Recent reviews by Akhlys

This is more of a neutral. Review #2000 where I say I wish steam would have a neutral rating. But as it stands, I wouldn't recommend this.

Lemme preface saying that it isn't particularly bad, it just has many downsides.

First of all, not too happy with the art style. wanting to make it look like an old arcade game is fine enough, but it's inconsistent. Some times you have antialiasing, other times there are some very ugly pixel steps. Often together on a screen. Back then, people actually manually added antialiasing in art, even did stuff like dithering to make it as good as they could with what they could work with. Here, sometimes it feels some ugly pixel stairs were left in for no other reason than "it makes it look old lol"
As an example, take a look at the fourth store screenshot. Compare the edges of the thong with the enemy in the lower left. One is antialiased, the other isn't, and this discrepancy hits you all the time. Obviously they just transformed the sprite to "turned" with no interpolaton and no antialiasing, but "back in the day" that turned enemy would have been another sprite and would still have looked good, not that broken line pixelated mess.
I know that's a matter of opinion, but personally "making stuff look bad just for nostalgia's sake" never sat right with me.
I'm pretty sure the enemies are higher res in the resources than in the game. So turn them using the original resolution, antialiasing and all, resize them to their "pixel-apparent" size using proper interpolation, then increase them to the display size again with no interpolation. That would preserve looking pixelated while keeping it from looking awful.
Honestly, I don't really get why so many indies want to capture a "crt vibe". I like some pixelated games, Cave Story is possibly my favorite indie game, but it seems the devs went all out for this, with scan lines, screen deformations etc. But you can add scan lines all you want, you will not reach it unless you put some very deep work into it, because the way CRT displayed image was different (duh) and the pixels melted together some. Watch "When worse graphics are actually better" on YT for example. Just making low pixel graphics cannot emulate that, just adding scan lines cannot emulate that. You could probably add a blurring filter to get close, but to really emulate it you would have to emulate the color bleeding and rounding effect, which is probably quite some work for little pay. Just making things pixelated and adding scan lines is like thinking filming black and white without sound emulates the silent film era. So why not make it look good instead? You can stay with low res graphics, just apply antialiasing and all.
anyway, I digressed hard. You can't expect that from an indie game, sure. Just a pet peeve.

Secondly, yeah they wanted the "look and feel" of an arcade game. You still made a pc game, not an arcade game. What is the primary input device on a PC? That's right, the mouse. But that game doesn't allow for you to use the mouse for anything save for "left mouse button = shooting". The mouse doesn't even work in the menu. I'm sorry, I'm not even letting console ports get away with it, so I will not let a made-for-pc game get away with it either.
A bullet hell type of game where you can't even move your ship with the mouse? Really? At the very least support the mouse in menus and default to keyboard-steering with a way to disable that just like you did with scan lines (thanks for that btw)
And to add to the previous point.. Unless you expect every player to have a joystick, a device I haven't even heard mentioned in a decade, you won't replicate the feel of arcade anyway.

I like that this game is game first, prn second. I really do, those are my favorited prn games. But the prn content is so little you really wonder why they even bothered, instead of leaving it as "suggestive", maybe lowering the age rating and having a larger customer base. I mean, I enjoy it, but.. seems like wasted potential. If you make it full on adult, why not have scenes after defeating a giantess? I mean, from the captain conquering her again with charme, to some bondage heavy arrest scenes or something, there's so much that could have been done, but wasn't.

Speaking of missed chances. this could have ben the first game in a long time to emulate the era of the upgrade flash games. Imagine you could use the money to increase the ship speed, maneuverability, weapon power, weapon size, maybe even add super weapons that charge over time. Upgrades that the enemies leave behind more coins. Then increase the enemy difficulty level to level drastically, so you may to have to replay some stages, but then you could make your ship so kickass that you can proceed.
ah well, what could have been. I miss those old games, and it makes me sad no game nowadays scratches that itch.
This is not a point against the game, just some wistful waxing.

all in all, I disagree with some (lol many) design decisions, but it's still a nice game, just not for me. As steam doesn't allow for neutral votes, and I wouldn't recommend it, I'm sorry devs, gotta go with "no recommend"

This is a solid entry of Ys, but far from my favorite. From the 2.5D Ys games, this ranks second. It does not have the issues of Ys Oath in Felghana (way too long distances between save points, a story that could have been made way easier or even solved by the oh-so-wise Big Good from the start) but it obviously lacks the refinement of Ys Origin.

My main issue is that It forces you to grind levels way too often, you often encounter enemies that you do zero damage to until you level up some. The problem is that they're often not dangerous enemies - sure they do a lot of damage to you, but if you're careful, it's not too hard to avoid damage from normal mobs. As soon as you can do damage to them, you can use one or two of them to quickly level up several times by defeating them, leaving the screen, returning, rinse repeat. It feels silly easily defeating and farming level ups from an enemy that, 5 minutes before, you couldn't damage at all.
Other 2.5D ys games have that issue as well, but way less grating. I guess the enemies there have more health but less defense.

