Recent reviews by SilverFolfy

Wow, what an incredible experience! Did you ever read and enjoy those "choose your own adventure" books? Maybe even with a slightly creepy/mysterious story? Oh you'll love this narrative game then!
Great narration and a truly gripping story with many twists I did not expect in the least.
Also cute characters!
There are some games where I thought "Why'd it have to be so long?" at the end. The kinds of games where completing them starts feeling like a chore at the halfway point. This is the polar opposite!
I'd gladly play more like this and was kinda bummed when it was over and completed, but it was so worth it.
I take quality over quantity anytime!

It pains me to say this, but this game feels... bland and flat.
It tries to offer many different gameplay systems, but fails at nearly all of them.
I won't write a complete breakdown here since honestly I'd like to not spend too much time on this, so here are all the points I wrote down during my time playing it.

Positive things to note:
- Main story is quite OK (but the only thing that kept me playing just to see the outcome)
- Sub-plot about the 4 metacorp AIs is pretty interesting and evokes some actual thoughts about ethics, I also liked that their subjects got pretty "dark"
- Anthropomorphic characters as a central story element. Who would have thought, a furry liking "furry" games, that's also one of the reasons it pains me to give it a negative review... but otherwise I would not be truthful to myself
- The "Data" tab (basically an expanding encyclopedia for all the things and characters you found in the game) and Dialogue "Log" tab are both nice features to have
- Zero-G sections in and around space stations were cool
- The music is nice (but gets a tad repetitive ingame)

Neutral:
- The art and artstyle: It's... functional. But nothing to write home about.
Pretty shader effects or other eye candy are not present. The textures look rather blurry and flat.
Myself being someone that can only script/program some small stuff but has no knack for art, I can relate to that however.
I wouldn't be able to do any better honestly without years and years of practice, so I'd say this point is neutral.

Negative things I encountered:
- Most dialogue feels to forcedly quirky
- Robot characters (i.e. about 99% of characters) feel dull and look ridiculous and kinda boring
- Camera is often much too zoomed in while on foot or follows your character in very weird ways, obscuring what you actually want to look at (although that's somewhat rare fortunately)
- Repair mechanics with "random" items had me intrigued at the beginning but it is very under-utilized and too simple in the long run. Before too long your inventory will be cluttered with everything you ever need, which is less than you might think. For every repair option there's maybe 2-3 different items you'll be using all the time.
- Traders are utterly useless, in all the cases where I tried using them because I needed something, they were out of stock...
- "Pirates" and "Order" faction system has no real impact because the alert counters can just be reset all the time, this also lead to the situation where I never needed to use any of the stickers or puzzle items, so I don't even know what they would be doing. I suppose they kept both factions off your "valueable" items if they did get ahold of you (which never happens)
- Item identification seems shoehorned in. Why do I need to consult an "Oracle" to know that a stone is heavy or an apple is round?
- Too many useless movement systems, I never used Zipline stations or "Underbolts" or whatever they were called, since by that point the best transportation system is already much better and available everywhere
- Main gameplay is too repetitive, everything feels like a chore and unrewarding including the "puzzles" like the frequent visits to junkyards or installing scanning nodes, which leads all of it to lose it's steam pretty early in
- Periodical "world scramble" after story events, basically reshuffling the randomized sectors of the world, which is completely pointless
- The character running got a stamina system only towards the end of the game, before that you could run endlessly (not that it was particularly fast in the first place). This is story related but doesn't really add anything of value other than to annoy.
- There were multiple points in the game where I either zoned out or almost fell asleep, there also were multiple occasions where I just quit for the day to play another game just because there was another set of repetitive main story tasks (before the interesting stuff happens) I didn't feel like doing.

All this combined leads to a game that feels "flat" all around with it's core gameplay, which is a fatal mistake. A game must have a satisfying and rewarding main gameplay loop, which is absent here.
It led me to force myself to play through it just to see what the ending was.
Slight spoiler alert: Ending is not too great and is one of a few common tropes.
More spoilery, it's this trope:
Everything was a dream [tvtropes.org] ... or was it?? [tvtropes.org] Also the "Schrödinger's Butterfly[tvtropes.org]" trope has some striking resemblance...

The potential this game had with it's setting would be great, but is sadly not acted upon very much.
If there is ever a FixFox 2, I'd like to see many of the negative points reworked in meaningful ways, then it could be a genuinely cool experience.
But as it stands for now, I cannot with good conscience give this a recommendation sadly.

Short summary: Phenomenal experience all around! Pleasing aesthetics, beautiful music, interesting gaelic setting, engaging and believeable story, with an ending to shed a tear or two.

