Recent reviews by Kranto

I think people are too harsh towards it. Not a masterpiece, but decent arcade style action game, which feels something like Gauntlet mixed with Shock Troopers. Challenging levels, fantastic sprite art and solid soundtrack. Lack of continues can be criticized, but the game is short enough and not that troublesome to get used to. It certainly feels like a game, which you can boot up on MAME for better or worse.

The game lacks indications for attacks of some enemies, level 3 is not great in terms of design and the Infinite Mode is not fleshed out (it's too boring and amount of power ups is too small for it). New Game+ feels like even greater challenge though.

The default price is certainly quite high, but it's worth getting on sale.

Criminally overlooked demo from the latest Next Fest.

Imagine Quake Defrag, but mixed with stomps, wall jumping, skiing from Tribes, and you can ride the slopes as if you are playing Trackmania. You will get this game. Also, air control and ramp jumping is available there as well. Polished movement physics, nicely crafted maps. It is surprisingly pleasant to move in that game, the dev of that game knew what they were doing.

I am not sure what to criticize here besides the necessity to do some improvement in terms of presentation (like those icons in tutorial made in MS Paint).

If you like defrag, surf maps and speedrunning FPS games - do yourself a favour and try it out. Hidden gem.

After playing demo long time ago and beating Echo Point Nova, I decided to give it a shot, and I certainly did not regret in the slightest.

The movement may seem tamer in comparison, but it is still fluid, strong and over the top, especially considering more linear level structure. Air control, dive, slide, and even kick are providing mind-blowing momentum. It may not be that hard overall, but the encounters can still provide enough challenge, which was a bit lacking in the next Greylock Studio's game (kudos to heavy soldiers with flamethrowers for that).

Despite being short, it has impressive list of additional game modes, mutators and weapon customization to mess around with.

While Severed Steel is all about gameplay, some elements of environmental storytelling were a pleasure to see. It is also amusing, that all of campaign levels are connected into a simple narrative without giving too much exposition. Some of the missions in last chapters made me raising hands like Scorsese while saying "Absolute cinema". Superhot influence is noticeable here, and I mean it as compliment.

Last but not least, Floating Door's music here is also nothing but bangers.

It is that movement shooter kids are craving for. It is one of those "shorter games with worse graphics" some people are expecting to see.

Severed Steel is also dirt cheap on sales. I do not see any reason not to buy it, if you are into some nice fast paced FPS games.

I've never enjoyed open world games that much, but this one is my favourite. Movement options and momentum are so ridiculously overtuned, that it works in its favor. This and destructible environment make exploration and collectable hunting so satisfying. Boss fights are more or less similar in their structure, but they are all cool and emphasize mechanics of Echo Point Nova pretty well.

The downside is that the regular encounters are quite simple overall, but location layouts and movement options compensate that. Looking forward to Steam Workshop update!

Despite my respect for Soulsborne games, I've never invested in beating any of them after regular NG. Armored Core VI, though was rent free in my head until I had not finished all of the endings.

Great sense of verticality, ridiculously satisfying weapons with fun movesets, rewarding and enjoyable bosses. The other wonderful trait of the game is how everything fits apocalyptic tone of the game: setting, narrative, characters, soundtrack.

It is reasonable to criticise the game though - its difficult curve seems off. A lot of segments may seem too simple, and some of the bosses in may be brutally hard in comparison. It is fairly easy to find the build, which can break the game. Also I really wish that customisation had more variety for limbs and flexibility for weapons (it is quite sad that there is no option to have dual melee weapon builds).

If some of those and other aspects were tweaked, it could have been easily a perfect game. Anyway, it is still another gem from 2023. If you haven't beat the game yet, do not put it on the shelf after its first completion, you won't regret it!

As much as I enjoyed the fifth game, I cannot recommend EDF6 for its steep price.

Gameplay wise it is still fun, but it is pretty much the same as EDF 5. QOL improvements are good (extra slots for grenades are great), but it does not feel like a major improvement like it was for EDF 5 in comparison to 4.1. And some of missions are questionable at best (narrative based "walk and talk" missions are doing nothing but wasting player's time).

There are a lot of technical issues. Optimization is not that good, a ton of desyncs in online, which can ruin the experience sometimes. Thanks for ditching forced EGS integration I guess. Being a funny janky low budget game is not an excuse here, because the fifth instalment did not have that.

It is not worth its MSRP (60$ by default), if you want to experience EDF for the first time, buy EDF 5 on sale. Play this one only if you are really into series.

