Recent reviews by Lunix Vandal

An improvement in nearly every way to the original Hand of Fate, with greater complexity and variety both in the challenges and the tools offered to overcome them. Perhaps its greatest flaw is that Endless Mode was not available at launch (and still is not, as of this writing), but it's still a serious contender for my personal "GOTY 2017" award.

ICEY presents itself as a side-scrolling beat-em-up in the vein of Dust: An Elysian Tail or the Shank series. However, side exploration quickly reveals that the game is also a commentary on the expectations placed on the player, in the style of The Stanley Parable.

Unfortunately, the game has serious flaws in both of these aspects. While ICEY's moves have all the speed and fluidity one expects from modern beat-em-ups, they are entirely lacking in hitstun -- meaning that you will get suckerpunched out of your attack string far too often, by attacks you couldn't see coming due to the game's flashy particle effects. The dash-to-counterattack system is also unintuitive, since there's no clear telegraph when or which direction you should dash in order to enable the counterattack prompt. In addition, ICEY is still vulnerable during these dashes, so you can get hit out of a counterattack attempt by the attack you are countering.

Meanwhile, the English VO for the TSP side of things is absolutely cringe-worthy -- the Narrator's monologue is imperious, condescending, and narcissistic, with a grating voice to match. Take the smallest step off the path laid out for you and the Narrator will immediately start berating you for not playing the game the "right" way ... but follow that path and he'll continually rub your face in the fact that you're just here to follow the arrows and kill some bosses.

AND YET despite these flaws, I still enjoyed the game enough to 100% it, even if I can't honestly recommend others buy it. I blame the King in Yellow. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A 100% faithful reproduction of the physical SotM card game (WHICH IS AMAZING BTW), at less than 1/5 the price. One might even say Sentinels Digital is the "definitive" version of the game, since it includes errata and official rulings on ambiguous situations that spawned endless debates on the physical game's forum. Gameplay is further enhanced by Jean-Marc's amazing soundtrack. Sentinels Digital also tends to play faster than the tabletop game, since the engine automatically tracks HP, start-and-end-of-turn effects, conditional effects, and other bookkeeping headaches (so you don't have to).

Absolutely do get one or both Season Passes. The heroes, villains, and environments they add greatly expand the game's variety and replayability -- and, again, the Steam version of those expansions will cost a fraction of what you'd pay for a paper copy.

How much do I love this game? I *did* pay for the everything-ever-made-for-this-game paper copy, and I STILL bought Sentinels Digital and both season passes.

A short but satisfying ARPG. EvilQuest has numerous flaws (mediocre spritework, sometimes-questionable game balance, and awkward dialogue among them), but that's kind of a "you get what you pay for" situation. That said, it's well worth that $2 admission.

Rex is, at its core, an homage to the "Nintendo Hard" platformers of the late 80's and early 90's, with a dash of the "Harder Than Nintendo Hard" indie games of recent years. Castle Pixel really did their homework here -- the game evokes a lot (and I do mean a LOT) of the elements that made the Mega Man and Metroid games fun and challenging, but without being so overtly unfair as (for example) I Wanna Be The Guy.

Easily one of the best games I've played so far this year. Dust gets so many things right that most of my complaints are specific to the highest difficulty level. A must-buy for anyone who loves Metroidvania-esque platformers, player-skill-focused combat, a well-told story, or friendly pokes at the fourth wall.

"A Short Story of Adventure Video Game Evolution" indeed. Made short by cutting the story off around the Playstation era -- Evoland has devolved into a love letter to Final Fantasy VII long before Sephiroth kills Aeris. Err, before "Zephyros" kills "Kaeris," that is.

And that love letter? It's from the creepy, overly-attached girlfriend. But THAT'S well apparent by the time "Clink" picks up "Claud's" sword and wades through the loading screens of the pre-rendered second town (Aogai) to meet with "Sid."

The OTHER half of the game is split between nods to Final Fantasy VI and the pre-Gamecube Legend of Zelda games ... and a ham-handed Diablo parody. Though well-done, these aren't enough to redeem the fustercluck that is the FFVII "homage."

I like platformers. I like stealth games (even if I'm not particularly good at them). Mark of the Ninja is both, and pulls the combination off superbly -- from your wall-climbing, ceiling-hugging, vent-crawling maneuverability, to the hallucinogen-induced awareness of your enemy's state of mind, to the breadth of equipment loadouts and viable playstyles.

Want to wage a campaign of terror across the map, tricking your foes into shooting each other out of paranoia? Check. Want to run past, whisper-quiet, completing your objectives without so much as a drop of blood or a batted eye? Check. Something in the middle, maybe with a little teleportation goodness thrown in? Check, check, and check.

In the magical land known as "Fun," the nations of "Good-For-A-Laugh Silliness" and "Tough-As-Nails Roguelikes" were ever at war. And then Gaslamp set up a trading post on the border, and called it DoD.