Recent reviews by Raikors

Halls of Torment is an action roguelite released as part of the wave of similar titles that have used the formula in recent years.

The game begins from a courtyard area where you're able to choose your character, initially from one but eventually from a dozen or so unlockable heroes. The roster starts with the basic barbarian and archer archetypes, but gets more interesting down the line with there being quite a bit of variation in the main attacks, ability to tank, moving speed etc. of each hero.

Entering the various dungeons or halls begins the actual gameplay part, where it quickly becomes apparent that there are enemies coming towards you from the edges of the screen in waves for you to dispose of. Each enemy drops gems that give you experience, which lead to you getting a level up and being able to choose traits to power up your character.

That's pretty much all there's to it. Characters' individual weaknesses or strengths can be compensated or boosted with typical RPG-esque equipment like chest pieces, boots, gloves, rings etc. which can also be found during runs and sent up to be used on later attempts. There are a lot of things that you gradually get to collect or achievements to go for new unlocks, but it all comes down to doing a single 30 minute run in the halls.


There are a couple options you could go for in this style of gameplay, some of which might be more popular or have more content. I haven't tried any of the other ones out, but just visually I find this one the most appealing.

There's plenty of replay value when going for the achievements, gear or character unlocks and I feel the challenge is nicely tuned to still occasionally give me a hard time. It's good for those moments when you know you a time limit since a single run can't take much longer than the 30 minute timer.

Rollerdrome is a 3rd person action shooter game that combines Tony Hawk's Pro Skater-esque movement, levels and challenges with a score grading system typical to some spectacle fighters.


The game takes places in a retro future, where a violent roller derby has become a popular spectator sport ala The Running Man. There is an attempt at keeping some narrative going around that theme, but in its core the main campaign consists of a total of 11 arena fights with a couple of them having a boss fight in a secondary arena.

There is a brief tutorial sequence to get to know the controls at start, but rather quickly you're thrown into the first batch of four levels. Basic game loop is to not only shoot the enemies that spawn at each arena, but also perform tricks or dodges as those give you ammo to do so. Rinse and repeat until all spawned enemies have been killed, while hopefully managing to do it fast enough to keep a combo going.

Completing levels sometimes opens up new weapons and the game introduces some of the movement mechanics and harder enemies gradually at later stages to avoid overwhelming the player. Each arena is placed full of ramps, rails and other obstacles that support the momentum forward as best as possible and there is a decent, synthwave type soundtrack that overall fits the theme nicely.

However, like in Tony Hawk, completing a level does not necessarily mean you get progress to the next level batch if you have not completed enough challenges on the previous batch. Luckily the challenges are rather straightforward to complete and doing all of them in the first set allows you to mostly skip them in the later stages. Still, the challenges are where my main issue with the game is: Completing them does not feel rewarding.

Moment-to-moment gameplay feels mostly fluid and executing perfect dodges and aiming shots in slow motion can be a lot of fun at times, but there is constantly the feeling that you're not doing the correct things or using the right weapons, which most likely leads to you not getting any of the challenges done, your combo ending and a bad score and grade at the end.

Once all 4 stages of the championship containing the 11 levels are unlocked and done, a new game plus -mode opens where you can play through the same levels again, but with more and tougher enemies and some new score and time challenges. I already gave up on completing the regular challenges during the main campaign once the required amount to proceed was done and I think I might've had enough of the game altogether at this point.


I first saw Rollerdrome as an early concept work years ago in a tweet that showcased a roller skating figure doing a grab trick from a ramp, jumping and shooting someone with a shotgun in a slow-mo sequence. That short 10 second animation looked cool and promising and I still feel like there is a good game somewhere in that concept, which unfortunately was not discovered during the development, at least not fully. While the game generally feels fun to play, with the main focus being the challenges and rather small arena combat and the expected longevity being grind for high scores, I feel there is not enough here for a somewhat casual gamer to enjoy. I would still be interested in a sequel though.

I have not touched the originals in years so can't say for sure, but to me they nailed the feel the way I remember it. The graphical overhaul brings the games up to date and serves its purpose. The soundtrack has stood the test of time and is still packed full of great tunes.

Besides the campaign modes with various skaters for the two games, there is also plenty of added challenges in form of speedrun, score, specific combos and whatnot, probably too much for me to start going for any kind of complete playthrough. Still, it's fun to pick one of them to go for when I occasionally do a run or two.

