Recent reviews by Tieyu

My word was Love.

I liked doing it overall. I'm sorry to say my ending genuinely didn't seem applicable or helpful. The experience of considering the questions as truthfully as possible was enough for my recommendation, though.

this game rewards the part of my brain that tells me to endanger myself and it's great

RFG (and they missed a real opportunity by not calling it Blue Faction, for the appropriate acronym 'BFG') is more fleshed out than I'd have guessed. What I might have expected was a somewhat broken, repetitive and somewhat flat game with a kick-ass destruction system. Yet everything worked fairly well, with no bugs to speak of. Each zone itnroduces a few new elements in an attempt to keep things somewhat fresh. The story is extremely straightforward and never launches into much detail (although you can find clues and hints that reveal, again, more depth than I'd have expected), but it works for the type of game that RFG is--a game about destroying ♥♥♥♥. A lot of ♥♥♥♥. Everywhere.

You won't get particularly attached to any of the characters, as they're not really explored much. The foundations are there, but it simply would have required more. More missions; maybe another ten or twenty hours added to the playthrough time. And while that could be interesting, I think it'd wear things thin and become too repetitive without introducing new elements. I get the impression that they did what they could with what they had when working on the game, and they did just fine. In the end, you're still destroying ♥♥♥♥ (a lot of ♥♥♥♥, remember?) and it's really satisfying. And for a little bit of extra fun there are the unlockable cheats; when you're done playing 'for real', you can tick them on and really do some damage.

Nidhogg is a bit of a gamble; the lack of stage variety and the price-tag can be offset by the gameplay if you happen to enjoy it enough, but the only way to know is to have played it. As many others doubtless noted the mechanics are simple but diverse and encourage a somewhat surprising degree of tactical thought or the development of a refined intuitive grasp. The four extant levels are quite nice, but a minimum of eight stages would still have been preferable. Daedelus' musical score for the game shines surprisingly bright; in tandem with the trippy stage backgrounds the tracks create a very surreal and otherworldly experience that I would never have expected from the game, but I find the atmosphere highly captivating and very much want more of it. A shame that it may never come.

While I can't really say what others might take from it, I've had more fun with Nidhogg than anything else I've played in a long time. As player death is common and quickly followed by a new life, you're free from being all that concerned with dying to more greatly enjoy the wild and often hilarious interplay of the two fencers, which can range from skillful bouts to ridiculous hamfests.

For most people I can't recommend the game at its full price; more stages and perhaps another type of single player game mode would help justify a 15 dollar purchase. Unless you're quite certain you'll love it, seek it out when it's eight dollars or less. Personally though, I would sacrifice the full cost for the glory of being eaten by the Nidhogg.