First Impression: Pokémon Scarlet & Violet (Switch) ~ Closer To Good

Pokémon.com microsite – Wikipedia

It has been a while since the latest Pokémon game came out. Honestly, I expected myself beating this game a lot sooner. But, we are now over half a year later, and I haven’t beaten the game yet. What’s going on? Is this game the first Pokémon game I’m going to drop or did I get distracted? Well, I have some opinions on this game and I wanted to talk about this game… but, I was unable to find the right words or a great angle to write about this game. So, this week I decided to give myself time till my writing day and then sit down and give my opinion on this game. In the meantime, I have almost completed the game but since I haven’t, this is going to be a first impression. And of course, I’m going to invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on the game and/or the content of this article. Since, this game is something else… It split the fanbase into two camps, and I want to talk about it.

There is a story?

In this game, you play as a student who enrolls into the local Academy. It doesn’t take long before your usual adventure in the Paldea region starts. The introduction in this game is something you’d expect from a Pokémon game.

After the headmaster visits you, you can pick your starter Pokémon and go attend school. You meet your rival on your way to school and not too long after, you get introduced to the actual main story of this game. The treasure hunt.

This treasure hunt is sort of a final exam / field expedition. Whilst you want to start your treasure hunt, you get introduced to the three different story lines that will go on.

Two out of the three story lines are your typical Pokémon affair. The first story line is your journey to become a Pokémon Master, by defeating the 8 gyms spread across the region and then taking on the Pokémon League. The second story line is what I call the “Team Rocket” story line. Basically, taking on the evil team of the game. But, in this game, we also have a third story line. This is a nice change of pace and adds a bit more depth to the game.

In terms of writing, this game is fine for what it sets out to do. If you expect a more mature Pokémon game story, you won’t find it here. The story is more aimed at young children and teens. My biggest problem with the story is that it’s too tame most of the time. There is no real tension, no real line to pull you into the story.

Yes, the evil team this time around isn’t just your cheerleading squad for one of the major side characters. Looking at you, Sword and Shield. No, this time it’s a team of students that ran away from school. Delinquents, if you will. If only they did a bit more to stand out. Besides your first interaction with them, they barely do anything outside their bases. On top of that, their bases are generic, I have a hard time telling their bases apart.

I totally understand that it’s difficult to create an open world game and having a story that really pulls you in. Since, you never know where the player is going to go next and if you lead the player too much, they might feel that the game is too linear and scripted. But, I’m convinced that you can do more than what this game does.

Let’s keep with the evil team, Team Star, as an example. Your first encounter is at the school gates. You fight two grunts that are causing a small bit of ruckus. After you have beaten them, you get some backstory and during the start of the treasure hunt… You get challenged to take down their bases. That’s cool, great setup. But, the annoying thing is that the gameplay behind that turns into almost additional gym battles.

We never see Team Star take over a village or do something. There is no actual reason to interact with Team Star besides for the story. When will we see the evil team actually being evil or being a danger to the player? That’s what I feel that the story in this game is missing. It feels like an afterthought, a way to get the player to point A to B. I feel that The Legend of Zelda – Breath of the Wild did it a lot better. In that game, we as a player have a reason to go out and explore. We need to gear up to defeat Ganon and save the world.

In this game, we … Explore the world because it’s “homework”. I’m sorry, but the story is swinging a miss in this game. Maybe I’m a bit too old, or maybe I’m being too critical, but it’s too safe. Yes, you have three separate story lines, and they are fine, but they never cross paths with each other and there are not of hooks for the player to want to follow along and continue the story. I really don’t get what other reviewers are seeing in this story.

After a lot of thought, I think I can explain why I’m not clicking with the story. First, like I said, it’s too safe. There is no lurking threat in the world that make you want to save this world or want to see what happens next. The closest of the three story lines is actually the new story line. Where you help heal a sick Pokémon.

Secondly, it lacks a lot of progression. Most of the tension of the story stays on a flat line. For example, let’s take the Team Star story line. There is no real worry in Team Star after you defeated the other bases. I mean, I don’t notice anything different when I have defeated one or three bases. Yes, the interactions at the start and after beaten the base are a bit different… But, you have the gameplay loop is always the same in the bases.

And third, the gameplay is working against it. For an example, you can read the paragraph above. Another example is that the trainers on the routes don’t notice you anymore, like in the previous games. Yes, you have to interact with them before they start a battle. So, you don’t naturally level up anymore and that way you have to grind… And that way, the player is more focused on the gameplay than on the story. Also, the dialogue isn’t different if you are rematching a gym leader after being defeated by the leader for one or more times… I mean, come on, things have to work in tandem for it to work.

Re-heated dinner

One of the best ways I feel to describe this game is that it’s a re-heated dinner. Of course, those dinners can still be extremely tasty, but it isn’t fresh anymore, and you don’t know which parts are heated enough or need more heating.

This game has a lot of going for it. I love the fact that this is one of the first main line Pokémon games that isn’t linear. You can choose where to progress and decide your own pace.

Sadly, I have to mention the elephant in the room. This game has a lot of issues in terms of performance. The frame rate can dip in some areas, but the texture pop-in is awful.

You can mostly see this problem in large area’s. You see the environment loading in, in the distance. It’s like the render distance is too far to begin with. If this was created by a small team of developers, I could understand. It’s an ambitious big open world and some areas might be rough. But, this is Game Freak we are talking about. I feel that they stretched themselves too thin. Since 2010, we are roughly getting a Pokémon game every year. And we got two big titles last year.

The more that I played this game, the more I got the feeling that the ambition for this game was too big. I’m just glad that this game doesn’t have a lot of game breaking issues. Or at least, I haven’t encountered any. According to this article from the Sun, the raids might be broken… But to be honest, I don’t really bother with the raids. I don’t like the gameplay loop of raids and I feel like it’s a boring, very optional activity.

Just like the camping and sandwich mechanics in this game. Sure, it’s amazing they are in this game and add some depth we Pokémon fans are asking for… But, it feels undercooked. I have to be honest, I haven’t bothered using the camping at all. I had even forgotten that it were mechanics in the game.

Now, a mechanic that really hits its mark in my opinion is the gimmick mechanic of this region. Terastallization is such a unique idea, and it works extremely well. The gist of the gimmick is that Pokémon can become a crystal form of themselves. Depending on the Pokémon, they either hold their typing or change into a different type. This adds another strategy layer upon the game. I really like this mechanic over some of the previous gimmicks. You can even change the Tera type of your Pokémon to obtain an edge in battle. I’d explain it all in depth, but I’ll let this amazing NintendoLife article handle that.

Something I also really like is how you get a fast way to explore this quite open landscape. The world feels real and is a lot of fun to explore. The bike legendary Pokémon you get is a godsend. To be honest, I would have complained quite a bit if you only could walk everywhere. Since the walking speed isn’t that fast. It’s also cool that you can upgrade the abilities of your ride during the story.

But, then again… The world feels too empty. There are areas that are just devoid of anything. Barely any wild Pokémon walking around, items to find or trainers to battle. Yes, wild Pokémon walk around visibly and they are to scale. You can let the Pokémon that’s first in your party also run around to battle and gain XP automatically. Too bad that your partner Pokémon is too slow to keep up with your ride.

There are also different type of items in the world. There are materials and items. The items are just like in previous Pokémon games where you have potions, healing items, TM’s, Pokéballs… to name just a few types. But you also have materials you have to use to craft TM’s. Yes, craft TM’s. They are finally single use again but you can stop at Pokémon Centers to go to the TM machine and craft a TM again if you have the needed materials. And you can find materials to craft new sandwiches too.

I feel like Game Freak had a long list of things they wanted to implement. But in some areas they didn’t succeed. For example, the Pokémon Centers are just a joke now. They feel like a gas stop at the side of the road, if that even. A small food truck is a better description. Each Pokémon Center feels copy pasted everywhere. There are also barely any unique characters around in the Pokémon Centers…

Also, healing with healing items is a bit broken. You have to use each potion one by one while you can choose to use more than one XP candy at the same time. Oh, and when you want to heal more than one Pokémon, you have to reselect the healing item.

What the future holds and gives

I have to be honest, I have written a lot of drafts for this review. There is so much this game does right but there are also various fundemental things where this game swings a miss. Let me give another example: It has a more expansive story but all the characteres are still silent. Not even small grunts like in Breath of the Wild.

The fact you can finally control the camera during Pokémon battles to a degree is great fun… But, the visual mess you can create sometimes is just shameful.

There are so many buildings in the villages now but so many of them are just set decoration. To the point where there is barely any additional lore to be found. No unique thing that sets the villages apart, apart from their geographical location. And all special locations are visited during the story at some point… So, yeah.

The controls are extremely responsive in this game, but the map screen is a nightmare to use. It’s a bit too easy to zoom in and out, there is no easy way to center the map or to go to your location. A lot of times I had to rotate the map since I wasn’t sure where I was in the region.

The music in this game is something where I don’t have any complaints about. The music in this game has the amazing mix between new and oldschool Pokémon music and it does quite a lot for the atmosphere. I highly recommend that you play this game with a good sound system or a good headset. Since, that’s what is giving the areas some more atmosphere and brings the game more to life.

There is also a day and night cycle in this game that isn’t linked to the real life day night cycle. It’s just like in Minecraft, but in this game the length of the cycle is a lot longer. It’s almost an hour and twenty mintues, give or take. This makes it enjoyable since you don’t have to devote time at a certain part of the day to try and catch a night Pokémon. Then again, it looses that charm too… So, it’s a double edged sword with no right answer.

Listen, I could keep talking about this game for a while longer but I think I have talked about the biggest things I wanted to talk about. I think I have explained why this game split the fanbase into two. There are some people who dislike this game because of all the technical problems and some of the shallow parts of the game… yet, there are people who like this game because it’s that big open world Pokémon game that finally dares to take the plunge into doing something new instead of holding to the “8 gyms and defeat evil team along the way” story from all previous gens.

It finally has more mechanics, more depth but parts are unpolished and we don’t know if that polish is going to come or if they are more focusing on all the DLC and/or this year’s big Pokémon title. Personally, I’m curious to see where they are taking the series next. If this was their first attempt on the open world Pokémon game… I have to say that it was a nice attempt.

My personal advice for the next game is to scale the scope down by a lot. I’d rather see a polished and well crafted game then a game where there is a lot to do but nothing has depth. Like, you have two types of currencies but you can use both of them for everything. (Thank god by the way that you don’t make these microtransactions, or all hell would have broken loose.) Make your mechanics unique, meaningfull and fun to use. Focus on that and on the technical aspect and the rest will come. You can always add more depth in updates and/or DLC.

