Recent reviews by Grounder

TL;DR - Stop messing around with making all your menus 3D cutscenes with high end rendering and shaders. I just want to quickly navigate around, do what I need to do, and get into the gameplay. There's way too much stuff in the way, loading scenes with animating characters, forcing me into cutscenes, etc etc. Please just make a Lite UI option to skip all this nonsense.

I'm still quite early into the game but wanted to leave some early impressions and add to it later. To summarize, I'm enjoying it so far and it's a fun throwback while showcasing some interesting navigation. It feels quite polished.

What I'm enjoying so far:
- Movement and shooting feels great.
- Art Style and Environment design are fresh and fun.
- The opening sequence is laid out well, I am being drawn into the systems sequentially and it gives me opportunities to use abilities and learn how to play well.

What I'm not enjoying as much:
- Text Logs UI is pretty difficult for me to read, the combination of the text being stretched in full screen coupled with the retro font make me not want to read them. I'd enjoy them more if the text wasn't screen-sized but instead sized.
- I don't get why the Map should have a battery before it fades away. Planning routes and navigation are pretty important in a Metroidvania so limiting this feels like it is going against what the game wants me to do.
- Adding on to the last point of Map Battery, this issue is compounded with the sheer volume of one way doors in the game. The combination of no map for navigation and having one way doors punishes you for trying to navigate your way without the map. The result of this is I need to cycle through an entire area that I've already cleared through just to backtrack.

I'm doing my part!

It's good, I would consider it in line with the other 2D Sonic platformers.

Mordheim is a fun, unconventional take on the classic beloved tabletop game. It has a lot of Rogue-like qualities and your character will evolve over the course of play or get killed off entirely. Game is definitely worth a look.

Update: 6/16/2023 - Revising my recommendation to a negative. Unfortunately the game hasn't resolved the fundamental issue of players leaving mid-match leading to thrown matches. It happens incredibly frequently, and I can't keep playing a game where so many matches are thrown.

Game is receiving good strides towards improvements, and meta changing with new suits is a great touch. It still needs some quality of life touches like queue fill in Casual. Monetization is pretty questionable

I downloaded Risk and played a fair chunk of games, had a great time until I realized something about the player behaviour in multiplayer games - there was collaboration between opponents. The concept of collaboration in Risk is when two or more players are working together in spite of the game rules or circumstances to tip the balance of the game and pretty much guarantee a win.

This is quite evident when you realize what's going on, even in matches where alliances are not allowed, often two or more players will coordinate and not attack each other in order to tip the balance of the game.

For a long time, I assumed this was my own bias but then I saw patterns in the player behaviour which were left unpunished by opponents. So while I'd love to be able to recommend the game, if you're playing and probably 50% of matches are rigged against you, it's not worth your time. I hope they find ways to overcome this.

Update: Revising my review due to the positive post launch support that the game has been receiving recently.

Obra Dinn fails where many other detective games have failed - it actually empowers you to rely on your own wits and eureka moments to slowly dismantle this gigantic mystery into specific components and unlock the mystery though clever attrition. I am craving more OBra Dinn, this is an experience that stands out amongst the games industry.

I went into this game cold with no knowledge of the mechanics, story, or general premise. All I knew was it's about a "Drunk detective who needs to get his ♥♥♥♥ together." I'd recommend you do the same. Overall, I would say the narrative ranks amongst the most potent with games with the characters, setting, and plot perfectly in sync. The characters felt realistic and justifiable in their objectives and morality. There's a degree of hyberbole in all the characters - they are most esoteric than your common street npcs in other games, but that helps to flush out the unique, almost post-apocalyptic, setting that the main character finds himself in.

The game is not without it's faults however, as sometimes you run up hard against "I searched everywhere and found nothing" or "This quest was failed and I don't know why." There's some friction of game quest mechanics and the general flow of the story - without going into spoilers, just be aware that seemingly unrelated decisions may cancel other quests you may be interested in.

As well - I can say that I'm not sure how much desire I have to replay through the whole story. From my reading, aside from different lines of dialogue and tidbits, the character skill customization and decisions don't extend to impact the story significantly, so it just falls shy of replayability, which is a shame, I'd love to give this another whirl, but the story is long and minimal potential changes.

Still, the above two points should pale in comparison to what is one of the best written games of the past decade, and unless you have an aversion to reading, this game is on a must-play recommendation list. Thanks for the great memories. <3