HIGH An extremely satisfying gameplay loop.

LOW It’s not very obvious on how to “win” a run.

WTF Body horror… in my roguelite?

We’ve done it, folks. We’ve made a slot-machine roguelite. I think we can pack it up for the rest of time because we’ve made the single most addicting videogame known to man.

In all honesty, CloverPit somehow works as a videogame on a level that I didn’t know was possible. Instead of sticking to a source material’s roots and then adding endless customization like poker in Balatro, or weaving in story to build a larger world as seen in Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers, CloverPit takes slot machines in a more horrifying direction.

Here, the player is trapped in the “CloverPit,” a 5×5 box of a room with a slot machine, a coin depository, an item shop, and not much else. It’s here where the player must play a slot machine and deposit enough coins by each deadline, or else risk the floor opening up and falling to their death. There are ways to rig the machine and items to save the player in times of distress, but ultimately, they’re at the mercy of Lady Luck.

So much of what makes a videogame great is atmosphere, but atmosphere isn’t limited to just music or the art direction. It’s ultimately a collection of small choices that make the experience enjoyable or memorable — sound effects, lighting, and small programming quirks. 

CloverPit has all of these and more. It’s filled with a kind of alchemy that I can barely explain in words, but it has that special sauce where every mechanic is designed to to keep people playing for as long as they can. Each set of spins sounds off with a garbled, electronic announcer saying “Let’s go gambling!” followed by satisfying sounds whenever the machine scores a pattern, and dissatisfying ones whenever they come up short. 

…But the horror is where CloverPit starts to get interesting.

See, the player is “promised” a way out of the pit if they score enough points on the slot machine – but that’s only one piece of the puzzle. Each time they pass a scoring threshold, they’re forced to play again but just reach a higher point total. Eventually, they’re asked to get enough points to unlock a key that seems like a way out, but…

These evil undertones are even more exaggerated by CloverPit‘s dark, hard polygonal art style – which actually did make me feel like I was trapped in a pit with no escape. I felt compelled to play the slots, not just to beat the game, but to get the hell out of the pit. 

Unlike similar roguelites such as Balatro, it’s not obvious how to build a winning run in CloverPit. A slot machine seems like the most luck-of-the-draw machine out there, but CloverPit teaches the player how to win through various trials by fire. Since each round is a gamble, the player had better capitalize on every opportunity by knowing what they want to get out of it.

Each round starts with a choice — spin three times and get two tickets to buy items, or spin seven times and only get one ticket. Rounds pass with more and more choices, where players need to balance keeping enough coins to pass a deadline against buying items that will ultimately increase that coin total. Sometimes a spin will produce enough coins to pass a deadline early, granting the player an extra bonus of coins and tickets to splurge in the item shop. Yet maybe passing that deadline early isn’t the best idea – maybe they want to keep spinning in order to to bank coins for future rounds if they find their winning strategy is petering out. 

This decision-making in CloverPit feels also more weighty than other roguelikes because of the chances that I would be stopped in my tracks due to bad luck. Many runs become dead-on-arrival if the player doesn’t get items that either increase the score from each successful spin, or items that rig the slot machine to make certain symbols appear more often — and don’t forget about the chance to spin a 666, which causes the player to lose all money earned in that round! 

…But when I put things together correctly, avoided the 666 and I did win – ooh boy, that was the best feeling ever.

I haven’t even scratched the surface of what the slot machine has to offer in terms of winning strategies or clever tricks, as there are countless items to unlock, game modifiers to equip, and just more to play. In a decade where certain titles toe the line between gambling and games, CloverPit performs that dance beautifully and produces an unforgettable roguelite experience as a result — it’s a delight, and one of the most delightfully frustrating things I’ve played this year. 

Score: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Panik Arcade and published by Future Friends Games. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on PC. Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game is rated T for Teen on the ESRB. The game does have a small amount of gore and blood. Players must equip bloody human bones to get past certain portions of the game and there is blood lining the shelves within the cell the main character is trapped in.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game’s story is text-only but the subtitles cannot be resized. The game is not fully accessible. There are no audio cues needed for successful play.\

Remappable Controls: CloverPit is mouse and keyboard only, and there are a few different layouts for keyboards included beyond QWERTY. There are no remap options besides those.

The post CloverPit Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Likeable characters.

LOW The slow pace.

WTF Animal animations are hard! 

From the same studio that created Life is Strange comes Lost Records: Bloom and Rage, a 3D story-focused adventure. Bloom and Rage follows a girl named Swann in her last summer in the small Pacific Northwest town of Velvet Cove in 1995. Making friends with three other girls, she records her adventures using a trusty camcorder. 

Recording moments is the central mechanic in Bloom and Rage. The player is asked to capture “memoirs”, which are presented as a selection of gameplay clips. This works by bringing up the camera, switching to first person, and recording what is highlighted in the environment. These clips will be automatically edited into “memoirs” and can be viewed in the menu.

For instance, at the beginning of the story, Swann wants to record objects around her room because she’s anticipating moving to Vancouver at the end of the summer. To complete the objective I recorded her cat, stick bug, desk, TV, and books. 

It’s also possible to edit these memoirs by recording more clips and swapping them out or changing their order. However, I never felt incentivized to engage with this mechanic. There was only one instance where the other characters viewed the work, and when they did, it had no effect on the plot.  

The remainder of the gameplay is exploring limited environments, interacting with characters, and finding items around the world to progress. Unfortunately, filming — even as the primary game mechanic — seemed to have little impact on the narrative and began to feel like busywork. 

While Bloom and Rage is pretty to look at, it doesn’t hold up to Don’t Nod’s most recent Life is Strange, especially the fantastic motion capture that game had. While the environments here generally look good, there are unpolished textures, lots of graphical pop-in, some janky animations and more. It feels unpolished in a way that is slightly detrimental considering that the experience relies so much on exploring and interacting with the environment. 

As to what type of story Bloom and Rage wants to tell, I don’t entirely know yet. That’s because almost all of Part 1 “Bloom” is setup. I had hoped that because this title was being released in two parts (rather than in several chapters like Life is Strange) it would establish and resolve more in the first section. However, Bloom and Rage part 1 is mainly focused on the bonding moments with Swann’s new circle. 

Initially, Swann is an awkward, nerdy girl who doesn’t have many friends. However, this changes after she’s saved from bullying by the other main characters, Nora, Autumn, and Kat, who welcome her into their group. Nora and Autumn have a garage punk band, “Bloom and Rage”, and they all decide to make a music video together. 

The story does do something interesting by cutting between 1995 (Swann as a teen) and 2022, when Swann is an adult, returning to Velvet Cove and reuniting with her friends. This “adult” section takes place at the local bar and is played in first person. Autumn is the first of the girls to arrive, and much of Part 1 is spent reminiscing with her.  

During these grownup sections, I learned that the entire friend group has strange gaps in their memories, and the characters had promised to never talk to each other again. In addition, a mysterious package was sent to Autumn, which is part of why she called for the reunion in the first place. The package is addressed to “Bloom and Rage” and the characters decide to open it only when everyone from the group has arrived. These sections were engaging because there was some payoff to branching choices I had made earlier.

