Minoria

Today's game is Minoria. I was quite excited to play this, as it was from the developers of what could qualify as my favorite Metroidvania, Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight. For some reason, Minoria was significantly less popular, and also rated lower, but not so much that I'd consider the review scores to be bad.

Minoria is similarly a Metroidvania, with a similar story of some religion-related females going to rid a place of evil. It has a similar length of about 6 hours, and features combat consisting of running, jumping, dodge rolling, melee attacking, and then using various consumables that refresh at save points. The consumables can heal, serve as ranged attacks, melee charged attacks, and more. While most of the game is spent running through the interconnected rooms and beating up little enemies, there are also quite a few boss fights.
What's interesting is that Minoria has very "high-stakes" gameplay. Many enemies will kill you in 2-3 hits, but you're similarly granted very strong basic attacks, and since your dodge roll has no cooldown, you're almost invulnerable while using it. I feel this was not such a good idea, because it would cause the game to either be trivial if you knew how to avoid an enemy's attacks, or lethal, losing you a reasonable amount of progress, if you did not. I rarely found a moment where I felt appropriately challenged.

Maybe I'm comparing Minoria to Momodora too much in my head, but they are by the same developer and have very many similarities. However, I can't help but notice that Minoria seems worse in pretty much every way. Momodora has a gorgeous 2D pixel art art style, whereas Minoria uses 3D with flat shading. This type of shading is very difficult to pull off well, and Minoria certainly doesn't accomplish that. Regardless of that, the 3D, the animations, the feel of combat and platforming - it just ain't that good. The music and sound effects also feel like they're down a notch.
There are also some really questionable design decisions, like limiting the amount of charged attacks you can do per save point, when they already have the limitation of taking longer to execute. Or the map design, which felt really poor. Backtracking is understandable, but there were around 20 locked doors before I had found even a single key. At least put some areas behind other areas, or diversify the methods of progression, rather than having me try my newlyfound key across the entire map.

Overall, Minoria's not entirely terrible, but I'd still have a really hard time classifying it as a "good" Metroidvania. Especially if you've come from playing Momodora, and expect an experience on a similar level of quality, you are going to be sorely disappointed. Minoria is a downgrade in every aspect from a minor difference in music, to a large difference in how enjoyable the combat and level traversal is, to a massive difference in the art and animations. In general, I wouldn't recommend it, but if you're really itching for another Metroidvania to play, then there are a lot of worse options out there.

Open World Game: the Open World Game

Open World Game: the Open World Game is one of the open world games of all time. It has elements that the best open world games have, like skill trees, skins, encounters, a minimap, a fishing minigame, exp, levels, a seamless world, achievements, hidden areas, a story, and more. You will have an experience playing this game, and it is completely free.

Now, while none of the previous points are false, it might be important to highlight that this game is satirical, and pokes fun of open world games. Completing everything takes about an hour, and the production value is the literal minimum that wouldn't be physically painful to experience. I think the screenshots on the store page explain it well.
There is of course no "real" game here, you just run through the entire map, and input a short sequence of the same movement keys to complete each "encounter". Each encounter also has a corresponding short text entry, and those contain many references, if you care to read them.

Funnily enough, this game is about as enjoyable as some AAA open world games, because it has the same level of difficulty, and the same tedious grind. Except this one is over before the grind can really wear you down. I think that says more about AAA games, or at least my opinion of them, than it does about this game. Of course, I couldn't really recommend you play this, but maybe if you want to feel an internal conflict of whether you actually enjoy these kinds of video games, or if you're just pre-programmed to complete to-do lists and make progress bars go up. At least this takes up only an hour of your life, unlike some games I've been playing for over a thousand hours by now.

Touhou Kikamu ~ Elegant Impermanence of Sakura

In an actual coincidence, I played another Touhou fangame - Touhou Kikamu. This one is a traditional bullet hell, and very much like the mainline Touhou games. In fact, it's so much like the mainline Touhou games, that I could mostly copy-paste my review from there. But fine, I'll repeat myself.

Touhou Kikamu is a bog standard bullet hell game, without even the one unique mechanic regular Touhou games have, to my knowledge. You shoot bullets, you avoid getting hit by bullets, but if you do get hit, you can use a bomb to save your life and clear the screen. Shoot basic enemies for a little while, then complete a boss fight, then do it again in the next stage. There was actually some unique system dubbed "dyeing", which I'm glad they spelled correctly considering the rest of the translation was bad enough that I could not figure out how this system worked. Genuinely, I can't explain it to you because I never found out.

But yeah, everything else was just really standard, and I have the same issues of auto-fire not being on, even though there's no downside to firing. No correct color-coding of your bullets vs enemy bullets or pickups. No mouse control. No enemy indicators at the bottom of the screen. The entire game was very short too, but of course you're expected to play it over and over again, chasing a higher score and completing on higher difficulties.

In conclusion, I can't recommend it. It did nothing well, and it did many things below my expectations. I don't really see much reason to play this over many other bullet hell games, and perhaps this has been my wake-up call to judge Touhou games harsher, despite their positive reviews.

Tempest of the Heavens and Earth

Played another Touhou fangame today. A sidescrolling action one this time. Rather unpopular, but reasonably highly rated, it's Tempest of the Heavens and Earth. I initially thought this was a 2018 game, as the Steam store would suggest, which would already make it somewhat old, but no, it actually came out in 2013. That fact is a bit more apparent when you realize upon launching the game that the resolution is upscaled from 480p or something like that and looks blurry as all hell.

Let's be a bit more specific about what kind of game this is. The gameplay is divided into stages, which themselves are divided into areas with a bunch of weaker enemies and some platforming, and end in a grandiose bossfight. You control a character with a double jump, an invulnerability dash, a melee attack, and a couple of meters to fuel your other attacks. There is an automatically refilling meter that fuels your sword attacks and dashes, and then a meter that fills as you hit any attacks which don't use that meter. The latter meter can be used to either fire ranged attacks, or perform ultra-powerful special attacks. You also have 3 different attack sets which swap out your ranged and special attacks. You can choose those attacks from a selection of over a dozen of both, and there are also combo attacks which can be done using certain combinations of movement and attack keys. Overall, the game puts a lot of emphasis on combat expression and incentivizes to actually switch your playstyle every so often.
Also, apparently important is a technique where if you sword attack an enemy whose attack you dodged through, you change the weather and thus gain extra powers. I specifically mention this, because if you think you want to go play it after reading this, know that the game explains itself really, really badly, and you may not ever figure this out yourself, but you do need to know this to progress.

On that note, the game is rather obtuse in general. I find the controls to be awkward, and I often fumbled my actions, pressing the wrong buttons. This is especially annoying if it causes you to fall off the map, instantly killing you. There is no indication which attacks are in your currently selected attack set - you just have to memorize what attacks you put under "woe", "ire", and whatever the third set's name was. Also, you have health, but no health bar. I think it automatically regenerates, but I have no way to confirm this.
This is all a shame, because I find the combat of the game to be excellent in theory. I absolutely love how expressive you can be with your attacks, and how you can totally play in different styles. The combat's fast, responsive, flashy, and when I wasn't messing up my buttons, it felt exhilarating. It's also a more score-oriented game, incentivizing replaying it while not being a particularly long game, but I can't say it has much replayability, unless you yourself decide to switch up your playstyle.

Overall, considering the many shortcomings I listed, I couldn't bring myself to complete it. I think I got a bit less than halfway through, but the little frustrations piled up and overpowered my enjoyment of the combat. If you think can overlook the issues I listed and would like a high-action score attack game, then Tempest of the Heavens and Earth might suit you. Personally though, I can't recommend it. Maybe it was better 10 years ago when it first came out.

Manifold Garden

I had higher hopes for Manifold Garden. The trailer video for it was beautiful, and even playing it, the surreal geometry stretching to infinity was stunning. Still, I value games for their gameplay. Perhaps their story, to some extent, but the visuals are not all that important in the end. Manifold Garden is a puzzle game first and foremost, and I think it isn't quite that great at it.

The main themes of the game are gravity shifting (choosing which of the 6 sides is "down"), and circular dimensions (if you go far enough in a direction, you are back where you started, generally achieved by falling and landing on the roof or crossing a small gap), with a pinch of other non-Euclidean geometry. Using this gravity manipulation, you must cleverly place cubes, which retain their gravity direction in spite of you, and solve various puzzles with them. There's also some other elements, moreso towards the later half of the game, but the essence remains the same.

While not trivial, I didn't feel the puzzles were all that difficult, nor were they particularly exciting. After experiencing each mechanic once, and saying "cool" out loud, that was kind of it. I feel like I generally spent more time solving the puzzles than thinking about their solutions, which isn't a good outlook for a puzzle game. The infinite spaces were cool to look at, but then a lot of the game was also set indoors. I'd say that defeated the point, but there wasn't much point to the infinity anyways aside from visuals, and occasionally acting like a portal from the floor to the ceiling / wall.

Overall, a fancy looking puzzle game, which is only a few hours long, and even at that short length feels a bit padded out. I could maybe recommend it as a polished introductory puzzle game, but it just didn't feel fun, interesting, or challenging to play. So I can't recommend it on a personal level.

Immortal Planet

Another one of the oldest games I still have on my list. Added back in 2017, it's Immortal Planet.
I'm surprised by its relatively positive reception, because I couldn't stick with it for long.

