My Pathfinder: Kingmaker tale began back in 2021. Some years removed, and about 35 hours of restarts and false progress, I finally managed to settle on a character with which to finish the game. Was it worth the wait? That remains to be uncovered. There are some widely accepted myths that have to be dispelled, though. Might even need Greater Dispel.

While you can spend a good while reading through all the dialog hyperlinks, great feature existing in modern CRPGs, the opening to Kingmaker lays out matters in rather straightforward fashion. Hopeful adventurers have answered the call of the kingdom of Brevoy and are now being officiated by Jamandi Aldori, a noblewoman setting them on their course of action – tame the territory of the Stolen Lands, claim it as your own and you’ll be named baron. After fending off the attack on the mansion where you’re housed, already exposing this won’t be so simple given the number of conflicting interests and region itself being a powder keg just waiting to explode, you gather your party and venture forth to the nearest place of civilization in the region where adventure and more awaits.

Keeping in mind this is a 100+ hours affair and above is merely the prologue I haven’t told you much at all. Game is an adaptation of a six-part Adventure Path series of books released for Pathfinder proper. How does it translate to game form? Well, while there is an overarching plot thread you’re looking at a sequence of individual stories that tend to hit differently. Early on you’re dealing with strange Trolls who can resist fire, but things eventually escalate as your barony grows in power to catch the eye of neighboring Pitax where you’ll have to deal with dangers of civilization instead. What I’m trying to say is individual chapters are not exactly even and transitions were abrupt for my taste..

This is a CRPG which guarantees heavy emphasis on written text. Even more so given the scope/scale of Kingmaker on top of the kingdom management aspect. I’ll get into it, I promise. There’s definitely bloat here that could’ve been excised. Level of writing quality mirrors the unevenness of individual chapters. I’d overall put it into “decent” category as it tries to do too much tonally. There are rare standout moments, like when a particular slimy diplomat gives you honest advice in his own roundabout way, but when drama mattered I was rarely moved. Planescape: Torment this is not, but is that a prerequisite for a game to be enjoyable?

Lastly there’s one topic to deal with in the narrative department - characters. You’re working with an entire kingdom and cast of characters keeps growing. How are the companions, though? I’d say a balanced mix of special snowflakes and down-to-earth regulars. From your stalwart Valerie, a middling fighter because of her build, to a Goblin murder ball that is Nok-Nok they come in all varieties. Personally, I ended up caring more for combat and Kingdom roles they can fill over their largely archetypal personalities. Needless to say there are personal quests to tackle with actual consequences to be had. Let’s just say Pathfinder: Kingmaker has one of the longest end slideshows as it goes into how all companions fared after the finale. My favorites? Easily Ekundayo, Non-Nok and Jubilost with their brands of murder and mayhem.

There are two pillars in Kingmaker and while they’re not exactly equal latter can still end your game if you’re not careful. I am talking about your customary isometric adventuring, but also the Kingdom mode. Maligned by many and for the most part beloved by me after getting into the groove of things.

For you see, there are in-game TIME LIMITS on chapters that affect both modes of play. This is where I have to ask you all to put down pitchforks and torches so I can cast that Greater Dispel. One of the great misconceptions Kingmaker suffers from is people assuming this time limit has major detrimental effect on the experience. Seeing as I’m fresh from finishing the game it’s a non-issue provided you go about it reasonably. This means learn your ruleset and like with every RNG system you rig the odds in your favor. Since so much can be mitigated with good dice rolls you quickly learn direct healing takes a backseat to buffing your party instead. Or you don’t, and opt to camp after every encounter wasting a full rest. In reality it’s the overland travel that will consume most of your time. Invest in arcane so you can put down those teleportation circles in your towns and eat food that increases your movement speed. Even with all that in mind I can assure you you’ll end up with days to spare doing nothing in both adventure and Kingdom mode. With that tangent done, time to move on...

To the bread and butter of the adventure mode segment. Owlcat did do us a solid by patching in a turn-based mode as alternative to real-time with pause the game launched with. I prefer turn-based and only occasionally switched to deal with trash encounters. If you’ve played other CRPGs you’ll recognize the offering at hand - six-man party, fully craftable protagonist and bonus option of hiring just as customizable mercenaries in case you don’t like any of the companions. One of the biggest draw of the game is the munchkin aspect. Ever wanted to create that perfect character that dips levels into half dozen classes for the bonuses? Well, now you can. Or don’t. I’ve played on Normal difficulty, which is admittedly still a bit gimped, and single class playthrough with stock companions worked just fine. There were annoyances in the last two chapters as I didn’t like certain Fey enemies game throws at you, but no bosses or earlier encounters posed any danger for my smug Sylvan Sorcerer and his cohorts. You get the full stretch of experience from level 1 to 20 so keep that in mind with the armory of equipment you’ll acquire along the way.

There are issues here and I can’t attribute them all to Unity Engine. Some like frequent loading screens becoming longer I absolutely can, as well as camera spazzing out, but what actually got on my nerves was turn-based combat locking up necessitating a switch to RTwP so it can reset. This seemed to occur more as number of combatants grew. There are also “problems” that stem from Owlcat’s design decisions. They like to pepper regions with locations that are way about your expected CR (challenge rating) turning them into traps unless you paid attention to locale descriptions or environmental clues. Sometimes they just get you.

I’ve delayed talking about the Kingdom management for too long already so let’s get to it. Needless to say you succeed and claim Stolen Lands which in turn makes you a baron. Well, you gain access to another mode usable from your throne room and to limited degree on the overland map. First, you get to assign advisors and these can be your companions or other key characters you recruit along the way. They handle problems, opportunities, research, advancements, etc. in their own flavor. Each of these takes fixed amount of time to resolve, once again feeding into the timed aspect, and BP (build points) to get started. You acquire those on weekly basis based on myriad of actors such as your advisor’s proficiency level, kingdom’s stats centered around economy primarily, and also buildings you’ve build in towns. Yes, plural. You start with your capital, but will with time acquire other regions in Stolen Lands which bring their own events, place to build new settlements and benefits of adventuring on “home turf”.

Kingdom mode is the actual big picture where not only events from adventuring bear fruit, but also where major decisions are made that will impact your game dozens of hours later. Your main character’s alignment is key aspect in how your kingdom shapes based on choices. I could not shake the feeling a Lawful Charismatic is the way to go if you wanted optimal outcomes, though. I haven’t tried it myself, as any possibility of replaying a game this massive is far in the future, but Chaotic kingdom with a trickster ruler would be amusing. Some of the decisions you can make are, well, companion leaving your party worthy. At the end of the day I really ended up liking the Kingdom mode. There is that initial helplessness while you’re struggling to piece it together, but sometime during chapter 2 it clicked for me. Do NOT ignore crisis or they’ll fester and be the cause of constant penalties to Kingdom’s stats. This is the sort of game where you want to tackle the main story first and then do everything else in the leftover time.

Now is where I’d say more about combat if it wasn’t an adaptation of the ruleset. Provided you’re a complete newcomer with no D&D or Pathfinder experience you’re in for a learning cliff. Thankfully, Kingmaker has a vast encyclopedia and glossary for you to reference, not to mention those aforementioned hyperlinks are used for not only lore dumps but also to break down formulas. You can see plainly what goes into your attack vs enemy’s defense, and change something to alter it. Buffs. Answer is almost always more buffs. Even this is not such a consternation on normal difficulty, though. Haste, Prayer, Blessing, and True Sights should be your general go-to spells.

On the production side this is fairly impressive given the fact game was at least partially Kickstarted. Yes, you’ll notice certain small areas get re-used, but this is also a game that has a time system, weather and seasons included. Definitely punching above the belt considering chapters take you to various locales. I wish the soundtrack had more standout tracks, though. Main theme and final boss showdown track embody that bombastic CRPG glory perfectly. I’ve also I played all three major DLC and reviewed them HERE, HERE, and HERE so as not to clog up this already overly long reviews. Give ‘em a read.

Final Thoughts and Rating?

Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a CRPG of truly enormous scale, one where your hopeful adventurer ends up claiming the Stolen Lands and becoming a baron in their own right. What follows is turn-based/real-time with pause affair as your barony ends up dealing with various crisis. At times buckling under the weight of Unity Engine and Owlcat’s own design choices, there is nothing alike from other developers. Kingdom mode is divisive, as is the largely misunderstood timed nature of the game, but both can be tamed leaving only the layered complexities of the Pathfinder ruleset to contend with. New players should arm themselves with willingness to learn and for the veterans there has never been a greater opportunity to build that character you wanted. Kingmaker has its audience, are you among them?

It's interesting when you accidentally stumble upon a representative from games you're not that well-versed at. That was Chronos: Before the Ashes and how it just might be a gateway title of choice into Souls-likes. Rough around the edges and very compact in scope, but a decent appetizer to see if this sort of thing appeals to you.

