Recent reviews by Xhamon

After trying it, I don't like how the game feels. The slow movement speed, the reload mechanic, the barely visible reticle, the overly complicated descriptions on every item and perk, the bland layout of levels.
I am not interested in playing this anymore.

It's a shame because I really dig the art style and music.

What can I say. This game was made by Josef Fares.
Just watch him at the 2017 Game Awards and you will understand. Nobody can top that speech or be more convincing.

He's a passionate guy.

This game doesn't get the love it deserves. I had much more fun with it than I had with, like, Path of Exile. The spell design is sublime. I cannot stress how much I hold the spell design of this game in high regard. I can't recommend this game enough.

I honestly cannot recommend this game. I finished it and I am left with the feeling that it has brought nothing to me… That I learned nothing and that I pretty much wasted my time. It’s sad.

It was bland and mostly too easy. There was nothing worth remembering and it didn’t make me improve myself as a player.

For me, a game must bring something new. I can overlook its flaws as long as it has strong points. Now, this game doesn’t have many flaws but it doesn’t have anything remarkable either.

The bad:
• A depressing atmosphere with rarely interesting locales.
• A boring story without any plot twist and with soulless characters.
• Insipid flavor text on skills.
• A convoluted system of stats which is complicated for no reason (10 types of magic resistances, over 20 types of damage, each skill and item has an enormous list of different things it does). It makes the skills harder to undersand. It makes the loot harder to parse and it makes for a poor ratio of time spent on sorting loot vs. the time spent actually playing.
• Very limited variety in spells mechanics beside the artificial “types”.
• The power curve of skills is not well balanced which makes the game too easy now and then if you cleverly spend your points.

The good:
• Meaningful choices to take (when talking to NPCs) that change minor turn of events.
• A few lore journals are actually good reads.
• The devotion passive skill “tree” where you spend points on stars and constellations is interesting but the skills themselves not that much.

Bottom line:
It's not an inherently bad game, but I would definitely recommend other games over this one. Please ask yourself why you are playing ARPGs, and what you are looking for. If you are looking for story and exploration then Titan Quest is MUCH better. You could also play a good ol’ turn-based RPG or look for excellent story based games like Life is Strange. If you are looking for gameplay or challenge, please try Heroes of Hammerwatch; it’s my new benchmark for spell design. If you are looking for character building and theorycrafting, then I think Path of Exile is a better choice.

I do not judge the value of a game by the amount of time it takes to complete; this game is short indeed but has much greater quality than what we commonly see. The creator, Jonathan Blow, obviously understood this and nothing in this game is artificially lengthened.

The gameplay is a mix of puzzle and platforming with a twist: you have to manipulate time in many ways to succeed. Not only you can freely go back and forth through time, you have to understand how to fold time and intertwine different timelines together. This aspect of gameplay is smoothly introduced and is quite unique and worthwhile.

At first, the story seems simple and classic… until you realize that it is a puzzle in itself and if you rearrange the pieces, the real story emerges. It is wonderfully written and its poetry rewards thoughtfulness.

Also, the artwork and music are soothingly beautiful.

Meticulous attention to detail is seen everywhere, resulting in sheer flawlessness.

One can really see that this game is, first and foremost, a labor of love.

It is a masterpiece.