other), the parrot has a designated conversation button, but it is reserved as a hint system instead of making jokes or comments about the current room that could have shown more personality. It was aesy to figure out who he really was, but that might just be because of enough knowledge of tropes. The flashbacks and introductory cutscene were great, if a bit long. Other than that, the god vs god story is just an excuse to have the game happen and that is ok.
Overall, the game was quite enjoyable. It gave way more freedom than expected. I'd be more likely to compare it to a Zelda or an adventure game more than a metroidvania.
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
I went in expecting a small metroidvania, but it turned out to be a big adventure game with a couple of metroidvania elements.
The beggining of the game is quite slow and linear as you get a grasp of the main mechanics, setting up the expectation that the whole game will be a linear experience, but soon after the game opens up allowing you to go and explore pretty much most islands, although most dungeons will be gated by either the shovel, its upgrade or the very versatile magic bottle.
Once you have gotten access to all 3 of these tools, however, you are enirely free to tackle the rest of the game in whatever order you wish and it will all start falling like dominoes. The NavPearl would be amazing if not for the fact that you can just find the items without them. It would be cooler if you had to dig in specific but incospicuous places so that the pearls were actually necessary.
The game is also full of secret crevices. They are fun and satisfying to find, although I wish they had had more unique collectibles in them since most of them contain just chests full of coins.
The coins themselves are used to buy a couple of hats with unique properties, which is cool, and to buy and decorate a house, which is really just a money sink. And even after having bought every single thing available, I finished the game with over 3000 coins to spare. I guess I was more thorough than most at finding secret coin chests, so I was surprised to see a money farming guide even exists.
Speaking of farming, one of the items you must collect are enemy drops. In my experience, however, they required no farming. Just killing all enemies on each screen the first time through was enough to have all of them dropped. I am unsure if I was just lucky or if it is hard-coded to be this way. If so, I am happily impressed.
Having the final dungeon be something that opens up slowly as you keep coming back with more mcguffins is a cool idea, but it was so out of the way that after my first visit I didn't go back until the end of the game.
Oh right, the story. It was... meh? The main character has no dialogue and no personality (two things that are not always linked to each other), the parrot has a designated conversation button, but it is reserved as a hint system instead of making jokes or comments about the current room that could have shown more personality. It was aesy to figure out who he really was, but that might just be because of enough knowledge of tropes. The flashbacks and introductory cutscene were great, if a bit long. Other than that, the god vs god story is just an excuse to have the game happen and that is ok.
Overall, the game was quite enjoyable. It gave way more freedom than expected. I'd be more likely to compare it to a Zelda or an adventure game more than a metroidvania.
2023
DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
NOTE: I am completely aware of the controversies surrounding the writer of this series and it is because of this reason and because of my unstable monetary situation that I resorted to piracy to acquire this game and therefore its price won't be a factor in this review. I will limit myself to talking about the game as a piece of media.
Having only been able to play this months after its release on other platforms, I had plenty of preconcieved expectations based on other people's comments and reviews. I basically went in expecting a AAA slop game with a basic Harry Potter skin on it. As it turns out, reality wasn't that far off.
The game does have an open world riddled with collectables, some of them cooler than others. For instance, the Merlin Trials are interesting enough the first few times you see them, but they start to get repetitive after a while, a couple of them try to innovate a bit but they are the minority. The Ancient Magic Hotspots are a good oportunity for some platforming mazes, but most of them can be circumvented once you have the broom. Chests in enemy camps are a good idea, but the rewards are not good enough for anything other completionism or minor aesthetics.
Speaking of aesthetics, The character customization is ok, but what I really appreciate is being able to change the appearance of any equipment without having to sacrifice stats. Upgrading armor is ok in concept, but it using drops from animals you have to farm in real time is not great. It also, feels like you unlock it too late.
The game has a lot of mechanics and they are unlocked slowly over the course of the game and many arrive way too late to be useful or leaving you with no time to enjoy them. Avada Kedavra is only unlocked a couple of missions before the end of the game, for example, which makes some sense since it's very overpowered.
