incompletosinti
2015
"You have paid a high toll indeed
For the abomination in your quiver"
Fairly short boss rush game with a fun gimmick: you die in one hit, but so do the bosses. You can only hit a boss in their weak point, so every fight becomes a puzzle of finding out which attacks leave windows of opportunity, or in some cases, of how to expose the weak point in the first place. I had a lot of fun figuring each boss out, and they all held my interest long enough to ever give me a chance of getting bored or frustrated before the fight was over. This game can be quite challenging, but every death is fair.
There isn't much of anything to explore in the overworld other than a couple puzzles here and there, meaning the world is pretty empty aside from the bosses themselves, but that's not something I personally had an issue with at all. There's also some sparse but neat lore to learn throughout the game in certain areas, stuff like murals on walls. I'd recommend checking out a video on it if you're interested but didn't understand too much. The game looks quite nice visually too, and David Fenn does a great job of giving each area and boss a unique identity with his work on the soundtrack. The area themes create a somber tone to accompany the downtime that comes with exploring the overworld, and some of these boss tracks really kick ass.
I've heard a lot of criticism from people about how the game has respawn checkpoints based on the area you're in instead of right outside the boss door, leading to extensive runback downtime that can sometimes be longer than each attempt at the boss itself. But this criticism has always confused me, as I never experienced this problem myself; the longest runback I personally experienced was... maybe 30 seconds tops, I'd guess? And very few of my attempts were super short. Maybe I ended up being too good at the game to properly understand where they're coming from.
The only real criticism I can give this game is that I found a few bosses to be disappointingly easy or uninteresting. Although that criticism can be given to pretty much any game, it ends up being a larger detriment than it would be otherwise since this game specifically focuses on nothing but the bosses.
All in all, Titan Souls is a short but fun and interesting experience, and I can confidently recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good challenge. As a bonus, if you're ever unsure, it goes pretty cheap on sales.
FAVORITE CHARACTER: Knight Elhanan
FAVORITE BOSS: The true final boss
FAVORITE SONG: Forest Songs
For the abomination in your quiver"
Fairly short boss rush game with a fun gimmick: you die in one hit, but so do the bosses. You can only hit a boss in their weak point, so every fight becomes a puzzle of finding out which attacks leave windows of opportunity, or in some cases, of how to expose the weak point in the first place. I had a lot of fun figuring each boss out, and they all held my interest long enough to ever give me a chance of getting bored or frustrated before the fight was over. This game can be quite challenging, but every death is fair.
There isn't much of anything to explore in the overworld other than a couple puzzles here and there, meaning the world is pretty empty aside from the bosses themselves, but that's not something I personally had an issue with at all. There's also some sparse but neat lore to learn throughout the game in certain areas, stuff like murals on walls. I'd recommend checking out a video on it if you're interested but didn't understand too much. The game looks quite nice visually too, and David Fenn does a great job of giving each area and boss a unique identity with his work on the soundtrack. The area themes create a somber tone to accompany the downtime that comes with exploring the overworld, and some of these boss tracks really kick ass.
I've heard a lot of criticism from people about how the game has respawn checkpoints based on the area you're in instead of right outside the boss door, leading to extensive runback downtime that can sometimes be longer than each attempt at the boss itself. But this criticism has always confused me, as I never experienced this problem myself; the longest runback I personally experienced was... maybe 30 seconds tops, I'd guess? And very few of my attempts were super short. Maybe I ended up being too good at the game to properly understand where they're coming from.
The only real criticism I can give this game is that I found a few bosses to be disappointingly easy or uninteresting. Although that criticism can be given to pretty much any game, it ends up being a larger detriment than it would be otherwise since this game specifically focuses on nothing but the bosses.
All in all, Titan Souls is a short but fun and interesting experience, and I can confidently recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good challenge. As a bonus, if you're ever unsure, it goes pretty cheap on sales.
