Ulasan terkini oleh Kelrycor

Impressive first game for Ember Labs - a real indie game jewel.


Difficulty ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (based on master difficulty. there is also a very easy story difficulty)

This game has such a good presentation, that I hardly could believe it was a first game of this studio. But after recognizing that the developers usually do digital arts work for ads, it is understandable why it is done so good. Usually, in the indie section, you have coders who want to make games, here we had graphic artists who made a game. The result is close to AAA titles.

The game itself is a 3D platformer which focus is on Zelda like exploration and battle system. You get a lot of (mini) boss fights in a soullike manner. A very good mix indeed. The game world is wonderful and full of lovely details. The story is exciting and the whole game concept works out pretty well. The only downside in my point of view are some bugs / flaws in the fighting system, in combination to a strange control layout which you have to get used to first. I made the obvious mistake to play it on master difficulty on my first playthrough. Don't do that. You get a new game+ option anyway so you can go for it in your second run if you want to go through some pain (later more on this topic).

Pros in short:
* awesome graphics (characters mimics are a little Disney style)
* thunderstorm is made awesome
* good level design
* a map that marks all already collected collectibles and statistics to show you where to look closer

Cons in short:
* character collision sometimes bad (floating objects)
* default camera turn speed too slow (you can raise it in the settings)
* no auto-detections for PS controllers (you need to set the correct button display in the options)
* only English dub (for a first work and indie game it is fine though)
* the snow was made pretty bad (no footsteps, only white sprite particles while walking over it)
* camera auto focuses on wrong enemies sometimes (you can change that in the settings)
* overview over the battlefield is sometimes not good
* there could be even more side quest things

Bugs:
* bow sometimes gets stuck in aiming animation and wouldn't fire even pressing the button (you need to release the bow and re-aim to fix it)
* spirit bomb got stuck one time. I wasn't able to use it anymore although both bombs were ready (had to reload checkpoint)
* got softlocked once by activating a holiday hat chest (enemy spawned, I couldn't move or die, had to reload the last checkpoint)
* spirit bomb: I throw the bomb at the right enemy shoulder, the sticky version appears left shoulder. Also the hitbox of sticked spirit bombs on some (mostly the medium sized) enemies are not working properly. You clearly see the arrow connecting visually but it will not detonate
* hanging purple fruits sometimes bug out (you can shoot them down but you cannot target them with Rots)
* on the speedrun parcour trials a platform got stuck once and didn't reacted to the spirit bomb again
* hitbox of Rot God is horrible, you sometimes get stuck inside him until he moves away
* Rot God spear targetting is aweful (too close or too far and you won't get any marker, sometimes he even walks outside of the zone so far, you cannot target it without risking dying)
* Rot God is able to fall far outside of the zone while dying. You cannot attack its heart to finish him off)

Personal opinion of the fighting system:
The basic system is pretty well done. Bow, bomb and staff are harmonizing good. Bomb and dash attack are very effective tools to even beat the meanest bosses, because both can tackle them. Everything is fine, when you play the lower difficulties. But if you play master difficulty, and the bosses put you under real pressure, some flaws are kicking in. Which are:

* parry is too risky, too narrow timing. It is better to use your energy for dash attacks (sad, because parries look awesome)
* bosses have too often 360 degree full auto aim attacks or melee attacks that crosses the whole boss arena, it is just too insane
* bosses auto-aim even in midair (sudden 180 degree insta-turns although physically not possible, Taro was one of the bosses that abused this a lot)
* bosses sometimes get a frame in which dash attack does not connect properly and you just phase through them leaving you in bad position (really annoying)
* sometimes Kena does not dash exactly in the direction you are aiming, making you miss a critical attack
* the new game+ special phase on the bosses are very mean (Rot God was the only one which didn't got signifcantly stronger as only the mob spawn changed a little)
* the airial smash attack has a too long stall time. It is not effective, but keeps you wide open, that can totally ruin a whole boss fight if you accidentally triggered it. With the analog shoulder buttons this can happen a lot of you want to use the bow. I wished for a feature to lock this attack again. It is by far the most useless attack in the game

The overall boss fight difficulty is pretty high on master difficulty, especially the new game+ phases. You have to train the bosses to beat them. But sometimes it was so frustrating, that even after finally beating the boss didn't feel really rewarding anymore. Which is not good tbh. Luckily every phase has a weakspot or two, and the special phases can be skipped totally by using special weakspots, a whole barrage of 5 Rot attacks, bombs and dashes tactically. This way master difficulty stayed barely on a fair level.

