Electronic Super Joy 2

What the hell did I just play? Electronic Super Joy 2 is a... unique game, for sure. It's free, so maybe that's why I decided to add it about 3.5 years ago. Well, I certainly got my money's worth.

Electronic Super Joy is a difficult precision platformer. It's also very... flashy, in more ways than one. There are literal flashing neon lights, very upbeat music, weird silhouettes in the background making bad jokes (or serving as a tutorial), odd erotic sound effects every time you touch a checkpoint (and other times), fart sounds when trying to use an ability without having one... and a ton of other stuff you can see examples of on the Steam page, because I both can't describe them very well, and didn't actually get to them.

You know, I'm happy that some developers are more free in creating their games, but this style of... everything... isn't really my cup of tea. I mean, I also don't like precision platformers so there was really no hope for me with this game.
But hey, if you like weirdness in your difficult platformers, then maybe this might interest you. Other than that, my best guess would be that it's not even that great of platformer. Anyways, I generally wouldn't recommend it.

AngerForce: Reloaded

I just recently covered a bullet hell, and now I'm doing another. Something much less known this time - it's AngerForce: Reloaded.

AngerForce isn't too far from the basic bullet hell formula. Pick a difficulty, pick one of four characters, shoot, dodge... Each character gets the standard "emergency button", the bomb, as well as two unique abilities which cost energy to use. Energy is regained mostly by slowing down your movement, but enemies also drop it. The game has 3 difficulties, 7 stages, local co-op, and two game modes. The campaign mode is the easier of the two, since you get to buy upgrades between runs that make you quite a bit stronger. There are roughly 30 upgrades. Simple stuff like more damage or bombs, but also attracting pick-ups while moving slowly, or character-specific upgrades like gaining a shield every time you used an ability. In comparison, the arcade mode starts you off with no upgrades and only yields an upgrade between stages, as a selection of one from multiple.

Compared to some bullet hells I've seen on Steam, I think this one's actually pretty good and I'm surprised it's as unpopular as it is. The visuals look pretty decent, including things like bullet contrast, and there's even a bit of drawn story to be unlocked for each of the characters. I am, however, still not particularly a fan of bullet hell games, and this one doesn't do anything to surprise me. No really innovative mechanics, still no mouse controls, no enemy indicators, no autofire. It's both kind of basic as well as on the shorter side.
So, honestly, as much as I've played bullet hells, I'd actually recommend this to fans of bullet hell games. But in the grand scheme of games, as well as taking my personal preferences into account, I wouldn't recommend it.

CrossCode

I went into CrossCode wanting to like it. I remember this game being in Early Access for ages, and it still released over 4 years ago, so I've been waiting for a long time. I think it was the art and style that gripped me, and I must say, they didn't disappoint. Still, from the advertised 30-80 hours, I only got about 12 in. So, what happened?

CrossCode starts off strong, dropping you into a tutorial / gameplay demo that also serves as a hook into the story. There's some mysterious figures, someone dies, something big is supposedly set in motion. Things are left unclear. The pixel art looks great, both for the large upper-body sprites, as well as the small characters. The animation is smooth, combat is responsive. It looks like a good start to a game.
The story cuts to the actual main character. A so-called Avatar, named after basically being an avatar for an online game, being materialized. They appear as confused as you are, not knowing what they are, or how or why they are here. It goes into a slightly more in-depth tutorial / practice, which re-affirms all combat mechanics (except for using elements and abilities, which I guess is a reasonable chunk of combat content), while giving you a bit of background into the story.
Covering the story first, just the first hour or so, not going into any spoilers, CrossWorlds is basically an MMO, but taking place in the real world. There is a lot of background lore made up for the game (CrossCode), like how the game (CrossWorlds) is actually located on a moon owned by some megacorporation, and it's fully immersive by utilizing FTL information transfer to link all of the player's senses to their character. The characters themselves are made of "instant matter", which can be formed and re-formed instantly, making these Avatars technically immortal. But, their attacks are virtual, and instant matter is so light it can not physically hurt or obstruct any real people. On top of this CrossCode lore I just covered, which is true inside the game (CrossCode) there is also CrossWorlds lore, which is not real, not even in the game (CrossCode), but only in the MMO (CrossWorlds), but I won't go into that right now. Got all that? Took me a good amount of time to differentiate what was the real game lore and what was the game-game lore. But combined with the mystery aspect, this very detailed world-building was right up my alley. Some mystery Avatar seemingly breaking the game rules then comes to abduct our protagonist from outside the bounds of the game, but you manage to escape into the game proper, being told to just go play the MMO for the time being.
Now, to briefly explain the combat and game mechanics in more detail. You have a ranged attack that can also bounce from walls, a melee attack that is AoE and does more damage, a dash with a brief invulnerability period, and a frontal shield that mitigates damage taken. There's also a skill tree of about 40 nodes, plus 4 more elemental skill trees unlocked later. Aside from passives these can also unluck skills which can use charges to do special versions of your basic actions. Throw in levels, stats, equipment, and you have very decent character building for a game of this size. A lot (about half) of the game is centered around environmental puzzles, and to that end you also have a height system. There are a lot of walls in the game, and they're all technically walkable, but you can only jump up a wall with a height difference of one. You can then cross rather wide gaps by just running over them, and the character jumps with enough momentum to carry you across, allowing complex traversal paths in small areas. I found this to be a very unique take on platforming.

