Recent reviews by Doomlord

Valkyrie Profile is one of my all-time favorite JRPGs, but as a series it took a huge nosedive in quality in my eyes. The first game on the PS1 I absolutely adored and enjoyed thoroughly from beginning to end but I did not particularly like Silmeria, I absolutely hated Covenant of the Plume and I'm not gonna talk about the mobile game because I don't want to wake up in some Cambodian re-education camp.

Generally I have zero expectations for this series anymore and this game being a spin-off by a third party developer I've never heard of made me go in with even less than that.

And to my absolute surprise I ended up loving it. Now the game has some problems, but it's the most fun I've had with a Valkyrie Profile game since the original.

I'm gonna get the two biggest problems out of the way right now before I talk about the actual game.

1) UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU BE BUYING THIS AT FULL PRICE

Do not fall for Square's tricks. This is clearly a AA budget title and there's nothing wrong with that, BUT they are trying to sell as a full priced AAA release. It went -50% off very fast after it was released and I believe that is the real price.
I got it for 30 bucks off the Christmas Sale and for that much I can thoroughly recommend it.
But for 60 bucks? Yeah, nah, f*ck off.

2) The Deluxe Edition on PC is a scam as it currently is

PS4/PS5 owners of the Deluxe Edition got a port of the original game for free (granted I'm not overly fond of the PSP version that the port was based off, but it's fine). On PC all we get is a an extra weapon that's essentially a reskin and is pretty much useless throughout 80% of the game. If this changes in the future and we do get Valkyrie Profile 1 for free with the Deluxe Edition then you can grab it but for now save your shekels.

With that out of the way onto the actual game.


The story is more or less a cut down and re-arranged version of the first game's story, but it takes place in an alternate universe and has no connections to previous games. If you've beaten Valkyrie Profile 1 you already know what will happen. It does have its moments though and I did enjoy it overall. There are four endings to unlock and thankfully they are fairly easy to get unlike the cryptic bullsh*t that was ending A of the original game.


For a budget title (which is what this game really is) the visuals are fine. I was originally a bit put off by the cell shading effect, but it grew on me and I enjoyed checking out the different areas you visit (Valhalla looks glorious). The characters and enemy designs are pretty cool even if a good chunk of the enemies are reskins (I'm writing this off as a budget thing).


My opinions on the actual games aside if there's one thing I've consistently loved throughout the entire series it's the music. My man Motoi "JRPG Jesus" Sakuraba is back at it again with another killer soundtrack. The style is quite different compared to the older games. It feels closer to his work in Tales of Arise mixed with a tiny bit of his Dark Souls days, but despite that it managed to subconsciously make me think of Valkyrie Profile the moment I started playing the game, so he's once again nailed it in my books.


Unlike the previous games Valkyrie Elysium is an action rpg, though a few elements from the old games are present once more.

I love the combat in the original Valkyrie Profile because it's fast and to the point, Silmeria and Covenant turned it into a tedious slog and completely ruined it for me. Thankfully this time around the combat is once again great and easily the highlight of the game. However it takes making a good bit of progress before it really starts to shine. You're very limited by what you can do in the beginning and it can give a terrible first impression to most people. Progression is very spaced out (you don't even get Nibelung Valesti until the last few chapters) and I feel like they should've given you more stuff earlier because you can really do a lot later on.

There are only 4 Einherjar this time around and they function quite differently compared to the old games. Here they work as timed summons that you can call upon at will as long as you have enough soul energy. They will fight alongside you (you can unlock more moves for them by doing their respective side quests), but their most important function is changing your weapon's element.

Enemies are weak to a particular element and weapon. Using the right weapon results in greater damage. Using the right element also fills up another bar that will stun them for a while when it reaches 100% (similar to how it works in modern Ys games). There are 6 different weapons you can find (7 with the deluxe edition), each with its own moveset. You unlock more moves by upgrading the weapon.

You can upgrade the Valkyrie too which will give you stat bonuses and more abilities (a highlight is being able to auto summon Einherjar during certain actions). All upgrades cost a certain amount of CP to be active, but on normal difficulty you've got enough to have everything active simultaneously. On hard and above you'll have to mix and match.

