Recent reviews by Red

While I can't deny Half-Life is a game that has left its mark on the FPS genre, especially in the narrative and artistic departments, I can't really recommend it. What started as an okay game (on Normal) soon turned into a game with regular difficulty spikes, waves of foes and enemies practically killing me in one shot (or a burst of them), to the point it became unfun to play. I don't mind challenge in games, but it almost felt unfair at points. And all of that still happened when "savescumming" to try and keep my health, armour, and ammunition as high as possible.

Towards the end, I even got an almost game-breaking bug: in Gonarch's second phase, killing her from below triggered the defeat noise and animation (temporarily), but when going back up she didn't go away nor did she unblock the way. At that point, I checked a walkthrough to see if it was normal, and it wasn't, as expected. And since the chapter right after that was supposed to be one of the hardest with enemy placements you almost need to know unless you want to have a bad time, I decided to just roll with the same guide's tactics. In retrospect though, it would have been feasible without it, just a bit more frustrating.

At the end of the day, I don't recommend Half-Life, despite being interesting from a "historical" point of view as well as for its story and atmosphere. Maybe Black Mesa is slightly more balanced in that regard, not to mention it has much more modern graphics and a slightly better world coherence. If you haven't played Half-Life, I'd say to give the fan-made remake a shot instead.

Never forget your funky fresh beats, especially during Summer.

(For real though, I'll make a proper review later.)

TL;DR: You used to do better than that, Spike Chunsoft.


I expected to like and recommend this game. But even with the censorship controversy aside, I can't really recommend this PC version for quite a lot of reasons.

I've been waiting for the game since I heard about it, which was before the censorship's announcement. I eventually bought it when the "Special Edition" (week one, basically) was still available. It came with a pretty big 34-track mini-soundtrack, so the first thing I did when the download was over was to check it out... First disappointment: the whole soundtrack was in MP3 128k. All of Spike Chunsoft's mini-soundtracks came in both MP3 (with a quality depending on the release) and FLAC, except for Conception II's (which I assume was because the game and its Collector's Edition were published by Atlus in the West on consoles). Considering I like having game OSTs in good quality especially from official sources, it's really disappointing, and I'd be better off with a CD rip. That's even worse now that I know the Japanese digital-only "Extend Edition" contains a 54-track OST encoded in MP3 256k, which is in both cases better than the "Survival Soundtrack" (and it's not even because of copyright issues since the vocal tracks are included in the latter).

Then, a few days later, I booted up the configuration tool. While similar config tools for Zero Time Dilemma, Conception II and Danganronpa V3 displayed properly, drop-down menus and the "Start game" button did not match their expected positions. And it was even worse when using Windows' "disable high DPI scaling", since the elements were almost off-screen (on a standard 1080p screen). Also no AZERTY support unlike DRV3, so I have to Alt+Shift every time I start the game if I want to play on keyboard.

I finally started the game in fullscreen at 1080p, then I noticed I was having framerate drops in the intro sequence. After some tests, disabling all of the advanced settings only resulted in a 2fps boost (42-43fps -> 45fps). With everything on at 900p however, I got an almost consistent 60fps. This is one of these games where performance is highly dependent on the rendering resolution. In comparison, DRV3 (which should logically use pretty much the same engine) only has occasional hitches with the "Very High" preset at 1080p, except in Borderless mode where the framerate becomes really wibbly-wobbly. Could be the frame limiter being bad, for all I know.

About the game now, the in-game cursor was lagging behind the first time I tried picking an item up while the regular cursor that you see in the main menu for instance is completely fine. Keybindings are also fairly odd on keyboard in my opinion (protip: LMB and Enter do the same, RMB and Space seem to be following the same logic).

Some game flaws were carried over from the console version: no backlog button, having to press the "Skip" button again (rather than any button) to cancel skipping... Also you can't access the in-game menu until you make enough progress, so you can't change sound volume or quit properly until then (I had to Alt+F4 my way out).

Then I restarted the game with my controller plugged in. I had no issues myself with an official Xbox 360 controller, but since the game uses Steam's controller management, several users have reported problems (whether broken keybindings or their controller not working at all). I don't know whether they actually thought it would be easier to support more controllers or that it would bother pirates not to be able to play on a gamepad, but the end result is mixed. Also, slight nitpick at this point, the tutorial's screenshots show mouse and keyboard actions regardless of the chosen input method.

