Recent reviews by emazur

The best part about Dark Deity is the gameplay. I've played several other strategy RPGs like Fire Emblem (Dark Deity's biggest influence), Shining Force, and the relatively obscure Highborn. Those are games I can binge play (something I don't often do) for hours on end and Dark Deity delivers as well. It took me about 83 hours to beat on "hero" difficulty though that could have been shortened by skipping the optional support conversations - if I were to replay the game I would definitely skip them and if you're playing for the 1st time you won't be missing much if you skip.

Dark Deity's second strength is the character design. At the beginning the designs may only be ranked as decent or run-of-the-mill but many characters will be introduced regularly throughout the game and they are excellent and varied. A couple of my favorites are Sophie and Rose from the playable characters but there are some great one-off characters you'll come across such as the boss with a hair bow Nao and of course Aelia - the prison warden's sister with a ludicrously oversized backpack, funny stuffed pig, pink hair, and artist's cap. If you do a character design comparison with Fire Emblem Three Houses, Dark Deity wins (keep in mind that while Three Houses does a great job with its female characters, several of the male characters are really on the dorky side like Ignatz, Lorenz, and Linhardt. And Claude and Dimitri in the early game look like they were specifically designed to appeal to tween girls). A small indie game beating a high budget Nintendo flagship title in character design is a very impressive feat.

The music is solid and in particular I like some of the base camp music. But I can't say it blows me away and if compared to the Fire Emblem games on 3DS and Switch then Fire Emblem wins hands down. The sound effects are just OK and get the job done. The voice acting is good though sparse (comparable to Fire Emblem Awakening and Fire Emblem Fates on 3DS).

As for weaknesses - that's pretty easy. The graphics would be great by the standards of 1992 but this is 2022. I love the 16-bit era so I certainly can't say Dark Deity's graphics are "bad" but I'm not gonna give it a free pass. The story and writing I would consider passable at best - my advice to the developers would be to ditch all the time writing the support conversations and focus entirely on the story. But the worst part of Dark Deity is the bugs (I played version 1.54). For example a character might not be able to select an action that they're supposed to be able to do (like 'Haste' support to increase another character's movement), a character can be selected but not moved, or a bow wielding playable character (distance weapon) might attack a non-distance weapon equipped enemy (who shouldn't be able to counter attack) from three squares away but still be counter attacked anyway (this only happened to me once but it resulted a my character dying). Honestly speaking Dark Deity is the buggiest game I've ever played.

Overall I give the game an 8/10. If the developers did another game just like it but got the graphics up to at least the level of Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 (old tech) and fixed the bugs I'd give it a 9. On top of that if they greatly improved the writing (focusing on the main story) and upgraded the soundtrack from "kinda good" to "excellent" then I'd give it a 10. Anything extra such as full voice acting would just be icing on the cake.

If you've played the previous Resident Evil games and add the inclusion of behind the shoulder view you know what to expect (I'm playing RE4 in 2020 for the first time ever). First off you change the brightness settings to maximum (which is really a color-intensity setting) and then apply the fan-made enhanced textures from re4hd.com
Early on the game doesn't look very impressive but once you get inside the church by the graveyard you'll see what this game is capable of graphically, especially if you're playing at 4K resolution.

I played the game on medium difficulty but I think I would have enjoyed myself more on easy - there were some parts where I died repeatedly and doing them over felt like a chore (I think the main campaign took me 32 hours with 73 total deaths). Quick Time Events (QTE) are also very unforgiving with a very small time window - I'm fine with QTEs in general but they need work here.

Also don't skip out on these unlockables after the main campaign: Separate Ways & Assignment Ada. The final boss of Assignment Ada is very hard and the narrow arena is unforgiving. TIP: I aimed the rifle at distance, waiting for him to stop after 3 slides in the player's direction, and shot the rifle in the brief window when he's vulnerable after the third slide and then shot him with the machine gun.

I dip in and out of gaming (I'm playing this 2013 release for the first time in 2020) but I would consider this one of the best games of all time - a landmark title along the likes of Street Fighter 2 and Deus Ex. Where the game really excels is cinematography - there are times where you really do feel like you're playing an artistically crafted action movie (the radio tower scene is one example) and it is obvious the game makers deliberately hired staff skilled in this area. Tomb Raider really raised the bar to show you the potential of what is possible in video game cinematography.

The gameplay is excellent as well. Playing on medium difficulty I can tell you the shooting can get pretty intense. For the platforming, there were plenty of times where my heart skipped a beat while I was attempting a jump I wasn't sure if I could make. Puzzles where challenging but fair - I did not once have to look at at an online guide to figure out what I was supposed to do or where I was supposed to go which is how it should be. There was one puzzle I couldn't get but it was an optional tomb so I just decided to skip it. I finished the game in 21 hours at 75% completion rate without intentionally backtracking or going out of my way to search for optional items/areas - I consider this a tight experience that respects the player's time.

