Recent reviews by Crystal

Stardew Valley is a live legend. The amount of love and attention that was put into it is immeasurable. One-man project which ended up being a huge success story. Very much recommended to anyone! Even if you think it might not be your thing — most likely it will be.

This is a nice, heavily based on Scandinavian mythology horror game, which is mostly a walking simulator gameplay-wise.

It has some moments where it really shines, but it's really rough at the corners. Facial animations are very bad, but I understand that it's a small indie project. Same if not worth problem is with water and lightning in particular scenes. Voice acting in English is horrible, so I really recommend switching language to the original one - Norwegian, while leaving subtitles in the language you need. Sound in general is perfect and it all gets very immersive as long as it's not broken by the issues I've described above.

Overall, it's a good story, especially if you are interested in Nordic folklore, but don't expect too much gameplay and be ready for graphical issues every now and then. Recommended under big discount or when part of a bundle.

Amazing mechanics flawlessly wrapped into neat game

The fact that I obtained all achievements and accumulated over 50 hours in just one week must say at least something about the quality of the game. It's a great and unique (at the moment) mix of rogue-lite, tower-defense, card game, D&D and Carcassone. Furthermore, it has amazing pixel-art (look at the characters and cut scenes specifically, because map tiles are very minimalistic) and very enjoyable chip-tune music which I never got tired of. Even the plot and lore are fun and well-thought. Main characters are very distinguishable and memorable despite the simplicity of writing at times. That simplicity adds a charm to the game and makes the player not to take events too seriously. There are many other tiny-details done great even in secondary dialogues, items and enemies descriptions, and other minor nuances. Grind doesn't become noticeable most of the game. Some game mechanics could have been explained better inside of the game, but it likely will be improved with future updates. The only real (possible) problem with the game that I can see is it being too addictive and sucking away all your free (and not only free) time.

It's a real pleasure to see such a fresh mix of ideas being implemented into a perfect gaming loop. Very highly recommended!

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW

Since quite a lot has been already said about Firewatch beforehand, I'll try to focus here on key aspects I wanted to know before playing.

First and most importantly - don't expect too much from it. Expect a usual good atmospheric walking simulator. A lot of people tend to praise this game as one of the best experiences and stories. I strongly disagree with that, mostly due to the poor and unsatisfying ending.

Nevertheless, the writing in the game is beautiful. It definitely compliments the overall atmosphere of summer spent in nature. Visuals, music and sound design all are great and well-done.

There are some minor technical issues, but nothing game-breaking from my experience. You can find several levitating trees occasionally (if you delve too deep into the forest) and sometimes continuity issues emerge (for example, you've cleaned some garbage one day, you return next day and it's there again, at the very same place), but these are all minor and understandable for indie game with a small budget.

To sum up, Firewatch is the good experience with pretty visuals and stunning atmosphere, but it's not excellent unfortunately. Unless you want to get disappointed, please, do not come with expectations of Game Of The Year/Best Story/You Will Cry In The End type of the game like I did. Having that in mind I definitely recommend playing Firewatch. It has some moments where it truly shines.

Remember the days, when Klei were saying that Don't Starve will be singleplayer-only and networking is too difficult to implement? Good times.

I am really happy that the game is still as fresh and fun (if not more) as it was many many years ago, as alive as ever.

To make it short: just get it if you're at least slightly interested in this type of game and/or like the artstyle. The difficulty can be tweaked easily in-game (plus mods, mods, millions of mods). Other than that networking is much better than it used to be, if you remember reading anything about it in the past. And the game has tons of content, variability and mystery which will easily give you hundreds of hours of not starving (or at the very least you trying not to). Absolutely recommended!

P.S. Needless to say, it gets "Labor of Love" nomination from me <3

Originally posted by author:

Notice: At the request of the publisher, Rocket League® is unlisted on the Steam store and will not appear in search.

What else should I add? It was a fun game, I enjoyed playing it from time to time. Then after a long hiatus I come back to casually play it for a few rounds and suddenly I have to login into another service or create account there. Without even an option of closing the game properly... And then come to steam store page to see that notice... It's a shame.

To start, I was not really familiar with Homestuck universe before playing several volumes of Hiveswamp.

