Recent reviews by EmeX

A highly satisfying and a promising "You are the bullet hell" game with surprising difficulty in the later levels. Right now there is not that much meta-modifiers to your skill picks, but getting that Legendary +50% dmg boost that hits all your 6 active skills is something else. I also believe that the game is quite scalable, meaning that there are multiple development options for the future. Active skills do feel different but some damage over time effects can be lackluster. A run can be as quick as ~12 minutes, or you can test how well your build scales by going into "Endless" or "Overlord". As of writing this review, a considerable amount (24%) have unlocked all classes, including going "Curse V" on a certain map. I certainly had difficulty doing so. Pick this up if you want an affordable and a fun, coffee break action time bullet hell with promising depth!

Very addictive and very well designed game that has multiple different options and playstyles. Creating a unit with certain "quite obvious" parts might unlock bonuses, while using creativity might result in units that perform better -- take for example a harpy with mantis legs, which (almost) the fastest unit in the game with a good view. Creating kitchen-sink units works, so your own creativity will gain you in-game knowledge of future good (and bad) combinations.

The core feature of "bad AI" is also a mechanic you must learn to master; while using "kill" does not net you any bonuses, it is an easy way to prevent your units from diverging and fighting out on multiple fronts. You must think about whether or not to create units one by one or then stacking them to launch a counter-attack.

All in all this game has a lot of bang for the buck and I really enjoyed beating it!

134 hrs in this game and I still haven't created a fleet for the campaign. 10/10.

TL;DR: Noita is the 2D Dark Souls. Except you can't memorize the map.

Noita is a chaotic game which follows a very particular set of rules, which only come evident after you gain enough experience in it. Noita rewards and also punishes you for experimentation, it almost makes it feel like there's a certain scientific process in creating new spells. The deeper you delve, the stronger your opponents become, the harder it becomes to safely traverse a level, the more environmental hazards there are. But the deeper you delve, the more options and perks you gain to kill, suffocate, explode, drown, dig, shock, burn, corrode and transmute on your quest to find True Knowledge.

The permadeath mechanic can turn off some people off but it is the way it is meant to be played. However, certain functions, such as the Glowing Hearts and Edit Wands Everywhere Always mods, make the experience more enjoyable. It took me 51 hours and a whole lot of luck to win the game for the first time without mods (which happened to be a run on 1.0.) and the run only lasted 1h 27min. The game is hard, it is challenging, but it is also very satisfying. Those who complain about not finding "good enough" wands are the type of players who haven't survived long enough in the second level, so I certainly recommend not listening their advice. With all these details, I'll finish off by saying that I'm a purist, but I'd give Noita the honorary title of a true roguelike.

P.S. The release of 1.0. also adds certain very interesting spells which also make the post-victory game more enjoyable. They might have something to do with the Greek letters ;)

The one and only, the legendary "Jerome Gambit" 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3. Nf3 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ and the mainline 4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 results in a mate in one position where 6. Qh5# is a check against 4...Kxf7. Why? Because f7 is 2 turns and 2 squares away from 6. Qh5#, the king is given check in both the present and in the past and cannot escape.

I think. I have verified this by the board, but only the true 5D gods know if this is really true or not. 5D Chess is not about understanding the game, it is about choosing to de-understand conventional chess strategies in a situation where nobody really knows if their moves are winning, losing, refuted. And the "knowing" is not just about conventional knowing, it is "knowing" in the past, present, future of this timeline and the parallel lines as well. There are not just mate threats, there are timeline threats where for the past, present and future 13 turns black has had an empty b8 square, so a (possibly future, but can you really know?) Rook move to there will possibly render your work meaningless and allow making threats into the past, present and future again, all over, for the first time ever and everything in between. There are/were/are going to be types of threats outside purely positional, material or temporal that our minds cannot comprehend, the hybrids such as playing such a positional move that it threatens temporal or material advantage.

Get ready (remember to do this in your future and then apply to your past) lose your understanding of English "time words" and gain the de-understanding necessary to play 5D Chess.

