Recent reviews by Blank

There's probably around an hour or two of good game in here and the rest is padding, it feels like they designed the basic elements they needed for maybe three levels and then made somewhere around 24 mini-levels out of them. They're not even particularly good elements outside of a couple unique set pieces, both combat and platforming devolve into a game of Simon Says. Simon Says it's time to hit the Claw button? Well ok better tap it then.
Most standard fights can be ended instantly with the combo Claw->Jump->Magic->Blade/Claw. Sometimes the bosses can be ended instantly too but rarely are they that generous. In later fights I was almost never getting hurt, but had to spend roughly eight minutes just wailing on the boss' inflated hp bar and waiting for the combat cutscenes to play out so I could hit whatever button Simon Says during it.
It's not all bad, the art style is pretty decent and a few of the levels even look and play well! Plus the two main characters are decently writen.
The ending is a bit sour since not only did it set up other games they never made (the game understandably sold poorly) but they also didn't port the epilogue DLC to the steam version. You won't miss anything by skipping this game.

Got this as a pack-in title for backing Sorceress. It's impressive just how many weapons and armors are stuffed into such a short game, you'll pretty much always be finding new gear to try out (especially if you're putting effort into exploration).
Co-op makes it a bit too easy but that's not really something I can hold against it, plus it's fun to go through with another person.

I played this and the original Wolfenstein 3D together on ECWolf, so the playtime isn't accurate.
W3D was a somewhat disappointing experience for me, as episodes 1 and 2 were good but 3 was mediocre. Then 4-6 were downright awful especially with the last feeling like a bad romhack.

SoD's main campaign delivers what I wanted from episodes 3 and onwards. It's mostly more of the same but a tad bit more difficult and a little bit bigger (instead of the monstrous labyrinths that regularly made up Episodes 4-6). Instead of each episode booting you back to the menu, it's a continuous assault of one location with multiple bosses placed inside.
I did lose my save to corruption once (might have been ECWolf) and have one softlock, where the penultimate boss opened the locked door containing the spear then died right behind the door as it closed (I probably should have baited him out). Thankfully this is from when games came with debug modes, so not as much as an issue as the W3D softlocks I encountered

Probably the best faux-retro platformer I've played. It's got a bit from Banjo Kazooie and Spyro, but it manages to feel like its own thing. Well worth an afternoon or two of play

They keep putting collectibles right before the exit, but they also put a checkpoint in the exit. If you miss the collectible but hit the exit you can't go back one checkpoint to try again, you can only restart the level.

One of the few Point & Click games I've enjoyed, though it's more for the story than due to any gameplay. The epic King's Quest-styled fantasy adventure has been replaced with something closer to 1001 Nights. It's a bit harder to read as a result as there's multiple protagonists, constantly jumping stories, plus strange hypotheticals and misplaced assumptions are foisted upon the reader. If that sounds hard to deal with, then thankfully the protagonist of 'Chains of Satinav' fills the role of audience insert and has many opportunities to ask questions about what was just told.
For gameplay, Memoria mercifully contain little of the 'moon logic' that point & click games are known for and gives you helper functions such as highlighting all interactables on-screen. Usually you will have a rough idea of what can be done or what you have to do, unfortunately there are still places where this falls through and many more where actions and combinations feel unintuitive. Just give it your best shot and if you feel your puzzle enthusiasm dropping then read the next line of a guide, the story is the real reason to keep playing.

Really overstays its welcome. It's got some great looking locales and the combat is ok but makes some big mistakes. The story is also nothing of note and it feels like it repeats scenes and objectives repeatedly just so they can keep the game going.
To keep it short, the mistakes the combat makes mostly relate to the gimmick enemies it adds as well as general animation/hitbox inconsistency. Some enemies can be parried before they've drawn their blade, some seem to never get parried, some can escape mid combo and spawn a shadow clone on you that when struck (you're mid combo, remember?) will instantly fatigue you. It gets tiring.

This probably should've been a two hour game, but I know devs are often afraid to release short games at a normal price. As it is your character might as well never sheathe his sword, you end up slaughtering several towns worth of people just to make sure you don't get through the content too quickly.

Trying to walk down a staircase in the second chapter resulted in my character flying above everything. Reloading from a checkpoint stuck me inside a wall where I was unable to move. It's amazing to me that the walking in a walking simulator can be broken.

A great game, I have no nostalgia for Myst (some for Riven) but still loved wandering through the various dreamlike worlds.

The puzzles are generally easy if you're used to more modern fare and there will often be plenty of hints within the world, you just need to remember to note them down the second you see them. Steam has built-in notes now, btw, which also supports screenshots. If this isn't enough, there's a built-in hint guide that thankfully gives you a large number of pointers before ever spoiling the solutions. This is really useful if you don't know what options are available to you such as with the clock tower rotation puzzle. Why would holding the lever do something different from pulling it? They bring that bit back for Rime's crystals too. My only other critique for the puzzles is that the 'tower rotation' system was only good for the constellation puzzle, the rest were just writing down what's on the plaque and inputting it in the right spot.

The portions of the plot that are handed to you are pretty simplistic, but they're backed up by so much more. You only need the diagrams from the library books, however I'd recommend reading them fully just to immerse yourself. In the various worlds you'll find structures mentioned by the books as well as rooms for the sons. These give you some glimpses into their characters and what's been done to the worlds.

You can play the game in both a 'classic' mode and a free-roam mode. I feel like free-roam should be saved for a second playthrough, 'classic' is how the game was originally designed after all. It's fairly intuitive and gives you the best looking shots while free-roam has some weird hitching while moving.

An odd teamup of Popcap and Square Enix trying their own hand at Puzzle Quest gameplay. Maybe they would have had something more successful if it weren't for the odd design decisions

• You have to pay currency any time you swap monsters on your team. This discourages experimentation and it doesn't help that a lot of the monsters are bottom-tier useless in your hands due to slow play styles or only countering one specific enemy type.
  
• Currency does not buy items. No on Xbox 360 they wanted to get you to buy a DLC pack with 10 of each item. No such DLC exists on PC, so the items you find in chests are seemingly all you get. Chests also don't respawn on any map I explored, so there's a finite amount for a normal playthrough. I'm fine with it limiting the number of times I can 'meat nuke' a boss, but the magic mirror is way too important especially after the halfway point...
  
• Said halfway point introduces a new mechanic, every twist you do that doesn't result in a match counts as you having twisted twice. It was way too easy without this mechanic, but after it's brought in it feels like a lot of the fun has been scrubbed from the game. If the enemy places an attack in the bottom-left corner (by default you can only twist clockwise), it's almost impossible to remove it in time. Instead gameplay devolves into saving your own attacks to camp the enemy's, which contributes to severely limiting which monsters are viable.
  
• The story feels like an awful stageplay. Laska could have been written out entirely and most maps boil down to 'chase after this person then split apart so you can chase down someone else'. The mastermind was pathetic and they don't even bother to scroll the credits when you beat him. Instead you get some more party chatter then back to the map.