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chuckroMost of the options in this bundle were RPGMaker games I had already gotten and played in other bundles, like the Labyronia series. But this slate looked vaguely interesting.
Darkest Hunters – A match-3 pseudo-rpg in which you maneuver through dungeons by matching colored gems, fighting monsters and gathering treasure. It’s a very grind-able game, as every stage has half a dozen challenges to complete (which unlock treasure) and there are a zillion pieces of equipment to collect, upgrade and match into sets that give bonuses. This made the bundle worthwhile as I found grinding the stages to earn all the stars entertaining for hours.
Battle Ranch: Pigs vs Plants - A combination of a farming sim and a tower defense game; you need to grow plants to get points that allow you to purchased plant-weapons to defend the various rows that the pig-men slowly march towards you in. (Or in other words, a Plants vs. Zombies knockoff) It’s too slow-moving (it could honestly use a fast-forward button for the pigs, and the plant-growing part is unnecessary in general) and it’s insufficiently addictive for this style of game.
Subterra – This is an RPGMaker game that’s short, and benefits from being short. Your character is already established as the chosen hero from the outset, and the steps to saving the world have been laid out for some time, he’s just been refusing to do them until his sister’s illness becomes urgent enough to require him to act. There are no big instances of soul-searching or major growth moments; this is mostly about going to do the thing. (Side note: The sister’s default outfit is an incredibly revealing bikini-and-cape combo, which seems an odd choice for a dying woman who lives alone with her brother.) I’m not going to say it’s brilliant—the battle system and graphics are out-of-the-box RPGMaker; the dungeon design is passable; the spelling is sub-par; and the last dungeon gets a bit glitchy—but the number inflation and difficulty curve are better than anything Aldorlea has produced, and it doesn’t outstay its welcome. (The one thing I’d suggest was this could have used a rudimentary world map to imply places were actually some distance from each other. “We need to go through the great maze of ruins...that’s ten steps south of the town.”)
DRAGON: A Game About a Dragon - This is a platformer with a very cute pencil-and-crayon art style and a moderately witty plot, but the controls are needlessly clunky and the upgrade system (collecting gold) is inordinately punishing (every time you die, it halves your gold).
House of Caravan - One of the more painful first-person exploration/puzzle games, where you’re searching a 3D world that’s always way too dark for interactives. I’m honestly not sure why this seems to be a genre, because the only thing more painful is when there are monsters roaming and you have surprise instant-death stealth segments.
Overall: Darkest Hunters hooked me, and that made the bundle entirely worthwhile. The others were of middling quality at best.
Darkest Hunters – A match-3 pseudo-rpg in which you maneuver through dungeons by matching colored gems, fighting monsters and gathering treasure. It’s a very grind-able game, as every stage has half a dozen challenges to complete (which unlock treasure) and there are a zillion pieces of equipment to collect, upgrade and match into sets that give bonuses. This made the bundle worthwhile as I found grinding the stages to earn all the stars entertaining for hours.
Battle Ranch: Pigs vs Plants - A combination of a farming sim and a tower defense game; you need to grow plants to get points that allow you to purchased plant-weapons to defend the various rows that the pig-men slowly march towards you in. (Or in other words, a Plants vs. Zombies knockoff) It’s too slow-moving (it could honestly use a fast-forward button for the pigs, and the plant-growing part is unnecessary in general) and it’s insufficiently addictive for this style of game.
Subterra – This is an RPGMaker game that’s short, and benefits from being short. Your character is already established as the chosen hero from the outset, and the steps to saving the world have been laid out for some time, he’s just been refusing to do them until his sister’s illness becomes urgent enough to require him to act. There are no big instances of soul-searching or major growth moments; this is mostly about going to do the thing. (Side note: The sister’s default outfit is an incredibly revealing bikini-and-cape combo, which seems an odd choice for a dying woman who lives alone with her brother.) I’m not going to say it’s brilliant—the battle system and graphics are out-of-the-box RPGMaker; the dungeon design is passable; the spelling is sub-par; and the last dungeon gets a bit glitchy—but the number inflation and difficulty curve are better than anything Aldorlea has produced, and it doesn’t outstay its welcome. (The one thing I’d suggest was this could have used a rudimentary world map to imply places were actually some distance from each other. “We need to go through the great maze of ruins...that’s ten steps south of the town.”)
DRAGON: A Game About a Dragon - This is a platformer with a very cute pencil-and-crayon art style and a moderately witty plot, but the controls are needlessly clunky and the upgrade system (collecting gold) is inordinately punishing (every time you die, it halves your gold).
House of Caravan - One of the more painful first-person exploration/puzzle games, where you’re searching a 3D world that’s always way too dark for interactives. I’m honestly not sure why this seems to be a genre, because the only thing more painful is when there are monsters roaming and you have surprise instant-death stealth segments.
Overall: Darkest Hunters hooked me, and that made the bundle entirely worthwhile. The others were of middling quality at best.
