I recently had the itch to play through Dark Souls 1 again. Last time I did, I used a mod called Age of Sunlight, which promised a bunch of little changes intended to clean up some of the rough edges of the game. Of those changes, I really only remember a few, though – it added ‘perfect’ timed deflection, letting you block full damage and even negate knockback, even with a weapon, and it changed up some of the boss fights by giving a lot of the easier ones a buff at half health or whatever. I enjoyed the changes enough back then that I thought ‘next time I play through DS1 I might as well just do it like this,’ so when that time came around I went to see if there were any updates, and if any other similar sounding mods had come out.

To my surprise, some had. Shadow of the Eclipse is another overhaul that isn’t a gimmick shoehorned into the base game [like most overhauls are] and though it’s hard to get a bead on what the general thrust of its changes are from the description, I saw enough to download and install it. It’s important to note that the mod is available for both versions: Dark Souls Remastered, and the now-delisted Prepare to Die Edition, which is what I use. I’d also like to point out that the mod’s summary states that development started in 2019, and its first release on Nexus pre-dates the announcement of Elden Ring’s DLC, so the fact that it’s called Shadow of the E- is just a coincidence, not a reference.

SotE begins with an Asylum that has a few surprises, which might prime you for a far more obnoxious and ‘hardcore’ experience than you’re actually going to get from the rest of the game. The Asylum also forces you to pick up an item that enables the new death penalty – not only do you become hollowed as normal on death, you permanently lose one of your liquid humanity for some reason, and being hollowed very slightly lowers your damage. The item mentions a ‘phantom’ form which additionally lowers your max health, I guess like Demons Souls or Dark Souls 2 but, not bragging, that never happened to me, however it’s supposed to happen. In fact, even the extra humanity cost didn’t really matter to me, since by the time I was able to use a weapon that scales off of ‘soft’ humanity, I had enough consumable humanity items to trivially top myself off and un-hollow after any death. Again, not bragging, just telling it like it is.

Once you reach Firelink Shrine, you immediately find a warp to a little pocket dimension where the modder has left a bunch of gameplay hints and explanations of new or changed mechanics all over the floor, a trend I’ve seen more and more in FromSoft mods. I’d still rather have a decent summary, though. Some of the highlights of these noted features:

Weapon imbuement is altered, with lightning damage getting an earlier, weaker branch like fire, magic imbued weapons can be further buffed with items and spells, and chaos lowers your max health by some amount while equipped. Other than making and maining a ‘sparking’ weapon early on, I didn’t find this to be very exciting, but at least it was less confusing and punishing than the reimagined imbue system in Age of Sunlight.

Blocking, stabbing with a weapon while blocking, two-handing bonuses, and parrying are all made a little worse or harder to perform in order to de-emphasize those tactics. Backstep, backstep followup attacks, and special ‘kick’ moves got buffed. Again, much less impact than the deflect system in AoS, and after some initial experimentation I forgot about the buffs to backsteps and wasn’t really using a shield anyway. Still not bragging.

NG+ is not initiated immediately on defeating Gwyn and linking the fire or leaving. You are instead booted back to this interstitial area and allowed to return to the base game to do whatever cleanup you want before moving on like in Dark Souls 2. Good.

SotE makes few changes to the layout and intended progression of the game – Dark Souls has a pretty tightly designed map, and unlike with the Dark Souls 2 mod I played a while back, there’s not much to be gained from adding more warps and connections. The Master Key and its corresponding shortcuts have been removed, or rather, shifted to a much later stage of the game, and instead you get a bit more freedom to go around the second half of Undead Berg by default.

The mod also makes only a few changes to NPC and bonfire placement, which is less broadly positive. I suspect it is difficult to add new bonfires, and so the modder has compromised by moving less pivotal checkpoints around a bit, and the end result is not really any better. There’s a bonfire right at the entrance to Darkroot Garden now, which is less than a minute away from the Parish bonfire, and so completely pointless. Then there’s one past the rotating bridge in Anor Londo, but they’ve moved that one in from the Darkmoon Tomb, meaning every time you need to go back there you have to do a bunch of elevator manipulation and it ends up wasting more time than the more convenient checkpoint location saves. At least for me, since I didn’t die in Anor Londo. Not bragging.

Boss changes might sound like the most intimidating thing in the mod, but they generally skew a bit easier rather than much harder. Asylum Demon and his recolors get phase change buffs and a couple new moves, but they’re still mostly trivial to circle around and stab in their big flabby butt. Capra is made significantly easier by moving him and his dogs from the vanilla arena around the corner to the Depths entrance, a location that still allows you to get a height advantage and plunging attack him without also battling the camera. My favorite change is to Centipede Demon, whose arena now has enough safe flooring to fight him legitimately. Few of the rest seemed to have tweaks that I was able to notice, unless Taurus really did have better tracking and I wasn’t just rusty. But the mod also adds a few totally new fights, which I thought were very cleverly done, especially the procession of hollowed Chosen Undead you cut through to enter the Kiln. Oh, shit, I just remembered they took out being able to make Ceaseless Discharge fall. Nevermind, I hate it now.

The mod also moves things around, both item locations and enemy encounters, and mostly does a good job with the shuffle. Enemies that don’t get a lot of screen time in the base game show up with interesting tweaks or just a bit more presence, new combinations of enemy groups or placements make you reanalyze areas, and there’s at least one enemy type I’m not sure was even in the base game at all. Thankfully, the difficulty level isn’t ratcheted up to absurd bullshit tier, and though there’s one or two new ambushes or gotcha moments, there’s nothing totally obnoxious – in fact, some of the original obnoxiousness has been toned down from the base game, to make up for the fact that the mod is probably a tiny bit harder in isolation.

By far the biggest and most worthwhile change, though, is to the covenant system. The covenants are one of the most interesting and disappointing systems in the series – most of them have little function or progression outside of interacting with now-dead or never-totally-functional multiplayer features, the few that are relevant in single-player have shit rewards or are tedious to progress in, and they end up siloing off some really cool content and making it almost impossible or just not worth the effort. SotE completely overhauls the covenants, and not only makes them all viable and meaningful in a single-player context, but also interesting and worthwhile augments to the base game.

Some of the covenants are just straightforward toggles, giving you access to bonuses or features while you have the covenant active. Way of the White lets you donate souls to unlock a handful of permanent bonuses, only active while you’re sworn to them, while the Forest Hunters is mostly a shop with an inventory you can pay exorbitantly to expand, eventually unlocking unlimited upgrade materials and virtually every rare weapon you can think of. Princess Guard provides decent boosts to recovery miracles as well as a special consumable that refreshes at bonfires, like a reusable Goddess blessing.

But the more interesting ones are much more involved, and end up being a bit like side-quests or mini-games that layer onto the base game. Path of the Dragon sends you on a scavenger hunt for tiny, almost invisible vagrants tucked into all kinds of nooks and weird dead-ends throughout the game, netting you upgrades for your dragon form items and dragon-aligned weapons as you find more. Gravelord works similarly, adding red phantom enemy spawns to the normal enemies and compensating you with special miracles that rely purely on covenant devotion instead of faith as you kill them off. Sunlight Bros get an orb that lets you do a single refight of any boss, giving you a second dose of currency, a duplicate soul for crafting, and more and more powerful lightning spells.

My absolute favorite, though, was the Darkmoon covenant, which sells you bounties for themed NPC spawns, each with a hint to their location and what it’ll take to bring them down. Some bounties also summon minions of their own, some spring traps or use the environment to their advantage, and one just outright cheats. They tend to use weapons and spells that you don’t normally see in-game, some are genuinely very difficult to get to and take out, and it’s just a really clever and fun way to incentivize revisiting locations. It reminded me a lot of the Recusant bounties in Elden Ring, but genuinely better thought out and executed. I especially liked Hacky Patches, the cheater who you have to outsmart to eject from your world, and the couple who disguise themselves as world objects and give you silly riddles to solve to find and kill them.

Now, one problem with a lot of these things is that they’re not really completable until you’re already near the end of the game, and you can’t have multiple active at once, so, for example, every time I did a boss refight I’d have to teleport to the Sunlight altar, switch covenants, then do the boss without having access to my dragon stones, then warp to Stone Dragon and swap back. For some of them, obviously, I’m pretty sure you can permanently lock yourself out of them for the rest of a run, too. Thankfully, covenant progress is retained and there’s no penalty for swapping, but it’s a bit much to try to do them all or even more than a couple per-run, and really annoying, at least on Prepare to Die. In Remastered, you do get to change covenants in the bonfire menu so it’s probably less of a problem.

I didn’t play with magic of any kind too much, so I can’t comment on any changes there, but there are definitely a few totally new spells, and they didn’t seem terribly balanced in either direction – in fact, I really liked the Gravelord starting miracle, which seemed like the sort of thing that could’ve been in Elden Ring. On second thought, it’s too usable and fun to have been in Elden Ring, FromSoft would’ve given it like a 10 second duration and shit damage if they’d made the spell. Casting consumes stamina now, which does make early pyromancy in particular kind of pointless, and there’s still the problem with DS1 having absolutely immutable cast limits per-rest, which makes balancing a nightmare and ends up with most spells either being a crap utility at best or just a way to burst down bosses. I’m also disappointed that weapons with special abilities still drain massive amounts of their durability – it’s not like they’re that overpowered, and they still use the default controls, so all of those weapons basically don’t have real heavy attacks anyway.

Speaking of bosses, some of the mid-game stuff seems a good bit tankier, either from extra health, changed weapon scaling [although I didn’t really notice any major changes there] or maybe just a consequence of two-handing getting less bonus damage than normal. It doesn’t really make anything harder, just take longer. Consuming humanity doesn’t instantly refill your health, it just regenerates it very quickly, which I honestly found to be nice when topping off, since I had so many. Then, there’s also a much lower limit for estus – kindling can only be done twice, even with the Rite, and your flask uses go from 5 to 8 to 10. That’s half the normal max, and, yeah, you might say it logically makes the game twice as hard, but really it’s fine. I hardly ever ran out. And no, I’m still not bragging.

All in all, Shadow of the Eclipse is a decent effort, a fairly substantial overhaul that doesn’t really ruin anything good, adds a few good things of its own, and then makes some kind of lateral plays that don’t pay off but didn’t piss me off either. It’s not one of those moronic ‘challenge’ mods made for streamers to farm engagement with, and I think anyone who can beat a Dark Souls game can probably have a decent time with it. That said, I wouldn’t recommend it until you’re pretty much sick of playing through Dark Souls normally – the vanilla game is plenty replayable on its own, and the mod does expect a good amount of familiarity to get the most out of it. As for me, it might have replaced Age of Sunlight as the thing I’d use to spice up my next playthrough… unless some other half-decent overhaul comes to light.

Shadow of the Eclipse can be downloaded on NexusMods.

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Assetto Corsa Rally Subarus and snow – the 0.4 update for this [far more serious than Super Woden: Rally Edge] rally race sim has brought the snow weather effect to the other two locales, added a few more cars, and, as I mentioned in my note a few days ago, forgot to add the ability to put snow tires on in those newly snowy maps. Or maybe I was just doing something wrong.

Either way, I fumbled through a few races in the snow like a teen driver seeing their first winter behind the wheel, and realized I wasn’t satisfied so I started actually doing the intended, structured events. I even got a few silver medals! I’m not as bad as my clips make me seem!

Ball X Pit Shadow Update, ARC Raiders new map, Helldivers mech rebalance – a triple helping of updates that should be the sort of thing to get me excited to play these games again, but for reasons intrinsic to their nature, fail to evoke that. What would I even do with a new Ball X Pit character? Partner them with the AI controlled character and let them heat up my room while I look at my phone, probably.

Proton VR early access – this VR arcade shooter was the best VR demo I played during the most recent Next Fest, and has enough promise that I’m willing to drop money on an extremely early Early Access pitch, one that even the dev seems happy to caution people to wait on. At first I thought it was even smaller than the demo – there are two maps you can enter, and the default one has you running around charging batteries and doing little puzzles while fending off respawning enemies, but is a pretty small location otherwise.

But the EA does include the perk tree and weapon upgrade and attachment features, which were part of why I was excited to see someone pick up where COMPOUND VR left off. And even though not all the guns are customizable, the ones that are have a good number of options, and some really fun ones at that, like turning the basic pistol into some Robocop shit. Good stuff.

Mech Havoc – the actual update that dropped this week is less important than the fact that enough sizable looking updates have occurred recently that I want to give this top-down Brigador-lite a shot already. And I’ve been pretty happy with the early game – the bite-sized missions and massive list of guns and mechs and truck chassis unlocks remind me pleasantly of Viktor Origins, and there’s something satisfying about firing a railgun through a wall into an explosive fuel tank and watching the carnage.

Gastova: The Witches of Arkana – and now for an EA game that I’ve had for far too long. Gastova is a platformer of the Shantae/Wonder Boy variety, and it’s been in Early Access since 2022. Development has been a bit slow, playable updates even slower, and the developer has admitted frequently to succumbing to feature creep. But a new playable build after… I’m not sure how long, means I finally get to try out some of the long hyped changes, like replacing consumable potions with replenishing spells and a hard difficulty that gives enemies a chance to have random elemental powers. I’m still hopeful this game gets finished this year, and it’s looking likelier now than it has… well, since 2022.

