Avalon: Sacred Crusade
“Beware the schemes of mortal men. For all the shortness of their lives, they lust to leave their mark. Before this hubris, even the Gods can be tumbled.” - Merlin the Outcast
To some, Avalon is an idea, a myth, an ideal, perfection; it is a place outside of time or space, an eternal edifice. To others, it is home. The Avalonians share much with Humanity, but one cannot remain in Avalon for long without becoming something… else. Long ago, in the forgotten age of The Migration, the Covenant was formed: the bridges between realms would be closed.
Their greatest criminals, however, continued to be cast out forever to languish in the mundane realm. Some lived as Oracles, Saints, or Wizards. Others we remember in legends of darkness: Sorcerers, Shapeshifters, Blood-drinkers, scattered across time.
Now though, the realms grow close once again, the veil between them weakening by unknown machinations. The Grail has been stolen, and without it, evils long buried are rising in ever greater numbers. The call to battle has gone out for the first time in this age, and many have answered it. These new defenders of the ancient Covenant must not fail, for the fate of both realms now hangs in the balance.
A Blast From the Past
Return to an era before all stats were homogenized into just health and mana. Avalon: Sacred Crusade takes heavy inspiration from popular RPG titles of the 1990s and features rich character customization that allows you to select your character’s origin, attributes, spells, and equipment.
No easy recoveries or quick wins here. Deal with a classic death penalty system where you drop your items on the ground and need to retrieve them. Experience what it was truly like to play early MMORPGs and graphical MUDs.
You may choose to adventure alone, however, the game features a robust party system which allows up to six players to work together in the same group. For the best experience, bring your friends - or make new ones in the game!
An Authentic Retro Experience
Listen to classic 16-bit Sound Blaster effects while you slash away at pre-rendered 2D sprites. You can experience all of this without the usual hassle of running a retro game on a modern system. Avalon: Sacred Crusade will run on any DirectX 10 capable PC!
A Note To the Community
We are passionate about maintaining a good relationship with our community. We welcome any feedback that you might have involving the game or its development, be it positive or critical. We are running regular community events that you can participate in and earn special achievements. If this interests you, consider joining our discord! https://discord.gg/Bv5MreE8zn
Read More: Best 1990's First-Person Games.
Red Embrace: Mezzanine
Red Embrace: Mezzanine is a short (~1 hour or even less) free visual novel with point-&click elements, 2 endings rewarded with 2 achs. Unfortunately, for now the game has limited features, so those achs won’t appear on steam profile((
I’m sure even if someone didn’t play Red Embrace or Red Embrace: Hollywood the game will be interesting enough. I have almost nothing to complain about: visuals are great, music is perfect to set that gloomy mood, the writing is so potent dragging you deep into that dark atmosphere. That’s really amazing how that short story, maybe not even the whole story but some kind of prologue for the future game, can awake such powerful emotions. Really impressive!
– Real player with 3.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best 1990's Dark Games.
As usual, fine. As usual, there is a light sadness after passing the game. And not only because the story itself is sad, because it concerns loneliness, loss and hopelessness, but because it shows us what we dream about at some point. We all probably dreamed that on some day someone (and preferably some handsome guy) would offer us to change our lives. But this did not happen.
It’s very nice that the story echoes Red Embrace: Hollywood. I am very glad that I somehow found Argent Games.
Как обычно, прекрасно. Как обычно, после прохождения игры возникает легкая грусть. И не только потому, что сама история печальна, ведь она касается одиночества, потери и безнадежности, но и потому, что она показывает нам, о чем мы мечтаем в какой-то момент. Мы все, наверное, мечтали, что когда-нибудь кто-нибудь (и желательно какой-нибудь красавчик) предложит нам изменить нашу жизнь. Но этого не произошло.
