Recent reviews by Faust

This game deserved better.

It's clearly an FTL-like, but it does have sufficiently different core mechanics to make it feel distinctly different from FTL rather than like an HD reskin. It's rather janky at times, not very well balanced (and neither is FTL), but I found it a different enough experience to be worth playing instead of just replaying FTL again.

It even has a freeplay mode with a character creator, which is something I've dreamt of back when I played FTL. I just wish it had a better trait system, because you can't make your captain as good as some of the "unique" characters in the game.

On the topic of it being a different experience, ironically, most of the negative reviews appear to come from players who expected it to be a borderline carbon copy of FTL. You might've come across one of the quadrigorillion negative mentions of the food system, and it's mostly because those players never bothered to read the description of their life support system or to buy a cryosleep room and so they kvetch and wail in agony because they never figured out they are supposed to ration food instead of relying on battle rewards and purchases at the station. It could use some balance tweaks, but only when it comes to balance between races (the local equivalent of mantises have massive appetites but aren't quite worth their expenses, for example), but it's by no means unfair. Numerous individuals are just bad at videogames.

Oh, and I love the crap out of the OST. It's one of two games in my library I actually went out of my way to separate buy the OST for.

Sad to see it stew in Mixed. Again, it deserved better than this.

Cute style, very pleasant music, compelling gameplay mechanics, and seemingly apparent growth in game design skills from their previous game (None Shall Intrude, which, although still a great deckbuilder with beautiful visuals, did have some trouble introducing interesting deck mechanics in very early game, making for a bad first impression that didn't do justice to the full experience). Here mechanics and combinations start looking interesting and tricky right away. I'm very glad to see that.

I am looking forward to this thing's release.

A rather unusual premise that, baring some minor hangups, the developers pull off with flying colors.

The gameplay is very punchy and satisfying, your knight-mech-spaceship has a lot of weight to it that at first will feel "ungainful" to control, but in a right way. Rather than feeling unfun, it feels immersive, feels impactful. And as you play more, eventually piloting will feel like second nature.

The overall style feels rather fresh with its fusion of high tech and Medieval/Victorian European elements. It's a setting with a very distinct feeling to it. There are many settings that fuse fantasy and tech, but I'm not aware of any that do it like this, specifically.

There are some minor issues, like the skill trees not being entirely balanced, with some skills being quite a bit superior to others, on an uncommon occasion even entire mechanics can feel borderline vestigial, but not only are these problems nowhere near severe enough to caution against playing this game, those problems are also actively being addressed by the developers.

This truly feels like a game developed with the purpose of making something beautiful and compelling.

Looks like an Inscryption wannabe at first glance but is actually a quite novel and mechanically compelling tabletop-like game the likes of which I haven't seen before. The kind of game you can use as an example to win an argument against someone saying how nobody in the games industry does anything new anymore. It has an interesting management gameplay model and high effort stylization out the arse. Something this well done having fewer than 30 reviews at the time of writing just goes to show quality never has, does not, and never will equal success.

A horde-killer game that actually feels like you're fighting enemies (while most of the market drowns in survivor-likes that hover between the feelings of popping bubblewrap and yanking the lever of a slot machine). It's short but also ridiculously cheap. A solid "snack" game to spend an evening on.

It looks, sounds, and plays well.

The throwing gimmick might make it seem overwhelming or too weird to enjoy for some people compared to the more conventional action roguelites, but you can play the game without it just fine and focus on more straightforward direct combat builds if you wish and it'll still feel like a full fledged game.

There's good variety in ships, weapons, and playstyles. Itemization has solid potential for making outlandish novelty builds, though luck may not always be on your side. The RNG won't screw you out of a win, it's just that your build might be liable to end up just functional rather than special.

The soundtrack is strangely compelling. There are games that just have good music, and then there are games where the music weaves into the gameplay and becomes a natural part of its dynamic, and this game feels like the latter.

TL;DR: It's a very good game but at the same time not a very good adult game.

