Recent reviews by The Cheesecake Enigma

I bought this game on a whim during the Spring Sale last week, because It looked like It could be a decent Horror game and unfortunately, this Is one of those very few purchases, that even though It was cheap, I genuinely regret.

Inner Chain's presentation of this abstract, kind of post apocalyptic world Is genuinely good at first glance, It's a very visually full experience, but one that's marred by a very vague, close to non existent story, bland gameplay and technical issues.

All we get as far as story goes, Is a narration at the start of the game, beginning of each chapter and a few times at specific points throughout the game. There are murals throughout the game that help fill In some of the lore, but you have to unlock "letter collectibles" In order to decipher the language and read the text. In theory, It sounds cool, In practice, It's tedious and only hampers the already almost non-existent storyline.

The gameplay Is a mix of Walking Simulator and FPS, I was excited at the prospect of a FPS In this already cool looking game, but the gameplay Is dull and bland, you got 3 guns that you acquire as you progress Into the game. a Shock/Lightning gun, a Flamethrower and what appears to be a kind of Nail Rifle. The world Is littered with sentient traps/fauna that you can often lure enemies Into to make things easier as well as disable/kill with your weapons, which at least gives the player options In how to tackle many areas of the game, but In execution, the guns often feel underpowered (why does a headshot not immediately kill a human enemy? why does shocking enemies not stun/stop them?) and the open ended levels, while cool, can sometimes turn Into mazes.

Finally, maybe other people have had better luck, but running this game on a 2080s and Ryzen 5 1600 at 4k, while playable, I rarely achieved steady 60fps, usually staying around the 45-50 mark. This usually wouldn't bother me too much, but this game came out 7 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ years ago, cmon!

I can't recommend this game at all, not even during a sale.

If the Idea of delivering mail sounds like a relaxing way to spend a few hours, than Lake might be just the game that you're looking for...however, at the current price of $19.99? It's a hard pass. Don't get me wrong here, Lake Is quite a nice game, but It's also simplistic and In many ways, feels empty and devoid of life.

The game Is spread out over a two week period, represented by 12 days of delivering mail around Providence Oak, all the while meeting the quirky townsfolks and occasionally, spending time with them at the end of the day. That's.....just about all there Is to It. I would have loved If the driving mechanics/physics were slightly more realistic, I wish there would have been more stuff to do outside of delivering mail, as the setting really lends Itself very well to exploration and It would have been awesome if the characters would have been fleshed out more. But as It stands, Lake is a really good Idea, but an Idea that needs to be fleshed out, because as It stands? grab It for 5 bucks on sale, maybe $10 If It really appeals to you, but otherwise, there are way better things to spend $20 on.

I don't honestly remember when I bought this game, or even how much I paid for It, but I decided to check It out and while I have my qualms with It, most of them are from a technical perspective.

First and most Important, there's a trigger warning at the beginning of the game, please be mindful of It as there Is extremely good reason for It.

With that taken care of, on to my thoughts on the game. The game Is kind of similar to Gone Home or, pretty much any other walking simulator out there. You explore the Hotel that the story takes place In over the span of several days, uncovering clues and learning the history of the place and the main character's along with her family. One thing that this game does a little different, is telling the narrative mostly through the main character having Internal monologues and her conversations with the FEMA agent mentioned In the store description, both of which are fine, but at times I felt that there was a lack of written correspondence to pick up, as Is typically the case In similar games, which while on the subject, there's a lot to interact with throughout the hotel, but none of it really...adds much to the narrative, It would have been nice If there were more unique, but non-plot progressing Items that you could examine that would shed more light on the backstory. My other Issue with the gameplay, was that I wish exploration was more freeform, as It Is, each day, you have certain objectives and you can't really deviate from them much, If at all, which, despite having access to most of the hotel from early on, makes the game feel extremely linear. Puzzles would have also been a nice addition IMO.

