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It is 3/1/2016. I redeemed Faeria to steam on 2/17/2016. I have just over 100 hours already.
(Read on for the full review!)

It's accessible, aesthetically pleasing, strategic, balanced, and in pretty good hands. If you like CCGs, just buy into the Early Access already. You'll be glad you did!


+ Graphics: Faeria has a beautiful and thematic aesthetic that is very immersive and soothing.
+ Audio: The music is pleasing, and more seems to have been added over time. The sound effects are often subtle enough while retaining impact.
+ Gameplay: Balanced and exciting.
+ Strategy: The board, interactions, and large distinction between color and sub-archetype playstyles within will make nearly all of your games unique and challenging to deal with.
+ Variety: Neutral, red, yellow, green, blue; each with their own style, feel, and multiple playstyle options. There are cards which can make dual, triple, and neutral/color options not only viable, but even effective.
+ Development: The developers have stuck with this game for a very long time, and care deeply about it, and the enjoyment people derive from it at all levels of play.
+ Tutorial: Quick and easy, comprehensive enough without bothering experienced players. What it won't teach a newb, the challenges will.
+ Menus: Beautiful and easy to navigate, and the UI is being improved all the time.
+ Gamemodes: Between the challenges, practice AI, ranked, unranked, and 'Pandora' mode every level of player can find a place to play comfortably.

- Polish: There are some bugs, and slight growing pains (mainly in terms of balance) currently. They will be addressed fairly quickly though.
- Crafting: Not implemented yet, devs are hard at work, but currently, it is much needed.


Hello and welcome to this review of Faeria. Have you ever wandered what it would be like if the lands in Magic were actual lands you had to put down to get to your opponent? Then oh boy, is this game for you! Faeria is a traditional CCG with hex landbuilding and deep strategic elements that result from the options and interactions introduced by such a feature. How does it play, you ask? Read on if you want to find out!

So there is a resource named Faeria. You recieve 3 Faeria each turn, but there are also 4 wells placed opposite each other on the map, which will spawn 1 Faeria a turn, which creatures can harvest. Aside from collecting Faeria to fuel your actions, you have to place lands. There is a default land called a prairie. You can place two of these a turn, or a special land, used for summoning color-specific creatures. Lake, desert, mountain, forest. You can only play one special land. If you place a special land on a prairie you already have, you can not place another that turn.

Every turn, the faeria spawns, a card is drawn for you, and any production abilities you have activate. There are effects that require manual activation that you can then activate. You can also at this point of your turn draw another card, gain another faeria, play cards, or utilize what you have on a board in any order. You will always gain your three faeria and one card at the start while production abilities activate, though.

What does an average turn look like? Your turn starts, you make a land or two to get to a strategic spot. At the start, this is often towards your opponent's orb or the Faeria wells. Then you will play a creature or event, or wait. An example of an event could be as simple as draw two cards. When creatures take enough damage to die, they attack back first, so be careful. Structures can not attack back, and some creatures have 0 attack by default. When you first play a creature or structure, if it doesn't have haste, you can't use it yet. So the average turn will involve planning, then trying to set up your ideal situation. Next your opponent does the same thing. Then you take the product, and you attempt to respond accordingly. If you are both playing creatures, you may on your next turn buff yours so it can safely beat theirs. It's almost always this simple, mechanically, but in execution the interactions between the landbuilding, creatures, structures, and events can make for wildly different and fun outcomes that demand careful consideration and knowledge.

The cards suits all have a unique identity to them. Neutral is great for rushing and efficiency, as you never need to make special lands. It is very well rounded, but surprisingly strong. Green is great at making many large creatures. Blue is great at reactive control and resource ramping. Yellow is great at sacrificing creatures or health for advantage, rushing, or utilizing flying creatures. Red is great at burning, ranged, and aggressive control. You don't have to pick one, they play friendly. For example, there is a neutral structure that will do 2 damage to your opponent the first time one of your creatures dies each turn. This is great in a yellow or red sacrifice deck.

In the end, it is deep, challenging, and fun!

The graphics in Faeria have what some might consider a generic approach at first. Magic and fantasy. Ogres and goblins. Blah blah. Yet, I've always been strongly drawn to Faeria's aesthetic. The other day I realized it was because it doesn't have generic looking fantasy elements, but very whimsical/ethereal fantasy elements. It is very immersive, draws you in, and takes hold of you. The card art is beautiful, as is the UI, the board, and the card designs themselves. There is a little polish still needed on the UI, and I eagerly await when structures have a unique card design vs creatures, but all in all, if a screenshot doesn't pique your interest, a video will likely seal the deal for you. If you find yourself liking Duelyst, but not the aesthetic, Faeria may be the game for you.

Just as good as the visuals, except, in a card game, they are one in the same. The batter and the frosting of the cake, so they both enhance the other due to their general quality. I find almost all of the sounds entirely satisfying and impactful. Big plays just feel epic. Collecting faeria feels good. Ending your turn feels good, very final. Starting your turn feels good, so hopeful. Everything feels good, because the visuals and the sounds go so well together to create a strong impression.

By now, you are likely wondering how much this game will cost you in the long run. The answer is: As much as you want. Faeria will be F2P once it leaves early access. For those that don't want to grind, you can buy the Full Core Collection for 50$. This is everything that will be in the game until any big expansions hit. That is insane value. If you don't want everything, but still want to grind a little less, you could also pay a relatively cheap price for a lot of boosters.

Even if you won't do either, progression is fairly good at this point, and with crafting in the works, it won't take long at all to get an optimized deck in the future. If you buy into the Early Access for 20$, you get some pretty neat exclusive goodies and quite a few boosters. So.

I recommend Faeria at:

Whatever you can afford. Wait until it is released and F2P if you want, never buy a card if you are dedicated and love collecting and unlocking things ... but if nothing else, spend a couple of bucks on a pretty orb or avatar, the game is amazing and the devs deserve it.

If you like my reviews, you can easily keep up with them here.

Comment if you have any questions or I forgot something!
(Read on for the full review!)

A product that is becoming more and more worthy of anyone's money. At 10$ cheaper than the current-gen brand name offerings, it offers a lot more, for a little less!