To get the game to work properly at 900p, I tried several things. Fullscreen gives me black borders and no matter how hard I tried, the game always re-enabled the "disable high DPI scaling" option for the game's EXE. Borderless fullscreen is broken for both 900p and 1080p, resulting in a black screen. Windowed mode works "fine", except I get a diagonal screen tearing (like on Melty Blood's Steam version) which doesn't exist in fullscreen. At least it pulls out the same framerate as in fullscreen mode.

On a sidenote, the anti-aliasing (FXAA is the only choice you have in the options) doesn't seem to work, or barely. Better leave AA off and try forcing a better one through your GPU's control panel or DLL injection (ReShade).

Let's now discuss some technical choices made for this port. The censorship made me want to check out the game's files to see if the cut content was entirely removed or if it could be restored, because even though I could live without it, it's still content that was initially in the game and which had no reason to be removed from the Steam release (despite Steam's inconsistencies towards game removals).

While I understand some choices were made based on what already existed in the console version, such as Criware for audio and video, I don't get why some (most?) textures are in TGA, with at least some of them using the DXT1 algorithm. I don't know much about TGA, but it seems old enough to prefer other, better options. However you shouldn't, in this day and age, compress your textures using DXT1. It's just too basic for its own good. It might be part of the reason why the sky looks oddly colour-banded when it didn't seem to be that much on PS4 (and the slight particle effects as well). I still have to check the quality of other assets, but *this* is unacceptable in itself. Sure, the game is light compared to DRV3, but it looks like a hefty compromise has been made on quality to achieve this.

Also, you may have thought that to attract more players despite an expensive price tag, a wonky port and the censorship issue, they would have made the game simple to mod. Wrong. The game consists in an EXE file and 257 DAT files containing ALLZ (more or less proprietary) archives. Maybe it was also that way on consoles (original Vita release included), I don't know, but it just sounds useless and like shooting oneself in the foot when modding could bring more sales in.

Regarding the censorship in itself, I think it was unnecessary for this Steam release and that either Spike Chunsoft didn't want to bother undoing the changes (out of laziness or voluntarily) or was forced by Sony to release the game on par with the Western PS4 version for some reason. In particular, it makes Sachika's X-Key (Package Key in the original version) CG look odd in my opinion, and by that I mean it's visible it's been edited not to show anything below waist level. What's worse is that just minutes before this happens there *is* a dialogue about said X-Key and that Sachika would have to show her underwear to show it, so you *know* it's there. But it's been censored nonetheless, and playing the game in Japanese won't even solve this since the whole port uses the Western version's code.

At the end of the day, is this game good? I don't know yet. But the port most definitely isn't. It's functional at best, but bad in so many ways that it's adding salt to the injury of having an altered product. Hell, even the bonus soundtrack is in poor quality when they most likely had access to the source materials to release the same OST on CD as a day one/pre-order bonus for the PS4 version.

You used to do better than that, Spike Chunsoft. I hope you'll learn your lesson, please fix this mess and don't mess the next ports up.


EDIT: The second update increased the overall game size, more specifically the "app" folder (where the assets are located), so they might have upgraded some textures' compression (the sky is still colour-banded, though). They also fixed the anti-aliasing (but it's still just FXAA), and the game now supports AZERTY keyboards out of the box but key prompts still correspond to QWERTY ones. The rest (performance, launcher...) wasn't fixed.

I love platformers. In particular, I love 3D platformers with a fast, smooth and reactive gameplay, like Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc (which in my humble opinion is still the best 3D platformer today; your mileage may vary, of course). This technical demo is a real hommage to this genre, and is an absolute blast to play.

There's only one level to play through, but several objectives that will keep you playing for a while: popping every barrel, destroying every enemy, collecting all beacons... And eventually, getting the secret ending for which you'll want to go as fast as possible.

The game is pretty much "pick up and play" in the way its controls are very intuitive and reactive. Its challenge however comes from clever level design which will force you not to be too fast nor too slow, and time your jumps properly. Aside from some occasional irritating collision detections, the whole level plays smoothly and without frustration (maybe it's because I'm used to platformers and played Crash Bandicoot, which has very precise jumps, earlier on the same day).

