Sumer
January 2019:
Love this game, but wish development would go a bit faster…
Edit December 2020:
Seems like they gave up on this game, no news in 18 months, shame :(
Not worth the €15 but still a fun game
– Real player with 33.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Controller Strategy Games.
I backed this game on Kickstarter and had access to the games beta before its full release and Inhave to say, this game is really fun. It’s a fantastic virtual board game of sorts that requires a lot of strategy and is incredibly competitive. There are multiple ways to play the game and earn victory points, allowing you to play the game how you want. The AI for this game are well programmed and are an adequate challenge if you’re playing by yourself or you can play this with friends and compete against each other. Overall it’s a very fun board game/party game and I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.
– Real player with 33.7 hrs in game
Arcana Heart 3 LOVEMAX SIXSTARS!!!!!! XTEND
Warning: The netcode is delay based and current population of regulars is maybe 10 people max (including myself) who are pretty chill but kinda insular, who also happen to have solid connections with each other (mostly). The patch notes for Xtend are available, but the Mizuumi section for Xtend is largely barren. The game is also apparently tied to your monitor refresh and needs to be capped through external methods. The training is lackluster and does not not natively have a input display.
Turn back now if these factors are a turn off, or just plain inconvenient - which is entirely reasonable.
– Real player with 90.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Controller Action Games.
This has probably been my favorite surprise-release of 2017, at least in the fighting game genre, since I had no idea this game existed, let alone was going to be released.
Now, despite the fact that I am a big fan of games like Nitro+, UNIEL, Aquapazza, Melty, etc, I never really got into AH3LM. The main reason was likely because, at the time I picked it up on Steam, barely anyone played, and those who did would body someone like me before I could even confirm anything. The other problem was, while I could get my friends interested enough to try out BlazBlue, or UNIEL, or even Nitro+, for some reason, no one would give AH3LM a try for some reason. So, since I was limited to continual training for the off chance of an online match, or single player modes, I had pretty much dropped the game, except for the occasional itch for something different.
– Real player with 60.4 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 Controller Difficult 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
Jotun: Valhalla Edition
Jotun is a game that suffers from a lack of direction. It’s a tremendously beautiful game (minus a few small quibbles), but doesn’t seem to understand if it wants to be an atmospheric exploration game, or a slow paced dark souls / shadows of the colossus style boss slayer. In trying to do both, it sort of fails in all angles. On the plus side, it is relatively short, so the downsides of the game don’t overshadow the nice bits too badly. I would say a roughly 5 hour game, depending on how much trouble you have with the bosses.
– Real player with 19.9 hrs in game
Jotun
Platform: PC Windows
Genre: Action/Exploration
Introduction:
Thunder Lotus Games first title Jotun, another positive outcome of a successful Kickstarter campaign, is an epic trot through a world of Norse mythology. It’s a top-down action exploration game that pits you against large foes and beautiful, yet treacherous landscapes. Jotun delivers challenging boss battles, but it also focuses heavily on building atmosphere and anticipation rather than throwing countless of enemies at the player. The considerable amount of downtime before these fights might put off some gamers, but if you’re able to absorb yourself in the world through its beautiful hand drawn visuals, powerful soundtrack, and epically cool voice-overs, you will also find the boss battle well worth the buildup. It might also make you want to read up on your Norse mythology knowledge.
– Real player with 10.6 hrs in game
Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan
For lack of a better words to describe what this is, this is a JRPG. It also draws on Shonen genre of manga. It has a structure similar to many of the older japanese RPG games. This is a very vague term to use though, because there are a diverse set of games under that category. Regardless, if you have played that sort of game the gameplay outside combat will be immediately familiar. It even has overworld bits where you walk a tiny sprite between towns.
Finally, I say it is Shonen because it is reminiscent of a certain kind of manga and anime for young males. You pretty much play African Goku. You do not pilot increasingly larger robots but you do sorta gain Stands. Whether that appeals to you or not is a matter of personal preference. If you like badarsery, this game has you covered. Very powerful people perform superhuman feats and have very flashy duels after frankly talking about why they have to fight. A young man discovers himself and his place in the world. Lessons are learned. It is that kind of tale.
– Real player with 83.6 hrs in game
The story follows young prince Enzo Kori-Odan who is to become king of a peaceful little country Zama, although he is doubting his skills in the first place. On his coronation day he is also marrying his beloved Erine. Future looks bright and full of happiness, what could go wrong? Everything.
Zama finds itself under attack in an attempt of coup d’état and despite great effort from Enzo in defending his people he is defeated. Nama, teacher and master of Enzo, saves the newlywed young couple from the worst case scenario. The king and his queen, who stood by his side, are then exiled. Both of them are for the first time away from Zama and are confronted with harsh unforgiving reality. The difference between Zama and other countries surprised them. World and people around them are full of misery, cruelty, hate and so on. They have to become more powerful to be able to come back home victorious. Their travels across the land will test them, put them on the edge of their strength, to see if they can become the truthful King and Queen of Zama.
– Real player with 36.1 hrs in game
Fossil Hunters
I don’t like multiplayer games. When I play games, I play them by myself alone in a room with minimal human contact, I am a cretin.
