Recent reviews by Serentty

Surprisingly fancy for such an old system—it definitely surpasses what I expect from a TI 99/4A game, although I was not very familiar with that system before this. It has somewhat of a concept of elevation, the NPCs have a decent amount of dialogue, the combat is fun in a 2D grid, Fire Emblem sort of style instead of menu-driven. There is not much sound-wise so you might want to put on fitting music to go with it.

If you love having to keep track of too many things to keep track of, this is the game for you.

Amazing scenery, great sound, nice flight model, and lots of fun. Prepare for hours of trying to the launcher to work and actually download the game, though. That's what the negative reviews are complaining about. If you're worried about using up your two refundable hours just downloading the game, it's possible to kill out Steam while the game is downloading, and then it won't count that time.

If you're serious about flight simming, this is the best that you can get at the moment, although that is likely to change in 2020 with the new Microsoft Flight Simulator release. If you're unsure whether or not flight sims are for you, either get this on sale, or try Microsoft Flight Simulator X (old as it is).

This is one of those games that's pretty messed up when you think about it, but that doesn't matter because it's so fun and makes you so happy when you play it.

Note: This review applies to both Zup! and Zup! 2

These are to my knowledge, very original puzzle games. What little there is in terms of graphics and physics is very well done. There are many things, however, that prevent me from recommending them:

- Length and Lack of Content: 20 minutes each, if you work quickly, like I did. My time played on the second one is higher because I left the game on while I went out to do an errand. The music is just a few bars that loop over and over again. Perhaps there's something in the background that I'm not hearing, but it's so quiet that it doesn't make much difference. The music doesn't go anywhere.

- Ease: There is in theory some strategy involved, but you can win most levels in a few tries by just randomly clicking. I managed to beat the final level of Zup! 2 on my first try, with only one mouse click. Perhaps this was intended as a grand explosion finale, but most other levels were like this, too.

- Broken Puzzles: On many levels, you can win by skipping large portions of the level. In many cases, there are many ways to solve each level. I don't mean that in a fun "alternate solutions" kind of way. I mean that randomly clicking will often beat the puzzle on the first try.

- No Replayability: Some games offer much less than this in terms of content, but are fun games that I would highly recommend. Tetris, for example, has much less content than this game, but is highly replayable. After you've beaten this game once, there's no point playing it again until enough time has passed that you've forgotten all the solutions (not that it would be that hard to figure them out again, anyway).

- Achievement Spam: If you're looking for achievements, this game has them. Many of the positive reviews for this game cite achievements as a key feature. I earned six within my first sixty seconds. That's one every ten seconds. I got both games to 100% completion in the short time that I spend playing them. To be clear, I earned over 200 achievements in about 40 minutes. I had to replay one of the levels, since it didn't register the achievement for that level the first time. It only took me about ten seconds to replay it, though.

- Better Options for the Money: For the same price, you can get a full-length pixel art RPG by some random indie developer. Generic? Sure. But you could actually have fun playing a game for hours on end. There are so many really good games out there for the same price, or even less. For such a low price, I don't feel ripped off by the developer, and I wouldn't really mind if I couldn't get a refund. Seeing as I can, however, I think I'm going to get something else.

Overall, I think the concept shows enormous potential, but you won't find any of it in these actually existing games. I hope the developer refines the concept in the future, and makes a more challenging and engaging game.

Note: This review applies to both Zup! and Zup! 2

These are to my knowledge, very original puzzle games. What little there is in terms of graphics and physics is very well done. There are many things, however, that prevent me from recommending them:

- Length and Lack of Content: 20 minutes each, if you work quickly, like I did. My time played on the second one is higher because I left the game on while I went out to do an errand. The music is just a few bars that loop over and over again. Perhaps there's something in the background that I'm not hearing, but it's so quiet that it doesn't make much difference. The music doesn't go anywhere.

- Ease: There is in theory some strategy involved, but you can win most levels in a few tries by just randomly clicking. I managed to beat the final level of Zup! 2 on my first try, with only one mouse click. Perhaps this was intended as a grand explosion finale, but most other levels were like this, too.

- Broken Puzzles: On many levels, you can win by skipping large portions of the level. In many cases, there are many ways to solve each level. I don't mean that in a fun "alternate solutions" kind of way. I mean that randomly clicking will often beat the puzzle on the first try.

- No Replayability: Some games offer much less than this in terms of content, but are fun games that I would highly recommend. Tetris, for example, has much less content than this game, but is highly replayable. After you've beaten this game once, there's no point playing it again until enough time has passed that you've forgotten all the solutions (not that it would be that hard to figure them out again, anyway).

- Achievement Spam: If you're looking for achievements, this game has them. Many of the positive reviews for this game cite achievements as a key feature. I earned six within my first sixty seconds. That's one every ten seconds. I got both games to 100% completion in the short time that I spend playing them. To be clear, I earned over 200 achievements in about 40 minutes. I had to replay one of the levels, since it didn't register the achievement for that level the first time. It only took me about ten seconds to replay it, though.

- Better Options for the Money: For the same price, you can get a full-length pixel art RPG by some random indie developer. Generic? Sure. But you could actually have fun playing a game for hours on end. There are so many really good games out there for the same price, or even less. For such a low price, I don't feel ripped off by the developer, and I wouldn't really mind if I couldn't get a refund. Seeing as I can, however, I think I'm going to get something else.

Overall, I think the concept shows enormous potential, but you won't find any of it in these actually existing games. I hope the developer refines the concept in the future, and makes a more challenging and engaging game.

I highly recommend this game. It fuses turn-based strategy, FPS, and JRPG into one, and it's amazing.

Plastic Warfare. What more could you want?