Recent reviews by Dova

Cute, simple, tidy, pleasant. Driving's fun, the vibes are vibed and the snow is cold.
Obviously it can get repetitive at times but that's to be expected when delivering within a relatively small area. No complaints from me really, I found this game suited its purpose and achieved what it needed to.

yeagh, wohoo!

whose idea was it to add a world involving tight, unforgiving platforming in a game where you reach speeds so obnoxious that precise movements are a distant memory? i don't like whoever that is.

I have no idea what any items, pickups, or fuzzies do. Morbs range from negligible to detrimental (you unlock these by levelling up and I don't think you can disable them so I hope you enjoy "on receiving damage" effects). You're meant to learn what things do through experience, but there's so much going on at any given time that you can't keep track of anything. I swear not a single item I picked up did anything if it didn't strictly tell me what it does through the brief description.

Overall this game feels like it's tailored to insane people, the kind that can react faster than a snake. Shame, really. There's such outstanding visual style on display here, with beautiful animations and sound design, but the gameplay itself is just... unfun.. I loved Atomicrops and I hoped I'd experience the same joy here. Seems not. Just an exhausting game; I can't play more than 1 run per session.

I'm quite apathetic towards this game. It does a lot well, but not to enough of a degree to warrant the time investment.

What I like is that there is a very strong commitment to its visual design - it's very appealing to take in your surroundings. The character designs are unique, strange and highly interesting. I have to say that my interest in the game peaked at the Metronexus due to how downright mysterious it looks (I wish more time was put into it, I'd love to see it more developed as a hub)

The sound design is.. different.. I'm not terribly keen on how the weapons sound, nor the enemies.

What really vexes me is the "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle" level design, where there are many large open spaces with very few secrets or things to interact with. Most collectibles aren't too far from the beaten path and aren't too hidden. It took me a long time to adjust to this, but there's an obscene number of invisible walls that severely limit your explorative freedoms. Many times I'd try to climb something, only to fall straight through it or not even be able to reach it due to those damnable invisible walls. Also, I hope you like your 1ft dash, it's your only movement option, get comfortable.

The many weapons you'll come across look very interesting and creative, though mechanically they are just different flavours of the same thing. You get like 3 extra melee weapons.. why? Just seems odd, especially considering how melee combat doesn't feel very good (and isn't worth the risk most of the time). Fodder for weapon upgrades if you ask me.

My last gripe, one that makes me rolls my eyes, is the nudity. Seems unnecessary for the most part. I can understand having tasteful or culturally appropriate nudity, but there's more than 1 topless female boss, like, come on.. There's also a busty wolf girl character, reason being: The dev couldn't help themselves. Stuff like this just exhausts me.

Anyway this isn't a bad game, it's just a bit empty and undercooked. And I don't like the doll, I'd rather a different, generic heal option.

A solid sequel that expands on the (subjectively) greater aspects explored in the prior title: stealth, combat, exploration, and improvisation. There are many ways to navigate the problems you'll come across, through the use of numerous tools and tactics. Gameplay's engaging, tense and thoroughly enjoyable.

Much like the first game, this one is very short and has you wanting more. Unlike the first game, there is no "ending" outside of repeatedly completing levels for cosmetic rewards which is.. fine.. I guess. No bow to tie up the experience. Gutter World is strictly a sandbox with minimal story outside of what you can gather from environmental clues and loading-screen tidbits. Like, what's on display is very good don't get me wrong but I would reeaaaaally like more exposition or lore. I want to learn about this world, not just kill in it.

Looks, sounds and plays about the same as the prior game; can't complain here, I like all of these things.
If you like what this game offers I'm sure you'll find yourself aiming for mastery in all levels much like how I did. Dominating and Mastering levels is very fun, simple as.

Tl;dr this is Act 1 of Brush Burial but like 4x as big and of equal (if not greater) quality. Also your knife is replaced with suggestive takedowns for some reason.

The trailers make the game look more interesting and scarier than it'll end up being.

