Recent reviews by Surumon

The tutorial took several attempts to get through due to portions not triggering properly. Some objectives made sense while others lacked direction (or would not trigger). Playing the previous game reduced frustration. However, new players to these concepts may be completely lost and I can foresee this being confusing enough to be rage quit inducing. A better approach might be to restructure the tutorial and make a separate map that is more direct and hand holding. This would be a great way to have a Conrad cameo as the mentor for the new investigator.

The two-tool mechanic is a welcome update compared to the previous entry. The character being incapable of holding certain tools in her left hand could be better handled by designating certain tools as “right hand only” tools. Alternatively she could equip them to her right hand instead of explaining she is apparently too much of a klutz to hold an expensive camera in her offhand.

Having a multitude of suspects to pick from emphasizes the investigatory feel for the game. Not having to leave the mansion to select a new suspect or evidence streamlines the investigations. These are great changes for ease of playing. Evidence having a more direct correlation to the ghosts in question is also a welcome change leaving less guess work compared to CSPPI.

The user interface is a little confusing with the handheld evidence tablet. There are symbols that you can assign to suspects, audio, and images to assist in narrowing the suspected ghost. However, it was not initially clear what these symbols meant. A clarification in the tutorial or a tool tip somewhere in that UI would have been helpful.

I love the main character’s watch tracking nerves and focus. I would prefer an option toggle or hold to view instead of the brief moment she raises it into view before hiding it again. Once I learned you can equip two items and look down to view the watch, I stopped using the keybind to interact with the watch entirely. I suggest removing the keybind and instead just have the UI element always available if the player simply looks down at the player model. This could be simplified by moving her watch to the right hand where it is always going to be visible. Do not complicate basic information the player needs access to all the time.

My last contention is with the releasing mechanic. The interface has been streamlined compared to CSPPI – It looks incredible! However, I find some irritation reopening the menu to select each element of the ghost’s background. Please let me pick all three at once. If I get a step wrong I will suss it out – I am supposed to be an investigator. This change alone would make the entire process smoother and more cinematic. Currently, it feels like having to constantly flip through a notebook while asking the ghost to patiently wait while I check notes on page 32 because I put his name on page 14. The character I play as knows how this works and should be prepared.

Overall, there is a lot of promise and I am eager for the full release. The level design echos a lot of the amazing stuff I saw in CSPPI and look forward to seeing more of the mansion and the stories behind each ghost.

One last thing: The reason I appreciate this game series over other similar ones is the tone: We help people find their rest. I am not there to combat them. I sincerely appreciate this approach and wish more games would approach it similarly.

Thank you for the demo!

Want to know if Go-Go Town is as good as or better than Animal Crossing? Straight to the point: This game is not Animal Crossing but is uniquely it’s own.

The Good:

• The game has you hit the ground running. After a brief tutorial, you are left to zoom around at your discretion decorating, designing, dismantling, deciphering, or disorganizing the town to your liking. Progression is swift with no excessive time gates preventing you from achieving your design goals in one afternoon.
  
• A boisterous soundtrack keeps you company. The music is so cheerful and upbeat, you might be nodding to the beat subconsciously while tackling the to-do list.
  
• Income is based on a functional tourism industry and there is some consideration to put in the town layout. This adds some welcome complexity beyond just decoration.
  
• Bright, colorful, cheerful, and ultimately silly world design assaults photoreceptors and cones.
  
• Set the pace! Need to take it slow to redecorate the town? Close the gate and staunch the flow of visitors until things look just right. Moving things forward or pausing them to design in peace adds a lot to how relaxing the game is.
  
• Player housing was recently added and the level of customization available and the nuance item placement is amazing and miles beyond Animal Crossing or even The Sims.
  
• Great control scheme on both Steam Deck and PC with ample ability to rebind keys.

The Mediocre:

• There are some genuine laughs with the humor in game, but sometimes it falls a little flat.
  
• Town automation overall is welcome and the AI is rather smart at only producing what is needed. However, there is lack of information on when there is too much work for your workers to handle. For example, it is easy to create too much work on the farm for the three workers to handle.
  
• Town logistics requires some thought when finally getting access to the couriers. It is not readily apparent at first, but poor design pathways for couriers can significantly slow down replenishing shops.
  
• NPCs that move into town are fun and silly but offer little in terms of personality or interaction living in town once hired. They do not feel very alive, but they ultimately are a means to an end (automation and running shops).
  
• There is so much to do, it can be simply overwhelming at times.
  
• Exploring can be irritating without being able to carry any tools while using a vehicle. However, nothing time limited is beyond player control. This is only a minor irritation.
  
• A few resource harvesters need to be moved manually when they rarely run out of materials. There are no notifications delivered to the player when there should be.
  
• The fishing zone seems to be the bottleneck with resource production being the slowest of all zones.

The Bad:

• Specific audio is unbalanced and either too loud or too quiet. Unfortunately, the audio options do not allow fine tuning. These options should be expanded more (ambient sound effects, footsteps, etc.).
  
• The mayor (player character) customization should precede the intro/tutorial. To be clear, there are no restrictions customizing the mayor after the brief tutorial. This is more a design/flow choice. Personally, it makes more sense to customize the player character before the tutorial if that character is the player.
  
• Several UI elements lack information. This is especially noticeable when browsing wares from a visiting trader. It is confusing trying to figure out if this item has already been purchased before. It would be helpful to have that information (how many items are in my inventory) or an easy way to tell if I already have collected it (previously purchased/unlocked).
  