I enjoyed that the choices would sometimes be referenced later in the story, but as the things went on, I realized few of these choices mattered to the overall story. Their influence mattered only to a few small scenes or instances of dialogue.

In a larger sense, the story seemed mostly focused on taking its time and showing cute moments of the girls bonding or exploring — perhaps fitting, for an installment entitled “Bloom.” The content here is mostly nostalgia mixed with slice-of-life drama, the characters are likeable, and I didn’t mind spending time with them. However, there was little payoff to any of the drama, with one exception as Part 1 ends on a cliffhanger. Because of this, emotional stakes often felt rather low, which made some interactions feel weightless or overly long.    

Apart from the circle ‘blooming’, there were breadcrumbs of a supernatural, or horror-like twist, but these were rare. Any suspense was undercut by hints that these moments could be interpreted as more of a metaphor for real-life drama, and less as something actually supernatural. 

Having a slow burn or a setup that takes time to build isn’t inherently bad, but there was something frustrating about feeling baited about a spooky mystery for seven hours that ultimately may or may not matter in Part 2. If Bloom and Rage was leaned less into the supernatural and presented more like a teen drama, I wouldn’t have found this as bothersome. Of course, all of this could play out satisfyingly when the conclusion comes out in April. However, at this point I have my doubts.  

While Bloom and Rage was an enjoyable romp through someone’s nostalgia, the frustrating pace of both the drama and the central mystery did not endear me to it. As is, I don’t feel as if I can recommend it the game until I see how things resolve in Part 2.  

Rating: 5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by DontNod and published by DontNod. It is currently available on XBX/S, PS5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 7 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes. 

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Nudity, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Drugs and Alcohol, Violence. Underage girls smoke weed, and drink some beers. In addition, there is adult alcohol consumption. Talk of sexual situations such as kissing. There is light blood with cutting of hands and nose bleeds. Swear words like sh*t and f**k are said throughout. Antagonists use gay slurs and use fat shaming language.  

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can be altered and/ or resized. All dialogue has written text, and even visual cues on screen show an indicator of who is talking. Sound effects are given visual indicators and no gameplay is compromised with lack of sound. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls. 

The post Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, Tape 1 Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Likeable characters 

LOW Stealth Section!

WTF Animal animations are still hard! 

This is a review of the second part of Lost Records, released three months after Part 1. Please see Part 1’s review for an introduction to the content, more details about game basics and a general overview.

Now that the story is complete and I’ve played through both halves, I can say that while Lost Records: Bloom & Rage: Tape 2 delivers a largely engaging story, both parts of this game struggle with structural elements that don’t match the time and attention given to character interactions.

For example, we spend more time with the cast in the present day and discover how past events affected them. However, due to its overall shorter runtime, many of the developments come across as rushed, though exactly how the story plays out depends on choices the player makes throughout the narrative. 

With a story-based game like Lost Records, character writing must be the high point. Fortunately, the main cast in Tape 2 continue to be compellingly written and acted, with appropriate moments of embarrassment considering that the girls are teenagers. Although they are at times menaced by a bully who uses gay slurs, I appreciated how queer or queer-friendly most of the group appeared to be. All the women are romanceable, and they embrace the feminist ‘Riot Grrrl’ culture of the ’90s. Although my own experiences growing up in its time period were quite different, I still found the struggles and behavior of the characters to be relatable. 

Minor spoiler warning. With a narrative-heavy experience like this one, it’s difficult to review without talking about plot points and how they come together. I won’t get into anything specific, but for people who prefer to avoid any risk of spoilage at all, please skip to the last paragraph for my final thoughts.

*potential minor spoilers ahead*

The story and endings in Lost Records can come together in a few possible ways, but the climax always involves the supernatural mystery I referenced in the original review, and how Swann’s relationship with the other girls affects their interaction with it.

Relationship maintenance is important for this ending, with hearts appearing onscreen for successful interactions (or broken ones for failure) and in other cases, a leaf would appear indicating an impactful branching choice. However, without knowing that the hearts actually mean ‘successful’ and not ‘romantic’ upfront, it’s easy to pursue just one of the girls as a romance option, and accidentally spend too little time with the others. If any of the rest don’t feel close to Swann, they won’t stick around for the finale. Although this didn’t necessarily mean I got a ‘bad’ ending, it felt like failing and was disappointing after putting what I thought was the correct effort into forging good relationships with everyone. 

This leads to one of my biggest issues with Lost Records overall — dialogue choices and consequences for did not feel well-signposted. I often enjoy choices and consequences in games, but my results here lead me to believe that I would have to carefully gamify a full playthrough of Tape 1 and Tape 2 to get the best ending. I’ve also heard unconfirmed speculation that endings can be altered by glitches. Even if that doesn’t turn out to be the case, it feels too confusing and difficult to get a ‘good ending’ where everyone stays until the end. 

For example, in Tape 2 one of the characters has a panic attack, and Swann must find the correct objects to help her friend calm down. Some of these objects are obvious and others not so much, such as two unmarked purple toothbrushes — and I’m still unclear on how I was supposed to guess which toothbrush was the right one. It’s comically easy to fail this interaction, which was key to the relationship in the present day.

*end of potential spoilers*

In terms of gameplay, it remains the same between Tape 1 and Tape 2, featuring moving throughout small environments, interacting with characters, and using Swann’s video camera to record clips. The recording in Tape 1 didn’t affect progression in very meaningful ways, and unfortunately, it feels even more superfluous here in Tape 2. Using the camcorder is relegated to being a minor plot device at best, and a boring collection mechanic at worst.

Adding insult to injury, the ultimate payoff of this filming mechanic is a compilation of clips that I had no hand in editing. As it stands, apart from one or two brief instances, Bloom & Rage would have been served just as well by any other similar mechanic — there’s nothing about specifically using video that stands out, and capturing the footage feels like a chore.

The production values of Tape 2 are improved from Tape 1, the dev team apparently using the intervening months to polish things up. However, a few visual glitches still remain. Throughout the story, there were what some on the internet call “shadow people” appearing. At first, I thought it may have been intended as an atmospheric, spooky touch, but the timing at which these “shadow people” appeared did not seem to serve a narrative purpose, leading me to suspect that these unexplained images are actually graphical glitches.

Speaking of the shadow people, in general it feels like DontNod wanted to tell a more grounded story with fewer magical supernatural elements than Life Is Strange. Most of the supernatural elements in Lost Records were left ambiguous, to the point that they could even be interpreted as metaphor. Apart from a single scene at the very end of the story, the supernatural elements could have easily been removed and it wouldn’t have affected the experience at all.

Some players may love the queer, nostalgic coming-of-age tale that Lost Records is trying to tell. However, even as someone in the target demographic, I found that the structure, choices and consequences fell flat. I loved the characters and their interactions with each other, but the rest was shallow at best and confusing at worst. Lost Records is still an enjoyable experience, but those interested in the material should go into it with tempered expectations. 