I was immensely satisfied with everything the game presented up until the first save point, after-which equal high-points are not seen again. The intro was VERY scary (immersion-breaking graffiti aside) and was VERY well executed; It's so upsetting that this level of horror quality isn't seen again in the rest of the game. Like, I can't emphasise how on-edge I felt and how even the smallest detail kept tensions high.

You'll find yourself meeting the generic horror video game quota of aimlessly walking in the dark, occasionally meeting enemies, and finding items. Definitely has elements of 'survival horror' but you'll never really feel like you're 'surviving' since your health regenerates and enemies don't warrant the firepower you find (why do you get access to such weaponry so early???). Most of the game involves areas where you need to locate 3 contextual 'macguffins' before you can proceed, an extremely boring and repetitive gameplay loop that totally kills all tension.

Very few decisions matter, combat is.. odd, and the plot isn't particularly interesting (especially considering how soon you can figure out how things are going to go). Strange decisions aside, I very much like the sound and visual design present throughout the game. I just wish the game tried to mess with you more than it does since I didn't feel particularly scared past the intro.

There will be spoilers in this review. I care not to censor myself as I care not for the sanctity of the product.

CONSIDER: You are to search for a needle, split into multiple, smaller, needles. These once-needle fractions are then scattered amongst numerous haystacks, some of which contain no such items. Collecting them all will conclude your duty unless you otherwise wish to seek more of these fractions but with a twist: they appear amongst any of the already-explored haystacks and will teleport elsewhere if not collected when nearby.

This doesn't sound fun, does it? No, it doesn't. I hated doing this and hated the process of completing this DLC. Rain World is one of my favourite games, with the Downpour DLC being one of my favourite DLCs - The Watcher is a horrible experience and I can confidently say I will never play it again. I did everything (as far as I know) to do, saw as much as I cared to, and spent enough time with it to say with even MORE confidence that I've never been more disappointed by a videogame-adjacent release - I had such, such high hopes only for them to come crumbling down, further than one thought imaginable, further than the depths of the Earth's mantle. I can’t help but feel that either the devs lost their touch or too closely communed with the cesspit known only as the Rain World community. The community behind this game is... something else... refer to the ‘FanCam Friday’ era and you’ll see what I mean.

I must preface this before I explain why I'm so hysterical over this DLC: I love the visuals, sound design and ending*.
The game looks and sounds great, as can be said about all official Rain World content. There are few locations I dislike the look (Fetid Bogs) and music (The Surface) of which speaks to their quality, something on-par with the base game. This doesn’t include my thoughts on their structure.
*I mean the "canon final" ending, not the others, they are just 'okay'. And I mostly mean it in the sense that it's very theatrical, interesting and stunning compared to what Videocult has released for Rain World prior.

Okay. I played this DLC when it originally released as Version 1.0, with the 1.5 version being the most recent release as of this date. I have to say that releasing the DLC before it was truly finished was one of the worst things that Videocult could have done. Playing through the game on release day with a friend (using Jolly Co-op before the developers disabled it (even-though it worked perfectly)) we got to experience what was one of the most disconnected, unfocused and labyrinthine messes of storytelling and gameplay we've seen. It felt like we were abandoned in the woods by our parents at a young age, left to explore it for miles aimlessly until we managed to make it home (about a hundred cycles later).
Whilst the new regions are cool for the most part (bar a select few) they completely lack cohesion outside of the very ham-fisted warp system which felt like an extremely lazy way to tie places together. Furthermore... THERE ARE SO MANY REGIONS OH MY GOD WHY???????.

The ecosystem, one of my favourite facets of Rain World, was effectively neutered or at the very least undercooked. New creatures barely interacted with old creatures, best seen with the ‘locusts’ which only attacked the player (even while invisible), or with the ‘barnacles’ which also had zero creature interactions. In the 1.5 release, these issues are somewhat relieved as locusts are seen attacking anything on sight, and barnacles being the prey to a new lizard variant (another...?) and receiving a ‘snail vulnerability’. Unfortunately, the DLC really suffered without these changes on release and contributed to the already unfocused landscape – the whole DLC felt haphazardly thrown together, stinking of community-made content and that ‘unofficial feel’ in general. 1.0 Watcher was miserable and unrecommendable; 1.5 Watcher is only marginally less miserable yet equally unrecommendable. If The Watcher came out in its 1.5 state, I wouldn’t have the preconceived notions I had acquired going into it now and would probably hate it less – however, seeing that 1.5 hardly acknowledged the issues of 1.0, I am rendered hysterically angry.