FAVORITE CHARACTER: Knight Elhanan
FAVORITE BOSS: The true final boss
FAVORITE SONG: Forest Songs
2023
"I had to kill him... so why do I feel like I made a terrible mistake?"
After nearly 100 hours of playtime and even more to come, this has easily become one of my favorite roguelikes of all time. Each survivor feels completely distinct and unique from one another, and they all have something fun to offer you, which is definitely something I find that some other roguelikes do poorly in comparison. I especially enjoy the way Pilot's kit focuses on movement and verticality, as well as how much Miner's Heat meter emphasizes that sort of "rush-in-go-beast" playstyle that I love so much.
This game provides a few different very welcome challenges. Dodging and weaving through and around hordes of enemies is not a particularly easy feat in a 2D environment, so the game rewards smart on-the-fly changing of tactics and positioning while (sometimes very brutally) punishing your mistakes, whether they're greedy or otherwise. That emphasis on clearing stages and collecting items in a timely manner to combat the encroaching difficulty also ensures you never feel too safe or comfortable. This makes items feel much more impactful to get, as they can sometimes be few and far between, which makes sure you don't immediately start snowballing passive effects and blowing everything in your path away. However, the game absolutely does let you mow through things as your run progresses, especially if you decide to start looping through old levels instead of going to the last one. And even outside of snowballing, this game has some really fun and fluid synergies between items and different characters.
Speaking of levels, this game is nothing short of beautiful, with some of the best pixel art and art direction I've seen yet. I really love how the credits scroll through side-by-side comparisons of each enemy's original and newly made sprites, showing that nearly every single one of them has had their design entirely revisited and expanded upon rather than simply being redrawn. This game doesn't only look beautiful, though; it sounds beautiful, too. I know everyone is always singing the praises to Chris Christodoulou and his music, but none of it is unwarranted in any way. 'Double Fucking Rainbow Returns' and 'Coalescence Returns' are my two absolute standout favorites of the entire soundtrack, but the rest of the level and boss themes are great, too.
There's not a whole lot to work with here narratively, as even though there are a substantial amount of log entries for items and survivors alike, they're mostly there just for flavor text and/or minor worldbuilding. However, even despite this, Providence manages to be quite a memorable and compelling character (at least in my opinion). The game's narrative is primarily told through the unlockable enemy and environment logs, written by the player as they document their experiences of making it through a hostile and unfamiliar planet. These are very well-written, and the accompanying art of each enemy really gives them a lot more personality and context in-universe that would otherwise be impossible to express using the resolution the game is played at. Taking a step back and looking past the surface after beating the game and reading through the enemy logs can really make you think, especially Providence's.
All of my criticisms of this game are pretty minor all things considered, but I think they're still worth noting. Providence Trials are a very fun and interesting way of teaching players about abilities and game mechanics as they unlock them. However, while most of these are fun and neat, I did find some of them overtly tedious and just not very fun to accomplish. The same can be said about a few non-trial achievements; many of them will be unlocked naturally just by playing through runs as different survivors, but there are a standout few that are just tedious or too luck-dependent. On top of this, some of the hardest or most annoying challenges in the game have particularly unimpressive unlock rewards in comparison. This isn't always the case, however, as I think the unlocks behind plenty of other hard achievements are absolutely worth it, such as the unlocks for Shattering Justice and Ancient Scepter. One last very minor criticism: the only enemy redesign I dislike is the Imp Overlord. The main design goal of the Imp Overlord is to be frightening; its log entry even starts off with a frightened "Oh, why me?" However, I think its central eye is way too overly detailed in its redesign, to a point that I don't find its gaze particularly piercing anymore the same way the original design did. However, this is quite literally the only single problem I have with this game visually, and it's about the redesign of one single minor boss.
