Game reviews – Page 22 – Savior Gaming

Collectible Card Shop Master (PS5 Review)

Collectible Card Shop Master was sent to me from Nostra Games which is always appreciated. It is one of many simulator games being released in recent months and I have to say it is kind of a mixed bag. You run a card shop, a premise anyone familiar with TCG Card Shop Simulator (Steam Review) will be familiar with. You name your shop, buy some supplies like card pack, dice, etc and sell them to customers.

The game is quite simple to get into, and its price point looks nice and functions well. Honestly, I was expecting a complete train wreck with glitches everywhere. This, however, is not the cash grab I was expecting. Outside of a few quality-of-life improvements I would like to see, for example, I hate having to put one card at a time on the card stands, this game has everything the Steam competitor has for the most part. Customers come and go, and if the price is too high they will let you know. There are plenty of options to let you set up your shop however you like, but not so many that they seem useless or get confusing.

As an added bonus, trophy hunters can get the platinum in about 20-30 minutes. That isn’t to say the game is short. Having the platinum simply isn’t linked to actual progression. They all have to do with opening card packs or selling items and waiting on customers. When you have it there are still plenty of things to unlock.

If you are on a console the game is good enough to scratch the itch, it is a 7/10. While I prefer the Steam release myself this is a good alternative that even as I write this received an update I haven’t played yet. I will update this if there is anything in it worth mentioning. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Nameless – Slay Dragon Steam Review

The Nameless- Slay dragon is one of those games I wasn’t sure about, but Whisper Games is one of those companies I have always had a great relationship with and I had to take the chance. The Nameless- Slay dragon sits at over 1000 reviews on Steam and is very positive, and with very good reason. The newest Mythic Update has added a ton of content including a new game plus, new professions and so much more.

The game itself is a true RPG. Not just turned-based combat, but a tabletop RPG turned into a video game. Searching for things and talking to people will all increase skills and change outcomes, for better or worse. A bad early game roll had me fighting some trees at level one solo that decimated me, but an early lucky roll let me avoid an early battle with some elves and even got me some high-level items. These are the kind of things any DnD player will tell you create awesome memories.

Another great aspect of this game is the customization of characters. While characters do come with a sort of class given to them, how they develop is up to you. Your magic user can focus on one element or all of them. Do you want your ranger to have a dagger or a bow? Don’t limit yourself, do both if you want. Create a character that can steal items while slamming enemies with a huge axe if you want. I am not saying these are the optimal ways to play the game, but you can do it if you want.

if its a dragon, kill it. or don’t, I’m not your boss

The story itself is also deep, with a world covered in lore to discover. You not only are killing dragons in a world with elves and magic but there is a very good reason for it. The elves aren’t very popular, but again there is a very good reason for it. Most of it also isn’t the typical Elves and Humans are different so they hate each other, it goes back to a time living humans don’t remember but most elves can tell you in detail where it comes from.

With nice graphics, a fantastic story, plenty of replayability, and a price point of just under $20 there is no reason to hold off getting this game. 9/10, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Libritopia: Librarian Simulator (Steam Review)

Librarian Simulator on Steam was sent to me by the fine folks over at Nuuvem and Little Giants. For those of you that have followed me for a long time you know I love simulator games like this. This one is actually rough for me to review. I will be honest right now, I did not like this one for a number of reasons.

First and most importantly, I never had any fun with it. The game loop is simple: books get delivered seemingly randomly, you put them on a shelf, and people borrow them. You don’t choose what books are in stock, and sorting them at the start is damn near impossible depending on what gets sent because the variety and how many shelves you have won’t really match up.

It is cool to see real-life books you have read.

Second, you only have two options for gameplay. You can play until you lose, or you can play for 15 days. You never really feel like you are building up a library so much as you are racing against the clock in a race to get as much done as fast as possible or to go as far as possible before it becomes impossible to keep customers happy.

The third thing I didn’t enjoy was simply that there never seemed to be a point I felt like I was doing anything other than doing busy work while playing the game rather than running the library.

