Recent reviews by ShaggyMoose

In summary, this game is highly recommended for those who enjoy side-scrolling action and exploration with a haunting atmosphere.

I found the first twenty minutes of the game to be a little stilted and off-putting, however the mystery and atmosphere of the setting was enough for me to persevere. After a few hours, it had grown on me greatly with its inventive story and mechanics as well as the rewarding exploration.

The game comes across as an engaging chimera of Castlevania, Metroid, Silent Hill and Seventh Guest with some Rogue-like tendencies. It is rogue-like in that there is some element of randomness in the arrangement of rooms as well as an initial "lose everything on death" penalty. However, there are many different mechanics at play that allow you to chip away at these constraints through caution, incremental knowledge and careful planning. You will see a number of people complaining about the loss of items on death, however I ultimately found this insignificant. About two-thirds of the way through the game, you will find that the mechanics are actually forgiving to the point where any deaths will be entirely your fault and progress is always possible. This is despite the fact that the combat is often somewhat janky and clumsy.

Overall the game is polished and I only encountered minor cosmetic issues. There were no crashes or game breaking bugs, which is just as well given the forced saving of progress at all times.

I took my time and and finished the game in just under 40 hours. Layers of mystery and systems continue to be added and peeled back throughout the entire game, including into NG+ mode which is unlocked immediately after completion. This mode isn't just a replay; further mysteries await in the dream!

TLDR... This game was a pleasure from start to end and shines with the kind of hand-crafted love that you only get from indie developers. It is at once familiar and strange, mixing standard fantasy tropes with inventive creatures, locations and lore but above all, a sense of adventure. The fact that this was created by a single first-time developer is quite amazing. If you enjoy old-school RPGs, you owe it to yourself to play this game now.

You will likely need the attention span to read this far, as the game does very little in the way of hand holding and sometimes may feel obtuse. This can be viewed as a positive or a negative, depending on your perspective. In general, I found it enhanced the sense of adventure, but did lead to some head scratching at times. It also took me a few hours to get used to the somewhat unorthodox user interface and there are some aspects that just never feel comfortable for the duration of the game.

The mix of skills, equipment and spells on offer support a multitude of viable character builds and play styles. While the NPCs that you meet come with existing stats and skills, these can effectively be altered at a whim some time into the game, removing any real constraints that you have in assembling the party that you desire. Spells however do need to be learned through practise and you need to carefully juggle both spellbooks and party members to ensure you always have a useful mix on hand.

At times, the game is a little combat-heavy and it can begin to feel like a grind in some locations. However, there are fine-grain difficulty settings that can be adjusted at any time and I found after a couple of hours that you should at least set the game to “hard” to avoid it becoming uninteresting. There are at least two more difficulty settings beyond that, so it should cater for any masochistic tendencies that you may have.

Finally, the game is fairly stable and polished. I had one crash during my fifty or so hours and didn't encounter anything game breaking. Any minor issues I picked up were usually patched within hours by the extremely friendly and responsive developer. It was not unusual to see multiple patches per day, which is commendable and testament to the fact that this game is a true labour of love.

Mirrors Edge + Dead Island = Awesomeness

Ewok murder simulator! I have waited a long time for this...

This gem of a game is essentially Jetstrike (others have said LUFTRAUSERS, which I haven't played), mixed with rogue and then spiced up with an acid trip. I will admit I was confused and frustrated for the first couple of games because the interface is somewhat obtuse and it takes a while to understand the mechanics. Once you find the rhythm though, it is hugely addictive and greatly rewards skilful play.

Your attack fighter is incredibly manoeuvrable, with the ability to strafe and reverse as well as the hyperspace jump which allows you to de-sync through enemies and weapon fire alike for a brief period. Trying to find an effective playstyle for whatever random gear and levels you come across while managing persistent resources like money and health make the game more than just a shooter. The only downside is that I find that it tends to hurt my eyes after a couple of games due to the small, rapidly moving sprites and psychedelic colour schemes. Despite this, I have already played 12 hours and have yet to finish the game or unlock even half of the gear available.

The developer is still delivering free updates with new content, despite stating that the game has been a commercial failure. Certainly, it is not a deserved one for the asking price and the enjoyment received.

Summary: If you are seeking opportunities for exploration and adventure and can persevere through some initial frustration, then buy this game now.

