Tag: Reviews

Escape From Ever After Playstation 5 Review

Escape From Ever After was sent to me by Hypetrain Digital, and I always appreciate it, and honestly, they are one of those companies you have probably heard of, even if you don’t realize it. This time, they hit us with a Paper Mario-style RPG that wears its homage right on its sleeve, and doesn’t even try to hide its love for the game it imitates.

You play as Flynt Buckler, Hero, Adventurer, Dragon Slayer. On your most recent attempt to slay the vile Tinder, your arch nemesis, you discover his layer is now home to Ever After Incs corperate office, and Tinder is now in prison and a shadow of his former self. So what is a dragon slayer and his new not-so-good buddy dragon to do? Get a job, of course.

What follows are hours of traveling through storybooks to meet characters like the Big Bad Wolf, which is apparently just a stage name, and combat that includes all the features you love, such as timed attacks and defenses, holding buttons until the perfect time, etc. Solving puzzles, finding ink to upgrade skills, and Sun Stones to buy powerful trinkets. The leveling system is the same: gather 100 experience and pick between HP, MP, or points to equip more skills/trinkets.

Don’t make any mistake, this is not a complete rip-off of Paper Mario. The gameplay may be the same, but this isn’t an easy game. It has different difficulty settings, and playing on hard will test your abilities in a way Paper Mario never did. There is also an optional tower that you will have to fight from level 1 to level 100 in one go, with no ability to heal except for items you bring with you. The rewards are great, but it is not an easy trip.

This brings me to my only real complaint about the game. The economy is rough. There never seems to be enough money to buy healing items, and the cost of healing isn’t cheap either. This doesn’t take away from the joy I found in the game; it is honestly one of the best games I have played all year, and I have played a lot of them already. This is a 9/10 experience that is probably the first must-buy RPG of the year. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot Steam Review

Dwarves: Glory, Death, and Loot was sent to me by Sidekick Publishing and is a mix of RPG, roguelike, and Autobattler, and honestly sounds like it wouldn’t work. Picking a few dwarves, loading them with weapons, then watching them fight just doesn’t sound like fun. Doing this over and over again to unlock new things until you lose and starting over again didn’t sound too appealing to me.

I will be 100% honest here: this game won’t be for everyone. What I described is basically the gameplay loop in a nutshell. The battles get harder, you recruit more dwarves, some are better than others, and there are multiple difficulty levels. There are also plenty of things to unlock and jobs to unlock as you go.

There is also a weapon forging system where you can combine weapons into new weapons, sometimes it is random, but if you know what weapons to combine, you will get certain things, and yes, there is a book of recipes for you to unlock. The game is far deeper than you realize at a glance. Now you can get away with ignoring this, but it does make the game far harder than it needs to be.

Picking which battles to get involved in is important as well. Do you want the extra money and experience? Do you want the safe win? This is entirely up to you, and some enemies are even easier to beat based on your equipment. Maybe that goblin with the magic just isn’t worth the risk with your dwarf loadout. Do you want extra healers at the cost of DPS? These are all valid strategies.

For me these is an 8/10 experience that I very much enjoyed and will be playing more of. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Apartment No. 129 Xbox Review

Apartment No 129 on Xbox is another game sent to me by Axyos Games, you may remember I recently covered Ebola Village from them. They are quickly becoming one of my favorite publishers to work with because everything they send me seems to fall into the same B-game horror level, and I mean this as a compliment.

The story here is that you play as Emir, a man who creates content on haunted places, and you have found the holy grail, so to speak. Apartment no 129, a place where something so messed up, so demented, has occurred that the government has locked it off. The location has been forgotten, even hidden to the point that people speak of it as a legend. Thankfully, your brother knows a guy that lived in the building. The coward won’t go with you, but you are convinced to check it out.

