Recent reviews by cheese dealer

RAAAAAARRGHHH I LOVE MANAGED DEMOCRACY

this cured my furry fetish permanently

TL;DR and disclaimer: grab it on sale if you're looking for a chill game to play with a cozy fairytale, but if you're looking for a mechanically challenging experience with a riveting story this isn't it. This review was written after finishing the game and getting all achievements.

If Children of Morta was a glass of water from the sea of rogue-lites and indie games, whether you see it as half full or half empty is up to what you're looking for. It's not a bad experience overall, but it lacks in more than a few aspects.

As a genre, rogue-lites have been increasing in popularity in the past few years ; with developers finding new and interesting ways to implement fresh mechanics into their games, focusing on replayability and even going as far as weaving compelling stories in a genre that, by all means, was initially all about gameplay.

Children of Morta falls squarely in that wave, but it also falls short of many of the expectations set by the games at the forefront of rogue-lite-meets-actual-narration, i.e. Darkest Dungeon and Hades – a comparison I'm making because they're in the same price range.

Starting with gameplay and abilities, it's simple but effective enough. There are 7 unlockable characters to choose from with their own fighting styles, ranging from archery or magic long-distance combat to melee brawling, skirmishing, slashy-stabbing and whatnot.
They all have their own identity, some being more oriented towards quick single-target fighting, others being more crowd-control oriented. It's important to note this is really just an orientation. Ultimately, all of them can tackle any run. The game also offers a "rage" system that takes time to charge ; giving you powerful abilities for a limited duration a few times per run. On top of this, you can find and buy items during runs that buff you in a meaningful manner (offense, defense), support items that can be activated for a few seconds, and "charms" that can either grant minor but permanent or major but one-use temporary buffs. However, unlike most rogue-lites, items don't make or break a run at all. It is possible to create builds, but it's somewhat secondary to the core character skills and the family-wide boons you unlock and you level each family member, one of the more interesting mechanics.

For the opposition, base enemies are also either melee-based or range-based. They have different abilities, cooldowns, wind-ups and timings. They're all one-trick ponies that can be figured out after fighting them just once, it's their numbers and positions that create difficulty. Considering the small scope of the game, the variety is good enough.

Bosses follow a design philosophy akin to Dark Souls (minus disorientingly long wind-ups/mix-ups), some being very evasive, two fighting as duos, some instantly bullying you the moment you spawn and one being a living rotting tree poking your ass with roots covered in chewing-gum. Don't ask, I very much intend to forget that traumatizing encounter.
Their designs are clearly not uninspired, however the bosses are piss-easy. Their downfall is quite literally the lack of the rest of what makes a boss a boss: 1) their moveset (or rather the lack thereof) is only comprised of 2-3 repeating attacks and are very easy to figure out, 2) most don't have phases and if they do it's just an opportunity for you to beat on their juju when it's supposed to be their time to be on yours and 3) they're as brittle as a spring sprout suddenly having to deal with freezing temperature because the weather decided to be a bit funny that year. There is a huge amount of potential left untapped here, and it's a damn shame. That's because Children of Morta is really just an adventure game portraying as a rogue-lite.

Now is a good time to talk about balance and progression. Most of the difficulty in this game comes from poor telegraphy (visual and audio) of the enemy attacks. Kindly enough, the first boss is honest and showcases this in full capacity with a stomp attack that is best dodged by guesstimating how much time it has been since it left the screen rather than actually reacting to what it does. Technically there is a window to react to, but it's more like the kind of subtle hint I would have been trying to give to a high school crush. No one even knows what I'd be trying to communicate, and sure as hell no one understood. The timings are just plain bad and the cues are difficult to read, an issue that plagues most enemies in the game.

No worries though, you will outlevel any shred of challenge the game has to offer in no time if you put your "morv" (money) in the only upgrades that make sense (damage, health and crit chance), to the point where you're basically taking a stroll in the endgame levels. The difficulty is backwards, making the last boss easier than the first few ones (which were really just obnoxious), even on hard mode.

Despite my criticism, the rogue-lite aspect of the game isn't entirely bad, it just feels like it wasn't refined and playtested sufficiently. That's because the demographic it's adressed to is more casual than experienced, as evidenced by how little time it takes to finish. The developers seemingly chose not to make the difficulty too hard because they didn't want the game to be too long. This is a shame, as every bit of story would be magnified if it was more difficult to attain. Being story-driven, its replayability is also quite poor.

What this game does have running for it are absolutely stunning visuals. In all honesty, the pixel art in it is some of the best I've ever seen. Slow panning shots exacerbate the incredible attention to detail, leading the eyes of the player across beautiful locations during cinematics and gameplay. The visuals are as much a piece of the storytelling as the actual story, starting from the tutorial area. And then... You step in the first dungeon. What the hell happened? Where is all the detail, where are all the background animations, the aforementioned attention to detail? Gone, they all went to buy cigarettes as a group and never came back. It's like the developers ran out of money and/or imagination and decided to pour everything in the key moments of the game, leaving the actual parts you will be seeing for most of your playtime as a disappointing visual afterthought.

Last but not least is the story. Oh, the story... For the sake of brevity, there are two ways I could describe it. One is a beautiful story about love in all of its facets, bonds and overcoming the hardships of life in unity with one another. The other is a black-and-white, evil-against-good story of how a family of genderbent Mary-Sues overcome the childish tantrums of their divine wife-beating mountain neighbor (who, apparently, came to earth in pyramids flying down from space) ; all because it's past time he eats another newborn. Boohoo, hasn't the woman who ran away from you at least taught you patience in the last millenium?
It's thought-challenging in the sense that it made me lose neurons and thinking capability permanently, because in the end he decides to turn a new leaf after getting battered by no less than 6 people at once, then gets back with his tinder ex, goddess of Gaïa, who somehow didn't learn the lesson the first time around. Whoever wrote this couldn't have been keeping a straight face, I know I would have been pissing myself in a fit of laughter. Somehow the narrator keeps it contained, the entire thing is presented in a very solemn, serious and at times hopeful manner. Ironically, the story was so bad that I enjoyed it more as I uncovered the ancient truth of the space pyramid wife-beater. It is reminiscent of those bad comic books with original copyrighted fairytales you might have read at the library as a child, because the cover was looking very pretty and glittery.

Steam does not allow for mixed reviews, so it'll be positive instead because I did have fun. Just don't buy it at full price.

Avoid for now or buy Vermintide 2 instead, after years of support it's become a truly great game.

Darktide is the carrot without the stick, it doesn't hold itself together. Being Space Vermintide, the core of the game is extremely solid and enjoyable but it's missing basic features like crafting, selecting difficulty or playing the map you want. Games had all of that at release in the 1990s. Vermintide 1 & 2 did. Out of good faith, I'll say Fatshark did listen and add some much-requested QoL features from Vermintide 2... But for a single step forward, they went back two dozen step backwards on everything else. I wish I was exaggerating : the crafting system is incomplete and resources are not even shared in-between characters anymore, making the grind excessive.

They didn't even attempt the ungraceful excuse of labelling the game as "early access", they just threw us an unfinished beta, called it a release, then went on vacation – but not before implementing a predatory premium shop with outrageous prices, courtesy of being owned by Tencent.

I'm an idiot, so I'll keep playing it solely for the gameplay. Do not be like me. Avoid for now.

Speeder Flamewheels gave me stage 11 cancer. Would do another chemotherapy.

boop the snoot