Recent reviews by 𝔸𝕣𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕔 𝟙

I used a soccer ball to free horses that were hanging upside via balloons. I stroked a club, a house, a golfer, a turkey, a car, and even a hole.

If you enjoy dumb yet clever humor, you will likely get a kick out of this title. It is not particularly difficult, but it is quick and amusing fun.

Perfected the game and had fun, so time to talk about it:

Hello perspective buyer- I figured I should write a review now that my journey through Thymesia is over. I like to preface that my review is going in blind; I've never touched an actual souls title at this time, so I cannot speak to how it compares. That said, I think this is a great title, that can be enjoyed regardless of whether you've played the genre before

So let’s start with the good:

• Awesome combat system. Thymesia centers around fast paced combat using dodging and parrying to survive while dealing wounds to the opponent and then cleaving those wounds to deal lots of damage. It can be a bit tough to get the hang of at first, but once you got it, it's a lot of fun.
  
• Lots of build choices that let you play in various ways. By leveling up, you can acquire talents to increase your combat ability. These talents vary from new effects to new attacks that further change up the combat. You will also acquire plague weapons for you to choose from and upgrade by re-battling certain opponents. Once again, your gameplay style can change depending on what you choose. You may need to change your talents or plague weapons before a boss to better compete with it.
  
• Mostly fun boss fights. Not all the bosses are great, and you might hate them at first, but a lot of the fights grew on me.
  
• Short but solid soundtrack.
  
• Not AAA, but good visuals and neat maps.
  
• Meaty sound effects. What can I say, I'm a sucker sounds that have impact, and the sound of most weapons and parrying is just great to me.

Now for the bad, and to address a common complaint you will see in negative reviews

• The Parry System: I view this as a design flaw, as the problem with the parry is that out of the box it is terrible because it’s window is too tight. Subsequently, many users complain about parrying in Thymesia being unresponsive and terrible. For most people, you MUST spec points into "Reckless Deflect" for parrying to work. With this minor change, parrying overall works much better. But, because its doesn't work well out of the gate, if you only fight the tutorial boss or never upgrade it, it feels like a useless mechanic that doesn't work.
  
• Low-budget and short: I want to make it clear, Thymesia is a wonderful game, but it seems like it could have been so much more with more money and developers working on it. I got 30 hrs out of it, but if you rush, some players report beating it in 10 hours. Its simply not very long with only around 12-14 levels, and if you don't give a crap about exploring the maps and finding/reading the lore like some players, then the game is sure to pass quickly. Thymesia also doesn't have animated cut-scenes, like the one in the trailer. Pregame and endgame lore is told to you view a screen with text on it. Likewise as I said earlier, the visuals do look good, but they could be better with a bigger budget. In short, with a bigger budget, I think this game could shine a lot brighter than it already does.
  
• Uneven Boss Experience: Thyemsia has a bit of a boss issue I think, that makes for an uneven experience. The first boss after the tutorial (Odur) is a "you suck" boss with 2 phases. Subsequently, for many, the first boss and first sub-quest boss are much harder than the next 2 main bosses. It's not really an error per say, but quite a few people refund the game simply because they can't beat the first boss. That said, the first boss serves a purpose- and that is to teach you to dodge and parry. If you beat him, you will be a better play, and that is part of why the next 2 bosses are underwhelming.

And that is more or less everything. I really enjoyed this game, and hope one day it gets a sequel. It possibly may not hold up to a Souls game to you, but I think the developers successfully created the gameplay and atmosphere they were trying to, and the end product is wonderful, even if rather short. Give it a try- you might just like it.

Perfected the game and had fun…so why is this review negative?

Hello perspective buyer- I figured I should write a review now that my journey through chamber of time is over. I have opted to give this game a negative review because even though I enjoyed it, I simply cannot in good faith advise this game to you- There is basically a 90% chance you will not enjoy this game (literally 12% of owners got the 1st achievement). I liked this title, but I acknowledge that is not a great game, and I wish I could give it a neutral rather than a good or bad, but I feel inclined to rate it bad to warn you about the many shortcomings of this game.

So let’s start with the good:

• If you are a fan of the film/series, this is a fun way to revisit the characters. This game takes place in-between season 1 & 2 and has a lot of the character interaction charm that the series had.
  
• Game is fully VA’d by original Japanese cast. (As far as I know at least)
  
• Spell animations, character animations, and the school are nice.
  
• There are very short but new/fully animated sections that give you just a bit more of anime content.
  
• Original story.

Now for the bad, and sadly there is a lot of it. The gameplay is where this game does NOT shine:

• Lousy first impression followed by an average/mediocre game Many reviews here will tell you that basic attacks do more than magic and that there is a cart they cannot get off in a mine. These are players who didn’t even get 3 hours in. Later in the game, magic is the only thing that does do damage. As for the minecart, there is a steam guide. It’s literally up, down, up and its easy once you know, but the point stands. Most people quit that fast because they are unimpressed by the gameplay.
  
