Recent reviews by rice_eater

Souls-like but... you're crab.

And it's another game from Aggro Crab!

Check this game out if you're into grid-based movement + time pausing action. There's something about the game play that feels satisfying when you destroy enemies using time-pause along with the current skills offered at the moment.

The art and style is going for a retro look and I think it pulls it off nicely.

Due to this game being Early Access, not much of the story is revealed. I look forward to learning more about Morgan, the world of Remnants of the Rift and the Bast.

Please note that the game needs polish and fixing as it's in Early Access. Even though this is the case, it's still very playable and enjoyable.

If you're interested in seeing how the game currently plays in Early Access, please see my video: https://youtu.be/rPvZ7121l4E

List of things that make this an awesome game:

• Quirky humor based off of internet, gaming and development culture
  
• Great music
  
• Awesome art style
  
• Classic JRPG (but modern) UI
  
• Roguelike deckbuilder

This game reminds me of the RPG series Earthbound/Mother, which I enjoyed! This game is still in development/Early Access but still enjoyable at the moment with the current content. The developers are responsive and receptive to feedback on the official Discord server.

If you're interested in seeing the game in action: https://youtu.be/1o5QJV5SLTU

If you're reading this, go install the prologue and play this as it's free. This game has potential with some polish and further development. I'm giving this a positive review to encourage the developer to push for a full release.

If you've played Teleglitch, this is similar in play-style but with a different coloring scheme, which is black and white. It's pixel art, so if you hate this kind of style, you're not going to enjoy looking at this game. It's also going for this retro, CRT? UI look. For me, the monsters are easy to distinguish. I do admit that it's sometimes hard to see slow-moving monsters when they're "hiding" over other corpses.

This has high replay value based on how it's designed currently. Every time you start a new game or die, you're a new character with a random weapon. The level layout is randomly generated and so are the location of enemies and loot.

This game does a great job creating a tense, creepy environment. With the sound effects, color and how the enemies behave, you'll be focused on trying to pay attention for the sound of doors opening and footsteps when you're looting a box.

Some things and features I think could be added/improved:
- Having the option to use an item found in a loot container. When I have a full inventory, it's annoying to drop an item, pick up the desired item and use it.
- Dropped items from your inventory creates a loot container that doesn't disappear when it's empty. I'm imagining something like having tons of empty loot containers on screen being possible.
- Adding an upgrade to increase inventory. I like to hoard certain things :D
- To balance out increased inventory, add a speed reduction and maybe a stamina penalty for carrying more items. I'm not aware if having more in the inventory at the moment decreases speed as I haven't tested this.
- Maybe make it so each gun has certain clip size/shot(s) before reloading.

If you're interested in seeing game play, here's a video of that: https://youtu.be/TnYRmS-QE80

This is a fun game! You play as a monster that's worshiped by a cult that goes around destroying civilization and terrorizing (and killing) humans. The graphics are pixel so if you must have awesome 3D graphics that use $1,000 GPU(s), you might not like it. It's fairly priced I think as the game is short. If you have a friend (or three), get together to co-op as this game supports four monsters!

If you're interested in seeing in-game footage, here's a link to my YouTube playlist of a full play-through: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1xGPHJHVS-TreZz5OHOsjx853vwuWzFo

This game had a rough launch but the developers made sure to address things real fast. I think it's fair to say that where it's at right now, it's playable and enjoyable. Note, there's still bugs lingering around, check the forums. For the full price of $25, I feel it's expensive for what it is and the content it currently has. It's got some replay value due to how the game's loop system is. This is one of those games you can pick up and finish a run in about one hour average if you aren't rushing through it to speedrun. If that's too long for you, the game has a feature where you can quit and resume at any point, which is great.

Art direction-wise, it's a nice pixel look. Not everyone will like this style but I definitely like it. There's effort put into making the enemies and other details different such as the weapons, armors and spells.

The combat and feel is of what's considered "souls-like" so it's not fast and snappy. Most actions from your character are slow and so are the enemies' actions. If you don't like this kind of combat, don't get this game.

