Recent reviews by kumo

I've been wanting a solid PvP mecha game for a long time, and this game fills that "PvP Armored Core" niche I've been craving for years. Basically it's Mecha Overwatch with also an extraction shooter game mode.

The comments about the microtransactions and pay to win are way overblown. The game is a little obtuse, but it's designed in a way that free-to-play players can earn premium currency, once you know how things work, and as long as the playerbase stays healthy and there are whales coming in to play the game. I wrote a guide on Steam to help new players get started here, so please check it out and leave comments if you have questions.

The level of cosmetic customization is also really really cool. I love seeing all the different ways people have been coloring their mechs and pilots.

It's gooner-bait for sure, but if you can look past it, there's a really fun game underneath. Definitely make sure to join the Mecha Break discord where there's an LFG channel to help you find people to play with. Hope to see you on the battlefield!

You spend 80%-ish of the game playing a path-placing boardgame ROGUELITE with resource-management mechanics over and over. So if you don't enjoy that, it's just not a game for you and that's okay! If you do, AND you like exploring and solving immersive puzzles, then strap-in because you're in for a real treat. You will gain a feeling of mastery as you conquer the house, manipulate the RNG, break the rules and make it your *****. You will be rewarded with "OOHH AHH" and "OH ****!" moments, as you uncover more and more of this deep and lovingly crafted world. The rumored Room 46 is just the tip of the iceberg. This is GOTY for me so far. It's a game unafraid of being niche and new, and I love that. Bravo Dogubomb!

If that sounds interesting to you, I think mindset is everything so here's some spoiler-free pointers:
- Get a notebook and a pencil. Take pictures of clues. Write down your objectives, there will be a lot of them!
- You WILL get screwed by RNG. The way you overcome it is to be adaptable. Don't hyperfixate on a singular objective, but keep several objectives in mind and *always make progress towards some objective*. If something seems too ridiculously hard to get the right RNG, either you're missing something, or you'll find ways to make it easier later. If all else fails, set up for the next run to better equip yourself. In each run, you should either: learn something, unlock something, or at the very least set your future self up for success.
- If you find yourself *not* always making progress in most runs and you're stuck. Respect your own time, look up tips and pointers. The community is very friendly and helpful. I found some several key pieces of information that saved me a lot of time. Maybe I would've never realized. Some puzzles I also got fed up and just looked up clues, that's how I chose to enjoy the game :)
- Also spoiler-tagging just in case (imo its nbd) but it's the best tip I ever got There's a room that's permanent. Think very carefully about where you place it, don't just place it somewhere random. Placing it deeper into the house is also recommended.

The game is not perfect. I would say for the most part it tries to respect your time, but there are some times it could do a better job. As someone who has little time to play games these days though, I don't regret the time I've poured into this at all. Some of the complaints are just directed towards how this is a roguelite. That's like saying Hades wastes your time cause bad RNG. I mean, maybe that's true, but plenty of people enjoy that about the game. Like sure it could've not been a roguelite but that would've been a completely different game.

There’s a lot to like about this game, but ultimately unless you’re *really* into puzzles, I could not recommend this.

The good:
- The visual style is what drew me into this and it certainly delivered. The game is very beautiful and creates a tense, mysterious atmosphere with the captivating graphics and music.
- The game felt like an immersive escape room, and I loved how the puzzles for the most part, were tied to the theme and narrative.

The bad:
- The godawful oversimplified UI truly sets back this game so much. Everything is done with one button, even 20 hours in I was still accidentally opening a menu when I’m trying to interact with something. And there’s no back button so you have to navigate to the close button every time, or try to solve a lock to get out of it.
- Despite the frustration, I could’ve overlooked it had the game continued delivering. Unfortunately after around 10 hours, I started to feel that the pacing had slowed to a crawl. The narrative progressed so slowly and there was so much fluff and so little payoff. I was really forcing myself to do the puzzles just to see what happens in the end.
- Ultimately, after 20+ hours invested, I felt that the narrative was incredibly weak and disappointing to me. Renzo Nero is a horrible screenwriter and everything felt pointless and meaningless at the end. Which was like a slap in the face after all the time I spent invested in the story.

For that reason, unless you’re ecstatic every time the game gives you puzzle after puzzle to solve, and enjoy puzzle solving for the sake of puzzle solving, I’d say either skip this or just watch a YouTube play through if you’re curious.