Sound, music and graphics are also great: love was put into this demo, and it shows. I *think* I've spotted some missing polygons on an ice wall at some point, but it's nothing important. The whole environment and character design is cartoonish, so the humour fits perfectly well with it. Said humour might not be 100% family-friendly because of one particular joke, but I don't really mind.

There's only a few downsides in my opinion. First off, I thought there would be some more achievements and things to do, like an "Obedient" achievement for not roll-jumping, not blasting the barrels, and keeping every enemy robot alive. But hey, there's still potential for speedrun, so technically there's still a lot to do. Then, v-sync is broken -> fixed as of 2019/01/03 (and the game doesn't seem to be very well optimised overall). Not a big deal, but I had to play in windowed mode instead of the usual fullscreen. Also, the menus aside from the main one lack some polish, but it's not very important for a free game.

Eventually, it's just a demo, and I'm kind of sad because I'd have loved playing more of the same game. I really wish there was a full version to explore that universe and save the world from that weird mad doctor in polished levels. But maybe it's precisely because it's a demo it can be so good, and maybe it's actually better this way. I'm not saying a full version would be bad, far from it, I'd even likely buy it instantly, but maybe it would spoil the experience in a way. I mean, if the full game was not able to overcome the demo's level of polish, it would risk being disappointing.

To end on a positive note, huge props to the devs of this amazing demo. Really, it's right next to Rayman 3 in terms of the best platforming game experiences I know. I sincerely wish them the best of luck with their next projects, and will definitely keep an eye out for any platformer from them, should they make one someday. Thanks for reading, and have a nice day!

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Version française

J'adore les jeux de plateformes. En particulier, j'aime les jeux de plateformes en 3D avec un gameplay rapide et réactif, comme Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc (qui selon moi est encore aujourd'hui un des meilleurs jeux de plateformes 3D; bien sûr, votre expérience peut varier). Cette démo technique est un véritable hommage à ce genre, et est absolument géniale à jouer.

Il n'y a qu'un seul niveau à explorer, mais plusieurs objectifs à accomplir : éclater tous les tonneaux, détruire tous les ennemis, collecter toutes les balises... Et enfin, atteindre la fin secrète pour laquelle vous devrez aller le plus vite possible.

Le jeu est très intuitif à prendre en main et très réactif. Son challenge en revanche réside dans son level design intelligent qui vous poussera à aller ni trop vite, ni trop lentement, et bien ajuster la durée de vos sauts. À part quelques détections de collisions parfois légèrement irritantes, le niveau entier se parcourt de manière fluide et sans frustration (ça vient peut-être du fait que je suis habitué aux jeux de plateformes et que j'ai joué à Crash Bandicoot, qui a des sauts très précis, dans la même journée).

Le son, la musique et les graphismes sont aussi excellents : les développeurs ont mis du cœur à l'ouvrage, et ça se voit. Je *crois* avoir repéré quelques polygones manquants sur un mur de glace, mais ce n'est pas grand-chose. L'environnement et les personnages sont cartoonesques, et l'humour colle parfaitement bien avec. Il n'est peut-être pas tous publics à cause d'une certaine blague, mais ça me convient comme c'est.

Il n'y a que quelques points négatifs selon moi. Tout d'abord, je pensais qu'il y aurait plus de succès et de choses à faire, comme un succès "Obéissant" en ne faisant pas le saut roulé-sauté, n'explosant pas les barils et en gardant tous les ennemis en vie. D'un autre côté, il y a du potentiel pour le speedrun, donc il y a techniquement encore beaucoup à faire. Ensuite, la v-sync ne marche pas -> corrigé le 03/01/2019 (et le jeu semble un peu mal optimisé de manière générale). C'est pas grand-chose, mais j'ai dû jouer en fenêtré au lieu du plein écran habituel. Aussi, les menus autres que le menu principal manquent de polish, mais ce n'est pas vraiment très important pour un jeu gratuit.

Enfin, c'est juste une démo, et je suis un peu triste parce que j'aurais adoré jouer plus à ce jeu. J'aimerais beaucoup explorer cet univers et sauver le monde de ce docteur fou dans une version complète avec d'autres niveaux bien conçus. Mais peut-être que c'est aussi parce que c'est une démo que c'est si bon, et peut-être est-ce mieux ainsi. Je ne dis pas qu'une version complète serait une mauvaise chose, bien au contraire, je l'achèterais même certainement quasi-instantanément, mais peut-être que ça gâcherait le plaisir d'une certaine façon. Ce que j'essaie de dire, c'est que si une version complète n'était pas à la hauteur de la finition de la démo, ça risquerait d'être décevant.

