Reviews – Savior Gaming

HellSlave II: Judgment of the Archon Steam Review

It isn’t often I play a game and its demo so close together, but it wasn’t that long ago I checked out the demo for Hellslave 2: Judgment of the Archon. Dear Villagers and Ars Goetia were kind enough to hook me up with this one, for which I am eternally grateful. For people who enjoyed the first one and just want to find out if this one is also worth playing, the quick answer is yes.

For those who want more details, let’s get started. You will begin by creating a character. I once again decided to give people the plague; I wanted to finish my game out and see if this would be as game-breaking as the demo made it out to be. Maybe don’t use this build on easy; with the right gear, you can win entire battles, even against weaker bosses, before they even start or in the first round. The right gear will let you start the battle dealing massive amounts of poison damage and then stack even more on top of it with your skills.

The battles kind of remind me of old Dragon Warrior in a way, as you only ever have yourself to fight with. You can manipulate the battle quite a bit by judging how long moves take and by waiting or defending, which is a nice touch. Again, on easy you can get away with just spamming your strongest moves, but anything higher than that and you will have to think before you act. The standard difficulty feels like the way the game was intended to be played.

A nice touch is that, rather than punishing you for avoiding enemies, the game rewards you for killing every enemy in an area, not just with experience but with extra stat points. In this way, my level 10 and your level 10 characters may not be even in power simply because you decided to kill every enemy in some games and I did not.

This brings me to my one issue with the game: there is a weird bug that did not exist in the demo. A few side quest bosses, for example, the skeleton you fight early on, for some reason just die when you enter the fight. I never had to hit him; the battle never started, and my weapons before battle skills never triggered. I just entered it, and the quest completed. I got credit for it, but the battle just resolved itself.

Aside from those weird bugs, the game looks and plays great. I loved my time with it; it is an 8/10 title that I am sure I will play again. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Soulbound: Online Steam Review

Soulbound: Online for Steam is classified as a pixel art action roguelite with an MMORPG overworld, which sounds like a lot is going on for only $15, even if it is only early access. With this much going on, you would think at least something would suffer.

Turns out, basically everything is suffering. We will get to that; let’s talk about the good first. The game does look great if you like pixel games, and the ability to work with up to 3 friends to raid and fight bosses is a lot of fun. The almost bullet-heaven-like dungeons are a lot of fun, and I am always a sucker for farming or fishing in a game.

Now the bad: the game lags a lot, more than most Early Access games I have played, depending on what is going on and how many people are playing. This goes for both input and output. This wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for what is coming next, which is honestly unforgivable.

While the real-time waits aren’t long at first, later on they become massive, literally days, and I have heard even weeks. If this wasn’t bad enough for a game you have to pay to play, I could deal with it. The unforgivable part is the fact that there is a progression wipe coming at some point, most likely at release. Anything bought with real money would be kept, everything else being reset. This, to me, is unforgivable and kills any reason to play the game; you are simply a playtester paying to play the game. You will lose all progress, and worse, and this is after fighting through lag, bugs, and waiting real time for it all. For this reason, I have to give the game a 4/10 and suggest you wait for a few patches and the full release or news on the planned reset being reversed. Best wishes, and may the gaming god bring you glory.

Echo Isle Steam Review

Echo Isle was sent my way by Josh Koenig Games, which is always appreciated. I won’t lie to you; I did not expect much from a game that cost $5 and was made by one guy and in every way appeared to be a complete rip-off of the original Zelda. I have learned one thing over the years, however: judging games by a quick look and the price is a quick way to miss out on a fun title.

First, yes, there is no way to avoid there is no way to avoid comparing this to Zelda because this game is an homage to the early games in the series, and it wears that very proudly. More importantly, it does it very well.

Now you are going to notice fast that this is a pretty short review, because the game is designed to also be short. This is sort of Josh’s thing; he makes retro games that are affordable, easy to get into, with no fluff. The dungeons are small, which doesn’t mean easy; some of the bosses can be tough if you aren’t careful. You get in, find the key, and then upgrade, fight a boss, and move on.