Before I start rambling about this game for too long, I think it’s high time to write the conclusion. What do I think about this game? Well, I think that this is your typical 7/10 game. It has a lot going for it but it’s rough. Very rough sometimes in the technical department. But, it isn’t unplayable or unenjoyable… it has just some (very) low moments and these make the high moments sometimes taste bittersweet. I’m enjoying myself while playing this game, but it was a good idea to enjoy this game in chuncks since it came out.

In any case, that’s everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I’m rather curious what you think about my article. Feel free to leave a comment in the comment section down below. I also hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

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First impression: The Safe Place (PC – Steam) ~ Playing With Emotions

Steam store page

Remember two games I have talked about in the past before? Little Kite and Repentant? Well, the developer Anate Studio released his newest game last month. The developer was so kind to provide me with a press key to review and talk about this game before release. But, due to life getting extremely busy… I didn’t have the time to actually write something about this game until today. As usual, you’ll get my 100% honest opinion about this game and if this new point-and-click game is worth your time or not. If this world is really a safe place right now, or if we should do something about it. In any case, let’s dive right into it, and feel free to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on this game and/or the content of this article. I’m always curious to read those.

Editorial note: this article is written while the game was in v1.1

Playing with emotions

Just like in all previous Anate Studio’s games, this game tackles heavy subjects. In this game, the story is about self-sacrifice and a troubled childhood. In this game, you play as an engineer, Alexander. He lives in the post-Soviet era, which was in the midst of an economic crisis.

One night, he meets a young girl called Christina while waiting for the bus. Things go south from there, and Alexander commits a murder in front of her and covers it up. While the girl promises to keep silent when he helps her, things might and will go even more south from there.

In terms of writing, the story is well tense. There are two majors threats loomed over our main character and they are equally thrilling. Should Alexander deal with the troubles of the economic crisis, or should Alexander make sure that all the traces to the murder are covered up? This struggle also comes back in the writing, making it even more tense for you as the player.

Something I want to mention as well, is that I found it extremely lovely to see the dev diaries on the studio’s YouTube channel. For example, in this video, we see how the first scene is inspired by a real life bridge in Ukraine. You see it all come together in a time-lapse, and you see how much detail and love has been put into this game.

This whole game is also voice acted. I have to say that compared to the previous game, the voice acting has improved quite a lot. The voice acting is a lot less monotone and has a bit more feeling into it. From the three games I have played from this studio, I feel that this is the best voice acting yet. While the voice acting has been improved, it’s still a bit jarring that there is no lip-syncing. So, you will hear the characters talking but not see them talking, you know.

The only critique I have about the voice acting is something I’m unsure is a critique of the voice acting, sound mixing and/or the visuals. It sounds and looks the same when you have thoughts and spoken dialogue. Thankfully, this doesn’t happen very often, so it isn’t a big problem. But, maybe for the next games, have a sort of little distortion on the thoughts and display that text in cursive. Something quite similar has been done by the ports of 999: 9 Hours, 9 Doors, 9 People, and it works extremely well when you are not picking up on context clues.

Before I move on, this time the game is only in English and Ukrainian. I only speak Dutch and English and a bit of French. I know a little bit of German, so I’m only going to stick with the language I understand and I can judge. So, this comes from somebody who doesn’t know any Ukrainian but from what I heard from the voice-over demo on the developer YouTube channel, it sounds pretty good as well.

Drawn by hand

I touched upon this earlier, but visually, this game is extremely detailed. Just look at this screenshot I have placed here. Every environment you visit is highly detailed and looks amazing.

Now, I have chosen this screenshot intentionally. Since, there is a minor issue I want to talk about here. On the desk in the bottom left, there are several items you can pick up. When you click on the desk, the camera zooms in. But, you can still move your character.

This leads to it feeling a bit janky in my opinion. Since, at first I didn’t know how to exit the zoomed in screen and when I learned I could just click on the top to walk away… I felt like you didn’t know what the restrictions were in the zoomed in area. So, if you work with a mechanic like this… Make it evident to the player how they can exit that zoomed in screen and don’t allow the character to move.

In any case, I wanted to talk about the visual presentation of this game. Overall, this game looks amazing. In addition to that, the animations in this game are decent. Some of them don’t really work in my opinion. I mean, the back and forth swaying from some characters feels out of place. It feels a bit unnatural. I can understand that from a gameplay standpoint that it makes the characters stand out more, but it looks a bit silly sometimes. Something I would love to see in future games is that the characters are more expressive, especially in dialogue. Now, they go through the same short animation cycle, and having them more expressive would make the game come more alive.

I hope that you aren’t getting the impression that this game is unpolished or that it’s broken. It isn’t. I’m just quite impressed by the leaps forwards that the developer made compared with the previous two titles, and I just want to see their games become even better. For example, in the previous game you only had a few hints you could use, and you had a set number. In this game, the hint system is miles better. In each area, there are several statues hidden. These statues can unlock an image sequence for you to get a hint. But be careful, since you can unlock an image sequence for a puzzle you already completed. And on top of that, there aren’t enough statues to unlock every hint tree. So, look for them and use them wisely. Since, they are hidden extremely well.

If you know what to do, this game will take you roughly two and a half hours. This game is longer than the two previous titles in this trilogy. Yes, the two games mentioned in the introduction are part of this game. Now, you don’t need to play the two previous games to understand everything in this game. But this game is as long as the two previous ones combined.

Sound support

Earlier in this article, I said that the characters should be more expressive. But, there is another side of the coin. Sometimes, the lack of animation works in the visuals in their favor. Since, the sound design and sound effects make your head fill in a lot of details.

The sound effects really play a support role, sometimes to make the world come more alive. A small piece of advice I’d give is that in the next game you have some sort of subtitles for the sound effects as well for the hard of hearing/deaf people in your next game.

Something that shouldn’t change is the soundtrack. The soundtrack fits this game like a glove. It sounds atmospheric and creepy sometimes. And like I said, it fits the atmosphere amazingly. A rather common complaint from the previous game was sometimes the music and sound effects were louder than the voice acting, this is anything but a problem in this game.

This game controls extremely well. In this game, you almost exclusively use the left mouse button to control the game. This makes the game quite easy to learn. You might think that due to the very detailed art style, it’s not always clear where to click on. But the cursor turns into a nice hand icon when you can interact with something, and you can click the magnifying glass in the left corner to make sure you have investigated every spot.

Now, sadly there are a few complaints I have about this game. The first complaint is that activating the running in this game is quite tricky sometimes. I wasn’t always able to get the running to work, and the main character walks rather slow sometimes.

The two other complaints I have about this game are more UI based. Which is a shame, since they drag the amazingly crafted UI down. For of all, I find it a mistake that there is no save time in the load menu. This game has an auto-save system, but it’s unclear what the latest save is. There is also no way to manually save, either. So, you’ll have to rely on the auto-saving of this game. And that doesn’t happen quite often, only after certain specific events.

The second complaint about the UI I have is something of a pet peeve. Since there are multiple words for something, it’s always handy to have each item named. For example, you have a broom handle or broom stick. These names I’d love to see in the inventory. Since, when you don’t play this game in one sitting, it’s extremely handy to quickly hover over the items to quickly catch up with the items in your inventory.

All in all, this game is a huge improvement compared to the previous titles. The puzzles are quite challenging, and it feels quite rewarding to figure them out. The game has some issues for sure, but comparing the first titles of this developer with this game, it’s impressive how far this developer has come. A better hint system, better voice acting, a longer story and adventure… There is also a demo for this game if you are unsure if you want to pay the 12 euros for it.

The biggest issues I have about this game are rather small in the overall picture. My biggest annoyances in during playing were the running not always working as I hoped and the back and non-expressive characters during dialogue. I mean, the voice acting is so much better, but the animation needs to follow. You can’t have two back and forth sawing characters having a heated discussion.

So yeah, if those are the only two major complaints about an adventure game that’s well written and drags you into a emotionally gut-wrenching story with amazingly handcrafted enviroments… I mean, what’s stopped from me to recommend this game to everybody who enjoys adventure and/or point-and-click games? Nothing! I’m convinced that the next games will have more improvements since this developer works almost alone on these titles and the quality he is able to put out is really worth your time and attention.

And if you’d excuse me now…. I have a game to finish. So, that’s everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

First Impression: PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo (Switch) ~ Playing Around With Curses

Nintendo.com microsite – Square Enix microsite

How far will you go to revive somebody from the death? Do you believe in the paranormal, or are those just story mechanics for a great campfire story? Those are some questions you have to ask yourself while playing this game. A horror visual novel that got released in March 2023, developed and published by Square Enix. Currently, you can play this game on the Nintendo Switch and Steam. But, you can also play it on your mobile phone. But wait a minute, that might be a worrying sign. If this game is also playable on phones, it might be filled with microtransactions or might not have too much depth. Now, I have already played a bunch of this game so, I’ll tell you if you should play or skip this game in this spoiler free review/first impression of this game. So, let’s dive right into it while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section with your thoughts and/or opinions on the game and/or the content of this article.

Editorial note: this game is rated 16+ and covers some subjects that might be sensitive for some people. Digression is advised.

Playing Around With Curses

I have quite the weak spot for adventure visual novels. Games that take you through a tense and thrilling story with a lot of twists and turns. Games like the Zero Escape trilogy, Danganronpa, Trace Memory and Death Mark are just a few examples that come to mind. So, when I read in the flavor text in the Nintendo eShop that this game takes you on a journey to discover the truth behind seven folk tale mysteries… Oh man, I purchased the game right away.

And let me tell you, the flavor text isn’t lying in the eShop. The story of this game really delivers. The story is indeed about how far would somebody go to bring somebody back from the death. There is no voice acting in this game, but the pacing of the text and the sound effects really add to the atmosphere.

In this game, you also play as different characters. You’ll experience the story from their perspective. Slowly, but surely, you get more pieces of the puzzle before everything falls into place. The story is the strongest point in this game, and it took some fascinating twists. It left me puzzled several times, and it hooked me into playing the next chapter or trying to look for a solution when I got stuck.

That’s something that can happen. You can get stuck in a chapter because you need to finish something else in another chapter. Thankfully, we have a helper. The storyteller is there to help you when you reach a game over or a dead end. When you reach that dead end or game over several times, the storyteller gives some small hint to nudge you into the right direction to progress in the game. It’s an amazing system, since you don’t get the solution right away, but you don’t get frustrated because you are stuck or don’t directly understand what you need to do differently.

It’s more than a painting

You might have noticed from the screenshots, but visually, this game looks like a dark version of Okami. Everything in this game is hand drawn in a sort of manga/comic book style. And not only that, the environments are drawn with the help of the Tourism Division, the local museum, local community and the tourist association of Sumida, Tokyo. So, we are exploring places that are based or extremely close to how they look in real life.

Visually, the game looks gorgeous. Something that surprised me even more is that even with the few animations this game has during dialogues and gameplay segments, this game is still quite immersive. Together with great use of sound effects, camera angles and filters… the well paced dialogue really comes to live. Sometimes I really felt that I was standing next to the characters.

