Recente recensies door Giraffeguin

Holy crap was this a hidden gem for me. It’s in early access yet I’m already entirely hooked on it. I’m obsessed. I never knew how much I needed a roguelite version of Fire Emblem in my life. I love it. Can’t wait for more. Devs are responsive on the forums so I have high hopes they’ll address the issues. But for now? I’m just having so much fun that the issues aren’t that big of a deal. If they get fixed? It will make an already great game into an amazing one. I feel confident enough to recommend it already to anyone with an interest in tactical rpgs, meta progression, and/or the slay the spire formula with relics, room choices, three act maps, etc. This game combines them all into one hell of a good time.

You died. A mysterious witch meets you in death and binds you to her. Then she sends you back on your merry way to fulfill your purpose in life. What that purpose is, is a mystery even to you. Conveniently, the tragedy of death erased your memories. All you have to go on is a letter and a name mentioned in it. Of course, the witch cares not for that and has her own purpose for you…

You’re on an island with no escape. The island is overcome by an epidemic of undeath. You convince newfound companions that there is no point in staying put. It is best to set out and do something yourselves. You have a person to find. The others come around and you form an adventuring party.

Throughout the adventure you face humans on the other side of war, monsters, and the undead. While the story isn’t finished yet due to the early access nature, what is there is intriguing. Serves well enough as a reason for the gameplay loop, including the roguelite nature of starting all over again upon death. After all, you’re bound to the witch.

This game certainly looks more modern and westernized than Fire Emblem. I actually like the character art quite a lot. Music is OK. I find myself humming along to it at times. Sometimes it sounds a little out of place; sounds more rock than I’d expect for a medieval setting. But it’s cool.

User interface and controls are all just fine for me. I’m able to understand what is happening, what each status effect does, etc. You can also press a key to toggle between layman and detailed descriptions which I think is neat. I find myself using both. Importantly, there is also a toggle for speeding up the gameplay or even skipping the enemy turn. I would suggest there needs to be more options. I like seeing the enemy turns and don’t want to skip them; but x2 speed is still too slow.

This is where the game truly shines; it is just a joy to play. To sum it up? Addictive. Worse than meth (not that I’d know, I’m too busy playing this to do drugs). I finish one run and immediately jump into another, eager to play again.

You start at your base which will unlock more feature as you play. These features include talking to your companions to get more story, meta progression, and challenges.

Meta progression comes in a few forms. You can promote characters so that they start with upgraded stats and skills, as well as a stronger pool of skills available. It makes a noticeable difference. You can change the main character’s class – this is more for variety sake rather than getting any stronger. His default class is actually good. There is a shrine to boost stars, starting gold, better chance for upgraded skills, etc. When the shrine reaches level 7, there is an ultimate upgrade you can choose that is beyond minor stat buffs, but only one. You can upgrade the shops you encounter in runs. You can have him sell more items, discounts, etc. Lastly, there is a method to transform meta progression items into other items so that they always remain useful even after you unlocked everything.

Challenges are the same as steam achievements. You get extra meta progression currency by completing challenges and earning challenge points. The rewards are small compared to just playing through runs, but I find the challenges fun to pursue. There are some interesting ones to encourage diverse parties and replayability. For example, beat the game without a healer. I like these kind of challenges that encourage mixing things up from your usual winning formula.

Once that is all sorted out, you set out with your chosen party members (main character and four others). At the start you have only four to choose from; but can unlock four more by playing through the game. All of the characters are viable and can turn out very strong with the correct upgrades. More on that later. At the beginning of each act, you choose a relic. This works the same as Slay the Spire, it’s just a passive item that grants some effect throughout the run. You lose it (along with everything else that’s not meta progression) after defeat or victory; hence roguelite. From there, you pick a new place to venture based on the rewards shown to you. Some areas are non-combat and just have events. Some events roll dice, a feature I’m not entirely sold on because it tends to screw me. Maybe there should be a meta upgrade for higher dice rolls? Or partnerships enhance dice rolls?

Combat is the meat of the game. It plays just like Fire Emblem. Both the heroes and enemies are on a grid and can move/attack in certain tiles. You go first, then all the enemies. Repeat. Unlike Fire Emblem, there is no hit chance. Every attack will always hit. Instead, there is a guard system. If guard is high enough, it will reduce the incoming damage. I actually like this a lot. It makes positioning and tank characters all the more vital. High burst damage characters like rogues are still very viable and deadly in this system, despite being vulnerable themselves. They may gain new ways to cloak from enemy sight.

This sounds like normal Fire Emblem gameplay so far. But wait, it gets better. You can get an upgrade item to enhance your equipment. These enchantments may grant additional skills or passives that can impact the gameplay. See earlier comment on the rogue. Characters also grow mid battle. Each level up grants a roll of stat buffs or skills to choose from. Skills GREATLY impact the gameplay. You absolutely need good skills to be able to make it pass the wall that is the Act 2 boss. It’s also how to give your healer even more healing spells! Skills cost no MP; can cast them whenever but just have to wait for a cooldown period to cast again.

This upgrade system is ADDICTING and so fun. While I may often choose the same OP skills, my runs still end up quite different. I’ve had runs where the mage was the clear MVP. Others where the rogue was. I’ve had a run where the friggin’ healer didn’t even open her book and just stayed as a shield maiden the whole game… and still healed the party that way! It’s just so very cool how things come together in the end. With all the different combinations available from the 4 extra party members and challenges – I’m still playing this over and over! Constantly want to play again.

This game is still in early access! As of right now there is only one boss per act – three acts. I’ve started to see maps repeat. But also been surprised to see a new one every now and then. I know this game like the back of my hand now, but still find it fun. It hasn’t outstayed its welcome; in fact I am looking forward to more content.

Note that runs are lengthy – there’s an achievement for beating one in less than 5 hours. My typical runs are 3-4 hours. Long for a roguelite, but the combat is TRPG so it’s fine. I don’t think the length is a problem.

