Recent reviews by Modkiq

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”


Across the Obelisk takes everything you would expect from a roguelite deckbuilder and adds more of everything. Play 4 decks at the same time, add multiple overarching story-lines, more status effects than you can possibly track, so much meta progression you'd make an rpg blush, more deckbuilding to the point where you have a full deck before you do a single combat sequence, more choices, more paths, more music, more events than maybe any deckbuilder out there.

And the game believes in none of them.

With so many systems, so many options and combinations, the game is scared that you will be able to effectively use them. You know when you play other roguelite deckbuilders, you may come across a cool combo that lets you do something incredible? That will almost never happen in this game. The game puts artificial limitations on absolutely everything. Want to build a deck around keeping your block? Nah, you can only hold block for 2 turns. Want to build a deck around slowing the enemy? Nah, you can only do it a couple of times. Want to make an ice build that skips enemy turns? Nah anything remotely strong in the game that you would want to skip over is immune. Want to focus your team on one damage type? Nah, enemies all have different resistances. Want to have a small deck for one of your characters? No, lol.

The game is scared that you might actually be able to think outside the box, especially before you do any meta progression, that they hinder you in every artificial way possible. Despite all of these artificial blockages, it is still easy to find decks online that let you deal 10k damage in one turn (where the strongest common enemies have about 300HP) using certain methods, and because your starting deck can be made up of almost any card combo, why not just do that every single run?

Speaking of meta progression, this game feels awful due to it. In a game where a run may literally take you 8 hours to complete a run with friends, you may spend a full hour in act 1. Act 1 is balanced around you being able to win with default cards. Now, as you play the game, your "deal 5 damage" card will now deal 10 damage, your "bleed 1" will suddenly bleed 4, and so on. This makes the first acts significantly easier to the point where there is almost no challenge until act 3 or 4, but it still requires a time investment of 2-3 hours to get to the point where you actually needs to play the game. If you somehow make it too far in the game with not enough meta progression, the game is also happy to hit you with a "deal 9999 damage to all heroes" card and just remove your entire run with no warning, no counter play, simply because "You are playing too well, come back after you have more unlocks". What?

This game has so much bloat, quantity over quality is the name of the game. So many features that stops you from engaging with systems, so many random run "checks" (can you deal X damage in Y turns? Can you remove all of these statuses every other turn? If not your run is over here), so much progression that ruins the balance of the game, even drafting cards or free gear/pets rarely feel rewarding because you already started your run with the perfect setup.

Furthermore, the enemy balance is extremely odd. Almost anything you'll fight in the game has around 300 HP, and it generally takes a significant amount of time to kill these enemies before you unlock the full meta progression tree. And then what? Suddenly an enemy with 6000 HP that does the same attacks in a loop, and you sit there for over an hour doing a single combat encounter looping your deck over and over and over again. Why? Just to be infuriating on purpose? It is not even remotely difficult, it is just some of the worst design I have seen in any game.

In conclusion, this game is worse than almost any other roguelite deckbuilder out there, but it has that magical combo of "it works" and has online co-op, which are the only reasons to play this game if you're desperate for a roguelite deckbuilder like me and my friend was.

This might be the best rogue light deck builder ever created.

He has done it again

Help! I am losing out on my real life obligations

My personal game of the year 2024. Dan Fornace finally made Project M 2.

Help, I am losing out on my real life obligations

Berserk Boy is the game where you are a boy, then you learn to go berserk. Going berserk allows you to defeat the baddies of the realm, kind of reminds me about a baddie I met at a mcdonalds in canada.

That bird I forget the name of follows you throughout every level, but does not really help you in any way despite taking credit for everything at the end. This does not really matter though, as you can use your incredible movement and berserk orbs to chain together incredible tricks that will let you speed through the levels with ease. This incredible movement and smooth moment to moment gameplay motivates me, as I am able to pretend that I am running away from the stupid bird.

Your epic berserk orbs do not only give you new movement options, but powerful moves, like the one the mcBaddie did in canada. These moves let you defeat powerful enemies while staying on the move, and prove invaluable when fighting bosses.
The bosses are really fun to fight, except for that turtle, I cheesed that one, but I have been given explicit permission to do this by the creator of the game.

All of this combined with the incredible soundtrack creates for a game worthy of being called Berserk Boy, and you should therefore buy it.

The Casting of Frank Stone is the first game to expand on Dead By Daylight's (DBD) universe, with a full on story game. While I overall enjoyed the game, and I think hardcore DBD fans will like seeing the world expand, I also think most people will find the plot kind of confusing if you're not already familiar with the lore.

The voice acting (for the most part), the set pieces, unique progression and graphics are all great, and it makes it a joy to sit through the game.

One of the most disappointing parts of this game, and this is a symptom of how the game's story at its core is built up, is that certain characters do not have the option to die until the very end. They are needed for one important lore reason or another, and this gives them the thickest plot armor you can imagine.

However, the most disappointing part of this is how little the game has to do with DBD. If you take away the killer dolls and trinkets, there's very little DBD in this DBD game. There are some things, like people not aging in the entity's realm, and the final chapter does a fantastic job of selling the dream, but for the majority of the game it could just have been a standard Supermassive Game ghost mystery.

I wish we got to play through one of the trials, or see some of the recognizable characters. The closest thing you get to real DBD is having to repair a few generators. Sure, some of the places are referenced, but you do not get to explore or see them.
I understand that they wanted to expand the universe of DBD, and not just show what is already established, however it felt lackluster to show off that "this is DBD" by having a bunch of dolls of the killers scattered around, instead of actually showing the world we know.

