Recent reviews by Arch Geneforger

TL; DR Suffering builds character. Suffering builds character. Suffering builds character.

Note this game should come with a warning about the mature content…


John and his family have this cozy off-planet vacation all planned out, but space travel takes a while, so first they will need to take a short nap…

What is the worst family vacation you have ever been on? That bad huh, well, unfortunately for John, him and his family are having an even tougher time. He wakes up, disoriented in an unfamiliar place, and grievously injured, neither his wife, his daughter nor anyone else is there, he is alone and trembles with the cold.

This game is incredible gripping, it is not just that you feel for John, and you want him to reunite with his family, but it is also the stories going on around him, the scattered diaries of people abandoned in their final moments. Groomlake had some awful people on it, but others tried to do good, both make for interesting reads because you get to read their rationalisation, and you get read how others viewed their actions at the time, i.e. before you woke up.
With that said, are you squeamish? Because if you are you should not play this game, John is a teacher, and he has a heard time dealing with what he sees, he pukes, and panics but he carries on because his family is somewhere on Groomlake… and what is he doing with that drill?
JOHN NO, PUT IT DOWN, JOHN!!

As for the puzzles, they are typically on the easier side, combining and using items in logical ways, or solving something trickier with clues scattered about the surrounding area. In fact, most areas are self-contained, and you will typically find and use everything in a single section before moving on, of course there are exceptions, typically tools and the like, but in those cases, you know you will use them shortly, they are not just there to clog up your inventory.
So, there was only one time when I felt the need to look up a solution, and that was because I kept missing a clue!
STASIS might also give you a newfound understanding of pool cues, did you know that they are about as sharp as knives?
I digress, a more important thing to know is that I went out of bounds twice, on accident, including the third room in the game, so make sure you save frequently to avoid replaying or resolving puzzles.


I made this review a bit silly but do not expect sillyness from STASIS, if they happen to make a joke, they will be at the gallows.

TL; DR I like this game, but I could have loved it, there is a lot to enjoy about it, emergent stories, fun ways to end the world, it is fun and all, but a lot of the mechanics are underdeveloped and lacking in depth. So, while you have fun you will end up feeling a bit disappointed that you could not do more.

Note turn off the in-game music and listen to Atramentus instead, bring about an eternal winter in style.

in the great history of our world there have been numerous deities, but only the fools take comfort in false idols offering safety, and everlasting joy.
Gods are awakening, the real gods, the true gods, they rouse, and we are their heralds, the fields will burn, the cities plunged into anarchy, the dead will feast in the streets, terrors will rise from the depths, but our great work is just beginning, the world must be prepared for their coming, so that the world may end.

Shadows of Forbidden Gods does not have a true story, it is a Cultist Simulator and you direct your pawns to bring about an apocalypse, whatever stories you experience must emerge while playing and are therefore unique to your playthrough but there are common themes, and characters.
Humans are brittle and quick to corrupt, the Chosen One will rally the uncorrupted against you, but you have access to a number of unique archetypes (such as the last giant, or the Monarch).
It is the duty of the Monarch to create an Empire of Darkness filled with subservient souls too numb to stop the apocalypse, just as how it is the Chosen One’s destiny to try and fail to fight against the end of all they have ever held dear.

However, this all means that you can safely ignore any narrative if you want to, but I find something charming in this authorless tale, there is something real to it, and the way you can corrupt troublesome heroes to your side, drive them to madness or the send their homelands into internecine wars over slights, is funny, and makes for an entertaining time.
You can also create some very cinematic encounters, such as the Chosen One desperately trying to strike down the Survivor from opposite ends of the world, as the giant calls down the glacial black winds of Atramentus and as each and every turn more and more towns are destroyed, more and more people die, as he finally avenges his people, and destroys humanity.

This game is just a mass of hexes, and I would have wanted a more expansive zoom.
It is impossible to get a panoptic view, and you are frequently panning left, right, up, down, while holding your cursor in one specific place of the screen because you cannot lockdown a modifier and have to keep hovering over it if you want to check famine levels aaaaaaaaaaahhhhh.
In other words, it is a bit intimidating when you are first starting out because it is hard to get an actual read of what is going on, which is a bit of a problem when you are trying to end the world.

I do not know if Shadows of Forbidden Gods has one track or several, I did not pay attention, because whatever it was it did not hold my attention for long. Suffice to say that acoustic music does not exactly evoke the feelings of dread that the game needs. So yeah, listen to Atramentus, or Bell Witch instead.

Emergent narratives are fun, of course, but Shadows of Forbidden Gods is a game, and games are meant to be played, so… how does it play?
Well, you control a small selection of cultists and use them to undermine the established order, you are always outnumbered so you lay low and stick to the shadows until you have caused enough damage to escalate. This means you will be waiting a lot in the early game but that things will ramp up in intensity as you continue to conspire, and as your god slowly awakens.