After completing Void Stranger (my personal GOTY 2023), I decided to give a previous System Erasure game a shot. I was impressed by Zero Ranger as much as their next game, I even enjoyed it even more in some aspects.

Maybe it is not an impressive game for someone who 1CC'ed every single Cave game, but I enjoyed every single segment in this shmup. It was a joy getting used to every single pattern and trying to push your limits. While being hard in the second half of the game, I had no feeling that the game was unfair. I will never forget the last 3 bosses, one of the most memorable gaming experiences.

Great visuals with some interesting artistic decisions and an amazing soundtrack. There are also some unexpected narrative segments, which spice up the experience even more and make it unique and memorable.

I have mixed feelings only about one thing - how they decided to add a challenge in the ending. Without spoiling that much, it made the progression to the end a bit too long. I understand their decision and respect it though. On the other hand, it is still great to replay that game after getting used to more and more patterns. A choice of two ships and several powerups add more to the replay value. I certainly want to try to do a 1cc run and get into other shmups more now.

Lovely game, can not praise it and geniuses from System Erasure enough. They became one of my favourite video game developers.

I am still not sure if it is the GOTY 2023 for me, but this is certainly the game I will NEVER forget. It is the experience, which is so unique, it evoked feelings I have never felt in a video game before, and I believe I tried various stuff in the medium. Such an experience, totally recommend to give it a shot, if you can imagine yourself playing sokoban style games. This game is indie as it gets.

The rest of the review is spoiler free, but it still can set some expectations and change your blind playthrough experience. You have been warned.

First of all, don't be afraid of my spent hours. I was very stubborn and tried too hard to test various ideas out, which I had in my head. Just follow the tips from the store page and you will be fine! You will likely beat the game faster than me, trust me.

As it has been mentioned, Void Stranger takes sokoban style puzzle formula and adds tile replacement as the main mechanic. And then it offers more mechanics, which are in perfect harmony with the core gameplay. But wait, here is more! The game is not restricted to it, it has so much to explore, and a lot of things in this can be get by thinking outside of the box and doing such interactions which are honestly mind blowing for me.

Also, while writing in this game can be too goofy sometimes, the plot is presented in fitting enigmatic way, which was at least intriguing. Some of the storyline vignettes are interconnected with the gameplay in a very creative way. Very rare thing for a game, which is not a "walking sim". Diverse soundtrack and memorable stylized art style are also worth the praise.

There are some things, which made my experience a bit worse. I wish there were more conventional way to revisit certain segments in Void Stranger. Despite the main progression of it having very good balance between too hand hold-ish and too cryptic, I still think that some segments were too obtuse for my tastes (glad that there is some sort of consensus on one of them). But you know what? It did not stopped me, I still WANTED to do my best and see the grand finale. Oh boy, I did not regret it in the slightest!

Bravo, System Erasure, now I want to see what I’ve missed, try Zero Ranger out and look forward to whatever you will be cooking in the future!

Great CRPG, certainly one of the best even among the "golden classics" on the Infinity Engine. It is also an improvement over Original Sin 1, which I enjoyed in terms of battle system (those elements combination and interaction with the scenery never get old), but it didn't click with me in other aspects. There are more interesting lore elements, plot with more fun twists, way less bland dialogues (some of them genuinely made me laugh, which is an achievement for a video game writing), more appealing area design. As an overall package it is pretty hard to think of better game in the genre (except, potentially, BG3, but I will check it later). If you compare it story wise with other games, there are better alternatives for sure. The story is relatively straightforward, but still was pretty entertaining to follow.

As cons I will mention several things. DOS2 can be dragging sometimes in terms of pacing, especially in the last act. I expected a bit more with "pre-made" characters story quests, they do make experience more engaging, they are still a bit lacking (I still recommend everyone to start the game with them, you can customize their builds however you want anyway). The game sometimes seems a bit restrictive due to necessity to find areas more appropriate for your current level. Also some fights can be too frustrating without cheese tactics.

Nevertheless, still amazing CRPG, which helped to revitalize the genre (I remember everyone being doomsayers during Mass Effect days, these are in the past).

I spent only two nights with this game, but I can't stop thinking of beauty of this game. Its description on Steam page fits the game perfrectly - puzzle platformer with sandbox structure, which made in such a way, that you can potentially beat any level with a set of random tools. And tools themselves are pretty different in terms of impact on the level and its objects. Mosa Lina is just fun to experiment and mess around with. This game makes you feel very creative, even if you just spam the tower of boxes under yourself. It will have its test of time for sure, but just the concept with good realization is impressive on its own.