Fossil Hunters has such a good understanding of what makes people work together that I honestly don’t mind it and it came as a pleasant surprise. When I play it with my friends it feels like we’re working as a team, taking on different jobs and actually helping one another out instead of finding ways to one-up each other. I was also impressed with just how polished the game is, especially considering my friends and I actively tried to break it only a few minutes after playing…
– Real player with 22.8 hrs in game
Pros
✓︎ Unique game concept.
✓︎ Possibility to switch between single and local multiplayer modes.
✓︎ High variety of fossil pieces.
✓︎ Interesting environments.
✓︎ Clear controls, adapting to the type of joypad used.
✓︎ Good graphics, with well done illustrations.
Cons
✕︎ Repetitive gameplay.
✕︎ Very punishing obstacles.
✕︎ No inventory or any mechanics to organise objects inside the base.
✕︎ Co-op can be played only on a single shared screen.
Fossil Hunters is an indie exploration puzzle game by Reptoid Games. The purpose of this game is to dig for and arrange together fossil pieces, creating dinosaur skeletons. It can be played alone, or by up to four players on a shared screen.
– Real player with 16.3 hrs in game
La-Mulana 2
9/10. Very solid. Highly recommended. But it’s not as good as La-Mulana 1. Let’s look at it, shall we?
First thing you should know is that there is exactly one other game like La-Mulana (and the original freeware La-Mulana, but we’re talking about the remake), and that game is La-Mulana 2. So there’s no alternative, really. La-Mulana is a brutal puzzle-metroidvania, and until La-Mulana 2 came along, La-Mulana was the only brutal puzzle-metroidvania. La-Mulana 2 features easily 100 hours of exploration and puzzle-solving. My in-game completion time was over 106 hours, which is a lot. I like to describe La-Mulana 1 as a cross between a puzzle hunt and a kick to the face. La-Mulana 2 is somewhat less dependent on masochism, which is why 1 was better.
– Real player with 121.0 hrs in game
La-Mulana 2 is a worthy sucessor to the first game, but it shows some rough edges that will hopefully be adressed in future updates. It does improve some areas, but in others falls short.
+ Positives:
- Platforming and contronl over your character is much better than La-Mulana 1. You have much more control mid air and level design takes this in consideration. You can also grab from stairs during a jump. Can also crouch to evade stuff and use in puzzles. This is a big improvement over the rigid controls of the original.
– Real player with 100.5 hrs in game
FORCED: Slightly Better Edition
What separates a cheap gimmick from a solid game mechanic is that a gimmick gets used once and then gets boring or forgotten, whereas a game mechanic thrives in ever-evolving conditions, forcing the player to apply the same basic concept in different, creative and newly effective ways. In “Forced”, the unique mechanic is that you must call a little ball of light to your current position, leading it through environmental triggers that benefit you or progress your objective. While this is simple in theory, things get real messy real quick when you throw in countless enemies and your means to fight them.
– Real player with 37.9 hrs in game
FORCED is a Action Role-Playing Game heavily pushing a co-op experience.
STORY
I would say the weakest part of the game, other than some of the technical issues that some people still experience (see technical) - would be the story. It’s a very quick and short tale that leaves a lot to the imagination. I’m not saying it’s bad; simply shallow. If your goal is to find a rich story - you will not find it here.
ELEMENTS
All players have the option to play one of four classes which are determined in the entrance room to each trial room. It is also good to note that no matter the decision of the class; in most cases you will have healing spells, damage spells, and defensive spells of some kind. Other than the inherit differences between melee and ranged; the developers have done a good job at keeping most everything balanced. The true co-op experience comes into play before anyone even enters a trial; deciding who will have which spell to counter the trial mechanics. This is an element that most co-op games don’t have.
– Real player with 25.6 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
Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark
This game in my mind is nothing short of a masterpiece. There are so many aspects of the game which are thoroughly incredible on their own merit but when put together become something truly breathtaking. The game is often compared to FF:TA and with due reason but there are many aspects which far outshone anything that FF:TA ever did.
One thing that stood out to me was the depth of the class system and, with the addition of the monsters and missions dlc, the introduction of the monster class system. There is a huge number of classes for both humans and monsters with some story characters having unique story based classes. It feels very fleshed out and the sheer number of unique and powerful abilities/passives and the ability to combine them to create your own unique super soldiers is intoxicating.
– Real player with 203.4 hrs in game
Great Game!, if you are fan of SRPG types, FFT, TO;luct, VH, then this is Good. Its simple but covers alot of things. CAN YOU SWIM??? lol (I tried to avoid spoilers below, but just incase, you have been warned.)
Things I loved, its like old school SRPGs, 35 classes, lots of customization, (some of the same OP stuff, lol) crafting, side missions, that continue to go while offline/city(buff) building, stealing, crafting, No Random Battles* Auto AI battle abilities, the AI wouldnt do exactly what i would do during a mission but allows me to do other household things and take care of baby. I say these things as a casual player, (2.5 jobs and kids) I dont have alot of playtime so the real time Missions help me get some Points. I cant reiterate enough how nice of a feature that is for me. I got characters injuried in battle, ill just Patrol, Auto AI some lower level troops, while some others on missions. Love it. Haha 200+ hours of playtime, but maybe 70 is actual sit down and play, learn/customize/hunt/secrets/play.
– Real player with 199.1 hrs in game