Recent reviews by LaytonsGal

So I may revise my review in the future just to add in other things, but for now, I just wanted to leave a review with my first impressions and experience so far.
I was a bit surprised by the mostly negative reviews here. I know there's tons of free to play MMO's, especially on Steam, but I wondered what made this so negative compared to others I've seen-

So far, I've really been enjoying the game and I feel compelled to play more, which, often time doesn't happen for me in MMO's. I love RPG's and such, and the concept of MMO's is always something I'm interested in, but I never get too invested.
For me personally, this game by far has some of my favorite character designs and overall world aesthetic. The color schemes and enemy designs slightly remind of the Mana series from Square Enix, so that's a huge plus for me.

I noticed a huge complaint here was peoples accounts being randomly banned for no reason? Thankfully that hasn't happened to me yet, and I was able to get in touch with some other players via the official Discord server, and they reassured me if the banning issue happens, it's fairly easy to get support to fix it. So while this seems like a pretty decent inconvenience, I'm glad to know support doesn't just ignore these cases.

But yeah if this game looks interesting to you I'd say try it out!
I think the dialogue is pretty entertaining, and the Chinese voice acting is enjoyable.

I will say, I am a very casual player with these types of games, so I've not yet seen first hand what drops are like for dungeons and things or how much is available through normal gameplay and not buying from the shop, but based on what I've been told there's a fair amount of content and items from playing.

So if you just go in expecting to have some fun with a character creator, beat the crap out of adorable bug creatures that I feel very bad about killing, and getting to house the soul of a Loli god in your body, then you'll get some enjoyment!

At the time of writing my initial review I've played for about 2 hours, and I most likely will update in the future, but I felt compelled to leave a review because I'm so excited about this game.

First off, the overall style is gorgeous. I love the different areas, the varying colors and lighting.
Second, the sort of mash up of genre's here is personally an instant win for me. I love metroidvania's and puzzle games so this is a great combo.
Also, I noticed there's a lot of ways to fine tune the experience so if you're someone who wants more of the metroidvania aspects to be more prominent, you can do that.

I was honestly a bit shocked when I came here and saw the instant negative reviews. (well actually I probably shouldn't be)
I personally disagree with the controls being bad. I had no issues getting used to them and I really enjoy them, however I do get it's standard for controls to be able to be mapped, so I understand that as a complaint.

Finally, I'd like to mention the sort of slower combat reminds me of one of my favorite games, Out of This World on SNES, and there aren't many games like it, so this is a welcome experience in my eyes. I get some people might go into this wanting the more fast paced combat like Symphony of the Night or Hollow Knight, but I think this is a welcome mix-up.

Not every game will appeal to every one, but so far my excitement about this game has not changed. Also the price tag is pretty great, I was honestly expecting this game to be like, $40, so even at the normal $25 I'd pay that.

So to start off, I'm someone who's been following this game for years, and while I wasn't a backer, I still watched the development of this.
Without going on and on, I do appreciate that the devs of this DID deliver what they advertised, even if it took a while, AND on top of that they were honest during delays and kept people up to date, at least compared to some devs I've seen. I know they offered refunds to backers at points too.

Anyway, moving onto the actual game. I know prices are always subjective to a degree, what's worth $40 to me may not be worth it to you. Personally I'm not really missing my $40, and given all the time that went into this, and the obvious amount of effort that went into level and art direction I'd say it's fair. I understand the complaint however that it could have stood to be longer, but still I'd say there's far worse examples of price versus content out there.

The actual game I found incredibly enjoyable. Generally it's slow paced, and has a lot of build up which I think works in it's favor.
I also think it's strange that so many people are focusing on the combat being bad, and even saying they were misleading when it comes to showing how the combat works and how little of it their actually is. But from my perspective, I never saw this as something to expect outstanding gunplay or shooter action from. At first and foremost, it's a puzzle exploration game, and I get the game has combat so it's fair to criticize it, but personally I found the uses of it very interesting and I never had an issue with it in terms of doing what I needed to. The boss towards the end actually was pretty good, and I can understand why some would have wanted more of that if the game had been longer, I certainly wouldn't have minded more area's with bosses, but I did like how late into the game the boss came in, it made it all the more unnerving when I was all of a sudden like "wait, I have to fight this?!"

There are parts that are very "walking simulator"-esque, however I think there's plenty of parts that are more open and give you a chance to either go in circles or really pay attention to where your going. Not to mention as someone who loves puzzle/point and click games, this has some of the coolest puzzles I've seen in a while, and I loved how intricate and interlocked they were with the areas.

