Senaste recensioner av K3W3L

Charming retro-styled pixel art
Evocative chiptune soundtrack
Neat fusion of genres (deckbuilder/RPG/idler/roguelite)
Landscaping and interaction discovery surprisingly fun
Insanely addictive

Doesn't require mechanical skill, just tactical nous

Insanely addictive

This game is a contender for my GOTY of 2021.

You ever just decide one day you want to roll out of bed and decide to collect resources and build landscapes? No? Well...I never really did either, until Loop Hero was announced and the free demo could be downloaded. The concept was intriguing enough for me to preorder the game, and while it did take me a few days to really get into the game, the addiction is hard to shake once I did.

This quirky roguelite title by the small Russian team Four Quarters eschews with the action-based nature of most recent roguelite/like titles like Isaac/Hades/RoR2/Spelunky, and instead marries it to a whole deckbuilder and landscape decoration. Your hero always traverses in a loop every expedition, fighting monsters that reveal memory fragments (cards) and bestow equipment, and you gradually remember the world from the nothingness it once was, while swapping in equipment to make your hero stronger. Combat is pretty hands-off, just equip the best stuff for your build and hope not to die.

There is some unexplainable joy in playing God and building the world around your hero, with the cards all spicing up the gameplay in various manners, from boosting stats to spawning even more enemies of different types. This is married to some pretty amazing retro-styled audiovisual design, and a rather quaint story.

Devolver never miss. Loop Hero, rightfully so, is one of their shining jewels of their more recently published catalogue.

The generous preorder and launch discount helped to potentially soften the blow, but after playing it for a while it's genuinely more than worth the price it is asking for.

File Format: MP3 (320kbps).

Exactly the same story like the second Risk of Rain's soundtrack, I already owned it on Bandcamp[chrischristodoulou.bandcamp.com] but finally took the opportunity to pick it up here to complete my collection. (As well as the Engineer Edition[chrischristodoulou.bandcamp.com].)

Again, I've waxed lyrical about this soundtrack elsewhere and I'll wax lyrical about it here. Risk of Rain was arguably Chris's breakout hit in indie game music, catapulting him into the echelons of indie game composer greats. Written in a different time, the songs are far shorter than the meaty, atmospheric excursions found on the second game's soundtrack, but this is still a masterclass.

Chiptunes. Weird time signatures. Polyrhythms. The instrumentation sounds slightly less 'natural' here, but it fits the pixel art aesthetic so incredibly well. That ending part in Double F---ing Rainbow where the instrumentation goes crazy, and then is put through a Bitcrusher...too good.

This game definitely could not have had a better soundtrack if anyone else had tried.

Track picks:
Risk of Rain (main menu)
Dew Point (boss track)
Monsoon (Desolate Forest)
Aurora Borealis (Dried Lake, Ancient Valley)
Double F---ing Rainbow (boss track)
Coalescence (Risk of Rain [level])

Once again, I had a hard time cutting down to 6 songs for this. The entire album (save for the jokey track Intermission, which is still a fun idea in itself if you analyse the spectrogram...) is fantastic.

File Format: MP3 (320kbps except for the Monsoon 2.0 tracks) and FLAC.

I already owned this since it was on Bandcamp[chrischristodoulou.bandcamp.com] during Early Access, but of course I had to grab it on Steam just to throw more money at Chris's/Hopoo's direction. (Apparently, picking up the Engineer Edition 2[chrischristodoulou.bandcamp.com] wasn't enough for me.)

I've waxed lyrical about this soundtrack elsewhere and I'll wax lyrical about it here. Chris Christodoulou ranks among my all-time favourite indie game composers, alongside Darren Korb, Danny Baranowsky, and Jukio Kallio, and for good reason - his game soundtracks are a treat to the ears, with all sorts of progressive elements, jazz elements (in Deadbolt's case) and metal elements. Risk of Rain 2's soundtrack sees him go all out to distinguish it from the first Risk of Rain, which may have polarised the hardcore RoR1 fans at first, but I hope they've warmed to it by now, because this soundtrack was an absolute delight from the get-go.

Tracks spanning more than 5 minutes (with a few creeping past 11)? A decent variety of mellow, experimental, and heavy? All the weird time signatures? Yes, yes, and yes! Köppen As F--- has been my favourite track since almost forever; if you like heavy stuff, you absolutely must give it a listen.