All of the curses are very strong, really. And using them feels like cheating or like activating an easy mode. The rest of the spells were fun, I just wish there was an easier way to switch between all of them or more incentive to do so. Using stealth was too easy and too strong, but satisfying. I also wish there were more utility spells, even if they were just "keys" for "locks" and I also wish there had been more enemy types.
The story was mediocre protagonist is chosen one. Bad guy is evil and racist. He has powers because of a misguided young student from the past. But I did enjoy the characters. The teachers with their personalities and optional backstories were interesting and the classmates and their questlines had fun setpieces and stakes.
Exploring the castle and finding the pages with lore was probably one of my favorite activities as well as decorating the room of requirement even if the controls for it were quite clunky. I made a whole section for plants and potions that I never used becuase I never had the need to get a boost in combat.
Overall, yes. This is a AAA slop game with a Harry Potter skin, but the game is okay enough that if you are a fan of the saga I think it's worth to live through this magical power fantasy at least once. Otherwise, it's okay to skip it.
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
NOTE: I am completely aware of the controversies surrounding the writer of this series and it is because of this reason and because of my unstable monetary situation that I resorted to piracy to acquire this game and therefore its price won't be a factor in this review. I will limit myself to talking about the game as a piece of media.
Having only been able to play this months after its release on other platforms, I had plenty of preconcieved expectations based on other people's comments and reviews. I basically went in expecting a AAA slop game with a basic Harry Potter skin on it. As it turns out, reality wasn't that far off.
The game does have an open world riddled with collectables, some of them cooler than others. For instance, the Merlin Trials are interesting enough the first few times you see them, but they start to get repetitive after a while, a couple of them try to innovate a bit but they are the minority. The Ancient Magic Hotspots are a good oportunity for some platforming mazes, but most of them can be circumvented once you have the broom. Chests in enemy camps are a good idea, but the rewards are not good enough for anything other completionism or minor aesthetics.
Speaking of aesthetics, The character customization is ok, but what I really appreciate is being able to change the appearance of any equipment without having to sacrifice stats. Upgrading armor is ok in concept, but it using drops from animals you have to farm in real time is not great. It also, feels like you unlock it too late.
The game has a lot of mechanics and they are unlocked slowly over the course of the game and many arrive way too late to be useful or leaving you with no time to enjoy them. Avada Kedavra is only unlocked a couple of missions before the end of the game, for example, which makes some sense since it's very overpowered.
All of the curses are very strong, really. And using them feels like cheating or like activating an easy mode. The rest of the spells were fun, I just wish there was an easier way to switch between all of them or more incentive to do so. Using stealth was too easy and too strong, but satisfying. I also wish there were more utility spells, even if they were just "keys" for "locks" and I also wish there had been more enemy types.
The story was mediocre protagonist is chosen one. Bad guy is evil and racist. He has powers because of a misguided young student from the past. But I did enjoy the characters. The teachers with their personalities and optional backstories were interesting and the classmates and their questlines had fun setpieces and stakes.
Exploring the castle and finding the pages with lore was probably one of my favorite activities as well as decorating the room of requirement even if the controls for it were quite clunky. I made a whole section for plants and potions that I never used becuase I never had the need to get a boost in combat.
Overall, yes. This is a AAA slop game with a Harry Potter skin, but the game is okay enough that if you are a fan of the saga I think it's worth to live through this magical power fantasy at least once. Otherwise, it's okay to skip it.
DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
It was quite an unexpected surprise to see this posted on a tweet just minutes after being released. I went in expecting a short and sweet homage to Celeste but in 3D in a "Super Mario 64 Style" and that is exactly what was delivered.
Consisted of a single level themed like Forsaken City with 30 strawberries scattered around. Some of them hidden in crevices, others in hard to reach places, a few on sub-levels with challenging platforming sections and just a few that require solving a puzzle or riddle.
I would have appreciated more of these latter puzzly berries, but at least some of the platforming sections did feature having to figure out the route to be taken.
The dialogues with the characters were good too and implied things about what happened to Madeline and the other characters after the events of Celeste, although I'm a bit sad Oshiro wasn't present.
Overall, it was a fun short experience very much recommended for fans of Celeste but not for newcomers.