All in all my biggest complaint is I DID want more, and I'd love if they used these same assets to make a continuation with more lore added.
I get that's part of the experience, is the mystery and I actually liked that you weren't told how to do everything, and instead had to adapt to the weird mechanics on your own.
But I'd LOVE for this to not be the end of Scorn. I think there's tons of potential here for an elaboration on this world and why it got to this point.
I'm not expecting tons of writing at every corner, but just something, ya know?

Anyway, a very beautiful experience, and while it wasn't perfect and the road to completion was long and sort of rocky, I'm very glad to have played this and I really look forward to whatever the devs do next.

So I just found out about this game because of my friend posting a meme about it, and decided I'd try it, because hey, why not. I like silly horror stuff.

Right off the bat though, I'd like to say I get the frustration with the recent trends of games that sort of ride on the hype of things like FNAF and Poppy Playtime, but at the same time I don't exactly think it's a bad thing to take inspiration from something as long as you bring something new to the table.

However I think the biggest sin here is how they're marketing it. Blasting people with your (overpriced) merch and socials from the get-go just isn't a way to draw people in, especially when you don't have an established identity. It's only going to come across as greedy and that you're attempting to ride the wave of hype surrounding this style of game.

Second sin is that this is a demo. Marketing this as the "first", while the full game is listed as a "sequel" makes no sense. This could easily be a single page named "Garten of Banban", with a demo.
There's no reason to have this in chapters (oh wait, it's probably because that's what Poppy Playtime is doing lmao)

In terms of the actual game, I had fun. Did it change my life, no, but I found the environment to be pleasing enough, mostly the play room. But all in all there just isn't enough content here to make a sound judgement yet.
My favorite part was definitely the ball pit room chase.

My biggest gripe would be the invisible walls that pop up in cutscenes, some of them (like the door being open during the chase in the ballpit) are just confusing or make no sense visually.
I understand limiting the players movement but visually it doesn't look pleasing and can be a bit confusing.

I personally didn't have any glitches or anything in that regard, so I can't speak on that really.

I guess all in all I can recommend this right now since it's a free demo that at least gave me some laughs and entertainment, but we'll just have to see if the devs dig themselves into a further hole in regards to how they're marketing.

I'd like to thank Larian for allowing my time to be consumed by my eternal and undying love (pun intended) for Fane.

(If you don't care about my little blurb, you can skip towards to the bottom to just see my pros/cons
Also as usual tl;dr at the bottom)

So as of writing this I've completed the game. I'd first like to start off by saying I came into this kind of late. I know there was some frustration with people who had been here before it released, and even some after before it got majorly updated. Just figured this was worth mentioning so you can kinda get how I may not fall into this group.

When my husband told me about this game through him watching OneyPlay's play it, I was honestly shocked I had heard nothing about this until then. Especially considering this had a Switch release and everything, it just went under my radar.
Like most people I totally have had my fair amount of time laughing at this game as well as being bewildered by certain things in it. However, I can easily recommend it as someone who enjoy's RPG's, overall weird ♥♥♥♥ and interesting characters (yes I said that) and designs.
Also, if I'm being honest I think some people really exaggerate when it comes to this game being bad. Does it have many things it could improve upon or maybe didn't need to be in it at all? Definitely. Is it so bad that it should be cast into a dark pit, never to be seen or played by anyone? No.
I think the lesson to be learned from this is that you can enjoy something despite it's flaws, AND you can also point out those flaws and still like it. I think often some people feel it's either all or nothing lol


So now so this doesn't become 100 miles of me just writing paragraphs I'm just gonna list some of my favorite things about this games, and then things I feel could be improved upon!


-Pros/Cons- (some of the pros may be subject to opinion, but they're things I personally enjoyed about the game)

Pros:
- Great art direction, designs (I especially love the Essentia)
- Variety with battle mechanics (I like everyone's different style and approach in battle, it may be a bit frustrating to learn at first, but by end game I was dodging and doing good/perfect attacks all the time)
- Soundtrack (The music in this game is just really good. A couple ones that fall a bit short but overall I maybe only got sick of a couple tracks. Into the Mind, Battle with Rhythm, Disco Battle, just to name a few)
-Story (this is SUPER subjective I realize, but I personally found myself invested. There are low points, or parts that may really confuse a new player with no context but I feel overall it ended up making sense in it's own weird way.)
- Voice acting (There were probably only a few performances that were noticeably off, mainly the Police officer, just a bit too weird and sounded like it was done in one take or something. But as a whole I think it's great for a project that's made by such a small team. I tend to give credit to voice acting that's decent in smaller indie titles because it certainly isn't easy)


-Cons-

- Seemingly useless abilities (Despite the fact there's a pretty large variety of skills, I felt like they just... didn't serve much of a purpose? I beat the entire game fairly easily by only using "Beat Down" and the normal attack. I'd say the best skills are Photoshoot, LP toss, Item Spread, and Panda. Outside of those I didn't use a whole lot. Oh and Banish doesn't count because it's pretty much a key story ability.)

