Recent reviews by Sfro

TL;DR: A very simple, well designed arena shooter that packs nice features with basically no drawbacks. Short, but definitely worth the price, especially on sale.

Time to complete ~3hrs
Time to 100% ~5hrs
Difficulty: [■■□□□] - Mild
Genre: FPS, Arena Shooter

This game really shows that you just need a clear design and simple mechanics to make something entertaining, it doesn't need any gimmicks or over the top features

• The game is very straightforward, everything is clear and the mechanics come together very quickly.
  
• The wave mechanic and endless mode keep things entertaining and fast paced
  
• The couple big enemies/bosses are fun and pose a small challenge

• Everything is very clear and serves a purpose that adds fun and diversity to the experience
  
• Very minimalistic, nothing useless
  
• The little touch of exploration once you finish the game is the cherry on top to make it rewarding

• Super minimalistic, but still pleasant to the eye, feels whole and complete

TL;DR at the end

Time to complete ~12hrs
Time to 100% Not there yet, hard to tell
Difficulty: [■■□□□] - Mild
Audience: Softcore | Casual - ■□□□□ - Hardcore
Genre: Real Time Strategy

A very pure RTS, of incredible simplicity and with no superfluous content.
Everything makes sense, and thus is very easy to understand. In short, the game revolves almost entirely on the strategy of the player, where no shady trick, perk, or special statistics give the meta-game.

•Unfortunately it is not completely devoid of unfairness (which is something hard to achieve). Currently the available campaigns can, and will get frustrating very fast, because often times the enemy you are confronted with happens to overpower you on every level, and has the means to easily make your current objective fail without you being able to do much about it. This is essentially just artificial difficulty though, and is not due to the mechanics of the game per se, but to poor level design.
•The co-op campaign is incredibly unbalanced, and feels like it had very little work put into it.
NB: This regards only the campaigns, the rest of the game is not affected by this

• The basics are very simple to understand and master. The game is very straightforward, but you are not forced to follow the same steps every time (or punished by trying to do the opposite).
  
• You are given complete freedom. The game provides you with everything very fast, and the only restriction system exists just to avoid being unbalanced, yet still you have all the room to do whatever pleases you
  
• Due to the fact that everything is so obvious, and that you are free to do what you feel is best, the game relies entirely on your strategies, and your ability to counter your enemy's

• Everything flows very smoothly, every event leads to another without any hindrance.
  
• The building mechanics are well done and allow you to focus on the type of production you want, easily
  
• Units are fairly easy to control and act pretty smartly, making both commanding huge armies and few units very easy and fun

• The voxel art is very pleasant and nicely done, not a sorry excuse for a lack of graphical skills. The units and buildings are visually varied enough to make it very easy to get a good idea of what is going on, with a single glance.
  
• Everything breaks, collapses and/or explodes, sooo satisfying
  
• The music tracks are pretty cool, and the epic note will get you hyped to raze your enemy's camp

• Multiplayer is very easy to use and configure, and is easy to play around with to make interesting custom matches.
  
• The game has a very easy to use map Workshop, which allows for a ton of replayability and multiplayer fun, albeit the map editor is hard to use properly

TL;DR: A very easy to understand, very well designed RTS that gives you a lot of room for your strategy ideas without getting into a bad power balance between the various options available. All that with neat graphics, destructible terrain, and epic music

TL;DR at the end

Time to complete 12hrs+, heavily depends on your difficulty setting
Time to 100% less than 18hrs
Difficulty: [■□□□□] to [■■■□□] - Easy to Mildly Challenging
Audience: Casual - ■□□□□ - Hardcore
Genre: RTS, TD

Very nicely executed gameplay, with a lot of freedom to play around and counter smartly designed hurdles. The music and visuals are pretty good and blend well with the idea of the game, which has very few to no bad points.

since currently some of the last levels are incredibly frustrating and not fun to play, as they don't rely on player skill, but most players probably won't even get there, and this issue is most likely going to be fixed in not so long, so this is not a very big deal

• All the good parts of the Tower Defense genre's game mechanics, and with a lot more liberty of playstyle
  
• You can easily adapt the difficulty to your liking: the game offers 3 difficulty settings which have almost no impact on your progression into the game, and the various amount of upgrades allow you to efficiently dampen the difficulty of any level to your liking

Unfolds very nicely, it's pleasant to take in hand and master, not too hard to get used to, and most importantly it is really nice to play and go back to, to the point where it's almost addicting.