– Real player with 2.9 hrs in game
HeXen II
Another Raven & id collaboration project but whereas Heretic was a modification of Doom, Hexen II is a modification of Quake. Or more precise - their engines. Seems history repeated itself in terms of quality ratio between the “re-skin” job and the original game. Almost everybody can agree Doom is a better game than Heretic, although I gave my respect to level design of the latter which was notably more advanced. The exact same thing can be said about the Hexen II and Quake relation in that regard.
– Real player with 32.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best 1990's First-Person Games.
HeXen II is a testament to how Raven software was the bees knees back in the 90s and on through the early 2000s. While not perfect and definitely not for everybody, HeXen II is still enjoyable.
First off, there is a very good patch in the community guides that uses the Hammer of Thyrion source port and the game runs flawlessly on modern systems (with music) with that installed. With that out of the way, in the presentation department, we have the Quake engine firing on all it’s fully 3D, fantasy-world-spewing cylinders. Today, this might not look like much, but in days of yore this was jaw-dropping stuff. And to be fair, the environments themselves are very detailed and a lot less cartoony than HeXen or Heretic. Raven nailed the feel of old, eerie, long-forgotten places and walking around these levels really immerses you into a hostile, dark fantasy world. Sound design is also great, the music is atmospheric, the weapons and spells feel meaty and impactful, it’s just all there. It’s dated, yes, but that doesn’t automatically make it bad.
– Real player with 15.0 hrs in game
Dead Warrior Tribute
Boss so hard….
– Real player with 140.3 hrs in game
0/10
I can an explain “this” in simple words: no talent & no skill to create a game.
– Real player with 1.9 hrs in game
Campfire Tales
*Note that this is a review for version 1.0.2
Playing status: 3x playthroughs, bad endings
Intro
Campfire Tales is a GB Studio game about three people that tell their stories on a camping trip. Three stories will be told by each person to make your camping trip worthwhile.
Pros:
- Different endings on each story
Cons:
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Clues for getting a good ending are too hard to find
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Game over by choosing certain options in dialogues
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Your save will be wiped right before you finished the game
– Real player with 2.4 hrs in game
DEMON’S TILT
The Developer has proved that the impossible can be achieved; to actually refine an already perfect game and make it even better with every subsequent update. Pinball goes back decades and the game that Demon’s Tilt is based on is actually around almost thirty years old. The Pc Engine hosted some amazing shooters (including it’s almost arcade perfect version of R-Type), Gunhed and the aforementioned Devil Crash, which was the best occult themed pinball game ever created and nothing could ever come close UNTIL Demon’s Tilt emerged nearly three decades on the heels of Devil Crash. Three decades is a very long time to wait for a worthy successor and surprisingly, nobody tried to replicate or improve on Devil Crash until now…first enter the developer of Demon’s Tilt and later the publisher who came on board and the game went from being pretty special to nigh-on-perfect with scaling, rotation, tons of large hand drawn sprites, shmup elements and the occult. Wow, this is like winning the lottery and every time you play this utterly stunning pinball game you are constantly rewarded with more discoveries and higher scores. The table is good stretching up three screens high and the mood is dark but when things liven up it does get hectic and very colourful. The music is straight out of a Megadrive/Genesis but the core game remains true to the Devil Crash formula. Occult pinball just got better and gets better with every update, the developer has to be seriously applauded for making the impossible happen, can you get better than perfect? He has proved that you can with a resounding YES. Every update of Demon’s Tilt either tweaks or adds something new. And we haven’t even left EA yet. For the price, you get the best pinball on Steam and for your time, you get happy memories created in seriously wanting to beat your high score again and again. Going retro with Occult Pinball with hints of Saturn, Neo Geo, and Playstation thrown in. The epitome of the perfect video pinball game 100/100 and it just keeps on getting better.
– Real player with 31.1 hrs in game
DEMON’S TILT
DEMON’S TILT is a retro-stylized pinball on a huge 3 sections table. I’ve played with Xbox controller and I believe it’s much more comfortable than keyboard for this game.
