Recent reviews by Raikors

Noita is a rogue-lite sidescroller with pixel-based physics simulation and a weapon system that encourages experimentation, the combination of which leads into some fun emergent gameplay. It is still in early access.


In Noita (Finnish for "Witch") you play as a tiny witch character traversing down a randomly generated maze of caves and pathways while trying to avoid death by various enemies, environmental hazards and traps. Your character gets more powerful by picking up new wands, spells, perks and potions along the way.

The big game within the game related to wands and spells is that each wand has some base stats like mana, casting time etc. and they have a varying amount of slots for the spell effects you can have in them. In between cave sections there is a safe zone where you can purchase things and get to pick up a new perk but most importantly, where you can freely move around the spells in the wands you've picked up so far to create more devastating combinations. Or horrible self-destruct devices.

Noita has a bit of a steep difficulty/learning curve. You get further in the runs not by rushing to the exit as fast as you can but by being more careful, learning to avoid things that killed you previously and trying to gather materials for wands that you like using and find effective. If you haven't managed to create a decent enough wand a few floors down it becomes really difficult to proceed.

Technically the game is surprisingly mature for an early access title. The pixel graphics hold up as well as you like the aesthetic. The (as far as I know mostly improvised) soundtrack by From Grotto fits the game like a glove. There is some occasional technical jank and I have experienced a couple of game crashes, but it is still at the start of its early access and is receiving constant updates.


Even though I'm quite bad at the game it is still a lot of fun to do a run or two every now and then and experiment with the mechanics. I'm not sure if it changes the formula enough to recommend it to people who don't typically play these types of games, but if rogue-lites are your thing you should find this enjoyable.

Note: This was written at Update #7, during steam awards nominations where I nominated it for "The Best Game You Suck At Award".

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is a top-down shooter with a kick-♥♥♥ soundtrack in the same vein as the first one. It took me about 8 hours to play through without going for any special goals or ranks. To me, it fell a bit short compared to the previous game.


The gameplay consists of going around small, arcade-like levels in a top-down view and basically trying to murder your way through to the exit. There are no saves or checkpoints mid-level and making just one mistake leads to a restart. The slightly twisted and gore-heavy 80's tone and the way the game plays should feel familiar right from the start if you have played the first Hotline Miami. The music being awesome also pretty much goes without saying and, especially if you enjoy the recently re-emerged genre of synthwave, you will probably like the soundtrack. It has more tracks and the quality of picks is right up there, maybe even slightly better.

The combat doesn't flow as well as in the first game where it occasionally felt like you're dancing your way through the level when you got the enemy spawns and the rhythm down. The biggest problem by far was that there were too many ranged enemies and when combined with long corridors / open areas you basically have to hold down shift key the entire time just to see a little further and try to make your way forwards safely that way. However, even that doesn't work always as the enemies sometimes just charge you or shoot you from off-screen.

Although one could argue that it isn't really that important in these types of games, I also wasn't able to follow the story as it jumped around a bit too much between characters, places and even timelines. I had to resort to reading the plot from a wiki after finishing it. I guess the story kinda makes sense and apparently there were references to the previous game, but I don't think I got any of them. Then again it has been a while now since I played that and they didn't exactly emphasize the connection.


I guess there's an audience for difficult, perhaps occasionally even a bit unfair top-down shooters, but despite liking the first game a lot and going back to get A+ rating on all stages in it, I don't see myself trying to do the same with this. Which is unfortunate as there were a lot of parts that I enjoyed. On the other hand, there were also so many levels that weren't just difficult but also frustrating to play through.

It might still be worth checking out. I definitely recommend trying out the previous game and if you like that a lot and feel like you need more of the same but with a slight dip in quality you should go for this one.

A simple, isometric puzzle game with chill music, minimalistic graphics and an overall charming feeling to it.


In Hiding Spot, you play a nameless character and your goal is to enter rooms in a multistory building and figure out how to arrange the grid-based furniture layout in them in a way where you're covered from all six sides. The furniture and the room layouts to do so in get more complex the higher you climb in the building.

Although the graphics are not super detailed there is something charming about them. The game doesn't really have a story unless you come up with one yourself, but as an office worker I could somehow relate to the "completing a room" -animation, where your nameless character huddles up in a fetal position under the furniture and the camera zooms out. The chill ambient music and SFX fit the mood nicely.

I found the challenge of the puzzles and the way the difficulty ramped up suitable for a person like me who normally doesn't play puzzle games apart from the occasional point & click -adventures. For the most part the game does a good job teaching you by example how you can use any single furniture before requiring it to be used in combination with others.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I gave each room a decent amount of time of attempting to figure out the solution by myself, but looked up from a guide what I was missing if I felt like I wasn't making progress and it was starting to get frustrating. In the end I think it was a total of three rooms where I resorted to that, out of which two were just me being dumb and one that probably would've made me stop playing altogether instead of completing the game. There were still plenty of rooms where I got the rewarding feeling of figuring out the solution to a puzzle after a struggle.


