Source: Review Copy
Price: £12.39
Where To Get It: Steam

Other Reviews: Early Access 1 Release Review

Rogues. We love them. Or hate them. It really depends on which party got backstabbed. And this is the latest addition to Spellsword Cards: Dungeon Top (Stop snickering!), a card based strategy game where the cards summoned are units, your hero is a unit too, and if your hero dies, you lose, good job, start over… And if their hero in a fight dies… Congrats, you won a fight.

And our old friend incremental unlocks, where winning gets you resources to get more stuff, which may help you win… So on. Aesthetically, it’s pretty nice, some dramatic, tense music, some cool painted faces for the assorted minions and hero(in)es, and…

…Sigh. A menu UI that’s still small, with no scaling option. It’s been what, [insert time here], folks? Come on, I know your dungeon door is pretty, but you can make the menu options bigger than that.

In any case, play still revolves around a deck themed around the Hero/Faction dichotomy, where some cards are unique, others are general, and the themes are obvious. The Karim remain the faction which eats itself for power, sacrificing minions to make the few glorious murderbastards. Helm, meanwhile, has the philosophy of “Build ’em up slow, take the enemy down.” And the Warrior, Mage, and Rogue? Well, they stab hard, throw spells, and sneakily take down the enemy, respectively.

Okay, the rogue, being a new addition, needs a little more detail: His weapons come in melee and ranged flavours, but if you can get throwing knives (giving you multistrike at higher levels), go for them, and build around them. Because knockback is a thing, and knockback damage is a thing, the rogue can do well as a ranged murderer supreme, mainly needing his minions as meatshields. Or they can go all out on certain spells, and get through a fair few fights making the minions or the boss hit each other (and get free attacks from your own units.) They fight quick, and they fight decisively, one way or the other.

You will fail at first. It’s one of those games. But from each battle, you learn an enemy’s (pretty fixed) patterns. You learn how to beat them. In a way, it’s more of a puzzle game than a strategy one, although the random element does make it more “Hrm, of these five cards, which three of these do I apply to most effectively murder this giant golem that runs pretty quickly, attacks all units around it once every two turns, and will murder even my strongest warriors without too much hassle (and me with only slightly less)?”

Because yes, you have limited amounts of cards you can play in a turn, although some level up choices can make that more reasonable, as can some treasures.

How does it feel? Well, it feels much the same as when I last reviewed it: It’s an interesting game, it’s got a good aesthetic, it still needs to make those menu options bigger, and with a new area of the game added to boot, it’s got its rough difficulty curve laid out. It also has a draft option, allowing you to build a specific deck, seeds, and adding threat, so… Overall, it’s looking pretty promising!

Hi devs. Decent size on them main menu buttons, ta. Right now, it’s my only crit.

Filed under: Early Access Releases, Game Reviews by admin

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Source: Review Copy
Price: £10.29 (£11.14 for game and soundtrack, £2.09 for Soundtrack)
Where To Get It: Steam

Other Reviews: Early Access 1 , Release Review

Note: This review was written using the optional beta, allowing early early access to features not yet complete. Like the fourth character.

They’re available now, but look, I’m impatient.

Last time I looked at Meteorfall, I appreciated a lot about it. The subtle depth of the deckbuilding, the encouragement to do more with less, and its fun, cartoony aesthetic and character. Oh, and adventurers being represented as characterful assholes too. Oh, Bruno, you growling brute of a man, I still love how your approach to life is to SMASH it…

But now… Well, there’s two more characters, two more playstyles… And I’m enjoying them both. Mischief (the one that, at the time of writing, is available on the main branch of the game) is a rogue. Dextrous, stealthy until she attacks… And so, so smug. Thing is, she’s even more of a glass cannon than Greybeard, and, out of stealth… Well, she’s a bit crap without buffing. She relies upon it. Think of her as a hard mode, where you’re milking your resources to their limit.

Muldorf, meanwhile, is a jolly necromancer, and, while his skeletons take health to summon (mostly), and are not, in and of themselves, all that strong (mostly), they can still kill a couple of low level enemies without dying, and can be buffed by various means. This also means that, if you play your cards right, you’re rarely without four cards in your inventory, and his base weapons lifestealing or summoning enemies on killing others means that, if you get a chain going, you’re going to be a tough old coot. Even if you can’t heal normally.