While I can totally understand that some people would want a bit more expression and visual stuff happening in their games, I think they found the right balance in this game. The only thing that sometimes looks a bit weird are the mouth movements of some characters. I felt like the mouth opened a bit too wide. But then again, I don’t speak any Japanese, so who I’m to judge?

In various places, you can look around in 360°. And sometimes that hides secrets. There are 20 hidden stickers of Mocking Birds in this game. And let me tell you, they are hidden quite well. You have to really investigate the area’s really well to find them all. In your overview of the stickers you have or haven’t collected, you can see a little hint on the ones you haven’t collected. And let me tell you, these hints are extremely vague. One hint even says: “Jackpot”.

Now, this brings me to the UI. Let’s first talk about the menu’s before we talk about the gameplay. The main menu of this game is extremely simple. You have a resume button, a button for the options menu and a button for the credits. Now, in game, the pause/inventory menu is opened by pressing “X”. Now, you can control this menu two ways. You can either use the left joystick as a sort of mouse pointer and the “A” button to click. Or, you can navigate it almost all the other buttons. It took a little bit of getting used to, but as soon as I got the hang of it… It was quite easy.

You can also see a dialogue log in this pause menu, which is sometimes very handy when you clicked something away too fast or just want to read up on something. There is also quite the extensive file system. There is a lot of information stored in there that also gets updated the further you get into the game. You always get a notification if something gets added or updated, and you can see the updated or added files easily in the “New” tab. The only thing I’m missing from these files is a sort of search feature. Since, sometimes I have to dig a bit too much… But then again, that’s half the fun of the game, too.

This game has an amazing autosave feature. When you exit the game and restart it, you almost always pick up right from where you left off. There is also a save and load system. You get five save slots, but you can load these from the main menu. If you want to use these save slots to share the game with somebody else… Be wary of the autosave, since it overwrites quite quickly. So, with a bit of using the manual save/load system you can have different profiles, but that isn’t built in.

Choose your words wisely.

In this game, you have to be on your toes. You really need to be careful how you approach each interaction, since one wrong move can mean the end.

Thankfully, this game isn’t a kinetic novel. There is some gameplay in this game. First, you have to look around for clues to progress into the story. Sometimes you can’t even progress in a dialogue when you haven’t found the right clues in the area.

Second, you have to choose the right dialogue options. Like I said earlier, be careful that you choose the right option.

Third, there are some puzzles. The biggest hint I can give you in these puzzles is that you really need to take note of what you learn. Sometimes, the answer to a previous puzzle or another chapter can give you a hint to solve the new puzzle.

Now, something that might put people off from this game is that this game is on the light side in terms of gameplay. I feel that this game could have benefitted from a bit more puzzles, different from choosing the correct path in a dialogue tree. While the game and story is still fun and a blast to go through, I feel like some chapters are more used as exposition dumps than as gameplay. But then again, if you’d ask me to give an example, I’d draw a blank. Maybe more puzzles would ruin the pacing? It’s something on which I’m on the fence about.

If I really have to critique something in this game, then it’s lack of a sensitivity slider for the mouse cursor in the options menu. The speed is perfectly fine in handheld mode, but if you play this game on a bigger TV, it’s a bit too slow. Another complaint I have read about this game is how you have to enter the dialogue tree after you finish a conversation, that might be annoying for some people, but I didn’t find that too big of a deal.

Something I can’t complain about is the music in this game. The music in this game is already a part of my playlist of amazing video game music. It really adds to the atmosphere of the game, and it’s a joy to listen too. It’s also used in very effective ways to make scenes more tense or scary when they need too. If I’d have to describe the soundtrack of this game, I’d say that it’s something like AI: The Somnium Files. I can’t really put a genre on it for the life of me.

Now, this game is only 20 euros on the eShop. For that, you get a 12 to 14 hour game. I have to say, that it’s quite impressive that we get a full game like for that price. It has no silly DLC or microtransactions. So, that’s another bonus for this game.

Just like how you have different control options in this game. You can play this game without your Joycons at all. Well, only in handheld mode that is. Granted, the point-and-click interface might be a bit slow on big TV’s with a controller and the menu UI needs a bit of getting used too, but those are the only complaints I have about the controls.

In general, if you enjoy games like I said in the introduction… This game is a no-brainer recommendation. It’s one of the better visual novel games that I have played recently and apart from a few slower moments, I have barely anything negative to say about this game that doesn’t go in the nitpicky category. Now, if you don’t like reading too much in your games or want more action in your adventure games… I can almost assure you that this game isn’t for you. But, it might be worth it to check out a let’s play online, since this story is really something. It really throws you for a loop sometimes and really takes you on a ride.

In any case, that’s everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I want to thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

First Impression: We Who Are About To Die (PC – Steam) ~ It’s But A Flesh Wound.

Steam store page – Official website

Usually, I try to avoid writing about early access games. Especially when they are still in development. Because, you never know if my article and review is still going to be relevant down the line. But, this time I’m making an exception. A while ago, I got a press key for ‘We who are about to die’ from the solo developer of this game. The solo developer is actually a fellow Belgian and created this project out of passion. So, as a Belgian hobbyist blogger I feel I have to write an article about his game. Although, I got a press key to review this game you don’t have to worry. When I go into the arena to battle this game, you as the crowd will get my 100% honest opinion on this game. Now that the countdown is starting, and I’m readying myself to enter the arena… I hope you as the audience for this article tell your opinion/thoughts on this game and/or the content of this article in the comment section down below. So, let’s go and start the match!

Editorial note: the review version of this game is the first publically released version after the beta versions of this game. (Early Access v0.1)

A story discussion

In this game you play as a starting Roman gladiator who is trying to raise through the ranks. In general, there isn’t really a story in this game. This game more focuses on the gameplay and it’s mechanics. Depending on what you enjoy in games, this can be a positive or a negative. Personally, I’d have like a bit more world building with a small intro or something. There are several mechanics like the four hosts who remain a bit “faceless” because they don’t have a backstory at all in the game. Now, the backstory of your own fighter is created on your battles. That works a bit like Rogue Legacy, where you can create bonus traits on your previous runs.

At the other hand, I can understand that there is no real story in this game since now the game is more open and anything can happen. We can create the story and lore ourselves, which gives the game a more sandbox-y feel. This can help with immersion into the game. Now, because certain mechanics in this game… I think it would be hard to create a story of any kind for this game and the characters.

Maybe the only thing that I’d love to see in the future in the game is a bit more historical backstory in the game. What I mean by that is that, this game uses the terms like Aspirant. But, what is an aspirant? Some history lessons would be a nice touch to this game.

So, what do you actually do in this game? The idea of this game is that you play through various battles to build up your fame and budget. With the fame and budget you can acquire various things like new gear or bonus buffs. But, a stronger character doesn’t mean a guaranteed victory. In one of my runs, I did a 5 vs 1 match and my team of 5 was beaten by that one dude since he used a strong morning star that was tricky to block.

This game is somewhat unpredictable, because there is a lot of randomness involved, you have to decide if using your hard-earned cash and fame is worth it to heal or get better gear or better save it for another roll. But do you risk waiting? Since, you might not survive the next battle and the money passed on to your next character is only a fraction of it.

Let’s please the crowd

Trying to describe the genre of this game is one of the harder things to do. Part of the core gameplay is a fighting game. In the arena, you have to fight and win the battle. Depending on your performance, you may have multipliers for your gold and fame. But, if you please the crowd by making nice hits and not hitting your teammates, the crowd throws additional weapons and gear that might win you the match. I’ll talk more about the fighting mechanics later in the article.

This game is also a strategy RPG. Since, you have to strategically uses your resources to improve the gear and stats of your character. Also, the more you use a certain weapon, the more damage you do with it. So, you have to take that into account since you won’t be using the same weapon and gear throughout your run. Using your gear efficiently is key to survival in this game. I lost one run because I forgot to repair my shield and I got cornered with my enemies, and I was unable to get a shield that the crowd threw onto the battlefield.

Earlier in this article, I already talked about the randomness in this game. So, this game is also part roguelike. Due to the rougelike elements in this game… the game becomes a huge balancing act. This game isn’t the easiest out there, but it’s forgiving in a way. It’s easy to get back into the action with a new character and to build him up. But, since the new character has different stats and perks, the gameplay is new and fresh.

If I had to place this game in a certain genre, I’d say that it’s a sort of action simulation game about gladiatorial combat. Since trying to put it in a better category would be a nightmare.

Now, let’s circle back to the combat system. This combat system isn’t your typical combat system. The best way to explain part of the combat system is the following: image that the main controls of the fighting system is the Wii remote. This game doesn’t have mention controls but the idea behind it isn’t too far off. To swing your weapon, you have to left-click and swipe your mouse into the direction you want to hit. The strength of your swipe also influences the strength of the attack. Also, when you right-click to defend, the location of your shield or weapon depends on how you swing your mouse.

There are a lot of different layers to the movement and combat that make the combat feel janky and unpolished, but it’s the entire idea behind this game. Since, you can interrupt and attack and decide to throw your weapon or shield to the enemy instead. The combat system might need some more iterations for it to feel perfect, but it’s a unique system. It may put some people off playing this game, but I find that it adds to the charm of this game. Since now the game is a bit more newcomer friendly towards people who don’t play a lot of fighting games. You don’t have to remember a lot of combos for strong attacks, you need to learn how these directional attacks work and how to use them in your favor.

This brings me onto the point of the controls of this game. The starting tutorial explains the mechanics you can use in this game quite well. The only tutorial that can use some better wording is the tutorial on how throwing weapons work. It took me a while before I was able to get throwing weapons to work consistently. Now, it’s a bit funny how the wording in the Aspirant Trainer is better than the actual tutorial. This Aspirant Trainer is a great way to quickly check your abilities in the pause menu, when you are unsure how a certain mechanic works. A very minor UI complaint is that when you click the “?” mark outside of battle, is that clicking on it again doesn’t close the explainations. You have to “approve” it on an empty part of the screen.

A great piece of advice, stay in the tutorial area as long as you need to. Get used to all the mechanics and little quirks of this game, since unless you reset your whole character and everything, you are unable to return there. And trying to learn the mechanics on the battlefield is anything but a good idea.

The current gameplay loop is as follows. You start first on the battle preparation screen where you can decide to heal, get new armor, bribe enemies… Here you make the most difficult choices since a few bad mistakes might cost you your character. When you are finished preparing your character, you choose a battle to praticipate in and fight. This can be a 1vs1, 1 vs many and many vs many.

Overall, fights are short. Most fights are done in 5 to 7 minutes. Currently, there are only 12 out of the 14 planned arena’s in the game but every arena feels unique and has it’s own additional challenges and quirks. Like one has wooden panels you can hide behind and another has a central elevated stage. Depending on your preformance in that battle, you get fame and coins for winning the battle. Loosing the battle, will mean you have to start over with a new character but you can pass a few things on, especially money.