Track picks:
Risk of Rain 2 (main menu)
Köppen As F--- (boss track for Wetland Aspect, Scorched Acres, Siren's Call)
Into the Doldrums (Rallypoint Delta, Gilded Coast)
The Raindrop that Fell to the Sky (Siren's Call, Bulwark's Ambry)
You're Gonna Need a Bigger Ukulele (boss track for ???)
...con lentitud poderosa (???)

...actually, if I could, I'd just pick every track from the album. Cutting it down to these 6 to match the 6 I picked for Hades was difficult.

Gripping (if at times predictable) story
Gorgeous character illustrations
Varied character building
Amazing soundtrack
Wide variety (and decently large number) of picross puzzles ranging in difficulty

Missable puzzles
Lack of accessibility settings for the hacking puzzles
Main menu credits softlock
Ability to stray into wrong columns/rows when filling in a bunch of cells
Unskippable tutorial
Inability to save mid-dialogue (unlike traditional VNs)

With Fall Guys being a runaway success for Mediatonic, it can be particularly easy to forget that that game was not the only one they released this year. Earlier, they released this game - Murder by Numbers, which melds picross solving and visual novel into one package.

I'm not huge into visual novels, but picross is one of my guilty pleasures. I've played a variety of picross games on Steam over the years, of varying quality. In terms of that, Murder by Numbers slots in into the above half - but there are issues with the picross engine that hold it back from the top. It's great that it isn't that easy to accidentally overwrite filled cells with the opposite type of mark, but it is ridiculously easy to stray into adjacent rows or columns while marking in most of a bunch of cells and ruin the puzzle altogether.

The puzzle difficulty is really comparable to most other games, ramping up slowly but gently. The last few ones in the main 'story' can be quite the challenge, but are still ultimately easily solvable, and they never get too big (unlike the 20x20 or larger grids you might see in other games). The 5x5 hacking puzzles are a good change of pace, but multiple people have reported struggling with the time limit required to solve them.

As for the story, it is actually rather enthralling, no doubt helped by the exciting soundtrack and the gorgeous character designs. Give me a sequel to this game (though with some much-needed improvements over the first).

Easily worth full price for hours of gorgeous picross solving. If both Hatoful Boyfriends are in your collection you can also pick up the Murder Most Fowl Collection bundle for an additional 20% on top.

After almost 4 years of watching Mediatonic/Epic slowly run this into the ground, this Fall Forever update was the last straw. Flipping to Not Recommended.

It's a shame this has no leverage considering this game is no longer being sold here, but whatever. I'm leaving my original review (which was written near the start of its Steam release and had minor edits) up as a measure of how far it has sunk.

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WARNING: This game is no longer sold on Steam since F2P.


Utterly whimsical and ridiculously fun
Cute and quirky character, skin, and level design
Future seasons that will add new levels and skins for some time
Jukio Kallio and Daniel Hagström match it with an amazingly joyous soundtrack
Crossplatform lobbies

Some server issues from time to time, usually caused by a humongous playerbase. Join the Discord[discord.gg] to keep abreast of any downtimes
Epic account is a necessary evil for cross-platform progression/parties
Some modes really susceptible to ping/desync
Microtransactions are cosmetic, but are now borderline extortionist a la Fortnite

This game was a past contender for my GOTY of 2020.

I feel like a kid in a candy store on Christmas morning all over again. And I've never been a kid in a candy store on Christmas morning.

I'll be the first to admit, I loathe BRs of almost all kinds. Fortnite is overrated. PUBG is overrated. I can tolerate The Darwin Project and previously reckoned it's probably the best BR I've played. Until now.

Fall Guys is absolutely incredible, whimsical fun; a BR that doesn't even take itself very seriously, with very quirky and floppy character designs that are a joy to control...or not. They're called Fall Guys because they do have a profligacy to fall over in a cute manner. The physics-based wackiness of falling, grabbing others and things is one of the mainstays of this charming game, and I actually find myself having a lot of fun, even in losing.

Everything from the level designs (reminiscent of game shows like Takeshi's Castle and Wipeout) to the skins screams joyfulness. The soundtrack also does a good job of that too, conveying the lively atmosphere - then again, as it was co-composed by the legendary Jukio Kallio, that should come as no surprise. The main menu song and the rewards screen theme are absolutely wonderful.

Although there are microtransactions and DLC skins, these are all purely cosmetic. You can still earn a lot of items just from playing; you don't need to spend on them if you don't want to. I'm disappointed that you need to pay out your nose to get a lot of things though, but with the shift to F2P I saw this coming, no way to work around that unfortunately, and it's not a surprise they chose to adopt Fortnite's model as it's working out all too well with that game.