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Buy Lost Records: Bloom And Rage: PC — PS — XB

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Don’t Nod. It is currently available on XBX/S, PS5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5.  Approximately six hours (for Part 2) were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes. 

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Nudity, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Drugs and Alcohol, Violence. Underage girls smoke weed, and drink some beers. In addition, there is adult alcohol consumption. Talk of sexual situations such as kissing. There is light blood with cutting of hands and nose bleeds. Swear words like sh*t and f**k are said throughout. Antagonists use gay slurs and use fat shaming language.  

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can be altered and/ or resized. All dialogue has written text, and even visual cues on screen show an indicator of who is talking. Sound effects are given visual indicators and no gameplay is compromised with lack of sound. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: This game’s controls are fully remappable.

The post Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, Tape 2 Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The platforming is only slightly tedious now!

LOW The final fight with Darth Maul is still basically impossible.

WTF Someone at Lucasfilm Games keeps approving these things.

Star Wars: Episode One: Jedi Power Battles is the latest Star Wars game remaster from Aspyr Studios, and I have to say that even after all of my trepidation over their last few remasters that this is somehow worse than I expected. Mad props, I did not see that coming.

Jedi Power Battles is a 2.5D brawler which sees up to two players fighting random enemies as Jedi across linear stages. The scenarios include familiar locales taken from The Phantom Menace and mostly involve fighting droids, but sometimes bandits or mercenaries. There are also two barely functional vehicle sequences — one in a tank that can be hopped out of to explore on foot, the other on a STAP hovercraft driven in the worst 3D Galaga clone to bear the Star Wars license.

Of the playable leads, anyone wanting to retain their sanity will play the campaign as Adi Gallia, who easily has the most combat utility due to speed and stun ability. Qui-Gon is too slow, Obi-Wan is bland, while Mace, Ki Adi, and Plo Koon are just different, worse versions of Adi. Why are all these extra Jedi who barely appeared in the movie here? Because reasons, as there’s barely any story to speak of — this is only about beating up enemies to score points.

The player can acquire temporary power-ups, such as making their saber the size of Staten Island so it can actually hit an enemy before they’re nose to nose. There’s also a random box that grants players a one-use item only useful to Plo Koon or Adi Gallia. Why? Because everyone else gets a grenade, yet Plo and Adi both turn into invincible balls of death for a few seconds, damaging every enemy just by running into them.

Players can also find bonus points they’ll need for a scoring system that’s tied to progression in the least intuitive way possible. See, it’s not about spending points on the upgrades, but hitting certain thresholds to then get access to stat boosts, and every character levels up individually, so that means grinding the campaign missions for each of them. In theory this adds replay value.

The combat is pedestrian button mashing, with a combo system struggling to register single button combos, let alone more complex strings. I’m not asking for Bayonetta-tier smoothness from a game first released on the original PlayStation, but even for the ’90s, this was bad input buffering. As an example of the poor inputs, it’s not possible to jump and hit the attack button, but there is a dedicated jump attack button. Yes, an entire face button that could’ve been used for dodging, parrying, or literally anything else is utilized to perform an attack that should’ve been the first combo any player would typically try. Players can also block, yet while blocking it’s impossible to do anything else, so it’s just delaying the inevitable.

There’s also platforming that will eat up most of a player’s limited lives. At least this is a more arcade-style experience with bonus lives that can be acquired, but that doesn’t mean it’s still not irritating.

If that wasn’t bad enough, how about getting ringed out by a boss into the foreground of the level! The combat never grows more complex, B1 battle droids can shrug off a lightsaber like it’s a hairbrush, and worse still, this remaster somehow manages to have tons of graphical oversights like huge gaps in level environments without any assets or adjustments made to account for a wider aspect ratio than standard definition 4:3. It’s also easy to see objects rendering (or not rendering) in ways they aren’t supposed to. These aren’t elaborate 3D models — even just extending the environmental textures a couple of inches would’ve done the minimum required here.

While these issues were left unattended, the remaster team put time towards converting a bunch of random enemies into “new playable characters” for various modes.

It’s also particularly impressive that someone went to the effort of re-rendering the cinematics to change Adi’s saber from an orange-red to blue. Placing a priority on whether a saber color matches a different canon’s rules than the storyline is more important than fixing Qui-Gon’s eyes, which are still untextured, soulless black orbs for half of the intro cinematic. To quote anti-sand propagandist Anakin Skywalker, that’s “absolutely wizard.”

It’s kind of perfect though, because this is such a lifeless, soulless cash-in of a remaster. Even by the standards Lucasfilm Games is evidently quite comfortable with, this is bad, and I refuse to believe that this is the best Aspyr can do. Their Tomb Raider remaster demonstrated they are capable of more. I don’t know if Lucasfilm isn’t giving them enough time or resources, but this is simply unacceptable. 

Between this disaster, the Switch port of Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords’ lack of promised restored content, Republic Commando’s still-unpatched camera bug on Switch, Battlefront Classic Collection being an unmitigated disaster on almost every front and Bounty Hunter’s questionably redesigned gameplay, we can’t keep accepting that half-baked, unfinished remasters are the best that can be done. 

It’s not even like Jedi Power Battles is the most beloved game from its era. Why release it in this state, and an even better question is, why release it at all? If there were at least new graphics, or if they bundled the GameBoy version as a bonus extra, I could at least rate it a little higher, but no. This is not the droid that anyone is looking for.

Final Score: 2.5 out of 10 

Buy Star Wars: Episode One: Jedi Power Battles – PC – PS – XB

Disclosures: This game is developed by Aspyr and published by Lucasfilm Games. It is currently available on PC, PS5, XBS/X, and Switch. This copy of Jedi Power Battles was provided by the publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 5 hours were dedicated to the single-player campaign and bonus modes, and it was not completed.

Parents: This game is Rated T by the ESRB, for containing Violence. If your child can watch Star Wars, they can play this. Not that they should, but that’s a matter of it being a pain to play — impatient kids in particular are likely to get very frustrated. There’s nothing gory, no expletives (fictional or otherwise) and the graphics are so low detail it’s hard to view any elements as anything more than rudimentary computer graphics.

Colorblind modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are multiple visual prompts doubling for audio prompts. There are no subtitles options, but also next to no spoken dialogue, with visual context prompts compensating for this. I would say that it’s not fully accessible.

Remappable controls: No, this game does not offer remappable controls. Playes can only swap between Modern and Classic bindings, which just alters which face buttons do what and whether a bumper or trigger is used for Force powers.

The post Star Wars: Episode One: Jedi Power Battles Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Sniping the head clean off an orc’s shoulders! With a wrench! Somehow!

LOW The ‘thrill’ of grinding for a -0.2 second reset time to grind more efficiently.

WTF 99,999 Skulls to wear the color PURPLE. Are you serious?

Editor’s Note: This review was conducted before the “Arcane Update” on March 23rd. Though the update does provide some quality-of-life improvements, two maps from prior games, and an additional playable character, the same foundational issues persist.

Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap is the fifth tower defense/third-person shooter orc slaughterfest from Robot Entertainment, and I’ll answer the obvious question for fellow fans — no, it’s still not better than Orcs Must Die! 2. What does this mean for everyone else who hasn’t played these games? Well, Orcs Must Die! is built on a deceptively simple premise.

Players, as a Warmage, defend magic rifts across various maps from incoming orcs with skillful shooting, brawling, and tactfully deploying defensive traps. There are a ton of physics elements at play too! The sequels added optional two player co-op, and what made it sing was the wonderful attention to detail — sound design, animation, and vocal performances of the two leads. It was all just so good… once upon a time. 

After two divisive, gimmick-filled sequels, the series is pivoting again to be a four-player roguelite. This pivot is also a convenient excuse to abandon the story mode and cut down on the maps, now less than a dozen maps. A new map is unlocked after defeating each of the four bosses, but that can take dozens of hours of grinding for better stats, perks (Threads) and debuffs (Distortions) so that players can maybe have a chance.

Each round, players choose from three maps, each coming with some Distortion — basically, a negative consequence — something like tougher enemies or enemies no longer dropping power-ups upon death. Every wave survived grants a new Thread that adds a positive perk, like a temporary discount on a trap type, an elemental damage boost, or doubling some useful aspect of a trap.

What breaks the experience is how barricades (once an optional obstacle players could use to redirect enemies) are now required to have a hope of victory. They’ve been patched to allow up to twenty-two barricades by default, which is more than I had to work with during the embargo period, but that’s still not enough. Maps are too flat and open, and cluttered with debris that serves no purpose — it’s like half of every map isn’t done yet. There are also notable visual errors and collision glitches. As it stands, there are maybe one to two viable layouts on each map, causing notable feelings of repetition.

I could maybe look past this if everything else was polished, but that’s not the case as there’s loads of bugs and weirdness — things like enemy ragdoll animations consistently failing to trigger, AI of melee enemies being easily evaded by standing on a slightly high ledge, almost every map having misaligned assets, getting into places I wasn’t supposed to was surprisingly easy, my chosen Warmage spouting the wrong character audio in the heat of battle, the absence of a real tutorial, and more. Between the promise of future content updates and the obviously incomplete state of things, I have to wonder why this isn’t an Early Access game, because by all appearances, it is one.

Unfortunately, the aspect that receives the most attention in Deathtrap is… grinding.

To be fair, it’s reasonable that most tower-defense games have some grinding, yet I can’t think of one with such tedious costs for minimal improvements. Across my fifty hours playing, I was barely able to upgrade more than five traps to maximum stats, I unlocked barely half of the Warmage skilltree, and there’s apparently a whole slew of Threads left to unlock. These aren’t exciting upgrades either — they’re boring, minimal stat boosts that only the sweatiest players will care about. The devs even removed the ability to respec a loadout — a series hallmark that encouraged experimentation.

Worst of all, the endgame after beating all four enemy bosses in Deathtrap is… keep playing rounds endlessly until defeated on the same few maps with the same traps. I’m starting to think this content wasn’t well-thought-out.

The core gameplay is still enjoyable, it’s just not as good as it’s previously been because it seems actively opposed to the idea of player expression. Also, balancing is fluctuating with every patch so I can’t reliably comment on it. At the time of writing, enemies get 50% more health with every subsequent map, which is currently soft-locking certain playstyles.

Or course the devs are patching the game, which is good, but in the time it’s taken since launch, fans have already created PC mods that address fundamental issues faster than the developers. I’ve tried some of the mods and they make for a much better time. The repetition is still a major issue though.

I don’t know who Orcs Must Die! is for, and I’m not sure Robot Entertainment does either. Anyone new to the series is at a massive disadvantage, and existing fans are going to be scratching their heads. This series might’ve put Robot Entertainment on the map, but what they’re doing here isn’t their future. I used to love these titles — I still love the first two — but even if this mess is the result of an unfortunate series of mistakes made with the best intentions, that still doesn’t mean it’s a good experience.

Rating: 4 out of 10

Buy Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap: Xbox – PC

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Robot Entertainment. It is currently available on PC and XBS/X. This copy of Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap was provided by the publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 45 hours were dedicated to the single-player campaign, and it was not completed.

Parents: This game is rated Teen by the ESRB, and like previous series entries, contains Violence, Blood, and Mild Language. This one is going to come down more to a matter of preference. Overall, this is a very lighthearted affair. The gore (which is strangely not included by the ESRB rating) and blood are extremely cartoonish nonsense, but they are almost to the level of a DOOM game at points, particularly with headshots. However, in the gameplay settings, it’s possible to disable all gore. This does result in more glitching ragdolls, but if gore is the deciding factor here, you can disable it.

Colorblind modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are some visual prompts doubling for audio prompts, but not enough in my opinion. Subtitles cannot be resized or altered. Overall I would say that it’s not fully accessible.

Remappable controls: Yes, this game does offer remappable controls and there are a wealth of additional customization options in settings.

The post Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Combat is way more satisfying than the usual RPG.

LOW Enemy variety is somewhat lacking.

WTF 56 hours of play and I didn’t find a single decent greathammer.

Plague. Plague never changes… even when it originates on a distant island, turns people into homicidal plants and spreads across the land threatening to engulf all of civilization if not torn out by the roots.

Wake up hero, looks like we have a dreamscourge to burn.

Taking place within the Pillars of Eternity universe, the player is hardly the standard RPG protagonist who begins as an unknown hero of humble origins. Not only are they the personal envoy of the Emperor sent overseas to root out the cause of the dreamscourge plague wreaking havoc, they were also touched at birth by an unknown god, resulting in their head sprouting a customizable amount of fungus ranging from a few cosmetic markings to a veritable forest cascading down their face.

As if that’s not enough, major political forces are at play in the background. A mass immigration is forcing the native population into shantytowns, and a rogue military element are more than happy to bring this lawless nation to heel by butchering everything in sight. Our fungally-blessed hero has the freedom to fight back against injustice or profit from it wholesale, making loyal companions or bitter enemies along the way, all while having an internal conversation with a new and unexpected voice in their head.

After initially wrecking on a small island just short of their destination, players are given a brisk tutorial on how Avowed works. The game can be seen from first- or third-person perspective and despite wearing half my body weight in plate armor, exploration via parkour is heavily encouraged. It’s common to leap across yawning gaps, haul oneself up ledges and duck under waterfalls to collect any loot squirreled away within.

Avowed doesn’t take place within a a truly open world, instead opting to whisk players to new regions via the overworld map, but each area is expansive and absolutely filled with tons of loot, sidequests and secrets to discover. Whether hunting down bounties or poring over treasure maps, there’s plenty to take care of while out romping through the world.

It’s a dangerous environment out there, and combat is particularly impressive in the flexibility it allows. While I settled on a warrior build wielding a giant two-handed axe, it’s entirely possible to dart around the battlefield wielding a pistol and a magical grimoire in either hand, blasting lead into the bad guys before broiling them alive with flame spells during the reload. Or perhaps players would prefer to be stealthy, sneaking up on unaware groups and thinning the herd by shanking them in the back, one by one.

