Mighty No. 9
Okay so, at the time of writing this I have 3 bosses down.
Yes, I did back this game. Yes I did play the beta.
I won’t deny this game has a lot of controversy around it. But I’m gonna try to stick to the game itself.
Is it bad? No. Could it be better? yeah, but it’s still satisfying.
Is it worth the hate it gets? No, I would say not.
Most importantly, is the game fun? Yes.
I strongly recommend people play, and I mean actually play, not just the 0.2 hour times we’re seeing in the reviews, and form your own opinion.
– Real player with 17.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best 2.5D Anime Games.
Mighty No.9 should be a textbook case of how to not destroy the expectations of everyone who was craving this game. There hasn’t been a Megaman or Megaman X game in years, this should have been a cakewalk for this team to do and other studios have shown they can get very close to getting that Megaman feel. I’ll get this out of the way first- I’m not going to go into the gripes about the Kickstarter campaign, or the long wait, or all the other campaigns that were started before this way finished- they have been discussed to death already and you can check from other sources if you still wish to support the game by buying it.
– Real player with 14.2 hrs in game
Patchman vs. Red Circles
The game is a little hidden gem, especially if you like some shrouded mysteries with
! dystopian theme. Despite it, while the game is funny and suitable to all ages, don’t mistake it for your usual casual game! It actually have more in common with Super Meat Boy with some levels being ridiculously hard, especially later down the road. Sure, it is beatable, but if you crank the difficulty to hard or aim for some achievements, some levels will get you annoyed until you finally beat it ;).
– Real player with 16.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best 2.5D Isometric Games.
I took a chance on this one, which popped up in my discovery queue. I can now say it’s my favorite game in the “stealth farming” genre, and I can recommend it to those who are looking for something weird and endearing. The graphics style reminds me of good old DOS games or early Windows 95 ones such as Lemmings Paintball. The soundtrack is excellently chosen to complement the style.
If you’re put off by stories about freeing the brainwashed masses, ones named “Sheeple” for that matter, I wouldn’t worry about it. This game doesn’t hit you over the head with some obnoxious message along those lines. Instead it draws you in and charms you, taking the timeless values of care for the environment, healthy eating, and not being controlled by the media or machines, and presents them in the most playful way. This game makes me want to eat more oranges.
– Real player with 7.1 hrs in game
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams
Mostly Boring
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams is a platforming game where you play as a pair of characters that can switch on the fly, changing the environment, the enemies, and in a lot of parts, the available collectible crystals. Crystal collecting and switching are at the core of this game, and not much else.
Don’t expect much of a story. I’ll be honest, I found none myself, so this is really just pure game. The problem is that the game it is isn’t very good.
Navigate levels by jumping and either spinning, which turns the character into a kind of cannon ball that can break walls or attack enemies; or twisting, which allows the character to descend slowly and with more control after a jump.
– Real player with 54.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best 2.5D Female Protagonist Games.
Personal rating: 8/10
What about Giana Sisters - Twisted Dreams?
This seemingly cute and unambitious platformer will prove that you should never judge a book by its cover. It sports increasingly challenging level making use of the core mechanic; dual world that can change how enemies and the environment behaves around you.
The game is so cutesy, it must be easy! Hint: It is not
Although the game starts simple and easy it soon becomes one of the most difficult platforming games with long levels full of secret paths leading to more gems, which you will need to explore if you wish to earn the best rank.
– Real player with 29.0 hrs in game
Guard Duty
Did not enjoy the gameplay even for a moment. Pains me to say it, because the graphics and animation were superb. The story was forgettable (I spent the first hour looking for my pants), and the voice acting was just okay (though plentiful).
Besides the fact that I was never invested in the story or the characters, this point and click adventure used a bunch of gameplay conventions that drove me crazy. Sometimes, there will be a scene where the landscape extends past the monitor, which is only visible by first walking to the boarder. Then, there would be scenes where items were inaccessible until something else happened, but there were no indicators that there were a new object hotspot. And lastly, the interaction of objects was not consistent, even the same object might be inaccessible at one time then be able to be pushed a few moments later.
– Real player with 9.6 hrs in game
The adventure game genre seems a little oversaturated with somber detective stories. As much as I enjoy those, I love nothing more than some good laughs, some vibrant colors - and I’m a sucker for cartoons! Guard Duty fills that void on all counts.
It harkens back to gems of lo-res point&click comedy such as Simon the Sorcerer or Discworld. It’s got that lively, colorful, cartoony art and animation that’s just joy to these tired eyes. It’s crisp & elegant, with a well-chosen palette. Story-wise it might also remind you of the classic Discworld - as you assume the role of a member of the town guard. There’s magic, orcs and monsters, too! And time travel! If you enjoyed Sir Terry’s imaginative worlds (both the fantastic and the earlier sci-fi) & his sharp wit, you’ll be right at home - like in the novels, the main goal is simple: “Save the princess. Save the world”, but what elevates it is the characters, the interactions, and the humor. There’s some genuinely endearing slapstick, a few nods to the genre classics (concentrated in one spot mostly), but my favorite was the multi-layered bits, saturated with meta relating to modern culture, and even gaming. On the flipside - the game gets significantly darker when the main antagonist surfaces. Tondbert only gets glimpses of this dark side - but then, in the last act, we are transported into a bleak neon-lit future. Think Blade Runner or Terminator. It still manages to throw in a few jokes, and there’s your token geeky hacker girl to lighten up the mood - but other than that, it’s pretty straightforward sci-fi/cyberpunk. This bit feels shorter - with not much world to explore - but it makes sense. For one, given the situation, the world of the future wouldn’t be very lively & interesting to just roam around. Two: there’s been enough build-up, time for some decissive action!
