Recent reviews by Tempest56

If I was able to give a Mixed instead of a Yes/No, I would.

Timespinner is a fairly decent metroidvania - the platforming and combat are acceptable, the gimmicks are alright and the story's good enough.

The problem is that I'm using terms like 'acceptable' and 'decent'. Very little about the game is really impressive - it's functional. It's okay. It's fun enough. But it never really pushes beyond that.

Length-wise, the game's fairly short for a metroidvania - I clocked eight and a half hours, completed most of the optional content that wasn't just raw grind and got 100% map completion. Backtracking was relatively minimal as (aside from a set of keycards) there were only a few spots that required the handful of unlockable traversal powers that weren't specifically to lock in progression. Nearly all the treasure you can find is just health/magic/sand upgrades anyway and there's very little to search for that's exciting.

The time gimmick was so-so - it was kind of superfluous as a combat tool, existing only to do a quick dodge during a boss fight or maybe use an enemy as a platform on one or two occasions. Moving back and forth between eras was largely pointless as well - outside of scripted/mandatory points, there was almost no ways to affect the other timeline.

And combat was... well, it was easy. I think there were only three bosses I had to make more than one attempt at (one of which was because the final boss decided that it was going to be immune to the game's primary timestopping gimmick - surprise!) and not once during the non-boss gameplay. And I didn't even bother to try playing optimally - I just grabbed a weapon setup that felt comfortable-ish in the first quarter of the game and stuck with it.

That all said, it's still a decent enough game. I got eight hours out of it and enjoyed it. But it never transcends out of 'okay' and into 'good' or 'great'.

At the core, Synthetik is a good game - it's got a solid aesthetic, the moment to moment gameplay is fun and the roguelike nature keeps things mixed up enough to give it some longevity.

However, it's also riddled with poor design choices.

This sort of thing arises from minute one - I ran through the tutorial, which helpfully told me all the basic keybinds I needed except one. Not only does it not tell you how to swap your weapons (in a game heavily based around a variety of firearms and managing your ammo), but by default the keys to switch between your weapon slots are unbound and you only have the quick-swap between your two most recent slots. So you're not only not told how to switch, but to actually access your entire arsenal you have to go rebind your keys.

This sort of sloppiness shows up all over the place. You regularly get attacked by targets that are off-screen. Enemies will enter parts of the visible screen where you can't fire at them, like under the (completely pointless) chat window. Loot crates will appear in inaccessible locations. Mechanics go entirely without explanation, both major and minor.

At the core, Synthetik is a fun game but it's full of frustrating oversights and bad choices that bring the whole experience down.

Simple. Straight-forward. Frustrating in the best ways. With a huge number of stages, multiple gimmicks to mix things up and easy-to-learn-hard-to-master gameplay, One Finger Death Punch is one of the best indie deals out there.

Three years in and still possibly the best horde-mode shooter out there. With a ton of continuing dev support (both paid and free), solid gameplay and a ton of variety, Payday's a steal considering how often it goes 75% off.