Pronty
If you’re looking for a great indie to scratch that Hollow Knight itch before Silksong comes along next year, then I urge you to check out Pronty: A Fishy Tale, a metroidvania set entirely underwater. Now, underwater levels and worlds, traditionally, get derided in video games, but 18Light’s game, gets everything right. Rather than feel like you’re wading through treacle, movement is super slick.
You play as a gilled creature called Pronty, and have a sidekick eel called Bront, who doubles as a javelin that can be thrown at enemies. The once great city of Royla is under threat by a giant fish called Rashka who has razed nearby cities to the ground. In some ways, Pronty’s world reminded me of Bioshock’s Rapture, with many areas featuring 1930s art deco architecture.
– Real player with 18.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Difficult Atmospheric Games.
“Pronty” is an underwater metroidvania with a gorgeous artstyle and a surprisingly heartfelt story.
The combat is range-based, since Pronty has a robotic eel/javelin companion that does all the attacking for you. You click on the enemy, and Bront hits them. This is reminiscent of the original Ori, but since you get to pick your targets, it’s more involved than that. Despite being set underwater and lacking platforming as such, the game’s traversal can get pretty intricate, with various obstacles blocking your way through abandanoed underwater labs and hallways. Pronty gains abilities such as dashing through laser walls, shringking to pass through small crevasses, etc. In addition, the game features equippable perks, a la Hollow Knight that allow you to tailor your “build” to a particular situation. The number of slots for these “memory chips” is limited, so you’re always looking for optimal loadout.
– Real player with 18.9 hrs in game
Ecco the Dolphin™
Ecco the Dolphin is a truly unique game where you control the dolphin in somewhat realistic fashion, being adventure-action game where you navigate through underwater mazes. With limited breath capality. It was released near the end of 1992 and was developed by Novotrade (known later as Appaloosa Interactive) along with Sega of America. It was released on 8 Megabit ROM. Includes 8-letter passwords for each level.
Not counting 8-bit Sega ports, the original Genesis version of a game is the most basic and most difficult version of a game. There was Japanese version that made it much easier. Sega CD also added CD music and more levels. Old PC version also double resolution of graphics on top of that and recently got fan-patch to become the best version. And 3DS version seem to be based off Genesis version, but 3D and with cheat mode.
– Real player with 0.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Difficult Classic Games.
My first experience with Ecco was with the reboot on my Dreamcast. That appears to have been a good thing. (Not really) interestingly, I even got stuck in a wall in this game. “Ship it!” Kind of a dull maze game from what I saw so far. Also, I wish Sega made this series a “Genesis/Megadrive Classics Collection” that wasn’t literally only for the base console. A superior version of this was released for Sega-CD, and this emulator likely could run that version just as well.
2/5
– Real player with 0.2 hrs in game
The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human
The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human is an indie Metroidvania from a two-person design team that takes place entirely underwater, ruminates on the nature of humanity and our destiny, features a ton of creative boss battles that sometimes make you feel horrible for fighting them, and a high but very rewarding level of difficulty, all to a soundtrack that I don’t think is quite Genesis chiptune but definitely has echoes of that feel to me.
In short, it scratches a heck of a lot of my gaming itches. It scratches them gooooooooood.
– Real player with 9.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Difficult 2D Games.
The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human.
It’s a title fitting for an amazing film, and to be frank, this lives up to that. Let me explain why:
[olist]
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The Music:
TAAofLH uses masterful music right off the bat. It captures the feeling of amazement of the underwater world as soon as you enter, filling one up with a feeling of curiosity, exploration, and gusto. The timing of the music could not be understated when one stumbles upon some amazing things, or a boss-battle, or other events in the world. When there are vast expanses of the open ocean, the music can really capture that wide, open feeling. When confined into tight spaces, the music races like my heart did. It’s great. The only problem one could even find with it is that there’s only one track that loops endlessly in most areas, which is unfortunate.
– Real player with 9.3 hrs in game
Azkend 2: The World Beneath
It’s not bad; there are many different power-ups that create some variety and strategy in the typical Match 3 game-play loop, so it’s not an awful chore to play.
Ultimately however, RNG plays far too much of a role in success or failure, and while the main game is eventually beatable (after many tries) the coin challenges eventually become all but impossible. If you’re trying for 100% achievement completion, good luck, because as far as I can tell that’s the only way to attain several of them.
– Real player with 15.1 hrs in game
Azkend 2 is a causal match 3 -game. The artwork is top notch and the music is alright.
There is a clumsy attempt at a plot, but in the end this whole “spirit of adventure” thing is just a theme that works well with beautiful images. You don’t get an “engaging storyline”. The woman person just ends up shipwrecked and goes to places that don’t make any sense. And the voice acting is kind of annoying.
The story mode constists of 68 levels. There are some nice special pieces and whatnot, but nothing spectacular. Nothing I wouldn’t have seen before. The gameplay gets a little repetitve at the end and sadly the levels are all quite easy. There’s also a time challenge mode, but after I was done with the storymode I thought there wasn’t much replay value.
– Real player with 12.6 hrs in game
X-COM: Terror From the Deep
My personal favorite of the first two XCOMs. But that comes with disclaimers. The first is play it with OpenXCOM to deal with some of the bugs.
