Recent reviews by Slashley

Also known as "Daisenka", this is clearly a Vampire Survivors clone.

I haven't played Vampire Survivors, but this game is quite decent enough. Should keep you entertained for a day. Is that worth 10 bucks? ... eh, probably not, but it's still fun.

tl;dr; version:
While not for everyone, it is a pretty good game with its own charm.

Long version:
++ While graphics are not the main thing in any game, I have to say that the sheer amount of effort they put into characters, their expressions and their smooth animations is extremely impressive.
+ The card game is alright. You can break it pretty badly, though that might get balanced later.
++ Characters are creative and their respective storylines are a delight. I think only one of them was lackluster in meaning, but it was still alright.
-- Spending time with friends is a completely dead feature and should not be in the game as-is. A game which imposes a strict time limit on you, yet giving you the option to waste that valuable time? Just give them a Gift and you will gain the same thing without wasting time. Really, why is this literal trap in the game??
- Poorly paced. The game dripfeeds new features to you to not overwhelm you, but despite this the first week requires a lot from you... even though some of the features you need don't unlock until weeks later! I doubt that this can be fixed as it is a pretty deep design flaw. The point is, if you can get through week1, you should get through all the weeks with relative ease as it just keeps getting easier.
- As a result, in the last two weeks you can easily make enough money to pay off your debt. But you still get a game over if you lose (likely on purpose). So what was the point of the competition again...?
- Every week of the game basically resets your progress. For example, you're expected to buy the new Cauldrons and upgrade them. Which wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't for...
- Pretty random loot. Sometimes, you get the material you need to upgrade your Cauldrons on day1. Sometimes? You get them on the very last day of the week, which leave you on a mad scramble to get your ♥♥♥♥ done in time. In theory it is possible to never find the exact material you need (though it didn't happen to me)... this means that players can have VASTLY different game experiences. The vital ingredients should NOT be that random.
- Sometimes the UI is great, like in its ability to sort stuff. But sometimes the UI is very lackluster. In particular what bothers me greatly is the lack of "how many you of this item you own" in tooltips. This would be particularly useful in Guild Expeditions, but oh well, I guess you had better remember how many of each ingredient you have! (stores and brewing UI show you much of an item you own - it's just a tooltip issue as they are static)
- Certainly not a bug free game. I did not encounter anything game breaking, though I once had to restart the game to stop a looping sound effect as it wouldn't go away by reloading, or by going to the main menu, or by going back to where I got the sound effect.
- In particular the card game interactions can be SUPER weird and buggy. This might get patched later, but based on previous patch notes it doesn't seem like they will.
- No NG+. If you fail or if you want to replay the game, you need to start all over from scratch. This might get patched later.

That's... a lot of negatives. Allow me to stress that I enjoyed my time with the game and can certainly recommend the game to anyone who finds the idea of "manage your time and resources to brew stuff, then sell said stuff to customers with a card game" appealing. Oh, and most importantly...

+++++ Anubia is freaking ADORABLE. Sure she has basically no role in the game, but look at her! Just look at this cute little thing!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2915549768

At the time of writing this (not even seven days after release), the game is lacking a huge amount of polish which makes it just a chore to play. The game can be decent if they straighten up those edges, but I doubt it'll ever be good (as they'd require a full re-design of the base gameplay loop). I knew that would be the case, and honestly I just picked the game up because those demon babes were way too horny to ignore.

Just like the previous released VB game (Frontier), this one uses an overly complicated combat system, with dozens of interacting mechanics, a mess where some things matter a lot and some usually don't, until they do and it bites you in the ass.

And I love it.

It took me 240 hours to 100%, and honestly, there's still a lot I could do. And maybe I will. They improved the combat just that much, as previously there basically just one thing that worked at high difficulties and now there are several. And often, you need to mix-n-match these things too. It's great if you love tinkering, IMHO.

Actually pretty nice. I enjoyed the combat, and the adult patch was quite alright as well.

This was a wonderful experience.

Perhaps a bit pricy considering how it'll last you one or two hours, but perhaps quality is more important than quantity.

While it's not a BAD game, it certainly isn't a good game either. And no matter are you looking for gameplay or the H, you can find better for the same money from both Clymenia and Kagura Games.

Honestly what weights this game down so badly is the combat system. It's slow, tedious and extremely repetitive. Outright boring. And there is no way to avoid most of it, since almost all the missions are "defeat all enemies." There are a few "defeat the boss" stages but most of those require you to go through almost all the enemies anyway, so what's the point?

I watched a friend stream entirety of the game. Quite the ride. One route seemed quite lackluster, but overall worth your time. Surprised the game is free.


The game is absolutely riddled with typos, but I guess that's just what happens with a free game.

tl;dr; version:
Hades is a Rogue-lite game. Rogue being a genre where you die you lose all progress and -lite means that you gain some bonuses for your next attempt. Runs are always very different which keeps the game fresh. Hades also has a great (fully voice acted!) storyline and amazing characters to keep you interested. I can highly recommend the game to anyone who can even consider liking Rogue-lite games.


Slightly longer version:
The story is great and kept me hooked.

The voice acting is great.

The music is great.

The gameplay is simply fun. As usual for Rogue-lite games, each run varies greatly due to having six weapons you can choose from. And there are four versions of each weapon. And during your run, random upgrades for each weapon may entirely change the way you play. Furthermore, the Boons that you gain during your run can also alter your gamestyle drastically, making this by far the most varied Rogue-lite game I've ever played.


As for length, what some milestones took me (but your mileage may vary wildly):
~30 hours for credits roll
~85 hours for epilogue
~105 hours to wrap some things up (Steam achievements etc.)
For that many hours of fun spent, I can't believe the game isn't 60 bucks.

tl;dr; version:
It's an overly complicated mess of a turn based strategy game, but yet a surprisingly functional one.

Long version:
Now, the game very many flaws and the H scenes didn't really interest me, but the game still overall just works. At extreme difficulty levels there's really only a few things that end up working (mostly because your opponents have like 2000 stats and you have like 200-300), but pretty much anything goes at the lower difficulties. Which can be a whole ton of fun.

One flaw that the game definitely has is the building mechanic. You either build a +150 Gold/turn and +40 Food/turn building for 4 000 Gold (26 turns to pay itself back), or a +1 000 Gold/turn building (Temple) for 30 000 Gold (30 turns to pay itself back). Wow, with limited spaces available, I wonder what you should build. I mean sure, the latter is only available on very few tiles, but the difference is still staggering. You're going to build one Temple, and then 30 turns later another, and then 15 turns later another, and then 10 turns later another... because doing anything else with your Gold would be crazy. Especially since running out other resources (Food/Magic) just means that 1 Gold per unit will be deducted instead. Geez, why even have Food and Magic then? The entire building mechanic is a chore that just shouldn't exist with the choices available.

The combat is also a convoluted mess with dozens of modifiers in multiple different places, so good luck trying to grasp just what is good and what isn't. But eventually, you get a grasp of things if you experiment and can have plenty of fun teambuilding, especially against some opponents which have another convoluted mess of abilities that mess with your mess of convoluted abitities, and ooooh boy! :steamhappy:

Still, managing all of this on a KiriKiri engine (a visual novel engine) is quite impressive. I am certainly looking forward to the upcoming Hollow game, which to my understanding isn't based on KiriKiri anymore. I am sure that game will also be a convoluted mess, but that's one way to make a game like this work.