Recent reviews by Skiah 40k

I implore you. If you think you might be interested in this game at all, be careful. I went in blind and that is most certainly the way to go. If you carelessly search around, watch someone play too far into the gameplay loop, or read much about it you will totally spoil what I can only call an experience that you can't get back.

With that out of the way, I'm afraid I can only say that my review must be vague and shallow for the same reasons.

Inscryption is creepy as hell, deeply stylized, dripping with atmosphere and charm, and continues to draw me in further the more I play it. Its quite a clever premise, and I suspect this 'style' might be one of the next big things that other devs attempt to copy or capture the magic of.

At its core, it certainly is a deck based card battle game with roguelike elements exactly as described on the tin. It might seem really difficult at times during the early stages but once you're familiar with the mechanics and make progress, the core gameplay loop is so very satisfying to play through. But Inscryption is so much more and that's the essence of why knowing as little as possible beyond the main points is vital to enjoy it to the fullest.

The game has already thrown quite a few surprises at me and the deeper in I go, the weirder it gets and I love that.

Its phenomenal.

The level design is really interesting, the areas are unique and compelling and the creatures (both friend and foe) are creepy and fascinating. The world is pretty. But its not a great experience. The best phrase I can think of that explains this entire mess is 'untapped potential'.

The game is half baked, needs a great deal of additional work and polish it will never get, and is an endless jankfest. I can't in good faith, recommended it to anyone.

Sometimes enemies don't see you when you stand right in front of them and punch them in the face. Clipping through the world is common, especially after you unlock all the skills that let you run and climb up every surface. The float spell compounds this. The uh, 'physics' are... unique, to put it mildly. Sometimes enemies just drop to the floor and spin at FULL VELOCITY and then yeet themselves across the zone after you dispatch them. Systems aren't explained well. For example you never get a bow. You just have one somehow, even though you essentially have nothing at all on you when you start the game. The various arrows you can find are what you equip. Once you slot a stack of arrows, you're suddenly ranged and your bow appears out of nowhere. This is the best example, but this sort of odd logic without any explanation permeates the entire game.

Once you know all its little quirks like this its not difficult to do as you need, its just very counterintuitive on many fronts. I can understand how very basic things could be entirely overlooked by players in the course of a full playthrough because of the lack of explanation and odd way things work.

Questing can be very rinse and repeat. Kill these enemies, find this bit of lore, collect this item.

So why the positive review?

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it.

At first I didn't though, not at all. I kept thinking 'let it end' but I forced myself to play it because it was a gift. If I had wasted my own money I would have thrown in the towel pretty early, but since it was someone else's money, I had to give it a decent try.

I don't know what changed but somewhere during the first few hours I went from groaning and sighing to truly drawn into the world. Instead of 'giving it a honest chance' then promptly uninstalling, my goals changed and I was determined to experience everything I could. After completing the main story, doing a bunch of side quests and mopping up every achievement I think can be acquired I have to say I'm kinda sad its over.

The story itself is a mess but the bits of lore you collect about the underworld's history, factions and races are really interesting. The world is so fun to explore, especially when you realize how to use its weirdness in your favor, scale walls and float around entire cavernous expanses breaking things. If its wood, you can set it on fire. A lot of structures and scaffolds are wooden. Combine these abilities to make entire zones burn to the ground. And if you go too far and get yourself expelled from the universe from the impact of exploding everything around you and fall through the world, have your cheat death activate at the wrong time and are in black screen void jail — just cast "hurt person' over and over so you can die, respawn and not lose progress.

Every jank moment and weird trouble you can get yourself into, you can also get yourself out of with the right combo of actions. It wasn't meant to be a puzzle game, but in this respect it sort of is.

It fails as an immersive sim, but I loved it as the antithesis of what it was meant to be. An unimmersive sim, if you will. Approaching it realistically was not a great time, but its the best fantasy aesthetic 'chaos and mischief simulator' I have ever played.

I do wish it was a good game though. You can see its failed brilliance in every corner. As it stands, its firmly viewed as a colossal failure and an object lesson in expectations vs reality for people that were excited for this before it dropped, especially those that wanted it as the spiritual successor its touted to be. And that's completely fair.

If the problems had been fixed before it was released (or more was done post-release) it could have been salvaged, maybe worthy of a sequel that now will never come. I don't know what went wrong. Lack of, or mismanaged funding? Forced to release too soon? These things are too common in the industry. I didn't play it before it was patched to the current version but apparently it was far worse than it is now and bordering on unplayable when it was first released. I'm not sure if even I would have liked it then, but the damage was already done to its reputation regardless. The fixes that have come out are not nearly enough for most players anyway and the last one was so long ago its safe to say this mess is just 'as is' in its current state.