• The exports app only lists three options and has three reservation slots. It would be better if there were more options to pick from at a time.
  
• Collision with objects is not uniform and getting trapped behind collision happens a little more frequently than preferable (vehicles especially).
  
• The most egregious issue is redesigning/moving large amounts of placed objects. Objects can only be moved one at a time. Often, it is easier to delete large swaths and rebuild. However, cash runs out during these redesigns making moving some objects tediously necessary. This could be alleviated if there were "temporary money" for what was deleted to ease this process for players - For example, deleted objects added money to a temporary pool that only went away when closing the build interface.

THE FOLLOW ARE EARLY ACCESS ISSUES (and hopefully get corrected):

• Town Maintenance workers bug out and all of them hyper focus on cleaning the same spot all at once. All garbage collection comes to a screeching halt while all of them do the same task instead of splitting the workload.
  
• Farm seeds sit on the ground until the player collects them. NPC farmers will not collect them. Visiting farm fields every now and then becomes necessary or you run out of seeds.
  
• Rice is currently not getting harvested by the AI.

I have absolutely enjoyed my time with Go-Go Town and look forward to the upcoming full release. Time spent on this game has been relaxing and self-paced with giant amounts of fun customizing the town. The asking price is well worth it. I also rest easy knowing Prideful Sloth will finish their game as they have finished their previous ones.

Megaton Musashi:Wired decided to take a hint from Saturday morning cartoon logic, mix it with a dash of giant mechas, a sprig of kaiju, and an amazing soundtrack to deliver a competently put together and generally enjoyable experience for fans of the genre.

The Good:

• The soundtrack sets the mood while you go to town with any number of over the top weapons smashing enemies. The buildups prior to a mission drop are amazing at making you feel like a bad ass pilot landing right in the nick of time to turn the tide of battle.
  
• The mecha themselves are over the top to the point of silliness while still managing to pull off things so ridiculous, it becomes cool. Such as creating a giant drill with multiple jet engines or a firing a high-speed, massive toy spinning top. The game asks less the whys and settles more on the why nots and it fits entertainingly well.
  
• The above points fit together perfectly with the hack-and-slash game play. Areas are not particularly large, but wading through small fries and beating up a boss three times the size of your mecha is what the game wants you to enjoy. It does a good job making you feel exceptionally powerful all while screaming attack names constantly.
  
• My understanding is this game was originally released as a mobile game in Japan with freemium models of play and loot one would expect. Releasing it like this is another great example of ensuring this work of art is preserved without the pay model of the original release. Preserving game history is important and this needs to be highlighted for everyone to see.
  
• The quick-burst game play where you knock out several battles in short time makes this a perfect short break or play on the go game. It runs perfect on the Steam Deck in Offline mode. Online play seems to have some issues due to the inclusion of the Anti-Cheat software failing to understand the Steam Deck. I am not sure if this will ever be fixed, but the entire story and much of the side content was accessible without the need for online.

The Mediocre:

• To avoid spoilers – the story is passable but not genre defining or worthy of the price tag by itself. It goes off the rails in the latter third and you can tell approximately when this transpires as the game will helpfully warn you of a 26-28 minute cut scene beforehand. The word they were looking for was episode because you are shown what appears to be an entire episode of the anime. The game systems could not handle this level of storytelling.
  
• There are interruptions and pacing issues in the story. You will have moments where you are locked in battle with a boss only for the game to steal focus from your fight to have a 3-5 minute dialogue sequence that is fairly meaningless. The game story splits at one point forcing you to start from scratch with none of your previous equipment. This really bogged down the pacing with busywork.
  
• Inventory management is loot potpourri. Gear swiftly becomes outdated and you get flooded with constantly new equipment. Systems are in place to recycle old equipment or keep upgrading legendary gear to keep it relevant regardless of rank. Inventory overall is handled well, just tedious.
  
• The 2D/3D art style the game has is presented well with beautiful artwork and colors but could be an immediate turnoff for some.
  
• DLC is a bit on the pricey side for customizing your mecha, but at least it is all aesthetics and not story content.

The Bad:

• Mid-battle (and all) dialogue is Japanese only. Good luck keeping pace with the battle and reading on the fly. You can replay missions but it would have been better to have the action fully stop or have in-mission cut scenes instead for some dialogue. Especially the times it was more story relevant than just pilot banter to establish the cast.
  
• That 26-28 minute episode comes out of nowhere and it did put a damper in my plan for the day. Thankfully you can back out of it or skip it and watch when you are ready. However, if you wanted to continue the story it does drive a giant wedge into your plans if you have limited time. I did and this really hurt so it bears mention as a point against the game.
  
• Many concepts get introduced during the story. New attacks, a different mecha tank mode, and others. Soon after they get introduced, they lose all relevance in the next story episode as they are not that important to progress. You can really see the freemium drip content on full display as these things were probably meant to tide you over for an entire month between story updates in the original mobile release. As a full title, it does not fit well at all.
  
• Grinding! That is the name of progress and the sacrifice of your phalanges!
  
• The post game has little draw unless you are looking to max your rank, complete your collection, or fight the next big bad. Additionally, if you fail to meet the power numbers for the fight, it is hard to compensate with skill as all damage you take is extremely high.
  
