Recent reviews by neverclever

This game is a few patches short of being truly excellent.

The animations are beautiful. The writing is witty. The individual gameplay elements are fun.

Once you get past the highly structured first days, however, there is a serious time crunch on every action you do.

I'll admit that time management is hard to do well, and I have very specific tastes about the genre. But as other reviews have shown, there is a lot of math working against you in terms of how you spend your time units.

This game needs more granular difficulty options. Option to adjust the amount of time available each day would be a great start. The ability to change drop rates, base prices, and other numerical values in the player's favor would also be useful.

Until a future patch includes these features, I am afraid I can't finish this game. The inability to play it at my own pace was disappointing. But I have hope the developers will continue to improve and adjust this game, to make it as excellent as possible.

What type of game is this?

BattleCON is, put simply, a turn-based fighting game. It is a translation of a board game into digital form.

You have a hand of cards (some generic ones, and a set determined by your character), and you choose two together to create an attack (hence "battle connection"). Players reveal their attacks simultaneously. An attack has 4 important values; Power (damage done), Range (how many and which spaces it can hit), Priority (whose attack goes first), and Stun Guard (if you take damage greater than your stun guard, you skip your attack, i.e. hitstun). Most attacks have additional effects, like preventing damage or moving your character. Once both players execute their attacks (or skip them due to stun), then the two cards you used go on cooldown (two turns), and you move to the next pair. The first to 0 HP loses. There's some additional mechanics (like finisher moves), but that's the major ideas.

What does this game do well?

This game wonderfully replicates the feel of fighting games without the need of long button combos or tight reflexes. Lots of fighting game staples like footsies and hitstun, are present in some form.

The huge cast of characters all feel distinct in their style: some like to fight at long range, others like to do a single large hit, and still others prefer to avoid attacks or hit-and-run. Characters have a huge range of abilities, from draining life without fighting, to healing, to teleporting.

Where could this game improve?

This game's greatest weakness is its difficulty. In order to play well, you need to be familiar with your own character, as well as your opponent's. While the mechanics I outlined above are fairly straightforward, every fighter has its own set of quirks and adjustments to the rules. There's resources besides cards to keep track of, bluffing and double-bluffing, and if you fail to predict your opponent well enough, your attack may simply miss.

How does this compare to the paper version?

This is the game's greatest failing. While the animations and greater availability of players is nice, the game stumbles in the same way that many paper-to-digital translations do. Playing the game digitally is much more of a chore than playing in paper. The timers, animations, confirmations, and waiting for your opponent all eat up time. I can play a game of paper BattleCON in 10-15 minutes. A digital match takes 30. The sluggish nature of the digital game is simply not fun to play.

It also lacks a decent tutorial. The board game has another player to walk you through things, explain the rules, even let you take back mistakes. The digital version lacks this.

In a single sentence: A fantastic translation of fighting games to a turn-based system, hampered by a sluggish digital version and high learning curve.

Verdict: This game is still in early access. They're continuing to add new characters and new costumes. I assume they will import other things found in the paper game; things like the dungeon-crawl mode, boss battles, and 2v2/1v2/1v3 battles etc.

But the game needs more than that. Compared to the cardboard version, it is not fun to play. Clicking my way through a game feels like a sluggish chore. The timers and choices add up. There's a huge amount of dead time and all the animations feel too long. An animation/text speed slider might alleviate this somewhat, but I fear the problem lies deeper than that.

I play a lot of board games, and the tabletop version of BattleCON is one of my top five board games of all time. So it hurts me a lot that I cannot recommend this. If and when the digital version feels good to play, then I will be happy to change this verdict. But until then, if this game catches your fancy, I urge you to try the paper version.

Brothers is a difficult game to describe. It's a puzzle game, but the puzzles are all very simple. It places a lot of focus on plot and atmosphere, but the dialogue is all in a fake language without subtitles. It's cooperative, but not really since one player is controlling both characters.

I think if I had to give this game a genre, then I would call it a fairy tale simulator. The plot is laden with vagaries and lacks context, but that makes it more surreal and engaging. The puzzles are simple, but they require you to interact with many bizarre and magical elements. The gameplay is mostly a matter of going from A to B, but doing so really gets you to empathize with the brothers and their quirks, even if they don't have very explicit personalities.

With that in mind, I think this game fulfills its goal well. It takes the surrealism and limited context that make fairy tales so iconic and evocative, and lets the player interact with them through gameplay. It takes the logic of a fairy tale and manages to make it work in a more conventional way, so that the player is never lost by the story nor put off by crazy soup can puzzles.