Your deity will inform your place style, whether you focus on spreading darkness, madness, or if you are building up the alternative to the darkness, an all-consuming light under your direct control.
In any case, if you are too brazen, you will be caught, not only will the uncorrupted armies harass you, but heroes will start hunting you down, and when they find you… you might be able to kill them if you have a good retinue and some cool artifacts, but most of the time you will die.
Does the Dark God care for a tool? Of course not, but they do care for fun toys, and if your agent was useful, it seems a bit counterproductive to lose them out of foolhardiness, better to kill them off when you are ready to cut them loose.
In the meanwhile, however, they have a value, maybe they will cultivate a Deep One Cult, just undermine a kingdom with some well-placed scandals, or covert assassinations, why not have them harass the countryside and start a famine? Perhaps a plague or two?
All of that, and more is possible in Shadows of Forbidden Gods, and that is the whole appeal, it is fun to cause mayhem, it is fun to start internecine wars at the very end of the world, and it is fun to destroy humanity, in a video game.
Like magic, magic is awesome, if you prepare enough for the highest tiers of magic you can summon forth an ice age, change the lay of the land with a volcano, or summon armies of undead to feast on unsuspecting, and undefended borderlands.
Getting to that point might take an entire game, this is not a joke, if you play with “Magical Arms Race”, you will be hard-pressed to find any Arcane Secrets to increase your learning because everyone will want them, not to mention that if you play with Holy Orders (religions) a bunch of religious fanatics will run about destroying all our arcane tomes.
So, you will either run out of time, or you will have to cultivate plagues, commit mass murder &cetera to generate enough souls for arcane research, which will cause so much devastation that you might win from just that. You end up in an awkward position of not wanting to remove a fun aspect of the game or keeping them and neutering magic to the point of making it (nearly) useless.

So, Shadows of Forbidden Gods is not as great as it could have been, it has a wide array of options, but all your options are limited and not as well developed as you might hope.
Combat is as barebones as it can possible get, which is not much of an issue since its just there, but you start having issues when more central concepts are underbaked, in fact it is difficult to find any mechanic that has been taken to its logical endpoint, everything leaves you wanting more, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is unfortunate.
I think the most illustrating example is the Deep One Cult, you can, if you want, start Deep One Cults that infiltrate societies, and eventually kill off the last pure humans in the town. Cool, but all you do is keep their menace, and profile to a minimum, i.e. the same thing you do for your agents, intermittently feeding them cash, or holy power to keep them growing.
That is the entire extent of it, besides one thing, you can curse a noble line and in so doing getting a few uncontrollable fishmen running about starting new cults for you to babysit. I love cursing the nobility, but man, it really sucks that there is not more to it, and the community agrees because there is a workshop mod for the Deep Ones as well as the Orcs. However, if you are fine with that level of depth, then this is nothing to worry about, and you will enjoy Shadows of Forbidden Gods.

TL; DR Unapologetically old-school, and quite literally made with the King’s Field mapmaking tools, its free so there are no excuses to avoid trying it out.
This is not Lunacid 2, it is Lunacid – Tears of the Moon

Note that the keyboard controls are finicky, they work fairly well, but it takes some getting used to, and you won’t have mouselook.


Silver moonlight fell from the heavens and struck Calamis on his temple, he received a portent of a terrible future: The Great Old One awakes, and the world as he knows it will end, violently, unless he takes drastic measures to lull it back to sleep…

Tears of the Moon was made with tools from the year 2000, and to show you that they are serious they put a note in your inventory without telling you. This note is very important because it tells you what Calamis needs for his ritual, while the manual and the intro only serve to set the scene.
However, our hero cannot do this alone, he might be a mage, and a swordsman of some skill, but he needs the Moonlight Blade, which is broken and scattered, it must be reforged and accomplishing that is the entirety of Tears of the Moon.
There are also people to meet, and diaries to intrude upon, this adds something to make the world feel more inhabited, like hearing that tea making the librarian sleepy, or finding a complete recipe for a Lyrian dish, I like little normal things like that.

I love Lunacid so of course I love more content in the same setting, with the same sort of broody, gloomy atmosphere but as stated this was made with old tools, so it is a completely different experience from Lunacid, and closer to King’s Field (I imagine, I haven’t played them!). Sometimes this makes for a more tense game, you turn slowly, you expend your stamina if you want to do it slightly faster, and it can be tricky to dodge magic… but it is also quite easy, because the enemies have simply movesets that are trivial to memorise, by the time you reach the Castle you will have learnt how to avoid every attack, or you will be strong enough that they hit like wet tissue.
I enjoy this slower, more methodical rhythm, and I like being killed by a skeleton hiding in a chest, but Tears of the Moon could have been a bit more challenging. Once you dodge attacks like a master it is simply too easy, and you are left wondering… how much HP does this enemy have, are my attacks even registering? Because that is my main complaint, certain creatures have a lot of HP, they feel very spongy, and since you dodge them so easily it gets rather tedious.
I was left wondering if it was some sort of puzzle, do I need to use the Sword of the Wastes? Do I need to use a special item? Was there a note I missed that explained everything? None of that, just wail on them for a while longer.

So, if you like King’s Field, want more of Lunacid’s setting, or if you are simply interested in games with an older design philosophy, then this is a game for you, and let me tell you, I like it, so why wouldn’t you? Even if you don’t… its free!

TL; DR This is the first proper adventure game I finished, and it is a titan of the genre. It is a fantastic game with an emotional, sometimes distressing, story and a lot of interesting environments to explore. If you are into point-and-click adventure games, you have probably played it already!

Note that this game is buggy so keep multiple saves.


Our hero wakes up in a repurposed castle of some sort, now it looks more like a panopticon, sirens are blaring in the background, and he does not even remember his own name, all he has are the vague memories of crashing a car, and a startling revelation that he cannot recall.

Sanitarium is a psychological horror point-and-click adventure game, discussing a game like that, risks spoiling the experience, ideally you will go in blind, but this is a review, and I will be vague, and avoid as many spoilers as possible.

