Recent reviews by Kitehack

A fun co-op hoard shooter with a starship troopers styling and an expanding variety of toys to play with. There's a lot of nuance and attention to detail in the game too, like how if you shoot a giant bug in it's open mouth as it readies an attack it does more damage than just a regular head-shot. Or how you can look up and see not just your own ship raining fire and supplies on the planet, but those of other players in other missions too. You can even see their ships explode signaling they failed their mission.

I will start by saying I know nothing about the setting or characters outside of the tiny bit I've learned from playing this game. The easy input special moves (can do motion inputs if wanted), ability to chose how to block (button AND direction), and being free with character rotation (similar to LoL) make this extremely easy to just try out. I started by playing the free version to find out if it was a style of fighting game I liked and enjoyed it enough that I bought the whole game.
Even if it wasn't my style of fighting game, I'd still recommend people try it out since it's so easy to access. There is depth in the game, for those that want to really get into the systems and frame data and such, but you don't actually have to dive too deep to feel like you can actually put up a fight.

Yes the price is a bit daunting and the DLC could be explained a bit better, both of these factors had me hesitating on picking this up, but eventually, after playing the demo and seeing it was still good old vanguard, my childhood nostalgia won out. I'm glad it did.

TLDR: No in game micro transactions, surprisingly generous currency rewards, your card collection is shared between single player and multi player modes, it plays smoother with a controller, and there are some odd translations in story mode. Cardfight Vanguard is fun and if you're new to the series check it out.

Part 1, how do you get the cards to build a deck? This could arguably be the most important part of your TCG's game play loop. There are no micro transactions for buying packs, instead you buy everything with VP you earn from playing the game regardless of if you're playing solo or against other people. You get a lot of VP, for example while playing the story mode on average I would get about 1500 VP after a fight. The 7 starter decks are 1000 VP each and the first handful of packs that contain things like the grade 4's or nation specific over triggers are only 300 each. There are more expensive packs available Each pack contains 7 cards with at least 1 guarantied rare or better and one card per pack is holo. If you get cards that exceed the max you can put in a deck they automatically convert to CP you use to craft specific cards you want or make a rare fancy alternate art or holo (or both) version of that card you like. Your card collection and decks also carry over between single player and multi player so you can go between them without losing access to that new deck you like.

Part 2, how is playing the game? Right off the bat the keyboard controls are weird. I'm guessing it might make more sense on a Japanese key layout (if QWERTY isn't standard) but regardless, I recommend using a controller if you have one. There are some odd translations here and there in the story mode and the story itself is, well, a TCG story about going around and playing the TCG and there's no supernatural side of things either like Yu-Gi-Oh generally has. If you're looking for a rich story with deep characters maybe pick up something else, the story isn't why I'm playing this it's to play the card game. Playing the game reminds me of playing old TGC video games like the Pokemon TCG on the game boy or a Yu-Gi-Oh GBA game, but I can just go online to play real people instead of using a link cable and knowing someone who also had the game.
If you are brand new to Cardfight Vanguard I reccomend going and watching the first few episodes of the anime, it does a good job explaining the basic mechanics of the game and while some things are outdated the core rules remain the same. There is also the free demo that includes the tutorial if you want to jump right in and learn by playing. The card game plays like I remember it playing. For reference, I fell off playing vanguard when Grade 4 and G units were the new thing I never touched and stand triggers still existed. Playing the tutorial I was happy to learn the core game play was the same as I remembered with only a couple new core mechanics, those being the Ride Deck, Persona Riding, Orders, and Front/Over Triggers. The flow of play with upgrading your vanguard, managing your cards to play to attack vs the ones to keep in hand to defend, along with the risk/reward gauging with Trigger Units was the same. The new mechanics I was unfamiliar with felt like they fit well.