Your goal is to buy your freedom from being an aspirant. Basically, an aspirant is a prisonner in acient Rome that’s fighting for his freedom. These goals is extremely steep and aren’t easy to achieve. Don’t expect to get it with the first few characters unless you are very good in these type of games. The difficulty in this game is a bit unforgiving. But, it has that “just one more run” mentality written over it. That “I’m going to get it this time” phrase is one I said often. And then, I’m out of glory to re-roll the fights I can enter and I get fights I know I can’t win… And then I win one by the skin of my teeth.

I’m quite curious what the other gameplay types and modes are going to be. Those who you can see on the roadmap of this game.

This game is the excellent game for one or two quick rounds and can is even fun for longer play sessions. The balance of between being not repetitive and repetitive is small but currently the game is balacing on it just fine. Especially, since you have to fight with different weapons and a unique battle system that is so much fun once it clicks.

For seven years?!

This game has been under development for seven years. Most of it is done by Jordy Lakiere, and it’s really impressive. For example, the amount of detail in the visuals is mind-blowing. The game looks wonderful and runs extremely well. In the options’ menu, you can set your max frame rate to 60FPS or 120FPS, and let me tell you that this game runs extremely smooth. My gaming desktop is getting rather old, but I didn’t have any big frame drops or lag in this game.

The effects and animations used in this game are also superb. There are a lot of weapons & shield combinations, and they all have unique animations. Something I really like is how the game slows down when you are going to make a strong hit or about to kill an enemy. Sometimes the blood animations might be a bit overboard, but then again… It feels quite rewarding when you kill that one annoying enemy with that big shield that’s blocking all your attacks since the start of the match.

The only minor complaint I have about the visual presentation is that in team battles, it’s a bit unclear sometimes who is on your team and who isn’t. This issue is mostly present in nighttime arenas where visibility is lower or when the other fighters aren’t wearing a lot of armor. Due to your teammates following you, I sometimes mistook my allies for enemies. And that negatively impacts your rewards. But on the other hand, it can be a balancing thing.

In terms of audiovisual presentation, the game is also pretty good. The music is a joy to listen too but the sound effects and sound design really adds to the atmosphere. There are a few things I’d improve on. First, I’d change the sound effect when you don’t have enough gold to purchase an item to a more “error-y” sound effect. It’s a bit “basic” and didn’t communicate the message always. Maybe add a little visual animation as well instead of only a message in the left corner.

Secondly, I think the sound effects of the weapons breaking and/or throwing should be polished up. Quite often when I was playing a character with a spear, I didn’t realize I have thrown my weapon. I feel that those sound effects get a bit too lost into the gameplay and doesn’t communicate with the player enough when you are unarmed.

And finally, I feel like the pause menu should have music as well. Since, it’s quiet, and I find that a bit boring. It could also be a great sound test when you are in the options’ menu.

Something I really like is how this game has an in-game menu to report bugs. It’s easy to use and helps the developer to quickly gather bug reports and things that the players don’t like.

Speaking of which, here are a few things I’d change and/or improve:

• You can only see the week you are on, on the battle select screen. Why not show it over the whole screen?
• The music doesn’t “follow up” with each other. Sometimes there is a silence gap when one track fades out and another one fades in.
• What is “mouse X” and “mouse Y” in the keybind menu? Is that moving up and down / moving left & right? And how would you rebind that?
• Make it easier to compare stats of armor. Since, sometimes I had to write things down or take a quick screenshot.
• Buying an item is only possibly when you click on the icon. It also only shows the stats when you hover over it. Why not the whole box?
• Why not have items of different status like Legendary have a special color around the icon box? It’d be easy to swap things around from your storage to your character.
• During the game, I’d change the option in the pause menu of “Save & Quit” to “Save & Quit to main menu”. Since, that’s what happens. You don’t quit the game.

Most of those are polishing suggestions. Now, the roadmap promises more gamemodes and more things that can happen… which is all fine and amazing to look forward too. But I hope to developer doesn’t forget that sometimes it’s not about the amount of content but about the quality of the content. That’s what I sometimes forget when writing as well. I sometimes forget to make sure I still enjoy writing and write good and informative articles instead of trying to push out one a week to have more articles.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time while playing this game. I took me a battle or two to “get used” to the game but then the game hooked me. If you enjoy action simulation games or just want to try something different… This game is excellent. The game is also still in development, so more content is going to come in the future. The game is also fairly priced at 22€ here in Belgium and with the amount of polish and content there is already here, it’s a steal. The developer is also very open in his communication. I mean, look at this massive thread about the received feedback and what he is going to do with it moving forward. So, the fact he is talking about addressing a lot of the current feedback in the first patch(es), is amazing.

I think I may revisit this game on my blog after a while, when there are more patches out to see how the game evolved. Since, this is a game to keep your eye on. I’m so glad that Jordy reached out to me to try his game since it’s a real indie gem and I can’t wait to see what he is going to do next with it.

And with that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. This amazing gem of a passion project game that’s worth your time if you enjoy action fighting games with unique mechanics. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

First Impression: Island Saver by NatWest (Switch) ~ Saving The Planet With Banks?

Official website – Nintendo.com microsite

I love games with a unique story or goal. When I saw Island Saver by NatWest for free on the Nintendo Switch eShop, I didn’t hesitate for a second. While playing, it suddenly dawned on me. The publishers of this game is an actual English bank from Westminster. Is this free game a hidden ad for their bank or is it a fun game? Or is it something else? Well, allow me to tell you about my experience as a Belgian citizen who doesn’t know anything about the English banking system what my 100% honest thoughts and opinions are! Meanwhile, I also invite you to write a comment about your thoughts and/or opinions on the content of this article and/or the game in the comment section down below.

Let’s save the world!

In this game, you play as an unnamed Bio Agent, and your goal is to clean up a peaceful island from pollution. You get equipped with a blaster which can vacuum and shoot out items. This also doubles as your water gun to clear out the goop on the island.

The story in this game is very light. To be brutally honest, the story isn’t anything to write home about. It’s a very generic plot. Yet, I’m going to praise it for something else. As an IT admin in two art schools here in Belgium, I have seen a lot of “edutainment” games that try to teach children things. But most of these applications and games I have seen are mostly exercise machines with a pretty skin.

Not in this game! The basic mechanics and idea’s of taxes and the risks of pollution are explained with mechanics. You also get from time to time, quick and small pop-ups referring to the real world. But, these are far and few between it isn’t a problem at all. This game really reminded me of those old school Humongous Entertainment games, those that sneak actual education in their games without it feeling like a lesson.

NatWest also provided some nice work sheets together with this game on their website for teachers and parents to use. Yet, nothing about this is forced into this game. All these mechanics feel natural in this game, and it all flows extremely well.

Now, what is it that you have to do in this game? Well, in this game you go to various islands to go from area to area, to clean it all up and help the animals living on the island. You do this by vacuuming up all the trash in the area so that plants can grow. You deposit this trash in the correct recycle bin while these animals eat from the plants. These animals are special bank animals, which have to fill up to be saved. As soon as you have saved all the animals in a certain area, you can move on to the next one.

There are a few other mechanics, like you can only store 20 items of the same kind per inventory slot. You also have to clean the goop left by the enemies in this game. But here is one of the first negative things about this game. This game does have enemies but besides undoing some cleaning progress and temporary ink your screen… They don’t do much.

We are so close, oh so close.

The disappointing enemies are the perfect example of one of the biggest flaws in this game. This game is way too easy. Because of this, the game barely has any challenge.

Yet, the gameplay loop of cleaning up the island can be enjoyable for some people. Especially if you enjoy games like Slime Rancher. But there is no real risk in this game.

You could argue that the challenge can come from collecting the special twenty items on the island. But, that’s an optional collectable. When I finished the first island, I found 17/20 without even really trying. So, even that isn’t challenging.

So, let’s see if there is any challenge to be found in this game? Let’s see, you sometimes have to buy seeds to progress from the in-game store. But wait, the game showers you with coins… I can’t remember one moment where I didn’t have enough coins to purchase what I needed.

I’d talk about various other examples, but the biggest issue is that this game doesn’t have enough meat around its bones. And then, the cracks start to show. Because of the repetitive nature of this game, it’s better played in short bursts. And to be quite frank, if you have played the free islands… The DLC islands don’t offer too many new things to justify the asking price.

It’s a shame, since a lot more could have been done with the world that was created here. Maybe we could have used the trash we vacuumed up to create new houses for the animals, or maybe we had to water the plants more than once to make them give off their fruit. But, alas, the game stays too much on the surface level and doesn’t dare to dive into the depth of its possibilities.

I wish it did since there is a lot of potential here. Visually, this game looks amazing. Colorful and family friendly. It’s also easy to understand so the tutorials are short, sweet and to the point. But, then the game lacks a map screen so, it’s a pain to find certain areas when you get lost in the later parts of the level. It’s also a pain to sometimes find a full bank animal in a large area… Since, when a bank animal is filled, it stays in place until you vacuum out the coins from its belly. Yeah, these bank animals are basically walking piggy banks.

The animation in this game is adorable and works really well. Together with the clean UI, it quickly shows the player all the information that you need… But, then finding the enemies can be a pain with the annoying radar. You barely see the distance between you and the enemy. And on top of that, the amount of times the enemies just stopped in front of me, so I could shoot them. It’s painful.

Beware, it breaks.

It’s clear that a lot of passion and love was put into this game. The joyful and relaxing music and charming sound effects are another examples of that. This is a game you can wind down with and relax.

At one hand, I miss some challenge in this game… But, on the other hand it’s still enjoyable to have a game that you can wind down with after a long day at work.

The fact that this free game isn’t riddled with microtransactions left and right is a blessing. The only content you’ll have to pay for are two optional, additional levels. But, here is where I have to report on something. I don’t know yet if this is a freak occurrence but, in one of the DLC levels, the game broke for me.

Broke as in, really broke completely. Just look at the following Tweet I posted yesterday. So, some background. Quite often I play games I want to review on the train from and to work. During one train ride, my game decided to crash during a cutscene that would allow me to go to the next area. Now, I think some variables got flipped but not all. And sadly, the automatic saving system screwed me over here.

Since, when I reloaded that save after rebooting the game, I was unable to vacuum up any items. The gun kept being stuck in the vacuum mode and my rumble went into overdrive. And when I tried to open the pause menu or the menu to summon a bank animal to ride… The game went into a full softlock. This is a situation where a game keeps working, but almost everything locks up, and you can’t do anything about it. Sadly, to recover from this, I had to fully wipe my save file and restart everything. It’s a shame to see that certain softlocks and bugs are still in the game. Thankfully, a lot of the reported ones got fixed but, I don’t see this issue getting fixed almost 2 years after release.