– Real player with 9.2 hrs in game
Shantae: Half-Genie Hero
Shantae: Half Genie Hero is the latest installment of the Shantae series, after being successfully Kickstarted back in 2013 and easily surpassing its $400,000 goal. I believe they used this money well to improve the game both visually and audibly. I have not ever played Pirates Curse, and so this will not be a comparison between the two.
Positives:
Fantastic Visuals
Half Genie Hero got a serious visual update compared to other Shantae games, and it really pays off. With smooth 60 FPS animation, the game is stunning to behold and has detailed backgrounds often with many things going on in them as well (If you wait long enough in Mermaid Falls Factory, Bolo passes by on a hook with a fish attached to his head). This visual improvement ensures that people who are deterred from older pixelated graphics won’t miss out on the classic Shantae character and platforming appeal.
– Real player with 35.9 hrs in game
A great addition to the Shantae line of games that have become big favorites of mine. To start off, 2D animation amongst 3D shaded backgrounds looks sharp! I was a little surprised at first, because I had played Shantae so much in it’s pixel art form, but this new style WayForward has adopted for the series is fantastic and I got used to it fairly quickly. That also including the control scheme which is very snappy and responsive! Shantae has become a living realtime cartoon and it is a major factor that I’m so glad the series now has.
– Real player with 32.3 hrs in game
Anew: The Distant Light
THANKS FOR THE EARLY ACCESS!!!!! I am so excited for new updates and releasing more of the game/map! Makes me think of two of my fav games in the genre of all time Salt & Sanctuary meets Hollow Knight. Of course not the same as SnS and HK, but up there and once it’s a finished game who knows!!!! Thanks so much!!!! THE ART IS SO COOL!!!!!
Negative Reviews of a game in EA makes ZERO sense! Either give a thumbs up or pass on by creeps, this is a stylistic game, if you hate style go play a AAA title, and get your fix. THIS GAME IS GOLDEN!!! RARE AND AMAZING!
– Real player with 58.0 hrs in game
I really enjoyed playing the Demo, the game looks great and you can tell they put a lot of work into it. Unfortunately I found the game to be too difficult, its very unclear where you need to go and what you need to do I would have liked a little more direction built into the game or at least some options to control the difficulty level, maybe at a lower difficulty level there could be more tips and clues? Also found the way that your game was saved there is a continue option but I found that the continue button was hard to keep track of I kept having to restart the game and could not make any progress would have liked a set of a couple game profiles or a conventional save\load system. I put a little over 50 hours into this game and there’s so much good here but for the reasons above it culminated in disappointment and frustration for me. I will hang on to this one and try it again sometime in the future, its a good looking and compelling game if some improvements are added I think I could really love it, but as is it kinda drove me crazy.
– Real player with 52.9 hrs in game
Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller
When I started playing Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller in 2016 the game’s unusually brutal and violent nature caught me unaware and scared me away (the fact that the pace of the game slowed down after the opening events was also one of the reasons why I stopped playing it). When giving it a second chance more than 2 years later, I was positively disappointed. After having finished it I must say this is the goriest adventure game I have ever seen - many characters ended up getting killed/mutilated by the time the credits started to roll. This unexpectedly serious tone of course has nothing (or at least little) to do with Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller being a great point and click adventure game, if we can overlook some of its shortcomings (and the base concept of the use of psychic abilities).
– Real player with 30.5 hrs in game
Introduction
When I first encountered Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller, it was in a bundle -It looked interesting but I put it on the back burner since I was busy with other games. Fast forward a few years, I asked my friends on Steam what game I should play as a break from my usual things, and this title came up. After looking into I realized this seemed like a great idea! I had not played a point-and-click adventure game in a while, the other reviews seemed positive and it was recommended by friends as well. Drawn in by the comic book art style and the opportunity to play a female protagonist I booted the game up and instantly became addicted. This title offers a solid story, good gameplay and hours of fun for any gamer.
– Real player with 26.6 hrs in game
STASIS
The best thing I can say about Stasis is that is reminded me of Sanitarium from about 1999. I mean that as high praise. Overall, I think the game is very much worth playing for adventure fans, in spite of some flaws. It was simply so much better in some ways than it had to be, that it made up for the little annoyances.
For example, the animations and videos were very well done, giving the game a top-tier feel in spite of the somewhat dated appearance of the isometric locations. The atmosphere was creepy and suspenseful enough to make up for the somewhat overdone derelict ship horror sci-fi premise. I generally don’t love it when games tell you the story almost entirely by journal entries that you find lying around, but in this case, they are so well written with so few typos or grammatical errors that I actually found them a pleasure to read. They tell a story of developing interpersonal drama between the crew members as things went to hell, but more importantly, they are critical to understanding what is going on, so it’s good that they are so readable. Those logs aren’t voiced, but there are characters talking to you over transmissions who are fully voiced, and that’s done fairly well. I found the atmospheric ambient noises, music, and background transmissions to be much more effective than the voice acting, though.
– Real player with 16.3 hrs in game
I played through STASIS in basically one sitting. It took around seven hours to complete.
What STASIS basically does is pay homage to various movies like Event Horizon, Pandorum, and Aliens(you will find Easter Eggs in the game demonstrating proof of these influences) while crafting its own fairly well written story. The dark and foreboding atmosphere in STASIS really sets the tone for what was, at least in my opinion, a stellar gaming experience.
Story
The story in STASIS is centered around John Maracheck, who awakens from stasis to find himself alone. His wife and daughter are missing and the place he awakens in seems abandoned. The story in STASIS develops as John searches for his family while also trying to figure out how he even ended up alone and what happened to everybody else on Groom Lake, the space base he now finds himself on.
– Real player with 12.3 hrs in game