Yes, there may be some teething issues with the servers from time to time. This is to be expected with multiplayer games that really weren't expecting this amount of popularity. Consider this a GOOD thing, that there are many people interested in the game, who will be playing it for a while to come. (And yes, I was initially skeptical due to the 60 player per lobby limit, but my fears that I'll never be able to find matches are now all but assuaged.)

You can only get it for free on the Epic Games Store now. I'm not bothering to link it. Alternatively, you can play it on consoles.

(yes, I cheated for this one. So there.)

Feels just as fun as I remembered
Big Surf Island is finally here
Most of the rockin' licensed soundtrack is here (except for 2 songs, but hey, as long as the titular track is still there)
Wide variety of cars with different statistics (including a lot of DLC pack cars)
Multiplayer is sporadically active, but still very much kicking

WARNING: Many people are reporting a plethora of crash issues. Search the forum threads for possible fixes, and if you cannot fix them within the 2 hour period, GET A REFUND.

You still need to play it through Origin (also, achievements and cloud saves are Origin-only)
I don't really see what's the big deal with the remastered graphics. Then again I only played it at lowest...
I've developed a slight loathing for the tricky Stunt Runs and Marked Mans, as well as the time-consuming Showtime Road Rules
Stop asking me to take a picture after every damn race

I rarely use superlatives to describe games, but I still unabashedly think Burnout Paradise is the best racing game of all time. I've played it before DRMs, on Steam/Origin in its Ultimate Box guise, and now revisited it yet again in its Remastered form. It just has that much staying power as an incredibly fun arcade racer despite the original being released way back in 2008!

For those that haven't played this game, this differs from past Burnouts in that it sports a huge open-world map and race system. While not as big as the maps in games from other genres, it is still large enough that it takes a while before things get stale - and even then there are still a bunch of secret paths and discoverables to pick up. The cars you get from nabbing all the jumps/billboards/smashes are pretty wicked, too. If you see me online I'll likely be rocking that Jansen Carbon X12. :D

The chief attraction of this remastered version is, to me, not the graphics (I don't see a difference as I'd rather play the game on lowest settings for it to run smoothly - which it still really does quite well), but rather definitely Big Surf Island. A smaller island compared to the main Paradise City, the jumps are much higher and cooler, sort of like a self-contained pocket sized experience in itself. The ski lift jump especially is quite exhilarating; it's probably the single highest jump ever in the game.

As you can tell from my playtime and my screenshots, I've been one of the lucky ones where the game just runs out of the box for me. I recognise that this is not the case for a significant proportion of customers, however. For those people, refund it, make noise about it, anything to try to get EA to fix any lingering issues.

When the game launched on Steam it came with a 75% discount for a long duration. Get it while it's on discount, try it out, and if you suffer from all the issues, get a refund. If not, enjoy! The price is a steal for those that can get it working.

Fast-paced mix of Mega Man Battle Network and Slay the Spire
Jumbo variety of abilities/items
A lot of room for experimentation given ample strategic nous
All the art is gorgeous - the pixel art battle sprites, the normal character portraits, you name it. Also the girls are cute (but of course)
STEEL_PLUS's soundtrack is a hallmark of excellence

The high speed gameplay can prove too overwhelming an experience at times

This game was a past contender for my GOTY of 2020.

Granted, I've never played MMBN before, but I do have a solid amount of experience in Slay the Spire and other similar games. My deckbuilding prowess in these kinds of games has never been the greatest (I prefer gleaning other's tips over coming up with my own), but the genre in general is still a bunch of fun to play.

When you mix the methodical, thought-provoking strategical action with the absolutely immense fast-paced gameplay of MMBN, you get a game that's quite unlike any other. While Slay the Spire requires you to carefully think about what choice of cards to play on any given turn (and giving you all the time in the world to do so), here you not only have to juggle your spells but also simultaneously target your foes while also dodging their attacks. I find this whole real-time shtick more conducive to engaging gameplay.

At times, it is really easy to get overwhelmed by the plethora of spells (especially memorising them if you decide to take too many into your deck) and the variety of attack patterns exhibited by the various enemies, and I will admit to more often mashing my spell keys without much of a thought - but this is still an exceedingly cathartic experience in general, and I look forward to eventually improving at this.

Plus it's also published by the good folks at Humble. What's not to like about that arrangement?

