Recent reviews by Raigeki

Supergiant Games' Hades 2 is a phenomenal roguelike that, even in its current form, can deliver hundreds of hours of absolute quality entertainment and will leave anyone who gets their hands on it waiting for the full release.

Years have passed since the end of young Zagreus' adventure, and the idyllic picture of hell built by the son of Hades is now completely shattered. The return of Cronus, the father of all the gods who had previously rebelled against Olympus, has led to the devastating defeat of the entire Greek pantheon, whose hopes of victory rest solely on Melinoe, the youngest daughter of the king of hell and immortal princess of the underworld. Hecate, the goddess of magic, miraculously rescued Melinoe while she was still in swaddling clothes and hid her in an area between Olympus and Tartarus, home to dozens of exiles, including the children of Nyx who had escaped the cataclysm. Here, trained by Hecate, the legendary hero Odysseus, Nemesis, the embodiment of vengeance, and other mythical beings, Melinoe becomes the key to a grand and secret plan to overthrow Cronus, the usurper she has hated all her life.

On paper, the mission is apparent. By harnessing the immortality that binds her to the afterlife, Melinoe can repeatedly attempt to reach and destroy the titan of time, returning to the starting point stronger and better prepared than before. With this seemingly simple mechanic, a plot and narrative universe unfolds, significantly expanding the foundation first laid by Hades, involving dozens of characters, from mythical witches like Medea and Circe to figures like Icarus, Narcissus, and Heracles, and finally every god of the Greek pantheon and even many of the most famous mythological monsters. In addition to being extraordinarily characterized, drawn, and voiced, all these characters become the tiles of a narrative mosaic perfectly integrated into the game: every journey, every victory, and every defeat never fails to advance the plot, seamlessly using the roguelike spirit to underpin all aspects of progression.

In keeping with the previous game, Melinoe must choose one of the mythological weapons to embark on this bloody journey. Nevertheless, Supergiant Games has considered all the major criticisms and turned them into unexpected strengths. First of all, the game has many differences that are not limited to aesthetics but also affect the overall structure of the experience:
Wide open spaces are encountered.
There are small hubs where you can complete specific missions.
Sometimes, there are complex vertical arenas.
In essence, the overall variety and depth of the maps have been greatly improved.
However, the main innovation lies in the protagonist's various paths.

Melinoe not only has to devote herself to the search for Cronus in Tartarus but also fulfills the task of helping Olympus directly in the field. This results in two ever-different main paths, each with unique areas, characters, resources, enemies, and encounters. Where will Melinoe go? To the depths of Erebo or the surface of the fallen city of Ephira? Will Cronus drag her to Asphodel, or will she pass through this side undisturbed? This is just the tip of a massive iceberg of unexpected decisions and events that make each journey different from the last and will only come to full fruition when the early access period ends.

The game's core mechanics are identical to the first game's chapters and outlines. There's no shortage of elements you'd expect to find in any self-respecting roguelike, between the small tasks to complete and the numerous optional modes, many of which are "hardcore." These, in turn, are tied to unique reward chains. But even in this "work-in-progress" version, there is no single element of the previous installment that has not been expanded or deepened. At least the narrative is as central, interactive, and willing to accommodate as many other surprises as ever.

As in the past, the game starts to take shape precisely according to the choices made by the player. Here, the producers have done a great job. They've crafted several new layers of depth by introducing six brand new weapons, each equipped with different variants, several "pets" that provide different aids in battle, a deck of tarot cards that significantly affect Melinoe's abilities, and several valuable tools for gathering resources along the way, which positively adds to many of the mechanics already encountered in the previous game.

The critical difference between Zagreus and Melinoe lies in the girl's mage abilities. These abilities will require a particular mana bar to launch different variants of each available attack - i.e., magically charged moves. These include a magic circle that locks enemies in place, a running attack that blocks an escape attempt by holding down, and a final ability that, this time, isn't tied to individual deities but to interactions with the moon goddess Selene. The choice to separate Melinoe's most potent attack from the list of elemental buffs has resulted in the inclusion of particular skill trees where players can choose from many categories and slowly increase them at a specific rate throughout each game session.

