A Juggler’s Tale
Some comparisons have been made to games like “Little Nightmares”, and at first, that seemed far fetched, but it actually turned out to be kinda true: even though this game isn’t nearly as horror-themed, there are several scenes which are moody and scary and also involve chase sequences.
The story itself is presented as an actual story, with the narrator doing a great job setting the tone and also, sometimes, explaining what to do if the player ever gets stuck. The mechanics and riddles might not be that innovative to players who are familiar with these kinds of games, but for newcomers, there are several tricky parts. I especially struggled with some of the scenarios, but managed to solve them without needing to look anything up online. So, if I can do it, pretty much everyone can do it. There are even some nice conceptual twists thrown in, with drastic turns you might not expect. It has an undeniable meta-quality to it, and the game takes good advantage of that.
– Real player with 8.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Atmospheric Puzzle Platformer Games.
A very entertaining and beautiful puzzle adventure game, but solutions are a little obvious and game time could be longer.
A Juggler’s Tale is a charming fairy tale adventure with puzzle and platform elements.
Abby, is being held hostage. Confined in a cage, she is only released to perform circus tricks for scraps of food. The ring master is mean and domineering, and her life is tedious and unfulfilled.
All she wants to do is break free from her prison and see the world.
– Real player with 4.5 hrs in game
Northern Journey
Level design, music and art style absolutely on point: every area is distinct, looks great, has its own unique vibe. They are mostly quite vertical, which is also very nice. Sometimes progression is a bit confusing, but nothing too frustrating here. A lot of areas have little unique mechanics made just for them, lots of nice touches.
Combat is sadly not so great, although 95% of the time at least tolerable. Some enemy attack animations are way off actual attack hitboxes, melee enemies tend to stick to you on contact, hitting repeatedly. Some boss arenas consist of series of narrow bridges/pieces of land with instant drown pits inbetween which is also annoying. It’s generally alright as long as you don’t focus on it too much - imo combat here is just to act as intermissions between exploration and exploration, which is the actual main focus of the game.
– Real player with 15.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Atmospheric Singleplayer Games.
This is a very memorable game that deserves more recognition. It’s extremely strange in a charming way with a lot of variety and surprises, as well as some unexpected humor. This is a very impressive game to have been made by one person, and without reusing almost any content through its full 10-15 hour length; every area has its own unique enemies, hazards and music. There’s a lot of rough edges, but also a lot of smart design like enemies having clear sound cues to let you know when they’re offscreen or health pickups being placed strategically on walkable ledges to let you know where you can go. It gives you just enough information to understand its mechanics and know how to deal with its more esoteric hazards without ever holding your hand. Some of the levels work better than others, and I thought the last third or so of the game was weaker than the rest due to some annoying encounters and gimmicks that went on for too long, but it’s overall a good experience backed up by an evocative and memorable soundtrack. (The soundtrack even comes with the game, it’s just included next to its files, and this is a soundtrack I would have been willing to pay for separately.)
– Real player with 14.4 hrs in game
TASOMACHI: Behind the Twilight
Wandering in Eastern Paradise
Tasomachi is a short story of a lone traveler named Yukumo on the way to To-en, eastern continent. Unfortunately, the twilight fog causes serious damage to her airship as she is forced to land on nearby town. She is requested by feline-like inhabitant to search for “Source of Earth” to recover the town and repair her airship.
– Real player with 19.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Atmospheric 3D Platformer Games.
Reflections on the Aesthetics of Tasomachi
Ever since I first saw Nocras’s concept art for his game, Tasomachi: Behind the Twilight, I felt excited by his vision of a cityscape set in a fictional Far Eastern world. After much anticipation of the game’s release, I am glad to say that Tasomachi aesthetically does not disappoint. His aesthetic vision is realized in the world of Tasomachi, a beautiful, mysterious world to explore and behold. Set in a town enveloped by a strange fog and abandoned by its human inhabitants, Tasomachi introduces a lone girl who finds herself stranded when she crash-lands in her hot-air balloon. She then sets out to discover the town and uncover its mysteries. The story is extremely minimal at best, but it provides the setup to freely roam the urban environment and appreciate the cityscape without the bustle of human life.