It gets unsettling, and disturbing, the beginning especially so, someone is ramming their head into a wall, an alarm is sounding, and you have no idea what is going on, other than the fact that you, and the other patients were just left here to die. That disconcerting air never leaves, there is always a threat to your, or someone else’s safety, nor are you ever quite sure how sane you are, or what is even real, and that is all part of the charm, and the mystery.
Suffice to say that Sanitarium is an amazing game, it features several disparate story arcs with few surface level elements in common, but it melds them together perfectly, solving whatever inconsistencies you might have picked up on, while revealing the underlying themes, and ideas in each arc.
Sanitarium is so well written, and it works so well, that it might as well have been a novel, or a TV-show, an adventure game from 1998 has no right being that good, but it is, and quite frankly this story works best as a video game, it works best when you experience and interact with it yourself… So, play it.
Another noteworthy thing is the voice-acting, again, its 1998, you should not expect it to be good, and its not, however, Sanitarium still manages to make heart wrenching lines from poor performances, sometimes a simple, defeated line, from an amateur voice-actor can strike harder than a professional, therefore I am not ashamed to admit that this game made me cry.
It all comes back to the narrative, they make me care, they imply pasts, and show us trauma and injustices, they set a soundscape, and they top it off with natural dialogue.

Since I do not wish to spoil the puzzles, I am left with a warning…
Sanitarium is rather buggy, there are a couple of ways to lock your game and make further progress impossible… so to counteract that I suggest saving at the start of every level and keeping at least two saves within each one.

TL; DR teaser to a Twin Peaks-inspired survival horror title.

Lake Haven – Chrysalis is about a detective and the mission person case that changed the trajectory of his life. This is a teaser, a prologue, a demo, whatever you prefer for a game that is not out, it is literally an hour or so, therefore it is pointless to discuss the story any further.

Chrysalis is great for what it is, it has tons of atmosphere, (fixed) camerawork used correctly, and it makes me excited for what is to come.
This game with its PS1-graphics, disturbing soundscape, perspective-limiting camera angles, is legitimately pretty creepy, it made me stop in my tracks, because I got chills, so how could I not be excited for the butterfly that they are making?

TL; DR Let me be frank, this is one of the best Warhammer videogames and is an easy recommend for any fan of the setting, but it is also a fun, perhaps a bit easy tactics game that is well worth your time if you want a game with intriguing writing, great music, and fun gameplay.

Note I am so glad there aren’t any Space Marines in this game!

In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.
And there can be no war without the Adeptus Mechanicus, the industrial heart of the Imperium of Man, mechanically enhanced priests who seek and hoard forgotten (human) knowledge with an idolatrous zeal. They scour the galaxy in search of forgotten worlds, archeotech, and new weapons to bear against the enemies of man, and sometimes, they happen upon things best left dormant.

The Cult Mechanicus understands the transience of flesh so there is an instinctive pull to pair them with the slumbering rulers of Silva Tenebris, the Necrons, and it is one of my all-time favourite matchups. They are such interesting foils to one another that I am invested from the outset.

Does Mechanicus deliver? Yes, and it seems effortless. Its small cast of characters are memorable, well-defined and offer contrasting, opposing, and sometimes complementing arguments for any and all courses of action.
As Magos Dominus Faustinius this is your quest, you are in charge of the ship, so the Tech-Acquisitor Scaevola and the Lector-Dogmatis Videx must acquiesce to your orders, as does everyone else.
However, as you sit there, overseeing an operation they will attempt to sway you to their side. Videx will spout out his catechism, quotes, and precepts from his unending repository for each and every eventually, meanwhile Scaevola has abandoned even her vocal cords in favour of the machine, she “speaks” completely in Lingua-Technis, perhaps blessed Binharic, her words come out as code, with comments to state the topic, mood or her desired outcome.
So, you have Videx spouting dogma in one ear and Scaevola positively gleeful at the thought of hoarding heretical knowledge on the other, what’s not to love?

Now, do not fear, you, who know nothing of Warhammer lore, isolate those emotions, and disable them from your bios, the machine knows no fear.
Mechanicus is great at getting you into the world, because the only things that matters are the Necrons, and the Tech-Priests. Scaevola, Faustinius, and Videx forms your Overton window, everything more extreme than Scaevola is heresy, anything more dogmatic than Videx might just destroy the entire planet from orbit, and your player avatar is somewhere in the middle, balancing them, and giving you an in-depth understanding of both positions.
The other characters delve into other aspects of the Adeptus, the values and worth of their troops, the single-minded determination of a being completely redesigned for assassination, but Faustinius remains as the core, the everyman, and that will tell you how extreme they are.

Mechanicus takes place inside a tomb, in fact, the entire planet is a tomb, and it is swarming with its interred, robotic masters. It is all one, massive megastructure, the catacombs extend throughout, littered with traps, monuments, factories and ruins, you feel small when you explore it, almost like you are doing something wrong by engaging in some jolly graverobbing.
While there is definitely enough visual variety to satisfy a 20-hour game, I do wish we could have seen more of our starship, what is not to love about a giant flying, gothic, church-factory? If you do want to play on it, you will need to buy Heretek.
With that said, we also get a bunch of customisations for our Tech-Priests, I love my cohort of mutilated cyborgs! However, I do wish we could go even further, I want even more monstrous, deranged designs, yes, I love my Myrmidons, but I want something like Scaevola, so “enhanced” that they are barely recognisable as human, so “improved” that the Necrons are more relatable.

