Playing through this brought me back to the first time I played Cave Story many years ago. How is it possible that one person could create so much finely tuned content?

I’m not being bombastic when I say that ESA has become one of my favorite Metroidvanias ever.

Phenomenal style, incredible layout, creative bosses with multiple forms, and so many secrets to find! The station reminds me a lot of Citadel Station from System Shock, wherein it becomes a character and changes its paths and threat level as you progress. Traversal upgrades are deliciousness squared.

Two faults:

1. The complexity of the real end game is almost be impossible to discover solo… but hey, we have der_internet.exe.

2. Mid/late in the game, you can quickly overpower yourself and make all subsequent boss fights a joke.

This one is a no brainer, and again is selling for mere peanuts on Steam at the moment.

Many hugs and high fives to Hempuli on your accomplishment!


Link: Environmental Station Alpha site[www.hempuli.com]

Link: Environmental Station Alpha on Steam

Castle in the Darkness set the bar high very early in the year. Many of my gaming memories from this year can be sourced from the conversations I had with a follower via Steam messages which were mostly “Did you find X?!” “Did you see Y?!?!” “OMG DIS GAMEEEEE”

Whereas some (not me) fault Guacamelee! for relying heavily on meme-based humor, Castle In The Darkeness Tarantino’s so many old games, stealing their best ideas and making them even better.

It has instances of artificial difficulty, and many instances of Meatboy-esque difficult platforming, but the rewards you receive more than compensate.

I have a feeling that many have forgotten about this due to its early release this year. Please do yourself a favor check it out. It’s less than $5 on Steam right now!

Many mwah’s to Matt Kap! Congratulations!

Link: Castle in the Darkness site[castleinthedarkness.mattkap.net]

Link: Castle in the Darkness on Steam

I’m going to paraphrase someone else’s words about this one (although I can't remember who wrote them).

Axiom Verge is a game that you think the original Metroid was due to nostalgia camouflage.

It stays true to the Metroid format, placing you in a desolate techno-organic dungeon filled with dead ends and dead end solvers.

It also happens to be 30% off right now, so dive in!

Big congrats to Tom Happ!


Link: Axiom Verge site[www.axiomverge.com]

Link: Axiom Verge on Steam

I responded to a question about ‘what is the best game’ earlier this year with: if I’m posting about a game, I like it a lot. I posted and streamed about Rex Rocket a lot, so I guess that means I like it a lot a lot?

My no-jetpack-dash-boots-get was my most fulfilling gaming accomplishment this year.

I would also like to mention that I located an unexpected bug when the final boss and I traded parting shots at the exact same time, which bugged out my save file. Castle Pixel got right on the case and fixed my save file ASAP. Super stuff.

Pixels, music, bullet hell, upgrades, TOUGH AS NAILS… this is one delicious package. Go buy it so that we can see more from these guyses.

Congrats to Castle Pixel!

Link to Rex Rocket on Steam

Link to Castle Pixel Website[www.castlepixel.com]

Link to Castle Pixel Twitter

So much exploring and cyphering!

I had little doubt that this would be amazing when it’s surprise announcement was made last year, and it turned out to be far better than I was expecting. My only hope is that the original is redone with the engine and assets from this one.

Congrats to Double Helix and Capcom’s Osaka studio!

Link to Strider on Steam