Ye Indie Game Corner Volume 5: Vessel, Killer Smileys, To Be Or Not To Be. Nice, BlamBurgers and What Botched Rescue!

Written By: Tyler

Hello and welcome everybody to another random mixture of indie games. If you're unfamiliar with me or this feature, once in a while I'll just go on a site like Gamejolt and pick a few random indie games that were released recently. Then I will play them and give a really short review on each one.


Killer Smileys
Get It Here: http://gamejolt.com/games/platformer/killer-smileys/32754/

This game has three levels, and you are that robot thing on the left of the picture above. You shoot the bees and the smileys. The twist is that you can only shoot in one direction as far as I know, which makes it kind of weird if you're walking the other way. That's not really my problem with the game though... my problem is simply that it's not much fun. You can platform if you want but it's pointless because it's better just to stand in one place and blast until everything dies.

The developer throws in a space level, but it's awkward. I got stuck on nothingness and had to jump over said nothingness.

Rating: 3/10


What Botched Rescue
Get It Here: http://gamejolt.com/games/shooter/what-botched-rescue/32701/

If you follow my blog, it's probably no shock to you that I enjoy weird games. What Botched Rescue is a weird one. I think it's about a relationship, but it seems to be about more. It's one of these strangely told games with slightly odd visuals and tone. Luckily the gameplay is fun, though simplistic. It's just basically a side-scrolling shooter, but you do lose points when you blast so you have to make sure you hit them.

My only real complaint is with how the story is told. The text in between "levels" scrolls down automatically and it makes it really hard to read, so you just have to wait for it to come back around again. Besides that though, this is a fun little romp through an interesting and strange world.

Rating: 8/10



BlamBurgers
Get It Here: http://gamejolt.com/games/arcade/blamburgers/32775/

The gameplay in BlamBurgers only requires using the directional pads, and enter to progress the story. You go from room to room, platforming your way to get the burger bomb things before they explode. When they drop, there's a counter that counts down from 8 and when it hits 0 it explodes, thus damaging your ship. Luckily you can just run into them and disarm them.

The game suffers from PC controls. I hate platforming on PC, but the game is actually a lot of fun. It's a simple idea, but it's tense and difficult, and the developer threw in some things each level to change it up a little bit... like things that fling you in certain directions. This variety does help keep things fresh.

Rating: 8.5/10


To be or not to be. Nice
Get It Here: http://gamejolt.com/games/adventure/to-be-or-not-to-be-nice/32744/

You in need of an epic tale while you wait for The Witcher 3? Here is your game. Okay, it's not an epic tale, but I actually had some fun with this one. Basically you just walk around, collect things and solve very basic puzzles. I quite enjoyed the numerous jokes sprinkled in, and the little touches like what your equipment is, or the choices you have in what to attack things with (I picked a "cool look"). I also really enjoyed the choice of music.

There are some minor bugs like being able to walk up a wall, but it really is minor and the developer said there wasn't time to properly test it. Having dabbled in RPG maker a little myself I know how long it can take to do things.

It's a fun little adventure game with a sense of humour.

Rating: 7/10



Vessel
Get It Here: http://gamejolt.com/games/other/vessel/29980/

Here we are with another Jack King-Spooner game, and it's about more of the same. The visuals basically consist of bombarding you with images, in a style that is very much like a short film I really liked by Peter Tscherkassky called Outer Space. It's hard on the eyes in ways, but I really just love that he does this. His games can almost always just get by on his images and the usage of music, even if he rarely includes what I call "real" gameplay.

His games mostly consist of walking a bit and then watching. He's one of the few who can consistently do this and keep me as a fan. A big fan, even.

The story in this seems more straightforward than he has done in the past, but it's incredibly effective... telling a heart-wrenching tale of a robot.

Rating: 8.5/10



That's it for this edition. There were a couple other games I was going to play but I need to go off and do something so I think five games is enough. I got pretty lucky this time, played some solid games with only one blemish.

If you want me to play your game I will! Just let me know in the comments below or message/follow me on Twitter @ArtBathednCrime

Is Sacred 3 Even A Sacred Game? Peep The Review Here And Ignore That I Said "Peep"

Written By: Tyler
Platform Played On: PC

Despite never playing the first Sacred, I have a love for Sacred 2. It wasn't an easy love and it was one that we both had to work at, but it exists now and it's very strong. The first time I played Fallen Angel I hated it, but this was partially because I had yet to buy a TV that was capable of handling high-def graphics... so reading text on a screen was extremely difficult. In a game like Sacred 2 this was a huge problem. The second time I tried playing I didn't find the game that exciting, but I enjoyed it more. The third time is when I fell in love. I became head over heels in love with its particular brand of open-world RPG, the complex leveling system, the endless loot and even the humour. Some people felt it was flawed but fun, whereas I think it's one of the best games the genre has seen.

Because of this, I was ridiculously hyped for the next entry in this series. I played Sacred: Citadel to help ease the wait, but it didn't click with me. I didn't know then -- and I wish I did because I would have saved $50 -- that Citadel was a good indication of where Sacred 3 was going. It's not that the game was the same because Citadel is a side-scrolling beat 'em up and Sacred 3 is still a hack n' slash, but one could say the simplicity of Citadel has drifted its way over to Sacred 3.

There's this constant debate within the realm of criticism and people can't agree on whether a franchise should be allowed to change. Wars have been waged (I'm purposely being overdramatic) over whether we should evaluate games based solely on what they are and not on the brand, or if we should take the name into consideration when critiquing it. In layman's terms: should I take into consideration what Sacred 2 brought to the table when reviewing Sacred 3, or should I just write about what Sacred 3 offers?

The answer, in this case, is that I have to take into consideration what Sacred 2 gave me. I can't avoid it. I'm all for series changing and evolving, but do gamers not go to their franchises of choice to have that similar gameplay experience? Unless you're a franchise that is known to constantly reinvent yourself, there are always going to be fundamentals in the games we like that make us go back. I don't want to play a core Metal Gear if there isn't stealth. I don't want to play a core Killzone if it doesn't have that heavy feel that the series is known for. Spin-offs are fine, and the concept of Citadel was okay by me because it was cheap and it wasn't a core Sacred.

That Deep Silver completely shit the bed with Sacred 3 is grounds enough for a mid-year leader for my "Disappointment of the Year" award. It went from what should have been one of my favourite games of the year to what will surely be one of the worst.

I want to get the good out of the way, because even though it's hard to find, it is there. I think that the game is reasonably pretty, with a very colourful aesthetic. We often get dark and gloomy environments in games like this, which is great, so it is nice to see an ARPG that embraces lighter colours and a more "pleasant" atmosphere. The fauna is detailed and the world is lively. Blues, greens, yellows all blend together well to create levels that are, at the very least, nice to look at. It's not that the game redefines graphics, but it is solidly put together and I did notice, and appreciate, the care that they put into creating a world that, like Sacred 2, was a little bit different and more cheerful looking than other games within the genre.

The music is also not bad. It's not great, and it's a bit by the books, but it's serviceable and does what it can to give the game a more epic feel when it needs it. It's orchestrated, and relies pretty heavily on quick chants to get its message across. Think Skyrim but not as good. Hell, it lacks the ability to pull you into its world musically like even a game like Divinity: Original Sin does.

