Marvel’s Midnight Suns is an amazing anomaly; something that flew over my radar so hard when it came out that I picked up on a whim (while it was free), but it truely made me wish I would’ve bought it on release. I really had no clue what to expect, a card-based RPG featuring Marvel characters made by the XCOM team? I had the (wrong) idea that there would be dating elements too, but chalk it up to superhero fatigue or a lack of interest specifically for deckbuilders, I had ignored it then. Playing it now - with the DLC and all - was a really fun experience.
Last Epoch is an amazing action RPG, combining mechanics and systems that satisfyingly come together to create an experience where you just want to keep playing, creating new characters, trying more builds and finding out how things work out. The story is nothing to write home about - especially after the twenieth time through - but I’m just playing it nonstop since it came out of early acccess, and boy is it great.
Patrick’s Parabox is an amazing puzzle game with a simple concept that grows over time in complexity, but always in a fun, logical way. I had a blast with it, almost beating all the included puzzles in the game and thinking about it for a while after the credits were over. It wasn’t -perfect- perfect, but it was damned close and I almost only have good things to say about it. Really good music and sound design too!
I don’t really consider myself a big Baldur’s Gate fan, I had dabbled in the first two game in a very limited capacity, but I was too young to really enjoy these at the time and couldn’t wrap my head around the THAC0 systems and other intricacies of dungeons and dragons. I had always heard that they were good games, but as the times went my bread and butter was more like the Dragon Ages and other more action-RPG oriented titles. The allure of playing one of these games in co-op really drew me in, and the buzz was positively glowing, so I went into Baldur’s Gate 3 a bit unsure. The uncertainty didn’t last long, this is an amazing game.
Stellaris is an amazing 4X space strategy game that has you lead a civilization of space explorers across the galaxy, colonizing planets, building them up, researching technologies, making choices and ultimately grow to be a powerhouse in some fashion. I had a terrific time with it and I could see myself playing it more or less forever like a Civilization title. I even bought some DLC for it because it opened up neat possibilities that weren’t in the base game - something I do fairly rarely.
Opus Magnum is a wonderful puzzle game by Zachtronics about creating alchemical products using reagents and tools that you can program. I didn’t get too much into the whole ‘optimization’ thing this time around, but I did beat the game and some of the optional puzzles. It was a ton of fun and I would 100% recommend it to everyone who enjoys puzzles in the slightest. The export to gif feature (which allows you to create animated gifs of your solutions) is also genius.
Factorio is an incredible game of crafting, research and automation where you crashland on a planet with almost no resources and nothing available to you until you manage to create a sprawling base filled with machines building everything you could ever dream of. Its got depth, challenge and plenty of time-filling action trying to optimize systems, perfect processes and optimize solutions. I had an absolute blast with it!
Hollow Knight is a quintessential metroidvania, oozing with its gloomy charm and strange cast of character, this nail-wielding bug-starring platformer is a game I really enjoyed. A bunch of smart systems working together with familiar tropes and design concepts make for a really well-playing responsive action game with a ton of places to discover and enemies to fight. If you haven’t played Hollow Knight, I really recommend it!
Inbento is a delightful puzzle game where you need to replicate a target ‘bento box’ with a few pieces in your own box. You switch, move and duplicate food items until you solve the puzzle, then move on. It’s very simple, but also very relaxing, without any stress and the core mechanics are very good. It’s one of these reviews where there is not much to say because the whole experience is well-made and self-contained in a way that makes too long a review a bit pointless. For a little premium game, I totally recommend inbento!
Cosmic Star Heroine is an RPG that has clear Chrono Trigger influences made by the studio that brought us Breath Of Death VI and Chtulu Saves the world a few years ago. I really enjoyed these games and I also really enjoyed CSH, a game about a special agent in a futuristic security force that gets tangled into a conspiracy and has to fight her way out of it with her fellow party members. The battle system and other mechanics in this game are pretty good and the story was fairly engaging. I also liked the music and some of the graphical choices they made, so I’d totally recommend it to everyone!