+ Customization: First and foremost, creative use of the extensive options makes the sky the limit for the amount of use you can wring out.
+ Construction: Solid, not sure if it can take a blow like the PS2 pads, not going to find out.
+ Ergonomics: I quite like the feel, although the handgrips are slightly large.
+ Aesthetics: A simple white light, gloss/matte black where intuitive, black grip. It's not flashy, but it is still stylish.
+ Buttons: Grip triggers, dual-stage triggers, pad clicks. They've squeezed every drop button out like a lemon.
+ Community: Having an easy to browse location where you can find configurations with details on what they are is simply awesome.
+ Software: Valve is stepping their game up with the steam controller, addressing issues and improving features in hordes.
+ Haptics: You can set the intensity or turn off vibrational haptics. They mostly work great.
+ Mobile: Wireless or wired, as you please.
+ Trackpads: They do their job fairly well.


- Trackpads: Don't respond well to an initial small, slow movement. Gyro can compensate.
- Haptics: Also don't like to kick in initially.
- Buttons: Face buttons are small and awkwardly placed a bit too far left from the right pad. They will still work, but it's an adjustment.
- Triggers: It can be very easy to accidentally hit first stage trigger or the grip triggers. (Especially when setting the controller down.)

± Nothing: I love this device, even if there are a few minor annoyances or adjustments to make.



Dual Stage Triggers:
I feel like the soft press of the trigger buttons takes a bit too much force to comfortably hold down with ease, or press quickly without going to the second stage. Similarly, it can be tricky to full press while holding down other buttom combinations, however, these are highly configurable with deadzone settings and the like. Using them gets better as you adjust.

Grip Triggers:
Extremely useful. I like to put things like sprint or crouch toggle here. Can be easy to accidentally press when doing other things.

Trackpads:
The right trackpad, or rather, lack of a right analog stick makes twin-stick shooters a bit more difficult with this! You've been warned.

They work quite well, although as mentioned in the cons, can be a bit unresponsive to slow small initial movements. There are ways to work around this, but I do wish I could make it more sensitive at the center, and a bit less sensitie at the edge. Trackball emulation is great. Really nails the 'flick' feel while retaining the regular movement while held down.

D-Pad:
Great, but I feel the indentation could be slightly deeper. I suppose that's the tradeoff for letting it function as a trackpad among other things as well. I often don't use it as a D-Pad, but for a secondary analog stick movement option, or something of the like. If I do use it as a D-pad, or button pad, the ability to configure size and position of buttons can make it as easy or harder as desired to get a button press in.

Left Analog:
Not super long, so it pulls easy and well, but also not very wide. However, I still find it is very easy to make small movements with it as needed. It could perhaps have a wider cap.

Haptic Feedback:
Like the trackpad, it may be initially unresponsive, made a bit worse by the initialization coming in after the delay in initialization of the trackpad. (Keep in mind this only applies to when you try to do very very fine movements. Otherwise, they work very well, keeping you aware of your positioning and giving you a subtle or strong feedback as needed.

Face Buttons:
A bit small, a bit out of the way, not quite ideal. They are very solid feeling, though, and you can adjust to their position and usage.

Overall Buttons:
There is an absolutely insane amount of button presses you can achieve with a modifier or two present. There is an insane amount of options for what any button or pad or stick will do, even, allowing you to play however you want.


Configurations:
It is fairly easy to customize your controller, or shop around for the configurations of others. Or, you can shop around for a good starting point of another's configuraton, then fine-tune it yourself. Still, if you crack open the menus and take a good hard look at all the options available, you can almost always make something better than the community options that will work perfectly for you.

I've achieved as much in Torchlight 2, where the top configuration mainly was only good for melee characters, and I felt lacking in some buttons or awkward to use some others.

Regardless, the ability to have a different configuration for every game, as well as a desktop specific configuration, and have a library of community configurations is actually a great innovation and convenience feature. Beats the hell out of configuring in x360ce. Bonus points: You can have multiple configurations for the same game.

Ease of use:
Navigating the menus with the controller is a bit awkward, but probably ideal, as you won't get the infographic details you will with the controller, for example with the adjustment of scrolling angle on the trackpads to match the angle of movements of your thumbs. (Awesome feature, btw.) You can also navigate with your mouse, and then fine-tune specific details with the controller.

There ARE a lot of menus to go through if you really want to fine tune everything, but for most things you want to have to define 60 buttons and 40 advanced features. Also, as you learn your average needs (say for sensitivity) it gets pretty easy to breeze through it all.

Big Picture Mode?:
Having to enter BPM to configure this controller really isn't all that bad. You spend perhaps 5 minutes tops doing an exhaustive configuration, and you're done. The problem comes when fine-tuning while ingame. Alt tab, re-open BPM...wait...etc.

BUT WAIT!

IT IS NO LONGER NECESSARY TO USE BPM! To boot, the desktop mode is VERY responsive. (BPM is likely just as responsive now as well, if you like to use it.) You can also configure directly in-game with the overlay! Thanks Valve!

Valve's offering is legit, allowing you to configure and play many game types with fluidity and deft precision. There are a couple game types where a more standard controller might still be desirable. Firmware and software updates are coming fairly regularly and constantly improving the experience, addressing any faults, or giving more options.

If you like the idea of being rewarded for investment in your hardware, I can strongly recommend Valve's Steam Controller:

At full price. By itself. Anything else is just a sweet bonus.

If you like my reviews, you can easily keep up with them here.

Key supplied by developer for review.
(Read on for the full review!)

An indie gem lost in a sea of titles; Tomb of Tyrants is an excellently constructed match 4 game that will appeal to casual matchers as well as the more hardcore strategist type. With a solid developer and enough unlocks to keep you busy for hours on end, Tomb of Tyrants is worth every penny of its regular asking price.


+ Developer: Updates regularly, appreciates feedback, communicates very well.
+ Download: Very small and easy download, but not light on content.
+ Graphics: Great pixel art style, with lively animation. Good color palette, too.
+ Tiles: You can RGB their colors. Color customization is a personal joy of mine.
+ UI: Easy to navigate, convenience features abound, blends into gameworld.
+ UI(v2): The regular vs. strikethrough text is clever and genuinely cool.
+ Audio: The bone crunching sound alone is possibly the best thing ever.
+ Depth: Your tomb gets deeper and deeper. So do the mechanics of this game.
+ Choice: There are a multitude of floors and goals to prioritize.

- Resolution: Minor gripe, initializes at a set resolution.
- Patrols: Makes it hard to learn what monsters work well together.
- "Oh...": There needs to be a more obvious death indicator.
- "Wait!": Your hoard can fill so fast that you can't watch the floors.
- Sound: There's a couple of minor issues like an infinite sound loop when paused at the right(wrong) time or some sounds playing incessantly at later stages.
- Pause: This could already be the case, but I'd like it if there was a dedicated pause button, vs esc/main menu, since I tend to alt-tab frequently. Game already pulls up main menu if you click outside the window. This way I could keep my multiplier without the advantage of pausing.