The remaster managed to scratch one nostalgic itch for me. Years ago the soundtracks of these games expanded my musical taste and for that alone this bundle deserves recognition.

Instruments of Destruction is a sandbox game focused on physics-based destruction of buildings using increasingly creative vehicle designs. It is still in early access and seems to be receiving steady updates.

The game's campaign mode is divided into small tropical islands with each having slight variance in their destruction-related main objectives and you progress and unlock new islands and vehicles by completing them. The pre-made vehicle designs the game gives you are suitable for completing the main objective in each new map, but you are free to customize your vehicle within certain limitations. There are also bonus objectives in each island and you can go for high scores using your own vehicle designs.

Technically the game works great and I didn't encounter any issues while playing through the main campaign. However, in its current state I feel there's a slight lack of goal-oriented content for a casual player such as myself, but if you're able to get creative with the custom vehicles, pursuing high scores and bonus objectives etc. it is well worth buying into.

To me, with the environments consisting mostly of featureless concrete bunkers and various other ruins, it still feels a bit more like a tech demo than a fully realized idea. There is a lot of potential in how smooth the destruction physics work and it left me curious to see how the end product will look like.

Northern Journey is a first person action-adventure set in a northern wilderness with medieval and fantasy set pieces sprinkled throughout. Mostly through pure visuals and music it achieves a nice balance between atmospheric hiking through nature and folk horror-esque feeling of dread, with the occasional spikes of weird dark comedy.


Immediately after launching the game you are welcomed in with a forest scene and a piece of flute music playing in the background, which do a great job at setting a somber and slightly unsettling tone.

https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2861642627

Once the game starts you are dropped into this setting as a nameless outsider and quickly explained your initial goals. The story progresses through a variety of different looking areas in a mostly linear fashion, or at least you are heavily guided towards going to the right direction, which I think is refreshing in today's landscape of everything being open world. I maybe would've liked the guidance to be a little more subtle as currently you are pretty much straight up explained the situation and objectives without there being much subtext to most of it.

https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2861663894

The game's art style has a lot of indie charm to it and the brilliant marriage of visuals and music continues from the opening menu all the way through to the end credits. There was no area or section that felt like it was added to waste time without introducing any variety. Some might be initially worried about the simplistic user interface and especially the options not looking visually polished, but both are perfectly functional and there isn't that much you need the menu for anyway. You can equip up to four weapons at a time and those need to be switched through the menu, but that's about it. Everything else is prompted contextually as needed.

https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2861644396

Going along with different environments there is a nice variety of enemies unique the each area. All weapons in the game are projectile based, which makes it occasionally difficult to hit some of the flying ones that have slightly more erratic flight patterns. On the other hand, it feels satisfying when you manage to hit a moving target further away. Unfortunately not all of the weapons felt impactful to use, possibly due to their sound design not having enough punch or just that their reload times made them too cumbersome for most situations. Sling shot is the default weapon with unlimited ammo and I found myself using that quite a bit.

One technical thing I should also mention: The game hearkens back to the old PC gaming days in the sense that there is no auto-save or checkpoint system and the player is responsible for saving progress with quick saves and manually saving to specific slots. Once you get used to it and the limitation of not being able to save while in combat or when interacting with something, saving becomes quite automatic and you rarely lose progress because of it. Still, it might be something most are not used to.


If you're able to tolerate some minor inconveniences like the aforementioned lack of auto-saving, I would recommend trying it out. It is mechanically simple, but there's an abundance of charm and atmosphere that more than make up for any of its flaws.

Latest iteration of possibly the most well-known block matching puzzle game in the world.


Over the last couple decades there has been plenty of Tetris games and countless more if you include all clones or ones that somehow borrow the core idea of dropping shapes and having the player match them together. The gameplay needs no explanation, but this brings it officially to the modern systems and adds a couple new spins on it as well.

The game is divided into three main subsections: journey mode, effect modes and multiplayer mode.

Journey mode is basically the campaign, where themed levels are organized into groups of 3-5 and they are to be cleared in succession for a high score, or just individually cleared without topping out in order to proceed to the next subset of levels. There is audiovisual narrative tied to each level that unfolds in steps when you pass certain thresholds of cleared rows.