So, I'm 2-3 hours in, side characters are being introduced, I'm itching to get into it all... And... Nothing? Hours pass, and I feel very much like I'm playing the worst part of an MMO. Pointless character dialogue, fetch quests, kill X of some enemy. The excitement of learning more about this world and the mystery presented at the start wear off during 10 hours, replaced with annoyance at the grind, and how I can't visually distinguish these wall layers I mentioned. The game looks gorgeous and detailed, but perhaps in that detail, playability is lost, and solving these platforming puzzles is frustrating trial-and-error of finding some single block that allows me to get up a layer, and then backtracking multiple maps on this higher layer. And it's not just for quests or collectibles, some areas just require this pointless detour for me to access. Heavens forbid I forget where the entrance to the puzzle is, because I do. A lot.

CrossCode built up a very strong desire to stick through the story, and then battered it down hour after hour. The combat is good. The art is good. The music is good. The character progression is good. The story is probably good? It's just, with all these great components, they somehow manage to make a game that is just boring, tedious, even frustrating to play, and I am so sad at that. I really wanted to like CrossCode, but I can't recommend it like this. Maybe a partial recommendation. Maybe if you really like the MMO grind and environment puzzles, and then also enjoyed what else I mentioned about the game.

Albion Online

I've always been a theoretical fan of MMOs (that is, I like the idea of MMOs, their potential, but I don't feel like any actually existing ones quite hit that potential), but I had never jumped on the Albion Online train. I had heard about it before launch, back in 2017. I can't remember why I didn't join at that time. I think it wasn't free to play, didn't really gain that much popularity, and I had heard stories about how end-game was just getting run over by death squads of PvP players whether you were looking for PvP or just trying to PvE / craft. At least two of those things have changed. Albion is somewhere around the 5th most popular MMO right now, and it is free to play. So I figured I'd finally give it a try - nothing to lose.

The first thing I noticed is that the quality of graphics and effects isn't particularly high. It's not a deal breaker, and I wouldn't expect much more from an indie MMO that's also made for mobile, but it does all look a bit bland. Attacks don't really have that impact, neither visually nor audibly. Functionally, the abilities are fine and responsive, and at least as far as I got, I feel like they allow fairly high-skill gameplay. The UI design also feels too mobile-oriented.
But I will look past the graphics. Especially for an MMO, it is not why I'm here. After a brief tutorial, I was immediately put on the mainland, had a few more assistive, though optional, quests, and was then left to my own devices. That's wonderful, and that's a clear sign that this is truly a sandbox MMO. No one will tell me where I have to go or how I have to play the game. But, what is there to do?

The game has four main activities. Crafting & gathering, PvE in the form of dungeons and raids (both open world and private), PvP either just for shits and giggles, as guild warfare for territory, or fighting for your faction. And of course, trading.
Crafting isn't too big of a deal in many games, as players cap out their equipment, but Albion has rather fast gear deterioration, requiring either expensive repairs, or brand new gear. Dying in PvP will also cause your gear to be destoryed or dropped, so you will need new gear repeatedly. Gear types split into over a hundred different craftables, and while you will be relatively quickly able to craft any gear type, it pays to specialize in something, as that will allow you to hit higher quality values for a much cheaper price. There is the glaring issue of all crafting stations being owned by players, and there being something of an oligarchy on them by larger guilds. Especially for new players, this means crafting prices are high and crafting as a main activity is not very lucrative.
I did not really engage in trading, but as each region has its own resources it specializes in, the market in each city is limited to people in that city, and the open world is dangerous to traverse, I would imagine there is a pretty penny to be made from carrying the right goods from one city to another, as well as selling good quality equipment.
For combat in general, I was actually surprised by the high variety in playstyles. Most of your combat power is determined by gear, and there are three "classes", but you're not locked to any and can mix and match at any point out of combat. On one end, there is light armor, giving more damage and energy, as well as ranged staves dealing AoE damage or healing. In the middle, there is medium armor, giving a bit of damage, but also things like mobility or invisibility, as well as weapons like bows, daggers, spears, etc. And on the other end there is heavy armor, giving CC and damage resistance, as well as mainly melee weapons which stun. And this is a very brief overview. There are tons of weapon types, and every weapon and armor type splits into several slightly more specialized types still. The customization options are massive, and there seem to be frequent balance patches too.
I already touched on how the combat doesn't feel very great, and I'd be lying if I said that didn't affect my opinion of the game. However, there are worse things. For one, there is only one server. It's in America. If you're not in America, you will have over 100 ping. The kill times are short enough that this does matter, and that's pretty bad in a game where PvP plays such a large role? How large? Well, remember how I said that the PvP death squad rumours were one of the reason that kept me away from the game initially? All of the higher tier content is located in free PvP zones, so you're never safe if you don't want to spend the entire game gathering scraps in the safer areas. And let me tell you, there is nothing fun or fair about getting run over by a larger group of players while not looking for trouble.

Overall, even leaving the subpar production quality of the game aside, Albion is a PvP game quite thoroughly. If you're not going in for PvP, I would suggest you stay out. And even if you are going in for PvP, make sure you get connections, and get a large group beforehand. Numbers win fights, and there is little you can accomplish on your own. I can imagine Albion is great for people who really want to play in communities, and who have the time to invest into it. I think this is something I might have liked years ago, when I had more time to spend, but even then, I think something like Eve Online just has the same idea for gameplay, but also has way more to do in it. While I wouldn't personally recommend either, I don't see a reason at all to recommend Albion over Eve.

Touhou

Not only am I covering two games at once this time, they're also both from the famous series called Touhou. I grabbed English patches for the Steam versions, and played Hidden Star in Four Seasons, which was the first official Touhou game to release on Steam back in 2017 (To clarify, it released on Steam before any other Touhou games. There have later been even earlier Touhou games released on Steam.), as well as Unconnected Marketeers, which is the 2nd latest one.
The reason for clumping them together is because they're extremely similar, and because I wanted to also talk about the history somewhat.

