Bellwright PlayStation 5 Review

Bellwright was sent my way by Snail Games USA, and I greatly appreciate it. I have been looking forward to this game hitting consoles for a very long time now, it seems. The release itself has been somewhat mixed, if I am being honest. I will start with the bad because the bad is quite annoying, but there have been a few patches since I was sent the game the day it released, and having played it most days since then, I can say many of these issues have gotten much better.

First, there has been an issue with saves, which, while I have never lost data, is easily fixed; it is annoying. Basically, the game flags the autosave file as having an issue whenever you pick anything up or use an item, and your system gives you an error message to close out. If you save your game manually, shut the game down, and reopen it, the issue disappears at least for a while. While the first few days this happened a lot, an update seems to have fixed this, as I have not had the issue the last couple of days.

My next issue is graphical; while the game mostly looks great, I have seen some weird things happen. People sawing wood well above where the wood is, people walking around without complete bodies that then suddenly return, which is completely cosmetic. If you see a bandit like this, you can still stab him in the chest.

The pathfinding also is not great for NPCs; I have had my townspeople get stuck on trees they could easily just walk around, for example. They don’t need constant supervision by any means, but occasionally you may have to help them out.

Let’s move on to the good, because I don’t want people to think I hate this game. It is quite the opposite; I actually love this game. I have played a few games like this, and this is the best. You can build almost anywhere on the map as long as you aren’t too close to a town, and once you start, you aren’t limited to where you started. The game encourages you to recruit a lot of people and build in a lot of places. You can even build new roads and send people out with carts to move things back and forth, with one person acting as a sort of merchant and others acting as guards. If you want to build a main settlement and a few others that do nothing but chop wood, mine rocks and copper, or hunt, and then have people that simply deliver those goods to your settlement to be processed and sold, you can.

The difficulty is also fully customizable from the in-game menu, so if you find you hate dealing with bandits and just want to build an epic city, feel free to turn off raids and make bandits hang out where they live. Want to turn the world into a war zone? Crank those things up if you want.

The story itself is quite simple: you return to your home in the Lowlands to find out the meaning of a sigil found on the body of your murdered uncle. This takes place years after some sort of war or rebellion, which you will quickly find out more about, so I won’t ruin it for you. Truthfully, I don’t know a ton about the story anyway. I spent my first 20 hours building and researching things, and doing missions for local people to make a town trust me. Why, you may ask? I wanted a pet cat, a warhammer, and to build a town hall as fast as I could. I have a cat and a warhammer.

Before this gets longer, the issues do take away from some of the enjoyment, but the game is still great. My only other complaint is that the game didn’t launch on console with multiplayer, but much of the balance is still designed for it. Now this is easily circumvented with a few townspeople, and it is coming with a future update. The game is a 7/10 title, which, with a couple of updates, will improve even more. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Alien: Isolation 2 trailer

Hallelujah! Alien: Isolation was my nightmares come true in the best ways. I heard whispers of a sequel but I didn’t believe it until we got the full reveal. We’re stuck on a dark, dreary planet being hunted by the Alien. So far I enjoy what I see. We don’t get much information, which I’m glad for. I’m absolutely going to follow Isolation 2. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

One Fenix Down Steam Demo

One Fenix Down recently had a demo as part of Steamfest, and I decided to check it out. The game started out as just something someone who loves RPGs started making, and it eventually turned into far more, now under the umbrella of a studio called Regalcraft Games.

Game told me not to fight this guy, so I did. Maybe don’t do that.

The game is a classic old-school turn-based RPG, through and through. From the graphics to the audio, everything about this feels ripped out of the 90s. Playing with a controller is basically mandatory. The game will tell you to use one when you boot it up, and I didn’t argue. The game demo doesn’t even feature voice-overs, and to my knowledge, there are no plans to add them; the game is better for this.

In true 90s fashion, I can’t pronounce this dudes name.