The story is equally as easy to get into. The lighthouse on the island has gone out; you are on a quest to relight it. The people on the island help with what they can; you explore a bit to find a few secrets, and away you go. The game can be finished in one sitting; I think I beat it in about 2 hours. My only complaints are the lack of achievements and the sword on some enemies could be a bit finicky later in the game. Not in any sort of game-ruining way, but a few times I swung and missed when I definitely did not miss. Still, this is a 9/10 game. Everyone should buy it. If you like old Zelda games, you will love this; if you don’t, this might give you a reason to try them. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening

There’s 3 things I knew tryin to get into the DMC series: the chronology is all over the place, the reboot missed the whole point, and people opinion on the best and worst are pretty damn unanimous. 3 is the best by a popular majority. After my lukewarm experience with the original Devil May Cry , I skipped 2 (unanimously cited as the worst) and went to see what the series really had. Was I disappointed?

We join a very young, brash, cocky, arrogant Dante on his first foray into demon hunting. When a mysterious tower emerges from the ground near his unnamed business and demons start pouring into the streets, the half human son of legendary demon king Sparda jumps into action with his trusty sword and pistols. However, behind this outpouring of hellish forces is a familiar face- his twin brother, Vergil. Vergil craves his father’s power and wants to smash the barrier between worlds, leading to utter chaos. Can Dante defeat the only one who can match his supernatural skills?

Seriously, I wish I heeded the advice everyone gave me to just stat with 3. These games aren’t really my kind of game but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I didn’t have a blast with the game. Everything is improved dramatically from the first game. Combat is more fluid with plenty of variety. The story is both more engaging with better developed characters and is more fun and over the top in the best ways. Dante has more personality and I love his interactions with Vergil, who’s his total opposite. The cut scenes are impressive as hell, especially given the time period. The camera, which killed the first game for me, was rarely a problem. The game itself has a lot more quality of life improvements that I greatly appreciated like unlimited continues and the ability to quick change weapons without pausing to go to the inventory menu. The highlight howver was the boss battles which were epic, challenging, and rewarding; the fights against Vergil were truly the best of the whole game.

The only real complaint was the the path finding at times. There were a few times the game has you backtrack quite a ways back through a layout that can be super easy to get lost in, especially when you start twisting parts of the tower. The boss gauntlet at the end did feel a bit excessive and felt like padding. Of course too there are few times the platforming annoyed me but thankfully it’s never life or death kinda of platforming.

In the end, I’m on board with the masses. Start with 3, it’s the first game in the series story wise anyway. It’s a fun, fast, over the top hack and slash that was plenty of fun and has has a hell of a lot of value I’d gladly recommend. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok Review

Granblue Fantasy: Relink- Endless Ragnarok was sent my way by the great folks over at Cygames, which I appreciate for multiple reasons. First, having never worked with them before, I always like working with new companies. Second, being chosen to review a game even after close to a decade of doing this is still an honor, one that makes me feel as special today as it did the first time it happened. Last but not least, they hooked me up with not just the Ragnarok DLC, which is honestly MASSIVE in its own right, but the base game.

So you may be asking what is new here? Well, a ton of stuff; for example, to get started, there are new characters which you can enjoy right from the start of the base game. Six of them, to be exact, all of which can be bought with your crewcards; don’t worry, while you can buy certain characters for about $3 with a few extras, this isn’t some gatcha thing; you can earn them all in-game. You will find plenty of crewcards lying around, and you can earn more through missions. In fact, almost everything you can buy can be earned in-game, except certain cosmetic items.

Other new things include new summon mechanics and new transcendence and master levels for characters and weapons for more customization and stronger characters, which will be needed when you face the new Chaos and Chaos+ difficulty levels.

You may have noticed I haven’t touched on the story or the gameplay yet. Well i won’t touch on the story because I don’t want to spoil one moment of the beautiful bastard. You are here to know about the DLC, and if it is worth your money, and if you enjoyed the base game’s story and want to know if continuing that story is worth it, the answer is yes. The fate stories for the new characters are just as good as any of the original characters; some are even better. They are far from being an afterthought and truly add to the world.

