Recent reviews by Loodonius

You get to use a cat as a silencer...
What more needs to be said?

TL;DR: If you have even the slightest interest in either MetroidVania games, Platformers or anything cutesy: This is a must buy for you!
If neither of those apply to you, give it a try anyway, you might still fall in love with it as I did :)

Pros and Cons:
+ Stunning visuals and great animation quality
+ Amazing soundtrack
+ Emotional story
+ Relatable characters, despite the fact that barely a word is spoken
+ The design, "voice" and animations of Ori will make even the most heartless bastard want to squeeze and cuddle her / him
+ Hard as balls, but fair (for the most part)
+ Some unique mechanics (for example guiding enemy projectiles while using them to change direction / boost your jump midair)

- When you beat the story, you can no longer go back to your save.
So don't put the last bit of exploration off until after the last story bit, or you'll have to play through the entire game again for that one single secret and the 2% of map space you missed ><
(yes, I'm salty...)

Story:
I usually talk a lot about the story in my reviews, but for this one, I kind of don't want to tell too much.
It's not a huge story and it's perhaps not quite as "perfect" as some people say it is, but it is very emotional and deserves to be experienced unspoiled.

Gameplay:
At its core, Ori is a MetroidVania game, but with a heavy emphasis on precision platforming.
The controls are tight and precise and traversing the environment feels really fun.
The difficulty is hard enough to really give you that sense of accomplishment that many gamers crave, without being frustrating.
It can get really intense at some points though.
You set your own checkpoints, which is interesting and helpful, but can be a bit disheartening when you die and realize that you forgot to set one for half an hour ^^"

You start off with just a jump and a basic attack, but as you go through the game you'll get a lot of different abilities, some of them very unique to the genre.
One for example allows you to bounce yourself off an enemy projectile, in any direction while sending it the opposite direction.
You also have an upgrade system where you can spend points to enhance your abilities and gain new ones.

There's a ton of secrets to find, like health and energy upgrades, or more points to upgrade.
They are often not easy to get to and there's a real satisfaction to finally reaching some of them.

Of course, there will be a lot of backtracking if you're planning to get all of them, as is typical for the genre.
But it doesn't really feel that way, since after gaining new abilities, the way you traverse the previously done sectors will have changed completely.

Level Design:
The level design is close to perfection.
There's a real flow to traversing the environments if you do it well and there's a lot of secrets and hidden passages to discover.

The main path usually leaves some room for errors, so it won't be frustrating, while the secrets and shortcuts often require perfect timing and control to reach, giving the people that want it the ultimate difficulty, without putting up roadblocks for lesser skilled players.

Many of the secrets that require abilities that you'll learn later on are kept just slightly out of reach, giving you that desire to come back later when you can finally get them.

Despite how perfectly planned out all the sections are, it still feels very natural, like that's just how this world is, which does a lot to help the atmosphere.

Soundtrack:
The soundtrack is a beautiful mix of orchestral music and choral vocals that carries a lot of emotion.
Whether calm, cheery, haunting or intense, it always fits the current situation perfectly.
It's rare for me to buy game soundtracks, but this one I bought and loaded onto my Mp3 player, so I can listen to it wherever I go.

Visuals:
The aesthetic in this game is wonderful. Honestly, it's perhaps the most beautiful looking 2D game I've ever played in my entire life.
The environments are varied and interesting, the characters are adorable, the lighting is intense and colorful, the background paintings are stunning and the animations just make everything feel a lot more alive.

Final Thoughts:
I played through this game in just 2 sittings and I can't wait to play through it again.
Even tough I usually dislike MetroidVania game and I'm not too fond of platformers, this has easily become one of my top 10 favorite games of all time.
Despite the fact that I usually don't give a damn about achievements, I want them all.
Despite the fact that I have no interest in Steam playing cards, I will collect them, because I want the badges and backgrounds.
If you didn't buy it because it didn't seem like your thing, give it a try anyway.
I think you won't regret it :)

TL;DR: Despite being very short and quite buggy, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience with this game. I give it a cautious recommendation.

Pros and Cons:
+ Beautiful art style
+ Amazing soundtrack
+ Nice character design
+ Interesting story
+ Combined, these elements give the game a great atmosphere

- 10€ for 2 hours (more for multiple playthroughs) is perhaps a bit much in the eyes of a lot of people
- A lot of bugs, at least one I encountered was game breaking
- Combat and overall controls feel a bit clunky

Story:
To rid humanity of the clutches of time itself, a great wizard built a tower to reach the moon.
This angered the sun and it refused to leave the sky, which spelled doom for the wizard and his civilization.
You are Moonchild, a young girl imprisoned in the now abandoned tower, forced to climb it and take on its guardian, a powerful dragon, to restore order to the world.

Gameplay:
The gameplay of Toren is rather minimalistic.
At its core, it's a third person adventure game / puzzle platformer with 1-button combat.
It feels a bit clunky, but is functional enough.

