Recent reviews by villecoder

Marvelously difficult Metroidvania. This will put your platforming and combat skills to the test. Great successor to Hollow Knight! And no, you don't need to know what happened in the previous game to enjoy it.

Make no mistake, this game is not for those who get easily frustrated. You're going to struggle with some bosses as you learn the mechanics. If you're not good at adapting your strategy or keeping your options flexible, you're not going to get very far. That said, nearly every enemy I've encountered will telegraph what kind of move they're about to do next. Most notably, the game is mixing visual triggers with audio cues, sometimes very subtle.

This game rewards dedication with a wonderful and fluid exploration. In the early game, the game demands you make a choice between using a compass to mark where you are on the map or choose trinkets that make enemies drop bonus currency. I like that in a game where the difficulty is placed on your ability to memorize and visualize your position in the world. After a while, you'll find that you won't need the compass anymore as you tread back and forth between boss fights and save benches.

All in all, the hook sets early in this game. I'm absolutely loving the experience. Thank you Team Cherry for making such a fantastic game affordable!

Oh GOD no! This game is definitely showing its age. I couldn't finish the first act because of the tank controls. This is retro made repugnant.

3/10

A decent escape room in a box. It's got the staple "motion over mouse" controls you'd come to expect from puzzle games now. The only flaw is that there is no hint system. So if you get stuck, you're pretty much oing to have to o look for a spoiler free guide if you're ok with that sort of thing.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is the cozy construction game for those of you looking for a sci-fi setting. Every session sees you building something new to unlock new phases of terraforming and new tiers of technology.

The part that impresses me most is the gradual change of your surroundings as the planet slowly turns from a barren, dust covered wasteland into a lush blue and green marble. It's not abrupt like other games (e.g. the next terraformation level immediately spawns the next tier of progression), but rather a slow transition between phases. So you can watch the sky slowly turn blue, clouds beginning to form, and puddles that turn into lakes as the temperature slowly rises. And when you're not terraforming, you should be exploring the planet for shipwrecks, new biomes, and new resources.

The only disatisfier I can think of is that the building can be a little janky. Nearly every building block is a cube of some dimension (1x1, 2x2, or 3x3) with few exceptions. Those exceptions, namely the domes, can be extremely tricky to tack on to your super structures, or very very picky about the type of terrain they can sit on top of.

This game is super fun to play, chill, and relax to. Do things at your own pace. No annoying deadlines or npcs to keep happy. This is your cozy sandbox.

Admittedly, I'm posting a review of less than an hour. Take it for what it's worth.

Played this on Steam Deck and it runs very smoothly. However, I don't feel like it's responsive enough. Blocks and dodges require a timing that I just can't pick up. And for me, I would rather be playing one of the Ori titles.

I think the nail in the coffin here is the lack of story in the first 45 minutes. A 3 minute "cutscreen" that you have to read without any context is not enough of a hook to answer questions like:

- I ran across some cultists, but I don't know why they're there. Why are they there?
- I made a blood sacrifice. Who was it? Why did it kill everyone else walking around but not me?
- Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I?

The story just isn't there. So there's no reason to go forward other than "explore more of the game". And I'd rather play something else with more responsive controls.

I like this game :)

It's simple. It's stupid cheap. And the developer says there's more to come. And the dopamine hits just keep coming.

Don't spoil yourself by looking up weapon evolutions. Although you'll save some time trying to figure out what may look fun, a lot of "public opinion" I found turned out to be wrong. There are play styles that thoroughly enjoyed that most guides said were not optimal or a waste of time.

This is a great game to play in short bursts. But you'll easily keep coming back to get in "just one more" game.

Tight controls, smooth combat, and a combination of roguelite meets Metroidvania make this game incredibly hard to put down. Boss stem cells open up more replayability. Definitely a must-buy if you've got a controller.

A nice puzzler if you like to do escape rooms in your spare time. It's not difficult, but some details could have been a little clearer (I think I spent too long trying to figure out where the last object in the first room was). And I definitely had that rush of accomplishment by the end of it. It took me about 2 and a half hours to complete, but I definitely got stuck on a few of the details.

It's definitely priced just right for the length of the adventure. Hope that there are more adventures like this one coming soon.

The game is user-hostile. The interface is horrible with no in-game indications whatsoever of what's going on. Don't go "fresh" into this game at all unless you gain satisfaction from an overwhelming system of punishment.

I can understand holding off on making your UI reasonable during early access. But there's a limit to what's usable and what's just plain awful. Sliders everywhere, as far as the eye can see. And little to no guidance as to which slider does what or how it will effect gameplay. Numbers everywhere with no context into the usefulness of what's going on. Who cares? I don't. It doesn't look like the devs do either. Maybe make a wizard out of the game setup so at the very least I can understand just what section of sliders makes a change to what aspects of the world.

Character customization? No. Don't pretend to have it. There's one style of male body and one style of female body.Any change to the base values just makes the character look unnatural. And no, there are no downloadable presets. Or maybe the servers just weren't up.

The mechanics feel haphazardly tuned. Every action requires you to invest hunger, thirst, or stamina. But that doesn't mean you have a reliable source from which to draw on in the early game. I've had spawns that were near somewhat tame creatures (dodos, fish) that turn into murder fests within the first 5 minutes. The furthest I got was a little thatch hut--maybe that's the most fun I had in the game. But it did't take long to get murdered by birds and piranha.

The heat/cold system makes no sense to me. Suddenly, it's too hot when 10 minutes ago it was too cold. Am I supposed to be naked? Or am I supposed to wear clothes?

The gathering system is atrocious. It doesn't feel balanced at all. Harvest what feels like a few acres of tatch, fiber, and berries to build a tiny hut and some basic clothing. Get overencumbred very easily because you end up gathering dozens of material byproducts that you're not interested in whatsoever and then worry that you have to choose between spending your upgrade points on shelter or on storage. No. You can't have both at the same time. It's either a house or a box.

50 animal hides for a BASIC bed? C'mon! And that's for the privelege of having a respawn point...

No, this isn't a fun game. It's an endurance test. And I had the wisdom to stay off of the multiplayer PVP servers. I can only imagine based on the reviews below just how much of a cluster that is.

Awful. Just awful.

What a ride! This is your sandbox experience if you're looking for a zombie game that adds the features of customized weaponry and character progression. It's very reminiscent of Farcry. You'll immediately see the parallels, so if you didn't like Farcry, you're probably not going to like this game either. I liked the day/night mechanics, though I think the game went a little too far in discouraging me to go out at night as early as I should have been. The night pursuits are possibly more fun than doing the missions.

All in all, I can't stop recommending this game to my friends. It's very fun and hits that zombie apocolypse thing just right.