Shadows of Adam came out in 2021 and was published by Something Classic Games, yes, the same folks who sent me Quartet last year. Now they never sent me Shadows of Adam; in fact, I didn’t even realize it was the same people until someone mentioned it while I was playing Quartet. I recently wanted to play an old school RPG and figured, since I will hopefully be playing Quartet again on PS5 when that hits, I would replay Shadows of Adam since it has been a few years.
This was always a fantasic turn based game. The village of Adam was tucked away from most of the world, deep in the misty woods, protected from all the bad that had happened. The perfect place to raise a family and just exist. 10 years have passed since the Wraith war, and Adam has pretty much been at peace. Orazio, however, had vanished, and that peace is suddenly gone. Orazio, the hero, is probably the only person who could save them. So his son and adopted daughter decide it is time for Orazio to explain a few things and make it their mission to trace his steps, solve his dark secret, and save him and the world.
What follows is a combination of humor and action on a 16-bit level we rarely get anymore. I don’t know how Something Classic does it, but they always manage to publish some amazing old-school RPGs. Their updates for their games always add things to keep you playing, from New Game+, which is more than just playing again, to new items and more. This was one of their first games I fell in love with, even before I knew who they were. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands was sent my way by the fine folks from, well, Deathbulge. It is always appreciated, and since I love a good turn-based RPG, this was a special treat.
The story is quite simple to start. You play as Faye, Ian, and Briff, a 3 piece band that Faye signs up for a battle of the bands to win the right to go on tour with the biggest band of them all. What she didn’t know was that this would curse them to fight to the literal death to win this battle of the bands. Now she and her bandmates must go on an adventure to break the curse.
Obviously, that is only the start of the story, and I won’t go into any more depth to avoid spoilers; I just like to wet your whistle a bit. Besides, the story means very little if it is presented poorly or the battle system is poorly executed. The battle system is a bit weird to me, as you get three characters but can only use one each turn. The two you aren’t using sort of sit to the side and replenish their action points. You can swap them around freely, however, with no repercussions. In fact, the game encourages this. Faye for example was my fastesst character, so I would often use her to bring my turn around faster and then swap her into with Ian to hit hard or Briff to heal.
Another neat thing is that status effects don’t affect people; they affect the turn bar. So burns hurt everyone, so a burn will hurt all of the enemies or all of your team. Boosting your speed or a slow debuff will speed up or defuff the entire group. This also brings me to my complaint. While you are forced to make the decision about who will fight, the enemy does not have this issue. If you are fighting 3 enemies, it basically becomes 3 turns to 1 of yours. The best you can hope for is 1 versus 1 when it comes to turns. Luckily, they did a great job balancing most encounters.
The writing is also great, Ian really stole the show for me in terms of humor. This is truly one of those games that I probably would not have picked up on my own, but I am very glad I got to play. It is an 8/10 title that RPG fans should pick up. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Over the weekend, Assemble Entertainment hooked me up with a treat called Flesh Made Fear on the PlayStation 5. Now, when I first saw this game, my first thought was, ” Don’t review this game. It represents a lot of things I hate.” I have always hated tank controls, for example. The number of games that try to play homage to Resident Evil but are just rip-offs, by the way, is simply mind-boggling. People need to realize you can respect a series and want to show that love with a similar game, and not just steal its stuff. But how does Flesh Made Fear manage to walk this line?
Truth be told, it doesn’t really walk the line. It knows exactly what it is, and it doesn’t even try to hide it. I am not saying it is some sort of shot-for-shot remake or anything of the sort; it isn’t. But it embraces what it is, and lets you enjoy that rather than hiding behind some imaginary wall of its homage, not copying. The characters definitely are not Chris and Jill from Resident Evil. Who you choose, Natalie or Jack, will determine how parts of the story play out, and if you start with a bigger inventory (Natalie) or more health (Jack), which probably sounds familiar.
The horror is also pretty top-notch, from the very start, the camera angles are used in great ways to create tension, but are rarely used to screw the player. This was a complaint I always had about early games in the genre: you can create tension without placing enemies in such a way that players scramble with controls that are switching as the camera changes angles at weird times.
This brings me to my two major complaints about the game. The tank controls, while not the worst I have ever used, make the combat hit or miss, regardless of the character you are using. Not enough to ruin the game, but enough to be frustrating and has gotten me killed a couple times, causing me to have to restart from a previous save point.