Tainted Grail challenge mode – another new update to the Scrolls-like I never got around to finishing. This one is particularly interesting, as it’s a whole new mode that is intended to massively ramp up the difficulty of a replay, by imposing a choice of two permanent anti-perks every act you complete, and every two XP levels you gain. This is a format I’ve seen before, most notably in the Daughters of Ash mod for Dark Souls and a similar update for Souls-like-with-guns game Immortal: Unchained. In fact, for reasons I can’t fully explain, I actually finished that challenge for Immortal.

I don’t know that I would actually even attempt the same for an Oblivion-style RPG, though. It seems like the sort of thing that would either force you to engage in ridiculous cheesy meta-gaming or simply turn tedious as you piled damage reduction onto enemies that are already damage sponges. But it’s kind of cute that they’re making the attempt.

The State of Games Played

I’m nearing what I assume is the end of Esoteric Ebb. It’s been a nice counterpoint to whatever more demanding thing I’ve been playing alongside it, with a few rough edges or overlooked problems but generally very impressive. I might have to take a second dive for a couple hours after rolling credits just to see how far off the rails you can go, at least early on, before starting a write-up, but it’s no longer on the distant horizon.

Following ’ post about Hexen, and some discussion about the Nightdive ports of id FPSes, I decided to break down and buy the new Heretic + Hexen bundle, which comes with plenty of enhancements and quality of life features, and one new campaign for each game – I’m currently playing through the Faith Renewed campaign made for Heretic, and having a good time. Maybe my favorite new feature is the ability to assign specific inventory items to their own hotkeys, so you can actually pop a ring of invul or tome of power when you need it without having prophetic powers.

I finished Thumper, which means I was actually able to get myself into Into the Radius 2 long enough to clear the earliest bits and unlock the second map. I’ve got a huge variety of guns available to unlock now, tons of options for reflex sights and night vision rigs and foregrips and that’s still only about half the shop. I think I’ll take my time on this phase and grind up some actual gear before rushing off to the combat gauntlet that stalled me out before.

It’s time to light up, clean some guns, and return, for the first time since the first game, to my comfort zone, my safe space.

I also finished the Shadow of the Eclipse mod for Dark Souls. It might now be my favorite mod – ambitious but not oppressive, full of interesting additions and new features though still pretty rough and unfinished in a lot of similar ways to the base game. I don’t really have any interest in NG+, though, so I think I’m ready for the write-up.

Plus, I played some demos this week.

DEMOS

Ratcheteer DX

One more Link’s Awakening-like, taking place in a mid-apocalyptic setting, full of machinery and power conduits to toggle off and on, and presumably even a mech suit at some point. Unfortunately it just wasn’t that fun or engaging to play. Biggest problem is the lighting gimmick – about 80% of the demo consists of dark rooms only barely lit by your lantern, and its really frustrating. I got stuck on simple puzzles because I assumed there were mechanisms operating but I couldn’t actually see them to tell.

Vampire’s Veil

A Metroidvania reminiscent of Shantae with a little dash of Blasphemous thrown in. You play as a vampire lady who claws her way through the human defenders of a village and heals by grabbing screaming, fleeing maidens and draining their blood. It opens with an extended tutorial, one that, like the recent Inti Creates Gal Guardians demos, goes on far too long before removing all your powerups and making you explore a big empty map.

There’s nothing really wrong with the game, aside from the amount of kind of wasted space in the map, but it just didn’t excite me that much. I did like the art and animation, though.

Puzzle ATLAS

Just a digitized compilation of the sorts of logic puzzles you’d find in one of those bathroom readers targeted at gifted children. Oh, and a Simon Says ‘puzzle.’ There’s too much reading, too little fanfare when you lock in a correct answer, and I didn’t even parse some of these things as puzzles. Terrible.

Dead as Disco

This is a little bit less Sifu than I’d hoped and more like endless Batman: Arkham series brawls with some scoring that presumably improves with your timing. Mash attack, hit dodge when the dodge button flashes above an enemy, hit parry when the parry button flashes above an enemy, and, if you feel like it, hit the finisher button to lock yourself into a canned beatdown or do a button combo to do a faster execution, if you even remember that combo exists.

The demo does at least show off two obvious gimmicks for the train station themed stage it includes – fighting on tracks, with trains going by and obliterating everyone still on the wrong side of the arena [except you, who just gets hurt and bounces away] and fighting inside the train with a locked sidescrolling perspective, Oldboy style. I have to say, I hate when demos like this tease you with a bossfight but don’t let you do it. That’s the hook. You don’t catch shit by reeling a bit of line around.

A Fox Tale

A precision platformer with not a lot going on except some speciesism.

Very bland, not even that hard, nothing else to say about it.

Gecko Gods

A 3D platformer where you play as a gecko, and the one thing that everyone knows is that geckos can walk on any surface in any orientation so that’s the gimmick of this game. Except sometimes I still came unstuck and fell off, which was annoying.

Other than that, it’s pretty standard 3D exploration – switches, elevators, obvious power conduits to follow to more switches, moving water levels up and down, you get the idea. It’s fine but didn’t totally click with me, and the demo ends right as you get your Windwaker tiny sailboat so I guess the full game is you going around to different islands where you climb all over stuff and rage when you fall off randomly.

Queen’s Domain

Another King’s Field clone, this time very specifically emulating the look and feel of the PS2 evolution of the franchise, King’s Field IV. And it genuinely looks outstanding – gorgeous vistas, detailed and charismatic enemy models, rich environmental detail, all in a style that might not be totally authentic but sure feels nostalgic. From the first moments I gained control I was stunned by just how good it looked. It plays pretty good too.

The movement and combat is authentically stiff and plodding, but with careful calibration and just enough extra innovation layered on to make it more than a mindless mimicry. Like a real KF game, your weapon damage scales with the amount of stamina you’ve recovered since your last swing or sprint, but it’s further augmented by how long you’ve held your swing, up to a point. Each weapon also has two attack types, giving the KF formula a taste of the Dark Souls moveset diversity, and giving weapon types more distinction, flavor, and situational value than their raw stats would otherwise add. Some weapons even do different ‘types’ of damage for each attack – the rusted sword’s lunge does piercing instead of slash damage, for instance.

You eventually find a set of throwing daggers, which are my favorite addition – they are an off-hand ranged option, regenerate very slowly, and so can be used for extra damage, to draw aggro from a distance, as a Bloodborne-esque interrupt, and to pop the annoying fucking eye plants that laser you constantly and are the biggest threat in the demo until you find the knives.

The demo is pretty short, but has plenty to it to make it one of my most anticipated upcoming games already – there are secrets to find, extra weapon variants, a shop you can visit after beating the boss, with one of the absolute hardest shop themes I’ve ever heard, and though the demo unfortunately prevents you from grabbing the ‘flying’ sword showcased in the trailer, it turns out that you can abuse some of the leftover speed from a normal sword lunge to access quite a bit more of the starting island than you’re probably meant to… and the developer might have known that, because there’s even more stuff to find beyond.

I really cannot wait until this game comes out, and it might end up being among my favorite King’s Field-inspired games yet.

Writing

Myth of a Godslayer is another fantastic game I don’t think I would have found or played if I wasn’t spending so much time and energy combing through demos and releases, so hopefully I did a good enough job showcasing it that someone else who otherwise wouldn’t have known about it had their curiosity piqued.

As I spent more time finishing the Dark Souls mod than I expected, I didn’t have quite enough time to finish the write-up of that mod, which I’m going to do prior to writing up Thumper. Assuming I have enough time left over after both of those are out, I’ll be chipping away at my next longer piece as well.

Other

I’ve just climbed above 250 subscribers, a milestone I find mildly significant and somewhat surprising – it’s five times what I had only six months ago, and I feel a lot less like I’m pouring words into a bottomless pit than I did before. I kind of wanted to do something to mark the occasion, but I couldn’t think of anything good so I’m just going to play and write up games even harder until I get tired again.

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The Myth of a Godslayer [which is a mouthful, and will be referred to as simply Godslayer for the remainder] is a top-down action RPG inspired by Beyond Oasis and its sequel. You play as Klain, a Divine Warrior of the God of Destruction, Norphis, sent to the recently discovered New World to stake your clan’s claim on exploitable territory. After massacring an indigenous settlement and committing a little light murder back home, he gets his hands on a few ancient divine relics, and begins his pursuit of conquest and vengeance.

Most of the game takes place in the New World, consisting of a large overworld split into distinct biomes, each riddled with caves and secrets, each with a large dungeon to open and complete, and each with a teleportation arch that allows fast travel between regions and back to the hub city of Pandora. Control of the arch is what determines territorial claims, and your primary goal, dictated by your tyrannical God-boss, is to seize every territory of the New World and drive out the forces of the two other divine rulers of Pandora.

But, as you might expect, even getting into those other biomes isn’t as simple as it sounds, and your path is obstructed in ways that mere mortal humans can’t overcome without help. Luckily, as you explore, you eventually make contact with the now-exiled former god-rulers of the city, who offer you a taste of their elemental powers in exchange for an oath to depose your evil sovereign. The stele that let you draw more divine power from the old gods are generally found in the deepest parts of the regional dungeons, and so your two main goals are woven together – invade and conquer a region, scour it for resources and uncover the next stele, letting you expand your skill tree and grow strong enough to press further.

Godslayer’s progression hinges mostly on special artifacts doled out throughout the adventure, but it’s unlike a typical Zelda structure in that you don’t find these artifacts midway through a dungeon. You usually receive it before, and then spend the entirety of the dungeon using it for puzzles. Godslayer’s artifacts are also extremely useful in combat. The very first one you get is a simple paralyzing jolt that remains handy throughout the game, and later powers give you a frost clone, a charging shoulder tackle, even the ability to stop time. Some enemies are especially weak to certain elements or attacks, and using the right artifact on them can make them temporarily vulnerable, a state where they take double damage from all attacks. Artifacts are chosen from a radial menu, which keeps the menu fatigue to a minimum even when puzzles require a lot of swapping back and forth.

Instead of the artifacts, your mid-dungeon rewards are all special elemental moves, which tie in with the combat even more directly. The basic combat itself is surprisingly robust, with your standard combo augmented by a dedicated dodge and a handful of special attacks performed with almost fighting game-style inputs. A double tap in any direction before an attack gives you a piercing lunge that emits a shockwave from the tip of your sword through a line of enemies. A full circle followed by an attack gives you a powerful 360 spin that knocks most enemies away. The most important is back-forward-attack, which performs an uppercut that launches enemies into the air, causing them to become vulnerable just like an elemental weakness, and staggering them so you can finish them off quickly.

The elemental moves found in dungeons overlap with those special inputs, unleashing even more powerful effects, in some cases massively shifting the course of a fight. The water-elemental lunge incorporates a wide spin that poisons any enemy hit, for example, while the lighting variant of the throw attack obliterates anything within several paces in front of you with a chain of explosive bolts. Both artifact uses and elemental moves draw from a pool of stamina, which constantly regenerates but has a lengthy cooldown if you deplete it fully, a system that encourages you to use both regularly to spice up and simplify encounters but not spam them mindlessly. Finally, using those elemental moves gives you charge tokens of the corresponding element – collect three, and you can do a spin attack to unleash a massive, screen-wide ultimate, like crashing meteors or a healing siphon reminiscent of Symphony of the Night’s Soul Steal. If you have one of each element, you combine the old gods’ power into a devastating whirlwind of elemental damage.

It’s good that the combat ends up being pretty consistently engaging because there’s a lot of combat. As you roam around the overworld, not only will enemies and resource collection points respawn, you’ll occasionally encounter random events like buffed or debuffed enemies, traveling merchants, bands of elite warriors from rival clans. Some of the events are optional challenges – miniboss variants of regional enemies, invading hordes streaming through portals, and so on, and if you succeed, you’ll earn a few reputation points, eventually improving your rank within Pandora and unlocking further access to shop inventories and crafting services. At about the midway point in the story, you also get access to the Arena in Pandora, which has a respectable amount of extra challenges and rewards for you to grind through, including tougher boss refights and duels.

You also have to do a little combat gauntlet both to conquer new territories, and to defend currently held territories that are under assault. I say ‘little’ but this is the one point in the game where I think it does start to wear out its welcome a bit. I don’t mind the conquering part, which pits you against multiple waves of elite troops from the defending faction, alongside friendly forces, which is a cute touch, and punctuated by their own random events like enemy grenade barrages or friendly supply drops, and endcapped by boss fights against rival Divine Warriors.

What I didn’t like as much were the defenses – these happen randomly, with an alert flashing across your screen, and then you have what I assume is either a set amount of time or set number of screen transitions to drop whatever you’re doing, find the nearest portal, teleport to the region being threatened, and do another wave-based gauntlet. And another boss fight. It’s just too much interruption, too much effort required, and the only reward is that you don’t lose the things you’ve already kind of earned. Thankfully, the attacks aren’t incessant, they don’t seem to happen at all when you’re in a dungeon or the like, and there’s a certain point in the story where it satisfyingly shifts gears a bit, but it remains… if not a headache, at least the ever-looming anxiety of a potential headache, and put me off of doing too much optional running around the overworld in the mid-game portion.

Which is a shame because the side quests and variety of secrets and optional upgrades are really impressive. There’s multiple optional late-game dungeons, scrolls that buff each of the elemental attacks, all sorts of accessories that let you focus on a damage type or shrug off a status you really don’t want to deal with, and that’s without even completing the Arena or maxing your reputation to unlock the final craftable gear. Weapons and armor upgrades tend to be more than just straight numerical advantages, usually having some innate bonus attributes of their own, and then some number of colored gem slots that let you add a handful of bonuses of your own choosing for a custom build.

