Time Break Chronicles on Steam is far from new; in fact, the Steam page says it entered early access on September 1st, 2020. That’s a long time for a game to be in EA, and even longer for a turn-based RPG. So I asked Warrior General Games if they would hook me up with a copy so I could play it, and they were nice enough to do it, so huge shout-out to them.
The first thing you will notice is that the graphics are that old throwback sort of pixelated SNES style, and they have that turn-based combat as well. Now, if you know me, I am a sucker for exactly this, but I will also come down hard on a game for doing this badly because, honestly, it isn’t hard to do. Happily, it is done very well, with my only real complaint being if you are one of those people who insist you will only play with your favorite people and not with what classes work, you may have a hard time. The game has probably around 100 people; I have not unlocked them all, or even most of them, to be honest. But you will find some more useful than others.
The hub is essentially a city within the void you play the game in, which is a nice touch. All your runs start here basically, and you can get your team ready to go here, upgrade all sorts of things, and build your town. Everything you would hope a hub for a roguelike would have is here.
The only real issue I have with the game is the music. It is super repetitive, but admittedly, as of October 2nd, there was an update that did improve it, and the game leaves early access soon I do need to stress something very important. Most of the game is currently available in EA, with only a couple of things left to add, and that final piece of major content to add is the music. However, as I always say, you don’t get credit for what will or could be, only what is. The game is currently an 8/10 title and is $15 on Steam. The price will go up when it leaves EA, so buy it now if you enjoy turn-based RPGs. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
So first and foremast, insanely huge thanks to Saber Interactive for granting us access to the game. This particular game was the game I’ve been most excited for all year. As a longtime fan of Clive Barker’s writing, The Hellbound Heart, Hellraiser, and Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 I was incredibly pumped to see Barker’s world unfolded of pain and pleasure in game form.
We play as Aiden Lynch, a dude who simply loved a girl. Convict, addict, Aiden never felt whole until he met Sunny, who seemed to share his need for pain and desire as well as her own inner darkness. During a night of BDSM play, she brings out the box, summoning the Cenobites. Sunny is torn apart and whisked away to the mysterious Labyrinth. Now Aiden must not only face a deadly, sadistic cult devoted to the enigmatic Cenobites but face never-ending depravity and torture to save the woman he loved. Can Aiden survive and free Sunny from hell itself or will he give in to the darkness of Levithan?
Ok, much like Terminator: Resistance and Alien: Isolation, the love and attention to detail for the source material is incredible. The labyrinth, the Cenobites, the creatures, Levithan are all captured beautifully. The game uses its IP to the fullest extent, and respects it in ways so few games do. Doug Bradley triumphantly returns to voice the iconic Hell Priest, Pinhead, and is still spine chilling in his line delivery. The game’s strongest feat is making you feel on edge, whether it’s being chased by the gruesome Chatterer through the mazes of the Labyrinth, or roaming through the smoky, vulgar sex clubs fronted by the cult. Seriously, full disclosure, this game holds nothing back in terms of sex and violence- totally understand why this game nearly got the dreaded A rating.
As for gameplay, it’s very akin to Resident evil 7 and Dying Light in terms of melee combat. The box adds a lot in terms of abilities and puzzle solving. The box grants you telekinesis, pyrokinesis, and can summon chains as a ultimate attack. Combat is most fun using the box and strategically wiping out crazed gimp and hell beasts. I appreciate that the game is about creativity and never gives you too much to work with but never fully leaves you dry. I will say, I wish weapons weren’t so flimsy. Melee weapons feel like they’re made of glass so you have to use them sparingly. Aiden himself practically feels like he too is made of glass; god love you if you get set on fire. A few times I was annoyed and wished I had some kind of armor or the weapons lasted longer. Overall, it was still mostly fun to play throughout.