Everything I said up until this point however is subjective. The game cost $7, and at that price point (and in early access) the game does look and sound nice. Far better than many games at that price point. Reading Steam reviews the game is also sitting at positive reviews, with many people saying the game is better while using its online co-op and this is honestly true. Having someone to help you sort books and find the customers what they want does make the game more enjoyable.

While for me the game wasn’t fun, the game functions well and is very reasonably priced. I will say it is a 7/10 and many people will find hours of enjoyment, I just was not one of them. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Shujinkou PS5 Review and Language Learning Trailer

Shujinkou is an upcoming Dungeon Crawling RPG from Ricegames. It will be available on Steam and PlayStation on February 13th, and the big selling point of this game is that it tells an intricate story about a man named Shu as well as Jin and Kou. You will travel a world full of political intrigue, and real people just going about their lives trying to survive.

The game starts out with you playing as Shu, a retired samurai living with his little sister, Momo, whom he adores. Momo just wants to grow up and make tea. It isn’t long however before this peaceful village is shattered when an Omi attacks killing a villager and Shu is forced out of retirement to protect the village.

If you use the Japanese kana to spell enemy names you get a significant boost in damage

I won’t go into the story too much because there is a lot to cover, but I will say it is a solid story, far better than I ever expected from a game that says it is built to be able to teach you a foreign language, but we will get to that. The combat is built around a turn-based system like many dungeon-crawling RPGs. Every enemy name is given to you as “??” marks which denote how many kanas or syllables their name is. For example cat is “Neko” and in hiragana, this uses the kana Ne and Ko, which I do not know how to type on an English keyboard admittedly but I did find this pretty accurate image. If you are fighting a cat and spell this out however you will receive a significant damage boost permanently.

Now I am no expert on the language, going into this game I didn’t know any of this. The game does however teach you all of this, and at the push of a button you can literally just shut it all off. In fact, the game will ask you at the start if you are even interested. Outside of a few trophies, you aren’t even punished for not learning. The game is perfectly playable without knowing or learning any Japanese.

Another totally optional but awesome thing, the game will remind you to practice writing

This brings me to one last thing, is this game fun to play? As great as the game looks and sounds, it means nothing if it isn’t fun. I am happy to say everything isn’t tossed at you at once. As you explore the dungeons you will come across new kana to learn and the characters will give you explanations of them. Sign boards will teach you sentence structure that you can study or ignore. The menus are in both Japanese and English so there is no guesswork or stress involved.

The game starts out with a message from Julian Rice explaining that he and his team made this game as he helped a family member through a medical issue and sadly she did not live long enough to see it finished. As one of the first people to have seen this message, I am happy to say that Mr. Rice and his team have succeeded in their goal. I won’t say you can fully learn Japanese from this game, no single source will teach you any language. This game will however absolutely give you a solid foundation. The game also succeeds in being a fun and in-depth RPG.

Originally I intended to review this on its merits as a game and as a learning tool separately. Instead, the game is simply a 9/10. What I thought was simply a gimmick turned out to be fantastically built into the game as an optional part of the experience that anyone can enjoy. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Cryptical Path (Steam review)

Cryptical Path on Steam was sent to me by the people at Old Skull Games for which I am very grateful. There are a lot of rogue games out there but this is the first rogue builder I have come across.

Now the game flow is what you would expect, start a run, fight some enemies, collect power-ups and different currency, fight a boss, and hopefully win. When you die start all over again with new abilities, power-ups, and hopefully make some better decisions.

The key difference here is this time around you are the master of the dungeon, someone has simply usurped some control of it. You as the master are back to reclaim it. This allows you to build your route to the boss room. Need a shop? Just build one, need to heal? Feel free to build that as well. It isn’t free for all though. You only have so many crystals to build rooms with and this is where you will need to decide do you fight enemies to gain more crystals and money or not. You can go into the negative, you will just be cursed for doing so.

Also don’t even think about taking the easy way out, because once you hit negative 10 it is a one-way ticket to the boss’s room.

