Recent reviews by Magic Flounder

Its the worst of the original trilogy of these game by a good margin.

This is primarily due to a change in the game design where instead of having set quantities of every resource on the map, everything respawns on timers. In addition the requirements to clear objectives is increased. The result is long sections of farming resources where you're just walkking in circles waiting for specific ones to respawn.

In addition to being super tedious it also removes the satisfaction the first two had of clearing maps of things to do since basically nothing besides major obstacles ever stays gone.

Even the story which, the series does not have a particularly high bar for, just being the bare minimum fantasy narrative to drive the objectives, is worse. Your character never confronts the main villain unlike previous titles. Instead everything just kind of unceremoniously ends after you complete your last farming of items for the last objectives.

Visually its also the worst of the three. With the original being traditional fantasy, the sequel being Pirate fantasy, the third kind of has no theme instead being almost entirely forested areas from start to finish with a few caves connecting them.

Definitely the best game of the original Hero of the Kingdom Trilogy. Its a very casual title and beating it is more or less an inevitability if you don't quit. That said this one definitely has a bit more problem solving and complexity to the order of things than the first.

The story is still very simple but not offensive in any way. Like the original its there to give you some driving motivation and not much else.

Very much a casual title, not a serious RPG or Point and Click by any means. Beating it is very much an inevitability and so go into it knowing you're playing it for the enjoyment of clearing out map markers and to have some fun clicking on stuff.

The story is fine, its as straightforward as these things come.

I very much enjoyed my short time with Terry, hitting 100% within about 5 hours and some change.

The writing is funny, the locations are fun to explore and the overall vibes are very comfortable. There's nothing especially remarkable about the gameplay its basic collectathon stuff where more items gives you a reason to go back to areas for missed collectables.

The game world is sort of the perfect size for this being big enough to have a variety of places to explore but not so big it becomes unbearably tedious to do so. 100% is not required to beat the game but if you do choose to go for the full 100 you receive a variety of upgrades in the late game that make it so its not soul crushing looking for those last few pieces of junk.

If I were to complain about anything its that the car which is the main focus of the intro and the collectathon itself has very little purpose beyond reaching the ending. Most exploration is done on foot with the car only serving to make travel between regions of the map a bit faster and a handful of stunt jump collectables. There's also a bumper car minigame you can randomly find while wandering I suppose but even that is discovered while on foot. Some races around parts of the island or even some taxi type side quests where the characters can blabber a bit would have been nice.

I definitely liked it more than Wuppo.

Enjoying the game hinges entirely on if you're charmed by the presentation of it all. It looks very pretty basically the whole game and the voice acting and music is all great as well.

Puzzle wise things are mostly pretty good for a point n click of this style. Very few puzzles feel ridiculous or unfair, most follow a sane-enough logic that they can be solved without a guide.

Where things sort of stumble is the story, starting out with an intriguing cold open and then moving to the central mystery I'd say most of the first half of the game is interesting and compelling enough to get you from location to location. Around the 70-75% mark though there's a distinct feeling they ran out of time or resources as you suddenly fast travel to the starting location, character dynamics change without any real reason and you're sent on a pointlessly long fetch quest with barely any story or character stuff before then fast traveling to the final boss where you make a binary choice with an emotional dilemma that honestly doesn't have any weight given what we know about the world and characters when it happens.

So yeah, its not offensively bad or anything but just go in knowing the charm and vibe of the first few hours will likely not carry through to the conclusion, and enjoy the visuals for what they are.

Basically this is 5 moderately difficult boss fights with a whole bunch of easy filler sections inbetween them.

The story is a heavily fictionalized account of a real guy, the 'Taiwanese Robin Hood' Liao Tan Ding. The way this story is told is fairly bland. Sanitizing the rather heavy topics the actual history involves, and replacing them with basically nothing besides some anime martial arts magic.

Other than some spots of poor translation, and a few boss attacks with unclear hitboxes there's nothing wrong with the game itself, though the sharp jump in difficulty from the beat 'em up sections to the bosses could scare some people off.

Like a lot of reviews I think its good but doesn't quite come together in the same way the original did. If you enjoyed the first one and/or Obra Dinn then it'll fill that niche but I don't know if you'll come away as satisfied as either of those.