The game had a few clipping issues and a few funny glitches at times but meanwhile played well. During a ten hour hour playthrough, I had just 1 hard crash and only really noticed a couple laughable glitches. My biggest complaint that had nothing to do with skill (because I fully admit I sucked at this game) is the inventory system. I get having to worry about space for weapons and health. I hated having to factor in treasure. The real killer has the oddly huge size of the ammo boxes. I don’t see why a box of ammo should take up nearly as much space as 9MM, SMG, or a damn bear trap. Inventory layout is borrowed from Resident Evil 4 but I can’t lie, I felt it was unneeded enemy in the game.
In the end, I had a lot of fun with Hellraiser: Revival. It’s a good, shorter horror game that doesn’t wear out it’s welcome and it’s a hell of a treat and love letter to an incredible horror writer and his most iconic work. I’d absolutely recommend it with full warning; it’s not for the faint of heart. It is an 8/10. Thanks again to Saber for sharing it with us. May the gaming gods bring you glory.
Lostbound was sent to me by Tambu Games, which I always appreciate. In many ways, this budget title ( only $7) plays a lot like old Zelda titles. You simply walk around, enter dungeons, find some keys, kill enemies, blow some stuff up with bombs, kill a boss, and hopefully leave with a new relic. Each relic grants you some sort of new bonus to an ability or stat, etc.
Fighting, however, is done in a sort of side-scrolling game, which works very well. Now you may be asking, what is the catch? Every roguelike nowadays seems to have one. Well, the catch is quite literally you if you aren’t both quick and careful. See, every so often, a giant black hand will try to drag you into the abyss and try to end your run early. This might be because you backtracked over the same spot again or took too long in a dungeon.
I would say don’t worry, but you probably really should. See, while the hand isn’t exactly something you need to constantly worry about, it is something you need to be aware of for sure. Being careless can cost you the run.
Truth be told, I can’t really complain about this game. It looks nice enough for a game in its price range, and it functions very well. The only thing is, I can’t really say it does anything well either. It is the sort of game you can enjoy for a while, then just sort of let it go. It is a 6/10 title that you will enjoy for a while and is worth the price, but I don’t see it being anyone’s favorite either. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
No More Room in Hell 2 was sent my way by Green Name Room Publishing, and I truly appreciate it. The game itself looks solid, but there are better ones out there, and admittedly, while the pathfinding could use a bit of work, the sound and weapons are very nice. The reason we all play these games is to kill zombies, and there are plenty to go around for the up to 8 people on each map.
This is the unique part of No More Room in Hell 2: while there is permadeath, you will lose your responder. See, you have two different types of levels: responder and account. The account level unlocks permanent passive perks and loadouts. These never go away and can be used by any responder you recruit. When you lose a responder, however, they are gone forever. This changes depending on the difficulty level. On easy and normal, they are truly only gone if the party gets wiped out, but higher than that, any death sees them killed without a certain item.
The 8 players will all start at different points on the map and simply raid the place for supplies, kill zombies, and do assorted side missions before extracting. Now, you can skip much of it and simply speedrun everything, but the supplies are how you advance most of your experience.
Now you may have noticed I haven’t said much about this game in a negative way, and it is because I don’t have a lot of bad things to say. The big one is that some of the hitboxes on the zombies can seem a bit iffy, most notably while using melee weapons. The worst part, however, is if you don’t have at least a couple of friends to play with; playing with random people is going to be super hit-and-miss. Some people can be very greedy and will simply watch you die when they could easily save you. However, when you find a good group, the game can be magical for a time. Until you find yourself repeating missions /within missions over and over again. The game is still a 7/10 and worth the $30 in my opinion, if you like zombie games. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Alpha Nomos is a roguelike with a musical twist. This one was sent my way by Iphigames IKE. The concept here is simple. You play as Cello, and you and her friends will fight to the music and kill magical puppets time and time again as you attempt to do, well, something. I like to be honest with you guys, and this review won’t change that. I am not good at this game.
The combat is heavily based on your ability to time your attacks to the beat of the music, and this is not something I am good at. The game does give you many tools to get better at this, and in the end I became better. This does not mean I was good enough to complete the game; I did not. I can’t tell you much about the story.