What else has changed? Well, not a whole lot, if we’re talking about core elements. More items, abilities and perks have been added, and not just because there are two new characters with their own level rewards, but the core loop of “Beat all enemies and win, the more tiles still in play, the more bonus points you get to buy cool shit so you can discard some of your own shit, manage your resources well, and get abilities” is unchanged, the emphasis and encouragement of managing your limited resources effectively hasn’t changed, and the sarcastic, sometimes grim humour hasn’t changed either.

So, it’s still recommended as a card-based roguelike, it’s still promising… It’s just there’s more of it. Without drastic changes, I expect I’ll see you all at the release review, which will most likely read “Yup, it’s still good!”

I wouldn’t really call myself a Vaudedude, but hey, Muldorf the Necrodude does Muldorf, and I respect that.

Filed under: Early Access Releases, Game Reviews by admin

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £11.39
Where To Get It: Steam

I have not, perhaps, had the best of histories with solitaire RPG type experiences. I’ve always found them at least okay, within the limitations of the kind of solitaire they invariably use (go up and down the numbers, as far as you can, using abilities to help with this.) But they’ve never really grabbed me.

With Ancient Enemy, I was at area 7 before I really thought about whether I was enjoying myself. And, on reflection? In a calculating, analytical way, I was. The solitaire part was okay, as solitaire often is (although we’ll get back to that), and the story was… In a way, interesting in how it uses minimalism, but the combat… Ah, the combat is where I felt at home, and looking at the layout with an eagle eye.

You see, it’s not just the combos you have to think about. The combos are important, yes, and getting nice, long ones definitely has its benefits, like a lot of extra damage if you play your cards right (heh), but the suit of the card is quite important, and there are other things to think about. Because the suit of the card charges your abilities, in Basic Attack (A dagger), Magic (Your major damage output, since you are, after all, a mage), and Defense (Which, with only a few exceptions, is physical or magical. There is at least one magic and physics block, but it relies on long combos, because its basic form is weak.)

And also, when the layout’s low, you may have to waste an action refreshing. Which, if you time it wrong, lets the enemy get off a free hit on your sorry ass. Since items take a turn, and, similarly, you don’t want to waste a combo when it appears, it creates this interesting back and forth. It’s one I’ve mostly won, up to this point, and handily so on Normal (not a bad thing, I enjoy games that want me to see the content, then optionally let me challenge myself), but it’s also one where, if you don’t pay attention and equip accordingly for your enemy, you’re going to get damaged, and health only heals, with a few exceptions, after the chapter’s done.

…Oh gods, sometimes you don’t want to equip, because damn that layout refreshes after you equip, and this one is such a sweet start! Special cards that damage, sometimes big ones. Others that raise your defense without needing to block. Wyrm cards, the wild cards of the game that let you, in the right circumstances, stretch out some really nice combos… When I see a good layout, I’m really tempted to let it play out, sod the resistances and the fact I can’t block any of their attacks…

It helps that there are also passive and active abilities that you can switch in and out between fights and item collecting layouts that help with that, like card destroyers, upping the likelihood of Wyrm Cards or giving you extra undos, changing a card to fit the combo better, or shuffling the entire deck to the same goal… I liked using those abilities, even if they’re usable once per layout, with the exception of finding recharge totem cards.

So, mechanically, I quite enjoyed it. What about the rest? Well, aesthetically, it’s clear. It sort of has to be, and the tooltips are alright. You know what’s what, the characters and enemies look good (Although I wish there was a little more variation outside all monster types you’ve encountered getting beefier, and occasionally more powerful), the environments are lovely, and the music’s alright. The writing… Well, it’s effectively monologues. Why? Because The Mage pulled himself out of… Well, it’s unknown at the start, but he returned to life and the land… To find that the Evil Overlord had won. The land was sick, everyone was dead or corrupted, including spirits and animals. Killing the source probably won’t make things much better… But he’s determined not to fail this time.

I’ve… Enjoyed myself with this one. The difficulty curve is pretty reasonable, everywhere outside the item collecting, you start to feel powerful once you get going, and even in item collecting, you have recourse. Score chaser that I am (especially since that’s also currency), I still retried, but less times than I have with others, and… Yeah, if the idea of solitaire RPGs interests you, I would definitely say give this one a go.