Speaking of dungeons, they are substantial, hold some respectably tough puzzles, and feel paced and structured to really wring out a lot of clever ideas from the artifact abilities. The demo that I played during Next Fest last year was pretty much just the first major dungeon, and that was enough to sell me on picking up the game at release.

Also worth noting is the quality of the story and the writing. Godslayer has a darker tone than most comparable titles, but its characters and style keep it from being oppressive or embarrassingly edgy. There’s a lot of swearing, for example, but none of it stands out as out-of-character or inappropriate. Characters have their own tone, they come across very well, and I ended up really liking the city and setting in general. The main quest has several worthwhile twists, and I enjoyed the denouement after the ending, presumably setting up a sequel hook.

The graphics and audio are also much higher quality than you might expect from a quick glance. The large sprites are well animated, very readable, and highly expressive. None of the music stood out to me as especially memorable or exciting but it was a consistently fitting soundtrack for the areas. Maybe my favorite part of the art were the big character portraits, which had a sort of unpolished flatness to the colors but were otherwise endearing in an amateurish way.

The game has multiple difficulty levels, and I started out on Normal, but I found the difficulty dropping off significantly by about midgame, and probably would have been happier on Hard. Unfortunately, you can only turn difficulty down mid-playthrough, and not up, so that’ll have to wait for a future replay. Part of the problem is the ease with which you can just kind of tank hits and then soak the damage back with life leach accessories later on, plus consumables, which I had a massive stockpile of by endgame from not using them earlier. But I also found that some of the late-game content felt scaled more appropriately for post-game, and doing all of the major optional stuff drove me to the level cap, after which I positively crushed the intended final dungeon. I guess it’s good that the final dungeon isn’t scaled to punish you for not doing all the extra stuff, but maybe that level cap should’ve just been a tad lower.

The Myth of a Godslayer is an all-around excellent action adventure RPG with a lot of charm and just about a perfect amount of content to feel fully-featured without edging into bloat. I’d strongly recommend it for any fans of the Oasis games, top-down Zeldas, or just action RPGs in general.

The Myth of a Godslayer can be purchased on Steam.

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Saint Slayer: Spear of Sacrilege release – I played the demo for this very 8-bit Castlevania-y platformer a while back, and enjoyed it a lot. I think I’ll hold off on it for a little while still, though, because I still have plenty to play.

Into the Radius 2 release – this full release included a shocking number of changes from the beta drop a few weeks ago. For one, the voices of the two NPCs that talk at you a bunch have been completely re-recorded to be less peppy, and the script trimmed down significantly, which is a surprisingly graceful reception of feedback and also a very quick turnaround on such a thing. The game also now lets you skip the tutorial, which is great, because I did it once in the beta and never want to do it again.

Granser Act 1 continual updates – you may have noticed I haven’t been finishing Granser, the recently released JRPG from Skautfold developer Pugware. Okay, I’m kidding, nobody noticed that or cares. But the reason I haven’t, besides being otherwise occupied, is because the game is getting almost nonstop updates, adding more and more new content, like, entire towns, and not just at the end of the extant Act either. I’m not sure if I should go ahead and play through the rest of it now and then revisit it later, I’m not sure if I’ll even really know when it’s ‘finished’ and through this unstated Early Access period. The most recent patch notes teased an additional boss fight added to the chapter I’m about to start, though, so I think I’ll at least hold on until that’s put in.

The State of Games Played

Still chugging away at Thief 2 when I get an hour or two. I do really love the additional challenges and greater efforts at crafting specific secrets to find, but some of the broad stroke map design… well, I’ll have more to say about all that later.

I should have finished the Dark Souls mod I started last week… but I got sidetracked with the mod’s Dragon covenant, which consists of an Easter egg hunt for almost invisible vagrants tucked into the sorts of dead ends and weird corners that would show up in a YouTube for ‘most liminal’ or ‘best smoke spots’ in Dark Souls. All so I can walk around with a big dumb lizard head. I only have about four bosses left now, and I’ve maxed the covenant, so I should be done this week.

I doubled my playtime in Replaced, and let me tell you, the second 20 minutes are an order of magnitude more engaging than the first 20 minutes. But that first 20 minutes was so fucking boring that that’s still not saying much.

I forgot that I had bought Caesar’s Revenge, a 2.5D FPS where you play as the vengeful spirit of Julius Caesar hunting down each and every one of his assassins. It’s one of those things you have to be in a certain mood for, and I found myself in that mood for a bit, and blasted through the first few stages. I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to finishing it – rumor is the last act takes a turn for the miserable, but even if I do it really shouldn’t take long – the par time on some of these levels is like, a minute.

When I went to try out the full release of Into the Radius 2, I put on my headset and turned on Virtual Desktop and then remembered that I’d have to download a massive patch since I was still on the beta. While waiting for that to happen, I looked around for something to burn a couple minutes with and saw Thumper.

Thumper is not the right game to simply waste a couple minutes with. I wound up playing Thumper in VR instead of ItR2. I beat the first two levels pretty handily, even went back and S-ranked the first stage just to get a higher score than anyone on my friends list, and put my headset up thinking I could probably knock this game out in a couple sessions. Then I started it up the next day and got wrung out by stage 3. I was shaking at the end like someone stumbling off a roller coaster. It might take me a minute to beat Thumper, especially if I continue to do it in VR, which is my intent. I’ll have to figure out the audio, though, the recording doesn’t seem to have the same volume and bass as what I’m bombarded with in the headset.

I also tooled around a bit in Tin Can while I had my headset on, and managed a pretty solid half-hour long survival before getting bored and frustrated with recycling the very small amount of O2 I’d left myself with and tried venting myself into space only to get stuck against an invisible wall.

After I finished Nocturnal I immediately downloaded the Nocturnal 2 demo and played a good chunk of it, enough to feel pretty confident that the sequel will be a lot more my speed. The enhanced combat includes launches and air juggling, basic movement is augmented with an early double jump and wall climbing, and most importantly, your fire buff is no longer on a timer. It’s more of a puzzle element/toggleable status now, which is great for a more open layout.

Writing

Gunlocked 2 and Nocturnal – not among my favorite games so far this year, and that’s fine. I’d love it if everything were on the level of Zexion or Haunted Lands, but it’s important to make time for things that aren’t quite there, keep track of devs that could get there someday, and maintain perspective on what makes some games stand out.

But speaking of games that are right up there, I didn’t have time to finish my write-up of The Myth of a Godslayer last week, so that’ll be my focus this week.

Other

Got myself a new grill for the start of grilling season. It’s better than getting a new car. I’ve done steaks twice already. Nothing can stop me now.

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Nocturnal is a short, linear action platformer about being a pyromaniac who comes home to find his sister playing with shadow. The entire realm is ruined, drenched in an oppressive black fog, and the only way to save the day is to set as much shit on fire as possible. Including his sister.

The central gimmick of the game is your ability to set your sword on fire, and then use it to set other things on fire. You accomplish this by striking lit torches, imbuing your sword for a short amount of time. While your sword is inflamed, you can then strike unlit torches and braziers to provide new permanent sources of fire, light up the vicinity, and refresh your constantly draining fire meter. Some sconces function as switches, opening doors or activating elevators once lit, and a lot of the navigation revolves around getting fire to everything that needs to be lit, complicated by waterfalls and magical shadow geysers that douse your sword.

Your fire buff is also crucial to the combat – attacks with a fiery sword set enemies alight, causing some damage over time, you can consume the enchantment to heal yourself on a small cooldown, and some enemy types can only be struck by flame. Later on, you gain a few additional offensive moves that can only be cast while buffed, like a massive swipe, thrown time bombs, and a channeled AoE explosion that stuns everything hit. In general, though, you’re mostly best off just doing a basic combo and then dodge rolling past enemies when they do their attack.

There’s a surprising amount of enemy variety considering how short Nocturnal is [more on that later] but none of it is particularly exciting. There are ranged enemies, whose projectiles you can deflect with attacks, beefy tanks who block your hits and even rolls with a shield, swooping fliers and casters, and even a couple minibosses, but nothing super memorable. The art style and slightly distant zoom level keep the enemy designs from being very distinct, the animations are readable enough for the difficulty level but would probably seem a bit abrupt if the game really challenged me, and a lot of it kind of gets washed out by all the swirling flames and smoke.

To be clear, the fire effects are pretty good, and with a little more effort and cleaner design would have helped carry the look pretty well. A ton of the incidental detail in the levels can be set alight, causing it to burn away dynamically – fluttering banners, ivy creeping up walls, corpses slumped on the floor. Sometimes it even fits in mechanically, with some bonus areas hidden behind tangled foliage or an elevator platform wrapped in vines that you need to hit with a fiery throwing knife to clear. Running along striking torches and progressively lighting up the world is satisfying and visually solid, and while the fire doesn’t really propagate realistically, the burning animations are well done. It reminded me a lot of the game Wildfire, which made more ambitious use of the fire propagation to augment more stealth-focused platforming.

The game is split up into around 30 stages, which you visit in a linear order. Some areas are very slightly more complicated than just a straightforward gauntlet, requiring some side tracks to open gates, activate elevators, and bring fire around obstacles like a harried Olympic torchbearer, but nothing too crazy or involved. There are even a few secrets scattered around these areas, mostly just nooks with some extra coins, but also a series of shrines, requiring small additional puzzles to access, which give you a little bit of text log backstory to read. Once you beat the game, you unlock stage select, which shows you which stages have shrines left to find, so that’s your main completion goal if you want to bother.

Killing enemies and breaking pots that are scattered throughout are how you get coins, and those coins are spent at checkpoints to unlock nodes on a small but sufficient skill tree. There are basic upgrades to give you a bit more health or extend your fire buff timer, then major perks that include all your special fire-enhanced moves and the ability to parry. Shockingly, parrying is a totally optional ability, and one that’s frankly kind of disappointing. The window is pretty tight, the reward is middling [enemies just ignite same as they would from getting hit with a buffed sword, though it happens even if you aren’t buffed] and a lot of enemies just have very short telegraphs in their animations before hitting you. In fact, it’s pretty much never really worth bothering, aside from a couple bosses where you’re forced to fight without a buff at all.

That brings me to my biggest gripe, which is the general lack of difficulty. Well, that’s not quite right. I’m not going to say it’s completely trivial, and I did cop a few deaths, but it’s lacking in the challenge and satisfaction in overcoming challenge that action platformers need to stay engaging, and it doesn’t really have much exploration to fall back on. Most combat encounters devolve into you simply dodging or hopping around, smacking enemies as many times as you can in the cooldown window between their own attacks, healing pretty freely, and only rarely forced to play conservatively, much less aggressively. The only encounters I found remotely engaging were the few that deprived you of fire sources, either by having each torch be single-use or igniting periodically on a cycle, and even then I found myself rarely stressed for health or time.

Oh, and the game has a few spots where you’re supposed to hop down to platforms beneath the bottom of the screen but there’s not enough visual information to know what you’re jumping towards and it’s really easy to miss and die. I don’t think these were intentional blind jumps so much as an oversight in the way the camera works and insufficient background design/playtesting.

One surprising positive was in its tone and the way it told its story. There are few NPCs, and only one who appears repeatedly, and even she only has a few lines to say at each encounter. I actually really liked those meetings – each one starts with you walking into a room where the female warrior is taking a break, and you can sit down across from her and catch your breath too, with the camera simply zooming in on the two of you momentarily resting with some thematic music that fades away whenever you decide to stand back up and carry on. There’s not a lot of plot, but it’s delivered competently enough to never get in the way or feel like a drag.

And it’s good that the game’s narrative doesn’t drag because it wouldn’t have a whole hell of a lot of time to do so anyway. The full game clocks in [for me] at a bit shy of two hours, with probably another 20 or so theoretically required for full completion, depending on how thorough you were in your initial run. Now, there is a speedrun mode, which is a cute feature, but I don’t see much appeal to it as a speedrun game anyway, and there’s no other boost to its replayability – no higher difficulty or anything like that. And dropping an action game that is, to be blunt, very plausibly completable within the standard Steam refund window for many players, is kind of ballsy, however you feel about short, tight experiences versus padded slogs.

Which is probably part of the reason Nocturnal frequently goes on deeeeep discount, which itself is why I picked it up even knowing it was very short and probably not a life-changer. But the reason I decided to finally play Nocturnal and whip out this post is because it’s currently not on sale – it’s free-to-own, almost certainly as a strategy to get some eyes on the series before the release of the sequel, and hopefully get people who otherwise might not bother to try out its demo. Like Janosik, I think this is a great idea for talented but utterly unknown indie developers, although in this case it’s a limited-time deal.

Even once this weekend’s over and you can’t simply download Nocturnal for free and then forget to ever play it, I do think it’s probably worth the couple bucks you can score it for on pretty much every sale that comes around, as long as you temper your expectations. It’s not much of game in and of itself, but it’s a respectable first taste of the upcoming sequel, which is a full Metroidvania with far more fleshed out combat, an expansive map, and hopefully a bit more than a couple of hours worth of mild distraction. Though, honestly, maybe just try the demo for Nocturnal 2 instead.

Nocturnal can be purchased on Playstation 5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, GOG, and Steam.

