Category: Game reviews

 Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch Playstation 5 Review

It isn’t often that I play a tactical RPG where losing a battle doesn’t just make me cringe knowing I have to do this all over again. But not long ago, Kakao Games sent me a copy of Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch on PS5, and that changed. This isn’t your typical Tactical RPG; it is, at its very core, a roguelite.

Every move can be a life-or-death choice

The game starts out standard enough. You wake up on a beach, with no memory, and you must fight some undead with the help of some people who seem to remember you from the ship you were on. It isn’t long before this proves to be a battle you can’t truly win. So what is a dead man to do? Make a deal with a witch, become her champion, and rid the island of whatever is causing this problem as you set out in search of people mentioned in a letter that you feel are important.

Each of your friends has their own strengths and weaknesses, and you will be able to pick up more along the way to build your party from. Do you want a quick dagger wielder that can disappear and strike from the shadows? Emile is the perfect character for that. Want a more Paladin-like character that can heal and attack? Evie has you covered with her healing skills, but solid sword work.

Each step of the way, you can choose where to go at a fork in the road. Some lead to much-needed healing at camp sites, or a raven you can get relics from. Others will have merchants or NPCs to interact with. All will force you to make a decision on where to go next, most of which will lead you to your next battle.

Most maps are small enough that battles are quick and painful for everyone involved, rarely letting you walk away untouched. Don’t worry, if you lose a character, they will be back for the next fight, minus most of their health.

Customization also plays a huge part in the game; rather than gaining new weapons, you can choose who to give orbs to, which upgrade weapons and armor. At each level, you are also given a choice of a new skill to learn or a possible skill to upgrade. These are random, but you can reroll for a few gold, and certain items increase your odds of getting better skills, just like promoting units allows better starting skills.

The only major flaws I found in the game are, quite honestly, the grind. In any game like this, you expect a grind, but unless you are constantly making deep runs, it will take you a very long time to even unlock all the characters, and even longer to make them viable to use. I never felt a need to switch from the starting characters because I felt like I was being punished by doing it. This is a shame because those later characters are some of the best written in the game and have amazing stories. You don’t truly miss anything by not using them, but it would be nice to do so without suffering.

That being said, fans of either the tactical RPG or Roguelite genre would do well to at least play the demo, because the game is fantastic. It truly is a hidden gem, 9/10. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Lost Rift Steam Review

Lost Rift on Steam is the newest Early Access title from People Can Fly, and they were kind enough to toss me a copy to check out, which I am always thankful for.

I am going to be up front about a few things right away. The game is sitting at mixed reviews on Steam out of around 650 reviews. Many of these reviews have the same complaint, and I won’t sit here and try to convince you that they aren’t valid. The game, from the start, is pitched as PVPVE. Meaning you start on a player vs environment island. You can safely wander around it, gather supplies, and build a base in relative safety.

There is, however, an extraction shooter element to it. Meaning you HAVE to go to the PVP zone at some point to get better stuff to craft certain things. There will be tougher AI enemies and real people there, and they will attempt to kill you and take your stuff. None of this is hidden in the game description, and many of the complaints in the negative reviews are about how this exists in the first place. If this isn’t something you want, the game isn’t for you.

I did, however, say that it wasn’t without merit. Just because they warn you that this is what the game is doesn’t mean that it is all done well. The idea that you have to run into AI characters with guns while armed with a very underpowered bow is odd. Not many people are taking an arrow to the head and just walking away after all, yet somehow I have seen this happen quite a few times in Lost Rift.

The game is solid and looks pretty decent, but it won’t be turning any heads. The sounds are worth listening to, and the little things I found were important. People in the distance do make noise walking around. The game was, however, clearly meant to be played as a group, and as I didn’t have one, death came frequently. The NPC that warns you about this was not kidding at all.

Is Lost Rift worth the $25 it costs to pick up? Honestly, this one is weird for me. The game is still very early in early access and has a ton of potential. If you are /going to play with a group, yeah, it is a 7/10 experience. There is definitely fun to be had here. If you don’t have a group to play with, however, this is one game you probably will want to skip. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Deathless The Hero Quest Playstation 5 Review

Deathless: The Hero Quest is an upcoming card battler from the fine folks at Fulqrum Publishing and For Games. They were kind enough to send me a copy early to review. You can pick it up now over on Steam.

