Recent reviews by Pyromaniacal

Death's Gambit was a game that released with some real potential, but felt lacking. It was clearly a game that had some love put into it, but some serious issues. The Afterlife expansion fixed a LOT of those issues and the game feels WAY better. As such, I recommend it. If you're a fan of games like Hollow Knight, Hyper Light Drifter, or other metroidvania soulslikes, this game is for you. However, don't expect the next Hollow Knight from this one.



The game looks fantastic. It's a 16-bit game, but the graphic design of all of the enemies is really really good. The areas all look distinct, and the weapons each have a unique design and feel to them.
The sound is really good. Music isn't anything to write home about, per se, but it's appropriate for the locations and is most certainly not distracting. The voice acting is top notch, and all the characters sound unique. Every character, and I mean EVERY character, has some element of voice when they speak. Even Sorun. If you haven't heard Sorun yet, play more. The foley work is also really good, weapons sound good, enemies getting hit sounds good, etc.
The difficulty is really fair at all points, where a casual player will be more than strong enough for the appropriate bosses. A player spending less time exploring and more time running to the bosses may struggle more.
Combat is fairly well balanced - all builds are certainly viable, and some may be stronger than others but all classes and builds are viable. There are both faster and slower weapons, a good variety of abilities, and enough equipment to complement whatever build you choose to go.
Area design is generally pretty good, there aren't too many long straight corridors with a couple trash mobs to run through. That's not to say there aren't any, but they don't appear too often for no reason. Many of those long straight corridors also have vertical components, so there may be areas above or underneath the straight corridor with things in them.
Lore is very well done. All bosses have lore, there aren't any that feel out of place in the world (if the Owlking does, wait until you reach Frupi's), and most characters in the game have some lore. Some are for fluff only, but many have lore.
Death is incredibly sassy. This can be good or bad. It's nice to have a slight comedic element though, especially with how dark the game can get.
The environment is wonderfully done, each area has a very distinctive feel to it from a visual, audio, and combat standpoint. Enemies aren't reused too often, but when they are it's pointed. Areas that are harder to reach feel markedly different from the areas at the center of the map.
The Lovecraftian aspect of the game is quite well done. Thalamus makes for an engaging and interesting opponent, and a careful player may spot them here and there before they start formally showing their face. They're in the shadow over Caer Siorai, their aspect appears in certain spots, and he certainly motivates a lot of what goes on.
Of the new endings, ending A is very very well fleshed out. It has multiple new areas to explore, new bosses, new enemies, and really makes you feel like something big is happening.
Make sure you alt-tab out and check the game's name every so often, it won't always be Death's Gambit, especially when Thalamus is involved.
Bugs are very few and far between, and the devs have a discord where bugs get reported. Many of the bugs seen there are relatively small.

Some areas do feel underdeveloped. Obsidian Vale stands out in this aspect, as it was moved in Afterlife and now feels like it's shoved in an area of the map that's difficult to access. To compensate for this, damage and HP values were increased, but the enemies, and particularly Tundra Lord Kaern, feel simplistic and weak. The traps in Obsidian Vale are only seen there, so that's one of a few underdeveloped mechanics. There are also areas seen earlier, like where you unlock Nymeria and Grimgaud, which hint at Obsidian Vale and have the same enemies, but the area doesn't lead to Obsidian Vale and the rest of the Amarogs. Likewise, the area where you fight Soul of the Phoenix, while intentionally early game, is a little too simplistic and is just a long straight corridor leading to Sirad's Skytomb with a boss at the end.
The game feels a little bit too linear after Afterlife: (MAJOR SPOILERS) Kill, in order, Ione, Owlking, Phoenix Rider, Bulwark, Forgotten Gaian, Sirad, Origa, Dark Knight, Bysurge, Eldritch Council, Amulvaro, Cusith, Endless, and then your ending of choice. Of this progression, only two ( Cusith and Amulvaro ) can be easily switched.
Fink's quest is not well explained, simply having him say "Fink have new wares for you when you meet next!" when you buy something and "Fink's wares not good enough for you, you not good enough for Fink!" when you don't buy from him - especially in Gaian's Cradle - would fix this.
Ending B is underdeveloped compared to ending A. Ending B only includes the Afterlife, while Ending A includes Chamber of Migration, Collapsing Nightmare, ???, and the part of Vados. Ending B also only has The Crow to fight, whereas ending A has Aberrant AI, the new golem enemies in the Chamber of Migration, Xyarlohatp, and the Aspect of Thalamus.
Ash and Nier are vastly underdeveloped, to a fault. Ash has more interaction with you but still many things are left wanting. Nier is hinted at, particularly as part of the ARG that was solved, but has something like one line and no other interaction.
Heroic bosses can vary wildly in difficulty. Some simply have too much HP, such as Heroic Amulvaro and Heroic Dark Knight. This can make fighting them particularly offensive, as taking 10 mins for a level 150 NG+0 kill of Heroic Amulvaro is really uninteractive. You're limited not by your ability to react and dodge, but by your ability to deal damage before you eventually make enough mistakes to die over the ten minutes the fight takes.
Darkness Falls is another underdeveloped area, and I'm still unsure how to fight the ghostly grunt enemies. The mage enemies will become vulnerable when you throw a sun stone at them, but the grunts do not.
Farming for items can be tedious, particularly in the case of Eldritch Eyes required to summon Xyarlohatp.
The level cap of 150 for NG+0 only comes into play if you're fighting heroic bosses, but feels like it exists solely to keep you from simply overlevelling to one shot the heroic bosses. Raising the cap to 200, per se, allows a player to be slightly overleveled for the endgame heroic bosses, which makes them significantly easier. Any heroic boss, when fought within 10 levels or so, is VASTLY more difficult than it is if you're 20 levels overleveled, and since heroic bosses are required for endings A and B, it's worth making them a little more accessible. Particularly the overly tanky bosses, like Dark Knight or Bysurge, are much more accessible with extra levels.

