As always,general ratings first,followed by the full review :

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☑ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☑ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☑ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☑ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

Black Skylands is a top-down adventure shooter,set in a fictive world with floating islands,where pirates try to overtake and beat back an empire,all in the mean time a huge swarm of cosmic monsters slowly keep sticking their heads out onto these islands,so it's up to your character to fix all that and bring back peace ( but with quite some plot twists in the mean time ) .

The graphics are pretty decent,the art style is what's really catching you after a while,it's cute and simple,with some gore here and there,since people do end up dying and ripped by monsters,the islands change a bit after you liberate them,people come back living there,doing their daily chores and whatnot,the atmosphere is nice,rain really brings out a very comforting sensation,tho maybe even a bit scary. But it's still a pixelated game,so don't go expecting Metro Exodus graphics,but rather a nice,artsy,quirky game.

Soundwise,it's also decent,the vibes are good,atmosphere is set properly for the different biomes on the islands,the wind howls around and the music regarding the story and certain events are made really well,sadly the lack of voicelines might be a downfall,cause it's replaced by a weirdly annoying sound,but it can be silenced and everything is just fine after.

The story follows Eva , who after some events and hardwork,gets tasked with watching for her old hometown,that gets taken over by pirates with their own motivations,but in the same time,the swarm slowly keeps popping up,with more monsters coming later on as the story goes,with quite the twists in the final chapters. It's good and easy to follow,with also some side quests scattered around for a bit more lore or fights.

Regarding the gameplay,i'd say it's similar to Mad Max,but from a top down perspective. You gather resources and materials from all over the open world,finding secrets on the islands,doing puzzles and also beating ships and enemies that keep patrolling all around the world. Upgrading the weapons and the ship is simple,you just need to build up some buildings on the main ship that is gonna be your base and then just have mats for it.

The gear consists in 2 skills you unlock and upgrade through a researcher,then amulets that are passives mostly and lastly,3 different weapon slots,that are sorted into different types,but the main ones have mods that add either fire rate,damage or reload speed,but no clue exactly by how much they improve cause there are no number stats,just a green and red sign what's better or worse. There are also special weapons,that can only be upgraded to deal more damage,but can't change mods on them.

You move around mostly with the grapling hook,it's also a great weapon if you get used to how it works and then you also have the ship,that has it's own different weapons and stats you can upgrade,also there are different ship types you unlock by playing,personally i've used the huge on for extra cargo space,later on switched to the fastest cause i was done upgrading and collecting stuff.

Liberating islands is the best part,you just have to kill everyone and everything and then boom,everything is back to normal,but there are also puzzles and safes that need codes,obstacles and parkour zones where you'll have to improvise with the movement and hook,but nothing too hard.

Some minor bugs were related to movement,mostly cause i kept getting stuck in dumb places with the hook,but that is easily fixed with the fast travel system or by calling your pet moth to carry you back to the ship....which also carries loot for you to the ship,so you don't have to make a hundred errands for that....also the ship's cargo is shared with the warehouse,that can be accessed at most fast travel spots and on the main ship,which is really neat.

Overall,Black Skylands is a great top-down pixelated adventure game,with a progression system similar to Mad Max,many fights and some good plot twists,really worth especially on a sale,there is also a Raid mode where you have to do certain challenges and missions to unlock some new weapons,but i've only played one to see what it is,so it's up to you if you wanna farm those.

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Solid gameplay and incredible story, the pacing with the open world is a little jarring since the core is somewhat short. Honestly I was expecting the game to open up more and more since the world felt so large. Definitely worth picking especially if you enjoy top down shooters.