Recent reviews by Belthesar

Holy cow, is this game a riot! Build ridiculous ships, fire all the pews, save the world, explode all the things.

Waves of Steel has many of the compelling game loops that make games like Earth Defense Force fun. Go up against increasingly ridiculous waves of enemies, collect goodies that you can use to upgrade (or in WoS's case, alternative build new) builds to take on increasingly difficult odds. As other reviewers note, and much like EDF, your ability to do ridiculous things only adds to the fun and enjoyment.

The ship builder is pretty intuitive, and so much fun. The loot -> build -> explode -> loot... cycle feels great, and I love discovering that I've unlocked new torpedos, or guns, or engines, or smokestacks.

The game definitely doesn't take itself too seriously. It's just good fun explosions and loots and naval action, and I'm loving it.

I had a chance to play the demo of this at ECGC 2017, and was immediately sucked into this sci-fi futurepunk story. The art style for The Mind's Eclipse is a wonderful ink shaded world that appropriately sets the tone for the world. A fantastic visual novel.

I was pleasantly surprised how much fun Curse of the Moon was. This game was a blast. Where as it's source material, the (as of this review) unreleased Ritual of the Night is a spirituall successor to Koji Igarashi's Symphony of the Night and other pioneering Metroidvanias, Curse of the Moon harkens back to the NES-flavored roots of IGA / Konami's Castlevania Series, most notably Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. Produced by INTI CREATES, well known for their ability to translate their passionate love for classic retro game titles into polished, modern, fun filled experiences, Circle of the Moon is no slouch in its ability to deliver outstanding gameplay.

That polish is notable as soon as you enter the first level. Movement is tight and crisp, and while it follows the same basic mechanics tropes that its classic Castlevania bretheren, obvious sugar has been added, such as the ability to start climbing on stairs mid-jump and that climbing said stairs is just as speedy as your horizontal movement. These are the kinds of things that I remember trying as a kid and wishing were possible - it appears that I wasn't alone! Even so, if exagerated knock-back and other mechancial tropes aren't your cup of tea, the game offers a casual mode that removes some of the more faithful penalties for gameplay introduced in the game.

The level design is neat, and offers multiple pathways for you to complete them. The various replay modes available (so far I've found 3 ways to play the game, and I suspect there are more) encourage you to take different paths, encouraging you to see new content as you traverse through the levels. This is very nice, because a common INTI trope for their games includes 2+ replays of a game to experience all the content. Curse of the Moon follows along in suit, so it's nice that each replay shows you parts of the level you haven't seen before.

Each playthrough feels like an appropriate length, with a generous save system allowing you to return to any level, replacing it's inspiration's dated and frustrating password system. The aptly named "Curse of the Moon" ability also allows you to backtrack to previous levels, undoing your progress, but also allowing you to make different choices if you feel you made a mistake. Without going into detail, there are reasons for choosing to do so that you may want to avail yourself of.

This game is gorgeous. It has some of the best looking pixel art I've seen. Backdrops and levels are clearly reminiscent of their spiritual successors, but there's clearly no intent on emulating the NES's color palette limit, instead choosing when to be held to that limitation in design as an artistic choice vs system or engine limitation. At several points, I questioned whether INTI CREATES did the art or if Yacht Club Games did, as I felt the art was of the same calibre as Shovel Knight. Enemy movement is fluid, and the bossess look amazing.

As with a smaller game dev house, there are a few more bugs and polish related items that could have been improved on, but with the game already releasing at v1.1, and a quick patch coming right after release, it's clear that they're being attentive to feedback and working to smooth any bumps along the road.

If you've been curious to play some classic Castlevania games, but either don't want to deal with artifical difficulty of bad controls and dated programming, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon is a fantastic entry into said genre. If you're a retro gamer, you're going to feel right at home.