The game is mostly a walking/running game accompanied by narrative and exploration, with minor jumping sections and puzzles, and it's set around several islands off the northern coast of scotland.

Between the islands your main means of transportation is a canoe, with some interesting physics/mechanics, basically you can control when to paddle left and right, and it behaves pretty much like it would RL, you have to alternate the paddling in a rythm to stay on course.
Takes a little getting used to, but gets surprisingly intuitive pretty fast. If that's not your thing, you can enable simplified controls in the options menu.

The order in which you visit the islands to discover new side stories is mostly up to you and non-linear, but may be locked until you progress enough. Only the "main" story islands have to be visited in order, which unlocks new "side story" islands each time.

There is some similarities to other similar games, mainly "Spirit of the North" and maybe "Lost Ember".
The dev also stated inspiration from Journey, The First Tree and Flower.
If you liked those games, this will most certainly also appeal to you.

There are already a lot of other games with these same characteristics around, but only few manage to captivate all the way through to the end like Farewell North does, and then culminates in one of the most heartfelt endings I have yet witnessed in such games.
The game deals with many feelings of loss and it's acceptance, uncertainty, finding our place in the world while taking pride in where we came from and where we are headed.

From a technical standpoint, there is nothing to complain about, it runs good, looks good and sounds good. I didn't encounter any noticeable bugs, BUT the game did crash twice, always when canooing. However the last save was never more than a minute away, so it's not that bad.

There isn't really much else to say really, the playtime may "just" be 8-10 hours, but that is a good thing in books.
Time is valueable, and this game feels like it really valued my time all the way through, the pacing was perfect, and it never got dull.
For that, I will glady recommend it at full price, both Kyle Banks (mostly solo dev) and John Konsolakis (composer) deserve it for this masterpiece.

Cheers!

Would you like to explore an unfathomably large and incomprehensible monumental megastructure reminiscent of the "Blame!" Manga while trying to avoid losing your sanity?
Well this is the game for you then!

This falls in the category of walking sim, but with platforming and light puzzle elements.
The whole experience evokes a mixed bag of feelings throughout: Agoraphobia, solace, awe, unsettledness, anxiety, peace, intrigue, insanity, ...

Fantastic visuals, even though the whole game is build from nothing more than grey untextured surfaces set in scene by clever use of lighting. Quite a unique look.

A non-distracting atmospheric soundscape and fitting music underscores the game at certain parts.

One part of the game towards the end is quite irritating, but looking back now, I think I kinda get it, in a way this exact feeling was intentionally conveyed.
In the same part there is also a section that may give you photosensitive epilepsy, if you didn't already have it... So definitely don't play if you're sensitive to extremely strobing white light in otherwise pitch black darkness.

The game also has an interesting mechanic where you need to "breathe" in a fixed rythm (press left mousebutton) while running to not run out of breath. While interesting at first this may become tiresome towards the end.

All in all though, solid experience, very nice!

This is one of those games where you can clearly feel the love that was poured into it, from a single dev no less.
Interesting combination, the game is split between mining / exploring in a drillship and base building / crafting.

I would describe the games vibe as "spooky" but chill.
There are no threats, this is not a survival game, but the atmosphere in certain locations is pretty creepy.
Reminds me a lot of the dark cave atmosphere in another weird little game called Tunnet.
Exactly the way I like it!

During mining you gather materials and uncover interesting flora/fauna and story in discoverable caves, while the base building part functions as a homepoint where you can refine your materials, upgrade your drill, research new technology and build machines to make it all possible.

The digging mechanics are pretty simple, maybe a little too simple actually, but it's OK and there are some interesting mechanics unlocked as you progress to keep it fresh.
Somehow the digging mechanic reminds me of the digging/excavation mechanic in the old Nintendo DS game "Spectrobes" (anyone remember it? ^^) but greatly simplified.

The base building in particular was better than expected, it's not as free-form as other games (the base location is pre-set and doesn't change) but it's very intuitive and the buildable decorations and machines look pretty cool.

That leads me to the point of graphics and immersion.
Everything is interactable in-world, there is no distracting HUD in your face, every terminal can be walked up to and directly interacted with, I really like this system and it works flawlessly!
Meanwhile the graphics might be descibed as "bare-bones" judging solely by the polygon count, but this is a false first impression! It is a very coherent experience, it all just fits the theme nicely.
The 3D props, while simple at first glance, are well made and look really good. The nice lighting is a key point that also enhances the scenes. Honestly I've seen so much worse aesthetics from "triple-A" titles.

