Recent reviews by Tiwill

Rabbit & Steel is a perfect example that sometimes, less is more. The game has very simple visuals and straightforward gameplay with no filler; you are immediately thrown into the action after forming a party, with small moments of respite between fights. It has extremely catchy music, carrying its atmosphere and making each stage very memorable. You will easily enter a flow state while playing this game - it reminds me a bit of Osu in that regard.

This game was made out of genuine necessity, as there is nothing quite like it out there. The developer took the most fun parts of MMO raiding and deleted the rest; keeping only the essence and making it so that you don't have to waste hundreds of hours of your life just to access the fun parts of the game. Obviously, it's not meant to be a one-to-one replacement, but this was the core idea and vision behind the game.

To make the game easy to jump into, it was also made into a roguelike - meaning everyone starts even when a new run begins. There is still progression in the form of unlocking new rabbits to play as, cosmetic trinkets, as well as unlocking loot that simply gets added to the pool of random loot you may get during a run, but the main draw of the game is that it's fun to play out of the gate and always will be.

One thing that should be noted is that the game is balanced with 4 players in mind. It's still doable if one person drops out mid-game, but if you try to start a co-op run as a team of only 2 rabbits, you'll likely find that the game is too hard. There is a "Cute" difficulty option, but that one is so easy it's more of a training mode. This is important to note, because if you intend to play this game only as a 2-player game, you'll find that there isn't really a difficulty to play on that will be fun for you. Thankfully, lobbies fill out very quickly, and you won't encounter any elitism when playing on Normal, so don't be afraid to play in a full lobby. People are just doing their best and having fun.

Some scattered thoughts:
- There is no healer class by design, though you can still build yourself as a support class if you find items that trigger a buff or a post-battle heal on all allies. Also, some classes like the dancer or the druid have a Defensive ability that applies a buff to allies.

- Sometimes, an ally dying can cause problems, as mechanics like "Spread Out" will still go off from their corpse and you might be stuck eating damage if it happens while your range of movement is being restricted by another mechanic. There are a couple of bosses where this can happen, and it can feel pretty cheap.
I had some ideas to fix that, such as:
* being able to pick up and throw ally corpses out of the way
* being able to speed up an ally's revival timer by standing next to their corpse
* being able to slowly crawl away yourself while downed
But I imagine the developer is aware of this, and these mechanics are not in the game by design, which I can respect.

- The learning curve for completely new players who never played anything like this before might feel a bit steep. But on the Community hub, there is a guide called "Overview & Mechanic Guide" made by Terb, that should help you if you're having trouble processing what's happening. The gameplay isn't very complex once you get accustomed to the mechanics. As for visibility, there are settings to make the background pitch black during battle and the danger zones brighter.

Anyway, this game is a lot of fun and you should play it. Become bnuuy.

Gameplay and Presentation ~ Very Positive
+ Very strong abandoned theme park atmosphere that evokes childhood nostalgia.
+ Great horror sound design inspired by the greats. The music is also nice.
+ An overall "analogue" aesthetic that helps ground the game in its intended era (1990).

+ Graphics inspired by the pre-rendered backgrounds of yore, but executed in real-time 3D, with full horizontal camera rotation. This leads to a perspective and style of aiming that hasn't really been done before, and it is well done.

~ The decision to use rounded designs and chibi proportions in a survival horror game does make the game feel a bit harmless at times due to shape language. Objects with sharp, ragged edges tend to be a lot more terrifying than soft, rounded things. But I also love how the game looks. It suits the theme park vibe; it's not supposed to be a terrifying place by itself, rather it is spooky because of the events that caused it to become abandoned and crawling with monsters. That juxtaposition is in itself unsettling and I imagine was part of the intent. The monsters are also still freaky enough to feel threatening, thanks to their erratic animations and bloody appearance. So it's still a spooky game, but don't go in expecting Silent Hill levels of fear and mastery over psychological horror.

