Recent reviews by Sea Burial

I wish I could give a "kind of recommend" review. I'm marking it as recommend just because I really do like Wildermyth, but I don't think that Omenroad is the best implementation of what this game can be. If you want combat combat and more combat, it is exactly that, offering an experience similar to Slay the Spire; the bosses added to this mode (and there are a LOT of them) are pretty interesting and are enjoyable to fight, and getting much easier access to nodes containing hard to find themes allows you to populate your catalogue with a lot more variety, as well as getting frustrating achievements more readily. Some cool new mechanics have been added as well which make boss encounters a bit more interesting, and the special attack mechanic for a companion in the story campaign is very cool.

BUT.

In my opinion the balance is not amazing for legacy mode, and in general this is very hard, which is fine more or less. What I'm less okay with is that the campaign story included in Omenroad is just...not good. The storytelling in many of the other campaigns has been excellent, and it disappoints me to see that the last offer from Worldwalker Games is this. Both in terms of story content and in terms of the language chosen the writing drags at best and drags across broken glass at worst. It feels like someone let their Sophomore cousin who wants to be a poet take a crack at some of this during bring your family to work day.

It's worth picking up if you want to do more fighting. The fighting is fun and it's got more options than before. But it's just such a weird fit for a game where the storytelling is the best part to present a mode that is not at all about storytelling.

There's really nothing like it. It's a game which shows that games are art without being a walking simulator. The devs put their hearts and souls into this and it shows.

An excellent successor to Like A Dragon which improves upon its predecessor mechanically in every way, though it does not quite reach the same heights in terms of storytelling. Infinite Wealth represents a swan song for the old storyline of the Yakuza series, giving us a satisfying conclusion and a lot of nostalgia for almost 20 years of a saga. In the midst of this is does all the gameplay elements from the prior entry bigger, brighter and better.

The only mark against this (other than the total character assassination for one of the party members and the ridiculous reaction to it) is the gross DLC practices Sega is pushing for this entry. New Game Plus locked behind purchasable DLC, as well as two jobs and a bonus dungeon, as well as some insubstantial cosmetics/item packs. You can enjoy this game just as well without any of that content, but the decision to lock NG+ and higher difficulty settings for it behind a paywall is baffling and predatory. Buy this one for the story and the experience, but give any additional content a hard pass.

When I first saw press for the game I thought it was the dumbest idea I'd ever heard of, but they've managed to make probably the game closest to Dark Souls that From didn't make. The setting and graphics are gorgeous, combat feels tight, there's really nothing that doesn't work here. It's vastly more linear than you might want from the genre, but even that doesn't feel too bad at the end of the day. While not perfect, if you're done with what From has to offer, there's no reason not to check out Lies of P, because it's a satisfying experience from top to bottom.

Kind of like spooky Spirited Away. A really nice little horror game that feels like the start to something much bigger and better. Great animation work, multiple solutions to many puzzles, good music and all in a free game. My only two critiques would be the placement of some of the items is not especially apparent, and maybe some effects to differentiate usable items from the huge number of pieces of scenery would be nice; that the tuning on the final boss of the demo could use some work in phase 2 (though they're nice enough to let you skip it.)

Looking forward to chapter 2 and I'd absolutely buy a completed version of this. For fans of Yuppie Psycho and The Count Lucanor.

9 hour review: feels like Owlcat's most seamless work that I've played so far. The feeling of constant progression in terms of character growth is amazing, the voice acting is very well done, combat is solid 90% of the time, and they do a great job of making the setting feel realized. I usually stay away from 40k stuff because I only have passing familiarity with the world and it seems like a lot, but this feels like a good entry point for anyone curious without feeling dumbed down. Highly recommend unless body horror is not your thing in which case don't.

While I'm a fan of From games in general, I haven't touched the AC series since I popped in a PS1 demo disc in middle school. That was a mistake on my part, because this game is excellent, and I've missed out on a lot of cool stuff. The controls and the process of putting together your AC will feel more fluid and automatic as time goes on, and for those who want it, there's an incredibly satisfying game to experience if you can get past those initial hurdles. I find myself thinking about it when I'm not playing, wishing that I too was a legally purchased corpo-humanoid or whatever so I could fly a cool robot around instead of punching in information into a computer.

I need to know which person at Sabotage is self-inserting themselves as Garl. I have played so many RPGs in my life, and I cannot remember the last time that I groaned audibly whenever a character opened their mouth (which, because they really clearly want Garl to be the main character, is ALL THE TIME.) There is no journey of self-discovery. There is no character growth in response to the events of the game. There is no learning from the consequences of one's actions. There is only Garl, and what a best boy he is, what a chum, what a pal.

I'll give credit where credit is due: the visuals are great. Lots of very nice little animations abound, and that takes work and time. I had been telling people the music was good too, but as I write this review, I realize that's a lie: I can't remember a single track from a single area. It's competently made chiptune music which dances into one ear and out of the other. And that leads in to what this game lacks: soul. It is paint by numbers, stay safe between the lines. Chrono Trigger grips you within 30 minutes with its possibilities as you slide through that first gate into the past; FF6 paints a moody, haunting march through the snowfields while the credits roll; Super Mario RPG turns its formula on its head from the very first encounter. This copies the form of classics without comprehending what made them into classics.

Combat is...fine. I don't know. I just usually want it to be over with because options are so limited and so are upgrades. Dungeons look okay but are fairly linear. The minigames range from me not grasping why they're there (fishing) to actively hating the content (Wheels.)

I just don't know how something that I really thought was going to be a great BLT turned into a sad slice of bologna between two slices of white bread. I don't know why they wanted to write more lines for Garl.

My last gripe is this: in so many games, people face the consequences of what they've done, and they grow from it. It can be a major mistake that leads to catastrophe, or something small that hurts the people around them. Sea of Stars has opportunities for this and flatly refuses them every time, because that would require character growth, or lines for someone who is not Garl. Just go play Chrono Trigger or Chained Echoes or Lisa or something I don't know, the world is your oyster for RPGs right now.

There hasn't been a CRPG this fun since DOS2. The amount of customization, attention to detail and care given to every aspect makes it more than worth it even at full price. GOTY 2023 almost certainly.

This is the best creature collecting game that I have played since I fired up Pokemon Blue on my Gameboy. It has its own DNA and is very much its own thing, so I don't really want to compare the two of them too much. The music, the aesthetics, the art, even the way the fights play out feel fantastic. You can tell the people who made this cared a lot about what they did. $20 is a steal for this game, and it deserves all the recognition it's getting.