It’s been a while since the last Shadow Hearts game, and more specifically, about 20 years since Shadow Hearts: Covenant, generally considered the pinnacle of the series, came out outside of Japan. Creator Matsuzo Machida and company are currently working on a spiritual successor, Penny Blood, which is hotly anticipated by Shadow Hearts fans. In the meantime, we have Penny Blood: Hellbound, a prequel spinoff. Spinoffs taking on a completely different genre from their incredibly popular siblings has been a trend the past few years. Sadly, many of them acquired the dreaded “only for completionists” label. Penny Blood promises to be a more traditional RPG experience, but can Hellbound, an action roguelike released before the main game, avoid that label? 

The eccentric characters of Penny Blood: Hellbound instantly steal the show, something Shadow Hearts was known for; those who know are in for a treat whenever we finally get Penny Blood. Though the story is more limited in the roguelike format, it feels like we’re barely at the shore of some bizarre character depths. These personalities are so powerful they’re threatening to start a whole revolution singlehandedly. Even though you only get a sampling of your party’s personality, the magnetic pull of a reanimated pregnant noblewoman and a depressed-possessed magician was so strong that I wanted their full stories immediately.

Even the folks you meet randomly while trudging through the Hellhounders’ strange situation are fascinating enough that I’d want a full story about this Scotsman decked out in an Egyptian neme and the others like him. I don’t even know that these are the same people who star in Penny Blood. I just know I want more of them all — a lot more. Judging by Penny Blood: Hellbound, the main game should be Shadow Hearts in all but name in the best ways. The only issue is that Hellbound seems to expect some player familiarity with these characters. Obviously, the main game hasn’t been released yet to know for sure how much prior knowledge Hellbound expects. 

It’s unfortunate that, while there’s so much to unpack from the scant scraps of story in Penny Blood: Hellbound, you won’t get many satisfying answers to your burning questions. Upon discovery by the rebellious Hellhounders, they dub the amnesiac protagonist “Clara.” The Hellhounders are a group of revolutionaries who have found themselves stuck in a strange underworld in the sewers of 1920 New York, trapped there by a rival organization wanting to put a stop to the chaos the Hellhounders are accused of. The oddest part is that death is no escape from this place, and upon revival, the Hellhounders merely find themselves back at their hideout, appropriately named Purgatory.  

That’s a story that lends itself to a roguelike format, and you take control of “Clara” and the Hellhounders as they bash, shoot, and blast their way out of this predicament. Combat on its face is enjoyable, though a little repetitive, and typical for a roguelike in the vein of Hades. The distinguishing feature of Penny Blood: Hellbound is your bloodsurfing ability. As you defeat enemies, the more overkill damage you do to their corpses, the more blood splatters the ground, allowing you to skate across it and get around quickly to gain an attack boost. This gives the battles a fast-paced kinetic feel, and bloodsurfing on its own is like a day at a bloody beach. Aside from that, you pick up new abilities on each run at pushing through to the final boss, discovering favorites, and trying to put together a good build to get you through to the end. 

The Hellhounders provide a total of six characters you can run through the dungeons with, though only four are available at the beginning. It’s nice that you get to take a pair of fighters on each run, but unless you’re playing co-op, you won’t discover the extent of what this allows. Still, the AI is particularly capable supporting you in combat, and it takes no damage while controlled by the computer. The variety in your fighters isn’t immediately apparent, but as you pick up permanent abilities, their combat personalities begin to branch out. The difference between melee and ranged characters is like playing a whole different game with each. Melee resembles a typical action RPG or roguelike, while ranged is more like an extra gory version of Galaga.  

Combat is quick, but running through battle after battle gets stale, especially because you’re going through the same rooms and bosses every run due to Penny Blood: Hellbound’s roguelike nature. Thankfully, the game throws occasional curveballs to spice it up. The variety in level design is welcome, as there are often interactive objects in the environment forcing you to take a different approach from straightforward bashing. For instance, some rooms have spikes on the walls and bouncy cushion-like things that send you or enemies careening into those spikes. There are also challenges, like having to survive waves of enemies for 45 seconds. The variety helps to alleviate the sameness of each run. There is more variety when digging into the vast number of permanent upgrades available to your characters back at Purgatory. Each Hellhounder has three weapons that behave differently, though two of those start locked. While it’s nice to pick up new accessories or weapons to shake up your experiences, it takes many runs to gain access to everything.  

