Review Requests thread

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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Mischief Maker
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Mischief Maker »

Both are excellent in different ways:

Hollow Knight has a set map, Dead Cells has random maps.

Hollow Knight has a strider-esque insta-slash sword attack, Dead Cells weapons have more castevania-esque windup and recovery times.

Hollow Knight's flow is the typical take-your-time metroidvania exploration with backtracking, Dead Cell's flow is more the typical roguelite "frantically search the levels for money and upgrades before going through the one-way exit."

Hollow Knight powers up by equipping a limited number of magic artifacts that give new (non-movement) abilities, Dead Cells has 3 attribute points as well as up to two weapons and two secondary attacks that can all be individually upgraded/rerolled.

Hollow Knight is very monochromatic in presentation, Dead Cells is a riot of color.

Dead Cells' movement system has much more of a feeling of momentum than Hollow Knight.

Does this help?
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Vanguard »

Somewhat. Are there any existing platform games you'd compare them to mechanically, or are they both fairly unique? What are the main defensive mechanics? Iframes, conventional dodging, stunlocks, speedkills, or something else? How would you say Dead Cells's level generator compares to, say, Spelunky or Rogue Legacy? How important are good item drops to your build, and especially to your damage output? Do you ever get stuck tickling bosses to death? Is there anything in particular that makes either game outstanding, or any serious flaws or annoyances to be aware of?
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Ajora »

Is Dark Wizard worth playing?
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

Ajora wrote:Is Dark Wizard worth playing?
Assuming you like strategy games yes.
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Mischief Maker »

First, a request of my own: Assault Spy

Is it more of a DMC3 "tony hawk freeform combo" game, more of a DMC1/Bayonetta "Do the right thing at the right time for massive bonuses" game, or more of a Ninja Gaiden/Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae "build up your combo meter to unleash your ultimate attack" game?
Vanguard wrote:Somewhat. Are there any existing platform games you'd compare them to mechanically, or are they both fairly unique? What are the main defensive mechanics? Iframes, conventional dodging, stunlocks, speedkills, or something else? How would you say Dead Cells's level generator compares to, say, Spelunky or Rogue Legacy? How important are good item drops to your build, and especially to your damage output? Do you ever get stuck tickling bosses to death? Is there anything in particular that makes either game outstanding, or any serious flaws or annoyances to be aware of?
It's been more than a year since I've played Hollow Knight so I'm going to tap out on giving such granular info. I recall it's mostly just about moving out of the way. You do get an i-frame dash really late in the game but it has a huge cooldown time.

Dead Cells I'm still playing to this day. So,

- Believe it or not the platforming Dead Cells reminds me most of is Rayman, with Castlevania-esque weapon attacks. It's a very smooth-feeling movement system. Also if you get a good kill combo going, your dude switches to a faster ninja run for a few seconds.

- The main defensive mechanic in Dead Cells is a roll dodge with a fairly quick refresh time. In fact there's a weapon that gives you automatic crits for rolling behind enemies and backstabbing them. You can carry 2 weapons at a time and have the option of putting a shield in one of those shots. Enemies in this game have a little exclamation point over their head right before attacking and if you perfect-block with the shield you fully block the damage and reflect some back on the enemy plus set off the shield's special effect. Some enemies have undodgeable area attacks that need to be jumped and/or avoided. No enemy is much of a threat alone in this game, it's handling them all in large groups that's the challenge.

- The level generator is not pre-made rooms linked together like rogue legacy, nor is it a mario-esque amalgamation of squares like spelunky. Rooms come in general shapes, but the exact placement of platforms and enemies in them may vary. The map looks very castlevania-esque, lots of wide rectangular shapes.

- As for "tickling" bosses, there's a rudimentary stat system in the game and the main tradeoff is between throwing everything into one stat to make 1/3rd of the weapons in this game extremely high damage verses evenly distributing between the three stats to maximize your HP. Note that stat points do not come from XP, rather scrolls that you find scattered throughout the levels, giving a tension between thoroughly exploring the level to find that one extra scroll, or speed running the stage to get a huge reward that always includes one guaranteed scroll. I've never gotten into a situation where the damage I was dealing to bosses was "plinking" but then I haven't played the highest difficulties yet. You always start out with a competent set of basic weapons so I've never had a run "ruined" by weapon drops, especially because this game is incredibly generous when it comes to item drops.

- I think the fast movement system is the game's biggest selling point, it's way more thrilling to play than any other roguelite platformer I've played.

