Recent reviews by Divalti

While I can admit that I liked Frog Detective 3: Corruption at Cowboy County more than the previous two Frog Detective games, I still didn't enjoy the fetch quest gameplay that's prevalent in this trilogy, even if the absurdist humor has only since improved from the previous games. Still, if you liked Frog Detective 1 and 2, I'm sure you'd like this one as well.

I'm not sure I can say that I was really wowed by Welcome to Elk. While I did find the little minigames that WtE had in every chapter quite charming, these small, pleasant moments really highlight how uninterested I was about the rest of the game. WtE is a collection of slice-of-life stories - some somber, some mystical - and while these stories are just okay by themselves, they are stories that are very independent of each other and don't mesh well for a cohesive story, culminating in a pretty lackluster ending where not a lot is meaningfully explained. A game like Welcome to Elk is driven by its story and I really can't recommend this game by the quality of its story.

Stasis: Bone Totem was definitely a game that I was pleasantly surprised by. There's certainly a lot that this sci-fi horror adventure puzzler does well.

The story follows couple Mac and Charlie, along with their robot teddy bear Moses, as they explore a derelict ship with all manners of monstrosities and must find a way to escape. The story is pretty interesting, although the pacing is rather slow; the story is certainly built up more in the beginning and towards the end rather than anywhere in the middle. The characters are pretty great as well, although Moses steals the show with his gentle and optimistic demeanor. The production value is also extremely high - great animations, environments, and voice acting - which is very surprising for point and click games these days.

Still, Bone Totem has its flaws. Bone Totem doesn't quite have that adventure game moon logic, but there's a shared inventory between three characters and their puzzles and that makes deciphering what to do pretty annoying sometimes. I also had some technical issues with the game running poorly through the middle section the longer the game went on, which wouldn't have been a problem if there wasn't an achievement for going through the game in a single session. The game also isn't particularly scary if you're here for the horror, as the horror is mostly psychological with some gorey death scenes if you mess up. I still don't think this was enough to tank my opinion of the game though.

Anyways I liked Stasis: Bone Totem and if you like point-and-click games I can imagine you'd like this one too.

Far Cry 3 - Blood Dragon is great: same-old great Far Cry 3 gameplay, but with less crashes and the cheesiest dialogue and plot that could possibly be conceived. If it didn't try to connect to Far Cry 3 - Blood Dragon servers that don't exist anymore, it would probably be able to move up to amazing, but this game is still worth a play if you liked Far Cry 3.

I can't say that I really enjoyed Boxes: Lost Fragments all that much. While Boxes has pretty high production value for its animations and puzzle assets, the actual puzzles are just alright at best and the story is boringly delivered through a collection of flashcard notes. Unless you're a big fan of simple puzzles and can get this game at a deep, deep discount, I would recommend you skip Boxes: Lost Fragments.

Ehh, Island Farmer - Jigsaw Puzzle is just an average puzzle game. I'm not particularly a fan of jigsaw puzzles and this game was certainly not the one to convert me. The island puzzles aren't too engaging to solve or even to look at, just being a simple tileset after all, and the music and sound effects were inoffensive but also not very interesting, either. If you're a big fan of jigsaw puzzles this game might serve you better than me, but I can't really recommend Island Farmer - Jigsaw Puzzle.

Despite a game crashing bug, that typical Ubisoft open-world collectable gathering, and the UPlay launcher, Far Cry 3 remains a good game due to its gunplay, decent story, and the iconic Vaas Montenegro.

As good as Hitman 1 is, it is eclipsed in quality by its successors Hitman 2 and especially by Hitman: World of Assassination due to gameplay upgrades like UI and gameplay elements like much more visible camera ranges. Since Hitman is no longer easily purchasable on the Steam storefront, you should go for World of Assassination instead.

I found Dex to be too infuriating a game for me to recommend. Dex follows the titular character as she aims to bring down a shadowy organization hunting her down, but the game just isn't one that stands out from the crowd in a good way. Neither the typical cyberpunk dystopia setting nor the uninspired chosen one plot bring anything new to the table, and the characters, while pretty decent voice acted, are all just kind of uninteresting. The combat, both in the overworld and in cyberspace, feels like garbage, and no matter how you decide to spec your character, you're going to have do quite a bit of both. There's also a myriad of bugs - small graphical glitches like enemy sprites sometimes teleporting about if you choke them from behind, technical glitches like being unable to move during a fight, or quests sometimes not updating properly. I sincerely don't believe that Dex is worth your time or money when there are better RPGs out there.

It's really unfortunate that a game that I like as much as Beneath Oresa is slept on, but I can definitely understand why people have bounced off of it. As someone who has played quite a few deckbuilder roguelikes, I really liked Beneath Oresa, but there's no denying its flaws.

There's a lot to like from Beneath Oresa. For those who've played games like Slay the Spire before, Beneath Oresa should be very familiar, but with the additions of a partner to accompany your chosen character and a lane system denoting enemies as either close or far. Familiar gameplay features accompanied by solid animations, card art, and music helped me enjoy Beneath Oresa quite a lot.

Despite all those things, Beneath Oresa has a lot of reviewers saying that the game is too difficult to win and enjoy. I don't feel that this game gets much harder than its contemporaries, but rather that it has a much steeper learning curve and awful unlock system. The beginning is absolutely brutal: very few cards that are just generally good and easy to understand are unlocked from the get-go, mid to late game enemies can just wipe large swaths of your health if you haven't built a deck you're comfortable with, and the very first hero playable is one that negatively buffs the deck for an eventual reward you may not even get. As you fail or by some miracle win early runs, easier to play characters, cards, relics, and partners get unlocked, and it's baffling to me why the developers chose to start the game off with a character that isn't even the easiest to play in their own faction. Still, once you get more used to the game and get those unlocks, it becomes much easier to win and enjoy the game, though the developers definitely could have balanced the initial few hours a lot better.

TLDR: If you've never played a roguelike deckbuilder before, Beneath Oresa most definitely should not be your first one. If however you're someone who's fine with a bit of challenge in their roguelike deckbuilders, Beneath Oresa is a pick I can definitely recommend if you're willing to stick with it.