Immortal Planet advertises itself as a Souls-like, and I can believe that. You run, you dash (dodge roll), attack, block (or parry), and a lot of focus in combat is on stamina, which every action takes. I don't think this combat style is bad or overdone, but Immortal Planet just implements it really badly. Perhaps part of it is that it suggests I play with a gamepad, which I didn't, but some basic movement is just plain out broken, like dash following your cursor unless you're sprinting without changing direction? It's a very core part of the game, so it being broken might just be a case of a low quality standard. Another example of this is that despite it being an action game with tight dodging and blocking mechanics, the animations just... don't exist. Enemy goes from "standby" frame to "readied attack" frame, to "you're already hit" frame. It's not possible to dodge or block by reaction, not because the attacks are too fast, but because there's no indication when they're coming. (The "readied attack" frame is too long to go off of that alone.) Not only does this make the gameplay unnecessarily difficult, but it also looks really bad. On that note, it also sounds bad, mostly in terms of the music.

A short review for a game I only played for a short while, but I hope you can understand why. Right from the beginning of the game, I found bugs relating to the core combat, which, even if it was functioning properly, felt really bad. I just found no joy in playing, and there's plenty of Souls-like games out there, so I didn't feel like sticking around to give it a longer chance, and I couldn't recommend it to you either.

Stationflow

Not a very popular game this time around, but something from a genre I thought I might personally enjoy. Stationflow has you building a metro station network, with many entrances, many train lines, a whole bunch of people, and a whole bunch of needs that those people want satisfied, which aren't limited to getting to their station or exit.

After doing the brief tutorial, I thought the game looked rather simple, so I set the difficulty settings to "very hard". Despite that, it never really got difficult. While there is some thinking involved in terms of efficient planning, it is mostly just a simple case of building paths that connect all points of interest and then adding items and rooms at various intervals to satisfy the miscellanious needs your passangers may have. Most of the difficulty comes from people not just needing these items to exist, but needing to find them. For that, you have to manually put up signs literally everywhere that point to every possible thing a passanger could desire. I do not exaggarate when I say this game is more settings up signs than everything else combined. And honestly, while not completely braindead and predetermined, there isn't a lot of thought to put into how you should label these signs. 95% of the time, just make sure every sign lists everything in that direction if it's closer than the same thing in some other direction that is visible from that point.

I think that mostly explains why I didn't find the game very fun. While it's cool to see the station expand and all the people mill about in an efficient manner, I rarely feel like I designed (or could design) the station particularly well. Just have to make sure I didn't forget anything from a sign, and that I have enough of everything that the passangers want. Not enough of something? Add another. Someone got lost? Must have forgot something from a sign. It's a simple back-and-forth where if a passanger is angry at something, you don't have to think, but just satisfy what they were angry about.
Another thing is that, the game quickly got to hundreds of passangers being in the station at once. That was nice to look at but I wondered, "Huh, how have they handled large crowds?" It's usually in the early thousands that games start to have trouble without advanced programming techniques. Well, turns out they haven't. As you reach 1000-2000 people, you'll "lose", not because you played badly, but because the game stops running at a reasonable speed.

So, in addition to not being a difficult or complicated game, you can't even enjoy Stationflow if you just want to look at crowds going through the station you've designed. At least not for long. I wouldn't recommend this game anyways, but anything that breaks down just as it starts to get to the best parts is clearly something I can't advocate for. There's a lot of building and management games out there, so I'm sure you can find something better, even if you want a peaceful game that doesn't have combat.

Melty Blood: Type Lumina

Melty Blood had a free weekend on Steam a while ago, during which I thought I'd give it a try. I'm not generally a fan of traditional fighting games, but it won't hurt to try one every once in a while. Truthfully, I am well aware of the fact that fighting game enthusiasts, like is the case for many PvP games, spend a lot of time perfecting their craft. Unlike for the many games that I play that can be completed, I am quite certain I can not give an adequate overview of the nuances of Melty Blood, how it differs from other fighting games, or how well it's made in comparison. Though I did play it for almost 8 hours straight, which is longer than like 90% of the games I write about, that is not enough. So, this will be more of a brief overview, and my thoughts on fighting games in general, instead of a useful review of Melty Blood.

I can at least mention that Melty Blood: Type Lumina is a newer iteration of the original Melty Blood fighting game, and they feature characters from the Tsukihime visual novel (and some from the Fate series). As far as I can tell, the source material is of no detriment to the quality of the game. The gameplay feels pretty solid, the art is great, and it wasn't too hard to pick up even for a mechanically-challenged player like me.
Being bad at fighting games is the same reason I'm not a fan of them, and it's not technically unique to fighting games. It's not that I can't play action games at all, but I'm slow at anything that's not a binary reaction, and I can not for the life of me input button combinations in the heat of battle. Not for a lack of practice, mind you. I have played probably hundreds of hours of action games total that require these skills to some degree, and it's consistently something I fail at. I've just accepted it at this point. Of course, this is what traditional fighting games are all about. Split-second reactions, instantly choosing the correct counter-move to some action the opponent did, and often inputting a pre-learned sequence of keypresses at very precise timings to perform some move or combo. I can handle something like Brawlhalla, which is a Smash-like, but all of these things I call traditional fighting games, where the characters are 2D sprites that take up most of the screen, have correct body proportions, and can only double jump or do a single air dash, have featured some input system that requires either pressing multiple buttons at a time, or doing a motion with the joystick, which of course corresponds to a tight chain of button presses. Honestly, Melty Blood is actually light on these features, but still features the quarter-circle and whatever a 623 or 421 is called, and I can't do those.
This massive arsenal of moves, and expectance to know frame timings and stay up to date on which combos can be done in which situations is just too much for me, especially given that even if I learn them, I still can't execute them in a real fight. And nothing frustrates me more than knowing what I am supposed to do, but failing to do it. I can execute the keypresses in my head, but not with my hands.

I'm rambling, and there's no good conclusion to this. I can't in good faith blame fighting games for my own incompetence. I had previously held a belief that the button combinations are needlessly complicated, and that may still be the case, especially in other fighting games with half-circles and whatnot that's more than 4 keys. However, I tried playing for a while, having created macro keys for both quarter circles and the other combiation I mentioned, and I still failed to do them in battle. Of course, reducing the input complexity would also reduce the depth of the game, and I can see what that is undesired.
Regardless of all that, I think fighting games should still strive to be more accessible and easier to play, perhaps shifting complexity to other areas of gameplay. Backing this up is that even the most popular fighting games are quite niche in comparison to most other PvP games. Even most of the worst players still playing are significantly good at the game, and so going to a matchmade game will guarantee getting your ass kicked for hours on end until you either improve or quit the game. I'm afraid most people quit, myself included, and can you fault them? Few other game genres test the mental resolve of new players like this.

So, yeah, I don't know. Melty Blood was kind of fun. Wouldn't play it again though. Art is very cool. The girls are cute. Neco-Arc is life. I will instantly quit the next game that asks me to input a quarter circle.

GoNNER

What a throwback. Gonner was one of the first games I wrote about on this blog, back when I was still writing about not just every game I played, but every game I found (that I thought had potential) on Steam. Well, due to Steam's more-than-liberal policy of what to allow on itself, that didn't last long. But at least I have a look-back at what I thought about Gonner all the way back then.

"A procedurally generated platformer. It's got plenty of action, and from the looks of it, it's quite hectic. So, looks interesting, hopefully not too repetitive."
That's all I wrote, and I wasn't wrong. Gonner isn't a particularly complicated game. Run, jump, shoot, maybe get a new gun sometime. Levels are short, and you're rewarded for going through them quickly, racking up a kill combo. But, damn, it's kind of unfun to play, even if I liked speedrun-like action games.

Despite different guns, what's the deal with only being able to shoot forwards. Most enemies fly or scale walls, so combining waiting for them to get down, so they don't hit you on the head and make you lose (hitting them on the head damages them, not you, at least), with the fast pace of the game kind of isn't fun. Also you have multiple lives, but you lose "pieces" of yourself if you get hit once, not just a life, and have to pick them back up to continue shooting. Finally, everything else aside, it is quite repetitive. You're just chasing higher-and-higher scores and some arbitrary end level, but the road there is mostly the same.
Oh, and the artstyle is a bit too wobbly for something that should be a high-speed precision-based game. It really doesn't define the hitboxes very well.

Overall, old game, some people said it was better before some large update they made, but I doubt I would have enjoyed it either way. The levels are too short, your actions are too limited (please let me aim if you're giving me a ranged weapon), and it's kind of just the same thing over and over again. Wouldn't recommend.

Subnautica

I initially passed over Subnautica, ignoring it, as I had never been a fan on the "open world survival craft" genre. Some of my friends commented on how this was one of their favorite games ever, so considering that, and its ever increasing popularity, as well as it being regarded as possibly the best game in the genre, I finally caved and gave it a try.

Subnautica is a game where you survive a spaceship crashing into a large, watery world. Having only your escape pod with its built-in item fabricator, you must scavenge the ocean for resources and craft ever better equipment, tools, and eventually even build new bases and submarines. There is a lot of very hostile stuff in the ocean though, especially the further you go. Add to that hunger, thirst, and most importantly, limited oxygen reserves, and there's plenty to impede your progress.

While I haven't played a whole lot of survival games, Subnautica didn't strike me as something particularly unique. It's quite well made, seems to have a sizable amount of content, and does take place underwater, which is at least scenically unique. I don't have anything objectively bad to say about it, but I think it just further cemented that I don't like the genre.
Most all the game is not exploration, but mindless busywork. Grab more resources, craft new things, don't forget to forage for food and drink, evade wildlife. It's not challenging, but it takes time, annoyingly much so when you can't find a resource you're looking for. The limited inventory space, while realistic, forces you to throw away resources you would need in the future. I don't consider myself a hoarder, but the inventory management was so annoying. And even when I did get to explore, it wasn't very exciting. Finding a new resource or species didn't feel satisfying or an accomplishment. It just kind of happened. It was maybe fun for the first hour, but for the next few that I managed to bear, it was just a boring grind.

