Shannon P. Drake
There’s really nothing like Blacktail as long as you don’t mind the video game stuff stumbling over the weird story stuff. Or play in story mode, I suppose.
Interesting indie game that’s not quite as good as it wants to be, but still aims for the sky and hits.
A thoroughly decent-to-good mech game with some weird design choices and a not-always-good retro feel.
It’s not cutting edge. I mean “Souls-like” is a genre of its own now, not just an interesting experiment. So we wind up with Below, which is like one of those weird evolutionary offshoots that is never quite successful.
The tongue is in cheek but not far enough.
Dead in Vinland is only going to appeal to the more hardcore life simulation fan.
The fighting is a lot of fun if you can deal with the rest of the game.
On the whole, if the overland adventure/subterranean dungeon crawl genre strike your fancy and if you dig on the modern indie aesthetic, you’re going to find a lot of procedurally-generated ground you’ll dig exploring.
Aven Colony is thoroughly competent but uninspiring colony management game with overly-familiar mechanics. It’s an interesting diversion for fans of the genre but breaks no new ground.
So if that kind of management and absurdity sounds appealing–and I did enjoy frowning at my goblin roster and trying to min-max stats in my goblin eugenics program–then hiding beneath the cutesy storybook exterior is the fiendish heart of a pretty good roguelike.
Finally, a good action RPG.
Crawl through the ditches and hide in the bushes and stab a Nazi in his throat-u-la!
Come on ride the depressing train (WOO WOO!)
STAR TREKKING ACROSS THE UNIVERSE! FINALLY A STAR TREK GAME THAT DOESN’T MAKE ME CURSE!
So if you don’t mind the fact that it’s not Darkest Dungeon But More and it’s Darkest Dungeon But Different…it’s worth caveating that the first 10 hours are so are basically just punching you in the face over and over again and normally I don’t put up with that at all before going “okay yeah but then it gets good” but I am an unemployed goth degenerate, so what else am I gonna do?
Surprisingly Deep And Very Silly
Build a pyramid to my greatness. Then figure out how to not die of malaria.
See the swamp and join the cult!
I found it compelling. Even if you don’t like tactical combat, you have to admire something so completely insane and very much its own thing when the world is busy making roguelike soulslikes platformers. It’s also an excuse to buy a cowboy hat of your very own.
The video game equivalent of being picked up in a 2000 F-250 by a guy blasting Skynyrd and yelling HELL YEAH BROTHER at everything you say.