• Many concepts the authors touch on are not handled very well in this medium. There is an attempt at addressing post traumatic stress disorder. However, the game fails to address such a complex topic and only dips a toe in it. This materializes as one character more or less sitting on the sideline for what feels like a quarter of the game only to randomly overcome it with not a lot of character development dedicated to the complexity of the disorder and treatment. Another sequence for a different character involves that hero sexually assaulting an android because of other advanced topics that appear to be discussed in greater depth in the anime. Whereas the game touches ever so lightly on it and then dismisses it as quickly as it happens. Their presentation of this is vaguely understandable with other context, but because it is only hinted at instead of discussed – It comes off as put the lotion on creepy instead. Overall these topics seem to result in only one conclusion: The story is better served through the anime and not the game. With that said, you might be better off watching the anime. As the anime does not seem to redefine anything about the genre, the question then is: Why watch this anime? You might be better served watching a different anime entirely.

The TL;DR:
A competently put together mecha game that is great for short burst fun. A decent story that does get muddled with pacing issues and fails to go far enough to address advanced topics that they are attempting to discuss. The characters are enjoyable enough and the slice of life side stories are probably the highlights of the character interaction. If you can excuse some of the story leaps in logic or outright failure to provide context and focus on the silly over the top nature of combat, you can find enjoyment here.

Ever wondered what an isekai Mega Man game might look like? Capcom did. One night hanging out on your couch, they posed this question to you. Then asked you to hold their beer, hand them that half gallon of LSD, and the bag of hard drugs from end table. They tell you to strap in, because you cannot escape this reality now.

The Good:

• The story concept is low key amazing. In short, you are sucked into your computer one night while playing Mega Man, the writers heavily insinuating you are playing a ROM (Capcom knows their audience). You are tasked with controlling Hunter programs resembling franchise characters, clearing mixed up stages, and defeating bosses to fix your database or risk losing everything forever. While a mediocre setup, halfway through the story it is revealed that the bosses are becoming actively aware of their existence. In one brief dialogue, a boss laments his existence is to be trapped in a room, filled with anxiety, staring at a door he cannot walk through, while waiting for you to kill him. Shortly after, the supporting characters who have been helping you also touch on the fact that they do not exist in the mainline Mega Man franchise and completing your task means they will cease to exist. That is the darkest take I have ever heard in Mega Man.
  
• All the mechanics of a Gacha game to enjoy without the time sink, time gate, or fear of missing out marketing. Plus all seasonal events, special events, and everything that might have been time limited. EDIT: There are some crossover events that did not get included.
  
• Controller mapping is good, responsive, and the game runs smoothly on the Steam Deck. Battery life is lengthy with default settings. The menus are touch based, but easy to navigate.
  
• Large selection of characters. Characters provide skills and not weapons. Allowing you to get some variety in skills and movement without locking you out of specific weapons.
  
• GAME PRESERVATION. This is big. Gacha games, or any live service game, often gets relegated to tales of the past or archived wiki pages. Keeping this game playable and available for everyone years after the service is ended is a extremely rare. If you support game preservation, I highly recommend buying this game, even if you do not play it. If more offline Gacha games become commercial successes, other companies may follow suit, and preserve history. Megaton Musashi W: Wired is another example of a Gacha game, turned stand alone (and is receiving new content updates).
  
• I bought this game for Miss Tron. Not going to lie.

The Mediocre:

• Some mechanics are not well explained. Expect to visit forums or Wiki pages while trying to understand certain concepts in game.
  
• Game flow for those who are not accustom to Gacha games may find this a complete turn off. Often times, the narrative pauses while you grind out upgrades. You can counter this with certain characters with skills that efficiently grind out materials better. Miss Tron, ironically, is very good for this.
  
• Fully upgrading is the only way to enjoy benefits from a weapons or characters. This means grinding out mediocre, unchanging stages.
  
• Uneven quality on some characters. For example, MegaMan.EXE from the Battle Network series has more voice lines than Roll.EXE or ProtoMan.EXE which is upsetting for those characters.
  
• You have a Power rating. If you do not meet the minimum power, sometimes you are instantaneously immolated by the boss. Some bosses are worse when you are at or above the power rating, some are strangely very weak even when you are under powered, and some weapon combinations trivialize others regardless of power.

The Bad:

• The translation is very rough. Some sentences and word choices fail in English. Poor narrative writing can be overlooked, but the skill or status effect explanations can actively impede the game.
  
• Few iconic boss characters are available to play. The roster is mostly heroes. It is established early on that Hunter programs are not alive. Their likeness and skills are borrowed by the player. This is a missed opportunity.
  
• A lot of the available roster are the female robots in different, skimpier outfits. This is fairly standard with the Gacha game market. It would have been nice to have a larger roster of characters instead of 4-7 variants of the same character.
  
• Collectibles are sometimes in locations that require a specific character to access, but the game does little to hint that you need a different character. For example, Super Mega Man has a triple jump, but you would not know that unless you unlocked him.
  
• The narrative itself is short. A few days worth of mediocre storytelling. Once finished, there is little else to do other than challenge stages, events, or completing your collection. This is an unfortunate effect of the Gacha genre when you are not drip fed content, but instead given all the content at once. This is by design allowing new potential customers to get caught up with those being drip fed at end game and mainly feeding the Gacha machine.
  
• I bought this game for Miss Tron.

The TL;DR:
The game is competently put together and runs well on the Steam Deck. The game has characters that are generally likable, plenty of characters to pick from (and Waifu bait if that is your thing), good music, and recognizable core Mega Man mechanics. However, if you are unfamiliar with Gacha game mechanics, pacing, or actively dislike that style of play - You most likely will not like this game, even if you are a fan of the Mega Man franchise.

I am big on game preservation, this has been on sale for $7.50 USD and is worth tossing that coin at it if you want to help push the industry towards hopefully doing this with more games.