As it seems that the devs may want to make a sequel, it is vital that the fighting system gets polished a little more, and to make sure that weakspots stay a key element of (mini) boss fights. Else the game can get very frustrating quickly. Without those weakspots, I would have most likely given a bad review.

General advices:
There are a lot of QoL settings in the accessibility menu. Make sure to check them out. They make your life much easier. And if you want the special holiday hats out of season, you can change your system time to be able to get them.

Summary
Still Kena - Bridge of Spirits was an awesome game that kept me playing for a long time. I will definitely return to play it even more. I really hope that Ember Labs stick to make games in the future, especially that they gonna go for a sequel for Kena. There is a lot of untold things, so a sequel is possible. They are good at this. So this game is a must play if you like this genre, and Ember Labs is undoubtful capable to deliver more high quality games like this.

Yet another remastered version with a half-hearted conversion.


Difficulty ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (based on hard difficulty and time limited missions)

As a Command & Conquer veteran I was totally excited to play the remastered version of Tiberian Dawn (TD) and Red Alert (RA) plus their addons. And when it comes down to graphics and the sound-remix, the devs did a very nice job. But the gameplay somehow is weird. While they tried to stay authentic to the classic version, they changed some things that altered the AI (in some situation dramatically) and mixed in some new bugs making the game experience just trash in the long run. Unfortunatelly they left me feeling dissappointed in the end.

Pros:
* overworked UI and controls (like zoom function)
* nice graphics
* awesome music remix
* nice EVA installation setup reuse
* whole mission selection thing is good
* mainly the classic feeling

Cons:
* I missed a sudden holt position command (units swarm like flies in mothballs sometimes)
* build options are listed chronological rather than a certain order making it sometimes hard to find the unit or building in longer lists between different missions
* standard game speed is too fast. Though there is an option to decrease game speed, the default is not classic making things harder. Especially time limited mission are really difficult
* while most cinematics are enhanced in CC TD, RA misses a proper rework totally
* no water effects while units drive through it (missed chance for the remastered version)
* (RA only) white build markers on white snow is not a good solution

Bugs:
* (TD only) GDI airstrike behaviour is not classic
* (more severe in RA) units regularly ignore attack commands though the enemy unit is flashing up
* (RA only) RA submarines will sometimes move to firing range but will not torp a ship
* (more severe in RA) long range units sometimes want to jump right into enemy faces rather than open fire at longest range
* (especially TD) when you click too close to a tree or bush to move units the mouse icon will change and you will unintentionally loose your unit selection if you don't pay attention
* (TD GDI 9) your npc ships don't fire at the enemy base
* (TD GDI 13A+B) are the very same missions but count as different ones
* (TD NOD) mission result doesn't show the destroyed buildings in numbers
* (TD NOD 7C) borders of the mission selection screen does not match the selected area
* (TD NOD 13B) game is softlocking completely from time to time while enemy mammoth tanks try to chase my unreachable captured transport chopper. You need to restart the whole game.
* (TD mostly, rare in RA) boarding units with multiple soldiers at once will always leave 1 unit behind
* big cathording issue due to bad pathfinding. Units want to drive huge detours rather than following beeline through chokepoints (like bridges)
* saving has a delay of 2-4 seconds, which may leave you in a bad situation when you try to reload the savegame again
* loading a savegame the first time after game start causes severe lags that need you to reload once again
* (RA only) C4 from Tanya might cause unpleasent freezes/lags
* (RA only) damaging and destroying bridges might cause freezes/lags also
* (RA only) V2 rocket launcher units sometimes don't fire although missile is loaded and aimed steadily for more than 5 seconds at an unit
* (RA allied 5A) truck is not present, but story triggers will still work
* (RA allied 5C) Tanya does not destroy her prison like in the two other missions
* (RA only) boarding landing boat is horrible. Always the most far away unit wants to board first rather than it is first come first serve until all units are on board
* (RA only) cruisers do not auto-fire on soldiers in range even if getting attacked by them
* (RA soviet 8B) got nearly softlocked because 1 enemy ship was stuck half out of the map on the left side. Attack marker was available, but my units weren't able to attack it. Luckily this enemy unit didn't counted to the units on field and mission concluded after killig everythign else
* (RA only) spy is triggering scripts that alarms the base and might end a mission although enemies can't see him (but this was the same in the classic version)
* (RA soviet 14) my own cruisers can't attack enemy cruisers unless they auto-attack (mouse icon is blocked)
* (RA only) medic in range sometimes just doesn't heal a soldier unless specifically ordered to do so. It is the same with engineers repairing tanks in the RA addon.
* sometimes mission flares aren't visible (FOW will be gone though)