– Real player with 17.1 hrs in game
Sacred Curse
Genre
Visual novel, fantasy, romance, otome, drama.
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Story
After awakening from a deathlike dream, Charlotte’s life turned into a terrible tale.
Her memory is corrupted.
Her heart will stop beating without the strange, unbearably bitter medicine.
Her body is altered by the forbidden skill of the Darkland.
She shouldn’t even leave the mansion into the garden.
Also, she shouldn’t go down to the underground laboratory, enter the West Wing, and approach the mirrors.
Constantine is Charlotte’s guardian. He is an alchemist, necromancer, master of the forbidden arts, and master of pale black-eyed servants.
Constantine says that Charlotte is special, but who is she really to him?
❖︎❖︎❖︎
Features
❖︎ Several different endings
❖︎ A story about love and loneliness
❖︎ Beautiful artwork
The Book of Unwritten Tales 2
A charming, hilarious and fun adventure with the perfect balance of puzzle difficulty. This point and click has my favourite puzzle design because they are not too hard to figure out, but also not too easy. The characters are unique, interesting and lively, and the graphics are gorgeous without putting too much strain on a computer (as a laptop gamer, I especially appreciate this as there is nothing sadder to me than a game I really want to play with specs that my computer can just about manage with lags). As in the first game, Wilbur is an absolute treasure, Ivo is as great a female character as ever and Critter is quirky, sweet and loyal. Nate has grown more likable in this game as well as gained a fair amount of depth and development.
– Real player with 92.3 hrs in game
If you played ‘The Book of Unwritten Tales (1)" you will probably enjoy this sequel. It brings back all the main characters from the first game and introduces a few new ones.
The textures and rigging are a little better than the first and the mechanics and walk paths are a little smoother but I still found that some of the walk paths (especially when you are switching between characters) are a little weird. You don’t have to do any pixel hunting because you can highlight all items that you can interact with so it’s hard to miss something. Some of the puzzles are not very logical to solve but most of them are reasonable.
– Real player with 61.5 hrs in game
CountryBalls Heroes
For this review I’m considering three things:
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this is a new game (so bugs are expected)
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the developers are indie so they might take longer to patch and update the game
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if this game is on your radar you probably enjoy polandball/countryball meme comics.
So, I want to start off with the negatives. Nothing I hate more than reading through a review, getting hyped for the good, just to see some stuff that’s a deal breaker for me. We’ll start off with bugs/design issues:
SAVE GAME BUG
Probably the worst bug in the lot. It basically makes saves a pointless feature. Basically, if you load a save game all/most of the settlements disappear. They disappear from the map, from the quick bar to the right. Essentially destroying your save.
– Real player with 50.5 hrs in game
As an old Heroes 3 Fan, CountryBalls Heroes was a must buy for me.
Graphics are nicely drawn, animations are ok and the music is nice too. Nothing spectacular, but not bad either. I like the basic idea of HOMM 3 meets political incorrectness and the game has humor and charme. I got some chuckles here and there.
The gameplay is 100% HOMM 3, but a bit simpler and more shallow. You build your base, ride around the map with your hero, fighting for resources, producing more units until you’re strong enough to attack the opponent.
– Real player with 11.6 hrs in game
Dreamfall Chapters
The thing about stories and settings, in modern-day fiction, is that there’s very little room for innovation or unique ideas to craft worlds without feeling like it’s something we’ve seen before but executed differently.
I’m the kinda of person who loves stories that are self-contained without being treated as a brand that inevitably needs to be pumped for money, or more sequels, faster than an OD’ing alcoholic solely for the sake of the former, and not so much for doing something new with the subject matter.
– Real player with 79.8 hrs in game
You know that totally dreamy guy who you really want to get together with, but when you do; it turns out that he just doesn’t meet your expectations of him, and no matter how much you want to love him, he just doesn’t let you? Well, I know his name. He’s called ‘Dreamfall Chapters’.