$7.50 to play as Miss Tron and the lovable ServBots is also definitely worth it.

Sins of a Solar Empire 2 is a genre martini. Mixing 4X and RTS elements with the coldness of space to chill both the glass and empty husks that once were your enemies. This is the second entry in the series approximately fifteen years later with the full release on Steam. How does this entry hold up to the predecessor?

The Good:
• Instantly familiar models, setting, and audio deliver the original fans remember. They even brought back the original voice actors to record some of the original lines and new lines in higher definition with better audio equipment. The refined art, sound, and model design help individualize the races even further. Special mention goes to the Vasari voice actor who did the Hannibal Lecter tongue-air-suck sound for the Vasari Titan Maw being constantly hungry.
  
• Amazing quality of life shortcuts allow you to quickly cue up research, production, structures, or fleet replacements directly where they need to go. Holding down ALT allows you to make buy/sell orders to the market in order to afford that shiny new capital ship, simultaneously cue up all exotics needed, and even tell it to reinforce the fleet you are directly purchasing the ship to. This sort of user interface design should be studied as a new standard. It allows far more attention to active decision making rather than being bogged down in needless management.
  
• Manual overrides for automation ensures if the new setup does makes non-optimal choices, you can still override the decisions made by computer assistance.
  
• Further attention has been given to differentiate the three major races in how they play. Such as the Vasari eschewing currency as they have no need for an economic system. Even among the two Advent factions, they each play differently enough while still maintaining some key features of their specific race.
  
• Local. Area. Network. Need I say more?

The Mediocre:
• Minor factions received an overhaul and some now represent the market where you buy/sell materials from. While a nice change, some bonuses received from minor factions are a bit iffy on balance. I found hireling combat fleets much stronger and capable of causing much grief with their ability to bypass defenses. The AI appears to always know the perfect spot to send them despite not having recent vision on that system too. There is no way to disable minor factions, so you cannot have a straight up fair fight between the core factions. You always have to deal with them.
  
• Capital ships, planets, star bases, and titans all have slots that house consumables or equipment. This adds more versatility to ships or outright improves the combat capability of the vessel. For example, the Vasari have access to mobile fleet beacons, allowing them to reinforce directly to the fight. This is a great concept, but can increase micromanagement required for effective play and becomes a headache in large fights.
  
• Exotics are a new resource that are required for unique upgrades, star bases, capital ships, and titans. This appears to be a system designed to add nuanced strategy of working with what you have or waiting for what you need. Ultimately, it devolves into just a time sink. Strategy matters less when you have the means of production and can hold defensive lines.
  
• Certain aspects from the previous entry of the game have been removed. This does streamline the game but makes it feel less complete. Skirmish options are heavily reduced, there are less victory conditions, and diplomatic options have fallen in a black hole.
  
• Civilian slots on planets are extremely limited which makes infrastructure choices have more impact but also leads to strange bottlenecks early game.

The Bad:
• No built in map editor; It is available on Github. I have not investigated it much but it would have been nice to have it built in. The documentation also appears extremely lacking. This feels more of an afterthought as opposed to a supported feature.
  
• The tech tree is confusingly laid out. The previous iteration broke the tree up into branches and clearly identified upgrade pathways with steadily increasing artwork. The new high fidelity AI art does not work well for this and makes the UI elements cluttered and too busy to quickly ascertain what I am doing without reading them. For clarity, this is less about the AI art and more about the poorly designed tech tree interface.
  
• Key faction components are locked far down the tech tree. For example, the TEC dual star base upgrade is at the very end of the warfare tech tree and the all titans are in tier four warfare. This really detracts from each faction having unique setups if you are struggling in research.
  
• Unit voice feedback can be absolutely irritating when micromanaging. The same voice line repeated back to you twenty times begs for a missing audio option. A configurable delay for repeating the same audio line would fix this.
  
• Units have odd target priorities when engaged. The simulation tracks every single turret and firing arc. This is amazing until some of your ship weapons target noncombatants despite having a clear shot at something shooting at them. This is a very odd behavior, possibly a major bug, and really needs correction. Watching a fourth of my firepower blow up labs that are not shooting back when there is a fleet of enemy targets to pick from is extremely frustrating. It is not possible to manually target those turrets either.
  
• No soundtrack on release. Most other games on the market launch with their soundtracks. This game has been in early access for awhile now and they knew the original soundtrack would be sold. It is less than a month away, but if I spend the money on your collector package, the least I expect is the soundtrack or a valid reason on the delay.

The Price Tag: Asking $100 USD for the collector's edition is pretty hefty. The $50 USD for the base game with some features cut from the last iteration is a hard sell. I would only spend if you are a series fan or have no other game you are looking forward to. The launch week sale price of $40 USD for the base game and $80 USD for the collector's edition felt a lot more fair for the quality of the game.

The TL:DR
Great game engine, LAN support, familiar great setting, shiny new graphics and audio, lower some of your expectations, and be willing to accept some good (and some confusing) changes to core systems. The price tag for the game is a stretch.

Conrad Stevenson's Paranormal P.I. is Ghost Hunters minus the showmanship meets a healthy dose of the History Channel's ”What if it was Ghosts!?” TV programming. This blending results in a unique setup thoroughly rooted in some believable reality with an unnerving atmosphere that leads to genuine jumps.

The Good:

• The setting is fantastic! Cheesy enough to be unbelievable but just enough realism that you might believe Conrad actually runs this combination historical ghost museum, ghost investigation service, and volunteer spirit medium. It is very reminiscent of three scientists turned ghost hunters.
  
