Recent reviews by Marekatt

A really amazing turn-based strategy gamed. I never played any of the other XCOM games, but fell in love with this pretty quickly. There are issues with the game, but workshop mods fix that pretty neatly, and even without mods you can customize your game experience significantly when starting a new game.

Whoever designed the Chrysalids, however, deserves a slow and painful death.

I was _this_ close to giving up on this game and never playing it again. This was mostly due to the first few runs in E mode being runs where I just did not deal damage, despite choosing only damage-based cards. I forfeited several tries because I realize it would take 10-15 min to kill the boss/elites which is excruciatingly dull in this sort of game.

_However_, after that run I decided to do one last run to give the game a chance and everything changed. This was the first time I managed to become properly OP, with death coming out of every orifice of my body. The game seems pretty weak at first and I was considering just going back to Vampire Survivors. But it does get really fun and you'll get that feeling of being super powerful after unlocking a few cards. I actually prefer this to VS, partially due to the graphics and more open space. The upgrades are also more varied.

The game runs smoothly and it's actually easy to see what's going on even when the screen is filled with enemies. The "achievements" are actually unlockable items, so make sure to pay attention to that. They are well made, not too difficult or annoying to grind. They encourage the player to explore aspects of the game they might otherwise ignore, and I learned a lot from doing them. They're basically a tutorial (which the game is completely lacking otherwise).

There are some things that could be improved, which I will list below:
-My first complaint was that achievements were not viewable in the pause menu. Turns out I just didn't see it, so kudos to the creator for fixing something that usually annoys me greatly.
-Enable muting the game while in background so we don't have to manually mute it every time we decide to do something else for a bit.
-Add another cursor option to make it truly visible please. Maybe clicking the mouse can create some large highlight. It's very hard to find it amidst the chaos, even with the line and stark colors.
-Enable refunding only certain skills in the soul shop, not all or nothing, since many will be used consistently while others might change. I also don't like the way skills are leveled up, it's too easy to accidentally lvl it more than intended, as you only have a split second to let go of the mouse. It would be better with a +/- system where you simply add or remove a lvl.
-Have a "reset view" button on the map (space, for example)
-The game could use a "help" page or something where the player can find out what different vocabulary means.
-It is quite confusing which cards change a stat and its gains permanently (like 0.3 crit rate, 2x projectiles) and which are only applied once. This should be clarified. For example, the card that gives 3x crit dmg and 0.3x crit rate shows how it changes the current stats, but doesn't say that all future crit cards will also have the 3x/0.3x value applied to them. (i.e. when you get a 10% crit rate card in the future, you only gain 3% (rounded)).
-The achievement menu is difficult to navigate. I would very much prefer to scroll than to click "next" (or at least be able to view more at once, like in the stats soul card menu). Also, the "previous" and "next" buttons are situated in a way that makes me constantly hit the toggle or back button. I think they should be next to each other. This applies to other menus as well.

I don't really get the hype about this game. It doesn't come close to the entertainment and fun of other rogue-like deckbuilders I've played, such as Rogue Lords. The card dragging feels clunky and slow, most cards being restricted to one lvl up feels weak, and in general the combat is just underwhelming. After having unlocked all the characters and a few relics, I felt no desire to keep playing. The progression rewards did not seem to warrant trying to unlock more and attempt harder difficulties. I've tried to like this game once before and felt the same that time. Maybe it's good for people who are really into card games, but if you like rogue-lites for the dopamine rush and feeling of progression between each run, this might not be the game for you.

Looking at the negative reviews here I know what's in store for me - the fanbase does look rather toxic and defensive concerning criticism of the game. Go about, put your "jester" and be the equivalent of boomers putting laughing emojis on comments on facebook.

Note: My Steam playtime does not reflect my actual playtime. I played this game through other means and almost finished 100% of it, then decided to buy it because I thought it was good.