The roguelike aspects are where Penny Blood: Hellbound falls short the most. The glaring issue is that you generally see everything the dungeons have to offer — from enemies to temporary abilities — in a couple runs, if not your first one. The positive side of this is that you can quickly identify and get comfortable with skills to learn what you want as part of your builds. However, it was also easy to quickly dismiss abilities I wouldn’t ever pick. That feeling of discovering something new on every run that we love roguelikes for is dispelled almost instantly upon starting Penny Blood: Hellbound, making finishing it a chore. While the variety of permanent abilities at least gives you something new to test out on every run, having to run through the entire same dungeon multiple times to get the best ending eventually gets old. 

The style of Penny Blood: Hellbound is too cool, sharply evoking a melding of Roaring ’20s America with modern sensibilities while also drawing from many weird subcultures from throughout the world and many points in history. It’s part noir, part Indiana Jones, part steampunk, and so much more. Though characters’ rich personalities sing out with every bit of dialogue, they are evocative in their mere appearance alone. Machida and his band of creators have been unleashed, and it is glorious. 

Beyond its chic fashions, Penny Blood: Hellbound is visually gorgeous. While I expect characters in the main game to be more realistically proportioned, the chibi versions here are beautiful enough to stand on their own. Battles are chaotically dazzling, with fire and light effects popping off on the regular. The lighting in particular is pretty, tinting the characters with red effects from reflections off the blood all over the floor. The big band-styled music is similarly awesome, energetically drawing from many styles that had their heyday in the ’20s, like swing and jazz. Voice acting is used only sporadically, but it’s strong when present. The controls are fine for the most part, as they make bloodsurfing simple and fun. However, there are instances where I’d have to press a button more than once and up to three or four times to get an ability to activate. Not ideal for an action game.  

Overall, Penny Blood: Hellbound presents a world I’m eager to make my home address in (at least in a video game sense), with neighbors I’d like to get to know better while remaining utterly terrified the entire time. The roguelike gameplay can be fun, but its best features are yet mired in balancing issues. Though its personality is magnetic, as a roguelike, it doesn’t stack up well against others like it. If the point of releasing Penny Blood: Hellbound was to whet the appetite for Penny Blood, then it’s served its purpose. That’s good for now, but once Penny Blood proper is released, I suspect Penny Blood: Hellbound will ultimately be for completionists. 

Set in the twilight of the Ming Dynasty, The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty (The Hungry Lamb) promises a story full of mystery and interesting choices. Told through the eyes of Liang, a bandit commissioned to traffic four girls through a country ravaged by famine and disease, the story doesn’t shy away from the dire reality that many of the common folk faced during this time. Even so, it cannot quite realize all of its narrative ambitions.

Hard times have fallen on the land, with years-long droughts and a cruel indifference from the upper/ruling class causing devastation to the countryside. Many families have resorted to selling or abandoning their children to survive another day, leading to an unfortunate boom in the human trafficking business, which is where our story begins. Although Liang is hesitant about the gig, a generous payday and reassurances of a better life for these children as adoptive daughters to a noble in the city of Luoyang assuage his conscience. Things (of course) aren’t as they seem, as Liang has to confront not only the sinister nature of the job but also grapple with the reality of a people forsaken by their government in such desperate times. Cannibalism runs rampant among starving villagers, bandits roam the roads for unfortunate passersby, and high food prices turn once bustling cities into shells of their former selves.

While an undeniably fascinating backdrop for a choice-based storyline with multiple endings, in reality, The Hungry Lamb plays itself out too straight and narrow. Many of the “choices” here are one-stop bad endings, with choices to that point having no bearing whatsoever. It’s understandable to avoid sending players down a path for several hours only to be met with a game over screen, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit misled given the emphasis placed on these endings on the store page itself.

More annoyingly, the game has several dialogue choices that are little more than cosmetic detours to the same conclusion. This kind of “gameplay” design was annoying enough in games like Genshin Impact where it served as a speed bump for people trying to skim the dialogue, but it feels particularly egregious in a visual novel where the dialogue and narrative choices ARE the main gameplay.