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
It was quite an unexpected surprise to see this posted on a tweet just minutes after being released. I went in expecting a short and sweet homage to Celeste but in 3D in a "Super Mario 64 Style" and that is exactly what was delivered.
Consisted of a single level themed like Forsaken City with 30 strawberries scattered around. Some of them hidden in crevices, others in hard to reach places, a few on sub-levels with challenging platforming sections and just a few that require solving a puzzle or riddle.
I would have appreciated more of these latter puzzly berries, but at least some of the platforming sections did feature having to figure out the route to be taken.
The dialogues with the characters were good too and implied things about what happened to Madeline and the other characters after the events of Celeste, although I'm a bit sad Oshiro wasn't present.
Overall, it was a fun short experience very much recommended for fans of Celeste but not for newcomers.
DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
Man, what can I even say.
I knew going in that it was going to be real detective game with true investigational freedom like Obra Dinn. But as a free browser game, I did not expect it to have as much depth and polish as it ended up having. A great surprise.
There being mandatory identities as well as optional characters and people with multiple photographs made the moments where you confirm 3 identities more exciting.
Figuring out The Big Mystery of the game wasn't as comlex as I had expected at the start, but it was equally as satisfying to keep getting evidence confirming my theory throughout the second half of the game.
Conversely, I had a lot of trouble pinning down those last few identities and I am not ashamed to admit that not only did I not get all of the optional names and pictures because I missed some articles, but I also had to brute force the jobs of my last two characters and only after having the answer revealed did my brain click to exactly which evidence was supposed to point me to the answer. I blame this on me binging the end of this game at 3 in the morning (the same time I am writing this)
Overall, I think this was and incredible videogame that could be sold for a considerable amount of money and I would still come out as satisfied. Greatly recommended for detective game fans.
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
Man, what can I even say.
I knew going in that it was going to be real detective game with true investigational freedom like Obra Dinn. But as a free browser game, I did not expect it to have as much depth and polish as it ended up having. A great surprise.
There being mandatory identities as well as optional characters and people with multiple photographs made the moments where you confirm 3 identities more exciting.
Figuring out The Big Mystery of the game wasn't as comlex as I had expected at the start, but it was equally as satisfying to keep getting evidence confirming my theory throughout the second half of the game.
Conversely, I had a lot of trouble pinning down those last few identities and I am not ashamed to admit that not only did I not get all of the optional names and pictures because I missed some articles, but I also had to brute force the jobs of my last two characters and only after having the answer revealed did my brain click to exactly which evidence was supposed to point me to the answer. I blame this on me binging the end of this game at 3 in the morning (the same time I am writing this)
Overall, I think this was and incredible videogame that could be sold for a considerable amount of money and I would still come out as satisfied. Greatly recommended for detective game fans.
2023
DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
I went in expecting a Majora's Mask type of game. I got an adventure game with some player time-travelling and timeline manipulation. Sadly ended up being way more linear than I had imagined. It was still cool to change events by doing certain actions in past chapters, but the fact that you control multiple characters means that they end up doing actions that make no sense and benefit them in no way whatsoever in order to help someone else in the future without them even knowing how or why.
I did enjoy that one of the events in the middle of the story of the first main character is locked until very late in the game, creating a great deal of intrigue as to what happened, time to create theories, and finally unlocking it leads to a satisfying twist and the opportunity to alter the bad fates of the rest of the cast.
Regarding the mind-map/hint system, I am very grateful for its existance. I did try and succeed to figure out what actions I had to take on which events, but its presence helped in the later half of the game when the amount of possibilities got too intricate and helped aleviate some of the moon-logic adventure games are infamous for having.
The story was entertaining and finding out how all the characters were connected was fun. And being able to learn more about their backstories by gathering collectables was as satisfying as solving some of the puzzles to get them in the first place.
Overall, I do not regret having played it in the slightest and would recommend it to most adventure game fans.
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
I went in expecting a Majora's Mask type of game. I got an adventure game with some player time-travelling and timeline manipulation. Sadly ended up being way more linear than I had imagined. It was still cool to change events by doing certain actions in past chapters, but the fact that you control multiple characters means that they end up doing actions that make no sense and benefit them in no way whatsoever in order to help someone else in the future without them even knowing how or why.