Pour conclure sur une note positive, un grand bravo aux développeurs de cette excellente démo. Sérieusement, en termes des meilleures expériences de jeux de plateformes 3D que je connaisse, elle se place juste après Rayman 3. Je leur souhaite une très bonne chance avec leurs prochains projets, et vais assurément me tenir informé au cas-où ils sortiraient un jeu de plateformes un jour. Merci de m'avoir lu, et bonne journée à vous !

[French version below / Version française plus bas]

Simple concept, simple game; mostly relaxing, sometimes stressful: welcome to Mini Metro.

What can I say about this game? The game is pretty light strategically speaking, though you'll have to think a bit to avoid having angry passengers. Once that happens (it WILL happen), the game can become somehow stressful as you have to juggle between modifying the existing lines (or rebuilding everything from scratch) and balancing the lines' load while hoping everyone will be happy. Also, there's no actual soundtrack, it's just made by everything moving on your screen.

If you like simple games that are casual enough to play even when tired yet technical enough to enjoy otherwise, or want a game to play on a break, then this is a perfect fit.

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À concept simple, jeu simple; globalement relaxant, parfois stressant : bienvenue dans Mini Métro.

Qu'est-ce que je peux rajouter ? Le jeu est plutôt léger sur le plan stratégique, mais vous devrez quand même réfléchir un peu pour éviter d'avoir des passagers mécontents sur votre réseau. Quand ça arrive (ça arrivera, croyez-moi), le jeu peut devenir légèrement stressant puisque vous devrez jongler entre la modification des lignes existantes (ou la reconstruction de zéro) et l'équilibrage des charges entre les lignes en espérant que tout le monde sera content. Aussi, il n'y a pas vraiment de bande-son, elle est juste produite par tout ce qui bouge à l'écran.

Si vous aimez les jeux simples qui sont suffisamment grand public pour jouer même en étant fatigué mais suffisamment techniques pour les apprécier dans d'autres circonstances, ou voulez un jeu à apprécier pendant une pause quelconque, c'est un des meilleurs choix.

[Version française plus bas]

If you've ever played Prop Hunt, this is basically an enhanced version with special powers to hide better or find the witches more easily. Plus you don't lose health by guessing wrong here (thankfully; there are too many items on this game's maps!). And there are less bugs, meaning you won't get stuck stupidly and nobody should be able to hide in impossible places.

If you've never played it however, it's basically hide-and-seek with a team that can hide by disguising as items (props) on the map, while another one has to find and eliminate them. And trust me, it's fun to chase after, I don't know... A coconut? A flying boat, perhaps? It all depends on what the witches picked. And it's also really fun to have a hunter throw every single prop around you away, yet he fails to notice you then walks away to brutalize (maybe not) innocent props in another area.

Regarding the special powers, they're pretty useful and kind of balanced for both sides, except maybe the jumpscare-thingy that witches can use to obstruct a hunter's view which I find useless. As for the maps, there's quite a lot now, and may require different strategies depending on which one is picked and the number of players.

About game modes, I've only played two of them so far: a classic one, and Mobification; basically, when a witch gets caught, the player becomes a hunter. This is particularly useful with few players, since it gives you more chances to find the witches even on big or messy maps.

Eventually, you can customize your characters. This is silly (in a good way) and purely cosmetic, but you can. And you can even get event-specific items (Easter, Summer, Halloween, Christmas...) to match with each season. The only issue I have with that is that you have to farm for crafting materials, and even after that the loot is pretty random. Ah, and everything collected in-game will spam your Steam inventory, too, so that's a noticeable issue as well.

At the end of the day, [PREDICTABLE JOKE INCOMING] props to Barrel Roll Games for making a successful variation of Prop Hunt that still has its own identity and plays better than the original.