As apparently seems to be the norm in the parts, game intentionally keeps things vague. What opens on some sort of shaman narrating about their people and lifelong goal to defeat the dragon in ritualistic manner around a campfire leads to our protagonist, male or female, waking up on a shore next to a decidedly very not-fantasy laboratory. Or so you think until you see a big red crystal floating about. Touching it transports you to some sort of fantasy land where they're used as transportation devices. Needless to say there's a connection here as you find notes and scant few non-hostile individuals willing to share their thoughts on the matter. Knowing little you buckle up and continue your quest...

There are couple of things worth noting here.

First is Chronos' gimmick - every time you die, you age a year. Aside from getting a perk every decade, your stat growth which you CAN manually adjust with points on each level up, apparently inclines away from physical prowess as you get older. I couldn't confirm this seeing as I finished the game at 35 and could have probably shaved ten years from that provided I wasn't as greedy or prone to rolling off dangerous high places. Further differences from similar titles would be absence of some ephemeral currency you lose on death so you want to recover it and ability to continue your game precisely where you quit from. Transportation stones pull double duty as checkpoints in case you do die and enemies respawn, however. If there's no currency to speak then what's progression like beyond allocating stats on level up? Well, you find weapons and better shields over your journey and former can then be upgraded via shards. Better start praying to RNG gods because those drop randomly from enemies. No new armor sets are to be found so better get comfortable with your green tunic and red scarf. At least there's enough weapons of slow and light inclination.

I already mentioned it in the opening, but this is a short game. This translates into making every area and enemy type count, of which there's a decent offering. Most features present will be well established to anyone remotely familiar with these games so I'll just briefly list them; light and heavy attack, block and parry, very few healing items replenished on death, generally deadly enemies that can do you in, etc. One neat addition I liked are four magical stones you come across that unleash a special ability when the bar is full. Said bar gets fuller faster the better you are at playing the game aka time you parries and evades or press the attack. Just one can be equipped at a time which mitigates the fact the very last one lets you siphon health when dealing damage effectively sidestepping the healing item limitation.

Are there negatives to Chronos: Before the Ashes or am I just waxing poetically here? Depending on how you look at it, but you could argue a lot we take for granted is off to some degree. Your movement is clunky and deliberate leading to many situations where overextending yourself with just that one more attack can end poorly. There's enough annoying enemy types to become noticeable the further you get. Heavily-shielded types are especially excruciating as I can see someone playing with slow weapons just giving up. Although not an issue personally, but there are light puzzles in the game that could be frustrating to someone looking for a more straightforward action game. Some are "take object to the next room" and yet some will have you matching patterns or connecting beginning/end points with lines.

My final recommendation is wary, but positive. Unless you're more experienced with Souls-likes in which case this just might be an awkwardly executed first effort.

I'll cut the usual preamble short and just say if you're familiar with the Telltale formula you already have an opinion on Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy The Telltale Series. In a general sense, at least. What I will get into is where the game stands in relation to established framework, other Telltale titles and should you bother.

Following the Guardians of the Galaxy, as lead by Peter Quill aka. Star-Lord to, well, whoever bothers to remember his moniker, we start with a rather peculiar premise - Guardians defeat Thanos the Mad Titan. Yes, THAT purple raisin guy. Just before they kill him our big bad seems to have had a stroke of luck by finding the Eternity Forge, some sort of artifact the gang then takes since it seemed to be so important to a galactic-level threat. After the Guardians are done celebrating their victory and deciding who they're going to sell Thanos' body to, to pay off their bar tab, true power of the Eternity Forge is revealed for it can bring dead people back to life. Bad news? Well, it's a double whammy as Peter dies before being resurrected, emotionally damaging his already unstable team in the process and Hala the Accuser waylays the group determined to take the artifact and restore Kree empire. In the background of all this Peter is getting weird visions of his deceased mother that don't exactly match his memories of her...

It's possible marginally more cohesiveness went into writing this game as compared to most of Telltale's efforts which they penned on episode-by-episode basis, and usually to the detriment of the story. That's not to say all five episodes were created equal. Far from it, actually. Game left a negative impression on me until it was salvaged by the last two episodes. Ironically, it was not the humor Guardians of the Galaxy is known for or soundtrack choices which largely fell flat, but instead some genuinely touching scenes that ended up selling the game to me. I'm not sure what that says about your project when it mostly comes across as knock-off Tales from the Borderlands which preceded it.

Looking at characters themselves they don't exactly go beyond their already established personalities you may be familiar with from the movies, but I like how you can actually talk to them. Gives your crew more room to breathe even if some like Drax can quickly wear out their novelty given time to do so, for example. Seeing some of their memories as you progress through the episodes and revealing their true selves behind posturing and bravado was the highlight of the game for me. It would've been nice to see more of that rather than how many quips a minute writers can cram in. I guess that comes with the property and refusal to upset the status quo, though.

Gameplay-wise? I'd have to refer you to the opening paragraph. Appropriately enough, QTE-driven action scenes take the form of all Guardians of the Galaxy fighting as a team rather than you controlling Star-Lord and others getting relegated to the background. What little else you'll be doing is holding forward/occasional lazy input and making sure to pick those correct dialog options because "the story is tailored by how you play" although we can debate all day long how true that actually is. I did notice some potential major forks later on, but given A) this is a licensed property and B) Telltale scripts don't REALLY do such major departures, I would guess they all converge sooner rather than later.

So Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy The Telltale Series still gets a recommendation after all that? I changed my mind as I played and not even the incredibly naive finale managed to sour it. At the end of the day this is a high adventure in space with a band of misfits who have to learn to live together while risking their lives guarding said galaxy. Not necessarily the best use of the license, but if Telltale games are already your drug of choice go for it.

I wouldn't really call Coffee Talk a coffeehouse simulator so much as relationship counseling center, but both aspects have their charm even in their uneven nature.

You play as the barista running the eponymous place special for one thing - it's a coffee shop open only at night. As your regular Freya points out this means you don't make nearly as much money as you could, but you don't seem to mind. Playful jabs imply you're loaded. Speaking of Freya she's the first character you see and one who will frequent the shop on nightly basis. Highly energetic freelance writer of short fiction for the local newspaper her potential developments in career prospects spark the premise for the game. You see, she's been approached with an idea of writing a novel. What's her pitch? To use stories, identity protection enabled, she hears at the coffee shop for inspiration. After acquiring tentative agreement on your part begin two weeks of customers visiting with their dramas, story arcs and orders to brew.

Coffee Talk is a straightforward game with not much to comment regarding the GAME department. Boiled down to basics it follows a simple loop of "customer enters, says what they want to drink and you use a combination of three ingredients out of nine to create the drink". Putting it that way is incredibly impersonal, though. You don't start with all the ingredients at first and I was stumped couple of times. Sure, customers generally give you clear instructions, but from time to time they themselves are unclear on what to order or give you vague instructions. Keeping in mind you can cancel five orders per-day this isn't really an issue so experiment away. After you finish the Story mode you unlock Endless mode in case you want to spend more time brewing.

Narrative department, however, is where the game truly shines and is carried by character writing. There's no main story per se since you're a barista watching things unfold on the other end. Freya is your constant, and I was surprised the game included her new fiction pieces as days went on, but it's all the others who are sources of stories. Did I forget to mention this is a fantasy world set in the equivalent of 2020? Well, I just did. This translates to odd pairings like a vampire model and werewolf hospital admin with their shared history, or an unlikely partnership between a half-orc and mermaid game developers [maybe] blossoming into something more. A lot of topics are touched upon usually mirroring real life struggles. Classism, racism, and just people being people. Fantasy element adds extra angles to familiar issues. Ultimately, game rides or dies based on how much you care about the characters and I largely did. Gala, wise and collected werewolf, was probably my favorite with the impression he leaves on other character(s) with his words.

Easiest way to think about Coffee Talk is to imagine a VN with pixel graphics and rudimentary potion mixing. If you're interested do check out the Workshop as there are mods adding full voice acting to the game.

Historical RPGs are a rare breed, especially if they go beyond the well-trodden territory. The Thaumaturge stands as an exception given both its setting and mixing it with the supernatural elements. Did you ever want to capture Slavic Pokemon and celebrate the affair with some vodka? Here we go.

Year is 1905 and we see a weary man step off a train somewhere in the Caucasus mountains. His name is Wiktor Szulski and he’s come seeking help. Dealing with a certain situation in the village he finds Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin and this is where we finally discover who our protagonist actually is – a Thaumaturge. Derisively referred to as wizards, witches, and all other terms they are individual with supernaturals abilities to find and “tame” mythical Salutors who are, in turn, attracted to flaws in people. Wiktor has seemingly lost connection to his talent and Rasputin manages to restore the psychic link while also himself becoming fascinated by how this procedure works. Now owing a debt to the eccentric mystic, Wiktor accepts his company having received news via telegram that his father has died. Catching the train back to Warsaw our unlikely duo is entirely unprepared for what is about to transpire.