- The main downside of this game (and it may not be a downside for everyone) is the absolute assload of unlock cancer. This gives Rogue Legacy and Everspace a run for their money. Unlike those games however, with the exception of increasing the number of charges in your healing vial (that requires standing still and not taking hits for a couple seconds) none of the unlocks affect your survivability in this game, they're just new weapons and abilities. You can totally clear this game on a virgin run if you know what you're doing.

I don't know why Shmups Farm is so suspicious of this game. I think Dead Cells is in the absolute top-tier of action-roguelites.

Note that while the "Rise of the Giant" DLC is free, you still have to "buy" it and run the installer seperately, at least on GOG.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by scrilla4rella »

Ajora wrote:Is Dark Wizard worth playing?
I liked it. It struck me as a shorter and less robust version of Brigandine for PS1, superficially similar to Dragon Force. I was able to beat one the character quests pretty quickly but didn't really feel the need to go back and beat the others.
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Vexorg »

Vanguard wrote:Could someone give me the lowdown on Dead Cells and Hollow Knight?
Both games are worthwhile, but how well you enjoy them depends on your tastes. (Keep in mind I'm playing both of these on their Switch versions.)

Hollow Knight is basically a straight-up Metroidvania with Dark Souls type gameplay, high difficulty and just enough story to launch a thousand different fan theories (there are people on YouTube whose channels consist of basically nothing but Hollow Knight lore and theory videos). It's a $15 game that's better than a lot of $60 ones. It also has a sequel (Silksong) on the way soon. As a self-contained single player experience you're not going to find much better out there. It's probably going to take you a while to get through this, bosses can occasionally feel cheap, and replayability may not be great, but you're going to throughly enjoy the time you spend on it. The soundtrack is superb.

Dead Cells has elements of Roguelites and Metroidvanias in it, but it's better not to think of it so much as either of those and just to just treat it as a straight-up procedural action game. Difficulty can vary from fairly easy to tough-as-nails (there's basically six different difficulties you go through progressively, I've been stuck at the second one for quite a while) but there is a decent amount of customization available to suit your playstyle (if you don't mind disabling achievements you can customize your starting loadout and restrict the game's item pool to avoid "bad" weapons and items), and there's just enough story to string together a flimsy excuse plot with a decent amount of fourth wall breaking. The core combat mechanics are quite good though. The game is still being actively updated (updates come fairly quick on the PC version, much slower on console versions.) So far the updates have been free but it is possible there may be paid DLC later on. Even without any paid DLC there's plenty to keep you busy for a while.
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Vanguard »

Mischief Maker wrote:
Vexorg wrote:
Good revews, thank you! Both games sound pretty worthwhile.
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by drauch »

What about Okami? I know people worship it, but all I usually hear praise from is goons. I trust this place way more than my scrublord friends that hate my guts. I tried to start it a few months back and was bombarded with like 15 minutes of kind of weak exposition. By the time it was over I had to leave for a birthday or something and it put a real sour taste in my mouth and I haven't been in the mood since. Worth it, or is it just pretty affair?
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by kitten »

^ re: okami, there is a 10-20 minute (if you count cutscenes or not) boss fight that you have to do 3 times over the course of the game, and it is the exact same, jarringly tedious fight every time. a 100% play is like 30 fucking hours (the speedrun WR is like 8h39m) and a regular clear ain't that much shorter. the first and only time i played it, i not only never died once, but i only used a single one of the game's revive items in the hardest optional challenge in the entire game, and i'm pretty sure i remember correctly that the game spews those at you (i very nearly didn't need to use it). unless you are really drawn into the visuals and narrative, you're basically just playing the world's (now only 2nd, thanks botw) longest, easiest, talkiest 3D zelda game.

i got sucked into it a bit at the time but later wondered what on earth i was thinking.
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by BulletMagnet »

It's been some years since I played Okami, but I am inclined to agree with kitten that it 1) is quite easy, and 2) pads out its playtime a fair deal. I did still enjoy the presentation and overall feel of the thing - just zooming around with flowers blooming in your wake still sticks with me - but there is plenty to criticize if you're looking for something even remotely "arcadey", as this definitely isn't that.
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Rob »

Let's make this three thumbs sideways. I'm a big fan of Zelda and Zelda-likes (2D & 3D), and I thought Okami was a bland experience and that even the touted visuals got monotonous - there is no crescendo, no memorable location, boss, etc. I play these types of games primarily for the atmosphere, so that's a killer.
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Mischief Maker »

nu X-Com 1 vs 2, plz!

