Recent reviews by Hex: Devour Milk

Just binge played all of Road 96 for 9 hours and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I love this game so much.
Such a unique and creative way of story telling.
I had no info on the game going in, and I really thought this was just going to be a cute game about road trips,
but man I was so wrong.
Has so many different character stories that all get intertwined for a climatic ending altered by a culmination of decisions you make on your different playthroughs.
The gameplay can be fun but is still very casual, and their take on interactive scenes is much enjoyable than any quick time event with each one feeling like its own minigame.
And the game is difficult enough that you still need to strategize a good bit to make it to Road 96, but isn't too punishing, especially in the long-run of things.
One complaint is that some characters pop up more than others, especially if they are more critical to the main story. But also some characters don't get as much cause their events are more randomized, so trying to 100% one character can just feel like a weird goose hunt where you just hope to run into them.
On the other hand, not being able to 100% every single characters story in one run or with the same ending feels intentional as it adds to replay-ability, which is always nice.
Along with telling a lot of different character stories, the game has a deep message about achieving political activism, as well as a lot about politics and societal issues in general. Of course the civil unrest in the country of Petria in Road 96 is a much more exaggerated with the government just being openly totalitarian, but still.
Game also just looks beautiful. The really make the low graphic art style work for them. Animations can look wonky at times, but there were a lot of moments where I just stopped and looked out the car's window or sat at a campfire.
The OST for this game is also a banger, absolutely fits the vibe of the game and some of those songs are definitely going on a playlist.
The game is just brilliant.
Loved it so much.
9.5/10

I went and replayed through all 4 of the Telltale Walking Dead Games (Final Season was the 1st time I every played it).

Gotta say, in retrospect those are some really good games, or stories at the very least.

The main criticism I hear of these at that your choices don't really matter, the story doesn't really change. And that's valid, but if you go into the game knowing that, it's not really an issue, but it does hurt replayability, luckily I had forgot most of the story since I played them.

But at the very least it is a more interactive and involved visual novel with an incredibly engaging story

I just really felt like I was able make my versions of the protagonists (Lee, Clem, and Javi) and play them to the decisions I think they would make. There were a lot of decisions that felt shoehorned, or were just forced onto the character, but still. Also if you are someone that likes to shoot for the best possible ending, it's really not that hard. As I said, your choices don't really matter that much, and when they do matter, the game makes it very apparent. The upside to this is that it's kinda hard to make a mistake that completely alters your path/ending.

Also the "gameplay" of the games isn't the greatest, but most of the time it does capture the tone the story and help establishing the scene. The quick time events are easy, but so easy they become monotonous to do all the time. Checks out though, the game doesn't really want mistakes you make during quick-time events to heavily impact the narrative story. These greatly improve over the course of the 4 games, especially when the third one gives you a sprint button so levels don't take an hour to re-do. The ones in the fourth game felt super smooth.

Out of the 4, 3rd one was actually my favorite. Which is weird, cause the protagonist is a completely new character, but the story and characters were super engaging. 1st one is still a classic though.

Worst one would probably be the second one. This one feels like it forces your storypath the most regardless of your decisions. Although it did have Kenny so that's a big plus, but the rest of that characters weren't that interesting or were just plain annoying.

Also the Final Season is good and is a nice end to the series and Clementine's character. They easily could make another one but don't think they ever will, especially since they named the 4th "The Final Season". The only part I didn't like about 4 that much was AJ. I liked the story they were trying to tell with him and how you influence his perspective of the world, but this is where the game shoehorns the most. But I guess it's kind of the point, AJ is supposed to stubborn and developing his own thoughts that are influenced by growing up with death constantly around him, not just a clone of Clementine. But the story was fine, it was slower paced than the earlier seasons, but it was nicer and made me like the setting and characters more.

I enjoy rogue-likes, but this game is just a bit too repetitive for my tastes.

Even when you change the difficulty, change you gun loadout, or change your character, the gameplay feels the same. It pretty much boils down to a left-click simulator with a little bit of strategy involved. Sure, the scrolls, abilities, and guns you get each run are randomized, but your strategy is going to be more or less the same each time.

The difficulty is also very weird. Sometimes when you get your build right, you will just melt bosses and one-shot enemies. But more than often on high difficulties, you will get randomly one-shot by an enemy you haven't seen.

It's fun to play occasionally with friends, but for full price, it's just not worth it. The time-sink to get new characters is also annoying, Maybe purchase to try when it's on sale, but other than that, it's not worth your money.