I’ll get into it later on with some gameplay points, but I would say as far as RPGs go The Thaumaturge definitely falls more on the narrative side of things. Which is good when you look at what it has to offer. As much as the core thread of the story revolves around our protagonist and his sister Ligia sorting out the legacy their father now left in their care, game is in equal part about the state of pre-WW1 Kingdom of Poland. If we’re talking genuine diversity this is how you tackle the subject – there’s so much going on along cultural, religious and ethnic lines that’s firmly in the background. Someone with familiarity from the region would likely get more from plethora of information developers put in than I did, but it was still a tremendous effort adding identity to the game. With the supernatural element it falls into historical fiction looking at a narrow period slice.

Which, in turn, saddens me to say the storytelling fell a bit flat. Or rather, there aren’t many highs and lows which would stand out to the player. Whether you’re resolving a serial killer case on the waterfront or mingling among the nobility looking to snag a new Salutor the package is just SOLID all-around. That sounds like a weird critique, but I can’t put it into words better. Action you get is reserved for combat bits and dialog gets to call the shots for decisions. Dramatic moments like using your Dimension Force aka Witcher Signs to affect events are spread out scarcely enough to stand out, maybe? Perhaps it’s down to English localization with its subdued, down-to-earth performances that it all comes across as somewhat mundane? Maybe it’s just me.

Characters also get some of the aforementioned blow back. I would say key players; Wiktor, Ligia, your childhood friend Abaurycy, father’s acquaintances and enemies, etc. get enough attention, but you’ll have to dig in order to find more than surface level. This is not your typical RPG where characters spout their backstories at the drop of a hat. Keep in mind Wiktor also hasn’t been to Warsaw in 15 years since his father sent him packing to Paris. This ties in with Abaurycy who was easily my favorite character. Possibly because his overacting was incredibly refreshing compared to everyone’s dour and serious deliveries. It’s a shame game takes a bit too long to divulge some information regarding relationships that would have actually had higher impact were the player informed earlier. I was surprised by how long it took me to actually GET Wiktor as a person because he presents himself as this phlegmatic individual. Everyone’s favorite royal advisor has a role to play and it was interesting to see him in those pre-Romanov days.

In terms of major gameplay systems there’s a few at work in The Thaumaturge.

First would have to be investigations aka using your Thaumaturge Vision, lest someone sues saying it’s Batman Vision, to find various clues which our protagonist will then piece together and give you a Conclusion. You’ll want to find all of them not only because they unlock dialog choices and make optional stories available, but also because they net you experience individually. You’ll need that to upgrade your Dimension Forces aka Word, Heart, Deed and Mind. What’s the catch? Well, clues have Dimension Force requirements before you can uncover them. Coming from someone who spread out his points evenly throughout the game I never had issues with the system. Yes, it means I didn’t max out any of the four. I appreciate writers going the extra mile and giving all clues little write-ups that make it worthwhile to pause and pay attention.

Second and third are two sides of the same coin since they both benefit from all the investigative work you’ll put in: dialog and combat.

Conclusions you uncover will be used in pertinent conversations as newly unlocked options + Dimension Force levels you’ve invested in also open more choices. In classical RPG fashion there will be mutually exclusive choices, ones where your morality is tested and even a few where your choices come and bite you back 15+ hours later. I mentioned it in the opening but Salutors are drawn to flaws in people. In turn, this means Thaumaturges themselves possess a flaw as well with Wiktor’s being Arrogance. Playing into it or choosing not to also becomes a factor in the story as it advances. Did I forget to mention whenever you acquire a Salutor you must also accept the flaw it comes with?

Which leads me to combat. Once again, investing in Dimension Forces unlocks new attacks and upgrades for those attacks for this is a turn-based RPG. One where you have clear order of action visible so altering it by disrupting enemies or making yourself faster is always tempting. When you boil it Wiktor only has four attacks + Strong one which you can only use when you’ve broken enemy’s focus. You’re usually choosing whether to damage health directly or bide your time for the “limit break” attack. Expanding your Salutor stable is where the real variety comes from. Keeping in mind you’ll always control Wiktor, with the occasional guest character you have no input over, your mythical Salutor is the only second party member you can count on. Each brings their own set of abilities, alongside a finisher move, and you bring them all into every battle with full freedom to rotate them in and out.

Harsh reality check? You’ve probably spent more time reading these paragraphs than you’ll have to weigh your tactics. On normal difficulty game is too easy as long as you’re using Salutors to cancel out enemy advantages as intended. I died precisely once at the very end when there was an additional wave of enemies I did not anticipate. Dimension Force Heart is important because it determines your health, but lack of conventional levels and in-combat healing methods mean you can win out by taking your time. I dread to even consider it, but some kind of turn limit may have drastically upped the stakes.

So how to conclude this overview of The Thaumaturge? It’s a game you can definitely tell developers poured their soul in. All those character and location entries in your journal could have just been horrendously modern database points, but there’s flavor text and honest to god artwork to each of them. An RPG that simultaneously makes me yearn for more, wondering how are Thaumaturges seen in the rest of the world, but also realize it’s a specimen that would probably lose freshness in a sequel. Especially considering some of the endings I went back and replayed to see. I could also do without UE5 shenanigans that made my GPU fans sound like they’re about to take off.

Final Thoughts and Rating?

The Thaumaturge is simply a solid turn-based RPG that came so close to being a very good one. Taking place in turn of the century Warsaw, Poland we step into the role of Wiktor Szulski who has only recently returned to his troubled city having befriended a certain Rasputin. Taming and controlling mythological figures called Salutors, he now has to contend with matters left behind by a recently deceased father as well as city crying out on the cusp of WW1. Gather the clues, tame more Salutors and embrace your flaws, expand your combat abilities to deal with… well, a rather easy game. I do wish storytelling was a bit stronger and more focused considering multiple endings involved. Maybe some of it got lost in localization considering this comes across as historical fiction centered on Poland.

Perhaps revealing my age here, but what can you say about South Park that hasn’t already been said over these 25+ years it’s been airing? Well, South Park: The Stick of Truth is most definitely a valiant effort to marry that signature offensive humor and RPG mechanics with a single question hanging in the air – did it work?

Assuming you know nothing about South Park at large, game starts with Cartman narrating events surrounding the epic war between humans and elves fighting over the eponymous Stick of Truth. Wielding the artifact bestows ultimate power in the kids’ game of play pretend. With that context we create our protagonist, nicknamed the New Kid, and following some shady backstory by his maybe parents as to why they had to secretly move to South Park we come across another fellow from Cartman’s group. This kid is Butters and he proudly proclaims he’s a Paladin before taking you to KKK. That is, Kingdom of Kupa Keep where Cartman, resident Grand Wizard, and others now dub you “Douchebag” and think you can conveniently tip the war in humans’ favor. After all, you seem to have an uncanny knack for making Facebook friends...

What the Stick of Truth is at its core, embodying both a major selling point and valid deterrent against trying the game, is being South Park: the Game. Coming across as dozen episodes crammed into arc-based narrative vehicle, what we get is all the vulgar humor and shock value you could ask for. I don’t think the license ever came this close to letting you play IN South Park and having that original character only adds to the experience. Sure, this leads to lack of coherency as one minute you’re busting out your LARP group’s best warrior out of school detention and some hours later you’re dealing with Nazi Zombies, and yet such absurdity not only works in the context of South Park but is also enabled by kids letting their imagination run wild. On the flip-side there’s the unavoidable inequality of content. This tends to be the case when you have arc-based stories, but not even being self-referential gets them out of jail. Enlisting the Girls faction was both excruciating busy work and funny, though.

Bonkers scenarios and general absurdity carry a lot of the game and yet it’s those familiar character who seal the deal. I won’t summarize in detail beyond saying they’re replicated accurately, but sociopath Cartman who fancies himself the mastermind manipulator ends up being the mover and shaker for most of the game when he’s not teaching you, well, fart magic. By all accounts the Elven Kingdom lead by Kyle are the better adjusted ones in this game of “who gets to control the wooden stick” with the New Kid simply ending up with KKK by happenstance. Your Companions are filled by series’ main cast, from sensible Stan to now cross-dressing Kenny, who even beyond critical story points get to chime in with their comments. Game being written by creators’ themselves makes it crystal clear there is no distinction to be made here.

Before I start yammering on about, you know, all the GAMEPLAY stuff, one point bears repeating – this is South Park. It’s offensive to the extreme, and if you’re unfamiliar it might take you aback before tickling you with a purple dildo. I don’t mean just that you can choose a Jew as your class, but there’s also a lot of touchy subjects being broached here with all the nuance and sensibility you can expect from a show that has a singing turd living in the sewers.