The story follows the same path as the soundtrack, giving us a plot that works fine in moving everything along but I can't see anybody being entranced by what they're giving us. Lord Zane has gotten in bed with demons and is trying to open the gates to the underworld, so the heroes have to band together to put an end to that. It's pretty generic Fantasy storytelling, but if I'm being honest I don't go to action-RPGs for their plot anyway. It'd be nice if something could come along and give us a truly worthwhile plot in the genre, but I have yet to really find anything beyond simply "good."

Like in Sacred 2, the story isn't entirely serious. It's about as lighthearted as a game about opening up the gates of Hell can be without flopping around in parody. There's a lot of humour in here, though I'd argue that it's more of an attempt than anything. There are a couple lines worthy of a chuckle here and there but I'm so sick of hearing my brother's character yell "Sexy!" Hearing the same lines over and over is very grating, and a lot of the lines are cheesy and don't work.

Those are the aspects of the game that I'd deem good, or at least decent, and when that's all the praise I can give something we're in trouble.

I've seen it said a few times that this game should be approached like Gauntlet, but Gauntlet is still fun today due to clever level design and intense action. Despite Gauntlet being better, I do see the comparison. Deep Silver has chosen to strip the game of its open-world elements and give us a streamlined, stage-based game. Instead of traversing the world, finding side-quests and picking up copious amounts of loot, you are simply placed in a stage and are expected to make your way to the end while battling hordes of enemies. It is Gauntlet in that regard.

There are some different types of stages but they all amount to the same thing: you kill lots. There are the story stages, and there are stages where you simply just have to kill all the enemies, and there are wave-based stages where you defeat, you got it, waves of enemies. Even the portals that give longer side-quests still amount to the same thing.

The only thing that could save this set-up would be to have stages with dynamic action set pieces or something. Have a lot of exciting, stressful things happen in a stage to keep you on your toes. Instead, it's mostly just floor traps, which are more of an annoyance than anything, or having to turn a wheel six times while groups of enemies attack you.

This is where it's difficult to separate it from its brand, and the game suffers immensely because of it. Did anybody who anticipated this release want a Gauntlet clone? No, we wanted a huge world to explore, we wanted loot and we wanted a complex leveling system because this is what the previous Sacred gave us.

The sad thing is, I could actually have done without the open-world aspects if they had to strip it away. I wouldn't have preferred it because it was one of the selling points of Sacred 2, but had it gone a more Diablo 3 route where it's always very clear where you have to go, with very minimal exploration... I would have been fine with it. I really just enjoy the genre when done right. We are at a point in gaming where people seem to rage if a game is linear, but I don't mind linear. I've always found these types of games to have tremendous replay value, so I'm okay with only having one direction to go in.

What bothers me is that they've made the game boring and pointless. Hack n' slash is repetitive by nature, yet games like Dynasty Warriors remain fun. However, in the action-RPG I find it difficult to muster up the energy to continue laying waste to entire armies if there isn't something connected to the action. That is always the loot and the leveling.

There isn't any loot in this game. You pick up money, health and energy orbs, and that's it. Laughably, sometimes at the end of the level the treasure chests or enemies will drop health orbs. These don't matter because you're at the end and you gain all your HP back anyway. Without sufficient amount of loot, it's very hard to even care about killing the enemies.

The same can be said with the lack of real level progression. Sure, you level up, but it's in a very hollow way. You don't have stats to manage and there's very little customization in anything. You can choose between leveling up your combat arts, your skills or your equipment, but it's so straight-forward that it seems more like a chore than anything. You only have a couple ways to go, and there's no experimentation to see what is best. You'll very quickly find what works and stick with it because there's only a few different combat arts per character. In terms of skills, you are able to level up things like blocking, dodging or reviving. The choice there is whether you want to be able to block or dodge, because you can only have one at a time. This applies to your combat arts as well, though you can actually have two of those equipped at a time. This is a significant departure from the system in Sacred 2, which is almost godly. It's one of my favourite in the genre.

Everything is basically just handed to you. Sure you can level up the amount of potions you can carry, but you are given two at the beginning of every stage so there's no continuity and excitement in managing your resources. 

The combat leaves a little to be desired as well. At first I thought it was interesting for the genre, with something as silly as being able to roll being a plus because there aren't a lot of ARPGs that actually allow you to roll or block. It seems like a novelty at this point, but it's welcome. Unfortunately that wore off really quickly when I realized that it's still the same ol', same ol'. You have a special attack meant to break shields, but that overstays its welcome and just ends up seeming like a way to lazily add difficulty (another sore sport because the difficulty spikes are so uneven and annoying). A long with that you have two combat arts equipped on you, and of course the left mouse button is your basic attack.

Striking your foes is satisfying but it lacks the oomph of a game like Diablo 3. Regardless, it is reasonably fulfilling to lay siege to enemies. 

My biggest problem with the combat is one that I imagine would be fixed by using a controller, but I don't currently have a PC controller (just ordered one last night actually... yes I know you care about that): the controls. You move with WASD, but you attack in the direction that your mouse cursor is pointing. I hate this choice in pretty much any game because it makes it frustrating to attack where you want, or more specifically, dodging is a pain in the ass because logic tells you that you'll roll left when you're facing right, but the game tells you you'll roll right when you're facing left because you were pointing that way. This may seem like a silly criticism to some, but it heavily impacted the game for me.

It doesn't help that sometimes the game just ignores what you want entirely. I was playing as the Seraphim -- because it's Sacred and someone has to -- and she has a move where she jumps in the air and lands where you've pointed and does damage to any enemy close to where she landed. Only sometime she jumps in the opposite direction from where I'm pointing. The first few times this happened I thought I was just terrible but while that is true, it isn't why. It seems that the game incorrectly registers it sometimes. I also found that it didn't really send her exactly where I wanted it to.

Which brings me to the final part of my review, where I nitpick some smaller problems that just made me hate the game more. I had a lot of problem playing online. For one, my brother couldn't seem to join my game when I invited him so I'd have to just join him.

From my experience, and I'm well aware that this could differ for people, the person who was hosting the game seemed to run into issues where if you tried using your mouse to click options it wouldn't click the right one so you'd have to use the arrow keys and enter to be affective. The person joining the game ran into lag and constant yoyoing -- I don't know if this is an actual term but I heard my brother say it and I like it -- and it got frustrating. You'd fly back and forth constantly if you were not the host.

Even quitting out of the game is stupid. When you finally click the option to quit your game on the main menu, you actually have to hit the ESC key again. Why? Why would you do this? Normally in a review I'd ignore this or give it a quick mention in the middle of another paragraph but no, not only does this game not want me to have fun... it doesn't want me to quit either. It's like an abusive husband. Or wife, because we here at On The Gamely believe in gender equality.


It's not that these problems are huge. The yoyoing online was a problem, but these minor problems add up and when they're coupled with how terrible the game in other ways, it just amplifies them.

I hate Sacred 3, and from the looks of things, most people do too. The best that I've seen is that it's okay and when you don't look at it as a Sacred game, it's not too bad. When I first started the game I could have gotten behind that, but after spending some time with it, all I see is a lackluster new entry in a series I love, infested with poor game design.




Rating: 3/10
Verdict: Sacred 3 will crap on fans of the series, but even if one can separate themselves from the brand and look at the game as it is, it's still a very shallow experience. 

This is me right now, in case you didn't guess that.