± Tomb: Or crypt. Cryptic. Avoid if you like having all the information.
± Time: "Just one more run!"...x10. It's pretty addicting.


Hello and welcome to my review of Tomb of Tyrants! This nifty match-4 game will have you lining up resources in your hoard to add dangerous floors to your toom, so you can continue being a Tyrant for longer. Good luck!

When you first start ToT, you're going to be simaltaneously playing the game and a tutorial while you start. This is pretty neat, but I found having such a small continue button to be a bit annoying when combined with unexpected tutorial boxes. Still, it's very pleasant having features organically explained as you discover them! As stated in the introduction, you match up 4 or more of a specific resource type so you can accumulate the right type and quantity of materials required to build floors. These floors will give you monsters, resources, and traps to help deal with the pesky heroes trying to meddle with your evil affairs. These floors are also built on top of your hoard, so you have to clear room at the top to be able to construct them, thankfully you can queue construction.

Building floors or certain combinations of floors can give you access to other floors, which you unlock by completing prophecies. Prophecies are goals you have to complete while they are active, such as recruit 10 skeletons and accumulate 50 bone, but progress on them is persistent. Plots can also reward you with items and banners and such. There are also similar goals, that are time sensitive, called plots. Plots will award you with the fortification of a floor if you complete them in time, which allows it to stick around for another playthrough. Completing prophecies and plots feels really gratifying, and the sound effect for completing plots is especially pleasing. It's even better when you are completing them without knowing it, like hitting the jackpot on a slot machine after turning your head to talk to a buddy. There are also rituals: specific block shapes you can match to increase the maximum cap of the matched resource. Your monsters can even stick around for another run, too, if they beat a champion hero, becoming a champion themselves.

So, generally your gameplay is going to consist of picking a floor to build, clearing space while acquiring resources, and then continuing to clear space for more floors and to complete objectives. At times you may have to manually drop some monsters onto different floors, or use an item, but aside from planning in advance, the active part of the game will be had with matching. As of the latest update, this has been made more dynamic and challenging by dirt and arrowhead blocks. Dirt is destroyed by falling, and arrowheads by making a match next to them, where they will act like a wildcard.

"But just how fun is it, and how is it as a matching game?" you may ask.

It's very fun, and a great spin on matching game with good execution.

The pixel art is well done, and the animations are lively. It is definitely worth mentioning that said pixel art scales very well with resolution. There are multiple options that can be used to change the look of the art, though, from dithering options to an aesthetic change such as hard or soft pixel scaling. There is a good choice of colors, and many different graphics for floors and monsters. A lot of your time will be spent with your hoard, so it is very good news that you may customize the colors of the resources that appear there. It will even change the colors of the resources everywhere else they appear in the game, too. All in all, if you like pixel art games, you'll like ToT.

The music and sounds present in ToT are actually surprisingly well done. From the sounds of monsters and heroes dying, to various satisfying sounds played when you make different quantities of matches. You may not notice the music too much over all the other sounds that will happen as your tomb gets deeper, which may be a good thing, as the game could use another track or two, depending on who you ask. What is there, is satisfying and fun, though!

Tomb of Tyrants is a great game, and an amazing match-4 game. It seems to be criminally underappreciated. At $8.00, you can very easily get enough time in that haven't even paid a dollar an hour. I recommend Tomb of Tyrants at:

Full price.

This endorsement approved by The Reviewers' Union,
providing better standards for reviews and reviewers.

Key supplied by developer for review.
(Read on for the full review!)

I'm going to assume Starward Rogue is the first bullethell roguelite mashup, but if not, I bet it's the first that will be a success! Satisfying gameplay, nostalgic but qualitative art and sound, numerous progression and playstyle options, and highly configurable controls lead me to believe 100% that this will do the same for the rogue genre as Necrodancer, but with bullethell.


+ Addiction: This would be a major hit in the arcade era, but thanks to the PC, I can keep my quarters...and house!
+ Graphics: You can see space through the floors. Nuff said.
+ Audio: Great music, variety of satisfying SFX.
+ Bullets: A total of over 100 enemies with a large variety of bullet patterns and colors.
+ Controls: Fairly extensive customization.
+ Variety: Tons of mechs, enemies, powerups, weapons, modules, and consumables.
+ Gameplay: It's downright fun and satisfying to have bullet hell, action RPG, and rogue elements deftly interwoven.
+ Dynamic: Multiple difficulty options, risk vs. reward upgrades, and mechs can provide engaging differences in gameplay, feel, and challenge. There's even a mech that stops time when you aren't moving; great for many reasons.
+ Romance: It's so much cheaper than real fireworks!

- Defeat: As with any roguelike/roguelite, after getting far, death can take the wind out of your sails. There's something wholly unpleasant about slowly gaining power, overcoming odds, skillfully besting pure chaos--and then getting sent back to what now feels like baby's first dungeon. Solutions:
- Gametypes: I'd love to see an arena or endless mode, preferably with player-triggered waves, the ability to select or unlock items for starting loadout, and the ability to skip to a certain wave.
- Gametypes Pt 2: No boss attack mode?
- I'm bad at bullet hell games.

± Graphics: I don't like the green floor type at all. Preference.


Welcome to my review of Starward Rogue, an unapolagetic bullethell roguelite fusion. As with any rogue, most of this is going to come down to gameplay, so let's just move on immediately!

Upon starting up a new save file for Starward Rogue, you will find yourself in a quick voiced tutorial that covers the basics and then sends you on your way. There are slow, default, and sprint movement speeds. Slow and normal speeds will be used to navigate mazes of bullets and traps carefully, while sprint is good for dodging quick enemies and bullets, as well as backtracking. You have your primary and secondary weaponfire, modules that can alter any number of things, and consumables that can also have a large variety of effects. The tutorial will also get you started on your way to recognizing enemy types and the way their bullet patterns work, as well as how a room might generate and how that will change the dynamics of combat based on their structure. There are traps and obstacles aplenty.