Meanwhile I completed both games with all addons, but I stopped counting all the little flaws later on. Still the actual list is quite long. While some are just quality of life issues, or were even an issue in the classic version already, the remastered version just missed the chance to do better. But the biggest flaws out of the list that really made me mad are the units jumping into enemy faces like Lemmings in a suicidal approach, units that will just ignore my commands and the homing imba GDI airstrike (which made some mission really annoying in which you will loose your uniqhe commando unit with a 100% chance). Especially the two former things will kick in if you are on timed mission or have to multitask quickely between attack and defense, just to notice a couple of seconds later that your units didn't do as you ordered them to do. Which might lead to a broken defense line or a crushed attack. Save and reload is your friend, but it feels just like meh to do so for working around broken things.

The altered homing GDI airstrike with another attack priority is already known for a long time, and yet the devs missed the chance to patch it to a proper classic behaviour. Sad they do not care.
* https://gtm.you1.cn/app/1213210/discussions/0/2518023667603832540/
* https://answers.ea.com/t5/Other-C-C-Games/GDI-AI-airstrikes-have-an-unfair-advantage/td-p/9184163

For veteran fans the remastered version is still better than the classic version in my opinion, because the nostalgic factor keeps you on track playing it further. But a pitty that the long list of small annoying issues, which could have been easily avoided or fixed, are the reason I did not liked it in the end.

For the time being I'll return to CC Generals Zero Hour, the best CC so far in my opinion.

Deck9 did a very good job on catching the vibes of Life is Strange.


Difficulty ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ (purely narrative game)

I was very sceptic if Deck9 would be able to deliver a LiS game as good as DontNod, but they have proven that they understood what made LiS (Season One) so successfull.

The big Pros are:
* good storyline
* good characters
* good soundtrack
* lovely details
* interesting choices
* awesome graphics
* awesome atmosphere
* Wavelenghts DLC is quite good
* good German dub

The only Cons I found so far:
* the climax was a little bit too unspectacular (a couple of lost chances)
* Haunted Mine minigame has horrible hitboxes (especially the ladders)
* gameplay is a little bit plain, but this is something this kind of game can't do much about it
* replayability is little to none, as most choices don't offer too much of changes
* no Playstation controller button display ingame

I totally enjoyed every minute playing this game. Yes, tt was indeed worth playing. After Deck9 screwed up LiS Season One Remastered, they are now again even with me.

One of my favorite games ever on Steam because of its emotional story and atmosphere.


Difficulty ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ (purely narrative game)

DontNod made a super atmospheric narrative game with an awesome story. I totally love the details and the mysteric storyline. Be sure to keep some handkerchiefs in grabbing range, you will need them ;)

The big Pros are:
* awesome emotional and interesting storyline
* lovely characters
* good soundtrack
* a lot of details
* interesting choices
* artstyle and graphics are ok for the time of release (only hairs and trees always annoyed me a little)
* awesome atmosphere
* I do love the possibility to rewind time to check other dialogue options

The only Cons I found so far:
* I would have always loved to get some kind of sequel with Chloe and Max (Arcadia Bay ending) as a "season 2"
* the later released prequel (Before the Storm) is a nice to have played (to experience some extra story plots), but is not such a good game as this one
* the gameplay is quite simple, but suitable for a narrative game
* English dub only (though I am fine with it)

I already concluded the games multiple times to check all possible decisions. Even Max can be played in two ways (nice version and bad influenced one by Chloe) what makes it great to replay it once again.

