Recent reviews by Revenant

Probably the best Lego game I've played since Marvel Super Heroes 1. The open world makes sense, and has a lot of ambient missions to find. Missions are fun and there's a great set of characters, including ones from many other Pixar movies. The Incredibles 2 missions are probably better than the Incredibles 1 missions but the whole game was a blast. Good for kids too, my 8 year old played through the whole game with me.

Really excellent metroidvania!

Gameplay is fun and fluid. Greencap's movement feels great, and the bounce move (fung fu) is an interesting new option. Platforming is good, and I much prefer the astral gates in this game than the previous one (although my least favourite obstacle from the first game, the ball on chain, returns as a easier to time flower on chain). Astral gate challengs seem to be a bit shorter too, which makes them more manageable. The ladybug challenges really aren't very hard in this one. It took me about 25 hours to 100% the game on hard difficulty.

Combat feels good, and the boss fights are more interesting than the bigger monster bosses that were prevalent in the original. The last two bosses are challenging, but doable if you've built your character. Every time you beat a boss you get a skill point that can be assigned to one of 5 stats, and more points can be collected with every third starshard you find, as well as items, hidden powerups, etc.. There doesn't seem to be a maximum for any particular stat so you can really build Greencap however you'd like. Healing is a bit annoying, as it takes a while that you have to hold it while it charges, and it can be hard to find gaps in some boss fights to use it effectively.

Money isn't hard to come by exactly but gets spent fast. Most shrines (save points) need to be bought to activate, and bought a second time to turn them into a fast travel point. There are 5 relic slots you can have at the end of the game, but they scale up in price until over 1000 coins for the last one. On hard difficulty, money is lost whenever you die, and there is no corpse run, it's gone forever. This meant I tended to go spend all I had before tackling new bosses as losing significant amounts while you learn a boss was annoying.

The map is good although isn't as nice as the previous game's map. Two really nice things it does though - first, the screenshot map marker a la Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown makes an appearance in the game (and doesn't seem to be limited); and second,

Graphics are pretty but I prefered the more detailed pixel art from the original game. The music and sound are pleasant, but not as memorable as other games in the genre.

A couple nitpicks:
* The hub for the astral gates in the first game is sorely missed. It'd be really nice to be able to replay completed astral gates.
* Some of the traversal abilities you find have very limited uses (ie. allow you to pass certain barriers in certain places). There are also obstacles that require very limited keys or repair kits that you may not find for ages after you discover a place that needs one.
* Hard difficulty doesn't show boss HP bars (which I like!) but by doing so also doesn't show the boss's name after the first time you encounter each one.

Excellent game in the spirit of the old Telltale adventure games. The story was great and immersive, the characters are well written and enjoyable. Decisions feel important, and there are some really hard decisions to make that don't always play out the way you expect. The dispatching elements are decent and varied, and they seem to have a lot of banter that relates to missions you send the team on.

Each episode takes about 1.5 hours to complete, with episodes 7 and 8 being a bit longer.

Game plays great on Steam Deck.

20 years later, still an amazing game. The birthplace of many of the features commonplace now in shooters, the gunplay is still exciting, the gravity gun is still amazing, and we still don't go to Ravenholm. If only the ep2 cliffhanger would finally be resolved...

Very good game! The story is quite engaging with lots of twists and turns, and is best experienced completely blind. Graphics are great and every scene is quite colourful and exciting. Everything is fully voice acted well. The gameplay overall is simple - go from point A to point B, solve simple puzzles, etc. but the story and intrigue really keeps the game moving. Highly recommend!

Fun little game with two different campaigns (normal, and hold my beer on the same maps with very different challenges and new capabilities). Find secret cats in most levels too.

This is the story of a man named Stanley. Stanley worked in a corridor with an orange button where he was employee #427. Employee #427's job was simple. He walked in a corridor and pushed an orange button. This is what employee 427 did every day, of every month, of every year.

Like all of Kyle Thompson's games, Crypt Custodian is excellent. I like how each game explores a new mechanic. The top down view is a nice departure from the majority of the genre while still allowing for interesting movement mechanics and gameplay.

There are a ton of different biomes to explore. Each has its own enemies, which follow a few architypes but expand on them (so for instance, you'll find a basic archer in the first biome, an archer who shoots a boomerang later one, an archer who fires multiple shots, etc.). There are also curses to find which give you specific situations to endure until you've killed enough enemies, in exchange for a power up. Speaking of which, there are a huge number of upgrades to found (similar to charms in other games), but you also find and can buy slots for those upgrades. There's no limit to how many slots you can have so you can really build out your character in any way you want. I really enjoyed using upgrades that my own blue projectiles to the mess of bullets being fired in some areas and boss fights. As well, there are special attacks to be found (you can activate one of them at a time, and they charge up pretty fast), and jukebox discs which allow you to play songs in the inn.

The world is quite expansive, and traversing it is pretty good. You can fast travel to any previously visited save point straight off the bat. You can add a number of your own markers, as well as buy markers for missed secrets or the next area to head to; otherwise the game doesn't handhold you and you can pretty quickly decide to go in whatever direction you'd like. The map itself is good but not ideal with a controller - there are two zoom levels but scrolling the zoomed out one doesn't scroll the zoomed in one which makes the map a bit hard to navigate, especially if there's a specific warp point you want to go to across the map. You also can only fast travel using the zoomed in version, as far as I was able to determine. I'd also say that some of the power ups you get do not have nearly enough places to use them (or require you to find a room to use them far away from your goal), but they're also used in surprising ways.

Took me about 15 hours to get to 100% completion in game. There's also a boss rush mode that I played around a bit in but isn't really my cup of tea (in order to get S+ you need to kill bosses quickly and without taking any damage).

It is amazing to me that at the time of writing this, 25% of players have gotten the 100% completion achievement. This really goes to show how amazing this game is. It's a very comfortable experience and you can tell that QoL was really considered. If you like metroidvanias, and especially if you like Kyle's other games, you're definitely going to love this one. Can't wait for the next one!

Really fun metroidvania! Interesting mechanic with collecting different enzymes to give different one-time powers. There are a ton of collectibles including tons of different hats some of which are clever references to other things you'll probably be familiar with. Some of the end game powerups are pretty situational due to how powerful you will be by then (it is possible to just tank some later bosses) but the movement abilities are nice and fluid, albeit once you'll have seen before in other games.

The end game feels a bit rushed compared to the expansiveness of the rest of the game, but all in all it was a fun experience!

Also the dev is very nice and responsive on discord!

Really enjoyable sci-fi RPG reminiscent of Fallout 1/2. A bit rough in places and the end game is a bit rushed, but it really scratched an itch. Completed the game on Underdog (the harder of 2 difficulties). Story is decent but also forgettable in places. Many quests affect standing with one of the major factions which affects how the story plays out but it doesn't really change the game that much other than whose questline you do.

Combat is enjoyable although a bit hard for some fights. You're given energy weapons with quite limited ammo but make sure you use them for the hardest fights.

Stealth sections are poorly explained but enjoyable once you understand how they work. There's one in the middle of the game that you'll have to try many many times in order to get that one perfect run. The game doesn't explain this but your stealth character should focus on the three stealth skills and also computers (and less so electronics) to be most useful. Computer skills are prevalent in stealth sections!