FAVORITE CHARACTER: Providence
FAVORITE BOSS: Providence
FAVORITE SONG: 'Coalescence Returns..'
tl;dr risk of rain returns is awesome and i think you should play it
i think this is the first in-depth game review ive made before it was fun i will try to make my next one more condensed and concise
After nearly 100 hours of playtime and even more to come, this has easily become one of my favorite roguelikes of all time. Each survivor feels completely distinct and unique from one another, and they all have something fun to offer you, which is definitely something I find that some other roguelikes do poorly in comparison. I especially enjoy the way Pilot's kit focuses on movement and verticality, as well as how much Miner's Heat meter emphasizes that sort of "rush-in-go-beast" playstyle that I love so much.
This game provides a few different very welcome challenges. Dodging and weaving through and around hordes of enemies is not a particularly easy feat in a 2D environment, so the game rewards smart on-the-fly changing of tactics and positioning while (sometimes very brutally) punishing your mistakes, whether they're greedy or otherwise. That emphasis on clearing stages and collecting items in a timely manner to combat the encroaching difficulty also ensures you never feel too safe or comfortable. This makes items feel much more impactful to get, as they can sometimes be few and far between, which makes sure you don't immediately start snowballing passive effects and blowing everything in your path away. However, the game absolutely does let you mow through things as your run progresses, especially if you decide to start looping through old levels instead of going to the last one. And even outside of snowballing, this game has some really fun and fluid synergies between items and different characters.
Speaking of levels, this game is nothing short of beautiful, with some of the best pixel art and art direction I've seen yet. I really love how the credits scroll through side-by-side comparisons of each enemy's original and newly made sprites, showing that nearly every single one of them has had their design entirely revisited and expanded upon rather than simply being redrawn. This game doesn't only look beautiful, though; it sounds beautiful, too. I know everyone is always singing the praises to Chris Christodoulou and his music, but none of it is unwarranted in any way. 'Double Fucking Rainbow Returns' and 'Coalescence Returns' are my two absolute standout favorites of the entire soundtrack, but the rest of the level and boss themes are great, too.
There's not a whole lot to work with here narratively, as even though there are a substantial amount of log entries for items and survivors alike, they're mostly there just for flavor text and/or minor worldbuilding. However, even despite this, Providence manages to be quite a memorable and compelling character (at least in my opinion). The game's narrative is primarily told through the unlockable enemy and environment logs, written by the player as they document their experiences of making it through a hostile and unfamiliar planet. These are very well-written, and the accompanying art of each enemy really gives them a lot more personality and context in-universe that would otherwise be impossible to express using the resolution the game is played at. Taking a step back and looking past the surface after beating the game and reading through the enemy logs can really make you think, especially Providence's.
All of my criticisms of this game are pretty minor all things considered, but I think they're still worth noting. Providence Trials are a very fun and interesting way of teaching players about abilities and game mechanics as they unlock them. However, while most of these are fun and neat, I did find some of them overtly tedious and just not very fun to accomplish. The same can be said about a few non-trial achievements; many of them will be unlocked naturally just by playing through runs as different survivors, but there are a standout few that are just tedious or too luck-dependent. On top of this, some of the hardest or most annoying challenges in the game have particularly unimpressive unlock rewards in comparison. This isn't always the case, however, as I think the unlocks behind plenty of other hard achievements are absolutely worth it, such as the unlocks for Shattering Justice and Ancient Scepter. One last very minor criticism: the only enemy redesign I dislike is the Imp Overlord. The main design goal of the Imp Overlord is to be frightening; its log entry even starts off with a frightened "Oh, why me?" However, I think its central eye is way too overly detailed in its redesign, to a point that I don't find its gaze particularly piercing anymore the same way the original design did. However, this is quite literally the only single problem I have with this game visually, and it's about the redesign of one single minor boss.
FAVORITE CHARACTER: Providence
FAVORITE BOSS: Providence
FAVORITE SONG: 'Coalescence Returns..'
tl;dr risk of rain returns is awesome and i think you should play it
i think this is the first in-depth game review ive made before it was fun i will try to make my next one more condensed and concise