Recent reviews by thekinghippo

I haven't finished yet, but it's clear this game is fantastic. The movement tech is incredibly well thought out. There are a ton of satisfying ways to traverse the map. $6 is such a bargain for this.

Act 1 was the game I thought I was buying and was very happy with it. Act 2 was worse and then Act 3 was a chore. For whatever reason the game drains all the fun out of deckbuilding and getting to the end was just a slog to see the final cutscene.

Is it perfect? No
Does it have aggravating bugs? Yes
Do I still recommend it? Definitely

This game is such a brilliant use of VR it's a wonder there aren't already more. The holographic map with hand commands and floating data screens is exactly what movies imagine for every Sci-fi, space admiral.

Edit: 1/29/21: Devs have confirmed there will be NO UPDATES to this game until it's final completion. It's still a great game, but don't expect anything more until 2022 or any updates on game progress unless you want to pay monthly to their Patreon.

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Edit: 1/24/21: Regretfully, I have to change my review to "do not recommend". The game is in early access, but hasn't updated once since release 7 months ago. The developers continue to respond to the question of "when's the next update" by repeatedly linking back to a Q&A stating when the game will be finished. It seems what they're saying is the game will have no updates until it is finished "end of 2021" or "in 2022" and if you want to know more than that you have to pay them monthly for game updates on Patreon. In the meantime they're using Steam to promote merch like there's no tomorrow. I love the game and what's there was well worth $10 to me, but the developers are making it very hard to support them.

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Souls-like? Ok, color me interested.

People whining about difficulty in the forums/reviews? Things are lookin' good.

1st boss whoops my ass like a red-headed stepchild? Alright, I'm hooked!

Great game. Really enjoying it. I'm feeling the souls-style combat, but unlike some other games that just rip it off wholesale to become a discount-souls look-a-like, it's a new, interesting take on the genre. Aiming spells at weakpoints and weaving in dodges and melees to charge them has a really satisfying flow to it. The pace feels notably slower than recent Fromsoft titles (DS3, Sekiro), but this is neither good nor bad. It's really got it's own feel to it. $10? Skip a meal and eat dirt because you ran out of stamina rolling.

Absolutely fantastic game. Out of the park good. If you struggle with hard games this probably isn't a good pick-up, but once you 'git gud' at the combat mechanics it feels so satisfying to win your battles. Even if you end up losing hitting your parries makes you feel like a god. Until you hit that point though this game is hard and unforgiving. I threw my body against Lady Butterfly (the first boss depending how you go about things) and was massacred so many dozens of times it was incredible, but after finally landing the final blow it felt SOO good and by that time I was so much better at the mechanics that fighting all of the other enemies felt that much better as well. Such a satisfying game once you 'get it', but there's so much bashing your head on a wall to get there.

Minor gripe: Sound works fine when I play on the TV, but is awful when I play on computer. It seems like what you hear is based on where the camera is rather than the character and makes dialog impossible to listen too. (Yeah, I know I can't understand Japanese anyways, but I feel better hearing people while I read the text.)

Anyways, S+ tier game. Combat feels amazing.

The intro is the best part of the game hands down. That's not a slight against the game; The intro is just that good.

The game itself is fun if short. Calling it 3 hours of gameplay is pretty generous and I'd struggle to justify full sticker price. I really like the concept of the game essentially amounting to a series of escape rooms. Small things got it the way of full enjoyment though. Not enough time is given to the player to attempt to realistically discover solutions and escape. This is particularly evident in the sub level. Instead of the feeling like you have to think quickly and find a solution in the moment the level becomes a chore of memorization and preparing what's needed next in your hands before triggering each trap. I liked a lot when they managed to fit different solutions to a single problem in the game, but I would've appreciated maybe a few more of those that felt like they actually mattered. It's a bit more headache inducing than other VR games I've played. I'm not really sure why, but that was my experience.

The game is decent. The developers aren't. Recent drama with the campaign has made this more apparent to more people, but as someone who bought the game early on in it's life I can tell you they've always been incredibly hostile towards criticism regardless of how respectful or well intended.

