Recent reviews by Sorbet

Skatemasta Tcheco is an autoscroller platformer, and a love letter to those 8bit stages where you had a skate and loved/hated to play, refined and distilled into 8 (+1secret) big stages. It’s the creation of the sole developer of the first game, Tcheco in the Castle of Lucio, Marcelo Barbosa.
Graphics and Atmosphere: Just like the first, 8-bits pixel art, it does not limit itself completely to , so we get gradients, a good amount of parallax, and beautiful backdrops, except for the bosses, who get a single color background.
Music and sounds: gorgeous chiptune music, fits perfectly the mood and the throwback premise. Credited to Oskar Hanberg, same as the first game, but I couldn’t find the music anywhere, youtube, bandcamp, or anywhere else. The sound effects are an improvement on the first game. In the sense that they are at a more adequate volume now, considering we can’t separate it from the music, and the death sound no longer kill us each time we hear it.
Story and Setting: There is no story, basically. The setting is Brazil, with numerous references, jokes and memes that will go over non-brazilians, and of a certain age at that. But you don’t really need those to appreciate the setting and the most important: the gameplay.
Options: Much better than the first game. Meaning we even have options this time around. It has still some ways to go, we still have music and sfx as a single volume adjust, and few graphic options. Language still needs to be changed thru steam, and there are no control options.
Gameplay and Controls:
It is an 8bit platformer, so you know what to expect. You move around and jump. You attack enemies and get money to get points. Fight a boss at the end. You have a high score in your menu, and it also serves to unlock an extra stage.
You have 8 stages, all unlocked from the start, and can choose the order in which you can play them. They have a difficulty meter, shown as stars, and I’d say they are mostly spot-on. It might seem too few stages, but they are quite long, and each have a unique boss at the end. Also, the difficulty will have you retry most stages multiple times until you beat it. One downside is that after you beat the stage, you can’t go back to it, unless you start a new game. It has a save system, but only one slot.
Throughout the stage you’ll find money. This is your score, and is used to save the game. After each stage you have the chance to save for increasing amounts of money, it does not matter which stage you picked, just how many are completed.
This time around Tcheco have the Skate for the whole game, so his gameplay is auto scrolling. The stage auto scrolls, but also Tcheco. He moves at the same speed as the stage when the dpad is not pressed, even in platforms, which can throw some people off. It also compounds on a “problem” I’ll explain in a bit.
You start the game with 8 Hearts, and each Heart can take 2 hits, so 16 hits to die. Falling down a bottomless pit also only hit you for ½ a heart, so it’s very forgiving. Problem is, you don’t fully heal after a stage is completed, you heal an amount, say 5 hits or 2 and ½ hearts. You can input a secret code to start your saved file from full, thou.
In the first game you had no way to attack of your own, but now’s different. Tcheco can jump in the enemies’ head to kill them, or make use of his 2 attacks: A forward dash, that can go back if you hold left, and a downwards dash with another button. Both can only be used in the air. And in this move lies most of the negative opinions you’ll find for this game. Since the button to jump and the forward dash are the same, and you have falling platforms, you will at times think you’ll jump, but you dash right over a bottomless pit. Then you get desperate because you fell, dash as soon as you spawn in the air and fall again. You have to be very deliberate while playing this game. In later stages the platforms might be very small, disappear after you touch them, or you’ll have to wait a bit for them to appear.
I say, this game is called Skatemasta, not Skatechump. If you die, go again. It’s forgiving in its system to be able to be challenging in the execution of its level design. Those who understand this will surely appreciate their short time with it.
Also, in each stage you’ll find letters. Collect all of them and a character from other brazilian games will come help you with that stage’s boss. If it’s help at all, because sometimes their attacks either never hit the boss or make you miss your attack. Not that you’ll need the help, anyway. The bosses are varied and goofy, a good time.
Completion, Extras and Achievements: It’s a very short game. In a couple hours you can finish it. You might want to keep playing, because there is an extra stage after the initial 8, that require you to amass a million points in total. And since you can’t go back to stages after you complete them, you might want to either reset, not save a couple stages, complete them in different orders, etc. It’s a clever system to make you come back to the game.
Sadly, again, there are no Achievements.
Conclusion: If you are not completely averse to the idea of an auto scroller platformer, play this game. It’s super cheap and worth the experience.