Just like I don’t have high hopes of seeing the power-ups coming to the game. Since, it always says: “coming soon”… But the last update to this game was in September 2020.

Yet, I don’t think I can complain too much. I mean, this is a free game released during a pandemic. Also, when you look at the website of the developer Storm Cloud Games, this is the first game that greets you. It’s also released for free on almost every platform. The amount of work that this would have taken is just insane.

Overall, this game is clearly an edutainment children game that put entertainment first. With easy to learn and easy to master controls, this game is quite enjoyable to play in short bursts but the lack of depth in the game and the repetitive nature of the game makes you wish for a bit more. The game has the charm but not the “umph“. I’m honestly afraid that other similar games like Slime Rancher blow it out of the water.

Would I recommend playing this game? Yes, I do recommend it for casual players who are looking for an enjoyable charming adventure game. But, don’t set your bar too high… Since, this game doesn’t dare to go deeper into the ocean than dipping its toes into it. But, maybe that’s enough to have an enjoyable train ride to school or work for you.

But, with that said, I have said everything about this game I wanted to say for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in the future, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

First Impressions: Sherlock Holmes – Crimes and Punishments (XBOX360) ~ Hipster CSI in Ye Olden England

Wikipedia entry

I can’t really explain why, but sometimes I really like to play detective games and trying to solve a crime. That’s why I’m really into the CSI games. Now, when one of my neighbors in our yearly local garage sale started selling his XBOX360 and PS4 collection, I saw he had Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments. While I’m well aware that this game got a port this year onto the Nintendo Switch and Steam, I chose to play the XBOX360 version. Mainly since it was €4 at the garage sale and the Switch version would have set me back way more for just a bit of visual upgrades? Well, I wanted another excuse to boot up my XBOX360 once more. But, did it stay on, or did I start looking toward other games and/or consoles? Well, let’s talk about it in this article, while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on the content of the game and/or this article.

Hipster CSI in Ye Olden England

It’s no real surprise that you take on the role of Sherlock Holmes in this game. Together with your trusty best friend Watson, you are solving strange cases left and right in London in the Victorian era. This game takes place in 1893. In the first case, you investigate the murder of an old captain with a vile reputation. Explaining any more of the plot would ruin the story.

The cases in this game aren’t that long, and they are somewhat unrelated. So, if you are looking for a game with character development or growth… This isn’t the game for you. The writing in this game is more aimed at players who want to relax and enjoy a fun murder mystery like an episode of CSI. With some familiar characters, but each episode is a different case.

The writing itself is quite enjoyable. I really feel that I’m in a Sherlock Holmes story, and I’m enjoying every minute of it. The story really scratches that itch, I have to play some more detective games but only this time, it isn’t with modern technology.

The voice work is also quite good. They made the atmosphere of this game come to life. Every line of dialogue and thoughts are voice acted. Now, there is one thing I’m a bit on the fence about in terms of the voice acting. Maybe it’s because I have been reviewing games for so long and know a bit about developing games as well, but I had times when I felt like some lines were a bit generic.

For example, when you are searching in Holmes’ archives and find the piece you are looking for… It’s always the same line. Sometimes recording more than one line, and randomizing it, helps with the immersion of the game. Otherwise, you are running the risk of it all blending together and making some mechanics feel a bit boring. Or why does doctor Watson nearly always ask where to go next. It’s as if they didn’t record other lines for him. Maybe some fun banter or remark about the location. Like, in the first case, about the well-kept garden. I wouldn’t mind it looping, but something more than “Where to go next, Holmes” and Sherlock not even replying. Since, now, the line feels a bit out of place to me. Thankfully, these moments didn’t bother me too much and are overall quite rare.

I’m well aware that perfection doesn’t exist, and thankfully so. Thankfully, this is the only problem I have with the writing. Very few lines are a bit generic or out of place. And maybe I really notice them because I wanted to review this game and the overall quality is quite high, and I wondered if there was something to critique about the story.

Pop! Here I am!

Visually, this game looks good. The environments are quite detailed and look amazing. But, it isn’t perfect. This game suffers from popping issues sometimes. Especially when you go from a cut scene to gameplay, where some textures just take a bit longer to load, and it just looks weird. I had one especially bad case of this when Holmes’ case book didn’t load the correct texture for like 30 seconds. And I was wondering what the text was on the book.

This happened to me while I was in the “load screen” wagon between two locations. During the loading screen, you can view your case book or enter your thoughts’ menu. And, to be honest, I highly advise you do, since the background scrolling during these wagon scenes don’t always look great. I even saw moments where the background suddenly restarted. And the backgrounds are such lower quality compared to the rest of the game, it’s a shame. Just like the small screen tear issues this game sometimes has when exploring around.

The animations of this game are good as well. They make the game come to life that much more. Yet, sometimes I feel that some characters move a bit too slow or lack a few frames of animation to make it look like the game it’s dipping in frames. But that isn’t the worst issue I have with the visuals and animation. That dubious honor is for the fact that sometimes when exploring, Holmes can “raise up in the air” on an object and when you move the camera just a tiny bit immediately snap down to earth. This happened more than once, but thankfully it didn’t cause any game breaking bugs by for example placing me out of bounds.

Maybe I’m being too harsh on the game. I mean, image the amount of work the developers had to put into the visuals. Especially when you are able to chose if you want a first person camera or a third person camera by the press of a button. This goes so seamless it’s a surprise to me that this works so amazingly well.

Also, you can dress up Sherlock Holmes as you want. The amount of different variations is just silly and adds to the impressive visual possibilities that this game has. Dressing up is just one of the mechanics this game has. You’ll need it sometimes to trick a character into talking.

Now, what exactly is it that you do in this game? Well, you investigate a crime and you look at the crime scene for clues. Sometimes you go back to Baker Street to preform experiments or the search in your archive. While you are exploring the locations, you can also talk to suspects to gather more information about the case.

During your research, you’ll find a lot of clues. Some of these clues need to be interacted with. In your notebook, those clues have a special icon so you know that you need to research in your archive or preform certain experiments with them. Also, the task list is quite handy to keep track of what you still should investigate.

During your research, you’ll be able to use your imagniation. This is a sort of “recreation” button for some scenes in the game. Or when a clue is quite hidden, you can use the strong observation skills of Holmes. To avoid these mechanics becoming a needle in a haystack story, you’ll notice those icons at the top right when you need to use those skills.

Another important mechanic is what I call the “connect the logic dots” mechanic. Here you need to connect two clues to form another clue. It reminds me a bit of Time Hollow which has a similar mechanic, but explaining that would spoil parts of that game. When you connected all your loose clue’s, you can try to make sense of them all. Connecting the right dots will lead you to a conclusion. But is it the right one? Who knows? Be sure to think it over more then once. Since, seeing if your theory is correct is a lot of fun to see play out.

Something that this game does a lot better compared to the CSI games is that this game gives you some freedom. You can actually explore the area the crime took place and look for clues. Some of these areas are huge but expertly crafted, making it a breeze to explore them.

The responsive controls make it quite fun to walk around and explore those areas. Thankfully, Holmes has infinite stamina, so you can also run around when you find his walking pace too slow. And when you forget how to control the game, you can just press the two joysticks of your controller to bring up a handy chart of the games’ controls.

There are two things that controls a bit awkward at first and that’s searching in the archives and searching in your case book, but it doesn’t take long before you can get the hang of it when you know that almost every button has a different purpose, and you look at the buttons that are displayed on the screen.

Skipping the skip

One big difference compared to the CSI games is that there is no hint system in this game during your case. If you are stuck, you can’t get any hints from somebody. This is something that some people like and others aren’t really fond of. But, just like the CSI games, this game has mini-games and puzzles.

Now, you can skip most of these puzzles and mini-games by the press of a button. It barely has any influence on the game if you played or skipped the puzzles, but it’s a nice addition that it’s there. When you just want to get on with the game instead of figuring out one stupid puzzle that otherwise would have locked you out the rest of the game. Something that would make it even more perfect is that in the end of the case, you can see how much puzzles you have skipped. That way you can make it an “honor” thing where people who completed the game without skipping any puzzle get an achievement or something.

Speaking about the ending of the cases, you can come to the wrong conclusion. If it has consequences or not, I won’t reveal to not spoil the game, but it’s great to see that you are able to redo it when you want to see the other endings OR want to correct yourself. You can also choose between either reporting the criminal or letting the criminal go. And that’s also everything I wanted to say about that mechanic. It leads to some quite interesting things.

This game isn’t too difficult. The biggest difficulty in this game is when you overlook a clue and reach the wrong conclusion. If you are stuck, I highly advise you to go over your case notebook and imagination. Since, you might have missed a clue. Only once I had to look up the walkthrough, and it turned out that I was doing two things in the wrong order. Apart from one puzzle in the 3rd case, this game doesn’t have any “moon logic” puzzles. The puzzle in the 3rd case isn’t hard, but it takes a while to click with some people what the idea behind the puzzle is.

This game has achievements. And it’s quite a lot of fun to go for the achievements in this game. They don’t add a lot of replay value since this game doesn’t have a lot of replay value. Unless you decide to start speedrunning it to see the endings you missed since you didn’t start over when you choose your moral stance.

Usually in my reviews, I write about the audiovisual presentation right after the visual presentation. But, since I had some more things I wanted to talk about in the visual presentation department, I’m talking about the audiovisual presentation later. And I can be very short about it, it’s nothing special. Don’t get me wrong, the music is good and fits the atmosphere like a glove… But, it doesn’t stand out to me. I find the music a bit to the generic opera side of things, and I would have a hard time matching it with Sherlock Holmes outside the game. I think the main issue is that it doesn’t feel like a “song” or “track” but more like a 10 or 20 second melody that’s repeating in somewhat different tones for 3-ish minutes.

Now, the sound effects are used amazingly well. While exploring, it really adds to the atmosphere sometimes. Really listen while exploring that one area at the end of the 3rd case, and you’ll understand what I mean.

Before I go to the conclusion, I want to talk about the game’s preformance. A big complaint is that the load times are quite lengthy sometimes and honestly, I have to disagree. I have played games with longer load times and the load times in this game didn’t bother me at all. It was the ideal moment for me to sip of my drink or to think about my theory of the case.

The game ran always at quite the stable frame rate (apart from some small moments in cut scenes). But, there is one thing that should have worked differently. I find it a strange decision that when you are waiting for a door to open since the game needs to load the area behind it… You can move away from it. It gave me the impression at first that my input didn’t register. Locking Holmes in place would communicated that a bit better to the player.

Anyways, when you read this article you might think that this is a very flawed game. If you got that impression, you reached the wrong conclusion and didn’t see all the evedince I left in the article. You might want to think it over and you might reach the intended conclusion (which you can always see at the press of a button when you have beaten the case once).