This game also features some sick sound design, weapons feel distinct and threatening, but as mentioned the dialogue portrays the conflict at the heart of the faction, the obsession with the machine and the veneration of human biology, Mechanicus would not feel the same if the humans spoke English like the Necrons.
On another hand… there is a reason why you can buy the OST on vinyl. Its quite special, blending a religious mass, with dark ambience, and electronics, every song is memorable and frankly fantastic, it is the perfect OST for Mechanicus but I believe my personal favourites are Millennial Rage, or Overlord.

Faustinius is a Magus, of course he should not risk the remains of his flesh against the alien menace, and with his emotions contained, but not expunged, he can make callous but necessary commands while being emotionally cognisant enough to read the morale and mood of his less favoured servants. So, send your cohorts into the dark depths of the Tomb World, search for forbidden knowledge, engage in holy Xenocide, all from the comfort of your bridge!

Mechanicus is split into two parts, your pre-mission preparations where you handle equipment, chose missions based on advisors or the randomised rewards; and the planetside portions of the game where you deal with events, destroy Xenos, and try to escape before the entire Tomb World awakens and launches a crusade against the Imperium.
That does mean what you think it does, there is a time limit, the longer you stay on a mission the harder it will become, and once you have completed the mission the Awakening Guage will increase by that amount. Once the Guage is maxed out… finale!
It is not as alarming as it sounds, there are ways to decrease the meter, and I had a wide margin remaining after finishing every single mission. If you are worried, here are a few tips: focus on the objectives, you will have plenty of items by the end of the game no matter what; destroy terminals, preferable after looting them; look at the catacombs before you start exploring, reset the mission if absolutely necessary, and do not pick the long way around because you failed to pay attention.

As for the actual combat it is highly enjoyable turn-based tactics, this is partly because of the sound design, but also because of the vast array of tech, and abilities you get.
One of my favourite strategies is stacking movement on my melee Tech-Priests and sending them rushing across the map to engage Immortals or other powerful ranged attackers. Another is stacking a bunch of buffs on one of my (Myrmidon) Destructors and clearing an entire room with a single shot from my Heavy Grav Canon, maybe killing one of my servitors in the process.
Which is another important part of Mechanicus, this is not a cohort of Tech-Priests, it is a cohort of Tech-Priests and their guards, this includes relics from the Legio Cybernetica, regiments of Skitarii, and an army of lobotomised servitors. Some of them are worth keeping alive, but not servitors, they are here safeguarding your holy corpus, you can even analyse their wounds to increase your combat effectiveness!
All this to say that they make you play like a Magos Dominus, servitors are free, you are rewarded when they get hit, while you lose resources if a Skitarii dies or a Tech-Priest gets injured, the mechanics incentivises roleplaying.

We also get a couple of unique, and fun bosses. They all play vastly different from each other, and they all have some sort of gimmick, like summoning an army of adds, throwing a gauntlet at you, switching their resistances &cetera. This is fun and a nice change up pace, and since you are fighting a single, powerful unit, it is always fun to surround them with a buffed firing line of Skitarii and decimating them with a volley or two!

TL; DR Ender Magnolia: Bloom in Mists is a lot like its predecessor but it puts a larger focus on character relations, parrying as well as on smaller, more focused movesets.
While I prefer Ender Lilies I still think that Ender Magnolia is well worth the price for any fan of the genre, after all it is far more enjoyable that a lot of its competitors.

Our city is falling, the Rain of Death hails us from above, and Blighted Fumes rise from the depths. Our Homunculi servants mutate, grow rabid and uncontrollable. Our greatest helpers have become our most lethal enemies, but there is still a small ray of hope.
You play as Lilac, who fell from the Upper Stratum with but a few vague memories of her rescuer, you must figure out the truth, you must tune the Homunculi, purify them from the Blight and perhaps save the Land of Fumes.

Throughout your journey Lilac tunes the discarded Homunculi of the Lower Statum, and since you saved them from a terrible fate, they join you on your quest. They are the abandoned, the disgraced and fallen, so together they form a sort of found family with Lilac, sharing stories, worries, woes and forming new bonds as they make their way through the Stratums on a quest for truth and vengeance.
As you might expect Ender Magnolia ends up with a lot more dialogue than its predecessor, it is not just the Homunculi but also other Attuners, and civilians, this gives you a wider view of the world, but they also try to preserve some of the note- and memory-delving mysteries of Ender Lilies. However, I find that this new approach has a few drawbacks…
Namely that they could have done more with it, yes Lilac and the homunculi enact something of a found family storyline, but they are also hesitant to have too much dialogue, too many interactions, but this is a game that would have benefited from a few more. Simply delving deeper into their opinions and reactions to the things they see and hear would have made the writing significantly more enticing, instead they try and strike a middle ground, one which lacks the depth of comprehensive narratives, and the mystery of more opaque stories.
So, they are homunculi, puppets, and there is a hint of character there that does not shine as brightly as it should and that is the shame. That is not even going into the humans, who have interesting motivations but are typically relegated to background lore, or a hint in a cutscene or two, which is also unfortunate.

Ender Magnolia takes place in a magi-tech fantasy, it has elements of clockwork designs, but it is an industrial world with pseudo-modern technologies. This can get a bit boring, there are only so many drab industrial quarters one can stomach until it gets grating, but Ender Magnolia does not quite get to that point.
Indeed, the early game is spent waddling through the refuse of the Lower Stratum, a place littered with garbage and the trash of the wealthy, but that is not all there is to it, there is a number of beautiful and vibrant unnatural environment that form a neat contrast to the suffocating urban sprawl. You would not appreciate the visuals of the Crimson Forest, or the Land of Origin if you had not spent a couple of hours in the city.
Some of this is also mitigated by the beautiful backdrops, but the fact that you are never actually in the middle of that makes it less impactful than the Crimson Forest which you personally traverse.