Tcheco in the Castle of Lucio is a single dev (aside from music) game, which shows the passion of the creator. It is a room-by-room 2d platformer.
Graphics: Simple and elegant 8bit graphics. Going for a more authentic approach, it tries to limit the pallet per room making good use of gradients. I don’t really know if the game could fit in a 8bit console, be it color or content wise, but it tries to emulate the experience, sans the graphical glitches of the time. It has some beautiful backgrounds, and usually, if you think you can interact with the environment, you can. The game has what some could see as a problem, the flashes. Some actions make the entire screen turn white for a frame, and I found it sometimes annoying when it occurred in a short span of time.
Music and sounds: The music was composed by Ozzed, the only other person to work on this game. It fits perfectly in any NES game, it’s high energy and highly repeatable. If you like chiptune music, put this one in your playlist.
Now, the sounds are hit and miss for me. Most of them are fine, but the ones when you take damage and fall into a hole are really aggravating. And believe me, you’ll hear them a lot. They are also a bit too loud. That shouldn’t be a problem, but…
Options: There are no options. None. Can’t change the volume of the music and sound individually both being very loud, but sound especially, can’t change the language from inside the game, gotta do it from the steam menu by right clicking on the game and going on the manage tab. There are buttons right on the controller for circling thru full screen and windowed, but that’s it. At least the pause menu gives an option to exit the game. I’d also talk about rebinding controls, but…
Controls: You go left and right. And jump. That’s it. On a controller all 4 face buttons jump. Select kills you. One of the shoulder buttons change windowed-full screen. The other exit the game.
The jump is fast, and gravity pulls very hard, you fall almost instantly, with barely an arc, you really gotta tab the dpad while jumping for precision jumping. But when you get the hang of it, you can control Tcheco very well.
Story and atmosphere: It’s a faithful 8bit game, so, no need for a story. It is also, surprisingly, a licensed game. The dev is also the creator of the character Tcheco, which has a cartoon that run from 1999 onwards, it’s on youtube right now if you fell in absolute love with that hunk of a main character. Being a licensed 8bit game, it does not need to make any sense. You go thru the game facing animals, skulls, and weird bosses in colorful environments. The atmosphere, however, is fantastic. You are in a castle, but there are lots of different possible environments complementing each other.
Like the animated series it comes from, it has a humor overlay with funny, but sparce, dialogs.
Gameplay: Very simple and straightforward. You go from room to room, collecting a key to open a door to the next room. After a certain point, you need 2 keys, then 3. There are also 2 mid bosses and the final boss.
You basically have to get the key and figure out where the exit is, usually a door, or a hole on the wall, celling or floor. You don’t have any method of attack yourself, except for one room near the end, and the bosses.
For a couple of rooms, you have a skateboard, and it functions like any respectable 8bit game would handle it. You auto move slowly, but can accelerate by holding the direction, and can jump further. Very fun rooms. It seems like the dev agree, since he made the sequel a whole game where you ride the skateboard (I’ll probably play it next or very soon, I loved the section).
There is a good variety of challenges within the 65 rooms the game has to offer. It is very difficult, as expected, and you will die a lot. You have 7 hit points, but you can bump them to 64 by performing a secret code (while Tcheco is falling at the start of the game, press B, A, B, A, B, A, B, Y before he lands. You’ll hear a sound if you did it, but there’s no visual indication of the extra hit points, sadly). Get hit till 0, game over. No continues. Go do it again, and again, each time inching closer to the last boss. Just like the old games. Good, simple fun.
Now, for the bosses, you have 2 buttons on each side of the arena, you need to press them interchangeably to launch a rocket on the boss, who goes from left to right, faster after each hit. Simple, but tricky to get the pattern sometimes.
Completion time and Achievements: After getting accustomed to the game, you can finish everything in 10-20 minutes, but as stated, getting there is the challenge. There are, sadly, no achievements.
Conclusion: Great game, also very cheap. Just get it and play.
Unless you really have old style games. But if it was the case, you wouldn’t have read it all the way, right? Just play this gem of a game.