Part 3, what's with the DLC? At the time of writing this, there are 2 types of DLC, not counting the season pass for future DLC. (Edit: The first of the season pass DLC has come out, along side it is a handful of free decks. The DLC is new booster packs that adds cards and even introduces some new archetypes or ride chains. Each pack is not going to necessarily add something that you'll want in your deck so if you're happy with just the cards from the packs in the base game you can make a decent and still have fun without having to buy anything else. You can also wait until a pack that has something you want comes out and buy just that one.) There are card sets and cosmetics. The cosmetics are primarily sleeves with 3 characters that you can use as who you play in multiplayer. The characters come with their deck recipe (maybe also a CPU deck to fight solo) but to make it you still need to collect the cards. The card sets are the expensive DLCs that were somewhat confusing when I first looked at them and the bundle of all priced higher than the game itself. What they do is give you all the fancier SP versions of a set of cards early. You can get all these cards 100% free playing the game normally from packs and crafting. The sets are for those who know exactly what cards they want and want to shell out money to get them early.

At the end of the day this gets a thumbs up from me, yes it's a bit pricey and no it's not a perfect AAAA cinematic GOTY, but it's enjoyable and the card game itself is a ton of fun. Being able to just chill and play the game without constant pressure to be spending money on packs (read "gatcha rolls") is nice.

First off, IT'S FREE! It costs NOTHING and barely takes any space so why not give it a try?

Now that that's out of the way, this is a nice pocket sized puzzle game that has great music, fun characters, and a charming style. If you find the puzzles too hard (and/or you only care about the demon girls in snazzy suits,) you can skip them, though if you like you can spend a little extra time with them to for a nice little secret.

It is quite short, (took just over an hour to complete,) though once again, it's FREE. I definitely wish there was more but at the same time I'm glad it doesn't bloat itself with monotonous, samey puzzles just for the sake of content. Each puzzle is a nice unique challenge that builds on what you learn from the previous puzzles and you get straight to meeting the different demons (one after each puzzle.)

TLDR: It's free and fun, give it a shot, and I hope to see more stuff from vanripper in the future.

I got into Battletech tabletop as a kid and have loved the series ever since. This, in my opinion, is a faithful adaptation of the tabletop game. While the rules aren't a 1 to 1 direct translation, for instance with how initiative works, it is highly enjoyable and the changes fit the video game format well.
For those who are new to the Battletech franchise, this is a great starting point. There is plenty of lore you can dive into if you are interested in the world building aspect and the combat and mech building has good depth to it giving a lot of replay value to a fairly meaty game.
There are three different modes to play in the game; Campaign, Career, and Skirmish. Campaign is the single player "story mode" that takes you through the main story of the game as captain of a mercenary outfit assisting in a war to overthrow an ass who tried to kill you in a coup in the tutorial. Career lets you just run a mercenary outfit without the constraints of the story, doing missions, collecting salvage, and hiring mechwarriors. Skirmish is where you go to play lance vs lance (4 mechs in a lance) against other players or the AI with custom lances and even custom mechs, though you can restrict it to stock mechs if you want.
All in all I love how this game turned out and I look forward to sinking many more hours than I already have into this game.

Truly a game about making the most out of a bad situation.
Attacks will miss, heroes will die, and your party will tear itself appart right in front of you. But still you will fight on, bring in fresh blood, and send them on their way with what meger supplies you can afford. This game doesn't pull punches and if you don't pay attention, make notes of what supplies you may need for each area, and what ailments or bennifits your heros have, you'll soon find yourself with a party of battered, stressed, adventurers yelling at each other and rapidly becoming a threat equal to or even greater than any monster you'll face.

I've never been great at fighting games but skullgirls has rekindled my inrest at getting good at fighting games that hasn't been around since Soul Calibur 3.

Nice intuitive controlls and movement, a decent sized city to explore, and some typos that are to be expected in an alpha game. Overall a lot of fun.

First off, this game is not brand new. This is a new listing for the game because it has changed from free2play to pay once and that's it. I have played Aerena snce it was in Early Access and have enjoyed many hours of fun turn-based strategy gaming. There was a time during the f2p stage that the monotiztion took a turn for the worse but this step turned the game back to the right path. For those that don't like to read look below; For those that don't mind reading I'll break it down into parts.

TL;DR: Fun strategy game with neat mechanics and good gameplay.