I'll readily admit that I'm not the best person to review a survival game, and that Subnautica probably is good if you're already a fan of the genre. But if you are, then you've probably already played it. If you're not, then I really don't see anything special here that might tide you over. So, on a personal level, I can't recommend this.

Overdungeon

Oh man, what a game Overdungeon was. Apparently abandoned in development for about three years, and only just recently picked back up. I am not sure if it's actually a mobile game, but it feels like one, and has an auto-play button, so it might as well be. And I could've sworn the character I happened to play had the same character model as those dozens of hentai shooter clones on Steam. At the same time, for about 10 minutes, I was having so much fun, I was laughing like a maniac. Then the game ended.

Despite being out of Early Access, Overdungeon feels very much unfinished. There are 4 characters, basically no unlockable content, only 3 floors, each having less than ten encounters (battles / rest points / stores / etc.) It is also unbalanced, as I beat the game easily on my first try on the hardest difficulty. But, I have yet to mention what it actually is.
So, Overdungeon is off the heels of the Roguelike Deckbuilder craze, which I still haven't explored much. You choose a character, get some starter cards, get to upgrade those cards, get some passives, get rid of some cards, and try to build the strongest synergy in your deck possible. Standard stuff. Where Overdungeon differs, is that you're on a sharp time limit of a few seconds per card, and there is always a battle happening between your summons and the enemy's on the battlefield located between you two. A lot of cards can place buildings on the field or summon units, which will autonomously do their thing.

While there isn't much content to the game, there do seem to be a lot of synergies. Animals created on the field can trigger traps, which can summon more animals. Cards that gain power every time they're played. And what won my game, was a passive item that removed the effect from cards that made them not be shuffled back into the deck, allowing me to play a card that played all the cards from my hand, and then clone that card's upgraded version that played all the cards from my hand twice. Add in some card draw cards, and I ended up playing more than 20 cards on some turns, instead of the default 2. Fun, but just briefly, as it was far too strong.

Honestly, the production quality, and, well, almost everything, about Overdungeon isn't great. I love the absolute mayhem that was happening on screen in the later stages, and I caught a glimpse of some bosses actually being fairly strong, so I think there's potential in balancing the late game by just making both parties ridiculously overpowered. Sadly, I don't have faith after all this time (and because it's a mobile game), that they will fix all the problems with the game and also add a good chunk of content. It was fun for the hour or so that I played it, but I have no desire to replay it, and I couldn't give it a serious recommendation.

Disc Room

Another game from Devolver Digital, who's known for publishing at least okay quality indie games. The review scores for this are pretty good, but it's not a well-known game. It's Disc Room.

Disc Room is an interesting take on the bullet hell genre. Instead of enemies that fire bullets who you have to kill, the enemies essentially are the bullets, and you can't kill them, but have to survive for as long as possible. Most rooms have a goal of surviving for some 10 or 20 seconds, but they may also have a variation on that, such as the timer only going up while in a zone. There are also other goals, like dying to different discs, which there are almost as many of as there are different rooms. Completing goals unlocks new rooms, progressing the game. You will also unlock new skills (invulnerability frames, bullet time, etc.) as the game progresses, only one of which can be used at a time.
The rooms are quite short, depending of course on how well you can play, but the overall game time should be around 3-4 hours. After that, you can go for completing all goals, dying to all discs, or just going for a high score in each room. The difficulty also ramps up quite fast, so maybe you'll complete the first half of the rooms in an hour, and then spend three in the other half.

I like this bullet hell variation, and I think Disc Room was well executed in terms of the vision it had. I didn't notice any instances of the game being broken, or missing the mark on some of its mechanics or anything. However, I do think the vision wasn't quite as good as it could have been. While reasonably difficult, simply running around and dodging isn't the most fun gameplay. It's kind of repetitive, despite the large number of different discs, but at the end of the day it just boils down to not overlapping your player box with the enemy boxes. It's also kind of short, even if you did want to enjoy it for more than a couple of hours. And finally, many rooms have a greater or lesser degree of randomness in them, which can get really annoying in an otherwise heavily skill-based game.

So, overall, good execution, subpar idea, and too short. I wouldn't recommend it to most people, but if you're big on bullet hell games and/or chasing high scores in short bursts of gameplay, then maybe you'll find it fun while it lasts. Although to my knowledge, the randomness in this game may very heavily clash with the usual strategy of learning attack patterns in bullet hell games, so consider that.

Void Bastards

My initial impressions of Void Bastards were pretty positive. The graphics were stylized, some of the story was told through animated comic panels, the narrator was slightly humorous, and exploring unknown spaceships was somewhat exciting, as I didn't really know what I was going to find.
To elaborate, Void Bastards is an FPS roguelike about exploring and looting randomly generated spaceships. It reminded me a bit of Heat Signature if it was first person, didn't have time stop, and just had fewer features overall. See, I'm already getting into some pain points here, as Void Bastards very quickly fell off. Around the second or third spaceship, I kind of developed a general route I would take through the ship. Helm first, as that highlights the loot, and then just loot all the stuff that wasn't near enemies and kill a minimal amount as that only wastes weapons and health.
There are also some decisions on which ship to board next, based on what kind of items you're looking for, but at least as far as I got, that boiled down to just going for ships which unlock a new item, and don't lock me out of my overall goal. I'd say the worst was that there weren't any interesting decisions to make. Each weapon was mostly suitable for each level, so you'd just go with whatever you had ammo for. There were no major differences in strategy between ships, and rather obvious best picks for which ships to explore next. To top it all off, death was very inconsequential, as you kept all the items and upgrades you had, and only got new character traits and a fresh batch of ammo, food, fuel, and other consumables.

Despite the criticism, I wouldn't actually say Void Bastards is a bad game. It's well made, it's witty, and the gameplay is okay, but it's not good enough to carry the nonexistent meta progression. There's just far too little strategy, decision making, and personal improvement throughout the game. If you think you'll really like the core gameplay loop of looting randomly generated ships, evading some enemies, killing others, and you don't care about the lack of variety, then maybe you can enjoy it. Otherwise, I just can't recommend it.

Amid Evil

I really gotta stop even trying these retro FPS games. I don't like them, and I won't play long enough nor know enough about them to give a good review on them. But rules are rules - I played Amid Evil, now I gotta talk about it.

As I said, it's a retro FPS, even though it starts you off with a big melee axe. The graphics are low-poly, the textures are pixelated, and in my honest opinion, it not only looks like shit, it's very unapproachable, because it's difficult to make out the important parts of the game like where the enemies are. But hey, that's just the aesthetic they were going for. Can you blame them? I sure can.
The movement's the same, floaty jumping, running backwards as fast as forwards, and just generally hopping backwards to fight many enemies, just like Devil Dagger or what other popular retro FPS games there are. As I said, I'm not really knoweldgeable, sorry.
You have pickups for health and mana, which serves as your ranged ammunition, and then soul points which can make you hit really really hard for a while once you cap them.
There's different levels, different difficulty settings, and you're being timed, because as usual with these types of games, time matters. I've never been big on neither speedrunning nor timed challenges, so that's another pain point for me, personally.

Well, that's my really brief review of Amid Evil. It doesn't really say much about the game, now that I look back at it. To tell you of things that are not my personal experiences, but that may be more useful: The whole game takes about 10 hours to complete. It's one of the higher rated retro FPS games out there, and is by the same publisher that made Ultrakill and Dusk, which are supposedly a lot better. (I don't know why I didn't try those instead, but I won't anymore.) It's clear I didn't like it, but don't let that stop you. If you enjoyed the two previously mentioned games, Amid Evil's probably more of the same.

The Beginner's Guide

Well, that was a philosophical journey and a half. And a damn old one too, from late 2015. The Beginner's Guide was a far shorter experience than I had anticipated, at only 1.5 hours. To make matters worse for reviewing it, it almost entirely consists of spoilers. But I will do my best to skirt around the spoilers, and give an idea of what the game is about anyways.

The Beginner's Guide is a walking simulator, narrated by its creator. It features a bit over a dozen chapters, each of which is a tiny video game made in the Source Engine, and not particularly polished. You slowly go through them, listen to narrator, and maybe form some thoughts about it all at the end.
That's about as much as I can tell you, because really, there isn't much substance to these little games. I can tell you that despite the eerie atmosphere, there will not be any jumpscares - this is not a horror game. I can also say that I felt I saw through the game rather early, but then again, maybe the game wasn't expecting to fool anyone or everyone, and either way, it probably didn't matter.
Despite the little games being very non-stimulating, I felt the narrator kept me going through it, and it never lingered too long on any bit. Unlike other small, I dare say, experimental, games I've played - I think that while the content of the mini-games was significant, it wasn't important that it was what it was. It was more of a chosen example, to illustrate the ideas The Beginner's Guide was trying to convey.

This is already going in the direction of a philosophical dissection, which I really don't care to do, nor do I think I should do. While the narrative is about video game development, it can easily be interpreted to be about any kind of art. It is most certainly not a game for everyone, and I think that if you have pursued or wish to pursue any artistic field, you will understand the story a bit better. Whether you'll like it or not, regardless of the previous condition, I can not say. I can only say that it failed to really reach me. As much as I found open questions in this game, I felt I had answers for all of them, for myself. So, because I didn't personally enjoy it, and because I think the target audience is a bit niche in any case, I wouldn't recommend it.

