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Before Your Eyes is a first-person narrative-driven game that, whilst only being a few hours long, still manages to deliver an emotional and impactful story that you can play in one sitting. Whilst the blinking mechanic is interesting to experience, the calibration can be a bit off sometimes if you don’t have great lighting.

• Manages to deliver an impactful, emotional, and engaging story
• Relatively short, allowing it to be completed within a single sitting
• Blinking mechanic is unique, never before have I tried so hard not to blink

• Calibrating your blinking can be slightly annoying sometimes, had to re-calibrate a few times during my playthrough

You play as Benjamin Brynn who is in the afterlife and tells his story reliving his life from start to finish in an engaging way. Each scene that you encounter will play out from a few seconds to a few minutes before a metronome appears at the bottom, indicating that when you blink you’ll go to the next scene. You’ll interact with different objects in the environment by blinking as well and make some choices that will slightly alter you from the main story.

From start to finish the story is intriguing, and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t play many narrative-driven games. It’s short to say the least, and slowly sets you up brick by brick for Benjamin’s death. The game only amounts to about two hours of playtime, which allows you to experience the game in a single sitting.

As you live the life of Benjamin you’ll find out that the longer you stay in a scene, the more you’ll get to explore and listen to extended dialogue. These usually only contain small details about the story that aren’t needed to know, but are insightful and interesting to explore. On the flip side of things, you can also skip scenes prematurely from instinctively blinking, which can be frustrating at times if you want to explore every nook and cranny.

Before Your Eyes doesn’t ask much of you in terms of gameplay, in fact, you only need your mouse and an optional (but recommended) webcam to play through the game. You won’t be walking around, but instead looking around each scene and observing what is going on whilst interacting with certain objects. The minimalist gameplay and jumping from scene to scene when blinking allows players to be more involved and concentrated on the story than walking around figuring out where to go.

It’s important to note that you don’t necessarily need a webcam to play this game, and that you can just use mouse clicks to progress through each scene instead. However, this takes away significantly from the experience, part of the fun/frustration is to not blink to exhaust all the possible dialogue that the scene has to offer. Being able to bypass this by simply not clicking makes it feel less impactful.

That being said, the blinking mechanic is a concept I hadn’t seen in any game previous to this, so it was a fresh and original idea that captivated my interest. There isn’t a lot of depth to this, not that there needs to be, you’ll use blinking to select choices, interact with objects in the environment and skip to the next scene. You’ll also close your eyes to listen to conversations that are barely audible to you, which I thought was an interesting idea to dull one of your senses to enhance another. The game doesn’t drag on, keeping things short and sweet to not exhaust this mechanic and make it mundane.

At times though, I wasn’t a massive fan of when the blinking made time skip a scene. There were multiple occasions where I didn’t even get to experience much of the scene because I blinked exactly when the metronome appeared. This isn’t much of a problem but it would be nice to have some sort of indication as to when it was going to appear so I could be ready, rather than having to constantly be on guard even when the metronome isn’t there in anticipation of it showing up.

Before Your Eyes is a prime example of quality over quantity, delivering a satisfying and impactful story in such a short amount of time. The blinking mechanic, whilst sometimes frustrating to calibrate, is a fresh experience that I hope will get used in another niche title at some point. The story definitely had an impact on me and is something that I won’t forget anytime soon. Though the game didn’t strike me emotionally as some other reviews seemed to experience, it undoubtedly struck some kind of nerve that hadn’t been touched in a while. Overall, this is an exceptional story-driven game that you’ll want to play at some point.

For more critically honest reviews of mine, check out Metro's Review Corner

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Darkest Dungeon (referred to as DD from now on) is a turn-based rogue-lite with a huge emphasis on difficulty, along with a crude and dark atmosphere surrounding it. Unlike a lot of other RPGs, DD forces players out of their comfort zone and makes them feel at the mercy of every battle they encounter. Your heroes will die, but death isn’t the end.

• A diverse roster of heroes to choose from
• Each area has unique enemies
• Amazing atmosphere and narration that really nails the dark and gritty feel to the game
• Knowledge is power, enemies have specific attacks and weaknesses, bosses have unique mechanics you’ll have to overcome
• Combat is very tactile and strategy based, every move matters
• The stakes are always high

• Permanent progression doesn’t help you much when exploring dungeons
• There’s a big difficulty spike when going from Veteran to Champion dungeons
• Mistakes will cost you dearly, setting you back in your progress to defeat the Darkest Dungeon

DD is made up of two stages, the Hamlet, where you treat and upgrade your heroes, and exploring the twisted depths of the dungeons. In the Hamlet you can recruit heroes into your roster, upgrade their skills, weapons and treat their stress levels to ensure they don’t go insane. This is where your main form of progression will be, upgrading buildings allows you to purchase more trinkets, relieve more stress from heroes, upgrade their weapons, armour and so on. It's a slow form of progression, which unfortunately, you never really feel whilst exploring the dungeons, it's only there to help treat your heroes faster and gain new skills.

In order to traverse these dungeons, you need a group of heroes willing enough to explore the darkest depths. There’s a lot of diversity when it comes to heroes that you choose to recruit, each has a specific role to play. There isn’t such a thing as a ‘bad hero’ as everyone offers something unique to the team. But there is such a thing as a bad team, you need to pick who you bring along wisely as a bad team can lead to their demise. You can’t brute force your way through the game by bringing only damage dealers, you require a well-balanced team that can support whatever situation you might find yourself in.

Unlike traditional RPGs, it's crucial that you understand that the heroes in your roster are expendable. They can be cast away if maintaining their stress, quirks and / or diseases become too expensive. The game teaches this to you early on with level zero heroes that can be easily replaced by new arrivals in your coach. Admittedly, it might take a little while to get into this sadistic mindset, but the sooner you stop getting attached to ‘powerful’ heroes in your team, the better. You need to prioritise keeping your higher level heroes well rested and letting go of lower levels that aren’t worth the investment.

