Recent reviews by TheCoDre

In a full house of nominees Baltro flushes the competition straight out. It's a kind all of its own. Absolute ace in the hole.

Currently my favorite game to hate. Uninstalled a dozen times but just can't. get. away. from. it. The RNG is insane. But when it finally is in your favor it's a perfect storm. First run I finally completed, Owl couldn't even touch me. Everything around me just evaporated. Highly recommended if you can handle being (mostly) completely at the mercy of the cruel RNG.

This could have a been a really interesting card based game if only it wasn't a mobile port of the, for me personally, worst kind.

I only play premium mobile games, the ones you buy. I abhor and detest the vast majority of IAP based mobile games and play none, the reason being that these games are often designed to annoy and frustrate players so that they feel compelled to spend money after being hooked. Lot's of money. I speak from experience with family members.

Space Wolf, a mobile port, falls squarely into that category. While there are no IAPs in the PC version, save for cash grab DLCs, it's evident that the limited tactical options combined with a grindy upgrade system are designed for mobile IAP. Here are a few points for consideration in that regards, from a single player perspective:

1. Every map spawns additional enemies, generally on the third, half, and three quarter points into the map. They fly in, teleport in, or just pop in. Mostly behind or to the sides. Not just single file either but in packs of 3. This doesn't add a tactical challenge though because
2. There is no cover system. None at all. You are fully exposed, even if you think you're behind a wall. Enemies will shoot through team mates and most obstacles. Yes, players can do the same. But in combination with 1. it becomes extremely frustrating half way through each mission. Your team of three will end up being attacked from all sides.
3. To top it off how often a team member can be used is based on effort. Every card has an effort rating and the lower and more common a card the higher the effort. That often leads to team mates and player character being shot at from all sides while just standing there to wait for accumulated effort to wear off.
4. Of course, the rarer the cards the lower the effort they create. Plus, there are effort reducing cards, but that uses one of two action points each character has per turn.

Those are just the most 'issues by design' in my book, design for mobile IAP 'incentive', especially in light of PVP. I can see this being a total P2W on mobile...

The developer recently pulled the plug on the Steam version though. It's not making them enough money. Of course it doesn't, the game's (intentional) flaws are far too apparent outside the IAP mobile environment. They claim they'll keep maintaining it in working order, but considering that it requires a constant online connection I assume that claim will be short lived.

This is a solid meh for me. I know it predates roguelike card gem 'Slay the Spire' by several years as well as Solitaire RPG Shadowhand, both of which are superior to Solitairica in many aspects.

I am also aware that this is a small developer, a husband and wife team according to their site, so I don't want to be too harsh in judgement. But it could have been a lot better and I hope the upcoming title is, in fact, much better.

My gripes are:

- No undo, no can't do. Such a basic feature of all solitaire games. Leaving it out doesn't make the game more roguelike, it just makes no sense at all.
- Every run is the same, the same bosses, the same upgrades, from low tier to high tier from start to finish.
- Bosses pretty much all use the same or similar abilities: enrage, poison, armor, add cards to back or damage pile ups. Rinse, repeat.
- Bosses often spam the same attacks in successive order.
- Many abilities aren't worth purchasing during a run as they are of the "start round with" variety.
- Low tier abilities cannot be upgraded or sold during run.
- Each deck has just five upgrade options: two additional item slots, three draw abilities.
- There are some synergies such as turning cards to a certain energy type, then chaining energies and abilities. But they are far and between and the streaks are too short lived.
- I found the starter deck (Warrior) a poor performer no matter the run as it's just damage and defense, which does little good when faced with e.g. poison that circumvents defense (especially when spammed three times in a row - or more).
- Turns can become very drawn out when bosses turn all cards in a row to the same number, which happens quite often deeper into a run.
- Turns in general tend to draw out too much. This should've been a quick, speedy game, not turn into a sort of unintended idle clicker.

Of course it's pitched as a roguelike, it's a card game, it's luck based by nature. But a good roguelike rewards players with ever more useful abilities to counter and mitigate RNG to certain degrees. This never really happens here, it's too random, and I feel like my time is just being wasted. Don't do that, don't waste your players' time. There has to be a payoff.