The item that lets you regain health while standing still, a staple of the Ys franchise, is only gotten by an optional side quest right before the end of the game. It should really have been a mid-game-item.

The bosses weren't the worst, but also not the best. Way too many bosses only have hitboxes in the air, and jump attacking is cumbersome. Not the worst thing but annoying.

It also has a very hard to execute movement mechanic, the dash jump. You never really need it save for extra content in one area, but it's still prominent in the option menu. As a tip.. use the d-pad, orient yourself where you wanna jump. Let go of the buttons. Hit the direction again just for a bit, let go, wait half a second, then press and hold attack, then jump. That's the only way I got it to work in like half the attempts.

All in all, if you're new to Ys, do not take this one to pop your cherry, but it's not a bad game

This is a nicely made, slow corruption type prn RPG.
It's main negative is..Every tme I think of it to recommend it to someone, I can never think of the name, and it's basically impossible to google. For example, the player character is an ex super agent/super heroine as far as I remember. Google for adult super heroine corruption games and you get 40 games, none of which is this :D

Now, I haven't played it in a while, this is mostly so next time I can just look through my reviews to find it again

This is a tough one.
Would I recommend it in a vacuum? Yeah, it's a nice 2.5D platformer. Would I recommend it compared to other Ys games? nope.
I decided to 'recommend' this game... basically because I just can't get myself to downvote an Ys game ^^;

Now, this game is well liked. I saw so many people that put it on the top of their Ys game rankings. And frankly, I don't see why.
As said, it's not a bad game, but it has a fatal flaw.
The save points are way too far apart.
Imagine playing for 20 minutes, meeting harder and harder enemies. No way to heal yourself save for some rare monster drops that heal like 10%. You clear room after room after room after room. Your health bar gets smaller and smaller. And then it happens, some oger bonks you on the head, you fall to your knees, dead.
You hit retry. You're sent back to the last monument (save point). All your exp lost, all your gold lost, back at square one, 20 minutes just gone. Do it again!
This time you get further. You go at it slower to not get hurt so much, you reach 2 rooms further in. Bonk, dead, another 30 mins lost. Rinse, repeat.
Combine that with tricky platforming later on, where falling doesn't kill you, but sends you back several monster filled rooms.

Basically, until you find the spirit cape (item that can heal you over time when you stand still) this game is very frustrating.
If that game had free saving or roughly double the save points it would be way more enjoyable.

I played through all the Ys games 4 years back. This is the only one I didn't finish. After I fell for the umpteenth time while jumping from slippery block to slippery block in the ice mountains, I remember thinking "why do I do that to myself? This isn't fun" and just stopping.
Well, this time I didn't stop, but I can understand past self.

Fun space exploration game. You land in Unknown Space[TM] and need to make it Known Space[R], pretty much :D

If you played Starcom: Nexus, the predecessor:
"It is very similar to Starcom: Nexus, nearly a level map" is what I would have said yesterday. Today I fired Nexus up again and man are there many improvements that you simply don't notice because it's just similar enough and it has been years. Ship building is vastly improved and way faster, the research tree doubled in size, you have nifty quality-of-life improvements like an autopilot, graphics look better, and so on.
It's just like Nexus, just.. better in every aspect.

It pains me to downvote it, there was clearly put a lot of effort into it.
But I simply can't recommend it. I would put this as neutral (the times I wrote this in reviews is legion, steam please already make a neutral review setting) but as I'm forced, I ask myself "would I actually recommend it to someone?" and the answer is "not really"

It doesn't really have a story, so the first thing you're being struck with "so.. what do I actually do?"
The answer is counter.-intuitive. You think, from the way the intro/tutorial was, that your job was to restore the kobold princes kingdom. What you actually do is.. screw the kobold, sometimes literally, and go and help other pricesses. Which are actually rivals, so you basically help out enemies of the kobold.
I wish the game actually made it clear it was more of a sandbox game and the kobold princess is not in any way more or less special than the other princesses.
The game generally does not like to make things clear to you. I already have plenty of hours in this, but without the wiki, I would have no idea that random smexy encounters with random girls in taverns etc actually improved your standings with their kindgom. It makes no intuitive sense, so why would hyou ever guess it?

The whole intro/kobold questline should probably reworked.
The current intro is, you get a quest to help the kobold princess. You select one of her gifts (sacred candle or chunga root) and go with her to the caves below her castle. You fight some bats, then the dragon princess at the kobolds treasure chamber. The dragn princess then collapses the cave and the castle/kindgom with it, so you get the kobold princess as a follower and the game basically starts out with some teary eyed kobold thinking "what do I do now" and you as he player feeling some responsibility for her -> setting up expectations that the game was about you helping her getting back to power.
Make a new intro that has nothing to do with the kobold. Make it shorter, just a tutorial area. "I got to complete a knightly quests to become a member of knights inc: Secure the chunga root or the sacred candle from a cave filled with bats!" (and once you got one, the game automatically returns to the tavern (to keep it with the "one choice item at the start" - and just like it's currently, you can return later to get the other one)). And during the normal game, when you visit the kobold princess, which may be long after the start, the dragon princess shows up and burns the castle with that having nothing to do with you. you rescue the princess and now you got the princess as a follower.