I fell in love with this game. I totally understand why so many people see this game as one of the best Sherlock Holmes games. It does so many things right that it’s still so much fun after 8 years later, this game is still a blast to play through. Of course, the XBOX360 release has some issues. Especially in the visuals department where the preformance can be spotty sometimes and in some places the game really shows its age.

But did those problems bother me? Oh heavens no. I still enjoyed myself and I was quite happy that I was able to pick up this game for quite a cheap price. It also made me quite curious to play the other Sherlock Holmes games in my collection and that’s perfect since my summer break just started.

So, if you enjoy mystery adventure games like Professor Layton, CSI or Ace Attorney AND/OR if you enjoy point-and-click adventure games like Deponia or Broken Sword or Monkey Island… I think you owe it yourself to check out this game. Since the port earlier this year, this game is on so many platforms and quite easy to get so if you want some better preformance, I highly suspect that the PS4 and Switch versions’ll outpreform the XBOX360 version. But hey, the XBOX360 version is still worth playing!

And with that said, I have reached my conclusion about this highly enjoyable game and where shall we go next–

Thank you for reading this article so much. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

First Impression: House Flipper (PC – Steam) ~ Renovations On Top

Steam store page – Official website

Sometimes, you just need to give a game or a concept a chance. You’ll never know if it grows on you or not. When I got a Steam key for House Flipper by being a subscriber to Humble Bundle’s Humble Choice, I was intrigued and interested on how this game is going to work. Are we going to flip the houses ourselves or are we going to run a company that does house flipping? Well, it’s the first. We are going to do the house flipping and decorating. And today, I want to take you on a journey with me to talk about my first impressions of this game in my usual Game Quicky format. Where I first mention the good things, then the bad things to wrap up with a conclusion at the end. Oh, and any comments on my work on this article and/or the game are welcome in the comment section down below.

No need to renovate

In this game, you play as a handy man who cleans and renovates houses. The skill set of your character goes from being a painter, electrician, plumber, interior decorator, carpenter… And your character does everything which for some jobs a (whole) crew does.

Honestly, I knew that I wasn’t too good at interior decorating, and it shows. There are several Christmas levels where you have to decorate the house with a lot of decorations. In a lot of cases, my end result often looks like a quickly thrown together mess. But, here is the strange thing about it. I enjoy decorating the houses.

In terms of difficulty: if you want a challenge, look elsewhere. The focus of this game isn’t in being difficult or providing some challenge. It’s more a sort of sandbox-ish type of game where you have to do certain jobs for people and if you want, improve their houses with for example new furniture or nicer decorated walls. Also, the price you earn goes up depending on the materials used and the amount of upgrades you did to the house. This doesn’t mean that the game isn’t rewarding to play. The before and after pictures you get after a job well done are so enjoyable and rewarding.

There are a lot of things you can do around the house. At the start of the game, you’ll unlock each and every skill by tutorial jobs. After these tutorial jobs, you’ll be able to use these skills in your own house and other jobs. The game can get somewhat repetitive if you don’t use the skill/perk system.

The perk system is a great system that helps you do certain tasks more efficient and faster. Image being able to paint three sections of wall at the same time instead of one. Or being able to upgrade your broom to clean faster (To be honest, I wish cleaning worked similar in the real world. Just heaving to wave a mop in the direction of the mess and voilà). Each skill/category has 9 perks in 3 sections. Each time you preform said skill/category a certain amount of times, you get a skill point with which you can unlock an upgrade. Compare it to the skill tree in Skyrim. This system actually compelled me to 100% each job since that made me get closer to new skill points making the next jobs go more smoothly and faster to do.

The controls of this game work flawlessly. This game also works with a controller, but I honestly prefer the mouse & keyboard combo for this game. I find that I have way better control over the game with the mouse and keyboard compared to the controller.

Visually, this game looks amazing. The game looks somewhat realistic while keeping your typical “game” look. Sadly, there are just a few things that look a bit unrealistic, but these don’t really destroy the illusion too much. Something I really like is how this game takes certain possible phobia’s in consideration. There are cockroaches in this game. But if you suffer from Katsaridaphobia, you can disable them right before you see/hear them for the first time. You can change them in glass shards. And to be honest, I find that the mechanic to clean up the glass shards works better and is a bit easier compared to cockroaches, but that’s such a minor detail.

The music and sound effects in this game are quite relaxing. I feel right at ease and relaxed while I’m cleaning and renovating houses. It fits the game like a glove and the sound effects as well. I wish there were more sound effects for some things like for cleaning, placing wall tiles… But that’s always a delicate balance if you put more sound effects in your game or less. Since, too many sound effects can be overwhelming and make the game “too busy”.

There are two styles of gameplay. You can either do jobs where you have a certain requirement of things that need to do be done. This is sort of the adventure mode of the game. Honestly, I have spent most of my time playing this game with the job system. Since, you can use that access money with the other mode. In this mode, you can play on the housing market and really buy, renovate and sell houses. You always have a list of potential buyers and trying to match a house to their needs with their live reactions at the side is a real interesting puzzle.

Now, if you are interested in this game and want to get even more out of it… Well, you can expand this game with additional DLC. You can access most of the main content without the DLC and I can still tell you that this game is still a lot of fun without the DLC. Every DLC adds a handful of missions, new items and new mechanics and expand the game even more. The only negative I have is that the DLC’s are a tad bit expensive in my opinion. I would find a more fair price to be €9,99 instead of €12,5. But oh well, it’s clear that a lot of effort has been put into them and if you are really enjoying the game, I think the DLC is worth it.

This game auto-saves at the interval you set in the options’ menu. And if you leave in the middle of a job, you can continue it when you boot the game back up again. There are some bugs with the cloud saves, but one of the main forum threads has a solution for that. But, the amount of options and things like that in this game is just amazing. You can set almost anything to your hand and I love it.

Something I also really enjoy in this game as well are the achievements. They add additional challenges and charm to the game. They add some replay value, and they even make some jobs unique. Since, if you only stick to the requirements to finish the job… Some achievements can be easily unlocked by later jobs.

Now, something that is amazing is that this game also supports the Steam Workshop! So, if you don’t find what you are looking for in the base game or DLC… You can visit the workshop and look at the over 16000 items on it.

Renovations needed

Overall, the UI is close to perfect. But, at this moment of writing, the text entered into the tablet has some minor delay. It’s also not easy to remove everything at once. Something like a blinking cursor in the search field when you want to type in it would go a long way. Sadly, there are other minor things like that in the visuals. For example, the long grass at your home stops at a certain line. Near the hedges, actually. Another thing in terms of visuals and UI is that sometimes, it’s a pain finding the exact spot of e.g., dirt on the mini-map. In very rare cases, the task list or the mini map is saying that there is still stuff to do while there actually isn’t.

This game is translated in a lot of languages. I love this fact, since it makes the game a lot more accessible. Maybe, I might be extremely strict on this, since I’m an editor for the Dutch/Flemish translation of WordPress… But, the Dutch translation has various typos and inconsistencies. From wrong use of verbs to not using capitals in menu’s. Thankfully, the English version of this game works extremely well and still, I find it extremely impressive that this large game with so much text is translated in so many languages.

The overall quality of the translation is fine, but I honestly think that in an update, they should let various language experts go over the translation since I think there is a lot that can be polished up and improved. Since, if you aren’t well versed in English and know what everything means or what different objects are called, you might have problems with this game.

Overall, the camera works perfectly. Since, this is a first person game, you have full control over it. Sadly, in some montage sections, the camera dips quite weirdly. These moments are thankfully extremely rare and are mainly caused when you do the assembly in a different order. Knowing what the next steps are or going out of the assembly process and going back in usually fixes these minor camera goofs.

There are some minor things that could be communicated to the player better. The best example I can give is in the painting. In a lot of cases, like in the assembly process, you hear a little sound effect when you are finished with a step. You don’t get that with painting. When your wall is done, you don’t get a small notification in the corner or something. Of course, this might be because of the perk that you don’t waste paint on already painted walls but still… It should have more communication.

Like how tasks disappear way too quickly from the small to-do list on the right side of the screen. Give the player some time to see and realize which task they just completed. The task disappears when the jingle of task completed plays.

But the biggest offender of not communicating is the demolition. It’s not easy to fully destroy a wall and know what’s going to disappear or which pieces are waiting on you to hit with your hammer. I honestly think this should be improved upon since it makes this game a tad bit annoying sometimes. A great start should be unable to build a wall in that spot and have the offending still to destroy bricks flash or turn in red or another color. A similar fix would be helpful if you are unable to find that last dirty spot on the windows. Since, the lighting there sometimes makes it extremely hard to spot sometimes.

Sadly, some mechanics are a bit too finky sometimes. If you buy a shelving unit and try to place items on it without a ladder… Oh boy, it’s no easy to put items higher than eye height. Or that if you pick up tiles, and you want to change to different tiles, you first have to remember to lay the remainder down. Thankfully, as soon as I got “used” or knew my way around these little quirks, these problems didn’t annoy me that much anymore.

The invoice – Conclusion

I never expected this game to be so much fun. It’s an enjoyable relaxing time waster that fans of casual games, simulations should give a shot. I’m quite certain that if you enjoy building aspects of games, you’ll enjoy this game as well.

Now, this game isn’t perfect. There are some things that should be polished up. It’s such a shame seeing this amazing title with some rough edges. Especially when there is so much love and soul put into this game. And it pains me that most of the negatives are almost nitpicks. I think that an update where things are polished up, mechanics are made more consistent with the other mechanics… That would be a very welcome update.

Overall, this game is a relaxing enjoyable game. It’s mindblowing how the game handles so many combinations and mechanics so well. The expansiveness of this game is so broad that I can see myself coming back from time to time after a stressful day at work to wind down. (By doing chores in a way, but hey…) While the game has its problems, some textures, and models looking a bit too out of date… There are a lot of other things like two different game modes that more than make up for it.

It’s quite clear that this game is a passion project by the developers and the love and attention to detail is shown in the game. When writing this first impression/review, I had a really hard time finding actual negatives in this game apart from several technical things that can be improved by a few patches.

I found this game at the perfect moment. I was looking for a more relaxing game I could play to wind down when I’m over stressed or had a busy/hard day at work… And then booting up this game and hearing the calming music and being able to let my creativity flow and create and improve houses… If you got interested in reading this article or looking at gameplay video’s, give it a go.

If you enjoy games like the Sims or building in Minecraft or more relaxing games, I would highly advise this game. While I totally understand that this game isn’t for everyone, it did click with me, and I’m still so surprised that this €20 game has so much value and polish. Now I’m so curious to see where the active developers are going to take this game next.

