Recent reviews by Tim

So this is a port of an indie mobile game made 9 years ago. Set your expectations accordingly. Ready? 3... 2... 1... Calibration complete!

This is a fun lil' game! Starts very easy and numbers-go-up, but eventually develops into a respectable bite-sized action platformer requiring purposeful movement. It reminds me of old platformer RPGs like the Wonder Boy games—something more than the sum of its parts. Getting that kinda high in under 2 hours is a wonderful thing.

One major negative: I experienced screen tearing through almost the whole game. If that kinda thing bugs you or make you motion sick, be wary!

The combat is dull, and you're asked to do a lot of it. It's difficult to win fights by engaging with all the game's battle mechanics, but easy if you find one exploitable move and repeat it over and over.

I got this game thinking, "Even if the combat sucks, I'll dig the world." But you experience the world through a played-straight Lone Wolf & Cub-type story. Lotta rote lines that raise flags for media junkies like me. "I didn't mean to hurt him," "Bring me the boy!" that kinda thing. There's visual imagination but little narrative imagination.

This game goes on sale for crazy cheap. I don't know much about ARPGs, but my experience so far is...
+ Shops stock interesting items frequently
+ Simple skill-trees. Easy to look over what you could get & what you want without outside help
+ It's a comforting game. Simple, methodical
+ Frequent enough high damage/enemy density encounters to keep you attentive
+ I'm playing a pet build and it works!
- Have to look up certain stats/effects to understand them
- Compared to Diablo (the first one), there isn't much variety in the structure of environments. Like, you're rarely forced into small rooms, you rarely find strange cover or impassable terrain to complicate position, etc.
- The story and visuals are bland, bland, bland. A bunch of anime dub voice actors put on bad Greek accents and parrot out some of the driest dialogue conceived for a video game
- The first hour or two are SLOW

This game is extremely impressive considering the size of the team. But something about the small annoyances in this game pile up into a death-by-1,000-cuts. And despite how brilliant the combat system is, the progression and enemy design don't cash the check, and you end up with fights that range from stinky to pretty good, not quite reaching excellent.

I'd recommend this to Soulslike junkies or people that really dig the nautical theme, but not for general audiences, I guess. If there was something inbetween "Yes" and "No" I'd choose that.

+ Surprisingly rich in RPG mechanics/management
+ The mechanics are deeply thematic and novel
+ Lotta builds and tactics to mess around with
+ Normal enemy configurations are threatening (not just filler between bosses)
- Environments are bigger than they are interesting
- Hardest at the start, easy in the late game
- Frequent, frustrating physics interactions: slipping and sliding off sloped platform edges, enemies get stuck or glitch out frequently
- Hit-stops and intentional slowdown make combat unwieldy and muddle parry timing
- Lots of lingering and phantom hitboxes (made obvious by all the hit-stops and slowdown)
- Player progression frequently undermines interesting limitations on battles, such as shell durability slowly becoming irrelevant
- Goes on a bit long, without new enemies to fight in late-game areas

I just don't like controlling this character at all. His jump height is low, he's super heavy, and the rate at which his momentum builds and decays is odd. I wish it was easier to access speed and height irrespective of various level gimmicks like rails, trampolines, slingshot plants, etc. which aren't much fun to use either.

The fishing theme is... weird? Like, there are a lotta things I want to hook but can't (including fish, ironically)... Similar actions like reeling hooked objects and flinging yourself off hooked plants use entirely different inputs... You think they'd use the fishing rod to create more versatile core actions, but they don't.

Maybe I came in expecting it to play like its visual inspirations, something more immediate... And that's my bad... But after giving the game a few second chances, I wasn't convinced by its level design that it's worth the effort. Like, I'd finish an area chunk and just feel ho-hum about it. Maybe I only happened to go to areas that tutorialize level gimmicks, and didn't let you use all the momentum-based stuff in less scripted ways? Or that the level gimmicks don't really care about the momentum built from others? I dunno.

A short & sweet stealth game. Definitely worth a try.

A lovely hidden object adventure game with strange post-impressionist artwork. For the low, low price of free, you too can chillax to Satie and object clickin'.
Heads up: it's nothing like the previous game.

Played this on Switch before, got it again here since it was cheap on sale and in a bundle.
Condenses and combines Breath of the Wild's breakable-equipment combat with roguelite trappings: runs, shops, perks, etc.
The bouncy physics and animation elevate the game: hard to get frustrated or take things too seriously.
Weaknesses: not much variety, a few frustrating NPC quests.

A really cool experiment, but I struggled to find the fun. Managing the size of windows feels like busywork. The shooting gameplay, the economy, and the window management don't synergize in the way that I wanted.

Anyone that loves Hades has to get this one. So many direct improvements from the first game's systems that aren't mere nerfs/buffs but creative reworkings that make the game thinkier and more technical. Totally weird weapons and boons that take greater insight to effectively weild of but go off more explosively than ever. Crazy amount of content for an Early Access launch. WELL worth $30!