Smallest Siactro title here on steam. You are a fat bee. Jump up to get to the end of the 10 little stages.

Graphics: The main attraction. Prerendered graphics just like grandma SNES used to make in 1995. 3D images prerendered and turned into pixels. Absolutely gorgeous. The main theme is all wood, since you are climbing a tree, but you have some variety with rain, fall, snow, and dead trees in the obligatory spooky part of any Siactro game.

Music and Sound: As is the case with all other Siactro games, they are a delight to listen to. We really needed a complete Siactro soundtrack. Sound effects are really subdued here, we mostly hear music, not much in way of sound feedback. Getting hit results in no sound at all. Not that strange considering the inconsequence of getting hit.

Story: Almost no story, you must get to the end to help your friend. Go.

Options: Literally inexistent. There are no options. You can only start the game from the main menu. From the pause menu you can retry the stage or go to the map. At least you got 3 save slots?
Controls: You move left and right with the directional. You can jump. That’s it. The jump has a good arc, and you can get to the platforms you need. The unlockable character Toree has a Double jump.

Gameplay: You go up. You have 10 total stages, 1 more unlocked after completing the initial 9. All in a single world.
You have some stage elements like enemies that “hurt” you (more below), bees that help you by bouncing or serving as platforms, ants that serves as conveyor belts, rain that pushes you in a certain direction.
Initially it is the easiest game ever, possibly. You don’t have hit points, whenever the enemy touch you, you get a small knockback, and that’s that, you can continue going up. Even the threat of falling all the way down is non-existent, because some bee friends block the way down after you went up for a while. There is only one stage where you have an enemy that sends you back to the beginning of the stage if it touches you.
After you complete the 9 stages, you get three things:
1-The ending cinematic, and a section that can be considered a demo for Super Kiwi 64, with a small 3D stage where you control Kiwi and collect some powerstones.
2-You unlock the 10th stage, xmas themed.
3- Time trial. Here’s where the challenge of the game lies. You are given a time, like 0:45 sec for exemple, to complete the stage. Get to the end in time and you get a medal. The catch is, you have barely any time to spare. Most of the stages don’t give room to get hit or fail a jump once. You’ll finish most of them with 2 or 3 seconds left. That being said, it’s not that difficult. Now go speedrun.
After completing all 10 stages you unlock Toree with its double jump.

Achievements and time of play: There are 10 medals for the time trial. Unlocking Toree is basically the 100%. With it’s 10 stages, going twice for the time trial, you get 30 min of play.

Conclusion: If you are craving something to play with prerendered graphics, and aren’t bothered by its lack of length, give it a go, it’s a cute experience.

