Recent reviews by Bombline

9 years in the making, and it shows...

This game is just so full of love and care that I actually teared up just watching the opening sequence. Yeah, maybe I'm a sucker for that kind of thing, but every ounce of this game just oozes that special kind of video game making that only happens with games like Owlboy.

#goatmom

When I first saw the trailers for Runner2, I thought to myself, 'Wow, that looks nothing like the original...I don't know if I like that."

Obviously, I am an old man afraid of change, because Runner2 is excellent [if not better than] the original.

It IS more of the same gameplay from the first, but that's not a bad thing; they had all that right the first time 'round. The platforming is still as smooth as a freshly opened jar of peanut butter.

The new elements of Runner2 add a bit of freshness to the affair, like having to break open 'Key Vaults' to make keys appear in other levels, which allow you to open up alternate pathways and find hidden goodies that you may have missed previously. Unlock other runners! Unlock SKINS for said runners! It's all good new stuff.

The soundtrack is amazing, the visual style is gorgeous, it has the same teeth-gritting difficulty from before [but with optional checkpoints, for those who aren't masochistic], and - despite all of the graphical updates - feels so familiar to RUNNER that I found myself feeling at home with it right away.

And boy, is it good to be back.

I was really excited when I heard about a Castlevania-style retro-roguelike in which you have children that have various genetic traits that make each run through different... Like, really, really excited. And I really enjoyed the first few hours of gameplay! It's charming pixellated graphics and cheery music make for some really pleasant gaming, and the game's rune, armor and castle system [which is essentially a level-up system] are good aspects of the overall experience.

But after several hours in, I've found that the game becomes a bit of a grind for gold. I've beaten all the bosses [which don't regenerate]. I've gone through the entire castle [all 4 areas of it, all of which are in the same general locations] multiple times. I've played each of the varying classes often, and seen all of the genetic anomalies that the children end up having [which isn't many, sadly]. The game tells me I'm at level 116. and the final boss is still stomping me. It was at the point where I realized 'I am going to need a lot more gold' that I found that I wasn't having fun anymore.

It's a fun idea, and it's fairly well-executed, but there should have been something more to the game that made it more feasible to play on a long-time scale [like it seems was the intent].

Twitchy, Action-Puzzler/JRPG? Yes please!

The Dark One has taken over the land, and it's up to these guys to stop him!

My description for this might seem really odd, but it's actually a pretty fantastic blend of the match-3 puzzler and RPG genres.

Using your party of 4 heroes [Fighter, Mage, Healer and Archer, of course], you manipulate the Fatestream [the game board] to drag, drop and click incoming hero tiles in groups of 3 to create attack tiles that you can click again to attack the enemy you're facing. Set up combos of these tiles and unmatched hero tiles to do bigass combos to deal extra damage [which means clearing a stage faster]. Once you beat a baddy, you use the same techniques to level up your characters, building your way up to skills that can affect your enemy or even the Fatestream itself, depending on the character. Keeping with the JRPG theme, your characters all have HP as well, that you have to keep an eye on. If a character gets killed, their tiles will still be generated on the board, but they'll be useless, and just get in the way of your other tiles.

It's this kind of interaction between the player characters, the tiles coming at you and the board itself where this game shines. Enemy attack tiles will slide down the board toward your characters along with the color-coded hero tiles. You can counter them with your own attacks, of course, but some enemies may have higher defense than others, which means that more grey, neutral tiles are in the way of your hero tiles, making it harder to position your attacks right to break those nasty attack tiles. Or they might be particularly speedy, throwing tons of attacks your way, or they might be a mage that freezes your characters on a hit, rendering those hero tiles immobile or whatever flavor your enemies have on your run to get to the Big Bad.

It can get pretty crazy in the later levels.

With unlockable soundtracks and hero upgrades you can purchase, there's a lot of replay value in it too, so you can keep going back for more and appreciate the gameplay with powerful rewards.

The only question I have is why in the hell is your hero information stored in the 'Beastiary'?

Play it. It's better than the show [not that that's really saying too much]. In any case, you'll be extremely satisfied with what you get in this game. Because it's very decisionn-heavy, and the game changes itself depending on your choices - no, really, your choices do make a difference! - it lends itself well to multiple playthroughs.

Just...pick it up and play it. I cannot recommend this enough. You won't be disappointed.

I can't stop playing.

Someone save me from myself.

Get ready to get out your thumb splints and biting stick, because Dustforce is here to kick your ass and test your patience. In the same vein as the hyper-difficult, rage-inducing classic, Super Meat Boy, Dustforce is another tough platformer. Aside from gameplay, and like Super Meat Boy, both the graphics and the soundtrack are beautiful. You dash, jump, sweep, and fight your way through various dirty areas, trying to sweep up every last bit of dust or dead leaves, while trying to do it as smoothly [and beautifully] as possible. This seems like it might be an easy task, but dashing through increasingly difficult levels while trying to get that perfect combo is much harder than it sounds. If you're easily frustrated, this is not a game I'd recommend to you [though I probably wouldn't recommend Super Meat boy to most, either]. But if you're the kind of person with the patience to hammer through the levels and get that perfect double S rating after a great deal of trial and error, then this is the game for you.

There isn't much time! You have to deliver these important schematics, all the while racing across the galaxy to escape the Rebel wave of forces pursuing you! Jump from FTL Beacon to FTL Beacon, running into space pirates, Rebel forces, aliens [some friendly, some not so friendly] and whatever else is floating around out there.

Very much in the vein of rogue-likes, this game takes it and does it in a slightly different direction with various gameplay assets and such, but the rules are the same: Play the game, try and progress. With a little bit of skill and a LOT a bit of luck, you should be able to complete your mission. [Count on failing often, though. And when you do, be prepared to start from scratch.]

An excellent thing about this game is that you really feel like a small crew on a nigh-impossible mission, trying to overcome tremendous odds. You get attached to your crew. You get attached to your ship. Watching your crew members die [or worse yet, having them killed by an insane space-hobo] really gets to you for some odd reason. When you're doing well, though, it's just so damn satisfying. Just imagine it:

You're under heavy fire, and there's a fire in the engine room! "PLOTSKY, AMY, GET INTO THE ENGINE ROOM. The captain will manage the shields while you guys get that ready, because IF WE DON'T GET THAT ENGINE ROOM UP AND RUNNING, WE CAN'T JUMP AND WE'LL BE SCRAPPED!" This is just one of the many experiences you might have playing this game.

Now, do you like micromanagement? This game has it. Shields, weapons systems, engines, oxygen, medi-bay; almost everything [or at least everything important] about your ship can be managed. Say you're fighting a guy who's beating the crap out of you and your ship. Divert your power from your weapons and into your engines, and get the F[TL] outta there. While we're on the subject of combat, the game's combat system is deceptively simple at first, but turns into a completely different animal once you start picking up Ion weapons, or get blasted by a beam that does nothing but set your ship on fire. Better get your crew on that [even more micromanagement!]. It seems like with so much you're able to control that things might get really confusing really quickly, but it flows so smoothly, you hardly realize that you've fallen into the routines that almost popped out of nowhere.

If you don't mind the brutality that is a hard reboot every time you fail, and have a love for space and space-travelly sci-fi, I would HIGHLY recommend this game. It's good! It's so good. The music's awesome, the graphics are crisp and beautiful, and I love a game that makes you work hard to get some EXCELLENT satisfaction from it.

Oh, and go ahead.

Call your ship "Serenity".

Don't be fooled.

Don't think that this is all there is to it.

And don't ever look behind you in the dark.