The first Touhou game was released in 1997. I wouldn't go as far as to say it was one of the first bullet hell games, but there weren't many made before that. Since then over thirty official Touhou games have been released (a few of which have been fighting games, but mostly bullet hells), not to mention all the fan games, other fan works, and I think it even got an anime? My personal favorites are the OSTs of all the games, which I don't seem to ever get tired of listening, even not having played the games. It's a bit daunting to go play something like that. What if it doesn't live up to my expectations?

I realized I don't actually have a lot to say about the gameplay itself. Touhou has probably defined a good chunk of how bullet hell games play, but I feel like it hasn't changed much itself. (Might be a false claim, I've only briefly watched videos of gameplay of the earlier games.) Dodge the bullets, shoot enemies, collect falling stuff to get points / level up your weapon / charge your bombs. Collecting stuff higher up the screen is generally worth more. And if you're in trouble, use a bomb to clear the screen and deal a lot of damage to any enemies. There's usually one extra gimmick which changes per game and helps you clear the bullets sometimes. It's really nothing special, and honestly, I felt kind of disappointed.
Of course, it's not all about the complexity. It could be fun to just challenge myself with these core concepts. Touhou is certainly plenty difficult, probably more so at the higher end than most other bullet hells, but that peak has never really interested me. Much like games that focus on speedrunning, I don't get a lot of enjoyment over perfecting my technique, and am instead satisfied to just get through everything at a slightly above average difficulty. That seems to take around 6 hours for one game, which I think is rather little.
No, what bothers me more is the lack of quality of life features I've come to expect. Most importantly, mouse controls. A keyboard is nowhere near as precise as a mouse can be, and I can not fathom how this still hasn't been implemented. I would have also liked things like indicators at the bottom of the screen to see where the enemies are, and better bullet contrast with the background at times. On a personal level, I just don't see anything about the gameplay I could recommend. It's not bad, but it just feels so average and minimal. Perhaps it's been quantity over quality all along.

As an afterthought, I suppose Touhou has gained its popularity through the world / characters, the music, and maybe the higher ends of difficulty. But I heard that the mechanics and gameplay have never been Touhou's strong suite, even in the early years. The earliest bullet hell I can name is Jamestown, which is from 2011, and that definitely had more to do. I think I played some Flash ones at least a couple years earlier, and, as far as memory serves, those too had better gameplay. And Bullet Heaven 2 still reigns as my favorite bullet hell, and the one I'd recommend to people if they asked me. (The first one was good too.)

Cubic Currency

Oh no, I missed my usual Friday evening post due to a combination of currently playing a new game I'm finding fun (this is good), and being oddly busy (this is bad). So I swapped to quickly playing something else to write this post. That something else happened to be Cubic Currency. It was technically below my minimum review score threshold, but I let it slide due to the previously mentioned circumstances. It wasn't actually that bad.

Cubic Currency has a pretty solid, if simple, game loop. You start the day with some dice and a bunch of customers lined up. Each customer wants some dice, and offers you a combination of money, dice, and ability uses. Abilities let you roll new dice, reroll old dice, upgrade a die to a better roll, and "split" a die into two worse rolls. (You can also unlock 2 other shopkeepers with other abilities.) With these abilities at your disposal, you must make enough money from the customers to afford your rent every three days.
Throw in some permanent powerups (such as sometimes getting a new die when using an ability), random events between days (such as finding an extra die for the next day), daily modifiers (such as every customer being on a timer), and a few more mechanics, and the game isn't that shallow anymore.

Still, I ultimately find that the game's downfall is the lack of a strategic element. You have the option to decline a customer, but all the customers offer a better reward than what the raw dice are worth, so the only reason to decline them is if you don't have abilities stored up to get enough dice. I served ~95% of the customers. Beyond that, what choice is there... Just give the customer the right dice. Customers who pay a lot get golden dice (increase the pay amount by a percentage), those that don't offer dice nor powerups get counterfeits (which remove those things from the offer)... Print is clearly the strongest ability, followed by reroll, so just focus on getting more of those...
It took me less than an hour to figure out the game, and the rest was just autopiloting. I'm afraid the gameplay loop isn't quite fun enough that I'd enjoy just watching things unfold as I do my certainly near-optimal actions without thinking. For this lack of decision depth, I can't recommend Cubic Currency.

Mini War - Three Kingdoms

Mini War - Three Kingdoms looked like a game with a terrible translation and programmer art level graphics, but despite the fact that relatively nobody had played it before, the gameplay looked interesting enough for me to try it. Sometimes the games with the least polish in presentation hold the most in-depth gameplay.

So, what I had assumed of the gameplay, was that you control this character going against a large army, and then you have to strategically approach them from the right angle, use the right abilities, maybe there's some cooldowns or specific movement patterns you can do, etc., etc.
In reality, the game was sadly much more shallow than that. The enemies do not move, they do not change where they attack at any point, and you don't have any abilities at all. Your attack pattern is passive, so the only thing you have to do is figure out the right route to move. Each level is designed to be completed with a few moves, and moving in a straight line counts as one move, so you're essentially just looking for a few straight lines that take you from start to finish (or through all the objectives). This is not particularly difficult, and most certainly not fun gameplay.

A disappointment then, sadly. Mini War is less a strategy game that I hoped it was, and more a semi-casual puzzle game. The amateur visual design of course doesn't help to sell it, but regardless, I doubt it's worth anyone's time.