Despite the negative reviews, I went into Dustborn with a fair and open mind. This is a Norwegian developed game, which is partly funded by Viken, which is where I grew up! So I had to give it a fair shake.
I enjoy walking sims, and I enjoy a lot of games that do their best to focus on diversity; are all the negative reviews just "anti woke haters"?

Sadly the game comes across as a parody of itself, and it's hard to take anything seriously.

I think there are overall two main issues with the story. Firstly, it suffers from having a "fighting game story", where there are too many characters with too many backstories to give proper attention to all of it, so random parts are just shoehorned together.
For example, a character might say early on that they are self conscious and anxious. Instead of this being a part of their identity, and they show these signs throughout the story, they will just randomly have a scene where they are acting extremely out of character to show this trait which was mentioned prior.
There's a scene (very mild spoilers) where you need to open a locked door. One of your main crew members have a power to do exactly that. Keep in mind, you have been chased across multiple state borders, the cops could be here at any moment, so you need to hurry and get inside. This crew member tells you "No, I think I will skip this one, I am feeling self conscious and don't just wanna be seen as a door opener, I am not feeling it right now", and you tell them that it is okay, you respect their boundaries and don't wanna make them uncomfortable. This comes across as very off character, because this is not how they have acted previously, and now that we need them the most it's all of the sudden a big problem?

The writers want to add good messages to each character and their conditions, but sadly the writers are not good at making it a part of the story, so they very explicitly and on the nose force situations like these, that ultimately fails to deliver the message and just makes the character look like an idiot.
Do I believe that when you're having a bad mental health day you should be given space, time and respect? Yes, 100%, but no one would act like this in a life or death situation.

This also goes the other way, where the character mentions something about themselves that is critical to keep in mind, such as a character turning into a helpless statue if they get too anxious, but this is never brought up again.

The second issue the game really suffers from is the idiot plot. This means that the story only moves forward due to idiot decisions, and this is very much true here.
The whole plot is about a stealth mission, let us make our cover story that we are a band so we constantly have to show up to public places and make noise. Also, all our songs are about the mission we're on. Glad no one caught on to that.
Oh, let us give the one thing we are supposed to protect to our team captain that loses it twice within the first couple of hours of the game.
Let us, on our undercover mission, drive a one-of-a-kind bus with bright colors and branding on it.
We're in a bar full of cops when we know some of them are looking for us? Yeah let's stick around a little longer, surely nothing will go wrong, despite us talking about how we keep getting lucky after making dumb decisions.

Character often act in ways that don't align with their core beliefs, nor in their best interest, and it's a frustrating experience to see someone endanger not only themselves but the rest of the crew just because "ugh, I wanted to make this person jealous". Either that, or they have extreme mood swings. They hate your guts, don't want to see you, don't want to travel with the crew, you are dead to them, then one minor event happens and they go "You saved myu life, I love you, you're my sister again"

The worst part is that most of the core crew are just... unlikable? The main character Pax is an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ who bullies and berates anyone she meets, including her friends. Your crew members either don't wanna be there or constantly talk. They talk about absolutely nothing, like a 20 second rant about how their parents used to make a dish. Pax, the main character, is selfish, lies to the crew, and puts them in danger multiple times just to fulfill her own curiosity.
The other members talk holes into my head about drawing or random memories, thoughts or dreams they have. None of which build their character, or give interesting insight to the world.

The dialogue in itself is also very poorly written, and that includes choices you can make. Often dialogue is repeated, which makes for very awkward sounding conversations.
"I'm heading off to bed, it's late"
"We got a long day ahead tomorrow, and it's late, so I'm going to sleep"
This type of writing where the character repeats what they just said is common, and it ruins the immersion. Another issue with the writing is that the game often wants to take the story in a certain direction, but they also want to engage the player. This means that often you will get the "choice" between two almost identical prompts, or even worse, you will get a "choice" to select one singular prompt, which you might disagree with. This makes for a very frustrating experience when you would do something completely different, or nothing at all in a situation, but you are forced to be an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

As for the gameplay itself, combat is infuriatingly easy, you are practically invincible, and while you have both a dodge and a block, you don't need any of them in any encounter. I read online that you can't die, so I tried to lose on purpose in one of the encounters, and yep, you just stand back up again like nothing happened and continue fighting. The enemies don't even regain health.
You can beat any encounter using the throw bat mechanic as enemies are infinitely stunned, but honestly you could also just mash X.

As for the rhythm game, it's bad. There's a reason no other game has a layout like this. It is difficult to see notes flying and in what order, especially when they they are snuck in next to lyrics which is also flying the same direction. Luckily the rhythm game is also very easy, so I guess it doesn't matter too much.

That leaves exploration, which works as expected, there really is not much to say. Walk around and interact with the thing you need to move on. Sometimes this is painfully obvious, sometimes it's annoyingly well hidden. Not much to say about this.

And the final nail in the coffin for this game is that it is riddled with technical issues like random framedrops and bugs. Characters will frequently teleport, run into walls (and keep running in place), the camera can get stuck so you're unable to proceed, you can lose the ability to run during combat, and sometimes prompts just doesn't show up, forcing you to restart the game.

Ultimately this is a game that tries to be about diversity, friendship through hardship, and "doing the right thing", and I have to ask if giving the mean main character abilities like "CANCEL" that convinces the enemy to kill themselves really aligns with these ideas. It feels hypocritical, the game is a parody of itself.

When Gearbox purchased this IP, I was worried to say the least. My expectations were low, but somehow I never could have imagined these awful results. They made an update that was somehow worse than my greatest fears for this game.

Turning what was possibly my favorite roguelike into a barely held together mess, now being downgraded to the Nintendo Switch version with countless bugs added is a slap in the face not only to consumers but to Hopoo Games who poured their souls into making this game.