Nocturnal got my attention because I saw that it was only 2-3 hours long and had a pleasant art style. Also, I do love some 2d action platformers, although I admit I am terrible at them.
Nocturnal is a good game that doesn’t overstay its welcome. The battle system is nice and has an upgrade system, that gives you just enough new moves that you can learn if you want, which gives something extra. The enemies are not tough, but they pose enough challenges that if you just try to spam attacks will get you killed quite frequently (I would say from the middle part of the game onwards, early on it’s easy).
There are also light puzzle elements that the game throws at you, but they aren’t difficult at all, especially if this is not your first action adventure. The game also has a very lenient checkpoint system, so dying or failing a jump will not lose you much progress.
The art style is neat, especially the fire animations in dark places. The world is great to look at, though you will spend most of your time inside buildings. The music is also pleasant and not memorable.
All in all, there isn’t much to discuss within Nocturnal, at least for me. It’s a 3-hour game you can play, have a fun time, and probably forget within a week. The story and characters are rather one note, the combat system has some depth plus the game has a pleasant visual style. If it’s on sale and you have a couple of hours to kill, it’s an option.

I was really interested in playing Liberated when I saw it. Fantastic visual style and a potentially interesting dystopian story. Unfortunately for me, this was a definite dud.
First, the gameplay was a standard 2.5D action platformer with nothing to talk about, to be honest. Levels were boring, nothing that stood out, the enemies were guys with masks or law enforcement with some flying droids sprinkled in to remind you this is in the future. The game also has some light puzzle solving, but I don't remember any of them, so none stood out.
I thought the story had potential, but it was the exact opposite. It’s the cliche: the government did something terrible and covered it up, so they can put laws that spy on you. While you can make a story cliche and intriguing, this was not the case for me. The characters have no development, they have a name, a trait (not necessary though), and that’s it. The ending was a bit interesting, so, I give them credit for that. You have some choices in the first chapter on how to act, that do nothing, as far as I saw, and some QTEs that actually do have some impact (1 in the 1st chapter to be exact).
The soundtrack was unremarkable, so I can’t talk about it, since I don’t even remember it. The voice acting was so-so in my opinion, though it’s an indy game, so I can’t be mad if the voice acting isn’t phenomenal.
All in all the game had potential. The style and the narrative could have made the game fantastic, but for me, they fell flat on their ass on this one. I haven't played the DLC, so maybe that was better, but the game never made me want to play more. It’s 4 hours at most and goes frequently on sale, so if you are interested in the game, give it a shot. Maybe it will do more for you than it did for me.

I found this game through Reddit; the developer was advertising that they will be releasing it soon and I was intrigued by it. I love to see people chasing their dreams and trying to make video games plus, the developer was upfront to say that they were heavily influenced by Fire Emblem, even though if you check the game out, you can see it easily.

The beginning of the story is very similar to most of the Fire Emblem games as well. A deposed prince is starting a rebellion so they can take back their throne. The characters are mostly one-note though the main character and antagonist due get some development with their relationship being fleshed out throughout the story. The other characters also get some screen time though you can boil down their personality to a cliche: the thief is a charmer, the knight is a stick in the mud, the lone swordsman is nice but rarely talks, etc. Not bad per se, but nothing special. I appreciate the portraits of all the characters though so extra points for that.

The gameplay is your typical TRPG Fire Emblem type with some twists. You have saved points throughout each level which really helps since this game, at least for me, is annoyingly difficult. I started on Hard mode, but after chapter 3, I started the game over on Easy, since I knew that if I’m getting so frustrated this early, it’s going to get worse. Characters can get extra hits through a turn so your units can get one shot (no perma death though), and with a total of 11 units for the whole game, losing one unit can crippler your strategy for the chapter. You need to be so scared and careful and inch your units little by little, which some people might enjoy, but I don’t like playing a chapter for at least half an hour to get through it since I don’t want a character to get one shot and I need to start over. Another thing is a lot of chapters have your army split up without you deciding which characters go where making things even more annoying. I had a flying unit, which I barely used in flying mode since 70% of each map is filled with archers/ballista units.

The Ost is nothing interesting, just a couple of songs and 1 track loop for a chapter, which makes each chapter even more annoying, so I barely listened to it.

I wished this game was more polished and not as brutal as it was, but I don’t want to bash a passion project. It’s the first game of the developer and they are making a sequel to it, so hopefully, it comes out better than the first one. If you love the older Fire Emblem games, which I know are more unforgiving, this may be the game for you.