Mosa Lina

I first head about Mosa Lina from a friend who praised it for... Well, to be honest, I don't remember. Its unique design perhaps? Finding it in my look-through queue later on and seeing its overwhelmingly positive rating, I decided to give it a try in co-op.

Mosa Lina advertises itself as an immersive sim, and while I believe the definition of that genre is debatable, I would most certainly not classify it as such. It is a 2D puzzle platformer plain and simple. You are placed in one of many levels made of blocks, with potential for spikes, cannons, and some other things. In general your goal is to touch all the fruit and then get to the portal. For this task, you are given 3 tools at random, and this is where the game really gets its essence. These tools are generally very unsuitable to help you pass the level. The path through the level is usually not particularly difficult, but your character has only a measly jump. You must really learn to improvise utilizing the random junk you're given to get through the level.
If we want to get a bit more specific, then each run means you have to complete several levels and you're given 3 of about 8 items. If you fail then the selection of the 3 is randomized and you get to try a level you haven't beaten yet. Beat all the levels and you beat the run. Using fewer items or beating a level in fewer tries gets you more points. The difference in co-op is that both players have 2 items (1 shared) and some fruit have to be touched by both players.

I love the concept and the idea that the design is counter to the game design trend of every ability being made to solve some specific problem. It is a lovely concept and sparks your imagination in a way not many games do these days. Yet I can't say I found myself having a lot of fun. There's the initial novelty of figuring out what items do and realizing you really can beat these tasks which may seem impossible at first with a pile of garbage. However, rather than having frequent moments where I felt I had come upon a creative solution the problem I was handed, it's as if every level was trying to be as unsolvable as possible. It reminded me a bit more of rage games, and that's not a genre I enjoy.

Do I give it my recommendation? Not really. I always appreciate novel games and they've certainly executed it well, but fun is paramount. Perhaps most game design trends exist for a reason, and while, sure, following them too tightly leads to your games being boring and uninspired, avoiding them entirely can also make your games unfun. I think the solutions to the puzzles in Mosa Lina really are hostile to the players, and ultimately I can't enjoy that.

Toodee and Topdee

Co-op (and not PvP) games often receive higher ratings than singleplayer games, because people are always in a better mood when playing with friends. But that's also why I'm skeptical of any such games that have great reviews. Still, I have to try them every now and then. Toodee and Topdee is one such game.

This one tries to combine a 2D platformer with a top-down block pushing game. One player controls the character who does the 2D platforming, and the other one controls a separate character for the other game mode. The main idea is that the block pusher can create the level for the platformer by manipulating the blocks in the level. But because this also has to work as a singleplayer game, the game can only be in one perspective at a time, and thus only one character at a time is active. In later levels, there are also other mechanics like enemies who can operate in both perspectives, gaining new movement rules as they do.

I don't think the idea works too well for several reasons. For one, the block pusher is too powerful, as he can normally freely move across the whole level. So the levels often artifically block him in a smaller box while the platformer plays some platforming game. Or the other way around, make him create the path for the platformer that he himself could easily get to. Secondly, the players don't actually get to play at the same time, having to concede their control to the other player while they wait. And thirdly, the game is advertised as a puzzle game or a puzzle platformer, but aside from unclear game mechanics occasionally causing confusion, the puzzles were pretty much trivial, and the challenge was in the action elements. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's misleading if you're looking for a puzzle game to play.

Would I recommend it? Probably not. There's nothing wrong with the game inherently, but the overall idea just seems rather mediocre. If you're looking for a co-op game, then there's no real benefit to playing this in co-op - you can't even play at the same time. If you're looking for a puzzle game, then this is not it. And if you're looking for an action or precision platformer, then there's a whole bunch of games that do that a lot better. If you came for the unique mechanic, then, unique or not, it's not good enough to matter.

