Recent reviews by Cocoa-Colored Kitty

I don't regret purchasing this. It's a good game, with some great combat ideas. However, the game's gameplay loop can thusly be reduced to this: collect items, kill enemies for levels, break items, find replacement, repeat. Along the way, you die or live, because there's no proper pacing of things, though there's enough quality of life features to make you figure out if you should really be there.

Muddling progression is the presence of a crafting system. You may think this turns the game into a 'sandbox' but in reality, this serves to stunt the progression because your inventory is limited, you can't haul everything, and while crafting is nice, it is ultimately supplementary, and you'll probably have to return to where you stashed everything. The crafting system on other times requires stations, but too bad you can't make them yourself; you'll have to find a part of the map with the station you need (e.g. Smelter) to do it.

This does make the game seem more like a sandbox than it actually is, and that's the thing -- I came expecting that I could turn entire towns into thralls, but that one's on me for putting too much expectation on it. Some mods do allow you to craft your own stations, and that's great.

But on the topic of mod support, the implementation is awkward. Most of the data on a specific entity is on the entity itself. Which is fine, but there is no way to append new properties into existing entities without overwriting them. This in turn makes it very difficult to connect mods together, short of having to manually Wrye Bash multiple mods together into one megamod.

One should note that the game was made by one developer, but I suppose more thought should have been given to the game if it was going to have a mod structure.

I'm supposed to be playing Hitman, not Trial-and-Error Stealth Max Payne.

Empyrion: A game full of potential, but set back by its scope.

Empyrion is a voxel-based (to some extent, the terrain doesn't actually use voxels, but they use voxel-type rules to snap objects together) survival sandbox that allows you to travel to many different planets, mine for resources, and basically build any number of facilities, both mobile (spaceships) and immobile (bases).

The game prides itself in having a very large galaxy so as to practically not run out of planets. Though this was a rather recent feature, this was actually contested by the players, and with good reason:

If the game has multiplayer, and has virtually unlimited planets, you may as well not be playing with anyone by then due to the sheer improbability of meeting anyone else.

For the single player experience, having access to all of the planets is in practice just having access to one central base, and many other haphazard outposts everywhere else. Also, for a game this large in scale, the lack of any form of practical automation is a big malus against it; sure you can have miners, but they will eventually stop after a point with no automated delivery system to a central distribution center.

What this game feels like in practice, despite the number of interesting player-contributed locales and ships to at least try and spice up your life, is that everything feels the same. Planet #5 is probably just the same as #3, empty, hollow, filled with stock assets that don't contribute much to it, etc.

The trade system is there and could be worked with, but as there's no automation to do buy and sell for freighters, and even then, there's no actual economy system in place, there's not much to see there except maybe see your credits increase and buy prohibitively expensive goods to help create your new ship.

Your ships are limited by a system called CPU (which can be disabled at game start), which in theory tries to force ships to specialize. In practice, unless you're one of the expert builders in the scene, the CPU system penalizes you for trying to build creatively. And most importantly, this in essence means that any ships submitted to the workshop must comply to CPU rules to work in all cases.

There are so many flaws in this game that I cannot in good faith recommend this, however if construction of intricate 3d ships is your thing, and you don't want anything that melts your PC (space engineers, grr), then give it a go.

My final words are that Quantity isn't always Quality.

If you want fully fleshed out experiences:
survival-basebuilding-exploration - try Subnautica instead.
trade - try Avorion or Egosoft's X3 series (X4 exists but that is kind of questionably fun).

Ahh, Hades. The next Supergiant Games masterpiece.

It has all you'd expect from a Supergiant Games entry; a crisp battle system, incidental dialogues numbering by the thousands and Darren Korb's wonderful music.

This newest entry is a Roguelite, or a game with semi-permanent death in the sense that you also have a macrogame to maintain. It makes each subsequent run easier, similar to the Binding of Isaac's unlocks, but not entirely, as it gives you these boosts directly. But more on that later.

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Hades is a hack-and-slash action game roguelite that is actually easy to pick-up-and-play and very fast. You will die in your first few runs, perhaps more if you're not entirely used to this gameplay type.

Each time you die, you return to the House of Hades, where any macro resources such as Gems, Darkness, etc. earned in your run can be spent to get more power and make the game subsequently easier to handle, until you manage to escape.

Combat is very technical, in the sense that unlike its other contemporaries like The Binding of Isaac, rng has relatively little play here and you can win every run if you know what you're doing, without being screwed out of shoddy RNG rolls.

