Recent reviews by PaloG

Lemme start off by saying that if Steam provided a neutral option for reviews I'd be using that. The game is fun enough so I'm gonna go positive but it's not without its flaws.


The combat. It's nothing revolutionary but it flows nicely, you got a vast array of options, there's over 60 characters you can field so you can customize your team to great extend and the addition of the SP system really alleviates one of the major issue that made combat boring in a lot of other jRPGs.
The music. I rarely pay attention to ambient music or battle scores in the majority of games I play but in this case the game managed to capture my attention on several occasions outside of big moments. They really work with the locations and greatly enhance the experience and tone of a place/moment.
The town management. It's a simple enough system that feels rewarding and is mostly self contained. Seeing your HQ grow and develop isn't anything new to the Suikoden franchise that this game is emulating but the way it was done here felt nice.
The minigames. There's a vast array of them and you can absolutely lose days to them. I wasn't a fan of all of them and not everything is developed equally(like beigoma and food wars having an extensive line of battles you need to do to recruit some people at the end of it while the card game is somewhat just there etc) but there are at least some that are gonna appeal to everyone's taste.



The story. It's just a mediocre cliche jrpg power of friendship thing. It feels undercooked, you often get told instead of shown, the ending feels incredibly rushed with the major antagonists just don't have any depth to them. They just appear, hint or throw some exposition about their motives/history/role and then just fizzle out. There's even an entire faction that's been present from early in the game we barely get any info on even though it seems like a major player. I'm guessing they're saving that faction as a focus for a future title but it just feels like their role was supposed to be bigger but cut out in the end.
The recruits. I understand that it's a gargantuan task to make 120 characters feel important and give enough time to everyone but there are several of the optional recruits that you talk to them once to recruit them and then they never again play any part in anything. There's no small scenes at the base between them, no mail system where their personalities can come through, no anything besides the hot springs which isn't enough. Even worse what you get is a "background" checker that gives you a little bit of info on who they are and in there several of those are stated to have ties to other characters in your base either prior to their recruitment or after, however you never see any interaction between them. One of the earlier examples is Wyler and Kuroto. While Wyler's background states he trained under Kuroto prior to the game events if you have Kuroto in your party while meeting Wyler for the first time there's not even one line of dialogue between the two.
The tone. It's clear the devs tried to secure a rating appropriate for younger audiences so the game's tone, subject matter and dialogue all feel a little flat, if not outright weird, at times. It's not so bad that it ruins the game but it certainly takes you out of it a lot of the time.
The world. What we got of it is good enough but it feels severely limited. Not only is it all separated into smaller sections with no true feeling of a connected map but it also feels like a lot of things that were added shouldn't have been. One big example of that is that we get an absurd amount of unique beastkin companions(like 10 different races) yet we only ever visit 2 places where we are introduced properly to those races(Treefolk and Shi'arcs). The Lycans, foxians, bull people, lizard people etc. we never get to see integrated anywhere, they just feel like "quota hires". In fact for most of them we never even see another person of those races anywhere in the world except the ones we recruited.


The localization. I'm not a native speaker so I couldn't understand everything but I did study japanese for a few years so I played with the original voiceover. What I did notice is that there are substantial tonal shifts for several characters completely altering their characters and a lot of the time the english text is not matching the japanese script in the slightest. I wouldn't expect a word for word translation as that's just as rubbish, localization after all is not only about translating but also about adjusting things for international audiences but this is Persona 1 levels of bad.
A general feeling of "not all there". Be it the story, the characters, the systems in it, anything it just feels like it does the bare minimum to function and there are things that were meant to be there that have been omitted due to time restraints, bad design choices, lack of manpower etc.
Dishonorable mention for the Battle Plan system. Even though they tried to give us a Gambit system to let us customize out team battle AI when we use the Auto function they designed it in such a horrid way that it's utterly useless. There's only one option where you teams follows individual priorities but with that option you have no way of limiting resource usage(be it MP or items) so you either go with the very inefficient default AI to reserve resources or you go to customized commands and watch your casters become useless after 2 trash fights unless you keep feeding them MP recovery items.


