Recent reviews by Bingle

This is one of those games that some people are going to sleep on, and its a real shame because to me it feels like a breath of fresh air.

It's a combination of a lot of mechanics we've seen before:

- action rpg with different weapons and attack combos, parrying, blocking, stamina, climbing, bows, magic.
- acquire crafting materials and blueprints to make new weapons and armor.
- slight extraction elements mean there's loss associated with dying, BUT you get to cherry pick some items to take back.
- upgradable homestead, with new weapon/armor sets and magical abilities being gated behind spending resources on the base.
- voice acted storyline, likable characters, almost stock fantasy

ok, so, here's what sets the game apart:
- you start with a wealth of options right away, with different weapons which vary your aggression level and strategy.
- similar to BoTW, the enviornment interacts with your magic, fire spreads, water freezes, ruins make for great ammo to whip at creatures, so you have a TON of contextual options in how to approach a situation.
- enemies are slightly cleverer than goombas, not all of them run at you, some back away, some try and hide. it's interesting.
- the extraction side of this game is really nice, it makes it very playable in short sessions, i'm talking 20 minutes, and that's honestly great. no need to take on a huge quest line or feel obligated to finishing an arc.
- I LOVE the crafting side of this game, it's really compelling to me for a number of reasons, let me try my best to explain:

you have your standard array of common mats, uncommon, rare, very rare, exceptional, and these come in categories, thread, leather, cloth, metal.

when you're crafting your armor, you can choose the rarity of the mats for each part of the craft, and going up in rarity improves the stats of the armor or weapon. You also have a little flexibility in how the weapons/armor is specialized. you could pick mats that make your weapons and armor heaviliy lean towards a contextual need and then take that gear to fight a specific monster, or you could try and just make it a jack of all trades but not specifically excel in any stat.

then you can UPGRADE the gear, but it costs more of the mats you used to craft the item, meaning you might want to pick slightly lower tier mats if you plan on upgrading it, or just wait for the next tier of armor. the game is very transparent about the fact that crafting new gear will likely be better than upgrading, but you might want to wait to make some *really good* gear where you spend all your rare mats.

I feel like this is a simple and elegant, and gives the player interesting choices to make which is so much more than I can say for so many crafting systems.

the bosses are exactly what you want, big and imposing with shadow of the colossus style climbing and hitting weak spots. only major difference is some bosses might have an element they like to sling so, maybe come with gear? or a potion?

anyways, great game. I can tell I will be putting hours into it!

Needs more time in the oven.

it kind of compounds the issue with colony sims in that you don't really have full agency over your units, and they can just flat out ignore your instructions. This game has the added problem of making your instructions cost you money, so you're kind of eyeballing the severity of each instruction and then throwing more money at it.

The problem is, you units can still ignore your instructions. I lost my entire village as I helplessly add instructions "hey please defend this irreplaceable building!" and my units watched as they went up in smoke because I didn't throw enough money at it.

This isn't really compelling to me, franky.

I have a lot of thoughts on this game but the bottom line is,:

- if you enjoy sandbox RPGs, you should play this game
- if you enjoy space sims, you should play this game
- if you enjoy Star Trek or campy sci-fi, you should play this game

It is excellent, filled to the brim with compelling mechanics that mesh well together and feel true to the source.

In this game you will:
- scan plant flora
- meet and greet strange aliens
- skirmish with various different fleet vessels
- scan a variety of different planets
- after acquiring the adequate equipment, land on said planets
- discover strange life forms in caves on said planets
- get spit on my sticky acid by said creatures in said caves in said planets
- find and explore derelict ships
- cure diseases contracted by zombies infesting said derelict ships
- use components and crafting materials to repair said derelict ships
- either sell or pilot said derelict ships
- level up your crew based on their strengths and desires

there's so much to do and all of it is good. If you've never played a traditional roguelike and are off-put by the graphics I would encourage you to try this game anyways, it's actually surprisingly forgiving for the genre and pretty accessible to, you do not need to read a ton of FAQs to understand the basics

The best reason to grab this is obviously the toptier writing and concepts that come with each of these new companions but the second best reason is because you bought Caves of Qud for the criminally low price and you now have an excuse to throw more support at it.

The dromad badge makes me feel warm and fuzzy!

I really really want to like it, I know there's a good game here, and the devs are working really hard, however the game is basically unplayable in its current state unless you rolled lucky on your specs. I have a really decent card, cpu, the game is on an SSD, and I have tried various combinations of options, but at the end I still end up with flickering textures, and at times as little at 6 fps with latency like you wouldn't believe. Obviously none of that is ok, and obviously the devs will fix it, I believe in them, but just wait and let it bake for a little longer.

For the record, I nominated this game for outstanding visual design. I think it is the most beautiful the zone has ever looked, when it's working as intended.

alright it's actually working now, and I do really like the game so thumbs up from me

I don't really know the best way to sell this game to you, but in an age where my short attention span has me bumping from one thing to the next without sticking much to any one thing this game had me losing whole days. I really enjoy any game which attempts to remove combat from the gameplay loop and this game does exactly that, flawlessly. You don't really manage a shop in this game, which kind of disappointed me at first but I adjusted, you don't have a lot of agency in how the shop is run, you just need to run it. What I mean is that if you think you are finding items and setting them up, and trying to sell them to people, that isn't really the experience. Instead, the items you sell work more analogue to "attacks". You discover an attack, and it works for a certain monster, the monster being a customer. The 'monsters' need to be discovered much like exploring a more contemporary RPG, via exploration, talking to NPCs, occasionally solving a puzzle. So really the only way the "combat" differs in this game from a regular RPG is that it is automated.