The game itself plays out like many roguelikes you have played before: pick a character, kill enemies, collect cards and relics, move along the path of your choosing, rinse and repeat. When you lose, and you will, you unlock new cards and try again. The thing is, games like this need to either do it better than anyone else or do something new to be worth playing. This is where Deathless: The Hero Quest comes in.

Dobrynya is my favorite, builds buffs and armor, then causes direct damage

You get to choose between four different characters, each with their own unique style and look. Dobrynya is a sort of Knight that specializes in building up armor and buffs, then dealing damage directly to the enemy.

Varvara is more manipulative

Varvara is more manipulative in her approach and is the opposite of Dobrynya. She controls the battlefield by moving enemies around, ignoring armor, and moving dead enemies into the path of living enemies to protect herself.

Each character comes with their own story to discover as you play. The nice thing here is that losing a run doesn’t restart the story on you. You simply pick up where you left off. This is nice because even on easy, the game isn’t easy. There will be some trial and error involved in finding a nice build, and as of yet, I haven’t discovered any sort of game-breaking magical build that simply results in you winning.

Admittedly, I hate this boss

While the sound and character designs are great, the game isn’t perfect. Many of the complaints you will see in Steam reviews are perfectly valid. For example, the final boss can seem insanely unfair if you haven’t lucked into some great drops. Relics can also be far more important than your cards, since cards are largely just side-upgrades to what you start with. For example, you gain slightly more shields or do slightly more damage. The game could really use a bit more variety in the card department. Maybe a few more cards that do damage and give shields, or that act as a vampire-type card that do damage and heal. Not to say these cards don’t exist, but a few more to come across would be nice.

The game is sitting at Very Positive Steam reviews for a reason, and when it launches on October 16th for PS5, Xbox, and Switch, it will be worth buying this 8/10 experience on console. It doesn’t redefine the card-battling experience, but it is definitely a worthy experience. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Train Sim World 6 PS5 Review

Train Sim World 6 on PS5 was sent my way by Dovetail Games, which I always appreciate. Now I know a lot of people haven’t had the chance to play a Train Sim World game and just want to know, is this a good place to start, and don’t care about the rest of my review or what I have to say. So for them, yes, Train Sim World 6 is a great place to start. Feel free to stop reading now and go buy the game.

For the rest of you, let’s get this train moving. Yeah, the game is beautiful. No doubt about that, and I doubt anyone ever thought it wouldn’t be. I live in Scranton, Pennsylvania, home to the Steamtown National Historic Site. A place that has a literal train museum attached to it. I am not claiming to be a train expert, but I have been on a few and seen even more. Walking around some of these trains and listening to them isn’t much different than being at the museum itself. Listening to the trains glide across the tracks or the sound the tracks make as the rails move from one side to the other when tracks are switched is as close as any game has made it to real life as I have ever heard.

Now, all that means nothing if the controls aren’t as good as the visuals and the sounds. Well, truth be told, the controls are the same as they have always been. Your character, while moving around, feels a bit still, but not bad. Aside from that, pressing buttons on the train and starting and stopping it takes quite a bit of getting used to, but the game has a ton of tutorials to get you moving. Hours and hours worth in fact. Don’t worry, you don’t have to play them all; they just have them in case you want to learn more about each individual train. You are free to learn the basics and go from there, which is what most people do.

I wouldn’t be doing my due diligence if I didn’t mention issues other people have reported. Honestly, I didn’t come across these issues, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. There have been reports of some in-game crashes, some assets popping in and out while people are driving the trains on longer lines, and issues with passenger AI at times. I haven’t come across these, so they won’t factor into my score, but they are worth mentioning. I enjoyed the game and will definitely be playing it more. The game is a solid 8/10 for me. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

CloverPit Steam Review

CloverPit was sent to me by the fine people over at Future Friends Games, and I am thankful for that. What I am not grateful for is them sending me what amounts to video game heroin. What I thought was going to be a fun game that allows me to play a little slot machine that cutely cries, “Let’s go gambling!” at the start of each round and requires me to collect virtual money, actually was a sick and demented experiment in dragging myself away from just one more pull of the handle.

