Recent reviews by FoxMan

It really is quite sad to see this game in the state that it is currently. I've been a fan of Team Fortress 2 and have been playing it since well before Casual servers and Free to Play were even a twinkle in Gaben's eye, and I don't think I've ever quite been in a community that's torn between people trying their absolute damnedest to kill the game, and the people trying their absolute damnedest to save it. It's wild.

After revisiting the game two years ago after not having touched it in almost six, I had no idea there were so many bots. It's only gone downhill from there, frankly. You cannot enter a server without at least one bot showing up these days. This is thankfully no longer the case!

But the worst part is we know deep down in our hearts that Valve isn't going to do a thing to stop this. Not a damn thing. It's like the PC equivalent of a dying hospice patient. They won't make it better, and they won't even have the decency to put it out of its misery. It's a truly sorry state of affairs. #fixTF2

EDIT: Something HAS, in fact, been done! However, one massive substantial bot purge isn't going to be enough to fix TF2. We can't and SHOULDN'T have another repeat of #SaveTF2 where the community just moved on after something good happened- that's exactly what made the bot wave stronger in the first place. I'm not changing my negative status until I see a consistent effort from Valve to keep one of their most iconic games alive.

It's very interesting to see how far this game has come- from its initial concept phases on itch.io when it was still using Fire Emblem Heroes sprites, to having a proper mobile release as an auto-battler (when it was known as Tournament of the Elements), to its current iteration. Essentially, the main gimmick that makes this stand out from other auto-battlers is the fact that equippable items you give to your units determine the different synergies, rather than the units themselves (that originally wasn't the case, it was unit based previously). I've clocked far more time into its original mobile build than on PC (given it's only just released at the time of my writing this review) but I was happy to support this developer, and I'm eager to see what they'll create in the future.

I have no memory of playing this game (and if I did it was likely to get the TF2 hat, since that was how far my devotion to TF2 went back then), but Steam thinks the last time I played this was on January 1st, 1970.

Make of that what you will.

First thing to note: This game is very much an asset dump, using a lot of premade sprites and graphics. I don't usually consider that a bad thing, though, as long as they're being used in creative and interesting ways, instead of just being yet another clone of a more popular game, which this is thankfully not. It's also worth noting that the developer is making regular updates for this game at the time of writing this, so this current review may have to be edited later down the line. That remains to be seen!

The gameplay loop here is solid and simple: build yourself a party, traverse the randomly-generated map and eventually defeat the Demon Lord to win. There are a ridiculous amount of units to pick from, most of which are unlocked from the start, providing a lot of replayability as you experiment with different parties. Each unit has their own unique skill and as you level them up they pull skills they can learn from a pool of two different archetypes, (example: Warrior/Smasher, Ranger/Musketeer, Tank/Juggernaut, etc.) further adding to the replay value. My only major complaint is that after a certain point your overall strength plateaus by the time your army level hits 5 and the Demon Lord's final army greatly outweighs your own in size, usually leading to stalemates or unwinnable situations, at least from my experience playing the game- I think maybe adding some kinds of unlockable passive upgrades would help players in future runs. Despite that, I've still had a lot of fun with it so far and I want to see how much further the challenge can get!

I can finally live out my dream of being the six-armed god Shiva and punch the snot out of anything that comes my way. Alternatively, I can equip six miniguns at once. The sky's truly the limit.

In all seriousness, though, this game is great. There are only twenty waves in a run, but the difficulty racks up VERY quickly and really has the player focus on micromanaging their stats, acquiring items and material collection in order to ensure victory. The game has quite a few weapons at its disposal, a good chunk of which can be unlocked by finishing runs with certain character types. There are also weapon synergies usually found in auto-chess and auto-battler type games, which ultimately only boost your stats further the more of one weapon type you equip, but are still helpful.

It's loads of fun in its current state and I'm looking forward to seeing just how much harder it gets on later difficulties. Definitely well worth your time if you're looking to scratch the "Vampire Survivors"-like game itch.

I very much like what I've played of this so far! It takes the VS-styled gameplay that people of this subgenre have come to know and love and applies a roguelite principle to it not unlike that of games like Slay the Spire, with structured progression, shops and obtainable abilities laid out like cards. While there appears to be a bit of a lack in enemy variety right now and the enemy graphics are ones I've definitely seen before in other games that have tried to copy this type of gameplay, the environmental graphics are really crisp with some downright gorgeous pixel art, abilities and upgrades feel REALLY solid and there's some particularly beefy sound effects when you pick up experience.

