Recent reviews by Cat

If I'm ever asked what is the most unique puzzle game I've ever played, this would be my nominee.
While the puzzles themselves aren't particularly difficult, just the surreal environment you are part of made the experience so much more entertaining, and the puzzles so much more interesting to solve.
This game was an incredible experience.

A short game about perspective. The idea was implemented well with the gameplay.

While it's a good puzzle game, it packs an interesting story behind the world. I was looking forward to reading more lore.

The puzzle aspect itself, while not too impressive, was enjoyable. Nothing truly overcomplicated. Only during a couple puzzles did I really feel like I was thinking, but not once did I feel truly stuck. I did not try to go for achievements so I only solved C's grey puzzles (puzzles you unlock with stars, usually tricky or annoying to get), and while they felt a little more demanding, it wasn't a real 'spike' in difficulty. I would recommend it as a puzzle game, but I wouldn't call it difficult.

As for the story, I believe getting to experience it firsthand like myself would be the most enjoyable way to tackle this game. I've never been interested in philosophy, and yet I've found myself immersed and strived to know more.

Inconsistent. Buggy. Annoying. Boring.

These were my thoughts throughout the game. Hold A or D, sometimes W or S to climb a ladder or maneuver on a fish, and use space to interact, these are all the controls. Game would often send you into a scene without explaining what you're supposed to do, for instance at the very beginning you are supposed to dodge a sliding container. It wasn't explained prior that you need to press space, and it wasn't explained prior that you can hide in the background scenery. If you die, sometimes you would respawn into a scene and despite doing everything correctly you would still fail and die again because the game decided to release the monster sooner than your cutscene ended. Interacting too fast with an object often canceled my interaction with it causing another unnecessary death. Situations where you needed to hide and maneuver, evading patrolling monsters in the background often included an annoying teleportation of the monster right to the gap where you are supposed to pass.

While the art was nice, the decision to create a powerpoint presentation for the movement and some scenes was not to my liking. I thought my game was lagging when I experienced it at first. Audio would also often cut, and/or have annoying pops.

If you're searching for a LIMBO, INSIDE or perhaps Little Nightmares experience from a game, this is not one of them.

A spit to the face is what this game is.

>Plethora of bugs and missing basic quality of life features that payday 2 had, despite having a bunch of beta tests and beta testers, not to mention 10 year long data from the previous title.
>Trash servers. There is no excuse like "we couldn't foresee the influx of players", for the simple reason that they have all the data about how many players bought the game. Which moves to the next point:
>ONLINE only. This is not the same as requiring an internet connection to play, because in that case it would've been not so bad. You are entirely dependant on the status of their servers in a game the prequel of has been singleplayer and p2p that worked wonders for 10 years. This is not an mmo. You have to go into a matchmaking queue to start a singleplayer session. If their servers experience an outage or crash, your game will be affected. You can lag in your own singleplayer session. You can disconnect due to their server's error in a singleplayer session.

This is not a singleplayer game.

This is not a sequel to PAYDAY 2.

This is not PAYDAY 3.

Edit:
As I'm editing this review to add more information, I'll leave the original review at the bottom.

Before that though, a couple of people have tried to correct me by saying that Sissy does not have an unintended poison attack, and that it's just a perk. Incorrect. Regardless of whether you equip the poison cloud perk, her primary attacks when landed on a Victim apply a mini poison effect that can stack. In some cases, if hit enough times, they can get so slowed down they'll appear to be running in place. This has been confirmed to be unintended by community moderators on their Muerto Times post on Reddit, as well as even prior to it, though I don't remember where.

Their most recent patch (September 12th) has made incredible progress at not fixing the issues the game has to offer currently. It has also made but one change that should've been done since the game's launch at trying to balance the game between the teams. This change is having the car battery on at the beginning of the match. Other than that, no meaningful change. Let me elaborate why.

