January 2022 Update

Next update (works only on profile page)

Activated: 12/2021

Trine 4: Melody Of Mystery (Q4 2020) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐⭐

Beaten after: 1 month

Puzzle, Co-Op
6 hours | No achievements

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good
- closer to fairy tale atmosphere than the base game
- combat is less annoying
- DLC is nearly half size of the base game

The bad
- puzzles are still really easy
- there is still no use for this rubber bouncy ball?

Conclusion:
It was nice to go back to "proper" Trine game. I really do hope they will keep 2D fairy tale style in their next game. Not this confusing half-baked 2.5D from Trine 3.

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Story:

DLC takes place after events from the base game. We may save the prince but like all teens he again gets into trouble. All his sleep under sleep curse and only our heroes can help them! Plot is not deep or with surprises but still nicely fit into base game theme and events.

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Gameplay:

💸 Microtranzactions	None	🏆 Achievements	No achievements! And I wanted to hunt for those bottles for 100% :sadness:
📊 Performance	No issues	💾 Save system	Game saves on map transition and we're never punished for "dying"

🌍 Map	It's again kind of awkward to invite player to game. It's not possible to make lobby and invite from the over-world map, it needs to be done in-game, which means they miss on the cut scenes...
🎮 Controls	Fluid and responsive. No complains. Only weird quirk is that wizard conjures objects not where we move mouse but above his head. It was the same in the base game so not really a fault of DLC.
🏹 Weapons	Same as in the base game. Wizard is quite useless in combat. Thief can shot normal, fire or ice arrows. And knight have sword + shield that can be upgraded with electricity later on.
🕵️‍♀️ Abilities	Same as in base game and in the series. Wizard makes boxes or planks to help solve puzzles, thief shot arrows to activate buttons, and knight can reflect bullets, glide on shield or stomp to give velocity to other objects. Only thing that is annoying is that thief "dash" is in fact roll that leaves trace of toxic spikes. They don't deal much damage and it makes dash useless to navigate the map. In this area fat knight is more agile than slim thief :hehe:
🤖 Companion and enemy AI	Enemies are quite dumb but it was never combat focused game. No bosses.
🥊 Combat	Combat is easier than in the base game which is a good thing. Combat area is clearly visible and enemies have somewhat predictable movie set. Only problem is that when there are a lot of enemies it's easy to lose track where our character is due to all the smoke and particle effects.

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Technicalities:

Graphic - ⭐️⭐⭐ - gorgeous. More games like this please!
Music - ⭐️⭐⭐ - voice acting is good, background music adds a lot of the fairy tale feeling
Bugs - ⭐️⭐⭐ - didn't encourage any (that would not be beneficial to the player and make you laugh how weirdly puzzle was solved ;D)

Activated: 11/2021

Steamworld Dig 2 (Q3 2017) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐☆

Beaten after: 2 months

Action
10,9 hours | 23 of 34 (68.0%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good
- Fluid controls
- Mining is required to upgrade gear but it never feels grindy

The bad
- At the beginning it's hard to navigate underground if we make tunnels in wrong spots by mistake
- Plot is kind of meh

Conclusion:
I did enjoy it. I played previous game so long ago though that I did not understand many of the references to the previous game. But it's nice mix of action, light platforming and mining / resource collection. Not hard or stressful.

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Story:

Previous game ended when we killed some robot. In this game we control side kick from the first game. She's looking for Rusty, guy that get lost after events from the original game. World is shaken by earthquakes and only we can find their source and save everyone. Game has rather easy to predict plot twist.

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Gameplay:

💸 Microtranzactions	None	🏆 Achievements
📊 Performance	No issues	💾 Save system	No save system. When we die we return to the city and lose some of our resources. There are not checkpoints on the maps.

