Recent reviews by JeanH13

This game is a labor of love, and goes the extra mile to create character immersion and theme. The art style is vibrant and reminiscent of pulp fiction, and slowly delves into the eldritch science fiction of the Cthulhu mythos. The music is great, and the soundtrack is an excellent purchase for anyone that runs tabletop RPGs.

The designers drew inspiration from The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and take it in a completely fresh direction. The protagonist, Norah, feels exactly like I am playing an Investigator out of the tabletop RPG Call of Cthulhu, solving puzzles and looking for answers to her husband's disappearance.

My absolute favorite part of this game is the amazing use of suspense horror around the Deep Ones. It is present the moment you dock your motor boat on the island, and builds into a spectacular plot as the island becomes one giant "Escape Room".

The game took me 9 hours to complete and unlock the achievements. That said, there is an easy 12+ hours of content here if you play any of the Cthulhu tabletop RPGs, as the designers created so much lore that one can run a prequel (of Harry's expedition team) and sequel campaigns (with the island's family tree) using this game's amazing story and characters. For anyone going this route, the art book is a must buy for use as rpg game props.

This is an amazingly fun item-arena brawler. The closest games I would compare it to are the Bomberman series and Killer Queen Black.

Your character avatar has no impact on your move set, which consists of punching, grabbing/activating an item, and throwing an item. Your associated Ancient One cult (Cthulhu, Dagon, and Nyarlathotep right now) does have a slightly altered move set, which are fitting for the time-limited avatar transformations (similar to a Smash Bros. Smash Ball). The game moves at such a frantic, hilariously fast and fun pace that it doesn't need more than this.

The maps are small king/queen-of-the-hill arenas, and your goal is to knock everyone off the map arena. The strategy element comes in from the weapon/item variety, which makes great use of rock-paper-scissors for the 5-second showdown fight.

The single-player and cooperative content is there, but is still being worked on for a longer experience. What is there now is amazing and immersive. My only "complaint" as of July 9, '20 is that the story is short (note, this is early access). For Overcooked gamers, think of it as only having worlds 1-x and 2-x finalized for playing for the story campaign (there are more "worlds" being worked on). A solo gamer would enjoy this game as a fully released product. A solo gamer that likes the Cthulhu mythos would very likely enjoy the game now. There is no online cooperative element; it is currently local-coop only.

Competitive multiplayer matches are short and sweet. They're not quite as short as Mario Party or WarioWare games, and are closer to a Bomberman or Invisigun Heroes game experience. Each map is out to kill the players in a uniquely different way, so it's hard for a match to have a single person taking a huge lead. Regarding my earlier reference to Killer Queen Black, the Ancient One that your avatar worships and transforms into is very similar to the Soldier Bee mechanic. You have a limited experience in the "evolved state", and each transformation will alter your strategy.

This is a great, relaxing game to play after a long day. The music is soothing and has a variety of different tracks (they are changed in-game by flying through rings). The recent addition of bird transformations (to change your bird avatar) was a nice touch too.
This game is the epitome of a 15-minute Zen session.

This game is kind of hard to categorize. Even though it is a 5 vs 1 game (with AI bots filling in as needed), it still has a strong cooperative feel. There are enough "player variable powers" on both the Viking (Heroes) and Boss (Villain) character rosters that it easy to keep a fair balance with friends. Granted this might be different with randoms, but the rounds are short enough that it doesn't feel like a grind.

This game is similar in concept to Dungeonland and Bloodsports.TV, in terms of the cooperative team elements. The execution feels more like a ~10 minute round of Monster Hunter, with one person playing as the monster. For anyone who has played with random PUGs for Monster Hunter or the old-school MMOs, this game will feel like a perfectly executed casual game for you. The different bosses are so unique from each other that you can still keep the a coordinated, static group of players on their toes.

As a gamer who has been longing for the heavy team dynamics of the old school MMOs like FFXI, this game is perfect.

This is an amazing cooperative game. The game designers have struck the perfect balance with simple stages that are both challenging, fun, and rewarding.