When looking at the stats screen pertaining to your save file, you can see that there is a total of: 124 enemies, 8 minibosses, 20 bosses, 13 condemned enemies, 223 items, and 11 incredibilities. Upon beating (as of the latest update) three 5-floor runs, you will unlock 7-floor runs. This is a downright impressive quantity for any game to feature, and yet the enemy types and bosses all seem balanced, weapons and items all seem to have their pros, cons, and uses, and you have 6 different options for what type of mech you wish to tackle it all with. The level of variety these possibilities produce, combined with the recognizable patterns and attack types of enemies, makes for a fun and challenging but fair experience. If that isn't the case for you, though, there are also 5 difficulty options to suit your needs! I should also mention that there are level-up perks, as well as health, currency, ammo, and exp drops. Even further, if you pick up a different weapon, consumable, or module it will swap their locations instead of overwrite the old with the new. Try something out for a few rooms and don't like it? You can just go back.

After 15 runs, I am at a measly 18% completion, and am still discovering interesting new room and floor layouts that catch me off guard. There are tiles you can't walk on, bombs you can't touch, barriers you can't pass, a variety of barriers that you or your enemies can still shoot past, timed and infinite lazers, turrets with various behaviors, etc. When you throw all of these into a room, of varying size and shape, in various formations, and then mix in a multitude of enemies with various attack patterns--some of which might make dodging impossible when combined, and stir it all up--you're in for a hectic, chaotic, fun-filled time! Thankfully, for scrubs like me, in a lot of situations simply taking cover between assaults is an option.

Even with death's strong attraction to me, I find myself compelled to deftly navigate the pretty, colorful volley of fireworks that are my enemy's bullets and laugh maniacally when they die with a satisfying explosion. Starward Rogue has a great concept and execution, and is just good old plain fun. With the right combination of hull, primary and secondary weapon, module, level-up perks, and upgrades I firmly believe that you will have an adrenaline-filled journey where you make a stupid mistake, die, curse the heavens, and then feel all the more eager to become similarly powerful and vanquish your enemies!

Here are the highlights: the main menu background art, beautiful. The interface, suitable and thematic, if a bit blue and large; good mix of retro and modern stylings. The textures and level design, fairly good, but not super amazing. I hate the green space background, but I once encountered a pink-yellow-orange background that was gorgeous and gave the game an amazing feel for that run. Super distinct, polished, and shiny would be a fault in this case, anyway, because the most important thing to see are the enemy attacks; displayed here in distinct, vivid colors and patterns. Finally, it is worth noting that the bosses have pretty detailed pixel art that I find lovely.

Great music, fits nicely, good when playing but can get old fast if you happen to alt tab for something. There are some nice subtle atmospheric sounds, and various other sounds that generally remind me of some of the better oldschool games around. It won't win any sound design of the year awards, but if you are a fan of rogues, sound is not the first thing on your mind.

Due to the quality gameplay, strong concept, good execution, massive variety, and an appealing mix of challenge and fairness, I recommend purchasing Starward Rogue at:

Full price. All the time, any time.

No drama, Just Reviews.

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This will be a bit different. Critical analysis of:

Note: Positive recommendation due in large part to development starting to come together well. I do not think you should buy this game at this moment, but you should watch.

Wait for release, and perhaps a little while after! See how the final stages of development goes! Make sure implementations of vital features and the way they intertwine are up to your par! Things have been improving, accelerating, and shaping up a lot lately...but you never know what one thing could ruin it all for you as an individual. As always, be wise with your money.

Do I at this point think release (or a few big updates after) will be worth your money? Yes. Do I think that it could also potentially be held back by a poorly implemented feature or two? Quite possibly. So if you have already purchased starbound...maybe it will soon be time to give it another go! But if you haven't...hold on to your wallets for just a little longer.



You start out on a pretty planet, with a lush, colorful, friendly background. The terrain is usually mild in variation, making navigation fairly simple and quick. You are outright forced to dig down to the bottom of the planet--gathering ore along the way for gear--to acquire core fragments so you can fix your ship and go elsewhere.

Now, this may sound pretty annoying--and it is, however, many steps have been taken to make it a relatively quick and easy process. There are more caves and tunnels, making digging down to the bottom easier, as well as ore deposits that can be broken up to get a decent amount of a certain ore type. Underground sub-dungeons can potentially provide interesting loot, or just a needed change of scenery or some pixels.

Upon gaining the ability to venture further, you may wonder just how good the new sights will be. The answer to this question: a mixed bag. Many planets seem boring and pointless, just a new color or different dungeon/settlement type. Maybe a cool biome or two...maybe a bunch of annoying biomes. Maybe there's no good loot. Maybe ore generation makes your desired type hard to find. To make matters worse, certain planet types tied to getting through the later tier are by nature incapable of being fun and unique. Ocean planets, for example. Mostly water atm.

On the other hand, it is very possible to stumble upon a planet with cool terrain, a cool settlement or dungeon with good loot, awesome looking background parallax and kickass trees, and an abundance of ore. Regardless, there needs to be more unique elements and reward/incentive to exploration. Things to make individual planets stand out and be special. Rare biome or dungeon variations, a strangely safe and beautiful planet of a dangerous harsh biome type, a different day/night cycle time, dangerous creatures and minibosses.

Combat in starbound is fairly well setup. Weapons have unique properties and styles that generally enable you to fight however you want. Monsters now have better tells and more sensible windups, so blocking, dodging, parrying, and tanking are now all viable options. Since monsters are mostly generated off screen, and generally stay there, the end result is that combat often feels like a chore you do to get that one creature with that one annoying attack to stop impeding your horizontal progress around a planet.

There is much room for improvement in that regard:

Loot should be more rewarding, fun, or varied. Monsters should seek you out and display unique behaviors. Perhaps some herd up, or fight in small roaming packs, or try to avoid you. Even if nothing at all is done to make it more engaging and fun, rather than like a popup when trying to surf the net, the spawning needs to be tweaked. I would like to see hardcaps on the amount of creatures that can spawn within a set distance of each other, or while you are busy killing other mobs, or how quickly it will populate the area past your sight with new monsters when you've just slaughtered five so you can finally resume moving forward.

They actually nailed this one. The matter manipulator is not only a lore-friendly tool, but an essential one. It is a way to have an item bound to your character at all times, not taking up inventory or hotbar space, that offers a big improvement on the utility found in most sandboxes. Digging and placing blocks can be precise, with ugprades to speed and tiles covered, the size of which can be adjusted on the fly. You can remove and relocate liquids, and building is quick and easy as well, thanks to the handy ability for your matter manipulator to hightlight relevant blocks. As a protip: You can even use it to help search for buried ore in the dark!