You have the ability to block, parry, dash and do perfect dodges, but one thing to keep in mind is that you can't cancel out of attacks and I'm pretty sure this is by design. You can probably button mash through the early chapters, but you'll end up getting heavily punished later on. There's a small bit of strategy involved during combat as you're meant to exploit elemental weakness and use your Einherjar to help you build up the stun bar as well as keep some enemies busy while you deal with others. Once you're a good bit into the game and have unlocked a good deal of divine arts and abilities the combat really opens up and it's an absolute blast to go through.

The actual game is linear and mission structured, but said missions are fairly long. You pick where to go to from Valhalla whether it be a main mission or a side quest. On Valhalla itself there's also an Arena where you can practice fighting enemies you've faced before. Everything can be replayed as much as you want, so there aren't really any permanent missables. I do recommend doing all the side quests, because the rewards are worth it and all the extra combat will net you the materials you need to upgrade everything. Once you beat the game you unlock two extra modes. The Seraphic Gate returns as well as a new game mode that lets you play as Hilde.

The game isn't particularly long and I had a nagging feeling throughout my playthrough that there was meant to be more to it, but the budget Square gave the devs didn't let them do everything they wanted. Even so, what's here is quite good and despite the slow start once it got going I had a blast playing through it.


Given that this is a spin-off by a third party dev it's a perfectly solid and very enjoyable game that unfortunately takes a while before it really begins to shine, so it'll probably turn off some people. If you're expecting Valkyrie Profile 3 or something on par with the first game you'll be solely disappointed, but I admire your optimism nonetheless.

F*ck Square for trying to sell a budget title as a full priced game though. DON'T fall for their tricks. Wait for a sale, preferably 50% off or more. For 30 bucks this is a solid recommendation. Also avoid the Deluxe Edition like the plague unless Square updates it to include Valkyrie Profile 1 like on PS4/5.

I was extremely hyped for this game ever since the announcement trailer back in 2020, simply because I saw The King in Yellow (which happens to be one of my all-time favorite books). I was slightly worried it wouldn't deliver, but it completely blew my expectations out of the water. Music aside this was essentially made by two people and they delivered in spades.
I can safely say this is one of the best survival horror games I've ever played.


I don't want to say anything about the story because I feel like it's best experienced with as little prior knowledge as possible.
I'll only say this: If you like any of the following: cosmic horror, retro tech sci-fi like Alien, Silent Hill, Tsutomu Nihei and old-school japanese cyberpunk in general, body horror, plenty of lore and a story you'll have to piece together yourself which is also open to interpretation, then you should buy this sh*t ASAP because you're in for one hell of a ride.
There are multiple endings based on how you play the game (similar to Silent Hill 2) + a secret ending, so there's plenty to enjoy.


I adore how SIGNALIS looks. It generally goes for a PS1 look, but instead of just slapping together poorly looking models that tend look worse than what was on the actual hardware like most attempts I've seen, there's genuine effort put into its style and the result is gorgeous.

My only real criticism is with the in-game CRT shader. I wanted to use it so bad because it looks great, but the forced curvature creates weird artifacts on the sides of the screen at 1080p (for whatever reason they don't show up on screenshots) so I ended up using ReShade instead.


If you like Akira Yamaoka's work on Silent Hill you're in for a treat. The sound design is excellent and creates an amazing atmosphere that really gets you immersed in the setting. There's no voice acting, but I don't really think the game needs it. The soundtrack is by Cicada Sirens & 1000 Eyes and its pure perfection. I'm setting aside some shekels from my next paycheck to buy it, I need it in my collection!


The game plays like a mix between the RE1 Remake (Chris scenario) and Silent Hill, but from an overhead perspective (with a few exceptions). There are even optional tank controls. Your inventory is limited to 6 slots and everything you pick up takes up a slot, so it's up to you to decide what to carry with you. The save rooms are very much Resident Evil. No ink ribbons here though, you can save as much as you want.

The enemies are not particularly difficult to fight, but there's a lot of them and you have nowhere near enough resources to deal with every single one. You can save a few bullets by kicking them once they are down (like you can in Silent Hill). Similar to REmake they won't stay down forever and will eventually get back up. The only way to get rid of them permanently is to burn them with flares or a flare gun you find later in the game. Keep in mind that said flares are rare, same with ammo for the flare gun, so you'll have to plan accordingly. Resource management is key, like in any proper survival horror.

