Four Rendezvous

Four Rendezvous

Correct Visual Novel. A good work with the Russian dubbing voices. A bit short though.

Real player with 1.3 hrs in game


Read More: Best Atmospheric Visual Novel Games.


Four Rendezvous on Steam

GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon

GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon

So, my first thought about this game was: “Hold up, Konami’s making games again?!”

Second thought was: “….and it’s a niche title and NOT a more recognised name.”

Third thought was: “…. and sh!t, it’s quite good! Even for early access! You guys OK down there at Konami HQ? Just that you’re acting like…… well NOT Konami.”

…In all seriousness though, taking the rogue-like approach to a metroidvania title is an interesting spin, and fundamentally, it works well. Gameplay leans heavily towards being more tactical and methodical than it does being stylish and fast. And since you have limited ways of healing, you’re forced to consider how best to dispatch your enemies while taking as few hits as possible. It’s not quite dark souls, just enough to keep you thinking.

Real player with 74.7 hrs in game


Read More: Best Atmospheric Hack and Slash Games.


Writing this review while playing the v0.4.10 update (Nov. 4th 2021), and the game is in Early Access so take the review with a grain of salt upon further updates. I like this game and can’t wait to see how it evolves but at this stage I do not recommend anyone buying it right now, wait until it is fleshed out and hopefully perfected.

PROS:

  • Beautiful artstyle, boss intros are honestly to die for and sometimes have me rewatching em cause they are so pretty.

  • Good music that is nice but doesn’t get stuck n your head in a grating way.

Real player with 69.8 hrs in game

GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon on Steam

Lost Sector

Lost Sector

Survive

Equip gear and venture out into an unsettling, destroyed research facility in the far future. Fight your way through the ever increasing difficulties of a changing environment, overrun by hostile creatures to clear the path through the sector.

Upgrade

Collect new modules and abilities, either by taking a risky route, advancing deeper into the facility and gathering rare items, or by taking a much slower, less rewarding, but safer approach. Upgrade your gear in the saveroom before venturing back outside and become powerful enough to defeat the final boss before the sector becomes too overwhelming.

Return

Lost Sector is a dangerous place which will lead to various deaths. Master the combat and learn more about how to overcome the hostile environment and the weak points of its mutated dangers. Unlock new weapons and items each run and slowly discover what happened.


Read More: Best Atmospheric Action Roguelike Games.


Lost Sector on Steam

Frozen Mystery

Frozen Mystery

Whack.

Real player with 0.6 hrs in game

Sorry to say, but boring

Played through in 25 min.

Real player with 0.5 hrs in game

Frozen Mystery on Steam

Insect Seeker

Insect Seeker

This game consists of finding the various insects hidden over the levels (a few other animals too).

All levels are photographs with real insects

-Natural sounds are present depending on the atmosphere of the photograph: Bird sounds, river, rain, waves …

  • Bonuses are present to help in case of difficulty: search areas excluded, type of animal or insect, which insect or animal precisely you must find.

-Once a type of insect is found, it becomes present in the bestiary with a large photograph and with its name followed by its Latin scientific name.

Insect Seeker on Steam

Rencounter

Rencounter

This game is not for everyone. This is a challenging, turn based, dungeon crawling RPG.

The game puts you on the bottom of a 10 level duneon. To win, you must escape. You work with 1-3 characters to clear rooms, gain loot and improve your characters so that you can tackle the next level of the dungeon. When you start the game, you won’t get any tutorials or much in the way of help. However, the game isn’t hard to learn and exploring is part of the fun (though many will not agree with this).

Real player with 342.1 hrs in game

I think this is a very clever game with a lot of potential. It is not of course a fully featured AAA title, and so it isn’t priced as one. Clearly some people have had difficulty with the lack of a manual, but if you go into it knowing that it is Roguelike, and how Roguelikes work, you should be fine.

Thematically, and narratively, the game can certyainly do with more development, and I hope the devs will be sufficiently encouraged to keep working on the project. But what it is at present is a combat encounter system, wrapped in just enough structure to make a certain kind of sense, although frankly, this is not much less than something like Grimrock might offer.

Real player with 113.1 hrs in game

Rencounter on Steam

Rogue State Revolution

Rogue State Revolution

Let me start by saying that this has the potential of being a great game, but this game is far from being ready for release. Consider this game an early access.

Here’re some warnings if you wanna purchase:

  • Update 1.2 introduces a lot of CTDs, every few turns.

  • Game mechanics is only partly there. For example, there’s still no building to help boost a province’s security score. Dev is also still working on mid-to-late game progression issues such as running out of imported resources.

  • Many QoL changes needed. Ffs let me look at my current exports every time my neighbor asks me to increase export!

