Recent reviews by Galactipunk

Alright, time for a take that’s going to anger some people: Civ VII is good.

It’s a good game with a messy release. If you don’t like that, wait a few months and then re-evaluate it. If you don’t mind that, feel free to buy it.

People are acting like this game is The Fall of Rome. 4X games are always slow-burners that take a while to properly understand and critique. Civilization as a franchise has always experienced negative reactions with new releases since Civ V. People are magically forgetting to mention here how Civ VI also started off with overpriced DLCs for leaders and civilizations.

People aren’t reviewing this game because they want to properly evaluate it, they went in already decided on what opinion to give. Just shut off this drama and wait until it blows over. Save your anger for games that genuinely deserve it.

I think a good amount of people have been surprised by the success of Balatro, both commercially and critically. But when you play the game, it's not a big surprise why. This is arguably the most intuitive deck builder roguelike of all time. It manages to overcome most of the genre's shortcomings while still being both wholly unique and giving you everything you want from a game like it.

This is literally just a Roblox game with the glaring advantage of not being on Roblox

Wtf this is peak why did no one tell me

Actual update is fine, albeit some of the changes take getting used to. But the India content right now is incredibly janky due to poor balancing and design decisions. It's meant to be hard, but that difficulty often borders being frustrating over engaging.

The entry that heralded Battlefield’s twilight era, but by itself a damn fun game and probably the best option along with BF4 if you want to play Battlefield nowadays. Compared to 4, it has more refined core systems but less charm and fun eccentricities. A two steps forward, one step back situation. It also weirdly excludes the Soviet front despite being a WW2 Battlefield game. I’d say wait until both BFV and BF4 go on 80-90% sale (which happens quite often) and grab both so you can decide which you like more.

PEAK if it was PEAK

I jumped platforms during my playthrough so my playtime on Steam is incorrect. I also kind of need to go on a long rant here to fully explain my relationship to this game. Said rant will contain MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR EVERYTHING and this is a game where you definitely will want to play it as blindly as possible for the best experience.
If you want the tl;dr: Game good. Easily in contention for favourite game of all time. Please play it; please. Also, be aware that you can return to Dormont during the epilogue and there's extra stuff there that makes the ending better.




Around the end of last year, I decided to brush up one of my many old game concepts and actually develop it out a lot deeper. I came up with this whole narrative of a (gender ambigious) nobody that got gifted with time magic just as the world ended and was suddenly forced to take a gruelling fight up inside a volcano to prevent it. A lot of the narrative was specifically focused on that single concept: A complete nobody being suddenly given demigodly powers and forced to save the world. Using the opportunity to semi-deconstruct the typical Time Loop trope and actually explore how truly damaging it could be to someone who was already mentally struggling. I frankly know that I'm a terrible writer, but I feel like it was a really good concept! There were so many parts about that I liked, too! Like how the final boss was the person originally sent to save the world, how the loop wouldn't end after you saved everyone because the Gods would try to strip you of your powers and thus put you back where you started, or how the three true endings were all super bittersweet and melancholic! But I also knew that these concepts would never become reality, because I'm not a game developer and I don't have the connections, time or energy to turn any of my countless concepts into reality.

So you can expect that it felt kind of surreal, seeing so many of these ideas be copied into In Stars And Time and being done better then I ever could do.

In Stars And Time is easily the best depiction I've seen of the abhorrent mental cocktail that can be made from a mixture of chronic depression, complex trauma and whatever extra personalized ingredient we all possess. That's not to say that the depressive elements of this game are what defines it. The combat is simple but very effective. Visuals are a delight. Time loop is handled really well with enough to alleviate the backtracking and the story is downright phenomenal. I think this game should be played by anyone who emotionally resonates with its themes or have an interest in the weird subgenre of narrative RPGs about emotions and heavy topics. But I also happen to have a lot of personal similarities with Siffrin, so I kind of have a bias to talk about their mental developments during the story.

It's kind of embarrassing to admit that I share an almost identical mindset to what Siffrin has through most of the story. And the game does such an utterly fantastic job at fully portraying every part of this mindset through both subtle moments and key plot points. The almost suicidal disregard that Siffrin has for their own life if it means protecting those they love. Their deep fear of losing something again causing idiosyncratic behaviour that confuses and restrains those around them. Their ability to almost instantly jump from self-destructive nihilism into positivity just for the sake of being nice to others. But most importantly, the need to have some reason to keep going. To have some goal, both short-term and long-term, to validate their existence and give them a reason to live. Even if it's stupid, short-sighted and self-destructive. Because, for all they know, there's nothing to held them up if they pump the brakes. As if they're stuck eternally running away from a darkness that they know could catch up if they embraced it. And this is very blatantly represented in the game by Siffrin's hopelessness being the reason for the time loops in the first place. The world doesn't loop just when Siffrin dies. It loops when Siffrin has no reason left to continue, since that might as well be death to them.

There's a lot of deeper connections you can make between the game's depiction of mental health and real-life instances of it. Especially with how some of those instances tie back to queer identity (which the game explores very wonderfully). It's not exactly a surprise that I, an aroace nonbinary, resonate so strongly with Siffrin. In coming terms with an identity like mine, there's a deep guilt and loneliness that feels impossible to fill. The knowledge that I'm stuck fighting a system made to make me suffer just in hopes that future generations won't be hurt like I was. The knowledge that I'm one in a thousand and the possibility of finding anyone offline who's similar is so slim that I might as well embrace my chronic loneliness. The problem with these mental issues are not that they're there, but that they can't be removed. There's simply no easy cure. It'd take months, maybe even years of help and therapy to get them solved and that's nearly impossible when you're the one forced to seek it. It's ultimately easier to bury your problems and power through than to risk yourself in hopes you'll have it better. Because in trying to fill the void, you have to look into it. And doing so can be so painful that it makes you wonder whether you'll be better by the end. You've already been hurt. You don't need to make it worse.

I'm not going to say that In Stars And Time offers a perfect self-improvement solution to these problems. The ending only depicts Siffrin learning how to open up about themselves and they still have a massive hole left in them by a past they can't ever remember. And all of this is under an idyllic context where that improvement can happen. As seen with Loop, some cases may be destined to never have a happy ending. With the only path left being to make sure those ahead have it better.

I suppose the biggest takeaway from this game is just the acknowledgment that I'm not alone. It's far too easy as someone like me to fall into a sense of perpetual alienation from society because so much of it feels hostile to me. I mean, hell, I've had to leave an online communities that I deeply loved because I wasn't accommodated for, and I've been alienated from many more communities out of similar reasons. It's surprisingly rare to just have a queer game that's friendly to ace-spec people. Let alone one that explores the identity from this type of angle.

We need more games like this. Games that make me feel like I belong in this world. Games that give me hope.

I'm sorry Gearbox naysayers but you may have been completely correct like what the ♥♥♥♥ did they do

Game is largely inferior right now due to a busted update that was packed with this (overall good) DLC. I would go more in-depth, but I’ll save that and my positive rating until the bugs are fixed.

It's like the developers astral linked themselves to my conscience to copy my exact preferences in video games