• The various aspects of the game blend together very smoothly. You can focus on what you are most proficient with, or use every asset available to you, since one playstyle is not more efficient than the other. Furthermore, the amount of options available to you is big enough that you can always find something you are comfortable with
  
• You can freely switch in-between levels, and replay any level on any difficulty. Levels are very easy to unlock (all you have to do is complete others), and any unlocked level can be played at any time. The difference in difficulty between levels is small enough that you are able to successfully complete ahead later levels with just a bit of skillful play

Varied levels, containing lots of smartly crafted maps. The layout of each map is very different, and each of them asks for a particular playstyle, adding a lot of diversity to the gameplay.

• The map design is a lot richer than a regular TD game's, because each map instead of just having a few unblockable paths, has multiple path routes, some of which can be blocked, and each can have a different way of being controlled. That means, unlike other TD games, you can just use countermeasures for every path instead of placing towers alongside it
  
• On top of that, the different pathways of each map are surrounded by various elements you can interact with. Because of the way the maps are designed, each level unveils its available strategies like a clever puzzle that you have to understand in order to be efficient

As said briefly above, the game gives you a lot of freedom of choice, and you can progress in the way you want

• Various reward mechanics are available to make playing and replaying levels serve your interests and strategies
  
• Very interesting upgrade system, where instead of just getting better gear than the previous, upgrades have unique features which means that sometimes just buying bigger is not better, and gives you an opportunity to choose what you are most comfortable with

TL;DR: Neat game with clever gameplay, that blends genres very well and lets the player choose their own playstyle

TL;DR at the end for the lazies

Time to complete 6hrs
Time to 100% 25hrs+ (farming and luck involved)
Difficulty: [■■□□□] - Pleasant
Audience Casual - ■■□□□ - Hardcore
Genre: Rogue-Lite, Action Platformer

This game is one full of very varied content to discover and master, and yet is still very straightforward and pleasant to explore. The wide array of playstyle options make it really interesting to test out things, and keeps you captivated

Since it is still in its earlier development stages, the game still presents a few balancing issues and even some bugs and crashes, but the developer is very attentive to feedback and works really hard to counter those issues, so it is to be expected that this game will have none of those in the near future, hence I won't go into much detail about them here
In short this is a game full of potential that is only held back by time


As stated above, the asset of this game is the large range of content it offers in varied forms, and those ideas work well towards the fun of it, and its replayability

Every level contains a kind of mini-universe of its own, all of which you can choose to interact with, or not
You are free to do whatever you want through it (including blowing everything up), but taking on a challenge will always be rewarded

• The game is composed of a set of 5 levels, each containing the same fundamental gameplay assets, and of which the structure is procedurally generated. The main objective of each level is to get to the bottom of it, defeat the boss present there, and proceed to a portal
  
• Each level offers a specific Miniboss, Boss and a different population of mobs, most of which don't reappear in other levels. On top of that, at the start of each level you are assigned a random secondary objective (chosen between 5 different tasks), which is entirely optional
  
• Every Miniboss and Boss has a different mechanic and attack pattern, and offers a good scaling mob>miniboss>boss in terms of difficulty
  
• Every level contains a terminal that you can activate to gather "intel" for the sake of doing it, or the sake of getting a free upgrade upon completion

The game offers various ways to proceed to the end of it, all of which can be used independently or in synergy

• As said previously, you can blow everything up, by using bombs which are given to you at the beginning, can be found naturally in a level of bought with components(which is a currency obtained by looting, killing and rewards, and only lasts for the playthrough)
  
• You can use the environment to your advantage, as violent impacts hurt everything in the game other than flying entities
  
• A variety of weapons is available through drops and looting, and with stats generated randomly between certain brackets. On top of that weapons are customizable with mods to add functionalities to them or improve their existing stats
  
• Various upgrades can be bought during a playthrough to work in several creative ways to kill your foes, and they can all combine together
  
• Drones that follow you and static turrets with a limited lifetime can be bought with xolyrium(a rare currency that lasts through all playthroughs unless consumed)

You are offered a decent amount of characters to unlock and choose from, and upgrades to improve your character, which further adds to the freedom of choice the game offers