I can say only positive things about DEMON’S TILT:
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Gameplay is very addictive and the game is a great fun for short playsessions
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Cool music/sound effects
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Game looks really good + there’s plenty of settings to adjust visuals/colours
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I’m not super impressed by bosses in a current state, but the whole table in general is absolutely awesome.
– Real player with 22.6 hrs in game
Darkness Maze Cube - Hardcore Puzzle Game
Amazing game!
any mistake ends up leading to your death, pay attention to every detail. test your skills and memory, solving puzzles and trying to stay alive every second.
Participating in the closed test was such a great experience,
now I’m trying to improve my score!
– Real player with 197.0 hrs in game
Amazing!
I participated in the closed tests and it really is a game for those who enjoy challenges and strong emotions …
Not taking the save and dying … makes you think “Why, why didn’t I go to get the save first?”
The team is to be congratulated, the game was thought of details, paying attention to the paths, sounds and details of the environment really helps to prevent traps.
I took several scares … rsss
Very cool!
Congratulations!
– Real player with 42.8 hrs in game
Alisa
I just played through Alisa from beginning to end and I just cannot praise it enough. I’ve seen a lot of attempts at recreating that 90s survival horror experience, but nothing has nailed it with the perfect execution that this game has. I could go on forever about everything I loved about this game (the flawless retro aesthetic, the hauntingly beautiful soundtrack, the nostalgically familiar gameplay, the myriad unique features that make it something new and exciting…) but to get to the point of what I think people need to know, I will start by stating it simply as this: If you love old school survival horror games like Resident Evil 1, Silent Hill 1, etc., you will love this game. If you have not played games like these or haven’t played them recently enough to remember the difficulty of fixed camera angles, tank controls, and the like, then this might not be for you. It seems to me that most negative points in the reviews I’ve seen here fall either into the category of the game being too difficult or into the category of problems with bugs, so I will address these two points.
– Real player with 15.3 hrs in game
I just finished my second playthrough of this game, and, god, what a great game it is! It captures the pure essence of PS1 survival horror games in absolutely every aspect, from gameplay and graphics to voice acting and cheesy moments. I’m a big fan of this genre and beat RE1-3 hundreds of times and if you are just like me then you will enjoy this game!
This is probably the survival horror game with the most enemy variety in genre. Every location has their own enemies and sometimes you might get some surprise encounters while visiting old locations. Bosses are cool and dope and each of them is completely unique in design and combat. What I really like is that upon entering a room you know instantly that there’s going to be a boss battle and you have a chance to go back and get ready, instead of being like “no please I wanna go back, I don’t have much ammo :c”. There’s a lot of weapons and costumes with various effects that might suit your gameplay style just perfectly! Puzzles might be hard and frustrating at times, but they are so much fun and so different from each other. These are probably the best puzzles in a horror game I’ve ever seen, the perfect balance of difficulty and fun. Music and graphics of this game are just PHENOMENAL! Preserving an art style and feeling of a PS1 era is challenging, but they did it flawlessly! This game has a lot of surprises and you never know what’s going to happen next.
– Real player with 11.9 hrs in game
Goinund
This game has become one of my favorite games to date, to be completely honest with you. I hope so much the developer continues work on this game. It’s addictive, fast-paced, and rewarding once you finally get far enough to “become devil”. It’s worth playing.
– Real player with 2.6 hrs in game
boss game
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
Akinofa
Decent old school shoot-em-up. This is not “bullet hell”.
Collect gold as you progress so when you die you can spend it for upgrades.
The upgrades save as you play, so the more you grind for gold, the more upgrades you can earn and make yourself stronger.
Achievements are easy to collect, although once you have 13/13 and steam recognises you have 13/13 it still does not count the game as completed, even though it says it is completed.
The game does not show up as completed nor does it show in “games” list on profile.
– Real player with 2.5 hrs in game