To anyone looking for a unique, post-apocalypse, city management, survival game I highly recommend FrostPunk. A variety of challenges, numerous viable strategies, and beautiful graphics. Trailer/Opening cutscene

I originally purchased this game largely because of the insane amount of overwhelmingly positive reviews. Just reading some of these reviews you'd assume the game desended from the heavens on a golden chariot to lead all the chosen people to the promised land. After about 5 hours of gameplay I was ready to rule this out as people being overzealous; the game was good for sure, but I didn't see any golden chariots around. I'm glad I didn't review the game at that point... Since then my appreciation of this game has done nothing but soar higher and higher. The game is so much deeper than I thought.

Pros: (There are so many)
-> Core gameplay is dynamic and interesting. There is a huge variety of skills to master and you can form different gameplay patterns based on how you want to play the game.
-> Enemies are incredibly well balanced. At no point have I ever felt something was too easy or insurmountable. Strong enemies will almost always take several tries while you discover their weakness and learn to exploit it.
-> Death isn't punishing. Feel free to sack a life to understand more about your opponent. It won't set you back and you'll get back to the action quickly
-> Boss design is incredible. They look and feel intimidating and make your victories feel hard-earned and satisfying.
-> The dungeon puzzles are very well done. Nothing seems obvious. It's very much in the spirit of old zelda games, but because you have different abilities than Link the puzzles are new and interesting.
-> Everything about the game is incredibly well polished: menus, facial expressions, fast forwarding cutscenes, help tips. It all exudes a feeling of "some guy really spent a lot of time on this, good job".
-> The game is VERY deep. There's so much to it to explore and optimize. At the same time, how well the game is balanced let's you work around this complexity if you don't want to be bothered or pick and choose what aspects are fun to you. For example: I couldn't give a toss about the crafting system and don't feel like purusing the traders for slightly more optimal equipment/temporary stat boosts... So I didn't. I completed side quests to improve my stats adaquately through leveling up and played more of a Dark Souls style of 'git gud' gameplay.

Cons:
-> The story at this point is very weak... I know the devs are still working on this, but it has to be mentioned. Almost 20 hours in and the main protagonist does not seem to have a strong driving motivation. She knows she's lost her memories and that playing the game might help her remember and thus far she hasn't remembered anything of consequence. Beyond that I guess her motivation is "the game is fun so I guess I'll keep going"... which in fairness has also been my motivation for playing despite the weak plot.

Anyways, that's my take. I picked up the game at 30% off. It's been worth every penny and there's still so much more of the game to go.

If you're a fan of 2d action platformers it's a no brainer, pick this up.

Pros:
-> Fantastic pixel art
-> Great music
-> Solid game play

Cons:
-> There's not enough of it. I actually beat the final boss without even realizing it was the final boss until it asked if I'd like to start new game plus. It felt a bit cut-off
-> In-line with the above con I really would have liked some more interaction/closure with some of the side characters.

Fantastic game. I'm a little sad that I feel some of the potential was never realized, but overall it's very solid. 1st time completion on normal took about 8 hours.

The advertising really sold me on this product. It seemed like a perfect fit for the HTPC I was building at the time. Unfortunately reality did not meet my expectations.

First off the overall design is tremendously off-putting and the feel in-hand is uncomfortable. The functionality was also terrible. It's clearly designed to be used with Steam OS and nothing else. Using it properly on any real OS is a struggle and requires that Steam Big Picture mode be minimized in order to get your personalized keybindings to work or to use the keyboard which in and of itself is also tremendously buggy. (Often appearing over the area you're trying to type in or even on occasion full screening itself for no purpose) In fact, far too frequently the controller would just stop working altogether. (Still on and giving haptic feedback, but resulting in no actual input being registered by the computer.)

Many people say that it's better once you get used to it, but after trying my best to like it I realized that I wasn't getting used to how great it was, I was getting used to it being inferior. For my HTPC I now use an Xbox controller along with Controller Companion. ($2.99 on Steam) You can save yourself some time and skip to that part.