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Humble Sales Are Very Dangerous – Part Nine
...A bunch of these had been sitting in my Steam queue for years, and I realized I might as well post some of the reviews.
Inbetween Land - A relatively short point-and-click puzzle adventure game that packs a good experience into about two hours. The hidden object puzzles all involve finding pieces of objects that you combine to end up with one thing you need. The general puzzles are all standard types, but it’s a good assortment at a decent difficulty level. The plot is magitek weirdness on a floating island full of alien ghosts, so, y’know, whatever. I quite enjoyed it.
UnEpic - Metroidvania with heavy crpg infuences, but doesn’t stint on the action/platforming. It has a theme and humor style similar to Doom & Destiny; a fourth-wall-breaking “look ma, I’ve fallen into a game world” kind of non-seriousness that isn’t as witty as it clearly hopes to be. I tried it twice, years apart, but it didn’t really grab me either time. I’m not even sure I can point to a specific issue, as by most descriptions this should be something I’d like, it just didn’t do it for me.
Punch Club - Balance work, sleep and exercise while becoming a fighting champion. Stats degrade. Very repetitive. Automated battles. Meh.
Evoland: Legendary Edition - A some point, Steam replaced my copies of Evoland 1 and 2 with this, so I replayed the first game when I noticed. It’s still a fun use of a couple of hours. ARR watching the last 15 minutes made it clear how little sense the game makes if you aren’t familiar with about two decades of popular video games that came before, though.
Townsmen: A Kingdom Rebuilt - I apparently got this free because I bought a bundle with the original game; it’s a kingdom-building simulation game that gradually ramps up various elements of trade and warfare. I found it a bit too complicated to actually be fun (it feels like it should be a casual game), though I give them credit for the gentle ramp into the various systems.
Prime World: Defenders - This actually came from a Fanatical All Stars bundle, and it took me rather a long time to get to it, upon reflection. It’s a tower defense game with the neat quirk that you can grind it—revisiting battles to get achievements and perfect scores gives you both money to unlock skills and also new cards that either provide new units or enhance your existing ones (including giving you the ability to upgrade them in battle). That said, it also clearly intends you to grind it, and rather a lot at that: A level-five tower is purely better (stronger, same cost) than a level-one tower; and the rare ones are better than commons if you level them up. This, then, comes down to whether you want an excuse to play a zillion tower defense battles on basically the same half-dozen maps with the same half-dozen monsters. There are only 24 story battles, but getting enough high-level towers to actually tackle the later ones can take 20+ hours.
Inbetween Land - A relatively short point-and-click puzzle adventure game that packs a good experience into about two hours. The hidden object puzzles all involve finding pieces of objects that you combine to end up with one thing you need. The general puzzles are all standard types, but it’s a good assortment at a decent difficulty level. The plot is magitek weirdness on a floating island full of alien ghosts, so, y’know, whatever. I quite enjoyed it.
UnEpic - Metroidvania with heavy crpg infuences, but doesn’t stint on the action/platforming. It has a theme and humor style similar to Doom & Destiny; a fourth-wall-breaking “look ma, I’ve fallen into a game world” kind of non-seriousness that isn’t as witty as it clearly hopes to be. I tried it twice, years apart, but it didn’t really grab me either time. I’m not even sure I can point to a specific issue, as by most descriptions this should be something I’d like, it just didn’t do it for me.
Punch Club - Balance work, sleep and exercise while becoming a fighting champion. Stats degrade. Very repetitive. Automated battles. Meh.
Evoland: Legendary Edition - A some point, Steam replaced my copies of Evoland 1 and 2 with this, so I replayed the first game when I noticed. It’s still a fun use of a couple of hours. ARR watching the last 15 minutes made it clear how little sense the game makes if you aren’t familiar with about two decades of popular video games that came before, though.
Townsmen: A Kingdom Rebuilt - I apparently got this free because I bought a bundle with the original game; it’s a kingdom-building simulation game that gradually ramps up various elements of trade and warfare. I found it a bit too complicated to actually be fun (it feels like it should be a casual game), though I give them credit for the gentle ramp into the various systems.
Prime World: Defenders - This actually came from a Fanatical All Stars bundle, and it took me rather a long time to get to it, upon reflection. It’s a tower defense game with the neat quirk that you can grind it—revisiting battles to get achievements and perfect scores gives you both money to unlock skills and also new cards that either provide new units or enhance your existing ones (including giving you the ability to upgrade them in battle). That said, it also clearly intends you to grind it, and rather a lot at that: A level-five tower is purely better (stronger, same cost) than a level-one tower; and the rare ones are better than commons if you level them up. This, then, comes down to whether you want an excuse to play a zillion tower defense battles on basically the same half-dozen maps with the same half-dozen monsters. There are only 24 story battles, but getting enough high-level towers to actually tackle the later ones can take 20+ hours.