Recent reviews by Hsanrb

Short Version: Do you like Creeper World 2's subterranean gameplay and wished instead of building infinite towers slowly pushing through the creep... you have to control a fleet of ships? Combined with an upbeat and catchy (I'm slowly going insane) edm and horray you have Creeper World IXE. People say its similar to Particle Fleet but since I haven't played it I cannot judge... depsite me for actually NOT knowing about every game from this studio.

Story: You are a commander (I think you are a commander in every game so I need to copy + paste these four words) combatting the IXE who are using creep to destroy worlds. You, and a scientist scour the universe to put an end to the IXE while discovering technologies off the worlds to benefit your chances. This is a lore appropriate, despite me not keeping track of years/generations/decades/pre timelines of this franchise. 5/10 They've used this several times, and its generic with layers.

Gameplay: Instead of building towers, you control ships and have to arrange and configure the fleet to fight back the creep. You have a finite amount of ships (free build was added) and I personally find the fact that energy is useless after you build everything hilarious. This is less economical planning and more "how much creep can your fleet hold off and how wide of a well can you hold it off in" discussion. The new mechanic is mixing of terrain/minerals to make things like acid which eats metalics, Creeper eater which acts like a sponge against Creep, and you can make things go boom. Each ship is a standard CW tower... some of the custom level has things you never see so maybe things were removed from the campaign??? There aren't any "race against the clock" but you can definitely make strategic errors and restart levels. 8.75/10

The physics of calculating everything has made my Ryzen 3600 cry... going as low as 3 fps when the physics of the creep, the anticreep, the destruction of the world, and explosions all going at once. This is probably more CPU heavy on the Creeper World franchise, but default speed manages for the most part... its your 1.5 and 2x I'm worried about. Story missions work fine, custom levels may buckle at the thought of you wanting to go faster... so keep this in mind.

Graphics and Sound: I actually find some of the ships really hard to decipher, I wish (or maybe I missed it) a scroll between so when I need a digger or a dumper I can find one instead of clicking everything. You do get a bright neon option to amplify creep by depth, but its either dim or the sun on my monitor but Blue! Sound is 4 songs of high tempo generic EDM. Great for the gameplay, but the levels shows a 5th or 6th would have been nice to not loop the OST several times each world... to get the same song to start the next world is a chuckle. 7/10

Not for everyone, and is a stark contrast to games with Creeper World in the title. Free build will enable those who want infinite towers to be happy, but the strategic creativity will be lost. 8/10... not the greatest Creeper World game, but when the community gets creative can this be a 10/10 classic.

Similar to Creeper World 1, High tempo electronic combat music... building and stopping the creep from underground. I guess I have to like it.

Graphics: Similar tileset and design to Creeper World 1. You can parse this game if you can parse Creeper World 1, but if you have any color problems telling blue/grey/white apart you are going to struggle with creep vs anti-creep.

Gameplay: Imagine taking the concepts of Creeper World 1, making it subterranean and instead of having the area around your ship gather energy it provides the light that powers the buildings around it. Upgrades have been changed from something you collect on the map to a resource you can divert energy to create (or find.) YOU CAN TURN OFF THE AIR RAID SIREN... THANK THE HEAVENS SOMEONE WAS SMART! Final mission has a jump scare, I hate you for having this stupid forced explosion.

Story: You play a commander who has a dispute with the alliance about the truth being given to a panel. The admiral keeps you busy sending you to planets while they fend off invading forces at home. You have to jump around the galaxy (without a map because tiled story missions are in and a galaxy map is out :( ) and save the universe. Yeah its about as bland as the first, but you get pictures of the characters.

I will give props, THE MUSIC IS GOOD. When did the development team go clubbing, because the DJ was rad and a serious inspiration to overstay a few of the levels.

The worst part about this is there are several "Race to the rescue" missions that have a timer but because of the light system you may not know unless you catch where the emitters are and where the cracked dirt is.

With the release of Creeper World IXE, I figured I'd take the time to play through the series. Creeper World is a series in which you play a commander and you have to fend off the creep from flooding the world and destroying Odin city (Your base.) Unlike standard Tower Defense in which waves come down a lane/path, Creeper World's Creep is essentially water. That means it drips from higher elevations to low, it pools up and has depth, and has the potential to travel backwards by attacking the source rather than its current point.

Story is simplistic, not enough for me to care but its there to just explain why you are going from planet to planet. You save a few survivors, you unlock new tech... standard "As you play more, you get more cool toys." formula. Graphics are simplistic, sound design is basic and I recognize a few "public domain" tracks.