So, what did 1.5 add? Well, a few more regions (♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥), a new ending, some fauna, map tweaks, music, data pearls, sandbox unlocks and a few things to make your travels a bit easier and less aimless, supposedly. The core problem of ‘having too many damnable regions’ is exacerbated, undermining somewhat the positive impact made by the addition of the other features – but hey, at least you can play with new stuff in the sandbox. Existing regions aren’t made any smaller either, so you still have to wander just as much as you used to, which is a MASSIVE problem if you want to finish the game. The Watcher does not respect your time as you are expected to crawl around every inch of every region to find what you’re looking for, which might I add, may not even BE in the region you’re in and you wouldn’t have a clue. 1.5 added something to help you find the ‘way to go’ but pails in comparison to the overseer of OG Rain World due to its unreliability, inconsistency and irregularity – IF you find it, it might not even show you the right way. What’s more, most regions have areas of severely lacking visual readability, where it becomes difficult to discern what is and isn’t climbable and more-often-than-not leads to a timely tumble down a bottomless pit, costing God-knows-how-much time to retry. “Just look at the map” BRO I spent at LEAST half of my playtime looking at the map to find out where to go, I’m not going to stop every second to inspect every climbable surface just because the devs can’t make things clear. To add to this, the portals have such an irritating visual effect that makes it hard to see your surroundings – it’s cool, but annoying.

Not going to sugarcoat it, finding the Echo 8 times is not fun. Your only payoff is the ending with no buildup up to it – nothing happens the whole game until the VERY end (which is a cool reveal, but feels like one of those “Hey fans of Rain World, look at this! *Jangling keys*” kind of situations. Very eloquently said, I know). There’s also the fact that sometimes they just don’t have dialogue, hitting you with the “…” finisher combo before warping you elsewhere. Simply put, the game is 90% padding and 10% substance. This is a terrible distribution to have in a game of such acclaim. I understand that both Rain World and Downpour have their padded moments, but it’s that they have consistency and an interesting narrative woven throughout their respective experiences – spikes of intrigue to keep the flame burning. With The Watcher, when you learn that the only interesting stuff will come from random searching then everything else just comes across as an obstacle to be crossed until you find the Echo, worsened yet by the fact that every region is thematically erratic: deserts, snow-scapes, water levels, barren wastelands where you just go left (I hate you Desolate Tract and Outer Rim). There’s no cohesion, no reason to care. It got so bad that after I got my first ending, I resorted to mods to finish the others. Even still, it added hours to my playtime. I seriously can’t fathom why the devs thought it was a good idea to pad the game to this degree; did they think the fans would just eat it up because “Content! Content! Content!” or because they thought it was genuinely a good idea???

I've hit the character limit but trust me, there's still so much more to be said...


If you enjoy being edged for hours on hours, this DLC is for you. If you have a modicum of self-respect (a rare quality amongst the Rain World community), this DLC is not for you.
For the sake of mankind, there better not be another DLC in development after this one or so help me God, I will ascend myself.

Feels like a full-time job in every sense. From "oh wow, this is all so new and fun!" to "the grind is immeasurable and I am nothing but a puppet to the system..." you'd wish you just had an actual, paying job. This is written from the perspective of someone who’s had a fairly significant bit of time with singleplayer and 2-player co-op.

In its current state, your weapon upgrades determine your potential as opposed to your developing skill and gamesense. This could be fine, but weapon upgrades are given out randomly so you'll find yourself headbutting the upgrade-drop system until you get a viable upgrade combination.
The upgrade grid, I have to admit, is very satisfying to tinker with. It's very rewarding to snugly slot all the upgrades in the grid and have your weapon act like something new. Furthermore, the visual design is great and pairs nicely with the even-greater soundtrack and overall sound design. Highly praise-worthy there, knocked it out of the park.