The first thing to know about this game is if you are sensitive, emotionally, I mean, don’t play this game. A lot of games come with that sort of warning, and it is a marketing gimmick or a legal thing. This one is a valid warning. The game is quite creepy as you use your flashlight, which does require batteries every so often, to find your way through this dark and dilapidated apartment building.

Finding news articles and hidden writings is also important to progressing the story; doing so also means that once safe places may not be anymore. I don’t want to say too much about the story because doing so will spoil a lot of things, as the story isn’t exactly long and can be finished in a few hours.

The gameplay is honestly where this game suffers. It isn’t truly bad; it is simply unpolished. Enemies at times seem to be super spongy while dealing a ton of damage, and surviving certain encounters felt more like luck than skill. At launch, the game also had a ton of glitches, some of which were even game-breaking towards the end. I didn’t run into any, but I am told this also may have just been luck on my end. While the story is fantastic, the gameplay does leave a lot to be desired. This 4/10 experience is probably best left to wait for a sale, though I have read that the PC version doesn’t suffer from these technical issues. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Conquest Tactics: Realm of Sin Steam Review

Conquest Tactics: Realm of Sin is another title by Thousand Generation Games that they were kind enough to send me recently. This one is a bit different, however. This is a dark fantasy roguelike where you will be conquering tiles and fighting your enemy to essentially deal damage to the enemy flag to win battles.

Unlike most games like this, where the story takes a back seat to the gameplay, Conquest Tactics has sort of flipped this on its head. The battles are fun, make no mistake. There is quite a bit of strategy involved. Do you use your more defense-oriented people to expand and protect your area, or recall them and attack? Is it time to risk losing ground to win the battle? These are all choices you have to make for yourself at any given time. These, however, pale in comparison to the most important choice of all as you make your way through the game.

The world is in chaos, a great darkness is taking over, and in true video game fashion, it is up to you to stop this from occurring. While you have the power to end this, you also have the power to simply encourage it to happen. What kind of person do you choose to be? A hero for the world, or the villain of all villains? There is no wrong answer, only what is in your heart, or I guess lack of one, you evil bastard you.

While the game is simplistic to learn, mastering it is far from, I still haven’t truly managed to do it myself. With a new twist on having a command stage and your troops being more like game pieces on a board that twist and attack in directions, and the story being the main selling point, I highly encourage people to check this one out. It is a 9/10 experience for me. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Deep Fringe Steam Review

Every so often, a game is sent to me and is described as a “deep tactical” or occasionally brutal, and my brain says, ” well let me be the judge of that. After all, I have been reviewing games for about a decade, and I have been gaming for over 30 years. From Demon Souls to the days of Ninja Turtles on NES, I have played them all. So when Thousand Generation Games offered me Deep Fringe, I jumped at the chance.

This is, as I said, a tactical game first and foremost. It has a steampunk feel to it, but most importantly, two different views are easy to switch between, and you will do well to do so. One will give you a good view of all your troops, the other the environment. You must take advantage of the environment, or you will lose. Small things, from simply pushing enemies from ledges to give you tactical advantages, to more major things, such as dropping rocks from the ceilings to crush more powerful foes, will make or break battles. I lost entire battles when I missed such oppotunities but finding them made those same fights a cake walk.

Each unit also has its own abilities and weaknesses, and you have to know what those are to succeed. Another interesting aspect is that you are given missions before each fight, and there are opportunities at times during battles to take on extra things. You may have to choose to save a third party or continue with the mission as you were ordered. This may help or hinder you; this is for you to decide. The only advice I will give is that many times, a good military leader needs to be heartless and carry on with the mission, but sometimes orders need to be ignored. You need to know which is which, and those decisions aren’t always simple.

So is this game truly deep tactics? Well, it definitely put my skills to the test. It won’t be for everyone, but it is fair and challenging, and I am far from being done playing it. It is an 8/10 experience. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Ebola Village Playstation 5 Review

Ebola Village was recently released on PlayStation 5, and Axyos Games was nice enough to send me a copy. It’s worth noting that for the purpose of this review, it was developed by Indie Games Studios, which is actually just a Russian guy named Victor.

