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Castle Crashers
Arets categorically refused to write a review and post the meme I sent him, so I'm correcting this oversight.

The core essence of the game is reflected in the image above.

Alright, I'll explain a bit. The game is a beat 'em up by genre, where players control one of four Knights (or someone else unlocked during the game) and their goal is to save four princesses. Every time the players save a princess, a duel for a kiss begins. As it happened, all four times my fire Knight defeated the electric Knight, Artza. I even got an achievement for it.

The game itself, however, seemed mediocre to me. I don't regret the time spent, but I've played better beat 'em ups. For instance, I liked Lost Castle 2 much more. I would call some of the bosses the weakest point of the game; fighting them isn't so much difficult in itself as it is inconvenient for a number of reasons. I played with a tanky-magic build (all points went into magic and defense), as a result of which one of the final boss's stages became extremely agonizing: time and again, he summoned minions immune to elemental damage, whom I had to slowly and tediously beat down with my now useless sword that adds to magic. In between attempts, I would revive Artza, who developed his Knight more evenly.

As it happened, all four times my fire Knight defeated own electric Knight Artz.

I forgot to mention that the duel took place immediately after the boss fight without HP restoration and considering that I had a melee fighter, I was doing most of the tanking, which is why I was left with a small amount of those very HPs)
PS yes, the final boss is crap. Overall it's okay for one playthrough, but it would have been better in a group of four.

I forgot to mention that the duel took place immediately after the boss fight without restoring hp, and considering I had a melee fighter, I was doing most of the tanking, which is why I was left with a small amount of those very hps)

The fact that I invested more into defense than you did played a bigger role here. As a result, I suffered less. Also, I sometimes used heals before duels, while you didn't...

Stellar Blade

Started playing on Hard, which is supposedly intended for NG+. At first, I really enjoyed the challenge — I had to carefully and tactically overcome every mob, working both my brain and hands. Then I got to the first boss, spent a couple of hours trying to beat it, and realized it was impossible for me — it was too tanky and dealt too much damage. Switched to Normal — beat it immediately, along with all subsequent bosses. I don't like this kind of difficulty scaling... I'd prefer a middle ground. It dampened my interest a bit, but I still played quite a bit after that, made it to the desert, started doing all the quests... Got stuck there for a couple of IRL months. Today I logged in and realized I probably won't continue. The main reason — I don't care about what's happening, just zero interest in the story and characters.

Nevertheless, by other criteria, I'll say the game is good.

- Excellent hitboxes.

- Excellent combat (worse than in Sekiro, but better than in Souls).

- The heroine's model and animation are very well done, though her face isn't my type (the local Scarlet is cuter). Korean terminators > American ones.

- A million different costumes, most of which you have to earn yourself, which is cool.

- Selfie mode is nice.

- When they let you play in a style similar to Nikke, it was gigafun.

Overall, the game is good, but it lacks depth.

SpellForce: Conquest of Eo

Since our guys have this game on their wishlist, I decided to post about it here.

I really enjoyed the game. Whether you'll like it – I don't know. I'll try to break down the nuances so you can form your own opinion.

First of all, it's immediately obvious this isn't an indie title but a solid budget project. Beautiful artwork, nice spell animations on the global map, music somewhat reminiscent of Heroes, and most importantly – very literary texts. Though, you do have to reach for a dictionary.

The atmosphere is excellent. It's created by quests, artwork, and music. The game overall feels like a collection of little stories you happily immerse yourself in. Each iteration is literally 3-5 pages/paragraphs long, they don't descend into rambling, and in my opinion that's optimal. Sometimes you're offered to place bets on dwarven combat mole races. Sometimes poor demons are driven from their homes by dwarves conducting archaeological excavations. Sometimes a romantic knight, enchanted by the charms of a powerful sorceress, challenges you to a duel because you're on good terms with her.

The taverns also have atmosphere, even when the stories are quite mundane. Either someone sings (with lyrics written in verse), or tells swashbuckling tales, or brags about their dog, or when asked to simply describe what scared him in the abandoned mine, he strokes his beard and begins to recount in detail: "There's something scratching the stones, growling, I heard screams," and so on.

An important and very pleasant moment that reminded me of old-school games from my childhood – optional, rarely encountered dialogue options in quests tied to specific characters or conditions. For example, in the demon region, my squad led by a hero entered a tavern, and the hero was a demonologist. I was pleasantly surprised that a separate option appeared. Moreover, this is a rare event – you get only one hero for the entire game (and there are eight heroes total in vanilla), and what were the chances that I'd be playing exactly that hero, that I'd reach that region, and that I'd step into the tavern with him specifically? (There's one tavern per region, with no possibility of revisiting.) That's a small chance. Yet it was written in, and that's what sets apart a game made with love, with well-developed lore and cohesively interwoven stories.

