Recent reviews by Antimony

Lucatiel is back! That's enough for a thumbs up from me.

People cranky about a dev asking them to pay $5 for bonus content they made to sell a different version of the game instead of expecting them to pay $70 for that version maybe could use a bit of perspective.

Are a few extra armor sets and variant outfits for Torrent worth $5? :shrug: If it's not worth it, then don't buy it, appreciate the fact that you got however many hundred hours out of Elden Ring and didn't really need that much of an excuse to come back to it, and move on with your life.

One part incremental game, one part 4v4 multiplayer pvp esport, 100% biting satire.

As someone who served on the front-lines of a gaming company with an "esport" where RNG was a factor, the story and humor of Q-Up both hit very close to home.

When I first saw this game getting popular, I glanced at it and my eyes glazed over thanks to the poker aesthetic.

This was a mistake on my part - this is a fantastic deck-builder with a surprising amount of strategic depth and play variation.

The poker base mechanic I'd brushed off as a chintzy-looking gimmick proves an effective on-boarding tool - even the most casual card-slinger likely has a decent understanding of traditional 52-card probabilities, which makes for quick adoption of familiar early strategies leading to deeper exploration of the game's more unique mechanics.

Highly recommended whether you're a casual card player looking to explore an accessible entry point to a new genre or a hardcore fan of deckbuilders.

An Etrian Odyssey-inspired first person dungeon crawler with slightly more emphasis on story. If you like those games you'll probably find a lot to like here as well - the game features suitably crunchy character customization options, fun exploration and reasonably challenging combat.

If I had to leverage any criticism against the game, I'd say that the dungeon maps sometimes feel a little under-designed. Once you get past the first act, there are a number of maze-like sections filled with pointless dead ends and map completion can start to feel like a chore at times. It also would have been nice to see a few more options that rewarded building around cross-class synergy - every class's kit ultimately feels focused on doing its own thing with little regard to what the rest of your party composition is.

Despite these, the game never really loses that addictive feeling of getting to decide where to put your next skill point when you level up or unlocking a higher-tier skill you'e been working towards and finally getting to see it in action.

*edit* - now that I've actually finished the game, to revise some of my earlier comments - outside of a couple annoying bits in the last chapter, the dungeon quality is actually pretty good overall. The worst of the "pointless maze" sections seem to be in the second chapter for whatever reason.

Additionally, in my original comment I said the game had "slightly" more emphasis on story - the story actually ended up being more engaging than I would have guessed in the later chapters.

While the game definitely has some rough edges, overall I'd say it's easily worth your time if you are a fan of the dungeon crawler genre.

Oof, hit me right in the feels.