Recent reviews by Dakkaface

Shortform:
Good: It's a cute, comfy game with neat mechanics and a nice artstyle. Low stakes and fun.
Bad: There's a significant amount of mild jank that makes it feel like a Flash game from 2009.
Reccommended with caveats.

In more detail:

Being as a good chunk of gameplay it's a 'throw stuff in a cauldron and see what potion pops out', it's nice that the game doesn't try to short you on ingredients. While some interactables like chests and path blockages don't respawn, most ingredients do. It doesn't feel like you need to hoard items. and you're free to experiment and find new potions.

The idea and mechanics of being a witch whose only combat ability is 'chuck potions' is neat, and plays out fairly well. But I'm not sure if the slowness in action execution is purposeful. Actions don't fire off quickly. It's not usually a problem, but sometimes the potion throwing takes so long you miss the target. Or you're trying to pick things up mid-combat and it gets frustrating. There's a warp home but it takes time to activate, it you activate it mid-combat (deliberately or accidentally), you can die while waiting for the action to complete. Thankfully, death is low stakes and just resets your location to town. I can't tell if the slow actions are deliberate, to make it a slower paced and more comfy game. But if you come into this expecting snappy actions and twitch-friendly controls you're going to be disappointed.

Run mechanic being riding a broom that also lets you bypass some obstacles is cool, but does occasionally feel weird when you can fly over a crevasse in the ground but not over a log. It's also a bit irritating in that stopping to pick up ingredients dismounts you and you'll need to retoggle to mount up again. Also wish it was introduced a bit earlier, but again, not sure if that's deliberate to slow the pace of the game.

The art is cute and matches the vibe the game seems to be shooting for. That said, sometimes characters don't seem to be in exactly the same style as each other. I know there was an artist change sometime during development, and there probably wasn't a desire to redo old work, but it can be noticeable. Especially when the MC and the character they're talking to are onscreen at the same time and there's a slight mismatch. Seems like there's a single art piece per character with no expression changes. When the dialogue indicates distress or anger or surprise and the character sprite is generically happy, it's a bit disconcerting.

Materials aren't always well signposted, so sometimes what you think is a harvestable material isn't, and you miss what is harvestable. With time you can figure out what you need to look for, but it's still possible to miss materials you already know since there's nothing that flags and reminds you which things are interactable. Again, not sure if deliberate to force you to explore and interact with the environment or not.

There seems to be an mechanic around harvesting/looting which divides mats into 'item sitting on ground' and 'place you must interact with to generate a ground/inventoried item,' but the game doesn't explain that. So you can be next to 5+ mats on the ground and you can loot all of them with one button press. No problem. But then you stand next to a bush and a feather expecting to hit the interact button and get both mats, but you'll just pick up one and then have to hit the button again to interact with the other. This one's just a pet peeve.

In the end I'm not clear if all my issues are actual problems, personal problems, or deliberate choices. It's not bad. I've not encountered any game-breaking or story bugs thus far, most of my issues are rough edges to an otherwise decent game. . It feels more kid-focused than adult gamer focused. Recc, but know what you're getting yourself into so your expectations are calibrated. Maybe wait for a sale if you're on the fence about it.

An excellent adaptation of 5e D&D to a computer game. While the rules are complex, and there is a lot of hidden interactions, the heart of D&D has always been character interaction, and the fully voiced dialogues and banters are excellent. There are loads and loads of class and race specific dialogues, and many paths to completing quests so you could get a lot of value in replays. And no microtransactions. Definitely worth a buy if you like tactics games and personal interactions with companions.

Excellent Metroidvania - which it ought to be given who's behind it. There's a lot of castle to explore and the gameplay is interesting. the story isn't anything to write home about but it's a solid workhorse of a Castlevania-style plot.

Awesome tactical RPG. Dragonfall has a tighter story, but this is mechanically better and has more character options. UGC really extends the useful life of the game.

Interesting tactical puzzle game.

Megaman meets Wizard of Legend. It's a fun game, Though the inability to choose starting equipment is rough - some form of double jump, fly or air dash is really needed to get through the Sky Temple levels.

You really have to know what you're getting into with this game. It apes a tabletop game which has a massive amount of minutia, ivory tower game design, and resource management. There are classes/subclasses/spells/feats, etc which are top tier, and options in those same categories that are garbage and hobble you. the game doesn't seem to realize how badly it encourages save scumming. Random checks for lockpicking, dialogue options, opening new areas, taking shortcuts, and a bunch of others have a host of issues from being unable to be retried or causing damage to yourself, or delaying your party so all your buff spells run out. The encounter design doesn't appear to provide you with a way to evaluate enemy health, level, or anything else that would let you estimate a threat, so on entering a new area your only option is to save, then go fight some things to see if you get wrecked and how badly. This is complicated by massively difficult encounters sprinkled into otherwise level appropriate maps, including an enemy more appropriate for a party L15+ in an area you're expected to be L3-4 in.

The mechanics carry over to the roleplay. It uses D&D's archaic alignment system, and gates some responses behind having a specific alignment. The game also has a pretty weird view on how those alignments are supposed to act, Good alignment dialogues sometimes force combat when peaceful resolutions exist, Lawful Neutral coming off awfully evil in it's tyrannical responses. Chaotic Neutral being less about freedom for everyone and more about being contrarian. It can be hard to roleplay a consistent character with how bizarre some of the dialogues can be, and good luck if your chosen class has alignment restrictions that mean you HAVE to try and balance your responses or lose your abilities.

On the coding front, big issues crop up. Some swarm enemies are animated as a big carpet of individual entities and the framerate dives into the toilet when they show up. It solves itself when you kill them, but good luck if they're in the back of the map and you fight them last. The game's save files are enormous, and it's not well optimized.

If you can get past all that, I'm told the story is interesting. I'm still playing, so obviously it isn't so bad I've dropped it altogether, but there are a whole lot of caveats on that recommendation.

A very good Advance Wars type strategy game, set in a fantasy setting instead of a modern day one. I like the look and feel of play, and the art style is excellent.

Be aware that it doesn't duplicate the feel of Advance Wars perfectly. The CO equivalent, Commanders, are actual units on the battlefield that can be killed to win/lose. I find this change interesting and I like it, as it leads to less grinding attrition than Advance Wars often featured. On the other hand, Wargroove has a greater focus on PvP play, so the Commanders only have their charge-up powers to differentiate them. They have no passive abilities like cheaper units, stronger unit types, etc, which was really the aspect of Advance Wars CO's I liked most, so the loss is disappointing, and means that while each commander plays differently, the army's playstyle doesn't change much in switching commanders. This lowers the learning curve, but also makes it less interesting to play long-term.

A builder game with a story! I usually end up getting bored and feeling directionless in sandbox builders, but this gives you enough of a story to give you direction and purpose but not enough that you feel pushed to move it forward at every opportunity. It strikes a balance that I don't find very often.

I also love the sci fi theme, the twists on the common 'birdman, plantman, robot, fishman, & apeman' stock races.

Awesome retro game that makes me think of a lot of early 90's arcade cabinets. Amazing work for the price of free.