Recent reviews by Reborne

There are lots of good things that can be said about this game but they are worthless after the recent announcement.
Forcing people to make a 3rd party account or lose access to the game, months after the game launched and refunds are no longer enforced, and where entire countries of people cannot comply is disgusting behaviour.
Their own propaganda would say no Helldiver left behind, but I guess that is only when it is convenient.

I'd like to start off by saying I had a bunch of fun with this game, but sadly I have to warn people away from it.
The main reason for this is that the game freezes, both randomly and at specific places and by freezes, I don't mean small pauses, I mean it would be a crash but the game is still running.
After attempting a bunch of suggestions I have been unable to fix this and it happens in the middle of a plot point so I can no longer progress in the game.

The gameplay is silly fun but sadly I think it is a step down from Dead Rising 3 in a way that seems like they have tried to over simplify the gameplay. Little things like all food being the same and melee not having much depth. All together the little things add up a lot and mean the gameplay just feels kind of shallow.

Such a nice game. Very well put together. Really enjoyed the creative mechanics for the puzzles and the narrative that plays out across the game.

Interesting take on idle games. Lots to do because you will run lots of characters, that will be different classes and sub classes, which specialise in different tasks. Options to buy things to support the game, but also the opportunity to earn the paid currency in the game. Amusing themes and the developer actively streams on Twitch.

Short story is that this is a minimal effort pay to win game.
It is free to start, but soon you will encounter one of my pet peeves, which is a game mechanic that stops you from playing the game. As you do almost any action you will deplete energy and when that runs out you have to wait for it to recharge... or pay for it to recharge now.
The game also ramps up in difficulty, not based on your progress with any character which would make sense, but for any progress with any character. The reason for this is when you fail on a date you can pay to extend the game.
Once you start making progress you will run out of photo storage. This has the option of spending in game money or real money to upgrade but it is just one more thing to drag down the experience of the game.
There are also more girls that you can buy access to, but for the same amount of money you could buy a game that doesn't have all the pay walls this one does.

The art looks nice and the characters are voice acted.
This is really the strong point of the game, but even that could have been done better.
Assuming that this business model is working for them, they really should have spent some of that money on better writers as the game is both badly translated and the characters have no depth.
To their credit though, the voice actors have done a great job with the terrible material they had to work with.

2/10

One of my favourite idle games.
The concepts in it are simple but the characters are fun and even more enjoyable now with the voice acting, which was just one of many updates that the dev keeps adding to the game.

The premise is that you are a lovable idiot that is trying to charm the pants off all the anime stereotypes and become such an amazing lover that you could even save the universe... to impress the girls of course.
You do this by poking the girls until they're fond of you, chatting to them, taking them on dates and buying presents.
As you do this you'll earn more time that you can either spend training your stats or earning more money buy working every job under the sun.

If you're a fan of adult content there is also DLC that you can purchase to make things less implied and more... visual.

Recommended for anyone that likes idle games and dating sims.

Soda Dungeon is an interesting game that is part turn based RPG and part idle game.
The reason I say interesting is because you can play it either way, swapping between styles as you like.

The game starts with explaining the premise and follows with a little tutorial to get you started.
The basic idea is there are 2 phases to the game, preparation at the local “Soda” bar and adventure in the Dungeon.
Conveniently, they are right next to each other.
Even more conveniently, eventually you get a wizard who sets up shop in the bar and you don’t even have to go back outside to get into the Dungeon again.

When you are in the bar, you get to recruit adventurers (up to 5 at a time), buy equipment and upgrades (including upgrading the bar itself) and outfit your party for the next dungeon run.

The Dungeon is where you get to decide if you want to be active or passive in how you are playing.
The combat is turn based and as you get further into the game you will get more abilities, either from better adventurers or better gear.
Each member of your party gets a turn before the monsters do, unless you are ambushed, which means their team gets to go first.
Every 5th level is a mini boss, each 10th level is an actual boss and has the loot you’ll be after.

If you want to play this as an idle game, there is an auto battle button.
By using this the AI will play both sides, back and forth, until your party is defeated or you clear the current dungeon.
The AI is not bad.
It does a decent job of adventuring for you, but there are some questionable choices that it makes, which I actually like.
The reason I like it is because it gives you a reason to take control.
If the AI played as well or better than a player can, then you would be discouraged from ever playing actively.
As it stands, if you really want to get through as far as possible, you will need to make the choices and use the abilities that the AI doesn’t.

Another little bonus for actively playing the game is that there are side paths that come up randomly, where you can get rewards or set off traps.
The default though is just to keep going and if you don’t pick a side path after a few seconds, then they will be ignored, meaning that when the auto battle is turned on, you alway skip the possible bonuses or traps and just keep going.

I’m finding this to be a fun game for when you have things to do, but still want to play something.
Go about your chores or work while it auto battles and take control when things are getting tricky, then let it play some more while you go back to what you are doing.


If you like my reviews, you can find more on my blog here http://reborneblog.wordpress.com

I enjoyed most of Secrets of Raetikon.

The game is visually appealing.
It is challenging at times but over all fairly relaxing to play.
It is strange and interesting in ways that motivated me to play it through to the end.

The reason I can't recommend it is because it is let down by 2 major features.

The game has obelisks all over the place that are covered in runes.
You collect runes as you explore the game which get added to a translation guide.
Even when you have found all the runes, the translation guide never gets applied to the obelisks, leaving you to manually transcribe the messages.
I personally found this to be frustrating and time consuming.

The ending of the game is traumatic and disappointing.
Without wanting to spoil what actually happens, the game has a sinister feeling as you play which leads up to a climax that I hoped would be meaningful.
Instead the ending was sudden and unlike anything else in the game.
Like a point was trying to be made and the devs ran out of money or were told to change the ending at the last minunte.

No options. No explanation. Average gameplay. Not worth the time.

The interface and controls of this game put me off entirely.

You can't customize the controls and the defaults have the camera controled by the keyboard and movement controlled by the mouse, which is completely opposite to the way that I find comfortable.

People keep telling you to go to places, like they expect you know the area, but having just started the game and there not being a minimap or anything to give you directions, that became really annoying really quickly.