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Gunlocked 2, like its predecessor from a few years ago, is a solo-developed Survivors-like Euro-shmup with a bunch of options and no real end game. You fly a ship, blast apart enemy vessels and asteroids, collect the gems inside, and pick from a random set of choices for passive upgrades to unlock at level-up. The sequel strives to expand the game in dozens of little ways – more open screen real estate, more weapons, pilots, ships, and difficulty toggles, and flashier visuals in the same style.

One of the bigger changes to the format does more for the game’s playability than anything else, and that’s the stage selection between rounds. Every few minutes, you get two options for what the next zone will offer – what sorts of enemies you’ll face, what hazards will appear, what kind of rewards the mid-stage beacon challenge has, even which boss you have to fight. You can even reroll the beacon rewards, but the most important part of this feature is that it serves as a save point. You can finish a stage, save and quit at the selection screen, and resume the run later. It helps to not feel trapped in a run that might in reality take a good bit longer than the roughly 30 minute session promised by a Survivors-like, which was one of my problems with the original. Plus, having distinct enemy and hazard types that you consciously pick from does a little to give the stages more personality.

Another straightforwardly positive change is the addition of an optional, endless post-game. These games are all about piecing together a ‘build’ that scales well enough to keep up with an escalating deluge of enemies, and in most of these games, the key to victory is breaking the balance completely. If you fail to create an obscenely overpowered aura of DPS around you, you’re guaranteed to be overwhelmed by the last couple minutes and die, and if you do, the last few minutes mostly devolve into you looking at your phone while waiting for the timer to finish ticking down or pacing around slurping up thousands of gems as your eyes glaze over.

Gunlocked, however, is also a shmup, and so killing enemies is only half the battle, as you also need to constantly pay attention to dodge shots and shielded foes and clouds of debris. It also has a much smoother progression of power, both from the player and the stages, so even though the screen gets pretty cluttered and chaotic in the leadup to the last boss of a run, it’s nothing compared to, say, Vampire Survivors itself. And, so, when you do complete a run, there’s still plenty of room for both your build to develop and the density to ramp up for a while, and you get the choice to either cap off the run or continue on until you’re finally destroyed, earning more data disks and running up your score, and it’s fun to do a little victory run if you’re enjoying a loadout.

You have a good bit more flexibility in how you start a run in the sequel too. There are 18 unlockable pilots with a different weapon as their starter, and each also has a variant who unlocks with them that uses the same weapon but has a different innate skill. There are six different ships, with special abilities, move speeds, and hit box size. And you can equip six augments out of a pool that unlock as you accomplish various challenges while playing. Finally, you can layer on difficulty options, disable helpful mechanics, and ramp up the challenge with negative anomalies, boosting your score multiplier the more toggles you have enabled. There are positive anomalies that make things easier but using those disables unlocks and achievements.

Unfortunately, the focus of most of those nice new features is the Survivors-like part of the game’s lineage, and its qualities as a shmup are less polished. There are a lot of little problems and subjective flaws but the overarching criticism I have is that it just doesn’t have enough impact. The graphics are fine in isolation but Survivors-like density scaling means the screen gets too busy and enemies, shots, and effects are too broadly colorful to make it easy to visually parse what’s happening in any given frame. There’s not much punch to either enemies getting destroyed or you taking hits, and those effects get so lost in the chaos that I rarely even noticed that I’d taken damage until I’d finish a stage and glanced at my health bar. Gunlocked 2 adds a focus mode for tighter dodging and a recharging temporary invulnerability but even in boss battles [aside from one forced use of the invul] I found myself rarely bothering and just moving to a different spot entirely.

And even the roguelite structure itself isn’t all that well-developed, frankly, despite it being the focus. There’s a much wider variety in passive upgrades to equip and stack on level-up, and a lot of them are just too over-engineered and unsatisfying. A lot of them are bizarrely conditional, or essentially extra attacks that proc occasionally, and while the idea is that you’re setting up a build that has a cascade or cycle of effect triggers, in practice each individual component is rarely noticeable when you pick it up. You can even end up being offered and picking options that you literally do not have any way to trigger with your current weapons, and the visual language of the icons makes it tough to parse your level-up screen quickly.

The main way the game attempts to address this is by giving you a LOT of options at level-up, and that just makes things worse. I’ve never liked the way this genre interrupts you so frequently to pick from three cards, but three cards is actually a lot better than, like, seven, and four of the seven make me solve a goddamn word problem to understand what they do. All of this culminates in the biggest disappointment I have with Gunlocked, the original and now the sequel, which is just how hard it is to evolve the weapons.

For one thing, the game has a hint system for Symbionics on the main menu, but it’s not available when you need it, i.e. in the level up screen. Some of the combinations of passives you need are obscure or counter-intuitive, most of them require you to have multiple copies of one or more of the required passives, some require rare passives that might not ever show up in a run period. And it’s not a simple matter of having the right weapon and the right passives either – you have to then wait until all your weapon slots are full, then level up enough until you hit the point where you WOULD be picking another weapon, but now you are instead prompted to choose an existing weapon to modify. Now, you need to intuit which of your weapons, if any, have met the conditions for their Symbionic upgrade, because every weapon ALSO has three kind of middling side-grades to choose from, and the menu does not clue you in if you’ve also earned the more broadly useful Symbionic option yet.

I wound up stumbling into NO Symbionics from just playing around, and I suspect it’d be a brutal slog to learn them on your own, as you’re only given one chance per-run to even perform the check. So, once again, like all these games, you’re really just supposed to look them up, make a little note of which ones you want to try to make this round, and then reroll until you get given the right choices. Except you also have to do that in a strict time, or rather level, limit. And then the evolved weapons aren’t really appreciably more impressive anyway. You ought to at least be able to see hints once you’ve unlocked them once already.

And, just like with the first Gunlocked, once you’ve unlocked all the pilots and augments, or more to the point, unlocked the ones you want to use, there’s not actually any endgame goal or progress to pursue. You just slowly accrue more ways to play the same basic game, fight the same couple bosses, over and over until you find something better to do with your time. In a sense, that’s true of all these kinds of games, but there’s usually at least some attempt to provide the illusion of progress – new areas, reskinned enemies, some form of meta progression to gradually ease the difficulty of later content. Everything in Gunlocked kind of blurs together, every run visually devolving into the same chaotic mess.

Gunlocked 2 is fine, for a while, but it probably won’t totally hold your attention for very long. It requires too much focus to be a good podcast game, it doesn’t reward your focus enough to be terribly engaging, its a bit lacking in punch and quality of life for how long it spent in Early Access, and it’s bloated without feeling meaningfully distinct. I think the biggest mark against it, frankly, is its price. I gave the original Gunlocked a pass when I played it because, while it had many of the same problems and failings, it was only a couple bucks and I felt like I’d enjoyed enough of the few hours I played it to give it a soft recommendation. The sequel costs more than twice as much, and while it might technically have more than twice the content, or have taken twice the effort to make, I don’t think it’s really twice as fun.

Gunlocked 2 can be purchased on Steam.

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I initially wrote this post in 2024 before starting my page. Most of these older posts will not be available for free subscribers, but I’m making an exception for those that wound up being ranked in the top 10 of my favorite games from each year.

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I initially wrote this post in 2024 before starting my page. Most of these older posts will not be available for free subscribers, but I’m making an exception for those that wound up being ranked in the top 10 of my favorite games from each year.

Read more

I initially wrote this post in 2024 before starting my page. Most of these older posts will not be available for free subscribers, but I’m making an exception for those that wound up being ranked in the top 10 of my favorite games from each year.

Read more

Game Releases and Updates

REPLACED release – this is one of those games that reached a certain threshold of pre-release hype that put the hipster in me off of it. I didn’t even bother downloading the demo for it during the most recent Next Fest because I knew literally every other person writing about Next Fest would be playing it that week, and they did. Good for them.

I also honestly wasn’t sold on the 2.5D gameplay with 3D environments, an art style I find conceptually ugly, and I haven’t enjoyed a modern Cinematic Platformer in years, unless you count Idosra. But I got it as a gift at release so I guess I’ll give it a shot. Not impressed so far. The first 20 minutes have been the exact sort of ‘hold right and try not to nod off’ thrill-a-minute gameplay that seems to really gel with a certain subset. Hopefully it improves, or at least fucking something happens within the next half hour. Don’t expect me to plow through this quickly or be primed to glaze it as much as everyone else because I’m already in a bad mood.

Cave Story+ console parity update – I actually put this on my notes last week, when the update was announced, but come Sunday I checked and the update itself was still in beta, so I pushed it back. I looked today and guess what? It’s still in beta. And I don’t really care THAT much, so I’m mentioning it now even though I’ve not gotten a chance to try it. What is it? An update to bring the 2011 Steam re-release of one of the most important indie games ever made the additional content that has only been available on some console ports, released later. And mod support, apparently.

Now, a lot of the visual updates only apply to the ‘modern’ graphics set, which I wouldn’t be using if I decided to replay this game anyway, and the other big feature is co-op, which I would not have an opportunity to play because I have no friends. So this whole thing is just a wash from top to bottom and I’m a little frustrated that I haven’t scrapped this entire section. That’s how little news there is this week.

The State of Games Played

My main outlet for gaming this week was finishing the endgame for The Myth of a Godslayer, and guess what? I beat it! I probably should’ve tried a little harder to get through this last year, but it was a busy month and a half after its Thanksgiving release, so I don’t feel too bad. I wound up doing enough of the moderately interesting side content, including two full optional dungeons, that I hit the level cap before facing the actual final dungeon, and was a bit too strong. I probably should have saved those for post-game.

I’ve finally made some significant progress in Esoteric Ebb, though there are still whole areas and characters I haven’t touched in my playthrough. It’s still consistently cracking me up, still thoroughly engaging, and still impressive in terms of writing and scenarios.

I’ve completed a few puzzles in Puzzling Places, in every mode available now, including the local co-op. There are still some rough edges, especially with the flatscreen experience, which in my opinion needs a lot more features and control options to even come close to the VR version. But it’s still better than anything like it I’ve tried.

It’s been a minute since I did a runthrough of Dark Souls, and earlier this week I decided to take a look and see what mods are still available for the Prepare to Die edition [pre-Remastered release] and after some debate, settled on downloading one called Shadow of the Eclipse. That’s right, Shadow of the E-, and I believe the naming technically predates the announcement of Elden Ring’s DLC. So someone’s getting sued, and I hope it’s FromSoft for locking perfect deflects behind Mogh.

Anyway, SotE is not the most overhaully of the overhauls I’ve tried for DS1, but it has enough subtle changes without going full Kaizo that I’ve been enjoying the shakeup. Changes include vastly expanded covenant content for singleplayer, boss tweaks, rearranged enemy and key item locations, and an expanded elemental imbuement system more in line with DS2. I’m over the hump now, Lordvessel in hand, and about ready to start seeing how the late game has been changed, hopefully mostly for the better. I mean, knock on wood, most of those areas can’t get any worse.

Writing

I didn’t have time to do any writing or even editing this week. Hopefully this week will be more relaxing and I’ll get to finish writeups for Gunlocked 2 and The Myth of a Godslayer at least.

Other

I’m gonna go back to bed.

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Puzzling Places PC release – This is a game I’ve played a ton in its original standalone incarnation on the Quest, but was happy to shell out for the port to PC. Puzzling Places is a 3D jigsaw puzzle game, and one of the best virtual jigsaw games period. There are a variety of 3D scanned and modeled locations and objects, a ton of wonderful details, and it’s easily one of the most engaging things you can do in VR without breaking a sweat.

The PC port primarily introduces the flat-screen mode, which is decent, but a little cumbersome and overwhelming still, especially on high piece counts. The mode just lacks some quality of life stuff like piece grouping and the ability to grab more than one piece at a time, plus manipulating the camera and pieces in three dimensions with a mouse and keyboard is just less intuitive than grabbing and moving in VR.

The other feature is PCVR mode, which has been expanded over the standalone version – better graphics options, a lot more options in general, and a whole new mode intended for casual play, where the only pieces presented to you are guaranteed to fit on the portion you’ve already got together. Really the only downgrade from the standalone is the loss of passthrough and fewer puzzles overall, since they haven’t started porting the DLC packs yet. The game is still a little buggy, the small team means it might take time for quality of life suggestions to get implemented, and the biggest selling point is still VR, but I’m still pretty happy, especially if crossplay and the new local co-op work well.

WRATH: Aeon of Ruin VR – speaking of throwing money at VR stuff I already own. I normally wouldn’t jump on a VR port for a game I technically still haven’t finished otherwise, but I’m making an exception in this case because of who’s involved. Team Beef have been behind a string of incredible [and free] VR ports of virtually every classic PC FPS game you can think of, all with the same amount of love and the inclusion of the full spectrum of VR options for true VR obsessed sickos. I think their ports of the later Jedi Knight games might just be the best ways to play them, and playing Doom and Quake in VR is an experience every retro gamer needs to try.

Team Beef’s work on WRATH is no disappointment. The level of care and detail is amazing, the way they tweaked weapon functionality is cool, the little animations for you using consumables is cute, and even the menu has been integrated as a magical tome you summon and flip through with an enchanted quill. I still probably should just run through the flatscreen version before getting too engrossed in this, but I have no doubts that this port will at least be a worthwhile replay.

Echo Point Nova NG+ update – another huge update for this dizzying cloud-surfing shooter. [I played the free expansion last year] The NewGame+ update mostly just adds a vast array of options for replays, letting you individually keep or reset your progress on almost every conceivable unlock in the game, adjust enemy scaling with some granularity, and even swap the mobility options for new, slightly tweaked variants. It’s not something that’s going to pull me in for an immediate replay, but it’s a great idea to shake things up for people who are eager for more EPN.