Whilst traversing such gritty and dark dungeons, your heroes will naturally develop both positive and negative quirks (mostly negative) either during the dungeons by being too curious, or when you finish a dungeon. Most of the time, these are out of your control, they become annoyances that you’ll either learn to deal with or remove for a cost. These can range from increasing/decreasing your heroes stats, making them steal loot for themselves, only allowing them to relieve stress in certain areas, making them believe they’re possessed by demons and so on. It's left up to you whether it's worth keeping the hero despite their flaws, or cast them away and start fresh. This makes every hero unique, even if you have the same two classes, you need to figure out if the positive quirks outweigh the negative ones.

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There are four different areas to explore when choosing which dungeon to traverse, each area brings new threats and unique enemies that have different strengths and weaknesses. In order to survive you need to exploit their weaknesses as much as possible. Some enemies are more susceptible to the bleeding status effect than others, so figuring this out for each area is vital to making each journey as easy as possible.

Dungeon difficulty is determined by your heroes level, higher level heroes will refuse to fight in lower level dungeons. This forces you to balance out everyone's level in your roster, it’s no good having a single team at level five if the rest are at level two. It’s a clever way the game stops players from rushing and makes sure that you take care of your heroes. On the other hand, this strings out the game to be longer than you would expect, and even longer if your heroes die. You might feel comfortable traversing the lower level dungeons, however, as you progress to veteran and champion dungeons, you’ll soon be put back in your place, with uncertainty as to what enemies you’ll encounter and how to deal with them the most efficient way possible.

Combat has a large emphasis on positioning, both for your heroes and the enemies you’ll encounter. Every attack can only be used if you are in the correct position, and can only hit enemies in certain positions. For example, melee attacks usually require the hero to be in the first or second position and can only be used on the first or second position on the enemies side. This is why it's extremely valuable to have a varied team that can deal damage to all four positions. You might be wondering why they would ever leave their preferred position(s) in the first place, but there are some enemies that move heroes back and forth. You can always move back to your original position within a move or two, but that wastes precious turns that you might not always have when battling fierce foes. On the other hand, you can also mess with enemies by pulling them into positions they don't prefer which will force them to use weaker attacks.

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Along with maintaining health during combat, stress is also a concern for your party members. Some enemies have attacks that purely focus on inflicting stress rather than dealing damage. Mitigating stress is probably more important than maintaining health since it's difficult to reduce stress when inside dungeons. That being said, a hero with zero health isn’t good for anyone, so managing both of these is crucial to your hero's survival and longevity. When you reach 100 stress the hero will be inflicted either positively or negatively (mostly negative though), this will cause them to act recklessly and make them do actions by themselves, depending on the infliction. This can range from passing their turn, attacking their party members, stressing out the other party members, attacking by themselves and so on. It's a downward spiral that, if left untreated, will cause other party members to become more stressed and be inflicted as well.

DD is a brutally difficult game, it turns the genre on its head by making the heroes you recruit nothing special. They are replaceable, and they can die. The combat is thought-provoking, every attack has a chance to miss, and it's up to you whether it's worth taking the risk. Admittedly, the progression is slow, and killing a level six hero can be extremely detrimental to completing the game which might turn a lot of people off. However, it's part of the game that you’ll learn to accept and cope with.

For more critically honest reviews of mine, check out Metro's Review Corner

Seven: Enhanced Edition is an open-world stealth RPG game that leaves a lot to be desired from. Although there are some highlights here and there such as the vast and rich open-world to explore, the game is mostly riddled in annoying and unnecessary mechanics that either feel underdeveloped (the combat) or just not needed at all (the crafting system). This game could've been so much more, but it never seemed to reach its full potential.

• Large open-world has a lot of interesting buildings and wrecked structures to explore
• Sneaking around hostile areas is enjoyable
• Loads of side quests that offer short and rich stories
• Teriel has a sense of personality and humour that I found entertaining

• Crafting system felt needlessly tacked onto the game
• Bosses felt out of place and poorly designed
• Some environments feel too cluttered and make it annoying to explore and traverse the world along with the isometric camera you can't move
• AI both get caught in terrain frequently and are generally dumb
• Being detected by guards feels like there's barely any consequence
• Lack of balancing with some of the skills makes combat stupidly easy
• Sometimes skills just don’t work how they are supposed to
• Quicksaves are annoyingly uncommon, and when they do happen automatically, they happen at inconvenient times
• Frame rate isn’t always at a constant 60fps, dips down a lot throughout the game
• A small amount of persistent and annoying bugs

The extensive and rich open-world of Peh is a considerable one to explore, filled with wrecked buildings, hostile camp sights and interesting structures. If you can reach it, then you can probably climb it. Even though the movement isn’t as fluent as it could be, it’s still enjoyable to traverse massive buildings and find new loot. You’ll come across dozens of crafting schematics and skill upgrades scattered across the world, which further incentives you to go off the beaten trail and explore rather than focus on side quests. However, it can be problematic sometimes since the game is in an isometric view. This can lead to difficulty navigating taller structures with multiple floors, since it's difficult to figure out where to go to climb higher. It also doesn’t help with how cluttered some of the wrecked buildings can be, making navigation more frustrating than it should be at times. That along with quicksaves never activating unless you’re making progress in a quest can result in wasting a fair amount of time if you're not one to save automatically.

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You’ll come across an abundance of random materials and junk items found in crates that you loot. The crafting system falls short however, and feels needlessly added to fill out the boxes you can loot throughout the game. Since you have limited inventory space, it doesn't seem worthwhile to pick up materials unless you have a very specific item in mind. Most of the time you’ll replace inferior gear with equipment you find on enemies, so crafting feels meaninglessly added on for no real reason.

Seven: Enhanced Edition doesn’t force players to play stealthily, giving you the option to fight in hostile areas and be spotted if you want. Each area is designed with stealth in mind however, rewarding players with a keen eye with alternative routes to enter hostile areas. There are a lot of tools and traps that you can utilise to make sneaking around and avoiding detection a lot easier. That being said, the stealthy approach is let down by a number of things, most notably the poor AI. Once you figure out that you can simply run past guards, hide in a bush just outside their line of sight and they have no clue where you’ve gone makes strictly being stealthy feel redundant. That’s not to say sneaking around isn’t enjoyable, but it just feels unnecessary when there isn’t much of a consequence to being detected. Even more so when you figure out how broken the combat and skills can be, making combat seem easier than sneaking around.