Overall, I recommend this game. There is plenty to do even in early access if you like this kind of game. You can even leave feedback for the developer to help shape it into the best game it can be. Which it’s already pretty damn good.

Hear that music in the trailer? Yeah, it got me too. It’s pretty dope and so I figured, hey even though the game has mixed reactions at least it will be fun to listen to for a while. I was not wrong, but in the end not even the music could save me from the oncoming snoozefest. It’s a roguelite without variety and a gameplay loop that quickly outstays its welcome.

There’s a story? I didn’t get the game for one, so that’s fine that it left zero impression on me if there is one. You are time travelers trying to save the timelines from alien invasion or something? IDK, there’s cool mechas and guns that get bigger and deadlier, but minus the Kamina sunglasses and throwing entire galaxies at the problem like shuriken. So, it’s no Gurren Lagan, unfortunately. That could have saved it.

Graphics are OK. Visually, I understand what is an enemy, what is my projectile, what is their projectile, etc. There is enough visual clarity to play the game. User Interface is also fine. I don’t have any complaints; it looks cool enough and I’m always a fan of pixel art. Sound design is great. If you like the music in the trailer, you’ll probably like the music in the game itself.

You start our dropped in the middle of nowhere and you start blasting. As you kill enemies you gain experience and get the potential for more weapons or upgrades to said weapons. Note, you also need to pick up crystals to unlock said weapon and upgrade slots. You can also save them to directly upgrade your character’s perks. It’s a balancing act of picking the right weapons, upgrades and perks to make it to the end.

Essentially, it’s a vampire-survivors-like (the bullet heaven genre) in 5 minute bursts. In each map, you may have side objectives like taking out enemy ranged units. You get extra rewards for doing so. Once the 5 minutes are up, you’re extracted out of there and can use your crystals to level up your character’s perks or just choose the next map to go to.

Each character has their own perk tree. I also feel the characters that I’ve seen so far are wildly unbalanced. The character I won with has a perk to become invulnerable. I essentially won by abusing that perk and spamming invulnerable when the mob density became too high to deal with (the entire slog that is the endgame). In fact, my main problem became DPS. Despite having maxed out weapons, things just took forever to die. I very nearly lost the final boss due to a timeout.

This is the game’s problem. It drags out way too long. Enemies are too spongey. The runs take way too long. While I am getting more powerful, it feels like the enemies scale even faster and so it’s an endless game of catch up. My weapons were maxed out. What exactly was I supposed to do to get even more damage? Play the game a billion more times for meta progression? No thanks. I was already falling asleep as it was. I literally hit the fast forward button then accidentally died because I stopped paying attention and didn’t realize I got hit because the enemies got too spongey. Whoops.

The actual game was kinda fun for the first act when it didn’t scale so badly. I kept playing but it just got worse and worse. Then I tried playing as someone other than invulnerable girl and got instantly wrecked by a boss that charges at you. My character didn’t have a dash and so there was nothing I could do but take a hit. Great game design. Of course, if I focus on move speed then I’m probably going to hit like a wet noodle again. There’s just no winning the war against time. Except to not play it.

I didn’t feel like this game respects the player’s time. It just gets repetitive too quickly. Sometimes I don’t mind repetition. I’ve tried way too many bullet heaven games, after all. But this one just didn’t have the fun factor and the variety is not there. Every character has different perks but they all share the same weapon pool. Try it out on a deep sale if you’re a fan of the genre, but be warned what you see in the first hour is probably going to be the entire game. After beating the game once, I had zero motivation to play it again. That’s a failure for the roguelite genre which strives on replayability.

Like many others, I’m sure, I came across this game and was initially put off by how it looks. Why is everyone standing on a board like a chess piece rather than actual characters in an environment? The art isn’t terrible, but it’s not the best. Yet everyone was singing it’s praises, and I was in a dire need for a new tactical rpg to hold me over. Boy, was this it. If you find yourself even remotely curious about this game, try to look past the initial flaws and you’ll discover a deep hidden gem underneath.

Alright, this is another of the game’s weak points to be honest. I was a bit turned off by a lot of the initial banter which seemed rather juvenile with characters being confused about your gender (and feeling you up to test, creepy) and a character that hates you for no reason (the reason is explained later but the joke is really dragged out to unnecessary and humorless extent). However, once you’re past that hurdle, the actual story and premise of the game works well enough to serve its purpose – a reason for the gameplay to exist.

You’re a guild master taking over a guild that fallen apart after the loss of your friend, it’s former master. You’re entrusted to raise the guild to glory once again. But on this path to glory you eventually discover a deeper darker plot and the reason for your friend’s death and the fall of the former guild. I actually find the backstory quite intriguing and interesting. It’s all the banter around the guild itself that is a bit of a turn off. But if you find yourself not into the story, you’ll honestly do just fine skipping it all and getting back into the quests and meat of the game where the fun really strives – raising said guild and adventurers and sending them to glory!


While I initially wasn’t a fan of the graphics, I found them kind of charming eventually. You can customize your adventurers with preset hair, faces, skin color, etc. The UI is good and for the most part I’m aware of what is happening during battle. You can click on an enemy to view its traits and statuses or hover over the icons. Some things do need work however and are not presented well to the player.

For example, the unique characters in the story (i.e. Elan) all have their own unique skill tree. I completely missed this early on and missed out on some really good skills until they were already leveled somewhat and thus wasn’t able to min-max properly! That hurt my soul. You have to scroll all the way to the right and the unique skill tree is hidden there. This really should be more obvious and presented to the player.

Oh – and the sound design is awesome, in my opinion. I really found myself humming along to the battle music quite often.

If you’re into dungeon crawling, tactical rpgs, or squad management, this game will be right up your alley. You won’t regret it, especially if you’re into raising an A-Team to maximized growth. But you’ll do just fine even without min-maxing as well (the unique characters server as a way to give you characters you can’t really screw up). It is in a way like a fantasy X-COM where you will want to assemble multiple squads to take on quests. You can technically run just one squad but they’ll get injured or unhappy. It’s good to have at least a B-Team to take on money-grabbing duties. I made the mistake of having SIX squads which really dragged out the game and made me find it repetitive by the end. But I was also 100+ hours deep at that point so that’s my bad and not really the game’s fault. (more challenging optional content/bosses would be amazing though)

There is also technically base building if you’re into that, similar to X-COM facility upgrades. You can upgrade the guild to allow more inventory space, better shops, faster healing, more adventurers, and all other sorts of neat stuff.

