Recent reviews by PandaNoja

FITRIZ is a different take on Tetris with food instead of basic blocks and also adds a learning factor by giving information about each food item and its function as well as nutritional value. It's a fun way to learn about the different types of food shown in the game and even better if you're into Tetris-like games.
Personally, I have to say that it's not necessarily the type of game I would play on a regular basis, however, I do think that it's a fun little game to kill some time with every once in a while.

Here's a gameplay video with commentary (German) if someone is curious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OKxGk0zteA

★ — 2/10 It's a shame that there's no online co-op.

I will never understand developers who don't add online co-op to their games which they supposedly want people to play in co-op.

Cute little game with nice relaxing music, however, I wish there was an option to turn off the small screen shakes whenever you "pop" something because I always prefer to disable them whenever possible as it messes with my eyes and is quite headache inducing.

★ — 9/10 Takes a while to get started but the end is worth it.

After going into Death Stranding completely blind having avoided every published content about it from the day it was released on the PS4 and not knowing what exactly I was getting myself into, I can only say that if you have absolutely no interest in a story-driven game, don't want to pay attention to what's going on, and watch all the cutscenes as well as listen to all the dialogue then I'm not sure if this game is for you.

In my opinion, the story is amazing but requires focus as well as patience because it takes a while before things get rolling, unfold, and take shape. This isn't a game that will spell out the entirety of the plot for you right away, it takes some effort and most of all patience to get there, and personally, I've enjoyed the ride and the end was definitely worth it.

I know there are quite a number of people who seem to like to label Death Stranding as a "walking simulator" but I firmly believe that those people have either never played the game themselves, don't understand what the game really is about and what it has to offer, or the type of game it is is simply just not for them. Is there a lot of walking around in the game? Yes, there is. Is that what the entire game is about? No, it's not, far from it actually.

Personally, I'm someone who genuinely dislikes fetching quests but for some reason, in Death Stranding, I never once felt bored, annoyed, or frustrated while taking trips back and forth between locations in order to fulfill deliveries and quest-related things to continue my journey through the story. It's also not just simply running from point A to B and back because the game throws various things your way that you have to adjust to. You have weight to manage, check what type of equipment you may need, plan a route to take, figure out the dangers you may run into, whether to go by foot or take a vehicle, and plenty of other factors to take into account for the best possible outcome and your trip to go as smooth as possible.

Another reason why labeling Death Stranding as a "walking simulator" is beyond me is that walking simulators focus on environmental storytelling and exploration without an actual threat or enemies. There are plenty of threats in this game. From MULEs, human NPCs who want to steal your cargo, to areas filled with creatures called BTs which is short for beached things, to actual boss fights.

Of course, when you start out, your main focus is on being stealthy because you don't get the means to fight back right away which could also be something that puts people off because it takes quite a while for things to unlock but I think this is a much better solution in this type of game than immediately throwing every possible equipment one could ask for at the player right from the start. You need to work and put in some effort to get something in return which, in my opinion, definitely isn't a bad thing at all. Gaining people's trust, not letting them down, and working towards a common goal is what unlocks possibilities and gets you closer and closer to the end of your journey.

Visually and auditory, Death Stranding is absolutely stunning. The cutscenes are great and add a lot to the delivery of the story. The voice acting is really well done and the soundtrack is absolutely beautiful and pleasant to listen to.

50+ hours into the game and I'm still not tired of it. I haven't played a game in quite a while that kept my interest for this long, especially after already having finished the main story, I hardly ever go back into a game after I'm done with the main story.

To me, Death Stranding looks amazing, sounds amazing, plays amazing, has amazing characters as well as an amazing story and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who really likes story-driven action games and has the patience to push past a slow start.

★ — 8/10 Questionably "funny" dialogue but still a fun experience

I really liked the art style of The Spiral Scouts which initially caught my interest and made me want to play it. I didn't look anything about the game up prior to playing it so I really had no idea what to expect when I started the game other than there being puzzles to solve and I have to say, I definitely didn't expect what the game delivered. It's "childish" look is really deceiving so don't get fooled by it like I did because this is not a game for children.

Personally, I'm not exactly a fan of vulgar speech nor do I find insults particularly funny so I couldn't help but cringe more often than not while reading most of the dialogue and needless to say, I was quite surprised because I did not expect to read the things I've read. I know there are plenty of people who think stuff like that is funny which is something I respect, it's just not really my thing but I endured it because I otherwise really enjoyed the game.