Additionally, the clear favoritism among the cast members does not impact the story positively. Despite the game presenting six main cast members to focus on with Liang, his bandit partner Tongue, and the four girls, Hong’er, Cui’er, QiongHua, and Sui, Liang and Sui are given by far the most screentime with Tongue as a distant second. The other girls, for all their tragedies and woes, are little more than plot devices used to explain certain actions characters should have logically taken otherwise, which felt in poor taste.

Liang and Sui thankfully make the most of their screen time, offering a host of quality CGs and wonderfully voiced dialogue the whole way through. Sui’s backstory chapters detailing her harrowing journey leading to Liang’s group were particularly compelling and the highlight of the entire campaign.

Unfortunately, these moments also become a bit of a double-edged sword because all the promises of fantastic character development during these tender moments rarely become fulfilled. Sui and Liang will have a beautifully vulnerable moment with each other about their pasts, but all the conversations that should flesh out these moments in the following days are given an unceremonious black screen and some flavor of “and we did the same thing the next few days.” Perhaps this was a conscious writing decision on the developer’s part to maintain the brisk pace of the plot, but it felt like a sorely missed opportunity to show Liang and Sui’s growth instead of simply saying it happened off-screen.

This stings especially hard for Liang whose inner monologue is dull to read otherwise. Seeing himself and other bandits as “wolves” and victims of the times as “lambs,” this is an initially interesting metaphor that Liang hides behind to try and justify his heinous deeds to survive. However, the extent to which he repeats these two words anytime he feels even the smallest pang of sympathy towards the girls significantly watered down his character into a caricature of what it was trying to represent.

Despite all this, I found the overarching story itself to be well-structured, hallmarked by several brilliantly foreshadowed twists near the end of the game. Gorgeous and haunting CGs highlight dramatic moments, with a host of soundtracks authentic to the period to complement the artwork. If you ever want to appreciate these separately from the story, a handy extras menu is available for both the OST and artwork. Wanting to relive these scenes is equally as easy, with a flow chart taking you to the start of every chapter in the game. This, combined with multiple save files and the ability to skip already read text, made save-scumming for the various endings a fairly smooth experience.

The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty is a VN with great potential. It has all the foundations of an engaging story about the darker side of the human condition during times of pure and utter desperation. But it struggles to deliver on the promise of its characters, leading to a relatively flat reading experience overall. For its price point, I think it’s worth a shot if the aesthetic or setting piques your interest, but those seeking a deeper, more fleshed-out roster of characters might find themselves disappointed.

Wadjet Eye has made a name for itself over the last fourteen years with its distinct point-and-click adventure game style and storytelling. By no means an in-your-face studio, most of its titles delve into the fantastical with real, believable characters. Telling tales about life and the human condition through sci-fi, horror, or a whodunit, Wadjet Eye typically delivers. Does Old Skies’ sordid tale of time travel meet the standard?

Is there ever a happy story about time travel? Of all the “wow, that sounds great, but it isn’t” tropes out there—infinite wealth, eternal life, superpowers—time travel seems to be the most tragic. Old Skies takes a steady—I would say too steady—step into chronological manipulation with its own unique ruleset.

We play as Fia Quinn, one of few individuals in 2062 who are gifted with the ability to time travel after a presumably rigid vetting process. The company she works for, ChronoZen, offers a service to rich folks: a chaperoned trip through time. Want to experience the 90s? Not sure why, but sure! Want to ask an ancestor something? Ehhh, maybe you stay at home and our agent will do what you need done. You know, wouldn’t want to paradox yourself out of existence by talking directly to great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.

Old Skies tastefully sprinkles details along the way intuitively and naturally as the story unfolds so as not to overwhelm the player. We learn about how death is handled, what happens if a person somehow meets themselves in the past, and how this mysterious organization (ChronoZen) tries to preserve civilization through its nigh-infinitely large archive of every person who has ever lived. Put simply, some of us are too important in history to risk changing anything about us in the past. Those peasants among us classified as “low impact?” Do whatever you want to them!

Delving into different eras through a series of chapters, the general flow is Fia interacting in the present with her colleagues and a couple locations (like a bar or art gallery) and then going into the past with a client. In classic point-and-click fashion, Fia exists within a screen with a few objects of interest, collecting the occasional item before changing screens to visit one of five or so other places within that era. Talk to folks, rub items against other important things, and crack the case to move on to the next chapter. Nothing fancy here: standard point-and-click stuff.

