Old Grizzled Gamers
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While the selling point is focused on hard choices, the unrelenting grimness of the setting and need for survival makes them more obvious than difficult. Luckily all the other components (city builder, presentation, etc.) are quite good and the game is enjoyable even if it doesn't quite hit the feels as it intends.
This is not Diablo, but rather something new, thoughtful and challenging. Its a linear game with no branching storylines or overarching decisions. I still found myself engaging with the story and environment, wanting to finish it to experience the overall narrative.
Wartile may not have a great story to tell, extensive customization options or a long campaign, but its visual presentation and layered strategic combat make it worthwhile. It has a solid core of ideas - some even exceptional - but it could have been taken further in many ways to make it something really great.
While it's too focused on war and troops to feel like a full 4X, treated as a lavish wargame it measures favorably. A massive number of unit types, lots to research and satisfyingly durable troops makes the combat tactically interesting but there is no diplomacy, culture or any sort of flavor.
This is a very lovely game. The endearing visual style and superb sound design come together to create a unique, intoxicating atmosphere. The threatening post-apocalyptic context could have been more meaningful with a non-zero difficulty level, but it's still a thoroughly enjoyable, if short, road trip.
An unsettling, deeply unpleasant management sim, drenched in waves of melancholy and nausea. My Lovely Daughter is affecting, but exhausting, and you'll likely become numb to its horrors long before it concludes.
Borderline casual in simplicity and thoroughly indie, but very generous in doling out new bits to play with for the full, short, play length. It's kind of peaceful, clicky and not too demanding, except when it surprises you with a vicious nightly attack.
Inked is a lovely looking game with an interesting narrative idea. However, the story within the story is bland and generic. The game is much too long and if you are playing on a mouse and keyboard, you are in for a tough time. That being said, you might find it an interesting game about how to cope with trauma and the relationship between creation and the creator.
The CCG market is saturated and Fable Fortunes does not do enough to set itself apart. There was the intention of narrative and flair with the morality quest system, but this falls face first back down the well of good ideas. Fable Fortunes is a perfectly fine card game, but there are far better alternatives.
Surviving Mars, is competent but dried up fairly quickly. The systems in place work well and it accomplishes all it wants to do effectively. It has a good natural difficulty and good variation between plays. For those who are comforted by grid lined paper, this is probably a cathartic managerial experience. I am not in that group however. Like the planet itself, the whole experience felt a bit one note and bare. To me, there needed to be something else, another angle or facet to the game to give it the life that it desperately needed.
There just is enough good stuff to make this game fun. The writing is top notch, combat is okay, and the UI is sub-par. Other than the storytelling, nothing else is noteworthy; and to be frank, I don’t think the writing is enough to salvage this HD remake. Everything feels like a rough draft of what could be an amazing game. I don’t feel like this recreation stands on its own feet. If the original release wasn’t beloved, I doubt this game would have even been noticed. It’s fun and it works, which is probably more than enough to make it worth buying, if not at full price than certainly on sale.
A visually unique, inventive tactical roguelike with a satisfying combat loop. All Walls Must Fall attempts to offer variety in mission approaches, but fails to make alternative approaches anywhere near as enjoyable as combat. At the same time, combat fails to remain tactically interesting throughout. It's not a flawed masterpiece. It's a failed masterpiece. But fragments of absolute brilliance still remain.
Moonlighter sells itself as a rogue-lite action RPG with shop management mechanics and some of the most beautiful pixel art around. It’s a frustrating game to review because it both succeeds and fails in many places making it difficult to prioritize what works and what fails.
There’s a lot of Wulverblade that I do like. It takes on a historical story with a serious demeanor, letting players learn as they complete the campaign. Its customizable gameplay experience caters to all types of players, even if the difficulty curve is a bit rocky. Its art style, while somewhat questionable, is an accomplishment in and of itself. Despite all that, Wulverblade is a video game, and the gameplay that is supposed to tie everything together falls flat. Unless you’re already sold on a history lesson, this beat ‘em up doesn’t do enough to justify itself over countless other arcade revivals.
Verdant Skies is a bold and smartly written farm sim which takes a familiar formula and overlays it onto a new setting. Though there's much for a fan of a genre to appreciate, technical flaws inhibit the game from reaching its full potential.
Remothered: Tormented Fathers is a horror game that has potential but lets too many small issues bring it down. Its story keeps you on your toes but only after wading through the sometimes murky gameplay.
Regardless of how you feel about the politics, the underlying game is too simple and what it does model doesn't make intuitive sense or result in something that looks and feels like a real city state. I wasn't bored the whole time, but a lot of that is because I expended so much energy trying to understand what it's modeling. A manual would have cut my playtime in half.
There's fun to be had in Danger Zone 2's crash junctions, but the game's short length and shoddy production values make it pretty forgettable.
A bright, simple turn based strategy game with some interesting unit abilities, that fails to engage in any meaningful way. Unless you've played every other strategy game out there, it's honestly not worth your time.
The combat requires thought and is engaging if you like the puzzly vibe created by Banner Saga (which this game copies well beyond the level of homage). But the massive amounts of nonsensical text you're forced to read leech out any fun the gorgeous graphics and brilliant soundtrack create.