Stacklands

Fun little game but not sure if it's worth the $5 price tag. I enjoyed the 5 hours I spent on it, but I think that's pretty much all I'm going to get.

I suffer from a bit of an excessive tendency to systematize, so the table:


I downgraded The Witcher because of the dull combat system and inflated expectations. I didn't get through Uncharted 4 because my girlfriend took it away from me. Above all, I appreciated the old games. I guess it's because I'm an old fart.
Tables are not supported, too bad. Okay, then with a picture.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Best game that I've ever played and I remember playing Super Mario Bros. & Duck Hunt with the Light Blaster when it came free with every Nintendo in the 1980's.

You could play all day, every day, and find some new thing or new experience every day for years. The size of this game is incomprehensible.

And the whole map is ALIVE! It's incredible that so much was packed into this game. When I finished the game, I realized that I still had about 33% of the map to unlock and made even more new, exciting, and memorable adventures.

It's possible that this could be topped, I suppose if a game could be planet size, even more interactive, and adventures everywhere, but I don't think Rockstar will invest the time and effort needed while GTA 5 Online is still making billions every year.

100% Must Buy. You haven't gamed until you've played Red Dead Redemption 2.

With 100+ games on my backlog, Im not looking to buy any games, but that is a great sale of a review.

Just recently played and beat two really fun Metroidvanias. Islets and Ghost Song.

I'd recommend both if you are into that genre. Ghost Song is currently on Game Pass.

CrossCode 8/10

Solid game, it's just fun to play. I don't care about the story at all so I just mash through that part. Controls are convoluted but generally good. Needs a controller imo. Game does a good job teaching mechanics through gameplay at certain points. Puzzles slightly too easy. Expansion puzzles way better. Combat difficulty 2/5?

Definitely worth firing up.

Was thinking about doing the same for some old games I don't have the time to sit for hours to get through difficult parts, which was often how they increased the playing time back then. If you try out using a walkthrough please post about your experience.

I started Grim Fandango last week and already used the guide for one puzzle. Not bad so far. I re-traced my steps like 3 times, then stopped. Then I tried to figure it out again, came so close in retrospect, then used a guide to get by the one part.

Probably about 15% of the way thru so far.

damn, I had like an exact opposite of your experience - I really loved the story, the world, graphics and music were stunningly good... but the gamplay just did not click with me at all, combat felt boring and grindy and puzzles are not really my thing in general.

I'd like to come back and finish it someday, though, I'm a bit over 20hrs in, so not sure how much more is there left

I do hate the "platforming" for the most part.

Dragon Age Inquisition. Played it a bit when it came out, but got bored, and remember it getting pretty slated by people.
Don't know if they've made changes but really enjoying it this time round.

Making a point to go back and play through some of these games I bought but never really played.

Golf Story, Switch

Started small with this one, a little pixel art RPG with a golf theme. Mechanics are pretty good, if not simplistic, because once you figure them out you could pretty much fast forward to the end of the game and still probably win the final tournament without any new equipment or stats. Does have some charm in the writing. However by the end I was ready for it to be over.

Total play time: ~12 hours
6.5/10

Subnautica Below Zero 8.5/10

Subnautica is a great game and below zero more of the same. Survive, explore, learn, build a base, gather resources, explore deeper and learn more. Building a base asap is one of the bigger factors in enjoying the game imo.

That reminds me I need to go back and finish the original Subnautica. Really underrated game.

Revisiting RDR2 and trying for 100%.

Also going for more low honor this time around.

Vampire Survivors, PC

A pixel-art style indie game, kind of like a mashup between Hades and a tower defense game. Each run you start with some sort of base character and level up and gain actions/passives to enhance your killing ability. Endless throngs of baddies approach you and you maneuver while building your skills into a perfect killing machine.

One big plus of this is it can be played with one hand on WASD or arrow keys. Very simple and accessible.

You don't ever really finish this kind of game unless you have OCD and want to 100% all the achievements. But I got over 20 hours of playtime in about 4-5 days last week and that is abruptly feeling like enough at this point.

Lots of fun for an <$5 indie game, can't complain about that much playtime for that price. Once you get the basics down you're just searching for ideal combos of items and there are definitely some better than others, so eventually each run kind of looks the same.

Total play time: ~20 hours, might log an extra run or two here and there
7/10

I played Vampire Survivors recently too, would have similar comments. I played it on Android where as of now it is still a free download, with shockingly reasonable/completely optional ad support (you get an offer to watch an ad to revive your character one time after you die on a run, most runs are 10m-30m long). Worth checking out.

As g-bebe said, the gameplay is very, very simple - you'll figure it out in no time. It's an endless auto-attack game where more and more monsters come at you, and you get stronger and stronger weapons until you get overwhelmed. There are ~20-25 different weapons and items you randomly find, then level up, on each run. There are a dozen or so unlockable starting characters, each of which has a different starting weapon and usually a starting ability/advantage. There are probably 10 or so unlockable maps to choose from. During the run you gather permanent currency that lets you unlock characters, and buy permanent upgrades to make you stronger all runs going forward.

