Recent reviews by MegaApple

Story has inspirations from Silent Hill, but never copies stuff. Lot of love and care put into the narrative and historical elements. Themes explored through puzzles and setpieces is amazing too. The grunge-y artstyle is so well done too.
The music track "Gunshot" is SO GOOD, it's in same league is "Theme Of Laura" for me.

Finishing this game (made for 10th anniversary of series) at its 20th anniversary was a trip.
Also the fact I started at Dec 2018 and finished at Dec 2025.

Very very good game, and somewhat personal game (I played through while going through lot of life events).

Full Review at Gameffine [www.gameffine.com]

2D Martial Arts Roguelite with "Mind Palace" mechanics and Hades-like storytelling.
Fans of Sifu will find it fun.
Can get bit frustrating, but like any Martial Arts, once you overcome that hurdle, it's really satisfying.

RIP SpaceDrake/Andrew Dice
Risked getting a doujin game in a western dominated Steam of early 2010s, worked on many JP-EN translations and paved way for Japanese studios to port games on PC.

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(Will review the game someday I finish it)

Given positive review by late TotalBiscuit (devs uploaded his entire video on their Steam page), I was tempted to try it for a long time.

After 9 years of progress in roguelikes and roguelike ARPGs, this game feels substantially "less". Content is light and recycled, balance feels off for heroes, card system is too RNG based, and "Live" feature doesn't work.

That said, this game feels good to play moment-to-moment. It is fun beating the minions and heroes has decent kits that get greatly powered (if Card RNGesus works in your favor).

A reboot with completely thoughtout mechanics and less RNG reliance could actually work in today's market.

Main game is an imbalanced Guerilla Fighter type game with Far Cry's framework (Liberate posts, almost all game is in first person), with meh writing and predictible plot. Gun gimmick gets old quickly. Amazing presentation, as a counter.

What's good are the 3 DLC. It forces certain weapons and makes you pay attention to stealth. Almost felt like playing Wolfenstein New Order type mission.

Some nostalgia around this game - I played the demo in 2016 during my younger years. This was the first 4X I got really sucked into, more so than Civilization games (at that time). And I do like its isometric artstyle.

However on revisit, I did not enjoy it as much.
Very likely because I suck and I spread out my research points, but things got repetitive fast while also getting overwhelmed my enemies. Realtime sections were a chord (and AI wasn't much better either).
With another sequel, maybe it could've turned out a better game.

Phenomenal game, no notes. Level design, encounter pace, weapons, enemies all feel modern even today. Sheer creativity on display, that every single-player game has taken ideas from it.
Every PC Gamer needs to try it.

Rating - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Aside from mechanics step-up (swinging is more fun, Venom attacks are overall decent addition), but for everything else, it's a meh.

Painfully meh story (I like the idea - "friend turned foe", bad execution), disappointing after rather decent SM2018 story and excellent Spider-Verse movies. Ubisoft-like open-world activities felt worse here than in SM2018; good for passing time and de-stressing but didn't feel worthwhile.

Distinctly remember the moment I was climbing the walls of Pope's Castle (one of the biggest building in-game), then looking down seeing the crowd of people going by through the beautiful Rome streets below me. While Jesper Kyd's masterfully poignant music played in background.

In that moment, I felt like I was immersed in a living world. The atmosphere can't be put to words. Otherworldly, mysterious, with slight hint of conspiracy.