Good luck with this chick your first run

This is one of those games I don’t want to undersell too much, but I also don’t want to undersell it. Suffice it to say, if this ever comes to a console it is a must-buy for me. The game is a 9/10, and you would be doing yourself a disservice by not picking this up for $15 it cost, and with very positive reviews on Steam, I am not alone in this. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Jötunnslayer: Hordes of Hel (Steam Early Access)

Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel on Steam is a game sent to me by the good folks over at Grindstone and honestly if you are a fan of games like Vampire Survivor and need a new fix, the $10 is well worth the price. The game is played the same way, simply walk around kill monsters, and level up. They do allow you to change the options to give you more in-depth control of when attacks happen, but this is hardly necessary to enjoy or even have a deep run into the game.

Graphically the game is great, and the controls are equally as well done. The story is very basic, you fight to impress the gods and hopefully become the next chosen Jotunnslayer. If we are being the story in these games are always a means to an end to get the slaying going, and that is where the fun is.

Each level will allow you to choose a power-up randomly for either your chosen character or a god. Each god and character has their own skill tree to unlock as well so you can really dig into how you want to play the game. The game is quick to get into, easy to play but hard to master. For its price, this is easily one of the first games I have played this year I am happy to say is a must-buy, 9/10. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Red Solstice 2: Survivors Ultimate Edition Xbox Review

Red Solstice from Ironward is a title they sent to me that I have some mixed feelings about. On the one hand, it functions great, on the other it simply isn’t fun to play. It looks great, but the UI for certain things is honestly kind of terrible and wasn’t translated over very well from a mouse and keyboard as the game was originally made for PC.

As for as the gameplay itself, it is a pretty standard twin-stick shooter that you can play alone or with others. Simply choose a mission, which isn’t always very intuitive at first, enter the map, and mow down a ton of enemies to achieve your objective. Many times optional objectives will also pop up, save civilians, or help other soldiers maintain a position. This usually rewards you with new materials to help upgrade your troops or your base.

That is kind of why the game isn’t all that fun though. It gets very stale very fast, and to make matters worse so much of it is counterintuitive. Recruiting new squad mates solo isn’t easy, but if they get injured enough they can die for good.

The amount of stuff in the ultimate edition is pretty great too as it comes with everything that was ever released for the game as far as I can tell. The price of the game also isn’t bad at all at $30. Personally, I would wait for a sale as the game is only a 6/10 for me but if you are into this sort of game the value and replayability are definitely there. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap Xbox Review

Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap, which you can play on Gamepass, is a game that was tossed my way by Robot Entertainment to review which I always appreciate. Now I will be honest right out the gate, I never loved or hated this series it just always kind of existed. I had fun with them when I played them but they were never the type of game I felt I NEEDED to play. If you are looking to play this game and see some vast improvement into a AAA title, you will be disappointed.

If what you are looking for, however, is a fun game with better graphics, new weapons, and characters, well-designed levels, and just kill a ton of orcs, you will be happy. The game is pretty standard. Pick a hero, each one with its own passives, power-ups, and weapons, set traps along various paths the orcs will walk along, and protect a certain spot.

As you collect different types of currency after each run you can buy better passives for a character, or use them to buy new traps or boost your main stats that apply to everyone, the game will get a bit easier to manage. You will be able to employ a more varied strategy, and traps might become cheaper or stronger. You can even play solo or with others online.

How you play is up to you,I have tried everything from surrounding the point I am supposed to protect and just defending that ( pro tip, don’t do this) to blocking off entire paths to force them into one area and ignoring the rest ( also don’t do this) and the best method seems to be to funnel them to a few select choke points and setting traps there.

Weather on the maps will change the strategy you need to employ and will even change what enemies show up. Water elementals for example have a tendency to split into pieces. You may even run into a sort of substance that suddenly makes it impossible to put traps on walls.

