Recent reviews by Graham Crackers

The combat and movement is seriously like, 4 times better than Hollowknight. Hornet feels perfect to control. Some of these bosses are PEAK. The art and visuals are super detailed and stunning. 100% recommended if you liked the first game. Crazy to say it was worth the wait but honestly I think it was.

Oh they're cookin with this one alright. The world needs more good food games. The fact that it's a rogue like deck builder is just icing on the frickin omelet brother.

It might be short but it was excellent. It's the best type of horror; where the implications and subtexts are far scarier than a monster. Where connecting the dots in your head gives you goosebumps. Loved the writing in the introduction as well. This guy can handle the Lovecraftian style for sure.

Really would like to see what this developer could do with a bigger project and would totally be willing to throw a few bucks at it.

Yeah I mean it's pretty good. I think I've spent about, idk, like maybe a couple hours playing it?

It’s a shame that Tunic isn’t widely popular, because it’s absolutely fantastic and one of the best things I’ve played this year; maybe even one of my favorite games I’ve played in a long time. My friend and I loved it so much that we spent a whole night learning how to read the fully functional and wonderfully designed in-game rune language. Even for all the praise I want to give it, though, I cannot recommend this game to most people.

Unfortunately, Tunic is divisive by design. It presents itself as a pretty straightforward, retro-Zelda inspired action adventure game, maybe with some light puzzle elements to it. But this is a full-on puzzle game, and the puzzle aspect only gets stronger and stronger as it progresses. I can’t explain why that’s the case without spoiling the fun. You’ll understand if you do decide to try it.

If you like heavy, abstract puzzle games that force you to think outside the box, slow down, and scour every corner for clues, like the Witness, I have a feeling you’re going to love Tunic to death like I did. If that sounds boring or you really just want to play a by-the-numbers Zelda game (which is certainly not a bad thing, by the way), this is likely not your cup of tea.

Aside from the actual gameplay, the art, music, and presentation as a whole are absolutely fantastic. I’m going to buy the physical instruction booklet because of how charming, complex, and memorable of a mechanic it was; all of which can duly be said of the entire game.

Absolutely wonderful experience. I totally understand why it gets talked about so much, even 12 years after its release.

Found this randomly and thought it was either a gigantic price tag for a 5 minute joke or a fantastic idea. I’m SO glad it turned out to be the latter.

I love visual novels that use the format of the genre to do unique and interesting things and Slay The Princess delivers exactly that. The biggest surprise to me was that this is actually a mystery story! And a very original one at that. I’d be shocked if this concept has never been done before, but it’s certainly the first time I’ve read anything like it. The writing does an awesome job of trickling little bits of information to you and hiding clues in plain sight. I feel like I caught on a little quickly to what was going on behind the curtain, but that’s honestly fine.

I have heard some complaints about the dialogue and voice acting, and I do think there are some missteps in direction, but other choices– especially the banter of the “voices”– bring a lot of charm and humor to the otherwise nihilistic tone that slowly seeps into the story. Although one complaint I had with the voices was that they are often too heavy-handed about describing subtleties in the story and imagery that should have stayed subtle.

The artstyle and all the little graphical tricks used here are awesome. At times the visuals even tie into the plot which is perfect for a *visual* novel. That said, it walks a thin line between stylized and...let's go with "indulgent". Usually it's not too much to take me out of the experience, though. The music is largely understated but comes in really strong at certain points and does a lot for that dreadful atmosphere.

My greatest criticism involved a certain character being almost railroaded into the antagonist role when I personally found myself sympathizing with them more often than not. It's not necessarily a flaw in the writing, but it did leave a sour taste in most of the endings for me.

Overall, an absolutely fantastic experience that is not without its missteps, but feels wholly original in execution and is full of passion for storytelling. It also got a free expansion which we love to see.

There's a great rogue-like in here but if you never played the original Risk of Rain you might have to do some digging for it. The first 5-10 hours will be brutal, but once you get the hit-and-run playstyle down there's a lot to like.

FINALLY another visual novel that uses the genre to do something unique!! This is a visual novel, an interactive wikipedia article, a sci-fi world-building project, a character drama, a nature documentary, a cute coming-of-age story, and a speculative evolution exercise all at once, and it's FREE!!! The fact that it was made by a single person just blows me away. I'm definitely buying the artbook to support him.

It's Wario Land 5 and it's awesome