Recent reviews by Zyklon-Basti

Bought this on a whim and was really positively surprised - what a novel idea (at least to my knowledge!).

This is a fairly complex puzzle game that gives a lot of room for creative solutions - by that I don't mean that there are multiple solutions, but rather that you never feel forced to go through a complicated mechanical heuristic that devolves into busywork (e.g. sudoku).

I greatly enjoyed all 90 stages this game has to offer and I was never bored. In fact I have to admit I was so hooked I finished it in two or three sessions...

Big recommend for puzzle fans! Cozy game and more than appropriately prized for its content.

it's okay

This game caught me completely off-guard. I understand why it got a lukewarm reception in Steam reviews, but I honestly think MIO will turn out to be a cult classic and be recognized as one of the best games in the genre.

If you enjoy platforming and exploration, get this. MIO sets a new bar for Metroidvanias.

For the first few hours, I thought I was playing a perfectly fine Metroidvania: nice art style, pleasant music, decent flow. The hours flew by, but nothing blew me away. Combat felt simple, physics floaty, enemies dull, bosses fair but spongey. It all seemed forgettable.

Then, about one third of the way through, the game pulls the biggest bait and switch I've ever seen.
I had beaten the final boss after about 11 hours of playtime, saw the credits roll and was ready to call it quits, but went back in to explore an area I wasn't completely finished with. What followed were an additional 16 hours of playtime where normal enemy encounters were almost completely replaced by platforming marathons through environmental hazards that make Kaizo Mario romhacks look tame, it turns out I had half the map left to explore with a bunch of hidden areas and bosses I missed.

The developers were not afraid to put missable content in their game. You can easily play through this, see the credits and miss half of the game. Incredibly gutsy decision.

While the game excels in platforming and exploration, it has its weak points.

Boss encounters rarely felt fun. It's bearable when bosses are easy, but some of the later bosses require multiple attempts. With annoying walkbacks from checkpoints. And multiple phases. And very spongey HP pools.
Honestly, encountering a boss for the first time in the later parts of the game made me audibly groan. I just wanted to get back to the cool platforming as soon as possible.

The map sucks. The biggest affront is that the map only updates itself when you visit a gate (this game's version of a checkpoint). The map not being usable in new areas should probably incentivize the player to explore in a more natural and less systematic way, and while I appreciate this courageous new approach to exploration I feel like it falls flat on its face, because as it turns out knowing where you are and being able to orient yourself with a map is really fun. Something you only come to appreciate when you're suddenly missing it.

Upgrades are largely boring. This game lets you equip a number of passive skills until your capacity is reached and... they're mostly either auto-equips or near useless. Maybe I'm missing something, but the system didn't click for me.
Apart from that you can find HP upgrades (plentiful) and damage upgrades (barely any). Eh. Could've done with a better system where rewards for exploration feel more rewarding and customization brings real build variety.

Fast Travel has too many constraints. The game makes you waste too much time treading known ground for no reason.

Well, that's it for negatives.

I haven't said anything about the story. It's interesting... I feel like the plot only picks up after you've gotten the first ending, which is strange. Even then the plot is thin.
The game chooses the less heavy-handed approach of environmental storytelling, sparse dialogue exposition and lore tidbits instead of cutscenes and exposition dumps which I appreciate. It's really mostly vibe-based storytelling if that makes sense, and it really resonated with me.
I'd say I was lightly emotionally affected and that doesn't happen often.

So, all in all, already a strong contender for GOTY and in some aspects a milestone for the genre. Big recommend!

Only started playing the game in December 2025 and having a blast. If you're a newcomer and are put off by the negative feedback of veterans: Just get it, it's still well worth playing even though the developers are really doing their best to sabotage their own product...

I loathe super-hero media, especially when it's self-conscious.
I don't like cutscene heavy games.
I dislike western animation.
I cringe at millenial writing.

I still enjoyed this game tremendously.

It's one of those games that are made for a niche audience yet have mainstream appeal due to the quality of the craftmanship.

This is a very, very niche game that's hard to recommend to anyone who isn't a masochist.