See, I truly don’t have a gambling addiction. Every year, I spend around $20 on Eagles or Phillies games across various games throughout both seasons. That is combined, mind you, not each or per game. I have probably spent another $20 on slot machines in my 40 years of life. But this simple game has had me spending hours chasing enough money to prevent my character from falling down this whole, literally crossing my fingers, hoping these damn wheels will stop on diamonds.

When that doesn’t work, I will restart my run, and think the problem was me, I just had the wrong combination of relics to increase my luck or modifiers. Each stage requires you to get enough coins to put in the ATM to save your life; the amount increases each round. Do you pick more spins for more chances at money, or fewer spins for more tickets to buy relics for modifiers? The choice is yours, and if you pick wrong, it may end your run early.

Now, I do need to point out, to be perfectly clear, there is no real gambling involved in this. The game requires no real money outside of the $10 to buy the game. This is by no means anything other than a horror game similar to Blatro and Buckshot Roulette, as they say. Free advice by the way, the game takes place in one room, and it does include a toilet, use it.

The game functions great, looks amazing for what it is, and is a ton of fun. Don’t just take my word for it, over 1800 Steam reviews, and they are very positive. The negative reviews I came across mostly complain that once you find a working strategy, it mostly always works, and that’s honestly a weird complaint. That is how things are supposed to work. The game is a solid 7/10. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Aethermancer Steam Review

Aethermancer is a creature battling rogue-like from Offbrand Games that they were kind enough to send me. I wasn’t really sure how to feel about it at first, since, honestly, there are a million games out there that make you fight creatures nowadays.

Aethermancer has a nice twist, however, since now you do it in runs instead of as one overall quest. Each time, you can purchase upgrades to make future runs easier, as you would expect from this sort of game. Creatures you capture, of course, can be summoned through special means. You can even choose your favorites by talking to a woman in town to make sure they are always available to you.

Your starter is always your starter, and there are four to choose from with different abilities to choose from. Personally, I chose Nixie because she can heal and dish out poison damage. This isn’t a hard niche to fill, however, and if you don’t choose Nixie, you aren’t locked out of these aether options. My friend over at @mrjfeliciano chose Cherufe the fire/earth starter and found a healer pretty quickly. I found a fire/earth combo pretty fast myself, so there is no real disadvantage from who you choose in terms of elements available to you.

The story is solid but basic; you are simply investigating an area between life and death, but I won’t spoil more than that. The important part is how the game functions, and with more than a few hours into the game, I can say I never ran into any weird glitches or frame rate drops playing on my laptop. In a time where companies seem to want to optimize games as little as possible and focus on high-end machines, Aethermancer seems to have done the opposite.

Far be it from me to enjoy a game this much, then see very positive reviews on Steam from over 600 people, and disagree. It’s a niche genre to be sure, but for those who enjoy these types of games, and at a $22 price point, the game is as much of a must-buy as a game can be in 2025. 8/10, please enjoy, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite

Gotta start by thanking Savior for playing through the game with me because, honestly, like most multiplayer games, who your crew is means a whole world of difference. Firetam Elite is essentially an online horde shooter in the Alien universe. There’s 4 chapters, 3 missions each to play through. You pick a class, pick up consumable buffs like shock grids, sentry guns, and proximity mines and jump into action with 2 other players. Is there a story? Barely. You’re a colonial marine tasked with killing xenos- that’s it in a nutshell.

I highly recommend having at least 1 battle buddy if you’re going to play this game. Solo, the gameplay isn’t too engaging. As for any online multiplayer, we’ve played with cool people and a couple that made things way harder than they had any right to be; if you can’t find someone, the game fills the slot with an Alpha, which mostly means you’re pulling extra weight and better not die. With a buddy, the game is pretty fun at times, but not full-price fun. We had it as a PS+ freebie and neither of us had any desire to get the Pathogen DLC.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the game, just nothing spectacular. The highlight for me was the iconic scenery that harkened back to Alien and Prometheus. I will say the ending of the final mission does the Queen Alien a massive disservice, even more the finale of Aliens: Colonial Marines. There is a nice sprinkling of Working Joes (a nice nod to Alien: Isolation ) and prequel monsters, but the Aliens themselves don’t really spark much terror.

