Recent reviews by skatche

Look, it's not terrible for what it is: a janky, unserious little indie horror game. No deeper meaning, no real expectation of such. But even at a discount, this costs about twice as much as it should.

If you make a game bad on purpose, you've still made a bad game.

Fantastic story-driven puzzle game. Comes across as pretentious at first, but soon ropes you in; the writing and design are actually of very high quality. Did not find the puzzles especially difficult, for the most part, but they are engaging and fit the narrative well. People have mentioned David Lynch, which isn't completely off-base, but this strikes me as a different style of surrealism: maybe William S. Burroughs on a good day, with a bit of David Foster Wallace thrown in.

This series, and these two games, take visual novels, in all their ugly glory, and elevate them to passionate, heartfelt examinations of truth, justice, forgiveness, loyalty, friendship, courage, and of course, their counterpart in evil. You will roll your eyes at the gags repeated until they're barely funny anymore. You will tap A impatiently as you sit through expository dialogue that repeats things you already know, just in case you had a lobotomy since the last time you played. You will begin to count the canned animations used in situations that stretch their original meaning almost to the breaking point. But damn it, you will have a great time doing it.

Every flaw that was present in the original Phoenix Wright, when it first came out, is still here -- but what was good has been magnified far beyond its original bounds. Despite its absurdity and stylistic tropes, the writing is incredibly smart, and makes you feel smart for participating in it. Of course there are moments when you're handed a straight, slow pitch, but especially in the second game, and even in the first, you'll be thrown some real curveballs that require careful analysis. At the end of the day, there's simply nothing else like this series out there, and in twenty years it's really been honed to a razor's edge.

Warning to achievement hunters: MAKE FREQUENT, INDEPENDENT SAVES. Without a guide you will miss things, and as far as I can tell, there's no way to jump back into the chapter of your choice after completing the game.

Not just a meme game -- this is actually quite fun and well put together. Has Foddy-like elements, but doesn't feel like a rage game at all: movement is fast and feels great, the platforming is challenging and satisfying to master, punishment for failure is never too extreme. Good price point as well. If anything falls a little flat, it's the humour -- but it sure as hell is relatable, and I don't mean to suggest it's bad, it just won't necessarily have you busting a seam with laughter.

The first one definitely had a better story, but I don't mean that this one is told poorly, or had anything obvious that could have been improved. You can't hunt the same stag twice: it's better to find new and living quarry, even if it can't match up in size and stature, than to continue beating the dead one at your feet. My time with Golden Idol II was plenty enjoyable, and it's always possible that III will rock my socks the way the first one did.

I can't fathom how this got to be Overwhelmingly Positive. Usually games with that rating are either extremely good, or good enough and extremely cheap. Mouthwashing is neither. Fairly decent writing and characters get you interested at the start of the game, but then devolve steadily into vague nonsense; tone-deaf, derivative "horror" sequences; wholesale abandonment of the themes that got you invested in the first place; and an ending that drags on about half an hour too long -- just enough to get you outside the refund window. Watch a let's play if you must, but save your money.

Simply one of the best colony builders I've ever played. The logistics feel like they've been honed almost to perfection: need to balance resources between multiple locations? Hire and fire workers for seasonal work? Move people to live near their workplace? No, you don't -- so much of it either happens automatically, or can happen automatically if you know how to set it up. All that without depriving the player of input, and still keeping them plenty busy. Basically what I'm saying is it just feels good to play.

It's a damn good DLC on its own terms; practically a whole different game built into the same engine. Unfortunately, technical problems are forcing me to give this a no for the time being. I'm getting hard crashes to desktop, usually at least once and sometimes multiple times in a single session. Starting a new game was its own ordeal, as the game hard crashed from the "choose your starting character" screen about five times before I managed to get it to work.

Got imprisoned after losing a peasant uprising that would have got me my first title. Not ideal, but I had more than enough gold to ransom my way out. Shortly thereafter, the game crashed, and when I loaded back in it was just before I lost the war. This time, immediately after surrendering, my jailor decided to execute me. I'm playing on Ironman, so quitting and reloading to try again wasn't an option. You can imagine my frustration.

Hope this will get ironed out, because Paradox really did cook with this one in terms of gameplay.

Clicker garbage, expertly tuned so that you don't hit the wall of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ until just after the two hour mark.