• Characters (AIs) can be unlocked by completing different objectives, which you are rarely, vaguely told about during mission briefs. Every character has different perks, restrictions and starting equipment, which allows for a few very different playstyles
  
• During a playthrough, you can get upgrades through shrines or terminals, or by buying them in a Distro machine(a sort of store), with components. Those upgrades vanish once you die or win the game, but they offer very different kind of perks to build your own playstyle
  
• Permanent upgrades can be bought with xolyrium to improve the performance of your character, whichever you pick, or add a few mechanics (like attacking through shield)

• The game offers a pretty nice soundtrack (which you can buy on the store page as DLC)
  
• There is an overall background story of course, but each AI has its own story, and 2 different endings depending on how you play it
  
• The interface offers you descriptions of the AIs, story, and a detail of your stats and best playthrough

TL;DR The varied types of content available keep the game entertaining throughout it and give you a very large freedom, which makes it very pleasant. The music and interfaces really contribute to the atmosphere of it, and the story adds even another layer of stuff to get into

TL;DR at the end

Time to complete ~20hrs
Time to 100% ~30hrs
Difficulty: [■■□□□] to [■■■□□] - Pleasant, Mildy Challenging
Audience Casual - ■□□□□ - Hardcore
Genre: Brawler, Adventure

In this wonderful piece of an indie game, the awesome game design, together with the great aesthetics and soundtrack, make for a really unique experience (especially on PC), and quite an enjoyable one at that.
The only bad point of this gem is that it doesn't feature Online Multiplayer

Very solid and straightforward, 0 complaints
You essentially have complete control over your playstyle, provided you have the parts you want

• Megabyte Punch is essentially a brawler, but with a huge twist:
  Instead of picking a class or a character, you pick abilities and/or statistics, and all the game essentially turns around that.
  
• You can collect robot parts, either by looting them on enemies, buying (with bits earned by destroying foes or parts), finding or earning them through a tournament.
  
• The whole game is linear and subdivided in 6 main worlds + a few challenge worlds, which can all be revisited at almost any time
  
• There are 150 different parts, with 35 different attributes (30 completely different abilities and 5 types of stat upgrades)
  
• You get 4 slots to attribute your abilities to (which are bound to different move combinations), and you choose what ability you bind where, without affecting the ability's effect

• Super easy to take in hand, even for a complete noob to brawlers like me
  
• The great variety of enemies and the amount of possible combinations of abilities give it great replayability
  
• Easy to play, hard to master
  
• Super satisfying, everything either blows up, gets torn to pieces, or disappears in oblivion once you defeat it
  
• Even in 5v1 and Bossfights the game still doesn't feel too hard because you always have way to take control of the playground and/or enemy-ies
  
• Challenge Rooms and Tournament mode offer much more challenging gameplay, and a hell lot of replayability

• Sick tracks[runesound.bandcamp.com], very pleasant to listen to, varied and they all go very well with the game, they are so good they will get you pumped up on their own
  
• Neat 2.5D graphical style, very stylized and pleasant to look at, even during intense fights, and after 4 straight hours of gameplay

TL;DR
Neat unique game, packed with great gameplay, challenge, and really nice to play. No downsides other than having no multiplayer.
So good it got me happily spending 5 hours on guides

TL;DR: A neat relaxing game that's easy to get into with a really cool ambiance to it, definitely worth the money if you just want to sit back and have a good time for a while

Time to complete ~10hrs
Time to 100% ~22hrs
Difficulty: [■■□□□] - Pleasant
Audience Casual - □□□□□ - Hardcore
Genre: Exploration, Relaxing

Cosmochoria is a very intriguing exploration game with a great atmosphere to it

• Straightforward gameplay, very easy to get into, yet with multiple layers of complexity and depth to keep it interesting
  
  • A decent amount of upgrades and artifacts allow you to upgrade/evolve your playstyle into what you want it to be
    
  • The enemy's patterns, albeit quite easy to counter, are neither too easy nor too hard to play against
    
  • Lots of interactions available with the universe, and a couple quests to make it more interesting
• Interesting game philosophy, easy to understand and think about
  
  • The artwork is adorable, a real eye-candy
    
  • The soundtrack is pretty sweet and really convinces your nerves into getting into the atmosphere of the game (you can get it here[cosmochoria.bandcamp.com])
    
  • Lots of pretty sweet lines scarced around to make you think, without being kitch or cringy

Overall, Comsochoria is great at what it wants to be: a lesson in letting go (like the dev says)

Mercernary kings is good, real good, and that on every level it extends to, with no exceptions as far as I know.