All Arguments Should Be Solved With Rock-Paper-Scissors -- A Divinity: Original Sin Review

Written By: Tyler
Platform Played On: PC

Rating: 9/10
Verdict: Divinity: Original Sin could use a little bit of polish here and there, and there are some minor design choices that I don't agree with... but despite all that this is a fantastic RPG in the vein of the classic computer RPGs.


Are you tired of games that hold your hand and tell you exactly where to go, who to see, and even help you wipe your own ass? Enter Divinity: Original Sin, the latest installment in the Divinity series.

In Divinity: Original Sin, you play as Sourcehunters and you're doing what that name implies. trying to rid the world of that pesky Source (not the game engine, though that would be neat considering I got the game on the platform that Valve owns). You begin your tale as two characters that you get to create, and the first main quest you end up doing is investigating a murder. From there, things get deeper and more complex.

Character creation seems like a good place to start. When you start a new game, you have the opportunity to create two characters who will end up interacting with one another throughout the game. There is a good variety of classes to choose from, abilities and traits to choose and statistics to level up. Leveling up ends up being in-depth but not overly so. It never reaches the point where you're confused but some levels allow you to level up three different things, but most levels allow two: abilities and stats. The only problem, at first, with this is that the game doesn't really explain much about things like skills so there's a little bit of trial-and-error involved. Of course, it all becomes clear but that initial creation screen is a little daunting because of it.

There's a reason that you create two characters as opposed to one. You can actually play this game co-op because of this, though that's not something I have done because it seems more like a single-player experience for me. However, I can see how co-op would be fun because the other reason you create two characters is because they end up having conversations with each other and you can choose whether they agree or disagree. Maybe your one character is more violent and goes one way, only to have the other be a voice of reason. Or perhaps they just agree with each other. The joy of Divinity: Original Sin is that not only can you make these choices, but they actually impact the game and your own statistics.

For example, my male first character agreed with the female second character, and "Romantic +1" flashed on the screen. You will see things like this continuously throughout the game, and if you press I, which is your inventory/character screen, you can keep track of what their relationship is. This will provide bonuses or debuffs.

It's important to note that you can develop your character however you see fit, basically. You can put points into anything, but obviously you'll want to specialize in some things to get the maximum effect. You don't put points into learning spells and techniques, but rather you acquire skill books. How many spells you can have of each type is dependent on how much you've leveled up each particular skill. Divinity: Original Sin has a system where you can choose to forget spells in order to replace them with another. But be careful, because these aren't like your first heartbreak -- once they're gone, they're gone, and the remains of that broken alliance will not stay with you. The spells will leave too.

Choice reigns supreme in this game on pretty much all fronts. If there's something you want to do in the game and it makes logical sense in context of the world, then you very well might be able to do it. I'll just give a few examples of some of the things you can do.

• You can't unlock a door because you don't have the key. No problem! Just break it down using your weapon (but be careful because they have levels of durability). Better yet, just use magic to do it.
• You are a kleptomaniac and you're standing in a shop, but there are people all over the place and you're trying to keep a good reputation among the townspeople. Just use your party members to distract the people by getting them involved in conversations and use one character to walk around and loot the place senseless. This is incredibly satisfying.
• There's a troll guarding a bridge, and he wants toll money. You don't have any, so you could intimidate him, reason with him or charm him. This will bring up the funny yet alluring rock-paper-scissors argument system where you have to win a few games of it, unless your charm is infinitely higher than the other person. It sounds silly, but I like it.

Those are just three examples, but it all adds up to a game where you feel like you can influence what goes on around you. Between how you interact with the world and how you level up your characters, it's very easy to feel like you're actually involved in this world.

This choice is a double-edged sword in ways too. There's a brief tutorial at the beginning if you want it, but it probably won't prepare you for what this game has to offer. It gives the basics, but it's all a little disorienting once you begin. The game harkens back to a time where there was very little hand-holding. There won't be waypoints telling you where to go all of the time, and the journal doesn't always tell you where to go so it's best to try to remember what people say to you because if you forget you may not be able to easily find out again.

Once a while something will flash on screen to give you directions, and the journal will on occasion be enough, but there's no denying that this game wants you to pay attention. You can look through previous dialogue but that's just a pain because there isn't an easy way to sort through it. In this day and age where games often lead you along, this could be seen as a refreshing game mechanic to some. I am torn on it, if I'm being honest, and I'm not afraid to lose my gamer-cred by saying this: I don't mind being able to click on a quest and get told where to go.

Luckily though, they've done a pretty good job of making being lost a viable action. It's a beautifully realized, colourful and vibrant world so exploring it is nice on the eyes. It's also not a cinematic RPG so it doesn't take you away from the game.

There are also a lot of quests in this game, and even if you don't know where to go, wander around and you will find a quest. They're scattered throughout the world, and the best part of them is that they're actually fun to do.


That's because they aren't just fetch-quests. Sure, in any game like this there's that element, and I'm okay with it, but there are a bunch of ways to do things a lot of the time, and because the game doesn't hold your hand, there's enjoyment in discovering it yourself. Even the beginning of the main quest, where you investigate a murder, ends up actually being a murder investigation where you walk around, talk to people and get involved. It's not L.A. Noire by any means in the way it handles a crime scene, but for an RPG of this type, it's pretty genius quest design. It doesn't stop there, but I don't like to give away much of games when I review them.

While I don't actually think that the plot is anything innovative or intriguing, it does handle it relatively gracefully with a lot of reading and a sense of humour. Some of the quests are a little silly, and the characters alternate between light-hearted and deadly serious, and this extends to the NPCs as well. There are also funny little touches thrown in here and there, such as your character disguising himself as a rock, or a bush, when he/she is sneaking around.


I have a few minor gripes that I should finally touch on because I've basically been gushing this entire time. The shop system is a lot different than most RPGs which makes an experience we've done a million times feel fresh, but I'm only half into it. You can walk around and barter with anybody in the game that isn't an enemy, and they may have money or they may not. They always have items to sell but it may not be much. It's an amusing take on the economical structure of the world because a lot of people appear to be poor, but sometimes it's annoying walking around town trying to find someone you can sell yourself to.  It'd be nice to just have a go-to hub where you can sell everything once in a while.

The game makes it a little annoying to do mundane tasks such as comparing your inventory when you're shopping. You can't just press the button to scroll to the next one, you have to actually click on the character portrait on the side in order to choose them. Otherwise you could be comparing a weapon that someone is selling with the weapon you're holding, only it's focused on the character you're currently controlling rather than the inventory screen that you have up. The lack of polish in some of the areas of the game add length to the game that shouldn't be there, and having to walk around town trying to find someone to sell things to is not what I call "real" gameplay. It's fluff, it's pretend, it doesn't make playing the game more positive and only extends it in the most superficial way.

Keep in mind that those criticisms are extremely light and do very little to detract from my own enjoyment. I just found that sometimes inventory management was more of a chore than it should have been.

I purposely left the combat until the end because it could be the best part of the game. It is turn-based, and not unlike what we've seen before in that regard, but the developers have put a lot of effort into making each battle its own entity, rather than just a series of "blah" encounters.

You have your bar at the bottom, and they all have cool-down periods. You have so many action points per turn, which can be preserved and added to the next turn, and everything takes up an amount of points. Obviously AP is key in combat, and as a side-note, you can equip weapons that are above your level but your AP usage will be higher because of it.