Journey mode also introduces the Zone-mechanic: You fill up a meter by clearing rows and you can later use that to activate the zone mode which temporarily stops the pieces from falling down on their own. It can help the player to get out of trouble if the speed gets overwhelming, but also any clears made during it are counted together, so you can get more points and closer to 20-row combined clears during a single zone activation.

The other solo section, the effect modes, includes the classics like the marathon i.e. getting 150 row clears while the speed keeps increasing. Besides that there's ~15 other modes with some customization, such as quick play mode where you can decide the speed and how many row clears is needed, or a purify mode where you have to clear specific blocks from an initially half-filled board. The modes are grouped into a couple different categories and there's a weekly community event for playing modes of specific category in order to make progress towards a shared points goal.

I have not tried the multiplayer yet as I'm not that much into competing against other players, so I unfortunately can't say much about that. I think there's at least the classic survival versus mode where clearing rows on your side sends garbage to your opponent's play field, and a co-op where you play on a combined field against an AI. I might give the latter one a shot at some point.

The original soundtrack of the game by Hydelic deserves a special mention as I think it is one of the key components what makes it and especially the journey mode such an uplifting experience.


The challenge is so customizable and between all the different single and multiplayer modes I'm sure anyone can find some enjoyable Tetris gameplay here. If you have enjoyed Tetris at some point in the past you should definitely give this a shot. There is also VR support and it provides an extra level of immersion to experiencing the journey mode, but overall I feel it is not required.

Noita is a rogue-lite sidescroller with pixel-based physics simulation and a weapon system that encourages experimentation, the combination of which leads into some fun emergent gameplay. It is still in early access.


In Noita (Finnish for "Witch") you play as a tiny witch character traversing down a randomly generated maze of caves and pathways while trying to avoid death by various enemies, environmental hazards and traps. Your character gets more powerful by picking up new wands, spells, perks and potions along the way.

The big game within the game related to wands and spells is that each wand has some base stats like mana, casting time etc. and they have a varying amount of slots for the spell effects you can have in them. In between cave sections there is a safe zone where you can purchase things and get to pick up a new perk but most importantly, where you can freely move around the spells in the wands you've picked up so far to create more devastating combinations. Or horrible self-destruct devices.

Noita has a bit of a steep difficulty/learning curve. You get further in the runs not by rushing to the exit as fast as you can but by being more careful, learning to avoid things that killed you previously and trying to gather materials for wands that you like using and find effective. If you haven't managed to create a decent enough wand a few floors down it becomes really difficult to proceed.

Technically the game is surprisingly mature for an early access title. The pixel graphics hold up as well as you like the aesthetic. The (as far as I know mostly improvised) soundtrack by From Grotto fits the game like a glove. There is some occasional technical jank and I have experienced a couple of game crashes, but it is still at the start of its early access and is receiving constant updates.


Even though I'm quite bad at the game it is still a lot of fun to do a run or two every now and then and experiment with the mechanics. I'm not sure if it changes the formula enough to recommend it to people who don't typically play these types of games, but if rogue-lites are your thing you should find this enjoyable.

Note: This was written at Update #7, during steam awards nominations where I nominated it for "The Best Game You Suck At Award".

Edit: Updating to say that the game was released out of early access on October 15th and is still receiving continuous content updates. There's also been tons of quality of life updates and modding support now that allows the community to expand the game even further. I haven't tried any mods out yet as I still haven't been able to win a game normally. Still going to nominate this for an award, but maybe for the Innovative Gameplay one this time around. :)

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is a top-down shooter with a kick-ass soundtrack in the same vein as the first one. It took me about 8 hours to play through without going for any special goals or ranks. To me, it fell a bit short compared to the previous game.


The gameplay consists of going around small, arcade-like levels in a top-down view and basically trying to murder your way through to the exit. There are no saves or checkpoints mid-level and making just one mistake leads to a restart. The slightly twisted and gore-heavy 80's tone and the way the game plays should feel familiar right from the start if you have played the first Hotline Miami. The music being awesome also pretty much goes without saying and, especially if you enjoy the recently re-emerged genre of synthwave, you will probably like the soundtrack. It has more tracks and the quality of picks is right up there, maybe even slightly better.