I still enjoyed the game far more than I expected, and it may be the best of this throwback genre. It is an 8/10 game that fans should definitely experience. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
The Scroll of Taiwu: Beyond the Dome recently hit 1.0, and Conchship Games was nice enough to send me a copy to check out. This game has been on my radar for a while, but admittedly, I couldn’t play it because, honestly, I don’t speak Chinese. However, the English localization was introduced with 1.0, but you will have to work a bit to enable it since the game is natively in Chinese. Don’t worry, plenty of people will happily tell you. Basically, just skip the opening scene and click the globe-looking thing, and it’s the third option to bring up the languages. (This may change by the time you read this)
Now the game itself is quite simple; you play as the leader of the Taiwu clan, and you are on a mission, which I won’t tell you about, to avoid spoilers, of course. This mission can take generations. The game is a strange mix of RPG and Crusader Kings, as you will have to manage and build up where you live, take care of your companions, and obviously choose an heir. All this while finding resources and fighting battles using the martial arts you learn.
Recent reviews are mostly negative, with English reviews being mostly positive, with the majority of the negative reviews coming from the same issue I had. There is no manual save option. It saves at the end of every month, and with so much to do, especially as you get deeper into the game, this gets really frustrating. Some of the English translations are also pretty awkward, for example, the insistence of the intro character calling the man Foster Father in every sentence. While I understand many languages have honorifics like the Japanese San or Sensei, English doesn’t really do the whole foster thing; we would most likely use Sir or Mr if not calling them some form of dad or father.
The game itself is fantastic, but small translation mistakes that shouldn’t have been made, and the no manual save thing are very distracting. The game is an 8/10 and worth playing all the same. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
TheHunter: Call of the Wild’s “Peru Hunting Reserve” DLC was once again sent my way by the fine folks over at Avalanche Studios, which I always appreciate, and I always love working with these guys on The Hunter series. This new DLC brings us to Peru for a whole new place to hunt, and it will set you back about $12. Now, the question that is always asked is, is it worth the money? Well, let’s be honest, 14 new animals in a beautiful and scenic tropical jungle, what can go wrong?
From a gameplay perspective, not much. The place is beautiful, every square inch of it is stunning. Peru quickly became my favorite place to just walk around and take in the sights. But if I get attacked by one more damn jaguar, I am going to hunt them to extinction. ( in the game, not in real life.) These things will attack you if you get too close to them, make no mistake. This is the first time playing this game where I felt like an animal actually hunted me. I can’t prove they do, but the only thing that has done more damage to me than the jaguars in Peru is me driving the quads like an idiot. This is not a complaint; it is amazing.
Also, don’t shoot the capybara. Nothing happens if you do other than make some money; I just like them. Such cute little guys running around, I once got attacked by my mortal enemy, the jaguar, just watching the capys hang out eating. Admittedly, that one was on me.
Even the places you sleep and adventure to are unlike anywhere else in the game. They have such character to them. This DLC is a home run. It is a 9/10 experience that every fan of the game should pick up. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
The Gate Must Stand is a new tower defense game sent my way by Yogscast Games and Gamersky Games, both of which are always great to work with. The concept here is very simple: hack and slash your way through demons that are attacking your gate. Doing so will gain you experience and coins, which can be used to hire all sorts of help from the tavern, from different types of mages to guys with huge shields to distract enemies, and so much more.
Occasionally, you will be offered missions, such as guiding a transport to the gate, dealing a certain amount of magic damage, repairing the gate, or even keeping the gate at full health for a certain amount of time. These will reward you in various ways, such as increasing the level of your minions, giving you money or even just giving you free minions. These minions can then be placed on the map at key places to help you fight the enemies or combined with the same type to increase or promote them. For example, two level 1 fire mages to make a level 2 fire mage. Now, if the levels don’t match, they can still be combined to increase the level of the minion, which is nice. Once they reach level ten, they transform into an ultimate form.
Relics have all sorts of uses and will help you in all manner of ways, from increasing your speed or attack power to increasing stacks of bleed on enemies. These usually come from beating mini bosses or bosses throughout the run.
At the $10 price point, the game offers plenty of replay value and is quite fun. While the game is far from perfect, I really don’t have anything to complain about, except that it just isn’t as much fun as it could be. They really seemed to make the game harder than it needed to be simply to increase the time it takes to play it, rather than just making the game longer or adding more to the game to unlock. This will never sit well with me. The game is still a 7/10 experience and worth picking up. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Remember that time when everyone ran out of ideas in the late 00s, mid 010’s and we kept getting gritty remakes no one asked for? Torsten remembers. The Tomb Raider reboot found it’s way into my staggering backlog as did its sequels and I haven’t played them mainly because I assumed they would be Uncharted knockoffs- but edgy! Was I wrong?