8/10 Game play shines depth, the rest of the game is 6/10 that works but all it needs to do. Haven't tried "Double down" mode, but I've spoiled the hard difficulty you get told at the end of special operations. Wonder if it got tested... they didn't put any Steam Achievements for it so I'm going to say it did.

Now to CW2...

I think there is an audience for people who want more precise information on their FPS mechanics, but as someone who only plays a few titles I could just play those particular titles and improve on those instead. Product could be lighter and a filter on aimlabs approved exercises instead of the bloat of peoples suggestions might make it hard to find the drills you think will help you.

After 24 hours, I'm going to put a negative review and TLDR my first thoughts.

1) The musical score is really good and the graphical pseudo 2d-3d remake keeps the sprites familiar to those who have played other versions of DQ3. Important characters get dialog voiced... but not everything is voiced (This is English VA's btw) so its this half and half experience. They also used similar SFX so people who are fans of the franchise can play combat without reading. Dodges/crits/heals/buffs all have that nostalgic quality to them.

2) The default text speed might be ok in other languages... but I had to crank the entire game on ultra fast because the experience on defaults is really bad. Some of these settings must be done OUTSIDE OF COMBAT because the in combat experience is sleek but missing a few things. There is also no auto text advance for voiced conversations like in DQM:DP which seems weird not to include since its become something many SQEX titles have implemented in voiced games.

3) The UI is simplistic and very similar to DQXI... but that also means buffs and debuffs only appear when you are issuing commands and not the rest of the play... I believe this is inline with the SFC version... but even sleep/poison/buff/debuff indicators are helpful for a battle UI that only shows your characters for outside encounters (why is this even a thing?)

4) You can change characters hair style (4 types) and colors (18?) along with male/female variants, but PC version (1.1.0.0) currently has half the voice options as male and the other half as female regardless of what gender you selected during creation.

While the game is a semi-faithful remake, the changes aren't drastic enough to warrant a full game price tag on its own. Fans of the franchise will enjoy it, people who are nostalgic for a rerelease of Dragon Quest titles as opposed to SQEX's Final Fandom that has gotten their spotlight over the years are going to enjoy it... but it feels like a 90's-2000's RPG and it shows. Square Enix should have Q&A'd this experience a bit more before release... but the game works out of the box and I'll enjoy a playthrough... though I'm not convinced its good enough to do a second "Draconian Quest" option. DQXI had lots of customization in the Draconian options for the development of that game, but DQIIIH2D is just "Less gold/xp and tinkering resistance values against the player." I'm not even sure this option will have any merit for challenges.

Wait for a small sale, wait for an update, but I wouldn't do full price in its current state unless you are a fan.

Didn't hear about it until it hit the social media waves, great game but I don't expect everyone to be a fan of all 50 games.

Story: You get a collection of games from a fictious UFOSoft company that starts from its "First game" through 50 games that span a decade. Starts from a difficult barebones exploration game all the way to strategy games, full fledged RPG's, action games, racing games... all playable on the "LX console system." Even the historic "Don't put your name in games" trope is throughout as people use aliases.

Gameplay: So you get 50 games, and each game has two levels of completion. One is the "Beat the game" gold trophy and then you get a cherry "Challenge" clear. Ranging from speed runs, score runs, deathless runs, finding things that require a level of finesse and expertise to achieve. The games in the collection run the gauntlet of every genre, and different levels of depth of some of those genres. Some of the games are really good, some of the games are ok, and some you are going to hate and wish it didn't exist. Controls are simplistic with dpad and 2 buttons and some controllers will accept stick VS dpad if you prefer that.

Graphics: Its the 80's era stuff, not for everyone but definitely fits the theme of the game. As you play games in "chronological" order you start to go from base sprites to some detailed shading and things as the games get more advanced in sophistication but you aren't leaving a late 8/16 bit era vibe.

9/10, but some of the gems outweigh some of the turds if you are willing to try all the games.

This is a day 1 review of DQM, Depth of content is not going to appear here but TLDR: This is closer to a modern DQM than a classic, but the same formula of the game while bringing mechanics, monsters, abilities up to date since DQM:J2. Simple story, depth of monster breeding, the formula that has always been a shadow to the casual Pokemon games is still here... but that depth is also the challenge of monster theory, what strengths/weaknesses those theories have, and the eventual "Hacked" monsters that plague any form of "Online" combat with "Was it a build? or was it just pure stats that are impossible..." To the day 1 review...