If I were to score this I'd give ECHH a 6 out of 10. It's passable in what it does and I did have fun with it but that general sense of "not good enough" is really bringing it down. It's still a fun experience for people that like the genre and possibly a decent introduction to it but it's not a masterpiece. I do remain hopeful for the future of the franchise though. If the devs take all the criticism to mind for the sequel we could eventually get a stellar game as the bones are already there, it's only the meat that is missing.

The game has some good points but it mostly disappointed me. You play as a 60something chief of police whose wife left him, in a city with a corrupt mayor and a coworker that practically forces you into a position where you have to work for the Mafia. Getting into the game I thought this would be a nice "Choose your own adventure" kind of thing with some management elements however in the whole game there's only 2 major choices that merely decide what ending you get. And sometimes there's quite a gap between any two story segments in the game. The vast majority of your time will be spent on the management side of things. Who to hire, who to fire, who should respond to a call, who to promote etc. Quite often your officers will ask you how to proceed in the crimes they are in the process of stopping. However that also falls down flat. You get 3 choices, one professional, one sloppy and one funny. So it's easy to tell what you need to pick every single time and has no effect on your story at all.
The management part of the game can be rather fun in Sandbox mode but there's one major problem with that. In order to unlock it you have to first finish the Story, something that requires a bit over 10 hours to do. So if you wanna sandbox you're required to waste that time on a wasted playthrough with mediocre to bad story since you can't continue with that one in sandbox.
The one great thing about the game is the music. There's a great selection of Jazz and Classical tunes you can get and listen to during your time as Chief of Police.

This game can be perfectly described by a single word: Fun!
It's a relatively short RPG where you play as a young kid who goes trick or treat with your twin, who very soon gets abducted by candy eating monsters, on Halloween Night. Now you gotta fend off the monsters from your town in order to save your sibling!
The battles are not your typical recipe though, instead it employs simple QTEs for both attacking and defending, which in my opinion makes the game even more kid friendly since practically any age can accomplish that, so if you got young kids this can definitely prove a great game for them.
What you can do in battle depends on the costume you're using. You can dress any of your party members in any costume you have acquired, each with it's own strengths, weaknesses and ability. Want to have an astronaut, a giant robot and a ninja fighting? Great! Want to have a Unicorn, the Statue of Liberty and a serving of McFries fighting? Yes, that can happen.
The game can get a bit repetitive but thanks to its length it doesn't really wear you out. All in all a very entertaining experience!

Not much to say about this one.
It's a nice, relaxing game where you get to reassemble stunningly beautiful Stained Glass jigsaws inspired by different places around the world, accompanied by a very serene and relaxing soundtrack.
It won't last you very long since there's only so many jigsaws but it's a great game to launch when you just want a few minutes to unwind from a tiring day.

The Cave is a puzzle platformer where you get to control 3 out of 7 possible characters at a time, leading them through the mystical "Cave", a place of mystery and desires.
The Cave consists of several unique "layers", some belonging to the cave itself and some unique to the characters you chose each playthrough that gives you a peek on the moment in their lives that turned them either evil or virtuous.
The levels themselves are not particularly hard, in most cases it's pretty clear what you have to do, although there are a few instances you might have to look up online to find how to proceed(damn parrot!). But for one they're all beautifully designed, each with its own theme and feeling.
Your roster makes up an interesting bunch, anything from a medieval Knight to a Time Traveller from the future, each with their own unique ability that helps you complete some parts of the game(besides their unique level faster). And for mute protagonists they certainly have a lot to say!
And speaking of voices extra props to the "Cave". Yes, it's a talking Cave. Only he doesn't talk to your spelunkers but to you. And he's absolutely hilarious!

Now for the bad.
The biggest issue I had with The Cave was the fact that even though it requires multiple playthroughs to fully complete it, it also forces you to replay the "regular" levels every single time. There's no "shortcut" even if you've already completed it 5 times before. So every time you go back to see the story of another hero or a different conclusion to one you've already seen you HAVE to go through the 4 "Cave" stages(getting the treasure, the Mines, the Zoo and the Hermit). And even knowing exactly what you have to do some of those can take a good chunk of time.
Also there were several cases where I really, REALLY, missed a button to call your other heroes to the location of the one you're controlling. As it is now even if everyone has to go to the same room you have to take them there one by one.

Even with those two minor annoyances though The Cave remains a very enjoyable game. Highly Recommended!