At its core, the game remains an excellent procedural action-based mix of destroying hordes of enemies and facing bosses of increasing difficulty, with the ultimate goal of completing the entire loop in one direction—the difficulty level ramps dramatically, with some fights taking on almost bullet-hell-style overtones. There's no need to fear, though, as there's no obstacle that can be overcome with Melinoe's training and meticulous planning while also adopting an excellent progression system independent of individual trials' progress. In short, this is an improved, expanded, refined, and deeper version of the classic Hades experience, whose formula flows seamlessly.

Obviously, beyond the content, a title as deep and varied as Hades 2 hides a lot of sneaky variables on the balancing front, so it's clear that early access will address that aspect as well. Last time around, work continued for two years before reaching the official launch. Still, it puts Melinoe's adventure in the hands of the public in a way that is nothing short of dazzling, capable of holding interest for hundreds of hours without showing any signs of fatigue. Of course, Supergiant Games' perfectionist nature is what has the studio's name on everyone's lips, and they certainly won't stop adding new meat to the fire. Still, in the unlikely event of a release in 2024, we'll be looking at a serious contender for Game of the Year. So buy this masterpiece and take advantage of the pleasure.

This game is so close to being good. However, the difficulty imposed could be more fun. I played it on Nightmare, so everything is based on that experience. There were too many opponents at once. The problem with that is mainly that their attack windows are not balanced around one another. so one opponent can attack you dodge, but because of a recovery animation, other opponents chain attacks into that animation. So you can get deadlocked just by using game mechanics. Also, there is too much going on outside of the screen. Many opponents spawn and chain attacks behind you without any visual indicator. It is awful because the aggro is not correctly balanced around what you see, leading to many deaths caused by things you cannot see. If you like the genre and have friends to accompany you, you can take a look.

You know a game is remarkable when you stop playing the game for the game's sake and start trying to build a town. I was no longer thinking about the game's rules or victory; I was building a home for my people. This isn't to say the game is complete or perfect; it's Early access, and features that need to be added are missing. But even though the game is an incredibly immersive and beautiful city builder, there are some battles that I've only scratched the surface of. But the systems that are there just seem to work. The road snaps strikingly; buildings go together visually and mechanically pleasingly. And watching your people tramp through the dusty trails, muddy paths, or frozen ground is so satisfying. I can't wait to see how the game grows and flourishes; this is an incredible foundation for something extraordinary! But again, it is STILL Early Access; if you buy in, be aware that you are buying into a developing project. Stuff will be broken occasionally, and mechanics still need to be put in place, but it will be a fun ride!

No Rest For The Wicked Early Access came out today, and I played for 23 and a half hours and beat everything in the game. I beat the main story, all the side quests, all the rewards, all the challenges, and after you've done all that, there's a bit of endgame, and I played some of that, too. I could have gone further in the "crucible part" of the endgame, but other than that, I beat everything the game has to offer so far, so I wanted to do a review.

After playing the game, many things went well, and there is much room for improvement. I'm a Dark Souls and Elden Ring lover. One of the most frequent questions people ask about this game is whether it's more like Dark Souls or ARPG, and to me, it feels like a combination of both genres for many different reasons; first of all, the combat is prolonged and very organized, it's not like "Last Epoch" or "Diablo 4" unless you're fighting an Uber boss. Still, even every rat in this game's simple enemy category can trouble you. For example, I fought a couple of bosses and got 99% of their health; I made a mistake, took 100 damage for it, and died instantly. If you do one thing wrong, you can be punished instantly. You're going to die a lot, but that's not going to stop you from trying. That way, you can level up more, but it will also require much effort. That's why the game always feels quite rugged. The maximum level limit in the game is currently 30. I am currently at level 30 and cannot level up any further.

I have a robust system that I always play on Max settings and I never had any problems; it was very nice. Many people who didn't have such a great system struggled and were surprised and quite upset that this was Early Access. Of course, DLSS will come. We'll hope they do more development, and then it should come to console and other things, but many people voiced that they had performance issues; some had to return the game outright because even some streamers with pretty good PCs weren't running. I didn't have that problem with anything else performance-related. I played the game with the controller, and this game is designed for controllers. When I tried it with a keyboard and mouse duo, the game felt restricted to me. For this reason, I can understand the complaints of those who use Mouse+Keyboard.