Supraworld update – been keeping track of the latest Supra-game’s development, and while I don’t have much to say about the current state of its early access [aside from the developers claiming it’s already much bigger than the first game] I did want to share a quote from the latest patch notes that cracked me up: “Cut stupid harmonica puzzle and replaced it”

No Man’s Sky Xeno Arena – I did not buy No Man’s Sky when it came out. I was too clever, too true a gamer, and I could smell Sean Murray’s lies and flop sweat. I did not buy No Man’s Sky when it was declared ‘actually good now,’ after years of patches and content additions. I was too jaded, too principled, to allow popular sentiment to spoil my negativity. I did buy No Man’s Sky after they added Pokemon.

The State of Games Played

I plowed through most of the back half of The Myth of a Godslayer this week, which included unlocking the Arena challenges, many major plot reveals, and the triumphant declaration of my own clan. I’m currently knocking out some major side content cleanup before heading into the endgame – I doubt I’ll go for full completion, at least on this playthrough, but there are a few things I still want to do before wrapping up.

I appear to be about halfway through the total number of chapters for Granser Act 1, which is shocking in a way and simultaneously kind of interesting and refreshing. I don’t know if I’ll actually reach a part of the plot where the world will open up or if it’ll continue to be a linear series of vignettes but I’ve been impressed with the encounter design and number of little additions so far.

Now that Thief Gold is done and dusted, it’s time to start Thief 2. I’m really looking forward to some of the better maps coming up, and I don’t think this revisit will take me as long as the first game, unless some really crazy new releases drop soon.

And finally, I’ve still been picking away at Esoteric Ebb. I wound up staying up absurdly late on the first day, unwilling to give up on prodding around until deep into the next morning, but the exhaustion mechanics finally made dice rolls for even trivial things too risky. Now that I’ve actually accomplished one or two tasks, though, I feel like I should be in the groove to make some real headway this week.

Writing

Thief Gold took a long time, not least because I clipped virtually every cutscene and voice line and had to choose my favorites to include. I’m sure I’ll have a similarly overwhelming catalog of clips and screenshots for the sequel.

I decided to take a little break afterwards rather than starting on the writeup for Gunlocked 2 immediately. I’ll probably tackle that this week, while also working on a ‘real’ essay.

Other

I had a few games on my watchlist that were going to be featuring in the Triple I Initiative, a roundup of trailers for indie games that dropped on Thursday. The majority were, as you might expect, the kind of farming, mining, crafting, survival friendslop crap that is currently flooding the market, which I mostly skipped through. Hey, if you like that shit, or have friends, happy for you. I wanted to get to the good stuff.

Alkahest – the store-brand Dark Messiah your grandma gets at Big Lots. I’m still looking forward to this, though the most recent trailer did have a bit more awkwardness to the animations and ragdolls than I liked.

Belmont’s Curse – Evil Empire’s turn at making yet another Castlevania reboot. They’re being pretty insistent about it NOT being a roguelite, which is absolutely a good thing, but how much of a Metroidvania is it really going to be at the end of the day? It still looks pretty much exactly like the flow and pacing of Dead Cells to me, so I’m expecting whatever layout the game has to include a lot of linear gauntlets, at least, and that might not mesh well with a standard MV map design. And it’s French? That’s so 2025.

Dead As Disco – I don’t usually go in for rhythm games, especially ones this flashy, but this looks like a compelling blend of No More Heroes and Sifu with the rhythm sync as a bonus layer on top. Will it be at least as good as Metal: Hellsinger? If it’s close, I might still enjoy it.

Barotrauma DLC – I’m kind of shocked this game’s still chugging along. It’s a weird, niche setup and format for a game, mixing management, survival, and exploration in a clunky, overwhelming sidescroller, one that I mostly bounced off of because of the headache of managing bots. Of course, the secret truth is that this game is really meant to be played in co-op, meaning it’s technically a survival crafting friendslop pile, but I’m asocial and so I look at this game and all its updates with a little bit of wistful sadness, knowing I’ll never have the patience to learn to wrangle its systems alone or the psychic energy to wrangle other people into playing it with me.

Neverway – wow, survival horror AND farming? The pixel art and animations are doing a lot of heavy lifting making this remotely appealing, and I hope the action holds up enough for me to overlook the… fucking… tree-chopping and NPC relationshiping.

Alabaster Dawn – definitely the highlight for me, and the reason I was even aware of the event in the first place. This followup to CrossCode was one of the best demos I played last year, and one of my most anticipated games of this year. And we finally have a release date! A… uh… oh. A release date for Early Access. That’s exactly what I was worried about. Will Alabaster Dawn actually make it out this year? Probably not, considering CrossCode was in EA for like three years. I don’t know if I’ll be desperate enough to play this to jump into EA this time, but I guess at least it’s going somewhere. I just hope they’re secretly further along than it seems.

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Thief: The Dark Project sits at a critical turning point for first-person gaming – released less than a month after Half-Life, it continued Looking Glass Studios’ pioneering creation of immersive, fully 3D settings that defined PC gaming in the late 90s. Ultima Underworld and System Shock had already given the industry a new bar to clear, and as other studios began following that path, Looking Glass unleashed, over just three years, three of the best games ever made. Thief, System Shock 2, and Thief 2 are so good, so timeless, and so important that their release caused the studio to collapse and dissolve, like a shonen character who sacrificed every ounce of their vital energy in one desperate attack that changed PC gaming forever.

In Thief, you play as Garrett, a freelance burglar, formerly associated with the shadowy Keepers, who makes the rent by robbing his way around the city [called, simply, The City] he lives in. Now on his own, he takes jobs for fences, finds himself increasingly at odds with the more organized underworld, and eventually catches the attention of some seriously ominous clients.

What the game’s setup lacks in naming sense it makes up for in spades with atmosphere. The City is a mix of medieval urban sprawl and steampunk mechanisms, stone-block and wood architecture augmented with metal piping and gas lamps. The mystical and mechanical merge and compete, with mages still working primal elemental magic into usable crystals [which Garrett can attach to arrows for various effects] but increasingly displaced by the marvels of technology. Meanwhile, the citizens span the gamut, from homeless wretches pitching camp in the spider-infested caves beneath, criminal gangs claiming public sewage systems as their lairs, to the wealthy merchants in their palatial estates and religious orders worshiping in cathedrals rich with art.

The game is divided into distinct missions, each taking place in a single enclosed map, and filled with guards, monsters, loot, and a handful of key objectives. Most missions, as you might guess, primarily require you to retrieve some object, then make it to your extraction point, and the path you take and pockets you pick along the way are up to your discretion. Between levels, you have an opportunity to purchase some gear with all that discretionary loot you collected in the prior mission – arrows of all kinds, flash bombs, land mines, tips from informants or fences, and so on. You also have three difficulty levels to choose from, which affect not only the minimum loot threshold required for completion and optional objectives progressively tacked on to your assignment, but also some additional restrictions, usually a moratorium on outright killing.

Even when you’re not outright forbidden from taking lives, it’s generally preferable to move quietly, as the melee combat is pretty unpleasant. You get a sword, and most enemy types will go down to a few swipes even when fully alert, but reading their movements and not getting hit in turn is difficult, the noise tends to draw more foes, and it just takes longer than avoiding them entirely or dispatching them with a single well-placed blackjack blow. Thankfully, this is a rare stealth game where the stealth is actually good.

There are two factors in avoiding detection – visibility and sound. Your visibility is conveyed at all times by a ‘light gem’ at the bottom of the screen, brightening up in relation to how well-lit the current location of your body is. Beside the gem is a smaller indicator that lights up when you’re considered ‘visible’ from a distance, but the smaller graduations let you tiptoe closer to a transition point carefully without giving yourself away accidentally. So long as you’re in near-perfect darkness, even the most alert guards will walk right past you and any corpses you’ve piled in the inky night, as long as they don’t literally trip over you.

The game’s handling of sound is even more impressive. The most important feature is sound propagation – the sound effects played to the player aren’t simple bubbles that change the volume on distance and direction, but have to reach ‘paths’ between rooms. That means that footsteps from the next area actually sound like they’re coming from the doorway, and are even muffled if the door itself is closed. Every sound also gets modified by the surface it’s happening on, and this is worked into the level design in clever ways. Low-end or utilitarian spaces floored with wood, dirt, and stone are all pretty medium loud, while the elite residences where the good loot is hidden tend to have extremes of plush carpet and absurdly resonant marble tile. Each room even has its own acoustic properties, causing sounds to echo more in a big, bare space. Guards tend to be quite noisy by default, constantly coughing and muttering while patrolling, which helps you identify where they’re going, keep track of their numbers, and not bumble into them as often as you would otherwise.

A huge part of the gameplay is in adapting to, exploiting, and modifying those properties. Water arrows are almost entirely useless aside from dousing torches… which makes them among the most critical tools at your disposal. Loud floors alert you better to patrolling guards just as they give you away, and a moss arrow can create a patch of permanently silent cushioning for you to stalk around on. You can use special noisemaker arrows, regular arrows fired into a hard surface, or just trash like empty bottles and dinner plates thrown around to distract someone looking where you don’t want them to. You can even fire grappling ropes up to wooden beams to climb your way up to another floor if you’re crafty and observant enough.

All these mechanics, neat as they are on their own, would be wasted if the missions themselves didn’t take full advantage of them. Thankfully, the level design is among the best ever made. The very first level sets the stage beautifully for the rest of the game, without feeling like anything but a perfectly believable little heist. Later missions elaborate on those themes and add more variety to the hazards and objectives but all continue to build on the idea of exploring a large, open area, combing through it for loot while avoiding or neutralizing whatever’s guarding the place, and escaping.

Almost every mission is extremely memorable – infiltrating a prison via a haunted mine, exploring a sprawling, booby trapped mausoleum one night, and then an ancient city that has sunk into the magma a week later. One of my favorite missions has Garrett pose as a Hammerite novice to enter a cathedral that’s active and guarded night and day, casing the joint until he’s ready to crack some heads and grab the gold. Another starts with you barely escaping assassination, tailing the bastards as they lead you to their employer, and then picking their boss’s pocket out of spite while clearing his house of valuables just to leave a message. And the plot is paced out just as wonderfully alongside the gameplay. Early missions are straightforward, contained jobs, building off each other naturally and believably to bigger things. You eventually impress a patron enough to land a serious gig, which takes up most of the second half of the game, as you collect MacGuffin keys required to land the big score, and then the final levels have you dealing with the fallout of that job.

Each mission is introduced with a cutscene, and these are some of the best setups in gaming history; simple, restrained, but still incredibly evocative and informative. The majority of them are just narration over top of still images, yet they still convey, in only a minute or so each, a richness of backstory, tone, and setting beyond what modern games accomplish with dozens of hours of mocap’d actors and half a dozen writers.

And speaking of narration, this game simply would not be the same without the voice of Garrett, provided by actor Stephen Russell. Garrett’s lines are, no equivocation, utterly flawless. Every word spoken, whether in a cutscene or in-game, sears the character’s personality directly into your mind, without a hint of overwriting or haminess. The resulting character is a perfectly epitomized anti-hero, not some annoying villain making a turn or corny criminal with a heart of gold. He comes across as cynical without constant sarcastic wisecracks, selfish and cold but not cartoonishly evil, principled without tediously expounding on his values. There’s fantastic voice work throughout by other characters as well, and the game would be worse off without all the hilarious guard conversations and such, but it’s Russell’s Garrett that steals the show. Of all the reasons I could say this game could ‘never be made’ now, that quality of writing and level of restraint in a videogame is high up there.

The first game was rereleased shortly after as Thief Gold, which primarily expands the scope by adding three entirely new missions to the middle section of the game, and rearranging some content from existing levels into those. I’d like to say it’s a straightforward upgrade, but honestly, it’s hit and miss. Of the three levels, I only actually like the last, find the second to be middling and disappointing, and I truly hate the first. Their inclusion also really dampens the importance at least of the Lost City mission, and I don’t find any of the other changes particularly interesting or essential either. But Gold is the way it’ll come on any digital platform, and though you apparently can downgrade the game to remove the extra levels, I don’t know that it’s worth bothering unless you’re really that curious what the game was like without Mages bellowing in your ear.

Sadly, even the base game has its flaws. As excellent as the sound design generally is, and as impressive as the technology underlying it is, there are still a bunch of things that are just balanced fucking wrong and will blow out your eardrums for no good reason.

A lot of the game’s level design requires you to get pretty good at the ‘mantling’ system, which is itself really impressive and is almost like Assassin’s Creed parkour in first person… in 1998! Well, except that, as you might expect from a game of that year, it’s kind of stiff and inconsistent – you absolutely need to be moving and looking almost perfectly perpendicular to the edge of the surface you’re trying to catch and climb up when you hit it, and if there’s some kind of bump or it’s just hard to see, you’ll slide off without knowing what you did wrong even if you know how it works, and the game doesn’t explain it in sufficient detail anyway. Stealth games like this tend to force you into savescumming anyway, but any time I’m expected to do something more strenuous than walk up a staircase in Thief I reach for the quicksave hotkey.