Soundtrack:
The soundtrack is beautiful and haunting at times.
For the most part it is orchestral with a choir, quite Norse/Celtic sounding.

Visuals:
The art style and the environments are unique and very nice to look at, tough the often lacking animation quality and the way things sometimes bug out can be a bit distracting.

A fast-paced, hard as balls "roguelight" shooter with great variety and replayability, that will have you repeatedly tear your hair out in frustration just to immediately try again.

Gameplay:

Run around a dungeon blasting away enemies with your spells, avoiding traps, hunting for secrets and fighting a boss at the end of each floor.
There are 3 different types of spells, each with tons of variations, and a default wand, all with secondary attacks.
Each spelltype has its own mana bar, that you refill with pickups, while the wands mana regenerates.
You start off a run with your default wand and one random spell and you'll find more spells as you descend deeper into the dungeon.
You gain experience and with each level-up, you get to choose between 2 random upgrades, that can be all manner of things, like: mana regen, speed improvement, health upgrade, more loot, damaging touch and much more.
You can also get upgrades by completing challenge rooms, sacrificing mana / health at shrines and finding secrets.

Story:

The story is almost nonexistent, but the game really doesn't need one to begin with.
There's an opening and ending "cinematic" consisting of still images and text and some scrolls you find in secret rooms.
Essentially it's just a trial for apprentice wizards.

Pros and Cons:

+ Procedurally generated dungeons with hidden secrets
+ Lots of different characters, spells, amulets and level-up upgrades to give you a different experience every run
+ Extremely challenging without feeling unfair
+ Fast and responsive movement allows for really satisfying projectile dodging

- Soundtrack is very lacking
- Most enemies look very silly, which can be a bit distracting
- Enemy variety could be better

I don't necessarily have a problem with minimalistic 5 minute games, especially at this price point.
But if the game feels like a stripped down version of a 10 year old newgrounds game and lacks any options whatsoever, I really don't think it should ask a price.

You also get the soundtrack, which is not great either, but might excuse the price for some people.

Gameplay: Top down perspective, walk with WASD, run up to enemies and click to kill them, press space to make them stop shooting at you for a couple of seconds, hold right-click to use a limited ammo laser.
It sounds more interesting than it actually is and the dodging of enemy projectiles is very luck based.

Lasts for about 5 minutes tops.

This game will have you glued to your screen, frantically trying to figure out the best way to pick off your enemies before you get your throat ripped out by a guard dog, for hours.

The game is a fast paced top-down "strategic brawler" in which you play a psychotic hitman on the job.

Wait for a guard to walk by the door and knock him down by slamming it into his face, pick up his baseball bat and beat his friend to a pulp, throw the bat at another guy walking in through another door, execute the first guy by stomping his head in and then get shot in the back because you didn't check the next room and then try again.
Now add a crazy "LSD-trip" visual style and psychedelic music and you'll get an idea of the first 10 seconds of gameplay.

To sum it up in one sentence: It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ glorious!!

+ intresting story (a bit predictable, but still fun)
+ strategic combat
+ great replayability (score, different mask bonuses, unlocks)
+ probably the only game out there in which you'll prefer a frying pan over an assault rifle to clear a room filled with a dozen heavily armed men
+ crazy soundtrack and visuals
+ hard as balls (1 hit kills)
+ tons of different weapons

- the visual style can cause nausea for some people (I didn't have that problem, but if you get seasick easily you might wanna play in short bursts)

I never understood the appeal of old-school dungeon crawlers... until I played this game.

You play a group of 4 felons who are thrown into a huge dungeon.
If you manage to get out alive you'll be absolved of your crimes.
However, noone ever returned from there.

It is really hard to describe the gameplay of LoG, but I'll try.
You play from a first person perspective and you move on a grid (you can only move in four directions and turn in 90° angles) with WASD and you can free-look while holding down the right mouse button.
You level up like in RPGs and your inventory and equipment is very similar to diablo.
You can put your 4 chars in a formation (2 in front, 2 in back) and make them use their weapons and items by clicking the respective icons below their portraits.

+great enemy variety
+very strategical combat
+neat puzzles
+tons of hard to find secrets
+extremely atmospheric
+hard as balls (you can even disable automapping)

-slightly clunky interface

Extremely fun and addictive cyberpunk turn-based top-down tactics "shooter".

Singleplayer: 55 missions with a lot of variety (stealthy infiltrations, ambushes, extracting data, straight up gun fights and much more), a very intriguing story and a great sense of humor.

Multiplayer: 5 different game modes, from just killing everything that moves to freeing hostages or holding territory.
All multyplayer games get saved and can be rewatched or uploaded to YouTube at any time.
You can even just go on another players channel and watch his latest games.

Soundtrack: The music in this game is freaking amazing.
I really don't like electro or whatever this is, but it just fits the atmosphere of the game better than anything else would have.
The entire soundtrack is done by "nervous_testpilot", appearently a british artist.
I would advise that you buy the "Soundtrack Bundle" of the game, because it's really worth it.