Story: You are the Dark Prince (its in the title, not a spoiler) born to a demon father and a human mother. You protect your mother while living on the outskirts of town not to show your demon side to the humans. Monsters attack family who stood up for you and you use the demon powers to save their family, while furthering your exile upon its discovery. Standing up to father to make things right, he curses you to never lay a hand on monsters again... you then fit in with a human town blah blah get taught to be a monster wrangler when the townsfolk cannot keep protecting you. DQM stories are never full of depth, they just facilitate the path to go from weak to unfathomable power with various situations, tournaments, that come to a conclusion of its simplicity.

Graphics: Not mind blowing, but is similar to what Dragon Quest has done for the past few versions. On par with DQXI, you get lots of options for wide screen formats (I think 21:9 is here but I don't have those dimensions memorized, if 3360 is this, Yes I guess?) and frame rate options but the actual customization of the graphics is just low/medium/high. Worlds have seasons with effects, but most of the maps you can reach in the first day aren't massively changing. It fits the theme, doesn't overreach that theme.

Music: Nod to classic titles, doesn't push the Dragon Quest envelope. No ground breaking music tunes, but you will go "Its from Dragon Quest (number) and I like it" or "What game was this from..." Same with the sound design, hits/crits/dodges/effects all sound nostalgic so you don't need to see when things land/miss.

Gameplay: I left this to last because while the "story content" is bland and generic, the depth of DQM games is the ways you can raise/synthesize your party to maximize trait lines to expand (or hide) weaknesses of your party. Pokemon has skills through levels and the hidden IV(?) system for stats, Dragon Quest Monsters allows you to synthesize the same monsters over and over to reach their "Base cap" and then you get trait lines for skills and abilities. The short version is monsters start with stats and characteristics, like thorns deal damage when hit by physical attacks, immunities for status effects, that are learned as they level. At certain thresholds you get trait points that can go into various lines like if you want a particular magic line you can synth a monster with that line to raise it up. Want a pure brawler with lots of Atk/Def, find monsters with the Atk/Def traits to synth to your monster. This has alot of depth for those who are bored of Pokemon, but it also means that it promotes specializations over the umbrella builds. Everytime you synth all trait lines lose 50% of the points, so you end up trying to go through one line fully instead of 3 average lines.

The breeding system is the best of the genre, but it also means if you take this system online you don't know if the opponent is doing a particular build, hacking pure stats, or if they decide to make the healslime NOT actually a healer. Even with closed off Nintendo systems in the past, unless they implement a verified checker for the monsters you fight, the top of the ladders in these games tend to go to hacked illegal teams. I have not done any online battling, but I will not ignore that the fact if they claim to be using other players teams this door isn't locked tight.


I'm not blown away by this game, its a 7/10 game at this point... but if its your first Dragon Quest Monsters game you might be turned off by simplistic stories or the insane depth finding a perfect team can provide. If you are a long time Dragon Quest Monsters fan, you know exactly what you signed up for... no surprises or special impacts in this experience. If you are exhausted by Pokemon, this might fit what you are looking for... but if you only want a single player experience you will find something to enjoy... but you aren't going to convince other people to try this franchise. There is a reason DQM has been Pokemons shadow for decades, and outside of not being locked to a Nintendo system is NOT going to leave that shadow unless Pokemon decides to stop making games.

So Talos Principle 2 has DLC, I'm about to start the third part but you don't really have to finish to see how the process of the DLC went. I'm going to assume you have finished (preferably 100%) TP2 for the purposes of talking about any lore and how they are related into what you are doing and why. I will talk broadly about how lore is told, and then go into each of the 3 parts with more specifics in terms of lore/gameplay and have the developers learned anything?

TLDR: Great DLC, fixed some of the core issue complaints, left lacking by unique puzzle design for its “Challenging” content. IF you want a diversity of challenge, TP2 still does not have it. The end of Isle of the Blessed is my favorite part, and Croteam should have contacted a mod team to do more creative puzzles for In to the Abyss, because all the good puzzle designers didn’t show up for this DLC. I was having an 8.5/10 time until I started In to the Abyss, and now I have to give this a 6/10 and a pass. If you want more detail into particular DLC, read ahead.

Croteam has learned NOT to dump hours of lore before puzzles, you get between 60-2m explaining why you are about to do what you do and then you are free to engage or disengage with the lore. No 40m intros, no riding a subway car listening to philosophy. The philosophy discussion is still there, but like the original you can just not engage with the terminals or NPC's and just go puzzling. Time to go into each expansion into specifics, assuming you have at least read the game description I will probably not go into real depth, they have kind of done it already.