If you have played Ender Lilies you will not expect voice acting, but you will also expect a stellar OST by Mili, and Ender Magnolia delivers on both of those points.
They put an emphasis on gentle beats and sorrowful pianos with strings, and various other instruments here and there, as well as industrial machinery which together casts a desolate mood over the Land of Fumes, perfectly evoking the exact atmosphere that the visuals and lore portrayed while still offering a lot of varied songs. Naturally, this abandoned gloom is mostly absent from boss fights where they up the ante, homing in on the intensity and frustration of the maddened Homunculi.
I am particularly partial to the Stratum themes but specifically Dignity. It is sort of upbeat, with gentle vocals, it truly makes you feel like you have crawled your way up from the depths and is a great motivator for continuing your quest!
In all honestly the best song is probably the final boss theme, it encapsulates the best elements of the OST into a climactic and emotional finale, not to mention that they follow it up with Hearts Stay Unchanged another amazing song to close the cover on your travelogue.

The Land of Fumes is a tiered city, each Stratum is separated by blockades, or elevators, so the only way to climb to the top is sifting through the ruins trying to find power sources and keys.
Ender Magnolia handles these aspects swimmingly, you explore the world and will naturally come across the items you need just by playing the game.
They funnel you through the world in a proper order, it is difficult to be confused on where to go, not only because they signpost well but also because they mark each and every zone you have cleared, so it is easy to see whenever you have missed something. Another neat addition is the fact that you get all your movement abilities before leaving the Lower Stratum, this means you will never be confused on how to access a specific ability gate, it is just a matter of when you will upgrade your ability.

As for the combat you have a selection of Homunculi do to your fighting for you, each with three mutually exclusive abilities that can be changed whenever you take a respite. Some require no input from the player, while others require fairly precise timings, I enjoy these different tactics, and flavours because it tells you something of their history, and their training, it is quite cool.
Since the abilities are so different it is quite fun to mix and match, but it can be quite annoying too. Each ability has a different upgrade material, so if you really enjoy one attack… well tough luck because you will not be finding that specific resource for quite a while. This is especially annoying when the materials overlap between the Homunculi on your team, you are forced to pick one to keep using, or else you are just weakening yourself on purpose.
Of course, this is intentional, they want you to experiment and try different tactics, they want to prime you for that one boss who is deadly in melee but a breeze if you use anything with a tiny bit of range. All in all, you will be fine just using whatever team you like, because parrying will solve all of your problems.

I enjoy the combat, I enjoy the enemies, even though a few are too prevalent for my liking, but I find the bosses disappointing.
I think its awesome that you need to best a Homunculi to use them in battle, but a lot of the fights are simply not too interesting for me, they do not have enough gimmicks or cool stuff going on to be memorable. Sure, I think that the main Central Stratum bosses are great, and guess what? They both have gimmicks, one is a gauntlet, and the other can heal, oh the horror!
However, this is exactly why they stick out, because (some of) the rest of the bosses feel like ordinary enemies with some extra spice, new moves, different phases, multiple monsters baked into one, this can result in good bosses, but a lot of the times I am left wanting.
There is also the final boss, the final boss is great, and it is easily my favourite boss in Ender Magnolia. It has the challenge, the style, the variety to serve as a brilliant climax to a great game. As a fight it is far better than the finale to Ender Lilies, but this one did not make me cry, it only got me a bit teary eyed.

TL; DR One of my favourite lesser-known RPGs, it does not have the complex narrative or interactability of a CRPG, but it is an adventure, and the over-the-shoulder view puts you closer to the world, and its people. And what a world, filled with biblical and borderline Gnostic inspirations, and demons of all shapes and sizes.
Summoner is great for what it is, but it does suffer from a lack of encounter variety and repeat dungeons, however, it more than makes up for its faults provided that you like the combat or enjoy the story.

Note this is an old game, there are points of no return, and some annoying bugs, keep multiple save files.

A vagrant arrived at the village, he told a young boy of his destiny and handed him a ring of power, and so the village was massacred. Two vagrants left the ruins…
Near a decade has passed, Joseph is now a simple farmhand, haunted by what he has done, but now he is being flushed out of hiding, the Emperor Murod has discovered him, and he will not suffer the Summoner to live, but destiny cannot be denied.

Joseph bears the Mark of the Summoner, he is the Sahugani and like every Summoner he brings doom and suffering to his people. Joseph has already had a taste of this sour fate, yet his failures pale in comparison to his forebears, such as Armun who waged war on a god and petrified his people to save them from the waves, even now the Rings of Stone is on his rocky hand…
You must walk in the shadows of yore, collect the Rings of the Summoner for without them you stand no change of opposing the Usurper-Emperor Murod, his legions and his quest for Godhod.

While the premise of Summoner is largely questing for the McGuffins they manage to make it interesting by mixing up environments, introducing more characters, and exploring the backstory and lore more and more.
The story in and of itself is not bad, it has a dysfunctional party, an approximation of courtly intrigue, grand stakes, while also putting your boots on the ground and exploring everyday life, but it feels a bit limited by its technology and age. This has some interesting consequences because the lack of details in certain aspects is evocative in ways that modern games rarely are.
I found the worldbuilding especially intriguing because it has these biblical proportions, and I imagine, takes a couple of notes from Gnosticism. The Tower of Babel is a literal thing that the creator gods built to dethrone their father, humans are the angelic children of Urath who lost their wings when he was slain by his sister, and these are just the basic things you can learn at the very start of the game by visiting the Hierophant at the Temple of Urath.