The game has room for improvement, but I had a lot of fun with it. 7/10, if you like shooters and you have Gamepass you need to at least try it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

V Rising:PS5 Review

V Rising is one of those games I had my eye on for a while, and recently Stunlock Studios was kind enough to send me a copy when their game hit 5 million sales. The game always looked like a cross between Diablo and Conan Exiles. Just a classic kill-everything and survival game where you have to build your own vampire castle. A small part of me is always worried, however, how good can a game trying to do that much actually be? Even more so when you start tossing RPG elements into it?

The game starts out when you awake from your slumber, after years of hiding away from the humans that rebelled against their undead overlords. You enter a world that you can mostly control the difficulty of. Do you want to play alone? with your friends? Let just any random person enter? These are all things you can control. I recommend getting a feel for the game before you start letting unknown people rampage around your world.

You start out collecting some basic things to build a wall and a coffin to protect you. Be careful, though. While this will keep enemies and such out, the sun will obviously come over the walls and kill you. You can build special fog equipment to block out the sun, but if you don’t, find some shade or stay in bed until the night comes. Going out and hunting,materials, enemies for their blood, and even bosses to gain new abilities is important. This is the main way to progress through the game’s many chapters and how you unlock new things to build. Rushing however can be deadly. New armor and weapons will increase your levels.

The graphics are great. I enjoyed getting lost in the woods and admiring the scenery most of the time. I say most of the time because often, I would forget the world changes as days turn to night and night turns back to day. Once safe places suddenly had a vampire hunter in them that I found myself no match for. Bosses I once beat had migrated to new areas to attack me. While chopping down trees and smashing stones to build a staircase for my castle bandits would be out on patrol and I would find myself having a quick meal instead.

This brings me to the next thing I loved about this game. The ever-changing environment. Enemies go about their days even if you don’t. Animals will seemingly live their lives and stumble across your base, and not all of them are friendly. This extends to your work benches. If you need planks or iron you can just toss materials into your machines and they will produce them until they no longer have the materials. weapons are made at work benches the same way. Simply toss your materials in, tell it what to make and just leave until it is done. I love this quality of life and more games need to make this standard.

Not everything is great however. In fact nothing about it is truly great outside of the fact that it is fun. The story has potential but it never really goes beyond being a great concept. The building is good and you can do a lot with it, there are better builders out there. It also isn’t a great surviving game because while drinking blood helps you heal and in combat you dont really need it to survive. The conbat is good, but its not Diablo level great or deep.

The game is good and it is a lot of fun,I will definetly be adding this to my list of games I keep playing after I review it. It is also a game i encourage friends to pick up and play together. If you want a game that is the best at any one thing, this isn’t it. If you want a game that is good everywhere however, definelty get this one. 8/10, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Cube Snake Review (Steam)

As always when I write these I like to start out by thanking the people who hooked me up with these, this time it is Kabum and you can pick up CubeSnake over on Steam if you so choose.

Let me get what the game is out of the way first. Remember your old Nokia cell phone that came with one game, and that game was snake? It was all square blocks and you just picked up other blocks and your snake got bigger and if you touched the sides or another part of your snake, you died and had to start over again? It now has a 3-dimensional upgrade.

CubeSnake took this idea and gave you a legitimate snake, and buildings and put you inside of a cube and let you do the same thing. You simply use a couple buttons to turn ( there is also controller support) with the same rules. Don’t touch yourself or the edge.

The problem is the controls are still sluggish, the game is super slow and just wasn’t fun for me to play. I never figured out how the dash button even worked, not that I think it would have helped much. In 2025 the idea of playing a game you need to pay attention to so you don’t die while only hitting two buttons just doesn’t do it for me. This is especially true when the game is so slow-paced.

You can spell out the word FEVER to get more than one pick-up at a time and speed things up a bit, but this is few and far between and doesn’t add to the excitement. I don’t hate the game, it passes the time and I think kids may enjoy it for a bit, for me it is a hard pass. The game serves its purposes and despite sluggish controls, it functions well and has solid controls. it is however just a 5/10 game that I don’t recommend for most people. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.