Elex is almost exactly what you should expect from Piranha Bytes by now; a third-person RPG set in an expansive, faction-based and open world. However, the previous fantasy settings have been substituted for a post apocalyptic world (Magalan) featuring a quasi-magic technology based on the eponymous Elex. What elevated this from my previous experience with PB games was primarily the greatly improved level of quality on offer.

• I didn't run into a single broken mission or corrupted save in my entire play through of around 70 hours. This is an incredible feat when you consider that the world really is almost entirely open and locations and quests can be discovered and completed in practically any order. Despite this, the game takes pains to automatically create a large number of saves (multiple quicksave and autosave slots) at every opportunity to ensure you always have a backup if something goes wrong.
  
• The technical performance and stability is excellent, evidenced by the fact that I experienced a crash to desktop only twice. On a mid to high end machine (AMD 3600, Nvidia RTX 2070, 16GB RAM), the game achieved my target of 100 FPS throughout. With an SSD, saving and loading were in the order of a few seconds and there are no other loading screens throughout the entire game, even when teleporting across the world.
  
• Your travelling companion, while often not the most intelligent in combat, cannot be killed and can always be relied to keep up. Only twice in the entire game did I find I had lost them and was forced to backtrack and ask them to rejoin. Even then this was a minor inconvenience given they are are marked on the map and can be easily found.

This was a far cry from what I experienced with some previous PB games, particularly Gothic 3 which for all intents and purposes, was essentially broken even a year after release. Unfortunately, the clumsy and often aggravating combat that has frequently marred the Gothic and Risen series in the past also makes a return. As you would expect from an RPG with very little level scaling or gated content, it begins in frustratingly difficult fashion. However, that is par for the course with a PB game and I wouldn't have it any other way. However, this persists for a long time simply due to the mechanical difficulty in engaging in combat, especially when multiple foes are involved. Then somewhere around the point you advance your character enough to use legendary weapons, it suddenly becomes trivial.

Beyond the technical excellence, the basic gameplay systems (aside from combat) work well. Some of the standout positive elements are:

• For me at least, the game provided a perfect balance of guidance (quest log, map markers) and fast travel (strategically placed teleporters that need to be activated before they can be used) that prevented tedium and frustration without stifling exploration.
  
• Crafting is the usual fare, but has a few considerations in that upgrading weapons also raise the requirements for use and enhancing gems should be selected to complement your play style. I didn't find myself grinding for any of the materials required.
  
• The selection of mundane crap you can collect while exploring occasionally grates a little (mugs for sale, get your hundreds and hundreds mugs here), but this is greatly alleviated by the infinite and easily managed inventory.
  
• There are a number of treasure hunts offered by the game, but none of them are mandatory and one in particular offers an interesting mix of exploration and puzzle solving to reach the conclusion.
  
• Its worth noting that I played through using the Elex Overhaul mod, which mostly focuses on weapon and item balance. However, based on the changes described I believe its unlikely that playing without this would have drastically altered my view of the game.

The inhabitants and the factions were at least superficially believable and well grounded in lore.

• Factions effectively act as defacto classes, although you have a large amount of freedom in determining your character skills and equipment. As is often the case with PB games, you can play for a long time (possibly the entire game) without aligning to a faction, although the lack of faction-specific skills would make the game both more difficult and less interesting in my view.
  
• Quests usually boil down to find something, deliver something, kill something. Despite this, there is a large amount of variation on those themes and frequent opportunities for role playing or to favour one faction or another. Although the game ultimately plays out in a similar fashion regardless of the path you take, those paths can be significantly different depending on your allegiances and choices. Some of them feel trite, but others had me seriously contemplating the possible ramifications. The game even provides an entire faction for those who don't want to play the typical saviour role, which while still a capitalist thug stereotype at least doesn't devolve into satirical “evil for the sake of it”.
  
• The game is fully voiced, and although the acting quality varies significantly, the writing was generally of a high standard and I don't recall any jarring translation issues. The relationships with both individuals and factions are usually well realised and consistent, although companion reactions are occasionally hard to anticipate.

The greatest compliment I can offer is simply that the world of Magalan was a joy to explore.

• The level of meticulous hand crafting on display is admirable, from the individual layouts and furnishings of the many dilapidated buildings you will encounter on your journey, to the many written and audio logs that illuminate some of the events surrounding the end of the world. I spent far longer than I needed to rifling through the various locales, looting buildings, having random encounters and making notes of areas to return to when I had the right skills to survive.
  
• The jetpack you are provided with almost immediately is a novel and well implemented means of traversing the world and also creates new possibilities in combat. This device eliminated the otherwise frequent pass time I recall from previous PB games of trying to work out what grade of sloped terrain I can glitch my way up...
  