On the other hand, I ran Into a very serious Issue with screen tearing that I was never able to fix, usually, minor things like this don't bother me too much, but In this game, It was extremely noticeable, to the point where I briefly contemplated dropping the game.

Without going Into spoilers, there's a reason why there's a TW at the start of the game, as previously mentioned. The story deals with more than one sensitive subject matter. Speaking for myself, It was an Interesting story and definitely different than almost anything else out there, although the plot twist at the end was slightly unexpected, that much I'll say. But It didn't completely kill the narrative at least.

If you like walking simulators/adventure games (without puzzles), give It a shot, It's definitely worth It.

This Is one of those games that quietly flies under your radar and than when you suddenly decide to check It out: WHOA!!!

So, what exactly are you getting yourself Into by Installing Lost Ark? (from here on out to referred to as LA). The best games to compare It to are Path of Exile and Diablo, the biggest difference here being that LA plays at a slightly faster pace than either of those two games, or pretty much most Action/RPGs out there, Diablo 2 and Path of Exile can feel slightly clunky/sluggish, while LA feels extremely fluid (think Devil May Cry, or Guild Wars 2 for a closer comparison). With that said, let's dive In and analyze a few critical aspects of the game.

Classes: The game has 5 core classes (Warrior, Martial Artists, Mages, Gunners and Assassins) each with anywhere between 2-3 (2-4 with the last update) Advanced Classes each, each Advanced Class plays extremely distinct from one another, for example, Warriors Include Berserkers, Gunlancers, Paldins and more recently, Destroyers (newest class Introduced In the last update) and each one has a very distinct playstyle that you can further optimize/refine depending on the skills that you pick/upgrade.

Story: Typical Diablo story clone, not even gonna lie, there's a lot of similarities and unlike Diablo, LA has a lot of dips. The first "Chapter" (for lack of a better term), or as I refer to It: The Luterra arc, Is amazing and has some pretty neat set pieces/Instances, but Immediately after, there's a huge dip as the main plot mostly takes a back seat and you go on a mostly stupid journey that has very little to do with the overarching plot, again, you encounter a few cool parts along the way, but It doesn't pick up until very late In the end game. It falls a little short of the mark, It's not horrible, but fails to keep your attention past the first dozen or so hours. That said, there are more than a few fun quests along the way and by fun, I mean In terms of narrative, because In terms of gameplay, It's the typical mind-numbing selection most MMOs offer: Fetch this, kill that, kill more of that and fetch this. On the bright side, each location you visit feels very unique and they stand apart from each other, some even offering very nice views/vistas.

Now that we have that out of the way, It's probably time to address the elephant In the room, which Is, the endgame. Once you reach level 50, you gradually unlock a wide assortment of activities that you can engage In, off the top of my head, those Include: Chaos Dungeons, Dimensional Cube, Tower, Abyss Dungeons, Guardian Raids, World Bosses, Chaos Gates, Sailing Adventures, Ghost Ships, Boss Rush, Unas Tasks (daily quests), Island Events...yes, there's A LOT. However, the biggest problem that LA has In terms of gameplay, Is a lack of variety, most of these can easily be summed up as killing mobs, bosses or a mixture of both. You'll be doing Chaos Dungeons (3 stages of hordes), Guardians (monster hunter-esque boss fights) and Unas Tasks daily every day for honing materials (see Honing further below). Once you do Chaos Dungeons every single day, for several months, you'll feel like throwing up at the mere mention of doing one, personally speaking, Guardians are a little better, because they are often challanging fights, where on the other end, you can solo Chaos Dungeons If you're so Inclined. Abyss Dungeons on the other hand, you'll be doing weekly (rewards are once per character, up to 5 seperate dungeons each IIRC) and these are actually fun, but can be extremely frustrating when a PUG can't get the mechanics down, their unfamiliar with them or simply suck at It, there have been weeks where I've tried to clear a single one for days with no success, but clearing them can be fun, but this Is probably the time you should be considering finding either a static group or a good guild. At the very end of the line, you also have Abyss Raids and Legion Raids which I haven't reached yet and are considered the real "end game", Unfortunately, I haven't quite gotten there yet for several reasons (more on this below).