Disclaimer: this is my first review, and the reason I'm writing this is that the line between "good" and "bad" game is not so visible to a person who is not familiar with Starbound, and therefore I feel obligated to end my juorney with Starbound like this.

Overview

Starbound got into Early Access in 4th of December 2013. Before that, the lead developer Tiy had formally announced Starbound in February 2012, and a kickstater-esque pre-order opening was launched on April 2013. Starbound was released on 22 of July, 2016, when it had been on development for over five years.

Synopsis

Starbound sets you up in a planet with no other resources except your ingenuity and a Matter Manipulator, a clever tool used to harvest wood and ore for your use. As you get familiar with the crafting, you notice that the interface is a bit clunky and finding what you'd like to make gets harder as the game progresses and you are given more crafting recipes. The planet you're on contains many secrets, such as dungeons and chests for you to explore. The procedural generation gives a noticeable difference to all planets, and even though certain biomes on different planets look the same, there is a difference in my opinion. After you have explored the planet you're on, you can teleport back to your ship and find a new planet in your current system, or use space fuel to travel into other systems. As you progress, your stuff gradually gets upgraded from medieval style to sci-fi.

The game progression

Starbound has many different resources obtained trough different ways, like farming and mining. Although all the planets are beatiful and have something to explore, the player wants to progress in the game; getting better armor and survival gear is necessary. However, once you notice that making some armor requires cotton, your nice and perilous adventure in the planet's core isn't as nice as it was. It's good that Starbound doesn't hold hands on telling you where to find certain items, but that brings me to one of my strong points on my critique: exploring isn't fun if that exploration doesn't guarantee you to progress, and on the other hand progression is meaningless if nothing changes. Unfortunately Starbound achieves both of these bad points, even though it seems that it tries so hard not to.

There is no guarantee that a dungeon has something rare for you, or if it does, it's stuff like one or two pieces of matter manipulator modules. Which you need a lot more if you hope to upgrade your manipulator. On the other hand, when you find your items you need to progress, you're thrown into more dangerous planets but the premise is still the same: find out what stuff you need to upgrade your crafting stations, dig deep, don't die. Return, notice there's a resource you need but don't know what that is, get frustrated. Also, building shelter / a fancy house to yourself serves no use, as you need to switch planets to progress; meaning you need to bookmark that planet to return to your nice dwelling.

Starbound tries so hard to not be repetetive it's almost funny. I understand that these procedural concepts are really hard, but that is not an excuse if you have five years to polish your game.

Development

The story of Starbound is like a children's fairytale to indie developers. There's the good things, the bad things, and the moral of the story. The good things in my opinion are the promising setting, full mod support and enough customization to feel that you are truly unique.

The bad things: Let's just say that I don't want myself to get cencored by Mollygos or Tiy. There is evidence of that, there is evidence of Tiy shilling the game in reddit with alternate users, there is evidence of people getting banned in the official forums for asking how their product is progressing. I strongly suggest every reader to dig bit deeper into this, it's actually pretty funny how this thing was managed. Like the combat system was revised at least three times. Also, the design failures that had been reflected to Steam include a period where Starbound had not had a patch in one year. When Starbound was in Early Access. The excuses to this include stuff like moving into an office in London and what have you. Some games stay in Early Access for a year and they get released. Starbound was in early access for almost three years.

The moral of the story is that you should respect your playerbase, keep your promises especially if you receive money for a product that doesn't exist yet, and that doing freelancer work without any guarantees is a coin flip. I do not personally feel this way, but Tiy has been described from various sources as being "egomaniac". Take it as you will.

Should you buy this game?

If you like repetetiveness, go ahead. If you like illusion of progression, go ahead. However, Starbound is still to me an unfinished product with broken promises of features, and most likely will be forever. My own personal opinion is that you should not buy this game, or any future titles from Chucklefish without those titles being of exceptional quality, and nominated for Game of the Year in mainstream reviews.