Enemy AI is pretty stupid, leading to guards that seem completely deaf, dumb, and blind right up until the moment you accidentally touch an invisible trigger, causing a guy to leap out of his bed and slam his sword into your neck literally mid-snore. Like most stealth games, even on max difficulty, unless you’re imposing your own restrictions and trying to ‘ghost’ every level, the stealth that the game hinges on can be trivially and, honestly, pretty quickly disassembled just by bonking guys when you get a chance and stacking them up in a nearby corner. Later enemy types don’t really improve the situation, aside from Hammerite Haunts – zombies shuffle around kind of ineffectually and can be chopped down to render them harmless, beastmen are pretty bad at combat and can be murdered easily without any stealth, and there’s no real bosses or elite challenge to overcome. Even the Hammer Haunts mostly just act as guards you can’t blackjack and can slay you easily in a direct fight.

Some of the missions are genuinely annoying to navigate, making it even worse when you miss an objective or can’t find the way to proceed and wind up having to go back and forth multiple times. This is epitomized in the worst of the Gold added maps, which has you crawling back and forth through a sewer network to get keys, open drains, and scrounge up loot. Speaking of loot, I played through the game this time on Hard, and not Expert, and it’s not because I don’t like a challenge. Now, I always love a game differentiating difficulties in interesting ways, and Thief does just that, and commendably. What I don’t like are the increasing loot quotas, which outright prevent you from finishing a stage if you haven’t found quite enough little baubles on top of hunting down whole extra secret areas and avoiding murder.

The last time I did a replay of the Thief games, I did so on Expert, and in too many of the missions it just wound up tacking on at least another 20 minutes of bullshit, looking under beds, jumping like a little kid to see what’s on an out of reach shelf, squinting in dark rooms trying to find the last few FUCKING coins or whatever so I could move on, and I swore by the end that I’d never put myself through it again. It really isn’t that much harder anyway, you can avoid killing guards with a bare minimum of self-control, and being FORCED to collect more money while also incentivised to hoard resources is just ass backwards, in the way of Demons Souls making healing items drop more often if you don’t die frequently.

But for all my complaints, nothing can really tarnish the magic of Thief. While it may show its age and occasionally be even rougher than you remember, it remains the best of its type, outshining more modern attempts to emulate its innovation. If you’ve never actually played Thief, you must, at your earliest opportunity – it’s not just a fantastic game in its own right, but one of the most essential experiences in gaming. Even if it’s just been a while, it’s probably been too long.

Thief Gold can be purchased on Steam and GOG.

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I initially wrote this post in 2024 before starting my page. Most of these older posts will not be available for free subscribers, but I’m making an exception for those that wound up being ranked in the top 10 of my favorite games from each year.

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I initially wrote this post in 2024 before starting my page. Most of these older posts will not be available for free subscribers, but I’m making an exception for those, like this one, that wound up being ranked in the top 10 of my favorite games from each year.

Isles of Sea and Sky is an atmospheric maso-core block toucher step-puzzler.

From the same developer as Triga [a short puzzle game I know about but didn’t play], Isles of Sea and Sky has been a long time coming. It had a few demos as more and more elements were introduced in development, and I played them all. I’ve been looking forward to this game for years, since back when it had a different name and you had to download the demo off the developer’s itch.io page. It’s finally come out [well, mostly, I’ll get to that] and I bought it immediately.

Isles is fundamentally a block pusher puzzle game. You play as a little bare-chested islander guy, and your only input other than walking over tiles is pushing against them. Early on, the old standbys turn up, and you do a lot of pushing boxes onto pressure plates to hold doors open and the like. But the game picks up pretty quickly, on top of having a fairly open layout, and your options start to expand. As the title implies, there are several separate islands spread across an overworld, each with their own puzzle themes and elements to unlock, which you reach by riding a giant sea turtle. Most screens have a few separate ‘puzzles’ to solve, though they frequently weave together or lead into each other in some way. The main reward for solving puzzles is stars, which are the thing that completion % is determined by at the end, and there are also many gates both on islands and in the overworld that open at certain star thresholds. Some simpler puzzles or exploration reward you with keys, which are consumed to permanently open certain gates. Finally, each elemental island has a multi-stage progression, where you explore it to find the screen with the elemental ‘lord,’ get the key that allows you to tackle most of the island’s puzzles, use that to find at least six of the elemental stones, and then return to awaken Elementals of that type throughout the game world. At that point you’re mostly able to collect a few stars and move on, but there’s a final puzzle layer on each elemental island which rewards you with a permanent ability upgrade.

The way the game breaks up introducing puzzle elements and pushing the difficulty higher, on top of letting you poke at puzzles you aren’t yet able to do, makes the game feel a lot richer than many similar puzzle games. It genuinely feels like a big pivot when an island’s elementals come to life, and playing with them to feel out the nuances is a lot of fun. The game also does a great job of guiding you through ‘tutorials’ without a single word of instruction or forced input - usually the first screen you encounter with a new puzzle mechanic will be constructed to allow you to see what its primary function is, and then leave it up to you to experiment on other screens they show up on to piece together the details. The game has a surprising variety of puzzle elements and depth to each one, including a lot of interactions that don’t come up often but still make a decent amount of sense. There’s even one zone with pseudo ‘boss fights’ that are a surprisingly enjoyable change of pace, and don’t outstay their welcome.

Isles also has a really fantastic style and feel for a puzzle game. Each major island has its own unique chill music track that never gets grating or distracting, all the sprites and animations feel fully fleshed out and detailed, and there’s even idle animations for all the elementals to go along with your player character falling asleep. Even the sound effects and jingles are excellent. The game has unlimited undo as well as a separate full screen reset button, and deaths are handled with a bare minimum of fanfare, automatically undoing your last action after a short animation. The movement and pushing, which you’ll be doing a lot, has been given about as much speed as possible without feeling imprecise at all. I never felt like doing anything was a drag or hassle, and there were never any puzzles that required enough inputs to warrant a mid-screen checkpoint.

Once you awaken all four elemental types, a gate to the ‘final’ area opens up on the tutorial island, and after some puzzles involving the interactions between each pair of elemental type, you can complete the game. You can then restart after seeing what percentage of the stars you’ve found and continue on - there’s that third layer of each elemental island’s progression to finish, many smaller islands with some unique gimmicks scattered around the overworld, a final large island involving evil shadow clones, and a handful of other things to solve, most of which reward you just with stars. That’s pretty much it - continue as much as you want, up to 109 [at time of writing] stars, and then you’re done - I don’t think there’s a ‘true’ ending or anything like that for your trouble… yet.

That brings me to my main problem with Isles of Sea and Sky, which is that it’s not really ‘finished.’ It’s finishable - in fact, you barely have to do half the puzzles to get to the end, and all the stars and items you can catch a glimpse of are obtainable in some way already. However, there are a few glaring loose ends, islands wreathed in permanent clouds, routes through the reefs you can’t seem to get your turtle to, and screens you can’t ever visit on most islands, which are bound to trap an unsuspecting puzzler into hours worth of humping random wall tiles. After I gave up on trying to find a way to a particular island that seemed within my reach, I finally checked around and discovered that the developer has stated vague plans for ‘future content’ and that most of those things I’d been trying to get to are just placeholders. Now, I’m jazzed at the idea of getting to pick this game up in a few months or so and have even more cool islands and puzzles to explore, but it’s a little shitty the way this has been done, especially considering the game is not, like, in Early Access or a beta phase anymore. I’d have been a lot happier with at least a minimum of signposting dead-end content, even if I know why it kind of has to already be partially implemented [to keep from breaking save files when additional content is added and screens potentially altered].

There are a few other tiny issues too. There are a handful of bugs, like a couple tiles tagged as walkable when they shouldn’t be, secrets that aren’t flagged by the game’s in-game indicator, objects depicted on the map from prior versions that aren’t really there, and so on. These should probably be mostly cleaned up soon, since the developer’s been pushing relatively rapid patches in response to reports. Some of the puzzle setups can be a little frustrating to get your head around initially, and the way shortcut gates are permanently disabled can probably be confusing to new players. So far, there was only one star I’ve found that I would say has a genuinely dickish solution, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s also the only star I’ve found that isn’t obviously a star present on the screen initially. Finally, the game makes somewhat heavy use of secret paths and ‘illusory walls’ in a sense, where some spots just have invisible ladders or pathways open up when you walk in front of them or bump into them. The game does attempt to indicate these very lightly, with faint glyphs on floors indicating either where you need to go or where you CAN go if you find them, but it’s easy to miss them in a dense screen, and especially later on, some of them are actually missing their indicators, and if you don’t have all the equipment upgrades, it’s tough to tell what objectives you need to find a secret route to versus ones you just need a new ability you don’t know about yet for. On the first island they occur, specifically the underground, the start of secret paths is at least indicated very clearly like cracked walls in DROD, but later on there are definitely a few where you just have to wall-hump each tile like in Wolf3D or Doom.

The last thing I want to mention is the name. Isles of Sea and Sky might sound like a surprisingly bland and SEO-unfriendly title for a game with so much passion and creativity poured into it. Well, it is - the game used to be called Akurra, until the dev abruptly announced that it was being changed to avoid the perception of cultural appropriation. It seems kind of silly, especially since stylistically the game still leans pretty heavily on that Pacific Island Tribal vibe, but you know what they say - give the sharks a tiny bit of blood, and they’ll definitely give you good reviews. Honestly it’s not a big deal, but the last few demo releases had me confused as I repeatedly forgot the new ‘improved’ name, and I really don’t think it’s doing them any favors even if it’s not hurting things either.

I ripped through Isles of Sea and Sky in record time for me with a puzzle game, and that’s not a slam on its difficulty - it gets quite hard, I just really enjoyed it enough to push through in a few long sittings. [plus I’d already done the first hour or two multiple times via the demos] I’m getting close to 100% stars, and I’m definitely going to be back once the rest of the content gets finalized. I think if you’re not a big puzzle fiend, the full price might be a bit rich, but if you liked things like Baba is You or A Monster’s Expedition, it’s probably worth picking up whenever you feel the itch - just maybe take a peek to see if all the islands are actually completed before beating your face against the post-game.

Afterward

Post-release, the developer resolved most of the problems I had with the game, culminating in the Mysterious Update, which added a pretty significant amount of post-game content, puzzles that go several layers deeper than anything required to ‘beat’ the game, and honestly a bit more than I was prepared for. I probably won’t ever completely finish it, but it was a thoroughly pleasant replay, and it stands as one of my favorite puzzle games. I recommend this game even more strongly than I did in its release year, when it just barely made it to tenth place in my personal ranking.

Isles of Sea and Sky can be purchased on Steam and itch.io.

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I initially wrote this post in 2024 before starting my page. Most of these older posts will not be available for free subscribers, but I’m making an exception for those that wound up being ranked in the top 10 of my favorite games from each year.

Read more

Gunlocked 2 1.0 – Euro-shmup Survivors has crossed the threshold, its full release including many more pilots, new bosses, and most importantly, a big rebalance to make level-ups more impactful and interrupt the game less frequently. At least, that’s the idea. To be honest, after a couple runs, it doesn’t seem that different from how I remember. I did like the option to continue a successful run into infinitely increasing scaling until you succeed in a final blaze of glory.

GRIME 2 release – aww man, cmon. Do I really have to play this one? I suppose I will eventually, but GRIME was neither my favorite or least favorite ‘vania, so I’m fine waiting a while.

Legends of the Round Table release – If you’re excited to get a chance at rewriting Arthurian legends via extremely dense deckbuilder tactics, well, check out my longer preview from last week. Sadly I’ve got enough on my plate right now as it is.

Blood Facsimile Early Access – One of the things on my plate. I tried this game’s demo out during Next Fest and decided this week I was curious enough about its development to jump in already. I haven’t seen anything really new yet aside from the more thematic intro, but I’m looking forward to poking around in it a bit more.

Shinobi: Art of Vengeance hardcore mode and DLC – One of my issues with the new Shinobi game is that it was a bit too forgiving, and this week’s update seems laser focused on addressing that, by reducing your survivability, changing enemy placements, and adding new boss attacks. It’s not quite enough for me to want to do a whole replay right away, but I’m sure I’ll appreciate it if I ever do. The update coincides with the release of a somewhat self-indulgent paid DLC where you do some [apparently mediocre] stages and then fight crossover cameos from other SEGA franchises, like Majima from Yakuza and Dr. Eggman. Weird, in a kind of endearing way but not what I want to spend ten dollars on in this economy.

Tlatoani: Aztec Cities 1.0 – If you hadn’t seen this yet, I highly recommend Scanline’s early preview of it from last year. Essentially, this is an Impressions-like city builder, a lot like the Czech developed Nebuchadnezzar, but focused on Aztec-era Mesoamerica rather than Mesopotamia. Among its key features are a focus on orienting and placing religious structures in aesthetically symmetrical alignments, balancing your commitment to various feuding deities, and keeping your city walls patrolled to inhibit raids from rival cities and ruralites. It’s one of the more exciting developments for those enamored with historical city planning, and I want to play it so bad I can almost rationalize not finishing Nebuchadnezzar first… but I’m still going to make an attempt on that soon.

Into the Radius 2 1.0 beta – as sequel to VR Stalker-like ItR approaches its full release date later this month, the devs have allowed beta access to the ‘complete’ game, and I’ve popped in just to take a look at the expanded story and introduction.

Okay, I’ve gotten talked at enough. I think I’ll just wait for the official out date so I don’t have to hold this guys hand any more than necessary.

I Am Jesus Christ release – He is risen.