Charging up massive power attacks, parrying the strikes of enemies twice the player’s size and dancing in and out of danger with quick dashes all just feel right. Rather than simple sword swings or outcomes that depend on behind-the-scenes virtual dice rolls, Avowed‘s melee is surprisingly gratifying for an open-ish world RPG.

As players level up they naturally obtain access to better skills and bonuses, and they’re not locked in to just one archetype — they’re able to mix and match skills and buffs from the Warrior, Ranger and Wizard trees at will. If the build goes awry or doesn’t perform as expected, paying a paltry sum in the upgrade menu will allow for a complete respec at any time.

I will say that the loot pool doesn’t cater to all players equally though. I wound up swimming in magical swords and shields by game’s end, and yet never once found an enchanted greathammer after more than fifty hours of play. Given how I initially wanted to build my character as a stun-focused berserker, that totally sucked, despite finding plenty of neat stuff otherwise.

Avowed‘s performance on the XBX was surprisingly solid in performance mode, with a smooth framerate that only stuttered or dropped while under load. It may not be rock solid, but it’s more than adequate, especially considering that the environments are nicely detailed, featuring lush scenery, barren hellscapes and even more in between.

My quibbles with Avowed are few.

During the prerelease review window, I did notice a few of the quest chains in the third major area did break prematurely. More fundamentally, as good as the combat is, the lack of enemy variety does become an issue in later stages. There are only so many humanoids, beetles and bears a player can kill before wishing something else was being crushed under their mace instead, and each enemy group encounter becomes lamentably predictable.

Avowed may also be a little too streamlined for stat-obsessed RPG players. While there is scope for setting up combinations of spells, debuffs and companion specializations, simply wading in with an axe and chopping everyone in the head can usually do the job just fine.

The final thing about Avowed is a little more fundamental — as fine as it is, it doesn’t break any new ground. It does everything it sets out to do, but there are few surprises in store for fans of the genre, and the scaled-down and guided approach that comes about as a result of a not-truly-open world lends it a slightly compartmentalized, more predictable and borderline regimented quality that some might find less than ideal.

Despite those complaints, I had a great time with Avowed. The dialogue is well-written throughout, the storyline keeps things interesting, choices and optional sidequests can have big impacts on events as a whole, and perhaps most importantly of all, everything eventually wraps together in a satisfying manner that pays respect to the player’s various choices made throughout their adventure. Plus great-feeling combat!

Avowed is just comfort-food adventuring all ’round, and if there’s more of this universe to come in the future, I’ll signing up for the next journey in a heartbeat.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Xbox Game Studios. It is currently available on XBX/S and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBX. Approximately 56 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is provisionally rated M and contains Extreme Violence, Drugs, Use of Alcohol/Tobacco, and Strong Language. While it’s not particularly gory in combat, there is a fair amount of blood and nasty stuff to be found throughout. F-bombs, corpses lying with half their body missing or spilling out, the usual.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available. I couldn’t see any at least, which is odd considering the exceptional amount of other accessibility options found in the menus.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can be altered and/or resized, with a very generous amount of options for tinkering with background opacity, font sizes and the like. There are no significant audio cues. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

The post Avowed Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The voice acting and environmental design are sublime.

LOW Any section with swimming.

WTF The number of pulsing tentacles.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi everyone! Eugene Sax here with another review from GameCritics.com.

Cameron “Caz” McCleary is having a rough day.

The oil rig he’s on in the North sea is a cold, isolated place. The crew enjoys his company, but the foreman is looking to fire him the first chance he gets, even though it’s a just few days before Christmas. Then the drill on the rig hits… something… and unleashes an otherworldly power that corrupts and kills everyone on the rig. Now Caz only has one thing on his mind — survival.

Still Wakes The Deep is a narrative horror title where players control Caz as he explores the oil rig, avoids monstrous creatures, and looks for a way out. Players can run, jump, and pick up items lying around the area, but there’s no possibility of fighting these deadly creatures — Caz will be killed in one strike, so the only option is to hide and evade. 

The atmosphere in Still Wakes is sublime. The crew areas of the rig feel lived-in, each with their occupants’ personal effects on display and full of items that fill in their backgrounds. As I went deeper into the depths of the rig, the lack of maintenance was obvious as I found places that were starting to rust and wear down, even before the entity started corrupting it.

The rig isn’t the only thing that feels fleshed out, though. When comparing Still Wakes the Deep to other titles in the same space, it’s refreshing to have a character that feels like they have a personality to them, and relationships are a key focus for Still Wakes the Deep overall.

There are many flashback scenes where we see Caz’s home life with his wife, and the trouble they were having. Caz is also able to walk around the mess hall and talk to several members of the crew. In a conversation with his crewmates Brodie and Raff, we learn that Raff’s first dive is coming up today, and it’s obvious that he’s nervous. Caz tries to make a joke to cheer him up, but then quickly turns to reassuring comfort when he realizes the joke isn’t working. In another conversation, he’s chatting with a maintenance partner and they commiserate about the foreman cutting corners on the build quality of the rig. Everyone feels like they knows each other from the start — it makes perfect sense since workers would be a tight-knit team on such a small rig — and the chatter sets the tone between everyone right from the start. 

As far as the mechanics go, there isn’t a lot to it — the emphasis here is definitely on narrative. Players will have the option to walk, run, jump, and crouch. There are few areas where it’s possible to hide in a locker, but they felt few and far between. Some items can be picked up and thrown to make a noise and draw monsters away from the player, but most of the running time is spent walking or sneaking from one area to the next, occasionally finding platforming sequences when jumping to a ladder or over a broken walkway.

While Still Wakes has a horror flavor to it, it wasn’t a kind of horror that I expected. It does have monsters that will take out the player in a single moment, but it never felt scary. Most of the time I was able to walk past creatures without them noticing. I was also expecting a lot more puzzles, and not as many platforming challenges. Honestly though, that’s all perfectly fine since the narrative was expertly crafted.

Still Wakes defied many of my expectations. I was expecting a typical horror experience where the main character is isolated, but instead got character drama and complex relationships. I expected jump scares and terrible monsters, but those were just ancillary to the storytelling. I expected slightly obtuse puzzle solving, but instead received an atmospheric walk through a creepy oil rig.

Players wanting rich mechanics or complex play might not find much to enjoy here, but Still Wakes the Deep is a definite recommend to those who enjoy dramatic narratives and horror flavor.

For me: Still Wakes The Deep gets a 8 out of 10.

Disclosures: This game is developed by The Chinese Room and published by Secret Mode. It is currently available on PC, PS5 and XBS/X. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 5 hours of play were spent playing the game, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Strong Language, and Violence. The official description reads: “This game is a short horror experience where players will shoot either the dealer or themselves with a shogun. There is blood that splatters the screen when the players successfully complete a round and defeats the dealer. Beer is as a usable item, and players can take a pill (medicine/drugs) or smoke cigarettes to heal damage.”This is a survival horror game in which players follow an off-shore oil rig worker as he works around the North Sea. From a first-person perspective, players search the rig for survivors while avoiding mutant creatures and environmental hazards (e.g., fires, drowning, debris). Mutants are able to attack players at various times; one cutscene depicts a mutant screaming after being set on fire. During the course of the game, players can encounter human corpses, occasionally mutilated and/or bloody. Mutated creatures are sometimes depicted with exposed viscera and bone; some environments contain bloody, fleshy walls. The words “f**k” and “c*nt” appear in the game.”