Orpheus Ascending- This is essentially 20 more LASER puzzles... and it feels like another island of the main game. You learn a mechanic, then do it a bunch of times until you hate the mechanic... It is exaggerated, but the theory does get used in the rest of the DLC so I guess its a good refresher course. Lore is told through Terminals ala Talos Principle 1, you get 1-2 lines for each puzzle solve but nothing extreme. Challenge puzzles take those lessons and don't really challenge you but they aren't boring. Probably a 7/10.

Isle of the Blessed- This is essentially "Yaqut does puzzles" which was a repeated punch line through out the first game so now you play Yaqut and Yaqut learns to be excited about puzzles. Also tends to show which of the main game endings are canon, so I guess the dozen endings in the game I didn't see was Canon and the one I did wasn't? Ok I guess. Lore is told through NPC dialog, recordings on the beach by the designer of the island. The puzzles are not difficult UNLESS you haven't played TP2 recently to remember some new mechanics reused. All your favorite extras are back, like chase the sparkly path to its source and find a spot on the island to push pillars to activate a shrine. Tetramino bridge is back, no 3d Tetramino bridges like in the Mega structure. End was tedious and I hope you like the mind bending wall walking adventure... it gets its own puzzle :( Still solid 8/10

In to the Abyss – I had high hopes for this when it says “Challenging” content, but I’m extremely disappointed not by the difficulty, but Croteam demonstrates no lack of puzzle diversity. The lore essentially takes place during the main story into what happened to Byron after *redacted for TP2 spoilers* and is told from Byrons perspective. You get 24 new puzzles to solve, but when you break it down… 75% of these puzzles are just Laser (sometimes with RGB) puzzles. They show off so much potential tech with moving planets and all sorts of cool animations and events… and then use ZERO of it for this portion of the game. There are occasional moments where you get duplicate puzzles (8 & 10 are the same puzzle except an RGB is switched for a color reversal, you have puzzles taken from Base TP1 but instead of a swapping door you now have a moving gate, and then this puzzle gets repeated but with the new green color… etc.) You can end the campaign after 8, with a potential extra for solving all 24, but you’ll have felt like you have done them all before you even start your 12th. The music for this is my favorite from TP2, but I’m just disappointed that there wasn’t much creativity with these puzzles. I want to give this higher, but I’m pretty solid on my 4/10… the lore is great and the recordings show the struggle they wanted to tell, but I’m pretty 0/10 on how boring the puzzles felt.

I'm on the fence about whether to review this so soon, or to finish the game when some of my biggest issues are things that happen early on that focus on the power users who have this genre so ingrained in their blood that the casual experience is kind of lacking. Despite only ten hours, and only scraping the tip of the iceberg in this "Path of Exile meets Chrono Trigger" time traveling expedition I think I have to caution this isn't for everyone. While the online servers are 50/50, you do not need to play online so people who hate interaction in any form are going to fit just fine with this ARPG experience.

Story: The story is interesting, but nothing special. Events shape the world, you get these shards of the epoch... you drift to the end of the world and build an epoch to go back in time and change the course of history. I mean you hit M and see your map in 4 periods of time... I figured all this out in 5m, I don't need to have the game tell you any of this. "I never looked at my map..." How do you even play ARPG's?

Gameplay: If you haven't played an ARPG since Diablo 2, Last Epoch is essentially a compilation of the last 20 years of developments in ARPGs. 5 classes, each class has 1 of 3 specializations. You get the great, and you get the bad. You can respec easily except your chosen elite specialization and you can focus on particular skills to complement a build. You can find items with basic stats, and then you can craft additional stats or take a chance to remove affixes by shattering an item to put onto something you already own. This is pretty much a simpler Path of Exile item/skill system. No gems or funky bloat here, just "what you see is what you get" You can focus on up to 5 skills to boost their effectiveness, sometimes with tradeoffs and some are just improvements. All is good, except the maps (even in offline mode) seem to love respawning so if you go "My inventory is full, I need to sell" in the wrong spot, enjoy reclearing an entire map to get where you really wanted to be.

Sound and Graphics: Game looks good on my 1650 Super and 3600. I get a steady 100FPS except the first skill usages of a session seem to have an initial spike. Characters change armor as you get new equipment, but those of you wanting "create a character" will not get that here. Music is great, but even boosted to 100% is still on the quiet side of default settings. I want to buy the soundtrack, but I can't even hear it in game so I'm not going to buy it... sorry.