The first CSD game was pretty great, a ballet of specific key presses in the correct order punctuated by the sting of frustration one feels when they made a mistake while playing an unforgiving game. I had a less good experience with the iOS version but I still fondly remembered the first game. Fastforward to a couple of weeks ago when I started playing the second one and wow does this sequel build up on the original game in fun ways and with very addictive new level structures and hooks. It’s one of these rare games that I review for more than a few hours because I just want to keep playing, Cook, Serve, Delicious 2 is simply amazing and I’m super excited to see what comes next in the franchise.
Almost A Hero is half an idle game, half a free RPG that combines mechanics from idlers with a surprising amount of depth; I wasn’t sure what I was getting into - since mobiles RPGs are pretty hit-or-miss for me, but this one was great! I probably would’ve stuck with it for way longer if I didn’t want to go down my list of iOS games to play. With a ton of things to unlock, a very generous currency progression and some interesting game mechanics that unlock themselves after a long while, Almost A Hero is real neat.
Steamworld Dig 2 might be a known quantity, but it’s a great game regardless. I almost knew exactly what I was getting into when I booted the game up - and besides a few interesting ideas thrown in, I was exactly right - but that sweet loop of exploring mines, finding materials to sell in order to buy upgrades to allow you to do the same thing over again was just the thing I needed. I don’t exactly remember the original Steamworld Dig, but this one is just better in every point and a great game you probably should play.
Donut County is some sort of reverse Katamari Damacy where instead of trying to build a large ball out of stuff, you’re mainly trying to use an increasingly bigger hole in order to grab everything in each level, solving puzzles along the way. I had a great time with it and loved its style and charm. Some of the gimmicks were a bit annoying, but ultimately nothing prevented me from completing the game.
West of Loathing is a delightful Western-themed RPG made by the Kingdom Of Loathing folks - a browser game that I’ve played for years - and I had a great time with it. It’s not perfect - I had some issues with the difficulty in the endgame and some puzzles alongside the infinite inventory clutter you quickly acquire but it was overall an amazing little RPG (which took me about 7 hours to complete) that I would recommend wholeheartedly to pretty much anyone.
I had played a few of the The Room games on iOS, but not all of them. They’re all very similar, but well-crafted puzzle games where you explore a location and uncover secrets by pushing, pulling, sliding and otherwise interacting in different ways with your environment. Old Sins has the character explore a dollhouse sitting in the attic of an old mansion in order to unlock nine seals in nine different rooms. I had a good time with it even if sometimes I just -had- to use hints in order to figure out what to do next. At least the game doesn’t sell these hints as in-app purchases and is otherwise very generous with letting you do what you want.
Into The Breach is a really neat turn-based strategy game where you control a few mechs in order to defeat an alien force across multiple continents and save people. The core concept of ITB is that you have (almost) all the information necessary to plan your turns and that there is no randomness in how things play out. There’s a ton of stuff to unlock - new teams of mechs, new pilots, achievements and what have you - and you can replay the game almost endlessly with the same basic and effective mechanics set. I really enjoyed ITB!
Minesweeper Genius is a real neat small puzzle game loosely based on Minesweeper. It includes picross-like mechanics where you know how many ‘bombs’ there are in a row and a column. I completed the whole game since I liked it so much and while I thought there was something weird about the progression and the special tiles were a bit too similar in many ways, I had a ton of fun and the music was stuck in my head for ages while I was playing it.
The Executive is a really neat idea of a beat them up/RPG where you play an office worker with martial arts powers fighting against werewolves, skeletons and other demons in a series of increasingly difficult levels while idly accumulating wealth from different divisions of your company that you upgrade alongside your stats and special abilities. Although I was disappointed by the endgame and some of the mechanics felt obtuse to me, I had a lot of fun with it!
Battle Chef Brigade is the combination of a light 2D monster hunting game and a match-3-like puzzle system where you collect food in order to cook great dishes in Iron Chef style competitions. It’s oozing with great style and characters and the mechanics are really interesting. I had a ton of fun with it and wish I could’ve spent even more time with the game. I have to say that it was a bit too stressful for me.