On that note, the game balance here is very tight; all weapons are a joy to use; all powerups (boons) functional right out of the package. Of course, there are a few duds, but the game grants you a choice of three powerups each time you come into contact with an Olympian God, so there is much room to build the skillset of your choice to ensure you win that run.

Conversely, there are also a few choices that are quite overpowered in relative comparison. This does not serve to destroy the game's balance entirely, or minimize enjoyment; you'll need a lot of them, and if we're comparing, the Binding of Isaac pretty much has Brimstone as the quintessential broken choice anyway.

However, due to its very nature, unless you're invested or interested in the way it presents its plot, the game can get rather repetitive at times.


The sound design here is magnificent, and it shows Darren Korb knowing what exactly he needed to do. Some of the voice actors double as other characters in the entire dysfunctional family of the Greek Pantheon are masterfully dubbed, and you get wide voice ranges such as Logan Cunningham's authoritative Hades, Darren Korb himself as playfully sarcastic Zagreus and accented funny skeleton Skelly, among others. This is not mentioning the typical gold standard music of Supergiant Games playing as you go through Hell, creating the soundscape that enhances your play experience.

Art is on point with Jen Lee creating wonderfully-crafted portraits of characters that show what kind of people they are at a glance.

Story is simple, but it makes full use of the Greek Pantheon's Gods and Goddesses, and it amounts to you trying to leave Tartarus, and by extension, all of Hell to get rid of your abusive family, and also find some answers outside of Hell.


The game is a bit on the easy side compared to other entries of the roguelite genre.

However, this is because it does away with the bull of RNG, and crafts a masterful combat experience with it.
In this game, almost every power works even if it's suboptimal, compare and contrast with the Binding of Isaac, which is Build-and-RNG heavy, as you try to locate new items only to find Soy Milk, and hoping you can get Chocolate Milk to pair with it, and eventually getting screwed over with it.

The game is also unfortunately on the repetitive side, with only 4 biomes, and 4 bosses per stage, which while I don't mind too much about it, the bosses only have 1 other variant, each.

I would still recommend this game, as it is worth its price on the market; it offers you a good 20-hour experience at least, perhaps more if you like these kinds of games.

Summary: 8.3/10
Disclaimer: Review was made from when Postgame content was still being added to the game.

CrossCode has been one of the few *very* polished early access games that has reached completion. Featuring Lea, the mute player character of the ingame fictional VRMMO CrossWorlds, the game is a frenetic experience of fast-paced combat, challenging puzzles, and some wonderful graphics.

Story:
8/10

Being an RPG based on an MMO makes it hard to write around this theme. Nevertheless, for the most part, you are a character who was brought into the game because you have forgotten many things, and there are hopes that you would be able to recover it as you play.

The story is casual, if not mildly compelling. It is still better than most of the old 16-bit RPGs it emulates.

Gameplay:
9/10

This section does not include puzzles.
Combat is very slick with fast-paced actions, tight timing windows, and enemies with obvious tells but hard counters to your attacks or strategies. Combat is also very flashy, with many skills you could use to eliminate foes, and there's a lot of emphasis on equipment.

The game is rather on the hard side, as all enemies worth noticing are puzzle bosses, and they require twitchy trigger fingers and fast-paced reactionary times to maintain the curve.

Combat highly encourages perfect blocking or knowing how to dodge, windows are very strict.

Treasure and Navigation:
7.5/10

This deserves a mention. Exploring maps is fun, but sometimes, backtracking is a pain and looking for all the hidden treasures will leave your head aching, due to the multiple Z levels you have to trek, some spanning multiple maps.

One of its greatest weaknesses is that navigation is very easy to flub, and if you're on a higher level trying to jump to the next mushroom and miss, you'll have to walk all over there again to retry.

Puzzles:
7/10

Its strongest point next to gameplay, to an irritating degree. Many puzzles require very fast reaction times, and later, it almost feels like you're playing Kaizo Mario or I Wanna Be The Guy instead of a puzzle game.

Nothing is more frustrating than knowing the solution of a puzzle, but failing it 30~ times because your aim with the bubble-bobble-esque ranged projectile mechanics is bad.

If you can get past it, it's a rewarding feeling, but this limits the number of people who would actually be able to play the game with competency.

For the puzzles that don't require reaction times, those are great; cerebral even.

That being said, the devs have added Assist mode to allow you to tweak some settings, including puzzle speed, so you twitch less.

Music:
10/10

The music is one of its strongest points that isn't gameplay related; Deniz Akbulut captured the ethereal feeling of various composers, resembling a soundtrack that sounds like SAGA Frontier, Golden Sun, and Phantasy Star Online.

