Recent reviews by DigitalGhost

Very satisfying and well-paced factory game, with a fun and lighthearted story.

I've played so many games that few change my perspective on gaming anymore. Rain World is one of those games.

The prey-becomes-predator, student-becomes-master archetype is one of the most common in storytelling, but it's usually driven by the game, holding your hand. When you get the enhanced gravity gun in Halflife 2, then you can wreck havoc. In rain world, there's literally nothing stopping you from being a predator on day one. Instead, what you are presented is a world with almost no information and a small cat with seemingly no redeemable skills. Yet, after many hours, you can master this game and move fluidly through the levels, killing or avoiding anything that gets in the way.

It's an amazing experience and I'm so lucky to have picked this up as part of a bundle of games, as I never would have bought it by itself.

Although this is a metroidvania, you will not get a single power-up the entire game except for a small halo that acts as a permanent light source. You will need to grind to develop the mental acuity and dexterity and in yourself you will find the power to complete the story, which itself isn't very interesting but as an epic experience is incredibly satisfying.

This game is amazing. The tracks are a healthy mix of fair racing and complete chaos. My favorite course is the clipped oval where you race around the oval, but pull a u-turn just before the finish line and have to drive against traffic the entire way back. Hilarity ensues.

I can't recommend this product enough, but here are some things that I think would make it better:

1. The demolition derby needs a vampirism mode where hitting enemies heals your car. Otherwise, there's no incentive to crash into other cars unless they are close to wrecked.
2. Sometimes you can't enter a race because you don't have the right car, but the game doesn't tell you this. At first, I thought I needed better scores in other races. If you have a high enough score but are missing the required car, the game should show a pop-up asking if you want to go to the garage to buy the car.

Love the game, will buy a sequel if one comes out.

I love the premise of this game, but the execution needs some work.

Pros:

The core game mechanic is great. You have to manage various tech trees (fighting styles, equipment quality, etc.) and the trade-offs are interesting.

I love watching the fights, and the instant replay feature is cool. Doubling-down on the video effects would be fun (e.g. a slow-motion if the last person gets decapitated).

The theme is also awesome and fits the gameplay well. Every match could wipe out your favorite gladiator, but no risk, no glory!

Cons:

There is too much micromanaging in the equipment system. Having to upgrade each gladiator's right shoudler pad is stupid and after a few gladiators I got sick of it and just clicked randomly (you have to click every body part to upgrade it and it upgrades once per click).

The pacing of the game is very broken. The game looks at your gladiators and automatically arranges fights. This means that if you have one really powerful gladiator, you can't build up the other ones because they will get slaughtered against high power enemies. There is no way to know how difficult a boss will be before paying the entrance fee and entering the battle. The per-gladiator level system is so powerful that you can end up falling backwards massively if your best gladiator dies.

The random events are also very boring. Usually there's some story and you make some basic choices, then your stats either go up or down.

Feedback to the devs:

- Make the equipment system automatic the same way you can automatically train stats
- Reduce the bonus from stats, just like in real life. Even a trained fighter fighting peasants would eventually get caught with a blow and killed.
- Instead of making the battles based on gladiators, set up several leagues so people can train their weak gladiators and strong ones at the same time, and make the battles harder over time. If the player falls behind, GAME OVER, they shuold try again.
- Because the boss fights have their own difficulty, make it very clear how difficult they are.



With some work this could be a very commendable game.