Recent reviews by Trooth

It's been several years since I last played this, but when I did, it was one of the best games around when it came to building-destruction physics through explosives, vehicles, and a good ol' fashioned sledgehammer. There was also a bit of quality driving, and some serviceable combat.

Has some fairly strong Nuclear Throne vibes, but with a way better item pool, and imo, much better balance between damage enemies can do and hits the player can take.

At first, it was cool to see an RPG where the different periods of time in the story are represented by different graphical styles, ranging from monochrome game-boy-like graphics to full 3D. But then it turns out there's a Hearthstone-style collectible card game which spans the whole game and all of its various timelines, and I got fully engrossed in collecting as many cards as possible and challenging every possible opponent.

I remember this game getting a hell of a promotional campaign when it came out, but overall I found it all pretty... average? Nothing in it is bad enough that I feel the need to leave a negative review, but it is basically a collection of competently-designed mechanics piled together into a just-decent whole. Most of it consists of good-but-not-amazing action-roguelike combat, and separate from that is some good-but-not-amazing base building.

Overall, you can get more out of some other games like The Binding of Isaac, Hades, and Rimworld, but if you've played games like that and felt like you've gotten the most out of them, you might dip into CotL as a neat diversion.

This was the first of the Lego franchise tie-in games I ever played, and knowing next to nothing about them, this was a pleasant surprise. On the surface, it's pretty standard 3D action game fare, with some light platforming, light combat, and light puzzles, nothing too involved.

The standout parts of the game are the sense of humor in the cutscenes, which play out largely like the movies but with some gags inserted here and there. Then there's the level of fanservice, where they include and let you play as basically any character from the movie/book trilogy. And yes, they even let you play as Tom Bombadil.

There seems to be this tradition in Japan of rockstar game developers getting screwed over by the company they work for, then striking out on their own to make the game they're best known for a second time, so that this time it's fully their own.

So yeah, this is basically Symphony of the Night with very little iteration, and there's nothing too wrong with that. The boss fights offer a great sense of scale and spectacle, which is one of the biggest draws imo

I went into this game fairly blind, not knowing much except that it was an old-school-style earthbound-inspired RPG with some dark twists. Well, the dark twists come pretty early on, but the game gets really engrossing as you uncover more and more of the truth behind the story. I stayed up until about 3 a.m. when I was in the game's home stretch, and the late-game plot developments were literally jaw-dropping for me. I couldn't tear myself away if I tried, and I wouldn't dare spoil the nature of the plot, but just know that it hit on so many different emotional levels.

As someone who grew up on Doom 1 and 2, I am loving the recent resurgence of boomer shooters. The biggest claim to fame in this one is that there is a really good variety of weapons, plus tons of random modifiers to make that variety feel even deeper. At first you can only retain one weapon between levels, but you eventually unlock the ability to keep more than one.

The action is top-notch, but a bit of a sticking point with me, and I think several others, is that there are some compulsory minigames to play between levels which unlock upgrades that you don't really want to be without. The developer has added a kind of "condensed mode" to reduce how much time you need to spend on those minigames, which is what I'll probably go for when I do a re-play.

Aside from the main campaign though, there are also some wave-survival arenas which are a ton of fun. One of the maps is even Doom's E1M1! As I write this, there's also multiplayer in the works, which could make things even better!

Very possibly my favorite roguelike deckbuilder since Slay the Spire. There's a different enough feel to this game that it isn't just a StS-like, but does some of its own interesting things. A lot of strategic thought goes into deciding which of the three floors to place your units on, and which ones to place in front or back. The different decks feel uniquely balanced too, and you can use both a primary and secondary deck in each run.

Just like StS though, I think the ascension levels after beating the base game become less fun. Still, I got over 50 really good hours out of the game in spite of that.

I've been an RPG fan since Final Fantasy 1, and this was my first entry into the Atelier franchise. From that perspective, this is a pretty good JRPG!

If you're in the same boat I was, and you want to know what sets this game apart: The biggest primary feature is the crafting system, which is incredibly deep. The bulk of the game is fairly low-stakes, where you go out into the field, fight enemies in pretty standard turn-based JRPG combat, gather crafting materials, and complete corresponding generic quests from a bulletin board in town.

But like I said, the game really starts to shine when you get into crafting equipment. All combat-related items, from weapons and armor to consumable weapons and healing items, can be hand-crafted by the player, and in fact will only be of the best quality when you choose to do so. There are multiple different ingredients that can go into an item, and you combine these ingredients in a sort of puzzle grid to get the most out of them. Sometimes this is a multi-step process, where you have to synthesize basic ingredients into more advanced ingredients, then use several of those advanced ingredients to make later-game items.

The maximum level cap for your characters is pretty low, so you'll likely hit max level well before completing the main quest, and from that point, your progression comes from making better and better equipment for your characters. Doing this can be very time-consuming, but it's also very rewarding when you figure out how to manipulate the crafting chain to get the strongest effects on your party's equipment.

Beating the game doesn't require super advanced knowledge of this system, but there are some optional superbosses at the end of the game that will absolutely put your technical knowledge and patience to the test.

Overall I really liked the game because you can become better friends with your party members, and sometimes they stop by your house to visit and give you a random item, and I really liked experiencing the fantasy of having friends who want to visit me :)