Recent reviews by DarkTwinge

Solid expansion: takes some practice to learn the new enemies and Elites, which is what I'd generally expect from an expansion; new content that challenges me for a while. Difficulty is actually pretty similar to the original map once you learn it.

The third iteration of essentially the same game. Still obtuse and mostly the same fairly-bland-but-enjoyable core loop.

...But this version has an utterly unacceptable winter mechanic that stops all income, where the "gameplay" consists of just waiting around for a literal 45 minutes before you can make another decision. There's no reason this should've ever made it into the game, especially when it's their 3rd revision of the idea!

Great addition to the sweeperlike canon.

(Be aware that this is a significant jump in difficult compared to the first game - which was exactly what I was hoping for, personally.)

Comfy - puzzles that aren't _too_ intense but still require some thought coupled with some relatively chill, explorey collect-a-thon vibes, which nicely land in the "satisfying to explore and find stuff" category (and not the "this is tedious / there's too much garbage" category).

Consistently challenging puzzles to solve; I'm making interesting decisions all over the place, and still finding it very fun after 300+ hours.

High variety: You'll still be seeing satisfying new ways to combine items+characters together you haven't done before even after hundreds of hours of play. Curses being different each time further mixes up runs a lot more compared to fixed Ascensions.

Smooth play experience: High complexity, but iconography is generally strong and intuitive. The best Undo option in the genre (which has spoiled me for other games!), and an overarching design that never rewards tedious grinding. Also has an 'Unlock All' button to skip meta unlocks!

I think as this genre as 'competitive RPG', and it works well and is a lot of fun in a relatively short timeframe. Party-game realm with some light strategy and fun characters. Really glad to see someone else that loved 100 World Story enough to create a remake =)

(Also cool to see Daniel Remar in the credits; I played Iji ~15 years ago and it's awesome to see you still making cool stuff!)

Surprisingly high amount of depth to build decisions that keeps things interesting with lots to learn over dozens of hours.

Tons of interesting decisions, generally good balance sense, and a mostly reasonable monetization model.

Solid implementation of a classic.

Advanced Minesweeper with a lot of great additions, including the best QoL feature: Countdown Mode.