Here's hoping the next offering will be more thought through and better balanced.

Note: I gave it a few more goes and concluded the game is just majorly screwed. Example: one of the last three bosses is a giant that can dish out 15 damage at once - and can make ALL front cards armored. I was doing great until suddenly exactly that happened, all front cards became armored. And after clearing some of those cards the ones beneath were also armored! And then 15 damage happened.

This is either terribly lazy game design without any effort in balancing - or intended behavior to claim this being a roguelike. Both options are just bad. Not going to bother with any of their future games.

I am going to give the game a recommend - with caveat. Warning, there may be some light spoilers.

I am very keen on storytelling and good, well thought out worldbuilding. Alas, Forgotton Anne’s worldbuilding does not make a whole lot of sense to me and as a result the storytelling suffers. It’s all about things that are forgotten, which end up in an in-between world where they come alive to live very much people lives to eventually grow old and die aka. crystalize. However, things own things. Things collect things. Things have relationship and even offspring. They have neighborhoods and shops and industries. At one point Anne talks about a bicycle she’d received as present from her caretaker that she rode around. I just can’t suspend my disbelieve here, the world is inconsistent and it’s reflected in the storytelling and dialogs. It’s all a bit too non-plausible even from a fantastic point of view. I do like the cast, though the most crucial ones are all human or human like.

I can’t shake that nagging feeling that the story was intended to be told differently, a story about forgotten people perhaps who, after death, end up in a sort of in-between world where they have another chance of being remembered by all the other forgottens. Especially upon death, where they turn into beautiful crystals. That feels about right to me, except it would have made for a far darker story from a gameplay perspective, especially at one critical point, where it would have turned outright sinister. But that could have been tweaked and thus the story would have made a lot more sense to me.

My second biggest gripe are the constant interruptions of gameplay with unskippable cutscenes. I am not keen on forced storytelling in games. Show, don’t tell. There’s no better medium than games for that. If you want to tell me a story without giving me agency, do make a movie.

That being said, the game boasts stunning Studio Ghibli like art and animation, oozes atmosphere and does ultimately tell an emotionally engaging story, weird as it may be. At its core is a puzzle platformer with fairly light puzzles and not a lot of variety. That’s not a bad thing though, what is there fits well and flows nicely. There’s no death, no areas to get stuck in. However, controls could be tighter, they feel a bit sluggish. This can be frustrating later in the game when levels must be traversed vertically and one misses a jump to then end up all the way at the bottom.

There are still a few non game breaking bugs, though they can be frustrating, all relating to puzzles. I had to exit and restart a few later levels to be able to solve the puzzles. In addition, when restarting towards the end I found the developers missed to account for a choice I’d made earlier in the game.

All in all, I did enjoy my time with Forgotten Anne, albeit the experience could have been significantly better. I recently played GRIS and I must say it did a far better job with worldbuilding, puzzle design, and controls. Nevertheless, I do look forward to future titles from ThroughLine Games.

Very happy to see GRIS won an Steam Award for Outstanding Visual Style, well deserved (I had nominated it in the first round)! It's a beautifully realized game with a lot of heart and soul, a perfect mix of atmospheric puzzle platformer and visual narrative. To me it's a shining example of how to combine gameplay with an emotional topic such as the five stages of grieving. I've been there and I can really relate. It's not often that I find myself grateful for having played a game but in this case, I am. I hope to see more games like this from Nomada Studios. Well done!

Note: I really wanted to write a review for GRIS but usually take my time to be more in-depth. Though as part of the 2019 Winter challenge I decided to post a review now upon which I'll probably expound later on.

Still working on the full review. But it's my Labor Of Love candidate 2020.

Prologue: I had originally given the game a not recommended, but then deleted my review because I felt that I perhaps had been too grumpy. Thus I'd set out to give it a good go and ended up somewhat enjoying it. I am now giving it a recommended, with caveats. Following is a summary of my experience as well as the original grumpy old man review for amusement in the comments.