Legion War

Legion War looked like it could be a slightly different take on the 4X genre. Sure, the graphics looked a bit basic, but perhaps the game wasn't. There seemed to be a bunch of different units, multiple upgrade trees, different stats, etc. Plenty of content.
Well, that's mostly right. Going in, the first thing you'd notice is that the text is really confusing. This is another case of a bad translation from Chinese. Looking at the reviews, too, only about 10% are in English. The bad translations only serve to worsen the confusing UI. What do certain icons mean? How strong is a unit? "4/5 offense"? Great, but could I see their stats? I can't upgrade the building because my castle needs to be a higher level? Where do I upgrade my castle? It's understandably an indie game, but the developer should have focused more on polishing existing content rather than adding more. Oh, and the UI is also designed for mobile, which definitely doesn't make anything better.

Okay, but let's get through the initial hurdle of figuring out how the game works. Does it get better? Marginally. Despite somehow being harder to understand, the game is actually simpler than most 4X games. You just build a unit, and move every unit you already have to fight. The various overarching upgrade trees are incredibly basic, with the main "technology" tree being 3 repeated copies of "+12 resource per turn" or "+10% resource per turn" and other similar purely numerical and very basic buffs. Units also have upgrade trees and can be equipped, but I feel like it increases complexity (and needless busywork) without adequately contributing to depth.

I didn't play for very long so I can't give a thorough review, but basically, this is more confusing and less in-depth than your usual 4X game. The games are shorter, but that's perhaps the only positive thing going for this, unless the particular style of more unit-focused gameplay really appeals to you. I found it really boring, and wouldn't recommend it.

Death's Door

Death's Door drew me in with its relatively high review score, pretty good looking environments, and the promise of being a soulslike, which is a genre I rather enjoy. It's also from the makers of Titan Souls, which was among my favorite games list for years before dropping out a few years ago.

The game most certainly takes a lot of inspiration from soulslikes, having a dodge roll as an important combat ability, and even the currency being souls. But it does also remind me quite a bit of action adventure games, having a top-down view, rapid attack animations, and a lot of running about the world. Between beating up regular enemies, there are quite a few boss fights, big and small, which are definitely the highlight of the game. While the combat is fluid, I found the regular enemies rather boring, as they are simple to dodge, and you can often just mash attack for at least a few seconds to beat them after evading them once. Perhaps that's for the best, as the map is rather empty, and checkpoints are not too frequent, making the journey back tiresome. Some light puzzle elements have also been used. Not enough to really call it a puzzle game, but enough to be annoying, to be honest. Between wasting time on trivial enemies, waddling through open space, and having to solve "puzzles", most of the gameplay is not very enjoyable. I'd probably like it if they had just the bossfights, but then it becomes Titan Souls again, and perhaps they wanted to avoid that. Perhaps they shouldn't have tried to avoid it.

Despite my criticism, the game is polished and plays well. It's not even that everything outside bossfights is bad, it's that there's a lot of games in this genre, and Death's Door isn't doing anything to stand out, or even match what the best in the genre have to offer, so it's hard to like it. It has a basic upgrade system, basic weapon collection, basic exploration, basic combat. It's all done well, but it's not ambitious. Judging from the reviews, that's enough for many, but I can't recommend it unless you've actually completed all the 20+ better games in the genre and want more.

I hate this game

I hate this game is an aptly named puzzle game where you have to jump across a gap in a room to get to the door on the other side. And then repeat that for 100 levels, except there is a new twist every time. And these twists could be anything from the game turning 3D, to being able to draw, to having to visit a website.

It's a nice idea, and one I've seen a few times before during the Flash game era, but I can't even say the quality is higher now than it was then. And I also can't say the quality was high enough back then to recommend those games now. Therefore the quality now is definitely not high enough to recommend it now.
The worst part isn't even that the puzzles aren't that interesting, but rather that the game's kind of poorly made. It relies heavily on physics, but the physics are very badly implemented. I'm supposed to be challenged by the puzzles, not by my character's movement and collision mechanics. Slipping, falling through the floor, simply failing to run on certain surfaces, and teleporting are only some of the frequent physics bugs I encountered.

The game is cheap, but I don't think that's any excuse. There's better games with the same idea available for free. Maybe if the physics was fixed then we could talk about comparing it to them, but it's not, so there's no need to think about it. I would not recommend this game, even if you are curious about the puzzle mechanics. It's just badly made and not that interesting.

Redo!