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind Modes are present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles, and subtitles can be altered and/or resized. The game is fully accessible.

Remappable controls: Controls are completely remappable.

The post Still Wakes The Deep VIDEO Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

In this episode, Carlos & Brad discuss the rumors floating around regarding the future of the Xbox and Xbox Gaming!

This is Part 1, so no rumors have been confirmed yet — this is prediction and speculation.

Part 2 next week will contain the facts of the announcement and our reactions.

You can also hear the show on iTunes and Spotify!

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to SoVideogamesPODCAST (at) gmail (dot) com, or post them in the comments section below. Thanks!

The post SVG Special Episode: Xbox Rumors! appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH It’s a super serious Forza Motorsport game with an emphasis on realism!

LOW It’s a super serious Forza Motorsport game with an emphasis on realism!

WTF Excitement from the narrator about shaving a tenth of a second off a lap. Calm down, buddy!

Licensed games have a problem. If Rockstar isn’t sliding its oily fingers into GTA IV to remove music tracks from a product players already paid for, fantastic games like Outrun 2 and Driver: San Francisco are being delisted from sale permanently after their licensing agreements expire. It’s absolute bullshit, quite frankly, and the same fate suffered by Forza Motorsport 7 two years ago when it was unceremoniously yanked from storefronts.

Well, fret no more Forza fans — the most recent release is here, and players who want to get their hands on one of the most detailed and beautiful racing franchises for the current generation of consoles can finally do so. Hooray!

Serving as a soft reboot for the series, much of the superfluous baggage from Forza Motorsport 7 is thankfully absent. All of those universally-reviled limited use skill card modifiers are thankfully absent, and the developers make strides to ensure that while there’s still a sense of progression, the good stuff is no longer locked away behind laborious grind.

The new campaign is known as the Builder’s Cup, inviting players to work through a series of four tours, each based around a different type of platform — Sport, Sedans, Muscle, the usual. Players buy a car based on the theme, choose to tinker with the terrifyingly-detailed car customization options including everything from tire pressure to engine and frame conversions… or, they can slap on optimal simulated upgrades (like I did) and then hit the tarmac across twenty real-world racetracks and around five hundred licensed cars at launch.

There’s an experience system here allowing players to unlock new parts for their vehicle as they rise through the ranks of an experience system tied to each car, and they can also choose to make things harder for themselves during each race for a credits boost. The more realistic the driving, the harder the AI and the further back they start on the grid, the higher the potential payout when they place on the podium.

Aside from that, the singleplayer content may be a little bit slim at present. The free play mode is pretty great, allowing for the usual changes to rival density, difficulty, time of day and weather effects, as well as a whole lot more if players choose to engage with the nitty gritty. Want to speed up the passage of time? Go for it! Want variable weather on the track? Awesome, no problem.

The other main draw is the Rivals mode where players race against ghost cars sourced from real players online in a bid to beat their lap times. Succeed and another, faster driver will replace them and then another and ano… honestly, this didn’t do much for me. It soon becomes repetitive, and having an inbox stuffed full of people who’ve beaten my times doesn’t appeal.

Playing online with others is a smooth and painless experience, and it’s also one that encourages safe and respectful driving. Recklessly piling into a group of cars slowing down for a turn is frowned upon, as is cutting the track to shave precious seconds. Gaining too many infractions means dangerous drivers get grouped together during matchmaking while everyone trying to simulate a real race get left in peace. It’s a good setup, although it should be noted that races are scheduled to begin at real world times rather than triggering on demand — if an event is half an hour away, that could lead to a lot of practice laps before it begins.

As should probably be expected, Forza Motorsport is a fine looking game on the Series X. More importantly, it’s a game that understands that the 60fps experience is paramount and laudably recommends this over a slightly sharper image. Even on Series S it maintains this framerate, though the image is admittedly noticeably softer on the less powerful console.

On top of extremely detailed car models, there’s an impressive amount of weather effects including day and night variations to spice up each race. I found it hypnotic jto set the options to simulate sunset on a clear day before taking the track and doing laps from sundown until sunup. It looks stunning, and that holds true whether players are hurtling along in the midst of a vision-obscuring thunderstorm or simply dealing with light drizzle.

There’s a ton of customization options regarding the user experience, from automatically braking to a safe speed when approaching a corner to ensuring the brakes don’t lock up from slamming them too hard. The optimal racing line can be visible at all times, only appear when it’s time to brake or absent entirely — which in my particular case is a bad idea, as without it I’d spend half my time spinning off track. Add to this a generous helping of accessibility and it’s clear that Microsoft and Turn 10 want to ensure as many people as possible are able to enjoy a race.

The only real qualm I have with Forza Motorsport is its overall rigidity. This is a serious racer for serious fans of the sport, and that doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room for innovations not aimed at existing car fanatics. For example, during the campaign players are required to perform multiple practice laps before a race. This mandatory timesuck can’t be skipped, and pointlessly drags each race out to an extent I’m not keen on.

That rigidity doesn’t just affect aspects of the design, it also affects the gameplay. This makes sense in context as there’s only one optimal racing line after all, so it makes sense to stick to it like glue. That said, any time I tried anything that the racing line didn’t like, it ended in disaster.

On the surface this sounds pretty par for the course in the driving genre. Going too fast or approaching a corner at weird angles results in crashing like an idiot, so it’s no surprise there. However, the margin for error is razor-thin, leading to an experience where I was either slavishly following the line at all times or going headfirst into the nearest barrier. Don’t expect Ridge Racer-style drifting to save a bad approach here. Only braking, and braking hard will do it most of the time

Forza Motorspot may not blow most players away with this latest, and indeed greatest installment, but at the same time it’s also hard not to be impressed by what’s on show here. It’s a little risk-averse, but also polished to a high sheen and laser focused on providing a realistic and detailed racing simulation to its core audience, and I think most players will be more than happy with what’s included in this package.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Turn 10 Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It is currently available on XBX/S and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBX and XBS. Approximately 25 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the first tour of the Builder’s Cup was completed. 4 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E. This is a racing game in which players can drive a variety of realistic cars around international tracks. Players can progress through various game modes that include Career, Free Play, and Test Drive.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can be altered and/ or resized. There are no audio cues needed for successful play, so I’d say it’s fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

The post Forza Motorsport (2023) Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

Today GameCritics is happy to present this video covering Library of Ruina from guest contributor Arlyeon. For more from Arlyeon, you can check out their YouTube channel or their Discord. Also, you can support them on Patreon!