Both are on sale at GOG right now.

I've heard that 2's plot is a retcon of 1, so it's not necessary to play 1 to enjoy 2.

So how do the two compare? Any reason to pick 1 over 2?
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An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by kitten »

never played, but i had a roommate that really profoundly loved both who talked about them for hours and hours on end. 2 is widely considered superior to the first, but i've rarely seen the first considered obsolete. these are games you play for the mechanical nitty gritty & emergent play narrative, not "the story," so it might behoove you to start with the first if you've an inclination you might click with the series. if you can Only Pick One, i'm pretty sure 2 is the way to go (unless you're... really offended by hot snake people?).
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

Yeah for real just play both if you like this kind of game. MOAR gameplay.
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Vanguard »

Mischief Maker wrote:nu X-Com 1 vs 2, plz!

Both are on sale at GOG right now.

I've heard that 2's plot is a retcon of 1, so it's not necessary to play 1 to enjoy 2.

So how do the two compare? Any reason to pick 1 over 2?
I only played the first one and I'd say it was just alright. I like that the smaller squads make your turns a lot shorter than they were in classic X-Com, but they went too far in that direction and it's really easy to have your initial squad of four crippled by a single bad roll. The one thing I really did not like and that got me to stop playing is that aliens you haven't seen yet can't attack you, so if you're already fighting something you should never ever look behind to see if something else is sneaking up on you. If you spot aliens on your turn then they immediately get a free turn where they can move but not attack. If your last soldier spots them at the end of his turn this can be utterly disastrous since they get one turn to get into a good position, and then another to shred your squad. On the other hand, if aliens walk into your line of sight on their turn then all they can do is helplessly run and hide. It's completely backwards.

A lot of people say the second one is good and a big improvement but I never tried it.
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Mischief Maker »

What's a better buy for stealth action? The Batman Arkham trilogy, or the Dishonored trilogy?
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

Dishonored.

Batman Arkham's stealth sections can be fun but mostly boil down to the same tactics in samey environments. Very rarely do you nedd to do anything but hang people from vantage points or spring up from underneath grates. The games are mostly exploration/punching goons - throw in a lot of rubbish batmobile in Knight too.

Dishonored on the other hand lets you make the entire game be about stealth if you so wish. The first game is a bit unbalanced - the narrative would have you be non-lethal but only furnishes you with a couple of non-lethal takedown methods, with most weapons/skills being based on murder (useful, stealthy murder in many cases). You have so many lethal options but so few non-lethal that your experience is severely limited by your morality. The second game though, huge improvement in that sense - two characters and a wider variety of non-lethal options. In both there's rarely only one way of accomplishing your goal and the stealth system is fair - peeking around corners, hiding in shadows, guards are not telepathic. Some very cool mission designs later on in the second game too.
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

Mischief Maker wrote:nu X-Com 1 vs 2, plz!

Both are on sale at GOG right now.

I've heard that 2's plot is a retcon of 1, so it's not necessary to play 1 to enjoy 2.

So how do the two compare? Any reason to pick 1 over 2?
If this question is still outstanding...

Both are excellent, but are different experiences. Both also feature very similar pitfalls .

The first game allows you to be a bit more leisurely in your pace, play more conservatively. It's a good welcome to the rebooted series, though a veteran of the originals might want to skip to the 2nd game as the reboots are not as punishing and the second game puts you in far more varied situations.

The second game almost always has you under serious pressure - either from turn limits, defense objectives or enemies capable of easily outflanking you. That might sound unfair on paper, especially with X-COM traditionally involving a lot of prayer to RNGesus, but in reality it's remarkably well-balanced. It stresses you out, it panics you, but it never makes you feel that success hinges on nothing but a series of good/bad dice rolls. It's manageable without being unfair - you will sacrifice troops to complete missions, you will lose good soldiers to unwinnable scenarios, but if you're following the game it never unduly punishes you. You'll scrape through some missions and pat yourself on the back for balancing the aggressive strategy you needed with covering your arse when reinforcements show up unannounced. I had a great moment when I left one soldier to draw enemy fire whilst the others went for the extraction point shielding a non-combatant - just about dealing with reinforcements along the way. I had enough turns left to extract him, but he got cut to ribbons by overwatch fire one turn from the dropship. That's the sort of moment, along with when you take a risk and end up truly going to town on the alien scum, that makes the experience.