Will this game dethrone Final Fantasy Tactics? Not at all, but it scratches a different kind of itch that reminded me of X-COM or even Fire Emblem (the stat bonuses at level up screams FE). There are class changes but dual classing isn’t really a thing and trying to change classes for growths will get tedious and expensive. It’s best to stick to one advanced class and eventually a master class if possible. The classes that are there are also fun and have quite large skill trees. Most classes have a lot of goodies that are hard to choose. You can even have them specialize in different things. For example, you might have a mage that is all about lightning and ignores the other elements. But on the other hand, maybe your A-Team wants a more diverse mage and sprawls out skills across all the elements.

So how the game plays:
There is the guild phase where you can manage your team (equip, train, change class, give them a beer, etc.), upgrade the guild, shop, assign adventurers to “assignments” (quests that are automatically done through passage of time) or select a quest. You can also choose to do nothing and end the day (to advance assignments or roll some potential new quests on the board, or to give adventurers rest to heal up naturally).
My mistake was I felt like I needed to always do a quest since you lose money on a weekly basis through wages on top of all the shopping and upgrades. The proper way to play is probably to focus all in on an A-Team. Quest with them when possible. Otherwise send out the B-Team. If both are down? Just do nothing. Can send a C-team out on assignments.

Anyways – on the actual quest you appear on a new map in a different biome (more unlock as you progress. They also all have different materials and loot based on the difficulty score of the quest). On this map you can travel around looking for your quest objective. You can completely avoid encounters if you want. But the more you do, the more the exp bonus raises and it could be a way to get a lot of experience if you find them easy. But if you just don’t feel like it, can always run away and go for the objective.

My favorite part of these maps though are the events. Every map will have at least one possible event. They range from special encounters to just a story based decision making and possibly more stat checks. Generally, the rewards are worth it though some events make me sigh in disappointment (looking at you, bard event). The best ones are ones that reward you with skill points or even a new trait. For example, in the forest biome you can get a trait to boost your STR growth by a whopping 40%!

And these growths are what I find the most fun. I love seeing how broken you can make a character. Getting a character to above 200% STR growth means they are guaranteed at least 2 STR per level with a possible 3! They will get strong, really fast. Combine these stats with some of the really fun late game skills and classes and it’s one hell of a good time.

Lastly, the adventurers interact amongst each other and develop relationships which is really fun both gameplay wise and roleplaying. For gameplay, characters that like each other are more likely to assist each other with a core mechanic of the game “chain attacks”. That is when one character attacks, they will follow up and attack as well. This has generally been a key way to deal insane damage for me. You eventually unlock a party system to really hammer on these relationships and what they can do for you.

Overall, the game is very respectful of the player. While it started to feel like a grind, that was more my own fault. It’s definitely doable without an insane grind by just playing with less parties. I did really love my time with this and plan to pick it up again when less burnt out.
If you have a passing interest in team management games and/or tactical RPGs at all, definitely give this game a shot.

StormEdge is a rogue-lite action game. While I generally don’t mind and even like short games, this one just fell a little short of expectations while also doing enough missteps to cause me to decide not to recommend it. If there was an option to give a sideways “maybe” option I’d go with that. I did have fun with it but by the end I was just happy to be done with it and wasn’t really looking forward to more without anything new to spice up some longevity.

StormEdge follows a group of heroes (really just the starting character, Ulrich) that formed a guild called StormEdge. Now my quip in the parenthesis isn’t just a joke. While you do recruit 3 other characters in the story and there is supposedly more to this guild, from a story POV all that really matters is Ulrich , a shoehorned romance with Lily and the main villain which I’ll get to later.

So the first main problem I observed is it literally does not matter who you choose to complete runs with. The game will jarringly force Ulrich into every cutscene and hide whoever you were playing as. Why is anyone else even an option? I guess there are minor gameplay differences but the variety from different heroes isn’t all that spicy – I’ll get to that later.

Aside from that taking me out of the immersion, the story was OK. It serves the point in getting you to continue the game. There’s a problem – villain causing storms. Your job is to stop the stops and save the people. There’s also a reason for the rogue-lite gameplay loop of starting back from the beginning and repeatedly fighting the same final boss. Nothing to write home about, but it’s decent enough.


I was initially inclined to try this game due to the beautiful pixel art. It is very nice looking. Unfortunately, it gets in the way of the game sometimes. I often have zero clue what is happening on screen, what hit me, and how it hit me. The visual clarity is lacking which is hugely important for a game like this where dodging is so critical.

Additionally, I found myself annoyed by some decisions in the game such as the boss fight against a certain snowy woman. Every phase change she will spout some dialog which is kind of cool the first time. But on repeat runs (because for some reason she can show as a boss again after you beat her which is one repeat boss that makes no sense but whatever) it’s infuriating. It’s not story time anymore, why do I gotta pause and listen to her yap and force acknowledgement of said yapping? Just let me play the game, man. Totally breaks the combat flow.

At first the game seemed rather simple with not much scaling factor. This was eventually corrected once I hit the final act and the actual gameplay loop was unlocked. But then I realized it was basically just playing the same run over and over and there isn’t much variety.

So the action mechanics come down you can move around, attack or dodge. That’s essentially it at first and the simplicity isn’t a bad thing. There’s also a special move button unique to each character but I found it was not worth using 99% of the time which I’ll explain in a bit. Attacking without dodging between build up combos and the attack chains get stronger with heavy strikes and finishing moves. Dodging will reset the combos and build up its own combo meter (focus?) and do stronger counter attack moves as the dodge-combos build.