In the end, Fireteam Elite isn’t bad if you and a friend want a pretty quick game to burn through or you’re a diehard Alien fan like I am, but there’s nothing great either. It’s one of the most average games I can think of. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Deadly Days: Roadtrip Steam Review

Deadly Days: Roadtrip was sent to me by the fine folks at Pixelsplit Games, which is always appreciated. This rougelike has a very basic premise that is simple to get behind. Take your yellow school bus to each level, kill zombies while you collect loot, and gather enough fuel to make it to the next area. Rinse and repeat.

The concept being simple doesn’t mean the game is simple, however, as there are plenty of things that can go wrong. You have a radar that will guide you to where the treasure is, and while most zombies can be killed with one or two shots from most guns, there are plenty of more powerful zombies. My favorite is the football player zombie that charges at you.

The graphics are cute and, as you can imagine, are simple pixel graphics that really set the tone well. The controls are simple; you move the same way you do in most PC games, and the character shoots automatically. You do have the option to use the mouse to click on zombies or items you want to shoot at, specifically. This is a nice touch for when a special zombie or crate shows up and you want to target that first.

Each run gets a bit easier as you collect power-ups in between runs. These are bought with special items and are permanent. These allow for deeper runs and make collecting more items easier. It makes for a satisfying game loop. With a price point of $15, very positive reviews (450 total reviews), it’s hard to argue with this being worth the money. A solid 7/10 early access title. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Trails from the Sky 1st chapter PS5 Review

Trails From The Sky 1st Chapter was sent my way by Gung Ho Entertainment, which is always appreciated. Now I know some people just want to skip to the good stuff how how is the game, is it worth buying? It is a Trails game. If you enjoy the series, feel free to stop reading, spend the money, and just start playing; you won’t be disappointed. If you are on the fence, maybe stick around.

The first thing we need to touch on is the fact that this isn’t some epic reimagining of the original Trails game. It is more along the lines of an update that fixes some old issues and makes it more modern. It also gives many people their first chance to play the Trails games from the very beginning.

The combat itself also takes a lot from Trails Through Daybreak in that you can pretty much swap from real-time and turn-based battles, which many people will appreciate.

Estelle and Joshua are interesting characters, two Bracers who are a bit naive and get caught up in things they really didn’t mean to, and of course, need to save their home. Liberl Kingdom is as beautiful as ever, and if you don’t mind the one main complaint that I have had about all of these games, it is basically the only complaint I ever hear about them.

However, it is still a slog to play at times due to the immense amount of story that you will sit through with no break. Some people love this aspect of the game, but I complain about this and get asked if I am crazy. Other people I say this to, and they agree completely. There is no reason not to buy this 8/10 game if this doesn’t bother you. If it does, it is still worth playing. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Folly of the Wizard Steam Review

Folly of the Wizards is the newest roguelike from Numbskull Games. They tossed me a copy of this one, which is always appreciated. The story is quite simple: you are one of four wizard apprentices attempting to defeat evil, but you aren’t exactly a good wizard. You are simply the apprentice and the wizard who happens to be around. That’s right, this is a comedy.

The game takes place in procedurally created dungeons, so no two runs are ever the same. In fact, besides starting in the same room with a guy who has no issue feeling sorry for you, you don’t really know what you are walking into.

My only real issue with this game is the button layout. While the game looks beautiful, and the sound and music are great, the button layout is atrocious. The jump and dodge buttons being on the trigger just feel awful to me, and with no way to change it, it took a lot of getting used to. In the first few runs, I died before the first boss.

It didn’t take long to get used to it, however, and after that, I was making deep runs consistently and taking out the first few bosses without issue. I mention the controls not because they are somehow impossible to get used to, but because, as of now, they can’t be changed on console. I don’t know if this will ever be an option, but I do know that for some people, this might be a deal breaker.

It shouldn’t be, however, letting this get in the way will make you miss out on what is a great all around game. Unlike most roguelikes, there isn’t a huge time sink per run; you can make it through a dungeon in probably 5 minutes or so, meaning each run can be quick and entertaining when you just want something to fill some time. It is a solid 8/10 experience. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.