Recent reviews by [SFEA] Eliytres

This game is for (and possibly by, though that's speculation on my end) people who get thrown out of D&D groups for min-maxing every aspect of their character to the detriment of creativity. If that is you, you will likely enjoy this. If this isn't you, find a better representation of CRPGs to play instead.

Edited at a later date: I decided to give it one more chance, and a bug softlocked my save. This is an Early Access product at a full game's price.

Do you like to hover in space while trying to pinpoint tiny dots on your screen, or be forced to carry a specific weapon for the express purpose of clearing out minefields? Because that's what you'll get in Everspace 2: Minesweeper edition.

At some point someone on the design team said "this is the appropriate amount of mines" and nobody corrected them, this game obviously had a very troubled development, as evident by this.

A fun wave-/hero defence game with roguelite progression elements that sort of came at me out of left field. Has surprising mechanical depth and a fantastic pixel presentation.

Also has a fantastic soundtrack if you like dark/moody fantasy music with some heavy metal throwns in for good measure.

Having beaten the game once, I am split on it. Mostly because of the uneven difficulty and frustrating gameplay loop. The platforming and battle system is tight and rewards patience and skill, but if you want a true roguelike experience I think you will be disappointed. Ultimately, at the 22€ price point, I would recommend it, but I think it could be improved in many regards.

I like difficult games, I like the challenge, but I also like to have control over it. The nature of the roguelike genre usually means that you get to pick your starting position and then take random paths through both the world and character progression. However, RL2 flips that over and gives you the random bit first by giving you an arbitrary selection of classes and personal flaws. This is the main gimmick of the game, but I feel like it doesn't capitalize on the potential of "legacy." Legacy in this case is limited to what you have unlocked, whereas a more interesting implementation would be to have your heirs (the characer you select at the start of each run) be influenced by your previous character selection. This would let you shape your legacy in the long term, rather than having to pick some inbred abomination and retire it immediately to get a new selection of offspring.

The way most runs turn out now is
- Pick a class that you are comfortable with/find fun to play and doesn't have too severe drawbacks.
- Go around the castle, gather gold and materials, find some relics that usually doesn't do much except add some damage, reduce the damage you take, give you more HP/MP or similar. So far I haven't found any real gamechangers, and the drawback for grabbing more than 2-3 relics is so severe that even if you find interesting ones you are disincentivized from experimenting because:

Enemies and environmental traps do so much damage. Or do they? Here's another crux of the system. Am I bad? Am I underleveled? Is my castle just not upgraded enough? Is the boss supposed to kill me in 4 hits? It's hard to gauge where you are in the progression and if you're keeping up with the enemies. If you feel like you're undergeared and need to get more upgrades you can always go back and farm, but the farming is not particularly exciting and the amount of money you can make is to some degree affected by the character you pick, potentially forcing you to play classes that you don't like to make meaningful
progress. Or making you retire characters right away, which is not particularly exciting.

- Get to the boss and beat it, or die somewhere along the way and start over. Maybe with enough gold to give you a small incremental upgrade for the next character.

My wish would be a more traditional roguelike experience.
- Let me pick a character with a minor drawback/quirk and select a class, maybe with some restrictions but I shouldn't have to reroll 3 times to find a barbarian or whatever other class I want.
- Make relics more fun and impactful and in return, give them some of the shortcomings that character traits currently give. Let me customize the character as I play rather than forcing it into a certain playstyle from the start.

I guess this would go against the base idea of the game, but right now it is periodically very frustrating to play, and I think changing some things up would go a long way towards making runs feel unique and giving the play agency to shape their character.

The NG+ system is very fun though, and it does feel like there is a lot of depth beyond NG.

the best €2,40 you'll ever spend

I'm at the very end of the game. The prospect of maybe having to fight another Marauder before the end is making me not want to play anymore.

That's the short of it. The long of it is that this single enemy, that you first meet about halfway through the game, completely ruins every encounter he shows up in. Whenever he is on the battlefield you have to constantly be aware of where he is and what he is doing, and you cannot take him out unless you give him 100% of your attention, meaning you have to take him out last save for fodder. Additionally, actually killing him is a chore, where you have to wait and strike when he decides you're allowed to. In a Doom game.