As a fan of classic literature and Edgar Allan Poe as well s H P Lovecraft in particular I really enjoyed the themes and atmosphere. It appeared to play on Poe's "A Dream Within a Dream" poem:

"Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?"

From that perspective I particularly liked the narrative with its free verse telling through conversations and descriptions. It's very mysterious and all the mystery adds up to an intricately built world, a desolate reality connected to an intriguing dream world. The game earns high remarks in that regard as well it's varied characters and overall mood and atmosphere, especially in combination with the fantastic soundtrack.

I've spent 56 hours to "finish" the game, that is one playthrough with the "good" ending (there are several). Do I feel that I spent my time well? Honestly, I don't. I didn’t much enjoy the actual gameplay and here is why:

1. Movement is digital. It is not possible to precisely move the character or slowly inch forward. Every push on the stick moves the character a preset amount. I prefer analog movements a la Ori and the Blind Forest. I ended up "fighting" against the controls more than fighting against enemies.
2. Jumping is analog. The harder one pushes down on the jump button the higher the characters jumps. Alas, this isn't really well executed. Most of my missed jumps resulted from either not jumping long enough - or not short enough. There are also quite a lot of environmental obstacles I ended up getting stuck on due to that.
3. No "grace space" at the end of a block. In most jump and run games there's what I call a "grace space" at the end of a platform where one oversteps and is only half on the platform yet still able to jump. This is often done to compensate for variances in movement precision. Hollow Knight does not have that. If one oversteps a platform slightly the character will not jump anymore. Combined with the digital movement this leads to quite a bit of frustration. I plummeted to my digital death more times than I can count due to that.
4. Too many spike and thorn segments, not a lot of actual environmental variety. Combined with 1 - 3 this resulted in roughly 60% of playtime spent dying.

These points combined lead me to my biggest complaint about the game - it doesn't respect my time. It forces me to redo segments over and over, backtracking through difficult terrain over and over, all for fairly little reward. It plays off of negative emotions, frustrating me into fighting on. I don’t want to be frustrated playing a video game, I want to have fun. I don't respect games that aim to trigger frustration and anger in order to extend playtime.

I did fight on and was rewarded with an intriguing story but left with the bitter aftertaste that I spent way more time on the game than I should have. It wasn't really time well spent. Also, in order to get the "good" ending I employed the help of a trainer program. I usually abhor that but I'd spent enough time and simply wasn't willing to invest anymore, trying any harder to get a satisfactory ending to the story I was so diligently sticking with.

From what I gathered reading the Kickstarter description (that's how the game originally came about) the difficulty was a major selling point. I think it ultimately does the game a disservice, especially the narrative. More players could enjoy the story if HK simply had a difficulty selector where perhaps easy had a bench before every boss fight and hard had only one in the Dirtmouth, this could've made all the difference to me.

Also, I find Hollow Knight mis-labeled as a Metroidvania. It's really a side-scrolling souls-like action RPG. I expected much more of a Metroidvania. I've since played and finished Ori and the Blind Forest, which only took me 21 hours to complete, and I enjoyed that one infinitely more.

Conclusion: Hollow Knight isn't my game but it is a good game, given that one can live with the short comings I've listed or considers them valid to test one's skill.


Original review (abbreviated due to character limit):

I feel like a grumpy old man on Steam. So far, I’ve left mostly negative reviews. And here I go again, another “not recommended”. But here’s the thing – I am a grumpy old man. Well, sort of. I am beyond an age where I get satisfaction from finally beating a level or boss after failing and failing again.

When I play, I want to have fun for an hour or two. My time is precious, it’s limited. I want to feel it’s well spent. Give me a story, great gameplay, fun game mechanics, reward me for the time I play your game.

Hollow Knight isn’t any of that and I feel somewhat miffed because I hoped it would be. It looks great, I really like the art style, it has a neat atmosphere, great music. As an art piece it succeeds. But the gameplay. It’s just too monotonous. I am relegated to hitting jump and attack. That’s basically it.