Now on to my probably very unpopular opinion on Ebola Village. Let me start off by saying the game has a reputation as being a Resident Evil rip-off, and I won’t lie, the similarities are there. Let’s call a spade a spade, as they say. If you watch any zombie movie made before Resident Evil games were made, did Resident Evil rip them off, or did they pay homage? Is the zombie genre just retelling similar stories because placing them in the real world simply lends itself to having things in common? This is a discussion worth having.

You will start out in a run down busted up apartment in Russia as Maria. You will leave to find your mother in a new town, I won’t disrespect the russian language by trying to spell these town names. There are some puzzles to solve in this apartment, and you will quickly notice the inventory is very Resident Evil-like. Hey, I said the similarities were there. You will soon drive your car and run out of gas, stumble on a police car, and encounter your first zombie. Ok, I reiterate I said the similatires were there, you can stop rolling your eyes now.

Yes, I will stop talking about the story now. You will solve puzzles, shoot zombies, and make your way through a basic and predictable story. Let’s talk about the gameplay. It’s janky as hell. You can tell it is a port from PC, and you are supposed to be shooting these guns with a mouse; it works, but it’s janky.

Here is the thing most reviews won’t tell you. The game is fun. Shooting and stabbing zombies will see pieces fly off, to the point I’ve had zombies that basically just had skulls left, trying to eat me.

Is this game good? No, not really. It is a 5/10. Some of it functions badly, but what it lacks in function, it makes up for in just being fun. This is the gaming version of a B-movie on Tubi or the Syfy channel. You aren’t signing up for a good movie; you are signing up for a ridiculous one that’s fun. Is it worth $20? For some of you, yes; for most of you, no. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Roguematch : The Extraplanar Invasion Playstation 5 Review

StarStruck Games was kind enough to send me a copy of Roguematch: The Extraplanar Invasion on PlayStation 5, and I have to admit I am normally not a fan of these puzzle-matching games, but I am known to dabble here and there. But we all know how I feel about rogue-likes and RPGs, so when I had the chance to check out one that filled all those boxes, of course, I wanted to try it.

The gameplay is very basic: match the gems, which are colored by elements. Green is wind, red is fire, and so on and so forth. As you match these, you collect them to cast spells, and if you do this next to enemies, you damage them. You can also just move into enemies to damage them with your base attack, but doing this allows them to do the same to you, so be careful. It has its uses, but it is safer to use elements.

Certain areas will require you to step on switches or activate crystals, or simply defeat every enemy to move on to the next room. Some of these rooms have items to collect that work as spells. Some marked doors lead to a floor boss as you attempt to get to the bottom of the pyramid. You can attempt to speed run the boss; it is a viable strategy or you can find items and level up.

Leveling up allows you to strengthen an element

The story is pretty straightforward, but it’s nice. Three friends attempt to investigate a temple and discover that only one at a time may enter. The wizard goes in first, trying to find a magic tomb, and gets lost. The paladin rushes in to save him once the shield comes down, and also gets lost. And now you control the final member on the rescue attempt. Once you find them, you will be able to control them on later attempts, with each character, of course, having different abilities and play styles. During the rescue attempt, you will discover more about this temple, but I won’t spoil this for you.

This is going to be a very niche title; fans of games like this will enjoy this 7/10 title, but I don’t see it bringing new fans into the fold. At $20, it has a nice amount of replay value, is free of any glitches or problems, and looks nice. Don’t expect it to wow you, but it will entertain you for a few hours. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Bladesong Steam Review

Bladesong is an interesting title sent to me by the fine folks at Mythwright. I always appreciate it. The game hails itself as the ultimate sword-making game, but we will get to that.