DontNod made a very good game, sad to hear that they left the series to Deck9. Still this game will be always in my heart. This one is a MUST PLAY if you are interested in narrative games.

Lost in Random is a very well made dark themed adventure.


Difficulty ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆ (normal difficulty)

This game was totally fun to play and well made from a art style perspective.
The combat system with the cards is weird at the beginning, but you will get accustomed to it very quick and gives the game a cutting edge simular games don't have. I totally liked it to set up your own card decks to provoke special tactics. And there are a couple of awesome ways you can do this.

The only game flaws I found so far:
* no German dub (just a small studio yes, but EA can provide enough money for it)
* interesting battles, but too less of them
* final bosses are too easy or boring (*)
* no chapter select
* no new game plus
* no extra difficulty (hard mode) which gets unlocked after beating the game (why?)
* the game does provide little motivation to replay again

(*)Boss and story spoiler:
The two final bosses are very uncreative. When fighting your sister I really expected a dice player duel. But all she can do is teleport, duplicate and waddle around. No challenge.
The same goes for the queen. I really expected her to be able to still move (like the spectre type enemy which occasionally appears) when the dice is activated and you choose your cards. She cannot, which makes her just another random hack'n slay target on the field with nothing special coming from her. Those two fights were considered to be the toughest or the most interesting ones, why the devs missed this chance is beyond my comprehension.

Still, the game plays out very solid. And I totally look forward to the sequel they are planning. Hopefully this time with less of those flaws which could be easily avoided.

A game suitable for people liking soulslike gameplay - but not for me.


Difficulty ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (depending on the set difficulty)

This game could have been a very good game, but the game designers made a very bad decision by adding soulslike elements. As a veteran of old Star Wars games like Shadows of the Empire, Jedi Knight, Jedi Academy, this game could have been much more than a mere horrible grindfest.

I know why I tried to avoid any soulslike game in the past. They look interesting, but the game concept of these type of games is just trash. There is absolutely no fun in grinding XP to a neverending horde of enemies to beat minibosses who will just respawn over and over again. I see absolutely no reason in taking away XP from the player for dying as it is punishment enough to actually have died and travel all the way back from the last checkpoint. And it doesn't matter that you can regain those XP points, the fact alone is just bad game design. These mechanics do make me furious at the end and doesn't give the game any extra spice.

But these are not the only flaws I found in the few playtime. I am astounded that the beta testers did such a bad job.

* Why does the game prevent me to tab to desktop by force (bad joke alert)?
* Why do I have to struggle with my camera to keep track on an enemy?
* Why I need to double tab evade to actually evade?
* Why I need to press L2 to grab a climbable wall instead of just jumping against it? (for the wallrun you don't need to do anythin)
* Why isn't wallrunning only fixed to certain but not any straight walls? (Prince of Persia has proven that wallrunning can added to fight system as well)
* Why does the character choose attack animation that will end over an edge in midair?
* Why does my character sometimes bounce off edges and trail when you jump on them?
* Why do I have to walk half way over the whole map again to redo some a mini-boss fight?
* Why do I loose XP when dying? Is dying not enough punishment?
* Why do developers think that insta-death attacks are a good idea?

I expect far more from a tight AAA title and especially a big publisher like EA. But yet again they dissapointed me. Same with Squadrons, so why do I expect anything from them seems to be my personal fault anyway. I bought the game in a 80% sale, so I am fine with it, not much wasted.

But this one will definitely be my first AND last soulslike game I will ever buy. Unfortunetally it needed a good Star Wars game to go to waste to show me this.