The game allows you to manipulate the elements in fascinating ways. Here's a very basic scenario to explain what I mean. I'm in combat, and it's an area that has a lot of fire on the ground. Not wanting to be inflicted with a burning status (which will take away my HP each turn, much like poison), I cast a rain spell that puts out the fire and allows me to walk on it freely. In the process I've just made myself, my team and the enemies "wet," which is also an ailment. The enemies were on fire before but now they are normal, and there was one particular enemy who would have exploded once hit but the rain put out his fuse, rendering him useless. Not only have I made the enemies less dangerous, but if I use a shock spell I will inflict more damage because, as you know, if you blend water and electricity together... unfortunate things happen.

Before I learned to settle all disputes with Smash Brothers, I used Rock-Paper-Scissors.

That's just one example of what can happen, but it's something that makes battles interesting. If you decide to play Divinity: Original Sin, be prepared for this kind of thing to happen. Also be prepared to be frozen, tripped, poisoned, lit on fire, and a host of other things in your playthrough, because the enemies are nasty. Be smart, and use the environment to your advantage, and you will survive.

As you can see, if you've put yourself through reading my crap, Divinity: Original Sin is one of the best RPGs of the year. So far it's probably the most complex. Though the story isn't outstanding, and there's a lack of polish in some miniscule ways, it's a compelling, addictive RPG that is easy to sink a lot of hours into. Just be prepared to work for everything you accomplish because while the game isn't crushingly difficult, it likes to slap you around a bit.

Kickstarter Games That Deserve Funding Volume 1 - InSomnia, The Deer God and Midora

Written By: Tyler

We live in an age of Kickstarter now, where developers flock to the website and go directly to the gamers to fund their passion projects. Whether this is a good system is hotly contested among gamers, but I thought it'd be interesting to make a feature where I talk about a few games that seem interesting and deserving of your hard-earned (or easily-earned, no judgement) money.

For any of these, it's smartest to go to the Kickstarter page and see a detailed description of their project right from the people making it, but I will use this opportunity to sell you on the game enough that you'll want to click the links.


Midora
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1867607597/midora-0?ref=category

Midora is a throwback to games like Zelda and Secret of Mana. Though I'm not a huge Zelda fan in general, I'm big into Secret of Mana. I'll just let them describe the story:

Midora is a colorful world, crafted by an ancient architect with the elements as his tools. For an eternity after this creation, those elements populated the world, fashioning cultures and kingdoms all their own. They contested each other for land and prestige, and when the world was finally overwhelmed by the strife, the architect came back down to seal the elements away, preserving the world for its lesser inhabitants.

  This harmony lasted for centuries, until even the eldest tribes had only vague memories of the conflict and its participants. The town of Seawind will be the first to remember the Inferno in earnest.
 
  Enter Snow, the lead character of this adventure. A young girl growing up on the edge of Seawind, she embarks on what starts as just a simple chore, only to uncover the catalyst in a war as old as the world she lives in. On her journey, she will encounter help and obstacles in various forms. Elderly town matrons, kings, long extinct races, burly blacksmiths, and the living elements themselves will play a role in Midora's newest story, but it falls to Snow herself to see it to the end.

The main gameplay mechanic is that you can control water. At the beginning you will be weak, obviously, but as the game progresses you will become a lot better at it. I like the idea of being able to manipulate water.

Besides that, it is an action-adventure game like we've seen before but that doesn't mean it's bad. There are no levels but your sword and shield have their own levels, and there will be little stealth elements that allow you to do critical damage.

There is also over 200+ items to get, along with 12 dungeons and 6 towns to go to. Of course, there will also be secret areas that you can find. You can use alchemy to create your own items, or just find them.

It does seem to truly blend together elements from the two main games that influence it, and that's definitely a good thing.



InSomnia
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1892480689/insomnia-an-rpg-set-in-a-brutal-dieselpunk-univers?ref=nav_search

InSomnia is a dieselpunk RPG set on "The Ark" which is basically a gigantic half-deserted space station populated by the race known as "Normans" in which you are a part of. You wake up on "The Ark" only to find that is moving to a planet only known as "The Evacuation Point," in order to start over because the "SORG Regime" are a bunch of pricks, basically.

So why is it interesting? Because it's a dieselpunk RPG, mainly. No, there's actually a lot going on here of interesting, namely:

• No leveling system but instead the game opts for a more Elder Scrolls approach where you use abilities and they get more powerful. There are perks and whatnot as well, but this is a system that is a welcome break from what we normally get (not that I hate levels because I certainly don't).
• 15-20 hours of main storyline with 20+ hours of side-quests. That's not the cool part. The cool part is that that is only the first season and there will be 20 free missions released post-release at some point.
• Did I mention that it's dieselpunk?
• Strategic real-time combat.
• You can also play with friends if you're unlike me and actually have some.
• Not only do you have to fight enemies, but there's a survival element (along with crafting). I'm a little concerned/curious about how the survival elements will co-exist with the sandbox elements because it could possibly get annoying to traverse the land while managing your food. I'm not trash talking the game, but it is literally the only gripe I have and it's not even a very big one considering the developers seem ambitious and I'm sure they'll make it work.

Those are only some of the things to look forward to in this game.

The bottom line is that if the developers can live up to their promises then it should be another great RPG to add to the already excellent canon of the genre. The planned release date isn't for a ways off, however, as it's planned for Q 2015 for PC with Mac and Linux a possibility later on.



The Deer God
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1907053239/the-deer-god-a-game-of-reincarnation-pc-mac-linux?ref=discovery

From dark and depressing to beautiful and majestic, here is The Deer God, a game in which you play as a fawn who was originally a human. Yes, the hunter gets reincarnated as a fawn. You will be a fawn until you gain experience and eat food. You can also apparently made with does.

The Deer God looks like one of those types of games that you will play and be in awe of how beautiful it is. If that sounded too poetic, then let me put it in internet meme form: you will get dem feels. A lot of games use pixel art, but a lot of them fall prey to getting by just on nostalgia. The Deer God does not look like that at all... it looks like a wonderfully crafted world that is full of life and populated by a lot of animals.

The developers say they are influenced by "Metroid, Zelda, Blaster Master, Kid Icarus, Ecco The Dolphin, Joust," and I'm down with all of those games that I've played, but especially Metroid and Blaster Master, which they bolded on their Kickstarter. They are also influenced by that pesky "outdoors" thing that I always hear about.

I know I haven't talked as much about the individual gameplay aspects as I did with InSomnia, but it really does look like it'll be fun to plat form and explore this world. You have to survive and grow into an elder deer (they say there isn't really an end, but there are things like that to make you feel like you've accomplished something), and you have to solve puzzles.

Just watch the video on their Kickstarter page and be inspired by the visuals and atmosphere. Then listen to some of the sample tracks because they've stated that music will be a big part in the game and I believe it.

This Week In Games, June 29 - July 5, 2014

Written By: Tyler

Hello and welcome to another edition of "This Week In Games," a weekly feature where every Sunday or Monday I give a quick preview of some of the games releasing this week that are of interest to me in a good or bad way.


June 30

Divinity: Original Sin

Coming Out For: Windows, Linux
Genre: Role-playing
Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDaYWfqJD3g

This is the big release of the week for me, and it's strange because I didn't know anything about it and I only played Divine Divinity briefly years ago... so I'm not a series fan. However, this prequel to that looks incredible.

