237
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reviewed
225
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Recent reviews by Wirdjos

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Showing 1-10 of 237 entries
5 people found this review helpful
30.3 hrs on record
The first thing you'll notice about Sable's world is how beautiful and empty it is. The simplistic nature of its bright, flat colors only broken up by shadows feels inviting from a distance, but when it fails to grow more discernible on closer inspection, it becomes hard to tell the intentional from the malfunction. Even worse so when the ground struggles and fails to keep up as you zoom around on a hoverbike.

There's a sense of freedom and wild abandon that Sable seems to be reaching for missed here, but otherwise, the game was perfectly playable on the Steam Deck. Any glitches, even the deceptively empty merchant inventories, could be fixed by a simple save and reload with no progress lost.

Most of that progress will be found by climbing nearly any surfaces that presents itself as Sable's exploration is especially tactile. Curiosity is often rewarded with a hidden chest or chum, which increases your ability to explore or look good doing it, irrespectively.

It's a very satisfying loop, the sort that can lock you in and see hours pass like minutes. The only puzzles that will slow you down are waiting in the ruins of a past age. None were too challenging though, only adding to the feeling of rediscovery in a world where people live in tents or small villages while still building hovering personal transportation from scrap.

Sable tells you so little about the world directly, leaving much to be implied through its futuristically ancient ruins, its bizarre masks, and its mysterious, magical technology. After enough poking around, it does become clear that someone, somewhere does know the answer.

And maybe they're just over the next hill. Why wouldn't they be? A more experienced hand was eagerly waiting to help on the top of every one behind you. With such warmth everywhere you look, it's no wonder Sable is so optimistic and hopeful. She does have her whole life in front of her after all, as does the world around her, along with everything that endless possibility entails.
Posted February 3.
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11 people found this review helpful
0.9 hrs on record
This revisiting of Milo's world is a veritable stocking stuffer of puzzles and adorable animations.

Released right before Christmas, Milo and the Christmas Gift is even shorter and cuter than the last game, if you can believe that.

Considering it's free as well, this is a tiny Christmas miracle you'd be have to be a Grinch to ignore!
Posted December 31, 2023.
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2 people found this review helpful
2.1 hrs on record
Everything you've come to expect from a Rusty Lake game is here: the creepy, the gross, the AR elements you've likely already missed but are still lovingly documented by fans(thanks catnip!), and the convoluted mysteries of the Lake moving ever forward.

Though Underground Blossom does work as a puzzle/escape room game just fine without full knowledge of the whole series, there are so many callbacks in this one that I would wager a brand new player would be left more than the usually intended amount of lost. You will want context from previous games in hopes of following this story to past its most surface level beats.

To that end, I cannot recommend enough picking up the whole Rusty Lake bundle. None of the games are terribly long, except for the Cube Escape Collection which is 9 in 1 itself. They're not terribly expensive either. Both traits go double for Underground Blossom, leaving it feeling even more like a teaser for what's to come than any entry that came before it.

I, for one, can't wait to see these characters again.
Posted October 8, 2023.
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18 people found this review helpful
92.1 hrs on record (39.7 hrs at review time)
Early Access Review
The legions of the Burning Hells spill forth in numbers not seen since the Lord of Terror and his foul brothers walked among us. Wait, it this not Diablo?

Halls of Torment nails the early Diablo atmosphere so well, from the rattling of innumerable skeletons to the scotched ground beneath your feet, that you'll swear you've loaded up a remake of the first two games. The gameplay is obviously completely different, especially early on where you'll be losing constantly to make small bits of progress towards conquering a stage. As with any good roguelite, you'll soon be overcoming challenges you couldn't imagine meeting before with your quickly stockpiling strength. After enough quests are completed, blessings are purchased, and equipment is discovered, you'll even start to find those once insurmountable hordes trivial.

Blessings can be refunded at any time and equipment can be swapped or removed, but it'll be a lot harder to ignore the more powerful traits coming each level or the increased experience pouring from the quest bonus to return to the place on the power creep arc you enjoyed the most. The stages will grow a little too long for the 'just one more run' rhythm of the early game as you routinely reach the end of the 30 minute timer and face off against the Lord of whatever horrible thing is waiting for you there. You'll look down and realize that an entire night has passed in the span of just a few “30 minute” runs that went far longer. It gets hard to commit to sitting down with the game at that point, but it's even harder to complain about still wanting to.