Vaporum

One of the older games still left on my list - from late 2017 - it's Vaporum.

I'm going to be upfront - I did not give this game a fair try. It's basically Legend of Grimrock, which came out 5 years earlier, but worse. And Legend of Grimrock itself is a throwback to old RPGs, which I haven't played, but can only assume couldn't afford proper collision detection or such due to the technology of the time, and thus defaulted to having all combat and movement be on a grid. The entire game is exploring this pre-built dungeon (meaning little-to-no replayability). There's traps, there's small puzzles, and there'a a bunch of enemies. The enemies, once close enough, take an action every some unit of time, either moving closer to you, or attacking you. Mind you, despite the game being set on a grid, and enemies acting almost as on fixed ticks, the game is actually action-based. You (or your party, if we're talking about Grimrock) are generally faster than everything else, allowing you to abuse the tick rate and outmanoeuver the enemies, dodging their attacks by timing, while getting your own in.
There are of course also the usual RPG elements, such as collecting consumables, new items and weapons, levelling up, different skills, etc.

Now, while I only played Vaporum for about an hour, I have closer to a dozen hours in Grimrock, which is why I felt confident in abandoning the game so soon. I just dislike almost everything unique about it. The combat and movement systems of times past, used again here, weren't like that by design, but by necessity, I'm quite sure. It feels terrible, and that's not only because I think combining turn-based and action gameplay is a bad idea. I would much rather go on a one-on-one whacking contest with each enemy than do the tedious dance of maybe having to do three movements in quick succession, not fucking any up, before I could land a hit on an enemy without retaliation. It makes the combat drag on so, but is necessary to not run out of health and resources.
Also the puzzles are kind of lame, and finding little hidden buttons on walls isn't enjoyable in my experience. Vaporum especially didn't give me the impression that the dungeon was designed very well, and the production quality of everything from graphics to voice acting was a bit below the bar I'd like.

All-in-all, definitely not a game for me. For the most part, gameplay of the past should be kept in the past, and mixing genres doesn't end well, and I don't think Vaproum is an exception. Combine that with the not-great overall quality, and I have no reason to recommend it. Perhaps if you really liked Grimrock and are looking for more games exactly like that, because I don't think there's many of them around.

Unreal Life

You never really know what something's going to be like until you actually experience it. Unreal Life didn't seem like anything particularly special from its store page, but managed to strangely hook me in the first hour of playing it. It hooked me for the wrong reasons, but as I kept playing, I discovered other reasons to keep playing further, and despite a somewhat rough journey, I saw it through to the end.

Unreal Life is a story adventure game, which is to say it has no real gameplay to speak of. It's kind of like a point-and-click game. You pick up items and interact with the environment and the characters in it, but it doesn't really place much emphasis on making the puzzles actually difficult to solve or the way forward difficult to guess. I can't say I'm a big fan of busywork in the middle of my stories, but perhaps this quiet time helps some people process events that have already transpired, or helps grow closer to the characters, by spending more time with them. Of course, if this was written as a visual novel instead, I wouldn't be writing about it here, so my complaint is a bit paradoxical, but I do think some puzzle segments involved a bit more walking back-and-forth than most would be comfortable with.
Of note is a somewhat unique mechanic of being able to see the last prominent memory of inanimate objects. This was the mentioned initial hook for me, but I soon discovered that it's not really utilized much from the puzzle perspective.

It's not really important, but while I think the art and music were good, they had much more spirit than actual quality. Especially the art - some of the sprites were or had pieces that were nigh unrecognizable. Still, the overall composition and feel of all the visuals were fantastic and made up for the lack of quality.

Enough about the gameplay. You shouldn't come for that. You should come for the story. Unreal Life is a mystery about a girl waking up with memory loss in a strange world. There's a sentient traffic light, and animals can talk. Inanimate objects have memories, and doors can teleport. You know only you need to find a woman by the name of Sakura. Things don't make a lot of sense, and you're troubled by headaches as your memories slowly return, revealing bits and pieces of the mystery. Still, the inhabitants of this mostly empty world alleviate and help to come to terms with the traumatic things you remember and do their best to make you feel cozy despite the looming unease and dread.
I remember hearing from someone, many years back, that only young children and fully-grown adults can appreciate fairytales. Being in neither age group at the time, I couldn't ever see myself enjoying a fairytale again in the future. I still wouldn't say the statement is entirely true, but I think Unreal Life is something that a child could enjoy, while also being something that I enjoyed. Sometimes the story was just so simple and childish, yet I couldn't help but smile. I wish I could tell you more details about the story, instead of my emotions, but as with all stories, especially mysteries, that would spoil it.
I will say that the ending was a bit dissatisfactory, with a slightly forced conclusion, but I decided that it wasn't important. Much like the story tells you - it's not about the destination, it's about the journey. I felt a lot of happiness through it all, and a less than perfect ending wasn't going to take that away from me. But... perhaps you notice the few missing achievements after you complete the game, even after really going through every interaction. I would have no idea how to unlock them, but luckily, watching a 30 minute walkthrough showed me something very interesting... For better or worse, this game has a very hidden supposedly "true" ending. It's brief, but if you choose to acknowledge it, it changes everything. My feelings on the "truth" are conflicted, because on one hand, accepting it resolves my grievances with the regular ending, but at the same time throws away so much else I loved about the story. I know I'm being cryptic, but that's all I can say without spoiling anything. In any case, it's a very unique detail to add to a story.

To sum up the long ramble, Unreal Life is a wonderful story. It has its shortcoming in its execution, but I loved that it could make me appreciate some moments of childlike wonder, while telling a touching and serious story in the background. I would absolutely recommend it to fans of story-only games. I would also like to see these developers make more stories, hopefully smoothing out some of the rough edges next time.

UnderMine

UnderMine is an action roguelike where you dungeon crawl through a bunch of floors, each of which has a bunch of rooms. Most rooms have you defeating a bunch of enemies before you may leave, but some other rooms have a store, or a passive powerup (artifact), or some other event. You also get one slot for a potion, which is your one-time consumable, and some of the gold gathered during a run carries over to buy upgrades between runs. You have a melee and a ranged attack (but can't melee attack until your ranged attack has returned to you like a boomerang), and can dodge in the form of a jump which can also cross gaps.
There's also some other stuff, but that's most of it. If you've played anything like Binding of Isaac, UnderMine will feel very familiar.

Now, my problem is that UnderMine is a bit too familiar for how unimpressive it is. It's not a bad game. There's a good amount of content and upgrades and replayability, but it's pretty bland and not executed well enough to stand out. I've said it time and again, but if your game doesn't innovate, then it needs to be really, really good.
To just list some grievances: The jump feels very floaty, and it can be difficult to see where you're going to land. It doesn't let you reposition well, but gives you a very lengthy invulnerability period. The ranged attack feels a bit too strong compared to how small and risky a melee attack is. Potions, which are kind of underwhelming in terms of combat strength anyways, have you stand still for multiple seconds to activate them - often not feasible in combat. Every time anything drops gold, you have to play some dumb minigame where a bunch of slimes appear out of the walls to steal it and you have to get to it first or beat them off.

Overall, I don't have anything interesting to say about UnderMine. If you're a fan of action roguelikes in the vein of Binding of Isaac, and you just want a new one to play, UnderMine might well be worth your time. It's a solid game, but for me who's only a slight fan of the genre, it is neither unique nor of superb quality, so I don't really have a reason to recommend it over the many other games like it.

Supraland

I do not understand the positive reception of Supraland at all.
It's a game centered around exploration, solving puzzles, and collecting things, with some combat thrown in. I don't really know how to further elaborate on the gameplay, since it's not particularly remarkable. The exploration happens in an open world. Puzzles are largely physics-based, and collectibles are mostly coins, but also some power-ups. The combat is poorly done, with few enemy types, and weapons that are too powerful for the task. For example, the beginner sword just had no attack cooldown, allowing for effectively infinite damage.

It's not just the aesthetic, but I feel the game is designed more for children. The narrative, the world being a literal child's playground, the art style, the really simple and poorly written dialogue. I also found the art assets and visual design of the game to be rather basic. Add to that the fact that I'm not big on games centered around just running around and collecting things, and I just don't have anything positive to say about the game.
I mean, it's not that terrible, but I do feel the review score is too high even if I don't just consider my personal preferences. Regardless, whether this game is actually bad or I'm not just the right person to review it, I can in no way recommend playing Supraland.

stikir

I remember the developer of stikir. They also made Indecision, which was a similarly insane game. And I don't mean insanely good or anything like that, I mean completely absurd.
It's a short game, taking about an hour, and there isn't any amazing gameplay nor a real story, but it's an experience to play. It kind of defies description, being just this surreal and abstract thing, but still very much having elements of games in it.

Yeah, I don't know what to say about it. I think it's worth experiencing. It's short and relays its ideas in a rather rapid fashion so nothing overstays its welcome. If anything, things happen a bit too fast, but that just adds to the intentionally confusing atmosphere. I wouldn't say it's a "good" game, but, yeah, worth experiencing.

The World is Your Weapon

I hope the developers had as much fun making The World is Your Weapon as I had playing it for the first hour.
It's a simple game, but quite unlike anything I've played before. I started out my adventure facing a group of slimes, with no weapon to fight them with. The game instructed me to find a weapon from the surroundings, and there was a shovel conveniently placed 2 tiles away from me. A bit unorthodox, but a solid weapon against a slime. But I had seen the screenshots - I knew. I skipped the shovel and picked up a nearby pot and smacked a slime with it. A powerful weapon! It killed the slime in a single hit, but sadly also broke. I proceeded to uproot the nearby tree and smack with that instead. Then some flowers, blades of grass, and finally a good whack with the shovel.