If I had one complaint it would be the Quick Time Events (QTE). I have no problem with QTE in general and in fact they greatly enhanced Tomb Raider. However some of the QTE require you to press one of the buttons - it's obvious that one of them needs to be pressed but often you won't know which until after you die. The wolf den is one example for me - I died too many times before getting it right.

Finally while I'm sure a keyboard and mouse would be adequate I recommend using a gamepad. The rumble effects enhance the experience as does the analog movement. Aiming with the analog stick did not cause me any problems.

Including the main campaign, all DLC, and a small amount of Breach I put over 100 hours into Mankind Divided which makes it my most played Steam game. The stealth gameplay, aug customization, ambient music (I own the double CD album), weapons & shooting you have come to expect from the Deus Ex series are all there. The graphics & design are solid and Prague is very impressive. So yes given all this and being my most played Steam game I can overwhelmingly recommend this game. I would like to bring up some criticisms though:
1) The story is not fleshed out and the ending is very abrupt. Watching a brief news report on Jensen's TV to wrap things up was not satisfying. After that I did not attempt the conditions to view the alternate endings which I did for the previous game
2) The focus on Prague came at the cost of variety. Think about the original Deus Ex that had a verity of locations such as Area 51, an underwater lab, New York City, Hong Kong, and others. Or think about the sharply varying locals of the Mass Effect series. Mankind Divided just doesn't compare.
3) A minor complaint but when buying things from the vendors (like the sofwtare guy or the weapons guy in Jensen's apartment complex) often times would speak to you as if you're meeting them for the first time
4) The game doesn't always do a very good job at guiding you the the target location you set on the map which results in frustration and wasted time, especially if it is located on a different level than the one you're currently as being on the Prague streets when target is underground
5) Lack of boss fights is not good - only 1 boss (final). Human Revolution had 3 main bosses
6) The hacking interface has too much clutter and needs streamlining/cleanup. By default a node is already selected and the options like fortify or nuke are displayed which obscures the map.

Regarding the DLC, it's all solid but in particular I recommend A Criminal Past. I've never played a prison based game and this scenario is unique in that at the beginning of the game you are totally stripped of possessions and abilities so you have to be very resourceful. In the main campaign I frequently relied on invisibility but that wasn't an option here (at least when you start out).

Finally, let me touch on the optional Breach mode which is also a standalone free-to-play game. I like the idea of an arcade mode and I wanted to like this mode but the aspect I really disliked was reaching the exit point. I found it very confusing (being on a time limit increased my frustration) and had a lot of trouble finding my way out.

BONUS TOPIC: Instead of keyboard + mouse consider playing this game with a flight stick for movement and button pressing and a mouse for look/aim and button pressing. In my case I use a Cyborg F.L.Y. 9 Wireless stick (XBOX 360 connected to official Xbox 360 wireless receiver). If you decide to use the same stick you use the Mode 2 switch and make sure the lever in the back is centered (if Mode 1 the left trigger will be halfway pressed down because it's mapped to the stick itself which is centered ("halfway pressed down") by default. There are supposedly workarounds like Xinput Plus or Joy2Key. I could fix the issue within Xinput Plus but not when I tried to apply the fix to the game. I mention this b/c I went through a lot of headache before fixing this issue by using Mode 2 + centering the rear lever so maybe this will be of help to anyone who does a google search for this issue

I remember seeing coverage in gaming magazines of Toki for the Atari Lynx and Sega Genesis back in the day but had never played any version of the game up until now. The hand drawn style graphics and design are wonderful and the character animation is cute and funny. The music is really good (there is a Jukebox sound test in the game menu) and sound effects are also well done.

As for the gameplay from the start I played the game with an Xbox 360 controller on easy difficulty and maxed out the lives to 9. For most people that's the best choice because it is a difficult game. Actually the first level is fairly hard, the stages that contain water segments (2 & 4) are fairly moderate, and stage 3 is moderate/medium. The final level throws a curve ball when you get to the cart section because you have to deal with something you haven't had to up until now: momentum (when jumping forward off the cart it factors how far you will go and also makes you slide a bit on the landing). I died a lot of times on the final boss and would consider him tough but fair.

