Recent reviews by Shalandir

A cute lil RPG, easily beaten in 1-day...the store tags sum this up nicely. However, the Mew Game (New Game+) features and challenges make this worth coming back to, enjoy the pain of staying level 1 or fighting the final boss naked! Or combine both for an extreme challenge! Or cap deaths to 9, and/or make the enemies harder, whee! At least 4 (5?) playthroughs needed to unlock everything.

Simple programming game that slowly introduces more and more complex topics and processes until eventually you graduate with a degree in Computer Science and Software Engineering.

5/7 - better than $200,000 of crippling college debt

This is a really smooth platformer with excellent controls, excellent music, and challenging (but beatable) levels. For someone that's not a hardcore platform addict, I really appreciated the quality, difficulty, and fun. Honestly surprised more people haven't played this.

This game...did not age well. Trying to play this in 2019 with the dumbest control scheme, tried remapping, nothing makes sense and then Robin's remote control car either glitched or got stuck in the graphics and all progress stopped. Sigh. Really wanted to play this too...

The controls for this seem absolutely wonky on a PC - tried a controller, tried kb/mouse, tried remapping keys, everything feels awkward. Maybe it feels good on a console.

But there is also the problem of gameplay - go collect the apples or feathers or stars or whatever and wait for the slowest dialogue prompts to scroll across the speech bubble.

This is the 5/10 of nostalgia-style remakes.

Interesting and unique, has a ton of potential. The engine supports a lot of tools, but I'm not sure the progression system fits well.

This surprising little gem is nowhere near terrible - the mechanics make sense, the asymmetric teams are interesting, the style is very well done (possibly the BEST 50s aesthetic for any video game), the only problem is a lack of players for online matches (which is not the dev's fault). To single out one major detail: I am impressed by the finesse of skillshots when aiming as the game engine supports very accurate shots, throws, lobs, and cone fire for unique weapons.

The only thing this game needs is a playerbase.

8/10 - would infect you again #MonsterFTW

What is this paper Diablo clone? It's a paper Diablo clone...done right.

What makes it fun? You kill things and smash urns.

Why is that fun? I don't know, ask the entire hack'n'slash genre.

Is it perfect? No. I'd appreciate more content: more monster types, more equipment, etc. AND better optimization. It's paper graphics, I don't care if I'm running at 2160p and everything at max, it better never dip below 60fps even once. Only stuttered once but no excuses.

Overall score - 8/10, worth on sale or full price if you love dungeon crawlers.

I will write this from the perspective of someone that played the first Orwell.

Is it as good as the original? No.
Is it still a good dystopian story? Yes.

It ties in directly to the first, much more than I expected, with the timelines coinciding to events happening in and around The Nation. You still control the narrative based on what information you give you handler, but it feels more pidgeonholed and less open-ended than the first, especially once you try playing through a second or third time and realize you're getting funneled into the same outcomes DESPITE specifically trying to avoid the original outcome to get a new one (which is possible according to forums).

Ultimately, I like it - but not as much as the first, and feel it should have been sold as an expansion to the original considering it is the same engine, same timeline/story, same gameplay, same feel, same, same, same. Going the standalone "sequel" route gave me very different expectations which tempered my overall reaction to an otherwise good game. Where the original was an instant classic, this feels more like a 7/10 incomplete game.

Initial impressions, will update later.

Darksiders III is more Darksiders! New devs chucked the inventory clutter from 2 and kept a lot of the systems from 1; core gameplay mechanics now more Dark Souls than God of War/Zelda. The change is neither a pro nor con. Gameplay aside, less loveable characters - War/Death are quintessential badasses with cheesy quips as they hack through demonic/angelic hordes, but Fury is meant to grate on nerves (at least for the first few hours). Maybe better redemption storyarc..?

Aesthetics/sounds are great! Fine at 1080p to 2160p, but it does need optimization patches (+10% fps bug fix already), and the comic book look serves it well. The fighting sounds, plus the soundtrack amps up at appropriate moments and fades to silence during most exploring. The storyline advancing much more than 2, yay.

TL;DR - not perfect; but solid entry. New devs did a good job fixing some of the original games' problems, changing some, and progressing story. 8/10