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Combat in general isn’t that thrilling or exciting, it's neat that each weapon type has its own special attack, but that alone doesn’t make the combat stand on its own two feet. It's riddled with cheap tactics that make fighting too easy, For example, stun locking enemies with a series of attacks and taking them out quickly (though sometimes stun locking doesn’t work reliably) makes light work of most enemy types. There is some creativity when the game introduces skills, from going invisible, to teleporting a short distance, to summoning a black hole, there’s a lot to pick from. Despite this creativity however, there’s an issue with how these skills are balanced, let's take the blackhole as an example. When you place a blackhole near a group of enemies they’re stuck in a helpless animation trying to escape from it, whilst you can just stroll up to them and whack them without them retaliating back. It doesn’t cost much to use either, it's not like you have to wait very long till you can use it again, it just feels broken, making bosses feel like a joke rather than a real threat.

Speaking of which, boss battles are an odd ball of their own, rarely appearing throughout the game but when they do they always seem out of place and poorly designed. There’s no stealth involved here, so if you’ve been primarily focusing on stealth then you may struggle. However, as stated above, you probably have a few skills that will aid you and make the boss a piece of cake, this still doesn’t excuse how poorly designed they are though. Their attacks are overly repetitive with little to no variation, most of the time it's you versus several other guys, there’s just no creativity with anything boss related, it feels like a way to pad out the game longer than it should be.

You’d think that a game being released 4 years ago would have ironed out any bugs or technical issues by now, but alas, this isn’t the case. Although the bugs aren’t game breaking by any means, some of them can be annoyingly common. Having the game lock at 30fps when a cutscene plays is fine I guess, but when it then locks the entire game to 30fps till you restart, it just isn’t acceptable. This, along with the music just not playing at all sometimes, a few other uncommon bugs and the quicksave function that only works if you’re making progress in a quest, takes away from the experience more than it should.

Despite enjoying the first few hours of this game, it started to fall apart the longer that I played it. Although I enjoyed exploring the rich world that it offered, there felt like too many mechanics were left undeveloped. The crafting system felt tacked on with little to no real purpose and the combat felt lackluster to say the least. There’s a real lack of difficulty thanks to the unbalanced skills that makes me question if this game was play-tested enough. Overall, you can probably find a better stealth game if that’s what you’re here for, or a better open-world game if that’s what you’re into. This game tries to be too many things at once and fails to bring you satisfying content.

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Minit is a short, charming puzzle game with simple mechanics that can be completed in a single sitting. There isn’t really much to talk about in this game, it's mostly a great experience with some minor issues that don’t fault the game all too much.

• A short but sweet game that can be completed in one sitting
• Clever level design, unlocking shortcuts and new paths allow you to get around the map quicker and easier
• The Second Run mode makes the game harder and changes the position of enemies, items, characters etc.

• Barely any puzzles that use the timer as a mechanic
• No mini-map to help with navigation or to mark locations of interest you can’t access yet

After finding a sword washed up on the shore and picking it up, you realise that it's cursed. You're now in a 60-second time loop that, once it reaches zero, kills and respawns you. You're told that there is a factory nearby that you have to stop to break your curse. The game then revolves around this timer for you to explore, find items and progress to new areas, before eventually getting to the factory.

Minit evolves around flailing about for 60 seconds before succumbing to your inevitable death when it reaches zero. You start off with a sword, but slowly gain new abilities from helping people that allow you to access new areas that will further open up the map. Progress that you make, such as collecting new items, abilities, collectibles, and completing quests are all unaffected when you die. It feels like a light take on Zelda Majora’s Mask, the way that you're limited to how much time you can spend before having to ‘reset’.

As you explore the map, you’ll encounter a lot of puzzles that are mostly simple to figure out. I was intrigued to see how the game would tie in the time mechanic in tangent with puzzles, however, nothing came of this which was disappointing. For a game that’s main gimmick is all based around time, it felt like a missed opportunity to not include puzzles around that mechanic. Overall, none of the mechanics that Minit introduces ever get developed beyond face value to create challenging puzzles which, consequently, made them not feel overly satisfying to figure out.

That being said, there are a few instances where it was slightly difficult, but that’s because the solution was obscure. Even though the map isn’t too big, it's still annoying to go around to every area looking for a solution or a new item to help you progress when you get stuck on a puzzle like this. There isn’t a mini-map either, so having to commit all the areas to memory can be difficult when you backtrack with new abilities trying to progress, but end up finding collectible stuff instead.

Traversing the map was pretty straight forward considering how small it is, finding secret areas and items felt a lot more rewarding than solving simple puzzles. With only 60 seconds per run, it's impossible to get round the entire map from your starting position (unless you're Usain Bolt, but even then…). There are a few houses you can raid sleep in that serve as respawn points when you die. The game also unlocks shortcuts as you progress that will help get around the map a lot faster and allow you to bring items to places you usually couldn’t (since you can only hold 1 item at a time, sword, watering can, camera etc.). Finding these shortcuts and realising where you are in the map felt a lot more satisfying than solving a lot of the puzzles in the game.

You’ll encounter a few different enemy types that you can fight, though the combat is rather light (someone get Eminem on the phone) and doesn’t have much depth to it. It does break up the puzzle solving you’ll be doing most of the time, and give the empty areas some life to them. But usually they are just a waste of time. It would’ve been nice to have the combat a bit more fleshed out, even if it was more Zelda-like.

Beating the game for the first time unlocks a Second Run mode which is a lot more challenging, you have 40 seconds per run instead of 60, you only have one heart, enemies, some items, and some collectibles are in different locations. Even though I enjoyed my experience the first time, I didn’t find much incentive to play through this, although it could add more playtime to the game, I felt like I had already got my time worth with it.