Well, there are additional abilities such as dashing, flying, wall jumping etc. though they have to be found, often by beating bosses. But aren't I a bug with wings, shouldn’t I fly right away? Why do I have to find a dash, or a wall jump? Also, there are perks to be found, of which one can only equip a limited number. The limit can be increased via notches, which also have to be found. Figures. Also, you can only equip abilities by sitting on benches (more on that in a moment). Fun bit: your map position indicator is also an ability. Which takes up a notch. Wait, what? Is that what they were going for? "Take it up a notch?"

The perk system (charms) is familiar and obviously meant to add a strategic element. It just strategically irks me because it feels cumbersome. I can't easily try out different perk combos before heading into boss fights. Finding abilities and perks does stretch play time though as there is a lot of backtracking because of it. Similar games tend to provide many of these abilities up front or make them quick to find.

Hollow Knight looks great, I really like the art style. But to me it's mostly style over substance. There really isn’t much gameplay wise. No combos, no equipment, no shield block, no really clever mechanics or puzzles (aside from a few levers). I just jump around, do a little stabbing here, collect some new abilities/perks there, equip them while sitting on a bench. Kinda like an old man. I see a correlation here…

About those benches. They also serve as save points, interspersed in levels and usually far apart enough to cause frustration. Die and you find yourself back at the last bench you visited pondering your mistakes, at least that’s what it looks like. And then off you go, traversing the maze-like level you just went through all over. Fun. Not.

Thankfully, you have a map to guide you. Well, no, you don’t. Not upfront. You must find a character called Conifer in each level to buy an incomplete map. No, wait. First, you must buy a map and a quill in a shop in Dirtmouth (there’s a pun somewhere in here, I just can’t find it…). And then, after you got an incomplete map from Conifer you must sit on a bench so your character can complete the incomplete map of the maze you just went through and failed. Yeah.

(omitted due to character limit)

Hey, listen. If what I wrote sounds like the perfect game to you, if you’re someone who just loves soul-like games and/or if you have the patience and time (lots of time), go ahead. Hollow Knight is your game. You’re really going to get that muscle memory down and those levels and those patterns and all that. I wholeheartedly recommend it for that. Really.

Unremarkable at best. It's clearly inspired by Muramasa without all the complexity that made that game fun to play. Not recommended because:

- No combo chains. Gameplay is limited to preset combos (which can be interrupted after acquiring the skill) executed separately.
- The combos available pack no real punch, even fully upgraded.
- the game doesn't allow for creative freedom in regards to executing the available combos. Some you will hardly ever use.
- Timing is off, button actions feel delayed. This is especially evident when trying to execute timed blocks needed for follow-up counters.
- No RPG elements aside from collecting orbs and upgrading abilities in a pre-set way.
- The level design is boring and bland.
- Boss battles are unengaging and basically consist of evade and button mash. Some combos don't even connect properly, doing only little damage when they should hit for massive hits.
- Abilities gained from defeating bosses add very little from a tactical perspective. It feels tacked on rather than integral to gameplay.
- The story tries to be poetic but is rather nonsensical and has no emotional impact. I skipped right through it.

Bladed Fury could've been a lot more but it's lack of care and labor is evident.

There are plenty of good games that tick all the right boxes, there's no need to waste time on half-baked efforts. I regret wasting my time on this one.

Tl;dr: Starts off fun and energetic but quickly turns into a grind fest with little substance. This Seraph never really takes flight.

Seraph is an interesting 2D Devil May Cry concept. As such, it somewhat succeeds. Though as a full-fledged game it falls flat. It start of fun and energetic but quickly turns into a grind fest due to lack of content.

I wish the developer(s) would have followed through with the DMC approach. It has:
- The signature dual pistol action.
- Collecting demon parts to unlock/upgrade abilities.
- Aerial acrobatics-based combat.