Real player with 29.9 hrs in game

Rogue State Revolution is a resource management game with a novel theme and deary indie production values, but falls into to the typical issue of initial hump of difficulty after which you are free to explore and express regardless of difficulty. (Mind I’m a bit sadistic with difficulty on these games.)

After setting up your economy and surviving the initial diplomatic/societal/environmental challenges the game throws at you, one slowly but surely is on top of the wave. This is where the game suffers from bad pacing and/or balancing. I found myself having way too many actions while not having enough favors and/or money. There are several stretches like this in the game and it seems the team tried to introduce mechanics into the game that one can sink extra resources into (civilians & space missions & casino), but all of these will be exhausted relatively quickly leaving you, again, just passing the turn waiting for something to happen.

Real player with 29.4 hrs in game

Rogue State Revolution on Steam

Fantasy Blacksmith

Fantasy Blacksmith

Original Review before bug fixes (Scroll down to see edited notes):

Now…where to begin. Well, first question that may be asked, is this game fun? Short answer yes, long answer no with a but. This game does something rather unique that hasn’t been done before (as far as I know), it allows you to play as a sword smith in a fantasy world where your goal isn’t to slay the big bad overlord or to plunder deep dungeons so that you may retire on a pile of “phat loot”, but to become the “best” blacksmith (sword smith as you only make swords) in the land. You can design your swords from various parts, choose which materials to use and then forge them into mighty swords from myth and legend. Sounds cool, is cool, BUT and it is a big but and I cannot lie…

Real player with 50.9 hrs in game

Last Edited: 3/19/2019 for Patch 1.0.3 (see bottom of review for updates)

A game with quite a bit of potential despite getting delayed multiple times with no notice at all to the customers waiting (including release day, coming out over 5 hours late without any word) but if you are not a fan of Early Access games with a lot of bugs I would suggest waiting until a lot more work is done on this.

Current issues I have encountered:

Physics are more of a suggestion than a law in the world of Fantasy Blacksmith. The first thing that happened after I started playing was picking up the Thermometer, testing the current temp of the bronze ingot in the forge, “placing” them next to me, and getting catapulted across the room.

Real player with 40.2 hrs in game

Fantasy Blacksmith on Steam

I Can’t Escape: Darkness

I Can’t Escape: Darkness

Do I recommend this game? Yes.

Does this game deserve it’s current (Feb 7, 2016) Metacritic score of 40? No.

To begin, let’s break down a few things from the “About This Game” section.

  1. “An Infinitely Replayable Living, Breathing Dungeon”

This one is mostly hyperbole. It’s true that the setting is quite good, as is fitting for any horror story in which the location/environment is almost a character in and of itself. The game having “infinitely replayable” is by definition true, the same way that the ocean has infinite re-sailability. You’ve never see the same fish, wave, or storm in the same place twice, but after enough trips out it all sort of blends together and you get a good idea of what to expect. Nothing new shows up; it’s just in different places (just like other rogue-like games).

Real player with 26.1 hrs in game

I Can not Escape: Darkness is a game Horror dungeon, very special!

I recommend it to anyone looking for a horror game different!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM38DnYV9vE

(Below is the Italian full review)

I Can’t Escape: Darkness è adventure horror game, si tratta di un viaggio coinvolgente verso l’ignoto. Le probabilità di fuga sono pochissime, e quando si perde la vita, il dungeon cambia radicalmente, rendendo l’esperienza di gioco sempre più unica.

Bisogna difendersi dalla oscurità con qualsiasi fonte di luce, poiché l’oscurità ti porterà letteralmente alla pazzia, ed a una morte certa!

Real player with 9.6 hrs in game

I Can't Escape: Darkness on Steam

Tilesweeper

Tilesweeper

Tilesweeper

…is a logic puzzle game. Remove all the tiles from the level, one by one, flagging and avoiding those armed with a bomb.

⚙ Game Description & Mechanics ⚙

As any clone of Minesweeper, you’re presented with a tile board, here represented by a dungeon, balcony or other location. The objective of the game is to either correctly flag every tile armed with a mine, or clear out all the tiles that aren’t - either will result in a success, just as long as no mine is detonated.

Real player with 56.9 hrs in game

It is hard to be too critical of this as it does what it does well enough. It is a nicer looking version of Minesweeper. I could stop there but I have to point out this is one of those games that 10 hours playing it (which is what it took to get to the easy 39/60 achievements) feels like 100 in a more compulsive game. Most of the remaining achievements are for “grinds” - the worst is to break 1 million tiles. In 10 hours I have broken 25k. Sheesh.

Still, we all loved Minesweeper. This is just….more. And more.

Real player with 42.6 hrs in game

Tilesweeper on Steam