Recent reviews by bahamut66

Was fun and cute, until NFTS got involved. Don't want to support any of that nonsense. Shame too, it had potential.

Long and short of it, this game has three acts and while Act 1 is amazing, the other two acts are a let down. The game is still good and worth playing, but be prepared. The hidden story lore is there if you want to deep dive, but it really doesn't add much to the game in my opinion. It did keep my interest for at least a bit, but by the end I was like, well, that was disappointing.

Slight spoiler warning here. If you want gameplay details, here they are for all three acts. Make a decision on if you want to play after that.

Act 1 is an excellent horror rogue-lite card game / escape room puzzler with naturalistic lore and overtones.
Act 2 is a GBA style card collecting/battling RPG
Act 3 is another escape room puzzler, though the card game is no longer rogue-lite and instead plays like a more traditional card game RPG, go to a room, battle, etc. with a techno aesthetic. It also breaks the 4th wall...a lot.

It is still worth it for Act 1 and some of the story bits did surprise me. There is also always a palpable feeling of tension, unease, and wrongness, even in the other acts. But you either need to be really open to different aesthetics and styles, or really open to deep diving into exploration and secrets and lore of a game within a game to get the most out of this.

Though made by a small team, this game has more polish and balance than lots of bigger games. I hope it sticks around and I recommend it to anyone seeking a card game that's a bit more balanced than what's currently on offer. I burned out of Gwent, Legends of Runeterra, and MTG Arena, but Mythgard seems like it'll keep me invested for a while yet.

Downloads for almost 2 gigs. Open the game, says it needs to download the NEWEST version for 2 gigs again. Finishes downloading and hangs, unwilling to update or move forward. Broken. Piece of garbage game on PC, don't waste your time with it.

Budget Vanillware. Vagrant tries to bring the graphical flair and animation of the vaunted Vanillaware, my favorite studio, to the PC and mostly suceeds. It lacks the polish of Vanillware in a few places, like some moments of combat and a few animations and some music is either public domain, music library, or possibly even stolen(looking at you, RE4 atmosphere music) however at the end of the day, budget Vanillaware...is stilly pretty bloody good.

Vanillaware is the best at what they do, which is gorgeous 2-d adventures. Vagrant, for 4 dollars, is this but on the cheap and for that price, it is absolutely worth it. It's fine if the art style puts you off. Not everyone likes the odd proportions or huge busts, but look past that and see the artistry. The game is beautiful and I am glad I picked it up.

From the makers of FTL, Do you like mechs? Do you like Advance Wars? Do you like short sessions of interesting, semi-random but well designed and replayable turn based strategy with a meta game and advancement that doesn't make you want to claw your eyeballs out?

This game is for you.

I was surprised by Into the Breach. It's balanced to an incredible degree with a lot of RNG removed and replaced with intelligent design that plays into being strategic. But, if you screw up, the sessions are at max an hour to an hour and a half, so no big deal, start another one. It is a game that perfectly incapsulates a one more turn style of play. There are eight teams of very different mechs unlocked as you complete game achievements, but you purchase them with coins you get from achievements, so you can choose who you want to play around with as you go. More to the point, the combat, while a bit minimalist in some places is smart, has a huge number of variables that can go into gameplay, and offers nice twists on objectives beyond kill all enemies. Also, the meta is really well built, as you gain coins to buy mechs across both single sessions and multiple playthroughs and you can carry over your best pilot from your previous one to give your next run a much needed boost.

I love this game. My biggest gripes are the story is a bit meh, it's fine for what it is but more would have been cool. Also, you can get a secret squad of mechs which costs as much as all the others combined...and it's really lame. Stick with the base eight.

This game rocks and I'd recommend it to anyone with a love of mechs and turn based strategy RPGs.

It's difficult to review the game without spoiling what makes it great. Apart from some minor gripes with the controls, I had to switch to an alt version to use my controller, Finding Paradise is a masterpiece.

To say much more would spoil it, but I'll say this. This is not To the Moon 2. It might seem like it, but it's not. And that is a good thing. That game was a masterpiece. And this one is as well. For much the same reasons, emotions, writing, clever humor and design...but the story told here goes its own path...and I never saw it coming.

I'd like to end by saying that if To the Moon is an emotional gut punch, Finding Paradise is an emotional hug. Both are full of emotions, but the feeling you get at the end is a bit different.

Masterful work. A piece that anyone, and everyone, should play.

This is...less of a recommendation and more of a *shrug*. This game is decent as far as collectathons go but it's very amateurish. It's the definition of a meh game. The controls are unpolished and slippery, but the aesthetic, while a bit uninspired, is charming in its own way. I bought it mostly because I like sky islands and exploring things. I wil say that I had fun at the beginning, but I was tired of it less than 6 hours in. If you are bored, it's a decent way to kill 6 hours if you get it on a sale, but I wouldn't recommend full price.

Hand of Fate 2 is a mixed bag, especially if you have played the first game. For starters, yes, this game is MASSIVELY improved from the original, with different weapons, companions, and chance encounters like dice, wheels, and pendulum challenges which make it more about skill and helps to mitigate RNG. However, it also has problems with creativity. If we compare it to the original, the basic four types of enemies were bandits, rat men, skeletons, and lizard folk. Variations of those and special monsters made that game feel like a true fantasy romp, but here...we get humans...but barbarians. Humans...but in armor. Humans...but thieves. And humans...but corpses. We lack a lot of the interesting or imaginative monsters of yesteryear.

The quests in the game are much more varied and interesting, but they can wear on you, as some of the quests are unforgivably tedious and frustrating, especially if you want to get the true rewards. The story is more focused and if you are interested in worldbuilding and incremental storytelling, it's pretty interesting, as you learn about your history up to when you start the game...then go beyond it. It's cool, but you lose some of the fun of making your own story about your life from the first game. Also, you have an insane amount of encounters, which is great for endless mode, but can be tedious for deck building, as you will wade through hundreds of cards to build a deck to help you with each challenge. Filters help, but only so much.

Notice how I'm not talking about the combat? Because it's pretty meh. It's Arkham counter, break block, attack rinse repeat over and over again. It has a level of skill to it, but the storytelling is the draw here and the game is at its weakest when it forces you into encounter after encounter after encounter.

Despite my complaints, I had a good time with Hand of Fate 2. It begins to fizzle out near the end, however I do appreciate the ending for what it is in relation to the story and also for not being a grindy slog, but a final boss battle that you can repeat easily if you wish and which is pretty bloody satisfying. Gets rid of a real pet peeve of mine. Do I recommend it? Eh...yes. Play the first Hand of Fate before this as you'll get more out of the story and mechanical improvements, but it is an interesting experience and fun...most of the time.

This game is not for me. Whie Kingdom is a very pretty game and the lack of dialogue or meanigful tutorial can lead to a semi-immersive experience, I just found my self bored after the first island. It's just doing the same thing over and over again and for me, it's not fun. If you like efficiency and speedrunning, this game can offer you some fun times, as it's all about those two ideas, but for me, it just feels too obtuse. The tutorial is incredibly bare bones and you NEED a guide if you want to understand just what the hell you are doing. Some people like the discovery...I like not wasting my time.