They've limited bone scraps to 3 uses per pile, which in reality does almost nothing but limit trolling by the Victims. Since Victims can and will escape within 5 minutes without even needing a bone knife in the first place, this change only limits the players that like messing with the Family by stabbing them or the grandpa, or getting into close encounters. Essentially, it does almost nothing in terms of changing/balancing the gameplay. It does have some positive effects on gameplay, scenarios like stabbing the Family when someone else is in a close encounter, or stabbing Bubba when he's breaking an object, but then again, with the amount of bone piles around the map in combination with the limited uses a bone scrap has having just 3 per pile is more than enough. Overall, it makes sense once you consider that in an interview they've claimed to want their game to be as realistic to the event as possible. However, this does nothing to touch on repeated door-slamming, which from experience is much worse than just one stab to the back.

I should mention they've fixed some collision issue but I don't think I've ever experienced it so I don't have an opinion on it, but that's basically it. Other notable fixes they've made were fixing an achievement, fixing an XP farm method by the Cook, made some further anti-cheat improvements (good), and they've disabled re-spec in-lobby, which is a bit weird since they have a 3-minute wait timer in-lobby. Well, it was 3, they then changed it to 5 minutes without even mentioning it in their patch, but now they've reduced it back to 3. So.. Why? Why have a 3-minute wait timer if you can no longer re-spec your character in the lobby? Don't they play their own game before making changes?

About the game itself.
If you don't consider all of the above and imagine a game where these issues are fixed, it could be a fun game. It was fun for me for the first 50 hours or so, when it worked. However I was playing with a friend. The problem lies in the times when it didn't. Credential errors that were luckily fixed, frequent server crashes that crashed 6 times in my last 5 hours. These are crashes that freeze the entire server, not just you, and force you to leave the match. They happened even before their patches, and keep happening. Bugged characters (Sissy's poison, Hitchhiker's traps, Sonny's ability not showing what it should, grandpa's waking up cutscene causes Leatherface to stall if they are revving when it happens), bugged maps, bugged animations, etc etc.

Their lobby and character selection system is atrocious. You get to select one character, unless they're taken, then you level up this character until in one game they're taken. Because of the perk system and how perk points are awarded, you can't take these perks from your leveled character and invest them in your current one unless you leave the lobby, which defeats the purpose. This means if you want to play with a character with good perks you need to have at least 4 fully leveled Victims, or 3 fully leveled Family, so that you have at least something you enjoy playing as available, if all but one are taken, or keep leaving lobbies.

The current maps and their difficulties for both teams are really far apart. I will not go into elaboration, but Family House is by far the easiest to play with Family, since it has very close basement exists with none leading to the outside (except for one but the Victims would have to go through the house anyway). The other two, Slaughter House and Gas Station, are hard on the Family. Victims have a major play-area with their basement exits being far apart, and having at least 4 exits to oversee (5 on Gas Station), the Family often struggles to counteract the Victims with how many crawl spaces, gaps and wells there are around the map, with combination of Bone Scraps and Victim abilities to boot, the game is almost exclusively Victim sided. I've played both teams.

To finalize, I'd like to correct myself. The game has a great idea, but it has an incompetent person in charge.
I'd suggest avoiding this game currently and wait for a better opportunity. The times when nobody knew anything are over, and the issues with the game are much more apparent now. Until it's fixed, I do not recommend this game.

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Original review:

Great game idea with incompetent developers.

One of the Family members, Sissy, has an unintended attack effect that applies poison to the Victims upon landing a hit. It has been an issue ever since launch. Something that should've been fixed within days is not fixed over two weeks later, with the first ever patch note not even addressing it. Problem is the developers acknowledeged it, yet it's still there.

Next, they've temporarily disabled crossplay for PC players in order to battle cheaters. This means that anyone playing on PC will face cheaters much more often, since the issue has been getting worse by the day. I don't think I've been in a lobby full of PC players before. If anything, I've seen more console players in my lobbies. Not only does it mean PC player lobbies will have a much higher chance of a cheater being present in their game, it also means friends that relied on crossplay to play together will not be able to do so now. So if you played because of the company of your friends, tough luck, as they've essentially blocked the access to the game you've paid for.

Additionally, some very smart person decided to allow lobby starting with 6 players over the intended 7. I won't be surprised if the moment such a match starts people will leave the match, or leave the lobby if it's not full right away. In my opinion this will only enhance lobby hopping since no punishment is present anyway, and besides, it's a braindead idea regardless.