Building is quite good. There are many objects and styles of blocks to play around with, and you can now colonize planets and rent out rooms of your design to NPCs. The building materials chosen for this process directly effect what you will get. This gives more purpose to the various biomes, and the exploration of them, because there are tenant NPCs that are based specifically on certain biome types. This was also very well done. Unfortunately, the availability of unique and varied building blocks in terms of aesthetics is limited. Aside from stone, many can only be scavenged from settlements or dungeons, no less! There are plenty of blocks that will end up having 100 recolors, as well, due to the nature of their planet, like sand and dirt. So why is there not a similar change in color and style not found in wallpapers on settlements, the color of bricks used in temples, and so on? Maybe one day.

The utility of the sci-fi exploration sandbox genre typing doesn't end there. A ship AI personal to your race is a clever way to dispense introductions to the game and quests, tips, and inform you if you try to do something like pay for an upgrade with too few materials. There are many other instances of starbound's mechanics being very well designed, so the foundation is strong.

I've maxed out on space to the point where I can't even finish the following section. For those who want to read the rest, I threw up a silly wordpress site: here[fakersrealreviews.wordpress.com]

This one is a bit more difficult to comment on, because it's in a pretty heavy state of flux lately, and especially going forward from here, so I'll cover the basics from where it has been to where it is going. Back in my day, when we had to walk to school uphill in the snow, 10 miles, both ways...you could simply load up your ship with coal and take off to the great unknown. This was pretty cool, but honestly, from a design standpoint it did allow you to exhaust content quickly and kill off the novelty of the sights to see. The starmap at this point branched out with similar planets, and you had to unlock the next tier to see new types. This was pretty lame, actually, and it conveyed an extreme feeling of artificial walls and progression.

(Read on for the full review!)
Gemcraft is an astonishingly well crafted tower defense game with great difficulty scaling, sufficient graphics and audio, and lots of content. The RPG mechanics and lore give it life and purpose. Highly recommended.

+ Graphics: I like the variety between bleak and vivid colors.
+ Audio: Not amazing, but the hit & death sounds are quite satisfying.
+ Concept: Gem-enhanced towers? Gem bombs? Gem traps? Gem amplifiers? Yes.
+ Difficulty: Slightly easy after a spike. You can then increase the difficulty for more reward.
+ Replayability: I enjoy replaying levels with extra challenge to see what I can pull off.
+ RPG Mechanics: Unlockables, upgrades, levels, skills & spells, and story.
+ Lore: Well written, simple, given in scraps, great for those that do or don't want it.
+ UI: Simply put, the UI is extremely well done. Simple, appealing, aesthetically pleasing.
+ Variety: There's a gem for every playstyle, and many levels offering various gems.

- Brevity: Eventually, going through all the basic levels to get to unlocks can get monotonous. I would prefer fewer levels, offering more tight design and unique challenges.
- Rewards: I'm nitpicking here, but I dislike how getting really far in endurance offers much less experience than getting through the normal map on a higher difficulty or with trials on.

+/- Graphics and audio are well designed, but could be better looking/sounding.


Welcome to Gemcraft - Chasing Shadows, the tower defense game where you use various gems and combinations thereof to make your towers methodically destroy your opposition. Gemcraft brings so much to the table with its lore, mechanics, and fitting design aesthetics. There are many options to suit your playstyle, and a lovely coming together of genres to make your experience fresh and exciting. Let's take a deeper look:

You have 9 gems at your disposal: Red, yellow, orange, green, blue, cyan, purple, white, black; or chain hit, critical hit, mana leeching, poison, slowing, suppressing, armor tearing, poolbound, and bloodbound respectively. You are given select gems to beat every field with. You can use bombs, traps, towers, and amplifiers. A gem-enhanced entity that has a single or 'pure' gem will always be the strongest form of that gem. If you are to fuse gems, the individual components will be weaker, but the overall effect could be much stronger; an easy example of this would be combining almost any of them with the red gem, chain hit. I also should point out that you can fuse two pure gems of the same level to get them to the next level. (This works with hybrids, as well.) Some gems work better as traps than towers, green (or poison) being a good example of this, however, you are generally free to make things work however you wish, utilizing many or few of the tools at your disposal. On a final note on gems and their killing mechanics, I should mention that amplifiers don't seem to benefit from having their gems upgraded, they simply need any ol' gem present to provide a flat bonus.

Moving away from gems, you have 25 skills that can be unlocked. Examples include cheaper construction, more effective gem bombs, and spell enhancement. Some of these are crucial, while others come down to preference. You can reset them at any time. You also have six spells. Examples are an AOE freeze and a special beam or barrage for your towers. There are two ways of unlocking skills and spells, tomes and wizard towers. Tomes require you to kill certain enemies such as 50 giants that have been frozen in their presence. Wizard towers require you to break locks, usually by hitting them directly in different ways. You recieve talismans from beating maps, rarity based on difficulty, which do things like increase damage or experience and make gems heavier. You have a limited amount of slots for talismans. You can upgrade talismans with shadow cores or scrap them to get more. Most shadow cores will come from killing spectres. Later on, you can spend shadow cores to increase the rarity of drops.

Initially the game's difficulty will spike but once you get the mechanics down it becomes much easier. Then you have 9 trials and 3 difficulty modes to utilize. Trials are modifiers that impact the gameplay, but greatly boost your rewards. An early one adds waves and makes them arrive earlier. I recommend using this when you become familiar with a level so you can get a lot of experience. Be careful, however, because there is a mechanic where XP rewarded = current exp - previous highest exp.

You can use these mechanics to unlock field tokens, which add levels and hexes to the map. Clearing a level could unlock one or more field tokens, (and perhaps a scrap of lore) allowing you the option to prioritize certain paths through the game's fields which enables you to get to unlocks faster, or put off a tough stage. The flexibility and depth presented in Gemcraft makes for a very compelling experience not found even in most AAA TD games.

The graphics in Gemcraft are serviceable. They are great on some points, but mainly the UI. The UI has everything just the right size. It is thematic but not overly fancy or convoluted. Things are properly highlighted or out of the way. Some aspects may be large and visual as opposed to other aspects being smaller and text-based, tucked away for those that desire more information. Everything is very well laid out, easy to get to, and navigation is quick and simple. With the amount of options present, this is a great boon for Gemcraft. The map is quite beautiful, the field level icons and gem graphics are nice, and the enemies look alright. I wish the enemies had a bit more variety though, being mostly variations of bugs. The textures could also use improvement in resolution, and perhaps some in their design. Many of the stages end up looking bland because of said design flaws of the textures.

The music is good, not too obtrusive. The hit and death sounds are satisfying. Everything that needs a sound, has one, and usually they are nice. Like the graphics, however, I can't help but feel like there is a certain level of polish missing, that slight flair that can take something from amateur to professional. Noting, however, that Gemcraft - Chasing Shadows is also a free browser based tower defense game, this is all actually quite impressive.