I think we all have some movie, show or game we love and view fondly personally but can see many flaws in, and confess is honestly kinda garbage. UA fits that bill for me.

An ancient, outdated game that was still a jankfest when it was new. Yet somehow this game managed to capture my attention immediately and hold it until I had fully completed it. I'd say I played for 5-6 hours and beat it in a single late night marathon.

The 'physics' are... something else, to put it kindly, and allow you and all your family members to randomly YEET futilely into the sky and possibly take fall damage on the way back down if you dare step on terrain 6 inches higher than the floor. Everything is too dark. Combat is ridiculous in all the wrong ways. All tasks are the worst tasks of all — escort quests. Yet there's some kind of strange magic about this game. There's a ton of truly spooky aesthetics here, even if it's lacking in other areas. The sound design for one thing, is really effective.

I think the worst part is that the game is simply unclear about how it needs to be played. Perhaps that was something covered in the manual or the back of the box when it first released. Regardless this is how to enjoy this game without endless frustrations, should you want to experience a classic horror (eurojank) adventure game with a truly creepy gothic atmosphere:

-Go get the widescreen fix.

-Browse local files. You'll see something named start.exe and run it so you can change the settings and make things much nicer looking. You can't change these settings inside the game.

-As soon as the game loads, turn around like you're trying to leave. Walk through that door. That's your sanctuary and where you must lead each family member you rescue from the vampires. Remember it and it's location.

-Know that some family member's locations are completely random though tied to a certain wing of the castle. Most are, though there are a couple that are in fixed locations at the very top of different wings of the keep.

-The exploration order is East Wing, West Wing, Main Castle.

-PUNCHING THINGS is the best way to handle most encounters save for one ethereal spirit vampire type you zap with your crucifix. It's truly the answer to every fight unless you're overwhelmed with too many enemies in one room or want to stake a sleeping vampire. Why should you PUNCH the immortal living dead? Because it stunlocks everything and unlike all the guns that function in a low capacity low payoff early 1900's way... you don't have to reload these hands! The revolver and last gun you get ( :D ) are still fun to use though.

-There is always a shortcut or easy way back to the Courtyard and sanctuary areas if you find a family member stashed away in some dark far off corner. Keys almost always let you return to base quickly and push forward at the same time.

-SAVE SAVE SAVE quick save quick save SAVE. All the time. Quick save even more compulsively if you have someone to escort because they might launch into the air or fall down 5 flights of stairs.

-If a follower seems 'stuck' after standing back during a fight, just walk into them and they will follow you again, no problem. Don't take your eyes off them for too long though. Make sure they are still with you at all times and lead them to safety.

-If you see a trough of water, you can zap it with your crucifix and make it holy so you can refill your chalice. It's the most overpowered thing imaginable and trivializes every boss. You only get 4 uses at a time but its refillable!

Knowing these things let me enjoy this game, but had I not, I'd probably not have made it far nor feel inclined to leave a positive review. I did though, and can say this game has a strange charm and I'm glad I played it. It was a great choice to pass a dark, rainy night.

♫ Rizzo's puts the US in GELATINOUS!!! ♫

♫ Show your boss that you are prime because you take Adrena-time!!! ♫

Excellent corporate jingle and dystopia simulator that mixes satire and some light hearted humor into one of the bleakest universes imaginable. It also has an incredibly satisfying ending that shows what happens via slides regarding every major decision you make in the main game and both DLCs — and what becomes of all the people you impacted along the way.

There are many ways you can develop your character. With the expansions installed, my fav build I used involves using the respec machine once you have the points to spare, to make your Captain a 150/150 powerhouse in both leadership abilities. There will never be a skill check you can't pass this way, and you can change companions in the field.

Need to intimidate someone? Call the right companions. Need a high skill to pick a lock? Call the right companions. Their skill levels stack on top of yours.

And if you have any desire to 100% this, make sure to save often so you can go back and make different choices without having to start over. Then look up how you can speedrun the hardest difficulty very quickly and skip most of the game to get that last achievement to pop after you're done with everything else. I don't recommend doing the hardest difficulty as your main playthrough because every convenience is taken from you — making it far too much of a slog to explore every inch of every planet on foot without the benefit of fast travel.