It's an interesting mechanic that’s further enhanced in the true game with relics and move enhancements to increase the damage and abilities of the individual types of strikes or counters. In the early game the simplicity is kind of boring because there is only one act and a boss and then the run ends. The true game will have you go through 3 acts with a boss at the end of each. There is more time to actually get a build going here and it was fun a few times.

The problem is that true game is also the end game and literally all there is left to do at that point is just climb difficulties/ascensions which I’m already not a fan of. Especially in this game with the visual clarity problem. There are still some bonuses to unlock to help make the game easier or improve quality of life, but nothing really game changing or spicing up the variety.

So there are other characters. They have different combos and signature moves. But in the end they all use the same sort of relics and similar enhancements. But the real problem is when you realize the optimal way to play the game is to just spam dodge 90% of the time. So where is the variety when all you’re doing is playing dodge simulator? And not a good one because I’m not even timing the presses since I can’t see ♥♥♥♥.

There’s also an ultimate attack but I loathe how annoying it is to pull off. You have to have a full combo and full dodge combo. It’s so easy to accidentally reset one of the chains because again, there’s too much ♥♥♥♥ on the screen. If you stop dodging to build up the combo there’s a high chance you’re getting hit by some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ move you can’t even see coming.

This all comes to head with a terrible final boss that made me ultimately decide on the negative rating. Sure, it’s a classic to have a final boss be a sort of test that you learned all the game mechanics. Doesn’t make it a fun one. In fact it’s the opposite when dodging is literally the only reliable system (as in guaranteed to have to dodge – but of course going to get hit half the time anyways so not so reliable there!). Having to stop dodging to be forced to do other mechanics felt terrible and generally got me killed. Pulling off the ultimate move was a huge chore.

The greatest sin though? The final boss is literally just the boss with no build up before hand. There is no scaling or act to play through to get stronger first. You just go in and raw-dog it with basic vanilla starting moves. The entire fun of roguelite games is the scaling. Why would you remove that for the big bad?

No issues.

Operating System: Windows 10
Processor (CPU): Intel Core i5-3570K CPU @3.40GHz
Graphics Card (GPU): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
Memory (RAM) 16 GB

I can see this a small indie dev’s passion project and I commend them for making a beautiful game and a good first effort. There is the potential for a good game here but there are just too many missteps that really miss the fun factor and damper the experience. I hope they can learn from this game and make something even better the next time. There are some neat systems in place that are just in dire need of rebalancing, clarity, and variety. This game is not worth the asking price, but may be worth a glance on a deep sale if you’re interested in the genre at all.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a spiritual successor to one of my favorite RPG series of all time, Suikoden. As such, it has a lot of expectations behind it and for the most part it played it safe with some very obvious homages to the Suikoden games. This is a bit of a double edged sword, however. While they borrow some great tropes and story beats, I can’t help but feel like I’m just pointing at the game going “hey remember that from Suikoden 2!?” and the constant comparisons sort of damper the game as its own thing. Especially because Eiyuden makes a lot of questionable decisions so when comparing it to Suikoden, it doesn’t always come out on top. That said, reality is there won’t ever be an actual Suikoden sequel so this is the best we’ll get and it’s still a very enjoyable story and game worth playing for any fan of the original series.

I honestly found the very start a bit slow. But after about an hour when it opens up and lets you start recruiting characters, I started to love the game. From then on, it only got better as political events that shape the world and story occur and so on. Like the Suikoden series, the story revolves around a political conflict in which you play as an underdog faction of ragtag heroes that slowly builds up power over time through many recruits. Not all recruits are fighters either and some are cooks, librarians, etc and help manage your town. I think it’s neat to show the importance of everyone working together to keep the faction going and not just the generals fighting the wars (although certainly they get most of the screentime).

Unfortunately, I do have to say while I enjoyed the overall story and the primary antagonist, it really falls short of the Suikoden plots. It largely boils down to a severe lack of stakes. I never really felt in danger. Towns may get taken over and yet you can still just walk right in and recruit people. A town may get burned down and still there a few days later. Where are the actual consequences of the ongoing war?

Characters and side stories varied. Some had barely any story before joining while others had involved side quests. Overall, I think they’re cool and fun and the variety was nice.

I don’t really care about voice acting but the game has it. I thought it was OK. I’m impatient and tend to read faster than they speak so it means nothing to me. I did like the music and the overall presentation of towns, characters, etc. It’s really fun to see so many stray cats roaming the towns too.

A majority of my frustrations with the game resides here. I enjoyed my time with it, but could not help but constantly feel there are a ton of Quality of Life (QoL) issues throughout the game that actively pissed me off. Only for some enjoyable moment to make me forgive the game again. Then get pissed off by something else again. I was constantly going back and forth.

I get that the game is purposely invoking old-school RPGs but that should never come at the cost of being an active detriment to enjoying the game. First, the game is a turn based battle system with a return to the 6-character party. I love that. I also like that you can shove story-required characters into the reserves and ignore them. What was frustrating is the changes to the battle system. First- the overall speed just feels so slow. In Suikoden, everyone would attack at once and the combat felt extremely snappy. In Eiyuden, it just feels so slow! Secondly, the beloved unite system seems horribly balanced or bugged where you’re better off just using two individual attacks than combined attacks most of the time. The combined attacks just do terrible damage and are not worth it. This sucks, half of the appeal of the unite system was to try out interesting combinations to pull off big damage as well as observe the fun animations. Thirdly – magic is strangely balanced. Early on, MP is difficult to recover outside of Inns and magic as a whole seemed underwhelming outside of healing. In the late game, magic finally takes off and is great to use (at least for the extremely OP Momo lol). I really miss the unique magic system of the Suikoden series which had limited casts at each level. This allowed you to still use magic on trash mobs while conserving the big spells for bosses. With the MP system, mages are more likely to just spam normal attacks for all trash encounters in order to save everything for the big bosses. Just feels way less magical. Also no double beat rune????

For other QoL issues - inventory management is rough early game, lack of bulk selection for selling/appraising/weapon sharpening, etc. Just so many weird little choices.

