Recent reviews by Larno

An absolute blast of the dice-based party management roguelike. my steam hours don't accurately reflect my full playtime of this as i also bought it on android a few months ago and have played it fairly consistently since.

The amount of build variety that you can get is actually pretty nuts between the 6 classes, each with around 5-6 starting characters and a boatload of upgrades to look out for, some with fairly unique gimmicks. The main thing that can very much increase the build variety by a landslide is the hundreds of items and keywords, which range between an increase to pips under given circumstances to sides that will sweep multiple monsters to sides that will straight up kill you. The things you can do with this amount of variance is absolutely crazy. one run you could have dice full of cantrips that automatically proc when rolled, damaging enemies before killing them all with a bloodlusty duplicated damage side that scales in damage per wounded foe, and the next you could have a first and last turn menace of a run full of engage sides that damage max health foes for double and cruel sides that damage half-or-more damaged foes for double.

On top of that, the update (which is the steam release of this that added a few extra things on top of the previous version) adds additional modifiers outside of curses, blessings, classes and items, like changing how you store and use mana to changing how you pick items. there's even an unlockable set of toggles which allow you to pick up randomly generated classes, items, modifiers and fight randomised foes. This is personally one of my favourite set of unlocks and is quite challenging to master, even if you're familiar with most keywords and sides

absolutely a must-have roguelike for the price. I would also recommend the mobile versions as well, as they've been updated to the same version as steam (minus some steam specific tweaks and QoL for PCs and Deck).

I've played both previous games before touching Risk of Rain Returns and while I don't have as much fun with this as I do with Risk of Rain 2, this is still easily one of my favourite roguelike releases of this year. Risk of Rain was still holding up as a difficult but fun roguelike even 10 years after its release, and consequentially, Risk of Rain Returns is also really fun and challenging, with an extra coat of paint coming along in the form of completely redone sprites, new content and Chris Christodoulou's electric (pun intended) remastering of some tracks (a little bit of a side-tangent here but I feel obligated to mention how much i'm vibing with Surface Tension Returns, it is such a good remix).

Even if you don't like any of the new additions to the old RoR formula, you can toggle off the new content in the Rules menu before starting a run, meaning you get to play the classic game with the new sprites and music.

Definitely worth picking up for its price.

I really want to like enjoy this game but there are some very apparent and glaring issues that stop me from giving this game the thumbs up it deserves.

For Context: I play a lot of roguelikes of varying levels of quality, mainly due to their high replay-ability and the sense that each run is unique. I do still quite enjoy story style games a fair bit, but my main focus has usually come down to roguelikes. I have also played both Rivals and Creatures of Aether before. Due to my heavy Roguelike interest, most of my criticism with Dungeons of Aether is going to be directed towards the Challenge Dungeons mode and enemies/bosses.


The Good Things:
many aspects of this game are very well done, for example the art and animation is incredible as is the standard for Aether's previous games, easily some of the best I've seen for a game. The combat is (at least from what I've seen in other reviews) a bit more of a divisive part of the game, with mechanics like RNG and limited method of correcting the drafts of dice you have at your disposal. That being said, I quite enjoy the combat style of using different colours of dice to buff your stats:

Attack - Dictates whether you can connect an attack on the turn, usually if your attack is higher than the opponent's defence.

Defence - Dictates whether you can block incoming attacks, usually if the defence is higher that the opponent's attack.

Accuracy - Dictates what moves you can do at the end of a turn. Higher accuracy gives you more options for moves.

Speed - Dictates who moves first in the end of a turn. Highest speed goes first but ties are in favour of the player

This system has some noticeable flaws but the combat for the most part is not bad, even with Stamina (external stat that can be used to buff any other stats) and items being limited resources.

The characters themselves are all pretty unique and fun to play as well:
Fleet: focuses on using their stamina as a resource to turn gained dice as Stamina dice.

Slade: focuses on using stamina as a resource to dodge attacks if you have higher speed. Also uses money as a combat resource for some moves. Defence dice are significantly weaker however.

Hamir: Can't make use of Stamina by a traditional means but does gain stamina dice equal to half your stamina. Loses stamina by connecting but gains it by blocking.

Artemis: Staying at low health gives them noticeable buffs, can use Stamina to heal.

The Bad Things: (Will mention spoilers)
My issue with this does not come down to the combat mechanics as I think it's well executed. My issue lies mainly in the combats themselves. Most early game combats are not too difficult and their moves and stats are relatively balanced but the big stinker combats are after you've beaten the first boss and the second area of Challenge Dungeons. Most of these enemies are Relentless, meaning they get constant stamina and can shift it between stats in response to your stat allocations, which is not an issue by itself. This however can become a serious problem when the enemy has some strong abilities alongside it. For example, a Relentless enemy in the Crypts has an ability that allows stamina dice to immediately be transferred into stamina. This isn't a massive issue until you look moves it has, as some of them allow it to gain stamina dice each round. This is not a bad enemy by any means but this and the next enemy that deserves its own paragraph take way too long to defeat.