Gameplay:
A game of Aerena cconsits of 2 players with a ship, 3 shells, and 3-6 champions each. The goal is to get your opponent's ship accross the board down to 0 HP. Each plyer takes turns unloding champs onto the 7x7 board from their ship untill both sides have 3 out. Differant boards have dfferant tiles in differant places and the players have to accomidate them into their strategy to win. Each champ takes a turn in the order they were placed and can move, attack, use abilities, or use shells. Each champ gets 2 actions and once those are used they have to wait for the others to have gone before they can be used again. Play procedes this way untill one player wins.

Mechanics:
There are some mechanics in Aerena that really make this game unique. The first is the Aether mechanic. Aether is what is needed to use shells or champion abilities and the ship as well as each champion has their own pool they draw from. The ship aether is used for your shells. 3 shells are brought into a match and can be used once per game. The effects of the shells varry greatly, some might heal your champions, others might damage the opponent, some could reposition the pieces on the board, while others might affect Aether levels. Each champion gains 1 aether at the start of their turn as well as 1 for each basic attack. Keeping an eye on aether values is crucial to higher level play.
Ship aether on the other hand is harder to come by. Your ship gains 1 aether for ever oint of damage it sustains as well as 1 point for every time the enemy ship is damaged. For example if your ship gets hit for 2 damage your ship would gain 2 aether while your opponents ship would only gain 1 aether. Since you don't get to know what shells your opponent brought with them it can be risky to go straight for large ammounts of damage to their ship because they might have a shell to turn the tables on you.
When your ship looses all of its HP the game is over but when a champion looses their HP they are removed from the board and returned to their owner's ship. This doesn't come without consequince though because the owner's ship also takes 2 points of damage. Some heroes however can sacrifice themselves or other friendly pieces which does NOT cause your ship to take damage.

Balance:
In my opinion the game is rather well baanced. The champions and shells you are given to start with are well rounded and some of the better champions in the game. While having more champions/shells/ships does offer you more choices of what to use each game you can only take so much into a match and even then you are never guarantied to win or loose. The outcome of the match is in how you play. Each character has their strengths and weaknesses, each ship their faults, and each shell their uses. If you can plan ahead effectivly you can take on your opponent even if you only have the basic starting gear.

Monotization:
This is a big one. The game used to have 2 types of currency, the one you gained in game (schillings) and the one you payed for(aether coins). It worked fine in early access since the the aether coins were for convenience and the things you bought with them were avaliable for schillings or didn't actually affect gameplay. You used to gain schillings after every match and could either put in time or money to unlock new champions or ships for differant strategies. Then it took a turn for the worse and you were limited on how many schillings you could earn in a day due to daily quests being the only way to get them. The devs really pushed the aether coins as their monotization and eventually fell on their faces. Now there are no aether coins and there is no limit to the schillings you can gain in a day. Everything except for the skins are avaliable for schillings and the skins are now a single DLC pack.

In conclusion, since you are here already why don't you give it a try? You can look for a streamer on twitch.tv or some other streaming site if you want to see some active gamelay, but since you've made it this far in my review you must have some interest in the game already. I think it's woth the price and would recomend it to any fan of strategy games.

Once again for those of you that scrolled to the bottom:
TL;DR: Fun strategy game with neat mechanics and good gameplay.

TL:DR: It's a fun strategy game with potential, give it a try every now and then.

Having been with this game since early access I have gotten to see several changes both good and bad. In the begening it was a great game with a great free to play system. As more champions got added though the paywalls started apearing in their shell package system with only daily quests to give money for them. Though they could be overcome by investing a lot of time into the game there was an obvious emphasis on buying currency for shells since they are a key part of the game. Recently though they changed the shells to be unlimited once you buy them which is deffinatly a step in the right direction.
The champions are rather well ballanced though as new champs come out some balance issues can surface untill the intended countes are introduced. The devs ae rather intertwined in the community although it's a small community so far. The devs do plan to add even moe camps into the game as well as boards to fight on but additions like that do have some time between them since it is a smaller dev team.
The game is fun though sometimes it can take a while to find a match. The devs are heading in the right direction but have yet to fill the games potential.