Grab a pen and paper for the puzzles, most of them aren't particularly difficult, but you'll need to take notes for a few. Use the radio.

Overall it's exactly the kind of gameplay I want out of my survival horror games and I have no real complaints. The only minor gripe I have is that the difficulty setting was in the options menu and I completely missed it the first time around. Next run is on Suvival difficulty for sure.


SIGNALIS is easily one of the best horror games I've ever played. It makes good use of its inspirations while creating its own identity. Loved the story, loved the visuals, loved the audio and the gameplay was exactly what I wanted it to be. For a mostly two people project it's an absolute masterpiece. Go buy it, it's completely worth the 20 bucks and the devs deserve it.

Senses Midnight came out of nowhere, just as I was getting my butt around to beating the first game, A Cyberpunk Ghost Story [ACGS], which I ended up enjoying quite a lot despite its flaws.

Midnight has some issues, but once again I can tell that a lot of love was put into it and the devs actually listen to feedback and genuinely try to improve the game post-release. Always a huge plus in my books. As of me writing this there should be another update coming out this month (October) which will be adding even more content, so I'm looking forward to that. Update is now out so I'm re-writing some of this because the game is even better now.


The story is what you'd expect from a spooky ghost happenings, it's nothing revolutionary, but there's a lot of lore bits scattered around that are quite interesting to read (I haven't found all of them yet, but all in due time). New Game+ adds even more stuff.

The atmosphere is still on point and I even managed to get spooked a few times. Good stuff.

The cyberpunk aspect is still there as Midnight takes place in the same cyber dystopia as ACGS, but it's even more in the background this time around, Halloween Update expanded greatly on this, we now have the proper visuals to match as well as the lore and some cool callbacks to the first game.


I'm a sucker for PS2 era graphics and sh*t like this is my jam. The park was originally more desolate, but the Halloween update added more futuristic visuals so it's more in-line with the ingame lore and the world itself. I honestly can't complain here.

Back when it came out there were some navigation issues due to invisible walls, but those got rectified by updates and everything looks great now.
The only issues I've seen that still persist are that on occasion certain things will vanish if they are close to the edge of the screen like grass, or a certain enemy's' hair and the talismans on the Torii Gate being invisible if you look at them from the other side of the gate (you can only see this one if you use the camera, though, it's not seen in regular gameplay).


Unlike ACGS which was mostly ambience, Midnight does have music playing for the majority of the game. There isn't a whole lot of it, but I like what's here (the first game wasn't exactly big on the number of tracks either).
The ambient and enemy sounds are also good, there's a little bit of voice acting which is also alright


If the first game was similar to the original SNES Clock Tower, this one would be Clock Tower 2 on the PS1. We've moved away from side scrolling to fixed camera angels and tank controls which I'm all for. I feel like the devs have similar thoughts to me when working on Midnight.

The previous game had a lot of cool ideas, but never really went anywhere with them. With the sequel we now have less, but more properly implemented mechanics.

The hiding spots and the accompanying mini-game from the original are back, but are now a proper game mechanic you'll have to utilize to get some breathing room.
There's a lot more ghosts roaming around as well as a proper chaser ghost and you can't get rid of them permanently like you could before.
Instead of jade bracelets you now have Magatama which serve the same function, but you can carry more than two at a time.
There's inventory management which can get a bit annoying because you only have four slots, but the game isn't particularly long, so once you start to figure things out you can just pre-emptively drop items to the locations they are needed to save yourself some backtracking.
You can now use your camera like an actual camera to find and take collectible pictures of ghosts.
The puzzles are alright and I like how one of them in particular has multiple ways to do it.

You only have to beat the game twice now Halloween update rectified this. Good ending is now tied to a new optional area and you can attain it during your first run.

Speaking of which, you can now save whenever you want or use a few static save points. I feel like this should've been an option you can pick, because unless you have the will to resist manual saving, the single save point is kinda pointless.

For gameplay issues: Most of my grievances got fixed in the Halloween update. I'm quite satisfied with how the game plays now. Especially in New Game+ with the extra ghosts and what not.


Overall after the Halloween update I've ended up really loving this. It might not have as many features as ACGS, but it takes the ones that it has and implements them properly throughout the whole game. I'm also very happy that the devs clearly care for it, are listening to feedback and improving upon it.

