Recent reviews by mach

Graven and the Incredible Technicolor Identity Disorder, Starring Slipgate Ironworks!

Does Graven want to be Blood? Diablo? Gauntlet? A dungeon crawler? A boomer shooter? An RPG? I don't know, and neither does Slipgate. If you make a game without a map, you better have strong signposting and memorable areas that are not nightmare labyrinths. If you want to make a decent game of any kind, enemies shouldn't damage you before their telegraphs or slide all over the place or attack you after dying.

They sure want you to bust open crates all the time, but make it extra tedious in that they don't burst in a single blow even with the fully upgraded staff. Which I got in the first two hours, because it only has two shop upgrades apparently. Achievements are also broken, by drinking three of the healing potion I got the drink every type of potion achievement, and by finding one shrine I got the find every shrine achievement. The enemies are also terribly designed outside of their outright glitchiness.

Really, there's not too much to say here that hasn't been said a hundred times before. I can only assume they rushed this out to rush the Ion Fury sequel out, which sounds like it also isn't good. If for some baffling reason you do buy this game, just play it on a lower difficulty. It's not balanced at all and you still end up taking a lot of damage, even with armor.

It's simple, it's cheap. Doesn't have quite the depth you might want, but it's more entertainment value than any 80GB 'remaster' for full price.

Would I recommend this game? No. Do I like it? Sort of? It's just so, so very buggy. The basic gameplay loop is there, and sometimes works, but NPCs will display behavior more confused than a Bethesda NPC, often getting stuck in action loops. Clipping is a notable problem too, so don't close doors as you go into stores because at eye level there's an alarm directly behind the door you'll accidentally hit half the time when you just wanted to be polite. Also, despite the verticality of the high-rises, the game doesn't really do that much with them. There's not really a reason not to just take the stairs or bumble through the ventilation when you need to get to a specific room, and since you're not going in through the outside there's not a real reason for the game to have a small sandbox island.

The piece simply don't fit together that well, at least not yet, so despite this having an excellent premise, I can't recommend it. I look forward to the downvotes in the form of clown awards.

Faithful to the original and plays smoothly. No other strategy game I've played makes me thrilled to have my ass kicked when the Angelic Host shows up just to smite me. Every turn counts, even when you've been beaten down.

Enacting blood feuds is hard though, so make sure to be demanding early and often if you want the chance to wipe an opponent off the map without needing to become persona non grata.

It doesn't make you start a new run to access unlocks you got during a run. They'll just start showing up. That alone makes it a 10/10.

Wonderfully charming. Tight system mechanics keeps the game from getting too out of control, but the game still lets you get an invincible build if you're lucky and look for it. It's a deckbuilder, so smaller decks are almost always better. Far less frustrating than other similar games, too.

I can only offer you a shovel, and tell you the spot to dig. What lay under the earth? Perhaps many things, or very few. I can only promise if you dig enough, you will find a mirror. Will it be worth the effort? Only you can decide that. But it is a very special mirror.

You should take the shovel, though.

this game should not be possible

it's minecraft if it was a directed game but the perk tree is worse than what they had in the past. divorcing the skill tree from recipes was good, hope they keep doing that.

Extremely good. The ending is sort of a cliffhanger but like CULTIC, I'm totally fine with the product as-is. Ten bucks is too cheap, honestly.