Granser Act 1 release – it will be hard for Pugware to follow up the strange and surprising Skautfold series in a way that will satisfy me, but I’m still plenty happy to jump aboard the Granser train for a JRPG with classic bones. I’m still early on but the combat is basically a better balanced version of the turn-based battles from Knight’s End, the voice acting is… much better than I expected, and the amount of detail and worldbuilding is shocking. I love the guards crying out ‘I have a family’ as you kill them.

The State of Games Played

After being slightly embarrassed by a comment implying I’d forgotten about Thief 1, I spent most of my free time this week just knocking the second half of that game out. It’s been a blast revisiting one of the best games ever made, at least, for most of the levels, and it didn’t take me near as long as I expected – I’d forgotten how straightforward a lot of the later set-piece heavy missions were, and I had no interest in dicking around or pursuing the Expert objectives this time around. And now that that’s done, I can move on to an arguably even better game.

Then, in my pursuit of clearing inventory and getting through games that I’ve been nibbling at for far too long, I loaded up The Myth of a Godslayer and took on another solid dungeon.

Off and on, I took a few more stabs at Lost Flame, mostly dying unceremoniously to wild shit like all my gear spontaneously turning into hostile tentacles. I still haven’t gotten as far as my first run with a legendary weapon that ended up in Evil Ghost Hell because I saw it on the menu and decided to warp there immediately. I guess that one’s mostly on me.

Writing

Well, was my Death Stranding essay everything you’d hoped for? It certainly did it for me.

I’ve started the Thief: Gold write-up, but it’s probably going to be a few days before I finish it, as it’s both a very good game and a very important one.

Then I should be able to whip together a Gunlocked 2 post – there doesn’t seem to be that much more to find out about it that I haven’t already gathered from its early access.

Other

This was a pretty big week for releases, and the rest of this month should have a few more surprises - I think we’ll finally be getting release date announcements for some games on my radar this week.

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1. Down Under?

As you start playing Death Stranding 2, you may notice that a LOT of the voice actors have distinctly Australian accents! This isn’t just a hiring quirk or a mistake on the part of the localization team, though! Death Stranding 2 actually takes place on the Australian subcontinent, and almost all of the characters are Australians! Even some characters from the first game are replaced by their identical twin counterparts who were raised in Australia! Well, that explains a few things!

2. To Like or Not To Like?

Throughout the game you’ll be pressured to trade in your precious Likes earned from deliveries to reward NPCs and other players for building structures, placing signs, and posting on social media! Weigh your options carefully – those Likes, once given, can never be recovered! Save your likes for those who really earn it, by placing ladders you didn’t know you needed or putting the 40^th sign on the entrance ramp to every shelter!

3. It’s A What Now?

While technically, Death Stranding is a walking simulator, series co-creator Hideo Kojima insists it actually is better defined by a new genre label, the Strand-like, generally referring to games that are similar in themes, perspective, and game mechanics to Death Stranding. Death Stranding is considered to be the pinnacle of Strand-type games… so far! But don’t think it’s secure on the throne... almost every major title coming out in the next year or so can claim to be a Strand-like!

4. Dark Strands!

It’s a little known fact that Death Stranding’s awkward, arbitrary sounding title was chosen for a very good reason – to draw a parallel to the game’s greatest inspiration, Dark Souls, by having the exact same initials! DS, DS, you get it! Now, when you hear that DS2 improved in almost every way the formula from DS1, don’t get so angry! Maybe they’re talking about Dark Souls 2!

5. Ride On!

As a Strand-like, [and a walking simulator] the first Death Stranding was originally intended to take place entirely on foot. Series star Norman Reedus, however, refused to cooperate with development until he secured the promise of a sick motorcycle his character could be shown on, as a cross-promotion for his travel show Ride. After several months of Reedus doing crazy faces any time the motion capture scanners were on, Kojima finally relented… but he had his own trick up his sleeve!

6. It’s All Greek To Me!

The motorcycles in Death Stranding are not your pappy’s hog! These high tech bad boys sport not two, not four, but THREE tires! This means they’re technically not bicycles, but tricycles – these words sneakily include the Greek words for ‘two’ and ‘three!’ This pun ties in with other wordplay throughout the game, but it’s one that even hardcore fans tend to miss!

7. Whatcha Haulin?

Next time you’re on a delivery, take a look at your cargo screen – the developers have hidden some hilarious Easter Eggs in the item descriptions, Dark Souls-style! From shock-absorbent underwear to revolutionary Playstation consoles, the number of in-jokes and references are incredible! Just don’t open anything without permission… some of these spoil quickly!

8. Grab a Slice!

Speaking of quirky deliveries, you might have noticed that both games feature pizzas! That’s right, the iconic delivery item of countless cartoons and movies! But did you know that pizza is actually a real type of food, and not just a media trope? Pizzas are a common staple in many American cities, popular as a quick hand-held snack or as a full meal! The next time you see a pizza delivery in a show or videogame, remember that it’s based on a real cultural practice!

9. Golden Touch?

As you’re carrying packages across the land, keep an eye out for shiny yellow crystals! These can be collected and used as crafting materials, but they hide yet another secret! Look closely, and you can see that they are all in the shape of a human hand! Nobody is really sure why, but it’s pretty neat!

10. Give Me a Hand!

Your odradek scanner is a funky piece of equipment! Besides scanning for packages and showing you where ghosts are, it has some other functions that the game doesn’t tell you about! Have you ever seen it wave, or give you a thumbs up? It seems the scanner can act just like a hand! So why can’t Sam use it to hold a package, or a gun? Maybe Kojima’s just saving that for Death Stranding 3!

11. Fair and Square!

Wombats are known for producing cube-shaped fecal matter!

12. Not A-Lie-ve Man?

You might think you recognize Sam’s best friend Deadman, as the character is based on the likeness of actor Guillermo del Toro, but did you know that Deadman is actually voiced by a different actor?

This is quite possibly a reference to the fact that the character of Deadman is supposed to be an artificial chimera of reanimated tissue… just like in Frankenstein! Coincidence? Or another Kojima premonition?

14. Tron Legacy?

Death Stranding is rich in influences, but one that few people pick up on is the use of colored lighting on clothing and devices, distinctly reminiscent of the bright blues and reds of the Tron series! The developers have not confirmed or denied that the designs are inspired by the legendary franchise, but come on! What other science fiction movie has motorcycles?

15. Hang Tight!

Having trouble keeping your footing while hauling packages? Pay attention to the popups! Holding the trigger buttons makes Sam grab onto his shoulder straps, steadying his backpack, and making it less likely you’ll fall down! And if you still have trouble, try walking on flatter ground or carrying less at one time! If your route carries you down too steep of a slope, don’t worry – just throw the packages down the hill and pick them back up at the bottom! Work smarter, not harder!

16. Heartbreaking!

One of the most important characters in Death Stranding is Heartman, whose iconic symbol is, of course, the common heart! But did you know that the human heart actually looks nothing like a drawn heart shape? It’s hard to swallow, but every time you use a heart emoji, you’re spreading dangerous medical disinformation!

Yes, even that Like, Heartman!

17. Urine Luck!

When Sam drinks too much of his stamina-restoring Monster Energy flask, nature calls! Whip out the Wicked One and drain the main vein, and you’ll do more than ease some pressure! Tiny edible creatures known as Cryptobiotes are attracted to spots where Sam has relieved himself, forming nutrient-rich colonies that are ripe for the picking! And these colonies show up in other people’s worlds as well, infesting the land with teeming piss spots! So the next time you consider hitting the head, remember – you could be saving someones life with your next outdoor whizz! The more high traffic the area, the better for everyone!

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Nothing Beyond This Point release – I played the demo of this… for brevity’s sake, let’s just say action game at the start of last year, and have been keeping an eye on its progress since. Now it’s finished, and I was in a mood so I picked it up immediately and got a bit further than what I remember from the demo.

The game, in case you’d rather not read my initial thoughts, is basically a twin-stick shooter where you play as an Inferno [though it looks just like a Blaze from Minecraft, doesn’t it?] and most of your attacks aside from basic melee deplete the Rods encircling you. Those Rods also count as your hit points, and to regenerate them, you need to stand still and channel for a few seconds. That means you effectively have infinite regenerating health and ammo, so long as you can find a window to catch your breath, but you need to constantly balance aggression and defense.

The exploration is also interesting – the world you’re trapped in is a Void, devoid of landmarks and terrain, aside from, of course, the landmarks and tracks you can follow to find progress. The way this actually works in the game is that most screen edges just make you loop to the other side of the current screen – some secrets involve you doing this repeatedly in a pattern a la the Lost Woods of Zelda, some transitions are locked off, and you can unlock a map in certain areas. There’s plenty of upgrades and permanent choices to make already, and the second boss is kicking my ass, so I don’t know how long the game will take or if I’ll do another run of it, but I’m enjoying it so far.

Lost Flame 1.0 – a very proper rogue-like, with an attempt to make equipment and skill usage crucial and interesting. Every weapon has particular moves associated with it, and using moves in combat, such as lunges and parries, consumes some limited stamina. Stamina regenerates to full between combat encounters, but is strict enough that you stand a real chance at running out and being left weak and panting with a desperate bandit still standing.

I’ve not gotten too far – just to the first bonfire, which teleported me to a Souls-ish hub world with various service NPCs [who are voice acted, shockingly] and teasing locked doors.

I then explored the hub too thoroughly and caught the attention of a cavalier who obliterated me. Maybe the tactical depth won’t hold up through the course of a full rogue-like but it seems pretty well-thought-out so far.

Devil Spire Falls Bosses update – another update that makes me want to start another fresh character, and let’s just say thank God the dev added Avians because I’m so sick of walking around for 20 minutes at the start of every seed trying to find a single settlement. The new field bosses are genuinely imposing and epic… at least when they don’t somehow kill themselves trying to catch up with the birdman they’re chasing. Just… just gotta remember to keep an eye on my stamina...

The State of Games Played

I continued to hop into Haunted Lands on and off even once I’d finished my write-up – I still have some secrets to track down, some challenges to check off, and some fun to have, though it unfortunately lacks the dedicated post-game encouragement that Zexion had, so I probably won’t be attempting any speedruns or restricted runs in it. Still an absolutely fantastic game, and one I’ll definitely replay periodically in the future.

Speaking of replays, the post last week from Fortune Summoner’s developer did its job, and got me to pony up and redownload that blast from the past. I’m several hours in now, finally got to the point where the difficulty curve becomes somewhat shocking, and I feel vindicated that all my fond memories weren’t just nostalgia. This game is just as fantastic as I remember.

Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about Esoteric Ebb, though. I’ve just been chipping away at it slowly, savoring the encounters and conversations that seem to spin off into genuinely interesting tangents and possibilities. I’m also wearing a friendly mimic around. What could go wrong? I suppose I’ll find out eventually, as The Cleric’s motto seems to be ‘fuck around, at every opportunity.’

As I murmured about last week, I did move on with my Galactic Disasters conquest in Approaching Infinity, with an attempt to blast through Nanopocalypse Now! I mean, I beat the Blight first try, I stopped the Nanopocalypse on my Sector 1000 run, this should be a piece of -

Aw, fuck. I’m licking my wounds now in a cozy Hard mode run with the Point of No Return disaster enabled [only one visit to each sector allowed] and aiming for a Monk victory, which is going much better. I even started using a Gruff Hunt-Leader, who can tame a huge number of hostile aliens and gives me a little personal army on a lot of planets.

And I’ve also made some time to continue my revisit of Death Stranding 2. I can’t believe I never went back to Mexico on my original run to get the handgun and staff upgrades. I’ve been less patient and stealthy with enemy camps this time and having more options for full aggression is a big relief.

Incidentally, I also played some...

DEMOS

Legends of the Round Table – this overcomplicated, overdramatic, and highly stylized adaptation of Arthurian legend is pretty much exactly what I’d hoped Pentiment was more like. You play as the Once and Future King himself, [and any noble knights who happen to be in his immediate retinue] reliving the legends, the battles, and the interminable fetch quests that define the mythological legacy underpinning the conception of a united Britain. But despite essentially being a point-and-click adventure RPG where you ride around talking to maids and lords and wizards, it’s also much, much more.

Unfortunately, ‘much more’ also includes deckbuilder. You have a hand of cards, each with a value, a season, and an aspect of chivalry, which you can use during any roll to give yourself a boost… which might ALSO result in other effects, and can get legitimately complex. For example, even in basic fights, each defense roll you perform not only has a pass/fail value, which you can try to exceed with a strong card, but the total number you get to with your card can allow you to at least redirect the attack to a specific spot on your body. [or away] Or, when you charge someone with a couched lance, having an odd total for your attack roll means that even if you land the hit, your lance will shatter, forcing you to draw steel to finish things up.

Oh, it gets way more complicated. Nearly everything you do has some extra depth – performing behavior unseemly for a knight, such as striking an unarmed opponent, attacking a man whose horse you’ve cut out from under him while mounted yourself, or pounding on a guy who’s surrounded, all incur dishonor… but only for those of higher station. To maintain your respect, your nobility, your aura, you have to allow dazed combatants to come to their senses and rearm, dismount to fight a dehorsed warrior in the square, and most importantly, allow a striken foe to beg for mercy at your hand. And none of this of course applies to your inglorious footsoldiers, who you can order to commit all sorts of gaucheness in battle, as long as your hands are clean, and they do not succumb to Cowardice. It all reminded me distinctly of a portion from ’s post on ambitious Arthurian adaptations:

The battle rages like this for pages at a time. Knights are always smote down horse and man, the fallen calling ‘gramercy!’ (grant mercy) to the victors, as kings “on foote” are rehorsed by their followers. It goes on and on and on and ON. The effect is dizzying, almost maddening. As the reader gets lost in the noise and chaos of battle, it is easy to forget who is alive, who is dead, who is on whose side. To include no less than eleven kings and describe each of their various fortunes in the battle of Bedegraine as well as the twenty-one named followers of Arthur and what they were up to and how many times they get knocked down and get up again (a la Chumbawumba) is a ridiculous, over-the-top, and even indulgent decision.