Early Access only seems to mean a limited number of stages, characters, and abilities at this point. The game is already plenty stable. I only saw two crashes in about 40 hours and while there is a bit of slowdown each time the screen fills with monsters and wildly triggering effects, that never made it any harder to guide my character through the gaps in the monster hordes. The visualizations of many of those effects, however, did often make it very difficult to actually see my next move.

Information isn't as obvious as it should be with some traits not meshing with the particularities of some characters and others affecting abilities in surprising ways. Not that there's any more room for information during the runs as level ups and hordes constantly descend upon you. But this can make designing builds a bit frustrating, something not made any easier by the randomness of traits and abilities. Though adapting on the fly is part of the fun with these sorts of games.

There's currently more than enough possibilities to keep anyone entertained, especially for the current asking price. Even if the promised updates, one of which is planned to hit the beta branch on this very day, never came, it'd still be awfully hard to complain about all the Halls of Torment have to offer.

Autumn Sale Update: The previously mentioned planned update has been live for a good amount of time now. It brought a new stage, two new characters, several new abilities, and several new items. These have all been interesting and varied bits of content to explore, but the most important addition since the above review is the new Agony Mode. This mode solves the issue of challenge disappearing with power progression by upping the difficulty based on how well you're doing in a stage. Better yet, this is an optional mode that can be toggled on or off at the start of a stage. The absolute flood of enemies and effects brought about by doing well in this mode can be a severe drain on frame rate and have caused a few more crashes while playing on the Steam Deck. But that is the cost of an ever increasing amount of mayhem, now isn't it?

Information is a lot more explicit now as well. The various stats of individual characters can be viewed before selecting them which is a huge help in noting the non-basic differences between them. Your first ability is also now selectable from the full list of unlocked abilities, removing a frustrating source of randomness at the start of each run.

Most of my issues with the game have already been resolved and there's more content slated for release early next year. The future of Halls of Torment is looking bright and it has never failed to capture me in the same way it first did every time I return to it.
Posted July 31, 2023. Last edited November 26, 2023.
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4 people found this review helpful
2 people found this review funny
22.8 hrs on record
The art of Katamari is eternal, unchanging, sublime. If you have experienced Katamari Damacy once before, it won't surprise you now. The bizarreness of Its roll and those that roll It is well established. If you are a true disciple of the Katamari, this constancy is a welcome trait.

While the sounds of the Katamari are still as gratifying as ever, what accompanies it does not have the same... flair? Such a deficiency could be remedied with the music from past and future Katamari outings for... $20!?! Why punish us so? Was the Katamari too small? Too slow?

Still Katamari is... joyous! Even on the go. Especially, in fact. Yes! On the go, natural ambiance is all you need. We love Katamari, and that is reason enough to return to it as many times as We can.
Posted June 30, 2023.
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3 people found this review helpful
2.5 hrs on record
You're given only one goal in this short game: escape Babbdi. That would strike a plenty foreboding tone on its own, but the rundown, brutalist buildings and equally rundown residents push the ambiance well into uncomfortable territory.

There's very little to actually see in the district and none of its tenants have more than a sentence or two to share with you. The game's depth is in exploring its many nooks and crannies, and the surreal nature of what you'll find there - which wouldn't work nearly as well without the grungy, dated graphical style.
Posted June 12, 2023.
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1 person found this review helpful
17.5 hrs on record
This first entry is the simplest form of the Final Fantasy formula. It is, however surprising, still completely recognizable.

The first Final Fantasy already had the white and black mages that will become series staples, as well as an airship, crystals, and ancient technological marvels. The story, as direct and bare-bones as it is, even makes as little sense as the rest of the franchise it would go on to inspire.

The updated graphics manage to hold onto the determinedly dated look of a game old enough to run for president while still bringing a brightness and much needed clarity to the original's designs.

