Neon Abyss
The majority of reviews on here are positive with like a few hours or even less which I’d say is misleading. I was very close to posting this review earlier on but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something by not beating the last 2 bosses, turns out there wasn’t much.
This game becomes a huge grind that’s priced higher than BoI:Rebirth or Enter The Gungeon with significantly less replayability and substance
While learning the ropes the game play is initially enjoyable but ends up being sub par. Seems awesome in the trailer, unfortunately each of those mini game rooms are all gated behind dozens of hours of playtime with the horribly implemented boss coin system, which I’ve only gotten far enough to even unlock two as the progression constantly comes to a halt. I just got on the third page of the six having already beaten the game needing the next character to further the tree anywhere else, he’s shot up to 30 coins to unlock. You get 1 coin per boss so at best you can only get 8 or 9 per run which totals up to 4 runs for just one tier of progress. I haven’t even completed everything on each of the first two pages either, there’s a lot of items cluttering the tree that have almost no use in the game, nobody is spamming grenades to kill enemies as they’re typically a rare resource for accessing rooms or items. Yet there’s a bunch that build off of this alone, which didn’t synergize with my rocket launcher or explosive bullets. There’s no way to speed this up other than to maybe throw runs halfway to farm the first couple of bosses which makes it more of a grind. Upping or lowering the difficulty does not change the amount of coins at all and only arbitrarily changes enemies hp a bit. That’s all, no other incentive to ever up it to hard mode so I wouldn’t even bother with it as long as I did as it just makes runs take longer, and get more repetitive.
– Real player with 81.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Loot Platformer Games.
GOOD, BAD, UGLY
I’m not recommending this game with the caveat that in the future with some work it could be great. I’ll wait for patches before revisiting.
THE GOOD
The game has a high level of polish. The design aspects and vaporwave aesthetics look great. It looks like a finished product. The core mechanics are polished, requiring a good handle on situational awareness along with some enjoyable gunplay.
The soundtrack hits all the right notes. It feels “cool” as you play and really builds on the universe of the game.
– Real player with 63.7 hrs in game
Miner: Dig Deep
Although I’ve never made it all the way to the bottom, I’ve really enjoyed this game! I’m ready to take a break from it, but may come back to it later. I love the simple mechanics, but I do have one suggestion. I’ve noticed the rocks and resources are in the same places for each new game. If you could find a way to randomize each new game but keep the numbers and zones of resources and rocks essentially the same, you would have a truly world-class game. As a retired developer/tester, I can appreciate the effort that goes into software. If it’s infeasible to add this feature, I understand totally. I salute you!
– Real player with 1247.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Loot Adventure Games.
I like mining games, and I didn’t think this one would keep me going for so long but 21 hours later and I’m still pottering away in my mine. Aside from some minor quibbles (while a stone will push you away if you’re only a little close to it, this same mechanic doesn’t happen on lifts from what I can tell and lifts don’t work after lvl 1000 - can’t tell if this is coming or if this is a feature of the game), I enjoy this. Wish it had some achievements, but that’s just me, lol.
– Real player with 32.0 hrs in game
Chronicon
Amazing game. It has:
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very malleable yet fairly easy enchanting system
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interesting skill trees and crazy equipment powers that combined can produce builds almost breaking the game at extremes
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awesome endgame mode that offers tons of fun
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sweet qol features like very configurable radial loot pickup
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otherwise has familiar structure like acts, elites, bosses, gems etc.
What’s a bit missing:
- given the possible complexity and interconnections of builds, I’d absolutely love a proper build benchmark, like a minute recording of the actual damage you make that’s reported to you with some details.
– Real player with 186.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Loot Hack and Slash Games.
One of the reasons I like the Steam platform so much is that it offers opportunity for development teams to release early access versions of their games.
Of course some games never get out of early access for many reasons or the dev teams take little notice of the player base that are effectively ‘testing’ EA/Alpha/beta versions and the player base walk away.
Chronicon is a perfect example of Early Access done well.
I believe the earliest version was 5 years ago.
I picked the game up back in November 2017 and looking at my Steam logs played it for just a couple of weeks.
– Real player with 159.2 hrs in game
Beacon
Updated Added 3/24/2019
Keep in mind this is a game still in beta phase, so it’s not quite finished. I’ll likely update my review as Beacon continues development.
I absolutely love top-down shooters and Beacon is no exception, in fact, it makes me appreciate them more. I’ve stuck around playing since it was released on Itch. It’s changed quite a lot, such as additions of enemies and bosses, loot areas, and of course all the bug-squashing, both technical and literal. It’s a little terrifying that there’ll be even more enemies and bosses later, which means plenty more ways to die, but hey, mutations are a thing.
– Real player with 68.5 hrs in game
Beacon has a nice low-poly artsyle, a pretty good soundtrack, and interesting writing and ideas. It has some weird design choices regarding weapons and enemies, but is over-all rewarding, if not occasionally frustrating due to a few enemies.
The gameplay is pretty typical: you can use 2 guns, have 1 equipment, 1 consumable/held passive, a grenade type, and as many passive non-held items as you want. You can smack things and dodge-roll, too.
The big game idea is that, when you die, you use DNA pickups you collect from enemies and can “mutate” next run… Or you can do what I did and beat it without mutating, which is pretty doable. Mutations change how the character looks/acts/stats and how the character reacts to items and story elements.