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There’s a lot going on, and even the small taste of it in the demo is a lot more compelling and overwhelming than I expected. The idea of having to manage the wounds, both in body and honor, of dozens of retainers and cavaliers, while also learning arcane spells and juggling artifacts, sounds just as wildly ambitious and overwrought as any epic poetry or rock opera, but from what I can tell, it might actually stick the landing. We won’t have long to find out either way - it’s out Tuesday.

It’s got one big problem in my opinion: the voice acting, while fine, is just one lady narrating everything and voicing every one, and I hate that audiobook thing of someone doing 30 different ‘voices.’ Reminds me of The Siege and the Sandfox, and not in a good way.

I Am Jesus Christ – sorry, just to clarify, that’s the name of the game, not a bizarre declaration. This game is itself kind of a bizarre declaration – I don’t think anyone’s really had the cojones to do a game like this since MDickie’s The You Testament.

Anyhow, yes, you play as Jesus of Nazareth, still living with his parents in his 30s, apparently, when an angel appears before him and tells him to get out of bed and find a job. I mean go to the river and find John. And then, immediately, you’re cut loose. You can run, jump, parkour around, talk to random NPCs, open your map and discover Ubislop pins all over showing where you can collect verses, lore entries, argue with Pharisees, and so on.

Following the main quest reveals even more miracles – our Savior has Batman Detective Vision that he can toggle on at the cost of Faith, there’s achievements you can unlock to earn a higher Followers stat, I’m starting to feel a little dizzy, you apparently unlock a variety of spells, oh, sorry, I mean divine miracles, there’s even a minigame to resist Satan’s temptation in the desert. Hang on, isn’t this the minigame from the PS2 Harry Potter games?

To my surprise, the game is actually pretty entertaining, even beyond the novelty of jumping around some cottages as Christ the Lord and engaging with the Asshole Physics to obstruct patrolling Roman legionaries.

I have my doubts about it living up to The Greatest Story Ever Told [tough bar to clear] or even being an effective teaching implement [the voiceovers actually matching with the subtitles and text on screen would fucking help] but hey, it’s better than Synaxarion: Great Martyr Theodore the Tyro.

Divinum – when I covered this during Next Fest a few weeks ago I mentioned that I’d unlocked an accelerated preview of the game’s higher level mechanics, and might dip in later to check it out. I finally did that, and was even more impressed than I was initially by this sidescrolling character action game. The rest of the demo is essentially just a [very long] series of checkpoints, each one having a spawner that presents three combat gauntlets of increasing difficulty before opening the way forward. Each checkpoint also has a shop where you can purchase your choice of an increasing variety of badges to equip, giving you genuinely fun perks, like automatic lightning strikes and life leech, as well as more adrenaline skills to mix up your combos or strike big hits.

The later gauntlets even include whole boss fights, which really present decent resistance, and let you practice with all the skills and perks at your disposal. My favorite was the skill that lets you blink to the nearest facing enemy’s back and do an immediate hit, which you can then chain into a combo to stagger and start juggling them, launching them into the air for a final, big spinning slam to earth. Solid combat, fun skills and perks, now all it needs is for the full game to have relatively satisfying exploration and I’ll be willing to take a look.

Writing

Haunted Lands is the most excited I’ve gotten since Zexion, and another example of why I bother to go so hard so deep at Next Fest. I hope I at least manage to dredge up one game that good in June.

My next big non-writeup article is coming along, and should be out in a few days. If you’ve been paying attention, you might have a guess as to its subject...

Other

There’s a lot coming out this week, a lot I’m currently playing, and a few things I really need to pick back up and get around to finishing. But the weather is also getting better so I’ve been out doing yard work instead of gaming as much as I should. Maybe I could wear a VR headset while driving the riding mower...

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Haunted Lands is an action platformer in an EGA graphics style, emulating the look and some of the feel of an old DOS game. You play as a ragtag band of crusaders, sent into hotspots of occult activity to purge the area of all cultists, undead, and demons, halt their sinister rituals, and retrieve any artifacts [and money] within.

The game takes place over five missions, a mix of creepy mansions, dank caves, towering cathedrals, and toxic waste dumps. Each excursion, you pick one of your members, load them up with equipment, and then drive over in your Jeep. The only ways out at that point are to backtrack to your vehicle, make it through the final boss, or give up and lose all your progress and collected loot, but get a chance to choose a different character or change up your gear.

The missions are pretty strictly linear, but very long, very dense, and consistently engaging. Many stages have sections that branch out, forcing you to tackle a few areas in parallel before progressing. Each mission has at least two major bosses, and there’s a ton of secrets and extra loot to find.

One of the coolest features of the game is the diverse player roster. There are three archetypes, who function very differently mechanically, but can all beat every stage just fine, and one alternate member for each archetype that has their own nuances. The gunners are kind of the default, using long-range, hitscan rifles that can only be fired horizontally or at about a 45 degree angle up or down, have a very limited dodge roll for invulnerability, and must reload their guns periodically. The beasts are the berserkers, using only melee swipes, dashes that can also deal damage, and channeled pounces that let them stun and shred a single enemy. Finally, the mages can hover and teleport horizontally, and have multiple levels of charge to their magic bolt shots that each have unique behaviors.

On top of the core differences, each character can gain Wrath from attacking enemies that can either be spent on quick, explosive attacks, or saved up for a spectacular ult. My favorites were the Ranger’s dual revolvers, which can lock on to enemies to deliver a precision magnum round, the Sorceress’s thundercloud, which passively fires bolts of lightning to clear out chaff while you focus on heavier targets, and the Werewolf’s Spirit Pack, which causes any attack he lands to be followed up by pouncing ghost wolves which shred minibosses.

Each character is fun to play with in their own way, and each level has some spots that one will struggle with while another can… struggle slightly less with. There are also a few areas that only one archetype can reach, usually containing a hidden item for that class, and giving you a cool incentive to replay missions with different characters. There’s no backstory or much in the way of framing besides the intro and outro text for each mission, but the different hunters all have a little bit of personality just in their design, animations, introductions, and most of all, in what they do at your safehouse when you aren’t using them.

But the real defining quality of Haunted Lands is its difficulty, which is brutal, unrelenting, and absolutely masterful. It is a genuine challenge just to make it through the first mission in the game, and while you do get more equipment as you play, the game ramps up just enough to keep a consistent level of resistance the whole way through. Nothing requires extreme precision or repetition, enemies and bosses have well-defined behaviors and intuitive attacks, and the game never feels like it does anything remotely unfair, but it is reliably extremely demanding. Enemy variety expands as the game goes on, with new threats being introduced almost as intimidating minibosses before being worked into the standard pool, and you learn to deal with them the same as you would anything else.

The challenge forces you to grasp every little detail of your character and the enemies – I can tell you the exact hit point values of nearly every enemy type in the game at a glance, I know how much damage a charged gunner blast does, how many tier-2 charged mage shots will be needed to kill a demon, what can be pounced on by a beast and what angles to safely approach any flying monster from. It’s incredibly gratifying to be forced to get this familiar with a game without feeling like I’m exploiting oversights to overcome bullshit.

Some of the sections between checkpoints can wear you down, every hit you take and shot you miss has the potential to be a real problem for you, and some of the big gauntlets get overwhelmingly hectic if you start to lose the ball. This is where every character’s unique health mechanics come in – gunners get a limited number of crosses to block hits, replenished infrequently at checkpoints, mages only get a single shield, but can spend a Wrath point and hold their breath through a lengthy animation to restore it at will, and beasts passively accumulate extra health from shedding blood.

Almost every boss fight is tight enough that I found myself attempting them over the course of a half hour or more, making the fact that you get a checkpoint right at the start of the fight much appreciated. They’re also just spectacular fights in general, although a few feel a bit too locked to cycles, with long invulnerability periods where you just have to hang out and dodge through attack patterns before getting your turn. I still had a great time defeating them, though, even when I had barely clawed my way to the encounter to begin with.

The equipment is surprisingly deep too, with a small grid inventory that you can place items into for a mission, each one having some pretty noticeable impact, and competing compellingly for the limited space. Besides hidden items found directly in stages, and one awarded for completing the tutorial with each character [which teaches you most of the nuances of that particular class anyway] you can also spend the silver collected from rare locations at a shop to unlock even more options. Silver doesn’t reappear once you’ve collected it, so there’s no grinding for upgrades, just exploration and completion, and it’s worth it. Items like the cylinder that gives gunners a partial reload when they roll are a must-buy, there are items that make certain challenges easier or attack faster, there’s items to improve your survivability, and there’s a ton of variety once you get far enough in.

Some of the stages have a particular item type tied to them that doesn’t have any direct effect, but equipping all four of them and finding the spot to use them unlocks an alternate, challenge variant of the stage’s mid boss, and the reward for going out of your way for these optional fights is a second type of currency you can use at another shop to buy massive 2x2 relics that completely augment your characters… including a baby dragon egg that gives you a pet who spits fireballs at enemies for you. Adorable.

The graphics are stunning – the spritework is outstanding, and the effects are glorious, with enemies becoming visibly damaged and then bursting apart into dynamic chunks of pixel gore, their viscera lingering on stages and still visible if you backtrack. Enemy attack animations have the right amount of telegraphing and intuitive effects, and there’s a sick slowdown when your character unleashes their ult. Music and sound effects are also excellent, and like the difficulty, the quality of the visuals and audio never lets up or slips. Outdoor areas feature impressive, parallax backgrounds, secret locations are identifiable with a keen eye without needing to rub against and slap every wall, and the game is dripping with little details.

There are a few minor faults worth pointing out. One confusing aspect are the key items that are required to access the alt bosses – you’ll collect, or even buy one, and then it just kind of vanishes, with no obvious place to look to see how many you have, what they do, what they’re good for. Turns out you have to press the bumper in the equipment screen to shift to another tab, revealing that they must be equipped and taken into the stages to use them, which is a cool limitation, except that nothing on that screen [aside from a popup the very first time you access it] tells you that that button does anything, not even the tiniest indicator that there IS another tab to look at.

Another thing that could be clearer is how the checkpoints actually work. Some doors have text pop up above them that says ‘QUICK SAVE’ and going through them does indeed ‘save’ your progress, and lets you start from that point, with your current health, Wrath, and collected items, should you die. However, and this is a big ass caveat, it does NOT actually save your progress, as in lock it in to your save file, meaning that if you quit out for whatever reason after hitting a QUICK SAVE door, you won’t start back at that location. Instead, hard saves, which can be reloaded from, only occur at the more infrequent NEXT AREA doors, which then have a big angel statue at their exit to indicate your restart point.

What’s worse, the missions are rife with loopbacks, shortcuts that let you go from spots tens of minutes deep back to the start, so you can bail out in your Jeep and return to your safehouse with your items and silver secured. However, these shortcuts do NOT remain open… coming back will force you to go through the whole first part of the stage afresh, with all the doors and ladders you just opened access to sealed back up. Now, each area does have a second or even third access point, which lets you skip whole zones of the mission once you’ve found them, but using them locks you out of completing mission-wide score/time challenges, and the warning about this probably pushes people who are better off just moving forward with the stage into starting the whole damn thing off from the start every time.

All of this, combined with the genuinely grueling difficulty, means a lot of people are just going to bounce off Haunted Lands without being able to make any real progress. It’s tough, but it’s absolutely worth the trouble, and most of all, I think it’s all totally reasonable once you actually understand the structure. If you put the effort in, and try not to be too thorough on your first visit to each mission, getting to the point where this game clicks is a rare joy. Seeing a group of demons spawn in, snapping off the exact number of shots required to see their flesh slough off, pumping rounds back in as you move forward, always ready for a new surprise, is a feeling that’s hard to match. And despite ‘only’ being five missions long, the game is not short on content at all – it probably took me over 20 hours to finish the final real stage, and I immediately dove back in for several more hours to take another crack at the first few missions with new characters, exploring as thoroughly as I could to find new gear, challenging alt bosses, and even finding a whole bonus stage or two.

Honestly, maybe the biggest oversight of the game is its price – not that it’s excessive, but that it is too low for the jaw-dropping quality that’s come from a solo dev. This game would be an absolute bargain at three times the price he’s asking, and six bucks USD might color it as more of a bite-sized budget title than you’re really signing up for. Make no mistake, this is an indie that’s worth more than a drive-thru value meal, and could easily match up respectably against the biggest names in its league. It is a wonderful game, and one that hits a lot harder than you might expect.

Whatever you’re doing now, drop that shit and go try Haunted Lands. Chances are good you’ll be dashed to bits upon its first level, bitterly embarrassed and desperate to blame the game for every one of your own failings. But endure, and you’ll see true beauty through the blood, sweat, and tears.

Haunted Lands can be purchased on Steam and GOG.

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I initially wrote this post in 2024 before starting my page. Most of these older posts will not be available for free subscribers, but I’m making an exception for those that wound up being ranked in the top 10 of my favorite games from each year.

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