Recent reviews by Tactical Fleshlight

This game felt utterly pointless. I initially chose to replay the Landmark Edition because I remembered enjoying the original game.

The environment / soundtrack is still nice, but the addition of achievements absolutely ruined the experience of exploring the island, requiring you to unlock voiceovers (or urn collectibles) off the main path with no indication of where they would be.

To make matters worse, they added a director commentary mode where the game development process is explained, but this came off to me as mostly pretentious and definitely doesn't feel rewarding to have to slog through the game once more.

This game is legendary.

Get this game if you want

• Nearly unlimited replayability
  
• Great times solo or with friends
  
• Healthy challenge
  
• Pure, unbridled chaos
  
• S-tier soundtrack and visuals
  
• Developers that care

Titan Souls is an infectious action boss fight game that is sure to frustrate and bewilder. The protagonist wields a single magic arrow that must be used to slay enormous creatures called Titans. In an unexpected turn, both the player and the boss have but a single hit point--so any hit is lethal.

This game is much, much harder without a gamepad.

There are no enemies in the game other than bosses. In order to fight a boss, the player must venture through the overworld and find the boss stage. Within it, the player is almost guaranteed to die a dozen times before fully understanding the mechanics of each fight. Each boss fights in a different way (although some overall mechanics may be reused), and it is up to the player to figure out how to counteract it.

It sounds easy, but the fact that the protagonist dies in one hit is really crippling and makes the game that much more punishing. If you aren't prepared to fight, all the bosses are fully capable of killing you seconds after you engage. Between dodges, there is not much time to calculate and execute an attack, and little room for error.

Titan Souls takes a very minimalist approach. Aside from the two buttons and the directional keys, there are no other controls. Throughout the game, there is no instruction whatsoever. You will not find any explanations, hints, or even a world map. As a major pitfall, there are no items or unlocks, making this game lack any feel of progression. You find a boss, die a few times, then kill it. Repeat. This (lack of) feature preserves the difficulty throughout the game, but forces the game to deliver complexity through each individual boss fight.

This game isn't an RPG, but looks and feels like it should be one. Most negative reviews criticize this game for lacking RPG elements, when it clearly isn't intended to be one in the first place.

The world itself in Titan Souls is very beautifully rendered in pixel graphics. It depicts a tranquil ruin, with a very mystic (and cryptic) feel. However, it soon becomes clear that something more sinister is at hand as you hunt Titans, juxtaposing the chaotic boss rooms and the peaceful outdoors. The soundtrack plays into this dichotomy well and is a very welcome feature of the game. Everything about Titan Souls feels ancient and colossal, creating a wonderful atmosphere.

If you are looking for story-driven content, however, you won't find it in this game. There is no formal story; the game does not elaborate on anything and leaves everything up to assumption. But it is a really, really cool world.

Titan Souls is one of my favorite games, but I will be honest about it. This is a very difficult game that likes to capitalize on the player's stress. Expect only a series of short boss fights with a little extra space between boss rooms. Overall, I think Titan Souls is really fun, but it isn't right for everyone. Get it if you crave difficulty and fast-paced 2D games.

Fill the void in your heart you never knew you had by playing Viridi. Are you looking for a succulent plant & snail simulator? Well, look no further.

For a small investment of 2 minutes a day (or every 4 days for serious gamers looking to optimize), you too can cultivate your own army of virtual succulent plants to prepare for the coming war. Each time you boot up Viridi, you are presented with many thrilling activities, such as removing weeds, watering your plants, or clicking your snail. As a reward, your plants will grow in accelerated real-time, reaching maturity in seven days time.

Every week, you will also get a free random seedling of one of many species. There are also microtransactions (the price of a seed pouch in real life) to buy additional seedlings. I guess the goal is to collect them all. And you should.

You owe it to yourself to download this game and log in every day. You deserve it.
(Also coming to mobile soon. Yay!)

David. is a really strange game that features simplistic, yet jarring visuals and a reflex-based click-to-shoot system. You play as a square named David in a bright geometric world, apparently sent there by an unseen deity to combat other evil (read: pointier) shapes. David can't touch the enemies directly, but can charge orbs of energy to fire upon them. While charging, David also reveals his ability to slow time. (This is a very special square.)

Though, let me also make very clear that the controls for this game are (intentionally) very annoying. The physics of this game really like to defy you and it will take a little getting used to. The controls are heavily oriented toward reflex, as evil triangles and rhombuses will fling themselves at you at alarming speeds.

Within the game, there are only a dozen levels and a meager amount of achievements to earn (most of which are simply for beating the game). Yet, it should generate some serious challenge just to beat those levels to begin with. There is little replayability outside of the "Arena" mode, which is basically a room with endless enemy spawns and a leaderboard for total kills. Personally: 4 hours, all levels beaten, all achievements earned.