In addition to the texts, there are beautifully drawn pictures and good music.

Vocabulary used (examples)

squinting - щурясь

engulfed - поглощённый

slurred – нечленораздельный

omnipresent - вездесущий

semblance - сходство

elation – ликование

inquiring - пытливый

crestfallen - удручённый

disheveled - взъерошенный

shunned – избегаемый

bestowed - дарованный

intricate - замысловатый

discernible – различимый

persevering – настойчивый

awed  - благоговейный

shrill - пронзительный

shriveled – сморщенный

sullied - запятнанный

permeate – пронизывать

linger - медлить

waft - доноситься / разноситься (о звуке или запахе)

hovel – лачуга

ravine – овраг

turmoil – суматоха

crevice - щель

confine - ограничить

haphazardly – беспорядочно

abruptly – внезапно

meticulously - тщательно

bobbing - покачивание

denizens - обитатели

spoilsport - зануда

bauble - безделушка

scribble – каракули

cower – съёжиться

begrudgingly – неохотно

vehemently - яростно

incessant - непрекращающийся

perilous – опасный

pungent – резкий/едкий

agape – разинув рот

asunder – порознь/на части

belch up – отрыгнуть

unfurl – развернуть

riddled – изрешеченный

viscous - вязкий

translucent – полупрозрачный

Pretty pictures (with text, but no story spoilers, like moments from the middle of an important dialogue)

Now for the difficult part. This is effectively an open-world game in which you can easily drown.

In vanilla, there's one big mission with a fixed global map, on which the terrain, area borders, and city locations are pre-marked. The placement of other locations, including quest ones, is randomized within the bound area. The hero pool is randomized (but can be configured), and each hero has their own personal quest – that's one of the important and engaging features of the game. Besides heroes, there are also apprentices – in combat they're essentially the same, just without a personal quest. The apprentices are also hand-drawn and detailed, about 20 of them. De facto, in a single playthrough you can manage to play three apprentices. You can take five total, but the first is given without choice, and the fifth unlocks in the deep late game. Apprentice locations are random; you can find them in special magic academies scattered across the map.

Examples of hiring apprentices

Overall, the game only briefly explains the mechanics and sends the player off to explore a vast world. It's very diverse, no ready-made solutions are handed to you on a silver platter – you have to explore, find powerful items, and figure out the intricacies yourself.

It feels like an old-school game. In our age of poor attention spans, it can be hard to play. It's like playing a Heroes 3 campaign for the first time in the early 2000s. Nothing makes sense, you don't know that at level 4 there's a town portal, that building chains is the norm. You run around the map with a single hero for 10 months, find some imba artifact, and you're overflowing with joy.

That's roughly what Spellforce is like.

You enter the game for the first time and have no idea that movement speed on the global map is extremely important. And that the first speed glyphs can be crafted almost immediately – you just need to know the recipe. You can check recipes right away too, except there are 116 of them, and you can't be bothered to check all ingredient combinations. On the other hand, you don't have to obsess over movement speed – you can make do with two moves of 10 tiles each, but one move of 20 is somehow more pleasant.

And that one of the key mechanics – enslavement – you also don't know about. And the recipe for cursed shackles is in the starting recipe pool, one of 116. And that you should have bought some suitable ingredient for that recipe from the alchemist you ran past – you don't figure that out either.

The economy in the game matters. Getting units isn't a problem, but they require gold or mana every turn, and literally one or two full armies can drive your income into the negative. That's where either "followers" or "slaves" come in, since you pay nothing for either. You can make any unit a follower (or slave), but again you either need to know the recipe, or have a specific magic drop and then learn it.

Building relations with cities is great. At the highest level, you'll be given a blueprint as a token of gratitude. Only it's better to know that one city has a mega-useful blueprint that adds an extra unit slot to all armies, plus +2 range to all ranged units in all squads, and armor to everyone as well. Or you can not know that, level up relations with another city, and get two pumpkins and two red mushrooms per week.

Also, after many hours of play, I came to the conclusion that it's important to set priorities and get things early in the game. Any landmark is better captured as early as possible. For example, the ghost ship gives +10% chance of soul drops in every fight, and that's very useful for early-game farming. But it's hard to take – you'll likely need to buff your army with spells, slot in some glyphs, even if not the strongest ones but at least suitable ones from what you have, accept losses, etc. But you get an important point early on. Because by the time your main army can take it without buffs and losses, you no longer need it. And, by the way, if you know, you can abuse the griffin, which soloes any ghosts without losses.