Legends of IdleOn

Legends of IdleOn cut in line in my game queue, because I simply couldn't resist an MMO that had been out for about 2 years, and still had thousands of concurrent players on Steam alone. "Surely, this must be a good game if so many people are still playing it," I thought to myself. I don't usually play Early Access games, but I figured I'd rather not be any more late to the party than I already was. After about 20 hours, my opinions on it are mixed.

As the name states, IdleOn is an idle game. It's not an incremental game though, like many idle games are. The progression ramps up much like in a regular RPG. Despite that, there is quite a lot to actively do. The main activity in the game is combat. You go to a field, monsters spawn, you kill them. There's little benefit to giving any active input - it's fully automatic. But in a similar vein, you can do other activities like mining, logging, smithing. At least 3 more activites unlock soon, but there's like a dozen overall, with more being added. There's also bosses, dungeons, challenges, and most importantly, a boatload of collectibles. So many collectibles... Foods which give permanent upgrades, cards which are like 1 in 10000 drops from monsters, statues, stamps, achievements, and each stacks and gives diminishing stacking bonuses, and this is just World 1. There are currently 4 Worlds, but World 5 is supposedly coming soon. I can not even begin to list all there is to do in this game - it's truly massive, and I'm not sure if it's a solo project, or has a very small team size. In any case, amazing dedication from the devs.

I was hooked and fascinated by all the possibilities for a full two days. Yet, the more I played, the more some ugly details started to rear their heads. Oddly enough, the complexity that I feared was not going to translate to depth wasn't a problem. The multitude of things to do all seemed relevant to the game as a whole.
The first problem was that the game started to slow down. First area - kill 20 monsters to advance. Second area - 50 monsters. Soon it was 500, then 2000, and I was still in World 1. All the items I could craft wanted more and more resources. Each next level became more and more of a grind. Soon enough, not only could I not play when I wanted, as progress was blocked by more AFK farming, but I also felt I had to log on at specific times to make sure this AFK farming was going smoothly. I felt the game dictated not only when I could play, but when I should play. It of course didn't help that the gameplay wasn't particularly exciting - just the satisfaction of watching numbers go up, bars fill, and various collection tabs populate.
Secondly, forced alternate accounts. The game has a class system, with each class having slightly different abilities, but also specializing in different forms of gathering. You get your third alt pretty early, and can have up to 6 so far. They all collectively contribute to your account, each simultaneously collecting resources, but very annoyingly still have to go through all the quests and progression hurdles themselves. (At least your main accounts can supply them with gear and resources.) The grind was already bad enough for one character, I don't want to do it all over again 5 more times. In addition, most infinitely (or near-infnitely) stacking buffs are shared between all characters, but some are not. It really frustrates me that I would probably be best off sending all of these to my main, meaning my alts will forever be weaker. It's not fair to want my alts to do all the same challenges, but without many progression items that my main has.
And lastly, to not much of a surprise, there is the monetization. IdleOn's free, so of course it has microtransactions. And ho boy is it pay-to-win. Sure, no purchase is mandatory, but hey, isn't that grind getting a bit too long for you liking? Wouldn't you like to be able to AFK more without worrying your resources are going to waste? Spend less time walking from place to place, or play more minigames or dungeons or challenges which are actually kind of fun to play? There's all that and much more, and you will have to pay up again, and again, and again. There's no nice option of 20€ or even 60€ for all the major conveniences. Buying even just the limited-quantity powerups like various inventory expansions or extra daily boosts will cost horrendous amounts of money. And I'm willing to bet this ties into the game grinding to a slog, meaning you'll want to fork over another 10€ at regular intervals just to keep the pace of progression at an entertaining level.

You know, I really liked IdleOn for a little while. There's a lot of idle games out there, but the sheer amount of content in this rivals and probably even exceeds most collection-based RPGs created by large companies, let alone indie idle games. It's so satisfying collecting things, finding those rare drops, and completing actually difficult achievements too. Of course, I know this is an idle game - it's in the name - but there's too much idling. I'd love the same content if there was even a mildly fun active element instead of the idling, if it wasn't repeated across multiple characters, and if the game had a more sensible monetization (though I fear the latter might be necessary to enable the developer to do this full-time). Sadly, as is, the few major problems ruin my fun, and I can't recommend it unless you know that these kinds of time-gated games that force you to log on every so often are what you're craving.

Super Fancy Pants Adventure

I'm always happy to see a game on Steam from a developer whose game(s) I used to enjoy back in the Flash gaming era. I'm glad they're still making games, and I'd always go and give their game a try, even though I know that my standards were lower back then, those were entirely free games, and I might not end up liking the games I have fond memories of. It's fine, because even if I don't like the new ones, nothing can take away the past joy I felt, and I think having a perspective on how things have changed is nice.

So what I played today was Super Fancy Pants Adventure. The Flash versions back in, gosh, 2006, and another at 2011 were probably some of the best platformers among free Flash games. While some platformers are snappy and have very tight controls, Fancy Pants feels the opposite - it's hard to hit anything specific, but the movement has a flow to it that feels very... satisfying, organic, fast...
It's a very simple game - you run, you jump, you roll/slide. There's some goofy version of physics that somehow makes sense, like how running up slopes makes you jump higher, the usual walljumping, but also running on the ceiling by the power of spirals. (I guess that's how it would work for a very fast moving vehicle with wheels...) There's enemies, most of which can be knocked out of the way by jumping on them or sliding into them, but some also require you to attack them (a new mechanic in this game, and I'm not sure how I feel about it). There's a collectible currency that restores health and can be used for combat upgrades, and then special challenge rooms that unlock new pants colors or hats.
It's quite a silly and lighthearted game, and lasts for about 4 hours - not longer than the Flash version - which was a bit of a bummer.