Also hope you aren’t a completionist. The grind for that is painful (and still ongoing for me). Beyblade minigame was painful and everyone hates it. Ship racing game terrible controls. Card game is actually fun but not “win 120 times” fun. The theatre is actually a wonderful side feature and I love it.

Duels and war systems were a major let down and each felt more like interactive cutscenes.

No issues.

Operating System: Windows 10
Processor (CPU): Intel Core i5-3570K CPU @3.40GHz
Graphics Card (GPU): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
Memory (RAM) 16 GB

If you’re into headquarters building with recruiting tons of characters, you’ll probably enjoy this. There is also an interesting political storyline that’s more complicated than the typical “good vs evil” story of many turn based RPGs. It’s a great game, but definitely temper your expectations in comparison to the series it was based on. Keep in mind also that the game intentionally brings old school vibes and this means a return to save points and a useless auto-save that only works when you go to the world map (prepare to lose hours of progress if you rely only on the auto save). I promise though, it is a good time and a fun game if you’re able to look past the flaws and focus on the character collection and story.

Turnip Boy Robs a Bank is a sequel to the very funnily named Turnip Boy Commits Tax Fraud. While it has references to the first game, the premise is absurd and silly enough to be enjoyable without really understanding any of the tie-ins to the first game (mostly the setting and characters). Plot-wise, the game works just fine as a standalone, and the sequel is much more centered on gameplay anyways. Overall, it’s a fun time if you enjoy roguelites. If you’re wanting more of the same from the first game, this game has some similar elements but overall feels quite different in terms of gameplay. However, if you enjoyed the humor and fetch quests of the first game, that still exists.

You’re a turnip and the veggie mafia recruits you into a grand heist to rob the botanical bank. Not really much more to it than that, honestly! But who is playing a Turnip Boy game for the story? It’s all about the humor and gameplay, really. Overall, if you laugh at the title, you’ll probably enjoy the game. Otherwise if you think it’s cringe you aren’t going to enjoy the game at all.

Music is pretty good – I was jamming along as I played quite often. The art is very cute. I had a guest over and she thought the game was cute! I told her “I’m robbing a bank” and she just nodded slowly and backed away. But hey, the first impression was cute! She definitely didn’t see some of the bosses that look really freaky. Overall, the art style is very fitting for the game and its usually quite clear to tell things apart – i.e. what is breakable, where is the exit, what is going to harm you or not. Although some enemies and NPCs blend in and not always clear if I should talk to someone or shoot first. Kinda makes sense though since it’s a bank heist – guess it is part of the job to know who you want to shoot versus spare.

Turnip Boy Robs a Bank is a roguelite action game where you repeatedly rob a giant labyrinth of a bank until you get to the MOTHER LOAD. It’s impossible to win in one run as you won’t have all the required items to pass through the next area. So you’re expected to constantly rob the bank, earn money, then spend that money on upgrades and items that will help progression. The map is a mix of set rooms and elevators that will randomize. The random elevators helps keep things fresh but they get kind of annoying during the mid and late game. This is perhaps my one and only criticism of the gameplay. Eventually you run out of things to spend money on and the elevators have rooms that are purely for making money. They may also have NPCs and it can be annoying to be unable to find a NPC because their room won’t spawn. This could have easily been resolved by giving the player an option to spend money to reroll the elevators.

You get a good variety of weapons but you can only hold two at a time. You’re highly encouraged to drop weapons you bring with you in favor of taking some from your victims. The purpose of this is to increase research to unlock more weapons.

Overall, the game is not too difficult. There are enemies throughout the bank and I’ve died a few times from being careless. There are also bosses which aren’t overly difficult either. There is a “boss rush” but it’s thankfully been patched to be able to be done over multiple runs and saves your progress so don’t have to repeat it if fail what happens after.

No issues.

Operating System: Windows 10
Processor (CPU): Intel Core i5-3570K CPU @3.40GHz
Graphics Card (GPU): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
Memory (RAM) 16 GB

It’s a fun game. A bit of a different vibe from the first game as it seems to highly prioritize the gameplay loop over the rest. It’s still fun, but overall I think I enjoyed the absurdity of the first game a bit more. The sequel sometimes got a little annoying with the excessive dialog, but it was still a good time in the end. It’s worth a look, especially if you’re into a short silly game. Don’t expect to get much more than 5 to 6 hours out of this game, including time to grind out 100%ing it. Probably more worth it on sale than full price due to the shorter length. However, the playtime seemed perfect and didn’t really feel like it was padding out playtime for the sake of it.

On the surface, LEGO Builder’s Journey looks like a great pick for a short relaxing imaginative puzzle game. In reality, it’s an expensive nightmare that tortures the player for 2 hours rather than providing any semblance of fun. If you rush, you might make it under the refund window but it’s honestly not even worth a try. It’s certainly not worth the 20 dollar asking price, unless you enjoy getting frustrated at virtual children’s toys.

IDK some journey with a father and son and ♥♥♥♥ gets weird. At some point there’s a robot? It’s an interesting method of storytelling. There is zero dialog. It’s all silent and a story told via LEGO, destruction, creation, and action. Not really worth the frustrating gameplay required to play through it though.

It’s a pretty gorgeous game but it also seems to really be demanding for such a simple game. Toward the end I had some slowdown. Dark sections suck and there needs to be way less of them. Music is nice, I enjoyed it.

One problem is the level design isn’t always great. Since there is no dialog, it’s not always obvious what exactly you are supposed to do. There’s been a few levels I desperately clicked everything in sight and just had no idea what the game wanted me to do because nothing seemed to progress the puzzle. (Some of the later levels are especially atrocious – I watched a walkthrough and laughed when the youtuber also had no idea what to do for a solid 3 minutes)

It’s a very simple puzzle game. You place lego blocks to help the characters cross to the goal. Early on, it’s pretty obvious where to go as its just following the father. The characters will only travel on certain blocks so may need to keep moving the same block around and build stairs or bridges to place it closer and closer to the goal. Later stages change the goals around in various ways. Some are literal puzzles with placing certain blocks on certain areas. Others are more free form where need to build a bridge but its up to you how to do it.