As a last note, the customer paid full price for this game. It does not matter at all the size of the team or the compexity of the game. As a developer of any kind you are expected to deliver a fully functioning product. (This is not an Early Access). Releasing a product with issues is already bad manners, but not fixing these issues when you clearly have the ability to do so is even worse. Won't even talk about these patch note changes. Ridiculous.

A shame.

Length: 3.2 hours.
Enjoyment: 2/10.
Story: Bad.
Characters: Dumb.
Graphics: Great.
Gameplay: 2D story-driven casual platformer.
Audio: Alright.
Bugs:
- Movement felt clunky throughout the entire game.
- Chapter 8 has a bug that occurred to me as well as to multiple other people according to steam community. Once you reach a certain point, it restarts to the checkpoint by itself and sometimes creates your clone that you can go through. Then, once you progress a little it kills you, teleports you a little lower, then keeps on killing you over and over again. You can't do anything except watch. If you manage to get past this, activating a platform that takes you to the next area also triggers this effect but instead of killing you it keeps doing the death animation and you cannot progress. Restarting the entire chapter doesn't fix it. Broken ass game.
If you have this bug, I managed to get through it by doing this: I ran through the falling weights, climbed the rope, ran across the falling weights and waited on the wooden platform so it reset me to the same spot. Then I waited for them to finish the dialogue, climbed the rope, jumped across and ran to the platform you need to activate to reach the next area until I saw the save icon. Then I activated the platform, let the bug play a couple times so I landed on the platform again then ESC>quit and launched the game again. It took me two chapter restarts to figure out but this fixed it for me..
ᶠʳᵒᵐ ᵐʸ ᶠᶦʳˢᵗ ᵖˡᵃʸᵗʰʳᵒᵘᵍʰ

Little Orpheus is a game about Ivan Ivanov and his adventures. It has great graphics, beautiful environments with even better looking landscapes. It has interesting locations, different mechanics in the chapters and the dialogue is fun to listen to but it all falls short in the end. The story is bad. Well, it starts fun and it continues to be fun with every chapter even though you get hints here and there on what the story is based upon until it completely plummets at the culmination. You see, this game is a really casual platformer, and the only thing that pushes you forward is the story, so if the story is not worth the time then there is really no point in playing it at all. For me, the views alone don't sell it. You go along this entire adventure waiting to see how it ends and it just doesn't deliver. It doesn't deliver anything. Not only does it not deliver anything it also breaks the entire immersion of the time period and destroys the personality of one of the characters to at least somehow fit their weird ending.

If you forget the story's end, everything leading up to that point was enjoyable. The views and scenery were honestly fantastic. The gameplay was simple but fun. It did have a bug so gamebreaking in chapter 8 even restarting the chapter altogether didn't fix it. It's almost as if it was ignored during production, not to mention ignored until almost a year after release.

TLDR;
Beautiful scenery, simple story-driven platformer with an awful culmination. I'd pass on it.

Length: 5.5 hours.
Enjoyment: 6/10.
Story: Alright.
Characters: Wholesome.
Graphics: Good.
Gameplay: Walking simulator trying to connect timelines.
Audio: Sound of rain mostly.
Bugs: None.
ᶠʳᵒᵐ ᵐʸ ᶠᶦʳˢᵗ ᵖˡᵃʸᵗʰʳᵒᵘᵍʰ

It's a walking simulator in which you walk around with your hi-tech gear that can show you short glimpses of past events so that you can reconstruct the timeline of the house (in reality the "reconstruction" is choosing 1 of 2 choices for each compatible scene). The story revolves around 6 characters each with their life problems, the decisions of which you affect, and in the end their fate is based on these choices. If you want to achieve the perfect (it's called 'optimal') outcome for the characters you'll have to resolve their issues in addition to saving their lives, again by changing choices. If you're not walking to your destination (one of three floors), then you're either watching a scene or spending time in the timeline menu. For the most part I found the experience relatively enjoyable, and the story was wholesome at the end with Ben being the best guy ever.

It's not a masterpiece and it's not on the same level as "Return of the Obra Dinn", but it can be considered of the same category. One optimal outcome here didn't make sense to me and by pursuing it the process became more trial and error rather than logical conclusion.