Honing: So, character progression after level 50 Is measured by your Item Level, which you Increase by upgrading (Honing) your gear, you have 3 tiers to progress through, tier 1, 2 and 3. In order to hone your gear, you need enough materials as well as currency, Silver In the beginning and Gold later on. Each Item has 20 levels and as you progress In upgrading your gear, after a certain level, your success rate starts dropping. Sounds reasonable, right? Depends on how you approach It, you can only get so many materials a day from the activities that reward them, and In the latter levels of tier 3, you'll need gold too, which you can also only get from so many sources, before you run out, depending on your luck with the RNG, you could spend days trying to hone a single piece of equipment to the next level and running out of gold/materials WILL happen, at which point, you either buy Royal Crystals with real moolah, which you can than use to either buy materials or convert to gold (this Is the so called "pay2win" aspect of the game) or wait until the next day when you can farm more materials. There are ways to obtain more materials, such as using alts to farm and funnel materials to your main character and If you're playing the game as a whole and not just hyper focusing on "getting to the highest ilvl ASAP", It won't be such an Issue, as there Is TONS of stuff to do and collect, besides the activities I listed before.

One thing I'd also like to address, Is the update roadmap that was released by the Devs/Publisher last week. The game that was released In Feb 22, was more or less the same core game that was released In Korea 3 years ago, meaning that Korea has a game that's been actively developed and updated over the course of about 3 years. This Is not really relevant at all, but since people are making a huge deal out of It, I feel the need to address It here In my review. Our version (the western version) shouldn't be compared to the Korean version, I mean...why do we even do that? Just treat It as a new release, there's a lot of content to catch up on and obviously, we're getting all of the updates much faster than Korea did, for Korea, the updates had to be developed over time, for us, they are already there. From the beginning, any sort of update schedule was tentative at best, the most we expected was a "major update" every month, which held true In March, April and May. Most recently however, they confirmed that the release schedule for classes was every 2 months which makes perfect sense, one month we get a new class alongside some other notable content while the other month we get some other big content such as the continuation of the story, new dungeons/raids/whatever. All the people complaining, have no sense of either how MMOs work or how business works, they just want <Insert favorite class from Korean version here>, most MMOs out there don't even put out a semi monthly update, much less one every month, yet people are complaining. Most MMOs out there give you one or two classes with each major expansion every year or 2, yet we're getting one class every other month, but people still complain. My personal advice: take the game for what It Is, don't compare It to a foreign version, the western version, for all we know, may never be 100% the same as the Korean version and that's fine.

-----------> Continued In the comments, because apparently Steam has a word limit on reviews.

1/3

I don't often write reviews, but this Is one of those rare few that I feel compelled to write about It.

Love Ribbon is a VN that tells the story of Iris and Zoey, two sisters whom are forced to live together, by what appears to be pure happenstance, and who eventually fall In love with each other. Both protagonists are likable and as the story progresses, they start to grow more and more on you, Iris Is the oldest sibling, typical girly-girl, responsible while Zoey Is the youngest, tomboy´ish and more rebellious. As far as the main characters, I don´t really have any problems, but they are basically the only characters In the game, there are a few side characters, like a recurring Teacher and the sister´s Dad, but they´re mostly just a name on a text box, It would have been nice If they´d been fleshed out more and given more screen time along with other characters to help fluff out the overall story a bit more.

The story Itself, If I had to describe It using one word: Wholesome.
There are a few other themes that the story deals with, besides the obvious subject matter, such as the Issues encountered during our first relationship and the social Implications concerning the subject matter, It feels real and while at times, I was unsure of the how things would end, I was overall very satisfied with the flow and outcome (good ending), It felt real and believable and the length was decent (I finished It In about 5-6hrs).