It looks like a dense (as the gameplay video says) RPG, with a neat robbery system that actually affects your reputation if you get caught. You can cause a distraction with one character by talking to somebody and then use another to steal. The crafting seems simplistic but it appears that there are a lot of things you can craft. The combat is turn-based but I like the idea of your action points carrying over to the next turn so you can have a big turn. It looks like there's a lot of variety in your attacks.

The leveling system looks like it has depth, with the different perks you can put points into and all the other things that you can level up, and there's a lot of story to read and things to do. My only complaint from what I know is that there isn't a marker telling you where to go so questing will be extremely difficult. NPCs will tell you, but then you have to remember. There is a dialogue diary but it looks like it's hard to filter through.

If you're playing co-op, you can make decisions together and depending on how you interact with your partner your stats will be affected.

There's also an RPG kit to make your own adventures! The game isn't even full-priced but looks huge. $40 on Steam.


July 1

Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition 

Coming Out For: PS4 (July 1), Xbox 360 (July 2), Xbone (July 2), Wii U (July 2)
Genre: Platformer
Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVQbAtAQzj8

Guacamelee! sees its debut on the systems listed above in an enhanced edition. I'm not really sure why I never played the game because I love luchador wrestling, and the game is zany and colourful. I reckon now is probably a good time to try it out, and if you have Xbox Live Gold it is the free Games With Gold for July, so pick it up.



Child Of Light

Coming Out For: PS Vita
Genre: Role-playing
Gameplay: http://ca.ign.com/videos/2014/05/20/child-of-light-psvita-trailer

I really enjoyed Child of Light because JRPGs are where my heart is. They're my roots.

You can fly around in this game, which is different, and the turn-based combat has a spin on it with the fact you can use your companion to slow down enemies and just generally interact with things. The story is told entirely in rhyme, and the visual style is gorgeous. It looks like the Vita version hasn't suffered so if you haven't played Child of Light, here is another chance to do so.



Sniper Elite 3

Coming Out For: PS3, PS4, X360, XboneGenre: Third-Person Shooter

Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1yg9jffjxI

It's already out on PC, but it sees its console release. Here's what I said about the PC version.

This one doesn't interest me at all, and since I don't get paid to do reviews I'm not sure if I'll get around to this one or not. It's not that it looks terrible, but it doesn't look like it brings anything to the table that we can't get a million other places. The kill-cam idea doesn't really make me feel like I'm seeing the damage I'm doing, it just seems annoying, and the action looks okay but there are so many shooters it just doesn't stand out.

Video Game History Month: The SNES Is The Best System Ever (Part 2) -- The RPGs

Written By: Tyler

In the previous installment of "The SNES Is The Best System Ever," I talked a little bit about the more technical aspects of the system, and discussed briefly why it's the best system ever. But now it's time to get down and dirty and start talking about what makes any system a success: the games (or in the case of the Wii -- a gimmick followed by Wii Sports).

The SNES has a lot of great games, and I'm not going to be able to cover every single game but I would like to drop dime on some of my personal favourites. To do this, I figure it will be more efficient to group the games into genres and write a few posts instead of just having one massive article that nobody will ever finish. Since I'm a role-playing game fan at heart, I reckon that the RPGs are a good place to start. I'm not going to talk about every single RPG on the SNES, but I will select a decent collection of them. So let's begin this party with some big-ass letters.


The RPGS

Final Fantasy 3/6 - Final Fantasy 6 (3 in North America for a long time) is probably the best Final Fantasy ever. It had a large cast of characters, but most of them were actually memorable. I can only think of a couple that weren't, and to be honest, they were optional characters anyway. FF6 managed to be incredibly dark and surprising, with excellent gameplay. It always amazes me that the villain basically "won" halfway through the game when Kefka destroys the world. Sure, you beat him in the long run, but he's also messed up everything at that point and it'll be a long time before they can rebuild society.

I once borrowed this game from a friend, and I ended up losing it... though to this day I feel like my mom misplaced it or something else happened. Regardless, it seemed to have disappeared. To pay my friend back, I gave him one of my games, and for the longest time I felt like he was getting a better deal out of things anyway. I'm not entirely sure I feel that way anymore, but the next game in the list is said game and it's a testament to how good both games are that I'm conflicted about which is actually better.


Chrono Trigger - One of the greatest RPGs of all-time. It is a story of time travel with very memorable music and characters. At the time it was a small but wonderful detail that added to the immersion, but I was impressed by how you just whipped out your weapons and scrapped on-site. Not many games afterward actually did this.

I spent a lot of time playing this as a kid, and if you haven't played it you should... you owe yourself that much.


Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - The marriage of two of the most influential companies in my life at that point: Squaresoft and Nintendo. Yes I know that Square developed games on the Nintendo platform before, but they literally took Mario characters -- along with creating some of their own -- and made an awesome RPG out of them. The battle system was still turn-based but due to the nature of timing your attacks, it added another dimension to it.

Super Mario RPG still has a line that I use to this day on occasion, "Are you leaking, my dear?"


Final Fantasy 2/4 - Though it's kinda sorta lightweight compared to the absolute monster that came afterward, Final Fantasy 4 (again, Final Fantasy 2 for a long time in North America) is still a completely solid entry in the Final Fantasy series, with incredible music and a lot of human sacrifice -- if only they hadn't ruined that at the end. There's actually a lot of emotion present throughout the game because of how much each and every character goes through. There are twins turning themselves to stone, love triangles, friend betrayals, Cid jumping down a massive hole, etc.

To this day, Kain is a favourite Final Fantasy character for me, and he brought about my love of Dragoons. Even in Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, I got giddy once I did my first "Jump" attack.


Final Fantasy 5 - This is a Final Fantasy that didn't touch down on North American soil until later on, unless you had an emulator because a bunch of Gods translated it. I don't go to this one for the story or the characters, but it had a pretty boss job system that encouraged replay.


Secret of Mana - Secret of Mana, what can I say about you? I spent many hours playing you by myself in a dark room with romantic music on and with friends. Outside of the fact that maybe the ring system is a little outdated -- it's not a bad system, but in magic heavy battles it's annoying being the guy who isn't casting magic -- it's one of the best RPGs ever and just an amazing game to play with a friend.

Seiken Densetsu 3 - This is the sequel to Secret of Mana, and it wasn't released here in North America. Luckily, like Final Fantasy 5, it was translated by some fine people and I was able to play it. Technically it's probably a better game than Secret of Mana because it offers more of everything, like multiple characters and classes to choose from with more plotlines to play, and enhances the experience while retaining the core gameplay. I usually say I prefer Secret of Mana due to the amount of time I spent with it but SD3 is awesome too.

Secret of Evermore - It's not Secret of Mana, which was a disappointment for some, but it had its own flair, style and gameplay mechanics that made it its own game. The story was more out there and Sci-Fi, which I think was actually more interesting than Secret of Mana, but it is a lesser game as a whole. Regardless, I'm not saying it's a bad game... it's just lesser compared to an RPG that's one of the best of all time. That's hardly even a criticism.


Earthbound - My brother told me that a nerd at Comic-Con said that Earthbound is "too mainstream." I remember a time when nobody knew it. I remember going to rent it and getting that massive instruction manual/strategy guide that is still the best instruction manual I've ever seen. I remember playing Earthbound for hours on end as a kid, being amazed by the humour, characters and music. Years down the road I remember digging deeper into the story and being impressed by how clever the game actually was.

What I'm trying to say is that as a kid I appreciated Earthbound on a base level. As an adult I appreciate Earthbound as a complete experience, as a classic of the genre, a deconstruction of the RPG and North American culture... and possibly a story about abortion.