If the first half South Park: The Stick of Truth happens to be authenticity befitting the license, as provided by two creators themselves being heavily involved, then the other half has to be the RPG one as delivered by Obsidian Entertainment. Already known for developing buggy, but cult classic titles this one came out of the left field for many players. Why? Two reasons, really – drawing from JRPG traditions of Super Mario RPG title(s) and releasing in a polished state hitherto unseen from their studio. Hmmm, makes you think.

Latter I can’t say much about beyond congratulating on a job well done, but former I can and should discuss about for a bit.

You do get to fiddle around with equipment and skills more than you usually do in JRPGs, but this IS one wearing the guise of an established property. Turn-based combat featuring the New Kid + another companion on a separate battle screen with fixed positions attests to that. If you have any further doubts the protagonist can optionally acquire Summon-equivalents for massive damage. Why did I bring up Super Mario RPG earlier, though? Because almost everything you do in combat, short of using items as far as I can remember, requires some sort of action input. Yes, you’re not going to sit back and watch pretty animations play out passively. From pushing a button when objects highlight, mash buttons to deliver fire farts, give directional inputs for your assassin brothers to strike from the shadows or simply time shields correctly to block damage. This is non-negotiable as game doesn’t treat it as something optional. If there’s a silver lining here it’s that actions themselves are not too difficult or involved. What few I failed I did so because the element of surprise got me. Since we’re on the combat there’s a surprisingly amount of variety here from both damage types to enemy types. Mana is your farts energy used to cast “spells”, btw. Similar to equipment you’ll get your grubby paws on, it all seems overwhelming at first, but you don’t have to engage with the systems on some intimate level to advance.

You’re not just doing combat, though. You have to run into those enemies first and you’ll be doing that on interconnected screens in a somewhat condensed town of South Park. 2D nature of the game still allows some foreground and background action as you slip between the two to find all the chests and collectibles tucked away. It’s actually impressive they managed to cram just enough out-of-combat abilities for a 12-15 hour game so you want to re-visit locations to explore them fully. Handy fast travel, map and CHEST MARKERS also help. On top of typical leveling you’ll get perks based on how many people you’ve befriended on totally-not-Facebook. Add equipment to the mix, of which weapon damage is the hard determinant you want to go for and armor is entirely up to you, with some add-on modifiers and there’s just enough elements to engage with on every level of the game. If you want your Douchebag to looks a specific way there are customization slots like hair styles and accessories. Provided you don’t there’s a way too many armor sets which lead me to go through unsortable inventory after major milestones. One thing this game sorely misses.

Visually I think I’ve said everything already in that it’s really obvious – this game is South Park presentation-wise. Art style is attentively recreated down to there not being any jarring moments when you see 3D intruding. VA cast is here to bring characters to life and even their fantasy LARP re-designs all look great. I wish the four farts you get masquerading as spells were more distinct visually, but hey. There’s a surprising amount of achievements related to farts if you’re going for those.

Final Thoughts and Rating?

Effectively a turn-based JRPG with action commands doing tremendous fan service to the license it’s based on, South Park: The Stick of Truth is exactly what it says on the tin. Creating a protagonist and choosing a class, going with Jew gets some extra interactions, lands you in a South Park LARP scene as humans lead by Cartman are facing off against elves for the eponymous stick. In good old tradition of the show you can expect absolutely bizarre scenarios like raiding the Unplanned Parenthood clinic, vulgar humor taking no hostages and even the New Kid’s own sordid backstory. In all ways that matter you already know if you’re going to like this game or steer clear. As far as my opinion goes: it’s an amusing JRPG with just enough elements to be engaging, not overstay its welcome and SPARKLE.

I’ve found it increasingly difficult to talk about stealth games. What’s the point? People who know, know. Then you have games like A Plague Tale: Innocence which definitely aims to cast the net wider than just your skulkers in the dark audience. Does it succeed, though?

What begins with a teenager accompanying her father on make-belief hero’s quest quickly turns into a nightmare set in rural France during the 14th century. Amicia de Rune, a noble tomboy, quickly finds herself without mother and father as armed men invade their estate leaving only carnage in their wake. Sole objective remaining to find her five year old brother Hugo and take him to an alchemist as directed by her mother. Why? Well, Amicia hasn’t seen much of Hugo on account of his sickly nature confining him to his room and their mother’s mysterious healing seems to have been the only remedy for his condition. With no one else left it falls on our heroine to reach the nearby village, find alchemist Laurentius and get him to continue the treatments. However, in the shadows of it all, a mysterious plague is starting to spread with Hugo seemingly playing a pivotal role.

One thing I really like about the narrative is just how much gravitas there is to events transpiring. That’s not to say Amicia or Hugo are above humor, especially as they both change, but with ever-escalating stakes this is a story where what appear to be the End Times get the warranted treatment. Even while we don’t know exactly what’s going on until a good halfway point we have an established antagonist to hate from early on. It’s equally pertinent to character development since Amicia especially gets more than her fair share, but our protagonists have their hand forced more than once before the story’s over when it comes to moral event horizons. Sometimes you have to kill to survive.

Despite having a small cast of characters I was disappointed more of them didn’t get additional attention.

Beyond our immediate siblings, who go from a somewhat rebellious teenager learning what it’s like to be a real big sister and, well, a five year old coping with matters far beyond what he should be worrying about, it’s the resident alchemist-in-training Lucas who sees the most nuance. Probably because he’s the first “sidekick” introduced and finds himself in awkward situations out of his depth. There’s a particular oddly humorous cart-pushing scene that gets a callback by a different character towards the end of the game, Rodrick the smith in this case, but plays out to a drastically different outcome. There are also the thieving twins who end up saving Amicia’s life and vice versa, but one is essentially a YEAH, GIRL POWER and other joins the group too late to matter significantly. I’ve already hinted at the fact, but the real antagonist of the piece takes a good while to reveal himself and never really builds upon the connection he has with Hugo. Or rather, one he develops.

In most stealth games it is extremely advantageous to find yourself breathing down your enemy’s neck because that means you can initialize the desired takedown. Well, in A Plague Tale: Innocence that’s bad news because Amicia doesn’t have melee to begin with. From the tutorial game establishes slingshot is your weapon of choice and that never changes throughout the game. You get your pick when it comes to different ammo types, be it regular stones to fire-starters and helmet-melting alchemist concoctions, but you ALWAYS want to maintain distance and distract enemies with sounds. Light sources also play a role, albeit somewhat lesser until the secret is finally out of the bag and you have to contend with rat swarms since light is the only thing they avoid. This results in guards also carrying torches… and Amicia conveniently has tools to extinguish fires from afar.

Final results are these rather confined zones clearly meant to funnel you from A to B using whatever latest gadget you now have access to, but near the end of the game you are given more leeway in how to go about clearing levels. Keeping in mind there’s a somewhat tacked-on upgrade system, with only few truly altering upgrades like ability to fire off two shots before restringing, and that your craftable ammo types draw from the same pool of crafting materiel, you’ll be spending quite a decent chunk of time scrounging looking for ingredients. I did this more because I wanted to rather than being compelled, however. If you end up relying on certain mixtures that can A) protect from an enemy about to stab you or B) easily clear a large area of rats, you’ll run into serious rationing issues and could hamper your upgrades.

With all of the above does the game deviate from stealth norms? I wouldn’t say so. Inability to do direct confrontation means you’ll value those few levels Rodrick is with you, for example, since he can get up close and personal to snap necks. Most of the time you’re throwing pots to distract enemies, using your slingshot to headshot strays and navigating your way around rats. Much, much later you become the real menace to everyone else due to a unique ability unlock, but that happens so late it feels like a welcome reprieve from skulking around for so long. I just wish levels were more than pretty-looking corridors made only further obvious by levels set in the countryside when you can go off the rails and show your kid brother some frogs.

In terms of problems there’s one that stands out for me in A Plague Tale: Innocence – escalation of events and desire to have setpiece moments, not to mention couple of boss fights, really ends up conflicting with core designs of the game. I can’t got into it clearly due to spoilers, but this is a game designed to be somewhat slow on moment-to-moment level as you’re darting between torchlights and wondering just how much resources to spend to get past those two armored guards blocking the way. Not watch a henchman get covered by rats only to ignite his sword and chase after you, or to handle 5+ enemies with headshots while covering your ally. Systems in the game aren’t built for such snappy reactions and you’ll feel the sluggishness. My only deaths came from rats acting unpredictably and those tense action scenes when experience just wasn’t on the level established up to that point.

Lastly, all I can say about production is the game looks and sounds gorgeous. Character models are probably the weakest aspect which isn’t saying much considering game makes terrific use of lighting, ambient and otherwise. One of the benefits of employing darkness and gloomy atmosphere, I suppose. Soundtrack and voice performances especially stood out. Strings, give me more strings. I vividly remember one scene when our assembled group decides they now have the weapon and it’s time to take the fight to the Inquisition they’ve been running away from the entire game. And then everything clicks. Now that I think about it the soundtrack ends up highlighting so many key aspects of the game. From locations to events and big character moments.