So, in conclusion, Gemcraft - Chasing Shadows is an excellent tower defense game with fun, depth, and style in spades. The concept is beautiful. There are numerous options available, offering satisfying levels of control, and the excellent UI makes it exceptionally easy to play and navigate. The game can be as casual or hardcore as you'd like, and would be great for kids, adults, newbies and veterans alike. I recommend Gemcraft at full price. On sale is fine, too. On a deep sale, is also fine, however, you should definitely purchase this title, one way or the other. The dev deserves support, and the game is easily worth the money even at double the full price.

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I Can't Escape: Darkness has much to offer, and very very little to dislike. Once you adjust or change the controls to your liking, you'll find yourself with a smooth experience of exploration and dread. There are no jumpscares, and a lot of care has been taken to incorporate many great elements of other games or genres together well. The art and theme is consistent, the font is legible, the UI is nice, and the whole experience is modern while retaining a lovely nostalgic feeling. It offers enough content for the price, but depending on the way you play your games, or the style of games you like to play, it may offer less longevity for you than others. Take your time to consider whether it is the type of game for before you decide to buy it at full price.


+ Atmosphere: First and foremost, the atmosphere is the biggest pro of ICED. Foreboding.
+ Graphics: Serviceable, a bit nostalgic, not bad by any means, but keep in mind it isn't Crisis.
+ Audio: Crisp, fitting sound FX with contrasting whimsical BGM adds to the tensity.
+ Font: Special shoutout to any dev who uses legible fonts.
+ UI: Fans of Ultima or other select RPGs/MMOs will enjoy having a small bag with inventory management, and other nice touches.
+ Variable: The things I have seen, even already...
+ Procedural: But not from the very start (I think,) which is nice, because that could would be horribly frustrating.
+ Jump Scares: What jump scares?
+ Tension: The limited light supply keeps you coiled, ready to spring.
+ Concept: There is added innovation to what Grimrock offers.
+ Saving: SAVE SLOTS! You should always have a lot of save slots if your game can be saved!
+ Realism: While it is a bit silly to die to a few bites from a rat, I like that you aren't a sponge.
+ Secrets: It's a secret!
+ Developer: I'm putting in an 'aside' in the comments if you are interested.

While few, these cons are related to systems integral to gameplay, and thus have a large impact.
- Movement: With no queuing, I wish moving to the next tile/turning was a bit more responsive.
- Controls: While very customizable, I couldn't find a way to map analog stick movements, because it would just move it to the alternate option. I also couldn't find a reset option.
- Inventory: I would really like to see inventory navigation relocated to D-Pad movement, while temporarily disabling whatever functions you have assigned to it.

+/- Not really much I feel neutral about.


Welcome to I Can't Escape: Darkness, AKA ICED, a dungeon-crawling adventure where you have to go deeper and deeper in an attempt to fight for your freedom! ICED offers an awesome innovation on the Grimrock style: A first person aspect, ala Myst or Amnesia style interaction. Speaking of Amnesia, you get a flashlight with limited battery life and a lighter with limited fuel, and there are a lot of dark rooms, so have fun with that addition to this genre!

The gameplay of ICED is fairly straightforward. You're a foolhardy adventurer who has stumbled into a dungeon and now you are trapped and the whole place wants you dead. Great. Forge your way through the darkness with your trusty flashlight, one tile at a time. Forward, back, left, right, 90 degree turn. You can pick up objects, and either keep them in your hand, say to throw them, or equip them to your hands to wield them. You also have a small inventory, an actual bag in the UI, where you can stash a select few things in a grid.

Initially, you start with one of these useable objects: a measly stick. You're going to need it to kill your first few rats, but hopefully you can find something better, soon. Every object has a purpose, so you'll have to figure out what is best to keep and what you can skip, or find ways to utilize them before you need more space. Combat is a simple prospect of swinging your weapon in front of you aimed at one tile, while the enemy does the same. You can move around them, and they can move around you, while you can't swing mid-turn or move, you can hit or be hit in this process, so use it to your advantage! Unfortunately, it isn't quite as smooth to execute as it is in Grimrock.

Most of the gameplay of ICED involves the environment, though. It will fight you, it will try to trick and trap you. It will creep you out and make you make mistakes. You will fall to the next floor unprepared. You will be crushed. You will run out of light. You will have a constant sense of dread; of being hurried, but all the same, it's exciting to discover all the neat varieties and new things in your dungeon exploration. This is a game about facing challenges, traps, and hurdles, and the balancing act of escaping the dungeon quickly or taking your time to not make mistakes while escaping.

Personally, it is hard for me to play ICED. This is because it is EFFECTIVE. All of these elements- the limited light, the need to hurry to make use of it, the need to not hurry so you don't fall to traps, the combat encounters that can mess up both of these approaches for you, and the sheer variety of creepy sights in the environment-all combine to make this dungeon a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ unsettling, creepy, foreboding location where you will feel tense and pressured. This is what makes your successes all the more rewarding, and the discoveries or items that are small hopes turn into beacons of light in your struggle to live.

Oldschool, modernized. It's not breathtaking, but it is consistent, and isn't bad. It is nostalgic, and picks selectively from colors, themes, light sources, and the varying densities of darkness. It is simple, and it works.

I can say, however, that it works better in action than in the screenshots, so take a quick look at a trailer or gameplay video to decide if you'll like it, love it, tolerate it, or hate it.

I should also mention that the models and animations are decent, and whimsical. Any deficiencies present just add to their charm and to the environment quite well. Shortcomings have been made into strengths. While there may be some aliasing, or textures that could use a slightly higher resolution or more detail, remember that the more detail you add, the easier it is to lose your consistency and thus realism. Extremely accurate, high detail models and textures with poor lighting would make a far worse impression.

The music gives off a vibe of mystery and wonder, which makes the horror all the more horrifying when it hits. I like nearly all of the sound effects, and respect the crisp timing and sound quality of them. They, too, seem to have that subtle hint of roughness, that somehow makes them all the more effective when tied together with the rest of the elements of the game. Like the objects in the game, every sound has a purpose, and fills it well.

If you like dungeon crawlers, rogue-likes, or nostalgia-filled trips into the dark, or horror that isn't based on jump scares, then you will love I Can't Escape: Darkness. Whether for 10 minutes, or hours at a time, it will offer a rich and rewarding experience. I can safely recommend this game at full price, but a small sale never hurts.