I'm describing all this not because I'm complaining about the balance. It's perfectly fine – this is a huge world, a huge game with a ton of mechanics. It's a single-player game, and it's wonderful that no matter where the player goes, they'll inevitably stumble upon some strong flashy ability, imba mechanic, or powerful boost.

Juicy fireball from the sky that AoEs a bunch of enemies – yes! Fire or acid breath that burns through in a line – yes! Mind control, and out of the box on regular Tier-2 units – yes! Enchant your unit so it resurrects after battle or even during battle – possible! Buff your unit so it attacks without retaliation, gets one extra attack, teleports behind enemy lines, and even stuns – possible!

Ability examples (no animation, just pictures)

Units, arenas, tower

Tired of running around the map? Teleport to base, teleport within your zone of control, teleport to absolutely any point on the global map without restrictions – all of this exists, you just need to find the spells.

I liked how they balanced skills that work under certain conditions. Often in games they're only slightly stronger than unconditional skills, so they're not worth taking. Here, a regular upgrade gives +1 damage (e.g., to the unit's primary damage type), and a situational upgrade gives +6 damage (e.g., only against undead). That's a lot, and it's an opportunity to build an army tailored against specific enemies.

So it turns out the game world contains a great variety of powerful and interesting things, but since you don't know where to best get resources, how to get rolling, how to increase movement speed, the game feels sluggish, especially at the start. You wander around without haste, poke into unfamiliar locations – and get your ass handed to you. That's how I played a year ago, got stuck at some point and quit. Now I came back with an understanding of the basics, started over, and finished it. Now it's a different experience. After I figured out the damage calculation mechanics and which skills are strong and which are weak, and which units can potentially unlock them. Overall, who to take into the army and who to level. Once I understood which locations I'd face with which enemies. When I memorized the skill icons, and it turned out that in battle one click on an enemy is enough to see what it can do and what immunities it has. That's when I started enjoying the game.

In short, if everything I've written doesn't scare you – go for it, I recommend it, it's a great game!

PS

What's telling – only 6.7% of players have earned the achievement "beat the game on normal difficulty or higher." There's no achievement for easy difficulty, but there are six achievements that are only awarded after completing the game, so I can estimate indirectly: roughly the same percentage, about 6%, finished on easy.

Very many stopped halfway.

I played it, but back when there was no GSK. At that point, the content seemed painfully limited. Basically, a single playthrough per class, since all the quests and where you get them are fixed by design.

Gameplay-wise, it reminded me of a mix of Thea 2 and Age of Wonders 3 (with elements of Age of Wonders: Planetfall), only without the latter's proper customization and with a very sparse unit roster.

I didn't like the visuals. As someone who has played other games in the franchise, the reuse of assets from the previous one really stands out. The mismatched icons and the contrast between those icons and the actual models look especially odd. The designs of the new monsters added specifically for this game are thoroughly unimpressive.

All in all, for me this game is like AoW on a budget. When you want something similar but are tired of the originals, it's playable. But it failed to surpass CoE's inspiration, despite a couple of interesting ideas. Though I do prefer the unit progression system here.

I played it, but back when there was no GSK. At that point, the content felt painfully limited.

Well, I also played vanilla. It seems to me that there's already plenty of content, and with GSK it's practically endless.

If you vacuum the entire map and complete all quests (like my inner completionist), then, of course, a second playthrough won't be interesting. But you'd have to deliberately grind, drag out the game, and spend many hours. Playing through with a couple of different classes, going (conditionally) west in one playthrough and east in another — that's also a fine option, and the quests won't repeat.

Turgor
A hardcore Russian eroge with ancient sonnets, an opening from "The Lusiads", crappy 3D models, and a vibe of Khrushchev-era apartments. Why do we need it, in the age of Japanese visual novels? Why do we need these ugly mugs, a deposit interest simulator, WALKING, and many other strange game design decisions? Game journalists scratch their heads, but since there's just so damn much Russianness in me, I have a simple and obvious answer — so that we suffer and think.

Oh, by the way, I played it about 15 years ago.

And it's one of the few games, if not the only one, that influenced my development, my tastes.
I almost never buy gray clothes because I dislike it, and overall I consider gray not a color but the absence of color.

When in the game, during the update phase, colors spread in juicy strokes over lifeless gray snags, and the voiceover whispers "amber," "purple," "azure," "lilac"... well, it deeply stuck in my soul. After all, Ice-Pick Lodge had no shortage of imagination.

But the game is harsh, no doubt.

I still remember the minute-long monologue about taboos, though without details.

It begins:

"To consume more than allowed — taboo!"

...

something further

...

And in conclusion:

"To believe that there is a better world than this — taboo!"

A tier list, alas, I can't make — I don't even remember who I escaped with at the end. I only remember the Nameless One.