Neue Rezensionen von protagoras

This is the parallel-universe third installment of the Laura Bow series this world deserves. So very happy to see this released and be amazing. A must-play for any old-school Sierra adventure fans.

Very minor nitpicks: In a few instances the text parser was not as forgiving as I'd like. Had to try a few variations and think a bit. Expected this for the genre, but some might be frustrated by this. Aside: I applaud the effort to ban "USE" and feel it's the correct choice here. There could be more music and/or ambient sfx (e.g. character theme music when on screen?). Some of the animations are simple (e.g. carriage)

But forget about all that! This is FANTASTIC. If you're at all any bit a fan of these games: Buy it, play it, love it.

Heartwarming short adventure. Well-polished; no bugs encountered. Recommended!

This is a good inspired old-school shooter somewhat weighed down by the fact it is an inspired old-school shooter. The palette/shading is certainly evocative and moody but all that brown and blue and rust are sort of an... 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 situation. The environments of the 10 maps are indeed rather varied even though there's a thick blanket of that old school palette. No fault to the game though because this is what it wanted to be and it executes it well.

The weapons and damage profile is the highlight here for me; everything feels beefy and full of impact (except perhaps the STEN SMG which feels... pretty meh all around). The bosses which tend to become mini-bosses were mostly (all?) damage sponges which... eh, fine, whatever. That's old-school, right?

There's a story that's played through with sparse notes you can optionally read. I found them fine, even somewhat comical, but you aren't really here for a story, right?

Some really nice set pieces in here, too! Some might classify a few as jump scares - I don't feel they were that "cheap" as most were highly telegraphed/foreshadowed. Some of the mob rushes got me and I lost a bit of progress due to not quicksaving (minor new-school complaint: I feel like auto checkpoints could've been a bit more generous, but "that's a skill issue" I suppose).

Sound was good, music was... fine? Maybe a bit out of its element here and there; I did appreciate the silent moments before larger fights/set pieces. I encountered no bugs or slowdowns; you can probably finish this in 4 hours or less if you play more fast paced like a boomer shooter. If anyone wanted to argue I'd say this is not a boomer shooter as the way I played felt like I was being rewarded for being somewhat strategic in nature. There's a sniper rifle, might as well use it, right?

Pick this up if you want a sepia-rust-toned shooter to work through in a day or across a few nights. You'll have a good time.

Absolutely cutesy lil experience. Great for a few fun relaxing hours.

I think I've taken this as far as I want. Got the "good" ending, saw most of what can be seen. This is good. Maybe even great, especially as a couch game via the Deck. Towards the last... 3/4? things get a bit repetitive and more of a... cute looking bullet hell than an enjoyable explore-and-collect-fest. But overall, it's very well balanced and will keep your casual attention for hours. Plain ole good clean fun.

A strong and somewhat unique/quirky styled roguelikething! Quite polished in terms of... everything? Large amount of variety in weapons and powerups. There's 3 (okay, 4) different worlds in a run; each with their own palette, art, and enemies. The enemies do tend to get "old" after a decent number of runs but I'd chalk that up to run familiarity than any sort of downside. Sound is just as varied as gameplay and just as great. Took me about 30 hours to unlock the "final" run on the default difficulty - I am sure others could do this much quicker or slower.

I don't feel a pressing need to "finish" the "final" run at this point. I've completed runs with all characters and this "last" run is... well, almost 2x the difficulty without changing the actual difficulty. I can theorize why the design is this way but it's prohibitive for me to sink more time into what I feel is now unfair to the player by upping the ante and not providing much in the way of assist. This is perhaps my core complaint here: why hide the "true" ending behind a brutal increase in difficulty? Sure, I could be more selective in my weapon choice, I could hope for luckier powerups, I could lower the difficulty level myself (I think?), I could invest in a pet, I could cheese the fights (more than I usually do, heh) but... why?

Minor complaint there aside, this was a really engrossing roguelikething for me. Worked flawlessly on the Steam Deck, too!

This is such a lovely story with quite a few excellent moments of emotion, a few twists, and humor. Highly recommended if you're looking for something that's high-stakes for the characters and low-stakes for the player (you can't really go wrong or miss anything via your choices aside from a few optional achievements). It's more of a linear story than a "your choices matter" sort of thing as you're pretty well guided to the "story goes forward" path and "sub-optimal" ones become dead ends rather quickly. That is part of the charm, I'd say. It's a story you can take in and fully experience in a single cozy evening.