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Being part strategy-game, part board-game, part RPG, part survival game, and more; Thea: The Awakening is a charming, qualitative, and refreshing addition to its many genres that has something to offer almost everyone. This game is absolutely worth your time.


+ Graphics: Familiar, cozy, easy on the eyes. Runs well.
+ Audio: Simple, effective sound effects. Great music.
+ Narration: Very good. Reminds me of old P&C/hidden object adventures.
+ Tutorial: Extensive, simple, not as daunting as you would expect.
+ Genres: A well executed mishmash of genres is always a plus!
+ Depth: There is a multitude of mechanics, events, and playstyles.
+ Controls: Efficient hotkeys and mouse interaction once acquainted.
+ Story: Fun, well written lore, dialogue, and events.
+ File Size: A game with few assets that uses them well. Small and quick download.
+ Progression: Whether research, equipment, or units, the 'RPG' mechanics are fun.
+ Bugs: What bugs?
+ Everything else.

- ...Uh...um...hm...*scratches head*

+/- Hover elements in UI like to stick, queuing of actions is hit and miss. No big deal.


Hello and welcome to Thea; the most badass thing you've ever looked at! While not truly a 3X or 4X game, it has a lot going for it, and that is going to be the most easily made comparison in terms of how it feels and plays. Let's dive into more detail.

In Thea: The Awakening, you are a freshly awakened deity, powers diminished, desperately clinging to your hold to this world and your followers, so your goal is to lead your followers to victory and establish your place in the world once again. You start with a nice, simple tutorial to get you going with actual experiential learning, while the help text that will pop up along the way will provide more in-depth information on the mechanics involved. You start with a set amount of villagers, on a set difficulty, with two of the gods to pick from. Each god or godess has their own bonuses, which are unlocked through gaining experience in your campaigns with them.

Both movement and combat are turn-based, with movement being tile or hex-based, and combat being card-based. If you don't want to optimize your combat results, or deal with the tedium, you can have the game auto-resolve it for you. You can gather two materials at your village, a food and building material, and you can send an expedition party out to gather specific materials while camping. Materials enable you to construct, cook, and craft. Your expedition party is a major part of your progression, though, as they are primarily how you fight, loot, and encounter events...all of which can provide you with more advanced or rare materials. It doesn't end there, though! Villagers can also progress individually, gaining stats as they level up, and better equipment will only serve to augment this growth.

There are many ways in which you can choose to deal with the start of your game, as there are many options for gathering materials. When a child grows into a villager, you can choose what their specialty will be, and you can even pick a default focus for your village when starting the game. Of course, you are going to need some of everything to progress, but this game is still friendly to multiple playstyles. It is also possible to get through encounters without "fighting," which can offer greater rewards, and less risk to your adventurers.
As a Torment fan, all I can say is: awesome.

Most of the options you choose to respond to an event with in Thea will involve combat, though, because you still have to 'battle' your way through sickness, social diplomacy, traps, sneak attempts, etc. The combat is tactical, card-based, and fun. You have two phases in which you place your cards in your most ideal order, left to right, and then two fight phases where damage is dealt in that order. You have plentiful options for how you want to go about doing this, from control, disable, buff, and debuff. At times this can be very fun, especially when an evenly matched enemy throws out a curveball or a good turn, and you have to respond well to get through it. At other times, you have a relatively strong party fighting a relatively weak party. Thankfully, you can auto-resolve the combat in these types of situations.

There is an impressively massive array of creatures, equipment, materials, events, points of interest, entertaining things to read, and options in this game; and all of it makes for a wildly engaging, fun, tactical experience, with a skillfully intertwined list of genres to keep anyone happy. RPG-esque turn-based combat and character progression? Check. Board-based strategy and settlement progression? Check. An almost choose-your-own adventure style event system? Check. An actually engaging story concept, lore, dialogue, and event writing? Check. Resource management and survival? Check. It even approaches being able to be labeled a god game.

Thea offers something for any number of genre fans to get absorbed in, and enjoy all the while.

Between the colors, map, models, textures & FX, smooth little animations, actually immersive painterly art, and a UI that is easy on the eyes, there's little to dislike here, and whether you will like it or not will be readily apparent from a few screenshots.

Not only is it very good and fun, but I've yet to find the background music to get repetitive. Sound effects such as attacking or event notices are satisfying. Narration is not only nostalgic, but qualitative. There is also very little you could dislike here.

Unless you are an FPS, real-time combat, or action combat purist, this is a game that offers so much for such a small price. I can easily recommend it at full price. I would still recommend it at full price if it was 60 dollars.

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The most breathtaking pixel art I've seen since I reviewed CrossCode. Absolutely glorious music, and one of the tracks sounds like the OPM battle music! Fast, frenetic gameplay. The only reason not to buy immediately is if you don't like difficulty! Like... SNES/NES level difficulty.

You've been warned.


+ Visuals: Gorgeous.
+ Music: Blissfully brutal.
+ Auidio: Satisfying sound effects.
+ Gameplay: Hellishly fun.
+ Weapons: Variety ho!
+ Difficulty: I can't get past the third wave yet.
+ Retro: Modernized.
+ Genres: Oldschool horizontal shmup roguelite? Definitely.

- Difficulty: I can't get past the third wave yet.
- OST not available in music player or as a purchaseable soundtrack on steam.

+/- Difficulty: If you can't tell, this can be positive or negative.



Welcome to: Steredenn, pronounced something like stair eden; a beautifully chaotic horizontal shmup with rogue elements. Featuring gorgeous pixel art, a health and shield system, upgrades, an impressive variety of enemy types and coordination in waves, and a multitude of weapons.

Let's dive in!


The gameplay in Steredenn is difficult. Let me be even more of a broken record. Steredenn is difficult. Could it be more difficult? Yes. Will you ever stroll through this game? No. In general, though, there are various weapons, each with their pros and cons, and even if you find one weak or hard to work with, the default blaster is very much serviceable. The dynamics between what weapon you have, what the wave spawns for you, and how these randomized elements all work together, is beautiful. Frenetic, fast, and fun.

There isn't too much time between waves and bosses, so consider them like a warmup to keep you on your toes for the real deal. Defeating a boss rewards you with the option of one of several upgrades, also randomized, which range from slightly helpful to almost essential. These won't persist if you die, and you only have one life, however, most are common enough that you won't ever go many runs without being able to get them back. The balancing act that is Steredenn's mechanics is quite impressive.