I'd like to clarify that the reason it's not very good at being an adult game isn't because it's not sexy. It very much is. The models are very attractive and the animations, while some don't have the best angles, remind me of "Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines" which, if you've played that one, I'm sure I don't need to explain how that's a very high praise to bestow upon a game's animations.

Meanwhile, the gameplay is interesting, engaging, and even somewhat novel, having you juggle several resources (time, weapon durability, consumables, sanity, lust, and more) while doing constant risk-assessments as to which enemies to fight and pork, which to only fight, and which to just leave alone or flee from. Admittedly all of that, while playable, is not very well balanced - the developer clearly had great ideas for general concepts but didn't quite manage to exorcise the devil in the details. It's also a bit repetitive once you pick up on the basics. Nonetheless it's worth playing, just a wee rough around the edges.

The problem lies in the gameplay being SO engaging that your brain and hands won't have the time to get all hot and bothered while you're navigating the dungeons and performing constant risk assessments. So my recommendation hinges on your understanding of the fact that your "Things Shot" coefficient is gonna be 100% bullets and 0% ropes.

There are many flaws. A tad overpriced, a bit light on content, boss fights are rather rudimentary, movements are a wee janky, balance and progression are under-designed, some mechanics are downright vestigial and don't capitalize on their great potential (bug mounts are great but you'll barely get to use them outside of their designated quests)...

But I still begrudgingly recommend it. Its art style is distinct and pleasant to behold, its music does a reasonably fine job at complementing the visuals, the overall atmosphere is comfy and immersive, the baseline gameplay is sufficiently fun, the quests and underground puzzles are pretty solid (baring an occasional scavenger hunt being excessively generous with hints), it's been a nice experience overall. It's a wee gem. Very rough, and maybe the pawn shop's owner is trying to swindle you just a tiny bit, but it still has a lovely shine to it.

In addition to that the last thing I wanna mention (without spoiling anything) is the main antagonist who, although a goofball and not particularly complex much like everyone else in the game, seems to have a rather compelling motivation for his actions. In some parallel universe and with a bit of extra worldbuilding I could even see him as an equally compelling facet of the conflict to your own. Maybe even someone to side with.

I found a forearm-sized magic crystal lodged inside the pelvis of a skeleton. I didn't even need to finish the demo at that point to find out whether to wishlist it.

The visuals are good and well styled, the controls are intuitive+lightweight+smooth, the sound design is sufficiently punchy, it's quite atmospheric and feels rather cozy despite the dreary vibe. The only 2 things I didn't quite like were:
-The lack of a "melee combo" (you only do one strike with a normal attack, there's no backswing)
-The melee combat being perhaps a just a smidge easy (the supposedly incredibly dangerous in close quarters werewolves were rather trivial to dispatch in a 1 on 1 fight with basic melee, just take a swing and dodge back and then repeat).

But those are basically nitpicks. The bottom line is I had fun and want the full thing now.

Let's just pretend like that EA roadmap never existed and I'm looking at a complete 15 dollar experience and judging it on its own merits. What I have in front of me is:

Atrocious artstyle. I don't mind asset packs on principle, but this thing is cobbled together from what appears to be THREE SEPARATE asset packs - the low poly one (cynty, presumably) for environments and weapons, the cartoony WoW-like one for most enemies, and some kind of detailed one for orcs themselves. The armor is the absolute worst offender because it kitbashes ALL THREE of them into one abominable chimera.

Nonexistent variety, by which I mean:
- 3 biomes which do admittedly differ mechanically but not in a particularly meaningful way.
- 5 bosses, one of which is a tweaked version of a regular enemy.
- 4 classes where 3 of them are just slightly tweaked variations of "guy with a melee weapon and a ranged weapon".
- 1 primary and 1 secondary weapon for each. Technically each class had an extra primary which is just a remodel with higher stats.

Unsatisfying gameplay. Boss monsters have no weight to them, their animations look very janky and unnatural, I don't feel any meaningful weapon feedback, the tracking process feels like busywork if it even works, the high vertical mobility (mega jump + wall jump lets you get high enough to bump into the invisible walls on the maps) makes the uneven terrain feel trivial to navigate, etc.

It's visually incoherent, it's floaty, it's short, it's not very good.