They have similar pitfalls though - the early game is crucial. Fall behind in supporting countries (1st game) or the avatar project (2nd game) early on and you will be constantly chasing the game. Often pressured before you're ready and just getting further into a hole. Add to that, a wrong base build early on can end you. There's another spike later in the game when new enemies are introduced and you really need to be ready to roll on some technical upgrades at that point otherwise it's goodbye. But conversely if you survive these difficulty spikes in good shape, the late game will be a breeze - your mobility and firepower will massively outclass the enemy and only overconfidence will ruin you.

tl;dr - both are great, the second is better
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Mischief Maker »

TransatlanticFoe wrote:Dishonored.

Batman Arkham's stealth sections can be fun but mostly boil down to the same tactics in samey environments. Very rarely do you nedd to do anything but hang people from vantage points or spring up from underneath grates. The games are mostly exploration/punching goons - throw in a lot of rubbish batmobile in Knight too.

Dishonored on the other hand lets you make the entire game be about stealth if you so wish. The first game is a bit unbalanced - the narrative would have you be non-lethal but only furnishes you with a couple of non-lethal takedown methods, with most weapons/skills being based on murder (useful, stealthy murder in many cases). You have so many lethal options but so few non-lethal that your experience is severely limited by your morality. The second game though, huge improvement in that sense - two characters and a wider variety of non-lethal options. In both there's rarely only one way of accomplishing your goal and the stealth system is fair - peeking around corners, hiding in shadows, guards are not telepathic. Some very cool mission designs later on in the second game too.
Oh dip! Someone on another forum beat you to it and I got the Arkham games already. Holy crap, I never realized how derivative Mark of the Ninja's gameplay really was.

Thanks anyway.
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Mischief Maker »

Horizon Zero Dawn, please!

My one biggest question is whether it's a game where you press jump, or whether it's an Assassin's Creed-style game where you hold down the "do stuff" button and the game autojumps for you.
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An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by floralcateyes »

Mischief Maker wrote:Horizon Zero Dawn, please!

My one biggest question is whether it's a game where you press jump, or whether it's an Assassin's Creed-style game where you hold down the "do stuff" button and the game autojumps for you.
Dropped this game last week, coincidentally enough. It's very much "hold forward on the analogue stick, maybe forward-left or forward-right sometimes." Died twice in an early area because I actually tried jumping over a gap when I was supposed to "free run" over it. Found Aloy's jump distance to be surprisingly short throughout the game.

I could regularly do the old open world thing of making a shortcut or reaching an advantageous position by repeatedly jumping against a cliff face until I found geometry wonky enough to allow me to ascend. So there's that.
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Mischief Maker »

Then it's a pass. Thanks for saving me 50 bucks!
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

God Wars: Future Past, The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince, Grand Kingdom.
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Mischief Maker »

Side-scrolling run-n-gun Huntdown recently dropped at GOG and it's getting some pretty glowing reviews, but not from people I necessarily trust.

WHAT'S THE REAL STORY, Shmupsfarm???
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by BIL »

Mischief Maker wrote:Side-scrolling run-n-gun Huntdown recently dropped at GOG and it's getting some pretty glowing reviews, but not from people I necessarily trust.

WHAT'S THE REAL STORY, Shmupsfarm???
Stevens wrote quite a bit about it in the scrolling action thread. Straight from my pending 2020 index file:

Stevens, Huntdown 1
viewtopic.php?p=1412341#p1412341
Huntdown 2
viewtopic.php?p=1412638#p1412638
Huntdown 3
viewtopic.php?p=1413125#p1413125
Huntdown 4
viewtopic.php?p=1413549#p1413549
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Mischief Maker »

Huh. I wonder why the forum search gave me nothing. Thanks for the links!

An Elevator Action Returns clone?!! Fucking SOLD!
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by BIL »

Mischief Maker wrote:An Elevator Action Returns clone?!! Fucking SOLD!
My thoughts exactly. :mrgreen:
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Stevens »

Yeah Huntdown has been popping up in my Steam queue, but I haven't double dipped again just yet. I probably will at some point.

From viewing the trailer it seems they added some things for the Steam release. Hope you enjoy it.
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Re: Review Requests thread

Post by Searchlike »

A few roguelite-related questions:

Risk of Rain
This is really cheap on GOG right now so I should just grab it but still. I rarely play games co-op, will this still be fun? What makes this stand out from other sidescrolling roguelites?

Crypt of the NecroDancer
Not gonna lie here, I think "award winning" is one of the scariest combination of words in the English language. Is this a good game?

FTL vs. Into the Breach
Played both? Which one did you like better?
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