Final Thoughts and Rating?

Stealth adventure with aspirations to be more, I think A Plague Tale: Innocence could’ve dropped some of those “more” aspects and it would’ve resulted in better overall package. Amicia de Rune has to save her brother Hugo amidst what appears to be plague in the 14th century France, and this five year old is somehow linked to it all. Escaping the Inquisition you must master your slingshot, scavenge for material to craft ammo and upgrades, all the while avoiding the ever-growing rat swarms as well as guards. Game takes a while to truly give you the freedom to use all the tools at your disposal and towards the end stealth seems to suffer at the altar of action and highly produced set piece these systems weren’t exactly built for. Older sister learns what it truly means to be one.

Game I've been meaning to play since it came out originally, then postponed checking it out until the Switch release and only now three years removed have I sat down and played through 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. Surprisingly, I managed to last all that time without getting myself spoiled so expect the same from this review in case you want to check it out for yourself. It was definitely worth the wait.

Game opens bombastically as a teenage girl amidst the panicked mass summons this giant robot called Sentinel out of thin air and not long after gets thrust into battle. Girl is Iori and she's quickly joined by her classmate Juro with his own Sentinel to fight these mechanical Kaiju destroying their city. Guided by a mysterious voice our pair makes it through only to end up in an even worse place – a 1985 high-school where everything is normal with no ruins in sight. Fast forward and we now see a military youth who appears to be chasing after a girl... in 1944. Something impossible involving blue lights happens and Hijiyama is now living with this not-exactly girl out of an abandoned warehouse in 1985. Just to make things confusing even further this is followed up by yet another battle scenario where our boy is inside a Sentinel of his own. How many of these are out there?

If the above came across as scatter brained that's because 13 Sentinels chose the most ungrateful premise as its core tenet. What would be even more difficult to write than tackling something traditionally seen as challenging like time travel? To approach it with an ensemble cast of THIRTEEN (13) characters, of course. Each of them gets a prologue section intersected with five battle scenarios which culminate in the beginning of The Final Battle. I'll get into it more when I tackle the actual strategy tower defense mode, but there are three modes in the game: Destruction, Remembrance and Analysis. Remembrance is aptly named as that's the majority of the game with characters going through storylines and events that actually lead to the Final Battle itself. Analysis mode keeps track of all events and so-called Mystery Files you can unlock to get greater understanding of what's transpiring.

I want to make something crystal clear so you don't go into the game with misplaced expectations. This is NOT a puzzle game where you'll be expected to solve anything on your own – there are no items to combine and correct action is never beyond your Thought Cloud which acts as inventory and journal in one. Real mystery of 13 Sentinels comes from myriads of perspectives, bite-sized nuggets of information and sheer layers of complexity. You're playing for the story, which I've only scratched in the opening as bait for potential players, and characters who are themselves piecing it all together. I did have fun trying to figure out just what is going on before the game gives you enough pieces to pull the rug from under you with revelation after revelation. Don't be afraid you'll be left in the dark if mysteries are not your forte because game will explain everything rather too neatly towards the end. Perhaps some ambiguity would've helped, but so much of the narrative hinges on crucial information you cannot leave to player's imagination.

If extensive story development is one half of the narrative black then 13 Sentinels' characters are most certainly the other, and I can't tell you which is better. Eponymous characters are naturally not created equal and I had favorites, but they're all highschoolers who may or may not be what they seem. Surprisingly there's a valid reason why this age old anime cliche is in place here. Many familiar archetypes are here from stern, ominous Gouto who really likes to push up his glasses, to UFO nerd Natsu-chan and everything in-between. All their stories are worth playing through... which you'll have to do anyway because you don't really have freedom. Remembrance and Destruction keep tabs on one another to balance story progression. This means you'll juggle characters or go fight some battles to a certain threshold before further stories unlock. At no point was I annoyed by this, but keep in mind you WILL have to do combat.

Speak of the devil...

Enter aforementioned Destruction mode aka tower defense employing real-time with pause and ability cooldowns. In reality I've just summarized the entire thing in that sentence. Sure, holographic presentation of the city and abstracted units give a different aesthetic from gorgeous 2D visuals the rest of the game employs, but all the visual effects from various weapons quickly endeared me to it. After the tutorial you start with the entire roster of thirteen protagonists to choose from with different specializations based on what generation their Sentinel is. Close combat, long range, all-rounders and air support specialists all have a role to play based on their abilities, movement rate and even pilots themselves with their own individual skills. What's the catch? Well, you can only field six characters in any mission, as others are relegated to fixed Aegis defense slots, and characters can do two battles in a row before they're overloaded and you need to bench them. Add optional special requirements missions present and you're naturally trained to rotate your Sentinels. Game even gives you the general gist of what kind of Kaiju you can expect to see in the mission so you can make informed choices.

That would be simple, wouldn't it? We go beyond simple. Completing missions in Destruction mode and going through character stories in Remembrance mode will grant you meta-chips. These are used to pick and customize Sentinel abilities as well as Aegis' aka tower in question you have to defend, own field-leveling abilities you have a limited number of uses with. After you're done with the first block of ten missions you then proceed to unlock another feature – statistical upgrades to your Sentinels via improved armor, generator, etc. For the most part you'll be using the former ability customization way more than the latter unless you're willing to grind missions for meta-chips. In case you're worried battles will get in the way of just experiencing the tremendous narrative don't be because you can REALLY trivialize the mode by playing on Casual difficulty. If you opt for Normal there are missions later on that will test your ability to put together a coherent and stay up to date with your abilities. You know it's go time when theme song starts playing for a particular mission in the style of mecha anime game draws from.

So what's 13 Sentinels like to actually play?

In the effort to maintain sanity you're juggling between Destruction and Remembrance modes. Analysis is something you can take or leave depending on how much attention you're paying to tiny bits of extraneous information. Timeline feature contained therein is handy to reference events, but knowing more about this “hemborger” meal one character likes may not be on your agenda. I forgot to mention you unlock Mystery Points as you complete missions in combat mode and you can use said MPs to gain access to Mystery Files for further clarity. Part of me wishes there was more of that P&C adventure tradition in Remembrance mode, but it's clear developers went for simpler mechanical approach. Since game takes place in certain time periods and characters are constantly shifting about you can expect to re-visit locations aplenty. This only began to grate towards the very end because I wanted to see the finale, but game kept taking me back to flashbacks of earlier routes I'd already done because by god, you will see that scene from every character's perspective. I get the reality of creating all those assets, though.

Production almost always ends up being a footnote in my reviews yet with Vanillaware games they're practically the main appeal. Gorgeous 2D art balanced by futuristic imagery present in battle mode, and strong soundtrack really carry the game on that front. That, however, is no stranger to this developer. Sheer scale of the script is what steals the show. Could it have been done with less convolution? Probably, but you can tell writers really went off the rails with so many characters and motivations that end up working toward one focal point. There's some unevenness among the thirteen protagonists and yet they all get their big moment to shine. I especially sympathized with a certain hoodlum who ends up in a time loop trying to get out.

Final Thoughts and Rating?

Ever wondered what navigating a mind-bending story involving time travel with thirteen fleshed out protagonists would be like? 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is here to help. While the story primarily takes place in 1985 Japanese high school, the game's second mode, that being tower defense strategy employing real-time combat with pause, is unfolding during The Final Battle. Seeing through those thirteen interwoven stories with plenty of drama, romance and intrigue actually sets the stage for the former. Both the adventure and strategy bits are on the simple side carried entirely by gorgeous Vanillaware presentation, stellar soundtrack and script that has to be experienced first hand as most of it will overwhelm you. Until everything clicks together and you start figuring out exactly what is going on.

Sometimes you crave a traditional P&C adventure game and stumble upon the likes of The Excavation of Hob's Barrow. An archetypal representative coming from a torch bearer of the genre in modern day or studios working under their patronage - Wadjet Eye Games. Whether that's positive or negative will depend entirely on your outlook, however. I do have some opinions on the game itself.

We're brought to a later point when Thomasina Bateman, our intrepid heroine, returns to her ancestral home so she can seemingly visit her ailing father, and conveys the events of her adventure to us after the fact. It would appear our charming antiquary's invitation to village of Bewlay for excavation operations, in case the title wasn't a dead giveaway, did not go as smoothly one usually expects considering the nature of the work. Arriving by train, Thomasina is quickly warned by antagonistic villagers to steer clear of Hob's Barrow, if they even deem to talk of it. There are personal stakes involved and one ally means our girl will persevere, though.

