Recent reviews by Phen

I completed the game + some post-game content.

1. STORY/DIALOGUES. The story itself is... unoriginal. Typical bad colonizer guys vs less bad opressed refuges kind of story. But what's really make me leave a negative review are dialogues. Holy cringe! There are like 5 NPCs total and all of them are different kind of LGBTQ+ perverts - trans, gays, lesbians, non-binary. Yes, literally EVERY SINGLE NPC you interact with (except for bosses) is a pervert that cannot shut up about their gender and sexuality. It's so forced and cringe that I'm not sure if that's satire or writers are that untalented and tone-deaf.

2. COMBAT. Different orbs have different attack patterns, as well as many supplemental abilities, so combat feels good. But due to how leveling works, you may just outlevel any boss and facetank them with no challenge. Also, many abilities are just straight up useless.

3. LEVELS. I've played many metroidvanias and Timespinner is easily the worst when it comes to back-tracking the same location over and over again. Maps (there are 2 of them plus one smaller post-game) are not that big or diverse. Most areas are just palette swaps with little differences. It makes backtracking even more annoying since everything looks the same and quests from NPCs have no direction so you just have to traverse every inch trying to find the required item.

OVERALL 3/5 if you skip dialogues and 1/5 if you made a mistake and accidentally read the political and pervert agenda authors tried to force on you.

This game made me Nippon compatriot and British hater.

A very deep farming and social sim. If you like Stardew Valley, you'll find yourself at home in Sandrock.

At first glance, DotAGE may seem easy and casual, but don't be fooled. 99% of the game is hidden behind the MASSIVE progression tree (Memories) that unlocks hundreds of mechanics, events, new buildings, upgrades, tools and visitors. Generally, I'm not a fan of roguelite, but DotAGE got it right. Every time your village succumbs to Doom, you unlock new things that will help you on your next run, and it's exciting.

Game is fun and NA servers are got better.

Echoes update is great. New UI, new content, no more lag, no more queues, can play offline or with friends.

If you like roguelites like Hades, Vampire Survivors, Crimsonland, Risk of Rain and similar games - you will fell in love with Halls of Torment. At first it looks simple but as you progress, you will unlock a great variety of features: characters, skills, loot, enemies, levels, quests, etc. Highly recommend to all fans of the genre!

The game was released in unplayable state, full of soft lock and game breaking bugs. It was never fixed and support was dropped basically the next day after release.

Talentless woke activists that are left in this shell of dev studio are destroying the game they didn't create.

Fun story and dialogues, engaging metroidvania-like gameplay, good 2.5D graphics mixing 3D backgrounds with 2D pixel art characters.