Recent reviews by Estew

I beat the developer's other game, Quadrata, earlier this year, and I am pleased to say that Lovux is on par if not slightly better than Quadrata. The game features glass blocks that you can slide around tracks. Your goal is to destroy all of the glass blocks in a given level by activating the blocks with arrows. These will crash into blocks and destroy all blocks in a straight line.

Lots of fun mechanics introduced as the puzzles go on, and I found myself getting stumped a few times later on and had to come back to solve them later. I couldn't get a Steam Deck control scheme that was quite *great*; everything worked, but it was kind of awkward to control. Easier on PC with an actual mouse, I felt.

Finished all the bonus levels as well!

Really cool puzzle game. New mechanics ever 10 levels, and there are 90 levels with each solution taking around 1-2 minutes at most, unless you're a bit daft like I am and take 5 minutes on a few here and there. Great game to play while listening to a podcast.

I think I got it in a bundle at some point, so I was shocked to see it's only $2. Will definitely be checking out Mindlabor's other projects!

Absolutely loved this game. So much so that I went back and played it again... And again... And again. One of the few games I actively went after 100% completion for because I loved so much about it. Tl;Dr at the bottom!

The game has a few negatives. It's a bit buggy, with one song in particular sometimes freezing up at the start and requiring a restart of the game to make sure audio is synced properly - but because it autosaves at the start of the song, it's not a huge issue. Rarely, a character will vanish from the scene and reappear a few moments later. The audio mixing for the dialogue is hit or miss, with it usually being fine but a few are just too quiet - one in particular is far too quiet near the end of the game.

But beyond that, the game is just so great. Most of the songs have tons of variations to them, even beyond the ones required for the achievements - despite 100%ing the game, I was able to find combinations I hadn't tried before on YouTube and see the lyrics totally change. Speaking of which, I adored those songs. I've been listening to them on YouTube a lot in the background. The characters are well-written, and I ended up liking all of the characterization for them. The story isn't incredibly deep, but it is interesting with some heartfelt moments and some fantastically emotional highs. The art is well made, with almost every scene being very pleasing to the eyes.

Tl;Dr: A bit buggy, and the audio mixing for dialogue could use some work, but with an incredible cast of characters and some fantastic music, I have to recommend this game. Easily one of my top games of 2023 so far!

Short adventure game focused on a time looping mechanic; you visit points on a map that allow you to travel to different times of day to figure out how to leave the island you're stuck on. The only issue? You can't let the you from the past see current you, otherwise you break the time-space continuum, forcing you to navigate around your past courses. Neat idea and pretty well-executed.

It's a pretty fun experience. Most objectives were pretty straightforward and it was fun to piece everything together, though the voice acting and localization script were pretty rough, with dialogue frequently not matching up to what was being said. Kind of janky, and some things are definitely doable out of order which causes your character to reference things you haven't actually done yet. For $7 though, it's pretty solid!

Tl;Dr: I loved this game, even more than the first one. It feels like an expansion of the first game in many ways; in some ways, the game does stretch itself a bit too thin in its attempt to surpass the original in every way. Ultimately, though, while it is a step back in some ways, it is several steps forward in most ways.

Gameplay is largely a step up from the first game. The core gameplay loop remains the same as the first game, but new elements like crime scene recreation, alongside improvements to the Somnium gameplay, make the game stay fresher for longer. Somniums now tend to be more diverse with their gameplay elements, and I found them a lot more fun as a result. In one, you might have a QTE-based cooking competition, and in another a quiz show.

The protagonists are great. Ryuki and Tama have a very fun dynamic, and Ryuki is a great alternate protagonist after Date. Mizuki and Aiba I like a bit less, as I think Aiba's dynamic with Date in the first game was better, but they're still fun and they serve as great main characters. I think I actually like Ryuki and Tama more than I liked Date and Aiba!

The rest of the cast is, in my opinion, not quite as strong as the first game. Still great, but feels like they tried too hard to incorporate the majority of the previous cast with little added depth, while introducing a lot of new characters that sometimes feel like they needed more time to truly shine. Still, though, the new characters that manage to shine do so magnificently.

The story feels less personal this time around, going for a much grander scale of storytelling. That might not be for everyone; personally, I was quite alright with that. The twists are, as usual, great, though I think there was a bit too much exposition trying to explain it all.

If you're familiar with some of the previous Uchikoshi titles, namely the Zero Escape series, you might compare the two Somnium Files games to the first two Zero Escape games. To me, 999 and AITSF both felt like tighter, more focused experiences with more personal stories. VLR and Nirvana Initiative both felt a bit less focused, but more ambitious and "grand." I preferred the latter two.

Played entirely on Steam Deck. Officially untested, but was as simple as booting up and playing. Text was legible, default control layout worked great, button prompts corresponded to the correct buttons. Supported and defaulted to native res (1280x800). Battery life estimated 4.5-5h at 60fps. ✅

A short, emotional game that had me tearing up at points. It plays like a 2D walking simulator where you move around a house and slowly piece together what happened. The art style was very pleasant to look at. The characters were good and I enjoyed the interactions between them and the growth of some in specific. I can't really say too much more without spoiling some of the events and memories, but it's definitely a recommendation from me if you can put up with the character's kind of slow walk speed and that there really isn't much "game" here - no puzzles or anything of the like.

Cygnus Elvashak was a simple man with a tragic past. His sister had been killed by the Glitchers; specifically, by a man named Gio Estralda. With a heart of fire, Elvashak raced to find the best way to exact revenge. And, as luck would have it, he became the main character... For a short while. With his Longblade and Rechargeable High Capacity Stealth Shield, he was ready!

Elvashak amassed a large sum of money through missions of three difficulty types; Easy, Medium, and Hard. With his blade and shield in hand, he managed to gather what almost seemed to be randomized, but useful, loot, such as a Rechargeable Glitch Trap and Quiet Quickfire Gun.

With his money, he paid for intel on his sister's killer. He tracked the man down to the exact ship, but when he boarded, Elvashak was blown away. Literally. A turret shot him and he was thrown out of the airlock.

His breaching pod managed to catch him, however, and bring him back to safety! Elvashak, now being far more careful, found the ship to be much, much larger than any he had encountered before. Try as he might, Elvashak could not overcome the huge amounts of guards and sentry turrets. Taking out six men, Elvashak felt himself thrown into space yet again. Once again catching himself with his remote controlled pod, he boarded for what he knew was the last time. He would make one last effort and, failing that, retreat and try again at another point in time.

Unforeseen by him, however, was the explosion of an engine. The ship was split apart, and he managed to get very, very close to his sister's killer. The ship, on the other hand, was fast approaching its destination. As the countdown ticked away, he decided to retreat. As his pod pulled away, he was blasted by an array of missiles. Barely hitting the proper buttons to keep the pod from breaking the part, he relaxed in his chair.

The day was done, and he would come back another day. That is, he would have. If he hadn't been on emergency fuel.

Try as he might, he could not get the trajectory correct; and once the fuel was out, life support disengaged. After multiple successful missions, liberating a station, and coming so close to avenging his sister's death, Elvashak was left to die from lack of oxygen, his pod drifting away from the known galaxy.



Anyways, that's Heat Signature. Randomized loot, what feels like a personal story each and every time, and a very intriguing retirement system that I didn't experience with Elvashak. Seems that when your character retires, he goes down as a "Living Legend" and can name one of his items. This item can be found by later characters you make and by your Steam friends! Very interested in trying that out.

9/10, would highly recommend.