Recent reviews by Scientificmagic

It's a great game. Everyone should try it.

Pantheon of Hollownest inflicts extreme physical and mental damage.

O!

The game's pretty easy.

Played with keyboard and mouse.
Minor gameplay spoilers ahead.

I bought this game on sale for $15.30 (USD), and I'd give this game a light to moderate recommendation for the price. However, I cannot recommend this game at full price.
The game appears to have a lot of polish, but after playing, there are a good amount of things I have to nitpick and complain about.

Both departments are great and I don't have any major issues with them. Arguably, they are the game's strongest components. Since this game goes for realistic graphics, as opposed to something stylized, there's a chance this game will "age" as the years go by.
The music accompanying the game matches and tone and settings. It gets the job done. The track titled "Prisoners" is probably my favorite.
Some people might find this a turn-off, but I originally bought this game for its linearity. Not much to say, but I think it's worth mentioning.
I'm not in the position to be critiquing voice acting and vocal work, but I'll just say it's good. Dialogue sounds convincing to me, and that's all I've got.


Disclaimer: I typically don't pay much attention to the exact details and events of a story. Rather, I tend to pick up overarching feelings and the general ideas.

Considering this is a story-driven game, I hate to say this is just a neutral aspect of the game. The first half of the game was great. I was enjoying myself, and interested in the mystery surrounding the plague rats. The second half of the game went into crazy-town and just got weird. I lost my interest. I'd say, as the story progresses in the latter half, it continually gets worse.

I'll say, dealing with a sea of plague rats is massively unsettling and creepy. That is a complement to the game. However, when you start dealing with rat-tornadoes, the sheer absurdity of it had me laughing, dumbfounded, and no longer terrified. I disliked that quite a bit.
I found the puzzles pretty easy to solve. I don't have any strong opinions in this regard.


As a person who tends to focus more on gameplay over story, I have a lot to say about the game, mechanically. This is where a lot of the polish seems to wear off for me.
In chapter 6, titled "Damaged Goods", there's a section where your companion is waiting for you outside a tent. You cannot leave the tent because you've been softlocked. The fix is a dice toss between Alt+Tab in/out of the game, or toggling VSYNC in the settings. This is absolutely ridiculous and a massive pain point for me. The game was released in May 2019, and I encountered this issue around March 2022. I'd guess this is something that'll never be fixed.

• Stealth
  The stealth parts aren't amazing. You throw a rock at some metal object, a guard turns around to investigate, and you sneak past. You can also throw a clay pot to achieve the same effect. I found this repetitive as the game progressed.
  
  Sometimes, it felt like an enemy can randomly spot you through a wall or behind some cover. This is massively frustrating. You can either escape and wait a long time for them to cool off, or die, and respawn at some checkpoint. Some of these checkpoints feel awkwardly spaced apart, so you spend a lot of time just waiting for guard cycles.
  
• Combat
  Luckily, you can play lethal with no story consequences. However, this is also somewhat boring because you can one-shot enemies. Launch a stone, score a kill. Easy. Later, enemies wear helmets, so you need to launch a special projectile to remove the helmets first, then you can stone the enemy. The main offensive loop is pretty repetitive, but I'd rather stone enemies to death than stealth around at a snail's pace.

This is more of a criticism to game design, rather than mechanics. I personally don't want to be scrounging for crafting materials while surrounded by plague rats. Hunting for materials felt so important, I forgot to be scared of the rats and unsettled by the environment. In general, though, I don't want to hunt for materials in a linear story because it's distracting.

As for the upgrades, I dislike how "special projectiles" require the same resources you need to upgrade your gear. Being fearful of burning through all your resources on consumables then missing potential upgrades leads you to favor stealth, which again, is pretty boring.

All in all, I wish this game didn't have a crafting system, or at least didn't have the resource overlap between consumables and essentials.

Played with keyboard.
This review can apply to all difficulties, as I don't actually talk about how easy/hard this game is.

• Movement
  Movement is very crisp and responsive feeling. No "floaty" feeling that I absolutely hate in platformers.
  
• Combat
  Combat is equally good feeling. The 3-hit combos and aerial attacks lead into good stuns which is satisfying. Bow shots are snappy and zip across the screen. Charged shots pack a large punch, which makes the wait worth it.
  
• General Enemies
  Enemy placement is generally good. Most of the time, you can either play aggressively to quickly clear a screen, or play safer and pick enemies one at a time. General enemies are all unique and don't seem to have any BS attacks. They are well telegraphed and easy to learn.

Both are great. The pixel art is pretty and ages well. This game has a strong visual identity. The music is pleasant in the background. I believe it conveys the eerie and melancholic atmosphere well. The music during boss fights open up to create a tense feel, without being intrusive. One of my favorite tracks is "Pardoner's Dance" vs Fennel. It's easily the standout piece of the entire game.


This section still skews towards the positive side. The bosses are all really unique with their own quirks. Overall, they're very fun to tackle, but some attacks don't seem as well telegraphed as enemies. Either I'm unobservant or they really don't telegraph well. I noticed some minor viability problems, such as Lubella's falling orbs. The initial particles are a bit hard to pinpoint before they form into solid orbs.


This definitely isn't a deal breaker, but I found myself having a hard time navigating around the world. One screen can take up multiple grids of the map, so sometimes it's unintuitive when traversing. The map shows where rooms are connected/disconnected, but I think it's slightly difficult to read.