Copy Kitty

Damn Japanese, making insane games again. I don't actually know the nationality of the indie developers of this game, and it doesn't really matter, but Copy Kitty has so many things happening at the same time it can be very difficult to comprehend, especially with the crazy visual style. It definitely stands out the moment you look at it, but the strangely coherent mess of an artstyle may correctly invoke both the feelings of this being a game by amateurish developers as well as it being something quite unique.

Copy Kitty is a stage-based action platformer with the unique gimmick that you can combine 2-3 different weapons into a new, more powerful weapon. This creates a rather insane number of combinations I'm surprised the developers bothered to implement. This combining is dynamic and ammo-based, so if one weapon runs out of ammo, your weapon downgrades until you pick up some more ammo from slain enemies.
You start the level with a single weapon or none at all, making the start of each stage much more slow and calculated. However, once you gather 3 weapons, destroying enemies ususally becomes a breeze and you just zoom through the level. While I dislike this trivialization, the alternative might be worse. With a lot of enemies on screen, you firing your particle-heavy weapons, and everything being so gosh-darn colorful, it can be nigh impossible to tell what's going on. The enemy placement and level design also doesn't tend to be that well thought through in my opinion, so being able to ingore them to a large degree actually comes out as a positive.
There is also a lot of detail put into less important things, like enemy descriptions, statistics tracking, dialogue, and probably many things I missed. The game truly feels like it has been made with a lot of passion.

Still, I failed to find satisfaction from this game. The combat and levels aren't designed well enough to interest me when I am not powerful, and once I do become powerful, most strategy and reason is thrown out the window, and the game becomes boring because it is mindless. I believe there is emphasis on playing the levels again later to obtain a better score through methods which aren't necessarily aligned with beating the levels in the most optimal way. (Some sort of style bonuses I think. I did not explore this side of the game.) Knowing me, I of course find repeating things under the same conditions boring, so this did not appeal to me at all.

Overall, I can't give it a personal recommendation, as I don't find the game to be up to my quality standards. Still, it might be interesting to fans of score attack action platformers, or for anyone looking to just experience this very unique weapon gimmick I have not seen anywhere else.

Cypher

Cypher is a puzzle game, and it's honestly barely a game. It's an increasingly difficult series of cryptographic messages that it asks you to solve, giving you but a brief introduction for each category, as well as a tangientially helpful hint for each puzzle, if you so desire.
There is really little interactivity in the game, with the only response from the game being either telling you whether your answer is correct, or giving you the hint, if prompted. As such, it really could be presented as a short book instead, with the hints and answers at the back. Setting aside the fact that it would be harder to sell this in book form, it would really suit the game, considering the fact that most of the solving process will not be done inside the game, but with a pencil and paper or the internet.

I believe my main issue with the game is that it doesn't do much to teach you, and to solve a problem you must either mostly know the solution method already, or look it up. I understand that this self-learning process is what the game would want from you, but to be fair, if I had a deeper interest in cryptography, I would have already sought these subjects out, and if I did not, then this game would not tip me over to spend my time to do so.

While I think it is of little contribution to the value of this game, considering you will not be in the game if you intend to play it, I must note my appreciation for the setting of the game. The clean white aesthetic and black text, accompanied by a spacious interior and classical music playing in the background are exactly the kind of environment I would love to solve these in. A wonderful choice, but sadly inconsequential.

Overall, I don't think I could recommend this to anyone except those who are already interested in cryptography. I find the game offers little in terms of generating interest for the subject, nor does it teach you the topic sufficiently.

Mana Spark

Mana Spark is a short rougelike game, probably taking a lot of inspiration from the likes of Binding of Isaac in that you run from room to room, collecting random powerups that alter your character and are generally not just stat upgrades. I am unsure, but I think it might even be something akin to a student project, for which the quality would be excellent. Even compared to regular "good" games, there isn't much to fault this game for. The AI and mechanics work well, the game's quite polished, and there aren't any obvious balance problems. A few bugs, mostly pertaining to physics and AI, but nothing game-breaking.
No, the real problem is that it's short. They just didn't add a lot of content. A few characters, maybe a few dozen items, twenty enemy types, three areas... I wasn't even sure if I was enjoying the game before I realized it's going to be over in just a little while.

Overall, the game's good, but nothing special. It implements the dungeon-crawling action rogulike genre well, but is light on innovative features. Regardless of that though, even if you'll start to like playing it as you collect more items and unlock more options, it will be over soon after. Thus, I don't think I could recommend it.

Eternal Return

I generally steer clear of games that are still in Early Access, but I feel like, in some regard, the prime time to play Eternal Return might have already passed, and there's some chance it won't see the light of release in a playable form at all due to the slowly dwindling playerbase. So, since I played it now, I might as well review it now, rather than never.

Eternal Return would be best classified as a Battle Royale MOBA. The game has a moderate size map with about a dozen "zones", and 18 players per match, as well as the option to play in 18 "teams" of 1, 9 teams of 2, or 6 teams of 3. The zones then start closing down as the game progresses, forcing the players into a tigher area, prompting conflict. I would love for the map to be larger and have more players, but, given the already small playerbase, that could push queue times to unacceptable levels.
Like a MOBA, the game's played from a top-down perspective, and there's a few dozen different characters. They have the usual 3 abilities + ultimate + passive, with also one extra ability determined by their weapon. You have 6 slots to equip gear in, and 10 more to put materials or whatever in. This gear is crafted from materials scattered across the map, with each zone having some specific pool of materials. It functions similarly to collecting loot in a Battle Royale, but there is an important distinction and this is a very important aspect of the game which is a bit difficult to explain.

Each piece of gear does not fit each character. Wrong weapon types are simply unequippable, but many gear items might not fit your character's playstyle. This makes looting other players a somewhat poor method of getting better gear. Also, for most of the game, gear can not be found pre-crafted on the map, making looting less about luck. Winning is less dependent on your skill in combat, but your gear, and thus how fast you can get it. Put all this together, and you realize that the game boils down to a sort of speedrunning. It has some luck, with who you run into, whether you find the resources you need, etc. but mostly it's about optimizing your pathing, optimizing your build, and not wasting any seconds.

It's not secret I don't like speedrunning nor Battle Royales. I don't like the former because I don't want to do the same thing over and over with little-to-no variance, and I dislike the latter mostly because most of the game is spent conflict-free, culminating in an often unfair and out of your control battle, which may diminish the feeling of accomplishment upon victory or worsen the feeling of defeat. Thus I must conclude that this game isn't really up my alley, and I don't enjoy playing it all that much.
But when it comes to objective complaints about the game, I can't really name any aside from the low-ish playerbase, which isn't directly the fault of the game. The characters are different from each other, there's depth and uniqueness to the game mechanics, the balance doesn't seem completely out of whack, I quite like the art and sounds, and I haven't found any bugs. I'm genuinely surprised that this game is losing players instead of gaining them. So, listen, while I don't personally like Eternal Return, I think it's a good game. There's unique dynamics and strategies to be had whether you're playing alone or with friends (though probably steer clear of teams of randoms), and I think the combat is great fun, I just wish there was more of it.
There you have it, recommending an Early Access game. Only if you like the things I described of course. Go play it before it dies, it needs more players.