- End game(pre-epilogue) (so by "end game" I'm referring to the point in which you have a month before the new year comes, to train for the end coming. I managed to get through this part in a couple sittings, but it's definitely the slowest and worst point in the game. I feel it could have easily been condensed down into maybe ten days or something. Enough to see all the support conversations, get the level ups from the exp gained from those, and then a couple days to do the monster dungeons if you need to. I don't think anyone would need that many days to catch on to what might be expected of them. And I was already a decent level at this point anyway, so the monster dungeons just kind of topped off my leveling.

- Bugs/Glitches
Here's a little list of bugs I encountered. Thankfully I never lost too much progress because of these, but figured I'd list them in case the devs still look at reviews and so players may keep these in mind.

- Camera not moving after a cutscene ending in Wind town
- Game crashing after logging onto a computer in one of the internet cafe's
- Game menu deciding to not show it's open despite it being open with sfx's

-Characters
(Finally, let's discuss the characters just a bit. I get it's a meme to hate Alex, and I understand why. However I do feel that he shows some progression and has an explanation to his actions AND also goes through some kind of change. Same with Vella and Rory. I couldn't stand Vella at first and thought she was just gonna be a feminist cringe dispenser but thankfully she didn't head that way. Even Rory, the resident edgelord ended up going in some good direction. Micheal is glorious and is the best character, this is a fact, not an opinion. Claudio is cool. Doesn't get enough lines honestly and he should have spoken more than Chondra who is the worst part of this game.
I'm not joking. Devs, if your goal was to create the most obnoxious, annoying character...then you did great.
And finally, I really like the Essentia. Even after seeing the ending I think she's an interesting character and I'm hoping there's a sequel that could explain her and Alex more.


And uhhh I think that's everything?
Yeah this has gone on long enough lol


TL;DR
Fun battles, great music, a story line you might find interesting despite things being confusing at first and seemingly not knowing where it's going. Good ending in my personal opinion that did explain certain things I just didn't get at first.
A couple characters that can be annoying on and off, but there is some type of development. A few bugs/glitches. Slow segment towards the end of the game. Dungeons can drag on a bit, but they're aren't too many of them.
Mainly recommended for players who really like RPG's and want something weird and fun visually.

So I bought this looking for a new, more elaborate time management game, and I'd say I've found that in this!
Just so others can know I'm playing on Windows 10, and as of playing for over an hour, I had no crashes or issues.

It's a pretty fun game so far and It certainly has a lot to it. When I got this, I was sort of expecting the whole idea of this game having a "story" to be sort of clickbait, because a lot of games like this claim to have a story but then it really doesn't.
But this really does, and it's integrated really nicely into the game.
Basically before and after each level you get a small cutscene that sets up and continues the story.
Also, levels can have their own special task you have to complete, which fits into the theme of the level and adds an added layer of challenge since that means you have an extra task to pay attention to.

Finally, the music is very relaxing and I like the art style. Obviously the cutscenes and such are very minimal, so don't expect some fully animated experience, but for this genre of game it's a breath of fresh air and I wish there were more games like this.

I'll most definitely be playing this for a lot longer.

...What can I even say about tf2 that hasn't already been said by millions of people who have way more experience and playtime in this game?

Probably not a whole lot but let's write a review anyway!

Tf2 is something I've known of for many years now. I started playing in high school (probably in 2014 or something like that, maybe a bit earlier)
I quickly got into it with all my friends and we had a blast.
The characters are obviously a huge, gigantic part of what makes this game so entertaining.
It's insanely easy to forget that these nine men are just constantly trying to kill each other and are hired, professional killers.
Some might hear that and think it's a negative, but it couldn't be further from that.
So much of what Valve and the community has made for this game (the comics, YT shorts, voice lines, taunts) allows for these characters and their world to be interesting, fun and investing despite the fact it's a bunch of wackos in a war zone.

However of course, the game itself and gameplay is of course another major aspect of it. I understand throughout the years there's been ups and downs with how people have reacted to various updates and decisions, but even now for me returning to play and being more active as a player and a fan, I'm having just as much fun as I remember having back in high school and maybe even more so.

