Recent reviews by Wiwiweb

When I first heard about this game, I thought "another anime game that wants to ask me 'what if clones/robots are actually human too??!?'". But when it appeared on everyone's GOTY lists, I had to actually see what the fuss was about and admit I was very wrong.

Of course the story is very good and a lot deeper than my first impression, but I also particularly loved the *storytelling*. The way the scenes, music, voice acting, presentation, and occasional interaction, all mesh together to make the story hit a lot harder than if you were just reading it on a book or in a standard VN interface. The devs' background in performance art really shows.

I recommend this game with a good pair of headphones.

I had a blast with this game, it's a real work of love.

The biggest selling point is the writing and humor, it hit the right level of wackiness that cracked me up constantly. Definitely the kind of game where I was running around talking to every NPC just to get every drop of dialog. It reminded me of "Barkley, Shut up and Jam: Gaiden" which is one of the highest compliments I can give.

The combat system is original and interesting, and allows for a lot of possible team builds. It made me feel real clever to come up with my own. My only negative point is that the game is pretty easy and I was never really worried about losing a fight, though I imagine some of the OP things I used will be balance patched.

Also the music is awesome, just check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eohyCdSYmAA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5r7mzi7Yq0

Definitely worth the $20. Don't hesitate.

I was really surprised by how good this game is. If it hadn't been released the same week as Hades I think a lot more people would be aware of it.

The game's humour and script personally hit me just right. I took many screenshots of the jokes that made me laugh. "Corporate parody" is almost an overused subject now, but Going Under felt more personal and on point than the other attempts I've seen.

The combat system where you have to pick up random items around you seems simple at first, but you learn which items are worth keeping a long time, which are just for a quick throw, and how to quickly juggle items around in a room full of monsters. Later levels require some serious crowd control.

There's also an undeniable charm to the game, with tons of tiny details added where you can't help but ask "they spent dev time on something so small that would only be noticed by a percentage of players?". For example, the player character has a modeled brain with a cute face that you can only see if you hug walls and clip the camera into yourself.

It's not a big 1000 hours replay-value game with hundreds of build possibilities, but Going Under's small cast and few but greatly-themed dungeons will stay in my mind even after I stop playing.

Masterful game about discovery. Must play if you have any ounce of curiosity. Go in blind and hungry for knowledge.
I wish it was possible to replay it blind. Second best thing, convincing all my friends to play it.

Most negative reviews complain about the obscure mechanics and the difficulty curve, but I actually found that I disliked it for the opposite reasons?? Figuring out how the game ticks was very interesting, but once I understood it, it just isn't that deep.

You start the game experimenting, trying things that might work, being delighted when they do actually work, getting excited when you find a new type of card that you don't understand yet and could open a lot more possibilities! The writing is excellent, the sound effects and music are on point, the whole thing drips of *occult* ambiance.

But after that it just became a lot of busy work and grinding.

By my 3rd playthrough I had a routine.
First you spend 15 minutes to improve all your skills as far as possible, because it won't be possible later. You repeatedly use the Work action on your best fund-generating thing (either manual labour with a high strength stat, or one of the starting jobs), every 45 or 60 seconds.
Once you're done, you grind for followers, repeatedly using Talk to recruit/convert. Then you can either grind for books and get lucky to find the right lore card, or grind Dreams to find purple lore and do expeditions.
You keep grinding books and expeditions until you get higher and higher lore cards, and then I expect you win.

During all that the only challenge is staying focused. If you stay focused, there is no challenge. If you get distracted, you die. It feels like an idle game where you can't actually relax.

Examples:

My second playthrough, I didn't notice I had a Despair counter up to 3 in a corner of the table (it only shows the counter when you click on it) and now I needed a Contentment in 60 seconds but my Work action was on cooldown so I couldn't paint, game over.

My last playthrough I lost to really bad RNG (Failed a level 11 assassination, then failed a level 5 evidence destroying, then failed it again, then the trial was unluckily against me, then I didn't find any favour from authority in my dreams). Really bad RNG can happen in any game but when I thought about the way I lost, I knew I could not handle going through the early game skill-grinding and follower-grinding again.

PRESS A TO PROTECT EARTH!

There's nothing I could say to explain my love for this game that hasn't already been said better by Matthewmatosis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rysBiZmYshk

I was impressed with the infrastructure work done for this game. It seems the developers knew about the typical fate of multiplayer indie games, and made sure that they could get past the hump of self-sustaining playercount.

There is cross-play and cross-party, local parties can play with online players, decent bots for fill-ins, good AFK detection, automatic rematch, you can reconnect to a game you disconnected from. Even has really good in-game voice chat.

As a result of all that work, the quick play queue will always get you into a game within 30 seconds. The ranked queue was pretty fast when I started too, but now that I ranked up, it can sometimes take a bit longer to find equal opponents. If you get to that point, I'd recommend joining the discord.

Of course none of that would matter if the game was bad. But this is one of the most fun under-5-minutes multiplayer experiences I've had in a long time. Individual skill and teamplay are both rewarded, and an even match can get you into some adrenaline pumping moments.

I won't forget that game where, on my last life as a queen, the entire enemy team went soldier and I had to escape and survive for 10 long seconds, dodging attacks left and right while my teammates are shouting "we just need 1 more berry dude, don't die!"

I don't know how long I will be playing this game, but for now I'm really enjoying it even as a solo player, and I know I'll be bringing it out to play with friends locally too.

Protip: Bind "dive" to a shoulder button.

This may be a hardcore platformer, but it's a hardcore platformer with heart.

Even if you don't feel like you're very good at games, remember: You can do this.

I backed this game on Kickstarter years ago, and it ended up being a great purchase.

It's a turn by turn strategy game with no RNG, no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, no pay to win.

Tough to get into, but once you understand the concepts of the game, winning a game purely from superior strategy and tactics is a feeling that I've only found in Starcraft before.

I stopped playing Zelda because I was so obsessed with this game.

Every jump and every strike feels responsive. The combat starts off basic yet fun, and as you get more abilities you'll be dashing and wall-jumping all over the place, against some tough but fair bosses, in a style that reminded me of Megaman Zero of all things.

There is a lot of focus on exploration. For each zone, you don't get a map until you find the cartographer. Even then, he sells you an incomplete map, and your map updates only at save points. This makes you explore a lot in 'the dark' based only on your orientation. Although some people might not like that, I loved it. If you disable your marker location you even get an extra ability slot, as a reward for those who don't need it.

The story takes from Dark Souls at first, giving you bits of lore on a dripfeed. After seeing the credits the first time, I was satisfied but confused as to what was going on. There is more to the game than just the final boss though, and I kept getting surprised by the amount of new zones I was finding AFTER having beaten the final boss. The finale was grandiose and left a lasting impression on me.

Do I even need to mention the great hand-drawn art and beautiful music?

Now that I'm done, I can go play Zelda again. And you should go buy Hollow Knight.

Edit: Also the DLC is awesome and fixes the few minor flaws I had with this game.