TLDR: So I think if you haven't played an ARPG in 20 years, this is a good window into what you missed. IF you hate ARPG's, skip this game. IF you want a simplified Path of Exile, buy this game. I'm not going to comment on online servers outside of the fact this is week one of the game, and when you underestimate demand you get issues that will be worked out... so the fact the entire game can be played OFFLINE (and most of you will probably not be playing with friends anyways, you love spreadsheets and bigger numbers means bigger better damage.) means that the game can be reviewed as is. The game is complex, but nothing makes you scratch your head... except Negative mana... what the heck is negative mana? The game guide has nothing about negative mana... so I give this game negative mana out of a good time? I mean 7.2/10, its not a bad game... but it caters to one audience really well and misses a chance to cater to a casual audience.

I'm only ~80% of the content through the game, and I'm going to write a glowing review but I will put the big disclaimer at the top of the review.

THIS IS A PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSION WITH A PUZZLE GAME ATTACHED, NOT A PUZZLE GAME THAT DISCUSSES PHILOSOPHY. IF YOU DO NOT WANT THIS DISCUSSION, I WOULD AVOID THIS GAME

Plot: You start of undergoing a simulation (puzzles similar to Talos Principle 1) before being woken up in a lab. You find out you are the 1,000 entity created and that New Jerusalem has achieved its goal and celebrate this momentous occasion. The mayor gives a speech, and an entity warns about an island and an emergency meeting begins on to embark on the expedition. You are free to explore the city before joining the expedition. Congratulations your Talos Principle 2 experience begins.

Gameplay: The gameplay has a more structured approach compared to the first game. In the original, as long as you made enough progress you can do levels at your leisure provided the tools are unlocked. In Talos 2, you do not unlock tools so if you can get to an area you can do an area. Each "zone" has 8 puzzles, 2 hidden puzzles, a challenge puzzle, a plot point in the lab, and 2 star "puzzles" each zone is massive to explore with lots of secrets, and the world itself has a significant upgrade similar to a Myst or Riven title. You complete enough puzzles, open up a tower and expand what you can do, while having your fellow explorers (and the islands many mysteries) have a philosophical discussion. This discussion is very heavy, and regardless of your position on faith, science, mankind, almost anything you will be critiqued and asked to defend it.

Graphics and Sound: The world (even at 1080p low) is a significant upgrade from the original game. The game runs fine on my (3600 / 1650 Super) on the low preset, and if the game looks even twice as good as my settings do you will be amazed. Musical score has also gotten an uplift with a more orchestral approach with small touches to the original soundtrack. You no longer just get 1 song per zone, so if small loops are you jam, well you get longer loops with a beautiful atmospherically connectivity between the various songs. Various fauna are roaming the world, and I would be surprised if you didn't stop to look more than play on a few occasions.

Well its a puzzle games so lets talk about the puzzles, each "lab" hints at future new puzzle mechanics... and the game is easier, because its almost "New mechanic, now lets complicate the mechanic" to eventually be wrapped into future challenges. Your colored connectors can now be combined into new colors, you can now drill temporary holes into walls... I'm only going to touch the basics because the game makes the mechanics of discovery more powerful, than the discovery of mechanics. I just feel disappointed that you never really get challenged by the base line puzzles as much as a World 3 puzzle in Talos Principle 1 was. Some mechanics make an appearance, and feel forgotten, others make an appearance and show up a few additional times. The puzzles themselves aren't terrible, and you never really need to look anything up because they are paced properly by their number. Star "puzzles" are less puzzly and more environmental exploration with hints on what you need to find, connect, or just outright manipulate.

If you want a sequel to Talos Principle 2, you will love everything this game offers. IF you wanted a discussionless narrative and just want the puzzles... SKIP TALOS PRINCIPLE 2. You can skip the dialogue, and you can skip most of the terminals text, but this game goes from an overwhelming positive review to just "your average puzzle game" if you cut all the philosophy out. I have played Talos Principle 1 twice... when you soak in all the lore the game is one of the best puzzle games out there... but if you skip all the lore the puzzles are strong enough to play, but not strong enough to remember. This has not changed and your view of the game is pretty much those two perspectives. I have tried to not discuss the depth of this game, because Talos Principle 2 is like a book club. Once everyones played the game the discussions are the strongest point with how everyone played and understands the depth of the game. Until you've done that... you get alot to digest and "did you find this, did you find that..." around the world.

Philosophical discussion with a puzzle game. 91/100

A puzzle game you want to play. 73/100

I don't want to even think about the discussion because it ruins my experience? Skip/100 No seriously, don't bother if even any philosophy in the story that makes connections to 2023 Earth bother you. This is a time capsule you will replay and go "Every perspective got accounted for, and nobody has a wrong answer.