Now, if you are wondering if the new content is worth the admittedly hefty price point ($30 if you own the base game), it absolutely is, as it is probably around the same size as the base game. Most of it kicks off after the base game ends, but the conflux actually starts around mid-game. This is solo content that acts as a sort of dungeon high-score challenge that allows you to collect different upgrade materials for weapons and sigils. This is DLC done right; it is a 9/10 DLC if I have ever seen one, with my biggest complaint being there isn’t much here for newcomers, with it all basically being for people that have run out of stuff to do in the base game. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu PlayStation 5 Review

The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu on PlayStation 5 is an interesting game sent my way by the kind folks over at Nacon, which I always appreciate and enjoy working with.

The story is a simple one: there is an island with a cursed jungle on it full of treasure, and you and your people want that treasure. Others have tried and failed, and you and your friends are about to find out exactly why they failed.

You will start out on the ship and choose a mission and some gear. This might be a sword or an axe or something like a musket or bow. This is a game I will be perfectly clear from the get-go, is meant to be played with friends, preferably friends you play normally with. Solo is an option, and it will even spawn a helper, but at higher-level contracts they seem kind of useless.

Those higher-level contracts are also where the difficulty of the game really kicks in. See, after a while you will discover there just aren’t enough weapons for everyone, which is great because sometimes someone needs to carry a lantern and someone needs to keep space open for all that beautiful loot you need to bring back. How are you supposed to do this alone, even when the game tones down the difficulty for you? With randoms, this becomes a problem because you don’t know anyone’s skill level or what they are best at.

While the game has issues, it truly nails the survival horror aspect. Lovecraftian horror is always hit and miss with me because it needs to be both scary and creepy, but many people try far too hard, and Nacon managed to avoid that with The Mound. While the game has its issues, the horror part isn’t one of them. The game is a 7 out of 10 that, if you have a consistent group, is worth picking up. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Astaryn RPG Idler Steam Review

Astaryn RPG Idler on Steam was sent my way by Watercolor Games. This was honestly one of the weirdest, yet easiest games I have ever had to review. You just toss it on in the background while you are on YouTube or whatever else you are doing, and away it goes. Go back to it and switch what your character does, and just ignore it again. Now I know this sounds like every other idle game in existence, but why should you spend $4 on it? You should, by the way.

Each action you take leads to another; combat helps level things like your combat skills or vitality when you take damage. To heal, you need to level up your provisioner skill. To level provisioning, though, you need something to cook. This means you need to use your angling skills to fish. If you ignore the game too long without ever switching what your character is doing, you will end up with no growth.

You can earn gear by drops in combat; stronger monsters drop better gear, obviously. You can fight stronger monsters by doing missions and by focusing on increasing your stats in a way that makes sense, and by selecting the right talents. The game is very deep for what it is and for the price. The more you play, the more you can upgrade your character to stay away longer. You start with a 24-hour timer that will stay idle, but there are upgrades so you can go longer. As of right now, I can stay away for 48 hours, and my character will stay idle and do his own thing. This is probably the most intricate idle game I have played, and for $4, it is hard to beat. It is an 8/10 title. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Horror Movie

Horror Movie: an unfinished, unreleased, amateur, experimental horror film shrouded in myth and controversary since the 90’s. After nearly three decades of occult infamy comes the Hollywood reboot. Of the film’s original production, only the film’s villain christened The Thin Kid remains. What happened to this little picture to gain the infamy and intrigue? Is this lost movie cursed or has life imitated art?

So despite the title, this is novel from horror author Paul Tremblay. I loved A Head Full of Ghosts and I recall Savior saying he enjoyed the movie adaption of The Cabin At The End of the World ( Knock at the Cabin). Horror Movie is a odd novel. It’s well written, bouncing between different time periods. I wasn’t hugely invested, believing I had the story mapped out, but I was pleasantly surprised by the end. I like Tremblay’s approach to horror, adding depth and real life trauma to what would be bland horror scenarios.