Here's to hoping if there's a third game in the series we get something more focused on exorcising the ghosts à la KUON.

Supernatural spooks in a cyberpunk setting is something I never knew I wanted and now I NEED MORE OF IT!

The AGNMI reunion in cyberspace was a thing of beauty. 10/10 worth shilling for a headset.

Hey kids! You like shooty shoot? You like Nine Inch Nails? A f*cked up amalgamation of techno and body horror that would make Tsutomu Nihei from his early years give you a kiss on the cheek?

Well then, INCISION might just be the game for you. It's in Early Access as of me writing this, but what's here is top notch.


"Nah."
-Soldier G65434-2


It looks like a 90s FPS, but the style and atmosphere is on point. Can't go wrong with nightmarish industrial hellspaces. Only criticism I have on this front is the catacombs map being way too dark even with the flashlight. Aside from that, good sh*t all around.


*Chef's kiss*


You know what an FPS is, so I'm skipping that explanation. The controls are great and the arsenal gets the job done. The revolver has to be one of the most fun weapons I've used in quite some time.

An interesting decision is to not include any kind of mid level saving. If you die you start the map from the beginning. You can find extra lives on occasion, those act as an immediate resurrection similar to Doom Eternal.

I'm not sure if this is a bug or an intended feature, but sometimes extra lives will carry over to the next level, some times they won't. If you exit the game and load a save all your extra lives will be gone.

I've seen people complain about this, personally I don't mind starting over as long as the maps aren't too long (so far they aren't). The only time I got irritated was during the first boss, because there's a small section of the map you have to replay each time if you get killed. The rest is fine.

Difficulty-wise I played on the "intended" difficulty and it was pretty much what I expected. Challenging, but not too difficult. Took a while for my FPS skills to reactivate, but once they did it was smooth sailing. PROTIP: explosions are a b*tch.


Refer to the very first paragraph.

Now this was a short, but thoroughly enjoyable experience. For 4 bucks you're essentially getting a first person version of Resident Evil 1 with some other goodies sprinkled in. I'll keep this one short.


You go to sleep and wake up in spooky mansion. There be zombies and monsters.


I like the visuals. They evoke the feel of classic Resident Evil while also reminding me of pre-OpenGL GoldSrc AKA back when it looked good.


Again very Resident Evil, some areas have music, others are mostly ambiance. Weapons sound good, enemies sound good, decapitating zombies with the shotgun is aural bliss.


Like I said. It's Resident Evil 1 as a first person shooter and you only play as a single character. Resources are limited, but at least on normal difficulty you'll find more than enough to survive if you're not playing recklessly. I haven't tried hard yet. Some enemies are absolute sh*tters to deal with, but I hoard explosives for a reason.

There's sh*t to unlock including new weapons and extra game modes for that extra replayability.

The game is filled to the brim with references and it's not even remotely subtle about them. There's the obvious Resident Evil (mainly 1 and 4), Silent Hill 2 and 4, Blood, Half-Life 1, Diablo 1, Castlevania, Monty Python, you name it. They are well used, though and not cringeworthy unlike other attempts I've seen.


You like classic Resident Evil and have 4 bucks to spare? Get this, it's great.

This was, in all honesty, one of the most enjoyable Half-Life 2 related things I've played in a very long time (especially after Alyx which was so f*cking boring I can't even be bothered to sit through the remainder of it).

The story was very enjoyable, the voice acting is great and I love how they managed to replicate the older beta styled Combine voices. The music is great with a nice mix of vanilla tracks ,original tracks and HL2 inspired music.

The levels are well made and fun to explore, the combat is on point, the weapons are far more satisfying to use compared to vanilla HL2 and the overhauled AI freshens things up quite a bit. I did run into a few small bugs (mostly visual), but nothing game breaking.

TL;DR: Sh*t like this is what I want out of my Half-Life. Go play it, it's f*cking free and it's f*cking great!

Now this game's title is a little misleading. Depending on how you interpret it you might get a completely wrong idea on what to expect which can hamper your enjoyment so I'll clear that up first.

If you go into this expecting cyberghosts, digital consciousness and other such things that usually come with the cyberpunk territory you're not gonna get them. This is a supernatural ghost story that happens to take place in a cyber dystopia. The cyberpunk is there, but it's not the game's main focus.