This sandbox game also has a cardinal sin of sandbox games, a built in time limit. In fact, several of them, but one is particularly annoying.
You can't actually do stuff at your own pace, because some time in, the kingdoms will attack each other and you'll lose access to the princesses if you didn't already build up enough to prevent that.
So if you don't want to be locked out of stuff, the only way to play is basically with the wiki or a guide open and.. that's just not fun. Or you play and lose half the possible paths and then know more on NG+ but this is not outer wilds and playtroughts require quite some time.
I wish the game had some other, non final way to utilize the rivalries. Say, for example, what if you got some income over time, healing items, special powers or something from kingdoms where you bedded the princess, but as long as they're under siege you won't get it? and while they're under siege you can't access that kindgom? That would make you want to cosy up to the attacking princess to get her to stop the attack, which would work nicely with the game.

If those two things were changed in the way i mentioned, this would already make the game like 400% more fun to me.
As things stand tho.. I guess I'm going to uninstall it before even completing one route because playing with a guide on the side so you finish a much as possible in as little time as possible.. Is just not fun.
And having spied some in the wiki, it seems quite easy to lock yourself into one princesses' path without actually wanting to. To be fair, at the time of writing I didn't start any path. But I lready feel a reluctance to start the game up again, which is probably not what you should feel for a game like this lol

I feel kinda sad having to downvote this one. But while I wish the devs the best, I kinda feel I have to. I want the reviews of my h-games reflect their quality as well and steam has a huge issue with people leaving "haha boobs" reviews on such games, making it very hard to find the good ones.

I heard it was better than bonetown. Not in my experience. I enjoyed bonetown, but I did not enjoy this one.
It's not open world, the missions are very boring, the weapons feel like they have absolutely no punch (several shotgun shots to the face and the dudes are still not dead, it's an eternal whack-a-mole) and often it feels like you're hit by invisible enemies because apparently some elf archers can shoot across the whole map with pinnpoint precision or something, the h-scenes are exactly the same as in bonetown except your character is a space marine midget, and in the real game there are just orks (that differ oly in clothing) and elves (that differ in clothing and color), all other girls are not in the story but just in an extra menu and just copypasted from bonetown. The humor is very childish but not in a good way ("I'm part of her cabinet" - "I don't care about her furniture", haw haw) and it runs about as stable as a ♥♥♥♥♥ after a night of "anal on the house". It doesn't even shut down cleanly, you have to kill the process in task manager.

It's.. just not fun.

Also sidenote, why the hell would they name it bonecraft, have starcraft space marines and not let me have kerriganussy? I know, I know, warcraft, but. Infected. Kerrigan. Queen ♥♥♥♥♥ of the universe. would've been so great

Note that this is not a puzzle game, it's a Visual Novel.
There are of course the connect-3-puzzles, but they're rather few and far between. Nicely descigned tho, most prn connect-3 forget to do something special when you connect 4 or more, for some reason. It's not rocket science, but still. Alas this game does it correctly.
Still. VN, not puzzle.

The story is... rather ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I dunno if it is because of some shaky translations, because it bombards you with words you, as a westerner, never heard of (for half the time I thought lukomorye was the name of some dude, not the name of some mythological russian region) or because it uses some words in an uncommon matter but I found it very hard to follow the story.
I mean, the general gist is no issue, just the details.

Anyway, it has some nice animation, nice art, and is a nice little game. It's rather short tho. Disregard my playtime, I forgot it was running in the background when I went to bed.

it has plenty content, but it's really repetative and grindy
Also.. I never had an RPGMaker game that hardly runs for 20 mins without crashing. How do you even manage to do that? You can say plenty about rpgmaker games but usually they're at least stable

Also way too much text. It puts VNs to shame. By the end of it I basically just leaned on the skip-dialoge-button and it stil took like 20 seconds to get through some of them. Ain't nobody got time for that

This game is nice but a bit boring (well it's a walking sim)
But that's not the reason I recommend not paying for this.

This game was made by Alec Holowka. He is no longer with us. False rape accusations by Zoe Quinn (some of you veterans may know this name) drove him to suicide. After he was bullied off this mortal coil, the game company went to his sister, Eileen Mary Holowka. Who was buddy buddy with Zoe. But it doesn't end there. Eileen used the plenty of money she got from her brothers game to create "Baby Ghosts", a "social impact investment firm", and "Weird Ghosts", an "impact fund". Besides other things, they provided part of the funding for Sweet Baby. She funds the very same type of people that drove her brother to suicide.
Let me repeat, by buying this game, you do not support the one who made it but, by proxy, the kind of people that made him kill himself. You piss on the creators grave.

Play this game. Don't buy this game. I bought this long before learning this, sadly.