Recent reviews by Shaaria

It's a short game, but it's a really well-done Metroidvania, leaning closer to the Metroid end of the scale (which is my preference). Good selection of weapons and power-ups, good level design, it's just lots of fun. It would be better if it had a difficulty selector, since the Dark Souls-esque death mechanic doesn't get played into much, but it's still a solid and very fun title.

"Let me try this game", I thought. Next thing I knew, it was half an hour after when I needed to go sleep.

The next day, I thought, "Okay, I'll just finish out that game." I failed horribly but learned a lot, so I decided to start a second game. Next thing I knew, it was half an hour after when I needed to go sleep.

So, solid recommendation, in terms of being fun and engaging. It's one of those games where you are going to lose on your first playthrough no matter what, and it's just a question of how. But, in doing so, you'll learn all sorts of valuable and important lessons so that you can crush it next time. And this is just the base campaign; I've still got all the other scenarios to check out when I'm done with it.

This game has a contradictory choice of design elements. The core gameplay loop is going from mini-dungeon to mini-dungeon and clearing out each one in sequence. Nothing carries over between them except for special permanent upgrades.

So why did they do randomly-generated dungeons? The upgrades' primary uses are to continue you along the path to the next dungeon, which makes the game *look* nonlinear, despite its actual linearity.

Why did they make the movement upgrades all temporary and random? The level design can't take upgrades into account because you probably won't have them, which makes them very unhelpful.

Why did they implement a combo system? The randomly generated rooms rarely give you a chance to get higher than x2 due to the enemy layout. (And the only way to heal is to get an x3 combo or bigger - so people who are really good at the game don't need to heal, and the people who aren't so good can't heal)

Why did they give you limited uses of your alternate weapons? They don't do any more damage, and even if they did, most enemies die in one hit anyway.

Why do they have an elaborate scoring/ranking system for each dungeon? They're randomly generated, after all. It doesn't seem to affect anything at least.

Why do they have enemies that weave as they move when you can only aim in 8 directions with a very slow, short-range projectile? The swamp level is where I bailed out because it just wasn't fun.

I feel like there was a lot of potential here, and they tried to go in too many directions at once.

I played the original. I saw the negative reviews on PQ:G and thought "It can't be THAT bad, can it?"

It can.

Galactrix's match-3 mechanics are a solid upgrade from the original Puzzle Quest; the hex grid is a new and interesting approach, and the ability to control where gems fall in from adds a huge amount of depth. Plus, 4-of-a-kind no longer gives a free turn, which makes the game so much less painful than in the original Puzzle Quest.

Unfortunately, the rest of the game is not so good. It's an unstable game and likes to crash, and while it does autosave aggressively, the crashes mostly happen right after completing a mission, before the autosave. Talk about irony.

You hit a wall early on requiring a money grind to get past as your opponents start showing up in bigger, beefier ships that vastly outclass your own, but to get a bigger ship you need TONS of money. Since you don't have a class any more, you are entirely left on your own to obtain and craft ship parts (ie, spells from the original PQ).

As far as I can tell, the random encounters scale to your level, making leveling up pointless - it just makes the battles take longer.

The main map is the most generic thing possible and makes me wonder if they built the game on a shoestring budget.

The main character is still a total doofus who will do anything that anyone asks of them, no matter how dangerous or morally questionable.

In short, don't make my mistake; if you liked the original Puzzle Quest, don't get this one just to see how it is, even if it's on sale.

Despite knowing basically nothing about BSG, this game was incredibly fun. It has a fair learning curve to it, and is good about steadily improving your strength by giving you more ships and abilities. Interestingly, you almost never get straight upgrades; each ship, munition and squadron has its uses well into the endgame (except the Viper Mk1). Also interestingly, the random battles are more threatening than the story battles, but you still need to take your time to get stronger fleets and keep things under control.

Most impressively, no two battles are ever the same. Even if you have the same fleet fight twice in the same location with the same loadouts, something will be different, and then you need to adapt. And this is where Deadlock's setup of it being turn-based with simultaneous turn resolution shines: You have all the time in the world to plan ahead, but eventually you have to commit to a plan and see how well you thought 10 seconds into the future. Definitely recommended to strategy game fans.

It's got some jank - weird animations in cutscenes, goofy ragdoll physics, that sort of thing. The kind of stuff you see in AAA games, except more common. Fortunately it's just cosmetic.

The core of the game is solid; it's an asymmetric stealth-action game. The hacker's role is very interesting as they only have a body camera attached to the spy's chest, and you can't always see it as you are often checking other cameras - plus it's a low-res, grainy black and white scanline feed, since the game is set in the mid-90's. You very much HAVE to communicate well with your partner - voice chat is a must.

There's lots of flexibility in the way you approach the missions, in dividing your time and trying to keep track of many things at once. Juggling lots of things is the difficulty, along with reacting quickly when things don't go quite right.

I wouldn't recommend it to play by yourself, but if you have an interested friend, it's a solid co-op game.

Finally, a version of Dark Souls with real mouse and keyboard support.

This is a fun and very quick game as it only lasts three rounds. It also encourages speed over precision, as the rule is "If there is debate over whether or not a piece is in a room, it's in the room" in order to keep things moving and discourage people from digging out rulers and alignment lasers.

Very simple rules yet a surprising amount of strategy. A great addition to the library for anyone who wants a smaller/faster game for just a few people.

I can't speak to the scripting issues mentioned in other reviews, but the actual gameplay itself is good.

You would think that Tetris with realistic physics would be a nightmare, but somehow, Tricky Towers has taken a premise that usually serves as a joke and has made it a highly enjoyable game. Each round is short, and there are numerous game modes each with their own little twists, some of which punish you for having bits fall off your tower and some which don't. Every structure is a precarious mess just waiting to collapse at the slightest provocation, but on you go, stacking higher and higher. Fantastic game for lighthearted multiplayer shenanigans.

You know you've got a bad game when the devs rewrite the intro text to the first tutorial to lean on the fourth wall and tell you "Don't play this game. We know it's bad. We know it crashes a lot. We don't care and we're not going to fix it."

Pity - the game looks and sounds great, but the tutorials are poorly made and the interface is badly designed. It's like they spent their whole budget on art, and then hired the cheapest interns they could find to program the game.

But hey, it didn't crash in the brief time I played it, so there's that. I'd be more upset but someone gave me the key from an online bundle, and it effectively cost them less than a dollar. You really do get what you pay for.