Recent reviews by Lederface

I am completely split in giving a review to this game. Since it is very difficult to review it, considering that I felt quite immersed playing it but at the same time left an intense sour taste in my mouth, I will just touch with bullet points the positive and negative aspects. To encapsulate the short review that will follow in one sentence: Backbone is a game of VERY high wasted potential.

Strength points - Things that are great:
1. Pixel Art: it's very good, there are a lot of details that inform the player on the place he/she is in, making it realistic and immersive, and time to time there are really cool shots that are worth takin a picture of.
2. Storytelling: it really engages the player. At least for the first 3 acts, the temporal partitioning of information in dialogues and scenes is very good and so the pacing too. Last 2 acts seemed produced by different people.
3. Characters (i'll go fast otherwise it will be extremely long): i really liked the three main characters in the story. They are well balanced, they seem real in their choices and thoughts, you can really feel what they are feeling and how upsetting the experience they are going through can be for a human being (well actually...they are animals).
4. Story: I would only say that for the first 3 acts it grows smooth and clean, then has this sudden radical change that, in a sense, annihilates what had been built up previously.
5. Soundtracks: Are very pleasant and appropriate for the contexts. There are some very emotional moments with music background that can touch you deeply.
6. Style and Design: there would be so many things to say but I find that in general the design and stylistic choices of the game are really good. I really enjoyed the pairing of yellow and blue colors as a visual constant.

Weak points - Things that were kinda or pretty bad:
1. Mechanics inconsistency: in my opinion this is the biggest problem. In the prologue act (it's free so play it) everything was absolutely awesome. They present the world we are playing in, the characters by well-written and funny dialogues, the story outline and the main "game mechanics" we will use during our journey (lil spoiler alert): crouch (for sneaky part), object interactions (to distract "enemies"), moving objects on a surface (like papers and journals on a desk), puzzles (the first one was simple but cool and smart). Literally all of this functions disappear from act 1 onwards (one exception for an extremely easy and bare event of sneaking with the crouch).
2. Very few interactions: often i felt that, even if the atmosphere was great (pixel art, music, etc.) there was not much to interact with.
3. Tab Menu uselessness: even if this point is fine, I think the use and structure of the inventory and objectives menu is awkward and unnecessary in the course of the game. You acquire items that will be used most of the times automatically moments later. There is no reason to store items and tools and they don't disappear from the menu after their use.
4. Story "plot-twist": as i said, the first 3 acts build a solid and engaging story, then suddenly has this radical change that annihilates what had been built up previously.
5. Incomplete ending: so much "meat is put on the fire" but little is carried through and closed at the end of the course.

In the end I still liked the game even with these problems. I saw on Steam that there's the prelude game came out this year so i'm really curious to try it and see if they solved some of these issues.

When i discovered that a sequel of Duelyst was being launched to remake the game, i was so enthusiastic: a great card game with incredible mechanics, beautiful pixel arts and interesting characters was receiving a new life. Today i downloaded Duelyst II to give it a try but after some matches i remained mostly disappointed. Most of the stuff that was really bad remained as bad as it was: the user interface, the orbs opening room (and the orbs design itself), the HUD during the matches are really bad, nay, they are old, stale (2014 vibes). They added a new "hero" for every class but just him/her has the new character art with a better quality, none of the old ones has been re-drawn (this is really awful to see).
After this considerations, i won't play the game again for now, even if the game design is really cool and challenging. I hope they will improve this stuff, mayne i'll give it another try in a few months.

Absolutely one of the best Rogue-like. Too fun.