Tag: Reviews

Kynseed PlayStation 5 Review

Kynseed has finally hit consoles, and Pixel Count Studios was nice enough to send me a copy. Truth be told,I don’t know the best way to describe this game. It is a lifestyle sim, you start out living in a shoe- yes, if you are familiar with your fairytails, THAT old lady’s shoe. You and your twin sister will be adopted. Your childhood will act as sort of a tutorial until you inherit what is known as the Kynseed, where you trade 5 years of your life for it. When you come out of what I can only describe as a 5-year time warp, your uncle is dead, and your sister is pissed. Congrats tho, you own a house.

From here you can sort of do whatever you want. Go fishing, mine some ore, become a blacksmith, buy a store, buy many stores, help out around the village, start a family. Hell, go buy a kid. Sorry, I meant adopt a kid from the old lady in the shoe for 500 gold.

Combat is also an option; you can tell how hard combat will be by the name of the forest you are fighting in. Don’t worry, it isn’t hard to figure out. The best method is to do a bit of everything, but honestly, the game truly does not care what you do when you continue through the story and have to increase your reputation; pretty much everything will increase it.

The game has beautiful pixel graphics and functions very well; the real question is how fun it is, and the problem there comes down to how fun you find what you do in it. I love fishing, and the mini-game for blacksmithing is quick and simple. While the cooking could be better explained, once you get the hang of it you will be whipping up meals in no time. This is a 9/10 title that has been locked on PC for far too long, and is worth every penny of the $25 price tag. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Forsaken Realms: Vahrin’s Call Steam Review

Forsaken Realms: Vahrin’s Call was sent my way by the nice people over at Titan Roc, which I always appreciate. I think to truly understand why the game has mixed reviews on Steam, we have to understand what this game is not. It is not the next Fable, despite what the trailers may suggest. I don’t know why anyone went into this game expecting a 60-hour epic adventure with towns, dungeons, and side quests. This was never even suggested. You are simply a mercenary searching for your next adventure to make some money in a war-torn land.

Now, for starters, the game is beautiful, especially when you realize this game was made by a small team. I believe it was 7 people, and for most, if not all, it was their first project. Together, they made a handcrafted world for you to explore and live in. They also put a story together that manages to be both cohesive and yet allows you to feel like a mercenary who isn’t really some powerful chosen one by god, just some guy looking for chances to make money.

If there was anything bad to say about this game, it’s that while the checkpoint system is nice and it is refreshing to be able to die in a game without being punished, just reload at the last checkpoint and try again, it’s that the combat is clunky and it doesn’t matter how you play. If you want to play with magic, arrows, sword and board, or a giant sword, it will take some getting used to. My first two deaths were because I dodged or healed, and my character just didn’t do anything.

This can be worked around by being a bit more defensive than you otherwise would be, and it is far from game-breaking as some would have you believe. The price point, however, $35, does give me some pause on recommending the game. As my long-time readers know, I love indie games and have supported many over the years both with my reviews and by purchasing others. Forsaken Realms: Vahrin’s Call can be beaten in about 15-20 hours, and while fun does have its issues, and at $35 is a bit steep. It is a 7/10 title that, unless you are a hardcore fan of the genre, you will probably want to wait for a sale. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Far Lands PlayStation 5 Review

Far Lands on PlayStation 5 was sent to me by Axyos Games, a company I have worked with a few times in the past on games like Ebola Village and Apartment No 129. The good thing about Axyos Games is that you always know what you are going to get. The bad thing about them is it will never be a fantastic game. Far Lands continues that trend; it is an open-world survival game where you survive a plane crash and find yourself with nothing but a rock. Do not lose this rock until you use it to mine some more rocks and wood, or you will have problems.

If this game is starting to sound familiar, it is because it is basically the premise of most other survival games out there. You will also get attacked by zombies, only a couple different kinds, and very quickly run into guys with guns. Yes, if you are quick, you can kill them with the aforementioned rock; they don’t track you very well with the gun if you get close. None of the enemies are very smart, truth be told.

I know this sounds like I didn’t like the game, and I still haven’t even touched on how bad some of the animations are. I don’t know who designed the horse riding animations, but those look like something from the N64 days. Not liking it actually could not be further from the truth; you see, what they made was a FUN game. Yes, the game is clunky and adds nothing new to the genre. The game isn’t all that good-looking, but you can build some interesting things if you want; just looking around is fun in its own way, and there aren’t many survival games out there for $15 that function well and also offer this many ways to customize your base.

This game definitely isn’t for everyone, and the best way to play this is with friends who don’t take it seriously. It is a 5/10 game if I ever played one. I can’t hate it though. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

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.