For the story and mystery I wouldn't say its bad but there's something about the method things are told to you where many of the individual scenarios don't really build the story in any way. There's a lot of filler scenarios and while the puzzles within those scenarios might be fun to solve their contribution to the great case of the game is minor or even non-existant. The original there was more of a feeling of build up as each scenario followed from the previous and the scale of things continued to increase until you transitioned from a detective into a historian as you pieced things together.

In addition if you've played the first game a lot of the strangeness and creepy vibes are lost because you're already familiar with the tituar golden idol and there aren't many new aspects to the supernatural weirdness to bring those feelings back.

As for the puzzles themselves I enjoyed most of them. Some people say its too easy now but barring 3 or 4 scenarios I wouldn't say any of them were terrible. The presentation and UI for exploring the scenarios and organizing information was also a lot better than the original making it more fun and tactile to sort your clues and physically organize things for your thought processes. That said there are 2 or 3 puzzles with no sympathy for color blind folk like myself. One in particular very close to the end was so bad I didn't even realize it had different colors until randomly solving it by mindlessly moving pieces around.

As for a final gripe I think certain scenarios set me up for failure in the final case. The fault is partially mine for thinking about things in a meta sense but there is a thread of happenings that I now know are there as a plot set up for the coming DLC. Not knowing that going in made me continually assume that thread was going to continue into the main game's finale but it doesn't. Its simply there to make you want the DLC which itself contributes to a lot of the scenarios feeling like they don't really tie into the main narrative.

Ultimately I enjoyed my time with the game and don't regret picking it up on release and I'll pick up the DLC when its out. But like a lot of people it does feel like the heights of the original weren't quite reached, at least as far as the story is concerned.

I love everything but the graphics.

The gameplay remains tight and very fun and with the various settings you can create the perfect gamemode for you, even re-create the basic sword vs sword of Nidhogg 1 if you don't want all the new weapons.

The graphics are my only real complaint. Instead of the one-step-above-Atari level simplicity of the original game they crank it all the way to 'modern pixel art indie game'. Despite being way more detailed and its clear work went into it I would have been much happier with something closer to the original. Maybe it was a marketing move or something but the blocky simplistic look of the original will always be more memorable and oddly more beautiful than the somewhat cluttered look of the sequel. From a gameplay perspective it also is a bit odd as before the very clearly defined objects and characters made spacing between combatants very clear after a couple games. The newer style has a tendency to obscure or confuse the player thanks to all the unnecessary detail.

This wont bother everyone but its definitely something worth pointing out. Even so the game is pretty good and the variety of gameplay helps make up for the change in art style. I tend to keep both Nidhogg 1 and 2 installed depending on the mood my group is in. I would recommend it even if like me, the style puts you off.

To preface I should say we play a lot of local multiplayer games at my place. We picked this up with a few other titles to try and find some new stuff to add to our usual lineup. I went in with nothing more than the images for my expectations.

This game kicks so much ass. This game gave us one of the most fun nights in a long time. Not to say we dont usually have fun but this had us all screaming and cheering like maniacs even more than usual. Its really good.

The game is a 'platform fighter' similar to Smash. You can move as you would expect, and have a normal and special attack button along with a shield'dodge button. The gameplay is really quick, quicker than any of us were expecting but that said you always feel in control of your character. Characters can be defeated by emptying their lifebar or knocking them off the stage. The less health a character has the further they get knocked around. Almost every move is performed by hitting either attack button and a direction. Unlike other games of this style on steam, there is no gimmick; its just raw combat.

The biggest achievement that this game reaches to me is that playing it feels unbelievably natural, at least with a controller. Usually fighting games, even Smash which has simplified controls, takes at least a few games and training mode to get into the groove and learn the ins and outs. This game definitely has the depth where your game can improve from doing that but by game 2 everyone was pulling off sick maneuvers and looking like a badass. Combos are very natural and even before you understand all your moves you can instinctively pull off decent sequences. There are of course higher levels to reach like improved combos and perfect parries. Its a fighting game that's fun right out of the gate even for the uninitiated but maintains its depth as you get better which is pretty rare.