SK64 is a distilled and condensed Banjo-Kazooie experience that will delight and leave you wanting more after it's end, almost immediately after you started.
Graphics: Beautiful 3D low poly. The world is full of details in the textures it uses in each of it’s small worlds. Theres not a lot of objects (how would it render otherwise?) But what is there gives wonderful and creepy vibes.
Music: Also reminiscent of the 64 era, cheerful when it wants, frightful when it needs. Sound effects are all on point and gives that dopamine hit when collecting stuff.
Story: The story as dialog goes is super simple. But what you can infer from the world expands it quite a bit.
Options: Almost nothing here. There is music volume, camera sensitivity, invert x and invert y. That’s it.
It’s missing separate music and sound effect controls, v-sync (I had screen tearing for a good part of my playthrough), control options and more. I know that it’s a quick game, but somethings still make a difference when they are lacking, and this is one of the only ones in this case.
Controls: Simple and yet with complex possibilities. A jump button, in being held turns into a very generous glide. A run button that can be used while gliding, with a good speed, that still gives you enough control. Lastly an attack, used in land or air. If you hit a wall, you will get stuck on it, and can jump from there to repeat the process and scale any wall.
Gameplay: Pure collect-a-thon. No enemies, simple puzzles. Go and collect things. The 8 worlds are pretty small, and have plenty of landmarks. You collect powerstones, 6 per world. You have other elements, like cogs, which you collect 55 or so per world, and collecting all makes a powerstone appear. Also, going through all rings, or attacking all targets in the stage gives powerstones.
That’s it. No enemies that attack or bosses. There are some stage hazards, but they are pretty trivial.
It’s a cakewalk, but a pretty tasty one.
Achievments: There are no outside the game Achievements right now, but talking ingame, it’s pretty easy to complete everything, takes about an hour to get all 48 (+2secret) powerstones.
Conclusion: Play it to the end, it’s a wonderful experience.