Despite Minit being relatively short, I enjoyed my experience with the game despite the few issues I have with it. The main one being that the ideas and concepts never got expanded upon to create more complex puzzles. Some of them are so simple that I don’t think they can even be considered as puzzles. These are only minor issues that don’t take away from the experience as it doesn’t affect the game too much.

For more critically honest reviews of mine, check out Metro’s Review Corner

Disc Room provides a relatively short but sweet experience, where your primary objective is to avoid getting killed by spinning discs of death in each room. The game keeps things interesting by introducing new unique mechanics in specific areas as well as a varied amount of discs with different abilities. For such a short game, it has a decent amount of variety to keep you engaged throughout the experience, though it feels too short if you don’t try for 300% completion.

• Each new area has a unique gimmick to keep gameplay fresh
• A multitude of different discs to ruin your day
• A diverse set of 6 abilities to help you survive longer
• Multiple difficulty sliders to make the game easier if you're having trouble

• Rather short unless you go for 300%
• Most of the abilities didn’t seem feasible to use in harder rooms
• Some rooms seem way too easy for a game that’s meant to be fairly difficult
• Lucks seems to be the determining factor for the much harder rooms rather than skill

You are a scientist who is sent to Jupiter after a giant disc is detected orbiting the planet. Upon entering, you find yourself in a room full of deadly discs (I think they’re saws, but the game refers to them as discs), so what else can you do other than attempt to avoid them before inevitably dying. Each room gets reset upon death, to unlock doors to progress, you must complete challenges in rooms that mostly involve surviving for a certain amount of time.

Disc Room’s gameplay loop isn’t a complicated one, nor is it overly repetitive either. It managed to keep me engaged for a good eight hours from start to finish and never felt like a chore to play. You’ll go from room to room, surviving for as long as you can as discs spawn with the sole intent of murdering you. The longer you survive, the more discs that spawn. The game doesn’t challenge you to survive for very long even near the end. Most of the time the challenges to unlock rooms are survive for 5/10/15 seconds, which made me think the game would get exceptionally difficult, but it never did hit that difficulty threshold I was anticipating. I was up for the challenge but was let down by how easy some of these rooms were.

As you progress through rooms, you’ll discover new discs that act differently from one another. Some charge at you every few seconds, some move in odd patterns that are hard to predict, some shoot miniature discs at you, you get the idea. The creativity the developers have with these discs is outstanding, for such a short game there is a lot of variety packed into it. Exploring new areas further increases the amount of variety Disc Room has to offer, introducing new gimmicks to keep the timer ticking or make the rooms more challenging. Some areas require you to stand in a specific area to keep the timer going, some require you to step on tiles to increase the time, some require you to pick up golden orbs to increase the time, etc. Needless to say, there’s more than enough varied content to keep the experience entertaining throughout.

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From the start I was preparing for the game to get challenging quickly, maybe I was expecting too much from the game, but that never really happened. There were a few rooms that had me stumped for a while, but these were far and few between. The difficulty seemed a bit all over the place, even near the end of the game I had a few rooms that I was able to clear on the first couple of attempts. Though my experience with the game might not be like yours, there are sliders that can decrease the difficulty if you find yourself stuck in a room. I can appreciate the fact that the game doesn’t hold you hostage telling you to get good, you are able to make it easier to progress. But I would’ve liked the sliders to have made the game harder, I could’ve made the gameplay at 200% speed, but that just seemed dumb. I would rather have had more discs spawning or made the discs move a little faster.

Disc Room might seem skill-based most of the time, however, when you enter rooms that are a spam fest of discs or limit your vision severely, it feels less skill-based and more luck-based. Since the discs start moving in random directions, you could come up against bad RNG where you're trapped in a corner and there is literally no way of surviving. Combine this with rooms such as Perfect Dark where you literally can’t see anything in the room, unless you use the slow time ability to see temporarily, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. The skill for that room is practically non-existent since you can’t always predict where discs are going to move. Other rooms that overwhelm you with tons of discs are practically the same, hoping that RNG is in your favour so you can survive for long enough.

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Progressing through rooms, you’ll uncover abilities that can help you survive longer. You can only equip one ability from the six that you unlock, but I found that most of the abilities were more too situational to be helpful. The only ones I switched between were slow time and dash, whilst others didn’t seem very beneficial in the more challenging rooms.

Despite the quality and varied content that Disc Room has to offer, I was still somewhat disappointed by the length of the game. My casual playthrough only garnered just over four hours of playtime (including normal and hard mode) which, for someone who compares the price tag to time played, didn’t seem reasonable for the full asking price. This did incentivise me to achieve 300% completion and collect all the achievements (which is extremely rare for me), but admittedly, I only did it to squeeze a couple more hours out of this game. I would’ve liked to see this game be a bit more fleshed out with more rooms, possibly more planets to explore to make the experience a couple of hours longer.

Disc Room is still a great game despite how short and sometimes too easy it can be despite being tagged as ‘difficult. There’s a lot of variety to keep the gameplay fresh, from 60 different types of murderous discs to several areas that change up the gameplay. To get the most out of this game, consider aiming for 300% completion, otherwise expect a relatively short but sweet experience from start to finish.

For more critically honest reviews of mine, check out Metro’s Review Corner

Into the Breach is a turn-based strategy game, combined with rogue-lite elements that add a lot of replay value. Each battle plays out almost like a game of chess, but with a lot more versatility, a plethora of weapons and tools that you can acquire, and a lot of thought-provoking moves to make each turn. There isn't really much wrong or annoying about Into the Breach, if you're into strategy games then you're gonna love this.

• Different mech squads that all feel different to play
• Weapons are varied and versatile to help in different situations
• Battles are small puzzles that can be extremely tense and head-scratching
• Manipulating monsters to kill other threats or block projectiles adds another layer of depth to the puzzle

• Sometimes the shop RNG just isn't on your side and offers you weapons for classes you don't have in your squad
• Battles can look cluttered sometimes with loads of enemies, making it difficult to see what's being attacked by who

You are a time traveler sent to help fight off the Vek, who are massive insect creatures, from taking over the earth. You're tasked with fending them off in battle with mechs that you can choose and customise to create your own squad with. If you fail to defeat the Vek nest before they drain your power supply from buildings and consequently take over earth, then you'll be sent to a new timeline where you can try again.

