Recent reviews by Danosaur

Solid throwback to 80's arcade quarter munchers. If you played any games by this developer, you pretty much know what to expect. Doesn't quite reach the same heights as Donut Dodo, for me personally, but it's still a fun romp. Recommended for fans of retro platformers.

Note: Ignore the fact that this review says "product refunded." I purchased the game again after the developer fixed some progress-halting bugs I experienced at launch.

If you are a fan of beat 'em ups, I urge you to give this hidden gem a try. It is one of the freshest takes on the genre I've seen in a long time.

It all centers around a unique control scheme, which utilizes sweeping motions across the face buttons to mimic the motions of your character. It may feel unintuitive at first, but stick with it and it won't be long before you feel like a kung fu god. The game rewards timing and precision, and button-mashing will net you a hilarious animation of your character flailing his arms in reckless abandon. There are four (possibly five?) kung fu styles to master, which you can switch between on the fly by tapping a direction on the d-pad. Each style feels truly distinct. And while you can mostly use them interchangeably, they each have their strengths and weaknesses depending on the situation. There are blocks, parries, counters. It all feels very fluid and is a joy to play around with (you know it's good when you can have fun just practicing the moves without actually fighting anyone).

I estimate I'm about halfway through the game, and the story thus far has been very lighthearted, leaning towards comedic. The majority of townsfolk offer little guidance to aid you on your statue-retrieving mission but are always at the ready with a cheeky one-liner or a 'so-bad-it's-good' dad joke. The training montages are like something straight out of a Karate Kid movie and are easily some of the best moments in the game. And, not to spoil anything, but there is one scene early on that will subvert your expectations in a clever and funny way.

Rounding out the package is a fantastic visual presentation, looking like a PC-Engine game on steroids. The game has a very pleasing, bright but muted, color palette. The backgrounds are detailed and have a good sense of depth, while the pixelated characters are well-animated and surprisingly expressive. The soundtrack, while not breaking any new ground, fits the theme perfectly and is reminiscent of something you might hear in an old kung fu movie.

With all that said, the game is a little rough around the edges. At the time of this review, my graphics and audio settings are not being saved between sessions. The game freezes whenever I head in the 'wrong' direction after learning the Tiger style (I managed to replicate this bug every time I tried). There is one recurring enemy who appears to lose some clothing during his attack animation. And there are a handful of typos/grammatical errors.

Glitches aside, I have only a few minor nitpicks. Since many of the NPCs and backgrounds look so similar, I often find myself interacting with someone I've already spoken with. It would be nice to have a dedicated button to quickly skip this dialogue. Speaking of buttons, there is no button remapping. Understandably, the control scheme is central to the gameplay mechanics, but at least let us swap the shoulder buttons and triggers. And finally, there are no Steam achievements, which may be a dealbreaker to some. All of these things could be easily rectified with a few QoL updates.

Sadly, this game appears to have flown under the radar of beat 'em up fans, of which there aren't that many nowadays. Any future work the developer puts into this would clearly be a labor of love. Still, I can't help but imagine all the ways in which this already solid foundation could be expanded upon. It's absolutely criminal that Five Gods of Kung Fu didn't get more attention, but I am on board for whatever Gregor Bestelmeyer dreams up next.

Fun game if you enjoy the obsessive inventory management of games like Backpack Hero or God of Weapons, discovering interesting synergies, and having a stress-free multiplayer experience.

Essentially, you pick one of four character classes, each with their own unique starting equipment, shop for gear and items, then find out how your backpack organization skills stack up against other random players. The gameplay loop is quite satisfying.

My main issue (aside from the fact that the characters could definitely use some balancing) is that it's all over way too quickly. You play a handful of rounds and win some trophies, then choose whether or not you wish to continue a few extra rounds to win a few more trophies, and that's it… you're done. It feels like once you finally have a backpack where everything is starting to synergize, the game arbitrarily ends and it's time to start the whole process over again with a new backpack.

There's no sense of progression, as literally nothing you do in one brief playthrough will have any effect on the next. There's also virtually no reward for winning (aside from the aforementioned trophies, which only serve as currency to buy minor cosmetic upgrades for your chosen character). There doesn't appear to be any penalties for losing either (though I haven't lost an entire round yet). IMO, winning should allow you to continue indefinitely, and the penalty for losing all of your lives should be having to restart with an empty backpack.

Speaking of character customization, the options right now are extremely limited, and it takes what feels like an eternity to accumulate enough trophies to significantly alter your character's appearance. You will find yourself playing as and against minor variations of the same four character designs over and over again. This game begs for an in-depth character creation tool. Oh, and if by some chance you wish to play as a male character, you're out of luck.