Here is what I can tell you. The game looks great. I love the graphics in the game. The characters are cute, and getting to know these charming little people is fun. The music is also well done, and it needs to be in a game whose entire gimmick is fighting to the music. Speaking of fighting to the music, the weapons are all based on musical instruments; for example, the starting “knives” are basically xylophones like the colorful ones kids play with. The second weapon I unlocked was a sort of saxophone sword, which was super cool and fun to use.
The upgrades are also interesting; many didn’t do me much good because they reward you for things like having good timing with the music, but I enjoy that they reward you specifically for being good at what the game is, and when I was able to time it right, the combinations became insane quite quickly. One I put together increased my damage for properly timing my attacks and dodges in such a way that I was in time with the music, while my weapon upgrade also increased my attack for doing a certain combo that ends in a special attack. My final upgrade attached a sort of sticky grenade that did AOE damage with each special. When I got it to work, it was devastating to enemies and bosses alike. Alpha Nomos isn’t for everyone; for example, people like me with 0 musical talent, and might be tone deaf. Those who are good at this sort of thing, however, can look forward to an amazing experience. Do not let my lack of skill dissuade you from what should be a great experience. 8/10, I will let this game beat me again. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Every so often, I get offered a game, and I think, this looks awesome. So I greedily accept it, start playing, and I wonder, “wtf is this?” for the first 10 minutes. Legion Breaker did this to me, and I can’t thank Baffled Engineer enough. See, I spent 10 minutes wondering why anyone thought being a lone wizard tossing magic at waves of enemies and dying quickly as your life points slowly ticked away would be fun.
I then spent hours playing it, choosing upgrades carefully. Watching as I gathered spearmen and archers. Somehow, I recruited a dog and gained earthen walls.
My lone wizard chucking a single spell was now a small army holding off a horde of enemies; my meager life points that quickly ran out were now enough to manhandle an army of the undead. That single spell now also called down lightning and threw a fireball to burn my enemies to a crisp. All for only $7. What started as 10 minutes of me wondering why I agreed to play this became an obsession with seeing what the next boss looked like or if I could max out the tech tree.
This kind of brings me to my only real issue. You could unlock everything in probably 8-10 hours, but you can see all the enemies in much less, not counting the final boss. After a certain point, the enemies are simply the same enemies, and even the new enemies are simply the bosses turned into smaller regular enemies. Just a little more variety here would have gone a long way and turned an amazing game into probably the perfect game in the price range.
The game is still a 9/10 title, but it was damn close to getting that perfect score I have never given away. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Did you ever wonder what would happen if humans created a world where they didn’t have to work anymore, and the machines kicked them out? Dog in the Machine attempts to answer that question with one simple twist. Mans best friend was also replaced with robots, but they are still man’s best friend. Studio Chahut was nice enough to hook me up with a copy of this one, and I am glad they did.
The combat here is simple to learn. Your trusty mechanical dog wakes up and has to fight his way out. In true roguelite fashion, every run will teach you something and let you upgrade yourself for the next run and unlock more of the story. Unlike most games, the story actually means something this time around. I enjoyed learning where humans messed up this time around, and it isn’t a simple attempt at saying humans are greedy and evil and treated the machines badly. In fact, the dogs aren’t on your side only because they love humans; they were about to be destroyed themselves. Each new dog you control is taken from a room where they are decommissioned.
You will program your dog each turn in a totally stress-free manner. Take your time, see what the best actions are, and if you don’t like them, start over. The game is designed to let you see the outcome of your turn and, if you dislike it, reset it. This does not make the game easy. More than one of my runs ended early because I made silly decisions early that resulted in me setting off alarms I shouldn’t have or because I backed myself into a corner and let the machines pump out more and more enemies.
Another very nice touch is how you upgrade attacks. It isn’t always as simple as taking something from level one to level two. Sometimes it is taking your simple bite attack and combining it with your poison attack, now your bite attack also deals poison damage.
