Recent reviews by DarkExcalibur42

So good. Another fantastic experience from Merlino Games that conveys so much through minimalist game-play. Part-way through my first run, it started to dawn on me what was happening. Writing this after finishing that run.

As usual, the environments and traversal are huge positives. Low text, only vibes. BUT THOSE VIBES TELL YOU SO MUCH. The time limit is a new twist, but it absolutely drives home the experience. Definitely a must-play if you want your games to be art with a message.

Took me just under 8 hours to 100% the game. Would've been about 7 hours if I had skipped the last two achievements.

Fantastic art style and a very engaging environment. Everywhere feels like a puzzle to navigate around, and those puzzles feel novel because the game makes strong use of its premise. I was never bored playing it.

A game that was well-loved by the dev team, though with a few rough edges to buff out still (minor bugs especially in chapter 3). The writing for the companion characters is a real delight and engages with the material of 40k in really exquisite ways.

Highly recommend. I got about 180 hours of play out of my first run, and want to do at least 2 more. This is one of my top five favorite cRPGs (Baldur's Gate 2, Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity, & Encased are the other 4).

This game wants you to die and fail, and doesn't tell you how any of the systems in it work.
I'm sure it'd be a fine game if I wanted to sit down and read a lengthy manual beforehand, but I'm not going to spend my life like that anymore.

Me: "Oh. I'm getting shot to hell and back? Okay, I think that's fine. This spell looks like it heals me."
Spell: "NO. You don't have any wounds."
Me: "Um. Right, sure. A wound must be a different thing. But my health is low... maybe it'll heal after combat?" *gets blown away by full-auto while in cover* "Crap. That's fine, I can win this fight still. Looks like there's a count-down timer? I don't know what that does, but maybe one of my party members can heal me... okay? Do none of these abilities hel-- Oh. Right of course. I died, and it's game over. What?"

This sort of game design is something that I really don't miss from the 90s. If you want me to play your game, please tell me what it is before you kill me and roll the "GAME OVER" screen. That is literally the lowest I can set the bar.

Imagine you dropped a camera in a crowded swimming pool, then recorded its motion as it bobbed on the waters and cloned that movement to a protagonist's camera in a video game-- wait don't imagine it, you can just play Fort Solis for that. I spent my entire time with this game motion sick for the sake of "immersion". It sucked, and sure set the mood going in. It encouraged me to look away from the game at every possible opportunity.

On the subject of gimmicks to add "immersion"... Most of the way you interact with the game's information is a wrist computer. It's very cool. Unfortunately, it can have reflections off its screen which can and will heavily obstruct videos you're forced to watch on your wrist. So when I finally do swim my way to info, I don't get to enjoy it or even see half of it. Thanks.

I don't agree with the use of walking sim as a pejorative, because the genre has some pretty great story-telling. So I'm going to need someone to invent an insult for me to explain how most of this game is just walking to doors you can't open with no tension or narrative while you do it. That sucked even without being nauseous.

Speaking of walking? That is MOST of this game's mechanics: walking. And it controls god-awful. Walking around feels like indirectly telling a drunk person how you'd like them to walk. When combined with the constant camera-at-sea problem, this gets tiresome quick. The devs must've known movement was terrible because as soon as an actual threat occurs? In-game cutscene of you running to wherever you need to be, because if you had to walk there (there is no option to run anywhere) it'd be pain. This is a pattern, too. Any time anything important needs to be done, a cutscene does it for you. So many points that the game just doesn't trust you as a player to do something, so it does a cutscene for you. Ugh.

So what good things can I say about this game? Much of the story is told through video logs, and the characters in those logs are animated FLAWLESSLY. They really are probably the best looking part of the whole game. Similarly, the voice acting is exceptional and the music is pretty good if loud. I did have to drop the music volume to 40% to keep it from drowning out audio logs. The story is... fine. The final confrontation at the end is a bit weak, and while I only missed a few story collectibles I never got the full picture of what the stakes were? "If x, then bad happens." Okay... what bad? People catch a cold and get shaky hands? Because that sounds like not a big deal.