The game provides a solid few hours of contained puzzles to solve; maybe more or less depending how quickly you figure stuff out and if you don't mind playing through it the way I did. It's also quite cheap so I can recommend trying it out even if puzzle games are normally not your thing.

2nd full episode in what I guess is now called "To The Moon" -series. The 1st one came out in 2011 and to my knowledge there is at least a comic and a mini episode that take place between the episodes.


As in "To The Moon", the story of "Finding Paradise" is also about "--traversing through a dying man's memories to artificially fulfill his last wish". That should sound immediately intriguing, at least it did for me back in the day.

Despite the store descriptions being the same in both episodes and this one borrowing some structure from the first one, "Finding Paradise" manages to give it a slight twist that made it feel fresh to me. I don't have much else to say about the story (at least not without the danger of spoiling it) and I don't think explaining it in spoiler-tags would be that helpful either.

As with earlier Freebird Games' products, there isn't much in terms of actual gameplay: You're here for the story which can and probably should be experienced in one ~4-5 hour sitting with no rush. The music in the game greatly enhances the emotions you get out of certain sequences and I feel it plays almost as big a part as the writing does in conveying those.

Graphics might be the weakest link. There's some fine pixel art and it's not the lack of polish either, but I think they're making these using the (sometimes infamous) RPG maker. Their games have this 16-bit SNES RPG aesthetic and it can look a bit off-putting, but I whole-heartedly encourage you to look past the visuals and the lack of gameplay this time.

Storywise it is hard to compare to anything other than what the same people have previously made and I hold "To The Moon" in such a high regard that it's really difficult for anything to match that. This might still be the closest thing though, especially when taking into account that I knew more what to expect this time around.


If you haven't played "To The Moon" I would recommend doing that and also the ~1 hour long mini episode called "A Bird Story" first before checking this one out.

Although this technically came out at the end of last year I think it missed the awards window then and I feel that it deserves recognition as a continuation of a series of great short story games out there. My personal game of the year.

Released after the 2015 hit game Life is Strange, LiS: Before the Storm attempts to tell a prequel story of how one of the main characters got to the place where they are at the beginning of the first game. It features cinematic storytelling for a length of about ~12 hours with some questionable story decisions that drag the overall experience down for me personally.


You control the character Chloe from 3rd person perspective. You walk around and read about things or talk to certain people in order to progress the story. I found it clever that your current objective is something she writes in her hand with a sharpie and you have a dedicated button to look at it in case you forget. Most of the locations are recycled from the first game with details about them changed, which is understandable and not hindering the experience.

Gameplay-wise it goes even further into the walking simulator -territory. In fact, I can't remember if there was a single actual puzzle. Generally that doesn't bother me that much and I don't think it mattered this time around either. It is still worth mentioning though that some sections of the game were more like watching an animated movie instead of playing a game; More than once my dualshock4-controller turn itself off due to inactivity as the game was not requiring any input for some rather long periods of time.

The complex time travel powered dialogue shenanigans from the first game have been replaced by Chloe having an ability to persuade people in a time constrained Talkback-minigame where your goal and tone of dialogue options depend on the situation. To me it felt a bit tacked on and it was challenging for me as a non-native English speaker to be able to read all the options and understand their meanings in order to make a thought out decision before the timer ran out. Also, it unfortunately didn't work as a gameplay or puzzle component as well as the time travelling did.

I found the graphics a bit of a mixed bag. Overall scenery looks really nice and screenshot-worthy at times but on the other hand, especially some of the facial animations looked quite wooden. The voice acting does a lot to salvage that though; it is top notch and the soundtrack contains similar emotionally charged indie rock / pop that fits the game as well as it did the first one.

I won't go much into the story details, but there were some recurring side characters like Frank, Nathan and Victoria that are provided (minor) backstory how they become the way they are. The Price family dynamic and the relationship arc between stepdad-David and Chloe felt kinda similar to the first game but that's a minor nitpick as it wasn't the focus anyway.

The main focus was the relationship between Chloe and Rachel and to me it felt believable and you could see why it just clicked between them despite them not having spent that much time together. The D&D game at the beginning and the dream sequences where Chloe was having discussions with the ghost of William were also some of the highlights for me.

Ultimately, I found it hard to dismiss the thought of knowing it will not end well for Rachel, but the game did an alright job hiding that fact and focused on showing the two being happy together... until the very end: The story should have ended before that last shot, which I felt turned the overall feeling (and score) into the negative.