It's definitely RPG first, FPS second. It's a story rich, dialog heavy, choices matter kind of game. You just happen to be holding a laser rifle.
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AND REMEMBER:

♫ It's not the best choooicee..... It's Spacer Choice!! ♫

♫ Whoa whoa whoa~!!! .... It's Rizzo's :) ♫

♫ Better than Naaature....!! ♫

♫ Siiiiiimply the best! T&L!!!♫

♫ At C&P..... We know our Ceeeeeee's and Peeeeee's...!!!

The Signal From Tölva is fantastic game but only if you understand what to expect and probably more importantly, what *not* to expect. Most of the negative reviews seem to be from the perspective that this game failed to deliver as a pure FPS experience. And it most likely does. I can't say too much about that point of view as I have played very few standard FPS games as it would take a unique setting and story like this one to draw me into the genre.

While it is definitely falls under the category of a first person shooter if you try to describe the mechanics, it is much more accurately described as a sci-fi adventure game or walking sim with FPS sequences thrown in to add action and tension to the game world.

I truly enjoyed the experience of exploring this mysterious barren planet full of scrap and dust by hacking into the frames of various drones that roam the sunbaked landscape. I was immersed in trying to piece together the remnants of discarded and corrupted data in order to try to solve a mystery. And I was captivated by the idea of AI cultures and ideologically opposed factions of robots. I fell in love with the world building and setting that is further explained and clarified in the lorebook; and pondering the potential fate of my interference in the Magnitude universe.

While you have the ability to eventually hack up to 4 additional drones to round out your bot squad to rush more heavily guarded points and progress into harder areas, and have a large arsenal of weapons... TSfT is absolutely not a fast paced, gunplay focused shooter. Everything (including you) is fragile, and the robot factions become increasingly desperate for control of this tiny decayed husk of a planet. You will blow up frequently, discard the drone you hacked to the uncaring wasteland to fade into obscurity, and... simply claim another. Over and over again, all under the guise of imitating an advanced AI to remain undetected as you work towards your own agenda.

How do you ultimately choose to handle an intelligence that is so many orders of magnitude above you, realizing that your kind have absolutely no hope to ever understand it?

It's a meditative, slow burn adventure with many questions and only a few well placed answers.

The art is good, the characters look really nice. The music is pleasant and passable.

That's really all I can say that's positive though, sadly.

Its no more than an hour's worth of reading content, with a dull and out of place minigame to pad out the play time (its pirate themed pac-man, with Firebeard collecting coins while avoiding officers and while it aesthetically makes sense, it has no connection to the story at all) between very short chapters.

The voice acting was so unpleasant I turned it off before hearing more than 3 characters speak, and the option to do so is a blessing.

The game ends in what I can only call the middle of the story at best, as absolutely *none* of the plot threads are resolved. Not the main set up, not the subplots, not the breadcrumbs dropped that could lead somewhere, nothing. There is no conclusion. There's build up to something but absolutely no resolution. Its like the author wrote an hour's worth and once the timer went off they hit publish right then and there and called it a day, finished or not.

Also the paid DLC doesn't work, has never worked, and has still not been addressed to this day. I used a work around someone figured out in the forums and its a very short, silly few paragraphs involving a new character that resolves what happens to Dechamps. The rest of the cast is left in limbo.

Cliffhangers work when leaving the reader a little room to decide what potential outcomes they like best. But regardless there is still a point to the story. Most things are resolved, there's some character growth, etc. There's none of that here.

There's a small introduction that leads towards a plot, followed by a set up, a catastrophe, an improbable solution and then a literal "THE END" screen.

I got this in a bundle at some point. Glad I didn't buy it on its own because its absolutely not worth the 10 (11 if you add in the dlc) dollars it costs. It wouldn't even be worth it on sale because there's just nothing here. Most of this dev's games I have played have been totally forgettable after completing, at best. But this is the worst offender yet because its not even its own contained story. Its a nothing more than a prologue for a story that was never written. I was hoping for something like a bite sized, dollar store version of the Heileen trilogy to pass the time for an evening or two while I take a small break from more physically demanding games but I'd have been much better off choosing just about anything else in my library.

The Silver Case would be very difficult (nigh impossible most likely) to review in a standard fashion. I will note upfront that this is my first experience with SUDA51's work so I won't be able to make comparisons there.

This VN is very unconventional. It has fantastic music but the typewriter effects sound more like a jackhammer (you will eventually acclimate to this I hope -- I did -- and I recommend having the effects volume around half the music volume). The visual layout consists of panels everywhere, all the time — sometimes 2d, sometimes 3d, and sometimes FMV. Sometimes all 3 at once. Scene, time and location transitions happen frequently with 3d model illustrations and sometimes a brief exploration sequence suddenly appears -- with an old school gaming clunky-but-completely-serviceable interface.