The combat doesn't flow as well as in the first game where it occasionally felt like you're dancing your way through the level when you got the enemy spawns and the rhythm down. The biggest problem by far was that there were too many ranged enemies and when combined with long corridors / open areas you basically have to hold down shift key the entire time just to see a little further and try to make your way forwards safely that way. However, even that doesn't work always as the enemies sometimes just charge you or shoot you from off-screen.

Although one could argue that it isn't really that important in these types of games, I also wasn't able to follow the story as it jumped around a bit too much between characters, places and even timelines. I had to resort to reading the plot from a wiki after finishing it. I guess the story kinda makes sense and apparently there were references to the previous game, but I don't think I got any of them. Then again it has been a while now since I played that and they didn't exactly emphasize the connection.


I guess there's an audience for difficult, perhaps occasionally even a bit unfair top-down shooters, but despite liking the first game a lot and going back to get A+ rating on all stages in it, I don't see myself trying to do the same with this. Which is unfortunate as there were a lot of parts that I enjoyed. On the other hand, there were also so many levels that weren't just difficult but also frustrating to play through.

It might still be worth checking out. I definitely recommend trying out the previous game and if you like that a lot and feel like you need more of the same but with a slight dip in quality you should go for this one.

A simple, isometric puzzle game with chill music, minimalistic graphics and an overall charming feeling to it.


In Hiding Spot, you play a nameless character and your goal is to enter rooms in a multistory building and figure out how to arrange the grid-based furniture layout in them in a way where you're covered from all six sides. The furniture and the room layouts to do so in get more complex the higher you climb in the building.

Although the graphics are not super detailed there is something charming about them. The game doesn't really have a story unless you come up with one yourself, but as an office worker I could somehow relate to the "completing a room" -animation, where your nameless character huddles up in a fetal position under the furniture and the camera zooms out. The chill ambient music and SFX fit the mood nicely.

I found the challenge of the puzzles and the way the difficulty ramped up suitable for a person like me who normally doesn't play puzzle games apart from the occasional point & click -adventures. For the most part the game does a good job teaching you by example how you can use any single furniture before requiring it to be used in combination with others.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I gave each room a decent amount of time of attempting to figure out the solution by myself, but looked up from a guide what I was missing if I felt like I wasn't making progress and it was starting to get frustrating. In the end I think it was a total of three rooms where I resorted to that, out of which two were just me being dumb and one that probably would've made me stop playing altogether instead of completing the game. There were still plenty of rooms where I got the rewarding feeling of figuring out the solution to a puzzle after a struggle.


The game provides a solid few hours of contained puzzles to solve; maybe more or less depending how quickly you figure stuff out and if you don't mind playing through it the way I did. It's also quite cheap so I can recommend trying it out even if puzzle games are normally not your thing.

2nd full episode in what I guess is now called "To The Moon" -series. The 1st one came out in 2011 and to my knowledge there is at least a comic and a mini episode that take place between the episodes.


As in "To The Moon", the story of "Finding Paradise" is also about "--traversing through a dying man's memories to artificially fulfill his last wish". That should sound immediately intriguing, at least it did for me back in the day.

Despite the store descriptions being the same in both episodes and this one borrowing some structure from the first one, "Finding Paradise" manages to give it a slight twist that made it feel fresh to me. I don't have much else to say about the story (at least not without the danger of spoiling it) and I don't think explaining it in spoiler-tags would be that helpful either.

As with earlier Freebird Games' products, there isn't much in terms of actual gameplay: You're here for the story which can and probably should be experienced in one ~4-5 hour sitting with no rush. The music in the game greatly enhances the emotions you get out of certain sequences and I feel it plays almost as big a part as the writing does in conveying those.

Graphics might be the weakest link. There's some fine pixel art and it's not the lack of polish either, but I think they're making these using the (sometimes infamous) RPG maker. Their games have this 16-bit SNES RPG aesthetic and it can look a bit off-putting, but I whole-heartedly encourage you to look past the visuals and the lack of gameplay this time.

Storywise it is hard to compare to anything other than what the same people have previously made and I hold "To The Moon" in such a high regard that it's really difficult for anything to match that. This might still be the closest thing though, especially when taking into account that I knew more what to expect this time around.


If you haven't played "To The Moon" I would recommend doing that and also the ~1 hour long mini episode called "A Bird Story" first before checking this one out.

Although this technically came out at the end of last year I think it missed the awards window then and I feel that it deserves recognition as a continuation of a series of great short story games out there. My personal game of the year.