🌍 Map	No minimap. Menu map is nice and detailed, easy to navigate.
🎮 Controls	Just like in Trine 4. Nice and fluid. I did have some problem with wall jumping but mostly because I was used to different control scheme. So way wall jump works in this game feels bit counterproductive. But there are special moves that make it easier to move around. I never bothered to try and learn them, like ability to do higher jump up by carefully positioning ourselves under a platform and use grapple hook.
📇 Inventory	No real inventory. We have few slots where we keep resources that are mined. They file up quite fast so we need to upgrade slots in the base.
🏹 Weapons	Main weapon is a pick axe. Plus water gun that is normally used to demolish tiles far away from us. Game is not really combat focused so weapons are more like retrofitted mining equipment that can deal some damage.
🕵️‍♀️ Abilities	At the beginning we can jump and wall jump. There are upgrade stations scattered around the map where we can unlock new weapons that allow to destroy new tile type, use jet pack, sticky bombs etc. There is simple upgrade tree where we buy upgrades directly. Things like health, armor, more mineral slots, faster digging or more water capacity.
🤖 Companion and enemy AI	No companions. And enemies are quite dumb. They have limited number of moves and mostly depend on fact that we're not a combat robot. So we're quite squeamish. But it's not combat game like Hollow Knight. So it is well balanced. Enemies could not have any more fancy moves when game is not focused on combat at all.
🥊 Combat	It's really straightforward. Water that powers up water gun is too scarce to use it often. Main weapon is a pix axe used normally for mining. Combat basically boils down to approaching enemies and hitting them with axe before they can reiterate. There is one enemy type that can teleport around the map and this one requires to be chased. But otherwise it's literally wait for enemy to be turned around and hit it when it can't see us.

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Technicalities:

Graphic - ⭐️⭐⭐ - nice and detailed. Fits nicely into the style
Music - ⭐️⭐☆ - there is no voice acting. And sounds are really basic
Bugs - ⭐️⭐⭐ - I didn't encourage any

Activated: 12/2021

We Were Here Too (Q1 2018) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐☆

Beaten after: 1 month

Escape Room
3,8 hours | 20 of 20 (100.0%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good
- There is good progress in puzzle complexity and graphic between 1st and 2nd game in the series

The bad
- Some puzzles can randomly bug out and we don't know if we're missing something or room just bugged

Conclusion:
I didn't know "Escape Room" category exist in games. But it may quickly get to be my favorite genre if I find more good quality games. This game is not bad. But it's also not great. I did enjoy it thought and I am surprised how much they improved game concept in just a year between game release. I do have We Were Here Together and I will surely play it when I have some time. Game can be bit confusing so not best for kids. But adults that like to play together could surely try it.

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Story:

We're stuck in a castle and need to run away. The end. There is background that tells tale of a king that had a wife and kids. Won't say anything else as it's kind of spoilerish.

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Gameplay:

💸 Microtranzactions	None	🏆 Achievements	Easy but require to beat game twice. Once as observer and once as explorer.
📊 Performance	No issues	💾 Save system	Automatic save at the start of each room. Game is never really punishing for failing and dying.

🎮 Controls	They are better than in the first game. Feel more fluid and responsive. We can walk around, jump and interact with objects.
🤖 Companion and enemy AI	Companion AI depends on who you play with. So choose wisely :blobevil:

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Technicalities:

Graphic - ⭐️⭐☆ - It is better than in previous game but nothing extraordinary
Music - ⭐️⭐☆ - basic environmental sounds. Voice acting is all right
Bugs - ⭐️⭐☆ - There are some random bugs where it's not possible to interact with object or completing sequence doesn't trigger progress into next part of the puzzle. Restarting game solves the issue

Activated: 12/2021

Death'S Door (Q3 2021) ⭐️⭐⭐☆☆

Beaten after: 1 month

Action, Metroidvania
12 hours | 13 of 24 (54.0%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good
- Interesting setting
- Plot that is not obvious from the start
- Nice visual style

The bad
- Metroidvania game without map. I wasted so much time running in circles...
- True ending hidden behind grind
- Weapons don't feel that different especially between swords and hammer
- Enemies keep re-spawning and it doesn't feel like we kill them much faster with progress we make

Conclusion:
I'm kind of disappointed in this one. Lack of map made it confusing. Combat is really basic. And not much in terms of puzzles. Story was also forgettable.