My one and only complaint is that many of the upgrades between runs feel kind of underwhelming at times. It is sitting at positive reviews on Steam, with one person noting they “came for the puzzles but stayed for the violence,” which honestly seems fair. It is a 9/10 experience that I have put fewer hours than I’d have liked into, but will be putting more hours than I should. Pick this one up, best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
You may notice a small change to the tone of this review for Moonfrost by Oxalis Games, which they were nice enough to send me. Well, my daughter took an interest in what I do and wanted to take a crack at writing this review, so please let me know what you think and if you want to see more from her. As always, may the gaming gods bring you glory.
*This is not meant to be a recap or critique of the story. Though I do like the story, I want to focus more on the gameplay/art with this review. Its there, I like it. I just want to focus on chicken chasing.
“Why should I care about this game?” Well, first of all, don’t ask me how to live your life. I don’t get paid for that. Second of all; its really good. Okay, that’s all, folks!
Oh. You’re still here. Fine.
Art Style
I know a very common thing will be “cozy” and “aesthetic.” Screw that. The game has a nice fantasy feel, from the smaller details of the rocks you can pick up, the pond behind your house, all the way up to the actual town itself. Games in the genre seem to be scared by too much variation in the formula. Have a nice flower on the ground, maybe a streetlight, great, all done. But! Moonfrost isn’t afraid to have actual technology aside from JUST the occasional streetlamp. The main way you buy stuff is via vending machines; there are radios (that actually play music) both in town and on the farm, your menu is a cellphone, there are old phone booths (it’s just set dressing) and utility boxes. And the game is filled with these little tech details, and it never feels out of place or disjointed. This FEELS like a town in a world where people do have to worry about a giant crystal falling down on them.
The one major critique I have in terms of the art style is with the characters. They look/feel like CGI on a hand-drawn background. I’ll be having a lovely time, and then I see my character, who looks like a random cat or baby in a Renaissance painting. The character creator is lacking as well; it feels more like an illusion of choice. I do like the pronouns section; that will always be a win for me. But otherwise, it is definitely the game’s weakest point, I feel. The few options we do have don’t feel fleshed out, and it kind of feels like they had a different person make each option, even for the same item. I also think more skin tones would be very nice. The character creator isn’t finished, so upon official release it should be better. I think it would be a mistake to release the game without a better character creator first, as that IS a player’s first impression of a game. I hope with that, the character models (player and NPC) get better. That being said….don’t change the animals’ models. They are perfect little babies, and I NEED them all as figurines.
Gameplay
Okay, let’s address the elephant in the room. I hate fishing. In every and all games, not a single one has a fishing system I like. This game is not an exception. I feel like this game’s fishing system is more complicated than other games, but I am biased. There is a clicking issue; if you don’t click the exact right spot, the game will tell you that you can only fish at fishing spots. Even if there are fishing right in front of you. I can see you, you finned, splashy devils!
Another issue I have is with my inventory, and this is likely just user error. I like to pick up everything! I would love to see some sort of storage I can build and use for all my stuffs. I need it! What if I get a request for checks notes, 3 stacks of sunflowers?!
Now, I do think this game absolutely does a few unique things within the genre. You aren’t on this big time crunch for really anything. You use your phone to look at requests, then you complete them in the same app. You can also deny requests and just wait a few minutes and BOOM! New requests! You don’t have to wait an in-game week and twiddle your thumbs. The farming system also takes a more “mobile farm game” approach. You don’t plant stuff and then wait 5 game days. You plant and wait a minute and now you have radishes! The whole game takes this “chilllllll bruh. Relaaaaaxxxx…this is your world, we just live in it” approach and honestly? I am IN LOVE with it. You even sleep for however little or long you want! If you sleep at all!
