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While I thought Golden Light was a first-person shooter, it's more apt to describe it as a first-person tactical espionage survival roguelite. Moment to moment gameplay here is mostly scouring the floor you're in, looking for keys which will give you access to the next floor, while avoiding traps and enemies (and combat), and collecting resources that can all be used in multiple ways. Got a consumable? You can either eat it or throw it at enemies to trigger status effects. Got a new weapon? You can either use it (with very poor control and damage in general), throw it (for status effects) or eat it (?) as well. Managing these resources while deciding when to engage in combat is the core to the game, and it took me almost four hours to really understand it, since it's a very obtuse game (and unashamedly so).

So, if you want a run and gun game, this is not it. This is a much more cerebral and cautious kind of game. Buyer beware.

Outside of the 'dungeon floors' you have a hub world that is as weird as the levels, and even after beating the game I'm still confused as to how to navigate it. There's certainly a proper way, an optimal path, but I have absolutely no idea what it is.

Now, I didn't love the gameplay, and hence is why I wouldn't recommend the game. But one thing that it gets absolutely right are the vibes. Visual design, sound design, enemies, environments, loading screens and transitions, everything is super well alligned to the vibe the game wants to convey, and there's something really satisfying to see gel together. Unfortunately I couldn't get over the gameplay jank so it's still a no-go for me, but if you know exactly what you're getting into this could be your game.

Yeah, no big review here. The game is basically multiplayer only, and I played a mix of online matches with folks (not many active players from what I could see) and offline matches with bots (decent for the most time).

I have no clue why I entered this GA (well, most GAs are like that hahaha) but overall, Goat of Duty is fun-ish. The game modes I played have a great Unreal-arena style feel to it. Matches are hectic, with you respawning and immediately running around looking for a better gun than your pea-shooter. It's a bit hard to get used to the goat's models for headshots and stuff, but it's not a massive deal. One of the most unique mechanics here are the ramming charges, which can be used as either movement options (to cross gaps) or offensive tools (to send enemies flying and drop them off ledges). Speaking of ledges, most levels are built around endless pits incentivizing you to throw your enemies from them.

While good fun, it's not a game I see myself playing for long or in the future. It's fine, but I think we are finished here hehe

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An almost perfect experience. Soundtrack, artstyle, gameplay mechanics, narrative, length, everything simply works. While the last level took slightly longer than I'd have liked, I was genuinely emotional when it ended. No filler, all polish.

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The Inner World is a decent but far from perfect point-and-click adventure game. Graphics are very charming, and voice acting is mostly well done. I didn't encounter any major bugs, besides some translation mishaps on written elements vs. the spoken dialogue (probably the person who translated the script was not the same one who translated the in-world graphics). Writing is mostly okay, with a nice story that goes by pretty quickly, some decent jokes, and some meh ones. Overall I couldn't fault it.

My two main issues come from the spoken dialogue and the difficulty/moon logic. For the spoken dialogue, it's really well done, but characters have a lot to say about everything, and they talk somewhat slowly. Also when they're talking, action is interrupted, so the game flow is reaally, reaaaaallly slow. Pacing suffers a bit from that, but it's a bit hard to see how the game could avoid that, being a point-and-click adventure game. The moon logic issue is one that is almost inherent to the genre, and makes me wonder why I still play it. Chapters 1 and 2 are mostly fine in this regard, but from Chapter 3 onward, the logical leaps you have to make start to get pretty wild. At least the game is decent enough to provide a really good hint system, and there's even an achievement for making use of it!

Overall, it's nothing ground-breaking but has a few issues here and there. Good for point-and-click adventure game fans, but might not be everyone's piece of cake and I'd stay away from it if you're not a massive fan of the genre.

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On A, I thought I was having fun
because of interesting mechanics, charming graphics and decent voice acting

On B, the plot thickened,
with new characters, more twists, and quaint settings

But by C, I was getting tired,
of the slow gameplay, the repetitive nature of the puzzles, the pixel hunting and the moon logic,
plus endless pop-ups celebrating every mundane click with meaningless achievements,

And by the time I finished my ABC and got to D,
I was ready to uninstall this uninspired game and never look back on it

At first glance, Poirot's world seemed bright,
With mysteries to solve and clues in sight

The art style charmed, the voices rang true,
Each scene painted in a vintage hue

But patience wore thin as the hours crawled by,
Click here, click there, with many a sigh
"Achievement Unlocked!" the screen would cheer,
For picking up a spoon or walking near

The puzzles grew stale, logic went astray,
What should have been thrilling became child's play

From Andover's start to the final scene,
This adaptation felt stuck in between—
Not quite a game, not quite a book,
Just a tired mystery that lost its hook

Guacamelee! was an enormous letdown, a big disappointment.