Redo! is a short metroidvania in a post-apocalyptic world about some girl trying to find other living people, I guess.
I was very quickly thrown off by this game failing to do just about everything. When I think metroidvanias, I think platforming and combat. So I want either good platforming, or good combat, and preferrably both. And this has neither. The character's jump is, quite realistic, honestly. It's delayed, and feels like a static little hop that can barely cross gaps. Very unpleasant to use. Similarly, the combat is very slow. You move into enemies as you attack, and can't move right after an attack, so it's really awkward to hit anyone that takes more than a couple of hits. And because the map design is bad too, you can go what I assume is the wrong way immediately and up against really strong enemies. There's also no map. Yet the game starts you with a quest of where to go, a place your character supposedly knows, but you don't.

So, really, I don't understand what I'm doing this game, and how it's rated as high as it is, even though it's not rated very high. Even for 2019 standards, this is abysmal. Don't play this. Play just about any other metroidvania, not this. Maybe the creator wanted to go for a more realistic feel, but you have to put fun first, and this ain't it.

Fights in Tight Spaces

I still remember picking out Fights in Tight Spaces and filing it under the list of games I was looking forward to playing more than most. Between the stylish visuals and the fantasy of outwitting and outmaneouvering many enemies, especially in a confined area via turn-based cardplay, it seemed quite up my alley.
Indeed, the game was much how I imagined it. You start with a deck and have to go through a series of levels, some as small as 9 squares, up to maybe 30 squares at largest. Each level spawns a few enemies with predictable moves, and gives you a hand of cards to deal with them. Play cards, make sure the enemies don't damage you, and wipe everyone out. Between levels, you got new cards, upgrades, and sometimes the opportunity to remove a card or gain a new passive powerup. While the combat aspect is unique (maybe similar to Into the Breach, but I haven't played that yet), the systems surrounding it are pretty standard for a roguelike deckbuilder.

I had a lot of fun with the game. Planning out each turn always required me to think, especially since bonus rewards meant that completing a level well was preferred to just completing it. It was never trivial, but also never too time-consuming to think through all the necessary possibilities. I would say the developers absolutely nailed this aspect of the game. However...
While the game as I experienced it wasn't too easy, I chose the second hardest difficulty right off the bat, and completed the game on my second run. As with many roguelikes, there is metaprogression, and I can tell the game expected me to fail a few more times and unlock better cards and options before beating it. So I didn't really get to experience that part of the game, since I didn't feel like there was much reason to replay it. After all, it was only going to be easier from now on. So my playtime ended at just about 4 hours.
I do also feel like there were some balance problems, with some cards and deck combinations just being significantly worse than others, either due to enemies being immune to them often, or them making it difficult to satisfy the bonus objectives.

Regardless of the problems, I had a fantastic 4 hours. The deckbuilding, roguelike, and replayability aspects were weak, but this has still been one of the best turn-based tactics games I've played, and I would definitely recommend it. It also makes my "favorites of all time" list, but at a lower spot due to the relative lack of content and lower playtime thus.

Project Wingman

A bit of a shorter review this time focusing more on the technical problems I encountered while playing Project Wingman than the game itself. I always wonder if I should even write these, but eh, whatever. It's either this or writing nothing at all.

Project Wingman is a game about flying a fighter jet. It's not quite on the level of a flight simulator, but the controls are definitely not optimized for gameplay, but take the simulation or immersion aspect into account. While the store page says this title runs in both standard and VR modes, this means, as usual, that it's a VR game that just so happens to work without VR. This explains why they want the gameplay to be more immerssive, and why the on-screen controls are for a controller. Despite trying to play with a keyboard and mouse, I got no instructions on what key does what, and the control of the plane wasn't even bound to the mouse. An abysmal experience. The terrible controls made me not want to play for too long, but I played long enough to understand that this was aiming for a more cinematic experience. A lot of fluff, a lot of story, voice acting even. I didn't care for that.

I don't have a VR headset and I generally don't play with a controller, so I can't judge the game on those merits. I also don't enjoy the story in most games. So from a keyboard and mouse, non-VR, and gameplay perspective, I can't recommend Project Wingman, since it neglects those aspects.