Star Renegades

Star Renegades

Bought the game for the style, stayed for the depth. TLDR: Overall great game, but the UI could use some polish.

The style really has the nostalgia of a classic RPG where you wander the map and get into fights. The animations and artistic design is very well polished.

Being a fan of MOBAs, like DOTA, I really like the process of thinking through party composition, skill progression, and level/gear priority. This game really forces you to make decisions about these changes in order to succeed at the higher difficulties. Just beat Entropy II at 76 hours of messing around. The game has just enough random chance that it is fun, but not so much that you feel like your success is strictly a result of chance.

Real player with 82.2 hrs in game


Read More: Best Singleplayer Roguelite Games.


I’ll be looking at this game from the perspective of an SRPG vet, including Fire Emblem, DD, XCOM, etc.

-VISUALS-

This game is a treat.

There really is no other way to say it, I’m not sure pixel art and pixel art animation has ever been done better. The subtle 3D effects on certain aspects just makes it all the better. The environments, both out of battle and in it, are stunning every time. The animations are overall very pleasant with some nice weight accentuated by the screen shake and camera movement.

Real player with 57.6 hrs in game

Star Renegades on Steam

Shape Shooter

Shape Shooter

Even better than Counter-Strike.

Real player with 14.8 hrs in game


Read More: Best Singleplayer Replay Value Games.


A lot of fun!

I absolutely adore the simplicity and drive of this game.

It’s easy to pick up, tricky to master and even trickier to stop playing.

Makes you want to try again, again and again to improve your progress without making you want to brake your controller.

Great job! :)

Real player with 0.6 hrs in game

Shape Shooter on Steam

Desktop Dungeons

Desktop Dungeons

TL;DR Not a hack-and-slash

Quick and surprisingly addictive dungeon-crawler with lots of mazes, simple rules, high strategy and low luck – you only die when you’ve made a blunder, or backed yourself into a corner by poor planning.

This may seem like a simple hack-and-slash, but it’s not. There’s almost no luck and a surprising amount of planning involved. Each dungeon is like a puzzle, and might take 15-45 minutes to complete. You start each dungeon as a lowly level 1 character. Kill the monsters in a certain order and gain the power-ups at the right times and you will be able to defeat the boss-monster and thus “win” each dungeon. if you randomly charge in like a hack-and-slash game, you won’t maximize your powerups and you won’t have enough health to tackle the tougher monsters. Same if you spend the power-ups too soon. If you don’t defeat the tougher monsters, you don’t gain the experience-point bonuses to increase your abilities enough to tackle the boss-monster. As you complete dungeons, you can unlock other character classes (again, you start each dungeon back as level 1 and the layout of each dungeon is randomly generated each time).

Real player with 435.9 hrs in game


Read More: Best Singleplayer RPG Games.


I was wary of this. I played a ton of alpha, even after I had unlocked everything and finished all the levels. It was a lot of fun, and I appreciated the minimalism of the game. I paid for the advance copy something like three years ago, played the game, then stopped and sort of put it behind me for a while.

Then, just a couple weeks ago, I saw that it was released on steam. While I thought about looking up my copy of it, minutes later I received a message saying because I paid in advance I got a steam key!

Real player with 136.9 hrs in game

Desktop Dungeons on Steam

Mistress of Maids: First Castle

Mistress of Maids: First Castle

Gotta say, this game is both unique and fun. I’ve been playing it for a good while, and the no HP combat system works very well. It’s faster paced than more Rogue likes, but didn’t really sacrifice much depth.

Visually, I find the castle setting more appealing than the dark caves you usually get in the genre. Though I will admit the game could benefit from a tad more variety.

As of this review, the abilities aren’t all that balanced, as some are pretty much useless. There’s also no sound effects or music. Expect these issues to be resolved in the future.

Real player with 29.5 hrs in game

Played bit not completed all chest overall not bad!

Main issue tutorial get 2 nd area where see sheild need click on it remove it space lure mob out of the way not very visable text off to side scree should be moved to other side more middle screen view

Overall for what it is not bad for bit time killer.