Do you: Mario, cats, platformers, puzzles, run’n’gun, speedrunning or resource management?
Get this game.
This is all of that. A level-based platformer with a great deal of inspiration from Mario, but with a cat protagonist who shoots magic projectiles.
Graphics: Cute 16bit pixel art, with beautiful animation for the main character and enemies.
The levels are varied with very good background art, that gives the game it’s ambiance without ever being busy and making you mistake fore and background.
Even thou the game is divided by worlds, the themes might vary inside each world. It’s also not just grass, lava and ice. You have candyland, legos, castle, industrial, haunted, space, shadow, and more.
Music: Chiptune, of the Happy-go-lucky variety. Even the tense tracks give you that “One more try and you can do it!” vibe. You’ll want to listen to the soundtrack after you finish this game.
The sound effects are on point, as well crafted as everything here.
Story: An innovative concept here. You have a story, and can get glimpses of it by expressions and actions, of the few cutscenes it has, but all the text is in animal language, because, well, they are animals. You can, after completing the game, do a new game+ with texts in human language to better get what’s going on. That being said, the story, as platformer tradition goes, is just an excuse to go and platform, so you can very well not worry about it.
Controls: Simple and effective, as platformers should have. You can jump, shoot and dash.
The jump height depends on how long you hold the jump button. You can change the direction at any time, not having to commit. Also, you can do a little flutter glide to gain some extra horizontal ground, either by holding it and having it at the apex of the jump, or double tapping, for less vertical and more horizontal movement.
You shoot in an arc, in the direction you are facing, or up if you hold up. Hold down to diminish the arc and shoot closer. In space the arc gets longer! Get used to the arc, you’ll need to master it.
The dash. You can dash to either direction, from ground or the air, also up after an upgrade. You can’t dash downwards because the heal uses that command, which is a detriment for some stages. It’s not free to use, thou. Here comes the first part of the resource management. You get potions during the stage, and use them to dash. No potions left, no dash. Deal with it. It is not, however, necessary to use any dash to complete the game, and a system even rewards you if you don’t use it (more below).
You also have a heal, after getting an upgrade, used by holding down and pressing the dash, which could be its own button without any problem. It also uses potions.
Options: Very limited. You have music and sound volumes (Which need to be pressed for each increment. You can’t just hold the direction to go up or down, and it really grind the gears), V Sync, full/windowed, and control remapping options. That’s it.
Gameplay: Oh boy there is so much here you wonder how it all can fit and make sense in a single game. But it does. Also, I hope I remember everything. It really has a lot of systems.
It has a Mario 3 map, where you see the world you are in, each level, and have total freedom to move around, not bound by the road from stage to stage. You can, by upgrading, interact with stage elements and build bridges to skip parts of world, going to later stages much earlier than you should, if it’s your first time, or for speedrunning.
The game is level based. You start in one end of each stage, and go to the other end.
Platforming, defeating enemies, either by jumping on them or shooting at them, doing puzzles and collecting resources.
The enemies are of a few types. Some go left and right, some fly, some jump, some have shield or spikes. Each has a different number of jumps in the head or shoots to be defeated, shots are more powerful.
Most stage have a gimmick. Be it moving blocks, pressing buttons, auto scrolling, grades you can move on (just like Mario World), darkness with your shot illuminating the way, panels you pass but can’t repeat to open doors. They really went all out with the variety of the gameplay per stage.
Almost all stages have 4 sections. 3 platformer sections, one boss. Yes, one boss for each stage of the game. They are giant versions of the normal enemies, with much more health, utilizing the stage’s gimmick. At stage 9 of each world there is a world boss, different from the giant enemy. It’s a you-sized animal, like a duck or monkey, with different mechanics than the normal stage bosses.
The game does not have lives, and saves after each stage. You can, if you want to spend some potions, save on checkpoints. If you die you can revive on the spot, for a cost of your Paws currency (more below), doubling each time you revive. You can, from the menu, at any time, go back to the last checkpoint, restart the stage or go to map.
That allows the game to be much more challenging without frustrating most people, I believe. If, after all that, you can’t complete the stage, it’s pretty easy to skip it, using the map.
Now, for the thing that differentiate this game from most other platforms: The resources management part. You have 3 currencies: Paws, Potions (MP) and Gems. Collectibles in the stage are Gems, Potions and Coins. You accumulate and retain your Paws for the whole save. You get them at the end of each stage, by counting your score starting from 10.000s you get 1 Paw for each digit in ten thousand and up. Your score increases by getting coins, defeating enemies, and bonus for not dying, from first completing a stage and getting all potions. You use the Paws to interact with stage elements, such as destroying trees and rocks, and creating bridges to bypass stages. You also use it to revive. -2 for the first, doubling each time,
Each stage starts you with 0 (5 after an upgrade) MP, and each Potion you get in the stage adds 3 MPs. As said before, the dash, heal and using the checkpoint all spend MP. 1, 2 and 10 (5 after upgrade) respectively, if I’m not mistaken.
Now for the main collectible, that’s also a resource, and main source of headaches: Gems. Each stage have 3 gems. One for each section of the stage, boss aside. Whenever you get to the end of a section, if you didn’t find the gem, it will NOT be at the next section, it is just more hidden than you thought. Sometimes, you have to platform to get it. Others, it might be hidden in a wall (fortunately, the hidden wall is not used that much). Most of the time, it will require you to complete a puzzle, or defeat enemies within a time limit. You can just not get the gems if you so choose, but they are also used as currency. For upgrades. The ones I’ve been mentioning all the time. From more hit points, to reduced potion cost, to upwards dash, to not just dying when falling in pits, you’ll want to get as many gems you can.
That’s mainly the gameplay loop: Go on the stage, watching out for the section gem, doing the puzzles, platforming, defeating enemies. At the end, fight the boss. Good stuff. Some stages will get you thinking “Oh, now it is getting hard”, then you’ll complete it, and get to other stage that goes “wait, that was the easy one, this is the hard one”, and all over again. As said, good stuff.
After completing the stage in the normal way, you open Time Trial for that stage. You have 100 seconds to complete it. No Gems, no Checkpoints, no boss. Each revive costs 3 seconds. Run.
Achievements and completion: Simplest part of the game. You get the achievements for completing everything each world has to offer, both Gems and Time trial. You can do it all in a single save, but you have some spoilery incentives to replay the game on New Game+, where you start with all items. Took me 21 Hours to 100%.
Conclusion: It Takes some tremendously talented people to craft a game this good. Don’t skip it, don’t let it lingering in your backlog.