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Si vous avez déjà joué à Prop Hunt, c'est plus ou moins une version améliorée avec des pouvoirs spéciaux pour mieux vous cacher ou trouver les sorcières plus facilement. Et puis vous ne perdez pas de vie en faisant un mavais choix ici (heureusement d'ailleurs, il y a trop d'objets sur les maps de ce jeu !). Et il y a moins de bugs, ce qui veut dire que vous ne vous retrouverez pas coincé bêtement et que personne ne devrait pouvoir se planquer dans un recoin improbable.

Si vous n'y avez jamais joué en revanche, c'est plus ou moins un jeu de cache-cache avec une équipe capable de se cacher sur la map en tant qu'objets (les "props"), tandis que l'autre doit les trouver et les éliminer. Et croyez-moi, c'est très drôle d'avoir une course-poursuite avec... Une noix de coco ? Ou un bateau volant, peut-être ? Tout dépend de ce que les sorcières choisissent. Et c'est aussi très amusant de voir un chasseur envoyer voler tout ce qui se trouve autour de vous, mais vous laisser la vie sauve par erreur puis aller dans un autre secteur terroriser des objets innocents (ou pas).

Par rapport aux pouvoirs spéciaux, ils sont plutôt utiles et assez équilibrés pour les deux équipes, sauf peut-être l'espèce de jumpscare des sorcières qui bouche la vue d'un chasseur que je trouve inutile. En ce qui concerne les maps, il commence à y en avoir pas mal, et demanderont des stratégies différentes en fonction de celle sélectionnée et du nombre de joueurs.

Au sujet des modes de jeu, je n'en ai essayé que deux pour le moment : un classique, et Mobification; rapidement, quand une sorcière se fait attraper, ce joueur devient un chasseur. C'est surtout pratique dans les parties avec peu de joueurs, puisque ça vous donne plus de chances de trouver les sorcières même sur des maps vastes ou blindées d'objets.

Enfin, vous pouvez personnaliser vos personnages. C'est idiot (dans le bon sens) et strictement cosmétique, mais vous pouvez. Et vous pouvez même obtenir des objets spécifiques à des événements (Pâques, Été, Halloween, Noël) pour vous mettre à la mode de chaque saison. Le seul problème que j'ai avec ce système est la nécessité de farmer les matériaux à assembler, et même après, le résultat est assez aléatoire. Ah, et tout ce que vous obtiendrez en jeu viendra spammer votre inventaire Steam, aussi, donc c'est aussi un problème assez flagrant.

Pour conclure, [BLAGUE PRÉVISIBLE EN APPROCHE] "props" à Barrel Roll Games pour avoir pondu une variante réussie de Prop Hunt qui conserve quand même sa propre identité et est plus agréable à jouer que l'original.

Version Française dessous / French version below


Take Tetris, remove the principle of line-clearing, and replace it with a few game modes: Race, Puzzle and Survival. Now throw physics into the mix, and that's how you get one of the funniest party games (or puzzle games, for that matter) I've ever played. It's diabolically simple, but also diabolically hard to master.

Puzzle consists in making the most out of the available space (without everything falling, obviously). If something falls, the pillar you start building upon raises by half a block. Race is... well... a race towards a finish line, so you have to have the biggest tower (pun intended) to get there first. Survival is probably the trickiest one, since you either have to be the last man standing or put all of your Tetriminos pieces into place, as there's a set amount of them. Drop one or several pieces at the same time, and you'll lose one out of three hearts.

About the modes' difficulty, now. In Easy modes, you only have power-ups (except in Puzzle), so it will only help you. The requirements are also technically more easily achievable there (*curses about the Easy Puzzle mode*). In Normal modes, you can use black magic to annoy your friends (except in Puzzle, with one power-up), and the requirements are slightly higher.

Then, Special modes are not just "Hard" modes, they're the hardcore modes of the game. Special Race adds wind. Special Survival introduces waves of random black magic effects applied to all players like drop speed up, huge blocks, difficult to use blocks (pianos, doors...), un-flippable blocks and fog.

Special Puzzle (which is my favourite game mode) has no power-ups, no black magic, a larger play area than in Normal Puzzles, and indentations on the sides of the pillar to build crazy structures... Just be careful not to be too greedy. Trust me, sometimes you can put one piece that will make your whole construction fall (or a good part of it), and the worst is when it rotates around the pillar (it's hilarious to watch, but still)...

