IND13's Reviews
Herald is an engrossing nautical tale about colonialism that heavily touches upon race and class, but brings with it a nuance and subtlety uncommon in video games. Developer Wispfire has made a powerful debut, leaving no rough edges or longueurs to sully a high-quality narrative experience. It left me simultaneously satisfied and wanting more—more than just the two planned books that will complete the game.
As long as you don't mind how similar it is to the original game, One Finger Death Punch 2 offers up a furious and spectacular pastiche of action that bypasses your brain and interfaces directly with your reflexes.
Peeling back the layers of its mystery, I found a game that is deeply thoughtful and very, very sad. It's a game that pulls its sense of fear out of everyday emotions, out of love, ambition, and of course, devotion. In doing so, it emerges as a horror game that reaches far beyond trying to startle or unnerve you. It becomes a deftly told story about the nature of fear itself.
Whether it's the joy of reaching port, the excitement of engaging with a marauder, or the wonderment of the creatively-written fantasy, Sunless Skies filled my head with adventure and took me on a tour of marvels and monstrosities such as I'm glad to have encountered. It still has me itching to return to the High Wilderness for another go.
As with Planescape, Numenera is not a perfect game. It is, however, a unique game, brimming with weird tales that will take some 30-40 hours to explore on the first playthrough. The game's appeal is largely predicated on how much you enjoy falling into the rabbit hole, but fans of a more traditional RPG experience, or indeed, fans expecting a yarn to surpass the original Planescape might find Numenera wanting. Stick with it, though, and you will be rewarded with an highly unusual experience.
VirtuaVerse’s stylish and atmospheric presentation isn’t enough to save a game constricted by convoluted puzzles and an unlikeable protagonist.
Stela’s tight platforming and beautiful yet oppressive atmosphere can only go so far when the game as a whole does little to impress.
Stygian faithfully recreates the atmosphere of Lovecraft, warts and all, but it isn’t a very engaging adventure to play through.
Mutropolis is cute, with a great cast of characters, it’s certainly very charming to look at, and it maintains a very comfortable ambience. All of this is only accessible to you, however, if you can stomach old-school point-and-click puzzling.
Metamorphosis is a brief and pretty adventure about controlling a bug, but it’s neither as memorable nor as striking as its inspiration. It’s not bad for a spin, but you’d really be served better by reading Kafka straight from the bottle.
Evan’s Remains tells a gripping, amazingly convoluted tale interspersed by irresistible puzzle platforming that left me wanting a lot more than what I got.
In Other Waters is a game that knows full well who it’s for. Its relaxing style, UI-based gameplay, and descriptive biological writing all come together to instil a sense of adventure.
Luna The Shadow Dust looks and sounds beautiful, and it’s a neat little adventure to have, so long as you can put up with some slow, trial-and-error puzzling.
Mosaic’s moving dioramas produce strong and memorable images of a dystopia that’s all too real. The gameplay, however, seems to miss the point.
After all is said and done, Draugen feels like a beautifully-crafted, but unnecessary, prologue to whatever story lies ahead of it. It’s worth a spin, most of all for its short playtime and gorgeous presentation, but least of all for its actual mysteries.
With its fresh humour and intuitive puzzle-solving gameplay, Nine Witches is a compact and entertaining adventure game that will do nicely for fans of puzzle adventures and comedic games.
Necrobarista as a game embodies many of the qualities you find in the game’s characters. It’s brash, it’s snappy and clever, it’s also more than a little sly, but it’s got an unbreakable emotional core that you can’t forget. If this is the future of visual novels, then pour me another one.
Like a work of Scandinavian wood carving, Röki is a finely-crafted, intricate adventure game that perfectly grasps the essence of puzzles, fairy tales, and family.
Cloudpunk’s overall narrative is perhaps a little less saturated than its glittering city, but the game is held aloft by its memorable characters and meditative driving gameplay.
If, like me, you have no qualms with breezy adventure puzzles and a bubbly narrative, Half Past Fate is a relentlessly sweet and adorable rom-com that charms the heart and soothes the mind.