+ Good control options. Can use either tank controls (harder) or modern controls (easier). The path of least resistance felt better for this game, but it also made the game quite easy, so I may do a second playthrough using only the tank controls. Also, you can disable the HUD elements entirely and the game remains 100% playable that way.

+ Hint system implemented in the form of a fortune-telling machine you can physically interact with, which doesn't hurt immersion. You get 10 uses, which should be more than enough for anyone to finish the game without ever needing to open up a walkthrough.

+ Intuitive map system that helps you remember where things are, without obnoxiously telling you where to go.

+ Effective "jump scares" (not the bad kind, trust me they are not cheap, annoying or overused at all).

- The regular notes could have used more styling. It didn't feel like I was reading a sheet of paper I just found, it felt more like reading a video game text box pop-up with a transparent background.

Story ~ Mostly Positive
Fairly enjoyable dialogue for the most part, but I felt that there was too much of it for how simple the story is. There are also too many notes and tutorial notes scattered everywhere, diminishing the feeling of isolation and horror a bit. Some of the notes may have made some of the puzzles too easy, sometimes outright giving you the solution to a later puzzle, (shark shark shark shark dolphin), but overall, it's not a big deal.

The story could have had more subtlety or mystery, letting us piece things together ourselves, or it could have used symbolism for more mature themes. Instead, what you see is what you get: you know exactly what's going on at all times. However, I can appreciate that the game doesn't bite off more than it can chew, as it could have felt pretentious if executed poorly. Instead, the story feels somewhat cute and nostalgic; it's like the story an imaginative innocent child growing up in the 90s could have genuinely come up with after having visited a theme park, but told in game form by a talented team.

While it results in a story that isn't super deep or interesting, it was still enjoyable to experience because of the great art direction. There's nothing wrong with having a story that anyone can understand, and I think this game would make a great introduction to the survival horror genre for kids, even if those who grew up in the 90s and early 2000s will also find a lot to love here, and are likely the main target audience.

Closing thoughts ~ Very positive
Overall, this game is an easy recommendation. If like me, this game's visual style caught your attention at first glance, then you will most likely enjoy it. I hope the devs continue to make games in the future, as there was a clear vision and passion put into this game, and I appreciate that a lot.

This game slaps dude, I had a blast from start to finish. Played it to completion twice in a row, just like Curse of the Moon. Absolute fire soundtrack, great aesthetic, nods to the classics, and so on. No complaints from me. In fact, the gameplay feels very close to perfection. Slap some CRT shader on that baby and you've got yourself a mastapiece. :)

Side note, you may find the final boss to be a difficulty spike. Trust me, it's not as bad as it seems once you have his patterns figured out. But you will die several times, simply because there's not much room for error on this fight. Mess up 4 times and you're dead, which will feel crushing, because you won't have had time to learn much from that life. Most other bosses in the game let you take 7 hits and live, so you'll be used to having more room for error. But keep trying, focus on pure evasion until you understand each move, and the rest will come to you naturally. Then do that again for phase 2.

Most of the other bosses are super honest, and you can beat them on your first try, which I enjoyed a lot. But it's completely fine to have just a bit of intentional trial and error sprinkled into a short game like this. Especially for the final boss. It makes you feel like you've truly mastered the fight, and your win was not a fluke.

Minor nitpicks that are not worth mentioning at all, but will make this review seem more thorough:

1. I skipped all the slot machines, as they seemed pretty pointless. They don't detract from the game; I'm just not sure why they were put in the game. Maybe it should've been a cut feature.
   
2. Some people might feel that there are too many wall-climbing sections. They're probably not wrong, but I didn't mind them personally. I think it's because if this were a lesser game, the climbing would feel finicky or you wouldn't be able to attack while climbing. But here, the climbing works even better than it did in Super Mario World, since you can attack and throw projectiles while hanging onto a wall. Being able to jump off and re-climb higher is also good. Wait, I thought this was the nitpick section, and here I am still praising the game! I guess it's time for the next section.