Highly recommended.

The absolutely brilliant star of this is the narrator, Kirsten Mize. Felt spot-on with every single word, pause, intonation - even with the different story paths available. She made the atmosphere for me, 100%.

Nice, neat, self-contained mostly-linear platformer-explorer.

6-8 hours of story and exploration. There's perhaps a bit of slowness at the start but once you "level up" a bit things get moving. I found the story (and mini-romance) to be engaging enough to get me through the boss battles. Even the last one which feels to me ratchets up the difficulty a tad too much and with no checkpointing. Felt like a "brick wall" boss which I suppose is fine as the end boss?

The exploration music was quiet and contemplative; well done. Overall art style is a treat however I found the juxtaposition of the different intro video style, cutscene style, and in-game style to be confusing. Given this isn't a AAA it's completely forgivable. I wish they had either stuck with a same/similar style or made it blend in better somehow. I also experienced a few lockups when transitioning from "gameplay" -> "cutscene" on the Steam Deck that caused me to hard restart the game but I never lost much/any progress due to the excellent checkpointing/save system.

There's some side collectables and achievements but nothing that is hard to 100%.

What a great time to be a witch!

Loved the dry humor. Story was a Good Time. You could run into a fair bit of backtracking but as long as you pick up anything that's not nailed down as you go you can be in decent shape. I did find myself at times wishing for the ability to brew a fast-walk potion. "Puzzles" were rather simple and guided - I feel any gaming age could pick this one up (note there's a bit of blood and gore and death and stuff, but it's in no way a prolonged focus). Music was the stand-out in most places. Encountered a few minor bugs on Steam Deck that worked fine elsewhere.

Recommended with very large caveats - and out of respect to the "small indie developer from Poland".

On the Steam page: maybe it's the comic book art style that grabs you. Perhaps it's the Mick Gordon-ish metal infused with spooky ambient soundtrack that gets you to add to cart. The appearance of non-stop action that makes you push buy. Or perhaps -- you're a big ole fan of Lovecraftian stuff.

You're in. Let's DO THIS.

The first hour or so... not bad. The story is in the way, but you can pretty much ignore that if you want. I found the attempt to sprinkle story items to read half-thought through in terms of placement and execution. Throughout there's a bit of things lost in translation which only gets worse as the game progresses. It's fine, just... other games do this much better and with more immersion. It could've benefited from a more seasoned translator/English speaker, I feel.

The main flow/parts of the story are lackluster. Boilerplate Lovecraft, even. Without spoiling too much: You've seen this all before, you've been here before. You can safely ignore it. You're here to rip and tear, anyhow.

Speaking of rip and tear - I am fine with the enemy variety. I am less fine with the arena shootouts where you battle waves and waves of Cthulhu chum. It's tiring and the level design? Well.

The level design could've used a few more iterations. Environments are rather sparse by themselves. There's five worlds, each with a boss level so 6+1, 6+1, 8+1, 4+1, 3+1 = 32 levels! That's impressive for a $20 game, right?! Yeah, well... the levels tend to feel a bit on the long side. They needed "editing". More play-testing? Enemy placement quickly becomes predictable: alcove sneak ups, "mob storage" with triggered rapid-open doors, bit of teleporting. Keys to find, doors to open. Mostly linear, semi-hub-style esp. in later levels.

I encountered a few instances where it wasn't clear what to do next (esp. around a particular boss that drowned me a few times before I realized what the game wanted me to do). I don't quite want to call them bugs but design issues?

Guns/sounds are varied enough. The music is a high point. Well done and fade in/out nicely.

Bottom line: I got halfway through World 4 of 5 and was bored. Turned difficulty down to causal just to plow through the end... and it still felt like a chore. It all was too much of the same thing. Run, shoot, kill, repeat. Sure, there were a few nice touches here and there, but overall? The game needed a editor, a producer, a stream-liner, someone to tell the game devs "Hey. Quality over quantity here. You don't have the AAA team budget." but I also get the point that then people would probably complain "$20 for 10 levels? I've been robbed!"

You never can win. Maybe you'll like that feeling.