The puzzles are fairly simple. I rarely got stuck, and even when I did, I was able to progress after exhausting all possible variables. Don’t expect an infinite bag of holding worth of items. I view this as a positive, as the puzzles aren’t interesting enough to warrant frustration or analysis paralysis. Still, some puzzles, such as figuring out how not to die to end a time loop, can grow tiring in their repetition. At first, preventing Fia’s death can be fun, but the sheer regurgitation of the same scene over and over grated on me. A minor quibble, but it’s important to highlight one of the low points of the game.

Perhaps the weakest part of Old Skies is the pacing. I can be pretty forgiving when it comes to slow storytelling because sometimes that build up is necessary for a fantastic twist or payoff. Unfortunately, Old Skies takes about fifteen hours to stick the landing, and that’s an investment I didn’t care for. The first half of the game, especially, can feel like a slog. With a premise like this—what a time travel agent like this has to endure while the world around them is constantly in flux—I was expecting something grander; however, in true Wadjet Eye fashion, the larger-than-life world and plot are grounded by ordinary characters. In games past, this has been one of the studio’s strengths, as the approach is novel compared to the competition, but I sometimes found the protagonists as fascinating as a beige wall.

While all that can sound damning, the best part of Old Skies is where it ends up and what the story says about life, human desire, and purpose. Thematically, the game goes to some deep places, but the execution makes it feel like a struggle. The intense, gratifying moments are a punch to the gut, though, and if you’re in for that, you’ll enjoy those moments. Me, they were too far apart and too brief. Some threads connect the chapters, such as Fia’s time-traveling colleagues, but the characters and delivery of how they change over time simply don’t entice.

This is no fault of the voice actors. Old Skies is almost completely voice acted, and I enjoyed the performance. I’m afraid the modest, safe script may have inhibited the talent, but the deliveries were welcome, regardless. Visually, Wadjet Eye’s artwork is distinctive, but dated. Fourteen years ago, this style worked, but today—I’m not sure the characters breathe life into the writing. On the other hand, the environments look wonderful, with beautiful detail and colors that blend together in the powerful lighting throughout. Sadly, the characters clash against it.

I certainly didn’t dislike my time with Old Skies, but I didn’t love it, either. What a wonderful ending that almost made me forget and forgive the longest fifteen hours I’ve experienced in a game recently. The last chapter is absolute chef’s kiss stuff. Somehow, though, a story with a mysterious organization with limitless resources, a thoughtful ruleset, and time manipulation didn’t excite.

Can there ever be enough turn-based SRPGs in the mould of Fire Emblem? Is it still possible to be excited about wars of political gamesmanship and the marshaling of the accompanying squads? For indie developer Eldin Turulja, the answer would be a resounding positive. This militaristic SRPG binds a complex and demanding combat system around a gritty, well-told story. Those Who Rule won’t move the needle in terms of originality too much, and there are quibbles with its UI and general level of management depth, but this is a solo labor of love that questions what the right to rule means and what responsibilities those with that right might bear.

Much like its inspirations, the narrative in Those Who Rule revolves around the political interplay of three nations and their aspirations for power following a costly series of wars. As Rangers of Fern, a civil force dedicated to helping civilians and keeping the peace in one of these nations, the main characters quickly find themselves mere pawns in a larger game of catspaw and brinksmanship. Slyker, the de facto leader of a Ranger squad, is the main protagonist. He is joined by his two closest comrades, Marcus and Illyana, who gradually come to define different sides of the emerging conflict. It’s a gritty, realistic story and doesn’t get sidetracked with fantastical elements or much irreverent whimsy.

Dialogue scenes, including optional side dialogues, are cohesive and delve into a deeper sense of character for the cast. The stoic, wood-crafting lancer, Arland, is a particular favorite, as is the original leader of the Ranger squad, Elias, who appears a decent, upstanding individual throughout. It’s a pity this intimacy gets lost in the mix slightly as the cast balloons. It isn’t unusual for characters (other than the core tripartite) to go several chapters without any development, regardless of how interesting they are.

Those Who Rule effectively chose a mix of styles for its graphical and artistic themes. Eschewing a pixel JRPG style, it combines VN-style conversations with isometric 3D maps. The battle maps make notable use of stylized landscape graphics—voxel in design at times—to give the assets a unique feel. While character models aren’t full of cutesy characters, there’s enough variety in weapon and armor color to identify your squad, even if enemies are all very similar. This contrasts with the heavy use of blackline and ink detail on the graphic-novel-inspired character designs. The watercolor landscapes during these sections are varied, tightly detailed, and more evocative than some of the more basic examples in the genre. Music is a comfortable mix of orchestral themes, mostly focused on pastoral melodies and building percussive intensity during battle. It does a neat job conveying the melodrama behind the narrative and blood-pumping drive during battle.