Noteworthy Neat Things Section™

1. The little shops acting as optional resting spots are super cool. You can skip them if you want the game to be harder, or use them if you want your health refilled, or if you want to swap to a different projectile for the next section, etc.
   
2. I enjoyed the feeling of getting something new after each boss. It's a great balance because the stuff you get doesn't radically change how the game feels to play, which lets the game be fun from the very first level.
   
3. Kinda a spoiler? It's in the launch trailer, but I hadn't watched it before playing, so it was a pleasant surprise to me. The second playthrough was a ton of fun. I didn't expect a whole new character to play as. It makes the game feel fresh and familiar at the same time, which is perfect for a victory lap.
   
4. Relatively generous checkpoints that aren't obtuse (every screen transition is a checkpoint), so you'll never feel like the game is wasting your time with artificial punishment. If you die at a boss, you try the boss again, simple as that. No having to redo the entire level just to attempt the boss again.

If this didn't convince you... try the demo!

Oof. This game feel just ain't it. Super slow and floaty compared to previous Momodora games or any fun platformer. The camera is also way zoomed out, perhaps due to the 16:9 aspect ratio, but that's no excuse. And the music was putting me to sleep. Usually, you wanna make sure the basic controls feel fun and tight in a metroidvania, and then add some wild movement abilities to unlock on top of that. In the trailer, you can see Momo sprint and double jump, but I think even if I got to that point in the game, the low gravity would still result in terrible game feel. For me, it's a massive red flag when I launch a platformer for the first time and immediately resent the movement. Who knows, maybe I wouldn't have fallen in love with video games as a kid if Mario 64 had featured slow floaty movement. This is important stuff.

There was some sort of home town with far too many NPCs and their usual pointless chatter, which you know I can't stand in a platformer. You can plant stuff there and wait 10 real-life minutes for it to grow. I wish I was making this up. I didn't stick around to find out what happens after 10 minutes, but I'm willing to bet the next plant would have cost more money and have taken exponentially longer to grow. I guess wait timers are the pinnacle of game design. Just not a very positive first impression.

Then, y'know, you start the actual game, and you notice they keep spamming the same "mini-thwomp" enemies, along with some big thwomps. It was some pretty uninspired enemy design. Like the enemies looked and felt generic. I remember in Reverie, the grenade throwers were cute female enemies. Well, here they were replaced with annoying little one-eyed buggers, even though mechanically, they were the same enemy. How to make your sequel feel like a direct downgrade. I mean, at least deliver on the main appeal the series is known for. Again, poor first impression.

The first boss kinda made me feel empty inside. The sound design and music were very boring, there was no build-up, no stakes, no tension & release. The fight went like this: I took a hit from the big projectile attack cause I wasn't expecting it, then I tried jumping over it since y'know, it's a 2D platformer, but you can't jump high enough to avoid the attack. That's when I realized the only thing to do was dodge left and right and mash attack, which is a pretty boring thing to do in a 2D platformer. You're not taking advantage of your genre's strengths here. So anyway, I obeyed until the boss died. But instead of perishing, the boss decided to smash the floor and we both fell. After that, a cutscene teleported me back to town. I think the boss escaped, but narratively, I don't get what was the point of this. It wasn't some cool character that I'm gonna look forward to fighting again later or something. It was just some generic monster. What emotion were they trying to make me feel here? It's like the game just does random things for no reason.

The next part hidden by the spoiler tag is a funny goof on my part. Feel free to read it for chuckles but it's not a valid complaint. It turns out, you have to attack the checkpoints in order to activate them. But you can also interact with them for a buff which costs money. Somehow, I thought this meant you had to pay to use the save point. The interact prompt is a little misleading, but that's mostly my own fault for misunderstanding it.