Overview
Chapters concludes the story which began with the wonderful The Longest Journey, and resolves the cliffhanger left at the end of Dreamfall. We pick up where we left off, taking the part of Zoe Castillo, still in a coma; and will switch control during the game between her, Kian Alvane the “reformed” Apostle, and “Saga” - the girl who walks between worlds and appears to be disconnected from the main story until apparently completely unrelated threads finally intertwine as we approach the climax.
– Real player with 57.2 hrs in game
Fire And Thunder
Become a Greek-like hero and set off in your own odyssey! Kill monsters from Greek and Babylon mythology, pillage gods palaces and dungeons, save women and claim their riches. Let the FIRE and THUNDER leads you on your way!
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Use magical artefacts to slaughter enemies.
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Discover new weapons and their powers.
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Defeat gods and their boss puppets.
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Unleash unstoppable power by using your own, custom combination of artifacts.
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Explore the ancient cities and dungeons.
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Travel through mysterious land of gods.
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Admire the appearance of structures inspired by Greek and Babylon architecture.
Raji: Prologue
This is a really cool experience built upon the ancient Indian mythology of a war between the Deities and Asuras, and it has been super smooth and extremely beautiful!
The colour palette in the game is very vibrant, the background music is so epic and appropriate, the combat is smooth and the story telling is good (NGL, VA is slightly lacking, buuuuut the game makes up for it in the visuals).
I really dig the combat too, although in the demo, the game puts no effort in teaching you about what effects you have. For example, there is a pole swing strike that stuns your enemies for a brief period of time. Hella useful, but you have to observe that in the game, you won’t be told about it. I personally like it that way. Your combat instances will vary based upon what environment you are in, and what can you use around yourself. But overall, it is really smooth, and really clean. The fact that there is no hud might throw some people off in the beginning, but when you enter combat, the necessary details all show up in a really un-intrusive manner and that is friggin BRILLIANT. I love how the health bars show up below the actual models, so it is easier to keep track whilst keeping the screen clean so you can take in as much of your surroundings as possible. Although, I still was not able to see the gauge for the power attack (Q on keyboard) and I thought that the cost of that attack was just the long wind up/ cast time, but that is incorrect. But maybe it was just me who missed it.
– Real player with 4.9 hrs in game
The developers have made it very beautifully and the gameplay is also good. Game is very colorful and musics are just awsome. i am in love with the musics they have used. Developers are very talented and worked hard on this game. I am waiting for your upcoming games and upcoming DLC’s of this game. As an Indian i support this game and developers because they have done a great job. I am very happy that this game has won many awards in International level competition and thought an good lesson to those who say that Indian’s can’t make good games. At last i want to say that everyone should try this game and support these developers to make more amazing games like this :)
– Real player with 1.7 hrs in game
Drakensang
A party based RPG with great potential but quite unfinished and unpolished. Some people compare it to DA:O, NWN, BG, etc…(that being the reason I bought it) but that’s a big overstatement.
The bad:
1. The story/main quest - linear, blurry and uninteresting - does little to motivate the player to save the world.
2. The side quests are scarce, petty, uncomplicated and unrewarding.
3. The companions are plain, stereotyped and boring. They have no personal quests (except one), don’t develop with the progress in the game, rarely have something to say about quests/environment. Puppets with no personality, no conflicts, no banters, no life. The majority of them can be recruited too late in the game, so, for the first half, you will probably be stuck with the barking amazon and the cliché dwarf.
– Real player with 178.9 hrs in game
Ah, so this is where Dragon age origins stole all their ideas.. Of course that most likely isnt true. Judging by the release dates, the guys and gals over at Bioware were almost certainly unaware of the osbcure German title Drakensang, even tho Drakensang did come out first.
After beating Drakensang and enjoying it greatly, I couldnt help but notice similarities. Four member party- check. Pause and play tactical combat- check. Mages have magical skills and fighters get erm, fightery skills. Your archers stand back and sling arrows, you’ll need a rogue to open locks, disable traps and even smooth talk out of a situation or two. Its all done well, and made with obvious care, so if your into that sort of thing, your gonna like this.
– Real player with 138.8 hrs in game