• All maps are detailed, rooted in reality, and amazing. The homes you visit feel lived in. The lighthouse museum you visit feels like an actual historical museum with accompanying support buildings. I cannot emphasize enough how much care and detail went into these environments to place them firmly in reality.
  
• Each ghost has their own dialogue, backstory, and relevant fetter that ties them to the world. While the mechanics behind each ghost is similar, this individualism makes investigations unique. Furthering this, you participate in a small bit of actual investigation. Information is provided to you but you are left to piece together who each ghost was so you can release them into the afterlife. Hence the Private Investigator portion of the title.
  
• Each location presents an environment devoid of usual inhabitants as you arrive after hours or when the family has cleared out for the night. Familiar but unnerving enough that it leaves you that feeling you might need to look over your shoulder at any moment.
  
• The previous point leads this one – That unnerving atmosphere, assuming you disable the jump scares in the game options, creates some of the most organic feeling moments in a long while... For the last five minutes, I had been checking the bedrooms on the second floor. No cold spots, no EMF, no EVP, no evidence to shake a disembodied monkey's paw at. Giving up, I started downstairs to the dining room. Maybe I could find something there. As I rounded the corner, I saw her. Bloody, clutching her stomach, and crying. Two seconds is all I got before she faded away. I took a moment to process what I saw: Frightening and sad. What happened to her? That was my experience running into a ghost at the lighthouse museum. An organic, intriguing, scare. But I wanted to know more.

The Mediocre:

• Research done before each outing helps set the scene. However, it can be unclear how this works mechanically (relevant evidence increases the chances of interacting with specific ghosts).
  
• Other mechanics and tools lack clear explanations. Information in game is obfuscated to leave some interpretation to the player, enhancing the real world uncertainty behind ghosts. This is a game though. The mechanics could stand to be a bit clearer for some items for the sake of fairness (like the light/DOTs pen). The in game Wiki not being available outside the office is also painful. Conrad has a smart phone, we see it in the office. Does he not bring it with him?
  
• A few things are highly unlikely in reality. Such as Conrad five-finger discount borrowing historical documents from a museum. One, the staff would absolutely search for this stuff the following day. Two, Conrad would be nuts to take it for fear of being prosecuted (plus he openly displays some pieces in his museum; a Professor Moriarty, Conrad is not).
  
• Some voice lines can be a little grating as evidence is gathered. Other lines could have stood a retake due to an odd pronouncing here or there. Overall, Conrad's VA did a good job and his personality adds to the immersion. Options to disable the VA are also available.
  
• Some map geometry is a little iffy, despite being realistic. Whoever took that floor plan layout of the home that has a bathroom door open directly into the top of the stairs made me laugh. Touring homes during my last move, I have seen a similar design in a few older houses. Highly believable. However, this is a game. An argument can be made that level design should not necessarily impede player movement if it is not meant to be an obstacle.

The Bad:

• Bugs! Nobody escapes them these days. The office PC not resizing the monitor correctly and soft locked me. My particle effects failed to render. The game is not completely bug free, but runs well enough. The only issues have been bug encounters have been either restarts or an ALT+F4.
  
• The game shows clear signs of overreaching and failing to meet original goals. Many areas on the town map are inaccessible and appear to have been dropped. Due to the high quality and realism of the maps presented, I understand why. It is a shame and leaves a bitter taste in my mouth that there are only five locations. The shop catalog is swiftly purchased and some categories contain only one item.
  
• The core mechanics behind investigating ghosts can be boring. Mechanics do not change once you understand them. Rolling poorly for interactions with one ghost will leave you twiddling thumbs waiting. Uncontrollable interactions, while simulated organically, can be tedious or no fun for some.
  
• Some questions you have to answer while releasing entities can be irritating. It turns into an unnecessary memory game easily solvable by employing a real pen and paper. Poltergeists, for example, always start with the same recitation. We are entering Conrad's life in media res. Conrad should know this passage by heart by now as he insinuates he has been pursuing this business for several years. We should not have to push the button each poltergeist to jog Conrad's memory.
  
• The historical research portion is a great idea. It feels they could have leaned way harder into the concept. The interface is lacking just enough to irritate and be uninformative at times. Especially in the smaller homes when you need information. This did lead me to being confused a few times at the outset. I could not parse who a poltergeist was interacting with. Not game breaking but leaves a lot to be desired especially with how often interactions with this system occur.

Summary or TL;DR: For $15 USD, I am not disappointed. The game does a lot right while being different enough to the myriad of Phasmophobia clones proliferating Steam. Unique setups, environments, and pacing make CSPPI deserving of your attention with an excellent reality based, organic take on ghost hunting.

Definitely Not Fried Chicken asks, and answers, one question: What if the secret herbs and spices at a similar, but legally distinct, fast food restaurant was actually meth?

The Good:

• The world is bright, colorful, and has a fitting art aesthetic. There is some nice attention to detail with vehicles using their signals while driving to your chain business with their illicit cargo.
  
• The music is surprisingly pleasant to listen to. I found it relaxing.
  
• Simple to understand with complexities on advanced drug productions. As you step up from the basic drugs, you start taking temperature, humidity, and other factors into account to produce the best product and reap the maximum return.
  
• Fun story concept on the surface.
  
• Money management is hard. This is good, in my opinion. You make big money, then turn around, and spend big money. This feels like you are actually making big decisions as you watch your income/expenditures bob up and down like a hyper active chihuahua from a similar, but legally distinct, illicit taco chain (sadly you cannot run a taco shop).