Length: 2 hours.
Enjoyment: 6/10.
Story: Alright.
Characters: Nice.
Graphics: Great for this genre, stunning at times.
Gameplay: 2D simple puzzle platformer.
Audio: Awesome.
Bugs: None.
ᶠʳᵒᵐ ᵐʸ ᶠᶦʳˢᵗ ᵖˡᵃʸᵗʰʳᵒᵘᵍʰ

Aspire: Ina's Tale is, as the name suggests, a tale about Ina. About Ina's escape from her dreams, from her confinement. The game has pleasing visuals with beautiful scenery. At times it was marvelous to look at. The story was alright, it wasn't anything fancy or mindblowing, but it was on point with the gameplay and it was nicely delivered. The movement was fluid for the most part, I managed to die because the character didn't grab a ledge once and once because they didn't grab a chain you had to climb on. Other than that it was a pleasure to play with a controller. The puzzles were simple which was a bit uninspired with just one puzzle using all the game mechanics at once, and it took about half a minute to pass. The audio was fantastic and I even got goosebumps once, although it might've been the AC but I doubt it.

TLDR;
Simple puzzles with enjoyable gameplay.

Length: -
Enjoyment: 2/10.
Story: Wholesome.
Characters: Cute.
Graphics: Average.
Gameplay: 2D simple platformer with some puzzles.
Audio: Okay.
Bugs:
- I was softlocked three times in three different places and I didn't even finish the game.
- I keep hearing a second set of footsteps in the left side of the screen even though nothing's there.
- If the music changes it's volume throughout the game on it's own what's the point in the volume slider.
ᶠʳᵒᵐ ᵐʸ ᶠᶦʳˢᵗ ᵖˡᵃʸᵗʰʳᵒᵘᵍʰ

I didn't finish the game and I don't think I will. The game has a cute character and a wholesome story so far, but the level design with the art style, in addition to the flawed puzzles just make the game a pain to play. Every object you're supposed to interact with, as in moveable objects, blends with the level design so much you often don't see them. There was a part where you had to take a wheel which had half of it hidden behind a texture, so naturally I didn't see it, and shortly after you had to use this wheel to balance a plank so that you could climb to the other side. Did they not try to just run forward and jump across in testing? Because that's what I did and it worked, and then following that you had to pull on a locking mechanism that dropped a ballast on the plank which was supposed to launch the wheel to the other side. But guess what, I had no damn wheel so I had to break my head for a few minutes trying to clear the next part and I couldn't, so I had to reset to accidentally move the wheel when I was climbing back up.

Next, some of the puzzles you simply cannot solve on first try. There's absolutely no indication. A good example would be when I was climbing a mountain and rocks were rolling down on me so I had to hide behind ledges so they roll above me. Then at the top, there's a massive rock that's rolling on me and no spot to hide so I ran back to the last ledge I hid in, and bam, the stone rolls above me and I live. I go up the mountain and I can't climb further because apparently I had to bend some branch on the floor so that the stone would hit it and hold it in place so I can climb on it and then jump up. Again, softlocked. I had to restart as I couldn't progress. Many similar instances throughout the game (even though I've completed 5 chapters).

Another example of poor design is there was a part where hamsters try to get you. You're on some small hill above them and your only way forward is by jumping down. So I did. The hamster killed me. So I tried coming from the back, but there's another hamster there so I couldn't get in. So I climb back up, go to the front, and try going down with the rope only for the hamster to kill me again even though I wasn't that close to it. Throughout the game if you fell from a big height you'd die, so you suppose there is fall damage, and so you don't try jumping from this hill forward as you expect yourself to die. BUT, apparently, infront of the hamster are tiny plants which look like rocks that emit gas if it/you step on them, so the hamster cannot even go forward. I saw them but there was again no indication that these are NOT rocks. I had to yolo it.

I did not feel like I was playing a game. In the beginning it was cute, but going forward it just kept getting worse. I kept feeling that instead of wanting to know what's next, I wanted to get it over with. The softlocking and awful puzzle designs really killed it in the end. Whenever you finish a level, instead of progressing to the next you have to go and find the picture of the next level. It became annoying, especially when the camera takes it time to align itself so you can actually see platform you can grab onto at the edges of the screen. Also, you have to install the EA launcher to play the game.

TLDR;
Cute characters, wholesome story, but the gameplay is really bad. I do not recommend this game at all.