icepotato
2020
i'm sorry but the world absolutely does not need another pixel art survival game with crafting, and if you are going to make one anyway it should be more polished or have a better crafting experience or something.
2021
i really wanted to love the weaving mechanic! I think it's unique and fun. but i got distracted by performance problems, and trying to decode what to do next, and then i hit a particularly tedious and annoying puzzle and that was just my limit.
sorry, beautiful and interesting looking game. i hope you get some patches and a sequel?
sorry, beautiful and interesting looking game. i hope you get some patches and a sequel?
2020
yes it's gorgeous and the music is great but it's also very interested in gating your progress on if you can make a very specific kind of jump where any imprecision immediately ricochets you into, say, a pool of lava. and that's fine, but you should be very clear that this a precision platformer and the comparisons to super monkey ball are not frivolous.
Totally average about four hours in. It starts off strong with some genuinely funny dialogue but once you start going through dungeons that drops off. The stacking is kind of interesting but managing your monsters is hard - I haven’t found a good way to list them by attribute? And you can only carry a very small number with you. It’s nice the game comes with some options like auto battle and fast forward and turning off random battles, but combat is still a boring slog where attacking is the best and easiest option 75% of the time.
It’s fine. It’s fine! It’s literally an average jrpg.
It’s fine. It’s fine! It’s literally an average jrpg.
2019
i really enjoyed this game for about 6 hours and then stopped.
the smartest thing it does is give you a little level up screen at the end of each day so you have lots of dings to help you feel motivated. i also kind of liked the plot - the hero has vanquished the great evil, the monsters are all gone, and now it's time to rebuild.
buuutttt it lacks polish (no controller support? clunky menus). it should have been about half the length: NPC dialogue starts to repeat heavily, building tiers are resource intensive yet give little benefit in return. the reward curve starts to drag around midgame. it really could use some quality of life features, like wishlists, or pointing out who you still need to talk to each day, or better reminders of when town wishes refresh.
it's not a bad game. it's right up my alley, and i enjoyed the time i spent with it. it just needed to be a bit better in order for me to get to the finish line.
the smartest thing it does is give you a little level up screen at the end of each day so you have lots of dings to help you feel motivated. i also kind of liked the plot - the hero has vanquished the great evil, the monsters are all gone, and now it's time to rebuild.
buuutttt it lacks polish (no controller support? clunky menus). it should have been about half the length: NPC dialogue starts to repeat heavily, building tiers are resource intensive yet give little benefit in return. the reward curve starts to drag around midgame. it really could use some quality of life features, like wishlists, or pointing out who you still need to talk to each day, or better reminders of when town wishes refresh.
it's not a bad game. it's right up my alley, and i enjoyed the time i spent with it. it just needed to be a bit better in order for me to get to the finish line.
2019
for a game about customizing your mech, it's really hard to compare equipment. movement feels light and flighty, not weighty or meaty. basically a helicopter sim with an unbelievably annoying cast. maybe it offers up more depth but like 10 missions in it feels glacially paced and determined to show me Really Epic Cutscenes instead of letting me play a mech game where i can have cool moments.
2021
i love pixel art but there's a point at which it becomes bad for a game, and that point is when you can not see what you need to do because the art is not detailed, or the layers are clashing.
why is there a procgen layer on top of this game?
why is there such a halfassed crafting system?
why is there a procgen layer on top of this game?
why is there such a halfassed crafting system?
an extremely well-produced, colorful, fully fleshed out beat-em-up that stays exactly a beat-em-up. yes i recognize the callbacks. yes its nice to be pandered to. yes its still a beat em up.
i kind of enjoyed the combat, aside from issues with lockon, but felt a complete lack of motivation to continue playing. cool monsters! incremental drip improvements over time.
2018
honestly, kind of perfect? great balance - i had to retry a few times but never felt stretched beyond my breaking point, although i did feel FULLY immersed in the chaos, and quite clever after getting myself out of a few jams. not mindless, but not so intricate that i felt myself bogged down in decision making. and just delightfully weird and silly in a way that didn't take up too much time. a fair amount of secrets, some hidden depths, and ended with me wanting juuuust a little bit more.
extremely great sense of momentum, great sound design, maybe a little hard to decode visually but that's only a problem in the "Liberation" stages where you are playing towards a specific objective beyond "move right".
it actually does manage to tell a story pretty well, although by the time you are chasing a helicopter through the trees it veers towards comic heavy-handedness. The heavy-handedness is in service of a good message that is well-enforced by the mechanics - the trees feel so good to swing through, and the deforestation is bleak and alien, and the cities are baffling and confusing but not impossible. You can feel how gibbons live best in their natural environment, and they can adapt, and people can adapt, but adaptation is difficult.
i finished the story and immediately wanted to keep playing. the liberation mode isn't as well tuned. that's fine. it's actually nice to be able to stop playing a game after a few hours.
it actually does manage to tell a story pretty well, although by the time you are chasing a helicopter through the trees it veers towards comic heavy-handedness. The heavy-handedness is in service of a good message that is well-enforced by the mechanics - the trees feel so good to swing through, and the deforestation is bleak and alien, and the cities are baffling and confusing but not impossible. You can feel how gibbons live best in their natural environment, and they can adapt, and people can adapt, but adaptation is difficult.
i finished the story and immediately wanted to keep playing. the liberation mode isn't as well tuned. that's fine. it's actually nice to be able to stop playing a game after a few hours.
2021
i think i was almost enjoying myself and then the map zoomed out and showed me a million radio towers and i spent so long hitting things with a crowbar. it's not bland or lifeless - the exhaustion is entirely on my side, and there are some little tricks of the level design like barricaded doors to bust open which i appreciate - but neither is it so intriguing that i couldn't bear to part with it after an hour or two.
2022
I don't know. I kind of like it, but also if i want to unlock the next power I need to collect like 800 of whatever resource and then wait for the planks and then wait for the sun to set and make sure I sucked the right kind and quality of blood. I can appreciate the setting and theme, and the danger the sun poses, but also: I'd rather just play a different game, at this point.
2019
it's funny coming back to this game in a post-Vampire Survivors world. Ok, it's more "hardcore" - you have to deal with thrust, and aiming, and enemy bullets. There are more enemy patterns and more wave varieties. The contrast reveals what vampire survivors stripped away. And as you look at what vampire survivors removed, you can appreciate what the 30 minute time limit and the limit on upgrade slots for what they are. As it turns out, I kind of prefer the limitations vampire survivors imposes!
2020
i really like some of the ideas it brings to the table; i do not like it enough to actually finish a game.