What I described is the essence of the game, as it's a bit of a collection game. Pick up something, hit an enemy, learn its strength, repeat. Despite the absurdity of picking up a whole tree, it's the least of this game's weirdness. As I arrived at the village, I went into a house, and picked up someones bed, wardrobe, window, floorboards, and finally, for good measure, exited the house and took the whole thing. Without exaggeration, if you can see it, you can almost certainly pick it up. That includes the road, a lake, even a villager after you've "accidentally" hit them with an AoE attack and got them slightly injured.
You can also upgrade any of your weapons (including the "live" ones), or list them for sale in your shop. Don't worry, it's not slavery, probably. The whole game is absurd and beautiful in its absurdity, and plays into it so well with its aesthetics and narrative.

The problem is that there isn't much depth to it. Once you take picking everything up to its logical extreme and experience the pinnacle of absurdity, you can either attempt the garguantuan task of collecting everything, or just stick to a few hard-hitting weapons which can be maintained and upgraded forever. There isn't much of a difficulty curve, and combat isn't any exciting - you whack, they whack, maybe some special effects happen, repeat until one's dead.
It's fun for an hour, but then you're like "cool", and drop it because you've pretty much experienced everything. So, I don't know. I think it's worth experiencing for a little while, but not playing to completion. I wish they had added some ramp-up to what you can pick up, because the high of picking up increasingly ridiculous objects could have lasted for a little while after each next step of ridiculousness. Meanwhile I picked up a house in the first 20 minutes of the game, and that was about the pinnacle of me being surprised.

Spiritfarer

Am I getting jaded? When was the last time I really enjoyed a new game? I don't know anymore. Even when playing yet another game with an "overwhelmingly positive" review score of 95% and over 27 thousand reviews, I just... find it boring. Sure, I'll reason that I got bored of Spiritfarer because it's a casual story-oriented management game full of tedious busywork, but it's just been so long since I've found something new I've truly enjoyed. Oh well, on with the review.

Spiritfarer is a game about caring for spirits as you see them off into the afterlife. There's a lot of management aspects of building various buildings on your boat for the well-being of the spirits you're accomodating, such as lodgings and food. You will spend a lot of time sailing from place to place, harvesting or gathering the resources there, then using those to build, craft, grow, cook, or otherwise make new things, and then giving those things to the spirits to keep them happy. Many activites run on a timer, meaning you have to juggle them, queuing each up, and then collecting or dealing with them once they're ready. There's also some platforming.

I think a lot of praise goes into the not-strictly-gameplay aspect of Spiritfarer. I didn't get too far with the story, so I don't know what to make of it, but I understand it's trying to tell you some sad tales of the spirits you're ferrying, and it's actually not a very large portion of the game in comparison to all the running about you have to do in the management aspect.
I can say that the game looks very nice and is beautifully animated, even if all the characters being anthropomorphized animals isn't really my cup of tea. The music's nice too. I think the game overall puts a lot more focus on things looking appealing rather than being fun. It'll take the extra time to make you look at the animations, even if it's an activity you've done a hundred times before, or in general make things take just a bit longer than I was comfortable with.

While this may be an improper comparison, considering I've never played Stardew Valley, I imagine it to be kind of like what this game is. It's not difficult, you can't really fail. It allows you to sink dozens of hours into it, throwing a lot of busywork at you, and tries to keep things fresh by introducing something new every now and then, even if it's just a new item or location instead of a brand new mechanic. Clearly there is a large audience for this, and I can by no means say that I think Spiritfarer is not well made, but regardless of the length or how much there is to do, I just do not enjoy these kinds of repetitive tasks, running back-and-forth, and waiting on various timers to complete. So, if you know you like these kinds of manual farming / gathering / management games with a tinge of story, I'd have to guess Spiritfarer might suit you, but I can't give it a personal recommendation.

Breakneck

On a roll with old games. Breakneck was the third least recent game I had added to my Wishlist. It was also the 9th worst rated. Went about as well as you'd expect.

Breakneck is a racing game, where you're endlessly driving at high speeds through a world with various obstacles in it. You can turn left, you can turn right, there's some powerups, driving near walls gives you boost energy to accelerate faster, bumping into a wall slows you down, while crashing into a wall ends the run. The run also ends if you've been going too slow for too long.

It's a very basic game, but that's not the problem. The problem is that I've played this before. It was called Race the Sun, and it's almost the exact same, except, despite the simpler graphics, Race the Sun is more visually appealing, and has more content and polish overall. Now, I enjoyed Race the Sun for a while when I played it almost 10 years ago, but it got boring somewhat fast. Sure, there's elgenace in simplicity, and mastering some simple task can feel really rewarding, but I'm no speedrunner - doing the same thing over and over generally exhausts itself for me.

So, I don't really have much to say about Breakneck. If the idea of a kind of endless runner racing game seems appealing to you, and you're not against something slightly older, go try Race the Sun instead. Stay away from Breakneck - it's similar enough to basically be a ripoff, and I don't like that.

Transistor

Oh wow, I didn't even realize I had games this old still to play. I played Bastion less than a year after it came out and kind of enjoyed it, so I've been meaning to play Supergiant's other games since then. Being me, I wanted to play them in order, so I'd been putting off good ones like Hades until I finished the previous ones. Well, 9 years after release, I finally got around to Transistor.

Much like I liked Bastion on release, perhaps I would have also liked Transistor on release, but games have gotten better in the past decade. Transistor's atmosphere is great, much like it's predecessor's. The mostly silent protagonist, a narrator with lots of voice lines for both important events and things as trivial as admiring bits of scenery or kicking a ball around, the slow and beautiful soundtrack, a futuristic city to traverse... It all sets the mood so well, and it's excellently put together. As much as I love the atmosphere, I have to mostly judge Transistor for its gameplay.
As you traverse the city, fights occasionally occur, limiting you to an arena with a variety of enemies, as well as some obstructing terrain. You're given an arsenal of abilities, which can each be slotted either as an active, a modifier to another active, or a passive, allowing for extensive customization to your playstyle. You can use these active abilities either in real-time, each having a cast time, or switch to a planning mode, allowing you to plan out the next several seconds of movement and abilities and then execute them while the enemies are almost frozen in time, at the cost of then being locked out of all abilities for a comparable amount of time. Of course, you will maximize your potential by combining these two - acting in real-time when possible, and freezing time to escape complicated situations.
I believe therein lies the biggest fault of Transistor, as I won't tire of repeating that mixing different types of gameplay rarely works out well. Personally more of a fan of turn-based combat, I found it especially frustrating, having to wait for my abilities to come back online whenever I did plan things out. Switching between the two gameplay modes was also not a smooth experience, as I have trouble rapidly adapting between fast and slow modes of thinking, and maybe that's common. And finally, the planning mode shows a prediction of what will happen when you execute your turn, but it's just... wrong. It fails to properly consider the environment, and fails to understand that things do not stand perfectly still during the time freeze of the execution step, causing many abilities to miss.

Overall, Transistor has a very appealing atmosphere and quite unique gameplay. Sadly, I believe the action and turn-based modes of combat mix together quite poorly, and there are some fundamental flaws in using the planning mode at all. If you're willing to overlook the not-so-great gameplay, it could still be an enjoyable experience, but I only managed to get about 50-75% through the game. I would have to lean towards not recommending it, at least not in the current year.

Parkasaurus

I'd consider myself a fan of building/management/simulation games, but perhaps because of that same reason, I'm rather critical of them. Regardless, I decided to try out a relatively highly rated theme park builder game by the name of Parkasaurus.

Looking at this game, and then looking at some similar games after, I drew the conclusion that perhaps the popularity of these types of games is due to their capability to appeal to many audiences. I'm definitely a challenge-focused person, but I can see how well these games can appeal to the casual player looking for artistic expression. There is not one correct solution, a lot of room to make things look pretty, or do them in some unique way... Of course the more liberty is given to the player (color palette swaps not included), the less the game has to be challenging, lest people be punished for pursuing these liberties.

To word this in a less roundabout manner: Parkasaurus is a casual game and I found it boring as hell. I have no interest in making a pretty park or admiring colorful dinosaurs. It's incredibly easy and features a lot of busywork. As I said, I can see the appeal for people who want to use this as artistic expression, but for anyone looking for any kind of challenge or interesting gameplay - stay away.

Nauticrawl

Nauticrawl is an interesting idea. I was lured in by the promise of having to figure out an alien machine, and navigating a world only visible through some sensors. This emanated the kind of discovery and learning that I hoped would be most enjoyable.

The initial impressions were fairly good as well. Sure, my first run ended with the battery dying before I had managed to start the engine, because I was fiddling with all the buttons and levers, but I had gained some insight from doing so. My second run went better, as I actually got the machine moving, even though I didn't know what everything did. It did end not too long after, as I ran out of fuel looking around my surroundings.
Every run had to be started from the beginning, which had so far not been a big deal, since my newfound knowledge very quickly let me skip the fumbling about I had done the previous runs. But on the third try, I already got reasonably far. Less because of my inexperience piloting the machine, and more due to lack of knowledge of the systems of the world outside, that run, too, ended in failure. That was the first time I felt that I did not really want to replay everything up to this point, because it was no longer difficult, but just a chore to demonstrate my mastery.