Combat is where Those Whole Rule excels. Although it takes a familiar class-based approach with movement ranges and ability actions, the interplay of weapon type, passive abilities, and character positioning offers unique aspects that differ from similar games. There’s no turn order (you can select and move any of your units on your turn) and Slyker always acts first. This reinforces the need for careful planning rather than headlong rushes. Indeed, it’s one of the few SRPGs I’ve played where taking account of passive skills and synergies is sometimes more important than the activated class abilities. It’s worth noting scenarios are usually long and complex. There are often dozens of characters involved, and even with the ability to increase combat speed, encounters require a hefty time investment.

Every character in Those Who Rule starts with a basic class, with three additional choices becoming available as they level up at 10th and 20th level. For example, Slyker’s basic Warrior can eventually progress to become a Lionheart. This class gains additional speed, defence, and additional attacks if adjacent to two or more enemies. When combined with Arland’s Centurion option, which increases the defence of allies with less than 50% health around him, it offers a potent example of how interwoven and integral class synergies are. Some are plain fun to explore: watching Berzerkers tear through the opposition and gain strength from each fallen foe and their own vitality loss is never dull, especially when there’s a Saint nearby to heal their wounds.

Each class has a different stat and weapon progression. It is possible to choose different weapon sets based on their availability and the level of proficiency, but it never seems prudent to work significantly against a class’ preferred weapon. Additionally, there is a trade-off between two-handed weapons to hit multiple attackers or one-handed weapons with a shield to generate Block. When attacked, damage affects Block initially, with this resource regenerating every turn depending on the shield’s quality. Given the overwhelming numbers in combat, I found only a small force of two-handed specialists was efficient; the need to Block and manage regeneration between turns is too important when healing is limited to finite Bandage resources or healing classes. It’s possible to carry different types of weapons to offset this tactical cost, but the clever use of item weight means the trade-offs continue to intrigue and challenge.

Between missions, the management aspect of Those Who Rule allows players to purchase and equip gear, upgrade weapons with refinements, and trigger side stories and reward conversations. For those inclined towards the meatier, Unicorn Overlord side of development, this ain’t it. Shop stock is pretty static for long periods, and doesn’t inspire much excitement. The forging mechanic is simplistic, even if the abilities you can buy (or loot) to swap in are well-integrated with the combat design. There’s little interaction in the side quests or wider stories beyond a few key moments.

Any tactical RPG lives and dies to a great extent through its UI, and Those Who Rule isn’t without its faults. The indie developer deserves credit for preparing so many tooltips, but their design and layout could be clearer when there are so many interlinked effects. In the field, selection of abilities and movement is easy enough, and attack and movement zones are clearly marked and explained. But I never felt comfortable with having to click multiple times to select a direction to face after completing a move or attack before ending a character turn.

The UI foibles continue in the management screens: there’s no way to cycle through stats or inventory once you’re on a character screen without having to go back and scroll through dozens of characters. Equipping multiple characters and checking loadouts takes much too long. The lack of stat comparisons when looking at different equipment compounds this impression. You need to manually hover over each item to make a judgment, and you can’t pin the screens. The developer has plans to introduce hotkeys in a future update, and hopefully this mitigates some of these frustrations.

Those Who Rule is not an easy game, for sure. There are no difficulty options, and characters level up through their actions and kills on the battlefield, without the ability to replay missions or grind side missions to gain additional experience. The importance of careful movement, protecting flanks, and taking advantage of characters and terrain squares that offer defensive bonuses is crucial. Overextension is lethal, as once surrounded by two or more enemies, a character’s Block regeneration cannot keep up with the damage received. Couple this with more than a few escape objective maps requiring traversal across the whole map, and this makes for a very tense and brutal affair. Put it this way: I didn’t manage to grab many optional treasure chests on later maps. At 20-30 hours, there’s plenty of bang for your buck, and optional sidequests and some branching storylines/characters offer reasons to return for a second playthrough, as does the promise of exploring new character class combinations.