The combat feels great, sitting at my computer playing it, ironically sipping a monster, wishing I got more sleep last night, reminded me of the days I was up, swearing to my mother I was looking for a save point while I tried to grind out one more level, while I was right next to one. She honestly didn’t know what they looked like.

I don’t know how the full game will turn out, but the Steam page boasts about having over 40 hours of gameplay and over 14 playable characters, and considering the demo had 5 playable characters, 4 with unique skills and abilities, I believe it. Full disclosure, the 5th may have as well, but the goal is to NOT use him in combat, so I didn’t. He did have weapons and such equipped, so he is capable of battle. If the demo is any indication of what’s to come, I look forward to the planned September release date. As you know, I don’t give demos a score, but this one is worth trying. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Dragon’s Brew Steam Demo

Dragons Brew is one of the many demos I have been asked to check out recently. This one is from Isolated Games Publishing and Radic Creative. The concept is very simple but quite new to me. You run a little board game and cafe shop. The demo lets you run 2 game days and will show you how to do much of what the game has to offer, from buying supplies, making coffee, and baking goods to buying new games.

The controls are quite intuitive on a mouse and keyboard, and while a controller option is not available in the demo, it does seem that it may be coming. The really important thing is that the demo functions very well; I never had any graphical issues, and the only two issues I really had are easily fixed. One occasionally, when I made coffee, it would simply disappear rather than going to my inventory. Also, something telling you there is a map would have been nice intead of randomly finding it in the menu would have been nice.

There are also plenty of things to work toward in the game as you improve your store, new games, recipes, and furniture. The full game is expected to release sometime in quarter 4 of 2026, so check out the demo. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Spiderman: Brand New Day trailer 2

The latest Spiderman movie has me more than curious. The character list is pretty eclectic and we have a wide variety of story arcs going on. I’m glad me get to see Spidey beat down Scorpion. I’m extremely confident Sadie Sink is playing Jean Grey after this trailer. I’m super pumped classic Hulk is returning but I’m a little disappointed we haven’t gotten any glimpse of Tombstone yet. In the end, this trailer actually got me pretty hyped and I can’t wait to catch it this summer. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Dino-Ducks Mayhem Steam Review

Dino-Ducks Mayhem was sent my way by Duckosaurs Games which I always appreciate. Dino- Ducks Mayhem is a Twin Stick shooter with bullet heaven type gameplay, and honestly has an interesting concept. You pick one of two ducks, with more to unlock later, and two ducklings to help you out. You can unlock more of these later as well. You then traverse the map killing enemies, collecting coins to buy things from a truck that occasionally shows up, collecting shards to upgrade them at a forge that also shows up occasionally and fighting mini bosses or jailers to free ducklings.

Now the artwork is honestly very nice, and it is truly the standout thing here. Each duck looks interesting and different, this goes for the ducklings as well. The weapons are also pretty nice and feels like they matter. the ability to create new weapons based on the ones you pick up or to collect things like rocks or bottle caps to combine with your weapons at the forge to create bigger and better weapons and upgrade their levels is a nice touch as well. It is great to see how they truly feel stronger.

The game does have some issues whether you play with a mouse and keyboard or an Xbox controller. The game itself absolutely plays better on a controller, but the menus function better with a mouse. This makes it hard to just sit back and play the game when the menu becomes hard to navigate with a controller. It isn’t that the game is hard to play with Mouse and Keyboard, its just better with a controller.

The early part of the game is also very slow paced, this isn’t good or bad, this is for you to decide on. I rather enjoyed the slow walk up to being surrounded by enemies myself, but I know some people won’t like this. This game however makes it work.

All in all Dino-Ducks Mayhem isn’t a bad game, there are just better games in the genre, some are cheaper even. I have a hard time recommending a game that still needs work at a $15 price point when other games exist that do it better. It is a 6/10 title that only fans of ducks should buy. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Solarpunk PlayStation 5 Review

Solarpunk is a relaxed survival game made by just two people and sent my way by Rokaplay. I would be lying if I said this one wasn’t on my radar for a while. Everyone who follows Savior Gaming knows I am a sucker for a good survival game, and Solarpunk ticks all my boxes. I can relax, craft stuff, fly an airship, build a house as small or big as I want, and just all around do whatever I feel like doing in my own time. The question is, does it live up to my expectations?