All this is tied together in a nice enjoyable package, and the best thing is that I didn't experience a single bug. (Well, except the cute little worm critters that can be collected, hah! ^^) But seriously, no issues, not even small things like audio glitches, graphics clipping or z-fighting, or anything at all.
Very well done!

To anyone enjoying mining games with base building and some nice little story-elements, this is definitely for you! Full recommend!

Short enjoyable exploration game / walking sim.

After starting the game you are immediately put in a world that only has 10 seconds left until it is inevitably destroyed.
With so little time, how can you even make a few steps? Well, these precious 10 seconds are presented in extreme slow motion, giving you enough time to discover some lore about this civilization and it's inhabitants, and about the cataclysm that is about to happen.
After that, the time starts anew, akin to games like Majoras Mask or Outer Wilds. (The world needs more timeloop games!)

The walking from one point of interest to the next is a little slow and far, but I think that is quite intentional, otherwise the game would be over in a flash, and the timeloop mechanic also wouldn't make much sense.

The artstyle is unique, all the textures and particle effects consist of very distinctly shaded triangles, almost like little mosaics.

A beautiful music score underlines the experience, which also gives hints about how much time is left until the apocalypse.
It's great that the short but good OST is also available as DLC.

If I'm being honest, the price is a little steep for just a little over ~1h of gameplay.
But I liked it nonetheless, can recommend if you're into such games and don't shy away from some extended walking.

I get what this game is trying to show and tell, but as it stands now, everything about it can be summed up with one word: annoying.

The character design is meh (I don't like over-emphasized head sizes, a.k.a. "bobble heads", this is also what ruined the game "My Time at Portia" for me). I won't hold this against the game since it's subjective though.

What I do hold against the game is the gameplay itself, it is trying to be basically similar to "Assemble with Care" which tells it's story through repairing cherished broken things.
This game fails at the core gameplay though.

The controls during the repairs is honestly not too bad, but multiple times I was at a state where nothing was interactable in some way or another.
During the skateboard repair it wouldn't let me combine any part until I had the exact right part focussed and combined it with another exact part, The game wouldn't let me combine them in any other way that would be realistically possible IRL.
During the cassette player repair I had everything finished up and put together, but nothing happened, no idea what was wrong and no idea how to continue.
Sidenote: This grandpa is wild, he seems to have stocked every repair part imagineable including completely new parts for the cassette player, but for some reason just wanted to order a brand new one? Doesn't make sense at all. :D
The game doesn't really give great feedback about which interactions are possible and which aren't, leading to some frustration and fiddling around until it finally works. I see this as a limitation on how the possible "steps" and interactions are programmed.

Also for some inexplicable reason the game forces you to do some weird keypress combinations or quicktime events to assemble certain parts... Why though? This adds nothing of value to the game.

And then, after a repair is finished, it requires you to do some weird minigame depending on what object you repaired, only that these are horribly clunky. The one from the handheld console looked like the outcome of a 10 minute YouTube tutorial on how to program a sidescrolling platformer, only with worse textures and controls.
The one after the skateboard repair I couldn't even comprehend on what to do, the goal was to skate around and avoid obstacles, only that the first obstacle was a complete roadblock, I tried to jump over it and couldn't, game over, can't even try again. No idea if that was intended or not, the game wouldn't tell me.

Sorry for my rambling but in this state I cannot recommend it, as the better "Assemble with Care" is available at a slightly lower pricepoint, similar gameplay and story but with much more polish.

What a wonderful experience from start to finish!
This game feels like a true oldschool video game where you can lose yourself in for a few hours to forget everything and just have fun, but enhanced with modern and fluid gameplay.
A perfect blend between a Zelda-like adventure game and a shoot'em up with a little bullethell sprinkled on.
I can recommend this game fully with nothing really negative to say!

I can imagine this being a very forgiving entrypoint into the world of "shmups" and "bullet hell" games for some folks since even beginners to this genre should have no problem on the easy and normal difficulties.
I played on "advanced" difficulty and found that it nails a perfect balance between challenge and fairness throughout the open-world campaign, with a nice steady ramp-up in difficulty.
Nonetheless the difficulty can be adjusted on-the-fly if needed, however up to a certain point you'll need to stay on advanced difficulty to get a certain achievement for advanced mode.
After that point there is also an arena-style gameplay which is not my cup of tea and was getting a little frustrating, but it is very doable with a handful of tries on normal difficulty.

Moving around feels extremely fluid, satisfying and frankly even fun at times.
The input feels direct and reacts instantly, any mistake I made while moving/dodging felt like I had only myself to blame and not the game.

The artstyle is very nice and crisp, lots of color yet easy on the eyes.
Enemies and bullets are recognizeable at a glance, even in busy situations.
Level design and exploration is well done, reminiscent of classic Zelda games, many things to do and discover, and for all the completionists there are some helpful upgrades available later on to see if there is anything you missed.