I played probably 10-15 hours, found it modest but enjoyable, a decent distraction for free. 7/10 feels about right. (Note: I had played Survivor IO on android previously, which is close to exactly the same gameplay, with a little more aggressive monetization. If I hadn't played IO first I probably would have enjoyed Vampire a bit more.) I do think it's a big stretch that I've seen a couple places include it on their short-list for GOTY nominees. It's well made, well balanced, and fun for a while, but it's pretty one-note IME.

Omori - part rpg part storytelling game with multiple endings. Clearly influenced by Earthbound and the rest of the Mother series. It's a pretty dark take on a group of friends that lost touch after a tragic event. Lots of allusion towards suicide and other sensitive issues - if that kind of stuff bothers you DO NOT play the game.

The gameplay is quite basic - fighting (when it occurs) is turn based with an extra gimmick where you can make your team and opponents happy, sad or angry given what's going on in the battle. The intent of the game isn't to be grindy or difficult so the characters level up quickly and once you figure out what's going on it's relatively easy to create a strategy that's relatively unstoppable. Money and items are all over the place so use em if you've got em.

Without giving too much away the game plays much like a story with RPG elements as opposed to an RPG with a good story. The objectives in the game are relatively easy and battles get tedious really quickly. The nice thing is that the areas are set up such that the enemies that exist organically in the game are enough to give you the resources you need to go forward - you don't have to grind level ups or items on your own.

The one thing I wish I did before was to look up the game and follow the tips a couple of reviews gave (ie make sure you open the door) before starting. https://www.thegamer.com/omori-starter-tips/ would have been perfect to read before starting.

After looking quickly it appears my review is pretty much a cookie cutter of https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/switch-eshop/omori and their view. It's a game I'm really glad I played but have zero interest in going back and playing it again. You'll definitely be thinking about it afterwards. 8.5/10.

Star Renegades

I'm stuck at home with a badly twisted ankle, so I decided to catch up on some games that were on my wishlist for a long time. This one was developed by creators of Halcyon 6, which was a freebe on Epic a while ago - I played it for a while and it was fun, but I wasn't really into the management side of things.

Moving on to Star Renegades, it's a tactical RPG roguelike with a heavy focus on combat. The combat system is quite innovative, with a timeline system similiar to, for example, Child of Light, but you have quite a lot of influence on said timeline and are able to "break" the enemies by delaying them so much that they lose a turn. If you act before the enemy, you are guaranteed a critical hit, but can do the same for you. This creates a great dynamic, where you always have to plan your turns splitting attention between offense, defense and delays.

Presentation is excellent, especially the pixel art, you can google the game to see how gorgeous it is. The music is also solid, but I feel like there should have been a bit more of it, after playing for a while I'm a bit of the overworld theme (there is just 1 for the entire game).

The plot/dialogue are fine, though rather minimal due to it being a rogulike, there are some interactions between your characters, but don't expect another Hades. The structure is rather classic, you unlock more characters/weapons/perks throughout the runs, but they are not straight upgrades, so I wouldn't classify it as a roguelite. Runs are pretty long, my first win took me almost 6hrs.

There are also a couple of negatives that I wanted to mention:
- I normally don't care about it much, but the UI is REALLY janky, it's counterintuitive, sometimes takes you to random screens and, worse of all, the battle screen can be unreadable if there are a lot (or very large) opponents
- the balance is not that great, one character is very OP and some other feel a bit useless (though maybe I haven't found the right use for them yet)
- variety is a bit lacking, for example, at the end of each planet (each run is 3 planets + finale) you face the exact same boss every time. The events/places you see on each planet also seem to be almost the same, just in a different order

overall, I'd give the games 7.5/10, very solid experience for fans of the genre, but there are probably some better entry points for newcomers out there

Nioh 2

As I continue to be stuck at home, I also finished Nioh 2, which I started playing a long time ago. I'm gonna keep this rather short - if you liked the first game, you're gonna like this one, and if you disliked it, this will not be for you either.

Nioh 2 basically slightly improves on the first game in every single way. They added some more combat options and they are excellent, especially the burst counter, which is kind of like parry from souls games, but with smaller risk/smaller reward - still, incredibly satisfying to pull off.

Level design and enemy variety are better, though they still remain the weakest elements of the series. Bosses are better and their difficulty is now much smoother, without any pushovers, but also without any significant roadblocks (like ice bitch from N1 for example). Apparently, human bosses are still super easy if you play with the heavy weapon, but I played with light ones (mostly dual swords) and they were all quite challenging.

The plot is a bit more understandable, though I still couldn't really be bothered to really follow it, but at least there were now some characters that I felt some attachment to.

All in all, a good game, but it still inherits most weaknesses of its predecessor, personally I'd give it 8/10.