Though honestly, the game just gets repetitive and boring after a point, especially when slogging through the needlessly tanky health bars of enemies and endless waves on harder difficulties. The game turns into: Spend a second (or two) shooting into the horde, lose almost all your health, run away at mach-♥♥♥♥ to regen, repeat. Mind you, you’re forced to slow down from a sprint via a slow ‘decelerating’ animation, even mid-air, to shoot whatsoever (excluding sliding). Every time I try to shoot mid-air after using an ability, I’m always charged valuable seconds before I can deal damage and benefit from my movement. In a game that feels like the focus is the movement, it's such a pain to slow to a crawl to fire your unique flavour of peashooter only to immediately get pushed-up upon and shot by everything at once. Like, it seems so backwards to have such sluggish gunplay complement a good movement system. Worse yet, killing a huge enemy will drop its proportionally strong parts for the trash-mobs to pick up immediately and use with equivalent ferocity and, seeing as they are tiny in comparison, are even more threatening than the initial enemy. So even if you risk killing a high-value target by investing lots of time, ammo and health, it could just end up in vain. I've had missions that began with an 'Abomination' that had their powerful parts present throughout the entire mission. Such a pain, it's as if you're better off not even killing the stronger enemies (or anything at all, seeing how fast everything respawns).

People have drawn many comparisons to Deep Rock Galactic, from the gameplay loop, loot extraction mechanic, customisable arsenal, waves of enemies interrupting your objective, etc. I can definitely see where they're coming from, and I'm sad to say that DRG simply executes some of these ideas better. For instance, the combat/mission balance of Mycopunk far precedes that of DRG in that there are very few breaks in action for you to recuperate and work on the task at hand - constant enemy spawns just slow the missions down in less of an 'overwhelming, scary enemy force' way and moreso a 'persistent irritation' way, especially when the waves stack to an insurmountable point where the only strategy is being a continent away from the issue. The missions vary wildly in length and danger but hardly in reward, so you aren't incentivised to do the longer, tougher mission types as that's more time spent risking your life and potentially losing it all. The game’s still Early Access so I'm sure things will improve, but that's a lot of cope considering the game industry nowadays.

Enemy physics can be a real pain in the ass. You'll shoot something only for it to fling off into the sky or clip through the floor or for it to teleport to another location - like, you'll find yourself fleeing for whatever reason, only to find that part of the swarm has teleported onto your EXACT coordinate. With how tanky and dangerous things can be, it’s such a slog.

Enemies are equipped with a large array of weapons and items, but the worst of them are the lasers. They range from being a mere distraction to an affront to God wherein frame-perfect reaction speed won’t stop them snapping onto you, dealing massive draining damage or delaying your self-regen constantly. Thing is, you can cut off the lasers, but as I mentioned prior, some other enemy will just pick it up and the cycle repeats.
Elements, despite how they work in EVERY other game, have absolutely no difference in this game, outside of the cosmetic changes. They all just do damage over time (except ‘decay’, which is a step in the right direction). This issue is compounded when you notice that the only grenades you get are acid, shock and fire grenades – they do the SAME things. The only distinctions between them are the upgrade pools which are arbitrarily divvied up. They could have just had a single upgrade and added a type-shifter upgrade to the upgrade pool to choose the element you want (like with the Cycler). Further, the consequence of splitting up one grenade into three, is that they all require individual levelling, adding further to the tedious grind. On that note though, the experience grind starts to suck real fast, taking multiple missions to level up anything (and you won’t get much in return in the end anyway). And the crafting system? Exorbitantly expensive to craft unseen upgrades and exorbitantly niche/pointless to craft owned upgrades (it’s the kind of thing you’d see in late-game MMOs or a worse Terraria reforging system).
Oh, and don't get me started on the 'Amalgamation' fight. Just straight ass. A chore. Feels like mandatory unpaid overtime. Screw the map-long flamethrower. Hate.