Time to complete 10 to 35hrs, depending on how much you want to do
Time to 100% 60+hrs
Difficulty: [■■■□□] - Mildly Challenging
Audience Casual - □■■■■ - Hardcore
Genre: Shoot them Up

Here, have some bullet points. I insist:

• Pretty big lifetime (Took me about 35 hours to clear every mission)
  
• High Skillcap
  
• Decently balanced, it never gets annoying
  
• Awesome Mob design (wide range of ennemies)
  
• Very well achieved Boss Fights, which depend almost only on skill (more on that later)
  
• Pleasant level design
  
• Amazing Soundtrack
  
• Super cool graphics and animations

The game handles very well, and unless you go for 100% completion rate, it is never annoying in the slightest.
-With a game pad, it's very fluid and responds pretty well to what you try to do
-The wide variety of ennemies forces you to improve your gampelay and strategies

The maps are very various, and they each have their own little ambiance, mobs, loot, and associated weapon crafts.
-They are also quite wide, each having their own secrects and utilities to missions, and even farming

You have a very important freedom of playstyle, due to the large amount of upgrades/guns.
-Proficiencies and Bionic Mods allow you to adapt to the situation/mission, and develop your own playstyle

The story (albeit quite simple) is entertaining, and the character development really goes to contribute to the friendly and funny aspect of the game.

The Bosses are a game of their own, because of how well done they are :that is that each fight contains its own strategies, usually very different from the others. On top of that, there is a pretty big variety of them for a game of this size !

Time to complete 40hrs+
Time to 100% ~110hrs
Difficulty: [■■■□□] - Challenging
Audience: Casual - □□■■■ - Hardcore | Dedicated
Genre: Action-RPG, Die&Retry

• I could go on for eons about how awesome and well-made this game is, so I'll try to keep it short here

Throughout the game, Hidetaka Miyasaki clearly shows he is a master of Game Design and Storytelling


-First off, the very few bad points this game has (Let's face it, it was a very bad PC port)

• Terrible Mouse and Keyboard controls
  
• FPS cap without DSFIX[blog.metaclassofnil.com] (which is a mod that pretty much makes the game all round prettier)
  
• Bad Anti-Aliasing (without DSFIX)
  
• Multiplayer broken (without DSFIX)
  
• No Anti-Cheat at all

And now onto a very succinct list of the good stuff:

• Very challenging situations
  
• Incredibly rewarding
  
• Enormously diverse items, with a lot of different and viable playstyles
  
• Suprisingly fair (under NG+2, and except for a single boss)

• You can walk from almost any area to another, a lot of shortcuts and interconnections are scattered between them
  
• The setting is very different in every area, and goes very well with the theme that is expressed through it
  
• Complex and very epic Boss Fights
  
• The enemy placement is incredibly well thought and fluid
  
• The various mechanisms have effects than can clearly be measured and have an actual impact on the game

• Very, very rich
  
• Incredibly deep
  
• Ridiculously good Character and Boss design
  
• Not linear, not clearly established
  
• Every single thing in the game contributes to it in one way or another

• Embed into the game, no unnecessary interfaces
  
• Very fluid
  
• Very high skillcap
  
• Again, lots of playstyles possible

• Great Parallaxes
  
• Great Landscapes
  
• Themed and very different zones (From the Realm of the gods to the Crystal Caves, through the Cities, Ruins, Sewers, and Mushroom Stashes)
  
• Although very scarce, the music is very pleasant and goes well with the area
  
• Characters, Merchants, Foes and Monsters in general are incredibly diverse and correspond perfectly to their area/zone

Forever an insanely pleasant game

This game has everything for itself:

• Great gameplay, flawless and super easy to get used to (with a controller)
  
• Really nice graphics, parallax and sprites
  
• Awesome music, (you can buy it here[miniboss.bandcamp.com])
  
• Great game design, never too hard nor too easy, but always pleasant
  
• Tons of secrets and references
  
• Suuuper Cheap (I got it for 0.19€)

It does have one bad point though, which is that it is so good that you'll want much more than what it offers
(Roughly 1 hour to clear and 5 hours to 100%)