If you ask me I think the script rubs it in a bit too blatantly with something supernatural afoot. You can't really dismiss certain imagery as anything but. This is then juxtaposed with mundane chores you'll be engaging in for most of the game. Considering you ARE actively working the investigation angle and trying to get on some people's good side, like the elderly gentleman on who's land the Barrow is and you need his approval to start digging, it does make sense so I can't slight it too much. Real issue is The Excavation of Hob's Barrow goes off the rails in the very last act. If there was a train involved I'd be able to say literally and proverbially, but alas. I'm not sure what happened there but we reach an escalation followed by climax I don't think the meandering story up to that point has really earned. You're going more based on second-hand information and events preceding the game with just handful of scenes really setting it up. Ending befits the kind of, well, Lovecraftian turn of events, but I can't say more beyond that.

Leaning on the above. If there's a sister foundation stone to P&C adventures next to the writing it would have to be its puzzles. Once again, we're seeing a mirror situation - some very simple "item you need is two screens over" and "basic information gathering from characters" turns it decent puzzles in the final act. You finally get to use all those mysterious stones and play a jig, but unless you've played the game in entirely doable one sitting, you may be left stumped. There is also some light trial and error, but overall even those challenging puzzles can be brute forced. Shock comes more from game pulling a 180 on you without the customary ramp up to prepare you.

I like to leave it last and in this case production most certainly warrants attention. Hope you like brown and green locales because that's what you're getting with foreboding dose of purple. Former works in creating a very dank atmosphere fueling this mystery story as you realize just how isolated Thomasina really is. People will debate endlessly about chunky sprites, but I like them. They have character and just enough detail to leave the mind wondering. It helps when your game is enhanced with occasional cutscenes for that extra cinematic feeling. Since we're on the topic characters should be mentioned. Every adventure game has its stand outs and you need a varied, if not strong, cast to make an impact. The are a few here of which the children were especially amusing. They all play second fiddle to Thomasina herself, though. Stupendous performance for which I was glad to hear Samantha Beart received notable attention. Portrayal of a woman engaged in excavation wearing PANTS in an era when women did anything but takes certain finesse without coming across as obnoxious, something I'm pleased to report indeed is the case. By necessity of the story we get to see much more of vulnerable Thomasina than you may expect.

Very mixed write up, but would I ultimately recommend The Excavation of Hob's Barrow? If you're not expecting a masterpiece and want a moody, rural mystery with a twist.

There's that something when a game you started playing on a whim ends up resonating with you on unexpected level. Welcome to the Karoshi Club turned out to be such a case. Not because it spoke to ME specifically, but rather due to the way it broaches such a universal modern day theme.

Opening with a disclaimer decrying the state of layoffs in the video games industry of 2023, at the time yet blissfully unaware said practice would continue well into next year as well, we see one Kenji Haishima. Ex-developer out of a job for a good while, he receives a fortuitous phone call from a certain company offering him the position of Sales Specialist. His dilemmas start as they've seemingly contacted the wrong person and you're left with whether you tell the truth or lie and play along for personal gain. Visuals seem to capture the 1990s Japan during its Lost Decades economic crisis, but subjects explored are timeless.

What Welcome to the Karoshi Club really is happens to be an extremely lightweight Visual Novel letting you choose how you Kenji presents himself as framed by TRUTH or LIE binary options. At its very core game is about, albeit exaggerated for effect, his inner turmoil of dealing with stress and expectations induced by job searching. Our protagonist comes to the verge of being paralyzed by his own thoughts and over-analyzing hypothetical scenarios. Coming from someone who has done modern job seeking it is a dangerous trap to fall into and one that almost feels comforting in its wrongness. Yes, down to receiving three different endings game offers for replay value.

There are no real life achievements, however.

I'm not against action games at all, but beat 'em ups specifically tend to not be my area of expertise. Which makes Midnight Fight Express an interesting case. On one hand it's not another tough-as-nails title this genre seems to breed like crazy, and on the other there's quite a bit of replay value provided challenges are your thing. Let's not rush ahead of ourselves, though.

You know I'm a story-first kind of guy, but in this case I'll state it plainly - narrative just gets in the way. Is it because of presentation since you're working with dialog boxes hitting that pause button on action or, at best, distracting from what's going on so you're mashing MASHING to get through? Most likely. As short as they were I did appreciate cutscenes aplenty. So what's the story we're dealing with here? You're Babyface, a badass dude interrogated by two cops as they're piecing together exactly who you are and how you landed yourself in this situation. You'll be returning to that question room between missions told in a flashback. You wake up with a case of amnesia and nothing but seemingly intelligent drone to guide you on your mission to bust out. Whatever it is you've done that has lead everyone in the city, from gangbangers to special forces, to want to kill you needs to be finished by sunrise.

Good news is action system is very solid. It's your basic press a button for light and hold it for heavy attack, with another button for counter management. Needless to say you'll be expanding your repertoire beyond that and using clutter, as temporary weapons or just something you throw at enemies, plays a surprisingly big role. When you add increasingly prevalent firearms towards the end you have another aspect of combat to work around. Even better news is as you play through 40 missions the game has you'll unlock skill points, and Midnight Fight Express handles upgrades in the best possible way by giving you entirely new moves and maneuvers rather than some statistical bonuses. Going from having no counter capability to five possible ways of countering certainly adds to your moveset. That very same design ethos applies to everything else as well. In fact, I wasn't sure if I was going to continue playing the game after the first few missions, but steadily unlocking more ways to dispatch enemies and control the scene endeared it to me.

Playing the game is akin to controlled chaos you adapt to over time. Game continually introduces new enemy types and they're more than just re-skins as you have to factor in what weapons they use, aggressiveness of their AI or specific approach to take down. It's a testament to how much I enjoyed the experience that only couple of enemies really got under my skin and certain "insta-kill if they get close" can go die in a fire. Thankfully they're relegated to one level. That is, unless you want to play around in a sandbox mode which lets you fine tune everything from enemies, weapons present and down to your own available skills in order to test yourself. I didn't bother much with it as playing through the campaign on Normal, where you can still try to complete myriad of challenges or go for achievements, was just enough for me. I wish levels lasted longer than single-digit minutes, but we can't have everything. There is the occasional break from clearly offices and warehouses of goons when game introduces a unique level, but locales did get somewhat old for me. With camera drawn just far out to give you clear view of the action you don't register low polygon enemy models clearly assembled using the same customization system you can also use to dress up Babyface with the funds acquired from mission completion.

Since I've touched on the production briefly I have to say the soundtrack is incredible. I'm not 100% sure, it sounded to me each level had its own accompanying track for maximum effect. More than level layout, more than whatever story was going on it was the soundtrack that stood out the most. And yet it doesn't overpower incredibly kinetic sound effect coming through from every punch and thrown glass bottle.

There's a story about how I ended up playing Romancing SaGa 2, but to keep it brief the remake got released and I considered buying it. Then I remembered I actually have the remaster of the original already. So why skip it? And so decision to play the remaster of a SNES title was made. What a ride it turned out to be.

Having practically no experience with SaGa franchise at large I was shocked by just how abruptly story is dispensed to the player. In fact, if you skip the opening which itself gives you a meager primer on ancient history, you'll have no idea who the Seven Heroes even are. What we see is good king Leon and his scholarly son Gerard embarking on a quest to cleanse the nearby ruin of monsters. Not long after disaster strikes – while the pair was outside with their retinue, castle Avalon, safe kept by the king's other son Victor, is laid siege to by monstrous Kzinssie who slays Victor for opposing him. Except... wasn't Kzinssie one of the Seven Heroes according to legends? Receiving council from a mysterious seer our king Leon and prince Gerad track down the fiend only for king to fall in mortal combat. Emboldened by revenge and effects of mysterious “inheritance magic” it now falls to Gerard to settle the score, expand the empire of Varennese and set straight this mad world where monsters are on the rise once more.

More than few hours further into the game we're introduced to the actual central mechanic of Romancing SaGa 2 – succession. With Gerard it happens after three “fade to black” screens, something to keep in mind for the future as well since it indicates passage of time, as he accomplishes milestone tasks available, but can also be forced if your party dies for real real aka they run out of LP in combat. So what exactly happens then? You get to choose from four not-so-randomly picked emperor candidates drawing from a pool of unlocked classes. In reality it's THREE choices since the first is always the same class as your last emperor, and remaining ones depend on various selective tables and RNG game will never tell you about. Something worth pointing out is only Gerard and the Last Emperor, individual you got to name when you started the game, have something resembling story relevance. All the in-between emperors you'll be playing for the majority of the game are yours to pick. Aforementioned inheritance magic means your emperors have a continual line of inheriting skills, spells and proficiency from their predecessors giving them advantage by default.

