Recent reviews by Brasten

I am a professorial Godot developer (paid money to make things with Godot), and an interested hobbyist in Game Creation Systems for kids & education. With all respect to the GGG team, Action Game Maker (1.0.6) is not ready for the causal public. The core additions of the Visual Scripting and pre-coded GameObjects are functional, but very rough in the UI/UX. It is very clear this had the majority of the team's focus and not overall simplified game making tools UI/UX.

If you are expecting a direct successor to Pixel Game Maker MV, AGM will not satisfy. It doesn't currently have the PGMMV UI/UX for artists and non-technical users to smoothly bring in their own assets. The project management is still Godot-centric, with GameObjects and other assets all mixed together in a single FileSystem panel (dock).

If you are someone who hit Godot's GDScript and bounced off, I still can't fully recommend AGM. GDevelop has a more robust and battle tested Visual Programming Language, and is free on desktop. AGM Visual Script does nothing to further an understanding of GDScript or the Godot APIs, as it is a totally different black-boxed scripting system. CraterCrash's Orchestrator, available in the Godot Asset Library, would be a better choice if the issue is GDScript code syntax.

Currently AGM falls into a very narrow demographic. For people who are conformable in a "modern" professional game editor UX, but need a "State Machine" visual programming system with pre-coded game mechanics and behaviors. And neither GDevelop Events or GameMaker Language Visual "clicked".

I am hopeful that GGG can and will improve AGM with better UI/UX and GUI tools for artists. But to quote the Godot Improvement Proposal questionnaire "3. Can this proposal be implemented with an addon?" Yes, yes could have. I found nothing in during Demo period prior to release, that really needed core engine level modifications. A GDExtension addon to Godot would have been sufficient.

The best 3D speedy Erinaceinae Game that another company hasn't made.

Edit for April 3rd update: Fixes nearly all the mentioned issues. Moved from Neutral to Recommend. "Hard mode junkies", there should be options coming to bring back the brutal

Initial release review:

The fundamentals of the running system are solid. In the Endless mode it feels really good. But the further you get from the running the worse Haste does.

Over-tuned and Under-baked. It needed another month of feedback and testing from a wider sample base. There are some general user Interface bugs for controller users that need to be fixed. In the meantime a Mouse will get around Overworld menu/shop issues. Hopeful most of the issues will be address, because they are fixable.

In-run and meta progression prices don't feel good. Shard (run currency) per prices are about 100 to 200 too high. You need a minium of 900 – 100 shards to safely purchase exactly 1 time from a Shop Fragment. And it is possible for shops to appear way before that's possible to accumulate in the first 3 Levels. Anti-shards (meta currency) have a handout rate that feels like I should be looking for a Pay-2-Progress Real Money Booster. And Endless is the only "fun" place to grind them.

Challenge Shards (?) have problems with Objective Marking. They're too punishing on failures, losing out on reward and losing a Life for it. Which can cause them to be Run enders if there's no way path around them.

"Elite" item reward fragments are also over-tuned run enders. The visual confusing of the levels makes pathing difficult to process. And the World Break timer runs too fast to allow for correction and learning the "Tiles". They need to be tuned way down in the 2nd and 3rd levels. These are run enders because dying is reset of the Fragment. The punishment for being slow is a lower quality item. I'd rather an E rank be no item, and have MUCH SLOWER World Break.

Update: Did not know Phoenix Labs was baught out by a Block chain and crypto company, Forte Labs. With massive layoffs and churn in 2023. Dead game. Sorry for y'alls loss.

Prior:

This is my 3rd time returning to the game. 1st on initial launch in early access. Then lost track of it. Ignored it after the Epic login change over. 2nd time was a 2ish years ago, and was overwhelmed by the lack of on-boarding, and bounced off.

3rd time is not a charm. The on-boarding/re-learning is still awful. And I openly asked myself "why does this still feel like an Early Access game?"

Quests are scattered all over the hub, and any sense of story is lost in banal mush.

The armor Perks system is confusing and feels awful (breaking cells if you replace them).

The two weapons would be interesting, if I could have an Elemental hammer that wasn't just Lightning, like the last two times. But I guess I have to buy those with obfuscated real money now?

A big missing QOL would be to pin the weapon combo list on screen. For someone who keeps cycling back and doesn't have years of muscle memory, it is a requirement. And having only really ever played with the Hammers.

I didn't understand Dauntless' monitization plan the first time. Had no interest in it the second time, and now defiantly don't want whatever this is. I'll take long time players words that this is all new as well.

I do hope Phoenix Labs kept a backup of the pre-patch account states. Cause they ♥♥♥♥♥♥ this up. Feels like an Early Access game that didn't understand 10 years of changes to the market.

Avoid this and all old Capcom games with Russian spyware pretending to be DRM. Capcom is having a stupid moment with "modding" of single player offline games, and they're doing business with sketchy "DRM" middleware of questionable origin.