– Real player with 48.6 hrs in game
The Curse Of Yendor
True roguelikes are hard to find, especially the ones that are commercialized and sold on Steam. The Curse of Yendor is one of these rare ones. Developed by IBOLOGY LLC (Bob Saunders), the same guy behind the cult classic Approaching Infinity , The Curse of Yendor offers a good experience for both newcomers and veterans of the roguelike genre, providing both the traditional YASD experience as well easier difficulty levels and the possibility to disable permadeath, if you wanna play it like a regular RPG.
– Real player with 18.1 hrs in game
Bought Curse of Yendor on a lark with all this extra cash I’ve got now that Marvel Heroes doesn’t want my money any more (BUE bleh).
Yendor is a turn-based rogue-a-like with charming early Ultima graphics. Under the retro hood is a lot of gaming goodness. Besides the usual monsters, loot, vendors, keys and puzzles, there are some surprises.
The procedural, modifiable, tile-based terrain system is what sold me on getting CoY. If you get a pick you can chop through stone walls, or take them down with an earthquake spell. You can shoot thorugh barred windows. You can freze water. Reeds block missiles, but if you cast fireballs in reeds, you can catch yourself on fire. Run away! Destroying the right tiles will weaken the big boss later in the game. I’d love to see a game with triple the variable terrain types as CoY, but for now, this is a lot of fun.
– Real player with 11.1 hrs in game
Ascendants Rising
the game is still at its early stage, the tutorial is very simple, at the beginning you have to press “V” to continue with the tutorial, after defeating the final boss, you will go into the hub were you can team up with your friends, at the moment it does not have a LFG system, according to the dev on discord they say it is going to be added in the future, so if you want to play you have to find friends on their discord and add them on steam, invite them through steam and then you can play. The game is good looking, we have to keep in mind this is an alpha and that new content and fixes will be delivered. At the moment this is not a single player game, you have to either go to the game discord and find people there or your group of friends has to buy the game as well.
– Real player with 12.9 hrs in game
I love the PvE aspect of the game in the Coliseum. It is also very challenging cause the bosses are really hard to beat!
Currently there are some bugs and some of the servers are not running well. But these are trivial and I believe that the devs can easily fix them in the coming days or maybe weeks at max.
Should you try the game? For sure! See you at the Coliseum!
– Real player with 3.4 hrs in game
Deep Rock Galactic
best game with random map per mission.
– Real player with 2916.6 hrs in game
After around 1k hours of play time, I still love to play this gem of a game. New maps, mission types, cosmetics and so on are added from time to time for free. The available DLCs are only special cosmetics and not needed to be purchased except you want to support the developers a bit. Definetely worth a try! #ForKarl #RockandStone #Leavenobeerbehind
– Real player with 1032.4 hrs in game
Badiya: Desert Survival
Only for the EA fans, I will say that.
I personally love these kind of games and have quite a few, but this setting… I just had to have it.
Something absolutely different than other games in the same genre. Those who have played Minecraft (or similar games) know that usually the hardest “world” to survive is the desert. This is all set in the desert, so I think has huge potential of being different and challenging! Also, although at the moment not implemented just yet, there’s going to be sea (and sailing on it), pearl diving, and if I can believe one of the trailers I’d say “Stranded Deep-esque” beaches.
– Real player with 25.2 hrs in game
I reveived a key for free, keep that in mind when reading my review.
This review is for alpha 1.9, I will update as the game progresses. I am giving a thumbs up with the following caveats.
1. The game engine is still unstable, though not terribly so. It seems every NPC encountered increases the chance of crashing so make sure to save before visiting any point of interest (area with npc’s). When the game gets laggy save, quit to the main menu and reload.
2. Unfortunately, related to above, the mechanic to save requires building a lean-to. This is not horrible, you can carry the wood around with you, but I hope the devs read this and implement a temporary quick save function until the engine is more stable.
– Real player with 21.2 hrs in game
Din’s Legacy
Been enjoying this game, I’m glad it isn’t like the others its more rogue like and a bit more strict on your class building.
Dev(s) seem much more active on this project then the previous ones.
They actually added and edits things My self and others posted were wrong or seemed to be missing.
an for that i have to say this game is a must.
Now before i get into comparing this with other titles from Soldak the multi player no longer requires a port forwarding method or hamachi based connection. Which is a nice upgrade.
– Real player with 2468.7 hrs in game
I played Din’s Curse (19 hours) and Zombasite (73 hours).
Both games was fun to play. Zombasite was really nice step forward.
I decided to buy Din’s Legacy.
I see Developer is making alot updates and i hope it will be great game in future but now game is called “Alpha” and sadly it’s truth.
In current state game is abit worse than Zombasite and i can’t recommend it to any DIn’s universe fans. Ofcourse i will check game updates and if things will work in future i will change my review.
– Real player with 178.9 hrs in game
Thirsty Heroes
Thirsty Heroes is a dungeon-crawling business sim with turn-based deckbuilding combat.
Discover, Research, & Exploit Dungeons
Send heroes Scouting to find dungeons, use Divination to pinpoint vulnerabilities, then equip heroes to exploit the weaknesses and bring home the loot.
Find & Craft Gear to Build Heroes' Decks
Take control during the crawl to fight through monsters, traps, and chance encounters using your hero’s Deck, built from equipped Gear. Find randomly-generated loot and valuables to upgrade your squad and face tougher enemies to satisfy the King’s demands.
Management Gameplay
Heroes can’t fight if they’re thirsty, so keep their spirits up with conversation and drinks from the bar! Use Hero Gambits to automate combat so you can focus on the big picture.
Plus:
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Cross-platform play for PC and Mobile. Nature calls? Don’t stop the crawls!
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A gripping story featuring a villain inspired by the inane tweets of teenage celebrities.
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Endless play with no level cap or limit to dungeon size.
