Recent reviews by Croxot

The Axis Unseen is "what if the stealth archer build everyone made in Oblivion/Skyrim was the entire point"? And It largely delivers on that front. Upgrades are catered to carefully making your way across the landscape and picking your engagements. There's bonus damage in making a shot on a monster without being seen.

Let's just get this out there: it's very janky. That clicks for some people, not for others. This very much feels like a small dev project with liberal asset-use/remixing. There is no getting around that. Thankfully a lot of things like the magic powers you gain allow you to harness the jank for yourself.

This is a tentative recommendation if you like smaller weirder projects like this.

On the off-chance the dev reads this: The Axis Unseen feels like it's begging for iteration. It has something special and it really could lean hard into it for a sequel/spiritual successor:
-Better physics/movement
-More unique monster behaviors
-An even weirder art direction (take the metal theme and run with it, get farther away from realism). Simplify fidelity, but diversify look.
-Just use normal UI, please. Fable 3 tried that too and it just wasted a lot of time
-More interesting stuff to find in the world
-A quick-select wheel for arrow types

If you like Outer Wilds, think of Void Stranger as as similar package. Although it will likely require more drastic note taking and logical leaping, as well as some demanding puzzle mechanics.

There's secrets layered upon secrets, but even if you don't want to delve to the deepest depths this game has to offer the 2 "mainline" endings are incredibly satisfying on their own.

Armored Core VI is a game about your 3-story steel monstrosity going very fast blowing stuff up.
Armored Core VI is a game about war in a capitalist dystopia where you rationalize the horror you participate in as just another job.
Armored Core VI is a game about cheesy 1-or-2-note characters who only show up on comms and never in person who you will genuinely cheer for, cry for, love & hate by the end.
Armored Core VI is a game about ramming your head against the same boss 15 times until you make a seemingly minor part swap that renders you an unstoppable god.
Armored Core VI is a game about creating emblems and paint jobs for hours to then see those emblems and paint jobs for only 5 minutes in a mission and get a huge dopamine response form it.

Armored Core VI is a game that is not for everyone, but for a certain type of person, it's game of the year.

Cross the feeling of the open-sea adventure of Wind Waker, with the chase and collection of fishing minigames of countless other titles, and the dread of exploring the uncaring unknown. It scratches a seldom-scratched itch of exploratory joy within an indifferent universe. Dredge's systems can be distilled to the simple loop of growing beyond your own fears to discover more and more. None of these fears is particularly intense, but it's enough.
Dredge isn't going to find itself on game of the year lists because it's doing any one thing particularly well. It's also not doing anything specifically or wholly NEW.
It is however, more than the sum of it's parts, and it is beautiful.

It could desperately use a 7th inventory slot.

That is the only legit complaint I have about this otherwise stellar game. The gameplay, exploration, presentation, lore, and sound are all phenomenal.

Robot lesbians have psychic powers.

Play it.

Don't know King's Field? Then think Dark Souls but in first-person with slightly more awkward weapon swings while you strafe at the same time. Alternatively, go ahead and think Oblivion, but the combat is more spacing-dependent and there is surprisingly better hit feedback.

You may think it might have a lot of dungeon crawling, and maybe it will someday, but most of what there is to see as of the writing of this review is the overworld itself. "Dungeons" are relatively small. This isn't a bad thing, it's just got a different feel. The overworld has a lot of character to it, with lots of smaller areas with their own little stories. A lot of the quests try to throw a spin on a moral conundrum. These choices feel reminiscent of KOTOR (except swap light/dark side with a couple various opposing faction's beliefs), and some of them pose some very interesting quandaries.

Overall this is a game about exploration and small stories you find along the way, taking in the weird world and making interesting choices. The combat is there, and it's functional, but not why you'll keep playing. It's got an atmospheric feel that's rare in games with large studios behind them, something you can only really find in small projects like this.

Also there's a magic spell you can effectively spam that makes you go VERY fast. I used it to launch myself over to an incomplete zone and gawk at the unfinished assets. Hope that one does not get any changes since it's already perfect.

10/10 would catapult myself at high-velocity off a floating continent again.

Punishing and full of way more value for you money than most single-player ventures these days.