Basically, screw you random nerd.


Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals - The first Lufia game is a classic too, but I want to group the two games together. I'm a huge Lufia "mark," to use a pro-wrestling term. Lufia 2 is a prequel, and the ending is literally spoiled within the first twenty minutes of the first game, but that didn't matter because it was one of the most heart-wrenching sacrifices in the history of gaming.

Aside from that, Lufia 2 took the elements of the first game and added things like Capsule Monsters, enemies you could see on-screen and... puzzles? Normally I don't really want puzzles in my RPG, but Lufia 2 is okay by me.


Shadowrun - Some people say that the Shadowrun on Genesis is actually better, but I never got to play it. Shadowrun kind of creeps me out to this day, and I can't really understand why. It's a dark, cyberpunk world where within the first half hour you've scared people so bad they left the room and won't open the door, talked to an ugly dude about you getting "geeked" and talked to a dog in an alley. Awesome.

We never got another Shadowrun that could match up to this one, but Shadowrun Returns came close.


Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen - Top 5 RPG of all-time for me. This, FF6, FF7, Parasite Eve and Chrono Trigger tend to be the RPGs I fall back on, which Earthbound as an honourable mention (depending on my mood, really, because you can rotate any of these and I'll be happy, with Parasite Eve being the only game that is always number one). Ogre Battle 64 was a worthy successor, but nothing has compared to the original SNES one. This amazing strategy RPG has incredible replay value because a) it's hard as hell to not be a bad guy, and b) the customization of your army encourages this kind-of thing. There are also secrets I've never even found.

This is a game that we need to see another sequel of. Right now.


Dragon View - This is probably one of the RPGs on the list that don't get nearly enough recognition. It was a sequel to Drakkhen, which itself was a decent take on the computer RPG, but didn't wow me in any significant way. The dungeons are in a side view and the game becomes an Action RPG, and I'll never forget the scene where you walk into a room and Giza beats the everliving piss out of you.


Super Ninja Boy - Super Ninja Boy is another game that doesn't get any recognition. It's not that the story is incredible, but it's actually a completely solid two-player RPG with a battle system that was rarely seen back in the day -- you could actually run around freely in the battle screen, jump, punch and throw enemies into holes that for some reason are in the ground. It doesn't seem like much now, but it was a big deal then, and when I played this game again years ago I still really dug it (outside of how many random encounters there were).


Uncharted Waters 2: New Horizons - Just today my older brother (he loves when I mention him, and I know he reads this so I will keep doing it) said, "It's the first open world game I ever remember playing." I never thought of it that way but he could be right. Uncharted Waters 2 is a game where you pick one of, I believe, four characters (though I could be wrong), and they all have their own goals to accomplish. I remember that one guy has to map the world.

From there, it's a bit of an odd mixture. It's part strategy game, part simulation, but websites seem to classify it as an RPG so I had to mention it too. It's just out of my Top 5 RPGs of all-time, but it's very close and I do adore it more than my unborn children.

You sail the world, getting in ship battles, and I was always particularly intrigued by the one-on-one sword duels you could get into. Uncharted Waters 2 is actually one of the games that most influenced what I did outside. If you don't want to hear about younger me, then skip down, but I would go outside on my deck with a friend and basically  just re-enact the game. I would pretend that the deck was my ship, I'd create a fleet and attack other fleets, while creating my own story. So thank you Uncharted Waters 2 for impacting both my indoors activities and my outdoor activities too. Damn it I'm such a nerd.


The Others

There were other solid RPGs like Illusion of Gaia, Lagoon, Brain Lord, Breath of Fire 2, 7th Saga, Inindo: Way of the Ninja, Live A Live and Equinox as well. All of those are great in their own ways, and I'm not discussing them simply because I was trying to keep it to my all-time favourite RPGs on the SNES... but then I cheated and threw out these honourable mentions because I feel like it's a disservice to gaming if I don't mention them.


But Wait, There's More

However, my journey with SNES RPGs is not over, as their are two games in particular on deck that I intend to play someday. These were originally not released in North America and I can't read Japanese (well I can, just not successfully), but due to people being awesome and the internet, I will now be able to play them.

Star Ocean - I remember reading about this in, I believe, the same magazine that I originally read about Final Fantasy 7. I always waited for it and it never came. It's since been re-released for, I believe, the PSP, and I intend to eventually get it and finally play the game. I love love love Star Ocean: The Second Story, so I can't wait to play this one.

Terranigma - This is a game I never knew about until I got the internet, and I still haven't played it because all these new games keep coming out. I hear Terranigma has an awesome story, and from what I've heard of the soundtrack, that is great too. Eventually I shall sink my teeth into this and Star Ocean.




So there you have it people. Did I miss any SNES RPGs that you absolutely adore? Let me know in the comments below or tweet me @ArtBathednCrime. I'd love to hear about your own SNES experiences, and stay tuned for next time when I give you Part 3... though I'm not sure what genres I will be tackling next.

Video Game History Month: The SNES Is The Best System Ever (Part 1)

Written By: Tyler

 

Video Game History Month rolls on, and a few days ago I posted an article about what brought me to video gaming, which was the Nintendo Entertainment System. If the NES was my humble origin story about me as a little kid who wasn't kissing girls on the playground, then the Super Nintendo Entertainment System is the story of me starting to grow into my own as the preteen/teen guy who wasn't kissing girls on the playground. Or, to put it in a more flattering way, if the NES was Batman Begins, then the SNES was The Dark Knight.

I love the SNES -- it's my favourite console of all-time. This largely depends on the kind of genre you prefer, and I'm a JRPG guy in my heart of hearts. It didn't have much in the way of first-person shooters, but it had great RPGs, sports games, platformers and other action titles. It had some great puzzle games, fun adventure games, etc.

To celebrate video games, I'm going to celebrate the SNES. This will consist of multiple articles because I can't do it justice with just one. In this article I will talk about the more technical aspects of it like graphics and sound, and maybe even drop dime on something more personal.


What Is It?

The SNES is the prime of Nintendo. While the N64, Gamecube, Wii and Wii U are all fine systems (regardless of what haters say), the SNES was Nintendo firing on all cylinders. They made some of their best games as a company -- though to be fair Nintendo makes great games most of the time -- and they had a lot of support from other companies... something they lack these days.

Nintendo had Squaresoft back when they could churn out classic RPGs whenever they wanted. They had Enix while they were creating great games as well. The marriage of Squaresoft and Enix back then was kind-of a "super studio" type of deal.

There were fantastic strategy/historical simulation games, which is something that North America doesn't see a lot of these days. There are still games in the genre being made, but we never hear about them anymore. Koei was a beast back on the SNES.

Though sports games have gotten more complex, there was a simple fun to be had with some of them. We had a good mix of more realistic (relatively speaking) sports games and more extreme, less serious ones.

Platformers were on-point, and they were incredibly popular then. Sure, there were too many because at some point genres get oversaturated. We live in the era of the first-person shooter now, but back then we had a lot of platformers.

You get the idea... though games have evolved and we've gotten more genres and innovations since, some of the finest examples in a lot of genres were on the SNES. The main theme of the SNES is that we had legendary companies creating legendary games more often than not. That's an incredible feat.