From the beginning of the game, I wanted to complete Those Who Rule to learn the fate of the Rangers and engage with more of the tough battles and varied objectives. There was enough to keep me going in discovering new characters, unlocking new classes, and contemplating new map effects or strategies. The interplay of the combat design and the importance of positioning and managing aggro is deeply satisfying. That said, the fiddly UI and rather limited management options do take away from the experience. Some may also be turned off by the relatively basic enemy variety: there are no lions and tigers and bears here. But I can’t deny the game has a lot of heart and soul. For those who have a soft spot for political drama between warring nations nestled around a challenging turn-based combat system, it might pay to be king for a day.

All in Abyss: Judge the Fake is a decidedly un-heroic visual novel/RPG hybrid. Its premise revolves around high-stakes gambling featuring the Texas Hold’em variant of poker. Cocky, foul-mouthed protagonist Asuha Senahara is, to quote the description of the infamous chocolate-covered onion sold at Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market, “sweet on the outside but nasty on the inside.” If you are unfazed by all of this and want to indulge your sordid side, All in Abyss: Judge the Fake is a good blend of anime hijinks and solid poker gameplay.  

Like Asuha, I’m more familiar with (and better at) five-card draw poker than Texas Hold ’em poker. I was brutalized the first time I played Texas Hold ‘em with a group of peers, though not as severely as Asuha in her first Texas Hold ‘em rodeo. Asuha’s witchy nemesis, a candy-loving sadist named Ulu Amamino, not only humiliates Asuha in front of a live and televised audience, she literally takes a bite out of her! Asuha is thus left bleeding, seething, and vowing revenge against Ulu and the elite cabal of witches running The City with their seemingly unstoppable poker tactics.

The song “I Like Jersey Best” (written by Joseph Edward Cosgriff and popularized by John Pizzarelli) contains the line, “there are no Jersey strangers, just friends we haven’t met.” I mention this for two reasons.  The first reason is because All in Abyss’ setting reminds me of Atlantic City, NJ. In both places, the casino areas are glitzy and lit up, with the grimy slum areas right in the casinos’ shadows. The second reason is because the kindness of a stranger helps the down and bleeding Asuha get back on her feet, with her later becoming a sincere friend.  

All in Abyss is a dialogue-heavy game, given its visual novel trappings. The writing has personality, but fair warning: many characters have filthy mouths and are not shy about cussing. The game’s ugly side goes well beyond bad words, though. Boss battles are death battles where the loser gets maliciously executed for the cheering audience’s perverse pleasure. Fallen bosses are subject to anime-meets-SAW style still scenes with wordy descriptions of their torture and execution.

These scenes are skippable, but skipping them robs players of emotional magnitude. Seeing bosses getting executed in ways that are equally physically and psychologically damaging truly emphasizes that gamblers in All in Abyss play for keeps by literally betting their lives. Asuha gets torture/death scenes of her own if she loses boss battles, but those are shorter in length and less gruesome. I appreciate the effort put into these execution scenes’ artwork and descriptive writing, but some are difficult to read and watch.

All in Abyss’s stylish, colorful aesthetics bring plenty of casino flash and anime charisma to the table. The main characters’ portraits are vividly expressive while NPC portraits are appropriately nondescript. The UI during poker battles looks busy, yet everything is reasonably straightforward to use and accessing information is easy. The menus used during story and exploration scenes are more subdued but no less stylish.

Location backgrounds are typical visual novel fare that gets the job done but does little to stand out. Conversely, the panned-out stills of The City in the location menu look sleek. Per the game’s Steam page, some in-game images partially contain AI-generated content later finished by hand. I merely say this as a caveat in case generative AI usage in video games is a deal breaker for you.    

Guitar-driven music dominates All in Abyss’s soundtrack. Even the calmer and pop-style tunes have some distorted guitar in them. Battle scenes have driving rock to get the blood pumping and the death scenes have death metal-inspired music. As a fan of heavy, guitar-driven music, I liked All in Abyss’ soundtrack. Gritty guitars complement the setting’s gritty vibe. The soundtrack is also mixed and mastered in such a way that the more aggressive guitar tones won’t pummel players who think heavier styles of guitar-driven music sound too harsh.