I love this game so damn much. Enough so that I couldn’t bring myself to do that to Arthur lol

Yoku's Island Express

Yoku's Island Express is a very clever, easily enjoyable game from a (I believe) 3-person dev team with this as the only game to their credit. In YIE you play a cute dung beetle who becomes the postman for a tropical island, who quickly gets tasked with uncovering mysteries of who has attacked the island's protector-god and various other side-quests, whilst delivering the mail.

YIE plays as a metroidvania style game with a charming twist. The island is one large 2-D map, and as you explore you'll find doors, ledges, gates etc. that you can't access at first but need to come back to later after you've unlocked the right power-up. The twist is that the player/beetle pushes along and is tethered to a large white ball, and the island is navigated with pinball-style bumpers that fling the ball (and you) around when the ball is struck. Throughout the various beaches, caves, forests, etc. of the island, you'll often find chambers that play like pinball games, and have familiar elements like spinners, targets, lights, etc. I am not a huge pinball fan, but played occasionally in arcades/restaurants back in the 90s to know the general idea, and I found the execution in this game to be engaging and fun. It was a really unique experience and I appreciated the creativity. I've read some online reviews/comments from players who found the pinball controls frustrating, however IME the developers usually did a nice job being pretty forgiving with the puzzle/pinball designs, and seem to give you the benefit of the doubt and help "count" you as hitting the correct trajectory to send you up the ramp you were aiming for. There are exceptions where messing up requires re-setting yourself which takes 15-45 seconds which can become frustrating after 5+ attempts, but there weren't too many for me.

The game has bright-colored, attractive art. The characters are well-drawn, however I'd say the story and dialog is somewhat forgettable. There is no health and no way to die, making for a rather relaxing experience.

My biggest gripe is there's fairly limited fast-travel options, which means you do a good bit of walking from one spot to another. During the first 2/3 of the game I usually would discover a little nook or secret in-between point A and B, and the game encourages you to go ahead and stop what you're doing to explore this new thing that interests you - there's no timer for any quest, and you can always go whatever way you please. But towards the end of the game I found myself less excited to chug down to all parts of the island. I finished with a 75% completion counter, and I don't feel particularly compelled to go try to 100% everything (I think I'll go watch a youtube video for one or two of the bigger end-game side-quests).

It's a rather short game, I estimate I put 8-10 hours in. Standard price on the PS store is still at $20 5-years after release, but it used to go on sale on PSN fairly regularly for $5 (though I looked and it looks like it hasn't been on sale for ~6 months). For $5 it's absolutely a strong recommendation from me if you like metroidvanias and/or pinball. At $20 it's a little rich for the game being as short as it is, but if money isn't a big concern it's a good experience that obviously had a lot of care go into it, and the cash is going to the 3 guys who made the game, not EA or whatever.

8/10

Celeste (2018), Nintendo Switch

I bought this game on sale (I think? maybe not) all the way back in 2019, and never played it until now. Actually I'm surprised it was as recent as a 2018 release, in my mind I thought it was more like 2015 or 2016.

Anyways, Celeste is a 2D platformer where your character jumps, dashes, and climbs off obstacles and the environment and progresses through a bunch of levels. While I've never actually played these and only seen them on Twitch streams, gameplay would be similar to things like Jump King and Super Meat Boy? Might be totally off on that. Thematically the levels are different stages of climbing a mountain, which is the characters goal to improve her self esteem and conquer her anxiety by climbing. It's a 2D pixel art style of animation with some nice charm, reminded me of some vintage platformer games.

Games like this with set stages almost immediately make me want to finish ASAP out of obligation or something, so there are times when playing that it can feel like a chore versus playing for enjoyment. That's not to say Celeste is a bad game, but in working through game backlog I'm mainly just interesting in "beating" the game so a lot of the extras like B-Sides, C-Sides, and the epilogue in the core I didn't bother with. It's not a game I want to go back to and grind for hours.

Having said all that, the gameplay is sharp and simple. I appreciate that they keep the base kit of moves on Madeline very simple, and either let the environment and power-ups dictate the level design. Simplicity breeds better controls IMO. The story I kind of blasted through, didn't do too much for me. I would also say the game is not particularly difficult, but for this style of game that made me happy. I would have been much more likely to quit if the level difficulty got insane, but I guess that is what the extra content is for.

Overall glad I played it but I am a bit surprised it was lauded so heavily. I have preferred a bunch of other indies over this in the last 10 years.

Total play time: I think my in-game stats were about 8.5 hours, without touching any of the additional content
7.5/10

To me as someone who loves challenging games, the extras are what pushed it over the top.

All the extra levels probably took me as many as 300-400 attempts to actually beat, but the satisfaction of finally getting there was so great.

Yeah, I can totally see that. For whatever reason it just did not scratch that completionist itch for me, whereas more RPG-esque games like Bastion or Hades really made me want to finish all content.