Hades is just all around good. From its tremendous voice acting and intriguing story to its fun combat and insanely addicting gameplay loop, there is little wrong here. Graphically it's a little dated and its difficulty wall will be off-putting to many, but these are about the only major issues. Otherwise, the fun of trying "just one more time" mixed with trying to get all the right power ups in a run is a rare entertaining time. Fans of Rogue-likes owe it to themselves to check this out, especially since it is less than half the price of AAA titles.
Despite being a fan of the genre, The Revenant Prince is a tough game to recommend. Although rocking a stellar opening, the game is wildly inconsistent in its tone. Far too many things get in the way of simply enjoying the game. These range from incredible difficulty swings, simple movement problems, tone shifts, and odd design choices. The good parts of the story stall out, and the regular game is not enjoyable enough to really encourage continuation of play.
Collapsed is the sort of title that has good ideas but lacks the polish and follow-through to recommend. Some of the issues might be patchable, such as lack of button reassignment, item crafting rework, or painfully-frequent falling into the floors, but fundamentally this lacks what makes the genre itself so enjoyable. The controls feel far too stiff and combat suffers from wild difficulty swings. While the hope of new gear or skills keeps people going, it is not long before even these fall before the general frustration of playing.
Tower of Time does everything right an RPG in this style should. It feels like a breath of fresh air, and a throwback at the era when PC games where in their heyday, with stellar writing carrying them instead of graphical prowess. The sense of exploration and story interwoven is very good. The sole thing, and it is a big one, is the controls and general port are a mess. Controls should not be this bad, and it drags down an otherwise great title.
Niche is cute, and has some interesting ideas about evolution and adapting to changing circumstances. One of its best charms is the feeling of connection with the first animals as it fades away into a unique connection simply with the continuing family line. These are marred by a very repetitive turn structure, and an exceedingly complex gene system - both serve to get in the way of having fun. The vision is exciting, but the reality is too much of a grind to recommend in any large capacity, beyond the novelty of interacting with life/death in a memorable way, if nothing else.
Coming as a complete surprise, the quality of the art and characters deserves tremendous praise. A single story is interesting, avoiding typical RPG tropes, and engaging from start to finish, which makes it more insane is that there are six stories in this game. Frequently Brigandine will surprise you with moments of extra quality, like the frequency of the artwork screens depicting what's happening. The only thing holding back this title from being a truly phenomenal experience is the repetitive music, some small graphical issues battle-wise, and how much time the actual warfare can take.
There is actually a lot of hope for this. At this stage it feels like it still should be in a final beta stage as there are things that still lack polish, such as text spill-overs and unclear mechanics. While it is clearly a Master of Orion 2 clone, it has some ideas that actually are pretty cool and can really be expanded on. Notably the exploration system does a good job of keeping it relevant, unlike many games in the genre. Between the industry system, the terraforming, and the exploration, there are some neat ideas here - this just lacks some of that magic, and desperately cries out for a more coherent experience.
The tactical spin to the CCG model in Faeria ends up working fairly well, if being somewhat simplistic.
Being able to raise deep concepts about duty, life and entertainment, makes this stand far above many other games.
This has a tremendous amount going for it, but ultimately, it is going to appeal to puzzle gamers far more than JRPG fans, as the puzzle sections are incredibly demanding. Having players do hours of complex and convoluted puzzles in a row, is something that is going to put off many gamers that otherwise would have loved this title. For a RPG romp it could have been outstanding if this was shortened, and the puzzles/trickery were reduced by at least half.
This has some merits to it that can't be denied, such as its artwork and very good English voice acting. The problems are, for a horror game, beyond some parts of its plot, the story gets lost with far too much fluff about dorm life, and walking around the same town over and over. This could easily have been cut in half to deliver a better narrative. The 'pinball' battle system is such a break from anything horror related, it serves as icing on a cake that had good intentions, but the ingredients simply were not right for what was required.
This is a game where the ending sequence saved it. As a platformer it barely stacks up to a lot of the competition; some portions of the art aren't that good; the combat is very wonky, with a "bouncy" feel; and, finally, the story doesn't deliver until the end. Adding some badly designed puzzle sections all pull Neversong down. The ending and the idea the title puts forth is powerful enough - even with some plot holes in retrospection - that is worth checking out if someone is into platformers, and has a few hours to try out something different.
It would be remiss to not point out some severe flaws, notably how boring the actual combat is, or the lacklustre exploration. Despite this heavy criticism, there is something definitely charming about the whole experience. The de-levelling novelty is notable, if nothing else, and there is a feeling of being pulled into the game that many modern JRPGs sort of lack nowadays. This is the type of game that shows heart and passion can trump huge budgets.
The developers deserve accolades for trying something new, but the game is just rife with far too many problems to recommend. Pathfinding and controlling is a mess, difficulty swings are incredibly wild, and despite all the cool pictures of stats and equipping stuff, none of it really matters. It was clear what it was going for, it just fell short of the mark.
It gets all the basics of the genre right, but it simply lacks any depth, and becomes an incredibly grindy only a few missions into the campaign. Interestingly, all the basics are there, it merely is lacking any exciting options, choices or selections; this is in addition to a very bad 'dead zone' tactical problem that is a huge contributor to the slog. Very rapidly a player will have seen everything there is to offer and there just isn't much beyond it. The game just starts to become frustrating the more it is played.
This is a type of game that, while experimental for the studio, really represents missed opportunities. Ranging from the extremely limited move set of the characters, lack of any new skills/moves, and a bit too much repetition, it leaves a strong feeling of how much better it could be. A heavy reliance on multiplayer likely dooms this, as the online population is relatively small, and the match-making is atrocious. Sad, as the graphics are great, and it could have been really fun with even a little bit more depth.
Truly exemplifying the maxim of 'too much of a good thing,' there is simply too much here that bogs itself down. The battle and strategic systems have some really cool and interesting ideas, but there is far too much... stuff that takes both of them down a notch. The strategic layer has way too many things to do with too much consequence, and the battle system takes too long, and is replete with a dizzying number of little things that must be taken into account, lest destruction result. It's really too bad as the core of the game is extremely solid, yet there is just too much in the way for it to shine.
Some pretty cool ideas and fun battle set-ups are largely handicapped by bad controls, and the campaign needs some overhauling with its length and unlock structure. These small things get in the way of the simple fun of watching crazy battles unfold. Ultimately, there are only so many things to try before it starts to become boring. Largely the battles are its strength, and far too often the game trips up on itself, when it would be better served getting out of the way.
There is everything here to make a great game. The only thing it really needed was a few more months testing things out. Notably, the graphics need some upgrading, and combat devolves into repetition very soon. Smoothing some of these problems out would easily push this into a very high recommendation. As it stands now it acts as a novel throwback if nothing else.
Invisigun succeeds in providing a good party, as well as single player experience. The gimmick of being invisible is not as important or prevalent as it might seem and given the nature of this, leads to a potential huge skill difference that takes away from a casual game it might otherwise provide. Graphically a little weak, it also does not have the same simple magic a game like Mario Party or Bomberman would have in drawing in casual players. With a group dedicated to learning its intricacies, it could be great fun, but it's a little too... out there for some plain fun.