And with that said, I have said almost everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I want to thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

First Impressions: Persona Q – Shadow Of The Labyrinth (3DS) ~ Crossin’ Over At Least Once

Nintendo.com microsite – Wikipedia entry

When I’m playing console exclusives, I love it when said exclusive does something unique that is difficult to replicate on other consoles. That’s why I love exclusive to the Nintendo (3)DS or Wii U so much. Since, most of these games use the console gimmick extremely well. And today I want to take a look at a game in the Persona series that crosses over with one of my favorite Nintendo handheld exclusive series, Etrian Odyssey. But, that isn’t the only cross-over in this game. Oh no, the cover of this game already spoils that. The characters of Persona 3 and 4 are meeting each other. Are they meeting each other for a tense and amazing adventure or will this an adventure you can skip over? Let’s talk about it while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on this game and/or the content of this article.

Crossin’ over at least once

Like I said in the intro, Persona 3 and 4 characters are meeting each other. And you can choose with which cast of characters you start playing. Since, I played a decent chunk of Persona 4 Golden and haven’t played Persona 3, I decided Persona 4 cast to start out with.

So, in this game, your cast somehow gets transported to a different dimension. Something that’s really cool is that the opening of the game depends on the cast you chose and fits the world and themes of the original game like a glove.

As soon as you enter the first dungeon, the storylines merge and are almost the same. In the first dungeon themed after Alice in Wonderland, you meet two strange characters named Zen and Rei. Both have amnesia both know that the dungeon is extremely dangerous. It doesn’t take long before they join your party to explore this strange world.

A world where the normal Persona rules are somewhat flipped on their head. Now, the hero lost their Joker ability which caused them to wield any Persona and now everybody has the same unique additional ability. They all can wield a 2nd Persona that they can choose and change.

On top of that, in this strange world, there are several dungeons. The main hub of the game is a school where a strange clock tower is standing in the middle of the courtyard. What is that clock tower doing there, and how can they unlock it? That’s what are heroes are trying to find out.

Explaining more about the story is bordering on spoiling parts of the game. So, if I have sold you on the game, I think you should take a look at it. Now, you don’t need to have played ANY Persona before jumping into this one but some jokes, references, and story bits will go over your head if you haven’t played Persona before. So, yes, this game is extremely welcome to veterans and newcomers.

Now, the voice talent of in this game is beyond amazing. Listing off all the voice actors and their credits would make this article not only go off track quite fast but also get extremely lengthy. The excellent voice acting make the story even more enjoyable. I especially love the little voice clips in the dungeon and during fights since they give the game so much more character. I love it in Etrian Odyssey and I love it here.

Let’s draw that map

If you have played any Persona game before, you’ll feel right at home in this game. It’s your typical dungeon crawler with themed dungeons with a lot of RPG mechanics. And if you have played any Etrian Odyssey games, you’ll feel right at home as well.

Just like Persona 5 Strikers was the perfect mix between hack-and-slash and the Persona formula, this game is the perfect mix between Etrian Odyssey and Persona.

Something that’s quite unique in Etrian Odyssey is that it’s a dungeon crawler where you have to draw your own map to some degree. The game draws out where you walk automatically, but you have to draw where the walls are, place the location of doors, treasure boxes, traps… You even have to take notes.

FOE’s return in this game as well. And let me tell you, in this game they aren’t a pushover. I really advise you to avoid them at all costs. FOE’s are huge monsters which roam around the dungeon on a set path. Each FOE has their pattern and quirks, and sometimes you have to manipulate them to solve an environment puzzle.

The FOE’s are the only enemies you’ll see roam around on the bottom screen map. All the other enemies are encountered by exploring the dungeon. Like in Etrian Odyssey, you have a counter at the bottom left of the top screen that indicates how close you are to a battle. Battles in this game are turn-based. Something that really annoyed me in Etrian Odyssey is the MP management. For some characters, it is too easy to run out of MP and be useless. Unless you either heal that MP with the rare and/or finite amount of times you can heal that in the dungeon or their MP is just drained way too easily.

In this game, a solution to that problem has been found. In this game, each character that has a second Persona equipped, gets a low but certain amount of MP at the start of each battle. And not only that, when you have a critical hit OR hit the weak spot of an enemy, the next round the character won’t use MP. And you can chain this in a combo if you learn the weak spots of each enemy. So, it’s quite helpful to learn who is weak against what and create the best team and couple them with the best Persona’s.

The difficulty curve of this game is somewhat unforgiving. There is no auto-saving in this game when you reach a game over, you’ll have to restart with the last save. Thankfully, you can lower the difficulty at any time in the hub if you are stuck at a hard enemy or boss unless you have chosen the highest difficulty.

In this article, I have mentioned a Persona several times. Allow me to explain this to people who don’t know what Persona is. Depending on the Persona game, the theme is a bit different, but basically it’s a monster created out of strong emotions that’s bonded in a way to somebody. This bond allows them to use special abilities and magic during battle. You can read and discover more about the concept on the Persona wiki but beware spoilers on that page.

Risk and reward systems

This game isn’t easy, even on the lower difficulty settings. You really have to think on your actions and be mindful on what you are doing.

Should I save my money since the higher your level, the higher the healing costs become OR should I buy this strong weapon/armor? It’s just an example of the thought you have to put into this game. This game nails that fine balancing act of being challenging and rewarding.

At the end of the first dungeon, you meet the other cast of characters. This doubles the amount of useable characters in this game. And this makes this game very replayable to a certain degree. While the lay-outs don’t change of the dungeons, you can only carry five characters in a dungeon. And that means that you can make each playthrough of this game quite different.

Now, something I really miss from the Etrian Odyssey games that isn’t in this game is the simple fact that you can’t floor hop. Remember when you almost finished the whole map in Etrian Odyssey and you found the entrance and exit, so you can warp to that floor’s entrance/exit almost immediately? That isn’t present in this game. On the other hand, this game has a mechanic I wished was in more Etrian Odyssey games. You can choose the color of the elements you place on the map. So, you have way more options in placing things on the map making it a lot easier to mark for example certain traps or moving tiles.

Being able to draw the map myself is one of the biggest selling points to me of the Etrian Odyssey games. In a way, you draw a part of the UI. Speaking of which, the UI in this game is extremely solid. It took me no time at all to learn the controls of this game and get going. The fact that this game also has amazing visual presentation is great as well.

The attention to detail is superb and gives the game such a great atmosphere. Visually, this game is eye candy to me. To such a degree, that when I tried this game with the battle animations disabled in the option menu, I felt that this game was missing something. While I totally understand that the game and battle system might be a bit too slow with them on for some people, I love how accessible this game is with the option menu.

Not only the visual presentation and animations are amazing, but the soundtrack is on point. It hits all those strong beats you are used to in a Persona game. It also reminded me sometimes of the Etrian Odyssey games and I got nostalgic sometimes.

Something to be wary of is that the Nintendo 3DS eShop is closing in the really near future. This game has some DLC as well, expanding some features. Mostly, they add some optional additional Persona’s or voice packs. So, if you are interested in this game and want all the content… But warned that you have until late August 2022 to do it.

And with that said, I have said everything about this game I wanted to say about this game for now. If you enjoy dungeon crawlers, Persona, RPG’s and/or Etrian Odyssey, I urge you to give this game a chance. To be honest, I fell in love with this game and all it quirks. While this game isn’t for everybody and certainly the difficulty might turn some people off, I have a hard time to say anything negative about this game.

This game is a must-play for every Persona and Etrian Odyssey fan in my opinion. I can’t wait to see where this game is going next, and I’m also quite hyped that this game has a sequel Persona Q 2 – New Cinema. Which I might review in the future. But for now, I have the original to beat here. So, I have to wrap up this article, publish it and after that I can get back right into this game trying to finish it.

And with that said, I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing this article. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

First Impression: Desperados III (PC – Steam) ~ Pimping Nostalgia

Official website – Steam store page

I still remember when I first played the original Desperados back at a friend’s place. It didn’t take long for me to get hooked. To be very honest, I never really beat the original game. That’s mainly due to my playstyle. In action games, I love being more aggressive and “in your face” instead of being stealthy what that game more required. When the 3rd game got announced and released in 2020, I was beyond hyped to play it. But, a lot of different games just distracted me. I was also afraid that I wasn’t going to enjoy the game too much since… yeah my playstyle. But then, this month’s Humble Bundle got a key for Desperados III and I bought it. I started playing this game and yeah. I wasn’t wrong putting this game on my top 10 games I’m looking forward to in 2020 list. But, what exactly do I think about it? Well, I’ll explain in this article while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section with your thoughts and/or opinions on this article.

Pimping nostalgia

While this is the 3rd main entry in the series, you don’t need to have played the first two games to enjoy the story in this game. Since, this game is a prequel to the first game. Basically, the backstories of the main characters are set up in this game. While we see a few familiar faces to the originals two games, we also see two brand-new characters.

The pacing of the story is a little weird. Because, the main setup of the story is explained over the whole first chapter. You don’t want to know how many times I have rewritten this section to avoid spoiling something. Let’s just say that the story of this game is quite interesting and doesn’t disappoint for your typical Western story.

The story doesn’t overpower the game, since the star of the show is the gameplay. But, the story doesn’t disappoint at all. I love the voice acting of all the characters. The performances are amazing and fit their characters as a glove. I was surprised to learn that this game got a completely new cast to play the characters. If I hadn’t looked that up, for some characters I wouldn’t have been able to tell.

So, let’s move on from the story and characters and start talking about the gameplay. In this game, you have to complete several missions with a small group of characters. Each mission is different and not only in terms of the map you play on. For example, in one mission, you are trying to fight your way to the dock without any of your weapons and in another mission, your group is separated into two groups that start at the other side of the map.

Survival is awareness

If you want to survive in these missions, you have to be very aware of the characters in your crew. The main cast exists out of 5 characters. And all five of them have different weakness and strengths.

One character can throw a knife whilst the other is a sniper. Understanding their abilities and when you use them, is key. Something that this game does extremely well is that there are various ways of tackling each mission. So, you can play this game however you want.

The additional missions you can do in each chapter, give a clue on how different you can beat each mission. There are even missions where you can beat it without having to kill one guard. Whilst you are playing through a mission for the first time, the optional missions aren’t revealed to you. When you are playing through it again, then you can see the optional missions. You can earn badges for a more “perfect” score as well. On top of that, after beaten several missions, you can unlock new challenges where you can replay a mission with additional challenges and/restrictions.

The difficulty curve of this game is just polished extremely well. When a new character gets introduced, the mission is a sort of tutorial on how to use that character. I still remember that in the original game, after you rescue a character, you get a mission with barely any enemies where you learn how that character works. Not in this game. You get various “papers” you can pick up that show a short movie on how the mechanic works. This is such a breath of fresh air.