The game suffers from the typical prequel problem of knowing how the story turns out and is not able to distance itself enough from the things that are going to happen. (On that note, it would be interesting to hear how this works for someone who hasn't played the first game.)

I think it would be a sideways thumb if that was an option, but I have to lean towards the negative. It left a bitter taste in my mouth that could've been easily avoided by not trying to go for drama just for the sake of it.

Using "an old scifi b-movie made into a game" as a setting, The Deadly Tower of Monsters is about 8 hours of fun action platforming that manages to utilize most of the potential of that idea.


As a fan of funny-bad b-movies and scifi-movies where people's imaginations are way bigger than their budget or means, this game felt like it was tailor-made for me: The concept is you're playing an old, unintentionally humorous b-movie with the director's commentary track enabled. The title probably gives away enough about what happens in the "movie".

The game is viewed from an isometric angle most of the time, but there are some sections where you're flying or shooting downwards that have a different viewpoint. Basic movement of running around and beating or shooting stuff with your main and sub weapons feels fluent enough. Although there's a main objective to go for the game gives you a bit of freedom in exploring the accessible areas where you can find materials for upgrading your weapons.

There are three playable characters and you can switch between them at-will at certain points in the game. They do have some movement and ability differences and you're required to use some of them in order to progress through some sections. The best part though is that the characters are voice acted and at least for the hero it's done in a hammy, William Shatner-esque way.

The visuals also keep with the theme and have some nice touches to them like emulating the good old movie goof of being able to see the strings that move the enemies around. Speaking of utilizing the setting, most of the enemy animations also look choppy in a stop-motion -kind of way and there's even an option in the game settings for applying a VHS-type grain on the picture.

There aren't too many negative things I can bring up. My biggest complaint is that it could've used more music on the soundtrack as you tend to hear the same themes a lot after playing for a while. I also didn't like the ending (or maybe about the last 10% of the game) but the positive bits far outweigh the negative ones.


I'm not sure if I'd recommend it to someone who doesn't find the concept appealing but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Comedy is a difficult thing to nail as it depends so much on who you're trying to target with the jokes and the game succeeded in making me laugh out loud a good amount of times.

Platonic Partnership's début game Lydia is a short, 1h+ adventure story tackling an unpleasant subject matter.


The reason I decided to pick up and play this particular game was mostly due to having read the books of one of writers of the game. Especially one book about the history of adventure games and their design evolution through the years was an interesting read. Hearing he'd be making an adventure game of his own my initial thoughts were that the game should be coming from someone who has a love for adventure games and knowledge about designing them despite not having previous game-making experience. Are they able to harness that knowledge and incorporate it in Lydia's design was the question.

There's not much in terms of actual gameplay, classic adventure game puzzles or challenge for that matter; You're mostly just reading dialogue and moving the character to the next point of interaction. Actual dialogue choices are implemented as selecting "a mood" for the response, which isn't a new thing but can work a lot better than having a word-to-word list of phrases to pick from. I don't know how much (if at all) the choices affect the progress or outcome of the story as I only played through the game once, but at least there's some variance.

Where I think the game shines the most is in its hand-drawn background and character art. The backgrounds aren't always ultra detailed but the surreal perspectives, overall dark tone and use of graphical filters is consistent throughout. Most of the audio stuff was also surprisingly good, but I wasn't particularly fond of the "pseudo-language" voice acting the game has. It affected my ability to imagine the voices of the characters myself and I would've much preferred to be able to toggle that off.

As final technical notes: The game didn't properly capture mouse cursor inside the window in full screen mode which made it a bit annoying to play in multi-monitor setup. Some people have also experienced issues with saving/loading the game, but as I played through the game in one sitting that didn't affect me. I also played the 1.0 version so these issues will probably be addressed in the future patches.


All things considered, it is not flawless but the point of the story comes across and the style makes it worthy of checking out. I'll probably do another playthrough after a few patches to see if there are different paths to the story.

Bionic Commando is a 3rd person action/platformer and a sequel to an NES classic with the same name; A game that was famous for being a "platformer where you can't jump". Unfortunately this falls short on almost all aspects.


The story kicks off with an attack to a major city that causes a lot of casualties and also places convenient instant death radiation zones to limit the movement of any swinging bionic commandos who might be heading that way. The main character, Spencer, was sentenced to prison in the past for being a bionic and is now forced on a mission to investigate the city after the attack. He is also promised information about his missing wife/girlfriend in exchange.