Last but not least, I really want to stress how lovely the randomized waves are. There's so much variety, from popcorn to dodging anything from lazers to asteroids or suicidal enemies converging on you. To make this even better, the bosses have set patterns, so you'll never be unfairly killed by that one cheap attack that a boss only sometimes spawns with. Steredenn is fun, and it is hard, but it is fair.


The graphics in Steredenn are gorgeous. Even if there were no animated elements, they would still be a work of art, but even the animations are beautiful and satisfying. Really, just look at the screenshots or a quick video. Even those that have a hateful bias against all these "stupid indie pixel games flooding the market" would have to be blind to not be floored by the craftmanship presented here.


The audio in Steredenn is serviceable; quite good, even. The music, however, potentially outshines even the gameplay. A satisfying mix of electro, harder rock, and crunchy metal elements, making the sound effects of the explosions and lazers and blasters all the more beautiful when thrown into this chaotic mix.

The only flaw with the audio of Steredenn is that THERE'S NO SOUNDTRACK TO BUY ON STEAM, which it entirely deserves. I hope this is an option in the future.


If you don't shy away from oldschool difficulty, or you like shootemups, just buy it.

Full price.

Buy it.


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Don't let the fun and colorful graphics fool you, this comicbook-esque card game has a lot of depth and challenge to offer. It is well designed and fun to play, and also sports some great developers.(Note that there is no actual story or campaign mode. You set up a battle and get to the action.)


+ Graphics: Colorful comicbook style!
+ UI: Immersive and in-line with the comic-book theme. Looks really cool. Some things could be bigger or smaller, I feel.
+ Sound: Good music, satisfying sound when cards are moved.
+ Variety: Heroes and villains all have a unique style and playstyle.
+ Simple: To play, hard to master. There is a lot of depth to hero and card interaction.
+ Convenient: Put away your rulebooks and damage counters!
+ Pre-built: No deckbuilding meta stress. Pick up and play. Also, this is probably a big factor in how balanced this game is.
+ Faithful: More video game adaptions should be this smooth.
+ Developers: Communicative, engages with community regularly.
+ Multiplayer: The developers promised it. The developers delivered. No matter what the game, the ability to play with friends is always a plus!
+ Price Point(DLC): You can pickup the season pass and (in the future) the second season pass for tons of DLC/content, however...

- Longevity: Base game content is sprase without the DLC, although keep in mind it's not about the amount of vilains, but the way the fights go down, that add to the longevity.
- Campaign: If you are the type who likes to unravel story, conquer enemies and levels, upgrading and powering up and unlocking achievements and abilities and cosmetics along the way...this won't be for you.
- UI: Interaction at times can be stiff or finnicky.
- Story: Would be nice if the starting dialogue was tailored based on villain, heroes present, and environment. For example, maybe rivals skip the small talk and just diss each other.
- Confirmation: For example, with multiple card discards, it seems odd to go one at a time with confirmation, instead of batch selecting with a highlight and then confirming.

+/- You will probably have to do a little research to learn to play well early on. Stick to low difficulty stuff until you learn your interactions.


Sentinels of the Multiverse is an adaption of a physical board/card game. It offers an accessible, challenging, and varied experience to anyone willing to put in a little time to learn the intricacies. It is a faithful reproduction, balanced, satisfying, and the developers seem solid with a lot of community interaction and involvement. The comic styled theme is deftly executed, which adds a lot to the experience and charm of this title.

Your gameplay will consist mostly of strategizing: you pick what heroes to use, villain to face, and environment to do so in; by carefully choosing what cards to play, what cards to use, and the order certain events happen in, you can have a large degree of impact on how well or poorly you perform in your fights against evil. The tutorial covers the basics and is comprehensive, but can leave you lost as to how you are supposed to properly utilize heroes, or what heroes may be good for specific tasks. My advice in this regard is that no matter how you approach this game, if you are new to it, stick with the same heroes and an easy villian initially, and you'll learn soon enough.

The expansions massively increase the size of the roster, but even with the base game, there is a large variety of options for villains and heroes of which all feel unique; offering you the ability to adapt or to play the way you want with a large degree of freedom. While certain heroes are definitely more suited to certain villains, you don't ultimately have to use them to be successful.

In Sentinals of the Multiverse, you put a card into play at the start of your turn; this card may be a one off, a piece of equipment that stays on the field, or an on-going effect/power that can be utilized every turn. After you play a card, you can use one of many powers, of which each hero has a unique variety, as well as their own inbuilt power. Normally, you can use one power per turn; these powers can be anything from drawing one or two cards, healing your team, damaging the enemy or yourself, dealing low damage to many (or all) targets, or buffing your fellow teammates. Equipment and powers tend to fuel your cards--in turn fueling your hero--and be where most heroes derive the bulk of their strength or utility. After you have run out of powers you can use, you will draw a card, and then your turn will end. Pretty simple, right? It's really the interactions that make up the intracacy of this game, which is beautiful, because the actual act of playing is simple and easy, but the ability to do so well is entirely about your knowledge and cunning. This makes for satisfying defeats and triumphs.

The art could certainly be better in some respects, but the style is consistent and very well executed. There could stand to be more animations and effects. The comic style lends itself to nice and quick transitions and creative menu graphics. Everything is bright, colorful, and vivid, so you really get that saturday morning hero vibe at all times.

Well, being that this isn't exactly a AAA 3D game, I can't comment on lighting, shaders, the quality of the models and animations, etc. so that's about all you'd want to keep in mind.

The music in SotM is very pleasing. I almost don't want to start games because I really like the main menu track especially. The sounds utilized for the various damage type are actually quite fitting and have their own charm. I really like the sound of the cards. Sound seems underutilized in SotM, and I feel like it could desperately use some subtle sounds when highlighting menu options and especially when clicking them. Well, the good news is, you don't really need much sound in a title like this, so it doesn't have as much impact as it would in a 3D adventure FPS.

Sentinels of the Multiverse is a great card game for those familiar or unfamiliar with the physical game. It offers a lot of pros, with almost no significant cons. It's easy to pick up, but it might take you a bit to learn how to utilize heroes to their fullest. The graphics and music will keep you pleased while you are sitting there trying to think your way through anything, or waiting on a friend in the newly implemented multiplayer.

If you are a fan: Pick it up.
If you are new: Consider picking it up. Definitely pick it up if there's a good sale.
If you are new but love the genre: Pick it up, you'll be pleased, but plan to get the DLC.
If you are new and willing to pay a bit for the DLC: DEFINITELY pick it up, the expansions massively increase the available content.


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