Recent reviews by Lucid-Contradiction

Spoilers...

I died collecting my tie from where it hung; not upon my neck but upon the ceiling fan.

To applause from an evening crowd I sang a dirge; lamentations to a less lonely past.

Then I died, again. This time from the back-breaking machinations of labourers; a dastardly plot involving a terribly uncomfortable chair.

I later found myself debugging a hardware fault as being a symptom of the encroaching breakdown of our reality.

And soon after, I died again. Literally, from heartbreak.

I mastered the art of physical displacement, through atom by atom deconstruction reconstruction of self, to arrive at my destination. True teleportation.
There was no rusting and unstable ladder, or screaming and closing of eyes; what slander.

10/10, am already doing it all again.

Ring of Pain is a stylistic roguelite card-based dungeon crawler with exceptional execution in every area.

The (optionally) fast pace does wonders to make it more approachable for a quick game than vaguely similar games, like Slay the Spire, while not skimping on any of the equivalent strategy and planning.

Every run has its own build and challenges, and those moment you hit upon a strategy that works... and then accidentally explode yourself... it's fantastic fun.

I don't feel like this is a game for everyone, with its dark themes and minimal guidance post-tutorial, but for those who enjoy rouge-likes and rogue-lites and card battlers you'll likely have a blast.

An amazing homage / parody to Diablo with style and mechanics entirely its own.

The parody elements are subdued enough to be unobtrusive while still bringing joy.

An extremely ambitious project and, so far, nailing everything.

Update:
With the new update and re-title to just "Earthlock", I will be updating this review to match (soon, hopefully)
It looks like the devs have done some phenomenal work in creating the complete and engaging game they originally intended (and came so close to). The integrity and passion of the devs taking the initiative to update and re-release at their own cost is top quality.

--- Original Review ---

Reminiscent of Final Fantasy X, but with a much simpler story and less expansive world; impressive from an indie developer but the ways in which it excels makes the mediocre parts more disappointing in contrast.

The good:

• Character progression is unique and interesting in two ways.
  
  1. Characters can be paired up in combat to form bonds; two characters battling alongside each other will level up their bond to grant bonuses while paired. Every odd level of the bond grant an extra "Talent Point" to each character (see below). The bonuses typically improve the common aspects of those characters (e.g if both characters have a heal move, grants a 20% bonus to healing).
     
  2. Each character level gives you a Talent Point for the 5 x 7 "Talent Grid". Each point can be spent to improve stats or unlock abilities, perks and moves. The layout is roughly the same for each character, but with different pre-filled moves / abilities.
     
• Each characters talent grid setup can be modified at any time out of combat, offering great flexibility. Note: This is only to modify, you cannot remove points placed. I think you can get enough points to fill each character's grid.
  
• Visually impressive artwork and design. This shines through in the various locations you travel to and through as well as in the appearance of characters.
  
• The bond system encourages exploring different characters abilities and party setups.
  
• Crafting mechanic is not time consuming and can probably even be ignored, but still easy and interesting enough.
  
• Puzzles and hidden items are well designed, although not challening.
  
• Rewards you for taking on greater challenge by fighting more enemies in one battle. (EXP gain multiplier)
  
• Use of haste and improving speed can mean multiple turns for each turn of the opponent. (A personal favorite tactic).

The mediocre:

• The story and worldbuilding often feels a bit flat or simplistic. They either aren't given enough attention or the attention given isn't compelling.
  
• Save points and rest points are really close together. Enables the crafting system, being undistracting and easy but makes rest points too easily accessible and reduces the natural challenge significantly.
  
• Actions taken in combat cost one or more action points. Each turn returns one AP. This can make characters have to "wait" -- not guard; no defense boost -- in combat or use items if they want to recover AP to use their other / better moves. This rarely, if ever, appears to affect enemies.

The bad:

• Talent Grid progression isn't explained well. Items are required for certain nodes and it's not initially clear that you can fill the grid, so players like me will sit on talent points waiting for an 'ability node' item thinking using too many points early will cap out growth poorly.
  
• The majority of combat feels uninteresting. There's no challenge to most of the regular enemies you come across and the controls can make it sluggish enough to be slightly frustrating.
  
• The combat and balance for progression through the game is off. Bosses are much, much tougher than general enemies, although usually don't actually challenge you but might occassionally do a one-hit KO. By the time you grind (a little) to avoid OHK-O abilities by early bosses, you definitely feel like you're lacking some of the talent progression items.
  
• Both the Steal ability to obtain items and one character's move learning ability (a little like lancet from FFX) are almost never worthwhile.
  
• Each character gets two stance. Stances offer a different moveset (e.g close or ranged attacks. Close attacks or taunt & counter. This is nice conceptually, but you'll usually stick to one stance for each character and there's not much customisation for the stances. Since you can only switch in combat, the rare cases you'll bother to switch means your character/s are in the wrong stance at the start of the next battle (it's possible I'm wrong and it just doesn't tell you how).

I'm giving it a positive rating as it is fun to explore, even while falling a bit flat and it's extremely impressive for an indie game. There's much to love here despite the game's shortcomings.

Note: I'm not done with this game yet, only perhaps a third of the way through, but I'm not feeling compelled to play it because I'm in a mood for a more compelling story... and this isn't it right now.

Not just a rehash of the winning formula presented in the previous Shadowrun games by Harebrained Schemes, but a significant improvement in terms of choice and gameplay.

I'm still consistently impressed and engaged by the detail, narrative and characterisation the game provides, even after playing through both Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun: Dragonfall.

I'm glad Harebrained Schemes kept providing quality updates to the game so long after release. I had stopped playing for a while when the game started crashing after a particular mission transition but that's certainly long fixed.

Transistor offers superb and original game mechanics, an atmospheric journey through an eerily digitalised futuristic city, excellent replayability options and fantastic storytelling. It's definitely one of my favorite games. Edit: Still a favorite, all this time later.