This is an Armored Core game. Really. Familiar gameplay and feel. With similar game play loop of face-roll missions until you hit THE WALL(s) your loadout & play style are a mismatch for.

This is NOT "Souls-like". If you buy this expecting an ARPG you didn't pay attention. This is 3rd-P Shooter with Jetpacks, and mecha flavoring.

This is a FromSoftware game, it does not hold your hand, tutorialize, or explain. You are expected to "figure it out."

New to this Armored:
- Way more massive "Boss" MTs than prior entries. Some are brutal. And you need to find the right Assembly, or get really really good.

- Attitude Control System (ACS) aka Stagger. It is more detailed than the "Training" mission that (doesn't) explains it. It is VERY IMPORTANT to "figure it out", as most "Boss" MTs are built around it.

What seemed like a good story in Early Access has been obliterated for a weak fanfic. Much of the Character to the characters is gone. If you holding off buying this hoping for the developers to finish the story before playing, keep holding on to your money. The dev seems to twist in the wind to which whichever loudmouth is most active on their Discord. Maybe they'll twist back around to a good game. This game is NOT DONE, it got released into degraded state.

Battle Chef Brigade shows the marvelous and creative things small developers can do. This is a game that supports its story with its mechanics. While the story it has to tell is full of tropes it is still very enjoyable.

TL;DR

- Playtime: ~8 hours
- Competent 2D Combat
- Deceptively complex Matching Puzzles
- Replayability: At least 2 times (once for Normal, once for Hard)
- Story: Good enough that I'd have watched
- It's only 20 USD

Current Negatives:
- Limited Keyboard support (fixes for that should be coming with the first major patch)
- No versus mode for a "cook-off" game
- No freeplay mode

You may see the following in other reviews: Sidescroller, Match 3, Anime... and rightly wonder why reviewers are gushing over this fairly short game with seemingly very little replay value. To which I'd suggest watching any capable reviewer or player doing one cook-off. Like any good dish, if you just look at the ingredients you may question if it will be any good.

It is important to understand how all the systems mesh together to really understand what's going on. The first major components is the Time Limit. Time managment is constant pressure that impact performance in the other two aspects of play. You need a plan in mind, and need to stick to the plan.

2D Combat: Is competent. I'd leave it at that. It can sometimes feel a bit unresponsive, however that also feels like over zealous button mashing error. When you play it at a more techincal level it works just fine. This is where Time pressure will start in on you. Being too hasty can lock you into combos, or cause you to miss some platforming. If you wouldn't likey make as many errors. It is good when you can say "this feels like my mistake, and I can do better at this."

Puzzling: Deceptive. 5 main "Gem" types, rotate 4 at a time. Combine 3 to "level" them up for better score. Now limit the grid to 8x8. Add required" pieces from the "Theme Ingredient." Limit the amount of "stirring" with Cracked Gems. Effects from different Cookware. Needing to balance making upwards of 3 different dishes at once. It can get very demanding fairly quickly. The "stirring" mechanic captures, in game form, the basic mechancial task of cooking. If you are not a fast "Match 3" puzzler, this aspect of the game may be too much for you. If do not come into the cook-off with a plan it is easy to get overwhelmed with everything you need to track. Fortunately there are ways of playing that can reduce your need to be a swift puzzler.

"Did you have a plan?" That could BCB's catch phrase. Did you have a plan to your hunting? Did you have plan a for you dishes. Now this is slightly thwarted by not being allowed to see the details of a Cook-Off before going into it, but only slightly. If If you lose a match you can either Rematch or Return to Town and re-gear. There is no campaign penalty for doing either.

This is where BCB can start having its replay value. Even after you complete the campaign on Hard you may not have gotten all the Steam Achievements, if you are of that inclination. You may even want to go through it again, using different cookware and with a different "plan" to your culinary combat.

Consumer action at work. After months of consumer base pressure over the Pay-To-Win double dipping micro-transactions, Starbreeze (Overkill's parent company) finally baught back the rights to Payday 2 from the publisher 505 games. With the buyback they have now decied to try and 'resave face' by removing the micro-transaction skins with game impacting stats and making them just decorative.

It's hard to tell who made the horrable choice of "Safes" in the first place, but clearly Starbreeze and Overkill are trying to put the blame on 505 games.

Despite this reversion, DO NOT TRUST OVERKILL! Even if they didn't originate the mandate to include the "Safes", they did it without a whimper and offered lame excuses. And it still took months for things to change. Starbreeze has is bringing out "Payday: Crime War" a mobile OS game, which will likely be littered with micro-transactions. WATCH THEM closely. Watch Payday: Crime War, and how Starbreeze handles the monetization.

For now Payday 2 is again a good game (on sale), despite its clearly aging engine, but do keep in mind 505 Games, Starbreeze, and Overkill have a very dodgey history of making bad development choices. DO NOT let them forget that WE the conumsers are watching them, and holding them at arms length. We walked away from them once and Tanked their comsumer reviews. We can, and should, walk away again if they backslide.