All in Abyss is enjoyable over its five-chapter (about 15 hour) course, but the latter chapters are more poker-driven (read: grindy) than plot-driven. Those chapters drag and work better in small doses than marathon sessions. Even if you forego the optional high-risk-high-reward tournaments where you battle against multiple foes in a row with no breaks, you still play a lot of poker. Ergo, a love for poker is an admission requirement for All in Abyss. There is more to All in Abyss than just poker, though, and I had to pull out my RPG and graphic adventure skills alongside my card-playing ones.

Visiting street-level gambling dens and casinos to win money in poker battles (comparable to standard enemies in RPGs) is important, because you do not want to be broke in a gambling city where goods, services, and insider information all carry hefty price tags. Poker matches feel like fast-paced, turn-based RPG battles requiring a combination of luck and skill. Sometimes, I quickly obliterated opponents, and other times I needed to play a patient game.

In addition to money, winning matches gives Asuha skill points that she can use to learn and upgrade a variety of active and passive skills. You can set a limited number of skills for each match. Not only must you choose and use the right skills for each match, you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, and all the other card-playing advice in that famous Kenny Rogers song. For example, betting too much late in the hand might cause a cautious opponent to fold because they suspect you have a good hand and want to minimize the damage.

Even with optimal skill loadouts and a shrewd mindset, lady luck is not always on your side and you won’t always get the cards you want. Savvy players can figure out ways to utilize Asuha’s skills in game-breaking ways. Discovering these tricks is part of the fun and aligns with Asuha’s whole “self-proclaimed gambling prodigy” schtick.

Boss battles are challenging (especially the final boss) and have interesting gimmicks, yet are winnable so long as Asuha takes the time to dig up enough dirt on said bosses, manipulates her resources effectively (both on the field and during matches), builds her skills, and keeps a cool head. Carefully read the descriptions of every acquired item, because some available “key” items are red herrings. Visit every location and talk to every NPC before heading to the next plot-relevant place. Some locations even require point-and-click style combing over to uncover secrets. Occasionally splurging for nights out at the hostess bar provides stat boosts and even occasional hints.

When games remind me of familiar places and experiences, it changes my outlook. Instead of marveling wide-eyed at a brave new world’s wonders, I marvel at how these outlandish places surprisingly feel like “home.” I really got into All in Abyss: Judge the Fake because it reminded me of places I’ve been to and experiences I’ve had. That being said, All in Abyss: Judge the Fake is not everyone’s cup of tea. I highly recommend playing the entirety of All in Abyss: Judge the Fake’s Steam demo to determine whether this cool hybrid game is right for you.      

For many people (myself included), Blue Prince is a game that was not on their radar until all of a sudden, industry people started talking about how fantastic it is. Published by Raw Fury (who brought us great adventure games like American Arcadia and Norco), it’s the brainchild of Tonda Ros, a visual artist based in Los Angeles who initially founded the studio Dogubomb as a commercial and short film production house before bringing their talents to the world of video games, with Blue Prince as their debut title. So, does it indeed live up to all of the hype?

Why, yes. Yes, it does.

Blue Prince has drawn many a comparison to Outer Wilds due to its freeform gameplay structure. You can approach your primary objective in any order and from any direction, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to getting there. The game is also clearly inspired by Myst in its puzzle design and in how it feeds you narrative breadcrumbs gradually throughout your adventure. For instance, certain interactables and environmental details clue you into the estate’s backstory and your family tree.

Make no mistake, though; Blue Prince isn’t a mere copycat, and proudly stands on its own as a new benchmark for both adventure games and roguelikes.

You play as Simon P. Jones, a young boy chosen as the heir to Mount Holly, a vast yet mysterious estate whose owner, Herbert S. Sinclair (your great uncle), recently passed away and challenged you to reach the elusive “Room 46.” It doesn’t appear on any blueprints, and its exact location is otherwise a mystery for much of Blue Prince. Your only lead is the mysterious “Antechamber” that sits at the peak of the estate’s blueprints.

However, one key quirk of the estate makes the entire endeavour a challenge.

The entire estate, except for three rooms, is made up of empty, flexible areas. This lets you choose which rooms are in those spaces and how they are arranged. The available rooms change daily, so you never end up with the same set of rooms in any run. With each door you approach, you choose from a selection of three rooms that will occupy the next empty space.

