Shining Hotel: Lost in Nowhere
Since I’ve opted to thumb this game up, I should start this review with a highly emphatic disclaimer, namely:
DO NOT BUY THIS GAME AT FULL PRICE, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. I bought it in a pack with another game for a smidgen under ten dollars, and it was still FAR TOO MUCH. This game is very, VERY short (twenty minutes, tops), and worth maybe two bucks at best. That said: I’ve never thumbed a game down purely on the basis of its price, and I’m not about to start here. You have, however, been warned. On with the review, then…
– Real player with 1.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Gothic Indie Games.
nice experience, good story.. but very bad gameplay!
what is horror to these developers? seriously, is this even scary?
it’s more than a walking simulator!
I’m ok with the game length that everybody’s complaining about, but it’s not horror at all
it doesn’t worth this amount of money..
I’m sorry, but this is the truth
– Real player with 0.9 hrs in game
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
Oh Rats! No I’m serious actually…and bats as well. Just like a bat out of hell Dracula has furry friends in both low and high places. Awaken from an extremely long eternal night and find some nice necks to chomp on. Whip your blood back and forth (Whip it real good). Explore Dracula’s back to the future adventure. Talk about a miserable pile of secrets. You are the prince of darkness! The dragon Dracul! What a terrible night to have a curse.
This is the direct sequel to Lords of Shadow 1, which was one of my favorite Castlevania games. It feels like you are playing a medieval version of God of War. If you liked the GBA/DS SoTN style Metroidvania ones you might not enjoy this one.
– Real player with 62.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Gothic Adventure Games.
I think I need to add this to the “games that most people hated which I actually enjoyed” list. Admittedly, I’m biased because I really dig Castlevania, enjoyed the first Lords of Shadow and Mirror of Fate, and am a sucker for the idea of playing as Dracula himself. But even at its most frustrating moments, Lords of Shadow 2 isn’t nearly as bad as Edge Magazine (which gave it a 4/10) or any of the other mainstream reviews would have you believe.
Bloodsucking awesome stuff:
- I feel like combat’s speedier and more responsive than it was in the first Lords of Shadow, and there’s less reliance on quicktime events. This might have to do with the fact that I’m just more experienced with the combat system after playing through the first game and Mirror of Fate, but I had a lot of fun beating up some of the bosses, which leads me to the next point…
– Real player with 42.0 hrs in game
D1896
This is a pretty tough, albeit short game driven by strict platforming, difficult combat that requires precise timing and positioning, a challenging puzzle segment, and a story delivered via dialogue between NPCs. This game is apparently the 2nd in a trilogy, but my playing it 1st by mistake didn’t detract from my experience.
The art and presentation of the game are both really, really cool and I’m glad I was able to stick with it through to the end. It had this almost body horror, mystical fever dream kind of feeling to it. I highly recommend giving it a go if that sounds interesting to you.
– Real player with 19.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Gothic Indie Games.
Brutal game with great narrative that makes me want to come back for more.
– Real player with 13.4 hrs in game
HeXen II
Another Raven & id collaboration project but whereas Heretic was a modification of Doom, Hexen II is a modification of Quake. Or more precise - their engines. Seems history repeated itself in terms of quality ratio between the “re-skin” job and the original game. Almost everybody can agree Doom is a better game than Heretic, although I gave my respect to level design of the latter which was notably more advanced. The exact same thing can be said about the Hexen II and Quake relation in that regard.
– Real player with 32.1 hrs in game
HeXen II is a testament to how Raven software was the bees knees back in the 90s and on through the early 2000s. While not perfect and definitely not for everybody, HeXen II is still enjoyable.
First off, there is a very good patch in the community guides that uses the Hammer of Thyrion source port and the game runs flawlessly on modern systems (with music) with that installed. With that out of the way, in the presentation department, we have the Quake engine firing on all it’s fully 3D, fantasy-world-spewing cylinders. Today, this might not look like much, but in days of yore this was jaw-dropping stuff. And to be fair, the environments themselves are very detailed and a lot less cartoony than HeXen or Heretic. Raven nailed the feel of old, eerie, long-forgotten places and walking around these levels really immerses you into a hostile, dark fantasy world. Sound design is also great, the music is atmospheric, the weapons and spells feel meaty and impactful, it’s just all there. It’s dated, yes, but that doesn’t automatically make it bad.
– Real player with 15.0 hrs in game
Cat’s Cradle
“Cat’s Cradle” is splendid. The movement is fluid, the levels and bosses are moderately challenging, the soundtrack fits the stylistics, and the visuals are simple, but gorgeous.
– Real player with 2.2 hrs in game
Good game thats satisfying to play the dash is pretty op
– Real player with 2.1 hrs in game
Dante’s Hotel
Dante’s Hotel is a first-person psychological horror game.
Assume the role of Dante, a soul in search of redemption and experience every
battle and terrifying events up-close, through a first-person perspective.
Explore a mysterious ever-changing hotel in a reinterpretation of Dante Alighieri’s epic poem (The Divine Comedy), and enjoy a genuinely terrifying experience.