This It's a 2d sidescroller game should be a combination of good novel idea and classic gameplay.
But the bugs ruin everything.
The graphics are mixed. It has it's charms, as a 8bit pixel style. The models are the body of mega man (maybe ripped from a romhack or something?) with a huge head that clashes with the art of the body. The portraits are amateurish, but serviceable, and soon you can identify each of your characters by portrait. The enemies are all pixel drawn, again, serviceable. The environments are blocky, with few details.

The music has a couple of tracks, pretty good, but you'll tire of them eventually.

The story is reminiscent of 8bit games too. There's an evil guy, go beat him up.

The gameplay if a classic run and gun. Or swing a sword. Or spear. Or bash a giant shield! The game have the idea of having a party of characters that you control one at a time each with different weapon and/or stats. Each character have a level, and level up individually. If a character dies, they stay dead. But you can save and load anytime, so it's not that big of a deal unless you wanna do a no reload run. Which i wouldn't recommend, because of the bugs. You have some that help you, by respawning items that should be one use, like auto lvl ups, or stat ups. Other times, you'll crash by trying to enter a room.
This is what led me to thumbs down the game. The final boss room is not accessible because of this crash, and it seems like it won't be patched, the dev said he is retiring, so, unless we get some fanmod, this game is a unfinishable.
Shame.

How important is the controller to a video game? It's what this wonderful mini game collection asks and answer in 2 button presses.
Lets go per parts:
Graphics are simplistic pixel graphics, not emulating, but capturing the feel of 8 bit games, not bound by their limitations. Cute and to the point. You'll control lots of different characters/objects, each with 9 skins you can choose as you unlock them, some cute, some cool, some references;

Story is like that of Mario game, just an excuse to go and do the stuff that you do. But despise that, the atmosphere that the story has permeates it all;

The music here is spectacular, with loads of short songs, which, in the course of play, change one into the other, not being bound by stage for the most part, and you can exclude any number of them at a time. You also unlock them during gameplay, and they enter rotation. The audio effects are those you imagine belongs on an 8 bit video game;

The options menu is very simple, with only a few options, all using pictures instead of words. Strangely you cannot rebind your controls. Speaking of which;

The controls. Oh, the controls. You have 2 (two) buttons. You can use any of the following: With a controller: L and R, left and right triggers, left and right on the Dpad or analog; Keyboard: A and D, left and right arrows, or the left and right shift keys. you can mix and match them as you like.
As for how the characters control with this 2 buttons, is the entire point of the game. Each mini game has a character that will do an action for each button, it could be going left or right horizontally, pointing left for right and steering to that direction, could be going in an arc to the left or right, turning 90º to the left or right, going in an upwards arc and descending, or jump and walk backwards, and more. This really shows that restrictions can make for good creative thinking.

Now, for the gameplay.
The main objective of the game is to collect marbles. They appear in every mini game and must be collected usually by touching it.
They are then used in a mini game, the pachinko, to unlock everything in the game. Mini games, music, and skins Most mini games start locked from the start must be unlocked.
The main mode of play is to play 9 mini games, for 10 seconds each. They you go spend your marbles to unlock things. When you run out of marbles, it's back to the mini games.
Despite what it appears to be, this game is NOT a Warioware style game, where each individual game is basically disposable. Each mini game here is carefully constructed with it's own set of rules.
If you are, for example, in the spaceship mini game, you automatically shoot, and must to left and right. You shoot asteroids, which contain a marble each. but each time you shoot an asteroid, it will also launch 3 asteroid pieces, that might go to your direction to kill you, or hit other asteroids, destroying it, causing a chain reaction. They all have little details and fail states.
All the mini games have a 4 layer scaling difficulty, from blue, to green to yellow to red: as you grab more marbles, it get quicker and harder. Die enough, and the difficulty falls.
This fail states are not a big problem in the main mode, since you respawn immediately, but they are your main source of concern in the other mode: Arcade mode (it's what i'll call it, since it does not give a name to it, or to anything else in the menus, just pictures).
You can, at any time, go at the free play menu and choose any unlocked mini game to play it. Not unlike old arcade games, you play until you lose, 1 life then back to the menu. The scaling difficulty is here too. from 25 marbles on, the rest of the mini game is played on max speed. Again, lose a life and it's back to the menu. And you'll start at blue difficulty all over.
There is also an infinite 10 seconds rotating mode, just lacking the pachinko unlocking. Earning marbles in this mode WILL count towards your pachinko marbles, and you might find yourself having to spend 999 marbles to get back to the rotation easily.
That's the game, play the mini game, unlock more mini games, skins and music. If you like some more than others, you can disable any number of mini games from the rotations. Or music. And change the skins. You control it all here.