The Mediocre:

• Employee management seems deep, but it is incredibly simplistic. Provide high stat boosting items and ignore employees. They do not pick when given a variety as their AI will always pick the highest boost item available to them.
  
• Police were added December 2023. I enjoy the concept of a crooked cop asking for cash, but there is lack of info. I have no countdown to when they will show up (every four days, but the cop in game says every two days – patch did not update in game text). I also have no idea how much they will ask for until they show up. I cannot plan ahead.
  
• The fun story concept is ruined by the fact that it is boring, not fun, and has no player interaction. It just happens in the background. The game also fails to tell what is needed to advance the story. You are left wondering when it will trigger again.
  
• Employee limits on the factory are fun. Planning your shift rotations and actually managing who does what and who goes where is an added level of complexity that is enjoyable. However, this becomes tedious quickly. There is also no quick way to setup large volumes of new employees.

The Bad:

• Guards. Are. Trash. The tutorial tells you to invest in guards. However, these are the most geriatric bunch of bargain bin, cheap, one-ply toilet paper durable guards in any game, ever. Even with upgrades and top tier equipment, they melt due to their shoddy AI rushing enemies when they should wait, stand in your own trap AOEs, or completely fail to lead targets with their guns – All of this results in their immediate deaths.
  
• Whoever designed the equipment prices was on one of the various substances the game allows you to make. Prices are everywhere! Traps are incredibly expensive, but ineffective. Guns and armor are wild with pricing and make no sense. Researched gear is less useful than already available gear. This makes outfitting one guard cost upwards of $10,000 but they die in 2-3 shotgun blasts regardless. You get none of the gear back either. It magically evaporates the second anyone dies.
  
• Research is a time sink. You trade drugs for research points. Better drugs give more research points so there is some emphasis on sending the best to cut down on time.
  
• Only one market entry point. You cannot jump into the game and pick a product you like best. It is a linear progression which limits strategy and replayability.
  
• You run into production overflow issues where you produce more than your fronts sell. The idea behind this is to have multiple fronts to offset the overflow. However, there is no point in designing and building your own stuff. Nothing ever happens there once you have it setup and running. Ultimately, it would have been better to just have plots that operate as rabbit holes where the player just delivers goods to and they had a myriad of upgrades to purchase.
  
• The User Interface is an atrocious mess of clicking. I have clicked less in competitive matches of Starcraft than I have in this game trying to arrange schedules for employees at a laundromat. Menus that should be drop down are click through. If you have 14 schedules and this employee needs schedule 12, you are clicking at least 11-16 times. It feels like somebody looked at any optimized user interface and chose to do the exact opposite of that.
  
• Single save slot. An auto-save will overwrite your current save. You either manually save or just accept that this a rogue-lite of drug sims.
  
• No return to main menu button. For a game released in 2023, this is inexcusable.
  
• There are no female employees for your drug trade. They are all guys. This is a strange oversight and would take little effort to correct it unless this is some sort of law in another country I am unaware of. It has no direct game impact, but this is still a negative.
  
• One massive game breaking bug: Employees randomly stop doing anything despite tasks being available. Apparently this has been a well known bug and has not been addressed. Reloading the game fixes this. However, with no return to menu button, you have to quit to desktop every time you encounter this bug – and you will encounter it.

Do I enjoy this game? Yes. Picking it up on sale was fine if you can deal with all the mediocrity. It does fit a niche genre and is better than a lot of other games. I would never pay full price for this game in the current state it is in.

TL;DR – As I would only purchase this game on sale, and Steam lacks a middle ground option, I would not recommend this game at the current price tag of $25 USD.

Edits: Grammar/spelling. One other point.

Astrox Imperium. Often referred to as EVE Offline or Shut off my brain, contemplate how lasers mine rocks, and where is a compatible MP4 for the built in player. I give up! Guess I'll just watch Space Mutiny again!

Word of warning for those expecting Astrox Imperium to have content on par with EVE Online: It does not. Nor the scope or scale of X4: Foundations. It also does not have the immersion of either Elite Dangerous or Star Citizen.

Astrox Imperium is more akin to a classic like Freelancer, except more RPG leveling and a smaller scale. For a solo developer, Astrox Imperium is incredibly impressive for what it is.

Final Warning: This game is a sandbox first and foremost. If you do not like primarily sandbox games, you might want to go play something else.

The Good:

• World design is unique. Massive hunks of rock form space vistas. Stars color sectors with their radiation. Ancient wrecks of incalculably large ships dot sectors relating to the backstory. I have not seen any other game have this art direction. It is beautiful.
  
• Great amount of custom options to change your game balance or shape a custom universe. Everything from AI difficulty to locked warp gate prices.
  
• Unlocking skills leads to rewarding upgrades. This is a refreshing change from throwing a pile of credits at some poor merchant and grabbing end game equipment. It takes time, but the time investment is reasonable (and an adjustable option).
  
• Combat is not forced. Raiders show up, but you can always flee if you prefer a peaceful existence.
  
• Relaxing! Decent auto-pilot mechanics and player directed game flow allows the player to put as much or as little energy to the game as they want.

The Mediocre:

• The user interface is odd at displaying information. For example, the University menu shows skills and the NEXT upgrade level. Not your CURRENT level. This caused me to buy weapons I was unqualified for in preparation for a skill finishing. I needed to invest another level in the skill.
  