What doesn't seem to survive the modern refresh, perhaps rightfully so, is the game's intentional obtuseness. Progression can get a little 'How would anyone have figured that out on their own?!' from time to time. But the nonsensical dead-ends in dungeons, which only appear to be there to trap players and compound the already steep cost of constant random battles, are completely thwarted by this version's detailed maps. Quick saves in dungeons and free saves anywhere else likewise prevent a misstep or disastrous encounter from being any more punishing than you'd want it to be. Then there's the bestiary and the chest collection markers stopping the obscure rare spawn or hidden treasure from eluding you undetected...

This is certainly a changed, friendlier version of the NES original. After gaining a few levels, even attrition won't trouble you anymore. The game becomes quite easy.

Combat, however, with all its satisfying flash and sense of discovery, stays engaging. And if a particular match up fails to grab you after its 100th appearance, auto-battle will take care of that for you right away.

If this remodeled version of Final Fantasy 1 was three times as long, as some later series installments are, it may have worn out its welcome. But as it is, a collection of modern creature comforts with an updated but still nostalgic coat of paint, it's a solidly enjoyable time.
Posted June 8, 2023.
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7 people found this review helpful
35.9 hrs on record
Now is still a great time to get into Guilty Gear Strive, even if this is the first time you've heard the words Guilty and Gear together. To guide you on your way there's: a robust tutorial with missions covering everything from buttons to character match-ups, player submitted combo trials to up your game, an arcade mode that scales difficulty based on how well you do, and a ranking system that keeps the more seasoned players away from beginners until they're ready. There's even a story mode if you're looking to get attached to the personalities of those characters you'll be practicing with which is FOUR AND HALF HOURS LONG!

Seriously. For some reason, there's a full season of an anime, done in the game's models for better or worse, in this fighting game. Not to mention, a fishing mini-game(in the style of a gachapon) and the personal room/avatar customization you can do with what you reel in. There's so many extra, silly, heartfelt things tacked onto Strive that it's all too easy to cool down from a match you got absolutely stomped in or a combo you just can't seem to land without ever leaving the game.

But single-player content is not top-of-mind when looking for a new fighting game, is it? The first question asked of a competitive game well past its release date is always “Is it dead?”. I can tell you, at the time of this review, the park(the non-ranked free-for-all matchmaking mode) always has the first three rooms nearly full(90-ish players) and I never had any issue getting a ranked match in the tower at around my novice skill level. Nor is it any wonder that Guilty Gear Strive is still this active two years in considering every character is interesting, viable, and varied enough to keep people so engaged that they'd want to try them all out.

So quit wondering what “Heaven or Hell” means already and “Let's Rock”!
Posted June 3, 2023.
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2 people found this review helpful
1.7 hrs on record
With beautiful art design that charts a path between child-like simplicity and more ominous hieroglyphs backed by a soundtrack that leans more heavily towards the latter, Tiny Echo boasts a wonderful little world to explore. Though I spent my time there solving largely click-and-you've-got-it puzzles and mundanely delivering mail, I was constantly asking myself: “What have I done?”

Thankfully, I didn't have to worry for too long. While the sights are interesting, there's not too much to see and any questions will be answered at the end of the task at hand.
Posted May 27, 2023.
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1 person found this review helpful
3.8 hrs on record
Hylics is very intentionally very weird. That much is obvious from first glance. The admittedly overused random text generation had me unconsciously avoiding NPCs as well as completely unable to stop myself from trying to squeeze meaning out of what I knew were an arbitrary arrangement of words. Their goal accomplished, I suspect.

Despite being just as irrationally designed, I did find the characters endearing. They instantly grew on me. Which is good, because that's about all the time they had to do so. I don't think I could tell you anything real about them either. That, again, did appear to be the aim.

The “light JRPG elements” were equally inscrutable. A number of stats didn't seem to have any effect on anything. Was 'Cooking' cut content, did it have some effect on combat I didn't notice, or was it just another random word in a random place? I'll never know and I doubt I'll ever know how I feel about that.

What I do know is that I enjoyed wandering around this little bite-sized world. Exploration was probably the only part of this game that followed a logical progression... even if the individual pieces scattered about it didn't exactly act in expected ways.
Posted May 24, 2023.
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Showing 1-10 of 237 entries