I really hope more games come up that have this very literal “All in your own time” pacing. I don’t feel rushed to do everything RIGHT this very second, and I don’t have to wait 5 days to get a radish. It is mildly annoying having to re-hoe farmland for plants, I will admit. But I’m not a farmer; I played the game and wrote this from my bed! You also chase after chickens to get their eggs! It’s fun! And it’s funny to think of this random amnesiac just chasing chickens and yelling, “GIVE ME AN EGG.” Resources also respawn fairly fast, so you always have stuff to pick up for all your hoarding- I mean. For all your job-related needs! We take our jobs here at Savior Gaming VERY seriously.
There is also a building system, and if there is ANYTHING I love. It is BUILDING, no matter the genre. I think every game can be, and is, improved by a building system. However, it doesn’t seem to play a big part in the gameplay? I would love to see more options be available at the beginning. Its just kind of there, which is great for the people who hate building! Just a personal Hell for me.
All in all? I am excited for this game to fully come out, and you can wishlist it on Steam. Its fun, the characters are great, the art style is to die for, and its pacing is actually like no other. I feel like I have a lot of freedom! I would just…feel freer with storage. Wink wink nudge nudge. (Please give me more storage for more stuff.) Should you get it? We already established that isn’t my job, and I just said you can go wishlist it! Do you always rely on random 21-year-olds to make financial decisions?? Seriously. Cut the cameras!
Endless Rails was sent to me by the people at Studio Monoblok, which is always appreciated. The game has a simple concept: use drones to defend your train from enemies as you ride the rails from one station to the next. Collect the money from dead enemies and use that to add train cars and upgrades to your train to hopefully get further and kill bosses, all the while collecting special coins to unlock permanent upgrades for the next run.
Parts of this work great; for example, the ability to move your train back and forth to avoid enemies and use your drones to kill enemies and collect the money. This does however start to fall apart however when you get to the next station and you lose money because you killed enemies towards the end and couldn’t collect it fast enough. I thought maybe there would be a permanent upgrade to remedy this, but there is not.
This is actually one of the bigger issues with the game; the permanent upgrade tree kind of sucks. You never really get to upgrade the range of your pickups or how much health your train has. You use it to unlock 2 new drones and some damage buffs for them. You will be relying mostly on RNG for what you get, and if you are unlucky, your run will end fast. Part of the game is simply figuring out which drone is best to start with, and yes, there is an objective answer.
I did enjoy the aspect of merging train cars to make them bigger to hold more upgrades on one car, and the ability to change the gun’s entire element this way is great. Many of the upgrades can also do things the upgrade tree doesn’t, but getting them is random and a matter of having the money.
So is the game worth the price tag? Well, the game is only $7, so yes, it is still a solid 7/10 game that will keep you entertained for a few hours. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Keep Driving from Y/CJ/Y Games is a management RPG they sent my way, and I am glad they did. Let me get this out of the way up front: I did not enjoy my time with this title. It had nothing to do with the game itself; it was truly a me issue. The game itself, is great. It sits at 4 stars on PlayStation; it has over 3,000 reviews on Steam and has a very positive rating. The story of a young man traveling across the country listening to music, plotting his own course, choosing his own destiny to get to a music festival is one that is as old as, well, cars.
With multiple endings, different routes to choose from, plenty of different situations to come across, and hitchhikers and people to meet, and even different cars and backgrounds to choose from to make the trip, the replay value is there. Truth be told, I can’t even tell you why I don’t like the game. Is it the random events where you have to pick items or skills to fend off things, and if you don’t have them, your car or energy takes damage? No, this mechanic is in other games I enjoy. Is it the management of trunk space where every item counts? Also no, I love this in many games. It also certainly is not upgrading most aspects of your car; I live for that sort of thing in my games.
No, I truly can not tell you why I didn’t enjoy Keep Driving. It is an $18 masterpiece dedicated to letting people relive road trips in the early 2000s that I wish I could enjoy more, and it functions well. It deserves the praise it is given, it is an 8/10 experience that I wish I had more fun with, and I believe most of you will get more mileage out of than I did. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