I've been waiting for this game for a long time and loved it. The environment was beautiful, the story was excellent, and I loved the voice acting; it was one of the best I've ever heard in any game. It was an incredible job. I enjoyed the detail of the bosses, and I was very impressed. I enjoyed fighting different types of enemies on various maps. I loved the little puzzles I encountered on the maps and the secrets they put everywhere; it was very cool. Overall, I also liked the items and the process of choosing and upgrading different weapons. Apart from that, I felt good when I got some health regeneration, a vital mechanic in the survival game.

Many streamers I read or watch constantly talk about the difficulty and brutality of the game and discuss it. Dear friends, yes, you will die a lot. You die a lot. In this sense, there is no problem. The biggest problem is that when you die, you lose the durability of everything. As a result, your equipment breaks. Immediately afterward, you move to a town called Sacrament. And after you go to the Sacrament, you have to go to the blacksmith on the left-hand step; okay, you go to the blacksmith, you repair your equipment, and then you go on your merry way, right? I hear a lot of people saying that stamina is one of the biggest problems; stamina is a stupid mechanic to them because they die all the time. Then you must go back to the blacksmith and spend gold. This sucks for most players, and I have no problem with that! I don't have a problem with the penalty for dying. I'm familiar with that from the Dark Souls series. I don't have a problem with paying gold, and I don't have a problem with gold being valuable. I wish the blacksmith were closer, but that's a trivial matter now.

Let's get to the point where this could be more pleasant. Your gathering tools are durable! Your shovel, your pickaxe, your fishing rod, and your woodcutter's axe. These have durability, and it's pretty unpleasant to have durability on them. For example, you have a place to go for your mining pickaxe. You have reached there. Do you want to know what happens to me every time? Please forget the deaths you have experienced. I extract two or three ore nodes, and my pickaxe breaks. When the durability reaches zero, it breaks instantly. Your pickaxe is destroyed. So, whenever I'm halfway through mining, I must keep buying new pickaxes. I have to carry an extra shovel and pickaxe with me, but in the meantime, what I'm carrying is weighing me down, slowing down, and restricting my movement. This system could be better. At the very least, the durability mechanic should be eliminated for gathering tools like pickaxes, shovels, and axes as soon as possible. At the very least, prevent my pickaxe or axe from completely disappearing when it runs out of stamina. Let me go with these items and repair them. Buying new ones is both inconvenient and expensive. Also, the rate at which these tools lose their durability is relatively high. This needs to be examined tremendously.

My biggest problem with the game is the same as what everyone else has said, and I can describe it to you. This game has the worst inventory and stash management I've ever played. I can't even begin to describe in words how bad it is. First, if you just started playing, you might not notice it. It takes a while to see it, but you will feel the impact once you start playing. Looking at each item individually and not being able to compare between items is a considerable shortcoming. The developers must overhaul the inventory management as soon as possible to make it easier.

At one point in the game, you will buy a house. I immediately purchased a house. What was the first thing I did in my house? I put as many stashes of 20 slots in it as possible. This made me very angry because the game tells you: Hey, take this shovel, cut down this tree, fishes there, okay? I'm doing the activities that you want me to do. I'm playing the game, and you need to do that because there are a lot of different crafting and building your city, as well as stuff like that. If you want to pressure me not to collect everything reasonably, you have to let me extract my ore/materials in peace. Our current inventory management system will drive people crazy when players go far enough. For this, the developers should immediately simplify and fix this system.

One of my favorite things about the game is that you mustn't block it directly when fighting an enemy. Parrying or rolling towards them is one of the best moves to make. Once you memorize the attack patterns of monsters in general, you will start to enjoy the fights more. Yes, but after continuously gaining experience and beating everything, you'll want more content. But it's important to remember that the game is still in early access. More content and mechanics will come to the game. There are already roadmaps available. The game plays itself even as it is. The locations, the color palette, and the voiceovers are perfect. I look at the works company positively. The shortcomings and problems in this game can be easily fixed. Since it is early access, there will be performance issues. However, adding technologies like DLSS and Frame Generation to the game will help solve these problems. Keyboard mouse controls can be improved. By fixing the stash and inventory area and systems, the game can come to a much better position.

