Recent reviews by D00mnoodle

KOTOR 2 has a big tonal shift compared to its predecessor, one i was not ready for coming fresh from the first game. I personally prefer the original but i think it's pretty undeniable that this one has better writing and more complex characters. There's one character in particular that steals the show, you'll know which one by the end. And by the end i mean the mod that adds the ending to the game since it isn't in originally due to deadline. Make sure to install this one before playing as the game will feel incomplete without it!

Black plague is a notable improvement over its predecessor and the first frictional games videogame to be truly scary. The first encounter in this game has such a good buildup, something frictional had already perfected this early into their carreer and still to this day masterfully employ the lessons learned here. I really hope they eventually consider doing a penumbra collection remaster as these old games may have aged but still deserve the spotlight.

I had this game on my wishlist for 3 and a half months, waiting for some patches as the initial reception was pretty poor. I was willing to hold hope that they could fix the game and make a fun experience as the art style and character design are undeniably charming. For the most part the devs at Kiro team did just that with a few asterisks. Souno's curse is not a perfect game, it has a lot of issues but it's one of those cases where the positives outweigh the negatives, hence the recommendation. The biggest issue is the difficulty curve due to a lack of healing and some clunky controls paired with tough level design. Getting hit in Souno's curse deals about 1/4th of your health initially with no way to heal except for resting at a bonfire. There's sections that go on for a long time between checkpoints which feel very frustrating without any way to recover health.

The 1st biome is pretty fine in regards to this but the 2nd biome especially becomes an exercise in frustration. Funnily enough the 3rd biome is a lot easier again, leading to an uneven difficulty curve. I'm not saying they should make the 3rd biome harder, just that the 2nd one could use some revisions. The game is filled with traps in every room, making it almost feel like 'white palace - the game' in a way. The problem here is that the platforming feels bad because the wall climb only lasts for a split second with no visual indicator. The character is pretty floaty and some jumps require pixel perfect outputs. Getting hit by a trap deals one fourth of your health and send you back to the last arbitrarely chosen 'safe spot'. Paired with no healing this makes for some frustrating sections.

Sometimes enemies are strewn inbetween these to further add frustration but most often the traps are your biggest enemy. Still though the enemies aren't that bad but the combat as a whole isn't anything to write home about especially during boss encounters which are easily the game's biggest weakness. The 1st boss is a bit of a difficulty spike but not that much and both the 3rd & final boss were fine but once again the 2nd boss was just horrible. It's not that it's too tanky given how few hits you yourself can take but also the fact that it's woefully inconsistent. The boss has a few very varied attacks but each of them can last a short while or a VERY long time. Sometimes it comes out slowly but other times it's so fast it feel impossible to dodge.

I ragequit the game 5 times at this boss and i think that about an hour of my gametime was spent at this A-hole. The wors thing is that each boss has a 2nd phase at critical health which is only a few hits more but turns into a panic fest that's hard to parse. I nearly refunded the game at this point but stuck with it and i'm glad i did as the game became quite fun afterwards again. Especially thanks to the game's latest patch which added a minimap as well as visual indicators for missed collectibles. A huge QoL feature that drastically improves the game experience and one i'm grateful for. I think a few more patches are needed, mostly balancing and some tightening of controls but it's getting there.

I'd also like to see the upgrades made a bit cheaper as i had to grind for money for 20 minutes at the end to max out. Also removing the point of no return at the end would do a lot, as those are a big NO for me. Luckily it's signposted very well at the very least. I've spoken mostly about the game's weaknesses so far but there's some strenghts too. Once you've learned the controls and unlocked every movement upgrade, backtracking for missed collectibles becomes kinda fun. The visuals are also very good throughout and kind of the main reason i played the game in the first place. The main character design is also very cute & charming so that's a big plus too.

The music was fine, nothing amazing at all but not annoying either, boss soundtracks were kind of exciting even! The story was pretty generic though, with some pretty poor writing and a few grammatical mistakes. Ofcourse not everyone's English is top notch, i would even bet that my review has quite a bit of mistakes but with the ease of access to AI & translation tools it may be worthwhile to revise some lines. Especially the statues at the central gate were a bit, cringe. Finally on a technical level i encountered 2 crashes and one minor bug but no lag so for the most part the game works. It has some pain points in regards to balancing and controls, but the visual charm outshine most of that, so it's just good enough to recommend.

