Recent reviews by Rituro

Have you ever thought to yourself, "what if Animal Crossing was on PC, had light combat and replaced all the animals with Australians?" Good news! Dinkum exists! Strewth!

It's the ultimate simulator of the three tenets of medieval life -- murder, marriage and eugenics. Those *were* the three tents of medieval life, right? Probably? Let's go with it.

Point is, Crusaders Kings III (CK3) is an upgrade on its predecessor (CK2) in wonderful ways. While the loss of republic as a playable government type is a bit of a setback, the vibrant and robust additions in practically every other venue more than make up for it. Add in a travel system, an enhanced religious reformation system following the version debuted at the end of CK2's lifespan, and the ability to play as a landless adventurer(!) -- just a name a few of the many, many facets of this deep The Sims redesign masquerading as a grand strategy 4X -- and you have a game worthy of eating up hours of your life as you attempt to do those zany things CK is known for.

I mean, if you aren't feeding the Pope to your holy cannibal entourage, are you *really* playing CK?

A delightful puzzle game that mixes deckbuilding and Tetris, then gives it a delicious synth-jazz, neo-futurist, cyberpunk coating. It's short, sweet and incredibly well done.

Funny, clever, tactically rewarding, a gripping story, memorable characters, and more defenestrations than you can shake a broom at. What's not to like?

Breach!!

I love Terra Nil. The original NextFest demo for this game absolutely floored me and had me primed for the full version. Once said full version was in my Steam library, I devoured it.

With eight settings across four biomes and every map randomly generated, there's some variety in the puzzles you attempt to solve. If you're only looking to 100% the game, that won't take long. Honestly, though, that's not the point of Terra Nil as far as I can see it. Terra Nil is a chill puzzle game that you can replay over and over when you want a little bit of positivity in your life.

Turning a barren wasteland into a thriving ecosystem is a fun concept by itself. The little audio and visual flourishes that go with it make Terra Nil stand out.

The shortest way to describe Symphony of War is "Ogre Battle for the PC crowd". (See also: Fell Seal, our Final Fantasy Tactics.) It's a somewhat simplistic way to describe a long overdue return to this style of tactical RPG -- especially considering Symphony of War hits all the right notes for the genre.

World-threatening demonic evil? Check. Protagonists who learn Very Valuable Lessons™ as they become infused with divine power to battle said evil? Check. Romance-lite character options? Check, though as far as I could tell, it's purely a cosmetic choice -- no significant gameplay is altered by choosing who bonds with whom, though the ending story will change as appropriate.

The roughness around the edges of Symphony of War -- fluctuating difficulty levels, heavy reliance on named characters (seriously, Diana and Barnabas can tank most of the game by themselves), uneven writing -- can be forgiven by the clear amounts of love and effort put into making this tactical JRPG shine like it was ripped straight out of the 16-bit golden age. Heck, you could even argue the writing is a throwback to the oddball translations of the 1990s, intentionally or not.

This is a great game. Buy it and enjoy.

(Completed on Captain difficulty without permadeath enabled.)

Let's see: charming story, solid character design, admirable representation, inspired art design with touches and little details that show just how much the developers care, unique soundtracks for each character... yeah, Potionomics is something special. Oh, and you brew potions, which you then sell with card battles. So, y'know, a little something for everyone.

After the latest QoL update, I can officially say Potionomics is a must-play game. Adding advanced filters to all screens that have ingredient choices was something that should've existed from day one. When you're searching for juuuust the right ingredient to finish off a late-game potion, now you can do said searching without tearing your hair out going through list after unsorted list.

Yes, you've heard it before -- "It's the closest thing we've had to SimGolf in ages!" It's not an inaccurate statement, either. GolfTopia is, at its heart, SimGolf. You create a course, occasionally play it for money, and try to keep people happy.

Where things get fancier is a full 3D camera, advanced (by comparison) terraforming tools, a 1990s-esque future-space sci-fi art direction, and tower defense.

No, that is not a typo. You know how in SimGolf you'd need to hire groundskeepers (or use your avatar) to handle those pesky weeds? In GolfTopia, every time a golfer has a negative reaction on your course, a weed sprouts somewhere. If enough weeds combine, they form a weed hive and begin mass-sprouting. While your worker drones and avatar can fight back, it's more effective to build laser or mortar defense towers. I mean, what golf course isn't complete without some pew pew pew?

It's a bizarre game mechanic, to be sure, though if you've ever wanted more action in your golf course construction sim, I guess now you have it? Either way, this is still SimGolf 2.0 -- if that's what you want, buy this game.

It's like Mount & Blade meets Battle Brothers, which is so far a pretty darn good mix. You have the open world, stuff-happens-around-you gameplay of M&B with the squad management and fragility of BB. So far, squads aren't nearly as brittle as they are in BB, which is greatly appreciated. A subclass system encourages you to either specialize or recruit as widely as possible, so you can take advantage of all the bonuses the world offers (Miner for ore, Angler for fish, etc).

It's exactly what you would expect a sequel to Mini Metro to be -- better in every way. The mechanics are different without being confusing, the challenges are simple and scale organically, and the minimalist art style is top-notch.