Embark on that fourth run I did, and due to my familiarity with the systems this time around, I started to notice flaws in them. A bit of background information first. Nauticrawl is mostly turn-based. Without spoiling too much, resources are only consumed when you perform some action. However, some things do occur in realtime, and a patient and wise operator will abuse them. Example: Your monitors may deplete energy, but are not necessary to perform any "turn" actions. You may conserve energy by turning them on, getting the required information, then turning them off to perform your action. As you can imagine, this is tedious. Another example: It is more efficient to inject fuel slowly. This has no other effect than making you wait longer, possibly as long as 5 seconds, to move again. Final example: For some bizarre reason, enemies act in real time, at least until their actions would begin to influence you. You have an infinite amount of time until something attacks you once they have planned to do so. So, uncloaked, all enemies will eventually gather around you and obliterate you if you don't cloak. If you're already cloaked, you can sit and wait for everyone to get away from you so you could uncloak and move without using energy. This waiting can take an incredible amount of time, but you'd be playing suboptimally if you didn't wait.
But even besides all that nonsense, the difficult-to-control machine very quickly stops being interesting as you figure it out, and starts being a nuisance to operate. I've already proved I can work this thing, yet I have to do it over and over and over again.

So, no. Nauticrawl is most definitely not something I'd recommend. While it has a great premise, it makes some very questionable design decisions and does not respect your time. The initial sense of discovery fades to tedium as you realize the machine is not difficult to operate because it's alien to you - it's difficult to operate because it's terribly designed. There's a story unfolding as you explore the world, which I was mildly interested in, but that was far from enough to keep me going. Gameplay, beyond basic operation that would be trivial with a good control scheme, was basically nonexistent as well, not leaving anything interesting to do if you knew how to pilot the machine.

Echo

I think I'll remember Echo for some time. It was a very unique experience. I have mixed feelings about it, and I don't even quite know where to start describing it. Perhaps a retelling of my own experiences would be best. Echo is definitely an experience, and I'm afraid that detailing the gameplay will spoil some of that experience, but I can not really talk about the game otherwise. I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum.

Echo starts off with a lengthy opening. Immediately, I notice that the quality of voice acting is amazing. There are only two people talking, but I very much feel inclined to listen to what they're saying, to the point that it doesn't bother me that I am simply walking for the first 30-60 minutes of the game. It also helps that the planet I am going to is like something out of a sci-fi dream. Snow, countless blocks, crumbling stairways and narrow paths leading downward, eventually into an endless building filled with winding pathways, halls of gold and splendor stretching to infinity... all eerily dark and empty, leading deeper and deeper still. Words do not do the sights justice. I'm fed bits and pieces of the story, of my past, and why I'm here. There's a feeling of some grander narrative, but information is vague, and our two narrators are unreliable. It's all very much just style at this point, and I worry if this will be a game, or just a gorgeous walking simulator. But honestly, I would not mind the latter for once if this keeps up.

The introduction also serves as a tutorial to the game, demonstrating the energy system. You use energy to break your fall on long drops, fire your gun, scan the area. You also have limited sprinting ability, opening and closing doors, vaulting over low walls, shouting, and some other things you can do. These tools will all come in handy when the game gradually introduces its enemy. These tools will also be your downfall, as your enemy is yourself. The game plays out in rather long levels, populated by clones of yourself. You can kill them, lock them behind doors, outrun them. It's all too easy, until the lights go out, come back on, and the cycle begins anew. Every cycle, everyone is revived, and they will learn all you did in the past cycle. Closing a door behind you will no longer work, they will sprint after you, they'll even shoot at you.

Echo is advertised as a stealth sci-fi adventure. I'd agree with the latter two, but stealth it is perhaps not. Sure, the enemies won't attack you if they don't detect you, but there are too many of them to sneak past them all. More than likely, you'll want to play it as an action puzzle instead. Analyze the level, figure out ways to deal with the enemies in some area using only a limited set of your moves, then use a different set of moves to escape them once they are revived the next cycle. It's great in theory, but I must say, I'm not quite so quick on my feet. Things won't go exactly as planned, so any deeper strategy will not work. I have a feeling this might have worked better as a turn-based strategy game, but that would have lost so much of the atmosphere. Speaking of which, Echo isn't a horror game, but the long empty corridors, eerie lighting, blackouts, and of course the many clones staring and chasing you create for a very anxiety-inducing atmosphere.

I've rambled a bit too long. I didn't ultimately like the game due to the gameplay. The story also dried up somewhat, as it kept up its rather vague tone, giving me few concrete details. Still, between that and the gameplay, I would have stuck around for the story, as well as the environments, which were sadly seeing fewer new elements over time than at the start. As novel as the gameplay was, I did not feel much of an expression of skill playing it. I did not have the time to properly think things through, and I did not have the in-game resources to shoot or outmaneuver the enemies. Sure, I got through with a combination of the two, but it just didn't feel like an accomplishment. It didn't feel fun, and worse still, it felt a bit repetitive.
I don't know whether to recommend it to any degree. I would, without hesitation, tell you to go experience the marvelous environments and atmosphere they crafted. But the gameplay isn't actually enjoyable, and the entire whole kind of falls off. I think they did a good job, just... not good enough to really recommend it.

Elephantasy

Hmm, Elephantasy was a moderately pleasant experience. It advertises itself as a 2D puzzle platformer, but I do feel it's more of a metroidvania, with how interconnected the levels are, how many sort-of-secret areas there are, and how much backtracking there is. It kind of reminded me of VVVVVV. Elephantasy doesn't seem quite as polished, nor are the puzzles as innovative or interesting, but it similarly has a very simple yet coherent aesthetic, and a large map composed of smaller rooms, each named.

The story is that you fell down, and you're now trying to get back up. To the sky, that is, not your feet. There's a wizard who will help you by loaning you his items in exchange for gathering gems for him from across the world. He offers you four items. Seeds - to make vines grow to be climbed upon. A ring - to make you stronger, and able to lift objects. A snorkel - to make you breathe underwater, somehow. And boots - to make you run so fast you can cross gaps, to compensate for your inability to jump as an elephant.
Each item can be returned to loan out a new one, and so you must use each of them to explore a different part of the world. Eventually, you'll gather enough gems to be allowed to loan two items at a time, allowing you to reach even further corners of the world. Eventually, three items, eventually four, and then maybe you'll get to go back.

Okay, I have to admit, I didn't get too far, so I don't know the details of how the end plays out. We're promised different endings, and possibly more items than the four the wizard initially lets us choose from. While I loved the level design and the art, the game felt a bit too simple to be enjoyable. Aside from figuring out where to go next, there wasn't any challenge. Grab an item, explore all the nooks and crannies of the area(s) you can reach with that item, then get another one. There wasn't much of a sense of "puzzling", just exploring. What didn't help was the somewhat slow pace of the game (note to potential players: set your game speed to max in the settings), combined with a lot of time spent backtracking, and then small frustrations from the character being very rigid to control. I would definitely attribute the last to a lack of polish on the character controller.

Overall, charming, not too long, very well designed map, but not enough of a challenge to be interesting. I would definitely say that this game is neither a puzzle nor a platformer. You might well enjoy it if you like exploration, or like collecting things. Me, I'm not that big on those two aspects, so I can only partially recommend Elephantasy. I think it's mostly well made and unique, but just doesn't tick the boxes for me.

Bridge Constructor Portal

I think Bridge Constructor Portal stood out to me because of its higher ratings than the other Bridge Constructor games. I had generally avoided them, because they reminded me too much of those casual games where you draw a series of lines to have a ball or something roll to the finish. Sure, instead of a ball, it's a sort of powered vehicle, and instead of lines, it has to be a structurally sound construction, but once you grasp the techinques of bridge construction, the game really does devolve into nothing more than drawing lines from start to finish. There's also portals this time, and other elements from Portal, like turrets and lasers, but they're all just fancy ways to connect or block off different parts of the map, changing from where to where you have to draw the lines. It's really not that difficult.
What can be difficult is getting the lines just right, so that your forklifts fly at just the right angle, but that's basically all trial and error instead of a science. This is one of the worse forms of difficulty.

The game would take maybe 12 hours to complete + 6 hours for the extra levels in the DLC. It's a total of 60 + 30 levels. I tried doing some alternate solutions to some levels, but the game really doesn't seem to like you doing that. No innovation, just take the path from start to finish that we had thought out for you. It's just boring.

Yeah, so, once you learn how to build a bridge, Bridge Constructor kind of loses its appeal. You did it. You constructed a bridge. Feel free to do it a few dozen more times in different shapes, but it's the same thing. Despite the fresh coat of paint, it's the same old boring casual game. So, that's a "no" from me.

Devil May Cry 5

I give AAA games a try once, and I'm immediately reminded why I shouldn't. Or rather, it's this specific type of AAA games, I'm not quite sure what the subgenre here is. I'm sure there's thousands of fans of the series, hence the high rating, but I played Devil May Cry 5 rather briefly, and I absolutely hated it.

I would think I rather enjoy action games. Hack and slash is really cool. I like doing fancy moves, building combos. I figured, "hey, DMC5 is a really highly rated game like that, surely it's gotta be good." How ridiculous of me.
For one, it's a console game. The PC experience is yet again a complete afterthought. The control scheme just doesn't work well on a keyboard, and I feel myself pushing ridiculous key combinations to get the character to do what I want to, and even then some actions just aren't possible because they would have probably been too hard to map to a controller.
Secondly, it's a "story game". Now hey, those cutscenes were pretty good, and I feel like if you just took all the gameplay out, you could make a pretty cool action movie. But I'm not here to watch a movie. The level segments are so brief between being interrupted by yet another cutscene that it feels more like a movie with gameplay spliced in, than the other way around.
And even if I could ignore those two major problems, I failed to really see anything special in the gameplay. Melee attacks, ranged attacks, special attacks, combos... Kind of basic stuff. Sure, it didn't seem bad either, but I feel there's way better hack and slash combat out there.

