Recent reviews by Lavalot

Man I love this game.

I've 100% completed it, with only a handful (probably very difficult) achievements left to do and I've enjoyed my self immensely. I played a ton of Hollow Knight, almost doing all achievements, and I can say this really lived up the hype for me. The start of the game was a bit tough as I had to get used to Hornets very different toolset, but once I got into Act 2 and later content the game started to feel so nice and fluid to control. There are so many cool bosses, a ton of sidecontent to immerse yourself in (which I highly recommend as it makes the game overall more manageable!), amazing music, lovely characters and so much cool art and world building.

My biggest gripe is probably the same as with Hollow Knight, if you unknowingly persue some lategame upgrades (nail upgrade especially) the game does sort of become too easy. For a lot of lategame content that I was looking forward to really toughing it out against I had too easy of a time, completing it in 5 or less tries, sometimes 1. Which felt a little dissapointing.

People have commented a lot on the games difficulty, which can be high at some points of the game, but I found that most of the too tedious moments could be remedied by exploring other places and finding tools, benches, quests and such to get stronger or make sections easier.

As well the game doesn't really reach as amazing of a climax as the first one, but I still enjoyed what was there immensely. I am really looking forward to any DLC, I need a boss rush mode STAT!

To start this of I will say I've been able to play this game almost entirely with a mouse, something which I've enjoyed a lot! Cranking up the sensitivity, binding down to the left mouse button, the ability to the right, boost and item 1 to a side button has worked rather well! The only time I need to pull up the keyboard is during shops and fireplaces, and when wanting to talk to characters in the Hub. You do lose out on some slight strafing, which can probably be a bit bad for some, and also the ability to look behind you, though that I feel is rarely ever usefull. I don't feel like its been to any detriment to the gameplay as I've been able to reach the final boss doing this, so I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a chill mouse only game. (Landfall if you read this please let me navigate the shop and heal area with mouse only)

Now, as I said I am very close to finishing this game and I would from that definitely recommend it, though cautiously. Its a very satisfying running game, when you get into the flow state and hit the slopes correctly this game honestly feels beyond amazing, and for the most part I've been able to have that through most of the shards (levels). There are some weird difficulty spikes that took some time to get used to (shard 3 and 4 definitely), though I heard they've been patched a little. The story at the start is mostly uninteresting and I will say I got bored of all the talking, but towards the end there were some cooler development so I might recommend paying attention. I for the most part think all the abilities you can buy give you some cool and slightly different ways of approaching the game, though I definitely ended up preffering the most expensive one.

Its not all sunshine and roses though, despite liking this game a lot I also have A LOT of criticism. Sadly the random generation of the terrain in this game sometimes just gets way out of hand and you get weird terrain and obstacle placements that entirely ruin your flow (I'd REALLY like to see what some more intentionally designed levels for this game could look like!!!). The same could be said for the bosses. Most of the base version are fine, but as you get to the harder versions they layer more and more explosions and lazers and obstacles in your way, creating situations that feel almost impossible to work around without either later game abilities or very specific items. The items in general are for the most part underwhelming, most of them have very minor effects that feel boring to come across. The rarity of the specific items also barely seem connected to their power, and more to their percieved complexity (though often not actual complexity). I've had a couple runs though where some items have synergies in very cool ways so I wont say the system is entirely bad. The roguelike/slay the spire style map in each shard does feel very much like a miss though. The breakup of the gameplay with the map feels awkward, especially when you get put into the walk around areas for the shop and lore/heal. I think the lore and the shop are nice additions that help the roguelike structure to not be entirely bad but having to walk around them instead of just clicking or running really breaks your flow.

Also as an aside, as an artist and a bit of an art snob, I do feel like the character art is a little bit busy. All the effects on it is a little bit over the top, which feels jarring in comparison to how nice the rest of the game looks!

Also I've had a pretty bad bug happen to me where I get stuck in the upgrade screen and can't leave it without closing the game (luckily the game seems to save often so I haven't lost any progress).

I've racked on the game quite a lot here, but that partially because I've been enjoying it so much! The game is very addicting and very satisfying. Its hard to put into words how and why I enjoy it so much because so much of it comes down to game feel. It took me a little to get into but when I did damn it plays so nicely! I recommend the games with hopes that lot of whats currently off about the game will eventually get touched upon and improved. I hope the gets updates with more bosses and items, and some reworks to some mechanics and maps.