That being said, I think this volume is quite good when compared to the volume 1 which I liked too. The reason I jumped right to this volume and one of the reasons I got the game in particular is actually the music. The entire OST is great, but I discovered it by one track from this volume made in collaboration with Toby Fox (Undertale). After that I got curious to see the story behind. Won't spoil it for you, you can experience the clown-fest for yourself :)

The writing is great along all volumes I've read, many references are present, world-building made me want to read the original web-comic. Definitely recommended if you are interested in the series. And check the soundtrack!

Very likely the most emotional game I've ever experienced.

I will start my review from some negative sides, since it seems to be less talked around. Game is a mess from technical point of view. Maybe for people playing similar JRPGs it won't be a surprise, but expect very low base resolution (something like 640x480). Streaming the game can be very challenging in setup too. Controls can be a bit clumsy.

That being said, game has great pixel art. But this is not its main strong side - it has astonishingly well-written dialogues and plot. The story is just amazing, key parts are made precisely how they should be and it all perfectly fits together multiplying the effect of the already touching tale. Some parts are just a pleasure to read. All of these negates any negative sides of the game. In overall, I did not expect it to have such an effect on me, especially that I was irritated at first by the game's technical side. Very quickly I was all in. Amount of emotions it gives over its 5 hours length is definitely the highest that I ever had in any game.

You will cry or will end up being close to crying during To The Moon. Highly recommended.

Pretty game with intriguing plot and lost potential.

First and most important thing about Pinstripe is its artstyle, which in my opinion is great. It is also worth to note from the very start that the game was created by only one person (except for voice acting, which is very well done), so it was in development for 5 years. I discvoered it after finishing the game actually, and it improved my overall opinion about the game. For one man job it's great result. It has good responsive controls, so platforming (while not complicated, nor numerous) works very well. The plot is good (not to make spoilers) and music is pleasant, even beautiful at times.

With that I come to negative sides of Pinstripe sadly. It feels to be too small (2-4 hours to finish) with a need of revisiting same locations several times. It is a minor problem, but creates a feeling of emptiness, some parts of the game can become boring and irritating (even with such a short duration) due to gameplay simplicity. Puzzles are generally good, but some seem to be too artificial. Achievements still don't work properly as of the date of this review. And all of above are not major issues by themselves... Main issue is the game looking so nice and likable that you want it to be new Limbo or something alike, yet it fails to deliver the same level of quality in gameplay and story. It feels like so many parts of the game could use additional meanings, references, ideas, but instead you often just read some fun dialogue and proceed to new puzzle/area. It is still good, there are a few strong moments in the story, just it feels that it could be so much better...

I definitely recommend this game despite the flaws I described above, but I don't think that it is anywhere close to those 5/5 from Time advertized on the preview. It is good mostly by its look sadly.

It's a nice little platformer, but sadly it felt like an average game to me. I mean, it works, it doesn't crash, it has unconventional story, it has smooth controls. But it's missing the feature which could make it a gem or excellent game. The camera could be a bit smoother, the speed of game could be a bit slower (though you quickly get used to it). Some sounds are funny and most of them feel appropriate. Music is ok. At the moment of writing this review, I didn't finish the whole game yet (stopped just at the end of world 4, world 5 is the last one). I might update this review after I finish the game, but I doubt it will change much.

Some suggestions: I would add world selection with cumulative coins numbers (so that the coins you've already collected doesn't appear and you need to find only the missing ones) instead of how it is implemented now, where you need to restart the whole game if you missed just 1 coin in let's say world 5. But that's a minor detail.
It would be also nice if the rock falling down could collide with enemies (so that you could kill enemy indirectly) - it's a very tiny detail, which most players might not even notice during their play-through, but it would feel great when you see that happening for yourself. More interaction with environment would help the game in general.

A few words about developer: The developer is active on SteamGifts forums and is a very nice person in overall. Of course, it doesn't influence the current state of the game directly, but he's listening to what players think about the game and even made a small competition-event based on the game with some huge prizes for participants. At the moment the new one is going on, so you might consider participating if you get the game: https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/Xcy2g/summer-goblin-and-coins-marathon

Last words: It's a pure platforming game which doesn't bring many new or interesting ideas, but it does its platforming part pretty well and gives some funny moments as a bonus. Be ready that the game is on a hard side of difficulty. For the low price it has: it's totally worth it if you enjoy platformers.