Recent reviews by Fawkes

First impressions: This can almost be defined as Persona 5 in a High-fantasy setting, only far less stylish and not confined to a school-life. The only noteworthy difference that I found was the ability to defeat weak enemies without entering battle and considering time to travel from one city on the map to another when setting out. It's not a open-world game. Think Persona 5 hubs but larger in scale.

Characters, plot and writing in general is excellent and handled with care, as expected of Atlus. This game has it's own equivalent of Personas and Confidant system known under a different term. Anyone who played P5 should find most mechanics familiar.

Gameplay wise, this game doesn't have it's own identity, which is a bit disappointing.

Personally, I remember Persona 5 being incredibly hooking for me. This game, not so much.

Recommended, but barely. And only when the price is low.

Game is really short. Climax feels rushed. A lot of weapons and attacks feel useless because of animation lag. Enemy AI sometimes glitches out. Combat is fun when works but can often become a pain when some annoying enemies start showing up. Final boss is too frustrating on Easy. Overall, the game lacks QA and polish.

Inspirations from Prince of Persia is obvious. The fantastic art direction, mesmerising visuals, storytelling and a rather authentic depiction of Indian mythology are about the only reasons that make this game somewhat worthwhile.

We need more games based on similar themes and legends, because right now this is something of a rare gem.

You complete a series of "Bad" endings, each earning you a "truth". With each truth learned, you replay the story and try a different path, rinse-repeat, until you find the "Good" ending.


- Great Storytelling, full of witty humor and captivating narration.

- Colourful and Charming Characters

- "Batman Arkham" style combat that is very satisfying to play.

- Lite-RPG progression system where you can upgrade your weapons, equip gems and level up a skill tree.

- Dashing through breakable objects is so fun.


- The game will make you repeat the story to find the "good" ending.

But truthfully, while you will revisit old levels a lot, the journey is rather fun thanks to the very engaging combat and wonderful narration and remarks by the narrator throughout the quest. It is also fun to see what new paths are available after unlocking truths. In my experience, the good ending can be found under around 10 hours without even trying.

Overall, I recommend this game to anyone who wants an adventure game having fun combat with an incredible narrative and storytelling.

As of Update 8

Factorio Lite. But in 3D and with verticality.

GOOD

- First Person immersive Factory building is super fun and engaging
- Verticality adds a whole new dimension of challenge and creativity
- Co-op multiplayer
- A lot of techs to unlock
- There are multiple biomes to explore and build in and each world is huge
- Unreal Engine graphics
- Game configured to your gameplay needs (with enemy AI, fly and god-mode options)
- Resources are infinite (Can be seen as BAD to some)

BAD

- Glitchy and buggy, mainly on co-op
- World and Resource nodes are not randomly generated like in Factorio
- Edges of the Worlds feel unfinished with lots of clipping and visibility issues
- Early game can be insanely laborious and grindy (until you start coal power)
- First person item placement and planning can be challenging and the snap to grid feature sometimes doesn't work as expected (you will need to use Fly mode for better planning and layouts)
- Maximum cable/pipe/hypertube connecting distance doesn't feel as long as it should

The game has quite some bugs and glitches when playing multiplayer with another Player. But recent updates are ironing these out. And more contents are coming. Overall the game is addicting to any automation fans and if you love Factorio, you should give this a try.

Hard to master but WTH it's addicting

This is your best option if you are looking to make your own 2D Pokemon game using the Essentials toolkit.

Otherwise move on to RPG Maker MZ, which have brought back the coveted layer system last seen in XP, along with many improvements to create games for modern systems.

This was a great RPG Maker for it's time and is still fun to get creative with. But unless you are making Pokemon games, you need to upgrade to MZ.

There are plenty of Mario Kart clones out there. Neither can really top the original but this one does something new: transform your Karts into Boats and Jets seamlessly as you change terrains during race (which feels really as awesome as it should). The game is very polished, AI is well balanced, locations are quite memorable, controls feel just right and there are plenty of playable characters to unlock. This makes it easily one of the best Kart racers out there.

Sonic All Star Racing Transformed is the closest thing to Mario Kart on PC you'll get at this time.

The bad things include extremely forced Batmobile sections, very repetitive side missions and you need to collect over 200+ grindy riddler secrets to unlock the "true" ending.

Other than that it's a fitting conclusion to the story of Arkham series. Playing with other characters were fun in their side missions. And the Batman combat is as awesome as ever.

Not as good as Arkham City but still worth playing if you loved the earlier installments.

This game appeals to both hardcore business tycoon fans and those like me who just want to build their model railroads and watch the trains go on forever.

You will actively create paths, set up routes and purchase vehicles to run on the said routes. Then you can hop into the cockpit and go for a ride. I don't care about the business sim elements so I jump straight into the sandbox mode (which lets you have no expense).

This is one of those games which gets better with mods. The mods are fun and adds butt-loads of new content into the game. My biggest disappoint with this game are the lack of automatic path-finding (trains won't take empty platforms if their designated platforms are occupied) and a timetable feature which lets you manage your traffic more effectively.

Overall, this game is a great joy for a railroad enthusiast like me. It's not perfect, but close enough.

Last good entry in the Torchlight series. It's a good ARPG inspired by Diablo but highly accessible and "beginner friendly" to newcomers.

Unique to the series is a pet system which takes care of the usual Scrappy Mechanic found in more "hardcore" ARPGs like limited inventory to carry loot and having to teleport to town to sell trash. In Torchlight II, the pet acts as an extra inventory, can be sent to town to sell and purchase items and can assist you in combat.

Pros:

- Loots
- Very approachable
- Easy to learn
- Pet system and the benefits it brings
- Fishing
- Multiplayer comes in LAN and Internet modes
- Excellent Mod / Workshop support

Cons:

- No PvP
- Character builds are kind of generic
- Limited character appearance customization
- Lack of multiple game modes

If you loved Diablo and are too afraid to get into Path of Exile, or simply want to start in the ARPG genre, Torchlight II will satisfy you in most ways.