Tag: Reviews

DISCOVER IMMORTAL LOVE IN VAMPIRE THERAPIST: COUPLES THERAPY

Even vampires must endure the emotional turbulence of relationships, something players will witness first-hand in Vampire Therapist: Couples Therapy. The brand-new DLC for Little Bat Games’ critically acclaimed debut title is available on Steam today! This expansion builds on the award-winning blend of comedy, history, and real-life therapy techniques that made Vampire Therapist a critical darling.

Players will slip back into the spurred boots of Sam Walls, a reformed cowboy turned accomplished therapist. Sam has his work cut out for him as he seeks to help two vampires, battling with both domestic and personal struggles, as well as social discontentment following their demises during bloody revolutions in France and Iran. 

But that’s not all! This juicy new helping of content takes place during the annual Bachfest in Leipzig — home of Johann Sebastian Bach— where a ghost of Leipzig haunts the streets. It’s Sam’s job to track down the troubled soul between therapy sessions.

Vampire Therapist: Couples Therapy will explore themes of revolt, duty to humanity, and the complications that can arise from age gaps – hey, what’s a couple hundred years when you’re in love? 

Check out the trailer for Vampire Therapist: Couples Therapy below: 

Vampire Therapist’s all-new DLCwill continue the hallmarks of Little Bat Games creations: deep, history-informed writing exploring systemic issues, screwball comedy, academic partnerships, best-in-class voice acting, and stunning artwork. Try your hand at analysing affairs of the heart and purchase today on Steam for £2.49/€2,99/$2.99. 

“In a time of political turmoil, we hope Vampire Therapist: Couples Therapy will help players process difficult questions about the citizen’s role in civil society and find a little respite in love and compassion. And if all else fails, we have vampire fart jokes.” said Cyrus Nemati, Creative Director of Little Bat Games. 

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.

Build a room, any room.

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.

All Elder millennials played this

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.

[News] Roguelite Dungeon Crawler Cryptical Path Releasing on PC on Jan. 29

 Old Skull Games officially revealed the release date for its roguelite dungeon crawler, Cryptical Path. Launching on Steam on January 29, 2025, Cryptical Path sees players controlling the Architect, building their own path and navigating an ever-changing labyrinth within which they’ve been summoned. The game pushes the boundaries of the roguelite genre as it is the very first action roguelite builder that allows players to add a new creative angle to their style of gameplay.

An action roguelite that makes you the Architect of your adventure

In Cryptical Path, players dive into a universe where every run is theirs to shape. The goal is simple: reach the boss and defeat him. But there is a twist. Thanks to a unique feature, players can place their own rooms in the dungeon, creating their own path and influencing the challenges ahead. This gameplay mechanic adds a new layer of optimization and a unique depth to the roguelite genre.

A journey designed by roguelite fans

Aimed at action roguelite enthusiasts, Cryptical Path stands out with its dynamic and ever-evolving gameplay, where every decision in configuring the dungeon can reshape the course of the adventure. This modularity gives players control over their experience while preserving classic genre staples like progression through repeated attempts, diverse enemies, and intense combat. 

Cryptical Path’s key features:

  • Rogue-builder: The ability to carve your dungeon, increasing the replayability and the control you have in each and every run.
  • Immersive world: Explore a 2D side-scroller within beautifully crafted 3D environments.
  • Fast paced action: Embody the Architect, a dynamic character that can dodge, dash and slash in the blink of an eye!
  • Constant progress: Unlock powerful items and choose which talents to master.

Godstone Demo Review

If you think back a long time ago, to last week, I talked about Godstone. You can read more about GodStone: Early Access Trailer there for a quick outline. I did get time to play the Steam Demo and I have to say it shows plenty of promise. The controls are promising, and I think they would work even better with controller support. I assume this is something that will be implemented at some point if it isn’t already.

The graphics are not what most people would call spectacular by today’s standards, but I disagree. I love the old-school look and feel of them. It had that great Super Nintendo look while feeling new and modern while using it.

Something else the demo does an amazing job of showing is that you can run right ahead in the game, I can see speed runners loving this game. I got demolished when I did it. On my second attempt, I didn’t do much better. My third run I took my time and explored more and the area that killed me my first two runs was far easier. The game truly does reward exploring with more items and permanent power-ups and even in this case assistance in a boss fight by rescuing a friend.

power-up at levels are basic pick a card get a power-up. you know what the cards do but not what cards you get

You will notice the one thing I haven’t much talked about is story and honestly that is intentional. I don’t know much about it besides you play as Gerion, magic is seen as bad by your people but everyone seems to use it, there is an Ice Witch everyone seems to hate, though she likes you, your people want you dead, and finding this Godstone is something everyone wants. Oh, and Gaming gods be damned I can’t wait to find out more March 30th when the planned release date hits. Until then, try the demo, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.