It also gets two massive thumbs up for the goblin miniboss that's doing the Dr. Livesey gigachad walk. That alone should be more than worth the price of admission.

This is JAM-PACKED with content, and it's only the DEMO. Weapons feel great to use, you can VERY quickly snowball into something stupidly overpowered and the dev is actively updating the game and just as actively communicating with players on the Discord (link included ingame). If this is only a fraction of what the full game is going to be then you can guarantee I'll be buying this when it comes out.

WARNING: Minor spoilers for the end of the game ahead, so be wary when reading this review!

Kilta is a neat little thing! The game itself is an autobattler designed like a strategy RPG with tons of charm, a gorgeous pixel art style blended with equally creative and unique character designs, and a beautiful soundtrack that honestly sounds like it was ripped straight out of Octopath Traveler. The player is given a handful of units to work with one at a time over the course of three Chapters, with the ability to Rank Up one of them at the end of each Chapter's boss fight. There's MANY different enemy arrangements to fight (structured like "missions" that you pick and choose from each day), a Hard Mode which is unlocked after your first initial completed run, and is, admittedly, as hard as it says without proper preparation, and plenty of ways to experiment with the units you acquire, be it grid placement or synergies with abilities/Guildmaster skills. However, what I've described is pretty much the majority of what Kilta currently has to offer. The game is PAINFULLY short- the length of the game is offset by its replay value, I realize, but once you've gotten every single unit to Rank 3, there isn't really much left to do right now other than go for a High Score. On top of all that I've mentioned, the TRUE Final Boss is, ironically and depressingly, easier than all three of the game's bosses combined. Given what lore the game gives you, though, that might have been intentional! Either way, something to keep in mind. You may also, as is customary for games that take notes from roguelites, run into a nasty bit of bad luck with what you acquire- which can, at times, negatively impact how your progression goes and might force you into a restart (which the game thankfully doesn't penalize you for doing), but that's more of a personal nitpick than anything.

I would likely find it hard to give this game a recommendation for my main glaring reason alone, but I'm still doing so because of how much I loved what's available already. I'll be keeping an eye on this game going forward but in the future, I'd love to see more characters, scenarios and bits of the world's lore/character interactions because the game's writing and art direction are, as I mentioned, two of its strongest points. Again, despite its length there is a fair bit available right now to keep a player invested, and- most importantly- at the end of the day you're supporting a small Finnish indie developer. That alone is worth the price of admission, right?

also Shadowhorn best girl please don't nerf devs

As the sole player of this game (according to steamplayercount.com) I'd say it's pretty good.

In all seriousness though it's a pretty neat take on the auto chess genre that's still being actively updated by the developers but there is a SHOCKING lack of players, which I find confusing. Where did the playerbase go?

So, let's talk about the elephant in the room before I talk about this game's good aspects: this game very sheepishly compares itself to Vampire Survivors, and my first impressions of this game were that I can agree with that, to a certain extent- this game does feel like Vampire Survivors... if Vampire Survivors had as little challenge as possible. When picking the starting character of the Knight, I felt at no point through the first stage like I was in ANY sort of danger. The character racks up damage VERY quickly and healing potions are handed out to you like candy. I then unlocked the Paladin, and, at first, things were definitely harder- the Paladin deals far less damage and has far less health- but it only took a matter of time before I was just as quickly mowing through crowds and taking little damage in return.

The graphics are by no means original- The Dungeon Beneath on Steam and at least THREE games I've seen on the Google Play store use these exact same assets, so going forward if this game continues to get substantial updates, I'd hope the developers at some point switch to a more original art style that isn't just a premade asset factory. The music, I think, is this game's highest point- it's got some REAL GOOD tunes, especially the song in the second stage (which I have yet to beat at the time of this writing). Finally, performance tends to chug HARD and the framerate drops significantly when a lot of stuff is happening on screen at a time.

With all this said, I would say in its current state Bring it On! feels like an entry level point into this ever-expanding subgenre of roguelikes- but I want to stress that I don't think that's a bad thing, by any means! There is a somewhat decent game here and there is quite a bit of content to unlock right now. I think with some more time to cook and a HELL of a lot of balancing this could be a lot better. I would certainly not dissuade people from giving this a go, and I'll be keeping an eye on this, for sure!