Well, if you don’t feel like reading this entire thing, feel free to go and spend the $23 and buy it; you have my blessing. If you want to know more, keep reading. Starting out, you are tasked with the usual: collect some rocks and sticks, build some basic equipment, chop down some trees, collect some berries, we all know the drill. You will quickly be researching new things, however. This is very intuitive. It is as simple as using the research table and bringing what it asks for, such as wood or glass, depending on what you want to research.

I won’t bore you with the minor details; if you’ve played one survival game, you know how it all works. Where Solarpunk shines is that you can bring friends to do all this and build insane structures while checking out other islands. In between this, you can build things like solar panels and things to water or mine minerals for you. All of this starts to unlock pretty fast as well; these aren’t late-game items you need to grind for.

Now I know I make the game sound damn near perfect, and well, there are a few complaints I have. If you are playing alone, things will take a bit of time and get a bit repetitive. You will need to chop down and replant a lot of trees to build things, for example, and it feels like more so than most survival games. The same goes for most resources. Watering things before you unlock sprinklers is also a chore since you will need to refill your watering can quite often. This wouldn’t be so bad, but you will need things like watermelons to trade and berries to eat, as well as cotton for building, and all this takes some time. The game is definitely better with friends.

None of this makes the game not worth playing. I loved playing the game and will be playing it more, but it is worth mentioning. It is an 8/10 title. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Underchoice Steam Review

Underchoice is the newest title from Targem Games, and they were kind enough to send it my way to check out. Underchoice will see you running a vault as an overseer. Every choice you make will determine if your people survive, since the outside world is no longer safe to live in. They are playing fast and loose with no longer safe to live in, however, since people will be showing up asking to live there, and someone does occasionally drop bombs that may or may not land close enough to cause damage to your vault.

You will start out choosing some people to live in your vault, each with different skills and randomly assigned negative traits. I find this works really well and makes every run feel different. The person you pick to create food might end up as a smoker. This requires you to buy cigarettes from the trader who shows up weekly. Speaking of weekly things, every week you will be given some sort of update from the company that runs the vault.

The art style is great, honestly, it is probably the best part of the game. It truly has a lot of potential, with multiple endings, a good number of people to unlock, and a decent number of things to see. I wish it were a game I could put more time into.

The issues with the game kind of start popping up after an hour or two. You will quickly see just about every event possible. By the end of my second run, I felt like I had seen it all, and when there were still more people and endings to unlock, this stopped being fun when things were just repeating already. On the bright side, the game is only $8, so I can’t be too upset by the price point and the amount there is to do. It won’t be for everyone. If you enjoy games like Papers Please and the like, this will be a fun way to spend a few hours. It is a 7/10 game, particularly because it has a nice price point. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Resident Evil: Veronica remake reveal

We finally have our next RE remake after the banger that was Resident Evil 4 Remake . Personally its Veronica as opposed to the original or Resident Evil 5. I can already tell just from the reveal trailer it’s going to be a wildly different game in a lot of ways. The set up isn’t the same and I know damn well they are redoing the Ashford lore. Overall I’m pretty pumped and I’m sure it’ll be a good time (even Resident Evil 3 (2020) wasn’t all that bad.) May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Until Dawn 2 reveal trailer

Until Dawn was one of my biggest surprises of the PS4 era. I loved the story, the atmosphere, and there was passion behind it. I never really expected a sequel to Supermassive’s masterpiece. Upon seeing this, I’m just very confused how this is a Until Dawn 2. I feel like this might’ve been a project they slapped the title on to generate buzz. It doesn’t look bad by any means, just hardly what I think any of us were expecting. Hopefully we’ll get a better idea what’s coming soon. May the gaming gods bring you glory.