Tutorial issue 2/5 bad

Lack of key info 3/5 simple some thing like know point click - wsad move just as well some where say what key are / point click

After get main game understanding skills so forth not to bad overall could be improved: 3/5

Real player with 11.8 hrs in game

Mistress of Maids: First Castle on Steam

Neon Abyss

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

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

Neon Abyss on Steam

The Legend of HyperStar

The Legend of HyperStar

Check out my Gameplay Review here where I dive into this game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hoj3MGEzghE

tl;dw 2/10 - Predominately suffers from not being finished

Real player with 1.9 hrs in game

Ok, in my apparently 0.3 hours of gameplay, i have meet so many problem. If you went to the setting, you only have to option to change the language. I don’t have a problem in the character selection like some other player, but when in game, that’s when the annoyance started. When you dodge, some time it will only show the animation but you didn’t move anywhere. The quit option is not accessible (for me) and if you die, you will have to manually close the game since the game stuck and won’t let you anything, at all. if you use a range weapon such as a bow, you can’t manually aim, you need to push Tab first to go into “aim” mode and the pointer will appear at the head of the enemy without letting you move said pointer. Basically you can only “lock-on” to the enemy. There is also the fact that the button response is painfully slow. I was attacking the enemy but when i tried to dodge (Using the Q button) sometimes the game won’t even read it and the character would just stay to take the beating. Then, there is also the fact that you can’t the control layout, so i’m stuck with Q as my dodge and right click for skill. Not to mention, you need to also push the direction button while dodging for it to work. The only good thing of this game is it’s “ok” graphic. What’s worse, this game is last updated at the end of June, which made it seems like this game is abandoned… So unless you see someone saying that it was updated recently, then i won’t recommend to try it, even for the sake of trying it since it’s just 1 dollar game.

Real player with 0.3 hrs in game

The Legend of HyperStar on Steam

Dark Stone: The Lightseeker

Dark Stone: The Lightseeker

Even though the early game may be boring, the game allow for in-depth strategy and planning, with gradual unlocks over time which allows for you to plan ahead with better starting teams and permits for you to build larger teams during the runs, while also increasing the maximum difficulty with each complete run.

Real player with 40.1 hrs in game

I got the opportunity to play this throughout the beta recently. I was new to the deck building genre, but not roguelikes, and have thoroughly enjoyed the game. It is certainly plenty difficult for me and Jinny has been incredibly receptive to feedback on balance and UI/UX changes. The English localization is still a work in progress, but its not bad by any means.

Definitely recommend if you enjoy the genre.

Real player with 17.2 hrs in game

Dark Stone: The Lightseeker on Steam

FTL: Faster Than Light

FTL: Faster Than Light

It’s cheap, it’s fun, there’s lots of different ways to play. There’s lots of mods that add tons more content. Easily one of the funnest games I’ve played.

Real player with 371.2 hrs in game

My favourite strategy game of all time. 99% of your losses will come down to your misplays/poor decisions. Losing always sucks but you’ll usually learn something new

Real player with 244.8 hrs in game

FTL: Faster Than Light on Steam

Ghost Tokyo

Ghost Tokyo

A Top-Down style game where you can explore through a randomly generated city, while there is day-night cycle and weathers (like rain, snow and fog), find food supplies, enter the houses with interior to keep yourself warm, and fight zombies with firearms.

Features:

randomly generate a city in small, medium, large, and ultra size.(larger map will impact game performance),

day-night cycle and weathers(rain, snow and fog),

food supplies with a lot variations,

4 type of zombies,

Ghost Tokyo on Steam

Gods Will Fall

Gods Will Fall

I will say this right off the bat this game is definitely not for everyone. This is not diablo don’t play if you cannot stand losing or think this is a simple button masher. (WARNING: This game was designed for a controller, although it is not impossible to play with a keyboard it will take practice, dont hesitate to reconfigure the keys to something you are comfortable with)

The basic premise is you have 8 randomly generated warriors and 10 gods to kill, to kill one you must choose one warrior to control and traverse the dungeon of said god and then face him in combat, be warned once inside there are only three endings. Victory, capture or death. The catch however is that on each playthrough the strength of the boss will vary each time, the boss that was super easy in your first playthrough might be the strongest in the next one, worst of all you have no way of knowing until you send someone inside and once inside there is no backing out.

Real player with 40.7 hrs in game

A challenging game full of charm and atmosphere. Note: I bought this on special with 40% off.

I finished Gods Will Fall last night and was pleasantly surprised at the fun journey I had just had. I bought this game despite the mixed reviews because I saw something in the trailers that just clicked with me and I think a lot of the negative reviews are there because the game isn’t what most gamers were expecting.

Yes the game has rogue-like elements and dare I say it, is a little souls like, but over all I think the game sets out to do it’s own thing in a way that put some players off because again, they weren’t expecting it.

Real player with 26.8 hrs in game

Gods Will Fall on Steam