Also, you have to pay every time you want to use a checkpoint, like some kind of bonfire tax. From what I could tell, you don't lose your money or any game progress when you die, but if you die without having used a checkpoint, you get sent back all the way to town. In theory, it sounds like a less punishing Souls death mechanic, but in practice, it just feels bad because you get fined just for wanting to save your progress. I didn't even do anything wrong yet, officer! So you end up skipping checkpoints to save money. Look, we already do enough of that in real life, skipping meals to combat inflation (I wish I was joking). I mean, what happens if the game gets harder and the player runs out of money to pay for checkpoints? Would they have to grind mobs just to get a chance to not have to do a ton of backtracking every time they die? It's like, you have the player waste their time in order to not waste their time later. They still wasted their time. I can't help but feel like this is the worst of both worlds. In Hollow Knight, game progress is retained on death, but your money gets dropped where you died, creating risk and tension. In Castlevania, you lose all unsaved game progress upon death, so finding a save point gives you a massive feeling of relief. But in this game, I just dread checkpoints because they want my money.

I don't know. Maybe this is a lot of thought for like 30 minutes of gameplay, but it's true what they say: if the player isn't hooked within 30 minutes, you've failed somewhere.

There was an attempt to make a fun game here. Oh, nothing compared to the TimeSplitters or Team Fortress 2s of yore, but there was an attempt nonetheless. Unfortunately, people don't play video games to have fun anymore, so this genre is impossible for me to recommend. Proceed with caution, as meta slaves and Twitch gamers desperate for attention await in ambush.

Maybe giving a class wallhacks on command, and another class the ability to turn invisible and one-tap you with a shotgun was not the brightest idea.

Maybe FOMO-reliant battle passes and daily challenges forcing you to win and complete chores in order to see any meaningful progress is not conducive to fun.

If you see me still playing this game, it's because all the other Alive Games™ in this genre are either worse, or completely busted. Just playing this until the next modern trash fire to "skill-based matchmake" into and have fun for 10 hours, then pretend to have fun for 40 more and then quit. You know how it is.

peak '90s / early 2000s aesthetics, if you know you know. thanks for the vidya

FPS of the year for sure. Try the demo, the game speaks for itself!

Requires a phone number tied to your Steam account. In other words, a monthly subscription fee just to play Call of Duty.

You need to put this information as a notice ABOVE the price of the game, like Final Fantasy XIV Online does. It should say "User registration and service subscription are required to play the game." Putting this information all the way at the bottom in small print is one of the scummiest things I've ever seen on Steam.

Cons:
- Too easy.
- No timed hits.
Mixed:
- Far more political than the demo let on. This aspect of the writing is uneven. At times, the dialect chosen is so modern that it becomes impossible to suspend your disbelief. Other times, it cleverly recontextualizes real life societal issues around mice without it feeling forced.
Pros:
- Banger music.
- Engaging "hero's journey" type story.
- Compelling protagonist.
- Character growth.
- Creative setting. Simple and grounded.
- Great sense of humor.
- Soul.
- Feels like a small, concise anime.
- Exploring every nook and cranny is rewarding.
- Can be comfortably finished in two sittings.
- Knows when to end, just like this review.

I received this game for free as a random key from Fanatical upon buying another game.
Devil Daggers is kinda like the Tetris of the FPS genre. No levels, you just hit go and try to beat your past record. It appears to have carved its own niche in a saturated market by going this unique route. In my opinion, the game could have used some tunes, as even Tetris has that iconic music that keeps you in the zone as you chase those high scores. To be honest, there wasn't much for me in Devil Daggers. I enjoyed the aesthetic, but I'm not even good enough to see all the enemy types before I die. I prefer the game called Dusk, which has a similar aesthetic but with full levels, health and music. However, adding those elements to this game would simply turn it into another Dusk. I suppose what I'm trying to say is, this simple game succeeds at what it set out to do, but it's not for me.