The game starts out by letting you make some choices about your character, such as what kind of person you were in your village. I won’t spoil the story details, but these choices do matter a bit. They make certain things easier and change small things. Nothing that will make you want to pick certain things over another in terms of how you play long term, but enough that you might want to check them out.

The real bread and butter here is the sword making. The tutorial starts by teaching you how to make a sword, and you will be making the entire sword. You will start with what is essentially a block of metal, and you will flatten it, shape it, sharpen it, add a handle, and a pummel. Bassically if you have to do it to make a sword, it is here.

Admittedly, they do make it easier and quicker because it is a gam,e and it has to be fun. But when they say it is the ultimate sword-making game, they mean it. You will be upgrading your forge, learning new skills, taking on customers, making custom pieces, or simply sharpening blades for people.

As the game progesses you will be making more intricate pieces, and if you are wondering if you can name them, you absolutely can. All of this means nothing if it is hard to do these things, and I am happy to say they nailed the controls. From shaping blades to damn near a needle point ( thankfully, undoing this is also easy; it’s a game, not a simulator) to making a curved blade is all done quite simply with easy-to-use sliders and such. The whole game is very user-friendly. I would like to see more variety of weapons as early access moves on, but the sheer number of swords is impressive. For a $20 game, this is an 8/10 experience that I can easily recommend. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Loan Shark Xbox Review

I’ve talked about writing this for a bit now, but here we are. Loan Shark was recently released on Xbox by Dark Product. It was also recently released on Loan Shark Coming to Playstation 5 January 20th, and while they probably would have sent me a copy if I asked, the price is so low, I simply picked it up to support a great company.

The game costs about $5 and takes at most about 45 minutes to play. It is a psychological horror game. You play as a figherman who took out a loan from a loan shark to buy a boat, and you owe a lot of money. You need to fish to earn that money. As luck would have it, a magical fish is willing to help you catch some special fish. If you are willing to make some hard decisions.

Now I can’t say much more without heading into spoiler territory, but how you make these decisions will change how the game plays out. Hell, you can simply not make these choices and see what happens. Sit there for 45 minutes and let the timer run out if you want.

The gameplay itself is solid; it is a simple fishing game that the game does a perfectly fine job explaining. Nothing too challenging if you have ever played any fishing game or mechanic in an RPG before. Gutting the fish is also quite simple. Graphically, the game is serviceable; it won’t win any awards, but compared to most games at this price point, it is downright amazing. I have no complaints, and it is free of any glitches. The game is an 8/10 experience and well worth the money. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Blightstone Steam Review

Blightstone is a turn-based rogue-like that is far from easy. Recently released by Unfinished Pixel and Kepler Ghost, they were kind enough to send me a copy. The game forgoes the usual grid-based combat of these games, which is a nice change of pace and lets you move mostly wherever you want.

Another beautiful thing about this game is the tutorial, which explains everything you need to succeed in detail. This game is not easy, but it isn’t hard because of the guesswork involved. There is legitmate strategy involved in making a deep run. While progress and unlocking the right permanent upgrades matter and will help, what you do with them is far more important.

There are some downsides; unfortunately, progress feels slow at times. There are multiple in-game currencies, so to speak, to unlock as you play. One is to upgrade your crystal, and the other is to upgrade different aspects of gameplay. Both are unlocked as you win fights and defeat bosses; there is no real money involved. This isn’t a deal breaker by any means, and since battles are fun and quick, many people probably won’t even notice or care, but I did feel obligated to point this out.

Enemies in this game come in plenty of different flavors. One battle you might be fighting some villagers that are out of their minds, the next undead skeletons. One might be bugs from the depths, or even a demon summoned by an evil mage. All this before Act 2 even kicks off. I won’t spoil what comes next, but I can’t say enough about the variety of enemies. While a lot of games are happy to cycle through the same enemies, Blightstone decided to go above and beyond. This game won’t be for everyone, but for those who enjoy these games, it is a must-have. 9/10, best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.