Since I've started name dropping classes I might as well get into what the game's actual content is. You'll be annexing other regions and kingdoms, usually by resolving whatever issue is present there. Putting aside that you're raising your empire's income, very useful for projects that cost hundreds of thousands and even millions, the real reason why you want every region is for further missions it may offer generations down the line AND class unlocks. Almost every region seems to directly or indirectly add a class to your roster. If there's story in Romancing SaGa 2 it's found in these localized arcs which are created wildly uneven. Some like the branching Cumberland succession crisis or Comroon volcano situation are way more involved, while others are “village elder has a problem, slay big monster to resolve”. In essence you're getting everything from party members, gear R&D and combat fix by playing conquest. Much to my surprise there are bad decisions to made which will result in screwing yourself over. Keep multiple saves which could be a problem since you have four slots + autosave.

I can imagine fear some of my readers may be experiencing upon reading “timed” in context of any RPG, but there is no ticking real-time clock here. You essentially get to perform three big events in every generation. Annex a region, defeat one of the Seven Heroes, resolve a quest, etc.

What Romancing SaGa 2 taketh away in the story department it more than made up for in combat and systems in general.

I don't like repeating myself, but if I was more experienced with the franchise at large I would've already been familiar with its glimmer system. Level ups are neat and yet inadequate next to the glorious light bulb effect when your character learns a brand new skill, doubly so when you know it's now stored in the Dojo and you can train it to all future characters. It's also exceedingly rare in JRPGs to see character advancement running on “you are what you do” akin to The Elder Scrolls. There are formulae involved here you can look up online if you want to, but you should know there are no character levels with which to easily gauge progress or difficulty. Get hit a lot? Your HP goes up. Want to get better at Hydrology? Cast water spells. Want to glimmer a specific skill you've looked up in a guide? Recruit a Saigo Clansman inclined towards the Mace category, find a tough enemy to battle with for higher activation chance and start pray. Did I forget to mention generic class characters are anything but and each has their own pros/cons, as well as gender differences where applicable? You can add that to the variables table.

But what of combaaaat?

Elegant deli platter of turn-based offering where your chosen formation, as taught by certain classes-turned-emperor, can make a notable difference. Since you have FIVE characters to play with and shuffle around your choice of current emperor is very important as that is the only spot which cannot be moved. Wouldn't want to put your squishy Strategist autocrat on the front line, now would you? I'm struggling to put into words exactly how combat plays as there is this constant “will my party setup get me more glimmers?” high overriding everything else. I did notice reliance on gimmicks and having faith in the player to figure it out. I've lost count how many bosses have overpowered attacks that will quickly wipe you unless you're A) tackling them later so you're the overpowered one, or B) capable of exploiting their undisclosed weakness. Realizing that stun and paralysis are two different status ailments has been the bane of my existence, as was one particular hag charming male party members. All five of them.

Add to that no random encounters, albeit some very tight corridors with enemy placement aplenty, and the ball seems to be in your corner. Running in the original SNES release would've limited your vision which made walking a viable option. That's been changed in the remaster as QoL, but you'll still opt to walk from time to time purely to outmaneuver enemies. There were a few instances I got frustrated enough to quit the game due to enemy density. Fight more = get more stats = get more glimmers, right? Well yes, but Battle Rank exists for a reason. The more you engage in combat, fight or flee, the more enemies get upgraded to deadlier variants with advancing generations. A cynical man would call this level scaling, but that's not entirely accurate. Presumably this is in place to prevent you from grinding a single spot for hours on end.

I've used some acronyms earlier and Romancing SaGa 2 brings its peculiarities. HP is automatically recovered after every battle, your SP/MP require manual curatives and are used to power skills/magic respectively, but LP is where things get interesting. Life Points vary on by-character basis, even within the same class, are extremely difficult to restore and once they hit 0 it's permadeath time. If it happens to your emperor it's time to pick a new one. Don't be alarmed because your recruits are not lifelong companions and assembling a new party with each new ascendance quickly becomes second nature. Or point of annoyance depending how you feel about it. Fortunately you get to keep all the weapons, armor and items you've accumulated up to that point. I'm not even getting into fusion spell research here because I... look, I just can't. I missed out.

Do I sound somewhat bitter? Maybe, but that's the sort of obtuseness you, well, learn to live with. At the end of the day this is a SNES title with a slight facelift. Checking out the manual is highly recommended lest you completely miss out on some concepts like global magic level or research order. Mind you, the SNES comment is not meant to be derogatory in any way. I was taken aback by aspects of the game playing it now so it may be difficult to grasp what reactions were like back in 1993. Despite there being the Imperial Log which tracks the state of the world, rumors and everything you've done so far, very nature of the game feels so far ahead of its time you can feel it buckling under pressure. Speaking from first hand experience it takes a while for the game to click and there's an extended sweet spot between early and late game when you get to bask in your own ignorance exploring this unrestricted world before the hammer falls on you.

Final Thoughts and Rating?

A blast from the past Romancing SaGa 2 feels almost like an alternate evolutionary route for the JRPG genre. One where story takes a backseat and character drama is far less important than mastering the glimmer system so you add more skills to your repertoire as well as take over territories to recruit more characters. At its core a turn-based affair operating on “you are what you do” progression system, you step into the shoes of ephemeral emperors facing inevitable succession. Will you defeat the returning Seven Heroes? Answer depends on a single question – is your head thicker than the metaphorical wall you're trying to smash through? Mild concussion was the price I was eventually strong-armed into paying and I'd do probably it again. Reading the manual is HIGHLY recommended.

As someone who played the original and rather liked it I was extremely pleased to hear the news Space Marine 2 was in development, and now we're here playing the released product. Was Titus' new adventure worth the wait? Was shifting priorities to multiplayer department a good decision? Well, I can only answer one of those since I didn't bother much with MP beyond dabbling in co-op for a while. Here we go.

Going by metal studs in his head it's been 200 years since events on Graia and Titus is doing his stint with the Deathwatch following certain heretical accusations. Suddenly things change and it would appear his name has been cleared as he's transferred back to Ultramarines chapter. Under the watchful eye of their Chaplain, of course. Now demoted to Lieutenant he has to become familiar with new faces, especially two Space Marines that comprise his squad who seem real inquisitive about his past, as well as dealing with the Tyranid invasion in the system. Amidst all that it would appear certain familiar terms and faces keep popping up giving Titus the chance to settle things once and for all.

If I had to draw parallels I'd say Space Marine 2's story is shorter, often interrupted by returns to the Battle Barge serving as your HQ and trying to convey more of the setting than the first game did. You'll see the interior of the aforementioned Battle Barge and exactly what armor clad Space Marines do when they're not deployed as well as ins and outs of Mechanicus itself. I also noticed a distinct inversion at work – both narrative and presentation get better as story advances. Although the game opens with you playing as cape-bedecked Black Shield what follows is rather mundane meandering through jungles fighting Tyranid swarms. After a brief jetpack level everything seems to pick up and budget starts pouring in. More cutscenes and even full fledged cinematics take control towards the end. I was invested in what is a very basic story that even has a small TWEEST in the finale.

I wish there were some great praise to sing about characters, but it is what it is. Titus is your stoic badass, although I do lament the absence of Mark Strong's voice acting since the new performance blends too much into “generic Space Marine” background noise, and his compatriots Chairon and Gadriel end up being the ones responsible for occasional moments of levity. It should be noted everyone is taking this extremely seriously so don't expect any quipping or such. Somewhat amusingly you do have other characters essentially forming secondary squads doing operations in the background, but I'll briefly get to those later. They have squad banter among themselves albeit playing only a small role in campaign proper. As far as antagonists go there's no zany Ork leader to speak of and Tyranids are devoid of personality by design. Archenemy does show its ugly face eventually, but certain space wizards never learn that trusty bolter & chainsword always win the day. Ultramarines are here to remind them of that fact.

Onto gameplay. I should once again point out it I didn't engage in PvP multiplayer since that's generally not my thing, and only briefly tried the co-op PvE aka Operations mode. This means my opinions only carry weight as far as campaign is concerned since multiplayer is where actual progression is contained with the player unlocking skins, weapons, skills, etc. It does appear to be a class-based game within a game affair, and if that's your thing there's probably dozens of hours of enjoyment to be found there.

Space Marine 2 is most definitely an intentional throwback to games from 10+ years ago. There's no mandatory crafting or leveling up to be found in this very straightforward TPS eschewing cover-based approach for a more aggressive one. In fact, I'd argue it expects you to get into melee most of the time until the last third or so when the board is wiped clean. That may also be where part of the problem lies as there's hidden loading screens aka elevator rides aplenty.

Absence of modern day “designed by committee” frills also means some relics that should've been forgotten rear their ugly head. Only two guns + melee is still very much in effect, for example. Luckily one of the things I complained about, intermissions taking you back to HQ so your co-op partners can rejoin, let you choose the equipment you want and I've only rarely found myself changing it from drop pods in missions themselves. You do want want more melta and plasma weapons as the game advances to combat heavily armored enemies. Some systems are also changed from the first game. Health no longer regenerates from performing executions, but instead your tiered Armor does. Healing packs exist even though you're capped by only carrying two at the moment. Since the entire campaign and Operations both are structured to played in co-op I was frankly surprised by how... not braindead they are? I personally wouldn't go above Normal difficulty in either, but they'll do the job and unlike players you're not competing for all the goodies. Remember – bash everything as it may contain ammo or curatives.