To find one negative aspect to this game, I'm just slightly disappointed that it's "only" up to four players, since I have more than three friends playing this game... But it's not all that bad either. Oh, and curse these skulls in the Survival mode, too.

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Prenez Tetris, enlevez le principe de nettoyage de ligne, et remplacez-le avec quelques modes de jeu : Course, Enigme et Survie. Maintenant, ajoutez de la physique dans le mélange, et c'est comme ça que vous obtenez un des party games (voire même puzzle games) les plus drôles auxquels j'aie jamais joué. Diablement simple, mais aussi diablement difficile à maîtriser.

En mode Enigme, vous devez faire le plus possible avec l'espace qui vous est donné (sans que tout ne tombe, forcément). Si quelque chose se casse la figure, le pilier sur lequel vous contruisez s'élève d'un demi-bloc de hauteur. La Course est... ben... une course vers une ligne d'arrivée, donc vous devez avoir la plus grosse tour (blague volontaire) pour y arriver en premier. La Survie est probablement le mode le plus compliqué, puisqu'il faut soit être le dernier survivant, soit poser tous vos Tetriminos toutes vos pièces, celles-ci étant en nombre limité. Si une ou plusieurs pièces tombent en même temps, vous perdez un cœur sur les trois de base.

Parlons maintenant des modes de difficulté de chaque mode. En Facile, vous n'avez que des bonus (sauf en Puzzle). Les conditions de victoires sont aussi techniquement plus faciles à rencontrer (*maudit l'Enigme Facile*). En difficulté "Normal", vous pouvez aussi utiliser des malus (magie noire) pour enquiquiner vos amis (sauf en Enigme, avec un power-up), et les conditions de victoire sont un peu plus élevées.

Ensuite, les modes Spéciaux ne sont pas juste difficiles, ce sont vraiment les modes hardcore du jeu. La Course Spéciale se fait avec du vent. La Survie Spéciale ajoute des vagues de malus aléatoires appliqués à tous les joueurs, comme un mode turbo, des pièces énormes, d'autres difficiles à poser (pianos, portes...), un verrouillage de rotation des blocs et du brouillard.

L'Enigme Spéciale (qui est mon mode de jeu préféré) n'a pas de bonus, pas de malus, une plus grande zone constructible qu'en Enigme Normale, et des "crans" sur le côté du pillier pour construire des structures improbables... Faites juste attention à ne pas être trop avide. Croyez-moi, parfois une pièce de trop peut faire partir toute la structure (ou une bonne partie), et le pire est quand ça tourne autour du pillier (c'est hilarant à regarder, mais quand même)...

Pour trouver un point négatif à ce jeu, je suis juste légèrement déçu qu'il ne soit "que" jusqu'à quatre joueurs, puisque j'ai plus que trois amis qui y jouent... Mais c'est pas super grave non plus. Ah, et maudits soient ces crânes en Survie, aussi.

EDIT: Almost missed the date thanks to paperwork, but I switched the rating now, as promised. Original review below.

PuyoPuyo is a great game. Tetris is a great game too. PuyoPuyo Tetris is an awesome game.

I've waited to play this for way too long. Almost took the Japanese version on Vita back in 2014, then was glad to hear it came to the Switch last year, but thought it would remain a Switch exclusive... until the PC version was announced. Yay!

The port itself is fine (and I would have had questions if it had not been good) (note: still haven't tried online play), the game is affordable, and it's great. Plus the PC version has dual audio. So I recommend it.

The only negative points I could find about this port so far are the fact the tutorial only displays keyboard and mouse controls (as opposed to the control scheme you're currently using, so if you're using a controller, you might be puzzled at first [pun intended, I'm sorry])... And a much more controversial one, Denuvo.

Before anyone jumps the gun, I buy all of the games I play. My concerns about Denuvo are for legacy issues. As Denuvo Anti-Tamper is supposed (primarily, though it does other things) to protect sales at launch, it doesn't make sense to keep it if the game isn't updated with new content or fixes, and increases the risk to have the game being unplayable later down the road (the same goes for other DRMs). So if in one year from its release, this game still has Denuvo in it, I'll change my rating to "Not recommended", unless it is also actually used to prevent cheating online (which I doubt). What I still don't understand is "why putting it into such a small game", but hey... it's SEGA's loss, I guess.

Copy protection systems are not the problem; it's the way the publishers use them that is.