For me personally, the book stumbles a few times. I felt like the pacing snags a few times in spots because certain parts feel repetitive. Think Resident Evil 6 when you played part you already did, just through a slightly different perspective. Like for example, there’s a part where the Thin Kid is asked in present day how he pulled off a crazy ass jump. He explains it. Then we go to the past when it was filmed and he relives it; I feel like it didn’t add much. This happens a few times. The characters are fine but I never got attached to any of them, therefore I wasn’t invested in their ill fates.

In the end, Horror Movie is a quick, solid read. I would actually like to see a film adaptation; honestly I think it might be better in that regard. The book isn’t amazing, but well worth a read if you like found footage horror. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Welcome to Kowloon Xbox Review

Welcome to Kowloon on Xbox was sent my way by Axyos Games. You may remember them from Apartment No. 129. This game is kind of similar, except we have now hit the point where the horror aspect is that you are simply a young person trying to find a cheap apartment.

This good boy is hungry, get food from the store and feed him.

You will be checking out Kowloon, a city that I hope has seen better days; otherwise, this run-down, creepy place was built like this on purpose. As you explore for about an hour, which is how long it takes to beat the game, you will come across a few crazy residents. You will discover why the rent is so cheap; you aren’t meant to leave. Honestly, with such a short game, I can’t say too much without spoiling it. Suffice it to say, the game is short but sweet. The atmosphere is tense right from the start, the game controls well, and you really feel like you are in a small, cramped building in a poor neighborhood.

I would get drunk and fall off this instantly

The game costs $10 and is a quick play, with some easy achievement points. I won’t say it is worth it for everyone, but if you are looking for something quick and interesting to play, there are worse ways to spend a night. It is a 7/10 experience. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Verho – Curse of Faces PlayStation 5 Review

Verho – Curse of Faces was sent my way by Cobra Tekku Games and is an upcoming Dark RPG that you will be able to get your hands on July 30th. It is, however, available now on Steam. The best way to describe this game is if Kings Field or an Early Elder Scrolls Morrowind suddenly found itself much smaller with PlayStation 1 graphics and tossed onto modern consoles. This isn’t an insult; this was very much an intentional design choice.

The story is pretty straightforward; you find yourself in a land where everyone who arrives there loses their memory and wears a mask. The reason for this is that a curse has settled over this section of the world due to some sort of catastrophe that, for obvious reasons, nobody truly remembers. People have, of course, begun to piece some things back together over the last few hundred years. You are attempting to make your way to the old capital in an attempt to escape, like many others have tried and failed to do.

This is your save and fast travel point, not creepy at all. Not even a little.

This brings me to the gameplay and such. I will say right out of the gate, it won’t be for everyone. Many of you have no desire to play a retro-inspired RPG that is a throwback to when games had no auto-save, so if you die, it’s right back to the last save point. If this is you, you can stop reading; nothing I am about to say will change your mind anyway.

For those of you still reading this, the game is a treat in many ways, graphically and in the sound; it is an amazing throwback. Obviously, it isn’t up to today’s standards, but for when it is trying to mimic the game is beautiful and fluid. When I died, I felt like it was my fault. Jumping feels nice, sword play, and slinging spells are more than just hitting a button. If you simply slash your sword, you do very little damage. You need to hold the swing button until the meter just about hits the top. If you time it right, you will do max damage. As an added bonus, you can hold a sword and a shield but not lose the ability to use magic.

The game, however, is not perfect. There is very little direction, which is fine, but the results of going the wrong direction are deaths that cause loss of time and progress. Worse, the in-game guide won’t tell you plenty of things it probably should. Luckily, the community is very helpful, as are the devs. They happily point people on Steam to guides people have made. The game is long enough to get your time out of it in one playthrough but short enough to encourage multiple playthroughs, which is good because there are multiple endings.

Now, is this game worth your money? This one completely comes down to how much you like retro-inspired games. For me, this was a 7/10 title. It is sitting at very positive reviews on Steam, and I think it deserves them. I enjoyed my first playthrough, and I will be playing it again. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.