The music is nothing special. Kind of bland. Repetitive. Visually, the game is very jarring, with areas of extreme dark juxtaposed near blinding white. If you have sensitive eyes like me, this game will strain your vision. The screenshots provided on the store page are the extent of how this game will look: you might find it interesting, you might not.

It's a cool game. Very short; small world; no story--appeal lies in the gameplay and visuals. The physics are overtly designed to be infuriating, but the overall feel and aesthetic is whimsical. It's a cheap game anyway, and worth a pick up if you have a few hours to waste. I had fun.

Evoland is a game that fails to achieve its potential. With good intentions, it pays homage to the evolution of the video game industry by allowing the player to travel through iconic RPG of the past. However, behind the cute references, Evoland is severely lacking in content.

The majority of the advertised unlockable features (improved graphics, sound, or combat) happen at the beginning of the game. After that, the player is forced to battle through ♥♥♥♥♥♥ renditions of Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, or Diablo. 95% of the items you encounter are completely useless and combat boils down to two commands: "attack" or "heal". To boot, the level-up and currency system does nothing (read: nothing), making the random encounters both intrusive and useless.

With some fumbling around, I was able to personally discover / beat all the content to the game in a measly three hours, including the main story and all secret unlockables. I bet you could do it with just two if you really tried. There is zero replay value. It's a shame really. Evoland was one of the wishlist games I had the highest hopes for.

Tiny & Big: Grandpa's Leftovers is a cute 3D puzzle platformer that gives the player more versatility in their actions. The key mechanic in the world is that (almost) everything is destructible, allowing the player to shape his own paths to victory.

The player takes the role of Tiny, who is chasing the antagonist Big to reclaim a pair of legendary undergarments. Armed with only a machine known as "The Tool," Tiny must climb towers and spelunk into ruins on his journey.

Unlike other platformers, the game is neither reflex- nor combat-based. Instead, you use a laser, grappling hook, and rocket to shape the 3D world and create new passages. Nearly everything in the game can be cut and reshaped, giving the player lots of freedom to destroy and rearrange the world to suit his needs. As such, there is seldom ever one way to beat the puzzles in this game.

However, although it is very well executed, Tiny & Big does suffer from a lack of content. Since the game relies so heavily on its game engine, it features only five levels (and the final boss). The overall difficulty is fairly low, so don't expect a challenge. However, there are tons of hidden collectibles and achievements that extend the game time for several hours.

Soundtrack is A+. Visuals are unique and have this adorable comic book style to them, including copious amounts of funny hovering onomatopoeia.

I really liked this game. I think it's definitely worth a buy if you're into puzzle platformers, especially if you are interested in exploration games too..

The Collider is an odd reflex game. It's along the same lines as Super Hexagon in that it's addictive and high-energy, but is basically a flash game.

The objective here is to guide a small dot in the center of your monitor through an infinitely long tube comprised of screens with holes in it; you hit a screen, you die. The ultimate goal is to survive as long as possible. If you can guess, the game is rather punishing: expect to die a lot and make very little progress.

The achievements are very wonky and unlock all at once after you quit the game. It took me all of 19 minutes of gameplay to get them all without trying--so there's that.

In conclusion, other than demanding intense focus and quick reflexes, this game doesn't offer a lot of playtime. There are no special modes or items--just the base game. It's interesting the first few times around, but definitely not worth $3. Maybe try it if it's on sale and you have an extra quarter lying around, but otherwise, skip it.

Risk of Rain is an utterly infectious platformer game. Where it lacks in plot, it makes up for with crazy semi-randomized mechanics.

You start out with four skills that slowly get augmented as you buy new items. Some will make your attacks faster or more powerful, some will grant new skills like the double jump, some will alter the game's aesthetic. All in all, the items (and tons of unlockables) keep the game fresh when first starting out.

The game also boasts being one of the more challenging platformers. While your power level increases exponentially during your playthrough, the enemies become faster and stronger. There are no checkpoints, so if you die--you die permanently. With luck and a little bit of finesse, the game may be beaten, though.

It takes a little time to get used to, but this game is really addictive to its core.

Only If is a first-person explorer that tries to be a "mindf*ck" game, but ultimately fails. The game drives you through different scenarios and forces you to "solve puzzles" without any direction as to what the puzzle even is. To sum it up: some parts are only vaguely reminiscent of Amnesia, while others desperately try to be like The Stanley Parable.

Unfortunately, the game is poorly executed: it's ultra linear, bland, and outright vulgar. Everything about the voice acting and dialogues is cringe-worthy, there's no plot, and it lacks the visceral quality that Amnesia succeeded at. (Also, the ending was awful). Perhaps the only redeeming factor about it are the graphics in the park scenario.

You can tell there was a lot of ambition here--but /only if/ it worked. In the end, it's free, so try it out if you must. You won't be missing much if you don't, though.