I loved this game like crazy and look forward to playing it again when some updates come out. This is my brutally honest opinion of the game. This game finds a satisfying middle ground between Souls like ARPG and loot games. Still, I can't wait to see where the makers vision leads.

Shiro has delivered daringly and **** advice: Read everything, tooltips, goals, etc. Pause the game and read everything to understand what is happening; it won't get lost later. The systems and lingo urge you to know what they are talking about. I got defeated in 'campaign' mode. And I had no clue as to why, at first, I was winning on all fronts, so I thought. The obscurity of systems and the wall of info initially put me off. It is not an easy game. There is very much to take in. Mainly because the game is very unique. There is no other game like it. Give yourself the luxury of knowing this game. You will love it. Apart from this hurdle of uniqueness, Dune Spice Wars is an excellent game; the more you play it, the more the systems will become second nature. And the more you master Arrakis by your ****, the more the game becomes a Dune game. Yes. It's more Dune than any RTS could be; it is more Dune than the new movie. It is less Dune than the first Cryo game from 1992. And it is on par with the board game from the 70's. In other words, it is a freeform Dune game with many unique elements from the universe. Overall, it is a beautiful-looking UI. But one of my major complaints stems from EA:

The UI needs to focus a lot on the player.
It can be too busy with icons and terminology.
You can get lost and pause the game to make sense of every icon, meaning an alert button.

It is a lot to take in and sometimes hard to keep up, and therefore, sometimes very hard to make the right decisions and stay on course concerning your tactic. Once it clicks, however, you do feel like the Ruler of the Known World. And that is a fantastic feeling. When you win, it is all you're doing; when you lose, you need to consider if you made the strategic puzzle fit the scheme at hand. My suggestion in campaign mode? Focus on the straightforward missions. Do nothing else. Zooming out completely makes it a game of moving icons, but you gain all the vision needed as a commander. It works best to play this game like that. It is a shame sometimes all the beautiful vistas you miss playing this way, but you zoom in enough during gameplay. Everything is quickly done once you get the hang of it, but the learning part can be a problem for many players.

Nevertheless, even though this game needs to be gotten used to, you must learn to play it. It is exceptionally crafted and very lovingly executed. Very polished and cared for. The campaign in the form of roguelite missions is simply fantastic. I will always prefer this mode above anything else. I get beat at accessible mode after 100 hours in EA, which is good. I never had these tense battles before 1.0.

**** is the best Dune PC game that has ever been made. Period. It is a very daring blend of genres and a genuine, authentic Dune experience as a whole. I am deeply in love with it. Although the game is void of soul and personality in the form of storytelling, An introduction to the House/Faction or a glimpse of a grander scale could quickly mitigate this. However, the game itself does the most telling for you, and it **** you into the core. Something the Westwood games did with video and more, the trailers for this game did wonderfully. I don't care for the discussion about what was promised in Ea or what they delivered was not canon. For me, it captures the essence of Dune wonderfully, and I don't care if it is not an RTS or if there is no story campaign. The campaign we got is 1000 times better and very replayable. This game is the best Dune game there is. After 15 hours online and 40 hours offline, you can trust me.

Stop motion is a challenging technique to use in video games. Neither is it in the world of animation tout court. Still, the problems are multiplied for video games, considering the environmental interactions and the different presence of characters in space, so much so that we have seen it applied primarily to a static genre such as graphic adventures. The most famous examples are The Dream Machine and The Neverhood, but there are others, such as the lesser-known Tanita: Plasticine Dream, which we cite to get a slightly broader picture.

In Harold Halibut's review, we will see whether it was worth waiting ten years, the time of the game's development, to play this narrative adventure that exploits this style to seek its own identity.

Let us begin by specifying that Harold Halibut is a pure narrative adventure; that is, it is a game in which interaction is entirely functional for the story. So, there are no big puzzles to solve or complicated puzzles to overcome. There are mini-games interspersed within the entire experience, such as some arcade-like arcades that you would find in an arcade or a small musical mini-game used to put Harold in contact with the aliens, which, if you will, is a nod to the philosophy of Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

One can follow various objectives, which are very simple and listed in the wrist-mounted laptop computer, which serves as a journal and communicator for text messages, which usually require going to a particular place, and that's it. You talk a lot with the other characters, you listen to Harold's inner monologues, and there are several related storylines, but it's all played out from a narrative point of view. So, nothing is designed to challenge the player in the classical sense. The mini-games almost have a rhythmic function, i.e., they are there as punctuation of the experience to break the linearity of the narrative, with which, however, they are perfectly integrated.

