Recent reviews by Standyland

Underrated action puzzler that gradually introduces and deviates on mechanics that shift the gameplay into creative and unexpected genre fusions. What starts as grid automation puzzles slowly morphs into combinations of puzzle platforming, physics puzzles, real time strategy, stealth, and shoot em ups. 2/3 of the way through the game it felt like I was playing a completely different game than a few hours before. There’s definitely some depth sacrificed here and I felt the game was overall a bit easy, but that’s understandable when the result feels like 6 different games smoothly packaged into 15 hours of gameplay.

I came into this game looking for more Obra Dinn deduction puzzles and Golden Idol delivered. Calling this game "more Obra Dinn" is obviously reductive, but Golden Idol strongly holds up to its inspirations.

The highlight for me was the straightforward clue hunting, murder mystery approach of the first half of the game. Even in the more simple form, you feel like a genius slowly piecing together solutions. The "fill in the blanks until you lock in the right answer" mechanic is one of my favs in any puzzle game. Golden Idol is also an aesthetic departure from Obra Dinn, with a cozy color palette and soft pixel, point-and-click style presentation.

Later scenarios get a bit bogged down by dense rule sets and information dumps, with reliance on a more traditional pen-and-paper logic puzzle word problem approach. This ramping complexity might be enticing for others, but I found it pretty exhausting to even get started on some of the last scenarios. I had to rely on hints for some of these, but the in-game hint system has a great balance of pointing you in the right direction without spoiling the gratification of solving.

equal parts disorienting, intuitive and viscerally satisfying, but you can experience the entire breadth of content in less than 40 minutes. begging for a longer, fully realized sequel

Satisfying and unique puzzle experience. The puzzles kind of solve themselves in places but that's not a terrible thing.

Precision platformer with really tight controls, a charming art style, high difficulty, and goofy mini games sprinkled throughout.

Pros:

-You can tell the developer spent a lot of time polishing the controls and levels; no jumps ever felt out of place.
-The game is incredibly rewarding through its difficulty.
-The retro art style suits the game perfectly.
-Mini games are fun breaks in the difficult gameplay. Some of them are also quite difficult, but to a comedic effect.

Cons:

-The pogo level was pretty uncalled for and far more difficult than the rest of the game. At least it was quite short.
-The game doesn't ease you into the mechanics. Instead, it forces you to get good. This could be off putting for a lot of people.
-The last boss is quite unfair. I only beat it by getting lucky.

Overall, this game is super underrated and a big recommend for fans of difficult platformers.

Top 10 oat

One of the more unique gaming experiences I've ever had. It definitely has its flaws ( Having to backtrack the entire map halfway through the game ), but the gameplay, themes, writing, and art make it big recommend. Everhood puts such a cool spin on the rhythm genre and brings the combat (combat?) from cool to mind-mending levels during some of the cornerstone fights.

However, the combat does slog a bit in the later half of the game, after all unique mechanics are introduced. The characters in the game are pretty one-dimensional as well, but they still have enough charm to make it work. I also wish the soundtrack was slightly better for how music-focused the game is; some of the more high energy electronic tracks hit really hard, especially in tandem with their bosses, but a lot of tracks didn't really stick out for me.

Criticisms stated, you can't beat the price of the game, even if its length runs on the shorter side. It's by far worth $10.

8/10 would go back and fight the bosses again

yes yes yes if you can't get over the poor PC optimization ur a bad gamer

The game is really short, but still manages to become stale which is impressive for a puzzle game. The main mechanic/concept is sick but they barely expand upon it. Just buy it, play around with the cool mechanic for 30 minutes, and refund it and you'll be better off than sticking with it.

Great story, great level design and exploration, decent gameplay. Wish I played the earlier games so I knew the characters better but it was fine without playing them.