I recommend this game, but with caveats. The experience is powerful, but short; you'd be better off buying it during a sale. If you don't like fairy tales, with their unorthodox logic and visuals, then this game might not be for you.

If you like fairy tales, though, and you don't mind some gameplay that breaks genre conventions, then this is a experience that is absolutely worthy of your time.

This is an action-platformer in the style of new Castlevania games.

There are a few key differences, however. Unlike Castlevania, this game emphasizes quality over quantity when it comes to item drops and spells. Enemies drop crafting ingredients, not gold or items. Each character has only a handful of armors and weapons, and every one caters to a different playstyle and has multiple upgrade levels.

The gameplay is more akin to a fighting game (especially in boss battles). There is a heavy emphasis on dodging over blocking. Striking enemies at opportune moments is much more important than simply hitting them as much as possible. You do have a revive built into your abilities, but you are still fairly fragile.

This is much easier to play than a fighting game, though. Your skill cancel is a simple press of the down key, and dodging is just pressing left or right after that. Your assist has its own button, and spell casting and super mode have modifier keys. The game offers some tutorials, but muscle memory is the only real stumbling block here.

Boss battles emphasize pattern recognition and reaction time over button mashing, and since your skill cancels have a short cooldown, spamming will get you nowhere. Killing a tricky boss after spending four lives learning their patterns is a very satisfying feeling. Retries are unlimited and place you right in the boss room, but its still crucial to keep your cool and respond to attacks carefully.

There are downsides, of course. Whenever the game chooses to focus on platforming over combat, it becomes significantly less fun. Thankfully most of the timed platforming challenges are optional, though you will be missing out on a few items if you ignore them, as I chose to.

Like any non-linear game, there are times when you will be unsure where to go, or where you accidentally miss important things because the game doesn't tell you enough. This is compounded by some occasionally suspect level design, particularly areas where it's easy to fall down several rooms and be forced to repeat an area, or where enemies can stunlock or toss you easily.

The map and menus are rather bland. While it has some nice sprite work, the graphics options don't really give everything room to shine. It also doesn't scale well, so if (like me) you have a fairly large monitor and play in fullscreen, the upscaling is very noticable.

The story is nothing exciting. Like Castlevania, it's mostly relegated to text boxes whenever you find a new area or kill a boss. It has a few engaging reveals and some pleasant backstory here and there, but the story is not a reason alone to play this game.

Ultimately, this game doesn't hold your hand, but it has a reasonable difficulty curve and skill floor. It expects you to work a little bit for your victories, but it is neither impossible nor unfair. If you like action platformers and skill-based combat, look no further. Just be sure to use a controller.

This is yet another take on the Rogue-like genre. The twist here is that while death is permanent, the gold you collect is used to upgrade your castle, giving subsequent lives stat boosts and new jobs.

The gameplay is a Castlevania-esque action platformer. You have a basic melee attack, a few movement skills limited by the last time you touched the ground, and special attacks that deplete an MP bar.

Like many Rogue-likes, this is not a game that expects to be beaten. Which bosses you have killed do save in between trips to the castle, but every upgrade you buy increases the costs of subsequent upgrades across the entire tech tree. Everything in the game is incredibly deadly, with lots of projectile attacks and collision damage to watch out for. You need good reflexes and dodging skills if you want to survive without copious grinding.

If you like Rogue-likes (i.e. don't mind failing a lot) and enjoy Castlevania-style gamplay, this is an easy recommendation. The upgrade system is a nice twist on the Rogue-like formula, but it doesn't make the game any more forgiving overall. Be sure to use a controller.

This game is a very wonderful science fiction action-RPG.

The story is not completely linear, and it relies on player speculation for maximum effect. I personally enjoyed it for this reason, but not everyone likes that type of story. The world is consistent enough that everyone should be able to figure it without much trouble. Other reviews have the basics of the plot if you want, but I'd recommend going into the game with as little foreknowledge as possible.

The combat is where this game shines. You progressively unlock abilities, and each one can be used in one of three different ways--as an attack, as a player buff, or as a buff to a different attack. You are given so many options that there is always something new to try (and the game gives you flavor text each time you use one of the different variants). You also have the option to pause the game and line up attacks, but doing so means you can't attack in real time for a while. It's a handy ability that lets you stop the game if things get overwhelming, but has enough of a drawback that you can't spam it.

The soundtrack has a few gorgeous moments in it. A lot of the instrumental tracks didn't really catch my attention, but the vocal tracks are placed expertly at tense moments in the story, giving them a lot of impact.