Overall, it's probably about the same as I remember it. Running around feels very satisfying if you get the momentum going and hit your targets, but if you miss something, it can be somewhat tedious to get back to it, since you lost the momentum. I feel the mandatory pen sword combat is a bit of an unnecessary addition, but the added freeform surfing along certain walls feels very nice. Does it live up to my current standards though? No, not really. Definitely very good for a free game back in 2006/2011, but not enough to really entertain someone who's not a platformer enthusiast these days.

Burning Daylight

I might be a bit harsh on this one...
Burning Daylight is a free walking simulator from 2019. I don't remember anymore why I decided to give it a try. Perhaps it had an unusually high review count shortly after launch, even for a free game. I noticed it had barely gained any new reviews since, so I guess the popularity didn't really carry on into the future. It's an hour long, features basically no gameplay, and lacks a lot of polish, from mismatching visual elements to invisible walls to physics glitching you out of the map forcing you to restart the game.
I finished it, but... I don't even quite know what it's about. It's some kind of abstract-ish sci-fi horror thing. Minimal voices or text, just... running through the scenery in a linear fashion.

Okay, I'mma be real. I generally hate walking simulators. If the gameplay is so devoid of anything to do that you just have to move in linear fashion, you might as well make a movie in a game engine. At least give me reason to pause, some forced conversations or something. This abstract feelings-and-emotions stuff and not explaining anything does not click with me one bit. I have no idea what Burning Daylight tried to tell me, and I didn't even enjoy it aesthetically, nor did I feel like it had some actual deep meaning behind it.
I'm just glad it only wasted an hour of my time. You won't be hearing anything close to a recommendation from me.

Rehtona

I gave this cute little puzzle game by the name of Rehtona a try. I'd say it about met my expectations.

Rehtona is a semi-casual puzzle game where you have a few dozen levels, each consisting of a single-screen grid of blocks (roughly up to 20x10) with various attributes. Your goal is to get to the key, get to the right side of the level, get to the puzzle piece, and then get back to the left side. Optionally, you can also try to gather all the crystals along the way. The right side of the level switches the world to an alternate version, where blocks have different effects. You can push some blocks around, and create blocks that become solid in the alternate version. There's lasers that can be blocked, and buttons to turn things on and off, and a few more gadgets, but that's most of the mechanics of the game. There are actually about a dozen different kinds of blocks, most having a different effect between the world versions, but I need not list them all.

It's a simple game, with neither a lot of levels, nor a lot of mechanics. Regardless, the puzzles are reasonably well made, and can be quite difficult. Ultimately, I'd have to say I didn't like it. Not because it's bad, but because it's unremarkable. It's a pretty run on the mill puzzle game, and I feel like I've played plenty similar ones in the past. Not the exact same mechanics, but with the same feeling. Rehtona was too forgettable, and that's why I couldn't recommend it, unless you're a big fan of puzzle games.

Lucah: Born of a Dream

Lucah: Born of a Dream is a 2D hack-and-slash game, and I don't quite know what to think of it.

In some aspects, Lucah is a rather ordinary game. You have your usual hack-and-slash mechanics: stamina, dodging, light, heavy, and charged attacks, a ranged attack that recharges with melee attacks, some stat level-ups... I'd even say the customization is closer to what you might find in a larger RPG, not that of an action game lasting only several hours. You can switch between two forms, each being customizable to have the types of attacks you want. Different patterns, ranges, speeds, damage... You can also equip modifications, which allocate points from a limited pool, and give things like being able to take an additional hit at the end, or being able to regenerate health if counterattacking shortly after getting hit.
What I listed wasn't even all of it, but there definitely also weren't too many mechanics. From a theoretical perspective, Lucah did an excellent job at making the combat interesting and nuanced, as well as moderately customizable to your liking. Run in, break the enemy's guard, and swiftly destroy them with a few powerful attacks? Or perhaps you'd rather stay afar, pelting the enemy with light and ranged attacks, making it easier to dodge theirs? There were many options, and I loved that.
Lucah also has one of the more unique visual styles I've seen in a game. Everything is like scribbles. Rough lines, no gradients, pixelated, shaky, unclear forms. Combined with the flashy and jerky visual effects, it gives off a visceral feeling. I think you could call it edgy? From an aesthetic perspective I love it. Even though it does kind of resemble the scribbles of a child, it's clearly made by someone with at least a moderate understanding of art because the overall composition still works.
On the artistic note, the story is also definitely unclear like the art. I couldn't understand it well, or almost at all, but I did sort of feel it. I hear you have to complete the game multiple times to experience and understand it all, which I did not. Luckily, combat was at the forefront, and I never felt slowed down by any narrative.

However, from a more practical perspective, things didn't hold up nearly as well.
The game doesn't seem entirely well balanced. Some enemies are tough, some are easy. Personally I found longer-ranged weapons better because they made it easy to avoid enemies, though it did make many enemies tanky and tedious to kill.
The keybindings aren't quite to my liking, but are also not rebindable. Holding a directional key, movement still stops when crossing maps. There's a mouse cursor, but I can't seem to really click on anything or aim with it? There's forced auto-aim roughly depending on towards what I'm walking, but it turns off at moderate distances, and can't account for enemies moving. There are a lot of these problems, and I find that having a comfortable and effortless experience making the game do what you want is very important in an action game, and lacking this is the largest reason I quit Lucah.
The second largest reason was that, despite loving the artstyle, it made things so unclear. Where is the enemy's hitbox? Where is mine? How far do their attacks reach? In pursuit of style, the game had sacrificed playability, and I really hate to see that in any game.