Super worth it at the full asking price, though as I owned one of Wizard of Legend or Slay the Spire I got a small 10% discount on top, which sweetened the deal. Maybe I can put the savings towards that amazing soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDdhxQdrJbE

File Format: MP3, ranging from 278kbps to 298kbps.

As stated in other reviews, the Merkfolk songs aren't the full-length versions of the tracks, because they have been edited for length and to remove bits that didn't sound thematically appropriate with the game. I'm in two minds about this, on one hand it doesn't matter that much since you'll still hear what you get in the game, but part of me wishes that the tracks were the full versions.

This isn't really a big deal-breaker though, but it does contribute to me knocking a few more arbitrary points off the score. The full length versions of the songs can be heard on Spotify (or bought here[www.wyczarovane.com]) anyway.

Otherwise, this collection is a predominantly melancholic, and at times rousing (especially the Merkfolk tracks) collection that thematically fits the setting and mood of the game at any given time VERY well.

Track picks:
Merkfolk (Merkfolk)
We're in it Together (Carlos-Filipe Alves)
The Burden of The Crown (Carlos-Filipe Alves)
Poludnica (Merkfolk)

An interesting mix of essentially Reigns and (in a really loose sense) Crusader Kings II
Moments of hilarity, moments of bleakness; this game has it all
Spellbindingly beautiful soundtrack
This is medieval Not Tonight, isn't it? I recognise that art style from far away!
Your choices in this game do matter - think carefully

Schrodinger's difficulty

I wish some story events weren't railroaded
Save file system is rather rigid
Sometimes some elements are a bit...unbelievable

Full disclosure: I played the public beta, before then beta testing the game right up till launch and helping to find some of the most obvious bugs - you can see my name in the credits. I gave some feedback regarding the difficulty, so feel free to shout at me if you find it too hard/too easy!

Yes, Your Grace had a really turbulent developmental period, marred by broken promises from the game's ex-publisher and various other woes (all the way back in the late 2010s!), but at long last, after a PROPER helping hand from the new publisher No More Robots, it is finally here. Control poor King Eryk of Davern and steer his hand; hopefully your kingdom doesn't fall apart during your reign!

A very small dev team worked on this game - and if you've played Not Tonight, you might recognise the distinctive and gorgeous pixel art style...because Rafal, who did the art for that game, is one of the main developers on this one! The world of Davern is rich with personality, in no small part thanks to main developers Rafal and Alina. There are some Polish influences here and there, drawing from their backgrounds.

Eryk has a ton on his mind - petitioners, his three daughters, his lovely queen, as well as wars with other nations. Juggle these responsibilities, along with your kingdom's gold, supplies, and contentment, as carefully as you can. It's definitely not the easiest task - you'll have to carefully weigh up your choices and their consequences - and if other reviewers' prowess are any indicator, you might struggle. I did find it relatively a breeze - although there was a slight struggle amassing enough resources in the endgame. You can save-scum within an 8-week period; if you want to scum longer than that, chances are you'll need a new playthrough or have to savvily back up the physical files.

I feel like the key standout of this game, though, are the brilliant audiovisual aspects - although not really 'stand-out' amazing, they do a solid job of conveying the intended atmosphere. Besides the amazing aforementioned pixel art, Merkfolk (a Polish folk-metal band) have licensed some pretty rousing (snippets of their) songs to inject some kick into the otherwise predominantly melancholic (and thematically appropriate) soundtrack by Carlos-Filipe Alves. Even the sound effects, especially the speaking effects, have some carry-over from Not Tonight as the same audio guy worked on it - and the goofy made-up language voices lend another touch of levity to the otherwise mostly melancholic game.

There are definitely some story events that I wished had the possibility to happen differently, though, and unfortunately those are pretty much railroaded. In all fairness though, I did feel those thoughts after the first few playthroughs, because at that point I did have a greater understanding to what was going on, so I do regret that at that point I can't do anything that changes those specific outcomes.

Picked up any other games from No More Robots? The price is about comparable to those other games (roughly $20 base at best). First playthroughs can vary wildly in terms of playtime, but generally trend towards 8 hours or so. The key to this game lies in the choices and replayability - and I'd be hard-pressed to argue for a lower cost.

Step 1: Download 30GB of files via Steam
Step 2: Launch the launcher
Step 3: Realise you have no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ clue how to understand Turkish
Step 4: Look up instructions on how to change the installer language
Step 5: Change installer language
Step 6: Wait for another 30GB download to happen

No, even for free this is not worth it. It's just a shame that there's too much hassle in the claiming process just to get it for free, and I hear this game is also heavily P2W, so take from that what you will.