Criminally underrated. Rusted Moss quickly became one of my favorite metroidvanias of all time after Hollow Knight. I love that the game continuously leans into its grapple mechanics and slowly gives you more tools that add more depth into how you can maneuver yourself around like Mikasa Ackerman with a gun. The art and story are also super cute c:

My recommendation is to do the optional challenges as you run into them. Though at times it feels Bennett Foddy-esque, it'll make you get better at the game and I think the game becomes truly rewarding when you've mastered the mechanics it wants you to learn. I don't care for speed-running games, but I sure felt like a speed-runner at the end, zipping through the levels that I had previously slowly trekked through.

With that said, if you don't enjoy difficult challenges and taking the time to git gud at the movement, perhaps you may be underwhelmed and not enjoying the game to its full potential.

Oobi gooby. Ooby goobi. This one's a 5-hour long movie.

Act I is really engaging right off the bat, and got me hooked, but Act II was really slow and drawn-out. While the mystery and spooky ooky elements were interesting, I find myself wishing there was more of that and better pacing. You'll like this if you're a fan of To The Moon though~

This game is super duper cute!! I got immediately hooked on the base building and assembling my following of adorable woodland satanic creatures. I've probably spent more time doing that, than playing the combat portion. I love the extent of the customization of the followers. After 15 hours, I've pretty much beaten the game.

It's not an *amazing* game, in the sense that:
- Similar to an idler game, there is a lot of busy micromanagement work that some people might not appreciate, that gets more or less automated when you reach late game.
- Combat is quite shallow, and lacks the complexity seen in other rogue-like dungeon crawlers such as Hades, or Binding of Isaac.
- Some things are very unbalanced. Most of the buildings don't do anything apart from "decoration". I found a way to defeat one of the major mechanics in the cult-management, which removed any sort of tension the game tried to throw at me.
- Lots of bugs. I've ran into several minor annoyances, and also ran into several instances where I had to restart the game and forfeit a dungeon run with lost progress. Fortunately, I haven't run into any game breaking, and dungeon runs are fairly quick anyway.

With that said, I did have a lot of fun, and would definitely recommend it! :)

TL;DR
Very cute Don't Starve-esque base-building + Idle management game + Rogue-like dungeon crawler a-la Hades/Binding of Isaac.

Couldn't get into a game with my friend. Encountered several different issues in lobby, including:
1. Joining a game without creating a character on home screen does nothing
2. Kept getting client / server version mismatch (1.0.7241) despite us both having fresh installs and being on the same version
3. We both restarted and tried joining again but gave up after stuck connecting for 2 minutes.
4. I tried to host instead of my friend but every time they joined it would kick them after a few seconds.

Most bugs I've ever encountered in a game without even playing it, I can't imagine the amount of bugs inside the actual gameplay. 0/5 would not recommend.

I recommend this game to people who have never played the first one. If you loved the first and want more, you might be disappointed.

My friends and I loved the first game, and we were greatly anticipating the sequel. I'm sad to say that I was actually pretty disappointed. It seems as if 'We Were Here Too' should have been the first game, and 'We Were Here' should have been the second game because as it stands, 'We Were Here Too' took a big step backwards. I felt the first game had a larger variety of mechanics. Each puzzle felt new, creative, and clever...

leading up to the biggest (and longest), final challenge. While in this second game, the ultimate puzzle is just two people standing on the other sides of a cell spinning a combo lock, then going up an elevator. The jester doesn't even play a signifcant role, he just appears as a cameo at the very end. It would have been okay if there was a real final challenge for doing the alt-ending, but you get nothing other than a happy ending.

I'm not going to do a puzzle for puzzle comparison between the two games, but I'll just say that for $10, I wouldn't recommend this game because of its lack of content (and diversity of its existing content). I would have definitely recommended the first game for $10. So what I recommend doing is buy this game, play THIS ONE FIRST, then play the original one AFTER. :)

It might be a good game... but I can't even play it. Only 3 servers available and they're always full. Why even bother releasing it to a larger audience if they can't play?

It's a really fun game to play with a group of friends. It's short but it's free and a great way to spend an afternoon. Beware of standing in the way of someone else's mining laser though xd