So, overall, my feelings are mixed. I loved the ideas put here, but as I was playing it, I felt frustrated. They keys were in annoying places. Important menus took too long to reach. I had to just hope auto-aim was on my side, and the enemy's hit didn't reach me sometimes, because I couldn't tell. The game had the potential to be good, but it fell far short of realizing it. As it stands, there are better hack-and-slash games to play, even if they aren't as imaginative. Perhaps a partial recommendation? Try it out for an hour or two, and you should have a good idea if the flaws can be outweighed for you.

Anodyne 2: Return to Dust

What was going through my head when I decided I wanted to try playing Anodyne 2? I had already tried it's predecessor, Anodyne, many years ago, and I don't even remember what it was about, but I remember I didn't like it. So why did I think Anodyne 2 was going to be better? The slightly higher reviews? Being more modern? Beats me. This was not the type of game I'd enjoy.

I don't quite know what Anodyne is about. It doesn't help that I didn't play for too long, but it's definitely more of a story game. There's two parts to the gameplay. One's like a 3D platformer, and from there you can go into smaller worlds to complete them as 2D casual puzzle games.
There's a lot of text, not too much gameplay, and the theme of the story and the visuals is definitely more art-y than game-y. I think the stories try to tell me some tales I might care about, but writing is abstract and the tone is often so ridiculous I can't take any of it seriously. Sadly, it's not the funny type of ridiculous to me either, it just doesn't feel good.

It's no news I'm critical towards story-focused games, especially if they act as some from of interpretative art. I don't have much to say. The game just isn't fun, and neither is the story. It's not for me, and I can't even being to explain why people would like it, and thus I can't recommend it.

Dead Cells

Time for a game off my "anticipated" list of games for a change. It's the incredibly popular and well-received action roguelike Dead Cells. But does it stand up to all the hype I've been hearing about it?

Dead Cells offers a high-action platformer through a series of randomly generated levels. Each level has a different thematic in terms of its level design and the enemies featured within, and some end in a boss fight. You can find a plethora of weapons and skills, of which you can carry two of each. Between each level, you have the opportunity to permanently unlock more options, as well as unlock general buffs like more money, more potions, or an inventory slot for an extra weapon. Completing certain areas in levels (including completing the whole game for the first time) unlocks permanent powers that allow you to access new levels and content, creating a replayability loop.

Starting from first impressions, it's quite fascinating how fast-paced they managed to make the game, yet how responsive and non-button-mashy it still is. Fast animations and animation cancelling into dodges is to thank for this, and it feels really nice. The first dozen hours are enjoyable, as you're constantly finding new weapons, new upgrades, reaching new milestones, unlocking new content. Most weapons play quite differently, especially so if they're from the different classes (sword / bow / shield), and each area's thematic makes you approach traversing it at least a little bit differently.
But roughly around the time when you first beat the game, things have started to significantly slow down. You're quite familiar with the enemies and levels, unlocking a new weapon or skill isn't that impactful, since you might not find it in-game, and unlocking a whole new level becomes a rare occasion. You also start to understand what the game "values". You want to efficiently grind for the permanent currency (cells). Enemies are quite lethal, so you really shouldn't be getting hit. On a personal level, these things don't necessarily align with how I would like to play the game. The most efficient way to get more cells might not be the most fun. Not getting hit steers me too much towards certain weapons and skills, as well as encouraging cheese tactics like dropping a turret which does 10x less damage than me, and staying out of harms way. Some of these might not be problems for you, but they were for me.
After running through the game a couple more times, I felt I was basically just doing the same thing over and over again, with next to no progress. I know there were still mechanics to unlock, and I'd heard that completing the game a few more times would unlock something, but I had no clue when or where the next unlock, that wasn't just a new weapon or skill I didn't care about, was going to be. It didn't help that despite using different weapons, I didn't feel I had a lot of room for choice. I attempted the same tactic I deemed most efficient, and whether I lucked out with items, such as getting a legendary item or not, determined if I was going to complete the run or not.

All that said, I still enjoyed Dead Cells. The action combat was very well executed, and there was enough randomness to keep things fresh for at least 20 hours. It's not as long or replayable as many other roguelikes, and I expected a bit more given it's stellar reputation, but the quality is still definitely top notch. I give Dead Cells a recommendation, and a low spot in my favorite roguelikes category.

Deep Rock Galactic

The following three paragraphs were written back in March 2019.

Deep Rock Galactic just enjoyed a free weekend, prompting me to play it before it got out of Early Access. If I had to explain it in terms of other games, then it's very much like Left 4 Dead, but with dwarves and mining instead. It's a 1-4 player PvE co-op game where the goal is to complete various missions. The missions make you run and dig around the map, gather various minerals or other things in the cave to complete the objective, fight various critters that try to stop you, and possibly gather some more for health, ammo call-ins, and tiny upgrades to your character outside the mission. There's 4 quite distinct classes, and lots of little silly things to do besides doing what you're supposed to. In terms of the "co-op" atmosphere, it reminds me more of Magicka, in that it's rather lighthearted, and there's lots of yelling at each other to (not) do things.

However, despite having lots of missions, they feel rather similar and repetitive because of their similarity. As explained, the loop is the same each time - explore, gather, fight, repeat - and it's just not quite entertaining enough after the first 5-10 times. The character and weapon upgrades also don't provide much variety, being just stat increases.
This is kind of exactly the reason why I would rather not try games in Early Access. I liked the game, it was really fun for a while, and I even feel like it could be enjoyable for a longer amount of time, had they perhaps more time to tweak things. In other words, the core gameplay is nice, but what's built around it, less so.

I'm going to be optimistic about things, and put this game back to sit on the list until it's out of Early Access and I can give it another shot. I would say I wouldn't give my verdict on this, but literally, as I could not yet recommend this, I am not recommending it. I just figured I'd write my thoughts on it now instead of later, since there's still a good chance that "later" won't come for whatever reason. And if it doesn't, you can probably assume that what's written here is still mostly accurate.