Top notch sound design, from the cute little reactions of your ship, to the impact and firing sounds and movement, everything has a little acoustic feedback that makes everything feel very "alive" for the lack of a better word.
The music is pretty good, I wish there was a downloadable soundtrack on Steam or Bandcamp though.
One curious point I want to mention though is that the Overworld/Town track is basically an altered version of Disasterpeace's "Adventure" track from the FEZ OST. The similarity is so blatant that I refuse to believe this is a mere coincidence. The track for the "Woods" area is also sounds very suspiciously similar to something I have heard in FEZ before.
All the other tracks sounded "original" though and fit the overall theme really nicely, and those did not trigger such a massive "deja vu" for me.

About 8,5 h for campaign completion (to trigger the achievements to complete the game) and collecting most upgrades and secrets.
For full completion I'd say about 10-14h, I 100%ed the game at 16,7h but that is with some added hours AFK time.

So, again, can fully recommend to anyone interested even slightly in Zelda-likes and/or shmups!

Bite-sized 30 minute non-challenging platformer with really nice pixel art aesthetic and tibetan theme.
Ambient sound is basically meditative white noise, might be a bit too loud.
There is some lore tidbits given by short two-sentence poems(?), but I won't even pretend to know what the meaning of those were, I'm neither a philosopher nor a monk.
Interesting nonetheless, also completely free.

If Steam had a neutral review option this would probably be it, but I slightly tend towards negative.
Slight spoilers included, but the biggest ones are hidden.
I'm a little sad about this honestly, usually I'm really into exploration/narrative driven games, but this did not really click with me or form any kind of emotional bond. It remained quite flat throughout.
The only thing I was emotionally slightly sad about was when J0 died, but instead of dwelling on that fact and using it to drive home the environmental message, our protagonist immediately turns it into a plot point for his own sad story, pretty much nullifying the impact.
More on the protagonist story below.

I'll just list my main points in a list.
Alternatively this review is also pretty much spot-on: https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/profiles/76561197987753534/recommended/1975440/
Especially the part about the main protagonist (Stan) being nothing more than a "sad man at the bottom of the ocean losing his mind and talking like a scatterbrained sleeping pill".


Pros:
- Quite nice graphics/shaders underwater,
- OK music, but nothing really memorable except maybe the "normal" background track while diving/driving around.
- Voice acting is good, IF the dialogue of the protagonist wasn't so contrived and tedious. (more on that in the cons below)
- The environmental message of the game is important and good and I fully support it and great projects to clean up the oceans, BUT in this game's story it's a little too exaggerated/forced IMHO. (see cons)

Cons:
- Map marker bugs where some chests stay after being found, also the collectible in
Sector A is always displayed as 0/1 found even after finding it.
- Crafting system feels tacked on an unnecessary, there is not much point in crafting any consumables, I've had nearly 100 oxygen capsules by the end and everything else is given to you in enough quantities too.
- Entering/leaving the submarine again and again just to collect and do stuff felt annoying
- I didn't really need or care about the engine boost of the submarine, feels slightly unnecessary. The basic movement was just right. The fuel system was a complete non-issue, I didn't use a single fuel consumable and never went below ~75% of capacity.
- The game takes itself pretty seriously and also has references to real-life stats and organizations, so I think the setting should also be at least somewhat realistic., so at the risk of sounding a little too critical: The story with UniTrench (the ruthless oil company) is extremely predictable, Mild TL;DR: everything goes to ♥♥♥♥ because greed for money.
The worldbuilding for this company is not very believeable, their operation is in such a dysfunctional state that I'm not really sure why they are still in business in the game universe.
Also, who thought it was a good idea to build such extensive infrastructure underwater such as an oil refinery, drone maintenance hubs that are extremely space-inefficient, server rooms, normal offices, etc where the salt water will damage it all over time and all repairs are 100x more tedious and expensive?
Also wild that the protagonist was willing to go along with it all for so long following such borderline suicidal orders.
- Some plot elements near the end about what UniTrench secretly did were not explained at all (some sort of strange oil, the leeches and other hostile entities?)
- Story about Pearl was riddled with slow tedious dialogues and IMHO irrational behavior by the main insufferable protagonist. I couldn't relate or connect with him or any other character at all.
- Ending was an absolute WTF of fever dreams, and one of the most irrational things I have ever witnessed. The protagonist must have some REALLY deep trauma-induced psychosis or the oxygen mix was completely out of whack sending him into psychotic episodes.
- Game crashed once in the middle of the ending sequence.