Good: UFO Defense had good music, the but the music here is insanely good. Creepy, ominous, and uses variants of the same thing. It has a creepy Cthulu vibe in general. Ion armor looks much better than power armor, and you can see the soldiers face’s in the inventory screen all the time.
Alien (sonic) weapons are much better balanced than UFO’s plasma tier because the sonic weapons all have clear strengths and weaknesses. So you have to bring a mix of them. The underwater maps look great. The underwater dungeons look even better.
– Real player with 191.8 hrs in game
Ok, before I get into the good, the bad and the ugly, I should say that I DO recommend this game, the reason I’m saying this is that my initial review may sound quite negative. I am writing this just moment’s after playing terror from the deep and I wanted to have a clear view of the game, so without further a due.
This is, without a doubt, THE MOST INFURIATING GAME I HAVE EVER HAD THE MISSFOURTUNE OF PLAYING!!!
This game did the impossible; it managed to be harder than UFO defence! HARDER!
Right, lets go through this in a bit more detail.
– Real player with 95.6 hrs in game
SUBS: Sharks And Submarines
Don’t be fooled by this games vibrant innocent graphics, this ain’t for the faint hearted. As I began my adventure into the depths of the ocean I looked back and reflected upon my time playing Osu, realising how belittled it had become in the back of my mind. The truth is, this game doubles as an aim trainer. The further I progressed through the game the more I found myself relying on the pertinence of flick shots. This game combines a comedic 8 bit art style with a tactical decision making process. A must buy for gamer enthusiasts looking to add an awesome game to their arsenal. After only 2 hours the original soundtrack is already stuck in my head, beautiful.
– Real player with 11.9 hrs in game
Well, what to say. This is definitely worth the 5€ it asks you.
The gameplay is just inventive, and it will asks you to get every brain cell to focus on what’s happening.
There’s a lot of really cool mechanics, the shop is great, the humor is great, everything is.
This is definitely a 11/10, plus the game is sure promising for the local multiplayer.
Bravo!
! later, alligator ;)
– Real player with 9.4 hrs in game
Tragedy of Prince Rupert
I love this game. I like the look of it, and the soothing music, and the difficulty curve…everything is fantastic. I already bought it for one friend, and I’ll probably buy it a few more times in the near future to give to other friends as gifts. Go get Tragedy of Prince Rupert, for yourself; you won’t regret it.
– Real player with 25.3 hrs in game
EDIT: I said that the extra crew members were just cosmetic. Well, after reading a post from developer, those actually have an impact on the gameplay (they give you more HP, slow enemy bullets, etc.). But them again how can you blame me for thinking those were just cosmetic, if the game doesn’t give you ANY information?
When you first start up this game, it feels like just another Twin Stick shooter with unique art style. But actually it’s got more depth than most Twin Sticks I’ve played. You play as Prince Rupert, who’s flying a Montgolfière, that has the fastest shooting cannon in the world. You’re on your quest to prove yourself to be worthy groom for some princess and everybody else who wants to marry her is after you. And your balloon is capable of flying into space and dive 20 000 leagues under the sea. That in itself is the most awesome concept for a game I’ve seen in a while.
– Real player with 19.4 hrs in game
Insaniquarium Deluxe
damn ffs that mama fish is so damn thicc 10/10
– Real player with 37.9 hrs in game
easily best game cuz fish poop out money (profit)
– Real player with 10.0 hrs in game
Barotrauma
Easily one of my favorite games in recent memory. Rewards thoroughness, careful planning and knowledge of game systems (which some have quite a learning curve especially when starting out).
This game is a lovecraftian mesh of QWOP, SS13, FTL, and more combined. Easily moddable, and the Submarine editor could be an entirely separate game in and of itself and i’d be fun to build.
While the crews (AI) you can hire are generally OK, there is a lot you really do need other human players to do for exploration and combat outside of the submarine which hopefully gets rectified in the AI overhaul.
– Real player with 255.9 hrs in game
the game has a bit of everything in it, can be amogus, sea of thieves and has terraria-like combat and is well designed for pve and pvp, and the micromanagement (for the lack of a better word) when operating a sub with a crew allows everyone of all roles in the sub to have an equal amount of engagement, normally i go bunga when making a review but this game is so well designed for what it intends to achieve and that it appeals alot to what i like to see in these sort of games that i just had to commend it here.
– Real player with 54.4 hrs in game
Sub Command
Not so much a game as a second job: you can let the auto-crew do much for you but let’s face facts: the appeal of this game is how much it demands from you. Want to work out the firing solution for the 89cm ADCAP torpedo manually? Of course you do, this game was written for you.
The plotline (nasty Russians go to war with the USA for some reason) is not really developed - I’m halfway through the US campaign - BUT the opportunity to play the campaign from the Russians' perspective is a very welcome, plus you have to re-learn the entire control system, this time using the metric system.
– Real player with 36.1 hrs in game
This is the sequel to Jane’s 688(i) Hunter/Killer but now under the flag of Sonarlysts. Most features have already been mentioned in my review of 688(i) so I will try to tell only the difference between these two:
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Higher resolution and better graphics
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3 plattforms to operate (688(i), Seawolf, Akula)
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Single missions and campaigns which can be played as US or russian.
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Use your voice to command your ship completely (navigation, firing at a certain contact etc.)
The most important part feature, which came afterwards for Sub Command, is the big SCX mod:
– Real player with 31.8 hrs in game