But that’s just not enough to carry it. There’s too much missing such as:
- Abilities have no oomph. The ones you unlock and upgrade feel underwhelming. They don’t add anything regarding how you approach each level. You end up spamming whatever is on cooldown, hoping it will connect in some form or manner.
- The procedurally generated levels lack variety. Every level feels the same except for the occasional change in backgrounds and color scheme. I prefer hand crafted levels for story driven games. Leave the random levels to extra game modes.
- There are no combos. This is a sorely missed opportunity in my book. That’s what made DMC a lot of fun. Though for that Seraph would have needed a close combat weapon, which is missing.
- I like games with stories and this could have been a lot more interesting. The story unfolds in bits of Visual Novel-esque dialog at the beginning and end of each level but is lacking voice acting, which makes it less engaging for me. It's serviceable but nothing to write home about, which reinforces my perception of Seraph being a concept more than a full fledged game. The "twist" in the story can be seen a mile off.
- I am not keen on the clinging-to-walls approach. I just get stuck too often and I can't move out of tight spots quickly enough and in a well timed manner. In DMC, if my combos didn’t connect it was me, my timing was off. The levels never got in the way of my combos. In Seraph I'm fighting the environment as much as the enemies and I often can't find my timing as a result.

I had fun for the first few hours, but grew tired after that for the reasons above. There’s a lot that could have been done to make this a great game. Sadly, it's just an idea given rudimentary form. The final, lazily designed boss fight aptly demonstrates this: hold the fire button and teleport (blink) at the right time. Nothing one did up to this point matters anymore - none of the unlocks, upgrades, skill selections. None whatsoever.

01/15/19: After 40 hours I dread TES:L more than ever, though I still keep coming back to it. I find my return of investment both time and money wise disproportional to the fun I am having. Eternal, the other digital CCG I am mostly playing, is far more enjoyable to my taste. TES:L makes me work too darn hard for very little reward.

My biggest gripe are campaigns. I prefer PVE and I bought one just to see how it would play and it isn't much fun. The problem is that some quests require specific decks - which you won't have or be able to create if you've just finished the starter campaign. You end up rotating through one of the 5 core decks repeating quests over and over until you get lucky. Not my idea of fun. I am playing PVE for the strategy and not RNG. Just out of curiosity I looked at recommended decks for some of the quests I had a hard time with and upon import was missing over 50% of the cards no matter which deck I chose. There’s something amiss here.

Of course, cards can also be crafted via soul gems. However, farming them is an utter chore compared to Eternal. The “best” way is to play expert practice, each win netting 15 gems. There’s a 300 gems daily limit. That means 20 wins a day in expert. Again, if you’re just starting out, you’ll have to grind, a lot. Also, every 3 wins in casual PVP nets some gems plus some for PVP and Arena wins. Point is, gems are hard to come by. After playing intensively for 40 hours I've had about 500 gems, give or take. That nets just 10 common cards or one rare. For comparison, in Eternal I'd farmed 2000 shiftstones and already crafted epics in the same amount of time. I've also receive a lot of free decks in Eternal (over 10 so far), often as a quest rewards. TES:L has 5 free core decks, the rest must to be bought.

In addition, certain cards can only be obtained by purchasing campaigns.

In summary: there’s a strong push to spend money as it stretches one's patience very thin. I recommend Eternal over TES:L as it's far more fun, more rewarding and not grindy at all.

Yet, with all its flaws there is an undeniable draw. If I want to test my limits of frustration TES:L is amongst the first choices.

12/31/18: I am changing to recommended, with caveat. My original thoughts on the game stand, as detailed below. However, after having dug in a bit more and given PVP a few more tries I see the draw (pun fully intended). Compared to Eternal this is a far more strategic, deliberate game. I haven't spent any money yet and haven't crafted either so am lacking cards, especially legendary, but I still managed to create a fun deck and PVP has been a lot more enjoyable. One just must take time and consider each move. Eternal fits more my playstyle (fast and furious) while TES:L appeals to my chess loving side.

Original review below now.

