Recent reviews by CONIN

I have never been a "mobile" gaming person, at all, because the experience, in my perspective, is merely underwhelming to lackluster most of the time, but eight years ago when I knew about Monument Valley my attention got caught in its simplistic yet aesthetic graphics and sound. Promptly I had already spent quite some time fiddling around with the "game" and its mind twisting, elegant puzzles and landscapes. Now that both titles are available on Steam I didn't hesitate to also get them. Completely recommended, hands down.

There's only one negative bug I've found so far: as soon as you finish a chapter, your current progress gets deleted, so, let's say you just finished "Monument Valley" and want to start "Forgotten Shores": the game will take you to the first "Monument Valley" scene again, forcing you to manually return to the main menu and select the "Forgotten Shores" chapter. Now, if you already finished "Forgotten Shores" and wish to proceed to "Ida's Dream", the game takes you, once again, back to the first "Monument Valley" scene and your progress from "Monument Valley" and "Forgotten Shores" gets deleted.

For some reason, the soundtrack was taken away from the game since the last update, so, even if you bought it as a single DLC, or if you bought it as part of the Supporter Bundle, you won't be able to download it, and worst of all, the dev won't do a single thing about it.

It's almost impossible to write a proper review, due to the fact that the game won't allow you to bind your own selection of keys, so, in my case, I wasn't even able to properly play; besides that, there are no options to set the volume levels from inside the game itself, neither to set a 5.1 or 7.1 channels system.

The soundtrack is actually pretty appealing and quite a match to the game itself, but it's such a pity that, right in the middle of 2019, it comes in MP3 instead of a higher, better quality format.

You can buy it separately at Bandcamp, but then it kinda loses the point of giving us the opportunity to buy it here on Steam, so we can have both the game and the soundtrack together and tidy into the same place, and obviously, it gets somewhat redundant and illogical to buy it here on Steam, and then buy it again on Bandcamp in order to get it in FLAC.

PROS:
- Lo-Fi music that's actually Hi Quality.
- Well composed despite its simplicity.
- Gets you into the game.
- From the composer of other well known soundtracks, like
"Slay The Spire", "Factory Town", "Make Sail" and "TIMEframe".
- Australian vibes.

CONS:
- Comes only in MP3.

I'd say I bought this game just because nostalgia and because I liked the way it looks, kinda retro, kinda arcade, kinda cartoonish, and first of all, because I've always liked most TMNT-related videogames.

Unfortunately, I can't even give a proper review since the game won't detect neither my controller nor my keyboard, everything I could do, was try to navigate through the menu and options with the mouse, and all I could get was to reach for a few options hoping for the game to recognize at least my controller, but nope, nein, nada, even when trying to close the game I had to go for the Ctrl-Alt-Delete route.

Because of that, I would not reccomend this TMNT title.

The game itself is pretty interesting, entertaining and all, it's kind of short, sure, but it has enough elements to completely get your attention from start to finish (on each and every chapter), but unfortunately it has two big drawbacks:

- There is absolutely no way to configure the controls, so, you'll be tied and locked to the settings already set by default into the game. Contradictory, there's a menu option that says "Key binding", but it won't let you map your own set of keys, it will only show you the ones already set. Due to this, in my very particular case, it is almost impossible to play in a comfortable way.

- There is completely no support from the developers: you can send them a support ticket or support question to their support e-mail, but you won't receive an answer, ever.

So, I wouldn't recommend this game unless you're willing to face these issues.

Most of the time I couldn't tell what was my purpose or objective into the game, instead, I began wandering around looking at the abstract landscapes. I'd say this is kinda of a walking simulator where you have to do a little bit of exploring in order to advance and find the right path, and because of this, most of the time you'll feel this is a non linear game despite beign so.

Highly recommended if you like walking sims with a pinch of surrealism along with freedom to roam around.

First thing that came to my head when watching TROVE, was "Maincraft", but as soon as I started playing I realized this is completely different, funnier and catchy.

The first time I heard about "Last Day Of June" was a few months ago while reading about and waiting for the newest Steven Wilson's album; at that point I couldn't but wander about: what could offer as a whole a videogame where Steven Wilson is involved?.

He once told not being the kind of videogames-interested person and almost neglected the idea of ever participating into them.

But, content-wise, aren't his songs the kind of emotional stories with all of the necessary elements to develop a proper history and turn them into something else, besides the music and lyrics themselves? That's what they did with the song "Drive Home" (from the 2013 album "The Raven That Refused To Sing - And Other Stories") in order to bring "Last Day Of June" to life.

If you're the kind of person who's really into music, if you're someone who would take its time appart with the sole purpose of enjoying a new album, and, literaly listening to it, you'll easily catch what this game is about.



PROS:
- Catchy.
- Emotional.
- Atmospheric.
- Trippy.
- Really colourful.
- Music by Steven Wilson.

CONS:
- Kleenex tissues not included.
- A little bit repetitive in some parts.

Graphics and colours were the first thing that got my attention when I saw this game for the first time.

At that point, I knew nothing about its background story nor anything related to its developement, and, to be honest, neither I bothered about reading nor doing my research about this game, prior to buying it.

Then, as soon as I began playing, I regreted buying it: the physics and mechanics are quite mediocre and unpolished, sometimes your character will get stuck so easily with the smallest objects, besides that, the responsiveness of the controls are not really "responsive", you'll feel like controlling a stiff, near to death character.