Game took me 4.3 hours to complete, but a lot of that time was spent walking between doors to check if I could unlock them yet.

TL;DR As someone who enjoys games like The Quarry? This game would've been better as a movie. The game-play is just not fun, and detracts from the experience of the story. Fort Solis was my worst gaming experience of 2023.

This is the third Antonio Freyre game I've played, and while I still suck at stealth games (Hard difficulty was beyond my skill level), this once again fascinated me and held my attention all the way through.

There were a few game-play issues I had, such as when your weapon fires the bullet comes from the center of the screen and not the weapon your character is holding. This is rarely an issue, except with edge cases where I was fiddling with shooting from behind cover. But this is a STEALTH game, not a cover shooter. So that's on me.

One thing I did really like was that if you sneak up behind someone and aim a gun at them they drop their weapon and surrender. I dunno what happens after that... because I stabbed them all in the back so they'd be quiet... but it's a very cool feature.

The maps that you travel through all seem to be implying bits of what happened in the world without outright telling you, so you get a very confused broad brush strokes sense of how you got here. I like that. I also like how the cutscenes do this text display that reminds me of a low-budget late 80s/early 90s sci-fi movie. As always, Antonio gets this sense of atmosphere across to the player that you can't escape. Every one of these games transports you somewhere else and thrusts you in the character's role in a way that is impossible to ignore. I'm definitely a fan.

After having played two of Antonio Freyre's games, my impression so far is that Antonio doesn't just make games. They make short stories in video game format using retro gaming nostalgia as part of the medium. Both The Chameleon and It Comes in Waves feel like games out of time in the best way possible.

If you're familiar with the youtube channel Dust that does short sci-fi films? An Antonio Freyre game compared to a big title is like a Dust short film compared to a movie. What Antonio does best in both titles is rapidly instilling in you the vibe of the setting and the way the world is laid our around your character quickly informs you of who you are.

The Chameleon is a fairly classic stealth game with a fun pulp adventure 1970s aesthetic. You've got to escape the Moon by punching robots. What's not to like? Well, stealth game mechanics I suppose. I suck at stealth games and kinda hate them. But The Chameleon did something I've not seen before that really helped me with my stealth game frustration: when I die and reset from a checkpoint, the changes I've made in the world remain (pickups I've gained, guards I've KO'ed, doors I've unlocked). I really appreciated that. It allowed me to focus more on the story being shown and the very cool vibe of the world.

2 out of 2 of Antonio's games played and reviewed so far, and so far both have been excellent short-form gaming experiences ideal for passing a couple hours after work.

A short but immersive experience. Despite only giving me a handful of text lines before starting the game, it quickly pulled me in. The sparse, desolate desert felt intimidating to navigate while you slowly dehydrate. The mechanics were simple, but very effective. The ending left me wondering about the protagonist, and I'm curious if replaying will give me more insights.

Lethal Company's success as a game is partially owed to two paradoxical things it achieves:
1.) Not dying is very important, but also death is a trivial expense.
2.) It's scary, but most times you die won't be terrifying; they'll be hilarious.

A game that tries to be scary ALL THE TIME isn't scary, so Lethal Company's ability to bounce between hysterical laughter and white-knuckle terror is perfection. Dying is very common-place, and the costs for dying are relatively low. Which is good, because if they were too punitive and you died all the time it'd be miserable. But while playing you still never want to die even if it's affordable. I think this is because you always feel like there's a little more you can do, a little more you can contribute. It's an excellent balance.

Excellent balance seems to be the theme of this game, too. It has a very limited inventory, something I've complained about in other games. And you have to spend that inventory on things that would otherwise just be freebies elsewhere: a flashlight, a weapon, a radio. There is no always right answer for what items to carry, and that's an impressive achievement.

A delight to play. Everything about it makes you feel like RoboCop, and it even had a nightmare segment that was one of the most unsettling horror gaming experiences I've had in years. The most fun I've had in an FPS game in years.