Before starting a run you'll pick out what mech squad you want to bring with you. There are eight preset classes that are balanced and have their own unique gimmick, some specialize in high damage but hurt themselves in the process, some focus on manipulating the enemy by pushing/pulling them, some give additional benefits to hazardous terrain, you get the idea. I was surprised by how distinctive each of these squads felt, it makes each of them have a different playstyle that opens up new opportunities of disposing of enemies that wouldn't have been possible with other squads. You can also create custom classes from squads that you've already unlocked if you wanted to.

Once your mechs are all set you'll then be displayed with four different islands to defend from the Vek, depending on which one you fight on will depend on what types of threats you'll face. Each one has its own unique gimmick and set of enemies that can appear during battle. Once you've selected an island, you then have to defend countries before facing the main threat. There's almost always a choice when selecting which country you want to fight on, as you defeat the Vek the connecting parts of the island will become available for you to defend. Once you've successfully defended at least two of the islands you can then take on the final island where the Vek have their nest located.

Each battle plays out on an eight-by-eight grid during five turns with various terrain on tiles and, more importantly, buildings that are scattered around the grid. Your primary objective is to protect these at all costs, if any building gets destroyed then you'll lose power, if your Power Grid plummets to zero the run is over. You'll always have optional missions on each battle that you fight on. These will reward you with reputation points that allow you to purchase new weapons, power, and reactor cores for your Mechs once you finish an island. Even though these are marked as 'optional missions' it seems necessary to help upgrade your mechs.

Once you've deployed your mechs on the grid the fight starts. Every battle plays out like a small puzzle, where you have to prioritize which enemies are more threatening. Each enemy moves and projects where they will be attacking before your turn, along with burrows in the ground that show where enemies will appear next turn. When this has finished, you can then start moving your mechs and utilizing their weapons. These weapons range from grapple hooks that pull enemies right beside you to lasers that shoot through enemies (and your allies) to power punches that deal damage and push enemies, there's plenty of variety that give you options to approach difficult situations. Turns can last anywhere from a minute to ten, where you're staring at the screen trying to desperately figure out how to avoid that building from turning into a pile of rubble. I personally enjoyed the longer battles as it was extremely satisfying to pull off a seemingly 'impossible' turn to avoid taking grid damage.

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Enemies come in all shapes and sizes, depending on which island you are fighting on will depend on what sort of enemies you'll encounter. Some of them have melee attacks, ranged attacks, charge at you pushing you back, apply bonus effects to other enemies, etc. You'll be given a list of enemies that you can expect to encounter on each island, the more islands that you save, the more enemies will be unlocked and can then be seen in different islands.

With the plethora of weapons and tools at your disposal, manipulating monsters is just as vital to surviving as killing them is. With the right weapons, you can move monsters to adjacent tiles which could block an attack from an oncoming projectile, kill another enemy before they have a chance to attack, or just move them out of the way of destroying a building. It adds another layer of depth that you have to take into consideration when planning ahead. All of these elements combined might sound mentally taxing each turn, but it never really is. Once you determine which enemies to focus on, then it's just a matter of figuring out what's the best way of dealing with them.

Once you've defeated the main threat on the island, you'll be presented with a shop where you can spend reputation points to buy weapons, power to charge your Power Grid, and reactor cores for your mech. You only get a random selection of four weapons which can sometimes be annoying and offer you weapons for classes you don't have in your squad, but most of the time it's usually quite varied. You're also encouraged to complete every optional mission which will reward you with a free pilot, weapon, or power to add to your Power Grid. Sometimes it's worth losing a building if it means you can acquire additional rewards.

Most weapons and passive abilities that you arm your mech with need reactor cores to function, you can also increase your health and movement using cores as well. It can make for some quite difficult decisions as there's a lot of options that can be extremely beneficial, but they might be strictly situational. You can always move your power around on your mech, but once you've given a core to someone you can't take it off.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2632059116

Into the Breach is such an elegantly crafted game that it's difficult to pinpoint what could be improved on or what is really annoying. Each battle feels like a different puzzle, with the random enemies you'll encounter and different mech squads you'll control, it almost always feels fresh. There's enough weapon variety to help you in any situation and make your mechs more versatile in battle. All in all, I was extremely surprised by how good this game was and would recommend this to anyone who loves a good turn-based strategy game that you can spend hours thinking about.

For more critically honest reviews of mine, check out Metro’s Review Corner

Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan offers a different take on the RPG genre, more notably in combat. It's not groundbreaking by any means, but offers a fresh experience that is intriguing and unique to play. With its charming writing, wholesome gameplay, and unique characters, this title delivers a delightful and laid back experience that anyone can enjoy.

• A fresh take on combat
• Full to the brim with creativity and personality
• All 60 creatures are unique with their own personality and dialogue
• Short cutscenes look amazing, like an old cartoon show brought to modern standards

• The game feels too easy, a difficulty setting would’ve made me appreciate the combat mechanics more
• The unique one time gimmicks in battle could’ve been used to add more depth and challenge to the combat
• Some minor glitchy textures every now and then
• Sometimes the 2D characters look odd in the 3D space

Rainbow Billy follows a boy filled with colour and joy called Billy. After helping his home town set up a fireworks display and then proceeding to watch it, the noise and bright explosions awaken Leviathan, a colourless sleeping dragon, from its slumber. Leviathan thinks that these people live in a fantasy world, full of happiness that refuses to accept any negative emotion, thought or action. He takes it upon himself to curse the world to make Billy see that not everything is sunshine and rainbows, stripping the world and creatures of their colour and happiness. Billy manages to escape his town before his colour is taken from him and is now tasked to defeat Leviathan and bring the world back to its true colours.