Every song is on point.

This is a review for 1.4, Journey's End update. It is overall lacking in actual practical content, but the game has been very fun in the last few years so I still recommend it all the same.

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I've owned Terraria since from before the 'Hardmode' update - an update that expanded the game's replayability dramatically.
I've seen it changed, 'abandoned' by Red, returned to, ported to different mobile systems, updated every 2.5 years with significant updates, etc.

Terraria has grown a lot and turned from a mere indie game into a respectable contender on almost the same footing as Minecraft, and the update, Journey's End is supposed to be the capstone for it.

Unfortunately, it hasn't been up to par.

There are many 'QoL' changes, such as being able to sit on chairs, and speed up time by sleeping on beds, but it hasn't gone the full mile, such as making an official version of Veinminer to reduce the tedium of the ore grind, a bestiary and a boss health bar, but there being no dedicated boss page on the bestiary or a checklist to aid with progression, 'Master' mode being a total joke (it's expert mode with twice the health scaling and damage scaling, that's it).

There's also a bunch of minor changes, I can almost say this was where the bulk of the update went instead of actually designing a far more enjoyable experiences, such as adding a 'windy' day event (as if slimes needed further pandering), two hallow bosses but no desert boss, Underground Dungeon and Deserts being now very much painful to navigate, if only because there are ROLLING CACTUS BLOCKS and larva pods in the latter, practically turning it into an early game jungle with less of a point in existing, and the former having breakable blocks that crumble at your feet, which is fun, but on Master Mode it isn't.

Ironically, the 'kid-friendly' Journey Mode is pretty much the highlight, because while it is creative mode - it is creative mode you can actually play through without feeling like you're missing a lot of the game.

Highest priority of the devs - actually turn Master Mode into something interesting: Add more AI, probably nerf the scaling a bit (and leave boss-exclusive modifiers alone). If that isn't done, you might as well remove it.

Due to horrible optimization, it's ill-advised to purchase this game unless your computer can reliably run Crysis or so, especially on DX11 versions, as support for DX9 would apparently be dropped.

It's still a fun game; but one I wouldn't recommend buying due to incredibly bad lags.

E: 9/20/2016 Post-God Eater 2 Review

Since all copies of GOD EATER 2 Rage Burst come with a copy of GOD EATER RESURRECTION, what's going to be guaranteed is a very, very long game. By its very nature though, you will want some friends to own a copy of this game so you can play together.

NOTE: Rage Burst played in its entirety.

GOD EATER RESURRECTION is a remake of God(s) Eater Burst that comes with every copy of GOD EATER 2 Rage Burst. Set in a post-apocalyptic world wherein vicious creatures known as the 'Aragami' run rampant as humanity tries to survive, you enlist to become a God Eater to fight against them.

It is pretty much an appetizer of what is to come on Rage Burst, and features most (but not all, such as Blood Arts) features Rage Burst comes with, as well as providing a new-to-the-series feature known as 'Predator Styles', or ways you can devour your enemies for a boost in power.

Pros and Cons in bullet form:

Pros:
- Over 124 Story Missions, and contains most features the PSP-exclusive God Eater Burst had;
- Monster Hunter-Style Gameplay for people who are craving for it outside of the 3DS;
- Varied weapon types imported from Rage Burst back into Resurrection;
- Far more flexible with customization compared to Rage Burst.
- Indepth bullet editor allowing you to create custom shots or fireworks.

Cons:
- Feels like an Entree instead of a main game due to its relative ease;
- Certain weapon and predator style types are dominating due to their relative strength compared to others of its kind;
- Pacing is a bit dragging; and variety of enemies are low, most of which only appear past the Story 50 mark.
- Some typoes in the story;
- Netcode is very unstable, with most DCs occuring 1-2 missions especially with 4 players in your party.

God Eater 2 is the sequel to God Eater 1/Burst/Resurrection and tells the tale of the Blood special forces in their attempt to quash the Aragami threat once and for all. Unique to this game are Blood Arts, or skills that vary combat gameplay by adding a feature to an attack action, among other things. Bullet Customization returns with more flexibility (though this isn't immediately obvious due to Blood Bullet features, assuming you came directly from Resurrection).

A few things to note in bullet format:

Pros:
- At least 161 story missions to keep you busy*
- More map variations
- More meaningful weapon choices due to Blood Arts
- More creature types in this game (a given due to being a sequel)
- Ranged Weapons don't feel like skins with varying amounts of modules, due to certain restrictions given to you.