Every run in Decktamer is a nosebleed-inducing grind (think skating, not JRPGing) where you sacrifice the cutesy critters that you tamed one or two fights earlier so you can replace them with slightly stronger monsters, all in the hopes of having enough fodder for the meat grinder that is the final boss.

Holy hell, this game has me sweating bullets even on the easiest difficulty against the fourth (and final) boss, and I'm pretty autistic when it comes to this genre. All in all we're talking four difficulty levels and four final bosses, so you'll need to beat the game either 7 or 16 times depending on how much pressure you want to put on yourself.

After beating the first boss on the highest and the fourth boss on the easiest difficulty I must say I'm out. I don't regret playing this, but I've had enough.

Recommended only if you know what you're signing up for. Play the demo.

This is a weird one. Mechanically it's great with a surprising amount of depth, but there's just not enough content to engage with if you're not interested in MP.

There's a skirmish mode with a staggering amount of three different map types (actually it's more like one since I don't see the point in playing on anything besides Pangaea). Apart from that you can configure map size, game length and some additional mechanics, and that's it. Civ design is good, but they honestly don't add THAT much variety to a playthrough.
There are other SP game modes (Daily Challenge, ...) that mostly seem to offer an imbalanced and limited experience - pass.

Got this for two bucks, played for eleven hours and am both satisfied and disappointed. Satisfied because I got more than what I paid for, disappointed because I could see myself sinking hundreds of hours into this if there was a sufficient SP framework built around the great fundamentals.

Would love if the dev added some sort of SP DLC - maybe something like StS's ascension mode for every civilization.

Haven't finished my second run yet and am already bored... Runs drag on for too long and the gameplay is like a lot more convoluted than FTL. There's just too much to keep track of - not just rooms, but also unit abilities. Combat feels like a chore.
Customization is also a bit too involved, micromanaging unit equipment is a bit too much.

The game itself is well made and polished, I simply don't like the direction they're going for. If you're looking for a mechanically more complex FTL with deeper combat and a lot more boarding action this might be your cup of tea, but it's sadly not for me.

This game has left me so disappointed that I'm writing a serious review on it.

There was so much potential to pose actually tricky ethical questions and humorously follow up by showcasing the consequences in a satirical way as was done in the very first stages, where you're asked whether to do nothing and watch five people die or intervene and sacrifice one person - if you choose the latter option, the game lets you harvest the organs of one healthy person in order to save five people reliant on organ donations in the following level, as the player has shown that he's willing to sacrifice one life to save five. That was cool. Had me left hoping for more. To no avail.

What followed were just dumb referential jokes (haha, Schrödinger's cat, get it? Aren't we smart?), tasteless "edgy" jokes (more on that later) and an avalanche of horribly implemented mini-games.

The mini-games deserve a section of their own, because it feels like you spend most of your time not solving Trolley Problems but instead playing terrible mini-games: A crazy taxi clone that's very badly controlled only by your mouse, a Return to Castle Wolfenstein-esque shooting gallery, a Tamagotchi clone, a game that has you push a trolley up a mountain for minutes while balancing shifting values (click on + or - for ressources like balance) and closing pop-ups... I could go on.
None of these are fun, they all play very awkwardly and overstay their welcome by a long shot.
You could make a case that unfun mini-games are part of the post-modern charme like they're the game equivalent of the famous uncomfortable chair, but eh... Stanley Parable and Papers, Please did it better.
I must stress that they really do overstay their welcome. While babysitting the Tamagotchi for five minutes may have been funny as a novelty thing, more time-wasters of the same caliber (with fail-states that have you do everything over, no less) were really not appreciated. Awful experience.

Then there's the aforementioned bad taste jokes. One problem the game posed was whether I would sacrifice my father or my mother. This honestly left me feeling sick to my stomach. I know this is just a funny game and nothing is to be taken seriously, but in no context should you joke about such topics. Just made me feel bad. Why put the player through this? Not like there was a deeper point being made here, it's just supposed to be another dumb joke.

Next in line is this game's version of "would you kill baby Hitler?" Naturally the author couldn't resist beating this dead horse. Figures. Not gonna go into more detail on this, it's overdone.

I could only describe this as a dumb person's idea of a smart person's game. Avoid this trainwreck.

Great puzzle game should you ever decide to get a lobotomy done