There are a couple of standard visuals for each character but there are also so many unique pieces of art and individually drawn scenes in this game that it can actually get confusing to keep track of who is speaking sometimes! There is an indicator, but it melts into the interface so much you might not even know it's there at first. Fortunately it does exist and its pretty easy to spot and keep up with once you realize a very thin, faint square appears around the speaker's head. There is also a handy dandy chart in the manual listed on this very store page. Grab it and keep it nearby, and you will have a much easier time keeping up with who's who.

Every element of this game just oozes *aethetics* and its very obvious how highly this was prioritized during development. Its successful too. The tension and atmosphere of The Silver Case is unrelenting and it captures its bleak alternate world and 90s era impressively well.

That said, all of this, no matter how fantastic can only be window dressing for the most important element. The story. So how does The Silver Case measure up? Its a gritty, crass, hardboiled thriller through and through. Its gruesome and tense, crude and dark. Its a story filled with betrayal and struggle, mystery and intrigue. Conspiracies, coverups and covert ops abound. Some scenes are positively revolting. And there's so much profanity in the dialog you'd swear (haha) you were watching a 90s police drama.

And confusing. Boy is it confusing. There were many times I picked up on things that weren't quite right but most of it didn't turn out the way I expected. Even now there are a lot of finer points I have no idea how to interpret and a couple of twists so outlandish it would have been impossible to predict them ahead of time. Keeping these things in mind, there are so many references to various David Lynch works scattered throughout place names, that its obvious SUDA51 was quite inspired by him. As a big fan of Lynch myself, I don't find the weirder, inexplicable points negatives at all. Sometimes things just are the way they are for the sake of being that way (or for reasons we'll never be told) in stranger narratives and that's quite alright with me.

I really liked several of the characters and I hope my favorites somehow make a return in the sequel. That incudes Red the turtle. I love Red the turtle.

Legend of Mana is one of my all time favorite games, and learning it was coming to steam was a dream come true for me because I never expected it. That's not to say LoM wasn't loved by or well-known to many, but it was and has remained outshined by some of Square's other titles, including others in the Mana series.

To get the technical issues out of the way, I'm apparently one of a lucky few as I have had no issues or slowdowns to speak of. I've only played for about 6 hours so something could still happen later. So far so good. Keep in mind, it might be an old game at its core but this version is only a couple of days old at the time of writing this. Hopefully the things plaguing a lot of players will be fixed quickly and this warning will be completely obsolete in time.

As for the game itself:

Exploration is fun and combat is a blast. Its very customizable with a quick attack and a heavy attack that change depending on what weapon type you choose and 2 buttons left open for special skills that you learn and unlock over time such as guarding, jumping, dashing and healing. There are 4 buttons for gained special charged attacks. There are a ton of abilities to learn through combat experience.

You can craft items, collect pets that always follow you and help in fights along with one of the NPCs (or a friend if you desire), grow fruit at the orchard, and collect in game encyclopedia entries for just about everything.

There is an overall connecting story, but most of the game's events and dialogs are via helping NPCs with various goals and quests and the characters are all very strange but great. The tone somehow walks a fine line between charming and sarcastic at all times and it just works somehow.

But LoM has always had some issues and those still remain. Placing artifacts and building the map the way the game wants is convoluted at best and doing things just so is required to unlock all events. Sometimes you have to take certain people with you to specific places to trigger quests. Some things are obvious, others not so much. The problem is that you aren't always given clues and you can't redo things if you miss out or don't place everything optimally.

Blacksmithing is really fun but overly complex and difficult. Gathering materials can be a slog.

Bottom line, a guide really is needed if you want to experience everything.

But there's something magical about this game that's hard to justify with a simple rating system or scale. Its dreamlike, storybook feel is incredibly wholesome. It was and remains one of the most charming games I have ever played.

The soundtrack was always stellar, and the new arrangements are fantastic. I've teared up more than once hearing these old songs anew for the first time.

The new graphics are beautiful. There are a lot of people that want the sprites updated or smoothed as well and that's fair. If something like that is ever released or modded I'd definitely give it a try. But I'm not so sure it would work without sacrificing the charm which would be a very bad trade off. (Also keeping in mind that doing this hasn't always worked out great in some square re-releases.)

I love this game and the remaster has breathed new life into it and given me a reason to experience it all over again. But I won't pretend I am able to give a fair, unbiased review to a potential first time player, because I know I am not. For me, playing Legend of Mana in 2021 feels like sitting beside a warm fire on a cold night, having a cup of hot chocolate with a dear old friend.

And I'm very happy to spend time with them again.