Since combat is everything you do in Space Marine 2 it's only fair we talk about it and enemies you'll be dispatching. Basically, there's two Tyranids and forces of Chaos you'll end up going against. Tyranids are your brainless swarms baked by more dangerous individual enemies wheres each one is practically a mini-boss until they became a semi-regular encounter. Keeping in mind game trains you there are blue telegraphs you can parry and orange ones you should avoid this can lead to strange behavior where you forget regular attacks can be parried just as easily, and that's what keeps you alive. In addition you're meant to approach enemy types very different. You clear out swarms, be they Nids or chaos Guardsman, and take a very deliberate approach with Raveners or Chaos Terminators, for example. There is a trick in where carefully timing executions when enemy health drops low will restore your latest received damage regardless of Armor status. Just because there's no actual sticky cover mechanic it doesn't mean you should avoid taking cover whenever you can, if only to reach that infinite ammo case and not get hit by Warp energy missiles.

I mentioned them earlier, but Operations are worth mentioning. Narratively they're side missions your other squad is undertaking while Titus is doing his thing. In practical terms there's six, each taking 30-40 minutes to complete and requiring three players, living or bots. This is also where you get to customize classes you play as so even if you're not into PvP you can still experience that aspect of the game. I just wish there were more of them as randomization is limited and Operations do add to an otherwise short campaign. I suspect you can get couple of extra hours as bare minimum on the lowest difficulty.

As usual I save presentation for last and oh boy it's impressive alright. Somehow making those swarms work in real time and each enemy being an actual object you can kill is astounding in its own right, but it's not until the very finale that you truly see what developers can pull off. What was previously a matter of “enjoy your corridors and elevators, but look at all the SCALE in the background” now takes center stage with hundreds of enemies engaging in conflict as demons rage in the sky. Just top notch all-around. Sound doesn't falter in the slightest and choosing the option to wear a helmet garbles audio lines appropriately. Those bolter sounds are still among the best representation of 40k's iconic weapon.

Final Thoughts and Rating?

Familiar throwback to 7th generation of games, Space Marine 2 carries over both good and bad in its aggressive TPS melee extravaganza somewhat diminished by hidden loading screens and uninspired story. Now demoted to Lieutenant, our boy Titus returns to Ultramarines after 200 years and finds himself embroiled in the middle of a conflict with alien Tyranids and some old enemies rearing their head finally giving Titus chance for closure. With much bigger focus on multiplayer, PvP and PvE, campaign is sadly shorter this time around while simultaneously benefiting from true rarity as production values only soar higher along the way. Absolutely worthwhile climax promising future stories alongside possibly dozens of hours to invest in multiplayer.

Sometimes you play a game that checks just enough boxes from multiple genres or schools of design that the end result is familiar, but still more than enjoyable. Taking cues from metroidvanias and Souls-like titles, Tails of Iron achieves precisely that. Does it hold up on its own merits, though?

Following a long reign, King Rattus' legacy of having scoured the realm of dirty Pondscum is suddenly cut short when aforementioned frogs besiege his castle, do away with his life and leave only couple of accidental survivors. Young prince Redgi among them as he swears revenge. So begins his quest to not only get his father's vassals to accept him as the rightful heir, since he's so small in stature and many favor his brother, but also to eradicate the frogs everyone thought were gone for many years. There are also other challenges in store taking him beyond and below what any common folk would think possible.

Even though characters, rats or otherwise, don't use words but rather pictograms to communicate, Tails of Iron got a chuckle out of me multiple times as Redgi is self-aware enough to acknowledge he's doing everyone's busywork that normally his retainers should be all over instead. If only he had some. Pulling a lot of the weight is Doug Cockle serving as game's narrator and he doesn't fail to deliver a snide or cynical remark while carrying this Game of Thrones meets folk tale atmosphere. Characterization overall is pretty lacking, though. If you ask me I'd point fingers to narrative department as a whole taking the backseat since storytelling isn't the primary focus here so don't the RPG treatment or such. As the story advances and reaches post-game you have a marriage of things become really dire the closer to finale you get... and then various puns on wrestlers, musicians, etc. Who can forgetting squaring up against Molehammad Moli in the arena?

It may be an easily overlooked aspect of the game as you're rushing from sidequests to the main quest, but I absolutely loved how the world kept fixing itself. Gradually, a ruined town gets repaired and royal guards are now securing the castle, for example. This is all fluff since the game isn't reactive in a meaningful way, but it's still nice to see even sidequests have visual feedback. Later on you get to spend some gold on castle ornaments bringing it even further to life. This also means you sometimes don't want to fast travel between sign posts, but take a stroll and see the changes.

This is, however, an action game so let's get down to some nitty-gritty details and how the entire things works. I was surprised by how much emphasis there is on combat in comparison to very basic platforming or even customary “re-visit areas to progress with new powers” metroidvania design. Being a Souls-like is much close to Tails of Iron's ethos.

Despite lacking a dimension compared to Souls titles which took gaming by storm, here we have a game that very much subscribes to many of those tenants while eschewing others. Perhaps to accommodate scaled back format? Providing you go with the recommended gamepad control scheme shoulder buttons will be your light, heavy and block functions, with the last one dedicated to healing. You get one jug of Grub Juice which you use for that purpose, but in a twist it doesn't recharge when you rest on a bench to save progress. Instead, you have to find juice dispensers or butcher grubs for smaller refills. It's good news those, as well as other goodies, are spread out decently across almost ten locations. Travel only becomes a chore when you have a specific sidequest and it's at the very end of a locations where there's no fast travel signpost nearby. Areas re-populate with enemies, but Tails of Iron doesn't subscribe to “every enemy can easily kill you” so it's just more of a hindrance. Such escapades become an easy way to loot for resources you'll rarely use.

There's also no concept of experience to speak of as your character progression comes entirely from equipment. What can Regni use then? As far as armor goes you have slots for helmet, armor and shield, but alongside those your have murderous implements with sword & board, two-handed and ranged weapon slots. In my opinion there's too much equipment and it really becomes apparent towards the end when game starts throwing complete sets at you. Maybe there's a purpose to those if you haven't killed couple of side bosses who net you some of the best stuff in the game, but I do appreciate this extensive variety means you can play dress up and go with whatever Regni looks best in. Want a kingly crown? Plenty of those under light helmets. Want a riot shield? It's there. Want to cosplay as a samurai? Well, you get some look-alike armor AND a katana. Keep in mind you want to rotate and replace equipment as you're constantly finding better pieces, need some armor for resistances against frogs or alike, and you need to manage weight.

Which pulls me back to combat since that's the bulk of what you'll be doing when you're not completing chores for the townsfolk as, by Thor, someone needs to clear the cellar of monsters. I survived by simple mantra: PARRY IS KING. Dodging also ranks highly for those unavoidable flashing red attacks or AoEs, but dodging is dependent on how heavy Regni is based on your gear whereas that perfect block will do so much more for you. Especially if you get it right for yellow-telegraphed attacks which are made to be parried. Game will also keep surprising you with enemy variety as you can exploit them as well rather than reserving “special moves” just for bosses. My one regret is devs should've pushed the player harder to master parry earlier. Already mentioned Molehammad Moli is one of those optional, post-game arena bosses... yes, there's both an arena and post-game stuff, who will punish you with his bee stings, but that lesson arrives way too late. Since I brought up bosses there is a steady escalation of threats and player performance expectations. Looking at my time played I've probably spent an hour or so repeating boss fights. It's a learning curve and not a learning cliff, is what I'm trying to say here.

Presentation I left for last because game looks just plain gorgeous. If you ever wanted a 2D Redwall game this is it and that aesthetic carries the day. Some animations, particularly brutal executions Regni gets to perform, are sometimes wonky because there's a bit too much pushing and pulling to get the actors into correct positions, but that's negligible in the grand scheme of things. Soundtrack is all over the place, but just give me more strings. Frogs sure love their bongos, though.

Final Thoughts and Rating?

Tails of Iron is a very good game that ended up being much better than I thought at first. Just enough of metroidvania and Souls-like mixed in a pot with emphasis on combat and dramatic story of young prince Regni reclaiming his kingdom from perfidious frogs. With no way to grind for power you must rely on equipment alone to succeed as your journey takes you from rebuilding the castle to underground as you find new allies. Fast and brutal combat where learning how to parry makes a difference, anyone familiar with Souls games will be right at home. Bosses escalating in difficulty will certainly challenge you and I almost wish I played on high difficulty from the get-go. Not because the game was easy otherwise, but because now I'm just one achievement short of 100%-ing a game that deserves it.