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Story:

Death is gone and it's up to smol crows to take souls of the dead on the other side. They are immortal normally but can age during their missions. On our first assignment soul we're after is stolen, and without it crow can't end the contract. Without fulfilling the contract crow will keep getting older and eventually die. So our task is to find stolen soul and harvest it. There is some backstory how death was "killed", how crows were created etc. It is cute story but I did not find it particularly interesting.

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Gameplay:

💸 Microtranzactions	None	🏆 Achievements	Quite grindy as they require finding all collectibles in game where it's not marked on a map where we're missing something.
📊 Performance	No issues	💾 Save system	One autosave near the door leading to hub location. They aren't often so sometimes it's required to re-do longer part of the map few times if there is problematic point where we die.

🌍 Map	No map. Or minimap. This is stupid. I had to use maps online to be able to progress. Anyone with bad orientation will struggle in this game.
🎮 Controls	Responsive and fluid. Game is isometric and we can run around and climb. Not possible to jump. I found using bow (or magic / missiles) in general bit awkward with controller (have to press one button to aim and second to fire) and didn't use it much.
📇 Inventory	No inventory. Only thing we can change are the weapons but there is only 5 of them. Nothing is customizable.
🏹 Weapons	Kind of disappointing. We have 5 melee weapons (basic sword, daggers, hammer, bigger sword and fancy sword) + arrows, fire ball and bomb. Ranged weapons have low shot count (which is recharged when we attack enemies with a melee). And melee weapons don't really differ much. Sure, daggers will attack faster than hammer but it takes the same amount of hits to break a box with dagger or hammer (always two). Hammer attack animation is so slow we won't be able to hit enemy more than once in the enemy vulnerability window. While we can attack them 2 - 3 times with daggers and still have time to dodge. I just went with daggers as it's easier to dodge with them.
🕵️‍♀️ Abilities	No real abilities. We can use collected souls to buy multipliers to boost dodge speed or attack power but boosts are not big. So it doesn't feel like it's worth to grind for an update. As it's metroidvania parts of the map are locked behind unlockable ability - hook shot, flame arrows, bomb etc. Progression has good pace but as maps are small there aren't many places where they can branch and we'd need to use new ability.
🤖 Companion and enemy AI	Enemies are dumb. They will come to us in straight line and attack. They also feel copy pasted. No interesting attacks or move sequences. Bosses are somewhat better but there are only 4 of them in the game. No companions.
🥊 Combat	Under-deliver? Simple "wait for enemy to end attack, run towards, hit once or twice, repeat". No combos or special abilities that matter. I kind of expected combat with more tactical approach. Parrying enemy attacks to make opening, mix attacks to have combos or something. But it's simple button press with dodging. Plus dodge window is tiny.

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Technicalities:

Graphic - ⭐️⭐⭐ - Nice and detailed. Didn't see any blurry textures or graphical problems
Music - ⭐️⭐☆ - There is no voice over. And music is kind of basic
Bugs - ⭐️⭐⭐ - Didn't encourage anything worth mentioning

Heavy Rain was first game from Quantic I played, and now I regret I grabbed Beyond: Two Souls on the last sale. Didn’t really like this QTE simulator… let’s hope that Beyond will have less stiff controls and better facial animations, as it’s a newer game.

I had problems to play in co-op games since I moved. I thought it’s problem with Wi-Fi connection between my MOBO and router, or some software on my PC. But nope, it’s actually either shitty Virgin Mobile broadband router or connection in general. I get random 2 - 3s timeouts when I keep console pinging any IP. I don’t really see it when using the internet but it’s impossible to play online. Tethering internet when I play online from my phone solves the issue…

Also because there was some wind in UK (didn’t really notice where I worked or at home) they cancelled all trains in London. Everything. Both long distance and local trains were down. I mean sure, suspend them when wind was strongest between 11am and 2pm. But cancelling everything, when metro works normally? Like if they can’t cancel connections if there is something wrong on specific track after the storm. Especially that they run normal connections in the morning and there was no info that trains may be cancelled in the afternoon. So much problem to go back home yesterday…

Amazing UK and cancelled trains when there are leaves on the track in all it’s glory!

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