Recent reviews by UrbanScallywag

Definitely a great way to lose all of your friends.

This game is punishing and rewarding all at the same time. Hack and slash your way through like an unintelligent adventurer and you'll be nothing but more decor upon the dungeon floor. Think three steps ahead and plan your battles wisely, and you'll probably still be nothing but more decor upon the dungeon floor. Don't get attached to any particular hero, learn which classes work best both together and for your play style, and you'll be rewarded with living to fight another day!

This game is not for everyone, but for those it IS for - horror fans with a penchant for the disturbed and a slow burn to keep you on edge, rather than the gore and jump scares that permeate modern horror - it will resonate within your psyche for a while. If you like fast-paced action, obvious story, open-world exploration, or your sanity, please move on, because you will find none of that here. However, for what this game is - an atmospheric horror game with an ambiguous story open to interpretation - it's fantastic.

The game is short. There are 4 possible endings, and as of this review, I've completed 2 of them with only 2.4 hours on record, and even then there were a few times when I left the keyboard for a few minutes or would intentionally do something stupid just to see what would happen. Your first playthrough will only take about two hours (maybe less), then you can use a waypoint-like system to revisit earlier chapters to get to the other endings. I'm estimating 4-5 hours for completion of all 4 endings (assuming you use a spoiler-free guide to know where the branching points are, like I did).

The game is very linear. But that's not always a bad thing. Not every game needs to be an open-world Bethesda behemoth. Linear works great for this game. It's high tension, and it manages to encourage exploration while still discouraging you from getting too far off the intended path. I won't explain how - because spoilers - but that's a tough act to balance, and this game does it without breaking the atmosphere.

The art is, put simply, evocative. It holds multiple layers of detail. There were countless times when I took a closer look at a scene or a room I'd walked through before and realized the nuances I hadn't consciously observed prior, but at some level I know I witnessed them unconsciously and they added to the overall atmosphere.

Don't even get me started on the soundtrack. Oh my god the soundtrack. I want the soundtrack as a standalone purchase for my horror-themed events. It's amazing background ambience, and it's superbly mixed with haunting sound effects to deliver an experience like none other, especially through headphones (the game highly recommends headphones and utilizes a special audio mixer for that immersive experience).

Very fun retro RPG! It's a classic story of rebellion set in a steampunk world.

Pros:
* No random battles to annoy you - instead, it uses a Lufia mechanic, where the monsters move around the map, and the battles only trigger if you run into them.
* The battle mechanic itself is interesting too: there's a concept of "Threat", and the party member with the highest amount of Threat will be targeted for all enemy attacks, which makes it easy to designate a "tank" for receiving the brunt of the damage (all but AoE). It gets tricky, though, when your DPS characters start dealing out considerable amounts of damage, and thus, increasing their own Threat. It often begs the decision whether your DPS character should kill an enemy and receive the bulk of the Threat (and the full force of the next enemy attack), or do something else and let that enemy live to attack one more time, but give your tank an opportunity to rebuild their Threat.
* The game rewards exploration by way of "exploration points" - free XP just for exploring the map.
* There are plenty of secret treasures to be found in the game! Completing the few hidden (and not so hidden) optional highly-challenging bosses and dungeons will result in great rewards.

Cons:
* Doesn't support the Steam overlay (Shift+Tab).

Overall, with full completion, this game took me about 12 hours to beat. I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

This game is equal parts beautiful, depressing, happy, confusing. It's also only about 4 hours long, yet I still couldn't put it down. The story will make you think twice about life, as well as personal ambitions and motivations. As a bonus feature not included in the game description, it somehow does something to your eyes which causes them to leak a little bit. No lasting physical damage, but I feel I should put that warning out there nonetheless.

Fairly simple Telltale adventure game, but an excellent story. It's definitely more "interactive fiction" than it is a game, though there are a few (simple) action sequences.

I have spent too much of my life on this game. Every time I think I've accomplished everything, I realize I'm still a noob. Buy this game, play it with friends. Between the indescribably addicting crafting system, the desire to be a mole-person and never come up from the underground tunnel system until you cannot possibly squeeze any more STUFF into your inventory, defeating demons in hell, and obsessively exploring the dungeon in each world for awesome items, I've only described about half the game.

Seriously, just buy it. You know you want to.

This game is FULL of moments that will actually make you jump as you play. You'll be nervous as you turn the next corner, you'll reconsider opening that next door, you'll always have an escape route... but most importantly, you'll experience an adrenaline rush like no other horror game today.