• One big fetch quest Most of this game is running from place in the school to talk to people and/or deliver/pick up items. You have from 7am-12pm to do whatever tasks you can which are listed as events on the map. However what events are available for you to do varies on the time of day. The game is kinda groundhog day, so you can use the knowledge you learn from the day before to help you on the next day. In short, you are going to spend a lot of time running across/or warping across the map. While this a neat and unusual mechanics, I think most find it annoying and it can be at times.
  
• Bad design There are a lot bad choices in this department. Here are all the examples I can think of:
  1. Quests are marked by a beacon to tell you were there is a quest for you. The issue is the ones that are relevant to your current quest are colored the same way but are only partly brighter and it’s hard to notice because they blink. I literally played 30 hours without noticing that quests that need attention are lit.
     
  2. The map does not show you as a blip on it, and only lights the floor you are on. The map page is stationary but the map in the top right of the screen rotates which means its hard to tell which side of the floor you are on since the floors are more or less symmetrical.
     
  3. You will need to pitch equipment but you cannot sort the items in your bag by level or by rarity which would have been the best way to sort things for selling.
     
  4. Mash A. There are many parts where you need to mash A while standing in a circle to make things happen. Performance is often spotty if you do not do it fast enough. The cart, I mentioned before is one of these.
     
  5. Useless mechanics. There is an enchantment system in this game, but I used it a whopping once because you are gong to go through equipment fast as you level up. Not to mention, the stats on equipment don't matter much, other than item drop %, item quantity, and raw. As long as you get S/A rank gear you should have no problems. Likewise, the game doesn't really tell you that a book on the table tells you what monster are what type, but you can beat the game without acknowledging these or strategizing much.
     much
• ...Easy Game Even on higher difficulty. The other half of the game is dungeon crawling, which is alright but kinda unintelligent most of the time. The stats on your equipment only matter some as mentioned prior, and as long as you get yourself the good spells like Rapid Fire, the gravity laser, etc then the dungeons should be cake. Likewise, if you get akko's 3 special spells, you can kill the final boss in by using the 3 in a row.
  
• The Tower To get all spells in the game and to get the achievement for it, you need to beat 75 dungeon levels. They aren’t hard, but its tedious.

And that is more or less everything. Again- I enjoyed this game, but there is a lot of flaws you need to look past and a lot of things you need to teach yourself in order to get through this game. This is a game you need to want to beat. If you are a person who gives up at the first sight of a meh game, then Chamber of Time is not for you. It’s really not that bad- It’s just painfully average, which is what harms it the most. This game likely would have been much better received as a VN. If you can look past all of this and use the steam guides when you get stuck, you should be fine and perhaps you might join the 1.6% of people who finish this game completely, as I have chosen to. This game isn't bad- but it should have been a lot better.

Lastly, make sure not pay full price for this game. I got it for $5 on sale- it is not worth $40 (go buy NieR:Automata or something at that price).

After completing the game, I think its time for a review for those interested in downloading and what you should know.

Helltaker is a relatively short puzzle/bullet-hell type game featuring levels in which you must complete block pushing puzzles within a certain number of movements to get to the stage end. Failure to do so will require you to retry the level, which means there will numerous instances of trial and error to complete levels. Unsurprisingly, the last puzzles is also generally the most challenging to solve. After completing these levels, the player will complete a final boss stage. Unlike the rest of the game, bosses play similar to bullet-hells in which you will be dodging attacks from multiple directions and looking for windows to avoid damage, instead of merely pushing blocks.

So whats good? As stated, the art style is quite nice and you want to complete levels so you can see the next piece of the story and the short character quips that come with them. If anything, its a pity there isn't more dialogue, as even in a few short sentences, the personality of the characters is established. Secondly, the add-in is a nice free addition which adds a new mechanic to work around- lasers. This is quite nice as it breaks up the similar gameplay and require more thought. And well, lastly, its pretty fun. obviously it won't be getting game of the year or anything like that, but it's good for what it is. Some will complain that it's just trial and error and random, but it's not. While it can be frustrating, just thinking about a puzzle for long enough should enable you come up with it- have patience. Likewise, don't make the mistake of trying the same thing over and over expecting a different result. Use your head and try new things if your method isn't working. You often can feel when you are close to figuring it out as you will go from 5 spaces short, to 2, to 1, and then success.

Now for some of the criticisms others have, that you may see in negative reviews. First and foremost, this not a h-anime game despite what the internet might make you believe. It is merely a short story with a visually distinct style/characters and some clever dialogue thrown in between- not a whole lot to it. The other common complaint is the bosses. The bosses are a bit more challenging, as previously mentioned. That said, they do follow patterns that you should be able to pick up on quite quick. That said, for those who dislike bullet hells/have slow reflexes, you might have trouble with it- especially the boss in the anniversary add-in. However, for those who have played touhou games/undertale, they will likely be very very easy tasks. The second boss is also much harder than the first, but again, there is a pattern if you look for it.

So final verdict for me:

Pros:
-A short and entertaining diversion
-Nice art & solid music
-Easy to get all steam achievements

Cons:
-Too short. More puzzles would be nice.
-Difficulty spike is a bit weird in some places.

So hey, give it a try- it's free after all and, even if you do hate it, it's not very long to begin with. You can even skip levels in the menu.