Recent reviews by AiKirika

“Hello Stella, you're the capt... i mean... Spiritfarer now.”

But what now? Your old friend Gwen will show you the ropes.
Lets get a boat first. Luckily there is one here just around the corner.
The journey may begin.

Welcome to Spiritfarer, a lighthearted game about life and death and a girl trying to give restless souls their eternal rest. Come and discover a new world and many characters that may teach you about various aspects of life.

In Spiritfarer you play as Stella - and her cat Daffodil – who just got appointed as the new spiritfarer.
You got your own ship now and can explore the seas and islands you find on a big map.
Find food and various resources, build and upgrade stuff, and reach new foreign waters.
Talk to many different characters, some may need your help and maybe some will want to come along your journey.

As the spiritfarer your main objective is to help those restless souls.
To do that you first need to find them. Get ashore an island and explore it. You may find different resources like wood or ores, foods, treasures or even shops selling you various items like seeds for your garden.
Talk to the inhabitants of the island. Some talk about themselves or give you more insight about the world. Some actually need your help and may reward you for doing so.
Occasionally you may find a special soul that you can take with you on your ship. And they will give you a quest, then another, and another, and a whole quest line of quests. Some are rather selfish and some want you to make some progress and show you how to gather and handle resources or how to cook some delicious meals... which are important as you need to feed your new crew.
Interact with them and learn more about their life and their worries. They might teach you some valuable life lessons.

During your travels you may also come across places that you can't seem to reach or things you can't make yet. But do not worry, keep exploring and you may discover new resources, new buildings to process them, or even new abilities for yourself. You can even upgrade your ship. Make it bigger, faster, better and overcome obstacles hindering your journey.

Or you may just sit back and relax and try to catch some fish.

The story of spiritfarer isnt straightforward, instead you get to discover bits and pieces and put them together. And even though its talking about death, its also talking about life. The story is told in a very light hearted way that one might not even think about death most of the time, and a child might not even think about it at all. But every now and then it hits you hard and quite a few of emotions are welling up and you realize once again that life is fleeting.
The characters are mostly likable and even relatable. They were all put together with a lot of care and love. They seem like they have been real people once.

The graphics are just lovely. Everything, from characters to the backgrounds looks cute and beautiful and looks like a lot of heart was put into making them.
The drawn 2D style of the game fits perfectly to the lighthearted approach of the game. Everything just looks so nice and makes you want to see even more of this world.

The sound is good and decent. Most background sound are sounds like whistling wind, pouring rain, splashing waves. The music is mostly discreet, but enhancing the ambiance. The sounds of gathering and processing resources are also nicely done, nothing over-the-top, though I do wished some sounds would be a little bit more out standing and noticeable as I occasionally missed a “ding” that told me something was ready to collect.

About Gameplay... Spiritfarer is a rather calm game. Those that are looking for a challenge wont find it here. Rather I'd say, its a game suitable for all ages, for kids, adults and seniors alike.
A bit of skill is still needed none-the-less, but pretty much all passages or events to collect resources can be repeated or tried out endlessly. There is no punishment and no Game-Over. And everyone can play it at their own pace. The game is also suitable even for those with little time to play games or with bigger gaps in between their sessions as all quests are usually quite well described in the quest menu, so you wouldnt have problems remembering, where you left off or where to go next.
The Gathering and processing of resources while being a main part of the game, doesn't feel tedious or grindy (something I personally don't like) but rather engaging and rewarding. Its also fun trying out new combinations while cooking and looking to expand your recipe book, as well as trying to give your crew different meals and finding out what they're into and what not.
The controls are simple and you have the choice to play with keyboard or controller. Additionally you can even play Co-op with the second player controlling the cat Daffodil. I could imagine it might be quite fun playing together with your child, but mine is still too young for that so I haven't tried it myself.
I didnt encounter problems with running the game, except one time where it froze in the loading process and I had to shut it down manually.

Over all... I had a lot of fun playing Spiritfarer. The calm atmosphere and general calm nature of the game makes it perfect to relax and calm your mind while still feeling engaged. The easy controls and general low skill level of the game makes it suitable for all ages. The theme of the game is delivered in a light-hearted way and doesn't feel heavy or occupying. The Game also felt quite rewarding in various aspects – finding new places, reaching other found before, exploring new islands, finding new characters and resources, finding out what can be done with them and trying out new recipes – and didn't feel like a chore.
The Game is not suited for gamers looking for a challenge and I'd say is has low replay value due to its nature (unless you didnt explore all aspects of the game during your first play-through).

tl;dr

+ can be played in own pace
+ story told in a light-hearted way
+ calming and relaxing
+ likable and relatable characters
+ beautiful design


- low replay-value
- no challenge for those who seek some

game crashes all the time

In this retro game Worms Armageddon you play a team of worms and fight against enemy worms and the environment.

A bunch of worms gets placed on a variety of environments in this round-based game. Each round you can move and (try to) attack enemy worms with a variety of different weapons from bazookas, hand granates and dynamite to baseball bats, karate chops and exploding sheep. On your way you can find crates that spawn randomly with additional weapons, tools and first aid which can turn the tide pretty quickly.

There are different modes of gameplay available:

• play a quick match against the computer.
  Play a standard team on a random environment. No ranking, no rewards.
  Good for a quick game in-between.
  
• Training
  Different trainings get you to know and accustomed to the use of specific weapons and tools from basic to advanced training. Upon completion different things (new missions, more options, utilities, etc) can be unlocked.
  Some weapons and tools need quite some time to master.
  