Something I adore in this game as well is the quick save and the quick load system. You might think that this mechanic is quite aggressive. Since, when you haven’t saved in a hot minute, you get a pop-up almost in the middle of your screen. But believe you me, it’s a great reminder. It makes this game way less frustrating when you make a tiny mistake or want to try something. Also, when you accidentally quick save in a situation that leaves you in a sort of soft lock, in the pause menu you always have your three last saves. So, you can roll back further when needed.

A big improvement compared to the first game as well is the speed up & the pause feature. With a simple press of a button, you can slightly speed up the gameplay. Which can be handy to speed up the patrol of a guard you are trying to sneak past. Now, the pause feature is something quite special. With this feature, you can pause the game and plan out a choreography to take down various enemies at once. You can cue up one character double shot while another character sneaks in to give a deadly shot to the third enemy. Once I was able to take out a patrol of five enemies with one pause and let me tell you how amazing it fells when it all goes to plan.

Apart from understanding how your characters work, it’s also quite important to understand your enemies. There are several groups of enemies that each have their unique traits. For example, you have Poncho enemies who don’t react to traps and distractions. And you have long coat enemies who are difficult to take out and need three hits to be taken out. And if you don’t take them out in one time, and they spot you, and they hit you… Well, instead game over.

With a simple right click on an enemy, you can make their view cone appear. As soon as you walk in their view cone, you can get spotted. When moving a character, you need to get out of the view cone before it goes red. Since, as soon as it turns red, an alarm is raised and nearby enemies come to help and track you down. But, you can also “view cone surf” where you sneak from one view cone to the next. Confusing the surrounding enemies can possibly be sneaking away.

Let’s do this again.

In the previous section, I mostly explained how the gameplay works. I only explained some of the more basic mechanics. The whole puzzle aspect of this game and the quick thinking you have to do in this game is quite addictive. While I’m playing through this game on the easiest difficulty setting, I still feel that this game is quite challenging.

I tried to play this game on higher difficulty settings, and it’s too brutal for my tastes. Thankfully, you aren’t punished with too many fewer mechanics or other penalties because you aren’t playing on the highest difficulty setting. The gameplay is still addicting. It’s a prefect example of “easy to play but hard to master”. Just like I said in the previous section, awareness of everything is key in this game. Awareness of where you hide your characters, how many enemies are around, who has which abilities, which opportunities you have to kill or knock out an enemy, blind spots …

Now, in order for this style of game to work, you’ll need a good set of controls. And this game controls amazingly. The controls are fast and responsive and apart from some minor moments I don’t have any problems with them. Something I struggle with sometimes is remembering that certain actions like throwing a torch required me to press an additional button. Or that when I want to retrieve the knife, I don’t have to pick up the dead body.

I rarely use the keyboard shortcuts for my characters to preform actions. But did you also know that you can totally remap them to however you want? It’s mind blowing that this game allows you to do that. It’s a great tool to customize and personalize the game to your liking.

So, the gameplay in this game is a blast. I rarely felt that the game cheated me out. And the quick save and quick load system makes this game a ton more fun. Something I can appreciate as well is how detailed this game is. Visually, this game looks stunning. For the low system specs that this game requires, this game is turning out mighty fine visuals. Also, I haven’t noticed any moments where the frame rate stuttered or went down to unplayable numbers.

Maybe it’s because of my playstyle, but I sometimes wish I took more time to enjoy the visual presentation of this game. The environments, the animations of this game… they look amazing. The run that the citizens do to get away from danger is just beyond funny. It’s a sort of Naruto run and I often have a hard time focusing on the mission when I see them running.

In addition to that, the music of this game is just pure ear candy. It’s very memorable but also a blast to listen outside the game. When I’m writing an article about a game, I usually listen to the soundtrack in the background. This article is no different and whilst listening to the soundtrack I was able to play the missions inside my head.

Add to that, the great sound effects that add to the atmosphere of this game, and you have a top-notch audiovisual design. I don’t have any complaints about them. They help me quite a lot during the game. Especially, they can be great to know if you are spotted or not.

So far, I have mostly been raving about this game. Are there actually things I didn’t like about this game? Well, to be honest, I don’t have a lot of negative things to say. There is one mission I disliked beyond belief, and I was stuck at for quite a long time. But, when I was passed it, I was able to play through this game and continue enjoying it. Later, I returned to that mission, and I was able to beat it more easily because I got more used to some characters.

The only thing I could criticize in this game is that the hint system isn’t flawless. Often times, I had it bug out on me and giving me hints to parts of the mission I had already completed. But, it’s a mechanic you can just set aside.

In conclusion, I personally think that if you enjoyed the original games, find the concepts I have explained in this article interesting, enjoy stealth/tactical gameplay and/or enjoy action-puzzle games… I seriously think that this game is worth checking out. I’d highly recommend this game on PC, since I don’t think you can translate the complex controls on a controller too well.

I have barely any negative things to say about this game, so I think it won’t be a surprise that I boot up this game again after publishing this article. It’s a thrilling ride from start to finish and really tests your skills that you learn through playing this game. The witty banter between the characters or the enemies you can listen in are such a blast or can even give you a hint on how to beat the mission.

And with that said, I think I have said everything that I wanted to say about this game for now. I want to thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed playing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Game Quicky: Invincible Cleopatra: Caesar’s Dreams Collectors’ Edition (PC) ~ Mummy’s At Work

Steam link – Bigfish Games (Collectors Edition)

It’s no secret that I enjoyed playing casual games. If a game looks interesting to me, I want to give it a try. It doesn’t matter to me if the game is from a big studio or a small indie team of 1 or 2 people in their bedroom. Today, I want to talk about a game set in Ancient Egypt. Something I really have a weak spot for. Games set in old mythological settings like Ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece… Sing me up! But, is this game worth your time as well or is this a guilty pleasure of mine? Let’s take a look at this game while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on this game.

Who let the mummy’s out?

In this game you play as Cleopatra. You are trying to save Egypt from an attack from the Romans. You have to collect resources and find your way to the next area, so you can confront Caesar to try and save Egypt before it’s too late. And how are you going to do that? By invading Caesar’s dreams of course by trying to find a special mysterious amulet. It’s inception levels of peace talks. The story is quite silly and I love it. While it’s not a story that’s going to bring you to the edge of your seat, it’s still a nice addition.

If you just look at this screenshot, you’ll have a rough idea on how this game works. I call these type of games: “Free the pathway puzzlers”. So basically, you have to free a way to the end of the level by sending your limited amount of troops to gather the various resources. Removing obstacles cost a certain amount of resources, so you have to think fast about which resources to gather first and which obstacle to remove first.

I bought the collectors’ edition from Bigfish Games. In this edition, you have an additional chapter with more challenging levels to enjoy. It also includes a strategy guide that you can use when you want to beat the game 100%.

But I find it more fun to use that guide when you are 100% stuck. It also doesn’t hold your hand in how to beat the game but gives very good advice and basically explains the strategy on which section you have to focus on. There is a bit more in the collectors’ edition like the complete soundtrack, some developer art and some wallpapers.

Now, I haven’t played a lot of these type of games, but this game is managing to make me interested to play more of these type of games. I just hope they are as high quality as this one. I especially enjoy the hidden gem in each level that is a small distraction if you are waiting on your mummies to return to base camp.

The visual and audiovisual presentation of this game is great as well. It doesn’t take long before you learn all the little things that the developers put in place to aid you. The visual indication when you are trying to do something impossible; the way it shows how the path is blocked. Or the little sound cue that plays when you haven’t beaten the developers’ time.

The difficulty curve of this game is excellent. It eases you into the game, and you learn the mechanics and the small details quite easily. I never really had a moment where I didn’t really understand a mechanic. The bulk of the challenge in this game is trying to remember and optimize everything you learned in the later levels.

The visual design of the level map is great. You can quickly see how many stars you have earned in a level and if you have found the hidden gem as well. Thanks to the minimalistic UI design, it’s extremely easy to understand and use. To the point that English doesn’t need to be your first language to enjoy this game. You’ll miss out on the story, but that isn’t the biggest strong point of this game.

This game isn’t too difficult. While it’s a big challenge to beat the developer’s time, you aren’t punished too hard when you don’t beat the time. There is no real “game over” screen. Which can be seen as a negative as well. But, I honestly see it as a positive. It gives something for completions to aim towards while more casual players can just relax and enjoy the game.

Who let the mummy’s out??!!

This game is best played in short bursts if you aren’t really into these types of games. Since the repetitive nature of this game can become boring if you keep playing it without a break. The core mechanics never really change and so far, 25 levels in… I haven’t seen a lot of variations on the formula.

Some achievements are quite unclear. There isn’t even a hint in the build in strategy guide. Which is quite a shame in my opinion. Especially since you don’t know if you need to play at a certain difficulty level to unlock it or not.

Especially when you can collect two types of stars. You have the yellow stars, and you have the green stars. I’m currently halfway into the game and I still don’t understand how to get those green stars. I even played several easy levels on the highest difficulty and I still didn’t receive green stars. Most likely, I’m overlooking something, and it’s easier than I think.

Something I find a bit disappointing is that you can see the complete strategy guide from the main menu. So, you can spoil yourself on all the boards of the game. But, this isn’t such a big deal since the strategy guide is quite lacking. It explains the steps is extremely basic terms. It’s not really a strategy guide but more of a hint system. Especially, because like I said before, it doesn’t explain how to get certain achievements.

While there is a tutorial, there isn’t a “help feature” in this game. So, when you haven’t played this game for a while, and you forgot what certain buildings do, you are out of luck. You either try to understand it from context clues or replay the first few levels in the hope you find the correct level. Thankfully, this isn’t such a big problem, since in most cases, the context clues gives you the right hints but still. Maybe it would have explained how to get the green stars?

There is one mechanic I wished they handled differently. And that’s the “skip level” feature. You can skip levels as soon as the level is loaded. This makes the game way too easy. I wish you were able to use that button after for example three failed attempts or finding the hidden gem in the level.

The final negative I wanted to talk about is how silent the game is. When I placed everything on max volume, I still was able to hear my Groove play music in the background. I totally forgot to close my music player when I started playing this game a bit while writing this article and I noticed that Groove was only at 10% of its max volume. I continued to test, and it turns out that this game is just quite silent. Which is a shame since the soundtrack is enjoyable and the sound clues are important during gameplay.

Conclusion

This game got quite close to being an amazing casual game. But the rough edges it has, can be a dealbreaker for some players. Thankfully, the rough edges aren’t such big dealbreakers that make this game unplayable.

I really enjoy playing through this Egyptian adventure. I’m happy that I gave this game a try, and I’m quite curious to see other games of the same genre. How different are they and are they as fun to play as this one?

If you know of any good games like this one, feel free to leave a comment. I do have a few in my collection. Maybe you’ll see a few of them on my blog in the future?

So, if you enjoy casual games or just want a relaxing game… This game might be up your alley. Maybe even this article convinced you to take a look at this game. Who knows?

And that’s everything I wanted to say about this game. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 4/5