The story is a mess. The main character who you're supposed to relate to comes across as a tool with almost zero personality or charm. It is implied that he's an unsung hero but apart from one conversation it is not fleshed out what exactly happened. He is mostly just mad at every character we come across and not asking questions that might lead to exposition. At the end to wrap it all up, the only thing Spencer is somewhat supposed to care about is given a stupid twist that would make M. Night Shyamalan jealous.

As a pure arcade experience it is slightly better. The core mechanic of using the bionic arm for swinging around and as a combat utility is fun and and works fluently. The problem is that the environments are mostly just small, generic pathways where you go from checkpoint to the next collecting pointless collectibles.

Ultimately, the "bionic armed soldier" is a bit silly premise and, unless you fully commit to a world with these augmented super soldiers and what moral issues that brings etc., it should be treated as such. The game reminded me a bit of the Just Cause -series where you have a similar movement mechanic with the grappling hook. This really should've borrowed the open world theme from those and focused on being just a power fantasy with a tongue-in-cheek story.

On a final, positive mention: The soundtrack with the orchestral renditions of familiar Bionic Commando tunes was great the whole way through.


The studio Grin didn't deserve to go down with this game, but having now played through the story I can understand why it happened. It is not the worst game ever made, but I can't really recommend it either.

Axiom Verge is a lovingly crafted "metroidvania"-style 2D action adventure; a genre that hasn't received a lot of love lately. It is set in a alien world and has a bunch of neat pixel art and great music.

It borrows gameplay elements from various old school games and even adds a few new tricks into the mix to really open up the movement possibilities later in the game and make you re-think and see places you have already visited in a new light. It has minor flaws, such as some of the acquired weapons feel a bit useless compared to others and some areas are more memorable in design or have better music tracks, but nothing I would consider deal breaking.

Absolutely recommended if you can appreciate a game that gives you a vague idea where to go but doesn't hold hands all the time; one that is built around backtracking and exploration.

ps. Nominated this for the "I THOUGHT THIS GAME WAS COOL BEFORE IT WON AN AWARD" award.

Apotheon is a side-scrolling action platformer with a unique and interesting art style. It's a solid ~10 hour game that gets a bit repetitive towards the end.


The art style is what got me curious about the game and eventually to try it out. The story is pretty much what you'd expect from a tale involving an ancient Greek mythology setting: Nothing special, but keeps you working towards a clear goal and has a satisfying conclusion. The progression is fairly linear, though in some sections you can choose the order you want to complete the objectives and there are some optional ones as well.

The gameplay consists mainly of you fighting your way towards the current objective using a variety of different melee and ranged weapons. Combat takes a while to get used to as you're generally better off dodging or blocking first and delay attacking until there's an opportunity to do so. Some twists are thrown into the combat formula mix later, like the possibility of placing or using environmental traps or flinging large boulders at enemies. Movement and combat controls feel fluent for a controller, but I can't say how it would play out using a mouse and keyboard.

Some sections contain minor puzzle elements and require something a bit different than just travelling from point A to B. I wouldn't exactly call this a "metroidvania" -game though despite being tagged as such. To me that term implies that there is and exploration element and backtracking involved i.e. that there are (optional) power ups that allow you to access parts of the game that you can't when you first encounter them. Now there are some secret areas and things to discover here and there, but they're not gated behind the powers you unlock while progressing through the main story.

I had to give up on my completionist habit quickly as there's just an overabundance of breakable things and chests to loot and they rarely contain anything useful. That leads to the biggest issue I had with the game: The loot, crafting and the light RPG elements felt a bit tacked on. You can purchase better armor and attack training for various weapon types, but I didn't notice the effects of the upgrades in my ability to survive in combat. The crafting options are quite limited and I was mostly crafting health potions and bombs to blow up cracked walls.

All the weapons and shields, even the special ones, also have a duration and they wear down when used in combat. That made the special weapons feel more like consumable resources rather than actual difference making equipment upgrades and I think that also took away some of the strategy in combats. There are some weapon specific combat mechanics, such as you can destroy enemy shields with hammer weapons, have longer range with spears etc. but I just didn't bother since everything just breaks eventually. I frequently found myself just using whatever I had in my hand at the time until it broke down and a new weapon popped up from the inventory.

As final, shorter side notes: Music and sound effects did their job, but nothing apart from the (occasionally over-)dramatic voice acting stood out for me. The game also crashed on me once and unfortunately it happened when I tried to save, so the save file got corrupted. Luckily the game auto saves so I could pick up from the latest of those without losing too much progress.


I was expecting an exploration-focused, Zelda II-esque game where you wander around, talk to people in towns, accept side quests, buy stuff etc. but unfortunately it didn't turn out to be exactly like that. Although I was slightly disappointed with some aspects of the game and the gameplay not having much variety, it might be worth checking out even if just for the neat visual style.