Recent reviews by slemnd

Sequel to one of my favorite games, improves on the original in every way. Quintessential roguelike deckbuilder

Rip and tear and parry

This is the next-gen turn-based final fantasy game that square enix thinks no one wants. Super engaging, innovative combat mechanics and character progression systems, beautifully crafted environments, great writing and top notch voice acting. Highly recommend, even if you're not usually into turn-based RPGs (hey, it has a parry system and you can shoot a gun!)

Another wadjet eye point and click masterpiece! Well put together time travel story with a fleshed out world and characters. No wild adventure game logic puzzles, solutions all make sense and are well thought out.

Great point and click with beautiful pixel art and really solid voice acting. Also plays great on steam deck!

Very simple soulslike with a ton of character. The environments are really well designed visually, but a lot of the map design doesn't really gel as well as a Dark Souls map does (a lot of the shortcuts you unlock feel kind of unnecessary/unhelpful). That may just be because there is no "runback" if you die to a boss- you can start right again at the boss, so shortcuts through areas don't really feel that needed. That said, I don't really miss the boss runback anyway, even Elden Ring started to do away with that for a lot of its boss fights.

Movement and combat are really tight, it has a stagger meter similar to Sekiro and the parry has a relatively large window so it's not too hard to pull off. Later in the game however, I think it maybe gets a little too easy because of all the stuff you unlock. I could mostly just block everything the final boss threw at me, then hit back and recover the lost shell health thanks to one of the upgrades.

But all that said, it was fun all the way through, would recommend.

Animal Well is a Metroidvania with immersive atmosphere, a meticulously designed map, and tons of moments of discovery that make you feel like a genius. Highly recommend going in completely blind.

Excellent survival horror title, if a little more forgiving than the games it draws influence from. It offers classic resident evil tank controls if that's your cup of tea, but you can also just use the sticks to move the character in the direction you move the stick. Normal mode has an abundance of ammo and healing items, and if you somehow manage to use them all up you can always run around to trash cans/vending machines/your car to get a few bullets/small med kits, so there's really no chance you can get yourself "stuck" because you're out of resources. The developer's roadmap for the game mentioned they're adding a Hard mode, which I'm assuming will increase enemy aggressiveness and limit supplies, putting it more in line with classic Resident Evil games.

And none of that is to mention the art direction, which is absolutely spot on. It's like walking around those fixed camera indoor areas of Final Fantasy 7. A lot of recent games try to emulate that PS1 look, but this one really nails it.

Classic roguelike with a ton of build options and things to unlock. It may seem a little overwhelming when you start your first run, but as you play the mechanics will start to click and you'll want to try new things each run.

Super addictive deck builder. Uses poker hands as the base of the gameplay, but the builds you can come up with by doing things like upgrading the points/multiplier for specific hands, adding/removing cards or changing the suit of the cards in your deck, and adding various jokers that alter the scoring in a ton of different ways make each run unique and interesting. Highly recommend.