Less interesting are the dialogue options, because they are not really options, are they? At times you can solve quests in different ways and maybe haggle a little bit for a reward but most of the time you only press a dialogue option to progress the conversation, simply repeating the last word your interlocutor said, and that feels extremely artificial.
It is an issue that could have been easily avoided by having fewer “dialogue options” or by changing our options to be sentences, that way there would be some semblance of a conversation.

Summoner features two regions prominently, Medeva, and Orenia, inspired by Europe and Orientalism respectively. This offers some variety from the get-go, but the different architectural styles and aesthetics are hardly the main appeals.
Take Lenele, the bustling City of the Gods, it is a sprawling metropolis, capturing the scale of a city which games rarely even attempt to do. Then there is the Island of Iona, a convent, and it also prioritises the scale, making it feel like a crowded, secluded monastery, home to but a few monks and their apprentices.
However, my personal favourite is the sunken kingdom of Ikaemos, ancient beyond measure, a town consumed by the swamp, all that remains are the petrified citizens, and the ruins of the royal palace. It is haunted by its denizens, the citizens frozen mid-errand, and it feels lonely in a disconcerting sort of way.
Unfortunately, Orenia did not get the same treatment, but at least the introduction is stellar.

While the voice acting, and the cutscenes are few and far between, what we do get is pretty good, atleast when judged on the merits of the time, the characters get emotional and sometimes you can even believe they are people, which is all I can ask for.
The OST is also there, but it does not feel like a fantasy score, it is best described as unconventional, but in a good way, regardless Summoner has a number of good tracks, again, I am quite fond of the additions in Ikaemos since those themes helped solidify it as my favourite area, but there are other great tracks as well, such as the themes for Wolong, and Liangshan.
I appreciate that the music has a cohesive style while also changing things depending on the region, or cultures you are interacting with. It gives off the appearance of scale.

Summoner is a party-based RPG focused on the Summoner, his summon, and his three companions, it is also Realtime with Pause, but do not be alarmed ye of little faith, because they are aware of some of the issues with RTwP and they strove to mitigate those problems.

Did they succeed? Maybe, nevertheless, their solution, the “chain attacks” are enjoyable, it gives you something to do in-between skills, and they give you powerful bonuses while chaining strike after strike after strike.
It gives you a sort of free-form combat style, since as long as you keep your chain up, they cannot retaliate making it a powerful tool in your arsenal, and with chain attacks like Silence, Drain Life, and trip you can learn to dominate the field without a single skill.
Unfortunately, it can take quite a while to learn new attacks, but that gives you a chance to try-out your different party members, and to check out the different rhythms each weapon has.
And it is worth keeping in mind that the equipment of each character does matter, because at times you will be separated from the rest of the party, and there are times when you will not have access to Joseph, effectively losing two party members at once.

One thing that I thought was quite annoying were the side-quests, not the normal ones, but the ones reliant on random encounters… It takes a long time to find any encounter, which is usually great because you are not interrupted every few steps, but not when you have to find them, and not when you need to cycle through three different encounters to find the one you are looking for. It is not great.
There is also the fact that a number of dungeons are boring, and repetitive, they have the scale of large dungeons but not the content to match. You keep fighting the same few enemies throughout with hardly a single puzzle to halt your path, and you rarely have enough optional paths to keep you entertained. Certain dungeons are literally just corridors, which is boring, but there are also places like the Ikaemos Palace which is the best delve in Summoner.

So when you first reach the sewers in Summoner you might think it is a difficult game, which is what I thought initially, but that is not exactly true. It is punishing if you are not prepared, but if you have the correct skills, and appropriate equipment it is quite easy, provided you do not pull a dozen enemies at once because that will kill you.
If you make good use of Healing spells and buffs you are largely fine, but if you also focus on blunt damage, and backstab combos, yeah you will easily deal with most enemies in the game. It is not difficult to one-shot bosses with a well-placed backstab, so it feels overpowered while also being a near necessary tool to even unfavourable odds.
More importantly, it just feels good to backstab your enemies.

TL; DR I do not like this quite as much as its predecessor, but it is still a great game, and fun for a couple of playthroughs. This is due in part to the partner system, the way that each character complements their friend, and have unique mechanics, but also the quite stellar enemy design, and worthwhile story.
I crave spinoff titles for my favourite IPs.

Note that this takes place in-between the fifth and sixth games.

Moira did not follow in Barry Burton’s footsteps, instead of joining the BSAA like everyone else she joined Terra Save to work alongside Claire Redfield. They are a real up-and-coming organisation, and soon they might even compete in the big leagues, so things are going well, and they are all happily celebrating their successes. Surely, nothing, will go wrong, surely, they will not get attacked and kidnapped.
Terra Save! Because “Terr” doesn’t have to end with “rist.”

Revelations 2 is a short title told in an episodic format, but while its predecessor felt more like a TV-series this is more like a mini-series with fewer instalments but with a similar total length.
This works well to tell a more self-contained story and is a great opportunity to catchup with Barry and Claire as well as exploring certain ideas introduced in previous games, so, yeah, this is proper territory for a spinoff title.
If you wish you can even play the Extra Episodes, they do a good job of bridging narrative gaps, as well as explaining some mysteries left behind after the completing the campaign. The Struggle is the most entertaining of the two, but I cannot talk about them since that would spoil the entire game.