• Customization options can be absolutely overwhelming your first time. Stick with the campaign until you understand everything before diving into custom setups.
  
• Station restock times are confusing or run by Gonzo the Great. Nobody knows when they finish crafting new wares or when equipment is restocked.
  
• It is difficult at the start to find anything due to simply not having information. When you dock with new stations, a snapshot of that info gets stored in your journal. You then search the journal for info. However, you cannot pay anyone for this information ahead of time or ask for it. This process is tedious, especially if you do not like exploring.
  
• Life support can be a mixed bag. The default is no life support drain unless armor is damaged. The old setting was a constant drain in certain sectors which leads to death if you did not pay attention. This is easily adjustable in the options to pick the format you prefer best.
  
• Missions reward XP for levels, which in turn gives you large sums of skill points. Grinding missions are by far the quickest way to earn skill points to upgrade, but reward little money for time invested. You do sometimes earn skill points for doing missions, which is nice. Optionally, you can just buy skill points outright with cash. All these options can be tedious to different players, but levels do come quick.

The Bad:

• The simulation is very predictable. Raiders show up in low security sectors after a calculable delay. Other ships in system perform tasks, but there is no background chatter or much movement other than mining. The world simply exists and does not feel very alive beyond player interactions.
  
• Navigation via the User Interface sometimes messes with your course at inappropriate times or even warps you back through the wrong gate when all you wanted to do was scan it.
  
• Passive scan fails half the time even when set to automatic. It fails to acquire scan targets unless they are significantly closer to your ship than necessary.
  
• Very few bugs, but they were substantially bad: I was destroyed by raiders inside the station dock once. The other time, all NPC ships failed to load their textures and showed up as white geometries.
  
• The economy is broken. No easy way to say it and this is the worst problem. For example, items can be bought at a 40% markdown but resell elsewhere for 160% their base price is at a massive net loss. I am not sure why this happens but this is infuriatingly frequent. Selling ore is always more lucrative than trying to break down ore into components and craft them into other products. One production run I experimented with was a 600% profit on the base manufacturing costs. However, it was 300% more time than just selling the ore at a higher base price (plus I had all these other unwanted byproducts I had to sell).
  
• The AI lacks some tools the player has access to making the game feel a little one sided to favor the player.

Overall, I have gotten more than my moneys worth from this game. There has been slowdown in development recently, but it is a solo project and they did complete their previous Astrox game. It will release eventually, but I expect progress to be slower than other titles. However, I also expect the end result will have a higher quality than some other major developer's games considering the recent trends.

Addendum [2/8/2025]:
The developer announced that they experienced a major life event and the full release might differ from their original vision because of it. This is unfortunate but understandable. When the final update drops, I suggest investigating the game at that time to see if it is worthy of your investment. For the record, I still got my money worth out of the game and experience!

Addendum 3/8/2025:
The developer has returned and is rapid firing out content and fixes. The Dev appears to be making up for the lost time and due to a pressing need to conclude work on the game. This is welcome and understandable considering the duress they recently went through.

Anomaly. For some, a new DLC. For others, an awkward to spell a word. For many, another shining example of Steam needing a middle of the road rating. Desirability for this will be entirely contingent on whether or not you like the setting and theme.


The Good:

• This soundtrack is one of my favorite soundtracks recently. The music is beautifully haunting, excellently fitting the theme.
  
• You are paying $25 USD for things that go bump in the night by way of puzzles. These work better than the mech clusters ever did and some require nuanced approaches. Very refreshing!
  
• Working flamethrowers! My weapon of choice for things made of fleshy bits in mind shattering combinations of inhuman understanding. Or hot dogs.
  
• Alternatives to raids! These new puzzles of doom can take place of raids. This changes the pacing of the game significantly and provides a fresh breath of air. Some of these new anomalies attempt to counter specific strategies, like trap tunnels.
  
• The mysterious nature of the void is an interesting concept and fits in with the overarching background the game has had for years now. Minor spoiler:When you get a psychic drone the game usually mentions an ”ancient engine of hate” triggering it. The eldritch abomination on the other end of the Void Monolith is Mechanical in nature. It is most likely the Ancient Engine causing the psychic imbalance on the RimWorld. This is an awesome concept and wish they would do more with it.

The Mediocre:

• Little use for BioFerrite outside the specific uses. Gear crafted from it is middle of the road. There is no armor set that I encountered crafted from BioFerrite that would provide additional benefits against Void Entities. This seems like an oversight. (At the time of this review.)
  
• New non-BioFerrite equipment can be useful, but is generally situational.
  
• The risk/reward concept of holding entities and managing some sort of facility is fun. However, the actual management of this aspect is buggy. Deconstructing the previous holding platform while transferring an entity to a new one will eject the entity from the hands of whoever is transferring them. The lack of testing on this is surprising. The new Security Door can breakdown and require a component to fix, but it being broken does not impact the holding facility.
  
• Ghouls are awesome. They make great melee fighters with nice upgrades and can be resurrected for minimal cost. However, it leaves a sour taste in my mouth as they overshadow the iron chef ginsu knife army or my buffo bioengineered bionic hammer brothers/sisters (those are Scythers and Go-Juice amped, melee Xenogermed, Bionic limb replaced, Warhammer wielding, and jump suit wearing soldiers, respectively).

The Bad:

• Some anomaly events get triggered to replace raids but they can stack on top of one another. Depending on the two the game picks, this can be exceptionally frustrating. Tie in independently timed raids from quests, and you can have a recipe for disaster. A new storyteller to mete out raids and anomalies would have made more sense, but this feels like an engine limitation.
  
