Recent reviews by 「カイコ」

A fun, low stakes stealth game that rewards you for terrorizing people, messing with the environment and prodding your way into places you shouldn't be.

The presentation and (dynamic/reactive) music remind me of kids' cartoons from when I was little (late 90s and early 2000s, mostly PBS ones I think) which is an interesting dash of nostalgia.

The areas have a good sense of escalation to them, and each one has interesting character behaviors to discover and exploit. In a way, this game feels like it takes the least violent parts of the Hitman games and fleshes them out. If exploiting a variety of human quirks and pet peeves to break into new and more complicated areas sounds interesting to you, this game definitely has something for you.

I finished the game, and all of the bonus tasks/time trials at my current playtime as of writing this review. If ~6.5 hours for full completion seems low for a $20 game, I gotta say, it feels longer than that when you're playing, in a good way. I've got good memories of my time playing through it, and the extra tasks and time trials reward clever thinking and familiarity with the areas; they're very rewarding.

I'll add that I don't think playtime is everything when it comes to the price, and this is another one of those games where the experience and good memories you can make with it is worth more than just how many hours you can sink into it. I say that as someone who enjoys a good time sink every once in a while, too.

(I never messed with the co-op anyways, if you have a friend to play with I'm sure you can get even more of your money's worth, if it still concerns you)

Fun little game. Not the deepest shooter ever (obviously), but it does enough with its levels and enemy layouts to keep you on your toes and engaged for the first few playthroughs and new game+ runs. Difficulties are balanced well (no bullet sponges, just more danger), and the jump from Fiend to Goblin is perfectly described by the in-game text. Definitely play through on Fiend (hard) before moving up; it's better that way.

>Big plus to gameplay by having most enemies get stunned by your attacks, I feel like a lot of retro/indie shooters forget that their boomer shooter forefathers did so, and for a reason. It makes enemies feel more reactive to your shots/stabs and helps add more incentive to sometimes get aggressive/rewards you for hitting your shots.
>Ammo reserves are just low enough to encourage good aim and conscious weapon choice, and pickups are plentiful enough to keep you full between fights. It strikes a good balance.
>Level design is efficient and charming. Fun variety of aesthetics and atmospheres, especially given the short playtime.
>Secrets are fun to find and very rewarding.

Overall, it does a lot with a little and doesn't overstay its welcome. As someone who's dabbled in gamedev and level design, it's an inspiring little project by one talented dude that shows what you can accomplish with relatively minimal manpower and workload.

I agree with some of the other (positive) reviews saying it's not worth $20, but only from a playtime angle. It doesn't seem like it has too much replay value (which is fine, not every game needs it), but it's got stellar art, sound design and music. In fact I think the short playtime can be seen as a plus. It's not a game that needs a lot of time to deliver its ideas, and it respects your time by not filling the game with a bunch of tedium to pad out the playtime. I see the full price tag as a way to pay the devs for their good work (but it seems to go on sale often enough anyways).

You can tell the artists and designers worked their asses off to get the environments to look as good and diverse as they are; to get the visual language down and polish the experience so that figuring out the game felt intuitive without sacrificing the satisfaction of feeling like YOU figured it out.
Messing around with the unique controls and movement is fun, and it gives you plenty of time and encounters early on to figure things out before it gets to the challenging parts.
Fights later on play out in ways that still feel open-ended and reward experimenting with your abilities without feeling like they're too easy, and the music during these really stands out to me as some of the best in the game.

My only real gripe with it is that I wish the hub area had a map of some sort, since you can end up spending very little time there between new areas, leaving it a lot harder build a mental image of how to get to older zones and grab stuff you missed, or to not accidentally backtrack when you're trying to get to the next one. They have some doors close behind you in sections you don't need to access again to help with this, but I think they ended up just making it harder for me to get my bearings, and sometimes momentarily made me think there were still areas I hadn't reached.

Other than that, it's a fun, short metroidvania with a streamlined flow. It delivers the satisfying highlights of getting new abilities, using them to get into old and new areas both, and figuring out how they can help you fight some of the harder enemies, without ever convoluting or drawing things out.
If you feel like supporting the time and thought that went into making all of that, buy it at full price. If you don't like that it took me only ~5 hours to 100% my first playthrough, wait for a sale.

Pretty good game. I like the music.

Surprisingly deep, and addicting by virtue of the inherent RNG elements leading you to hunger for that perfect build. I've spent several nights playing for hours when I only logged in for a couple of games. It might take a moment for you to get to that point though. At first I didn't get the game or its strategies, but once it clicked I was hooked.

After a rough few days of server issues, they seem to have fixed the connection and performance problems a lot reviews had been complaining about. It runs smoother than it did even at launch now, and in my limited experience since the patch, it even seems like the matchmaking is more fine tuned than it was prior.

So far all of the changes seen from the team have been similarly on point, addressing community feedback quickly and appropriately. It they keep up that trend, I'll stay excited to see where the game goes from here.

Relatively short but pleasant point and click adventure.
Really great soundtrack, neat characters/interactions, and decent, no-stress puzzles. Very charming, with just enough bite to its characters and dialogue to keep it from feeling like a lot of other shallow "feel-good" kind of games.
A nice way to spend a couple of evenings. After getting 100% achievements I already feel like going back and playing it again, which is a very rare thing for me, personally.
Definitely recommend if you feel like winding down and stepping into a well crafted little world.

Post-Basto Edit:

A nice expansion with a lot to do. Same charm as before, and cool uses of friendly faces to keep things connected. The water balloon launcher is fun and adds just enough to make a few puzzles more interesting.

Lots of content, tight and intuitive controls, satisfying gunplay, combat, and traversal, and an overall rewarding gameplay loop. Best enjoyed with friends, but fun enough alone too.
Addendum: New mission types (as of the roughnecks at work update) are a blast, and the overclocks (added since I first reviewed) introduce even more variety to potential playstyles and add fresh incentive to grind, experiment, and synergize with your buddies.
The game just keeps getting better, and the devs don't show signs of curbing that trend anytime soon.

It lacks a lot of the style and charm of the original games of the series, but stands strong despite this. If you're looking for a refurbished Chaos Theory experience, then this isn't going to satisfy you, but the game still has depth. The new playstyle scoring system (ghost, panther, and assault) offers a lot of replay value to the various missions, but this is weighed down by an underwelming amount of npc dynamicity. Even with so many possible approaches, when the enemies and their placements/patrols are predictable, the amount of challenge in any replays drops drastically. Along with this, a good few of the campaign missions are overly linear. Most of the others are fine, but these still detract from the overall experience. Despite all of this, the game is good. I recommend it to anyone willing to look past its lack of true Splinter Cell spirit.

+Easy to learn, hard to master.
+Fun, natural, and interesting movement.
+Good challenges and progression system.
+Parts are unique and combining them is fun.
+Great music.

-Enemies could use more variety.
-Most of the color filters aren't very nice.

Definitely recommend though. $10 may seem a bit steep, but it's not a bad price for the amount of fun you'll have with the game.