This is a very entertaining game. You get really hooked and every time you open a tablet reward you feel a little rush. The game is a little unpolished, however, so I will list some pros and cons. I will focus more on the cons in case the devs want to make the game even better or in case they are dealbreakers for someone reading this.

Pros:
-Easy to learn, medium difficult to master
-Simple graphics which is perfect for this kind of game
-Satisfying attacks and skills
-A lot of variety, I've managed to become OP with all the characters except Lion Brawler (and eagle hunter, but Icarus, its morph, can be good)
-Fun classes with meaningful differences

Cons:
-Each run is basically identical in terms of enemies except 3 bosses which has 2 options each
-Not great translation. There are a fair amount of errors in the translations and some text is even missing translation altogether
-Slow unlock progression. There are a ton of "challenge" modes to activate, but you have to activate them one at a time which means doing something like 30+ runs that each take more than an hour, most of which are rather easy. It would be nice to be able to unlock more at the same time.
-Poor or lacking skill descriptions for some skills (Pharaoh beetle description, for example, says nothing about summoning warrior beetles if there are fewer than 2 in play)
-Some strange/bad menu choices, such as escape not closing the current window or opening the menu and no way to immediately quit the game (you have to go back to the title screen, wait for an animation, and then hit quit again). Also no "mute while in background" option, which is a crime against gamers.
-The achievements could use some work. There is no achievement for finishing a really hard game, and the achievements for obtaining all gear/tablets are annoying. There should be a way to check the achievement progress while selecting rewards, since there is some gear/tablets that you'll never choose otherwise.

It's fun for a few hours. Based on the price tag, I'd say go for it. If it was any more expensive I would say no. I feel like the weapon combinations and scalings end too early, the game could use some more complexity.

A great action platformer with fun mechanics. It's a bit like Ori and the Blind Forest, both in terms of beauty and gameplay. However, it does not have nearly the same complexity as Ori, nor does the gameplay flow quite as smoothly. The artwork and music is beautiful, and the story is quite nice if you choose to discover it. Make sure to get the real ending (but don't get all memory fragments before beating the game the first time - it makes it a chore to get the first ending).

The game has plenty of checkpoints, which I really appreciated since I died A LOT. It even has checkpoints during boss fights, at least on normal difficulty.

Some things I did not like about the game:
-The manga-style comics to narrate the story between chapters is rather cringy and took away from the atmosphere of the game
-There's a "voice" talking to you while playing, but the positioning of the text (no audio) makes it virtually impossible to read because the voice likes talking while you're moving around and trying not to die. I hope the voice didn't say anything important, because I couldn't catch most of it.

Note: My playtime does not reflect my actual playtime. I bought the game after I already finished it.

An intriguing little game with a cool concept. It has a great atmosphere and great voice acting. It's not particularly challenging, but you do have to think a bit. The videos and screenshots might give the impression that this is an action game, but that is pretty far from the truth. The game is 90% talking and solving various issues, and a tiny bit of action. I would say I spent around 15-20 hours to get every ending (4 possible). It's really not the kind of game I would usually go for, but it left me with a nice feeling and kept surprising me in positive ways.

I'd say it's worth it even at full price.

One...more...turn...


The steam page does NOT do the game credit by the way. It looks so much better than it does in the pictures and videos that are shown here.

This was fun for about 10 minutes, but after a certain level you stop getting any choice in upgrades, it's all 50% heal, increase dmg, increase health. No more speed, range etc. It's free, so I'm not complaining, but I wouldn't recommend spending any time on this.

Worth it for just the campaign (on sale, admittedly). I wouldn't pay the full price for the 10 hours campaign, but definitely worth around 15 bucks. I'm not an FPS guy in general, but this campaign was amazing. Cool story, great gameplay. Things run smoothly, you get a ton of cool weapons, and there are some really interesting mechanics (especially in the office/research building in the middle). I didn't try multiplayer since competitive FPS really isn't my thing, but I can imagine that's pretty cool too.