Experience survival horror like never before.
You’ll wander through dark corridors, explore every room and get lost in endless mazes. This twisted environment is full of lost and demonic souls.
Darkbolt
Play as the survivors of a Lovecraftian apocalypse, where resources are scarce and horrors abundant.
Darkbolt is:
A gothic, Lovecraftian, Top-down shooter.
Rogue lite: character permadeath and procedural world.
Persistent Base, resource management (Think this war of mine)
Darkened Glory
First and foremost you have to keep in mind that this game is in the alpha version / early access, and it could be changed by the time it is a final product. The mechanics of the game are similar to a Souls style games, it’s not yet polished but it has the basics. It currently just has an Arena for PvP, but there will be Singleplayer / CO-OP campaign too in the future. It has a distinct Slavic / European flair to it, which i personally very like. The recent updated came along with level editor which is a nice feature. Optimization is usually really good with drops (drops occur from the fire animations, devs are aware of it and will fix it eventually), i have a 1060 6gb, i7, 16gb ram and i am in the 100-144fps range. Final verdict: buy the game if you want to support it’s development, it’s unpolished currently, but looking at how much the game is updated, a year from now the game will be in a completely different state, i can only assume it’s going to be in a better state!
– Real player with 6.8 hrs in game
a very fun game !! the maps are very good quality and the characters are consistent with the type of game darkened glory is.
I absolutely recommend this game!
– Real player with 1.9 hrs in game
Autumn Night 3D Shooter
Finally! :D
I followed this masterpiece as it was being developed at the gamedev.ru forum. It was adorable even as an early alpha, it is absolutely gorgeous now.
The visuals… Are like a soothing balm for my eyes after all those newfangled games.
It uses genuine software renderer to boot! (unlike some ersatz retro-games using shaders to emulate texture distortions), so you may want to lower your screen resolution if your CPU is mammoth coprolite like my Phenom II.
It’s hardcore: you get killed, you go back to the beginning. The enemies dodge, shuffle around and shoot wiggling projectiles that are hard to predict. The level design facilitates being surprised from behind.
– Real player with 6.0 hrs in game
Love this game
Good stuff:
-gameplay
-music
-artwork
It’s really hard to say if there are any cons worth mentioning. Pretty much any problems it had at launch have been patched out. I guess its a little short, but for the price it’s hard to even complain about that.
This is a neat game. If you like Heretic or Hexen looking things, thats here. Although the ground is flat like in Wolfenstien, but that’s not so much of a bad thing, just something to consider. The level design is cool though, and pulls of some neat tricks. Atmosphere is spooky and dream-like, if that’s what the dev is going for he nailed it.
– Real player with 3.5 hrs in game
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Ultimate Edition
First off, I’m a huge fan of the Castlevania series. So that foundation may color my opinion of this game and it’s ensuing interquel and sequel (which I’m currently in the midst of). Something about medieval through Enlightment era Europe with a heavy gothic/baroque aesthetic, corrupted through dark forces that threaten the world? Awesome. Tons of monsters pulling on a multitude of inspiration from the myth cycles of antiquity through the modern Universal monsters? Yes, please.
Konami struck gold initially by creating these dark adventures that took a quite serious tone for the early Nintendo systems, offering a beefy challenge of vintage Nintendo difficulty through several increasingly impressive platformer games. They then evolved into the famed Metroidvanias with the release of Symphony of the Night on the Playstation - trading a bit of the reflex-intensive difficulty for massive sprawling environments that took forever to explore and fully unlock - and followed this formula with several excellent installments on Nintendo’s handhelds where they found their most sustainable home and success through the late 2000’s. Then Konami, sensing the increasingly stagnant nature of the series as it became mired in repeated iterations of SotN’s sprawling platformer/RPG hybrid, started searching for a way to revitalize the series again, just as SotN ignited a sort of Golden Age for the series.
– Real player with 98.7 hrs in game
(Important note: This game, for whatever reason, doesn’t like being set to fullscreen + max res on a display other than that which Windows / your video card identifies as Display 1, regardless if it’s your primary display or not. Weird bug but easy to fix.)
Lords of Shadow is a flawed but polished masterpiece and a triumph of artistic direction. It’s shortcomings are forgivable. That said, since you can expect to sink upwards of 40hrs into this, I’ll go into some more detail.
Presentation wise, this game is stunning. Masterful visuals paired with smooth and optimized 4K performance make for an eye-popping experience. The art team went all out on this and it shows. I’ve never taken so many screenshots of a game before. Two major detractors though: 1. Some of the cutscenes were pre-rendered for console are unimproved by modern hardware (they still look passable but they’re jaggy af); 2. Godrays are a weak point. The score is powerful but not iconic; you’ll love it in the moment but try to recall the music later and you’ll likely struggle, for the most part. This isn’t objectively a bad thing, as it simply means it’s enhancing the experience without overpowering it but I was disappointed by the lack of iconic singles and the abscence of a Bloody Tears revamp.
– Real player with 47.4 hrs in game