Recent reviews by Syrsly

The TLDR is this is an early access game done right with a lot of depth and tons of updates based partially on player feedback. The game is fun, but the endgame becomes quite the grind as you try to 100% the current achievements and get all the character unlocks. The game starts as a mostly skill-focused action roguelike with some potential for synergies in how your skills and their afflictions interact. It later becomes a mostly grindy snoozefest once you get the permanent cross-character upgrades and just want to chase achievements. The endgame lacks challenge and the only real reward for skillful players in the endgame is achievements unless you make up your own goals and reward yourself with IRL things like candy... which is what I ultimately did to keep it interesting.

You can get upgrade cards during a level which make skills trigger other skills and effects trigger other effects. You can also upgrade your movement speed, dodge ability, and other character-specific traits and so on. It has a lot of secrets but they're all well documented, so avoid the guides if you're trying to be surprised from time to time. The skill tree used to be tiny, but each update has made the tree bigger and added more characters and skins to unlock for each character. Granted, the characters are all low poly Synty assets, so you likely won't care about the skin unlocks at all.

The overall vibe is that the developer really cares about this game, so I bought the soundtrack as well, which I'll admit... is quite a jam.

Beat the base narrative of the game in ~3 hours. Some replay value seems evident, but it's definitely not as exciting long-term as its non-VR predecessor. For $20 at release, I think it's worth the entry fee, but games like this really make me wish there was a 1-5 rating system for Steam reviews.

Pros:
+ Teleport doesn't feel out-of-place.
+ Arms. Thank gawd, there's arms.
+ Cutscenes are somewhat skippable and mostly take place within the game world as you're playing.
+ Characters are diverse and well presented.
+ Final boss is kind of unique as far as how they respawn him.
+ Some weapons feel really badass.
+ Some chilling characters in the lobby level between runs will react to what you did during the run or react to you trying to hit them. Pretty immersive.

Cons:
- The arm-flailing movement is a workout and feels very unnecessary. Couldn't we have a decent default joystick speed?
- Arms feel too short for my long tall person arms. Height calibration does nothing to help this.
- Cutscenes mostly don't involve the player at all, making the player feel inconsequential.
- Narrative has no significant payoff. No character growth in any way.
- Characters aren't very interesting to look at because voxel style.
- Final boss is way too easy to defeat and feels like he overstays his welcome.
- Weapon variety is lacking. Most of the weapons are ordinary. Sometimes, you find an enhanced weapon, but it amounts to just a flame effect and a burn property that doesn't really help much.
- Bow is bugged. I could only use the first bow I found. All subsequent bows were unusable.
- No Twitch integration, unlike its non-VR counterpart. I would have liked to see that.
- No character customization. I would have liked color options at least!

A whole lot of tedium but also very immersive. The lightgun game I tried worked very well, and the cinematics are handled well. I think the non-VR version is a lot easier to play, though, and it looks slightly better that way. Works well on Quest 3 wireless via Virtual Desktop. I could not seem to remove the vignette, and it was a very annoying effect.

The entire game is just a tutorial that has ear bleeding noise in it. The game hasn't been updated to support any modern controller, just Vive, and it has the worst visuals. It doesn't do what it advertises, having a large night market, and the prizes for the games are just color variations of the various game tools, like darts and arrows. The sounds are absolutely horrid annd completely ruin the mini basketball experience. The SteamVR hand model shown in the trailer video is nowhere to be found in the actual game. Played the game on Quest 3 using Virtual Desktop to replicate Index controllers. Also attempted to run in original Vive HMD via wired connection. Both methods are missing the glove model.

Only used it briefly and I'm won over. It comes with 3 AI models to enhance and upscale images. The first model is for pixelated portraits. The second model is a simpler upscaler. I personally like the portrait enhancer model for cleaning up old 480p images from old digital cameras and whatnot. The third model is an anime-focused upscaler. I don't really see the appear of the anime one, because it seems to do the same job as the regular upscaler... though it may be a bit faster. This app also supports custom AI models, though I have no plans to create my own. I wish it had more models built-in or at least a link to some custom models they recommend. I'm going to research this and try to find more models when I have more free time.

You can import images using an "Add Images" button that opens a file browser dialog, or you can simply drag-and-drop files into the window after you select a model.

I feel like the UI is too much like its Android counterpart. I would like to see custom themes, better window docking support for Windows, and some kind of history tool to look at past conversions (until we manually clear the history).

Overall, this is an insanely useful app for how cheap it is. I wish it had more features, but honestly, I'm satisfied with the minimal feature set.

This is a weird club dancing simulator where you select dance styles for NPCs and they dance different ways. Sometimes they say no, which cracked me up the first time around. There's very little to do here, but there are some bowling and arcade distractions. There's a demo, but the game has been made free, so you may as well add it to your library. Warning: made for Vive wands and controls feel awful on anything else.

First playthrough is seemingly half a hour long, but if you just look around a bit, you can find a second biome to visit. This game is great but also absurdly frustrating at times due to absurd boss fights where the missiles follow you and hitboxes which are much larger than the missles. The farming mechanic and fishing mechanic are way too basic and don't really add much to the game in terms of distraction, but the favor points you get from these activities are definitely necessary for upgrades. Overall, it's a good game, but it's not something I'd buy full price and not something I'd play for more than 2-3 hours... unless trying to 100% the achievements, of course.

I'll start by saying I grew up with the original Myst and Riven and loved Riven so much I played it 4+ times in the row as a kid. The world was beautiful, and it felt lived in. However, the game, while difficult, was nowhere near as difficult and time-consuming as the remake. The remake is a whole other beast, and I must admit, I found it infuriatingly confusing at times, partially due to UI-related bugs which broke the game temporarily (until a reload/restart).

Here's the breakdown:
+ ~8 hours to complete one story from beginning to end with as little guidance as possible.
+ ~14 hours to 100% all achievements without a guide, though I sought out hints from time to time and utilized my existing knowledge of Riven from over 2 decades ago.
+ Beautiful environments to explore! Walk around in familiar but somewhat refreshed environments with WASD and FPS style camera movement. Beware: some puzzles are harder to figure out because of the new control scheme but not a ton.
+ Some randomization occurs with the puzzles, making this somewhat replayable.
+/- OG Riven's puzzles and world are way different, so your past knowledge may be more of a hindrance than a boon, making this a mostly new experience for all players but also making it much harder to figure out, with or without a guide.
- FMV sequences were replaced by impressive but ultimately inferior 3D models.
- Some levels and gameplay mechanics of the original Riven were completely removed or dumbed down in the remake.
- Interactive elements are somewhat limited. I expected more physics objects in this remake, but for the most part, items were static and had scripted movements.
- VR is supported but only barely. I recommend just playing this game in flat, non-VR mode. It's simply more enjoyable that way in my opinion. Your mileage may vary with different headset and controller combos. You may have some trouble with Index controllers when paired with certain headsets. I noticed problems with mine in a brief test but after a PC restart, they randomly worked.

Overall, it's a great remake, but it messed with the formula that made the original Riven beloved too much. After playing this remake, I went back to the original and realized I would have enjoyed a remaster of the original more. Oh well. Still a great experience. Well worth the asking price if you're a long time fan.

Just completed a full run with the 4th class in the game on base difficulty and I'm only 13 hours in, which is to say, I enjoyed the game for 13 hours so far and found it very fun. However, I'm sad that the game's levels don't go further. I could see it having an arena mode and playing that after beating the story mode. I unlocked the next difficulty but also have more unlocks to get through more runs so it has some replay value.