Cons:
- Audio is broken. Some songs stop in the middle of combat, and the Fenrir Far East HQ Normal Theme loops back at an awkward time.
- Exp System for Blood Arts and Blood Bullets (which are chips that add functionality to bullets) may not be for everyone, and may leave people stuck with a primary weapon for the entire duration of the game, reducing the ability to switch weapon types at will.
- Because of the above, it becomes mandatory to grind in order to attain full power with Blood Arts.
- Crafting is a bit more obtuse than in Resurrection; recipes start out blanked with nary a clue for the ingredients needed to craft them.
- Same netcode issues in GE:RES (may have been changed in a recent patch).

*A special space is reserved for Rage Burst's pacing issues. There is a very long stretch of killing Yakshas with other bosses during difficulty 4, and it takes you around 90 missions to even reach Difficulty 7 (90 is God Eater 2 arc conclusion). Whoever thought it was a good idea to prolong the missions with needless events should probably be re-assessed by Namco Bandai.

The Rage Burst arc is almost equally painful to deal with, as the rear end of the plot is almost always held back by certain random events that have minimal plot bearing, forcing you to keep on killing a bunch of bosses before the game finally concludes. They could *really* shave off 30 missions off Rage Burst arc alone, because what Difficulty 4 offered in Yakshas, the Difficulties 7+ offer in random Gboro-Gboro and Borg Camlanns. Usually in back-to-back survival missions that last on average 25 minutes.

Rage Burst, however, introduces a new mechanic rather late in the game (100~ish), called Blood Rage, where you perform milestone-type feats in 30 seconds, to get a power boost and invulnerability that lasts for the same amount of time. This mechanic is built up by hitting and killing Aragami, with which it uses 100% (out of a stockable 400%, which carries over missions) power in order to grant you the chance to power yourself up.

If it weren't for the additional dimension of strategy that Blood Arts and Blood Rages add, the game would be mediocre. I didn't mind the minimal variety of maps the first God Eater had; Monster Hunter also had the same type of concept (albeit in larger maps).

Mind you, if the pacing was only good, the game would get a resounding "Great" rating from me. But it still feels mediocre compared to Resurrection, surprisingly, despite being the more difficult, "fuller-bodied" game.

But hey, the game DOES come with two games so it's still a worthy buy for those who:

1. don't mind grinding
2. don't mind horrible pacing and/or have a lot of time in their hands
3. like Monster Hunter-type games
4. prefer bargains (this comes with two games per purchase after all)
5. want a multiplayer, non-MMO-yet-still-an-RPG experience to play with their friends.

As a side note, the plot is really anime. Unless you don't mind Anime tropes, this is otherwise not suggested for those who are looking for a 'bleaker' setup.

And the review is now complete: The verdict is still a recommendation, but take note of the above.

The thing about Dredmor is that, on the surface, it's really just an average roguelike, intended to ease people into the genre by featuring colorful graphics and easy controls (with mouse support!).

But Dredmor actually does have a few things going for it:

- Workshop support.
- Witty Dialogue.
- Skill Trees (most roguelikes only have a class system, with each only having one specific ability that you're allowed to build on).
- Actually being a roguelike, in spite of its goal of easing people into the system.

Dredmor's Skills are on a build-as-you-want-it basis, so you can take a magic skill tree and pair it with a warrior skill tree with some (possibly disastrous) degree of efficiency. And with every update adding a few more skills, you can technically play a lot of classes without having to play the same combo ever again.

It's also actually a roguelike, compared to "roguelikes" like Binding of Isaac (don't get me wrong, that's a fun game, but it's not a roguelike as some people claim it to be), Enter the Gungeon, and so on and so forth.

Of course, it wins on Gaslamp's sharp wit department. You might end up chuckling at least once at all the referential humor the game boasts.

Old Review:

They backed off their stance of no microtransactions. I'd normally be accepting, but considering the microtransaction items give STATS...

Yeah, this game evolved into a competitive piece of s**t.

New Review:

While they did renege a bit on the drill requirements (well, soften the blow by introducing a mechanic that might alter the economy and make things achievable, will ya?), but considering the Pay2Day AMA with Mr. Almir isn't going so well with not wanting to remove stats and using PR speak for "No, we're adamant about the changes. Deal with it.", yeah I'm officially out of here.

AMA
https://www.reddit.com/r/paydaytheheist/comments/3q53ms/crimefest_is_over_ama_discussion_with_almir_on/cwc3qaz