However, there is one issue I have with Revelations 2, the supporting cast is just sort of bad? In Revelations 1 we met some ridiculous characters but at least they were entertaining, and had some depth, here, they are just not that good, nor is there more than one or two notes to them, yet that is not much of a problem…
Since the game focuses on Claire, Moira, Barry, and Natalia, their interactions are great and are the vast majority of the dialogue. Barry and Natalia, is peak dad-game writing, as was the style at the time, while Moira feels like one of the most normal people in the entire series. Yeah, she is still ridiculous, but at least she knows how ridiculous this is. Maybe it is not normal that we will find the exact spare parts we are looking for in this exact village.
I should say something of the Overseer as well, she is a Franz Kafka fan, but not as extreme as anyone in the previous title, so no, unfortunately Kafka’s writing does not permeate Revelations 2 in the most heavy-handed of ways, and I cannot help but feel that that is unfortunate.
Of course, there are plenty of references, and some are very explicit, but in Revelations 1 you always knew when they were making a reference, it was almost impossible to miss, and that is the sort of subtlety you usually see in Resident Evil, these references are just too well integrated, I wish there was more hamminess to it.

Revelations 2 takes place on an industrial isle but it manages to have some environmental diversity, torture prisons and torture factories blend together but that means that the foggy, green thickets and the anarchic city streets stick out more and that gives you some reason to appreciate them.
Of course, this is a Resident Evil game, so there are also laboratories and some overdesigned, nouveau riche interiors. However, the best areas are only in Barry’s episodes, you can see some genuinely unsettling and disturbing visuals, even though they lack the gore of other locations they are still far more disturbing, because it is proof that you are not the only ones on the island.

As for the enemies, they are sort of a mixed bag, they are split in two varieties and you only fight one type per character, so Claire will always be fighting the Afflicted who generally look pretty generic and boring—they are your average infected with weapons—on the other hand we have the Revenants and they are far more interesting…
They are different bodies stitched together, limbs of differing sizes and shapes, multiple heads sewn as one, their flesh affixed with weapons, very visually striking, though not quite as disgusting as the bloated, insectoid Glasps.

I do not have a lot to say on the OST, it is good, and works well for the game, but on the whole, it does not stick out as especially remarkable, it blends, and heightens the atmosphere, which is good because it does not detract from the game.
Theme of Barry, however, is probably my favourite track in the game, it is sad, and heavy, perfectly illustrating how Barry is feeling. He regrets his actions as a father, their strained relationship, and how he has acted in the past, and now she is lost, and he does not know whether she is safe or not.

If you have played a 3rd person Resident Evil game you know what to expect, you fight enemies, conserve ammunition and explore a little bit.
I found that this entry could have done with a few more puzzles as most of what we get boils down to finding the key item or moving a box to the proper location. Revelations 1 was quite light on them as well but not to this extent, and it also had a bigger focus on exploration.

Having the missions be so linear is a bit of a letdown as well however, if you are going to do levels in an episodic format this is probably a good way to do it.
An episode takes place on the same selection of maps but Claire and Barry venture through them in different ways, sometimes the opposite direction which means it does not feel repetitive.
A couple others things makes it better than it otherwise might have been, there are unique areas for each character, and sometimes (once or twice) they are quite expansive and even the majority of the entire episode but there is also the fact that sometimes your choices affect the other character.
Claire can do things that makes Barry's episode easier or harder, and it usually comes with some sort of payoff.

However, they also brought wholesale improvements, the partner system is an actual system now with each character having different playstyles to complement their friends. Moira does not shoot but she has a flashlight to stun enemies, Natalia can throw bricks and see through walls and skin. That seems pretty useful!
This all means you will switch between characters to make the best use of their differing abilities as you go, though you will be primarily playing as Claire or Barry during shootouts. Or during the stealth sections, as they are the only ones who can preform takedowns, however, have no fear! There is no mandatory stealth, it is only used to conserve your ammunition… unless you play the Extra Episode Little Miss.

A system like this really lends itself to co-op, but unfortunately they did not think too far ahead, this was released at the death of local co-op games so they will allow that but not the more readily usable system of online play.
It is quite unfortunate because desperately trying to point out the literally invisible Glasps or the weak spots of Revenants would make for some very hectic and memorable moments, it is a real missed opportunity that three is no online co-op for Revelations 2...

Raid mode! It has coop!
They even let you play levels from Resident Evil 6 which adds some much-needed level variety, unfortunately I do feel that this is a bit of a downgrade from the previous instalment.
The fact is that the enemy variety is not necessarily there, they feel varied because they require a multitude of strategies but neither bosses nor mobs are as engaging and memorable to fight as the sort of encounters from the previous games. If you like them you get a lot of content, if you do not, then you do not.

TL; DR This is without a doubt my favourite Resident Evil spinoff title, did my playtime give that away? It has everything I want, crazy conspiracies, fun encounters and enemies, heavy-handed literary references, and I, I can still fight.
I crave spinoff titles for my favourite IPs.