I'll likely edit this as I think of more things, but in its current state, I recommend this game. Despite the long list of negatives, many of them are nitpicky. The game certainly isn't for everyone, but it is a good game nonetheless and I think that the Afterlife update certainly goes a long ways to redeem the poor name it got before the expansion.

On Steam sale, 100% worth buying. Off Steam sale, if your finances allow it, go wild. It's worth the cash. I think the devs also have no plans to stop updating and improving this game to be more of where they want.

98 mins for 4.1 with 365 deaths. Is this reasonable? No. Was it enjoyable? No. Was it fun as anything? No, it got really tedious when the saw hitboxing got bad. But getting that door was so damned satisfying.

This game is so hard, I've almost broken my controller twice. I don't have a second one, so that would be very bad. I need to play more of this, but I don't have enough of a masochistic side to subject myself to it.

The graphics and sound are great, the level design is fabulous, and the controls are smooth. The biggest gripe I have is saw hitboxes are a little bit too wide and a little bit too square.

Fun game, would recommend.

BIG DEAL, I CAN USE INNUENDO TOO! TONIGHT'S FIGHT IS BETWEEN FLYBOY AND THE VAULT HUNTER! BLOWJOBS!

Direct quote. This is Borderlands. Shoot ♥♥♥♥. Get shot. Listen to stories about being rushed with a spoon and blowjobs.

Necropolis was a beautiful mess when it first came out. It was fun, yes, but it wasn't polished. The game was playable, and fun, but it wasn't great. Then the devs put out 1.0.1 and completely finished the game. And 1.0.2 made it amazing. And how 1.1 is out, and Necropolis is wonderful. It's unique, with the Dark Souls: ROGUELIKE EDITION theme going, with sarcastic and humourous dialogue, and just overall interesting styles. The art style is very nice, and fits well, being geometric and simple, but serving the game's theme perfectly. The combat system is well developed, and as they've added special effects to weapons, it's gotten better. The enemies are unique, interesting, and fun to deal with, especially when you realize that you walked around a corner into 3 Gemeaters and a huge Grine colony, plus a bunch of skeletons. The game's revive system is now balanced, so MP isn't just a free ride to the end, and the game does scale in difficulty, because I got 3 shot on the third floor, and I was STACKED.

While I dislike the inability to customize your keyboard and the reccomendation to play with a controller, the keyboard layout isn't terrible, for the most part, and it isn't unplayable without a controller.

Overall, 9/10
Graphics: 9/10
Gameplay: 10/10
Replayability: 10/10
Soundtrack: 8/10
Fun: 10(0000000)/10

For what it is, I enjoyed it. It's just moving tetrominoes around to fit them in a grid. It's not a new concept.

That being said, the way the game does it is enjoyable, there's a difficulty curve (3 sets of 4 difficulty levels, each with 8 puzzles), and the unlocks in The Talos Principle are a nice bonus. It's the kind of game where you can sit down and put on music and chill, and it just lets you unwind well.

I've put decent amounts of time into this game. I think that there need to be more Survival maps, and I wouldn't mind seeing some of the OMD!2 maps return, particularly ones from the end of the campaign, i.e. Servant's Quarters. I think Sabotage, while well intentioned, is REALLY poorly done. The balance isn't there and it's easy to grief, with such a long and painful reporting system. In addition, the variant in rank you receive is huge, and it's impossible to tell how much rank you do actually receive. A MMR system, or just a number by your name per rank would fix this.

And my god, we need one client. The larger client is a step in the right direction, but OMD!2 was one client. There's no reason to have a launcher and a game client. It's hard to use, it makes the Discord overlay have conniptions, and it's slow.

Matchmaking should absolutely have language settings, playing Sabotage with three players who speak three languages is a guaranteed loss. Even in Survival, the game becomes vastly harder because you can't communicate, and the chat wheel is limited.

The Talos Principle is a wonderful game. It's quite hard, and intriguing, and it's a little more than it seems.

I won't go too into the game itself, but it's a puzzle game, slightly paying homage to Portal, it seems, and your goal is explore and get Sigils. Except the game is a little more than puzzles. It's a little closer to a first person Garden of Eden than anything.

You'll understand if you play.

9/10, really challenging at times, otherwise amazing game. Props to devs.

Dota is not a game. It is hell. It consumes life and time, leaving nothing behind. 7.20 is the least balanced patch since Poor Man's Shield was removed from the game.