The rest of the paragraphs are my new thoughts.

Coming back 2 years later due to yet another free weekend, I don't feel Deep Rock Galactic has changed all that much. The core gameplay is the same. They've added a few new mission types, weapons, and smaller things to do, but the loop is still the same, and it's still not interesting to do over and over.
I would also mention this time around that I was bugged by the fact that it was somewhat difficult to understand what was going on at times. Enemies hitting you from angles you can't recognize, hitting through terrain or objects, and personally, a weird lack of depth perception regarding how far the ground is. Maybe that last one's just me. Also, the gunplay wasn't particularly exciting.

Overall, I wouldn't call it a bad game by far. It's quite novel with its fully destructible terrain, but perhaps doesn't do enough with that possibility, or doesn't give enough opportunities for different classes to really fill a role no one else can. (I guess you couldn't play with less than 4 people otherwise.) Still, I don't understand the stellar reviews the game has gotten and would not personally recommend it, since it gets repetitive in just a few hours, and isn't super fun before that either.

Rush Rover

Rush Rover is a very basic twin-stick shooter. There is a randomly generated map, a dozen or so enemy types, slots for a primary and secondary weapon, dash, ability, a passive, and more, depending on the upgrades you get. You can also upgrade the slots themselves, and each slot has multiple different things to put in them. If you manage to find and aquire them, that is. Other that that, just move around the map, clear room after room, shoot the enemies, and don't get hit yourself.

This game has the barest of bones of what makes an acceptable twin-stick shooter. I have no complaints about the execution of any of the systems. Everything worked just fine, played smoothly, was well-polished... But as I've said on occasion before, it was all just terribly unambitious. There is not a single remarkable feature I would like to call out. Nothing to separate it from the other twin-stick shooters out there. And mind you, there are plenty of very well received games of this exact genre that do everything just as well as Rush Rover does, and then some.

What definitely did not help was the short length of the game, as well as the lack of difficulty. I put the game on hard mode for my first try, and I beat it on that first try without even a moment where things got tough. Most rooms, I did not get hit, and completed it within the bonus time limit. I'd like to think I'm actually rather poor at all kinds of shooter games, so I think most people will find this game far too easy. After completing the whole thing in a bit more than an hour, I didn't feel like going for another run, even if I'd get to experience new weapons or whatever. I'm happy to leave this entirely forgettable game behind, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone either.

Iwate Mountain Dance

What a fun little-known game I have found. Iwate Mountain Dance would actually slip through my radar these days, with all the compromises I've had to make to at least somewhat cope with the insane amount of games being released daily. Which is sad, because I think this game deserves a bit more recognition. Just a bit though.

Iwate Mountain Dance is an action platformer bullet hell boss rush. That jumble of phrases actually delivers a very complete overview of everything the game offers. There's no levels, no upgrades, just a bunch of bosses, each with a unique gameplay mechanic, unique bullet patterns, and you with a double jump, a mid-air any-direction dash, and 3 lives to take each boss down.
Each boss has several stages, with a slightly different twist on the main mechanic on each stage. Some bosses are more difficult, some have more stages, and I think some are optional. However, the game's so short (a few hours, depending on how good you are), you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't beat all the bosses despite liking the game.

I have not played any official Touhou games, but this very much gave off Touhou vibes. (I checked, and the developer's only other game on Steam is a Touhou fangame, so I guess I was right?) I'm not sure what makes it so. It's not just the bullet hell gameplay. Maybe it's the overall art and music theming? Maybe it's that a separate track has been made for each stage of each boss, which is a crazy amount of music.
In any case, I feel a lot of care has gone into this game, but sadly the execution could be better. The gameplay doesn't feel precise enough for a bullet hell. Probably because a keyboard only lets you move at max speed or no speed. They could have just made the character follow the mouse on the horizontal axis. The game's a bit too short to really get into it. And while I feel the art and music are thoughtfully made, they aren't of a particularly high quality.

I'd give the whole thing a partial recommendation. I think they did well to focus on just making boss fights and nothing else around it. As a result, the gameplay feels well-balanced, and there's no distracting elements that I might dislike. The fights are fun despite the sometimes frustrating controls. I just wish it was of a higher quality and longer length overall, then I could give it a real recommendation.

Heat Signature

Heat Signature is a stealth roguelike from the maker of Gunpoint, which is a game I kind of enjoyed. With Heat Signature receiving even more positive reviews, I hoped it would be an even more positive experience.

In Heat Signature, you play as a randomly generated character (possibly with random modifiers like "won't kill anyone", or "can't use melee weapons") who has to board spaceships and clear them out / sneak through them to accomplish their objective there, and then get out. The objective can be something like an assassination, kidnapping, theft, or an all out massacre of the crew. The spaceships are randomly generated grids of rooms and corridors filled with various guards, turrets, and airlocks with keys carried by some of the guards. You can pause the game at any moment to think and carry out actions that will execute as you un-pause. You can even teleport any dropped item on the ship to you.

Generally, I found the gameplay loop to be rather monotonous. Clear out everything on your path to the objective, then either walk back or blast the nearest window open and recover yourself with your pod. Sometimes, things are a bit tougher, like armored enemies needing an armor-piercing weapon, shielded enemies requiring you to be at least somewhat stealthy, and turrets making you wait a little while. But after you get your character geared up with rechargable equipment to deal with armor and electronics (this includes shields), missions become a breeze of just running through the enemies, and no longer force you to use the game's more elaborate tools, like swappers, temporary teleporters, traps, etc. When I do eventually die after gathering good equipment, it's usually due to some sort of glitch, like my pod noclipping through the enemy spaceship and instantly exploding. Not a particularly heroic end, but it did help keep the game fun a little while longer, as I worked on getting new characters online.