On easy I beat the game between 3 and 3.5 hours (it's good to have short games too - just prior to Toki I put over 100 hours into Deus Ex Mankind Divided w/ DLC). Some reviews were complaining about being unable to save. I can see their point but seeing as how I got to the ending in less than 4 hours and that each level is maybe 5 minutes long I wouldn't worry too much about that. Another complaint is that 1 hit kills you. Again I understand the point but it works in favor of the game too - the high stakes make the game exciting (yes my heartbeat did go up in several segments).

Bottom line: great graphics + sound, exciting & challenging gameplay. 8/10

Graphics and sound were good enough and it seemed to run fine on Windows 10. Had to play at 1080p - performance at 4k resolution on my i7-4790 with GTX 750TI was too poor. But there were 2 main problems for me:

1) Awkard gameplay. I get it - blast the ghost with proton pack, smash them around with right click, lure into trap. Blasting them is a little tough (I turned off aim assist in the options though) as the ghosts are pretty fast and always zipping around to different areas and often on the small side. I can deal with that. Slamming them by pulling to opposite direction and right click always felt like I was fumbling through it. Laying the traps and luring into the traps also was not a smooth process - I often lost track of where I laid a trap, and luring them in also felt like I was fumbling about. Also I didn't care for the applying of goggles and scan aspect of the gameplay

2) Too hard, too soon. Less than 2 hours into the game I got to just after defeating the first gargoyle around the Marshmellow Man, and then all of a sudden there's three ghosts always throwing stuff all over the place and attack dogs that you can't see unti l they're on top of you come out of nowhere. Your teammates go down fast and you try to rescue them and soon you're dead. I was playing on medium difficulty. As far as I can tell, you can't switch difficulties without restarting from the beginning, but I had no desire to and made the decision to uninstall and move onto something else, of which there is plenty to choose from.

I played another movie based buddy shooter just prior to Ghostbusters which was Star Trek The Video Game. I liked that well enough and beat the game within 12-15 hours - you might try that instead but it's no longer for sale on the Stream store

Solid game, not worthy of all the bashing reviews it received. Actually the game reminded me quite a bit of the Half Life series: 1) first person shooter 2) aliens come through portal to invade Earth 3) lots of non-shooting portions with puzzles 4) platforming 5) driving sequences 6) some similar levels like the factory

SOUNDTRACK
One advantage it has over Half Life is that it actually has a soundtrack (and a pretty good one) during gameplay. The trend of games without music needs to stop - other big names are also guilty of this such as the Bioshock series. Also the music is in MP3 format in a folder in the game directory if you'd like to copy it onto your computer before uninstalling the game. Most games hide the music and make you use 3rd party tools can be hard to find and/or difficult to use, so this was a nice bonus.

GRAPHICS
They're decent but even on my very powerful i7 4790 with GTX 750 TI, there were framerate and performance issues for 10 to 15 seconds when starting or restarting a level, and then the problems resolved automatically. On this system I was hoping to play at 3840 x 2160 resolution but performance was too poor.

GAMEPLAY
Boss fights were the best part of the game - challenging but fair and well designed. For the non-shooting segments, which are fairly plentiful, sometimes I wished the game would just move on (mostly during the first half of the game). But I solved everything myself without any help. If you want an all action game all the time game, you should look into the Serious Sam series. But even the original Duke 3D was not all action. Also, the underwater levels were not my favorites. Finally, the game gives you the option of carrying 4 guns (I believe default is 2) - take advantage.

I have mixed feeling about Shadowgate. I'm satisfied witht the graphics and audio and gameplay was good up til (for me) about 4 hours into the game playing on normal (not classic). To that point I had played withtout the need for looking anything up on the internet and solving everything myself (maybe using the hint system a couple times to move things along). I had figured the developers had learned their lesson about annoying garbage that plagued adventure games of the past. Then I encountered this game's Achilles heal: you get to a puzzle and can't proceed because you missed something you never even knew existed, don't know exactly what it is or where it is, and the only choice is having to go through every room in the game again until you hopefully find it. Very minor spoiler here of where this started for me: there's a crystal puzzle in this game and after solving it you're supposed to cast a spell on it to activate a bridge. Problem was, I never encountered this particular spell. It would be somewhat tolerable though annoying to then look at an online guide, though most guides out there seem be written for classic mode. And since the game isn't so linear, you'll have to read through those guides pretty well before noticing the solution. That wasn't the only time something like this happened (another instance for example is the rune puzzle) and when the annoyances started piling up I found myself mostly just sticking to the guides to speed things up and get it over with. So that's when the game starts feeling more like work than play. So bottom line is that although I enjoyed it at first, I felt barely compelled to complete Shadowgate and ultimately can't recommend it. That being said, I got it as part of a bundle and more than got my money's worth and will be be paying the $2.99 summer sale special edition upgrade price so I can get the soundtrack.