• Some anomaly events feel imbalanced with smaller colonies. One of which I have only dealt with by walking my entire colony off the map, letting a sacrificial slave trigger the anomaly, and returning my colonists after the dust had settled. This was less than fun, although I did appreciate the outside the box thinking I had to employ to solve the problem. Until it happened two more times...
  
• Significant lack of control with some of the rituals. Some of the events unlock rituals to trigger those specific events again. While neat in concept, you are left to deal with the fallout after you utilize the ritual. This can compound as you have to clean up after your own mess. You spend time doing the research and are penalized for using it. This is not a reward when the system actively punishes me for utilizing it.
  
• Time. Want to know more about a mystery? Hurry up and wait. Player engagement via waiting for things to happen is not engagement. I understand there is need for balance. However, time released content is not balance. They did this with BioTech and seem to not have another concept to utilize.
  
• Post 100 Hours: There are mechanics in this DLC that negate other mechanics introduced in older patches or DLC. This feels like a pay wall fix to a problem they manufactured (e.g. - A ritual can remove unwavering loyal from pawns and allow you to recruit them). This is a scummy business practice. Weigh this heavily if you intend to spend money on this DLC.

This expansion has been fun and I do not regret my purchase. I enjoy it, despite limitations and bugs. If you would rather not spend money on this expansion, I do not blame you. Instead, I recommend visiting Murmur's Wall Light and leave an o7.

Rise of the Third Power is a confusing game. Confused in art style, setting, narrative, technology, design, etc. Is this game bad? No. Is the game good? Also, no. The game hovers around mediocrity that could have been great with the right decisions during inception. My completion of this game went from fun new game to an academic study of how it went wrong.

The pixel art is mostly bright, colorful, and pleasant to view. Issues come in with the layout of the artwork. Certain map pieces can be walked over, but other similarly designed ones are impassable. Foreground pieces that you should be capable of walking behind instead are solid and impassible. Yet several maps later, you will be expected to walk through a different foreground piece that is now miraculous passable. Heights are very poorly communicated with the art. The principle of exiting on map edges is not uniform. Some edges do not allow transitions and others blocked by random impassable decor or something that looks passable, but is not. Even certain props or NPCs are placed in a manner that prevents the player from smoothly moving through areas and forcing constant minor course corrections. Other times there are meaningless areas or unnecessary map transitions. These inconsistencies scream different teams or individuals making maps with no uniformity applied from a leadership role or core design document. All of this translates into confusion for the player.

The setting is a fictional late middle age era bordering the early stages of gunpowder warfare. Magic exists but is rare and very powerful. Inconsistencies with the presentation of this setting exist as well. For example, a blacksmith you visit for a side quest explains he is a gunsmith as it makes more money. However, the machine manufacturing firearms is a high tech, science fictional device. The art style of this piece is jarring juxtaposed with the rest of the world. This left me asking many questions as to why it exists; None were answered. Also, why would everyone refer to him as blacksmith when he clearly states gunsmith? Gunsmith and blacksmith are separate trades and would clearly be advertised as such. Especially with the world transitioning from swords to highly valued handheld firearms.

Pacing and revelation of story elements are more consistent within the first third of the game as opposed to the latter two thirds. The explanation that makes most sense is an interview with the game developers. The developers stated that people found the combat lacking so they introduced new characters to make up for shortfalls. This very clearly explains the game rapidly giving one off character introductions that never get spoken of or addressed again. There are a few particular story elements in which massive character development takes place off screen. Such as three off screen meetings that somehow end up developing a core story element and romance arc that is integral to the climax. I argue that in order to care about this romance, it must be fully shown to the player.

Design principles are confused, possibly drunk. The game features a stealth system that allows a first strike on the enemy party. Other aspects to this system are allowing the player pick party composition and viewing enemy compositions. Later game, when certain party members are better suited to certain enemy types, not participating in the stealth mechanic is actively punishing. This fun optional feature is now mandatory. No bestiary exists and you cannot look at enemy units before starting combat. This system is half finished and not adequate for the mandatory nature it becomes. Further, not all enemy types follow the system and the game does not explicitly explain this.

I could write a separate paper on combat. Simply put, it needed to be redesigned. The chosen band-aid solution, forgive the expression, was to add more Pokemon and Type Advantages which results in their system being trite.

Of party members introduced, one stands out. The character they introduce was once a love interest of one of the women in the party. Their relationship did not work out. This character joins your party but first wants to visit home and tell their spouse they must leave on the adventure. The big reveal, when you enter his home is that he is gay. That is the depth of this character. That and he is loosely supposed to be of Middle-Eastern descent. I take issue with the tokenism of this character. This contributes nothing to the story and appears to exist for box checking inclusivity – So the developers can say, “We have a gay guy. We have a Middle-Eastern person.” Worse, during the epilogue they never follow up on what happens with his spouse and children. Him joining on this adventure was a major point of contention. This clearly shows how little the developers cared about this character.

Their touted crafting feature does not escape spoon feeding gear at new towns. The system limits crafting materials to that new region by adding half of the materials to the shop and the other half to monster drops. You still need the latest gear to be effective. They just replace grinding for money to grinding for materials.

There is more... So much more...

These factors coalesce into a mediocre, sometimes miserable experience. For every small moment where the possibility of greatness was almost achieved, something else claws it down. I picked this game up on sale. While I got my moneys worth as a sort of research study, I caution others looking for a game with interesting mechanics and a story. You will not find them here.