There are two big problems holding back this simple gameplay.

One – the controls are an unintuitive nightmare and you will constantly perform the wrong actions on accident. The left click is used for EVERYTHING. Rotating, picking up, dropping. It’s all left click. Short vs Long press. It’s absolutely infuriating how often I meant to place a block and rotate it instead or vice versa. The worst crime? It could so easily be fixed with letting players customize their own controls. Nope, not possible. Just binding rotate to mouse wheel or right click or something would have made so much more sense.

Secondly – as mentioned in presentation it’s just not clear what you’re supposed to do at times. Mixed with the terrible controls, it becomes a nightmare. I genuinely had trouble figuring out if I understood the puzzle correctly and it was just ♥♥♥♥ controls preventing me from completing it, or what.

It had some bad slow down in later sections where I had to turn off Raytracing and Shadows to get it performing again.

Operating System: Windows 10
Processor (CPU): Intel Core i5-3570K CPU @3.40GHz
Graphics Card (GPU): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
Memory (RAM) 16 GB

LEGO has a way of making you feel like a kid again. Well this game certainly made me feel like a kid again, but not in the good way. I felt like a screaming toddler who just wanted to cry and throw a tantrum because I dropped a block instead of placing it where I wanted it for the 50th time in a row due to the atrocious controls.

Actraiser Renaissance is a remake of a SNES game ActRaiser and while it looks and sounds pretty it somehow makes the game worse than the original. While I have not played the original, just from basic research I can see that everything I hated about the game could be attributed as something the remake tacked on. Yet there were parts I liked. And all of those could be attributed to the original game concept. There is something seriously wrong here when I would seriously have a better time just picking up the original game rather than play this. What is even the point of Renaissance other than looking pretty?

You play as, quite literally, God and one of his angels. Your divine presence cleanses the land of evil enough for citizens to start making a town. Eventually they meet a strange out-of-lace hero who lends them their aid. Monsters strike and evil is back with a vengeance. Through your guidance, the hero becomes a devout follower and leads the citizens to a victory. Yet the last evil is far too strong for anyone but God to defeat, and so you must strike down the final boss in his lair. Repeat this for every continent. However, there is an overarching story where there is a grand evil orchestrating all the other evils in the continents. In the post-game, there is yet another mysterious force as well.

It's a simple and repetitive story but serves its purpose well enough. Some areas have better stories than others. I particularly liked the snowy area. There is often some pretty interesting themes in the stories as well, such as the balance of god acting on behalf of his flock versus leaving them alone to let them deal with their own problems. Or even how power may wane when faith wavers. So while the basic structure is repetitive each story is different at least. That said, the way the story is told is WAY too wordy, drags on, and just overall could be 10 hours shorter.

There is SO much dialog. Even in the first area it felt like the citizens and angel were harassing me every 5 seconds. It’s immersion breaking and the opposite of relaxing. It’s just annoying. Sometimes the dialog is interesting but more often than not they could have just kept their stupid prayers in their pockets and let me handle things on my own. Apparently the original game was far more streamlined and wasn’t as obnoxious with the dialog.

For the most part, the game looks pretty fantastic. I like the overworld for the city building sections. The visual-novel like art of the cutscenes is nice. The 2D side scrolling section are a nostalgic throwback to SNES and arcade games. I can generally tell where I’m supposed to go, what is destructible, what will hurt me, etc. The game doesn’t really commit any sins. Presentation is certainly it’s strong suit. Even the music is pretty epic, with triumphant music suitable for the heaven’s conquest. I’d say my one gripe is I really dislike the “chibi” art for the angel. But that could also be because of the angel is involved with a lot of the parts of the game I hate.

So there really is like 3-4 games in one with how many genres this game blends. It was honestly a drawing point – I thought a city builder mixed with a 2D side scroller sounds dope. It is pretty nice. I don’t really have any complaints for the 2D Side Scroller part – it’s pretty good. It’s dated at times and starts out way too easy. But it definitely picks up in challenge at times. It’s a basic hit and run hack and slash kind of thing where you watch the enemy movements and hit when it’s safe. There’s also magic you can use (which makes the game WAY easier) and enemies may have different weaknesses to such.

Now for the city builder – this is where the cracks form because for some reason the remake decided to pad the hell out of it. I already noted the dialog problem – that’s one issue. The other major issue is the addition of tower defense sections. Just, why? I’m usually a fan of tower defense, hence I got the game despite the warnings. But these are just not good. Not well designed. Difficulty is all over the place. Some maps are frustrating hard unless you know exactly where to place towers and heroes. Others are laughably easy and can be solved while napping. But worst of all – it’s just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boring. There’s level ups for the heroes which I was excited for. But it’s just stats. No skills or customization. There’s only three different towers. They can be upgraded, so yippee I guess. But here’s the kicker, the first one you get, the gatehouse, kinda sucks! Just spam the towers that actually shoot things. Heroes will be the main DPS, but the problem is they can’t be everywhere at once. Hence, need towers to help – especially with annoying as ♥♥♥♥ fliers.

Fliers absolutely ruin the tower defense sections and are the bane of my existence. Wind spells help against them. Arrows also help, but there’s just so many and they love to just go around taking out farms. What’s really annoying is when you get a magician. I love the magician character and she is powerful but then the game introduces magic shields. Now for the rest of the game many enemies will resist magic!! Yay!! Including fliers!!!

God, these sections suck so much. And they’re required to get through the game. Several times per area. And they often destroy all your ♥♥♥♥ so then you gotta slowly build up resources to rebuild everything again. There’s just so much pointless downtime for no reason but to pad out the game. And you can’t even AFK! Because the game will spawn random enemies to attack the town you’re supposed to shoot down with the angel. So much for a relaxing city builder in between the fighting 2D action scroller sections. The original had the pacing right. This game is just non-stop throwing crap at you, even when the pace is slowed to a crawl.

Game worked fine.