Note this is about the rise of the BSAA, taking place just before the events of Resident Evil 5: Lost in Nightmares

Jill, and Parker arrive at the Queen Zenobia, the derelict luxury cruiser, she disappeared a year ago, but now she has resurfaced, and along with her comes the resurgence of Il Veltro, the bioterrorists responsible for the Terragrigia Panic and the criminals who managed to kidnap Chris Redfield…
Chris is somewhere on the Queen Zenobia, but as you track him down the BSAA discovers that not all things are as they seem, it is time to learn the truth.
So: Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

Revelations is an episodic title, and it exploits that to frame the entire things as a TV series, it ends on cliffhangers, it recaps the previous instalment, and it wants to keep you guessing.
Sometimes they go a bit overboard with the twists and turns, but it is fun, it is enjoyable to see new revelations each episode that make you second guess the motives of your colleagues, and corporate rivals. What is the truth of Queen Zenobia? Is everything distraction and misdirection? You will have to play the next episode to find out!
This more focused and self-contained story makes the setting seem larger, that things are happening outside of the mainline games, and that the villains have had lasting effects on the world around them. It does not need to do more than a couple of references here and there to succeed in that because it introduces characters and groups to make the world feel more vibrant, and alive.

Resident Evil is a series filled with groups with nonsensical ambitions, but Il Veltro is one of the more bizarre ones, they are led by a former university lecturer who opposed the construction of a floating city because it is powered by solar energy, and included cooperation between the EU and the US, or something, but despite that it comes across as intimidating, and its leadership comes across as almost charismatic. He is dangerous, and he has the means the cause terrible devastation if left alone.
I also love much they quote Dante’s Inferno, it is so heavy handed and not at all subtle that it becomes amazing, especially how it relates to Veltro in particular, they are Italian ultranationalists, and they are led by someone who has read at least that one book, is he using Inferno because he is Italian, and it has sick lines? Or because it is the only book he knows? Who can say!

The Queen Zenobia is a beautiful ship complete with an ornate dining hall, a casino, and sleeping quarters, it is also an abandoned seafaring vessel with dilapidated corridors, and spartan sections dedicated to the crew.
It is a great place to explore, there is a lot of things to see, and you never get bored with it. Not only is the Queen Zenobia a complete world onto itself but you get even more variety, as they let you explore the futuristic Terragrigia and freezing mountain paths during certain episodes.
Most of these areas are filled with Oozes, and other T-Abyss mutants, and as you can hear from the name, they ooze, they are slimy, disgustingly wet, and they have this mouth proboscis that is outright revolting. They also draw some inspiration from deep-sea creatures, who are generally strange enough as is, not only that but they stagger along in a very unsettling way, that makes fighting them very creepy.
In terms of Resident Evil designs they are among the most inspired, and disconcerting.

The OST is mostly there to heighten this impression, complete with these creepy disharmonic loops, solemn pianos, and chilling violins, it makes normal exploration unsettling and serves well to increase the tension of combat.
There are a couple of standout tracks, O vendetta di Dio is exceedingly memorable, it feels imperious, and epic, like you are an ant, and how dare an ant stand in their way?
Yet it is quite funny because the title track Revelations is also hard to forget, not only because it is the recap song, and you hear it a dozen times, but because it is smooth, it immediately sets you in the mood of a thriller and the deep seas.

As one might expect Revelations plays a lot like the other 3rd person Resident Evil titles. You have a gun, you have melee, you collect things and solve a couple of puzzles.
What sets Revelations apart is the multitude of player characters, the scanner you will need to properly stock up on resources and the expansive world that was absent after Resident Evil 4.

Stalking the halls of the Queen Zenobia, dealing with problems as they arise, slowly uncovering the mystery, all while fighting off a swarm of Oozes is awesome. There are ambushes all over, encounters generally designed to catch you off-guard, and a couple of victory laps. Enemies are varied, mixed together to complement each other’s strengths, and cover their weaknesses, which ensures that the encounters are always different, and challenge you in different ways, meaning you will never get bored.
Add a couple of entirely optional areas with neat rewards, some great bosses (sometimes featuring adds to heighten to the stress), unique encounter designs for each of the four player characters which let the developers experiment without detracting from the main experience and you are left with a thrilling and amazing game.

Yet, what I find most satisfying about Revelations is the follow-up attacks, which should be obvious for anyone who enjoys the 3rd person entries, since they have always felt impactful, but now they let you charge them up, letting you build anticipation and power before delivering a devastating strike, and knocking them down. It is hard to describe how thrilling it can be to deliver a fully charged attack on a boss, so it is something that is best experience for oneself.
They also gave us a dodge mechanic, and it feels great to dodge a powerful attack, it is perfect to get out of tight spots, but it almost feels overpowered, once you get the hang of it. Of course, it is nearly mandatory on higher difficulties, cause if you run out of ammunition you are left with the knife, and trying to deal with a Scagdead, is um, not recommended without dodging.
You fall into a rhythm, tapping an enemy on their weak spots, weaving past other enemies to knock out a threat in one fell strike, as stated, it is satisfying, and these core mechanics are more than enough to carry the entire experience.

I love Raid mode, most of my playtime is in Raid mode, and it is not difficult to fathom why.
It is an optional mode that builds on the combat, giving you increased customisability, and a whole host of levels of varying degrees of difficulty.
It utilizes the enemy roster in ways that were not reasonable in the campaign, adding challenges that were not narratively possibly during the story, and changing bosses up to make them even more imposing, Raid mode is great fun with a friend, but even solo is enjoyable.

The absolute peak of it, is the Ghost Ship, a veritable gauntlet of enemies, literally the entire Queen Zenobia at once, filled with every enemy and every boss you can think of. It is not only filled with difficult encounters, and exciting rewards, but it is also an endurance test, a drain on your resources, and the closest Revelations ever comes to properly forcing you to manage your resources.
Play Ghost Ship, it is great, if you are prepared.