Recent reviews by AsmodeusUltima

TL;DR: Game is unplayable due to horrendous lag/stutter even on minimum graphics on modern system.

I remember really liking the game when it originally came out and I played it on Gamepass. So I was happy to pick this up a while ago (IIRC through HumbleBundle) and finally got around to installing it a couple days ago. It is probably still the fun game I remember fondly, but I wouldn't know, because this version of the game is absolutely unplayable.

Whatever was done to remaster the game as the Spacer's Choice edition wrecked it entirely. I am playing on a modern gaming laptop that easily exceeds both the minimum and recommended specs, but even on the absolute minimum graphics the game is slowing down to SINGLE DIGIT FPS regularly once I reach the first town (ran fine with just a few stutters prior to that point). I tried every single tweak, fix, and guide I could find about fixing the FPS issue and nothing worked, so I finally, reluctantly, gave up. If they ever fix this issue I would love to give the game another go, but as it stands it is, I will repeat, unplayable.

Cute little Metroidvania. Not the best, but certainly not the worst, and very short (I 100% the game in 9 hours). I think I got it via HumbleBundle at some point and it sat ignored in my library for a good long time, but I had fun filling a day with it. Definitely would not say it is worth more than about $5 due to shortness; the $20 they are asking for it is laughable. If you find it at deep discount and want a fun couple afternoons (or afternoon/evening combo like I did) pick it up, but understand that you are not getting a Hollow Knight here, nor a Lost Vikings (seriously, when will they rerelease Lost Vikings, or even better some other company make a worthy spiritual successor? Those games were fun!)

Okay, just finished 100% this game, and my verdict is: yes, but.

It is a gorgeous homage to PS1 era JRPGs, obviously the Suikoden series in particular. Is it as good as Suikoden 1 or 2? In my opinion, probably not, though in many ways it comes close. The visuals and music are great, the voice acting is impressive, if a little uneven, and the gameplay definitely feels like something straight out of the era. And that last one is part of one of my "but"s with this game. When trying to capture the feel of a classic game, one must remember that some of the changes to the genre that have happened over the decades since were for the better. I won't go into specifics here, but just know that it is a bit clunky in places that, while making it authentic, end up feeling a bit grating compared to a more modern game... which, this actually is.
The story is decent, again very much in the vein of the series they were trying to emulate/spiritually succeed. And just like the Suikoden games, the main conceit of having such a huge cast is neat in concept, but in reality it means the majority of the characters are going to be lackluster either in battle, in story, or in both. As someone who values story and character development as the highest points of an RPG, this has always been a problem for me since the first Suikoden game, though not such a horrible one that it ruins the game by any means: one simply has to go into it knowing what to expect.
There is a very steep difficulty jump halfway through the game that I found rather jarring. Things went from rather standard JRPG fare to "you're gonna have to carry LOTS of healing items and use them after every single battle, and if you are unlucky and one of your weaker characters gets targeted more than once in a round they WILL go down". Maybe difficulty is the wrong word, because it is not necessarily difficult if you adapt accordingly, it just feels weird because it jumps so drastically, and honestly can become a bit tedious. That said, the boss battles are pretty fun throughout, especially the ones with fun gimmicks.
My personal biggest gripe, which I know not everyone will share, is the minigames. Too many, and of much more relevance, most of them take a LONG time to complete, wearing out any welcome they might have had long before you earn your ultimate reward. The ship racing game has HORRIBLE controls, but thankfully is the quickest to complete if you can manage to get past them. The top battling game and the cooking battles are the only ones you need to put time into if you don't care about achievements because you need to complete or nearly complete them to recruit a couple of characters. And while the over-the-top yet totally straight-faced way they handle them is a bit hilarious, the mini-games themselves are... not fun. The card game is actually not bad, I actually enjoyed playing it a bit. Which quickly got ground out of me as I had to win 121 matches to get the achievement. Seriously, who thought that many was a good idea?! It was Blitz Ball all over again: a decent idea that WAY overstayed its welcome! And finally the eggfoot races. F*** the eggfoot races. Boring. Long. Crappy rewards. If it wasn't for the achievement I wouldn't have touched it.

Anyway. tl;dr: It is a fun game and a very faithful and loving tribute to the Suikoden game series, but a few questionable design choices and a mind-numbing batch of mini-games keep it from greatness. If you are a fan of old-school JRPGs, especially Suikoden, and either don't care about achievements or don't mind awful mini-games as much as I do then definitely give it a whirl. If nothing else you will get your money's worth in the course of completing it as it took me almost 120 hours to snag that final achievement.