The "gimmick" of this game is the Tetris-platform movement. You'll be moving throughout the levels by controlling the platforms. It also ties into combat as you can strategically fight using the platforms i.e. hit and run to isolate or clear out groups of monsters. I'm not aware of any other games that incorporate this into the game play but I enjoyed how this ties into the combat.

As for things that could use improvement: the camera, more shop keeper choices, use of Knowledge after unlocking everything, and the RNG drop rate of equipment. The camera design follows your character in a manner where it lags behind in a way. This becomes problematic if you're moving from platform to platform fast as you won't be able to see what's on the next platform sometimes. This can be fatal sometimes depending on what monsters are there.

The shop keepers that take gold to sell you items only sell one item. I wish there was more choices besides one item. Maybe something like three?

After you've used Knowledge to unlock everything in the game, there's nothing else to do with it at the moment. I wish there was something to spend it on.

Lastly, the RNG can make punish you and leave you with a weak weapon for a good portion of a run. There's a shop keeper you encounter who will do a trade of sorts (won't spoil what exactly) in exchange for the possibility of a random weapon but there's no guarantee it's going to be useful. I think maybe incorporating some kind of weapon upgrading feature to allow the player more control of what weapon they want to keep to deal with this RNG issue could work.

Updated review:

tldr; Purchase if you think you can put up with existing game annoyances that affect core game play.

I'm updating my review. I wish Steam had a neutral recommendation because I can't recommend this game due to existing issues but I've sunk some time into it.

There's still bugs to the game after release and patching. Check the Steam forums for the Known Issues posting. Here are two that I find annoying and detracts from the core game play:

- Terrain that should be navigable gets you stuck or hard to maneuver on or around
- Any elevation from you and your target makes it difficult to hit targets with melee and ranged weapons. Even the slightest elevation makes it difficult to hit a target

In terms of "optimization" and how the game handles, I think it could have been much better. Sometimes the game just starts stuttering for me. I resolve this by closing out of it and reopening it. Certain areas that I get into lags and it's obvious. When it rains, the game lags.
When I'm in the last area of the game and there's fires, lag. I have an Nvidia GeForce GTX 970. I think it should handle the game well but maybe my expectations are wrong.

Let's talk about the weight system... I think the mechanic of the weight system was intended to make it so you'd have to decide what you want to take with you and what not to take with you as to not become encumbered. The penalty to this is increased stamina usage. Is this a big issue though? No, it's not after you've upgraded certain traits/skills using knowledge. You can be something like 300+ over the weight and it's not a big issue.

In terms of replay value, I think this game has it but everyone has their own opinion. The maps are the same but the enemy and loot placement changes. After you've "completed" the main quest, you get to do it all over again to unlock more items. This time around, you can set modifiers to make the game more difficult.

I'll update this to a positive review if the developers manage to iron out the two issues affecting core game play whenever they get to it.

I love the satirical sense of humor in this game! If you love this kind of humor, buy this game and play it!

The rogue-lite elements are done well in this game. I love the how the system of skills and mentors work. If you pick up a particular skill enough times, you can have it as a "pinned skill" and choose to start with it at the beginning of each new run. Mentors provide you support in one form or another to provide you perks such as "free" items at shops. Each mentor can be leveled up to provide even more perks.

Dungeons are randomly spawned with different layouts and items to go in it. The available dungeons in this game are uniquely themed and distinct. Most of the items in the dungeon can be used as weapons. It's fun to be able to use items in an office-themed environment to beat up monsters in this game.

I don't think the combat is perfect. It's fine during the first half of the game when there isn't many monsters spawning but when the second half of the game begins, the difficulty spikes way up. I feel like this is because of how cluttered some the dungeon rooms can be when they're generated and the amount of monsters that are spawned. When you're in a small/cluttered space with tons of monsters, it just feels unfair because you can't dodge or get away from all the incoming attacks.

I can still recommend this game even with what I've mentioned in the previous paragraph. The graphics, colors, rogue-lite elements and humor all come together to make an entertaining experience. Lastly, there isn't much replay value to this game once you beat it.. at least until new content is released in 2021, namely the Big Run. I look forward to that!
Edit: Update with "The Big Run" is out, it's got replay value now.

I want my multiplayer as promised....

really fun and really hard. bring a friend.