I normally don't really like stage based linear action platformers, instead prefering the open ended level design of the metroidvania genre. However Foregone's excellent combat, addictive looting, impressive pixel art & wonderfull soundtrack had me hooked throughout my playthrough. The levels flow very well and there's tons of visual/enemy variety to keep things fresh as you slice through hordes of enemies. Fighting in this game is just tons of fun, not only due to satisfyingly smooth animations and responsive controls but also because the difficulty is just right. Foregone is not easy but it's not hard either, you can cleave through enemies en masse but reckless play will have you meet your demise. This is especially true for the bosses which were among the most fun ones i've fought in 2D fashion. From their gorgeous designs to their varied attack patterns to keep you on your toes, these bosses were nothing short of excellent.

Another facet that made combat so fun is the weapon looting system! As you progress through the game you'll gradually keep finding new weapons with higher rarities encouraging experimentation with the respectable weapon variety. Favorite among those being the gun nunchucks or gunchucks for short, which are as fun as they sound! But in general every weapon in this game is fun to use and due to how looting works very much worth it as well. Normally i stick with the familiar but the gameplay design here pushes you to vary it up, something that really helps keep the game fresh throughout it's runtime. What also helps ofcourse is seeing all the beautifully realized levels bursting with colourfull pixel perfection. I think Foregone is up there with the best looking pixel art games tbh, it even has some dead cells vibes at times both in combat smoothness and looks!

The soundtrack also is just damn great, adding to the intensity of combat. I personally would say that it's worth picking up the OST along with the game as it's a really great listen. They also filled in all the details in the sound files so you can easily upload them to your phone to have them neatly organized in an album, something that is frustratingly uncommon in indie game OST's... Regardless the music is great and so are the SFX and voice acting! Yes, Foregone has VA, which is also quite rare for indies. It's not the best ever but i certainly found it good enough, really helping add more gravitas to the game's story. It's not the most fleshed out story ever but i found it engaging, right till the credits rolled. Finally on a technical level Foregone ran smoothly without any crashes or bugs so it's a well crafted game both in terms of game design and on a technical level. I would strongly recommend this one for any platformer fan, be that linear or open ended like an MV. It's worth the price of admission based on its lenght and fun factor.

Tunic is an incredibly unique and well made game that is very much worth playing because it does some things that few games have done before it (like OWDDK). Why then the negative review you may wonder? Because these aspects are dragged down a lot by soulslike mechanics that were shoehorned into a game that had no need for them. Combat in tunic is not fun, i went into this one expecting snappy & fun combat akin to Death's door but instead was met with cumbersome stamina based combat that is just too hard for this type of game. You can alleviate this with invincibility but that's not much fun either now is it? The bosses in this game were even more brutal and not at all as fun as a boss should be. The final one especially made me finally yield after an hour, forcing me to resort to godmode. However if you're good at these sorta games or don't mind using invincibility then there's no reason not to play this game as everything else it does is incredible. Pretty visuals, enjoyable music, GREAT level design and a cool story all make up the bones of a good game but what sets Tunic apart is the Outer Wilds' styled discoveries. I will not spoil any of these but Tunic is the only game that gave me a sliver of that Outer Wilds Dopamine Drip of Knowledge (OWDDK, now the first sentence of this review makes sense :D finally). It's a shame then that this incredible aspect is hidden beneath a needlessly punishing game. Still though a game worth playing for that OWDDK with the asterisk of combat.

Look at any discourse surrounding horror games and chances are you'll hear Amnesia the dark descent being mentioned. Or perhaps what kickstarted many world famous youtuber's careers such as Pewdiepie or Markiplier. These accolades are not for naught, Amnesia really was and still is that influential on the horror genre. Pacifying the player versus horrible monstrosities may seem obvious now but it was a stroke of genious at the time. While by now i've numbed to this game's scares and terror there's no denying that Amnesia the dark descent is a terrifying masterpiece! It put Frictional games on the radar allowing them to publish even more Horror masterpieces like the underrated Machine for pigs/rebirth, the critically aclaimed SOMA or the deviously well crafted Amnesia the Bunker. While the penumbra games were Frictional's first works it wasn't untill Amnesia that they perfected their craft. This game fires on all cylinders; Bleak & terrifying ambience, incredibly storytelling & voice acting, heart pounding chase sequences, spine chilling stealth sections, clever puzzles, godlike sound design & music, great level design and gritty visuals. It all adds up to make one of the most immersive games of all time and a MUST play for any self respecting horror fan! Frictional are my favorite developers for a reason, they've not yet been in involved in a game i didn't like, and if it weren't for this game perhaps they wouldn't have been able to!