After Billy manages to escape his hometown, he is free to explore the ocean depths. You’ll travel from island to island and although it's not as open and large as I would’ve hoped, there is still a decent amount of area to cover. Some of these islands are out of your reach due to the limited fuel you have, but you can return to them later on when it's upgraded. The islands have access to usually offer a relatively easy platforming or puzzle section in order to advance. These sections usually don’t take too long to overcome which helps keep the pace of the game and avoids players getting stuck. Once you reach the end of an island you’ll usually come across a colourless creature who becomes hostile towards you, despite your best efforts to talk to them with respect. You then engage in combat with them and this is where the game shines the most.

Rainbow Billy sticks out from the crowd of RPGs due to its unique take on combat. Rather than slaying opponents like most RPGs, you instead need to colour and befriend them by helping with their problems. At the beginning of every battle, the colours needed to befriend the creature are unknown but can be discovered in the talking phase. Talking to your opponent allows you to listen and advise them on their problems, as every creature has an insecurity that they talk about openly to you. This information is critical to deliver the most effective advice with the three dialogue options provided to you, the better advice that you give the more colours that’ll be revealed. Although it's not necessary to reveal colours before matching them, you can take an educated guess and figure it out by the process of elimination if need be. This is usually only beneficial when fighting bosses as they have a lot more colours compared to regular enemies.

After the talking phase is over, you’ll be dealt a number of tokens that represent creatures you previously befriended. Each of these have their own set of colours they can attack with and can be placed in any of the lanes provided in the battle. After exhausting your moves, the creatures you’ve placed will then attempt to attack the opponent with their colour. Depending who is in the front lane will determine what minigame you play, the more of them in a single lane, the harder the minigame will be. If you haven’t managed to fill all the colours on your opponent after this phase, then they will attack you and the cycle repeats.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2621469453

As to be expected, there is a lot of variety with the minigames to keep you entertained throughout. From Pong, slot machines, rhythm-based sections, etc. Some creatures have the same minigame as others but slightly modified to make them different, maybe the paddle in Pong is shorter or the speed of the rhythm game is faster. However, I felt the challenge in most of the battles was almost non-existent, either because the minigames were too easy, or the enemy wasn’t threatening enough. The only jumps in difficulty that were significant enough to notice were in the boss battles. Consequently, I felt like I couldn’t appreciate the combat mechanics as much as I would’ve if the game provided more of a challenge. Maybe adding a difficulty setting would benefit this title as I felt like I was playing on easy mode, even when fighting the final boss.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2621469738

After befriending a creature you encountered previously, you’ll be able to visit them inside your boat and level them up. They start at level one with a single colour, but as they level up they’ll be able to use more colours and be a lot more diverse in battle. It's crucial to give your creatures as much variety as possible since you don’t get to pick and choose which ones to take with you (you take them all). Leveling them up requires you to give them certain items that you find whilst exploring the islands. Doing this also unlocks new dialogue where they open up about their insecurities and worries further to you. Each of them have a personality and unique traits that make them stand out from the rest and interesting to talk to. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of reading tons of dialogue, but this game held my attention for longer than I was anticipating. I felt compelled to know more about these creatures I’ve saved due to the charismatic and sometimes amusing writing.

Occasionally when fighting an enemy, there will be temporary mechanics for the battle that you won’t experience anywhere else. Some enemies are more fragile and emotional than others, which leads to different things happening in battle. Maybe you're up against someone who is egotistical and refuses to fight famous creatures, maybe they are intimidating and scare off the lane with the most creatures, maybe they are jealous of how good you are at the minigames and force you to do bad to attack them, etc. This forces you to be more strategic in battle and know your team better. It's a shame that none of these mechanics got further from just the one battle, it would’ve been nice to add more layers of depth to the combat and possibly add more challenge.

There’s no doubt that buckets of blood, sweat and tears went into creating this game as it oozes personality and creativity from every nook and cranny. From start to finish Rainbow Billy provides an enjoyable and charming experience that I won’t forget anytime soon. Each character and creature is loveable and full of personality making them feel alive, the battle mechanics are a breath of fresh air, the story is compelling and wholesome and the art style fits the narrative extremely well. My only gripe is that the game is too easy as I was able to breeze through it with no deaths.

For more critically honest reviews of mine, check out Metro’s Review Corner

Loop Hero presents itself as an interesting and quirky idea for a rogue-like, but that's all it really remains. The novelty runs dry quickly due to a heavy grind throughout, as well as a vast lack of variety, pacing and balancing of difficulty that make each run feel more like a chore than it needs to be.

• Manipulating the map to control what enemies spawn is a fresh and interesting mechanic, even though it never gets developed much further
• Three diverse character classes, though the Necromancer feels like the superior class by far, offering a very different playstyle compared to the rest

• The general concept gets run into the ground and becomes monotonous quickly
• Lack of variety between runs severely damages any sort of replayability
• Lack of player engagement
• Lack of depth to mechanics makes the game feel extremely dull
• Slow-paced and extremely grindy
• Poor difficulty balancing between chapters forcing players to do resource-grinding runs
• Hard to stay invested for long play sessions

In Loop Hero, you'll be running around in a randomly generated loop with barely anything on it besides a few slimes. Each run you'll be able to manipulate the surrounding area with cards that you collect from killing enemies as well as gear that you can equip to survive the loop. These card effects range from spawning enemies, granting additional HP, restricting the number of enemies that can be on a single tile etc. You’ll receive specific resources when you walk over cards that you place on the path rather than the surrounding area. These are used to build new structures inside your camp.

Each chapter tasks you to defeat the boss in order to progress, in order to spawn the boss in the first place you’ll need to fill up a bar. Everytime you use a card the bar will slowly fill up, once it’s full, the boss will spawn and you’ll have a choice of fighting or retreating back to camp with all the resources you’ve gathered. If you are unsuccessful in this attempt then you’ll only receive 30% of the resources you’ve gathered.

Upon experiencing your first few runs, you'll probably get into the swing of how things work. The main problem that persists for Loop Hero is that the player engagement and mechanics never evolve or have much depth. One half of the game is deciding on what gear to equip and where to place your cards, the other half is brainlessly watching the character run around and slay enemies. It would be an insult to call Loop Hero an 'idle game,' but I couldn't help but think this when I was only half paying attention to what was happening. Simply watching battles play out, with your only influence being the stats on your equipment, doesn't call for much engagement.

