Recent reviews by Tweed

Thanks for the memories.

I was going to replay this game, but then I remembered how bad it was.

Just isn't as fun as the original. Trying to turn it into something along the lines of Mount and Blade, but with spaceships didn't work out. The novelty of assembling your custom warship wears out far faster than the length of the game itself and inevitably you'll just leave the automatic mode on the entire time because it's not worth the trouble of timing your attacks against the enemy which in most cases is either an easy win for you or them with little in between.
Resource harvesting is just as boring in SPAZ 2 as it was in SPAZ only now you have the scour the marketplace trying to find a ship part that.s 0.4% better than the one you already have. I just got tired of the tedium of the whole thing long before the game was over and finally gave up.
The other thing I don't like are most of the character portraits, I'm not sure what MinMax was hoping to accomplish with the whole "Freaks you'd find at Burning Man" vibe, but most of the characters look absolutely hideous.

Entertaining concept of making the perfect weapon, somewhat similar to Noita and how you set up wands. You get more parts, you minmax to do the most damage. However, the novelty dies fairly fast and the game is far too crash prone (which is to say AT ALL) for something that won't let you save in the middle of missions. When the game crashes it treats it like a death, you lose your progress and any gun parts you were carrying which means hoping you can buy them back for inflated prices.

Hoes mad at dangerously based dev.

Sequel to one of the best tactical RPGs in existence. Knights of the Chalice 2 carries on with major improvements over the original game which including far more races and sub-races, a plethora of classes to choose from, and a module editor for creating your own campaigns. All built using a modified version of the 3.5 Open Gaming License by Wizards of the Coast.

Knights of the Chalice 2 features an impressive AI that will constantly try to out think you and use your own spells and tactics against you. The enemy doesn't just make random choices or pull punches, it's dead set on killing you in an efficient manner.

While KotC 2 does allow you to adjust the difficulty the game is designed with a hardcore audience in mind. Which means party rerolls, restarts, and lots of reloading as you learn the ropes or succumb to bad luck. And if you find yourself needing impressive graphics in order to enjoy a game you'll want to look elsewhere as KotC 2's 2d token system and isometric sprites will not please your eyes.

But if you have a fondness for tactical RPGs like Dark Sun or the Gold Box series and an interest in an engine capable of creating countless adventures then Knights of the Chalice 2 might be your game.

I didn't want to like this game, but I did. I liked it a lot.
That makes me angry.

If you're like me (I pity you) then you've tried to play Darkest Dungeon several times only to be rebuffed by its repetitive nature and yet you can't let it sit because you've sunk the cost and want to know what all the fuss is about. After poking around a bit I made a discovery, it's not really the repetitive nature of the game that's the problem. It's the hideously slow speed at which the game plays.

Once you grasp the basics of Darkest Dungeon's gameplay loop you don't need —or want— to sit though every camera zoom or every slow hallway creep. And thanks to the power of modding magic you don't have to. Walking speeds, combat, and even the tallies at the end of each dungeon can be sped up with a mod, thus making the game a far more tolerable experience. There's also a mod to kill the camera zooms, though it does make combat look a bit silly.

Once that's dealt with, what you're left with is a traditional dungeon crawling formula: Raid dungeons, get loot, try not to die while your poor saps grows in strength and dysfunction. After you get tired of messing up curios and trinkets you'll break down and consult a guide.

Overall I found it quite enjoyable once I dealt with the glaring flaw of speed.

A rare example of style winning over substance. Hand of Fate is very flashy and pleasant to look at. The mysterious dealer provides excellent narration and his flying cards are a great opening to the game backed by an excellent opening track. HoF makes good use of sound effects as well, especially when drawing cards or failing events. Gameplay itself is very simple. You explore a dungeon crafted by cards, each card brings something new, earn new cards by defeating bosses and completing challenges.

Combat is even simpler than that, just spamming attack near an enemy will guide you right into their path so you can beat them up. Hit your counter button when the green symbol shows up and roll out of the way when the red one does. The only real movement you'll be doing is rolling all over the place like it were a Dark Souls game. Because combat is easy to master the game itself tends to be quite easy as well save for some of the boss fights. Wildcards and difficulty modes help add to the challenge though and include additional unlockables to help you on your way.

Aside from easy and overly simplistic combat the only real issue with HoF is the floaty controls which can be unresponsive on a keyboard and mouse set up.

Der Geisterjager is a lot like Der Geisterturm, but better in every way. More enemy variety, interesting environmental challenges, and new hazards to deal with that aren't mines. Along with quality of life improvements you should expect from continued development.

The single most important change is the addition of the credit system, you gain money for killing enemies now and the credits allow you upgrade your RCS as you see fit at repair stations dotted about the dungeons, creating an agency that the previous two games lacked while providing a much greater replay value.

The finite resources of the previous two games has also been done away with thanks to the addition of currency as you can now buy more ammo, armor, and whatever else you need at stores often located near the repair stations. It also turns the gameplay on its head as combat is now something to be desired rather than avoided, making it much closer to a traditional DRPG than the previous two titles. Resource management is still important, but now the player has ways of dealing with it if things go south.

All in all this is the best game in the series so far.