Don't expect chickens with pulleys and gold nuts to be found, but an extremely fluid narrative in which progress is made without any stops due to a precise choice of the development team, which wanted to make the game accessible to everyone and did not want the story to stop or risk, even worse, stopping players, leading them to terminate the experience prematurely. Harold Halibut, therefore, bets everything on his style and on how he depicts this underwater world of an alien planet, made up of fleeing humans who suddenly come into contact with the indigenous population, from which then arises a series of frictions of which we do not want to anticipate anything. The authors have put much of their spin on it, playing the whole experience on an intensely melancholy and meditative note. Harold eventually finds his dimension, evolving from being an extremely passive character to becoming the linchpin of a radical change. The play's take on reality is not cut with a hatchet but, however strong, appears nuanced and delicate, in this sense, extremely authorial, as is the entire experience.

As mentioned, the story of Harold Halibut tells of the escape of some humans from Earth in the 1970s amid the Cold War. Many are convinced that the world is about to end, so they build a vast spaceship divided into living modules resembling an actual city and begin a journey to a distant planet that is supposed to be the new home of our species. Unfortunately, upon arriving there, after 200 years of crossing and several generations born and living inside the spaceship, they find themselves on a planet entirely made of water, where they are forced to establish an underwater city despite themselves. They are stuck there, surviving for another fifty years in harsh conditions and moving from one living module to another via human-sized hydraulic pipes. The whole thing is run by a multinational corporation, All Water, which makes the best of the situation. However, launching a probe on the planet's surface early in the adventure allows them to pick up a message from Earth that the planet is not dead. Naturally, hearing it rekindles the hopes of everyone eager to return home.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to succeed because the city's power is running out, and there is no practical way to leave. However, what seems like an adventure about escaping a desperate situation will become something else in the game when the contact mentioned above with the planet's indigenous species brings out all the contrasts within the city of humans.

The narrative is constructed in a decidedly skillful way, with a prolonged start in which the various pieces begin to fit into the puzzle and then go on to define the framework of the story, the setting, and the characters without ever forcing the issue too much. Some will consider it far too slow, but Harold Halibut is one of those games that aims to be different, with characters who sing beautifully. At the same time, they think they need to be heard, with professors who love to teach children about the history of our planet and with postal workers who keep ancient letters that have never been delivered from which they derive stories out of collective memory and whatnot.

On closer inspection, the underwater world of Harold Halibut is a kind of aquarium in which each housing module represents an aspect of our society that is put on display when described in an ironic way, when emotional, or when connoted in such a way as to make references to facts of reality obvious, going on to form a more complex and fascinating overall picture. The initial solid contextualization is appropriate where the game events make sense precisely based on how the narrative has been constructed up to that point. Rushing to the turning points would have resulted in debasing the narrative fabric, producing unrecoverable tears within it. So we have a first chapter devoted essentially to letting us experience this underwater world in Harold's shoes, letting us get to know who inhabits it, the various perspectives in the field, the key characters, and also those who are part of the protagonist's love life, there where in later chapters the contact with this world that becomes deeper and deeper begins and still produces those frictions will be resolved in the second part of the game.

Harold Halibut is also a joy to watch. As also explained by the development team, the game's graphics are in stop motion, but not in the classic way in which this style is understood; that is, all the models were created by hand - we are talking about characters, scenery, and individual objects - so they exist in reality in the form of sculptures, and then are scanned and transformed into 3D models. This choice was probably made as a matter of practicality because handling this amount of content using only pure stop motion would have been prohibitive for such a small team, despite the ten years it took to make it all. The technical problems they would have had to overcome would have been enormous, and they would undoubtedly have had to limit certain aspects of the storytelling, making compromises they did not want to suffer.