Very simplistic yet very enjoyable. A few tweaks could make it better, but that's to be expected for an early access game.

Since there's no time limit, this is a perfect game for your second monitor while you watch youtube videos or podcasts.
It's also very relaxing, the perfect chill game.

The features that are currently in the game are great.
Making a philosopher's stone is a good challenge, but I just wish it had more payoff.
Being able to make your own recipe book with custom flavor text is also cool, and will be even better if they add different potion effects.

I'm still not too sure it's worth the $15.00 price tage (or even $12 I paid for when it was on sale), but with it being early access with the promise of more content, I easily view this game as more of an investment for a greater game down the road. With the small amount of content that's currently in the game, I can't say for sure if it's worth the price. That being said, it still managed to squeeze 20 hours out of me. I would have 100% completed it if I didn't realize how long a popularity of 15 would take.

I really love this genre and was hoping to love this game as well, but it's just a bit too mindlessly grindy for my taste. The game also doesn't tell you what to do or how to do it the majority of the time.

I don't want to be guided through the whole game, but some critical points of progression are just unknown. For a game like Stardew, the wiki helps you better manage your time and resources, but for this game, the wiki feels like a necessity. Someone with hundreds of hours who knows the ins-and-outs of how this game work will probably disagree with me, but it is very hard for new players to know what to do.

And as for it being too grindy, the amount of essence you need to unlock necessary crafting recipes is ridiculous. Also, you'll spend your time unlocking one recipe just to find out you can't craft it until you go 3 steps down a different skill tree. The best and seemingly intended way to get essence for recipes is to study materials which requires faith, but faith is so hard to come by. They make you wait a whole week to only get 5 faith.
Also, everything, and I mean everything requires energy. This isn't too much of a problem causes there's really no drawback to sleeping. There's really no need for time management, so you can just sleep whenever. But that being said, the limits of the energy bar feel more annoying than anything.

I really love this game's concept, art design, and music, but I just can't get through playing it. I few improvements to make this game more user friendly would make it a 10/10. Like a small change they could make that would greatly improve the game would be to allow you to view crafting recipes from your inventory. Instead you have to go all the way to the appropriate crafting station once it is made, just to find out you don't have what you need.

There is a bunch wrong with this game, but overall I still greatly enjoy it.

It would take me way too long to type out everything problem this game has, and people have detailed it much better than me, so I'll just focus on why I like the game.

The main thing that keeps me coming back to this game are the different killers and perk loadouts available. It's kind of irritating that majority of them are stuck behind DLC, but developers gotta eat as well I suppose. It's not too terribly bad if you can get the different collections on sale.
As much as it is of a grind to get the perks you want on a character, unlocking stuff in the bloodweb is actually satisfying and makes it feel like you're working towards something. It's just a shame that this game has been out for so long that I am way behind other people in terms of perks.

Also want to make one thing clear, this game isn't really targeted for a casual audience. When I first started playing it, I was surprised by how sweaty and competitive the community was, but now that I'm 200 hours in, I understand. This game has a lot of complexity for both killer and survivor. I still think that a custom game with your friends can be fun, but don't expect that same experience when you go into public matches.

This game is a trial by fire for new players. It'll probably take you about 20 hours until you feel like you're getting the hang of it, and it'll be about 100 hours until you actually understand the nuances of the game and feel like you're an average player. Finally at 1000+ hours, you might actually be good.
Because of how complex this game is, the skill ceiling for it is very high. But I enjoy coming back to this game everyday cause I always feel like I'm improving and have things to learn. Also like I said, there are always new things to try out.

8.5/10

If someone tries to convince you to play this game by saying it's like D&D, hold on for a second.

This game has little to no roleplaying aspects. The story is overly simplistic, very little dialogue, character customization isn't super in-depth, and side quests are just normal enemy encounters.
This is NOT a roleplaying game.

Now if you enjoy the combat of D&D, then you will probably enjoy this game.
This game is for people that like to min-max character stats so that they can roll high number. For people that love RNG manipulation. For campaigns, there is also a good amount of strategy needed to efficiently move around the map and fight off different overworld scourges and threats.

