Recent reviews by Tim

I think this is possibly the most underrated game in my Steam library. The gimmick of fusing turn-based and real time play is an excellent one, and I think they did a really good job of exploring ways to mix the two.

Often it can be played akin to a turn based dungeon crawler, but the enemies, bullets and environmental hazards that move in real time add a bit of pressure and force you to move quickly. It's not dissimilar to Crypt of the NecroDancer in that sense; enemies have attack patterns that aren't too hard to learn, but the gimmick means you can't always take your time and can be forced into mistakes. The time pressure is lower here though and combat is quite tactical as you use the environment or other enemies' attacks against your foes. Individual enemies are easy to handle once you know how, but in varied combinations they're more interesting to fight.

There are also plenty of puzzles to solve, which aren't too challenging but still pleasant and imaginative. If you want a little more challenge, there are secret collectables hidden throughout. I also enjoyed trying to beat the levels in as few moves as possible, and there are leaderboards for that.

The game is at its weakest in the later levels. Where a game more confident in itself and the player would have continued to explore its established mechanics in harder configurations, Nova-111 seems to want to keep introducing new mechanics. The third and final world throws in a new twist where regions of the grid are frozen in time. It's an interesting idea, but I didn't feel it was utilised as well as earlier mechanics. It doesn't stop being enjoyable here, it's just that the level design isn't as strong as it was earlier in the game. Even the art style is worse.

There's also the fact that levels are broken into blocks of three that you're forced to play together, an odd decision that becomes quite annoying when you're replaying to find collectables.

Those two issues aside, this is a great game that I'd heartily recommend.