Am I really one of the first people to write a review? Dayum.


I only got to the first Base (not a spoiler, you can easily get there in some fifteen minutes if not less I think, I like to take my time so it took way longer), and so far, the game is quite good. The controls are decent, even though the character's movement is not as realistic in AAA games, some enemies are well-positioned (well done, skeleton from the second trial), only the inventory management and bow controls seem somehow tedious for me so far (especially the weapon swap, I'm not used to it yet). The attack system is simple yet efficient. The only issue I have would be with blocking, which is pretty useless at the beginning of the game since you can just strafe to avoid incoming arrows and run away from other attacks. Also, the camera is slightly too close to the character in my opinion. It might be a design choice, but I am still havin issues with it.

Graphically speaking, the game is not really bad-looking, but it's not brilliant either. Textures can be blurry, models edgy. That was to be expected for an "indie" game. "Indie" because it's officially an Arc System Works game, but it's actually made by around five people according to the Steam page. However, I've found particle effects to be pretty good, and taking advantage of the Unity engine.

The sound design is quite good too, with sound effects that stick with the corresponding actions, and the music, while I haven't heard it much so far, sounds good too. However, said music is pretty quiet compared to the "level up" jingle when it comes up. Then, the English translation... I'm not a native English speaker, but it seems that there are some translation mistakes right when you start the game. "the rights holders" probably actually means "the rights' holders", and the "This game recommend to use game controller!", which has since been replaced by "Game controller is recommended for this game" (they should modify to say "A game controller") made me smile. (There's also "Thanks for installing early access version", which would need to be set as "Thanks for installing this early access version".)

And last but not least, the bugs and Early Access part. You can get stuck in some places with the hitbox of the bridges, I've jumped once for no reason while walking up the second bridge before the first trial's door, and if you use the left stick while in a menu, the camera rotates/twitches for some reason. Also, speaking about twitching, the arrows twitch and do not move in sync with the quiver they are in, especially during jumps. These are minor issues, but they still show the game needs some more polish before being a full game (which is exactly why it is in EA).

Overall, I think I still need to play to get a more solid review (which I will edit over time), but so far, Inferno Climber is quite a good game, even though I was not really convinced by its first trailer (yes, THAT walking simulator trailer). In any case, maybe you should wait some more time before buying it, so that there are more (and more solid) reviews.


Thank you for reading, and happy gaming. (*does 623D*)

- Review in French below / Version française en-dessous -


No, this is not a Guilty Gear fighting game.
No, this is not a Warriors-like (Dynasty Warriors...) game either.
Yes, in its current state, this port can be slightly buggy and rough around the edges.

So, what is it? Well, it's hard to describe. It's some kind of MOBA with minion control mixed with a beat 'em all. It can sound awkward, but it does feel original. I will probably update my review when I have finished the game (or even before), but right now, it is a good game in my opinion.
Also, note that this game, while not a fighting game in the Guilty Gear series, is just as canon as Xrd or Vastedge (which is not a fighting game either). Because yes, it introduces some characters and concepts that are mentioned and used in Xrd. I also suspect that Guilty Gear 2 has evolved through time in such a way that it give birth to Guilty Gear Xrd, hence their link story-wise.
The music is pretty nice, especially the battle themes (the ones that play when you fight another master) : these were composed by Daisuke Ishiwatari, the composer of... well, almost all of the Guilty Gear soundtracks, actually. The rest of the music you can hear in the rest of the game was composed by someone else, and since I haven't read the credits, I don't know who it is, sorry.

Should you buy it now? That all depends on what you want.

• If you want a fighting game, that's not it.
  
• If you want a game with an original gameplay, you should try it.
  
• If you want to learn more about the GG lore, you might want to play it as long as you like the gameplay itself (else you might just want to watch a playthrough).
  
• If you want a game with the latest graphics, this game doesn't have them; it's merely a port from a 2007 game right now, and some graphics options and tweaks are coming in the next updates, such as fullscreen and resolution settings (in the meantime, Alt+Enter or F11 do the trick). Also, you must know that there are some issues right know, with the depth of field and bloom settings being setup incorrectly, resulting in blur and too much brightness and the first update disabled DoF. It has not been fixed (yet?), but is a minor issue in any case.
  