Not as enjoyable as the prequel Far: Lone Sails


Difficulty ★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ (you damage your vehicle often unintended, with limited repair torches)

I was an absolute fan of the first part. A calm puzzle game with atmospheric scenery, and a vehicle which was fun to control. What I got in the sequel was in the first half of the game just a mess to get the hang of.

After I rage-quitted the game after repeatedly damaging my sails due to bad overview and control mechanics, I returned to the game to try it once more.
This time I just kept on crashing and moving forward, and as soon as the game lets you travel by other means than just sails things get a lot smoother. Still, the core issue with the sailing still remains. The second part in the game is also much more interesting than the quite boring beginning.

Pros:
* atmosphere and sceneries later on
* different ways to move your vehicles later on
* the solitude musical tunes
* the story twist at the end
* diving and was an awesome idea

Cons:
* bad sailing mechanics. You need to walk to the nose of the ship to see further, away from controls, so you have to return regularly by changign winds. Or you alternately need to press and hold zoom out button and camera panning to the right manually. Both is annoying
* limited repair torches (you usually find enough later on, but the game mechanic adds nothing to the game only being annoying)
* general forwarning time to avoid collision is not well made. In the prequel the camera auto-panned by speed, which was way better
* the emergency brake systems (driving an sailing) are taking too long. Unplugging the hose and set you pump to estinguish the fire, or unhooking the sails and retract the pole manually is really annoying
* some objects don't produce water effects (balloon, the rudders then they are not moving but the vehicle is sailing, etc.)
* there is not damage for direct hits in objects like in the prequel. If the devs did a better camera panning, and emergency brakes they wouldn't needed to do that in the first place
* despite diving was quite cool, it felt that the devs didn't used this game mechanic to its full potential
* I missed typical metal pressure noises while diving and raising, would have added a lot to the atmosphere
* I always expected that water leakage may occur which you then have to fix and drain the water with the water pump (a real missed chance)
* speedrunning in this the game was not as fun as in the prequel. The reason is that there is no kind of a vaccuum device to pick up stuff while driving (you only had to stop for story puzzles i nthe prequel). Travelling felt too much interruptive in this game for the speedrun achievement
* because the game does play mainly above and below the water surface, travelling always felt like I am missing something important in the water or on the surface, depending on where I was in that moment. I, for example, permanently wanted to jump into the water to look if something is down there to collect or not. This feeling was very unpleasent. It took some time to get myself to a level I didn't cared anymore

Conclusion:
This game is barely reaching an "ok" level, but it missed a lot of good chances to do better. I still don't get it why the devs decided to give the player only limited repairs this time, or made some of the mechanics in overview and vehicle controls so awkward. The second part of the game was fine though, much more interesting, but getting through the first half was just tiresome. I hope they learn from their mistakes if they ever go for another sequel. if so, I will check before buying this time, if it will be worth my time.

Itorah is a solid classical linear 2D metroidvania platformer for genre beginners which misses the chance to really stand out of the masses of similar games.


Difficulty ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆ (very fair and forgiving mechanics)

Itorah's absolutely strong points is the beautiful handdrawn graphics and awesome sceneries you visit throughout her journey. Lovely details and characters in a marvelous aztec fantasy type setting. The battle system itself is rock solid intuitive with a fancy full-invu evade roll and easy to predict enemy attacks. Making the fighting experience not something luck based like in other genre type representive games. The soundtrack is very fitting, but unfortunetally not too much remarkable. The level design from a platforming perspective could be a little bit better and is too repetitive on some parts.

I know this is the first game of this indie team, and for this it is very good to begin with, but nothing comes with some downsides because of the lack of experience of the devs I guess. But I have to point them out as well:

The absolute biggest flaw of this game is the movement system. Walljumping can be a hassle because the hitbox is not properly working (this is mentioned by a lot of players). Also, especially on moving platforms, the hitbox Itorah connects to hang on an edge will sometimes trigger when it shouldn't and vice versa, making especially speedrunning a big pain in the ***. Also the air control is awkward. You will loose momentum on situation you don't expect it to do, or you can't control Itorah anymore properly (this is especially true for the upward midair axe attack later on, control feels horrible). Not to mention that sometimes Itorah just glide-walked on air or completely teleported to an edge while throwing my axe to it (for example in the water palace).