As far as replay value is concerned, this game has a lot of it. The rogue-like style of die and you restart your whole game ensures that it's gonna take you a few attempts for any difficulty higher than apprentice. There are a variety of characters to unlock that introduce some new play-styles and nice passive abilities as well so that the game stays fresh. You can also unlock new items and locations that will show up in future campaigns to make each one unique. If you're a collector and achievement hunter, this game will suite you well.
If you get tired of the campaigns and are more interested in the rogue-like aspects, you can also try the dungeon-crawl gamemode and see how far you make.

This game is at its best when played in a group of 3 friends, but I also greatly enjoy it solo.
I highly recommend that you should buy this game. It's already pretty cheap and well worth the price, but it also goes on sale fairly often.

Now if you excuse me it is time to go back to my campaign of all hobos.

Attempt 1: Ran from big rock man for 5 days straight and died to a fire dinosaur
Attempt 2: Beat the Big Chunk after widdling him down with arrows for 3 days. Died when 3 more of him immediately spawned.
Attempt 3: Became God. Could easily one shot any enemy. Would fly through the sky and travel across the island at mach speed. I am the Big Chunk.

Only stopped playing cause I ran out of chests to open. 10/10

I wouldn't say its better than first, but it is equally as enjoyable.

One complaint is that they have like 3 different story lines, and only 1 of them is mandatory to "beat" the game. I feel like it would be a lot better if they were all interconnected so that it could you force your progression through each story but oh well. The story is also a lot more directly told which isn't a bad thing, just one thing that is different from the previous game where you felt like a minor character in a grand story as you had no backstory and no dialogue. It also a lot more polished than the first as could be expected with much smoother mechanics and graphics. There are still minor bugs but that's too be expected with a game like this and a studio that small making it. It also kind of sucks that they barely ever reference to the previous game and your old characters name and fate is never brought up. It also feels like there could of been more content and I know they had more plans for stuff so it feels like a good amount of stuff did get cut. Even with all that though, great sequel which firmly promotes Subnautica from being one of my favorite games to being one of my favorite game franchises.

Really wanted to make this review for one reason, there are way too many people saying that this PC port is unplayable if you don't have a controller, and those people are wrong. The controls are definitely less than ideal, but in no way do they make the game unplayable.

The only issue I had with controls was with quick time events. For each event you need to make a mouse input in one of the cardinal directions, and the game will sometimes confuse your input in one direction for an input in another. One fix I found for this was lowering your mouse DPI, with high DPI the game probably detects the slightest motion as movement in one direction.

Quick time events are also difficult because it is often hard to detect what direction you need to go in as they are based off the characters movements which can be hard to read sometimes. However, this isn't super detrimental as failing a quick time event isn't the end of the world and the game will progress and go more or less in the story direction you want it to.

On the topic of controls is movement, at times it can feel very clunky but it's not detrimental to the game. Some sections of the game actually feel really intense and using the 2nd POV of the free roaming cam feels natural and really enhances the game. My only complaint is that I wish you could sprint whenever you wanted to. It feels like for some parts of the game they really just wanted you to appreciate the scenery and the walking animation. Not being able to sprint definitely hinders exploration on some levels.

Now on to the main part of the game, the story. The story is the main reason you play this game, and it is well worth it. The ending tries to do a bit too much in the epilogue by throwing around a bunch of random story plots, but overall it has a satisfying, tear-inducing conclusion, at least for the ending I got.

I can say, one complaint that this game gets is that the majority of your choices don't actually change much and this is valid. I mean, the game is told in a series a randomly organized flashbacks (the order to play chronologically is still available) so what you do in one event rarely carries over to another except for the end of the game. Most of the consequences from your actions will only occur in the level you do them in and are often not brought up again. That being said, a lot of the choices aren't really meant to have a larger impact on the story, they're meant to help you connect with the character. I understand why some people take issue with this, but for me I felt that it just made me enjoy the story and character more.

As far as time played, I finished the story within 10 hours. There is good replayability as there a multiple different endings to singular events as well the main ending, however the long drawn out sequences of dialogue and walking that you can't skip act as a deterrent to this. I decided to replay one level to get a different ending and I'll admit, it was kinda boring and painful. To many people, 10 hours is not worth the current price of $20 and I understand. However, people will often spend close to same amount of money at a movie theater for only 1 and a half hours of entertainment. If you interested in this game but not quite sure if you wanna spend that much, wait till it goes on sale. I was lucky enough to catch it for 50% off.

The game is a little outdated, but the story still holds up. Controls could use some improvement but the game for sure isn't "unplayable" 7/10