But I'm just trying to gauge your expectation here. What really sets Final Profit apart from the riff raff is the writing and world-building. The main character is well defined with a solid goal: take down the bureau, a corporation which has introduced and perfected capitalism into a fairly generic fantasy landscape. elves, pixies, ghosts, horses, they all need to figure out how to hustle and what an "income" is. Currently the elvish world is struggling to compete with big money, and also disagrees about what to do about it. Therefore, your main protag has decided to play ball, and tangle with capitalism.

it's a surprisingly compelling hook and there are some really funny off-the-cuff jokes that had me openly laughing.

a very good time so far!

This is one of my faves recently and up at the top of my list of traditional roguelikes right next to Caves of Qud.

It is a game which feels as excited about experimentation as you do, happy to exclaim positivity in the form of bleeps and bloops whenever you happen upon a combo that works. There is a ridiculous number of combos you can attempt yet Path of Achra manages to reign it all in and feel almost approachable with very decent QoL features and accessibility features. You won't be lacking in depth to dive into but Path of Achra feels like a breath of fresh air in that it's willing to let you become powerful. Compared to many traditional roguelikes or even roguelites that seem determined to beat you into submission, Path of Achra seems to celebrates your victories and experimentation and allows you to play without severe punishment.

I really enjoy the unlock system, which almost feels arbitrary but is a really nice way of exposing you to the game without having immediate choice paralysis. your first few runs might not be great, but at least it wasn't your fault and you had time to read, learn a few things and now you've unlocked some new gods.

every skill, ability, equipment, and synergy feels deeply thought out and fun, which is a testament considering how much is packed into this game.

thanks much, Ulfsire for making such an awesome gem, I look forward to whatever you make next!

I want to start with the funniest thing that ever happened to me in this game:
I entered an area with a "betrayer" effect, not knowing what that meant. With some difficulty, I drove up a steep incline, basically a small cliff, and parked the car at the top so I could explore a relay tower. while I was on the second floor of the tower, scavenging, I heard the car honk in protest. I went to look at it and noticed it had taken the parking break off, and was slowly rolling in the direction of the cliff. I jumped off the balcony of the second floor and dove in just in time and decided, in fact, that I would NOT scavenge for parts.

Pacific Drive is not the game you think it's going to be. It makes some strange promises of being an extraction game, a narrative game, a horror, slow at times, dangerous in others, and it is all of those things in part but personally I can't really put my finger on what "genre" Pacific Drive falls into.

Is it a extraction game? The game promises the risk and danger of an extraction game, but it is kind of an illusion. Nothing is malicious in Pacific Drive, nor out to get you. Every danger is a passive one, not really meant to kill you so much as slow you down, inconvenience you. You can die, sure, and lose all of your "progress" of that run but I never died once while playing this game, which I was grateful for! I appreciated the threat of loss, but without the sting of a steep difficulty curve. The game makes you feel like you are in danger, but is in actuality very forgiving.

so is it a horror? There were moments I felt genuine fear, but it's not the fear of a bogey man, or some lurking danger, but more so the fear of the unknown. The Olympic Exclusion Zone is an interesting place filled with a great variety of different hazards and... "things" that will spook and intrigue, but absolutely nothing is out to get you. There are things that FEEL malicious but when you actually understand their behavior, they're actually more passive, curious, endearing even.

Is it a narrative? There is very strong writing in Pacific Drive, but it isn't plot driven so much as character driven. I REALLY like the characters in this game, they are all excellently written and acted. I would place these characters up there with the likes of Alex Vance or even glados in terms of writing and acting. without spoiling too much, don't expect much of an arch for yourself, you are not the star of the show. you're just the vehicle.

The graphics and music is all top notch. This game looks great, but also *stylish*. I don't know if this game pushes graphics technically, but it will hold up for years to come and that counts for more in my book.

lastly, the interface. I never got fully used to it, and really don't like "hold to confirm" style controls, but I have a theory as to why it was thoroughly embraced for this game, it's to simulate clumsiness. when you're out in the zone, and there's hazards flying everywhere, and bumps in the road, and a storm chasing you down, your bound to slip and hit the wipers, it happens. or OOPS there goes the nitro, and now the sky is below me, shoot. It would be genuinely frustrating if your character made these mistakes, I would hate it if there was some kind of "skill tree" to make your character more adept at driving, less prone to pressing the wrong button, or reacting badly in the face of danger, instead the onus is on you, and so there is a little bit of player-friction built into the interface, time to learn to drive and get better at it.

Pacific Drive is designed to make you panic. Take my little story for example, if my car had rolled down the cliff, I would have had to chase down the car for a good while as it would have rolled all the way down the incline, it would have been likely damaged pretty badly which would require resources to patch up, maybe even a sealing kit to fix a window or tire but... none of that is actually that big of a deal. the car would have been good enough to drive, get me home, and I would have patched it up, it's all just a little set back, but the way the game constructs this scenario really makes you feel like you should care. You built the parts, you took the time to paint the car, you spent the energy getting it up the hill, and you'll be damned if even one little thing nicks that damn car.

anyways, I loved this game, and will miss those characters all so much, car and all. I hope this isn't the last we see of the Olympic exclusion zone but even if it is, I'll be excited to see whatever Ironwood make next!

This game is wonderful.

if you've played games like 'Luck be a Landlord', 'Crop Rotation' and even 'Balatro', this game will fit very nicely into your collection. It's addictive and deep and no slouch for difficulty as you must really pay attention to synergy in order to survive.

games can be really quick when you're learning but take much longer if you're on a roll.

All in all, a gem in the rough and should be much more popular than it is!

I may like this on par with, if not a little more than Crop Rotation, but both are excellent and will for sure keep my attention for hours!