Hey folks, If you’re looking for In Depth Indie Reviews, You’re in the right place! And today is going to be a treat since I’m finally tackling the sequel to Project Moon’s horror-infused management sim, Lobotomy Corporation. That’s right, I’m going to be covering Library of Ruina, which hops genres over to a combat heavy deckbuilder. That said, this one eschews the normal association with roguelites, instead focusing on a strategic, and ultimately quite narrative centric experience. That said, was this Library a treat to visit, or was it a bigger barnfire then Alexandria?  I’m your host Arlyeon, Let’s find out together.

To say that horrific occurrences are commonplace within the city, would be to give it credit. Corrupt corporations rule the city- their iron grip maintained through twisted technology, and dystopian laws they implement over their various territories, their ‘nests’. A brutality that is only matched by the backstreets, an extensive ghetto that traces through its city- where the protection of murderous syndicates is still preferable to its commonplace mayhem.

And yet, something new is emerging. A hushed rumor, at first, of a strange phenomenon. Desperate individuals find themselves receiving invitations to a Library, with the promise of knowledge, of value, provided they can wrestle it away from its depths.

Something which Roland, a fixer for hire, soon finds himself learning more about firsthand- albeit after being forcibly recruited as one of its myriad Librarians, by the mysterious Angela.

And that’s about the extent at which I want to provide a prelude, because this is such an incredibly story-dense experience, and one that is just plain chock full of spoilers. For instance, it’s really not long into the beginning of the story, before you’ll start to receive massive spoilers insofar as the outcome of Lobotomy Corporation, including the ultimate outcome of the game.

That said, while this might be a bit of a problem if you’re playing through, or intend to play it’s predecessor- it also means that you’re not -too- apt to feel out of the loop insofar as particular story beats.

And there are -so- many to be found here. Primarily, the narrative is provided at the start of each of the games chapters, as well as before and after every stage- helping to contextualize the situation at large, flesh out the dynamic between Roland & Angela, and simply to build on the story of the city itself, as well as emphasize its overall monstrousness. That said, the most poignant element is the way that it takes the time  to flesh out the motivations of the people who are visiting the Library.

While some of the people that venture into the library are altogether repugnant- it’s not long before things become a -lot- more complicated, both insofar as the length of some of those character arcs, as well as their long reaching consequences. It’s, honestly, a trip just tracing back the overall point at which things -really- start to get messy.

And that’s without even getting into the deeper lore. See, as you clear out the various stages (known as receptions)- you’ll gain access to books. What’s narratively interesting here, is that while they can cough up a number of useful things- one of them is keypages. An item that serves as a sort of alter-ego for your character with a swathe of perks. The reason I bring this up here, is each one provides a small bit of backstory from the perspective of the character you acquired it from- which helps build on the world as a whole. . . as well as just making you feel bad. Unironically, this game is somehow more depressing than Lobotomy Corp.

Anyways, that’s almost the crux of the narrative bits- other than, yes, there are multiple endings to pursue- but it’s not simply a matter of choices. Oh no- you need to tackle the game’s various Realizations, in order to be able to make the choices – though, even that is narratively rewarding, given they have their own associated scenes which help to add a -lot- of context to everything.

Still, if you do manage to get through every trial the game has to throw at you- the end result manages to bring the story to a satisfying close.

Anyways, I’m starting to lean a bit harder into mechanics- so, let’s get right into it. Ruina is -interesting- since mechanically speaking, it’s a combination of turn based battler, a deck builder, and a -puzzle- game.

Initially, it’s not too hard to figure out. Beat up enemies until they die, using the very basic deck you’re provided. If you can bottom out their stagger bar, so much the better- since it’ll cause them to not only lose their turn- it also makes them vulnerable to all three attack types (blunt, slash and pierce respectively).

That said, there’s a bit of nuance to factor in, even at the get go- and that’s the way combat actually breaks down. See- every character has an initiative dice- which rolls to determine who goes first. Here’s the thing. While you’ll get your pick of who to target in the instance your initiative is higher. If it’s on the low end- you’ll only really be able to intercept the attacks of any character targeting you.

And that’s important- since when two attacks collide with each other, it leads to a clash- where both cards roll off to see who wins the exchange. Which sounds simple, until you break things down further. Attacks, for instance, are an all or nothing circumstance- where a successful parry hurts the enemy, but a failure sees you soaking the entire hit. What’s more, each swipe only triggers once- so it’s entirely plausible to get -rocked- by trying to deflect multiple hits with a singular attack.

Inversely, a block doesn’t deal direct damage. Instead, it deals stagger damage when it deflects, and reduces damage by its roll even if you fail a clash. And then there’s dodging.

Why two defensive options? Well, dodges fulfill a unique role, since- while a failed dodge sees you soaking full damage- a success negates the damage, -and- continues to carry over to the next roll- potentially letting you evade an -entire- enemies barrage if you set things up right. Unless you clash with another defense card, in which case, it abruptly ends.

So, Yeah- there’s a fair amount to think about- and that’s not even factoring in that any attack that -isn’t- clashed will simply slip through and feed damage to the target. Something you’ll both be taking advantage of- and worrying about.

But none of that will save you, if you’re not mindful about your Light. Light essentially serves as your resource for playing costly cards. You start out with a cap of 3, initially, and only regain 1 a turn- requiring you to be mindful of what you play.

That said- as you clash with enemies, and roll extremes on dice, you’ll also generate ‘emotion’. Gain enough, and your character’s emotion level increases- raising your Maximum light capacity for that fight, as well as replenishing it- allowing you to make a renewed offensive.

..Admittedly, your enemies can take advantage of this too- but it’s not all bad news there. See, when the enemies have an overall higher emotion level, it causes them to turn into a large quantity of books when they’re killed.

And this is immensely important, since books are essentially card packs -centered- around the various characters. And I do mean this, since, burning each book causes them to explode into a random assortment of thematic prizes.

Specifically, two kinds. The first is more combat cards- and this is how you get into the real nuance of deck building- since, not only will they provide more -powerful- cards, you’ll also begin to find ones with unique mechanics, or interesting bits of utility as you progress further into the game.

Take ranged, for instance. These have the advantage of -always- resolving first in combat, albeit with unique caveats- the most prominent being their weakness to melee clashing. See, while ranged attacks can’t clash with each other, a single melee attack has the ability to deflect an -entire-barrage of bullets. There’s ways around this, but it can be rough, before you clue in. There’s also counter abilities, which only activate when you’re -not- clashing with an enemy targeting you- allowing you to defend or even -kill- an enemy trying to take advantage of a one sided attack.

And then there’s Singleton, Perhaps the oddest to build around. See- your deck is essentially a very simple arrangement of 9 cards, and if you so choose, you can have 3 of any one card (or 1, in the case of rarer cards). That said, to activate a singleton ability- every card in your deck has to be different, forcing you to be -very- careful about the cards you choose in order to make a functional consistent deck.

Especially as you gain additional speed dice, and find yourself needing to worry about being able to draw enough cards to keep up with your ability to play them -and- your light reserves.