For the 2.5 hours I spent with the game, it never went above mid. Exploration was never a thrill because the game signals very obviously (through the use of colors) whether you have the powerup needed to progress through an area or not. It's very jarring and unnatural to be roaming around a dungeon and then see these giant colored blocks that clearly represent a skill you haven't gotten yet. It's like, I know this is a Metroidvania but I expect the game to make some effort hiding these locks and keys.

Additionally, tying navigation to skills that are linked to stamina (such as the uppercut for vertical navigation) is limiting and sometimes force you to simply stop what you are doing and wait until your stamina recharges to be able to … move. It is terrible for pacing and breaks the flow. Combat is mostly mid, with no real good feel to it -- you mostly bash combos, but if you end up falling to the ground when the enemy was just winding up it's attack animation, you'll get hit without any chance to counter, for instance. The game loves to pit you in small arenas against waves of enemies, to the point it becomes hard to even read the situations, much less to react to them. Hit detection is quite bad, meaning you'll be inches from your enemy hitting the air, only for them to counter you heavily. Nowhere this was more obvious than during these Combo challenges, where the game asks you to perform a long combo in a certain order, and while pressing the buttons is not hard, hitting the enemy is where the challenge lies.

With the movement tied to stamina, platforming challenges become a chore. Jumps are a bit floaty and you don't have all the control that some of the timed jumps require. The character is very quick to snatch to walls, meaning sometimes you want to jump up a platform but instead hugs the wall, and jumping again sends you flying on the opposite way you want to go.

Lastly, I'll admit the theme of the game is really good, we don't see enough games themed around Mexican culture and the whole luchador vibe, but dialogue is really weak and the quests are quite basic. A Metroidvania that is not fun to explore, not fun to move around and not fun to fight against enemies is really a bad Metroidvania after all. I'm shocked it can carry a 90/95% rating on Steam -- people who rate it positively will be blown away when they play actually good Metroidvanias

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Undertale has to be one of the most charming and well-written games I've played in the last few years, but that completely misses the mark in the final 15 minutes.

It was one of the most jarring experiences I've ever had, going from a really interesting and mature take on the usual JRPG formula and videogame logic and morals, all the while keeping the gameplay forever interesting with new takes and variations on the same base system. While the visuals do not earn it a lot of bonus points, they are at least readable and contribute to a vibe that is highly enhanced not only by the writing, but also by the stellar soundtrack. But then, the game moves to a random fever dream without anything to say or show for it. If the first 5 and a half hours weren't so strong, I would probably not recommend the game from the last 15 minutes alone.

Still, it's a solid game that deserves the praise it gets, although even almost-perfect gems have it's moments of oddities that bring it down a notch.

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Kairo is a weird game, and I mean that as a compliment.

It's a 3D first-person puzzle game, through and through. I don't know why some people chose the walking sim tag, as I feel the vibe is completely different to that of games like Gone Home, Tacoma, or the Suicide of Rachel Foster. In those games, puzzle solving is almost secondary, and you're there to soak in the detailed environments. Kairo, on the other hand, is a world made of impossibly gigantic megastructures of raw concrete that have very little detail and are connected by ethereal gateways, each one with an (usually) self-contained puzzle to be solved before you can proceed. The core of the game is figuring out what you can do in each room, and then, what you need to do to 'solve' it.

This intricate architecture is ominous and foreboding, aided by some weird lighting artifacts and the immaculate (yet terrifying) soundtrack. The dev has told in interviews that the early releases of the game had calm and soothing music, and he decided to switch it for a dark, rhytmic track that keeps you on the edge. It's alienating. It helps to explain the 'Horror' and 'Psychological Horror' tags, because the combination of visuals, sound and the blurred depth of field limiting your view cone, plus some elements like a coffin room and a skeleton on a throne definitely are edgy.

Despite all of that, I liked it. It was reasonably easy to get through, with many puzzles not being obvious but also not obtuse. I have used a guide in a screen or two after a lot of unsuccessful tinkering. It's not a game for everyone or that can be played at any time, but if you're in that particular spot where this will work, go for it.