The Mad Welshman is more a Minesweeper kinda guy these days. Shush, he’s not bad at either of them, shush, SHUSH.

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Source: Review Copy
Price: £5.19
Where To Get It: Steam

Counting games, such as games from the Mancala family, are quite interesting. Often seen as games representative of sowing and harvest, a common objective is to lay seeds from one pool, to another set as far away as the number of seeds you have away, dropping a single seed in each hole along the way, and then capture seeds from the next pool over. It’s a game of strategy. And it fits, because Mystic Pillars is a puzzle game where there is a great drought, caused by a spirit who has summoned pillars blocking the river.

And while you don’t precisely do it like Mancala style games (Ali Guli Mane, or Chenne Mane is the cited inspiration), the general principle to the puzzle is similar: You’re taking from one pillar of seeds to another, and if you go 1 space away, you place 1 seed from the first to the second, if you move 2 spaces, 2 seeds… There are up to 10 spaces on each pillar, and so… You have a logic puzzle.

And, as with any good puzzle game, when I understood the solution of a difficult puzzle, I had that “Ahaaaaa!” moment, that pleasure of figuring it all out. That, alone, would be a recommendation.

But it also engages me with its story. A story of a traveller, seeking to return the flow of the river in the kingdom of Zampi, while a tricksy spirit tells you how it came to pass that the kingdom fell in the first place. I enjoyed it, as I did the clear, beautiful aesthetic of the game. As I did how the move limit is exactly what you need, no more, no less. And how there’s no pressure to solve, even though many of the puzzles are, within only a few experiments, solvable fairly easily.

It’s not a long game, by any means. But it’s an enjoyable one, with a story I had fun reading, puzzles that gave my little grey cells a pleasing workout, and, as another game that does what it says on the tin… If you like puzzles, this one may well be a pleasant pick for you.

The Mad Welshman is more of a fan of Sennet. But he still appreciates this game.

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Source: Review Copy
Price: £49.99 (Assorted DLC comes to £41.96)
Where To Get It: Steam

The bandits were raiding the village, and my two heroes had things well in hand. Well, except when the next wave of bandits appeared, and… One was really close to a set of villagers, villagers I was meant to be protecting. So, some of this peaceful village died, died because I was too slow. And then some more died… Because they ran headlong into the two barbarian heroes I was trying to kill. I still won the day, but I wondered… Could I have done things differently? Could I have saved everyone?

Well, theoretically, yes. In practice… Welcome to the Langrisser games, turn based strategy RPGs where you can muddle through, but perfection requires pinpoint precision.

And do you know, I quite like it. At least partly because it’s of the more black and white SRPG type, where you fail, because your heroes were killed… Or you win. This, I appreciate.

In any case, Langrisser is one of those fantasy worlds where the story will seem quite familiar to players of this sort of game: King gets murdered, or other horrible thing happens, the protagonist and their friend(s) escape, they defeat evils on their way to returning home to retake it, but wait, a greater evil arises in the second or third act, and…

It still works surprisingly well. In fact, this pair of remakes of a now almost 30 year old franchise is a pretty solid one, with simple core mechanics (Infantry beats spears, Spears beat Cavalry, Cavalry beats Infantry, your mercs work better inside your commander’s command radius, they heal when they end their turn directly adjacent to you, and killing commanders removes their mercs from the field too, bish, bash, bosh, there’s your basic primer on everything Langrisser), solid combat, an interesting system where your character’s class can change the way they play a fair bit, and, of course, some nice aesthetics, with good music, clear tiles, workable and slightly charming battle animations, and plot divergences.

Basically, it ain’t bad, and with twelve hours average on a run of Langrisser I (for lo, there is a New Game+ on both games), there’s a lot of playtime to be had…

At least some of which is due to unskippable combat animations, and individual movement animations even if you automate. Personally, I don’t mind it, mainly because I prefer manual movement myself. But I can see how that would be a turnoff.

Still, I’ve enjoyed my time with Langrisser, and I expect to enjoy more time with it. It doesn’t overcomplicate things, its characters charm, its aesthetics please, and… It’s something where I know where I stand. Because it lets me know clearly. And I appreciate something that does that.

The Mad Welshman is off to… Ahaha, not save the kingdom! Conquer it! Big difference!

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