While most horror games, especially on the indie side are cheap jumpscare fests with very shallow gameplay, there's a handfull of exceptions. Obviously the masterminds at frictional games are one of these, releasing banger after banger, but they are not the only one! The original monstrum may seem inconspicuous but behind the indie graphics lies a deceptively well crafted horror roguelike experience. Stranded on a procedurally generated cargo ship with 3 ways of escape facing one of 3 VASTLY different monsters proves to be a very tense experience. This is because monstrum's monster AI is very well accustomed to navigating the procedurally generated twisting halways in the bowels of the ship. Running isn't allways the best option but neither is hidding, and the monster is ever present. Monstrum rarely gives you a moment of reprieve and the roguelike nature of the game really ups the stakes and terror. Getting spot when you've nearly escape is nothing short of heart pounding, with few horror games reaching these adrenaline heights. Music and sound design really help with this as they overlay a terrifying ambience on top of the tense gameplay. An assortment of loot can even the odds a tiny bit, and there's lots of freedom in player expression but in the end you remain prey and they remain predator. Good luck!

Despite the reinvented edition having seeminly been canned, the original game Sir you are being hunted is still a really fun & quaint little indie game. While it can be beaten relatively fast and is thus a tad expensive for what it is, especially with the rough visuals, i'd say gameplay more than makes up for that. Replayability aside the game is a blast to play because of a great core gameplay loop. You run around a very nicely procedurally generated English countryside looking for a handfull of mcguffins to escape an experiment gone awry. While doing so you have to avoid getting shot by the cast of dastardly robots with guns. You can do this by fighting them or preferably sneaking past them. Sneaking in this game works very well in my opinion, with foliage giving a realistic stealth bonus based on the density and height of whatever shrubbery you are sneaking in. Using distractions is highly effective and the AI is pretty well made for its time. Should you choose for violence though you'll be met with some solid gunplay but beware, ammo is scarce. Thus you'll have to loot for both bullets and means to stay alive in the form of food, as well as a large array of distractables & tools. The core gameplay of looting, sneaking & shooting is really fun like i said and the eerie visuals paired with good sound design make this a suprisingly immersive experience. Even one playthrough is worth it in my opinion but especially replay can prove fun, especially if you play with all the modifiers.

I played Acid nerve's masterpiece Death's door before i played titan souls, if i hadn't i might've not played this little gem. Boss rush games normally aren't my vibe, having only played eldest souls before this one. However given my downright amazing experience with Death's door as well as the fact that the games are connected narratively i just had to play this one. The fact that it's one hit kill for both you and the bosses (mostly) made this game quite interesting as attempts were as quick to try as they were to die to. This mechanic paired with the brilliant boss designs makes titan souls equal parts puzzle game as it is a combat game. Ofcourse timing and skills play a big part given that less than 20 bosses still took me 7 hours because of a severe skill issue. However beating them is still incredibly fun & satisfying in no small part due to the satisfying kill animation & sound effect. Sound in general is bloody amazing, especially the music! I'd even say that Acid nerve's biggest strenght is their impeccable music in both games. The game may be pricey for the lenght and content but if you look at it as buying an incredible album with a free game, then it's a whole lot more appealing! The game looks incredible anyways, with stunning pixel art and locales to explore. Story is pretty nifty despite its simplicity, with a nice tie in to Death's door's secret ending! And on a technical level it can run bug free on literal toasters lol. In other words no real reason not to play this one.

I was quite dissapointed that this game was epic store exclusive at first but so was Heart machine's Solar ash initially. Waiting for a game doesn't make it any worse, in fact it can help make the game better as critical issues can be resolved before you even get to play it. I'm patient so i waited for this to hit the steam store before buying it and when i finally did i was met with a game that feels much more of a labour of love than HG's more popular title NMS. While NMS has it's highlights, especially on a technical level i still feel that it's plagued by gameplay design issues. Nothing you do in that game feels worthwhile and it all lacks depths which stands in contrast with this game. The last campfire is filled with engaging levels, fun mechanics and a cozy charm. Each area is meticulously crafted to be a treat for the eyes as well as a joy for the mind to unravel. As a puzzle game it does a good job of changing things up while the emotional beats hit very well thanks to a lovely story and equally lovely music. The last campfire shows that HG can make good games and i hope that they keep making these little handcrafted gems next to their procgen titans NMS & LNF.