Young archaeologist Lara Croft is part of an expedition to a island in search for relics about an ancient sun princess. A freak storm destroys her her ship, leaving her and her crewmates stranded on a island full of militarized zealots aiming to resurrect the princess. Can Lara overcome the odds, save her friends and escape?
Ok, let me be frank, I wasn’t invested in the characters or plot worth a damn. The game wanted me to take it seriously but I couldn’t. Mostly because of the gratuitous, over the top action scenes that made me wonder if this rendition of Lara Croft was a Kryptonian or was a X mutant the whole time. On top of that, some of Lara’s facial expressions during the few scenes that are supposed to be heavy or intense are unintentionally funny as hell. The characters are ok, nothing special, though Mathias, the main antagonist is a cookie cutter villain. I wasn’t expecting an unforgettable villain like Dutch from Red Dead Redemption 2 or Vas from Far Cry 3 but I wanted something more than his generic ass.
Speaking of Far Cry, the game feels like Far Cry, Uncharted, and a lil bit of The Last of Us gameplay went into a blender with a Michael Bay movie. The game is fun. Combat is smooth but simple. Platforming is pretty well done except some of the set pieces caused a few bullshit deaths. The survival instincts holds your hand bigtime when it comes to combat, puzzles, item finding, and platforming. Its a nice palette cleanser after weeks playing SystemShock. My biggest grievance with the gameplay is this game feels like a time capsule of every PS3 era gaming trope I can think of: QTEs galore, forced multiplayer, COD health regeneration, gritty paintjob on a existing IP, voice and motion controls no one asked for, blood splatter all over the screen after each stealth kill, and hunting akin to Assassin’s Creed 3 without purpose.
In the end, the Tomb Raider reboot is a fun product of its time. It’s not great but a fun, disposable playthrough worth checking out if you find it on sale. May the gaming gods bring you glory.
We begin our story as a hacker getting busted by the Trioptimum Corporation after failing to steal tech. Edward Diego, the man in charge, offers us a deal: face the wraith of the company or do disable the safety protocols on Shodan, the AI for Citadel Station. After disabling the AI, we find ourselves on Citadel. Shodan has gone insane. Most of the crew is slaughtered, many reconfigured into cybernetic monstrosities, the machines have gone rogue, and genetic experiments are running amok. Can you escape the wrathful clutches of a wannabe god?
The original System Shock is a pioneer of immersive sims, heavily inspiring games like Bioshock and Prey. I was thrilled when the remake dropped, having never been able to experience the original.
First, Shodan is easily my favorite part of the game. Terry Brosius is absolutely iconic with her cold, hateful delivery. Shodan has become one of my all time favorite game villains. She is a all encompassing presence on Citadel with multiple Doomsday schemes to eradicate humanity. The game is a lot more eerie and unsettling than I thought it’d be, even more so having Shodan’s face following you, and her cameras eyeing your every step. The enemies themselves are haunting. I love he game’s overall cyberpunk sci-fi horror aesthetic.
Gameplay is very old school in some of the best and worst ways. This game does not hold your hand. You had better pay attention, take some notes, and be ready to dig through every nook and cranny for audio logs and data sticks for what the hell to do and where to go. Like the horror games of old, there’s a hell of a lot of back tracking but I found it fun. The environment tells a story and every floor I found either something fascinating or terrifying. Most of the combat is FPS which is solid, even awesome at times. It was pretty awesome beheading Temu Borg with a laser sword or setting mutants on fire with dragon breath shotgun rounds. There are plenty of puzzles and the cyberspace segments which give me a retro Star Fox meets 80’s space shooter vibe.
While there’s so much of this game I love, I’d be lying if I said this game didn’t piss me off at times. Their were times the game’s objectives are too abstract and for the second half I had to lean real heavy on Youtube to finish the game. Much like Dark Souls dying has big consequences. Autosave is unpredictable and more than I want to admit, it made my life way harder so save often. I also love the game’s retro approach but dammit a few small quality of life improvements would’ve done wonders like having your total ammo on your HUD, not just what’s in the clip. Automatically reloading would be nice too. Like every game, there are pain in the ass part, System Shock’s are FromSoft levels of brutal. I played the game on all the easiest difficulties possible and still took me 36 hours because of the back tracking and difficulty spikes. It wasn’t always fun but it was fulfilling much like my time with Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
In the end, I loved the System Shock remake and I’m willing to say it’s up their with Resident Evil 2 (2019) and Dead Space (2023) as far as horror game remakes go. It’s absolutely not a game for everyone, its hard as hell but well worth a play. May the gaming gods bring you glory, insect.
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.
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.
Savior Gaming 