I'm someone who didn't grow up playing many multiplayer games, let alone online multiplayer. And I can easily say this is one of my favorite online multiplayer experiences.
Even when I lose, I have fun. (most of the time lol)

I think that's the keyword here: fun.
This game is that for me, plain and simple. Of course I get a tad competitive and I want to get even better at the game, but so far I'm having a hell of a fun ride doing it.

All in all, the game is free and I'd honestly recommend for anyone to try it out, and this is coming from someone who doesn't have a ton of experience with FPS's, so don't be afraid to try it out if you're tempted.

(Slight spoilers, if you don't want any, read the tl;dr at the bottom!)

So I just finished the game and wanted to write this while it's fresh in my mind.
I beat the first game, Curse of the Ancient Circle a few months ago and once I saw there was a sequel I got pretty excited. I really enjoy point and click games with horror themes so since I enjoyed the first so much, I figured I'd enjoy this just as much if not more since it's a newer game and seemed to be a similar setting.

I'll say first that I indeed enjoyed this just as much as the first. It has the same visual style just a tad more polished and there's certainly more animations and interactive aspects. Such as moving objects to find new items. I also enjoy the ambient music and it certainly has the same atmosphere that I enjoyed in the first game.

I like the story continuation as well, long story short you're the same person from the first game, returning to Barrow Hill ten years after the events of the first game. A group of teens is still hurt from those events, mostly a girl named Mia who is still looking for her brother, Ben (who was a character in the first game) and she believes with the help of Pagan rituals she wants to attempt to find out what happened to him and ends up disturbing a new power that possesses her.
So, the basics of the game is figuring out what happened to this group of friends, and undoing what Mia did and ultimately saving them and ridding Mia of Baiben who's possessing her.

I'd say a critique I could give is I feel the mix of 3d models and real life images is a bit...jarring?
The first game of course had tons of real images and uses of photography, which I think is cool and this does too, but in this game you actually see the models of the characters in certain scenes and compared to the world around them they just don't look nearly as good.
I know 3d modeling is a long process and I'm very aware a small team is behind these games, but I'll admit I found them a tad ugly. Even compared to standards of old games where the models haven't aged so well.
The guys especially. Emma and Mia look okay, at least their heads and hair do. But I just found myself wishing they looked a tad better and less stiff.

The voice acting is on par with the first game, and Emma has the same voice of course. Some of it, mainly Olivers voice is a tad TOO silly for my tastes, but other than that I think the voice acting is decent especially for a game being made by such a small team.

---

Overall, I'd say if you enjoyed the first game you'll like this just as much!
It's a nice continuation of the story and I had a lot of fun returning to Barrow Hill and seeing the area in a different light. I especially liked visiting the cafe and seeing it so differently, same with the radio station.
However, I can't exactly recommend this if you haven't played the first. Of course, you'll be able to play it and it is technically a different situation than the first game, however you'll get more out of it if you've played the first.

Tl;dr

This is a great sequel to the first Barrow Hill, and if you enjoy point and click with horror elements I have to recommend this. Especially if you've played the first game, if you haven't I suggest go play it first then come back for this!
Just expect to see some rough 3d models and to be prepared to backtrack and carefully search areas, that's usually expected from point and click but figured it was worth stating.

I'll be checking out more of Shadow Tor's games!

So first off let me say, I've beat the game however my playtime is so low due to playing this game years ago before it was remade, so i remembered how to get through pretty much all of it.
The Witch's House was never one of my favorite RPG maker games, however I never disliked it. It just wasn't a game that stood out to me like how it does for some, however I can certainly say I enjoyed this more.

Graphics aren't everything obviously but I felt that was a big issue I found with the original is that the graphics we're mostly stock. However, with this update the game has more of it's own style.
The environments as well as the character sprite of Viola is blatantly improved and just overall help the game to stand out more.
Oh and there's a lot more variety of animations.

They also added new difficulty settings which could help with wanting to do more playthroughs, which I might do eventually.
So I'd say if you've previously played the game, you should check this out. And if you're a newcomer I'd say you'd probably enjoy it if you're just looking for a short experience that offers some spooks and puzzles to crack.
The character designs are nice as well you just don't seem much of them.
Also just know going in this is one of those "tons of things can kill you" games, so be sure to save whenever you can and expect to die a lot to first encounters.

Anyway yeah, in short. This isn't one of my favorite games of all time however I can still recommend it and this updated version helped me enjoy the game a lot more.