Recent reviews by cheshire.panther

Finally some good ♥♥♥♥

I'm withdrawing my recommendation for this game, cause it frankly sucks.

Before you jump into this game, you need to know what are you dealing with: it is essentially 3 games in one. On the lowest level it's a deckbuilding roguelike (or more of a boardgame) - you draw rooms, you place them on the map and your goal is to manage different resources to get from point A to point B and unlock the final room.

On the higher level it's a puzzle game, where every room usually contains a part of the puzzle or a hint. The puzzles usually unlock different upgrades, ease game in some way and act as parts of a higher puzzle game. Every room is basically a part of a huge jigsaw that you need to assemble together.

And, finally, on the highest level it's a metagame where you can break the rules of the roguelike and escape the simulation, getting almost infinite resources, controlling what you draw and finally focusing on the more obscure puzlles of the game that were hidden from you.

So, why this game is bad? Well, for two large reasons. First, the puzzles themselves are not very good. My definition of a good puzzle game is a game that you can complete without hints. The game that does not requie hints should have good faith puzzles - logical, well telegraphed, approachable from different angles, etc. Blue prince has good faith puzzles, even brilliant puzzles for maybe the first 30% of the game. The rest are bad faith puzzels that are illogical, requiring luck and extensive note sharing between different people. The kind of puzzle that Uru Live or Animal Well had, basically a game that is supposed to be solved on the time frame of multiple months and excessive brainstorming. I guarantee you that you have absolutely ZERO chance of finishing this game solo. (We have a discord channel dedicated 24/7 solving this game, trust me I know what I'm talking about.)

Now, the bigger problem is that that part I mentioned, where you break the chains of the roguelike and start solving the game - well, it never happens. You can maybe bend the game a bit, but the developers could never figure out of what game they want to make, they kinda wanted to make both roguelike and puzzle and in result this is neither. You can't reliably access your notes unless you write down HUNDREDS of lines of game text and screenshot EVERYTHING and spend hours going though steam screenshots. I can't count the amount of time I missed the obvious clue cause I did not have room or book available.

For example, you can't just get a book with a hints in the game, you need to draw a library, order a book, skip the run, start a new one, get the library again, and hope to have a very specific item with you, if you don't have it - tough luck. You missed 3 very specific items and a room to combine them? Start again. You have an ultra rare key and need a room for wich you have expensive resources and which drops under rare circumstances? Tough luck. This is what people usually complain about on Steam Forums when they do the first proper run of the Room 46 (the stated game objective that you need to get into). What they don't know that this objective is essentially a game tutorial, the thing that can be set up relatively straightforward in the game terms. The ♥♥♥♥ that game ACTUALLY require you to do in the endgame is frankly ridiculous and rage inducing. (Do google Reclaiming Throne Room conditions, for example)

Some people will (and do)obviously defend this as an Intended Game design and Immersion, but those people will defend anything. Stockholm Syndrom is strong in this game, don't be like this, soy is bad for your health.
It pains for me to dislike this game, cause the core idea is genious, but if idea is 10/10, then the game itself is 3/10 in the current state. I hope someone will make a better take on this idea.

It's not very bad puzzle game, but a not very good one either. I would honestly not spend more than 5 bucks on it and even this would be a stretch.

This is hands down one of the worst designed games. It is probably top 3 worst games ever created by humanity, and although I was initially still planning to recommend it, what pisses me off is how deliberate it is in its game design. The part that finally broke me was the long ass chasing lava level with mandatory unskippable animation at the start. Of course it has the lava segment with no checkpoints, of course.
Sorry, but if I want to play a bad game, I already have Ori.

Came for the lovecraftian horror, stayed for the lovecraftian cringe.

The game is almost fascinating, but probably not in the way devs intended. For the 20% it almost looks like a real game if you squint your eyes enough, and for the 80% it is hilariously janky, and the biggest praise I could give is "a good half-life 2 mod".

You can enjoy it for a $2 or so, but I would not put your hopes high enough.

Accidentally learned about this game from a small youtuber cause THQ did not bother spending any money on marketing it. I'm pretty sure 99% of people are not even aware this exists, just like me.

Sometimes you want a survival horror that is not very survival or very horror - more like a 90-s adventure game. You don't want to hide behind the cover, you don't want to struggle, you just want to solve a few puzzles and have a few monsters, with ammo and health just barely enough to kill them comfortably.

I still think RE2 is the penultimate game in a non horror non survival survial horror, but this game is the close second. This is what original Call of Chtulhu should have been. This is what the SH2 remake should have been instead whatever games blooper team been spewing all those years. I did enjoy it a lot, tbh a lot more than Signalis or other retro-inspired games that came last year.

Words cant describe how bad the controls are.

Overrated pretantions crap padded enough to clock sligtly over 2h.

This game is a one step forward, two steps back.

Its a step forward in terms of production values, better concept and overall much more interesting and memorable setting, and two steps back in terms of everything else, aka the actual game.

This game is not the actual metroidvania and is extremely linear, with 90% of the game (with the exception of maybe the last 10% near the end) being the literal straight line. You can't sequence break it, do anything of the ordinary or find any interesting upgrades outside of the pre-designed path. The game does not even try to hide it. The good side is that you can't get lost like in many other vanias, the bad side that it is technically the linear platformer. This, with much weaker and less creatively designed bosses, and the game tendency of enjoying wasting your time make it a rather bland experience.

This is why, even technically 100%-ing the game and unlocking both endings, and overall enjoying the journey, I can't really recommend this game and feel like it was fundamentally a very weak game experience and overall a waste of time.

https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/steamstore/curator/44046713-Metroidvania-Curated-List/

After two pretty good games you would expect Ladybug to make something truly exceptional, but the end result is an ultimate mid game.

Mid combat.
Mid movement.
Mid enemies and level design
Mid story.
Mid mechanics.

And jesus christ the bosses are so uninteresting and boring that in combination with sluggish combat they make me fall asleep mid-combat every single time.

Like, sprites are colored with a custom backlight outline depending on the light sources. You have directional shadows in the 2d game, for an ultimate flex. A lot of care and details been put into. Even ammo sprites are different.

But what if your would spend dev time on implementing coyote time instead? Or not gating critical game abilities like double jump, fast travel or dash behind skill tree? Or not making blade spin that is mandatory for certain boss fights an optional (!) skill? Or actually making boss fights interesting instead of making player running around them in circles? Or implementing checkpoints? Or actually adding weapons and loot for a sotn-type game? Or not making game absolutely linear? Etc etc etc etc etc etc.

Metroidvania Curated List:
https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/steamstore/curator/44046713-Metroidvania-Curated-List/