Unlike other roguelites, Loop Hero seemingly pads out the playtime by making the bosses you fight extremely difficult. This not only forces players to grind for resources in order to build structures in their camp, but also causes a lot of frustration. The first boss was fine, took a few tries, but after that it gets viciously difficult, which begs the question of whether there is skill to this game. They've stripped away battle mechanics so what influence do you actually have? You decide which stats to prioritize (evading, regen, defense, counter-attack, etc.), how many enemies to spawn and which terrain cards will benefit you the most. When the entire game boils down to these decisions, it's hard to feel like you're having much of an influence on the game at all.

Manipulating the loop with cards is probably the most interesting mechanic that this game has to offer. You'll discover, through experimentation, that putting together specific cards on the map will cause new things to happen. A basic example of this would be if you place nine rock or mountain cards in a 3x3 grid, then would turn into a Mountain Peak that gives you +48% max HP but spawns a Harpy every two days. All of the terrain cards act in a similar way, spawning enemy encampments on your path. Even if some of the other beneficial structures can also spawn new enemies that you'll have to deal with.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2619723321

It's safe to say that the variety is severely lacking in this game which is a major issue for a title that focuses on repetition. Unlike other roguelites, this one doesn't add enough random elements to the table to make each run feel different and to warrant playing it over and over again. Yet, the game encourages you to do exactly that, grinding over and over again to gather enough resources for building new structures in the camp to make the next loop more bearable. The only way of making a run feel different is by changing the cards that you bring to each loop, however, this contradicts with how brutally difficult the bosses are. If you have a good set of cards that you know work well together, then why would you bother changing up your entire deck for the sake of making it more 'varied' in exchange for making the game even more difficult?

The only variety the game has to offer is found in the character classes that all play slightly differently from one another. The Warrior, the Rogue and the Necromancer with the latter being my personal favorite. These characters can only equip specific items making you focus on different stats depending on your class, but if you boil these down you're literally just focusing on different stats and haven't got much influence on the battle— aside from the Necromancer where you can manipulate how many skeletons you can spawn at what level and the quality of the summon.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2619723385

The resources that you collect during your runs, via placing terrain and traversing through road cards, are used to build new structures of the camp that will aid you in future runs. These can range from giving you healing potions, friendly archers fighting alongside you, to reviving your character once per loop etc. These structures make each chapter more bearable to tackle, however some of these structures are just too pricey. You might grind for a few runs, build the new facility and then stop because of how tremendously dull it is to collect those resources.

That being said, I still appreciate the few unique structures you can build and upgrade inside the camp. It's a shame that the build tree is so linear and doesn't branch off into different directions for more diversity with structures.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2619726092

Loop Hero provides an interesting concept for a game, but drags it through the mud and then runs it over multiple times before you can even get halfway through. The need for constant grinding is laughable at times, the balancing for bosses seems purposely over the top to pad out playtime, the lack of variety makes every run feel monotonous and almost exactly the same. Loop Hero is simply a good idea, executed poorly over and over again with each progressive chapter feeling too repetitive. Rather fitting, given the name.

For more critically honest reviews of mine, check out Metro’s Review Corner

Pawnbarian blends together the movement of chess pieces on a small board along with dungeon crawling. The game is extremely strategic and even though there is some RNG that might make it more difficult than other times, ultimately you are in control and many of the mistakes you make are your own fault. Though, one thing to be aware of is that this game ISN'T a rogue-like.

• Upgrading your cards can add a lot of flexibility and strategy
• Almost every enemy have their own unique traits or mechanics to be aware of
• Multiple 'chains' that increase the difficulty of the floors
• Very strategic and thought-provoking gameplay
• 3 different classes that have very different playstyles
• Even if you don't know how to play chess the game shows you where you can move and attack for each chess piece

• Only 3 dungeons to explore, can increase difficulty but might not hook you for very long
• A turn order for the enemies and how many spaces they will be moving would be helpful information to have when trying to strategize
• Would be nice to examine the board and be able to see the moves you made and where you went wrong instead of an overview of the final state of the board

The basic premise behind Pawnbarian is exploring through 7 floors in each area, defeating enemies on a small chessboard using standard chess pieces to move around your character and attack enemies. You are given 3 cards at the start of each turn and can use the corresponding chess pieces as a way to move and attack, though you only have 2 turns before the enemy attacks and moves. When your health drops to zero then you have lost and have to restart, your deck of cards is recycled from the discard pile to your deck when you run out of cards.

There are only 3 areas to explore throughout the game, each with different types of enemies and mechanics that you'll have to be aware of when fighting said, enemies. Some are more unique than others, however, don't expect an overwhelming amount of enemies, a small handful at most for each area. Almost every enemy has a unique trait and attack pattern when you hover over them to see where they will attack on the board. The game even aids you by showing you the damage that you'll receive on each tile if you end your turn on that specific tile. It makes the strategy a lot less taxing on your mind and allows you to focus on your movements and how moving enemies will affect where they will attack.

Defeated enemies on each floor will grant you 1 gold, however, the game encourages you to play each floor as efficiently as possible which rewards you with gold. The fewer turns it takes you to clear the floor of enemies, the more gold that you'll be rewarded. Obviously, it isn't always possible to complete each floor within 1 turn since enemies spawn semi-randomly from a pool and your first 3 cards might not be the most efficient. On the flip side, the game doesn't punish you too harshly for taking too many turns to clear the floor, so it's not something that makes you win or lose the run.

Between each floor, you are presented with a shop that you can spend your gold on to upgrade your cards or your health. Upgrading cards gives you a lot of flexibility, making it possible to extend your turns for longer, defeat multiple enemies and give yourself a shield to avoid taking damage. For example, one upgrade allows your card to attack all adjacent tiles after moving, which for a bishop that can only move diagonally can be extremely helpful with your limited hand.

Replayability

Once you've completed the 3 areas you can then increase the 'chain' which allows you to go through the areas again but makes it harder. I suppose this is a way of extending the game in some regard, which some might get into but others won't. Another neat feature when you complete the 7 floors of an area is the gauntlet floors which, as far as I'm aware, is an endless mode where you keep going up in floors without any shops drops of health and gold.