The rest of the game is very good. It isn't perfect, certainly not as good as 2016, but most of the other shortcomings can be tolerated or dealt with. But the Marauder single-handedly ruined my experience and I can't fathom what committee decided it was fine to ship the game with it.

My Time at Portia is an interesting take on the Harvest Moon genre. It follows the classic formula pretty closely, but has a much bigger focus on gathering and crafting items and wares rather than farming. The gameplay loop is simple: Wake up, check your mail and crafting stations, go into town and pick up/hand in commissions and then decide if you want to spend the day gathering or crafting or socializing with the townfolks. It does a good job scratching the Harvest Moon/Stardew Valley itch, but it's not a perfect game.

+ Extensive, open and almost seamless game world that feels alive.
+ Fairly varied gameplay from (in-game) day to day. As long as you don't want to min-max your progression there is no real harm in just trying something new sometimes with no rush.
+ Lots of stuff to craft and make.
+ Lots of different townfolks.
+ A pretty interesting and original setting. Nothing revolutionary but still more interesting than "farm on the outskirts of a generic village."
+ New take on gathering with infinite resources and relic diving. Gets kind of old if you do it too much but is rewarding enough that it doesn't waste your time.
+ Good transition of the formula to 3D.
+ Unique and charming art style.

- Unique art style. It's rather extreme in its uniqueness and might not be for everyone.
- Timesinks. Waiting for items to finish just so you can use them to craft other items or put them in another timesink is not fun and forces you to produce on a large scale if you want to make any semblance of progress. It does free up time for you to explore the world if you want to, but it can get grating after a while (mods help with this)
- Related: resource sinks. If you want to actually produce on a large scale you have to chop down an entire forest every single day because of your smelter consumption.
- Janky. It's rough around the edges and animations and models can feel stiff.
- Completely depth-free and janky combat that is just not very fun if you have to spend more than 15 minutes doing it.
- Voice acting that ranges from decent to horrendous. Obviously the result of a small-budget production, but still grating. Can be turned off.
- No workshop support (yet?)

Still, despite all of the above, it is a fun game and if you are familiar with and like the Harvest Moon genre you'll most likely enjoy this game too. If you want a polished AAA-production you won't find it here, but you will find a cute crafting romp that has obviously had a lot of love put into it.

Parkitect hits a fine line where it's not a remaster nor a spiritual sequel to neither Rollercoaster Tycoon or Theme Park, but still follows in their footsteps masterfully.

Did you like Planet Coaster, but wanted more depth, control and managerial challenge? Have you longed for a (good) sequel to Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 for more than a decade? Or do you just want to fiddle fiddle fiddle and micromanage and optimize forever? Then buy this game.

It is very reminiscent of RCT 1 & 2, not just with the grid and isometric (though that can be changed) camera, but also with placing rides, scenery and general controls. Almost everything can be micromanaged, from how long the carousel will spin to the price of a soda or the amount of ice in that soda. You can make do with stock everything, but if you want to there are so so many buttons for you to press and adjust and endless creativity potential in the scenery options. But if you just want to plonk stuff down and focus on the macro, just grab stuff off the workshop and use that instead.

If you want to build as well as manage a theme park, this is the best game on the market right now.

Negative:
- I wish there were a few more options for staff. Most importantly, salary adjustments.
- It can sometimes be a bit of a chore to build stuff underground as it can be difficult to see height differences of different objects.

Positive:
- Literally everything else.

+Incredibly satisfying guns.
+Fast and arcady action.
+Killing loads and loads of nazis. I mean in droves. They just can't stop running into my bullets.
+When it looks good it looks VERY good.

? Story. Tries to be goofy and serious at the same time, doesn't always work. Will not be everyone's bag but it's not terrible.

- A few glitches, some crashes, not perfect technically.
- "Filler" missions that don't move the plot forward enough for their time real estate. Not a dealbreaker but could've been cutscene'd with no loss in plot.
- Could use more variety in terms of level and encounter design.

If you liked Commandos 15 years ago you will most likely enjoy this game. While not having quite the same amount of depth as Commandos 2&3, there is still a lot of tactical sneaking fun to be had with a relatively colorful cast of characters. No glaring bugs or glitches seen.