• The port is still a little rough around the edges, but they have added some more features since the release, like the DLC map, connection indicators, replays, mouse and keyboard support... Ranked matches and graphics options are still missing, and the "Ex-Sol Costume" DLC might be as well. On a sidenote, the "exit game" function has been added since the game's launch, which is very welcome.
  
• If you trust ArcSys with this port (or want the music that's included), you should grab it, during sales or not.

Overall, a pretty good game, but a port still missing quite a lot of features.



- Version française -

Non, ce n'est pas un jeu de baston Guilty Gear.
Non, ce n'est pas un jeu Warriors-like (Dynasty Warriors...).
Oui, dans son état actuel, ce portage peut être bugué et sérieusement manquer de polish.

Donc qu'est-ce que c'est? Eh bien c'est assez difficile à décrire. C'est un genre de MOBA avec un contrôle sur les sbires, les creeps, les larbins (appelez-les comme vous voudrez) mélangé avec un beat 'em all. Ca peut sembler bancal dit comme ça, mais c'est en réalité plutôt original. Je mettrai sans doute cette évaluation à jour quand j'aurai fini le jeu (ou même avant), mais pour l'instant, je trouve que c'est un jeu plutôt bon.
Aussi, notez que même si ce n'est pas un jeu de baston dans la série Guilty Gear, il fait tout autant partie du canon que Xrd ou Vastedge (qui, lui non plus, n'est pas un jeu de bourre-pif). En effet, il introduit certains personnages et concepts mentionnés et réutilisés dans Xrd. D'ailleurs, je suppose que Guilty Gear 2 a tellement évolué au cours du temps qu'il a fini par donner naissance à Guilty Gear Xrd, d'où leur relation au niveau de l'histoire.
La musique est plutôt sympathique, notamment les thèmes de combat (ceux qui se lancent quand vous affrontez un autre "maître") : ils ont été composés par Daisuke Ishiwatari, le compositeur de... ben à peu-près tout le reste de la musique de Guilty Gear. Le reste de la musique du jeu a été composé par quelqu'un d'autre, et étant donné que je n'ai pas encore lu les crédits, je ne sais pas de qui il s'agit, désolé.

La question fatidique : devriez-vous l'acheter maintenant? Tout dépend de ce que vous voulez.

• Si vous voulez un jeu de baston, ce n'en est pas un.
  
• Si vous voulez un jeu au gameplay original, vous devriez l'essayer.
  
• Si vous voulez en savoir plus sur l'univers de Guilty Gear, vous pouriez avoir envie d'y jouer, à condition d'apprécier le gameplay (sinon vous pourriez aussi juste vouloir regarder des playthroughs).
  
• Si vous voulez un jeu au top des graphismes, ce n'est pas ici; c'est juste un portage d'un jeu de 2007 en l'état actuel, et certaines options graphiques et des réglages arriveront dans les prochaines mises à jour, comme le mode plein écran ou des options de résolution (en attendant, Alt+Entrée ou F11 font l'affaire). Aussi, vous DEVEZ savoir qu'il y a quelques problèmes avec cette version, avec la profondeur de champ et le bloom mal réglés, résultant en un écran flou ou trop lumineux selon les conditions et la profondeur de champ a été désactivée avec la première mise à jour. Ceci n'a pas (encore?) été corrigé, mais ce n'est dans tous les cas qu'un problème mineur.
  
• Ce portage est encore un peu brut de décoffrage, mais ils ont implémenté quelques fonctionnalités depuis la sortie, comme la map DLC, des indicateurs de connexion, des replays, le support clavier/souris... Les matchs classés et les options graphiques manquent toujours à l'appel, et peut-être également le DLC "Costume Ex-Sol". Petite note, la fonction "quitter le jeu" a été ajoutée depuis le lancement du jeu, ce qui est bienvenu ("jeu de sortie" à son déploiement pour l'anecdote).
  
• Si vous avez confiance en ArcSys pour ce portage (ou que vous voulez la musique fournie avec), vous devriez le prendre, durant les soldes ou en-dehors.

Globalement, un jeu plutôt bon, mais un portage auquel manque toujours quelques fonctionnalités.
Notez aussi que le jeu est dispo avec le texte en Français, c'est toujours bon à savoir (même si je joue avec le texte en Anglais, donc je ne peux pas juger de sa qualité).