Well, good to check up on AAA games every now and then and remember that, yup, they're still mostly not for me. But hey, with how popular DMC is, you'll probably already have played it if you liked it, and don't need my opinion. If you, however, don't have an opinion on this game and feel like your tastes align with mine, I can confidently tell you to stay away from it - I don't recommend it.

Apple Slash

Well this has simply been one of the worse things I've played in a while. Apple Slash should take about 30 minutes. I think I got close to the end, but couldn't even make it through that.
It has very basic pixel art with a black, white, and red color scheme, and even more basic combat, letting you swing your massive sword without any cooldown in front of you, killing most things instantly. You get ranged attacks about halfway through, allowing you to kill things instantly even at a distance. There aren't any puzzles to speak of, so the "gameplay" is just navigating through the map while spamming attack.
There's some, humor, I think? At least I think it wants to be humorous, as you meet some characters along the way, and they have silly names, and say and do silly things, but it's really not entertaining. I think there's a story? I don't know what it is, even though I didn't skip any dialogue.

Eh, I think someone just wanted to make a game, and so they made this small thing. There's barely anything in here, but for what I assume is a solo project, it's okay work. It's polished and cohesive, even if what it is isn't any good. Good on the developer. I do not understand the positive reviews, however, and I most definitely don't recommend playing this.

One Step From Eden

Got around to finally playing a game I had actually anticipated - One Step From Eden. I seemed to have either forgotten, or perhaps I never took a careful look in the first place, but I was somewhat surprised to learn that this was, in fact, not a turn-based game. Well, action games are fine. Surely, this won't ruin my enjoyment?

One Step From Eden is an action roguelike deckbuilder that takes place on a 8x4 grid, of which the left half is yours, and the right half belongs to your enemy. You can move freely on your side, and cast your attack (generally for free), or either of two spells. Casting a spell costs some mana, which quickly refills, and discards the spell to draw a new one from your remaining deck. Once the deck is empty, it is reshuffled. Most spells hit one or multiple tiles in front of you, and can have a variety of effects besides damage.
The enemy side has one or multiple enemies who will similarly cast their spells at you, and if you kill them all, you get to move to the next level. There's a bit of a choice in levels, but every few levels there is a boss fight, and between most levels you get to adjust your deck, usually by getting a new spell, or some passive ability (artifact).

There is a whole load of variety and replayability. Far more than I could describe here, and far more than I got to experience. Nearly a dozen different characters, and probably a few hundred spells, plus artifacts, spell modifiers, and a bunch of synergies between them all. The pixel art is pretty nice, the characters look cool, and there's more references as flavor text to every possible medium than I would know, which were enjoyable to recognize. I think there is a lot of love put into this game, and it's executed to a very high degree of polish. The combination of genres is unique (though I did see literally everyone mention it's just like Megaman Battle Network, which I know nothing about), and I don't have any objective complaints about it in general.

Despite my positive attitude towards it and my initial excitement during the first hour of playing it, it soon sank in that this was not a game I could play. I loved thinking about all the interactions between the cards, optimal ways to play, and building a deck, but the game runs at an incredibly high speed. Every second, or even more often, I am expected to re-learn what spells I currently have available, what they do (because in proper deckbuilding roguelike fashion, effects often change over the course of the battle), where I am supposed to move to dodge the enemy, where I am supposed to move to hit the enemy, and maybe more. This makes for an incredibly high skill ceiling and no doubt rewards players who have sunk a lot of hours in the game, but I can not process this information. Playing at a slower pace will just make me get hit more and deal less damage, so the only real solution is to just spam my abilities without thinking what they do or if they hit. Sure, the game is somewhat balanced around this, where AoE spells are quite weak, and pin-point spells can be incredibly strong, but I feel this just robbed all of the thought from the game. I can't execute my synergies or do cool things, because I must act faster, not smarter.

I am very sad about this resolution. This looks like a very nice game, and I think a lot of people, who are not me, can actually well enjoy One Step From Eden. It's not even all that difficult, as I got probably around halfway through on my second run. So if you either don't care as much as I do about executing your deck to its fullest, or are someone who can think and recall information faster and is willing to invest more time into memorizing what every spell and enemy does, this will probably be a really good game. I think once you go play it, you will understand very swiftly if the combination of action and strategy works for you. So, while I can't personally recommend it, I still have faith that it's a good game, and that a lot of people could get plenty of enjoyment out of it.

Honkai: Star Rail

Oh, we got a big one today! Two and half years ago or so I started Genshin Impact and wrote a review of that, stating I had had a lot of fun with it, but wasn't sure how long I'd keep playing. Well, it's now one of my most played games of all time, and I have played it every single day since then. So, when the developers of Genshin were releasing a new game, how could I refuse playing it right away? Honkai: Star Rail, has taken a lot of elements from Genshin, but has the big difference of being turn-based. I'm going to be drawing a lot of parallels to Genshin in this review.
Where to even begin. Star Rail is an RPG, so naturally I'll talk about both the story as well as the gameplay. It's also a gacha game, so I'll also describe the monetization and grind elements.

Let's start with the gameplay. Unlike Genshin, Star Rail is played in a number of small maps, with less of a focus on exploration (no swimming, climbing, or even jumping). There's still chests and casual puzzles in the environment, but to a lesser degree than in Genshin. You run around these instances as normal, but upon encountering an enemy, the game shifts to a turn-based battle mode.
I am moderately disappointed in how unimaginative the turn-based system is. Sure, Genshin didn't have anything never-before-seen, but Star Rail just uses the most standard "your lineup vs their lineup, whack each other in turns" system used in most turn-based RPGs out there. At least there's a turn tracker, and every character has a variable speed. Your entire team of 4 shares a pool of skill points. A weak basic attack gives 1 point, while a skill costs 1 point. Each character also has energy, accumulated by attacking and getting hit, and once full, allows them to cast their ultimate. The ultimate system is unique because you're allowed to cast ultimates in real-time, outside the normal turn order, but with how fast turns sometimes go past (there is only a split second between gaining energy from your or an enemy's action, and the next turn), it can be easy to miss the right moment. I think it's a huge mistake to put real-time elements in any turn-based system, and this is no exception. I have often been frustrated at losing a battle because I missed the 0.2s window for casting my ult.
The 7 Elements from Genshin are also present (though some have changed), but instead of reactions, each enemy has 2-3 weaknesses, and attacking with the right Element does 25% more damage, as well as depletes their toughness bar, which, upon breaking, slightly delays their turn and deals a large burst of damage. I think the lack of elemental reactions is a big loss in terms of team building variety and simply matching your team to the enemies' weaknesses is boring. It kind of just amounts to a 25-50% increase in damage. Aside from the 7 Elements, there also 7 Paths, which don't "do" anything, but describe what type the character is. (DPS, healer, buffer, tank, etc.)

Not to diverge into a strategy guide, but given the rules above, certain team compositions are somewhat mandated. Unlike Genshin, where there's a distinction between on- and off-fielders, Star Rail gives every character their time in the limelight, and provides no invulnerability dodge button, which means every character must be defended or healed, and every character's output matters. While good for fans of the characters, I believe this, too, hurts the team variance in the game. See, the skill point system basically means that you will ideally delegate two characters to be dummies and only generate skill points with basic attacks, and fire off the occasional ultimate, while the other two are actually the meat of the team. You will need 1 healer (of which there are 2 at the moment). This healer uses up one skill user slot, leaving you with just a single slot for another skill user. Putting a buffer / debuffer there is pointless, as your dummy basic attackers deal no damage, so the only option is to use a DPS there. This leaves a massive pool of characters with no role in any team, because they need to use their skill to function. To the developers' credit, they have put roughly 6 characters in the game, who can be useful with just special basic attacks and/or ultimates, or whose skills don't consume any or almost any points. But out of 23 characters, you're currently limited to 1 of 2 healers, 2 of 6 dummies, and can only pick 1 of the remaining 15 cool characters, some of whom aren't even DPS characters. This is a massive flaw in terms of team building, but something future patches can fix.

To segue into the topic of story, I believe the emphasis was not on combat for Star Rail. Two more examples of this. Every character's ultimate has a long, unskippable animation. Genshin was somewhat limited by its action combat still running, but Star Rail takes their sweet time, and because of how often ultimates can be cast, almost half the combat can be spent watching the animations. Due to this, everyone I know plays at 2x speed, which sadly makes the animations look a bit goofily sped up, and reduces variety in voice lines. The game should have been built for a faster pace. Worst of all, Star Rail has auto-battle as an option. I adamantly believe that no game should ever give you an option to not play it. Auto-battle screams "the gameplay is bad, and we know it", and I'm afraid that this is the ultimate truth for Star Rail. To any gameplay-oriented readers, this can be the end of this already long review, but I want to keep writing.

