Recent reviews by Alma

Peaceful Mode when

Suprisingly difficult, even on the early missions. Maybe a little too difficult for the first actual mission or so, but maybe that's the intent.

Great game, but don't play the Demolition mode. The only people in it are the sweatiest people alive.

For the 7$ I bought it with, I like to think it'll be worth it.

The game for sure has rough edges, bad AI voicing, fairly middling designs, and not a terrible lot of content unto itself, but I think it shows some promise, and the developers seem to be updating it fairly regularly.

If Liar's Dice with shots of Arsenic and Liar's Cards with some Russian roulette as a side game sound like fun to play with friends, it might be worth the couple bucks it is. If that doesn't sound fun, then leave it be and come back in a few months. Maybe I'll look like a fool, maybe I won't.

I get that the game is supposed to be 'realistic'.

Dying due to functionally random luck because someone sprayed at me from 2 kilometers away and happened to know my pilot out is just unfun, especially when I have no actual counter for it.

That's War Thunder in a nutshell: It's a negative-sum game that's either fun that you can get elsewhere, or just boring. And they have the audacity to ask full-price games in money out of you for singular vehicles or skins.

Don't install this, and if you do, don't play it. If you do, don't put money in. There are other, better games you could find that don't punish you for existing.

This game has become my gold standard for Visual Novels.

- Thematic yet Diverse Soundtrack
- Cohesive and Pleasant Artstyle
- Well-Written, Complex Characters [The ones that matter, anyway]
- Minor gameplay past just reading
- Replayability, Multiple Endings

I got this game on sale, but it's honestly worth the full price to me.

Pretty fun and surprisingly deep for a pixel game. Has a lot of content to it, even if some of it is just cosmetics.

I do wish there were more weapons like an Odachi or a Naginata, but I do realize that'd be both a lot of work to animate and kinda run counter to the spirit of the game.

It's an early access game, so bear that in mind.

This game relies way too heavily on RNG, multiplayer, and it's "charming" ♥♥♥♥♥♥ graphics to be a game.
The game will just randomly decide to kill you, whether because it spawns an enemy right on your home ship, because a sandworm decides to breach the soil, or because a local shadow creature decided now was the time to run up, snap your neck, and disappear.

If your cup of tea is spending ten dollars to listen to your friends scream, die, and generally fall silent at random intervals, go ahead. If your cup of tea is watching a game that is practically designed for youtubers to play it to build fake interest, go ahead. If your cup of tea is playing an 'early release' game with clunky graphics, clipping issues, and barely any rhyme or reason to its set dressing, monster design, or really anything else, go ahead. Definitely not my cup of tea though, so.

Definitely lackluster compared to something as interesting as It Steals.

TL;DR: Similar to both XCOM 2012 and XCOM: UFO Defense, in a way that is to the game's detriment. Things are streamlined or just simplified unnecessarily, again, to the game's detriment. The game, graphics-wise, looks good. The UI is clean and doesn't feel clunky or particularly hard to navigate, the characters have distinct personalities and appearances, and the aliens are nice and recognizable, even if I wish I didn't see their health or armour and had to figure that out for myself.


Full Review:
I'm enjoying it, but this definitely isn't nearly as close to XCom UFO Defense/UFO Enemy Unknown as it seems to think it is.

The shooting and combat is fairly similar, with free fire and tile-based aiming as opposed to just shooting at an enemy (looking at you Xcom 2012), but the inventory system is very different. As opposed to having a number of different pouches on different parts of the body of differing sizes and TU requirements, Xenonauts simply has a 5x5 backpack and a primary and secondary item to use. Streamlined, yes, but markedly less satisfying.

Basebuilding is similar in a skin-deep way. Like UFO Defense, you build all on one flat plane as opposed to just down and to the sides, and building similar buildings boosts their overall performance, which is good, and definitely an improvement over UFO Defense. However, the game lacks a market where you can buy supplies, as you simply get infinite of all of the base stuff and manufacture everything else yourself. Speaking off, that too is streamlined, to what I feel is the game's detriment. Rather than allocating engineers and scientists, you simply queue things up, so you can't do multiple researches at the same time or multiple fabrications at the same time.

Research also seems trimmed, though that may very likely be simply due to Early Access. Research on materials and alien autopsies are done as soon as you kill the relevant alien or obtain the material, leaving a lot less research to do and a lot less choices to make.

TL;DR: Game will induce masochism through RNG rigged against the player and either sadistic game design, or severe oversight. Economy/Base-Building Side is very satisfying.

A game to recommend to someone for all of the wrong reasons.

This game should not be fun. It just shouldn't be.

You get punished for doing a good thing, you get punished for doing a bad thing, and occasionally, randomly, you get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ because the game decided it's ♥♥♥♥-O'Clock in the morning and you look ripe for the pickin'.

Surprising an enemy sounds like a good idea, right? Well, not in this game. Because surprising an enemy doesn't net you an extra turn, rather just you all go first. So, if you can't kill all of them in one turn, the enemy now gets 2, 3, or 4 turns to ♥♥♥♥ up your guys without any recourse.

And let's not forget that the RNG is incredibly biased, or at the very least feels biased, towards the enemy. They will consistently crit and land low-chance hits while they dodge every attack aimed back at them. This compounds into the problem of surprising enemies actually not being a good thing, because enemies will line their ducks up, then proceed to double-crit a party member, promptly kill them, and all because you managed to surprise them, which is a random event in this game.

Make no mistake, this game is very fun and satisfying when it wants to be. Landing hefty blows in the 30s and 40s of damage is incredibly satisfying when you've built a party or character for that purpose. But my god, this game is an even tug-of-war game at its fairest, and a suicide mission at its worst.

As far as the economy sides of things goes, collecting treasure and upgrading buildings and managing your party through the Hamlet, it actually feels fairly balanced. Everything is a decision, there is no willy-nilly buying upgrades. The upgrades feel well-priced, allowing you to usually upgrade one or two party members per run, with some money spent towards recuperation. The Trinkets, the Busts, Portraits, Deeds, and Crests, work very well as resources, requiring you to hold onto them as treasures in the place of gold or other valuable items, or adventuring supplies, like torches, food, or curatives, forcing you to prioritize expanding your town or resting, recuperating, and fortifying your adventurers.

The Trinkets as a system and as part of the Hamlet, are well-designed and play into the games focus on careful decision-making, even if that focus is shot in the knees by some odd design choices and really wack RNG.