Now, the achievements. Most of them you'll unlocks natually, just by playing however you like. There is ONE, however, that is the one that might make you quit the 100%, or make you play 100 hours more to get it. It's the "Grab 100 marbles without death in each mini game". There are lots of them, and you'll have to really master them, playing them all in red difficulty for most of your time. Love it or leave it, it's this game's 100% mission.

In conclusion: It`s a wonderful time, you can either pick up and play just to pass some time, or master everything. Just play this game. It`s no wonder it is one of the most positive review score on steam.

A wonderful very classic Roguelike, with a humorous overtone.

The pixel graphics and unique artstyle create a great atmosphere of pure adventure throughout the dungeon, each with a unique tileset and monsters, for the most part at least. It has a status showing character portrait. Loads of beautiful item sprites.
The music, instead of being per floor, which would get on the nerves very fast, especially the early levels, choose instead to just cycle thru all its normal level music. An elegant solution that more games could adopt. Of course, some events or special rooms get their own music. And the music is all download-to-listen-all-the-time worthy. Even if some compositions remind me bit too much of some specific tracks from Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy.
The sound effects are competent, but the "narration" get misunderstood sometimes.

Story is minimal, but the atmosphere the game creates with every little thing it does is unparalleled. EVERY equipment, enemy, skill, consumable and even a lot of stage elements have it's own description. Almost always overflowing with humor. It's the crux of the game, and what glues all of it together. It has a lot of different styles, from references of it's time, like monsters quoting portal 2, and older music, movies etc, to environmental and just jokes and gags. You'll most probably find your preferred humor here.

Now, for the gameplay. It's a classic roguelike, which means grid based, you-move-everyone-moves type of games, with a different dungeon each run. You have a lot of information to contend to. Stats are influenced be your skills and equipment, each stat does something important, and you'll want to specialize in one or two different builds, which are basically Martial, Wizard or Rogue like (heh). For equipment you have a lot of weapons to choose from, daggers, swords, staves, etc.
You have a lot of character slots: Hat, Body, Pants, Shoes, necklace, 2 rings and a crossbow. Each item can be enchanted for more damage of a certain type, resistance of said damage type (there are more than a dozen of damage types), or other stats.
You have other consumable items like food for HP regeneration (over time usually, not instant recovery), alcoholic drinks for mana regeneration (if you drink too much you'll get drunk debuffs), mushrooms that have crazy effects, Potions and wands that do all sorts of things. You can, of course, craft them and a lot more, like weapons, armor and bolts for your crossbow.
You also have traps to avoid, or disarm and even use them against your opponents.
For skills you choose 7 at character creation. They determine starting stats and equipment, you can mix and match as you like. Each time you level up you simply choose the next level of one of your chosen skills, no independent stat allocation.
It's an immensely complex game that will take a lot of your time, and may require a wiki to play. I haven't even scratch the surface here. Play and you'll understand.
The game has DLC, that adds more of everything, even dungeon floors and new mechanics, very much worth it. Like the main game is. Also, it has a good amount of mods in and out of the workshop. Won't go hungry playing this game (except for all the cheese you see here all the time that will leave you wanting some gouda or something...).