It Sounds So Good

Audio back then was different, because they all used the same chip. And what a sound chip it was. Compare how music sounds on the SNES to how it does on the Genesis -- it's night and day. The quality, at least back then, was absurd. Not only that, but we had a lot of talented artists using the chip in fantastic ways, creating some of the best video game music of all-time.

Since then, we've obviously adopted a more modern, technically complex way of producing music, but if you're a fan of retro music, then the SNES is as good as it gets. It was to the point that I'd set up a tape recorder and hold it up to the TV to record the music. I'd have to be extremely quiet so it didn't pick me up, but I wanted to have the music so bad I'd do that.



It Looks So Good

Obviously graphics have gotten more detailed, with motion capture, more artists at work, more processing power, etc, but there's a charm to the SNES that hasn't gone away. Pixel art is still in. I think the NES also has a certain charm to it, but I feel like it's mostly just a nostalgia thing. With the SNES, it was the highest point for this type of art. There are a lot of SNES games that still look legitimately good today. Take a game like Chrono Trigger for example -- it's gorgeous. Companies had figured out how to best use this style, and the SNES was complimentary to that.

Take for example a system like the Playstation 1. I love the system (it's also a big RPG system), but they were going through an awkward transitional period during this point in time so games can look a little silly. They don't age as well as the SNES games do. The SNES isn't as complex, but the graphics looked beautiful despite that.


I Want It In My Bed

Um... never mind that one.



So this was just a little article of me praising the more technical aspects of the system, but over the next parts -- I don't know how many yet -- I will delve into what matters: the games. I'm not sure yet if I will sort them into different genres and maybe do a couple genres per post, or if I'll just pick a bunch of games and write about them, but check back over the next few days because I'm going to try to unleash that beast.

Video Game History Month -- What Brought Me To The Dance

Written By: Tyler

For those who don't know, Gamespot has designated May "Video Game History Month." I figure this is a good reason to do my own series of articles over the past month to discuss the history of video games. This article is a little bit more personal than what I'd usually do -- this is about where I started in the wonderful(ly expensive) world of gaming. I don't know how long this article will be, and while most of the articles will just be about specific games or systems, I think this is a good place to start.


My origin story is not that uncommon amongst "older" gamers -- the Nintendo Entertainment System. Before I even knew what I was doing, I was playing games. I would just grab a controller and press buttons. My older brother had an NES, and as far as I can remember, the first games I ever played were Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros. 1 and 3, and Final Fantasy.

While I can never say that I was around for the true beginning of video gaming, I can honestly declare that I was born the same year that the NES first hit North American soils. The NES may be third generation, but it's arguably the greatest innovation within the industry because the NES helped video games crawl out of the dark and into the light of the public. Yes, people were playing games before the NES, but the NES symbolized new blood, new life. For years people would ask, "Do you play Nintendo?" rather than, "Do you play video games?" Nintendo etched its way into the conscious of the public, and video game history, and it all started with the NES.

Though I obviously didn't start playing right when I was born, I can say I've been playing games most of my life... and I'm pushing 30. Like I said above, I started with some of the biggest names in gaming. I remember using the gun to play Duck Hunt, and I remember trying to shoot that stupid dog (to no success). I remember running through the levels in the first Super Mario Bros. while being amazed. Though both of those games were essential to developing my admiration for games, it wasn't until Super Mario Bros. 3 and Final Fantasy that I found the first couple games that I ended up truly loving, with the latter opening up an entire genre that to this day is still my favourite -- the role-playing game.

I would go over into my brothers room, much to his chagrin, early in the morning and turn on Super Mario Bros. 3. The family would get annoyed, but I must have thought I was sneaky or something because I'd keep doing it. Maybe this time I won't get caught? I don't know, maybe I was just a badass. I would even dream of playing the game. Mario 3 was such an evolution of the first that it remains one of my favourites in the classic series to this day. It was an expertly crafted, masterpiece of game design, and even today it showing up on the Virtual Console (finally) is a huge deal to a lot of people.

Final Fantasy was a little too complex at first. It wasn't as easy as just running and jumping. You chose character classes, went on adventures, leveled up and paid attention to the -- admittedly shallow -- plot. Battles were turn-based, and to a young kid the game was pretty difficult.

I'm sure this made my brother happy, but I enjoyed the fighting in Final Fantasy. I would gladly grind for him, because it was a joy for me  to enter those attack commands and see what happened. It wasn't until later that I understood what the RPG genre entailed, but once the SNES came around, I was fully entrenched in the rich worlds that were created. Final Fantasy 2/4, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 3/6, Earthbound, Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore, the list goes on. I enjoy most of those more than I do the original Final Fantasy, but I can't deny the importance of the original because despite the fact it was supposed to literally be the final fantasy, it ended up being more than that to me and a lot of kids/teenagers. For me it was not the end; it was the beginning.

Much like the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Keeping Me Occupied At Work -- A Wayward Souls Review

Written By: Tyler
Platform Played On: Mobile (iOS)

Rating: 7.5/10
Verdict: Wayward Souls is a completely solid Roguelike RPG but it doesn't quite live up to the apparent hype that it's getting in other reviews. 


I don't often review mobile games, and that's mostly because I don't play that many. There is a lot of crap on the App Store, and it's hard to sift through that and find the gems. The other day I was looking for a good game to play on my phone at work (when I'm, ahem, on break), and Wayward Souls had just come out and was getting rave reviews. I thought, "Awesome, an RPG to sink my teeth into." After hours spent dying and restarting, clawing my way through the game, I've come to the conclusion that it's a very good Roguelike RPG, but I feel like I'm missing something.



I have a built-in dislike of touch screen controls, and that's the first thing a lot of iOS games have going against them right from the beginning. Perhaps that sounds unfair, but I just don't feel like certain genres are ideal for the platform. Games like Sword and Sworcery work fine, same with Year Walk, but any game with action is less than ideal (though I'm sure there are exceptions). Wayward Souls has a few hiccups in the way it controls, like sometimes when you're trying to do one thing and you do another. I rarely feel like touch screen controls are intuitive.

Aside from that though, there's a lot to enjoy about Wayward Souls. You spawn as one of three characters intially -- a Mage, Warrior and Rogue -- but you can unlock others as you progress through the game. It's a paid app, which a business model where the price increases with each update so grab it now, and there are no in-game purchases to unlock the characters... which is a relief. These characters play differently than one another, but not in any substantial, original way. They have generic names and handle in ways that we've seen before. The warrior is a tank who can block, the Rogue uses quickness and backstabbing and the mage blasts from afar -- these aren't innovations or anything, but they're solidly implemented. The variety is nice because when you die, you lose everything and being able to switch your play style up is refreshing.

As you progress through the stages, you collect money and items. The money sticks with you even when you die so you can purchase upgrades that you will always have. This is a welcome addition because even when you die you're still building your character, but I've been seeing this feature in Roguelikes these days anyway.

The items you collect are mostly there to give you special powers, but health potions do drop infrequently. The Warrior has an ability where health potions heal more but it's useless because you rarely get any anyway. The only real way to get health back is by completing each level -- each time you proceed to the next level you get a little health back.

There are checkpoints, but you have to defeat the boss in each area first. This is also a welcome addition because I have a hard time constantly replaying areas, so just to know that there is a light at the end of that tunnel is nice.

The combat can also be pretty intense, even if it is held back slightly by the touch screen controls. Like I said above, each character has a different set of strengths and weaknesses, and due to the random nature of both the enemies and the dungeons, things can get pretty hairy quickly and you never know what to expect. You could walk into a room and get swarmed, while something else throws giant rocks at you. Since they chucked the turn-based genre conventions in exchange for real time battles, the action makes you adapt on the fly and this is where it shines brighter than a lot of games within the same stratosphere.

