Recent reviews by Fennyface

A fun game with some rough edges which makes up for lots of humor and fun ideas. Combat and platform are snappy, but animation and sound design could be a bit more refined. Still had some fun hours of entertainment and didn't regret playing this whatsoever.

This game started so simplistic that initially I thought "is this really it"? I couldn't understand the hype at first, because Animal Well - at first glance - looks OK, but not groundbreaking. I breezed through the first few bossfights, thinking that this is not going to be in-depth enough of to really feel satisfying.

But boy was I wrong!

I suddenly started finding additional use cases for my powerups, up to point of thinking "Wow, was this really intended?!". Before I knew it I was constantly making joyful noises. Each new discovery opened up new areas with even more secrets and items to discover, which in turn peels even more layers off the known map. Hints to secrets are sometimes head-slappingly obvious, but often so well hidden (often related accross the entire map) that you can't help but feel amazed by the seemingly simplistic, yet ingenious level design.

This game forces you to take notes (with a built-in pen and stamp), and I also strongly recommend taking some screenshots. These tools are necessary! There is no handholding, but instead you are required to think, learn and execute upon it. The given tools are no power fantasy like in your usual Metroidvania, but smart extensions of known platformer concepts.

And through the entire session it was an absolute joy to see the game and engine running absolutely bug-free with minimal install size. The sound design is great and atmospheric. The seemingly simple graphics
really work wonders in motion with cool lighting, smoke and neon effects.

This constant feeling of amazement is what carried me past an initial doubt into a "I'm going to 100% this game" mindset. Animal Well appreciates your gaming intelligence and curiousity without being too stressful or iterative on known concepts, and that alone is a feat by itself. This game is a milestone and a masterpiece in the genre.

Simple Metroidvania, very straightforward to get into, controls nicely, does what it want and not outstay its welcome. You get most of your moveset right from the start. Additional abilities are not so much limiting progress as in just providing "options" for your playstyle. I barely hit any environmental obstacles that enforced backtracking, which is a plus for most people I guess, as you don't need to memorize a lot.

Despite its very reduced looks and simplistic looking color palette the graphics really grew on me. Sound and music are doing their job, nothing too memorable but also not annoying. Story is solid and there are quite a lot of secrets and easter eggs to find.

Overall a great pick if you need to pass the time until a distant future, when Silksong is finally out.

One of the best boomer shooters you can buy for money atm.

Note: Will update my review as I go, but so far: Thumbs up with some caveats!

Gigantic Rampage Edition runs fine from my PoV, but could be better. 60 FPS lock stings, yes, but the game is very playable on that speed too. The menus feel dated, but "do their job". Optimizations can and hopefully will happen, as I also want to use higher FPS if possible and see the game improve.

As for the server and launch stability: I played a first few matches today and had minimal to no technical troubles whatsoever, no low pings. Got into the action within seconds wait time, all the "known and proven" mechanics still feel the same from Gigantic back in the days.

Yes this game is Buy to Play, but if you feel like 20 bucks is too much for you, go back to your favorite F2P moba of your choice and think twice before you buy the next 10-20 USD "Premium" skin. Vote with your wallet.

If you're looking for Gigantic as it used to be, give it a spin - you know why you are here in the first place. If you're on the fence, try this game and consider a refund, as 2h are enough to quickly see if this game is for you.

Did you like Risk of Rain? Yes?
Would you like more Risk of Rain? Yes?
Then why are you reading this?

The pixel art and music is great. The premise of this game is interesting. I didn't encounter any glaring bugs. So why did I downvote?

To put it simple: This game is too shallow in both narration and gameplay. Dialogue may be written OK, but you can clearly see how the depth and material just wasn't there. Overall you get ONE major plot twist, which was held back until the end - and still easy enough to anticipate.

Until then I felt zero tension, suspense or build-up to that moment, yet alone compassion for any of the characters met. Each had maybe 1 defining trait, which was unrolled in linear, straight-forward dialogue. There was no witty humor, no smart reference, no tear-jerking moment to be had. In short: After a while I've been speed-reading the dialogue, wanting it to end rather sooner than later.

That brings me to the game mechanics: The puzzles in the game are simplistic to the point that I could say that the game is mainly targetet at children. This is not a negative per se, but it basically comes down "use 1 item with one obvious solution" with very few variations ever. Even if it WAS aimed at children, the puzzles are still way too simple. Any game-mechanics and puzzles presented were not tied to a particular character either, so it feels like someone filled the rooms with a few ideas but put no thought behind stringing it all together.

With ony a few items and puzzles available at a time it doesn't help the game forces you to use an "equip" menu for everything - including your sidekick. With an inventory item count of perhaps 3 items at a time this could've been easily solved with a quick select and WAY WAY WAAAY less menu diving.

I'm sorry this sounds so harsh, but there are a dozen good pixel adventures out there, and this one definitely was promising way more on the cover than it had in the box. The presentation was very promising, but I nearly found myself refunding that one.

This is such a hard-to-recommend title, but I give it my thumbs up because more people need to play this. To understand why I struggle, here are some PROs and CONs, starting with the CON part so you understand where I'm coming from:


There are (as of this review) 315 Average players in this game. Very unstable session persistence with no reconnect feature makes this an even tougher game to recommend. You often wait minutes for a team to assemble. There is no crossplay to Xbox Live or Consoles to my knowledge. Sessions themselves run fluid with no lags in movement or gunplay, but if your host only has the slightest internet hiccup, you lose your mission connection with no recovery. The 3-man team just continues with a synth (bot AI) instead. It's a hard-to-swallow pill you have to deal with when you start playing this game.


For a first-time release by Cold Iron studios this game is superb and should be supported by all means. The Alien-feel was obviously adapted with close care in sound and graphics. There are lots of old loving references and nods mixed together with new ideas (mostly Alien enemy designs). Guns and Radar sound feel like coming right from the movies. Hitreg and impact-feel of each gun feels distinct and satisfying.

The UI of the game is clearn and "just works", the experience is customizable and (some balancing issues aside) almost everything in this game fits together. There is no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ microtransaction or F2P trash in this. You play missions, you get (random and fixed) rewards. No questions asked: This is a VERY GOOD shooter!

On gameplay variety you have to note that this game is enemy-horde action and not really horror survival. You will spend your time shooting, defending, running, then shooting some more! However, gunplay, movement, class and perk system are all so satisfying to give you hours of enjoyment. As the mission variety becomes second priority, you still find hidden depth when you explore builds on the distinct classes, their perk grids and weapons combinations (think modding in Warframe).

There are many weapons to pick from and the enemy variety is large enough to keep you on your toes in each mission. There are only 12 missions total in 20-25min length each, but the mission difficulty system make the experience as customizable and easy or hard as you want.

Want more or faster enemies? Add a modifier-card to your match and balance risk and reward. STILL think PVE holds no candle to you? Try going from "Intense" (the middle ground) to "extreme" or "insane" and learn what true fear feels like at the first tougher enemy.

If you have friends to play with and a stable connection, this game is a no-brainer. For everyone else it's a tougher sell - but one still to be be considered when on deep discount!

Neat little Metroidvania. Feels a bit like it's hampering you unnecessary with the upgrade curve, as the upgrades don't really give much of a power progression and more like "removing annoyances". However, gameplay, artwork and humor are enough to keep you entertained for a solid 9h if you want to 100% it.

Two of the best parody games I've ever played - at least that's what they wanted us to believe!