P.S. Special shoutout to the theater segment. It is goofy, the rewards are decent but definitely skippable, and you only need to get an S rating in one of them to get the achievement, but I found myself intentionally creating the worst possible casting just for the laughs. They didn't have to fully voice all of these little plays, but I am so glad that they did.

Okay. I really, really wanted to like this one because I love Pathfinder. Every time I tried it during the EA period it seemed unpolished, unfinished, and most of all boring, but that was EA, right?

Now we are at 1.0 and... it still feels unpolished, unfinished, and boring. The designers seem to fail both at making a good swarm survivor game and at making it feel even remotely like a Pathfinder game. Unless they change things up HEAVILY it is not really worth playing even for people like me who have already 100% Vampire Survivors and the other good ones in the genre and are looking for a new fix. This one just is not it.

It is a decent example of the genre, though with a few questionable design choices. The reason for the downvote is that major bugs have existed for months without being addressed, or even acknowledged, by the developers.

Quick. Quirky. Qualified: I got it as part of Humble Bundle, which means I am happy with the eight hours it took me to finish the game. NOT worth the standard asking price. If this looks interesting to you wait until it is at least 50% off or you will probably be left feeling like you paid for more than you received.

Okay, received this from a Humble Bundle I believe, and I have always been a sucker for adventure games. Vaguely remember liking Kathy Rain well enough, so decided to give this one a whirl. Just 100% it and here are my thoughts:

POSITIVES
-Interesting setting, interesting characters, fairly interesting story - I find it important for a game to hold my interest.
-Pretty good art, mellow music - It wasn't jarring to play, which is nice for my neurodivergent ass.
-Good puzzle design - Loved how there were multiple ways to solve most obstacles, and while a one in particular was tough to figure out, the clues are there if you look hard enough; nothing feels out of the blue.

NEGATIVE
-Too short. I know it may seem good that the worst thing I can say about the game is that there should be more of it, but I played a total of seven hours, and that is with completing the game three times to get all the achievements. It feels like it was missing a couple chapters. I don't know if the developers ran out of time, money, or ideas, but there seemed like there was room for a whole lot more game. If I had bought it full price I would be a bit annoyed that it seemed so... anemic.
-As mentioned above, one has to complete the game thrice to get 100%, which is always a questionable design choice in my mind. Yes, the subsequent playthroughs are faster because one can skip through dialogue one has seen before, and, yes, gaining different augs allows (forces) one to find different solutions to some of the game's puzzle, but... the parts that are different between playthroughs are a minority of the gametime, and a lot of the parts that don't change are kind of boring back and forth travel. Definitely would be better if there was a chapter system and one could just replay the different bits instead of the whole game.
- There are two (three if you have a certain set of augs) puzzles straight out of a hidden object game, and, while I don't mind them, they certainly felt out of place. I would say either put more in or leave them out entirely, and definitely include a skip button for subsequent playthroughs.

SUM
It is a decent little adventure game for those who like serious stories. Could definitely do with being longer and meatier, and if you want every achievement you will definitely feel the lack of significant difference between one path and another, but overall I had a good time. I would say pick it up if it is on sale for 50% or less, as it is worth playing, but not worth $15 US.

Can't believe I forgot to write a review since I wrote an entire walkthrough. Love this game enough that I played it through five times in a row to 100%. About to do so again for a YouTube video. If you like JRPGs with real-time battles you will probably like this game.

I was excited when I saw it was from the creator's of Graveyard Keeper, but after that experience I hope they stick to producing more DLC for that vastly superior game.

The concept was amusing enough, but the execution was poor all around. It played so much like a crappy mobile game that I kept expecting an ad for Raid Shadow Legends to pop up at any moment.

The humor was poor, the cut scenes long and boring, the central conceit about fashion shows wasn't worth investing into any more than was absolutely necessary for some quests, the difficulty curve and pacing were way off, and in the end it came down to a lot of long and boring grinding; if you are going to play this game, do yourself a favor and use a speedhack so it at least does not take up as much of your life as it is designed to do.

The aesthetic is cute, but the Casual tag is a joke: starting around the end of world 4 this game gets way too difficult to justify the lukewarm amount of enjoyment I was getting from it. Wanted to power through to 100% it, but it just was not worth the headache when some way-too-fast human killed me for the umpteenth time.