It’s honestly a joy to see this gradual unfurling of mechanics, as well as having a, well, literal library of cards to customize your experience with. Especially since even cards earned earlier in the game can still find a place in your deck as legitimately viable options near the end game.

Just, uh, remember to empty your books from your decks before you tinker with the -other- reward from burning books. There were two things, remember?

And this latter element is a -very- important element of the experience- namely, Key Pages. Essentially, these allow you to -don- the identity of a character you’ve beaten, granting you increased health, damage resistances- as well as passive abilities which can drastically influence your abilities, synergize with other existing key pages. Essentially, these serve as a fundamental core to what you’ll be building your decks around, and your overall strategizing.

And the customisation doesn’t even end there- since later on, you’ll also gain the ability to – attach- keypages you aren’t using to another one, to grant a passive or few in order to -really- maximize the carnage you’re dishing out. Admittedly, there are some limitations here. Different abilities have different point costs, and you only have a limited cap which gradually increases as you get further in the game. What’s more, keypages that are naturally loaded with abilities can’t be -overloaded- which is something to be mindful of.

But yeah- it’s overall neat stuff, and definitely gives you a reason to tackle a stage repeatedly, in order to earn everything it has to offer.

Just, don’t get too burn happy, given that, in order to progress further in the story- you need an intact copy of a given book. Admittedly, the game -does- tell you which book you need when you select the given chapter, but- there’s been more than a few times where I’d ignited one carelessly- or worse. I got to the stage -ahead- – burned a book further back, and then -lost- the fight I was working on, which- uh, consumes the book used. And thus required me to do a fight further back because I was -careless-.

And this can be a bit of a doozy- because the earlier fights are fairly straight forward. Ruina’s difficulty isn’t a curve. Around the midrange, it starts to become a steep hill- and then the endgame becomes a friggin oppressive wall to overcome, replete with fights which often feel more like -puzzles- then wild melees.

Enemies will begin to have -very- daunting abilities, both passively and on their cards, which can wreak a sizable amount of havoc on your crew- and will even require you to build entire decks around mitigating what they’re throwing out.

Something which -also- saw me fiddling around with the general receptions. These are something introduced mid game, and essentially provide you ability to trigger extra stages by throwing a bunch of arbitrary books up as invitations. (There -is- a logic to this, but anyways). The early ones are, well, potatoes- but, once you get a bit further, you start to encounter some fairly unique enemies, who have access to -extremely- good keypages and cards, which often put in a -lot- of legwork, insofar as carrying my ass to the finish line.

…Especially once I started tackling the Abnormality fights. These are just- Remember when I said some of the normal encounters feel like puzzles? These ones straight up are, with -very- specific mechanics you’ll need to encounter and overcome. While they start out fairly simple- you’ll eventually culminate in horrible nightmares like ‘needing to tactically kill a number of enemies in a certain amount of turns, while you’re only given 30 seconds to plan things out’. And- uh, the birds. The goddamn birds.

Seriously- these are neat enough that I don’t want to get heavy into spoiler ville- but, they’re a -very- neat, and a somewhat optional part of the game. That said, the benefits for doing them are -huge-. Not only does clearing one on a given floor of the library increase the maximum amount of emotions you can have (boosting light capacity, book drops and even extra speed die as it ramps up)- it also provides access to abnormality pages. Passive abilities that can either affect a specific librarian or your whole team. Though, whether it’s strictly positive, or a mix of good and bad is something else entirely.

And each of the libraries’ various floors have -very- different abilities, which help to provide them unique identities- and to really emphasize building different teams themed around them.

Which, yeah- you’ll -really- want to make a few back ups, because while some stages only allow you to use one team- others will grant you the ability to swap to another one, or few. And they frequently do so with -very- good reason. Like, you can expect to get your teeth kicked in -thoroughly-.

But hey, at least you’ll be drop kicked in style- since, Ruina is aesthetically a -lot- of fun. Whereas Lobotomy Corp had certain stylistic choices due to the ‘Cognition’ filter- there’s no such element this time around- which means, you’ll get to revel in all the awful details the city has to show you. And, well, there’s a lot to be found in the visual novel segments. The overall character design is a -lot- of fun, too- with a very diverse cast of characters, even for the ones who only really show up for one scene.

And this isn’t just limited to the visual novel segments, either. The stages you visit are a -lot- of fun to see, given that each floor has their own specific visuals- as do a number of fights (such as the Abnormality encounters.

Admittedly, the combat character design is a bit…cuter- given they’re essentially little nuggets battling it out. That said, they’re fairly customisable, since- not only are they influenced by the keypages you equipped- they also can have their features tweaked fairly freely. There’s also battle symbols to play with- a large array of small visual details you can equip to your librarians, such as bandages, scars, or even rat whiskers- which are earned by achieving certain actions during a fight. Technically, there -are- mechanics related to these, but given they tend to have things like 5% odds of proccing- well, I didn’t -overly- feel the need to focus on them mechanically.

Still, as fun as these all are, my favorite element of Ruina has to be the sound design. There is just -so- much good music packed into the experience. Some of it, you’ll be introduced to fairly early on- such as the unique battle music for each of the library’s floors- though, it’ll take a bit for you to hear the better variants of those themes- given they only cue up once you’ve reached a certain emotion level.

It’s legitimately neat- but, even those don’t hold a candle to the boss themes. Like, the moment you hear a Mili song pop up in this game, you are both in for a treat- and a hell of a time, since it generally signals that shit is about to get -real-.

Also, while the voice acting -is- specifically in korean, I actually quite liked listening to it, because it still manages to convey a lot of raw emotion- which really paired well with the lines I was reading. It’s so good.

But, uh, yeah- this was a -lot- of words. Which, I guess is pretty understandable, since I invested -166- friggin hours into this game. And I’ll admit, there were a lot of moments where it was a frustrating endeavor. I think Children of the City and Iron Lotus will likely live in my head Rent free for the next year or so.

And that wasn’t even the full extent of things. While I touched on anomaly fights, and their -blistering- difficulty- they pale next to the culminating challenges. Vicious bosses where each phase has -myriad- of mechanics you’ll need to adapt to,, while controlling a potentially dwelling crew of characters. It’s..rough. Like there were times I was definitely overcome with a sense of … Remorse.

That said- while I certainly needed to take the occasional break? I kept coming back. Ruina is a -beautifully- crafted game mechanically, with challenges that made me want to rise to the occasion, again, and again. Gradually learning everything it had to offer was an absolute treat- and it felt so rewarding to push forward and make just a bit more progress.

And on a narrative front? It does such a phenomenal job of further opening up the world introduced in Lobotomy Corp, of providing a bleak but riveting horror story, that still finds room to sometimes be sweet, or funny- or to high a genuine pathos for the characters caught in its web.

Quite frankly, this game is actually solid enough, that even with its systemic sadism- I cannot recommend this enough, to the point that I’d call it a Crit Hit. I -genuinely- believe that it builds up to such a satisfying conclusion on so many fronts.

Which makes it -extremely- interesting that it doesn’t just end there. Because there’s another Project Moon game I haven’t talked about- but we’re getting there.

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