I really enjoyed the art style and visuals, though I wish a lot of the backdrops weren´t recycled as much as they were, though this Is an Issue that, IMO at least, plagues a lot of VN´s, so I tried to overlook It and the character artwork was also very pleasing and the music, was surprisingly very atmospheric.

Finally, because I feel that this Isn´t clearly addressed, the R18 goodies come roughly towards the last quarter of the game, make sure you download the free DLC and you should be good. As for the quality? It´s good and best of all, uncensored.

Is It the best thing since sliced bread? probably not, but I recommend It for the full asking price, you could do a lot worst.

I've had this game In my library forever and finally decided to give It a shot.

Millenium - A New Hope Is the first of five chapters of the Millenium Saga and the beginning of Marine's journey to challange the Lords of Mystrock, overthrow the government and supposedly rule fairly and Inclusively of those that have pretty much been discarded and now live In the outskirts and/or wilds, In ever worsening conditions. Currently, elections are about to take place In Mystrock and to accomplish her goal, Marine will have to Invoke an ancient law which gives her the right to challenge the Lords to Martial Combat, for this, she needs 12 warriors besides herself, which Is the goal of her journey.

This Is the basic premise and to be perfectly honest, there's nothing really wrong with it, the most glaring problem however Is the amateurish writing, which comes across as childish or uninspiring at times. I can't speak for subsequent chapters, but In the first chapter, there's very little to no actual character development, there are 4 party members and I don't really feel any connection to them, they are just caricatures on the screen with status numbers attached to them, that's It.

That aside, the side quests seem to be tacked on as an afterthought, with no real reason, rhyme or relation to the main quest, character or world. Not to mention the dreaded missable quests, that you have NO WAY OF KNOWING ABOUT, UNLESS YOU READ A WALKTHROUGH. The map design Is fairly solid, with the exception of the last dungeon and the Swamp, which overstayed their welcome, overall, they were pretty good and the music was also surprisingly pretty good.

Only buy If It's really cheap and there's nothing else you fancy playing.

Fall of Light follows the journey of Aether and her father, as he explores and guides her throughout a world shrouded In darkness, In search of 3 Crystal Shards, saying anymore about the story will potentially spoil It, suffice to say that the story Is alright, but definitely nothing to write home about.

This Is an Action/RPG that plays kind of like Demon's Souls/Dark Souls If It had an Isometric Perspective, combat Is clunky, the character that we control feels heavy and sluggish, no matter what weapon you use, couple that with the starter weapon being literal trash (or the hit box for it and/or enemies being completely broken) and I wouldn't blame someone for rage quitting at the very start, speaking of weapons, there's a decent assortment (Sword, Dagger, Mace, Greatsword, Great Axe, Polearm, Crossbow) and they all handle different from each other, featuring different attack animations, speed, damage, etc, which I thought was pretty cool plus you can obtain upgraded versions of each as you progress, the downside however, Is that you can only have 2 equipped at a time, and If you swap something out and than decide you prefer the previous weapon, hopefully you remembered where you left It, as they stay on the ground wherever you swapped them/dropped them. You'll most likely find a weapon type that you prefer and stick with It, everyone recommends the Greatsword, but I much preferred the Polearm for the speed and reach personally. With that said, there's a pretty decent variety of enemies throughout the game, but they all behave rather similar to one another, so battles usually play out by luring enemies, hitting them with a Weak/Strong combo, maybe evading an attack and than rinsing and repeating. Same with bosses, which makes them rather underwhelming.

We've already established the combat leaves some to be desired, but what about the game world? Fortunately, the game does a slightly better job In this aspect. The areas are varied and sufficiently distinct from one another, although they do tend to be slightly uninspired, The Forest was my favorite area altogether and the first two dungeons were pretty nice, although the last one was a joke and traps every now and again give the world a dangerous vibe, as not paying attention could get you Instantly killed by one.