Now, the story. If we exclude games which are basically only story, Genshin has one of my favorite stories in games. Its lore being the best part, while the moment-to-moment storytelling / writing being a bit weak. Star Rail has massively stepped up the writing quality, to the point where dialogue is usually genuinely fun to listen to. Losing a Paimon-like character is clearly the biggest contributor, giving the main character more agenda, as well as giving more time to the various side characters. The story so far has a much more comedic tone, especially when it comes to the various ways you can interact with the environment. Many NPCs or environmental items also have new dialogue as you repeatedly talk to them, and there's overall more dialogue options in conversations, really allowing you to drill into the story as deep as you want to. For fans of story, there is so much more reading, and significantly higher quality everything. There is also more focus put into the characters, which clearly shows from how long we have to look at them in combat.
I have but one nagging issue with the story, which is ultimately a very important one for me, personally. There is no long-term hook. Sure, the general long-term premise is the same as Genshin - we go from place to place, learning about the place and solving its problems, but Genshin gave us a promise at the start. "Gather the 7 Elements", "We will be reunited at this journey's end", "Then you will understand". Genshin holds a promise that the story will not just spin endlessly until the game stops being profitable, and gives us something to look forward to. Star Rail has nothing pressing. No reason to want to move forward, except for if you love the writing itself. I find Star Rail's overarching lore a bit weaker overall, and that matters to me a lot, while I think most would consider Star Rail's story superior. Up to you, I guess.

Finally, the gacha and the grinds. If you're already familiar with Genshin, there is next to nothing new here. Exact same rules for gacha, though they do give their first Standard 5* at 40 pulls, and a Standard 5* of your choice at 300 pulls. Same as Genshin, there's enough currency to go around to make the teams you want even as free-to-play, so I've no complaints here. Weapons are now called Light Cones, lack a secondary stat, and are now restricted by Path instead, meaning only 1/7 instead of 1/5 weapons fit your character, and they're a bit more boring. Aside from the Basic, Skill, and Ult, every character now also has a levelable Passive, which is a cool addition, and instead of an Ascension stat, there are various stat increase nodes you can pick up as you level. Artifact grind has gotten even worse, as there's now 6 artifacts instead of 5, meaning ideally no off-piece, and there's more possible substats, making it even harder to get that perfect artifact.
For end-game, not that I got there yet, there's the Spiral Abyss equivalent dungeon, where defeating the enemies in a low amount of turns matters. There is also a really cool dungeon mode, which gives you a new buff from a large selection after every combat, along with upgrades to those buffs, and possible small events. These roguelike elements make it by far the most enjoyable content in the game so far, as you actually want to go for another run, just to see what build you can put together from the buffs this time. I fear that it, too, will become boring over time, as player strength eclipses any semblance of challenge, but maybe that's just my pessimism.

I put a good 50+ hours into Star Rail over a week, and I really enjoyed it. Reading it back to myself, my review may come across as overly critical, but I think Star Rail is still a pretty good game, compared to other games out there. It's just that, there are too many similarities to Genshin, and with the pace of updates, I don't have the time for another Genshin. I don't enjoy Star Rail as much, as explained by the faults above, and I believe it to be a lot more oriented toward the casual crowd, which gives me less hope about its future. Between the two, I would choose Genshin without a doubt, but if you have time to play both, care more about story than gameplay, want something that you can actually play on mobile, or simply want something that's like Genshin, but not Genshin, Star Rail can still be a game worth playing. So, a partial recommendation from me, but I will not be continuing my journey in Star Rail.
To also make a prediction for the future, because this matters in live-service games, I think Star Rail will settle to maybe 1/2 to 1/4 the popularity of Genshin. Still, considering how Genshin makes on a magnitude of 10x more money than it costs, I don't think Star Rail players will have to worry about it being abandoned for a long time, as it will be able to earn its share.

Tenderfoot Tactics

Tenderfoot Tactics is a turn-based tactical RPG. You run around the overworld with your party of 6, and fight other, generally larger, parties, which in essence are comprised of the same units as yours. There's about a dozen different classes, each with about five different abilities with multiple levels. There's also an equipment system, but it's just two stat items (you only have two stats overall - health and damage/healing power) - nothing fancy. There's some mysterious quest you have to solve, but it's not really much of a gameplay element, other than forcing you to move around, and thus triggering more battles.

I actually played Tenderfoot Tactics for a relatively long time compared to its simplicity - about 5 hours. It seemed really interesting at first. For one, the art and the music are... memorable. The terrain is constantly shifting around visually, meaning you can kind of understand where obstacles are, or if you're going uphill or downhill, but any details are lost. It's hard to explain. Similarly, the music is a bit like someone's just banging pieces of metal together in a rhythmic fashion. It's all quite unpleasant, and I'd prefer if they made this stuff a bit more normal, even if it sacrifices the "artisticness" of it.
No, but, what really kept me in at first was the combat. I think Tenderfoot Tactics has a really good combat system. The terrain is tile-based, and each tile has a height, vegetation density, growth rate, water level and fire level. You can manipulate each of these variables, and in fact most attacks or abilities do. Having a high ground advantage can mean your ranged attacks do more damage, and the enemies have a harder time reaching you. Similarly, it is difficult to move through water or dense vegetation, and fire actively burns and spreads. Despite this already being a lot more than most turn-based combat games offer, I really wish they would have done more, because the rest of the combat was so bland. Trees and cliffs don't block line of sight, meaning there's no cover. Fire can kind of be shrugged off. There was more potential here in general, if they really wanted to distinguish their game with this deep elemental terrain manipulation gameplay.

I guess a big reason I got bored was the lack of content. While each class was pretty interesting in itself, the different classes didn't feel too different, and had too much horizontal progression. Sometimes I didn't even want to upgrade because I felt my character might get weaker. The battles started to play out the same, and the story wasn't existent enough to make me care about its resolution. I think there were also some balance problems, with some classes or abilities just being better, which further hurt diverse parties and trying out new things.

Overall, I like that Tenderfoot Tactics did something a bit new, but there wasn't enough content around this cool mechanic, nor was the content polished enough. After going through 15-30 battles, you will probably feel you've seen what the game has to offer, and get bored. I sure did. So, I think it might be worth just trying out for the experience, but not really. I wouldn't recommend actually getting into it.

Taur

Taur looked like an excellent game from the store page. Effective graphics, combat on a large scale with a lot of units, huge weaponry, multiple skill trees, trading, recruitment... So why were the reviews borderline bad?

Well, everything described is in the game, but... I think the best I could explain is that it just doesn't feel very rewarding to play. The game is advertised as a strategy and tower defense, and I'd say that's already a bit far from the truth. You literally are / have a giant tower that you must defend, which is a "tower defense" in a literal sense, but not as a game. There aren't any real-time strategy elements in the game, as your only action during gameplay is to fire this giant cannon. I'm sure there's some strategy involved in making the right decisions outside of combat - choosing the right upgrade paths, making sure your units don't die, picking the best missions - but they're not very complicated decisions, nor do they feel that impactful to the game. Most decisions are pretty good, so as long as you pick something, your war machine is getting stronger, and you just let it do its job, and fill the menial task of firing the cannon.
I say menial, because despite the cool lasers, energy shields, projectiles and explosions, the combat lacks the polish to really feel good. I'm firing a giant laser or huge mortar shells at enemies, but it doesn't feel like I am. It's a bit difficult to describe, because it's not that it doesn't have a numerical effect, it's just that the visual feedback is lacking.

I don't really have any big negatives to point out, but I think you'd understand why I say this game doesn't feel rewarding to play if you tried it. It feels lacking the mayhem you'd expect from such a scale, and it's definitely lacking in actual gameplay. Shooting the big turret feels the same in your first battle as your last, and I don't feel I'm executing any strategy as I upgrade my defences through the levels. With all that in mind, I can't recommend Taur.

The Supper

A short one for a change. The Supper took me about 20 minutes to complete, and it was an... interesting experience. It's a rather morbid point-and-click story. It wasn't the most interesting story one could tell in 20 minutes, and, of course, being 20 minutes kind of disqualifies it from having enough substance to have a deep enough narrative to really be good in the first place, but it was still an enjoyable 20 minutes.

It's free, so if you're looking to kill half an hour and feel like a short, slightly uneasy, tale would be your cup of tea, then you can give it a try. But don't expect too much.

Slime Rancher

If Slime Rancher isn't the cutest thing I've played in a long while, I don't know what is. Problem is, that's about the only thing it has going for it.

Slime Rancher is a mix between an adventure game and a farming simulator. The game essentially plays in two parts. First you go around the map, finding new slime types, and new types of food. Then you bring them back to your farm, combine the slimes into bigger, better, slimes, and plant their favorite foods to grow more locally. You feed the slimes to get valuable slime poop, which you sell to buy upgrades to your farm and your equipment. You progress by exploring the world and solving little puzzles, like feeding big slimes a bunch of some specific food to get a key to unlock a new area.

While there are a few hazards regarding leaving your slimes unfed, or accidentally combining more than two types of slimes, the game really isn't any difficult. It's more of a relaxation game, looking at all the adorable little slimes. Progress is extremely slow, mostly gated by the speed of waiting for food to grow, or how fast you can traverse back and forth through the map, again, and again, and again. See, your farm can't hold a lot of things, so you need to venture out to gather more from the nature, which is a lot larger. But you also have very limited storage space, meaning you can't collect a lot during one trip. Combine this with the game being rather repetitive, because new slimes, while maybe requiring new food or a new enclosure, don't require any fundamentally different approach to what you've already been doing, and I just felt I had seen everything after a couple of hours, and the rest was just a grind to unlock the rest of the slime skins.

All that said, while I don't like or recommend Slime Rancher personally, I think it's a pretty good casual game. It's easy, it's simple, it's nice to look at, and there's a lot to do as long as you don't abstract these activities away as a single repetitive thing. I can somewhat see the reason for this being one of the highest rated games on Steam, but, yeah, totally not a game for people such as myself.