I'm not gonna bother with the whole censorship fiasco that happened last year. That's every other Steam review out there. On to the actual game.


I'll spare you a summary. The store page description does a good job at explaining the gist of it. What I will say is that the story is pretty good, but you'll have to do a fair bit of reading to get the whole picture (which you'll have do anyway because some notes contain keys to solving puzzles). Make sure to also do the side story that unlocks after beating the game once. It's short and sweet and sheds a bit more light on things.

One thing to keep in mind is that the game has two endings. In order to get the true/good ending you'll have to beat it 3 times. It's not a huge deal since the only real things that change are your ability to save everywhere and one extra ghost that's entirely optional, but you still have to do it.


The visuals are nothing mindblowing, but they get the job done. I like the character designs and the world is the proper kind of futuristic sh*thole that I expect from my cyberpunk media. I'm not exactly the biggest fan of the style of animation the game uses, but I've played other games that use it so I can live with it.

The atmosphere is definitely on point, though. I don't know what it is about being stuck in abandoned locations while neon lights shine everywhere around you, but sh*t like this speaks to me on a spiritual level. There are a couple of locations that made me stop what I was doing and stay there for a while just enjoying the sights and sounds. That's a HUGE plus in my books.


You'll spend most of the time listening to ambiance which is something I quite enjoy in my spooky vidya. The few music tracks that do play on occasion are pretty good too and fit the setting. I quite enjoyed the sounds the ghosts make. Most of the voice acting is also pretty good except for Mei. Some of her lines are delivered well, but others are hilariously bad.


The game is pretty flawed, but for a first attempt by a small studio I can't fault it too much. We can't all make masterpieces on our first try, but what's here is solid and it's clear to me they put a lot of love into it.

Gameplay wise it's similar to the original Clock Tower minus the point and click controls. You'll be exploring, solving puzzles, avoiding ghosts and exorcising them later on. You can also take ghost photos like in Fatal Frame which are pretty cool, but they are just collectibles.

The first time you play you'll be able to save anywhere you want, NG+ leaves you with auto saves and Betamax tapes that are limited and can be used to save in specific locations like in classic Resident Evil, NG++ removes the auto saves so you're stuck only with the tapes which is how the game was originally from what I understand, but apparently people whined about it and it was changed.

The issue here is that after you beat the game once you'll know exactly what to do (it gets even easier if you have the habit of taking notes like I do) so limiting your saving options is utterly pointless because you already know when you should bother to save and there's more than enough tapes lying around.

It would've been cool if, for example, the extra ghost I mentioned at the beginning was present for the entirety of NG++ to add some extra tension, but maybe they'll implement more NG+ changes in future titles (as of me writing this a sequel just released out of nowhere a short while ago).

The game's biggest flaw is that it introduces neat mechanics but never really does anything with them. For example early on you'll get to hide in a closet so a ghost can move past you. You have to play a small and easy mini-game so you aren't found out. But this is the one and only time you really have to do it. You can just run past every other ghost that chases you with zero trouble. Combat is introduced halfway into the game, but it's only utilized in a few specific spots. You'll still be exorcising ghosts the old fashioned way 80% of the time.

Despite some jank they are cool ideas that I really wish were utilized more instead of being a one and done deal for the most part, but like I said at the start it's their first game so I'm willing to cut them some slack. Hopefully the devs focus on having less, but better implemented mechanics in their future games.

The core gameplay is still solid if you're a Clock Tower fan, the puzzles are neat and I enjoyed learning about the ghosts' pasts so I can exorcise them properly. There is some backtracking involved, but I didn't find it too tedious. The game isn't particularly long and on repeat playthroughs you can just speedrun it because you'll you know what to do.

Also UNLOCKABLE COSTUMES THAT ARE NOT PAID DLC 10/10


A solid first attempt for a small studio that happens to combine 2 of my 3 all-time favorite things in fiction: horror and cyberpunk (even if the latter isn't a heavy focus). The title can be a bit misleading and the game itself is quite flawed, but it's an overall good time. Not sure if it's worth the full price, but on a sale I definitely recommend it.

Notrium is a game that's very dear to me. The very first version of it I played was 1.2, which I got off a CD that came with a gaming magazine back in 2004. I had no idea what I was doing, but it captivated me so much that I spent quite a few sleepless nights playing through it and figuring things out as I went (I still didn't have internet at that point so I was pretty much on my own).