A few more Issues I had, In no particular order:

-I know the overall theme of the game Is "a world shrouded In darkness", but there's no need to literally make the game so dark, that you struggle to make things out without bumping your monitor's brightness. The lantern does little to help.
-As mentioned before, areas could do with a little bit more Inspiration thrown at them. Like the waterfall that Aether goes Into and plays around for a bit, I'd have loved to see more things like that.
-Speaking of Aether, she's supposed to make you stronger If she's close to you, but I never noticed any difference, even "upgrading" her felt completely useless.
-One bug was particularly annoying and that's the physics of the weapons, I swapped out "the strongest weapon" and It glitched In mid air because It bounced when I swapped It.
-Although enemies are visually distinct, they behave too similarly to each other, thus diminishing their uniqueness, by the player being able to deal with most enemies In the same manner.

When all Is said and done, Is It worth It? Only If It's on sale, otherwise, there are far better ways to spend $15.

For .69 cents, which Is what I paid for this game on sale...you could do a lot worse, but or the full $6.99 asking price? Hard pass.

Boring, Drab, Unoptimized are a few of the choice words I'd use to describe It. Upon starting It up, the first thing I noticed were the random drops in frames per second, along with freeze ups that for a game that looks like It came out In the late 90s, Is Inexcusable, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with the art style or graphics, but there's no reason It should slow down so much, even on a potato of a computer. Besides that, I also had several CTDs while attempting to save the game. Couple that with short, boring and uninspired level design and you have a pretty boring game alltogether.

That said, there's a slightly redeeming quality here and that's the gameplay, It was simple, yet fun along with the enemy design. Optimize the game and put more effort Into the design of the world the game takes place In and you might have a little gem In the future, as It stands, this game is DOOMED...pun Intended :)

It's the same Half-Life you remember from way back than...except It's been pumped up to an 11. Do yourself a favor and go play It!

I grew up playing JRPGs, Super Mario RPG, Legend of Dragoon, Chrono Cross and so on. It's one of my favorite genres and I tend to enjoy even the subpar JRPGs out there, I try and find the redeeming qualities In them. So, with that said, when I first got this game, I thought to myself that it looked a little generic-y, but that surely, it was worth $2...right? Heh...

As soon as you start the game, the scenario explained In the game description here on the store page plays out annnnd......thats about 85% of the plot right there, literally. As you advance through the game's 5 or so hours of gameplay, the other two heroines join your party and you explore towns, dungeons and defeat bosses, the rest of the minimalistic story unravels which leaves the player feeling largely unsatisfied.There's no real reason for what happens In the game, other than I want to go with you, or I want to destroy the world, there's just no personality whatsoever.

Looking at the gameplay, there's really nothing that stands out, you got the usual town exploring, battles against monsters, dungeon exploration and boss fights and none of it really stands out, other than the end boss that you can beat in just 4 or 5 turns with, with no effort whatsoever. The game design itself actually looks painfully basic, after about the first 30-45 minutes of the game, you gain access to a boat/ship, which you use to go pretty much anywhere In the world and it gives you the sense of freeform and non-linear exploration, but that's just It, a false sense. You can go Into some places In the world, but either the transitions won't work, or it'll tell you to come back with this or that, or simply trying to enter the place on the world map, will trigger a dialogue telling you to come back when you have a certain Item.

Than we have the graphics and art style, which are as generic as they can get. The first thing that will hit you when you look at the store page, Is the female heroines In lingerie, no, those aren't specific scenes or moments, that's how they were designed. There's no reason whatsoever, other than to try and get people that are attracted to the character designs to buy the game, which has nothing wrong with It, I myself find a lot of fictional character designs attractive, but that's not really the point of this particular game, this is an RPG, not a Hentai. Than there's the generic world/level design, there's no area whatsoever that looks remotely Interesting, just a bunch of generic assets thrown together and that's It.

As for the music? Yes, It's as generic as It can get.

So, for $1.99, It can't be THAT bad, can It? Yes, It acually Is, the game feels like a lengthy amateur demo. Do NOT buy, actually.....don't even redeem the game as a gift, return to sender Instead, lol