The visuals and music combine to create a pretty forboding atmosphere as you travel to the depths of the multiple dungeons. They have put care into making the areas seem more populated than a lot of mobile games would. There are lamps and other objects all around, mostly just to create that sense of atmosphere, but you can break them for coins and whatnot. Where the game shines though is in the soundtrack. It's a joy to dungeon crawl because every track is quite good. There's a lot of polish in this, and RocketCat Games should be praised for that.

A lot of Roguelikes don't offer much in the way of story. It's not the appeal, generally, but RocketCat Games have gone the extra mile to rectify that. Scattered throughout the game are plot moments that try to flesh out the reasons why the characters are doing what they're doing. I'm not going to sit here and say it's the most memorable and well-told plot since The Last of Us, but I appreciate what they have done to try to add more substance to the tried, tested and true formula.

Wayward Souls is a very good game. I said it above and it was worth repeating, but I saw one reviewer state how this could be confused as a lost SNES era Square RPG. That's way too lofty a claim for this game, but it is a solid experience. It's possible that I should be judging this more on the fact that iOS doesn't have many games like this, but games like Year Walk, Sword and Sworcery or even Code Runner succeed as not just great mobile games... but great games in general. I'm not sure Wayward Souls can make that claim, but it's definitely worth buying.

Reviewer Douchebag -- A South Park: The Stick of Truth Review

Written By: Tyler
Platform Played On: PC

Rating: 9/10
Verdict: If you're a fan of South Park, then this is for you. I can't imagine people who don't like South Park getting the same amount of enjoyment because it relies fairly heavily on the South Park charm.

When the television show South Park first came out, I was a teenager and I would stay up until midnight to watch it. I would laugh at things like aliens probing people, and I would watch the show for years to come. Out of the blue, I stopped watching for whatever reason. A couple years back I got back into it again and it's amazing to me that it's just as hilarious as before. This story is important because I'm important... or something. In all seriousness it's important because you pretty much have to be a South Park fan to really enjoy this I would imagine, though honestly that should have gone without saying.

South Park and The Stick of Truth is about the children of South Park and their epic role-playing game. They literally dress up as humans or elves, and they battle each other for the Stick of Truth -- an object that pretty much makes you the ruler of everything. You play as Douchebag (the game lets you put in a name but you are never called it), and I was going to say "what starts as an innocent child's game" but then I realized what game I was talking about -- the game starts offensive, but with a simplistic story, and in true South Park fashion gets more and more absurd as it goes on.

If you've come to this game it's probably because you're a fan of the series. So with that said, the story here is the main reason to play. Watching how everything unfolds, from humble beginnings as kids just playing, to a giant Taco Bell, is a treat. There was so much care and attention put into the story that every detail is spot-on, and you may spend a couple hours just wandering around seeing everything that the town has to offer, like I did. When you do the story, you meet the large cast of South Park characters and a lot of the time it's hilarious and incredible. It's been said a million times but it does sincerely feel like you're just playing an episode -- or even a season or two -- of South Park. I would imagine this ends up being the funniest game of the year. 

It's a good thing that the game is so damn charming, because the actual gameplay is more RPG-lite than RPG. Some people have said that this should have been expected because South Park is simple, which is a point I don't agree with. South Park, for all its farts and crude humour, is actually an intelligent show. It deserves a more complex, but not needlessly so, role-playing experience, much like the elaborate game that the kids play themselves.

It's not that the game is bad, because it really isn't. A lot of the time in battle you have to time your attacks to make them efficient, which means it's not just a mindless game. There is a certain strategic element to the combat, since people have armor and shields that you have to break. There is also the status effects, and I haven't seen an RPG that makes use of these things as heavily as South Park does in quite a while. The characters all have unique abilities in combat and this makes it interesting to switch back and forth between them to see what works best. The abilities, and also the animations, are a blast to watch because they're so different and South Parkian. The game also allows you to use an item each turn and it doesn't take a turn. It's a fun combat system, but there aren't really a lot of abilities to choose from so you end up using the same tactics a lot of the time. Hence an RPG-lite in that regard, because most battles end up being the same thing after a certain point.

It's a little thing but I played with a mouse and keyboard and the game would be better with a controller due to the button mashing and whatnot. I had no major issues but it's worth mentioning in order to get a smoother experience.

I also find the leveling system to leave a little to be desired, but again, it's not that bad. Gamespot made a huge deal out of how simplistic the game is, and while it's a tad simplistic, it's not as bad as Kevin said. You gain Facebook friends and when you gain so many you get a Perk point, which allows you to upgrade yourself in various ways, such as revival potions (ha) now healing people to full-life. There are a decent amount of choices, and it gives you a reason to do side-quests and meet people... something I don't want to do in real life!

You also gain an Ability point every level. The Fighter class had, I believe, five different abilities though I really only used two. That might be more me than a general consensus though. Anyway, you just level up which every ability you want. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it's still something to do every level. Again, RPG-lite, because leveling up never really felt as good as it should have. It's decent, though.

A lot of people are going to complain about the length of the game, and it took me between ten and fifteen hours. I have no problem with this, and I don't expect games to offer me reasons to come back. It's appreciated, but I remember the days when "replay value" meant "play the same game over and over because you loved it." I understand that coming from the old-school conditioned me to be this way and current, or newer, gamers may not feel the same. I tend to prefer a game that gives me a shorter (though I don't deem ten hours as short) but amazing campaign over a long, dull one.

But it's true... there's not a lot of reason to come back to the game unless you just want to play it again. There are different character classes, but I don't think that's enough. The character classes are mostly generic types -- Fighter, Thief, Mage -- but Jew is an interesting one and definitely at home in South Park.

Equipment isn't as complex as some RPGs in ways, but the customization is a lot of fun. You can really only equip a helmet, armor and gloves in terms of armor, but you can constantly change your hair, face paint and facial hair. You can dye your equipment at any time. All of this means that it's fun to change yourself around once in a while. You can also put patches on your armor, which gives them various bonuses of your choosing.

The weapons consist of a ranged weapon and a melee. They both have their bonuses, and for the most part that is self-explanatory. Sometimes you need to switch to your ranged weapon if someone is in the back or defending against melee attacks, and sometimes up close and personal is the best route. Like the armor, you can modify them and make them more dangerous.

The game also doesn't offer a huge, Elder Scrolls world to explore. Don't go in thinking it will, because it doesn't. Okay? I don't even care about that, but some people seem to think that every RPG has to be Skyrim. It's not linear, but most of the game is spent in South Park (outside of a few moments... one of which being an extremely memorable trip to Canada).

Speaking of Skyrim, I love the music. There's actually a song that plays a lot throughout the game that very much sounds like one of the epic songs from that game. The soundtrack is great all-around, but that's to be expected because South Park has always had entertaining music. Hell, the South Park movie is one of the better Musicals... a contentious point that would piss off a lot of serious Musical fans I would imagine.

If the game was a little deeper this easily would have gotten an 9.5 because ultimately, I wanted to keep playing it. When I wasn't playing, I would think about it and be a little critical of it... but then I'd realize I just wanted to go back. It's that South Park charm, and seeing all the references and jokes makes it a game that is hard to put down.