Finished in January (6-9)

Two games dropped, but I’m not going to return to them

• Monster Sanctuary
  

  46 hours playtime

  24 of 34 achievements

Monster Sanctuary

7/10

A Pokemon-like RPG mixed with metroidvania and some platforming (nothing crazy difficult). You are catching monsters, building your team and fighting 3x3 fights. The fights have some really cool mechanisms, like combo system, which are making them interesting. I was really enjoyng it, but it has some nasty difficulty spikes. I dropped it just before ending, I think I had like 3 bossfights left (ending is just boss after boss). The problem was, I had all of my base team maxed out, and the boss just DESTROYED me time after time. I could propably force it, if I find proper combination of monsters and items, but to be honest I was just tired.

• Dark Heritage: Guardians of Hope
  

  5 hours playtime

  8 of 25 achievements

Dark Heritage: Guardians of Hope

-/10

Yea, cool HOPA guys… I was playing for an hour (don’t look at my time here - I was idling for cards), and then game just didn’t unlock next cutscene. And according to forums - I did something in wrong order and should start again with a guide, to make sure that the game won’t break again. I have better things to do with my life, thank you. Especcially that it is not a great HOPA to begin with.

• Zniw Adventure
  

  6 hours playtime

  21 of 32 achievements

Zniw Adventure

8/10

What a nice little adventure game. I think it’s completely unknown, and it’s a shame, because it’s really quite good. It has this charm of old 2D adventure games, like Day of Tentacle or 2D Monkey islands… The characters are likeable, the art is good, the riddles are easy, but not to the point of being offencing. I think it’s also awesome game for kids.

• Masquerada: Songs and Shadows
  

  23 hours playtime

  22 of 27 achievements

Masquerada: Songs and Shadows

8/10

Ok, so this one is weird. It’s technically an RPG, but it’s really barebone. There is no inventory, no stats, you only have a sets of skills, you are picking 4 of them, and you can level up them in one of two ways. It is also EXTREMELY linear - I don’t think I had one choice in it. Forget about sidequests and grinding. The fighting system is OK - you have 3 party team, you are controlling one of the characters, but you can jump between them, the rest is controlled by AI, which is doing quite nice job, you also have active pause to plan your moves. It’s working fine. But, what really is selling this game is a story. After finishing it I feel like I just read a good fantasy book, with interesting world, good characters, engaging story. It remainded me a little of Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay, or Elantris by Brian Sanderson, not in terms of plot points, but because it’s this political and intrique heavy fantasy. Voice acting is also awesome, which is good, because there is A LOT of talking. All in all - great game, but don’t expect RPG in it.