The other big issue is that enemies past the first 3 areas will have abilities that scale incredibly in power while you have very little opportunity to improve yourself in the process. The Boss of the Crypts is an enemy I want to make mention of as the necromancer is by far the greatest offender of this. First of all, her stats are incredibly high at the part of the game you fight her at (keep in mind on a Challenge Dungeon you will have only gone to town once and likely haven't scaled any of your stats unless you have been able to manage your coins with Slade). Next is her abilities, she starts with relentless and a special ability that gives her stamina at the start of the round equal to the amount of dice you gained (if you're playing Hamir, you better pray to have high stamina for your stamina dice to counteract this). This can be kind of annoying on its own but in conjunction with her moves, she is absolutely frustrating and honestly broken. Her Plan technique gives her 3 dice: +2 accuracy, +2 speed and +3 damage which can easily put her damage in the double digits if she gets further attack dice. Not to mention that this can pretty much render any character useless, Slade is likely to not out-speed her and can't effectively use defence dice, Fleet's added stamina dice can't help against her and most characters don't have high enough stats to stay on par (again, you've only visited town once on a Challenge Dungeon run). Finally, her Curse attack puts the final nail in the coffin for me, on connect, it induces -2 to all base stats, which again can increase the stat gap to a stupid degree, but on block it is still lethal, as every drafted dice regardless of value is -1 when you pick it up (this is honestly the worst outcome as every character is once again rendered useless as she still gains dice values normally). This is the second boss of a Challenge Dungeon run and apparently can take at least an hour to beat essentially hoping RNG is on your side for long enough.


I would like to reiterate that this game's mechanics are still excellent in my eyes but the scaling of enemies while you are very limited in your scaling is honestly a massive problem to me. If this were fixed, I honestly likely won't have much of an issue with Dungeons of Aether and would easily earn a positive review but at this stage, it's nearly unbearable.

This is easily one of my favourite platformers I've ever played. every level has a unique gimmick that changes Peppino's gameplay in an interesting way (you get to play funny rat and man duo sometimes) and the levels are very much built on speedy and skillful movement (which when pulled off just feels godlike). it has so many little hidden secrets and bonus levels that make finding everything to get the highest rank while maintaining a high combo incredibly challenging but insanely gratifying to pull off. the art style is also perfect for the craziness of this game and it's gameplay and the music is all really incredible to boot. I am far from completion Pizza Tower or reaching the skill level of perfecting a stage but gradually learning and executing tricks to get closer to either of these goals is nothing but a constant treat.

I love this game, easy 10/10.

Edit: i've now completed it once and am going for 100%, i'm learning everything there is to this game and still this game is such a blast. my review is unchanged

I've been following the release of Dead Estate on Steam pretty closely since I played and enjoyed the original on Newgrounds, as well as following Milkbar Lads' other games. Finding out that 2 Left Thumbs was publishing a much larger version of the game, it was a no brainer for me to pick up.

After around 30 or so hours of playing Dead Estate, I can safely say that this is one of my favourite roguelikes of all time for a number of reasons. The gameplay, while claustrophobic at times with the small, cramped rooms, is incredibly fun, while still posing a decent level of challenge (especially with some of the unlockable difficulty modes). The pixel art style is also very nicely done, with some of my favourite pieces coming from the boss art, cutscenes, character portraits and of course, Cordelia's shop (statutory booba comment goes here).

The lore and story of this game, while mostly dumped in one ending all at once, is actually quite good, and honestly comes out of nowhere if you're not expecting it. The music is also another stellar part of this game, and is definitely worth picking up on Bandcamp when you have the time.

I have played a fair bit of Wally at this point and I can safely say that this is one of my favourite roguelike/lites that I've picked up. The art is very well done and everything has a surprising level of detail (like the damage numbers and health actually falling onto the floor and sorta existing within the world, the grass burning under fireballs, the border changing colour and shape with each action and much more) There's a surprising level of variety between levels, characters and mechanics too, all packaged with a comedic tone throughout.

However I do have a slight nitpick and that's regarding settings, they sometimes don't save settings like shaders and fog, but changing the settings back to what you want usually isn't too difficult

Overall, Wally is a very enjoyable roguelike/lite and is definitely worth picking up. If you enjoy roguelikes similar to Nuclear Throne, Enter the Gungeon, Blazing Beaks or The Binding of Isaac, this is one that is worth putting on your radar.

Definitely one of my favourite free to play platformers I've found on here. This game is very difficult and you are likely see yourself tumbling back a few levels if a wrong move was made. the controls are fairly simple but feel really nice and the mechanics introduced in later levels feel really well designed. If you're a fan of Celeste, Jump King or Super Meat Boy, this might be the game for you, and if not then ah well, it's a free game.

Wizard of Legend is a perect blend of the skill-based combat of games like Risk of Rain and DOTA, and the roguelike elements visible in games like The Binding of Isaac and Enter the Gungeon.

Faron's Fate is a pretty fun game. Some aspects and mechanics are pretty well made (specifically the slide bar to prevent voiding your save file) and some parts of the game are actually pretty well made. That being said, some aspects of the game are not very well made or fleshed out, and the game suffers as a result. Some enemies and bosses (the final boss especially) are quite tedious and difficult to defeat, causing the game to fall flat. I would recommend this game to people, however for it to be more of a fun experience, some things would need to be improved on to make the game better.

good game