I already mentioned it before, but Itorah is not a true metroidvania, because it is too linear for it. There is no chance to shortcut story elements or do the element quests in different orders. This is not a real issue, just a missed opportunity.

The overall difficulty is way too easy for this genre type. You can mostly outtank enemies/bosses with the sheer energy bar you will get if you upgrade properly. I was able to play this game through in under 10 hours without dying on my very first run. Only Quetzacotl and the final boss were a close call as I had no healings left.

Speaking of healings. I also expected all the time that I will get some kind of offensive (haste or extra damage aura) or some defensive power (temporary shield) I can cast with the magic stones you unlocked. I don't get the concept in it only to be used as a healing portion. This mechanic is quite useless as you would have gained the nearly same effect on just increasing the life bar even more (or decrease the incoming damage by a multiplier). The healing system is not really necessary. I would have liked other usage of the containers so that you have to decide strategical for what you will use them.

Speaking of weird mechanics. Everything does need stamina, but jumping does not. Although you can upgrade stamina, there is no need to do so for about 80% of the game as you can just frogjump in full running speed to not use stamina at all. A wasted game mechanic.

The game does lack a difficulty setting. Because there was none, and the game was super easy, I always expected that there will be a new game+ or hard mode after beating the game once. There is none, which is dissapointing. Yes, the under 5 hours run is more difficult, and you can do an artificial no upgrade run by yourself to beef things up if you want to. But still the devs missed this easy to implement thing of a difficulty selection.

Ah, and I was able to meet myself after I reached the final gate to the boss realm. Just travel back to the village to still see you standing there :)

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2878151399

Summary

The game does not want to be a unique metroidvania that stands out, or just missed a lot of opportunities to do so. And it has some bugs here and there. But the outstanding world and graphics created, and the solid fighting system does make it still enjoyable. When I bought this game I wanted just some entertainment and expected a metroidvania type game. The game delivered exactly this and fulfilled my expectations with it. Yet it cannot compete with many other games of the genre, but I do see the potential of this indie team and hope to see new games from them.

Stray is a cyberpunk adventure with easy and intuitive puzzle elements from the view of a cat.


Difficulty ★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ (good for casual gamers)

This game combines purrfectly well a very good cyberpunk story and atmosphere in a strange world from an even stranger view of a cat, which is really refreshing. The cat movements and details are gorgeous and filled with love. A lot of things will remind you of your own cat, if you have one (like throwing stuff from tables, or instantly loose the ability to walk as soon as you put them something on). The devs did a really good job on this.

The game is rather short to begin with. Just 8 hours first playthough while doing a lot of slow exploration or enjoying just cat things. But the length is fitting to the story which wanted to be told. This is why it doesn't feel like being stretched too long with just senseless filler elements. Though I would have like to have more exploration and sidequest things to do.

For performance reason this game seems to be limited to DX11, but can be forced to run in DX12 by altering some files. Would have been awesome if the devs would have added an ingame override option to do so with a small performance warning.

But in overall this game was awesome and I want more. More stories from this interesting world setting. More sidequests. More cat action - or even other suburbian animals? Maybe next time directly in DX12? A direct sequel, an alternate or side story in the same world, or just a genre successor to this game type has a lot of potential if you ask me.

Until then, I will just wait, take a nap and dream of cat things.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2876448735

Observer is a psycho crime cyberpunk experience blowing your mind.


Difficulty ★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ (only few parts in which you can actually die)

This game does take you on an awesome trip. I am not a cyberpunk style fan, but the crime topic and how the devs worked them out made me play the game. And I was well entertained. Though I do love the first part of the game more (more crime investigation themed) the latter part changes more into a narrative mind twisting plot.

This game urgently cries out to go VR. The whole experience would be even more immerse. And most game mechanics and elements are already fitting perfectly for VR. Should be not too hard to implement. So if they bring out the VR version one day, I am up for another ride ;)

And, I absolutely loved the voice actor of Daniel. He was doing a fabulous job. Totally fitting in to the observer role.