Overall, it feels like every mission equates to a spin on a slot machine that may or may not get you something moderately interesting. No guarantees it’ll be for the class or weapon you want though. The game isn’t necessarily ‘bad’, just undercooked (“Early Access hurr durr)” and currently lacking and unrefined compared to other similar games available.

Hold off on the game until it's had more time to develop, or get it now, not like it’s gonna get deleted from your library or anything. Who cares, whatever, do you guys want to go Tesco later?

A very good but very short little experience. It plays very smoothly, sounds great and leaves you wanting more - a sign of a good product.

If you know what you're doing you could complete this game in a few minutes which speaks volumes to both its length and the elegance of the movement system. You'll find yourself hitting mach-speeds both in and out of combat. A lot of your time will likely be spent exploring your surroundings, experimenting with items and learning how this mysterious world works. Having immersive-sim elements, you have a pretty reasonable level of control with how you engage with situations so it's very worthwhile to try whatever comes to mind. Had plenty of "that makes sense" moments.

I'd say the first half of the game follows the 'immersive sim' tag well enough, but the latter half shifts the game to a puzzle platformer, so don't expect things to get repetitive. Both halves are enjoyable and, as I said, leave you wanting more. Navigation is fun, combat is fun, and both elements deserve some expanding-upon - I'd just absolutely love to see MORE. I WANT MORE!!!

Like, wow. Very glad a sequel is in the works.
Also Fennel is cool.

A tremendous first-person RPG.
The vibe is immaculate and perfectly encapsulates the era of gaming it strives to.

Thematically appropriate and quality music can be found throughout every part of this game - there's not a single bad, ear-grating or unfitting song. I love that the visual quality is as you'd expect from what the game was inspired by, but doesn't try to match them to a visually sickening degree - it's clear this game is modern and distinct, but suitably and respectfully captures that "old" essence.

There's lots of weapons and magics to come across hidden throughout the game, pushing you to explore (and find secrets) so that you can grow your arsenal alongside your ability points (which have more thought put into them than most RPGs) wherein each point has multiple applications outside of it's primary stat.

My only complaint is how some of the secrets (mostly important ones) are SO hidden that you have no hope in 100%ing the game without help from the internet. I got what I thought to be quite a lot of them, only to come to the sinking realisation that there were many, many more.

Lastly, endings tie the narrative together nicely. Like a pretty cherry on a cake.

Highly recommended if you're looking to try an "old-like" RPG without suffering through what that would actually entail, or to try something new with an interesting story and setting. Otherwise, still recommended, just take your time with it and go with the vibe.

This is a very good boss-fighting game.
It's the kind of game where the majority of the experience involves improving as a player - adapting, reacting and dominating. Of course you won't be perfect or even close to "good" at the start, but you'll get there with time.
Music's good, with a few notable tracks exceeding expectation. Visuals are a bit dated, but stylised enough to look good. Voice acting is a bit off at times, but still welcome.

I recommend playing through on base Furi difficulty, then once more on Furier while practising the bosses (out of the campaign) before fighting them (they all get moveset changes). Most of my fun was replaying the campaign on Furier. My experience with S-ranking Furier was VERY positive. Upon finishing normal mode and booting up Furier I was taken aback at the spike in difficulty which appeared to be consistent throughout the campaign. It's difficult, but fair (for the most part) and you have a generous leeway with the rank requirements.

My only real gripes with the game are as follows:
1. The characters aren't fleshed out beyond a simple summary and vague backstory.
2. The wave/ground attacks have seemingly very janky hitboxes. Throughout my whole experience I struggled to consistently dodge any of these attacks, always getting hit just before or just after dodging. Probable skill issue, though harder alterations of these attacks are infuriating at times.
3. Some bosses have just too much health, straight-up. This really put me off during some fights on Furi difficulty, although thankfully not all bosses have the same amount of health.

In the end, this is quite an enjoyable experience despite its short-ish length, although you'll find yourself getting more hours out of perfecting your boss-killing acumen.


Oh, and screw the FINAL, final boss. Absolutely hate it and it seems unfinished, thankfully it's optional.