Recent reviews by Pyetech

My Time At Portia boldly invites comparisons to behemoths like Stardew Valley and Rune Factory, yet it manages to come out ahead. That's right: I consider My Time At Portia to be the best game in its genre.

The game is ambitious in scope, with a steady stream of quests keeping you busy long after most games would have fizzled out. The careful worldbuilding makes for a unique and captivating environment. The simple pleasure of collecting materials and transforming them into useful objects is satisfying as always. Almost none of the quests asking you to upgrade the town seem repetitive or contrived, and most do a good job of rewarding you with a tangible benefit.

Compared to other games in its genre, My Time At Portia has less of an emphasis on farming, and perhaps a bit more on fighting. The floaty combat mechanics are probably the weakest part of the package, but all in all, they are serviceable if you come in expecting just a simple beat-'em-up.

Parts of the game are unpolished, like the museum that won't fit every collectible, sporadic missing voice acting, or poor translations in areas. I see no reason why future patches won't address these concerns. Like most "rural sims", My Time At Portia is front-loaded, where the first year is the most engrossing, but I was never starved for content.

Design-wise, it's apparent that the developers leaned toward width over depth, and in this case, it worked. I look forward to future updates and future games from Pathea Games.

Not good. The controls and puzzles are unintuitive, overabstracted, and oversimplified, particularly if you're not using a touchscreen. Movement is lethargic and the environments, while evocative at first, become tedious and dull when you're forced to tread through them for the Nth time. Session III is particularly egregious in its repetition. Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is known for being a short game, and it still feels drawn out.

The story tries to make up for the lack of gameplay depth, and it finds some success in its Lovecraftian handling of the unknowable (which Below expanded on expertly), but I disliked the casual writing style and the underutilization of being able to read characters' thoughts.

The music is good though!

Short and barebones, but surprisingly engrossing nonetheless. The gameplay loop is solid, and I found myself interested in the world and its story.

My kingdom for some grooves around my analog stick!

I played through An Untitled Story by the same developer several years ago and loved it, so I was looking forward to doing the same with Celeste given the rave reviews it has been getting. While I found the game to be overrated, it's still an enjoyable experience if you're looking for a tough 2D platformer in the vein of Super Meat Boy.

Each level of Celeste elegantly introduces a new level-specific mechanic without adding more actions past the basic jump, dash, and grab. Collectibles in hidden or hard-to-reach areas provide optional challenges along the way, and bonus difficult stages can be unlocked for those who are interested, so there's plenty of content. The game is hard, but it's designed in such a way that I felt I was constantly improving. Luckily, the controls are tight and the penalty for dying is small: you quickly restart back at the beginning of the screen.

Some might find the story charming, but it didn't particularly grip me. Celeste is very linear, and I would have preferred it if the developers had made the effort to make it more open.

I think I've been spoiled by Slay the Spire, which is the superior game. Monster Slayers is enjoyable enough, but it is very grindy and less carefully balanced, with more all-or-nothing RNG. The difficulty spike with each new level is extreme, so you'll need several incomplete runs under your belt before you're able to finish. I would have enjoyed a more robust achievement system.

I knew what I was getting into when I bought this game, so I was prepared for an endless stream of line puzzles. Even so, I found The Witness to be an extremely uneven experience.

At its best, I felt smart when solving a puzzle. The rules of most--but not all--puzzle types are adequately conveyed to the player despite the lack of words, but there were still a couple times I got stuck, only to discover that the solution relied on some niche trivia in the ruleset. I disliked when three or more symbol types were present in the same puzzle, since at that point, it's not trying to teach you anything new or show off some elegant solution--it's trying to challenge you, and you know you can solve it but it'll be a slog to figure out, especially because the reward is always meager.

I enjoyed the nonlinearity of the experience, though perhaps unlocking areas would have felt satisfying. The Witness takes advantage of modern game engines and computing power to do some truly unique things with shadow, specular and diffuse reflection, tinting, and perspective. Areas involving these are far and away the strongest, and areas that simply rely on line puzzle symbol mechanics are the weakest. The final area is a gauntlet of rejected line puzzle gimmicks, which I wasn't fond of at all.

The island itself is nice enough, and I like the pastel color scheme. However, the environment lacks a certain amount of depth--it's just there, and you'll only ever be opening doors or unlocking stairways as its creator intended. The story is mostly nonexistent, which is fine, but there are hints of story elements that are unsatisfactorily addressed.

I would give The Witness a neutral score if I could. I respect the game, but ultimately, the line puzzles overstay their welcome, and there aren't quite enough game engine-related puzzles to make up for it.

If you're into strategic card games and like keeping track of a bunch of little details, give Slay the Spire a try! The system that's been created is extremely fun and very fleshed out.

My main complaint is that the game feels a bit too heavy on RNG. I like that the relics all generally make you feel powerful, but certain combinations can result in you more or less steamrolling through the game.

There is room for expansion, but I'd be happy with my purchase even if the devs never released another update. I'm looking forward to seeing what else they come up with!

I don't tend to like roguelikes, but I gave Dead Cells a chance anyways, and you should too. The basic game loop is so satisfying that I found myself playing through it over and over again.

The levels use pieced-together hand-crafted segments, to great effect; don't expect an endless stream of samey corridors. There's an incredible variety of weapons, and a metagame that allows you to unlock perks for future runs. The system can encourage grinding, but I didn't mind doing so.

Dead Cells could be sold as complete in its current form (and I'd still happily recommend it), but there's also room for it to expand. It's still being actively developed, so I look forward to new levels and extra coatings of polish.

A wholesome game that's also incredibly engrossing. Stardew Valley manages to add modern game design flourishes to a stagnating genre, ultimately providing a fresh and polished take on the Harvest Moon / Rune Factory games you might be familiar with. It's been a long time since I got this addicted to a game.

Year 1's Spring and Summer are jam-packed with goals for you to work towards, but the days start getting more laid-back as you continue to play. I wish the hectic pace of the early days was somehow maintained, because weighing opportunity costs is an enjoyable mechanic. The goals are numerous, but I found their rewards to be generally short and disappointing. Building relationships with neighbors was a grind that I never want to repeat.

That's it for my nitpicking. Do yourself a favor and get farming.

Axiom Verge can be thought of as sort of a Bizarro World Super Metroid, because while it's obviously directly inspired by Super Metroid, it goes out of its way to be as different as possible. It continually subverses your expectations, in story but even more notably in upgrade design. The array of unique upgrades distinguishes Axiom Verge in a genre that struggles to move forward. In fact, so many ways are provided to approach obstacles, that I found myself occasionally missing solutions at first.

The graphics could stand to have their resolution doubled, but I understand Axiom Verge was (very impressively) created by a single person. The game boasts a large compliment of weapons to use, and while most of them have their niche, I could rarely be bothered switching between them. The system would have made more sense in a more tactical, slow-moving game.

The story is interesting and unobtrusive, but somewhat opaque. The save points are generous, which is a good design decision. I can't comment too much on the difficulty because I got stuck during the second half of the game, and ended up somewhat exhaustively finding health/power upgrade secrets while trying to figure out how to progress.