I won't claim that Notrium is the first of its kind, but it's definitely one of the oldest survival games out there and I still consider it to be one of the absolute best, especially when you take into account that it was a freeware game made by more or less one dude called Ville Mönkkönen.


The gist of it is that your spaceship gets destroyed by missiles as it passes by the an alien planet and you're the only survivor. Your job is naturally to find a way to escape. The neat thing here is that you get 4 playable characters to choose from each with their own story that progresses via journal logs the longer you survive as well as 6 different endings. It's nothing phenomenal, but deep narrative isn't the focus here.


Honestly this is mostly nostalgia speaking, but Notrium looks timeless to me. I loved how it looked back in 2004 and I love how it looks today. I have no idea what this artstyle is called, it might be a Finnish thing, because Crimsonland looked almost the same back in the day and I loved how that game looked too.


There isn't a whole lot when it comes to music. You have a track for the main menu and 3 ambient tracks that play during the game. The general ambiance is great. The weapons sound satisfying and so do the aliens you encounter.
The music can get repetitive, because none of the tracks are particularly long. Personally I'm fine with it, but Notrium is extremely easy to mod (I'll get more into that later) and adding new music to the playlist won't take you more than a few minutes.


This is where Notrium truly shines. It's not filled to the brim with hundreds of "features" that mostly devolve into busy work. It's simple, to the point and highly replayable. You have 3 difficulties to choose from. On easy you only have to worry about finding food. on normal and hard you'll have to deal with your body temperature as well. I generally recommend starting on easy so you can get a feel for how things work, then moving on to higher difficulties.

As I said before you get 4 characters to choose from and they all play different. The human, the alien, the android and the psionic.
- The human has to worry about food and temperature as well as building different tools and weapons in order to survive. I recommend you start with him.
- The alien burns through food a lot faster and can't carry as much nor use a lot of tools and weapons, but is extremely deadly in close combat. Over time it evolves by either surviving long enough or killing other species and thus gains more abilities (you'll eventually be able to start your very own xenomorph hive).
- The android is very strong, can use the same tools the human can, doesn't eat and cares little for temperature, however his energy is constantly draining and you'll have to find ways to replenish it and extend your capacity.
- The psionic is the most unique character and I highly recommend you leave him for last. He barely needs to eat and his energy regenerates on its own. However he can't carry any items (there's a way to get around this MUCH later in the game) and combines different tokens to use his psionic abilities.

You'll be spending your time exploring the planet and scavenging for parts to build the things you need to survive and escape. Crafting is done on the fly from your inventory. You can also dismantle things you find into their parts and use them for something else.
You'll survive by eating mushrooms (keep an eye on the name as some of the big ones are rotten and will damage you), alien corpses and rations (which you can find or create). Your body temperature can be regulated by warming up near fires you find or start, hiding under trees, using thermal/ice packs or a certain armor.

A really neat feature Notrium has is that every time you start a new game the map locations are randomized. Map layouts and enemy/item spawns are completely random (with a few exceptions). There's also a day/night cycle and weather effects that affect your temperature and can damage or heal you.

Combat is similar to a twin stick shooter, keyboard/mouse controls only, though. You'll have to pick the right weapon for the job as some enemies are very resistant to bullets.

There's a ton of things to do and with different characters and the random elements the replay value is high.

Like I said, Notrium is very easy to mod. It comes from an era when most people didn't feel the need to encrypt the sh*t out of everything and it had a small, but very dedicated modding community. You can easily tweak things as you desire. All the data files can be opened with a text editor, are neatly arranged and are very easy to understand. There's an ingame map editor too. Once you're done with the main game I highly recommend going to Ville's website and grabbing UberWaffe's Werivar Mod. It adds a fifth playable character, a ton of new content and vastly expands what's already there. It's a genuine expansion pack.

I adore this game and can't recommend it enough. For a single man project from 2003 it's incredible and it's still incredible nowadays.

I only have one personal gripe and that's with the Steam version. Now version 1.3.4.1 is the last freeware version of Notrium from 2005 and I consider that one to be the definitive experience. The Steam release removed an option or two, added a few small additions and made the game widescreen. However in the process the camera was broken. In 1.3.4.1 it would stop at the edge of the map as you approached it, but that is no longer the case. Now the camera will always be centered around your character so every time you reach the edge of the map you get to see the black abyss beyond it.