I’ve recently taken an interest in CCGs as I am studying the mechanics for a personal project and have tried most of the ones available on Steam and a few that aren’t. I came to TES:L after having had played Eternal (and Hearthstone long before). I really enjoy Eternal. Rounds are fast paced; the rules are simple yet offer enough strategic depth for my taste. Overall, I find it a lot of fun to play, be it PVE or PVP, especially PVE though as there is a free Gauntlet mode that allows me to test my own decks while being quite generously rewarded. This is what keeps me coming back. Frankly I don’t enjoy PVP against strangers, I’d rather play against friends or with people I sit across from in a room.

TES:L offers a very different experience. I like the design and the art, being a fan of The Elder Scrolls since the very first game and having played almost of all them since. The world is quite nicely translated into a CCG. I also like the daily login reward. The daily quests are nice too and overall, I find the rewards plenty and generous for a F2P game.

TES:L differs from other digital CCGs (except Valves’ newly released Artifact) in its two lane mechanic. This usually plays out in one lane being standard and the other offering some type of “bonus” e.g. a shadow lane where cards can’t be attacked on the first turn. It adds quite a bit of strategic depth, but it also makes the game slower to play since there’s more to consider when placing cards, which somewhat deters me.

Another interest feature is runes. Face attacks eventually trigger runes (displayed around the character portraits), which pull cards for the player being attacked. If the card drawn has the keyword “Prophecy” it’s played for free. This needs to be considered when building decks. I acknowledge the idea of balance behind it and it does add an interesting strategic element, but it can also get quite frustrating at times due to “saving” draws that turn the match around in the final moments. Don’t fully agree with that.

Next, like Hearthstone one doesn’t need to play mana cards or such, mana is increased automatically every turn. I am not too keen on that frankly, I prefer having to play my “economy” from my deck, it adds some interesting randomness. As a result, the lanes are generally packed chock full of cards towards the end. And if not that then there are high mana, high damage cards.

My biggest gripe though concerns PVE. As mentioned, I prefer PVE over PVP. There are two PVE options in TES:L (three if you consider Practice): campaign and Arena. There is no Gauntlet mode like in Arena (more on that in a moment). The initial campaign is nice, albeit very frustrating at points as I had to do several acts repeatedly due to being wiped. The decks provided simply didn’t stack up well to the AI, which is quite a poor introduction. I also felt that the mechanics weren’t explained well (or at all) during the campaign. Once finished with the campaign one can purchase two additional campaigns, either with in-game gold or real money. Fair enough though of course it takes a while to get gold.

Now, one can get gold by winning in the Arena. However, there is a 150 gold entry fee and it’s draft meaning one must create a deck from random cards each time they enter (which is similar for Eternal's Forge). If you are familiar with the cards and all the buffs and debuffs and have been constructing decks for a while this probably is a piece of cake. But if you’re new to CCGs or TES:L in particular and just finished the campaign you’ll probably have a hard time creating a deck that stacks up to the AI, which I found extremely powerful. You can lose two times and keep going. Lose a third time and you’re out and given your reward. Now if you lost three times in a row you are a) out of a 150 coins and b) get no reward. In four tries I got no further than the second round and am now 50 gold short to enter again. Not just that, I am also quite frustrated. My fun has been effectively killed now.

In comparison Eternal has a Gauntlet mode, which is free to play, let’s you construct a deck and I’d say everyone wins at least one round every time, gaining a reward. Afterwards just enter another gauntlet. This is fun and keeps me going. Dare I say even Hearthstone, having picked it up again a few days ago, has some fun PVE modes.

TES:L might be for you if you have time and patience, maybe are already (very) familiar with CCGs and enjoy digging in. In all it’s attempts to be a fair CCG I actually categorize TES:L as a hardcore game aimed at experienced players. I don’t find it newbie friendly nor suitable for quick rounds in-between. For that I highly recommend Eternal, which is the better game for me as it’s more rewarding for PVE style (plus, I find the casual PVP fun as well, something I can't say about TES:L, where I just can't compete).

If there was a Gauntlet mode similar to Eternal's I'd enjoy the game much more. As I said I prefer PVE and as it stands the only option that doesn’t require money is Arena – which I wouldn’t call fun.