Operating System: Windows 10
Processor (CPU): Intel Core i5-3570K CPU @3.40GHz
Graphics Card (GPU): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
Memory (RAM) 16 GB

Don’t do it. It’s not worth it. It just drags on and on for what seems like centuries. I apparently played it less than 20 hours but it felt like 40! And even those less than 20 hours were too long and I wish the game was shorter. Apparently the original was! Seriously, just play the original game if it seems appealing at all. The remake does nothing but actively make the game worse.

Following in the foot-steps of its obvious inspiration, Dawn of War, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin seems like it could actually be a really good game. At least to a Warhammer and RTS fan craving more of each. However, do not be fooled by the visuals. It’s a terrible game and certainly not worth its asking price. I’m not even sure I’d recommend it on sale. While it looks pretty, the game is ultimately shallow and a chore to play which results in more frustration and tedium than any semblance of fun. If you had a choice between playing this game or cleaning your bathroom you should choose cleaning your toilet 100% of the time and you’d still be exposed to less ♥♥♥♥ than if you played this game.

The story mostly follows the Stormcast Eternals faction, Warhammer Age of Sigmar’s fantasy version of Warhammer 40K Space Marines. There is just a small battalion left on a crusade against Orks and the campaign follows the various grand battles, sieges, and skirmishes that take place between the two factions. Interestingly, the story shifts POV several times and even follows the Orks for a time, allowing the player to see firsthand how they become a threat to the Stormcast Eternals. While most missions take place between these two factions there are two other factions in the game: the Nighthaunt – pretty much the undead – and the Tzeentch chaos faction. While the Nighthaunt doesn’t get a POV in the campaign, they’re an enemy in quite a few missions. Tzeentch on the other hand is a playable faction for a few missions in the campaign, however it is told in story as a vision being watched by the magician character.

Anyways, the story isn’t really all that special, but it at least seems Warhammer enough with some twists here and there. The story was never really the driving force to keep me going but It at least had something there for a reason to fight in each mission.

Although where the game and story overlapped was one of the first areas that made me hate the game. In-game cutscenes. The actual cinematics are fine (when they didn’t crash on me, more on that later). But whenever there was a scene in the middle of a mission using in-game models I contemplated uninstalling the game and never seeing it again. First – the game actually continued while it forced you to watch the scene play. This meant a battle can continue happening beyond your control and by the time the scene ends your unit may be dead since you weren’t able to deal with the battle. Secondly – while the cinematics are skippable, the in-mission scenes are not. If you have to restart because of some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like the above, a timer, or some other reason for a failed mission then have fun watching the scenes again because you can’t skip it!

Game looks fine, I’ll give it that. Part of what made me want to play it was that visually it looked interesting and reminded me of Dawn of War but with a flavor of Age of Sigmar, Admittedly, I do not know much about Age of Sigmar and played only one other game with it, so I wanted to know more. But unfortunately, it does not have nearly the same kind of staying power as Dawn of War. At least I got to see what various Age of Sigmar units look like?

Realms of Ruin is a real-time strategy game where the strategy revolves around unit caps, composition of the army based on these caps, and map placement to hold various strategic resource points all while completing objectives. On paper, this sounds good. Even the units are described as having a sort of rock-paper-scissors dynamic of melee, ranged and shields.

This last point is also where things immediately fall apart. The game balance absolutely does not reflect this triangle. Instead, ranged is simply king and will beat literally everything: melee, shields and other ranged. What is the point of melee and shields if the ranged unit will just obliterate them before they ever reach it? Oh yeah, unit speeds (at least in campaign, I did not bother with other modes) is also pretty slow, just more icing on the cake.

The ranged units are actually kind of fun and pretty satisfying to use – especially the chaos flamers and horrors. At least when you’re actively using them. All too often I will have units just stand around doing nothing while an enemy is in range because they’re looking slightly to the right. Worse, sometimes they could actively be shot and still just stand there instead of pursuing the ranged unit attacking them. There seems to be a lack of any kind of guard mode and playing defense is just very frustrating and unresponsive.

And you will definitely have to play defense, way more than you want to. Many missions involve holding several points at once which is like a terribly unfun game of whack-of-mole. You take a point, leave to take the next one. And already the enemy respawned double your number and take the point back. So you absolutely have to leave squads at your points and hold them while you send another to actively take new points. With the unit cap, this can even seem impossible at times. This was never clearer than the first mission against the nighthaunt – I believe it was mission 3 or 4? The enemies spawn endlessly with no way to shut them off while you’re supposed to simultaneously hold and defend three points. It was painful.

A tip for any poor unlucky soul who actually plays this game – focus on upgrading your HQ over anything else. That raises your unit cap. The game is actually playable when you have enough units to defend multiple points. Still absolutely tedious and annoying though. Don’t expect any kind of blitzkrieg assault here. No, the campaign is a slog where each mission will feel like you’re slowly crawling to victory via a war of attrition as you scramble your units across the game of whack-a-mole.

I will admit there are some cool moments or ideas here or there. But every time I want to praise the game, I’m immediately hit by another reason to be like “oh that’s right it’s still crap – just a polished turd.” I think it’s poor design when sometimes it’s just actively better to ignore the mission you’re given. For example, there is a “boss” encounter where you are meant to capture several locations to weaken it. I tried to do that and it just became an endless battle where the enemy was able to overwhelm me and take it back. So I looked up online and saw other people had the same problem. They all recommended to ignore that objective and to just attack the boss at its’ full strength instead. I did that and had a much better time. Amazing. I was just happy to no longer play the game.


The game crashed to desktop on almost every cinematic for me. Actual game ran fine and I could watch the cutscene once I loaded back in.

Operating System: Windows 10
Processor (CPU): Intel Core i5-3570K CPU @3.40GHz
Graphics Card (GPU): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
Memory (RAM) 16 GB

GAME BAD. Absolutely not a full-price game, what the hell were they thinking with that price point? I’m aware I kept playing it even though it’s a bad game. But I certainly do not recommend anyone else doing that. It was just a mixture of sunk cost fallacy and a desperation for Warhammer RTS content with a curiosity for Age of Sigmar. Well, my curiosity was satisfied. But at what cost? Sixty dollars and some wasted hours. Not the end of the world but figured I might as well help someone else save their own money on this mediocre title. What’s truly disappointing is that it could have been good with just some effort on making the game actually fun to play, but oh well.