I'll probably update this review as I play this more.

Ever wanted to play Vampire Survivors but with anime girl streamers, filled with endless amounts of insane references that you will never comprehend? No? Well you should.

Holocure takes the formula of Vampire Survivors and tweaks and adds a ton more mechanics and content. The fact that this is a free fan game is almost criminal, if it wasn't the express wish of its creator that it stays so.

In addition to the regular Vampire survivors formula this game also contains house building, a fishing minigame, crafting, a casino with with a ton of minigames, and basically just Jump King. Yeah they just put an entire Jump King map in this game, I'm never going for all achivements lmao.

The art is charming, the music catchy, the gameplay satisfying, it truly is a very complete package.

Play it! WAH!

This is the first non-VR game to ever give me motion sickness

For being such a simple concept this game is dangerously addictive. I bought it two days ago (1st of March 2022) and have played it for 17 hours and 100% completed all the achievements. I only got left maxing out all the upgrades.

The leveling and upgrade system is genius and makes the core gameplay loop so satisfying its hard to stop playing. And the addition of secret hidden "evolution" upgrades, several playable characters and different levels are just the cherry on top.

The price being almost free is insane.
Really looking forward to more content.

Edit:
Since writing this they've added so much and expanded the concept a whole ton. A great deal of polish and so much music! Even more worth it!

Pretty fun game that I would describe as Zelda with Hyper Light Drifter combat. Has a really nice aesthetic, everything just look really cool or gorgeous. Its a bit easy and short, but for the cost it's pretty worth it. The enemy variety can be a bit low, and the upgrade system isn't amazing, but it works. Combat feels fluid, and gets more so as you get said upgrades. Bosses are fun but not amazingly challenging. A short after game with some cool lore that connects to the developers previous game . You'll probably need a guide if you wanna 100% the game. The secrets aren't too many, but they can be hard to find or figure out at times. At time of review I've 100%'d the game and am about 70% way through my second playthrough to get a final "play the game with the bad weapon" achievement so that should give you some clue to the lengths of this game. Characters and writing is pretty fun and charming, and the music is decent. Very nice if you want a quick game to play during a weekend.

Great game with amazing platforming. A really nice improvement on the original that explores more of the platforming mechanics while adding new ones together with a new combat system. Combat feels so much better in this than the original, and the bosses feel a lot more engaging. Still has the amazing escape sequences akin to the original which put your platforming under stress to a test while feeling so cool. Also included is a new upgrade system which feels much improved over the original, while giving you a lot more customization options, letting you find a playstyle that fits you. Sidequests are also pretty fun.

My only complaint, which really isn't a complaint, is that I wanted more. The game does include a lot of side content and collectibles to go after, but I missed some late game challenges to really put my understanding of the mechanics to a test. The game would gain so much by just having some sort of area akin to the path of pain from Hollow Knight, or the B and C sides of Celeste. I have yet to play hardmode, but I am not keeping my hopes up that is to find there (though I might edit this if it is).

This game borrows a lot of its new mechanics from older metroidvanias and Hollow Knight, and I only wished it had borrowed more of the optional late game content too.

Some last nuggets of criticism: Some hitboxes on the bosses felt a little weird and was hard to get used to. And in the final fight I also lost track of Ori a couple of times because the projectiles were a similar colour to Ori.

Overall really great game, I just wanted more.

I can't believe Super Giant made a good game. Joking aside, this is another really good game from Super Giant. The combat is super fluid and satisfying, there's so much to unlock, so many different weapons and weapon styles to try out and learn and just in general so many ways to augment the way you play. This is probably one of the most complete feeling early access games I have ever played, even though the entire story isn't in the game yet. It didn't take too many tries for me to beat the game for the first time (around 20-25), but each run took a decent while to do so even that made for a whole lot of playtime (close to 20 hours to be precise). Overall I would say this is one of the best roguelikes out there that awards skilled players with exciting combat and interesting decisions about how to build your character during runs. Also there's so much excellent music and voice acting, not to mention an incredible amount of gorgeous art. 10/10 would reccomend to anyone looking for a new roguelike to sink your time into.

Edit: 40+ hours later, and its still good, 1.0 update added a lot of new story stuff and the game is still amazing.

Probably my favourite game of 2017

Great gameplay feel, amazing artstyle, really interesting world.
If you like metroidvanias or just action platformers in general I'd really reccomend it.