The art style is good for what it is. I am not a big fan of the character designs, as they all look rather generic. The music is also textbook. It's exactly what you might expect to hear in such a game, for better or worse. Unfortunately, there are only two tracks (one for the shop and one for battles), which will inevitably grow tiresome.

As it currently stands, Backpack Battles looks to be a winning formula. It just needs more of everything, especially a reason to keep players coming back after a dozen or so rounds. I'm giving it a thumbs up in hopeful anticipation that the developers will continue to provide a steady stream of updates to expand upon its foundation.

Townscaper is fun "toy" (as the developer puts it) to play around with. There is no real gameplay here. No goals. No challenge. You simply plop down different colored blocks and see what emerges. Yet the results are oddly satisfying - primarily due to the beautiful art on display. It almost feels as though you are creating a painting of a quaint seaside village.

However, at least for now, said villages are almost completely devoid of life. With no people anywhere in sight, and only a handful of birds hanging out on rooftops, you will be marveling at gorgeous seaside ghost towns.

It would be nice to see some activity, such as: people walking around, fishing, or just sitting outside of a building drinking coffee. Maybe a dog or cat roaming the streets. Perhaps all of Townscaper's inhabitants are staying indoors due to the coronavirus situation… yeah, that's what I'm telling myself.

I've seen suggestions for things like different styles of buildings, from different time periods, and the ability to build on various types of terrain. These would certainly be welcome additions. As would some gentle background music. The camera controls are a bit finicky and could use some tweaking. And the ability to click and drag is an absolute must!

As it stands now, Townscaper is an interesting and enjoyable experience. The effortless town creation mechanic and soothing visuals make this a perfect game (or, um, toy) to chill out with after a long a day. And the creative possibilities are endless. With it being in Early Access, I'm looking forward to seeing how far the developer can stretch this concept, and am excited for whatever may come.

I've played a lot of beat 'em ups over the years and Phantom Breaker Battlegrounds is one of my all-time favorites, dating back to its initial Xbox 360 release in 2013.

What sets Phantom Breaker apart from typical sidescrolling beat 'em ups is its deep, complex set of moves and combos, similar to a fighting game. This makes the gameplay feel a lot less repetitive than your run-of-the-mill 2D brawler, where you mash the same 1-2 buttons and perform the same 1-2 combos over, and over, and over again.

While the eight-or-so levels can be beaten in just few hours, you can easily spend dozens more mastering the nuances of each character on the various difficulty settings. There are four main characters to master, four additional characters to unlock, and a couple of DLC characters. Each has their own base stats and skill-trees which needs to be leveled up individually.

Maxing out all of the characters can be a bit of a grind, but the process is always fun. This is partly due to exp being tied to the number of coins and gems you collect during each fight. Collecting these items becomes sort of a mini-game, where you are constantly thinking about the placement of your enemies and how to strategically take them down for maximum bonuses.

The cute, anime, pixel art may not appeal to everyone, but I really like the art style and character designs. The music is decent. Some of the songs are pretty catchy. And the voice acting, which is entirely in Japanese, sounds good enough to my non-Japanese ear. The story, on the other hand, is completely nonsensical and did not captivate me whatsoever. But who plays brawlers for the story, right?

My only gripe is that sometimes there are so many enemies on the screen that it becomes easy to lose track of what's going on. In some levels, there are no less than half-a-dozen, gigantic, screen-filling enemies, making it impossible to even see your character, let alone keep track of the action. I do, however, love the one-on-one boss battles, where you get to test your skills against characters with an equally diverse move-set.

Bottomline: If you are a fan of beat 'em ups, and have become bored with simplistic gameplay and repetitive combos, I urge you to give this hidden gem a try.

A decent strategy game for the price (got it a few months ago for $2 on Chrono.gg). Each game took me a little over an hour from beginning to end, playing at a leisurely pace. I played about three games before I got bored and felt I saw everything the game had to offer.

The most important thing to note is that you have no control over your units on the battlefield. The gameplay pretty much boils down to managing a very basic economy, deciding what structures to build and where to allocate resources.

On normal difficulty, it was smooth sailing until the midway point. After a fairly challenging battle around year 25, I found the game reverted back to being somewhat easy. That is until (what I assume is) the final battle in year 50. Thus far, I have been unable to overcome the insane number of units the CPU places on the battlefield, even with my own massive army of powerful knights, archers, druids, unicorns, tigers, and hydras. I'm sure it can be done, but I don't find the overall gameplay engaging enough to keep trying.

I recommend picking up the game if it's on sale. There isn't a lot to keep hardcore strategy gamers entertained for long, but it's fun while it lasts and makes for a nice, relaxing diversion.