The puzzles are fun to solve and some even require a little bit of thinking. Of course, there had to be a math puzzle but thankfully, it wasn't too hard to solve that even I managed to grasp it rather quickly and I'm one of those people who just can't stand math in general. The only complaint I have is the final part which was ridiculously tedious and made me look up a guide because I got tired of aimlessly running around, trying to find a total of 30 "items" for the last achievement.

Overall, it was definitely an experience and if you're looking for a light-hearted puzzle game with cute cartoony aesthetics and raunchy characters, I'd definitely recommend picking this one up.

★ — 2/10 This game tries to be too artsy for its own good.

I was interested in this game because the visuals looked stunning and it seemed like an interesting idea but I really do think the game is hurting itself by how artsy it's trying to be.

Yes, the visuals are great but the constant changing of the way you view the scene and your character really took me out of the experience, the clunky controls did as well. I know, I didn't play too much but I also felt that the game doesn't know what it wants to be. One moment it's a 1st person exploration game, then it switches to a 3rd person platformer where you hop around, dodge things, and whatnot, the next it's suddenly a side-scroller just to switch to something else again a couple of seconds later. This may not be much of an issue to some people but it definitely ruined the game for me and made me not want to continue playing it. It also doesn't help that there are way too many loading screens after another that you start to wonder whether you're actually playing a game or a loading screen simulator which is really immersion breaking.

Another issue I have with the game is performance. It has major hiccups in performance which also ruins the experience.

I really wanted to like this game because of the premise and the whole idea behind it but I just cannot recommend it.

★ — 3/10 Ladders are more dangerous than any enemy.

I really wanted to like this game but after having the game bug out on me three times on three different ladders leading my character to aimlessly slide through the world, passing through walls, and then getting killed by enemies because I couldn't turn the camera anymore just ruined it for me.

The game does have nice visuals as well as sound design and I also like the idea and setting of it but after running into the same bug and having to restart the game three times in a matter of not even an hour of playtime, I simply didn’t feel like trying to continue anymore and quit, deleting the game.

★ — 10/10 A wonderful journey through the darkness within oneself.

I've already really enjoyed playing the first game and this one is just as good and definitely worth checking out. Distraint already makes one take a good look at oneself and Distraint 2 does the same thing again which is great.

Even if you feel hopeless, don't give up because hope is a part of you and sometimes just needs a little spark to get reignited.

★ — 8/10 Decent puzzle exploration game with a nice narrative and good visual.

Nice little story-driven, first-person puzzle exploration game with hidden secrets to uncover. Didn't really know what I was getting myself into but despite the at times somewhat clunky feeling controls, I've quite enjoyed my time with this game. The narrative is nice, the visuals are great except maybe the heavy fog at time, wasn't really a big fan of that, but otherwise, I had fun playing. The puzzles are pretty easy to solve, I just wish there would've been different variations of puzzles for the various music and puzzle boxes.

As for the achievements, they're fairly easy to obtain, just keep your eyes open for the puzzle boxes. I've managed to 100% them in one playthrough.

★ — 6/10 It's decent but has its flaws and is maybe a bit too short.

If I could, I would give this short experience a maybe. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad but personally, I didn't find it to be immersive enough for what it wants to be and the story wasn't that interesting either. However, it's short and free which is why I think it's at least worth checking out if you're looking for a small distraction or something to pass about 30 minutes.

The first thing I'd like to mention because it really stood out to me, is the controls. They definitely need some work as they are super floaty and it feels like pushing the button once makes the character you're playing as take multiple steps. This also made it hard to maneuver around to actually be able to look at things and inspect them.

There are quite a number of items spread across the apartment but hardly any of them seem to be of significance which made it feel kind of pointless to even look at them. I still did though, which made come across something that made me chuckle, the newspapers and their lengthy stories about Lisa's shoe addiction.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1762821643

Being someone who really enjoys puzzles in games, I wish there would've been a couple of more puzzles to solve but there's only one small puzzle that takes no time to figure out if you take a good look around. I pretty much solved the puzzle before I even knew what exactly it was for.

As for the story, I wish there would've been a little more to it. It would've been nice to get to know the two main characters a little more. Sure, one can piece a little bit of background information about them together when looking through the available items and reading the notes and what not but I felt there was a lack of depth to the characters.

In general, it's an okay experience and since it's free, one can't really complain too much. Since this seems to be the developer's first published game, I'll cut them some slack and simply see this as an experiment to learn from. I'd definitely like to see something else in the future, though.