Recent reviews by Warfox

Balatro: An ancient Roman word meaning buffoon, professional jester, and parasite.

Absolutely wonderful idea.

Instead of facing an opponent, this is a run-based score-attack poker game.
The premise is to take your winnings to apply different modifiers to your starter deck, to try to tailor your strategy. Jokers comprise your biggest modifiers, providing multipliers and other bonuses based on the composition of your deck and the hands you play. Adding and removing cards from your starting deck, as well as modifying them can drastically alter your game strategy.

Each deck starts with different bonuses and strategies too, giving the game a ton of replayability and keeping things remarkably fresh as you run up the antes(difficulty levels). Because it's based on poker, the various elements of luck play into the gameplay as opposed to detracting it. The metaprogression between games feels good, and is very responsive to what you've done, how you play, and influences how you play in future runs when you want to unlock things.

I can see why it was so many peoples' game of the year in 2024. It's a tidy little masterpiece and seems like it would run on a toaster. Immaculately crafted little game. Well worth the price.

First of all, it's free. Second, it's a pretty fun little tower defense game. Gives a good taste of what the full game that comes out next year will be like. Worth a try. Not too demanding or time consuming.

Capcom owed me for how many copies of the first game I've personally bought as well as talked others into buying. It has to be over 20.

I feel like they paid me back with this game. I wish circumstances would afford me more motivation to play at the moment, but that's not the game's fault. I am already dearly in love with this game, and when I'm feeling better I imagine I'll lose myself in it the way I did with the first one.

Please, if you value my opinion, give this game a chance. Performance issues should ease. Ignore the microtransactions, they're the same pointless ones Capcom has put in all their recent games. There's nothing there that you need.

The Super Earth military spent billions of dollars and thousands of lives inventing a cup that doesn't spill while a Helldiver's landing in a Hellpod. They didn't even do it with cold drinks. Hundreds of men and women have scars to this day.

The point is that Super Earth will stop at nothing to accomplish it's goals. So what if the military technology is identical to a hundred years ago? That just means the designs work. Humanity has been busy spreading Managed Democracy to the galaxy with the feather touch of an iron fist for a hundred years. Do you know how hard it is to introduce new weapons technology to a galaxy-straddling empire?

Look, if you're one of the sickos like me who dearly misses Mass Effect 3 multiplayer's co-op, and can laugh off friendly-fire incidents, I think you'll love this game. If you want to play as the love child of the Mobile Infantry and the Imperial Guard, I think you'll love this game. Be a hero. 'Save' the galaxy. Fight for Super Earth!

I beta tested this game what feels like years ago(maybe 6 or 7?), and I have to say it was still an impressive thing back then. I don't even remember how I found it... Anyway, it's come a long, long way. It's kind of insane how much has been added and built up over time. The customizability of your character is fairly intense, from borging out a Truekin human to building a mutant that is more sharp pointy bits than man. The fact you can get upwards of 6 arms and wield a weapon in each hand and the game properly accounts for all of that is wild. I can't overstate how deep this game has become. Some crazy things I've managed to do in 44 hours:
Defeated a bear by shooting a fire ray at the pool of water it was standing in and cooking it with steam.
Defeated a psychic who was sundering my mind with a psionic sword powered by a battery fuelled by the blood from that same psychic.
Psionically beguiled a Goat Man into being my permanent companion and had him carry all my heavy stuff.
Built a 4-armed marauder equipped with axes with a passive chance to dismember body parts from enemies with every axe hit.
Dismembered a crocodile's face off and wore it as a mask to increase my Ego.
Cured a disease by eating a special food and then hitting myself over and over.
Got infected with a fungus that made my hands crust over and then beat things to death with them.

This game is wild.

A similarly baffling game to the original, Thea 2 is an easy game to bounce off of for strategy gamers. For those with peculiar taste in such things, as well as an appreciation for a combination of Classic Fantasy, Slavic, and Nordic mythology you're in for a treat. The game has come a long way since it's first days of early access(aka, it's quite playable now). It's a turn-based hybrid of party-based exploration, colony/empire management, RPG, survival, and narrative storytelling game, pretty much exactly like it's predecessor.

The combat system has changed significantly from the previous game's usage of card-game mechanics. There's been some adjustment to research, crafting, and leveling, all of which seem like improvements. The meta-progression and customizability of your runs seems vastly improved compared to the first game. Being able to unlock and implement finer elements of your starting party is really nice and helps you set up in the pre-game much better for the kind of run you're planning.

All that said, even with the tutorial, there is going to be a lot of restarting and trial-and-error before you get your balance with this game. Knowing what resources are good, what you can make decent use of, and how to plan for and adapt to situations, seasons, story events, gods, etc just plain take experience. That's going to ultimately decide whether you bounce off this game, but if you're anything like me and you get excited about optimizing and digging deep into systems, this game could well get its claws in you. I fear it may have gotten me.

A wonderful game, with a ton of replayability. More games should have multiplayer options like this game's, that allow you to have friends be part of your adventuring party in an RPG-like setting. It's such a flexible game, and the sheer variety of strategies available really does keep things fresh. I can't wait to see what content updates might come along to shake things up.

The game's come a long way in the last year. It's honestly pretty impressive both how much it's changed, and how much it still resembles the state it was in before. The systems and changes and maps and sheer abundance of options that have been added since really make the game feel much more 'complete'. As a product I think it's about at the point I'd say it's basically ready. They have further to go before they're willing to call it released, but I'd firmly state that at this point the game is better than most run-based strategy games are at release. Absolutely recommend, and will definitely play more as early access continues into full release.

Fantastic game. Stylish as all heck, great Slay the Spire meta-game and meta-progression mixed with card-based tactical combat that bears a lot of similarities to Into the Breach in the way you manipulate enemies and have to try to handle objectives. Beautiful combination of mechanics in; again; a stylish package.

Building off their accomplishments from Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Owlcat has made another fantastic CRPG. With an absurd level of build options, customizability, and ability to make the game as hard or easy as you prefer, this game does not let down mechanically.

This game is about fighting a war against demonkind, and those that ally with demons. Understandably this punishes many things that don't take the enemy into account, the things they can do, their resistances, their strengths, etc. Moreover, the way such a war against such subversive enemies of abject evil plays out in the story, how it affects the characters and relationships, and the decisions you have to make? It's a dark campaign, with the fate of a world on the line. It's a HELL of a game.