This game is in many ways a spiritual sequel to Bastion. It has a similar minimalism in storytelling, and the combat feels like a version of Bastion's with more and better options.

If you like sci-fi, action RPGs, or want an example of how games can be art, then I would strongly recommend this game. All the elements work together beautifully. It's a bit on the short side, but it's a wonderful ride while it lasts. And the combat was engrossing enough that I actually did the side challenges and New Game+ just to experience more of it.

There is no clearer reminder of how entertainment is a product than the Free-To-Play genre. Ultimately, that is this game's main failing--it is not a good product, even if it is a good game.

I actually started playing it before the single-player overhaul--back then, you could get Seals (the premium currency) from the campaign, and could also get them from daily log-in rewards.

Now, the only way to earn Seals without real money is a handful of acheivments, some of which are beyond the reach of average players (like winning 25 swiss tournaments--very high level play).

This means that anyone who chooses not to pay money is at a severe disadvantage. Okay, fine, nothing new for a F2P. The real problem comes from the fact that the game only allows purchases of randomized booster packs (buying singles takes another premium currency), and does not allow trading of your spare cards. You are only allowed to sell duplicates back to the game, and for a very tiny amount.

I have spent ~40 USD on this game, and I do not regret that purchase. For that amount of money, however, I really wish that the game gave me more resources. For the cost of a nearly new release, I received a bunch of cards that I couldn't trade and had no interest in playing. The large number of factions makes it harder for new players to build a focused deck, and the random nature and lack of packs means that building a good collection is a very frustrating, arduous process.

The game itself is fun, but I can't bring myself to recomend it to other people when it is such a frustrating product. At least IRL TCGs allow things like trading and purchasing singles, and the lack of these features really damages the experience.

I watched it yesterday, and frankly it was a little dull. As a movie about three people and their lives, it really skimmed over everything, and condensed most of the interesting parts to the point where it didn't say enough.

As a movie about what it means to be a competitor and participate at the highest level of something, and the sacrifices that can take, it glossed over everything.

As a movie about e-sports it didn't say anything meaningful. It didn't explore any of the stigmas or social mores except in the barest way possible.

Overall, it wasn't bad or unwatchable, but it failed to do what a good documentary should--connect its subject matter to a bigger picture, and to explore themes beyond the superficial. A slowly paced documentary is defined by its ability to provoke thought, to reflect something universal, and this film did none of that.

They should have made a documentary about the people organizing the tournament instead.

5/10; average

This is a great documentary. It follows 3 sets of game developers, one approaching the release of their game, one still in the middle of development, and one after his game has released. It provides an objective, unbiased picture of it's subjects.

The title, however, is misleading. The movie purports to explore independent game development, and it does give the viewer enough context to understand the environment. Ultimately, this is not the focus of the movie. This is a movie about art and artists, particularly those who are good at making art but not at presenting it or reacting to what they've made. It shows how important emotional management is in the act of making art, before, during, and especially after the art itself is done.

That's not to say indie game development as a business is not worth exploring, but ultimately I think this movie choosing to be a character piece works to its benefit. I would and do recommend this to any artist I know, in any field--the lessons it teaches about creativity and introspection is applicable to any field, not just game development, and that is why it is such a good movie.

An incredibly streamlined and atmospheric entry in the roguelite genre.

The basic gist is that rebel forces are overthrowing the Federation, and a single ship manages to get ahold of some intel that will cripple the Rebel fleet. You are that ship, and you have to make your way across multiple sectors of hostile space in order to reach the Federation command post and deliver the info.

The gameplay is easy to pick up but has enough intricacies to keep you hooked. Your ship has various systems and sections. Having one of your crew members at a station makes it work better, and you can reroute power to different areas in order to boost their functionality. Your shield can take hits but needs to recharge. Your weapons have to charge before they can be fired, though this varies depending on the weapon type. Timing your weapons with each other while minimizing damage is satisfying, but it doesn't feel overwhelming. Mistakes can be costly, causing a snowball of damage. The numerous upgrades and ship styles available mean there's lots of approaches to take.

The aesthetics have a lot of personality despite their simplicity. The music is simple but effective.

The only true flaw of this game is its difficulty. Even on easy, it requires careful planning and shrewd resource management to get anywhere near the final boss, let alone kill it or unlock new ship types.

Like any roguelite, the game's mechanics and aesthetics take the backseat to difficulty. If that doesn't bother you, however, then this game is incredibly deep and immersive despite its simplicity.