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.