Difficulty, as expected, is pretty high, but surprisingly customizable. You can set permadeath on or off, and choose 3 difficulty levels. Don't expect easy to be a cakewalk, though, especially on your learning phase.

In a normal playthrough you'll start, die a monster. Restart, die to a trap. Restart, die to a monsterhouse. Restart, etc etc. Fun that don't end. For the completion, you'll earn a number of your achievements as you play normally, but some are also good as learning tools, as there are some for completing a skill paths, leading you to try out new builds. The finish-the-game-in-a-difficulty ones are very much doable, even the permadeth ones. There are a couple of achievements that are actually, literally impossible to obtain normally, one for a removed skill, one for having to meet the devs in person, but you can mod them in from the workshop. (Or used to be, I can't find them on the list anymore, they might have just removed them.)

In conclusion, this gem of a game is a must play for any classic roguelike fan. This game deserves much more praise and recognition for the amount of passion and work the devs poured into it.
Buy the complete package and dive in for hundreds of hours like I did.

Very good shmup. It really makes me feel like I`m controlling a mecha. It`s short, but not at the same itme.
The graphics are 3D with beautiful models, and have Anime style character portraits. Cute twin robot waifus included!
The particle effects may be overwelming at the beginning, specially if you are a noob at shmups, like me, but you get used to it quickly enough and it`ll start to help you not get hit and instead kill things.
Music, as well as the sfx, are pretty good and gets you in the mood to shoot a million enemies, but they weren`t very memorable for me.
The story is happening alongside the gameplay, mostly in the conversations of the characters, and you will NOT have time to stop and read them. Put on some headphones to listen to it if you wanna know whats going on, or just enjoy the spectacle. Also, the story is VERY anime, but even if you don`t like it you can silence the midgame conversations and skip the beginning and end story parts between stages.
I can`t compare the gameplay with other shmups due to my inexperience with them, but in it`s own bubble, i`d say it`s spetalcular.
You control your mecha with your left stick, and each button or trigger (i recommend the new version controller, that uses the triggers) have a different kind of attack.
You have a normal gun, that fire as long as you hold it, a stationary sword attack that destroy some bullets, a dodge, that is also a sword attack when you cross paths with an enemy, and 2 auto target attacks, one in a circle and one directional. This attacks will send little helpers to hit the target until destroyed or some time passes. The balance between all this types of attacks, and dodging enemies really makes you feel like a mecha pilot, as I said. It`s SO satisfying when you get the hang of the controlls and alternate between attacks and dodges. Perfection.
The game is very short if you wanna just go once through the story and get to the final boss. You have 6 stages, each with a boss at the end.
But the game is best with the arcade mentality. The pattern of the coming enemies don`t change, so you`ll play, get beat, replay and replay to get better at it. Then go up a difficulty and get beat again and so on.
Worth noting the achievements for the game are pretty brutal, and i do NOT recommend going for 100% unless you are a shmup pro. I won`t try it because i`m not.
But do play it, it`s a fantastic game.

A fantastic and super short combat focused platformer. No, not a Metroidvania, if you come from Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight. This one is very linear.
It has a cute chibi Cave Story style of sprites, with beautiful background, sound and music, and, of course, stellar gameplay.
Being the predecessor to RutM, it's to be much more simple. No dodge, no upgrades or active spells., also, as stated, it's pretty linear. But simple is not a bad thing. The attacks and jump feel very well crafted. It had a good variety of enemies. It has a beefy number of bosses that are quite difficult.
It won't take too much of your time. A full playthrough takes from 40 to 60 min. It's speedrun achievment is very doable.
My only complaint would be that one achievment that requires grinding and luck for a certain enemy to spawn.
Buy it and play it right now, it doesn't even need a sale! After that play Reverie Under The Moonlight if you haven't.