Overall, I have to appreciate that Heat Signature tries something that's at least somewhat new. However, I failed to find the gameplay loop to be particularly fun. There were new things for the first couple of hours, but after that, your character just gets too powerful, and adding more enemies to the spaceship doesn't make it significantly more difficult. I found fewer and fewer reasons to approach problems with creativity that the game permitted, and found it easier to play it like a sort of run-and-gun game. So, I don't know. Maybe if you want to ignore the optimal solutions to problems and find it fun to just mess around, you might find the game fun for more than a few hours, but I didn't. So, it's kind of a unique game, but can I recommend it? Not really.

The Red Strings Club

Oh boy! Not all that often I get to expierence something like The Red Strings Club. It's a story about... taking down a corporate conspiracy, I guess, as the store page says. But it's a lot more about getting you, the player, to think about things. To get you to philosophize or contemplate, I'd say. It's a short experience, about 4 hours for a single playthrough, but you can re-play it. I say "experience", since there isn't much gameplay. A few minigames that I honestly could have done without, and the rest is mostly just dialogue options and a bit of point-and-click. More like a visual novel. But I want to step back from the story for a bit and tell you about the other great things in this game.

I think that even moreso than what you're reading, the strongest aspect of The Red Strings Club is the atmosphere it manages to create. The pixel art is pretty good, fitting, and the music sets the mood excellently. There isn't really a lot to say about it, but I just want to assure you that as a whole, the aesthetic side of it is masterfully executed.
The little bits of gameplay - pottery, mixing drinks... They were somewhat finnicky and poorly executed, where doing them was more of a chore than a fun experience. They were also a bit too long to serve as just a break from the dialogue. They should have stuck with deductive minigames, like the phone one at the end, not "skill-based" ones. But aside from making me a bit more hesitant to replay the whole thing because I don't want to do these minigames again, they didn't really take much of my time.

So, the meat of it all - the story. I can't tell you any details of course, but it's all this sort of detective game. Remember people you've met or heard about. Remember things that have happened. Connect the dots and read between the lines to choose the right dialogue options and get the information out of people that you want. While I don't think you can really fail completely, you can fail to gather all the information, making latter parts more difficult, or just depriving you of narrative you would have liked to read. I did not replay it, maybe in the future, but your actions can have a real impact on what people do, what people say, and who you meet, so there is reason to play the game more than once.
Aside from goal-oriented bits of dialogue where you aim to uncover the truth and learn new things, the game also offers you dialogue which does not really affect the game. Dialogue to make you reflect on the events happening in the story, and to make you form your opinion on it. Except, in this department, things felt a bit off. On one hand, I did definitely start to ponder certain questions, and the game did not answer them for me. But on a contrasting and conflicting note, I felt the game tried to push certain viewpoints on me. I don't view either as particularly bad ways to tell a story. The former is less likely to conflict with anyone's personal ideas on the subject, if they exist, while the latter makes for an easier reading experience, and works for people who don't like open-ended stories or thoughts. But combining the two... I felt at times like the game wanted me to come to my own conclusions about what I think of it all, and then rammed into them by saying what the author thinks, and followed the story according to their views. Having multiple endings would have been perfect for this kind of game. To really show the positives and negatives of both outcomes. Sadly, we did not get this opportunity.

Overall, despite this conflict in storytelling and having only one outcome to a struggle where I felt both sides had their reasons to be right and wrong, I enjoyed my time with The Red Strings Club. It shall take a place, even if not a high one, at my favorite adventure games list, and I would definitely recommend it to others who enjoy stories. I have to admit that the game does carry a tone and a message regarding social politics, culture, and such, and I can imagine there might be people who don't like that, but it's not forefront in the story, and most should be able to enjoy it regardless. I sure did.

Biomass

Biomass is a 2D side-view metroidvania that could be called a soulslike. I don't know, maybe it is that, maybe it doesn't quite reach that mark. They have a lot of familiar systems - parrying, dodge rolls, collecting your biomass (this game's equivalent of souls) from where you died, no map, complex-ish map layout, somewhat cryptic story / lore... The whole thing. It's just... kind of really poorly made.

The game definitely feels amateurish, and while I don't want to mock new or small developers, I need to be honest.
The pixel art stills on the store page look pretty great, and the backgrounds in the game aren't half-bad either, but the characters and enemies just don't look any good. Faceless, mostly featureless characters, unappealing animations... it's very typical of unskilled artists.
The same could be said about the gameplay. While all the theoretical gameplay element boxes are ticked, it just doesn't feel good. Attacks aren't weighty or well telegraphed. Dodging and parrying feels off or doesn't work. Sometimes I'm hit by something, and I can't tell what it is. Sometimes I'm expected to make jumps or the sort where I can't see if I'd make it, and I just die because I guessed wrong. It doesn't help that I can only recover biomass from when I died to an enemy, not when I fell, because they didn't consider the small details, like remembering the last reasonable place I touched the ground. It's just countless small things like that which make the game bad, and they're everywhere.
Not gonna lie, I didn't get very far in the game. As much as I experienced it, the story seemed interesting, but not enough to trudge through everything else for it.

Overall, I feel like Biomass has a good, if not very original, idea behind it, but suffers from poor execution. If the same game was made by more capable people, I might well enjoy it. I suppose that's better than a bad idea with a good execution, but regardless of that - I can't recommend Biomass. It just doesn't feel good to play.