There are no variable player powers like Dungeon Defenders, Deathtrap (of Victor Vran games), or Orcs Must Die. The "traps" (cannons) are a permanent part of the stage, which takes away the tedious min-maxing element from games like Dungeon Defenders and OMD: Unchained. The ammunition types (what you load into the cannon) require a lot of teamwork and strategy, and provide great variety for figuring out how to deal with the impending waves.

The level of intense and fun teamwork for this game is comparable to Overcooked 1, Tiny Brains, and Full Metal Furies.

There's a lot going with Pyre, but in a great way. It is a bit of a light sports game, with a skill tree leveling system to accompany its RPG-style story. Single-player is a fun experience, but is a bit too intense for my tastes to do another playthrough (there are multiple character endings based on the choices you make). There is a Versus multiplayer mode (local/offline) where you can go against another person or the AI (on separate teams).

It follows the similar "silent hero protagonist" found in Transistor and Bastion, but goes a different route for the hero's journey. Bastion was survival in a post-apocalyptic setting, and Transistor somewhat brings about the apocalypse (or hurried the pace along, depends on your view).

Pyre doesn't use the apocalypse theme as much as the other two, choosing instead to focus attention on the economic/social/political class system of a society. This game's core theme is about hope, and it is hard not to get emotionally invested with the story and its outcome.

A spaceship bridge-simulator game that supports up to 5 players for online co-op. There are currently 7 different classes of ships, and three different factions that are tailored towards piracy/stealth, combat, and research/science. This game does justice to sci-fi space exploration, with some fun off-world and ship combat thrown in. It's best played with 4 or 5, but it can be managed with 2 or 3 players through the use of AI bots.

An amazingly fun game IF you have local friends to play it with. The manic, four-player action combines the best elements of Diner Dash, Mario Party, and Tiny Brains.

The game needs at least two players minimum to be enjoyable, however. So if your buddies are online-only, then you will not get much fun with this game and should pass.

Steam needs an "Ambiguous" review option. I want to like this game, but I can't support the mechanics of it. It's just too tedious and doesn't reward you for your time investment (your game progress resets after each adventure). It is fun for being free to play, but that length of fun really depends on your own gaming style.

I ultimately do not recommend it simply because the only viable party formation/strategy is pure damage. The game actively discourages damage mitigation builds.

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The game can play by itself about 75% of the time. This makes it convenient as a fun distraction/diversion for doing more important life tasks.

I like that I don't have to click anything to do damage. Mouse-clicking damage is minimal, but it can stun the enemy.

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The other 25% of the game, the boss fights at the end of stages, require level-grinding and hand-holding. The party formation is an interesting concept, but is very limiting in that the game forces you to min-max for damage output. It's counter-intuitive for the healer to not be able to heal the tank in the party formation (doing so creates a massive loss in damage and slows level progression). The entire difficulty of the game is highly dependant on how fast and how much damage you can do. Tanking and healing builds are useless.

It takes too long to get access to the roster of party members (monster kills drop gold which is used to unlock levels/party members). Even worse, the game resets your progress (level, money, unlocked party members) each time you beat an adventure "module" (the world mission). You do get to keep your items, but having to start over from scratch each time is incredibly tedious and really emphasizes the monotony of the game.

This is an enjoyable, casual game. I find it is best played in short bursts when one is wanting to take a short break from other tasks (chores, work, etc.).

It supports online multiplayer and local multiplayer (up to 4 for either), and is best enjoyed with friends. It is a cooperative screen-defense game with rogue-light progression and minor competition (someone becomes a demon if you take too long to beat a level).

The gameplay itself is best compared to "Super Mario Bros. 3: Battle Mode" from the SNES. Add in a crystal that you have to power up (as a team, or solo) to advance to the next stage, and you have this game described in a nutshell. If you don't like that style of game, then you likely won't like this.

I picked it up during a sale, but I do think the USD price is justified. The base game itself is fun in a casual-setting, but replayability at the moment is small once you manage to clear the last "world". There are five worlds, and what feels like ten levels within a world before being advanced to the next world.