A valiant effort at an adventure game with a touch of horror elements. Plot wise it's nothing mind blowing but it also isn't all that bad. While exploring the ship you find yourself moving between the past and the present a few times, showing you two parallel stories, those of your heroine Anna and a young child Fiona.
A big advantage of the game imo is that it's great for people not familiar or expert in this genre as the puzzles are quite simple and don't follow the usual recipe of "You have to combine this item with that item that have absolutely no relation to each other to open the door that will give you this item which you need to use 3 areas back to get a hint on getting the last item you need to use on the moon to get the magic eggplant to give this person to let you pass"
The voice acting at times can be a bit bad in english although I hear the german one is ok.
It would have been a nice, short game if it wasn't for the performance issues that plague this. There's a lot of stuff that can go wrong while playing this, most commonly you lose all sound output from it. It also crashes fairly often, save files get randomly erased so always make backup copies manually, get errors of missing resources etc. Generally a buggy mess with an ok story, it's nice to kill a few hours but that's it.

It's a quite simple tactical rpg game with pleasant gameplay but not much going on plot wise. You take control of one of the rich families of the fantasy world of Highlands which is under attack from a mysterious threat and make your way through the area beating everything standing in your way, liberating everyone, till you reach the end of the road and confront the Big Bad. So yeah, really mediocre. There's quite a lot of RNG involved in this as well.
Something I liked about it was how some maps forced you to adjust your playstyle as you didn't have access to some stuff like Taverns(recruit heroes) or Farms/Markets(produce Food to heal). It was a fun challenge.
The strongest point of this game is it's artwork, it's a very pretty game in general. However there's only like 10-15 unique characters, everything else is just generic NPCs/mobs which is a shame.

A stunningly beautiful game. The art style in it is very well made and it fits the mood perfectly. The battles are also well made and as you progress in the game and get more classes in your roster you can follow many different tactics however they lack the complexity and depth dedicated Tactics have. There’s no unique mechanics to control the field or such and the Health/Attack/Armor works like most TCGs. The story is nice and you can usually feel the urgency and despair your characters feel at times while trying to flee the horde of monsters that is invading their land, the devs certainly made a quite interesting and beautiful world. On the other hand most characters felt either bland or outright basic with minimal development throughout the game, for most of them you could replace them with generic NPCs and I wouldn’t notice. I only did 1 playthrough though so they might shine in choices I didn’t make, who knows? Overall, The Banner Saga was a very pleasant experience that will definitely get another playthrough before I buy and play the sequel.

I'm still quite torn on whether I find this a good game or a bad one. Guess it's mostly somewhere in the middle. It's the typical recipe where you are the amazing hero that is sent on a quest to save the world along with a band of misfits and weirdos you meet on your travels, most of them quite uninteresting. Sounds familiar? Yeah, we've seen it a million times by now.
The skill system is badly designed, picking specific "routes" blocks certain upgrades, mostly in the magic department. If you don't pick the Fire elemental type upgrades you can never use some skill slots since they need those spells to unlock without alternatives for other elements. Also the mob battles are needlessly long cause of the high HP bars most enemies have while Boss fights pose absolutely no threat cause they are just as weak as normal encounters just have 10 times the already ridiculous HP. And if that's not enough the game feels like coming into a conclusion very earlier than it was originally planned. At the area with the portals to the various places you see a number of them which are inactive(you start with only 1 open and you unlock the next every time you finish that area) yet by the end of the game you've only unlocked 3 of them with at least twice as many still inactive.
However one thing I really liked about this game was how you could fly all the time, making exploring the various areas more interesting than usual, even if they're rather small. It was an interesting mechanic.

The ultimate RNG simulator. Every action you wanna make relies on a dice roll, the more well fed you are the more dice you can roll each turn. The game itself is super short, somewhere between 10-20 turns and is based on you replaying over and over again to unlock more characters to use in your spaceship.
As far the story goes well, I haven't got a clue what it is. You have a 4 man crew on a spaceship on their way to mars and each turn something goes horribly wrong and you gotta fix the various compartments. Meanwhile you get those weird transmissions from Mars showing you people that shouldn't be there. I don't know if I'm supposed to understand what is happening or it's purposely vague to "add your own meaning", but for one I never did.

tl;dr weird game where you roll dice while looking at everything else wondering what is happening in your life to make you waste your time with this.