• Missions
  Accomplish varying objectives during a fixed set of missions like simply annihilating the enemy or retrieving a specific crate. Overall there are 33 missions to challenge yourself with. Some missions may unlock more stuff.
  These mission can be quite difficult and frustrating even especially if you haven't yet accustomed yourself to different tools and weapons. But they can be restarted as often as you like.
  
• Deathmatch
  Play against the computer and raise your teams rank as the matches become harder with higher ranks. Reaching higher ranks can unlock stuff as well.
  Can be played like a quick match in between but with the consequence of loosing rank if lost or dropped out.
  
• Customized single or multiplayer game
  here you can create a customized match against one or multiple enemy teams or none at all. Play against the CPU or against a friend locally on the same computer. Choose your map or change weapons and game options as you like.
  
• Game over LAN or Internet connection
  Play with a friend over LAN and or challenge other players on the “Wormnet”.
  Surprisingly the wormnet isn't dead yet and can play against people around the world. You can join a room or host your own game with customized settings and rules.
  A lot of the players there seem to be veterans with corresponding skills, have their own lingo and rules. A Chat function is also available.
  I found it a bit hard understanding how this even works, where to go and how to host

Options
here you can change various options

• Team options: create new teams, change names, language and more, view statistics.
  With various teams multiple players on the same computer can have their own teams and have their own accomplishments in training, missions and deathmatch rank.
  
• Schemes options: change schemes like beginner, advanced, etc or customized. Various weapon options and game options can be changed. e.g. starting life, time available per round, amount of crates, and many more.
  The same options can be customized in “Customized single or multiplayer game” and “Game over LAN or Internet connection”
  
• Audio and Graphic options
  extended options: like Window mode, directX, bigger font, etc.

Story – 3* (though not really applicable)

Worms Armageddon doesn't really have much of a story though the missions try to tell some. instead it has a lot of different modes and online multiplayer to play with.

Graphics – 3*

This is a retro game from 1999. with its 2D drawn style however it has aged quite well unlike older 3D games. The maps, worms and weapons effects still look quite good, though it could be done better. Some writing can be quite hard to read as they are too small or pixelated.
Fullscreen mode doesn't really work properly. When switching between the menu and a match the hole resolution of the system (windows 11) changes and shifts your open windows as well as minimizing the game in-between and during a match, which is really annoying. Playing in windowed mode solves all of these problems though. It needs to be activated though as fullscreen is the standard setting. The menu will then appear as a small window while the game during a match is what ever resolution is set in the options.

Sound – 2*

there isn't much music in this game. Some discreet background music that doesn't disturb the game play or annoys you in the menu. Weapon and effect sounds are quite decent. Voices could definitely be done better as they are sometimes hard to understand (though they aren't important in the first place). Some sounds however seem to be a bit out of place or simply too loud and disturbing the flow, like the winning sound after a successful game. Overall its nothing special.

Gameplay – 3*

Gameplay is quite simple and straight forward. Move, jump, use your weapons and tools.
The use of weapons and tools though needs some training and needs some time getting used to.
The different modes can challenge you in different ways.
Movements are fluid and I haven't encountered any problems with input not being recognized.
Sadly there is no overview over the controls. Especially the different jumps the worms can perform but are very important aren't clearly listed anywhere, so you either have to figure them out on your own or look them up online.
The different modes sometimes arent really self-explenatory and I had to try them out or look up online before actually understanding what they even were about. Same with some of the options.


Fun Meter - 4*

The fact that you have different modes and even local and online multiplayer makes the game quite fun to play and for me the game hasn't lost its charm over the years.
The different modes can give different types of people a challenge and with both local and online multiplayer you can challenge other players as well.
And even in the case of having not much time, you can play a quick game in-between.
So I think the game has replay value.
I struggled between giving it 3 or 4 stars as I had my nostalgia of this game (I played it like 20 years ago) and as this type of game might not be for everyone. But I thought it is fun and I most likely will continue playing it even after beating the offline modes even if its just for some quick game when I don't have much time.


Verdict

+ different modes
+ single and multiplayer, both offline and online
+ various options to vary up your game
+ timeless graphics
+ replay value, quick match for in-between

- lack of controls overview
- not intuitive / lack of explanation of how different modes and options work
- online multiplayer at times barely active and you need to be quite experienced if you want to hold your candle.
- music and sounds nothing special and sometimes out of place
- only playable in windowed mode

“Seal of Recommendation” - Approved

its nonograms. what else do you need.
though im over 8h in i still need to find one that is truly challenging for someone who has been doing nonograms for ages. but its still fun. and im looking forward to finding all the secrets

essentially i liked this game. there where some points i had to look up online as i couldnt get past the puzzle but overall it was nice.
but what i didnt like was that this game f***ed up my pc so hard multiple times. freezes in the middle, not even task manager responding, cant shut down the pc and had to force it and even a bsod... just to name a a few.
in the end i managed to finish the game ... of course without the last achievemnt to play it through in 1 sitting (impossible if the game quiits on you).
if it wasnt for the problems i would recommend it.

nice little game for everyone who likes these kind of games. its fun and can get quite hard at times to achieve gold. too bad there are no achievements on steam, but there are in-game .

nice little game if you like that type of game. i had fun with it.
but its really annoying that the sound breaks off after playing a level. you either have to restart the game to have sound again which only breaks off again after the next level ... or simply play on without any sound. too bad.
since i still enjoyed it even on forced silent mode i still recommend.