So they found an intermediate solution that still achieved very high visual quality, accompanied by a soundtrack of original and other licensed songs of the highest quality, contributing distinctly to the atmosphere. As a result, Harold Halibut is very beautiful to watch and listen to. The developers have also added a zoom function to allow you to admire the details of the various models and environments. At the same time, it gives the impression of being an utterly handcrafted product, thus handmade, from which a strong passion exudes. The results show and embellish a work that deserves to be played.

After 9 hours of playing, I had a good time with this game. It looks pretty well-designed, but it still needs some humor.

The Islands of the Caliph is designed as an old-school, grid-based, first-person RPG. And aesthetically, it succeeds! The game leaves you with little idea of what to do or where to go, but the man standing before you explains where to start. Stranded on a small island, the player is left to their own devices to find the steps to progress.
This is one of the things that The Islands of the Caliph is most successful at. It seems too well designed to make things utterly brainless by only giving the player very little information. Yet, at the same time, it provides just enough information never to be cryptic or limit your options enough. It's a rare gaming balance, but it's achieved here gracefully.

However, it also carries all the baggage of emulating older games. This is one of the things that holds the game back the most.
The controls could be more precise, slight inclines hinder progress, finding certain shops or items is often a long chore, and getting to and from your destination always takes a long time. "Fast travel" unlocks later in the game, but until you reach that level, you'll commute to and from chores.
Sometimes, these old-fashioned design decisions are appreciated; sometimes, they cause unnecessary friction in the gameplay.
But I enjoyed my time with this game, and once I got used to the clicky controls, it became quite enjoyable. The question is whether I'm motivated to buy the full version and continue my experience, and that's hard to decide. There are plenty of other games that I can avoid struggling with the controls to enjoy. Islands of the Caliph is an old-school, niche game in its structure. It's worth checking out if you're interested in the genre.

"The Quarry" offers a solid experience. If you're intrigued by the idea of a 10-15-hour interactive movie or a game that blends cinematic storytelling with occasional player input, this is the game for you. The character models, voice acting, and writing are commendable, creating an atmosphere reminiscent of a well-crafted summer camp horror movie. The inclusion of mo-capped big stars adds to the game's appeal. While the game blurs the lines between mediums, it's worth considering why it wasn't made as a live-action choose-your-own-adventure. Live-action interactive movies often fail because they lack the engaging gameplay elements that this game provides. Despite feeling detached at times, the game's intriguing narrative and unique gameplay kept me invested.
The game's mechanics are unconventional, and I found them challenging. The gameplay often transitions from one un-skippable cutscene to another, with the player deciding a character's demeanor during conversations. Occasionally, you're free to move a character around and search for clues, but these interactions, while engaging, are minor in the story. The game's interactivity increases as the story progresses, a welcome change during the parts where I was less involved. Some characters met their demise due to my lack of attention, which added a layer of realism to the game. The intriguing story kept me playing, although I wonder if my decisions altered the narrative. The game's length was excessive for a one-night story, and I would have appreciated a shorter, more replayable experience with different endings. Overall, if you're a genre fan, this game is worth a try.

Ignore people complaining about the price. I've seen the interviews with Nightdive. This game was challenging for them to remaster because of all the weird choices Lucasarts made while developing it, like creating their version of multi-threading years before it became a thing.

The fact that they could remake all the graphics and get the game working natively in modern systems with modern controls is an impressive feat. Nightdive deserves compensation for all their hard work because this wasn't just some simple port!

And the game plays beautifully! They made the game look like my nostalgia goggles, remember it--better! Because I played the original recently, and it looked terrible. Even The Force Engine couldn't improve it this much.

Another game from my childhood was remastered spectacularly because of the Nightdive Studios. Thanks a lot!

This game scratches an itch. If you played Digimon World for PlayStation 1 and are nostalgic, this game can provide memories and a fun time playing through it. It mechanically works okay but doesn't hold your hand. This game is not cyber sleuth, for better or worse. It focuses more on the upgrading of your town and the raising of Digimon. There are no periods where you are playing mashing through text. That said, the battling is less attractive than cyber sleuth. I hope they take the best of both games and combine them. As a fan, I enjoyed the game a lot and can't wait for my next visit to the Digimon world franchise. I hope they spend more time polishing the world and showing that they care about the source material they are pulling from.