There are a fair number of characters and stages. Each one plays distinct but at the same time can be picked up and played pretty easily after a game or two. Im not an expert or anything but the cast felt very balanced and I didnt hear any players complain about losing because of their character. If anything everyone was changing characters just to see how much cool stuff each one could do. The stages are all basically different arrangements of platforms but each one has its own unique effect on how a match proceeds. From indoor sections where there's no room to jump or a lack of ground causing the fight to take place almost entirely in the air; they're all just different enough and still fun. And again no players complained about any stages being 'unfair'.

Describing the stages as 'series of platforms' though is unfair to the pixel art. Its all really good. Each level has its own flavor, all looking like different areas in a kung-fu movie. The characters are relatively small compared to other games but the animation remains smooth. Every attack is clear on where it hits. All the hitsparks and attack clashes look good too and feel suitably powerful for each move.

I'm the type who usually turns off game music in favor for my own library or a podcast. But this game has such good music that doing that would be a waste. All the music is great and matches the pace and energy of the game itself. Looking at the room everyone was subtly bumping or tapping to the beat as they played.

As for negatives there are a few. This is a game thats best enjoyed with friends, there's basically no substantial single-player content other than fighting (really good) bots to unlock the secret character. While it does have online, history has shown even the best games of this style have a hard time maintaining communities. I wish it the best but for now I'd say this is mainly for groups of RL or Discord buddies. I encountered the rare glitch here and there, nothing a quick reset or even just a pause didn't fix. Mainly characters turning into black boxes.

This is an amazing local multiplayer game either for casual party sessions or more serious showdowns. It deserves to stand up there with games like Nidhogg, Towerfall and Lethal League. So I give this a full recommendation to help it reach those heights.

Pros:
+Easy to learn, Hard to master
+Fun at any skill level
+Fast but manageable combat
+Distinct characters and stages
+Great music
+Great Pixel Art
~Local Multiplayer Focused
~Difficult to unlock secret boss
-Occasional bugs

I beat this game 100%

Sweet Fantasy is a very short and simple visual novel about a dryad girl in love with an elf. Like any visual novel the only real gameplay is selecting routes for the story to take at certain moments. This mainly affects if you get 1 of 2 endings. While the front page advertises multiple endings they dont amount to much at all with all of them playing out mostly the same way save for the good ending.

The character you play named Pumpkin is in love with her employer Amethyst and wants to make a love potion so that he will sleep with her. For a $3 Yuri game thats all you really need. The rest of the game is a series of choices that determine how many of the ingredients you get for the potion. It doesnt really matter though as you either get them all or dont. Theres only one actual path to the true end of the game so any other choices are only if you want to collect all the CGs.

The Art in this game is so-so compared to others. While the talking sprites for the 3 girls in the game are quite good the CGs themselves leave somethng to be desired. The Artist hasnt quite mastered drawing characters doing anything but standing and making faces so all the CGs arent of the same quality. The Backgrounds arent very important but they look to me like they might just be real pictures covered with mosaic. The music is very forgettable nothing special to say about it.

There is one other memorable character in the form of a perverted mermaid who I feel could have been easy to add in some sort of simple ending for where your character ends up with her but no. In fact besides the true end CGs and a couple others most of the CG is just of Pumpkin doing random things in the forest. Not really what one expects from a 'sexy yuri' CG gallery.

*Spoilers Ahead*
I think my biggest issue with the game is that after figuring out the proper path to the end you get exactly what you would expect. A very simple sex scene between the two characters and then a comedic twist afterward. Theres no fun or meanigful dialogue between the two characters. I wasnt expecting life's questions to be answered in the dialogue but it doesnt even warm my heart in any particular way. I just sort of ends.

There's really nothing else to say. I would say it isnt worth $3. Probably more like $2 or even $1. If there was a 'take-it-or-leave-it' option I would pick that but as it is I've settled on recommend only because its so harmless. The time and money spent on this whether you have fun or not doesnt feel like that big a loss afterward. And if you do enjoy it then its certainly worth it right?

+Character talking portraits
+Easy 100% Achievements
+Cheap
~Short
-Forgettable music
-Amateur-ish CGs
-Boring CGs
-Two endings and only one of them has something fun to see in it