As a turn based monster-catching RPG, Cassette Beasts is yet another take on the Pokemon-like games. However, it does not merely copy Pokemon and provides a fresh perspective with its fusion mechanics, move customization, fun art design, jamming music and zany story. While it has its flaws and a rather weak post-game, it is still a great time and worth playing through at least once for the story and seeing all the monsters. Simply put – it’s a good time.

The game opens up with your character (which you can customize name, appearance, gender, etc.) becoming stranded on a new strange land with monsters. The first human you meet teaches you how to defend yourself by using a cassette player to turn yourself into a monster. She also demonstrates how to obtain new forms (i.e. monster catching) via recording said monsters. The game is very tongue in cheek about how weird this method of obtaining monsters and battling them is and encourages you not to think too much about it.

Eventually, as your new friend shows you around town, exploration opens up and you’re free to take on some quests. You can explore the world and try to become a ranger (like a gym leader in pokemon) by defeating other rangers, etc. Eventually the exploration leads to an encounter with a different kind of monster that the characters dub an archangel. These archangels are essentially elite monster boss encounters and stand out from the rest of the monsters. They cannot be recorded and their appearance is cryptic and rather creepy along with some odd dialog.

There also seems to be a connection with the archangels and a way to escape the stranded world and so the adventure continues in a search for more archangels. Along the way, you meet yet more friendly trainers in your quest and can complete their character-focused side stories. Upon doing so, they want to share your goal of defeating the archangels and escaping the world as they become your trusted battle companion.

Overall, it has a decent enough premise that provides reason to continue battling monsters with a goal to work toward. The characters are all interesting and there is plenty of character-based story telling within the plot as well for players who enjoy that kind of storytelling more than just a general overarching story.

I really fell in love with the designs of the monsters and especially the music that played throughout. Harbourtown especially had me humming along as it stirred some nostalgic emotions within me. Sometimes I just sat in town vibing along enjoying the song. Whenever an archangel showed up I really loved anticipating what sort of craziness I was getting myself into next.

There are 128 monsters + 1 bonus monster in the base game (excluding the arch angels) and they are all unique designs. As with many monster taming games, there are evolutions and branching paths but also some standalone monsters. In addition to these monsters, you can fuse any two monsters (including two of the same monster) with yet more unique designs and even names. There is a lot to take in!

The world itself is cleanly designed with elevation, hidden switches, interactable objects, etc. Typically, I was able to explore the world and distinguish the monsters and interactable objects from the environment. There were some exceptions but the switches or monsters were intentionally camouflaged.

My only gripe with the presentation is I did not see a setting to speed up battle animations. They’re enjoyable but get old really fast, needlessly extending the time battles (or even setup time from pre-battle skills).

At its core, this is a game about collecting and battling monsters. There is also a stage in between with customizing the monster’s move sets with stickers. Every time a monster levels up (gains a star) it will earn a new sticker that can be equipped. You can also use the world’s currency to purchase more stickers, find them in chests, or even just grab a sticker from another monster (if compatible). It is very fun to plan out and customize a build to make a monster. There are a mix of passive and action abilities including abilities that trigger at the start of battle. Some combinations are extremely broken and will trivialize the game – but it’s fun to come up with solutions prior to then. Even the broken combination is fun to see at first, but I’d recommend not using it until the post-game as it does take the wind out of the sails of fun.

As for stats and leveling up – the monsters only get more stickers and sticker slots as they progress down their evolution chain and ranking up. Stat growth and actual levels are only tied to the trainer. This makes it a lot more viable to switch out monsters for variety, although it can be annoying to shift the useful stickers around before you’re swimming in surplus.

Battling is enjoyable and can be pretty strategic (outside of the broken sticker combination). I’ve found myself having to mix up strategies and skills rather than using the same build for every encounter. Some trainers or archangels have gimmicks that may make you have to play differently. Such reasons may include status effects or passive skills that hard counter your own, and even type advantage. Like pokemon, there are type advantage/disadvantage but instead of just doing more/less damage, there is always some kind of additional status effect applied. For example, a water type will give a health regen status to their opponent when attacking plant types.

Collecting monsters was fun and for the most part not too difficult. No monster is missable, thankfully! However, obtaining the bonus monster is a bit too RNG dependent for my tastes as it essentially requires a very specific bootleg (this game’s version of shiny pokemon) monster. This was around when I started to really have criticism for the game which would only escalate with the post-game.

I enjoyed my trek through the story which lasted perhaps around 30 hours. After that was the post-game where the game started to overstay it’s welcome and frustrate me. The additional story content, monsters, and rematches were welcome. But the “100 side quests” achievement is just an insanely needless grind with no respect for the player’s time. There is no reason to force a player to do 100 fetch quests just to see the end of 100% completion. This number should have been reduced significantly to approximately just 10 and stick to only relevant story content.

These quests consist of “kill X amount of monster”. “record X monster and get it to 5 stars”, “fuse these two monsters together”. Etc. It’s mind numbingly dull and I decided to just drop the game at this point and even passing on the DLC. At this point I had enough, sadly.


Game runs fine.

Operating System: Windows 10
Processor (CPU): Intel Core i5-3570K CPU @3.40GHz
Graphics Card (GPU): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
Memory (RAM) 16 GB

While the post-game ruined my honeymoon with the game, I do still overall recommend the game. It’s a really nice story and a refreshing take on the monster catching and battling formula. I’d just advise to not bother with 100% completion if you try out the Ranger Sign Board and hate it as much as I did. It doesn’t get any better, in fact it just gets worse. Check out the post-game archangels/monsters/trainers then call it. Overall, despite a weak post-game, the ending itself was fine and it’s a really fun ride through an interesting world. I recommend any monster catching fan to pick this one up, sale or not.