I guess it's not a big deal if you've never played Notrium before, but for me it's a HUGE immersion breaker hence why I've replaced the files in my Steam folder with 1.3.4.1. The game works perfectly, you just can't unlock achievements.

Now don't get me wrong, you should still give Ville 2 bucks because he absolutely deserves them (hell I'd say it's criminally cheap considering how good it is), but I generally recommend you go with 1.3.4.1 instead. You can easily find it online.

I'm going to give this a thumbs up because it wasn't all that bad HOWEVER you should get this game only if:
- The entire EXAELLA bundle that includes this game, the OVA it's based on and the soundtrack is on a very good sale. I got it for 70% off and I feel like I got my shekels' worth because I enjoyed the OVA and the music.
- Like me you're a big fan of Tsutomu Nihei's older works (BLAME! in particular), want something that will give you a similar feeling to reading them and have already played everything else that exists (what little there is of it).
- You are a patient man, because while it does get a bit better, the early game can be very frustrating.

With that aside:

I have no clue what's going on in this game or the OVA for that matter.

For the record: I played a bit of this first, then went to watch the OVA, then came back and finished the rest of the game in one sitting. I like the premise and the overall setting, but aside from some exposition at the very beginning of the game there's barely any story to speak of, nor is there any lore to be found. You're given tasks to do at a terminal and then you go and do them.

Now it does say that this game is an alternate take of the events that happen in the OVA, but I had no idea what was going on in that either. However the plot is not the main reason I enjoyed this.


Technically it's nothing impressive. It's a low budget 3D game, you can find plenty of similar looking games on mobile, although a tiny bit more effort was put into this than the thousands of unity asset flips you usually find there.

When it comes to aesthetics and atmosphere I was quite pleased. I'm a sucker for industrial looking sci-fi with lots of pipes and cables and the game definitely scratches that itch.


Probably my second favorite part after the game's aesthetics. I quite enjoyed the music in the OVA and the game has some pretty nice tunes as well. They are nothing you'll be remembering for years to come but they work well to set the tone of the game.


Here's where the sh*tshow starts. The game is very slow paced and the controls are rather clunky. You do get used to them after a while, but they need a lot more work. If this was a walking simulator with puzzles I wouldn't really mind as much, however there is combat. And it's absolutely abysmal in the early game. It does get a bit better later on but if you're not patient you're better off avoiding this game altogether.

Let me give you a few tips to save you a ton of headaches:
- The very first enemies you encounter are zombies that rush you the moment they see you. You'll have to fend them off with a pistol initially, but said pistol is beyond bad. Try to fire at them from as far away as you can, with some luck you'll kill them before they reach you.
- In the third mission you get a katana. Once you get it immediately switch to that for the zombies. It can usually kill them in 2-4 hits.
- The second enemy you'll fight are robots that shoot at you. Once you find the energy weapon (I think it's during the second mission) use that against them. Forget the pistol exists. Don't let go of the fire button when you crouch under their projectiles. I find that letting it go before you crouch has a chance to delay the animation forcing you to take damage.
- There's a third enemy in the form of these flying machines, but I never bothered to fight them, you can just outrun them.
- The loot in containers will respawn on occasion, so make sure to check them again when backtracking. Enemies drop ammo and healing as well, so make sure to loot everything.

Once you get your second and third weapons it's smooth sailing from there.

There are dying NPCs you can give healing items to in order to save them. This gives you karma. What said karma does I have no idea, but I finished the game with 100% karma and still had plenty of healing items to spare.

Aside from healing items you can also heal yourself in terminals scattered throughout the game. The healing is done over time based on how stressed your character is (the less stress you have the faster you heal, it goes down on its own). It's an interesting idea that the devs probably had plans for, but it never got anywhere. As it is right now it's an extremely slow process you won't bother with once you get a few more healing items on you. The animations in said terminals are pretty cool though.

There are a few "puzzles" to solve, but they are nothing complicated. Overall even if you take your time you should be done with the game in about 2 and a half hours or so.


Get bundle on big discount. OVA is fun (watch in japanese, the voice overs are crap), music is pretty good, game not so much, but there's far worse out there.