There are also 3 different classes that you unlock by clearing an entire dungeon with previously unlocked classes. Each of these have their own deck of chess cards which you can't alter in any way, the Pawnbarian is your standard all-around build with all the chess pieces, the Knight Templar only replaces its pawns with knights, and the Shogun uses Chinese chess pieces (good luck on that one). Each of these classes have very different play styles which require you to think in a different way than whatever class you were playing before. These all also have their separate 'chain' levels and you'll need to clear out all of the dungeons for each class before increasing the chain.

The graphics and art style for this game are rather simplistic, which doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing. The enemies and elite enemies are simply colour coded and enemies that have traits that are immune to being attack will also be colour coded. It works fine for the game and even adds to the charm of playing chess cards in a gruesome dungeon.

For those who want a very strategic, puzzle-type game then this game is great. The RNG can sometimes be a little annoying, but never to the point where you blame the cards you've been dealt for losing. Almost every mistake is on you and the way that you played or chose an upgrade over another. The game might not hook you for very long however if you're not a fan of playing through the same dungeons on harder difficulties, but it's still refreshing to play as the different classes through the same dungeons since their decks are different from one another.

For more critically honest reviews of mine, check out Metro’s Review Corner

Postal 2 is an open-world game that gives the player a lot of freedom to do whatever they want and provides a lot of tools and weapons to use however you like. The writing and story can be humorous at times and some hidden jokes can be a bit edgy at times, but overall this game is definitely a classic to own and a blast to play if you've had a stressful day.

• A lot of weapons and tools at your disposal
• Some tasks have a pacifist or genocide route to take (who would even consider playing this game as a pacifist?)
• The open-world contains loads of secrets and hidden weapons
• Gunning down the entire town with your arsenal of weapons and tools is about as satisfying and fun as it sounds to let off steam

• Weekend drags on for too long and changes the formula of the game to be linear levels
• Some spots where the audio isn't mixed to the right level with the rest of the game

Postal 2 takes place in a little-known town called Paradise, as you can imagine, this place is far from what you would call a paradise. You play as Postal Dude in this town and are given tasks every day from Monday to Sunday to complete before proceeding to the next day. The town itself starts off quite limited, with only a couple of areas available to explore, but as you progress more of the town will open up. This town has a lot of secrets and random weapons lying around the place for no reason and you are free to do practically whatever you want on each day.

The open-world aspect allows for numerous secrets throughout the town of Paradise, along with a questionable amount of weapons and tools just lying around, either in hidden areas outside or in people's houses... It's quite easy to just wander around each day as more of the map unlocks and just look for weapons that are lying around for your own personal use.

The majority of weapons that you acquire are your bog-standard loadout (shotgun, pistol, machine gun etc.) but the amount of different types of weapons and stuff you can use to kill people is rather impressive. I felt more obliged to kill random pedestrians that looked at me funny just because I didn't want to waste the ammo on simply not using it. From burning people alive, urinating them to put out the fire and 'save' them, and then using a shovel to decapitate their already burnt body, this game really has everything a psychopath could possibly ask for. I found this game to be the most satisfying when I had a long stressful day at work and simply wanted to let off some steam, which in my line of work happens too frequently to count.

Despite the senseless need to kill everything that moves with the arsenal of weapons you have at your disposal, your main objective on each day is to complete tasks that are given to you before returning home and then progressing to the next day. The tasks that are given to you can sound quite mundane if you complete them the 'morally right way.' But this is Postal, so instead of standing in a line at your local shop waiting to buy milk, why not just kill everyone, including the shop owner, steal the milk and then explore behind the shop behind a door that clearly states: DO NOT ENTER. Postal gives you quite a lot of tools and weapons that you can use at your disposal, it would be a shame if you wasted it all by not using it right? Exploration is always rewarding you with new weapons and humourous jokes that you might have found if you didn't explore.

Many tasks require you to pay in order to progress, sometimes to extortionate prices that you either don't have or aren't willing to pay for. Luckily for you, there's almost always another way around the problem, don't you have enough money to pay off that citation? Why not just steal it and post it yourself to bypass the payment. Postal plays out in this way and allows you to take either a pacifist approach or a chaotic one, with the chaotic side being more rewarding as you'll go to areas you wouldn't if you just paid what you needed like a good citizen.

Up till Saturday, the game's formula sticks to what it does best with the open world of Paradise, but as soon as the weekend begins the game feels like it's being dragged out for as long as they have ideas to throw at the game. They take away the open world aspect and instead give you linear levels that I personally didn't enjoy all that much. They also add a handful of missions where you simply have to kill X amount of enemies in a small area to progress that they try to justify with the 'story' but it seems far-fetched at times. It does take away from the flow of what the game was prior to the weekend and feels like the design of everything was to drag the game out (glad they didn't add that pigeon mission honestly, whether they were joking about it or not).

I was somewhat surprised as I played through the game for there to be almost no music in the background as I explored Paradise. It didn't necessarily ruin the experience, but it did feel odd not hearing much in the background besides ambient sounds and people screaming as they watch me decapitate some random pedestrian. The way that some of the audio was mixed is notably quieter than the rest of the game, this only happened on the odd occasion but was noticeable when it happened as I had to adjust my volume to either hear what the NPC said or to avoid going deaf front the ambient sounds.

Considering this game came out in 2003 there isn't really a lot to say about the graphics, it looks and feels like an old PS2 game which honestly I think just adds to the charm of the game itself. I am however surprised that there hasn't been an attempt to remaster this game at all since it's the most popular Postal game in the series by far.

Postal 2 is quite a unique game, it gives the player a lot of freedom to do practically whatever they want up till the weekend. You could spend hours finding new and unique ways of killing civilians or just messing with people. Despite the game being a bit buggy at times and the game falling flat when you start the weekend, its a blast to play. Considering you can get this game dirt cheap nowadays, I'd say that there isn't really any point in not owning this classic masterpiece.

For more critically honest reviews of mine, check out Metro’s Review Corner