Recent reviews by Hem

I give this game a rank B- (70-75%)
Nice game - try if you are interested
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Disclaimer: I barely played this game, so go read some other people's reviews.

I can not reasonably enjoy nor play this game, it is too old looking, too clunky, too slow and too wordy for me now that time has passed. Also very junky/trashy in its content but that might not be an issue at all if you are a fan of The Masquerade RPG. For me, I feel completely out of place. And I think this is where this game is at: if you played this game back in the day and nostalgia is your main drive, OR if you are a fan of the tabletop RPG Masquerade, OR then again if you simply are looking for a Vampire based game and you don't mind retro gaming... then definitely look into trying this game? It is cheap, it has a big cult (haha) following it, the reviews are globally positive, historically it must have been a rather impactfull game.

I give it around 71%: it looks nice, lots of features in there that remind me of games like Deus Ex. This is a very hypothetical review in the sense that I barely touched this game, but I just can't give it a fair try of 10 hours or so, it is simply not for me (either not anymore, or never was, hard to tell). The gameplay, the lore, the style, the dialogues, everything feel very worked and fleshed out and rich, but this is a 20+ years old game, I simply can't play that with a fresh open mind.

Hem is live on Hem & Watch[www.twitch.tv]

I give this game a rank C+ (65-70%)
Decent game - a pleasant experience... on sale.
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I really, really tried enjoying this game more than I did, playing this game more than I did. I hoped to finish it, but alas, I have too many games, potentially (most probably) better games to do in my backlog, so I have to give up, and give an approximate rating to this game. Since I did not finish it, I won't do a YouTube video review for it, just this written one.

Vampyr is not bad, it is actually pretty decent on many levels. Let's start with the good:
The setting is awesome, this dark, gloomy London lore full of weird people and creatures of the night work really well.
The environments are very pretty, gaslight style, almost Cthulhu-esque in nature.
The music is so intriguingly unique, haunting even.
The characters all quite interesting and different from each other, at least different enough for you to want to know more about most of them.
The writing is not bad, I would even argue that the dialogues kept me intrigued all throughout.

Sadly, the less good or even bad stuff in this game is quite omnipresent, lowering my rating more than I would like, and preventing me from finishing it.
The gameplay is very clunky, very heavy, and extremely repetitive. Some kind of Souls lite-ish but more action and quite clumsy.
The game system and its features is just very dry and not engaging. Loot everywhere stuff you don't care for, craft stuff you don't really care for either...
The missions are boring, most of them, repetitive here too.
The level design is between okay and totally uninspired. Some parts are decent, but a LOT of them are over complicated, and all too similar.

Finally, the last straw for me that that lowered my entire appreciation is this whole RPG feature they tried implementing: ethical choices, narrative paths, dialogues that are not very clear but lead to to the death (or disappearance) of a character, ruining its story line, AND automatic save that you can NOT recover from... Extremely binding, hindering the freedom of the player. Not cool.

Overall? Listen, if you are a Vampire/Dracula/Fanged people subgenre and you have not played a game about it in a while, DEFINITELY give it a try. It is not a BAD game. It is just barely decent. I give it a 66% (see what I did there?). One day I might get back to it? but most probably I just won't.

Hem is live on Hem & Watch[www.twitch.tv]

I give this game a rank S.
Masterpiece - buy it now!!!
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Note: do NOT buy or play this game unless you are interested in historical/retro gaming. Instead, if you only intend to discover the series Myst with its first game, and its sequel, Riven, I invite you to play the 2024 version. Masterpiece entirely redone, updated, etc. See my review of it.

Hem is live on Hem & Watch[www.twitch.tv]

I give this game a rank S (97-98%)
Masterpiece - buy it now!!!
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Note: do NOT buy or play this game unless you are interested in historical/retro gaming. Instead, if you only intend to discover Myst, the first game in the series, I invite you to play the 2021 version. Masterpiece entirely redone, updated, etc. See my review of it.

Hem is live on Hem & Watch[www.twitch.tv]

I give this game a rank A- (85-88%)
Great game - play this if you can!!
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Full review available on video here
Hem is live on Hem & Watch[www.twitch.tv]

I give this game a rank C+ (65-70%)
Decent game - a pleasant experience... on sale.
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I really thought I would enjoy Wuppo more, but after 3 hours I don't think I want to continue my journey in it. Since I did not finish the game, I will just write a quick review here instead of my video reviews on YouTube.

The game is not bad, it is quite decent at what is tries to achieve. Very nice little adventure game, with platformer mechanisms, jumping and shooting features of a metroidvania, not really the level design of one though. Art is cute-ish but maybe too much on the cute-silly side. LOTS of dialogues and story (as shallow as it is, mind you). TONS of music, varying for very nice sounds to bleeping/kiddish muzak. MANY items and stuff to gather and quest for.

The problem with Wuppo is that despite its cute, silly, whimsical, kiddish looks... it is not really much more than a cute, silly, whimsical, kiddish game. I kept hoping for the few hours I played to discover some hidden depth, some more grown up content in it, but all throughout it felt just silly and a bit dumb. I don't mind hiding some depth and scope behind some silly looks... but not silly looks for no content. The content here had nothing deep or smarter than I was given, so after a few bosses and MANY dialogues that just felt pushy and heavy, I had to come to the conclusion that this game was maybe just not for me.

My son, who is around 10 years old, loved it.... for a few hours too, since then he has not picked it up. So I wonder if it is just me, and not more than that: I think this game lacks substance, and it is sad because I can feel the work. Lots of efforts put in here. If you are young, or if you enjoy silly/whimsical just for the sake of it, you might give this game an A. Still a very decent game!

I give this game a rank B (75-80%)
Cool game - if you have time give it a chance!
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Very cool little concept game of one button platformer in the vein of a Celeste/Meatboy. One button, aim for the jump, that's about it. Art is really nice (pretty pixels 2D), sound is cool, dialogues are hilariously well written, 15 minutes to finish, probably weeks to speedrun if that's your jam... and free :)

Give it a chance, seriously. Definitely looking forward to seeing what these devs will do next for their "real first" game ;)

I give this game a rank B+ (80-85%)
Good game - definitely worth a try!
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Full review available on video here
Hem is live on Hem & Watch[www.twitch.tv]

I give this game a rank B (75-80%)
Cool game - if you have time give it a chance!
See my profile for more details about my reviews.

Full review available on video here
Hem is live on Hem & Watch[www.twitch.tv]

I give this game a rank C (60-65%)
Okay game - not bad but you can skip it or try on sale.
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Full review available on video here
Hem is live on Hem & Watch[www.twitch.tv]