• The typical cliched elemental biomes are all represented, but each of them still contains some well-realised and interesting locations, with a significant number of non-quest related areas and unique artifacts to discover. Although the game is not breathtakingly beautiful, there are still many locations that are attractive enough to warrant a screenshot or two.

Ultimately, it was this exploration that kept me coming back for the duration of the game and according to Steam achievements, I am among the 20% of players that have completed it. This is a startlingly high number for this genre and a testament to its appeal and longevity, especially when you consider a minimal play through would take 40-50 hours without following a guide.

Hmmmm, mysterious wall chicken...

A combat heavy, procedural space opera with some interesting mechanics rooted in the unforgiving timescales of spaceflight. Gameplay is reminiscent of Reassembly, but I found this game more compelling despite the lower playtime. I completed the game within six hours, but could certainly replay it and attempt a completely different build for my starship. Recommended!

Pros:

• Serviceable graphics that do a particularly good job of visually depicting the diversity of weapons and ships. The heavy cannons in particular sound and look awesome and enemy capital ships explode in a most satisfying way!
  
• Unique take on the importance of officers and shaping your people via cultural advancement (positive and negative attributes) against a backdrop of hundreds of years of space travel. Time is not your friend...
  
• Successful emphasis on customising your ship, with a simple editor providing for a wide variety of viable builds. Each build will be more suited to one of the two control schemes on offer (WASD and RTS-like), which can also be toggled in combat where necessary.
  
• Multiple factions with distinct enemy capabilities and tactics make for challenging and interesting combat; a few builds may feel overpowered at times, however weaknesses will be ruthlessly exploited by foes.
  
• Easy config-based modding allows you to tweak certain key parameters (e.g. crew lifespan) if that is of interest.

Cons:

• Sectors contain only a minor range of possible random events and they tend to get stale quickly. The lack of variety exacerbates the frequent feeling that you are on an endless resource-gathering treadmill.
  
• Random access to technologies can result in being largely overpowered or frustratingly stymied for a large part of the game.
  
• The wide variety of foes and the fact that the initial enemy positions are random means you need to be ready for anything. However, the constant cycling of officers due to age and the high cost of re-configuring your ship means that sometimes you will simply be outclassed. Having the entire enemy fleet spawn on top of your manoeuvrable and range-focused starship usually spells immediate disaster. Certainly realistic, but crushing when it occurs.

So now I hate dogs... Good one.

A charming Ultima-inspired RPG that is light on mechanics but worthy of attention.

I will try to avoid reviewing this game relative to the price. The fact is that you can pick this up for a steal on almost any sale, which alone prevented me from playing it for many years. How good can it be for $2? The truth is that if you are an Ultima fan, its almost certainly worth your time. If the inspiration isn't clear, seek out the Deathbringer achievement!

Pros:

• Charming, attractive graphics with obvious attention to detail.
  
• Features a semi-open world gated by monster difficulty and major plot elements. In my opinion, far preferable to a linear game or worse, auto-scaling of enemies.
  
• Just the right balance of humour; the game doesn't take itself too seriously, but neither does it descend into farce. Subtle references and jokes abound and I smiled every time I heard “even Corran fights better than that”.
  
• The plot is not stupendously original or surprising, but its serviceable fantasy fare and includes a number of well written books scattered around the lands for those that want to immerse themselves in the setting. Unexpectedly, I didn't find any jarring translation or grammar issues.
  
• The tying of abilities strictly to gear with effectiveness determined by character stats works well as a simplified class system and provides a lot of flexibility.
  
• The game is a perfect length at 20 hours. Long enough to tell the story without any egregious grind or filler.

Cons:

• Potentially over-simplified game mechanics that are easy to cheese. The game is combat heavy, yet most fights boil down to using the right ability for crowd control and idly managing health while you slowly chew through enemies. On the plus side, your party always focuses attacks on the same enemy automatically which does away with the need for excessive micro management.
  
• Again shades of Ultima, but the sheer amount of junk it is possible to collect is a little over the top. At least the inventory management is simple and storage capacity forgiving, but its possible to completely ignore the crafting that this is intended to support.
  
• The controls are non-standard and I have seen a number of reviews where players have complained about being unable to control characters. The features are there, but there is no tutorial that explains them and intuition is not enough in this case.
  
• I experienced a total of three crashes during my play; not ideal, but a frequent auto-save avoided any serious frustration.