Recent reviews by 24/7🔴Triple B>Backpacks/Keys

10/10 Game. Managed to beat it at ~14 hours. Naturally there are more things to discover/unlock that I will be doing as I'm interested in the story and fantastic atmosphere that this game manages to build up, but given that I achieved credits it feels appropriate to make a review now.

Firstly this will easily be Indie GOTY for 2025. This game is a blend of Puzzle game (Akin to Outer Wilds in that knowledge from previous runs helps build up future runs) and rogue-lite games (Permanent unlocks are able to obtained that will help future runs). You draft your house and try to get to the mysterious 46th room thats been rumoured to exist. It has a nice cell-shaded artstyle, the music is good when it kicks in at the right moments and the core gameplay loop is fun. You'll probably want to take notes/screenshots while playing. I ended up using MS OneNote to help me in my playthrough.

Apparently some people are conflicted on this game so I looked up the negative reviews to see what were this games shortcoming but these mainly boil-down to some rooms having repetitive puzzles (I guess they can be repetitive, but they take all of about 30 seconds to complete) and apparently needing to meticulously look in the same room for the 100th time (I've missed maybe a few keys and coins total in my playtime, but not to the degree that people are harping on about which leads me to assume they are misunderstanding the mechanics of certain rooms...? For example, if you have a Metal Detector, coins and keys will be in very hard to see locations (Such as on the floor or in little cubbys) but that doesn't matter since they are spawned from the Metal Detector and the detector will help you find them. Also rooms that "Spread" keys, coins etc. are usually placed in far more obvious locations, such as on top of counters or desks etc.) Regardless of whether the negatives of this game are valid or not, having only 85% (A score which is only above mediocre regarding Steam reviews), while being such a unique and novel game feels very unfair.

Only complaints I really had is the lack of save when quitting mid-run, the slow and drawn out animations (Its a rogue-lite so no need to be that slow) and some of the backtracking in the later areas.

Good game - if you ignore all the unnecessary optional blue checks.

This game is fine. It sort of suffers from not being mechanically deep enough which ends up ruining the tension and the balance as the game goes on (Crab pots ruin the economy for example since they are just easy money makers). Still it was quite fun, but would only recommend picking up on sale.

Great, gameplay-wise. Its a speedrunner type of game, although don't let that put you off if you think speedrun games are hard, this one is pretty easy to beat. Great soundtrack courtesy of Machine Girl. The story is a little bit of a let down, with voice acting that sounds way too cheesy for the tone that it seems to be going for.

Cool. You play as an alt-girl who really love murdering zealots. Visually and sonically this game is great, the gameplay is essentially a puzzle/top-the-leaderboard type of game (its fun).

However positives aside this gets a very simple reason for a not recommended. The game totals around 2 hours. You are introduced to new mechanics that never really feel fully capitalised on due to the lack of levels. The game needed at least twice the number of levels and also a community level editor of some sort. The lack of content really undermines this game from being great and receiving a positive review

Great game. Much better than the first (No need for a walkthrough, apart from maybe the last level). Lots of the levels are great, bar a trailing mission and possibly the last one (Interesting mission but far too long and too much backtracking). Story is as good as the first if not better, praise be to Karass being a great villain.

I would probably give a middling review if you could, but this game, as it stands, deserves a non-recommend due to how frustrating and exhausting it is.

Firstly I was playing with TFlite and did the hardest possible difficulties since the higher difficulties give you more objectives to do so it felt the intended way to play.

The good:
Some levels are clearly well thought out and are interesting, such as return to haunted cathedral, lord baffords house and the one with the 4 towers.
Sneaking mechanics are generally servicable, nothing too ground breaking though.
Cutscenes and overall story is pretty good.
The architecture of some levels is pretty cool (Although dated).
No quest objectives, static maps etc. demand you to pay attention to your mission and what you're looking for making it more immersive.
Garrett

The bad:
Tons of levels in this game are just downright confusing. Lots of things look the same so you'll end up getting lost... A LOT.
Some of the objectives to complete a level are moronic. The best example I can bring to mind is the one where you sneak into a hammerite temple dressed as one of them. To complete the level you have to find 5 levers that are strewn about the level with 2 of them seemingly having no cohesive reason for their locations. Think trying to do an easter egg in a game where the devs put a random bunch of esoteric ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to get the easter egg. Obviously thats fine for an easter egg since its not part of the main mission, but hopefully that gives some perspective into how bad some of these objectives are
Lots of missing random critical items that blend in far too easily etc.
The geometry feels clumsy. You'll end up knocking into things that kill your movement and get you caught.
Enemy AI is very basic, bordering on bad.
Noticeable dip in level quality near the end of the game.


The main reason the game is bad is due to the confusing nature of a lot of levels. Have to give this a big NOT RECOMMENDED from me. I suggest looking over the positive reviews and seeing how many people mention that are a large portion of the levels suck BUT "its groundbreaking, was ahead of its time" etc. The latter comments aren't valid reasons for a positive review and it seems many people are giving positive reviews due to rose-tinted glasses or feeling they need to give it a positive review since its heralded as a classic. Only play this if you're dying to play a stealth game that is considered a classic I guess.

Good immersive sim. Bit dated in some aspects - feels like there is a little too much backtracking necessary and some mission objectives can be confusing. Its also quite easy to miss a critical location and end up getting lost and not knowing how to proceed. The heavy resource management in the early-mid game is crucial so using your wrench is important. This creates not exactly the most satisfying combat for a large portion of the game. Regardless atmosphere is good, the main villain is good. Possibly drags on a little too long but was a fun game.

Pretty good remaster. Graphics and SFX have been updated well enough. Not sure why the game tries to lock you at 48 fps though. Maximum this game runs at is 60 fps which feels unacceptable.

Crash 2 > Crash 3 >>> Crash 1

To preface, I went into this game knowing that lots of souls fans hate it but was excited to play it due to its supposed high difficulty.

Negatives:
- Combat is fine but relatively clunky and slow. For the most part bosses and enemies are boring due to heavily telegraphed and slow moving attacks (There are some exceptions obviously such as the Fume Knight DLC boss, Smelter Demon, etc.). This means that this game never hits the highs of exciting boss fights like in Dark Souls 3. This results in the game being relatively easy for a souls game, despite hearing lots about this game being "brutally hard"?
- Life gems ruin the game. You can buy an infinite amount (Up to a stack of 99) from a vendor you will inevitably come across. This means that any combat encounters between bosses have no weight to them as you can always just heal to full using a life gem and save flask charges for boss fights. Yes I'm aware that flask uses are much slower in this game but you have larger windows of time due to how slow attacking the average boss in this mediocore game is. I opted not to do this in my playthrough since it made the game a cake walk. Regardless the game is still relatively easy.
- Overstays its welcome. Getting the 4 main boss souls is enjoyable enough, then the game expects you to go back to areas you don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about. Its annoying.


Pros:
- Environments are nice enough and a welcome change from the dreariness of the other souls games. Thats about it really. This game isn't terrible, but for a souls game it sucks.