I did enjoy that one of the events in the middle of the story of the first main character is locked until very late in the game, creating a great deal of intrigue as to what happened, time to create theories, and finally unlocking it leads to a satisfying twist and the opportunity to alter the bad fates of the rest of the cast.
Regarding the mind-map/hint system, I am very grateful for its existance. I did try and succeed to figure out what actions I had to take on which events, but its presence helped in the later half of the game when the amount of possibilities got too intricate and helped aleviate some of the moon-logic adventure games are infamous for having.
The story was entertaining and finding out how all the characters were connected was fun. And being able to learn more about their backstories by gathering collectables was as satisfying as solving some of the puzzles to get them in the first place.
Overall, I do not regret having played it in the slightest and would recommend it to most adventure game fans.
2021
DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
NOTE: The time played is the one recorded at time of review and it includes all main levels and a few custom maps (which may or may not have taken longer)
Have you ever vibed with a game as soon as you started it? I hadn't felt like this with a game since The Witness, and yet this time it might have been even stronger.
From the non-euclidian environment (aka being teleported all over the place and having to create a mental map of connections and shortcuts), through the rule discovery segments (which take place all throughout the whole game and not just at the beginning since you keep learning more rules and finding new puzzle elements even in the "post-game"), to the puzzles themselves (which always felt creative and fresh, even if sometimes too easy and other times unfairly difficult) I loved every second of it.
Imagine my surprise when while doing clean-up I find out there's a Level 2 that is even bigger than the first. And then there are more smaller official levels and once I'm done with those I keep wanting more and more, so I do what I never do. I turn to community content, and it's actually good?
I can't get this game out of my head. I was waiting to finally be done with it before writing a review, but it just wasn't happening and I had to get some of these thoughs on paper before I exploded.
Overall, I can't recommend this game enough for puzzle fans. I'll be singing its praise for years to come.
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
NOTE: The time played is the one recorded at time of review and it includes all main levels and a few custom maps (which may or may not have taken longer)
Have you ever vibed with a game as soon as you started it? I hadn't felt like this with a game since The Witness, and yet this time it might have been even stronger.
From the non-euclidian environment (aka being teleported all over the place and having to create a mental map of connections and shortcuts), through the rule discovery segments (which take place all throughout the whole game and not just at the beginning since you keep learning more rules and finding new puzzle elements even in the "post-game"), to the puzzles themselves (which always felt creative and fresh, even if sometimes too easy and other times unfairly difficult) I loved every second of it.
Imagine my surprise when while doing clean-up I find out there's a Level 2 that is even bigger than the first. And then there are more smaller official levels and once I'm done with those I keep wanting more and more, so I do what I never do. I turn to community content, and it's actually good?
I can't get this game out of my head. I was waiting to finally be done with it before writing a review, but it just wasn't happening and I had to get some of these thoughs on paper before I exploded.
Overall, I can't recommend this game enough for puzzle fans. I'll be singing its praise for years to come.
2020
DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
I only started playing this game because a friend gifted it to me on a whim. It was a fun Roguelite where the permanent upgrades always had you making it further and further into each run. Once you start beating runs, though, the fun starts to plateau and the grind sets in.
It is clear the developers expect players to keep playing the game hours upon hours after beating the game (clear by having a 100 death achievement and a 30 successful runs with scaling difficulty along with having to get enough resources to buy all the blueprints)
The true Roguelike mode might be fun, but I may have ruined it for myself by trying to go for both of the achievements related to it that make it SIGNIFICANTLY harder.
Overall, It was a great deal of fun and I might come back for a run or two every now and then.
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
I only started playing this game because a friend gifted it to me on a whim. It was a fun Roguelite where the permanent upgrades always had you making it further and further into each run. Once you start beating runs, though, the fun starts to plateau and the grind sets in.
It is clear the developers expect players to keep playing the game hours upon hours after beating the game (clear by having a 100 death achievement and a 30 successful runs with scaling difficulty along with having to get enough resources to buy all the blueprints)
The true Roguelike mode might be fun, but I may have ruined it for myself by trying to go for both of the achievements related to it that make it SIGNIFICANTLY harder.
Overall, It was a great deal of fun and I might come back for a run or two every now and then.