These rooms come in different categories, such as green rooms, which are rooms covered in plants and greenery and usually flush with resources to dig up. In yellow “shop rooms,” you can spend coins you find to grab tools and upgrades to make your exploration easier. Orange rooms are reserved exclusively for hallways that are, generally speaking, featureless and used as filler. Finally, the dreaded red rooms can either be your last resort or something you want to get out of the way as early as possible. These rooms come with unique afflictions that make exploration slightly trickier.

So, as you can see, not all rooms are made equal or as simple as you’d expect, and day by day, you begin to draw strategies and prioritise certain rooms in preferred orders.

As if that weren’t enough, not all of the rooms point north, and some, even the most useful rooms you can draw, can also be dead ends. Most of the time, this means that your path to the elusive Antechamber at the far north end of the estate can look like a maze of twists and turns, and it’s easy to lose track of where you are on the blueprints and where you’re supposed to be going.

Each day, you are granted 50 steps, with each room usually taking one away. This means you technically get 50 rooms to draw and explore before you’re exhausted and need to try again the next day. That might sound like a lot, perhaps even too many, but you soon find that with the amount of backtracking that is often required, coupled with the fact that certain red rooms take away more than one step from your allowance, you have to be tactical in how you explore the estate any given day.

To be fair, this isn’t a static number, and there are several upgrades and shortcuts you’ll unlock in your travels that can increase this number or make it less taxing, but it’s an important thing to keep track of on top of everything else.

This might all sound daunting to you, but trust me, unlocking the secrets of Mount Holly is not as intimidating as it sounds. Although the game keeps track of the days you spend on the estate, there is no set limit on how many you’re allowed to have, and there are no limits on how long you can spend in any one room. Even with the aforementioned obstacles, Blue Prince is extremely generous in how it lets you forge your own strategies and approach the game at your own speed.

As I’ve said, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to Blue Prince‘s primary objective. There’s almost always an alternative path or solution if you’re stumped. Beyond that, at appropriate intervals, Blue Prince offers helpful tips and guidance on how the core mechanics work and strategies that may help you navigate the estate better each day.

That said, this is where my key criticism of Blue Prince, and really, most roguelikes, comes in. The RNG (Random Number Generation) that serves as a foundation for these kinds of games can be brutal. Even with those alternative solutions for most problems you’ll face in Blue Prince, for much of the game, you must rely on the luck of the draw to make progress.

For instance, there was a sizeable stretch of my playthrough where all I had to do was just get from point A to point B. However, I kept getting caught in a vicious circle as the configuration of rooms I drew each day just wasn’t getting me to where I needed to go. For a game so predicated on skillful puzzle design and great mechanics overall, having such a large swath of my playthrough be down to chance was a pretty big bummer.

So, why then do I have such a high opinion of Blue Prince despite such a setback? That’s thanks to the incredible atmosphere, music, and sound design. Even in my most frustrated moments, I just couldn’t bring myself to hate or even dislike the game because of how good it felt to be a part of the setting of Mount Holly.

Regardless of the configuration of rooms you set in any given run, Mount Holly Estate feels equally cozy and eerie. It’s a place with a lot of history, and not to sound pretentious, but you can feel that history as you walk through it. It has an otherworldly feel, even outside of the ever-shifting rooms.

All told, for a game that wasn’t even on my radar until recently, Blue Prince is a truly wonderful surprise, serving as a new benchmark for both adventure games and roguelikes moving forward. It can be equal parts rewarding as it can be frustrating, depending on how you approach it and how the dice may roll. Yet, despite those frustrations, there’s still just so much to love about Blue Prince that I can’t ever stay mad at it.

More narratively inclined gamers may struggle with this title as, despite intriguing lore scattered around the many rooms you explore in Mt. Holly Estate, the story is secondary or even tertiary to the experience. The game has a great ending, and the fun doesn’t stop once you hit the end credits (if anything, that’s the halfway point). However, this is otherwise a title you should approach for the gameplay first and foremost.

And on that front, it truly delivers.

Several years have passed since the Empyrean War. The protagonist of the first Dark Deity, Irving, has certainly kept himself busy. He’s now Grandmaster of the Order of Eternals, a peacekeeping force in the land of Verroa assisting those in need while remaining staunchly neutral to the politics of the surrounding countries. On top of this, he’s a father to three adult children: leader and “heir apparent” Gwyn, joking supporter Riordan, and the sensitive Arthur searching for clues to his origins outside his adopted family. The three embark on a mission to reclaim a magical artifact in a nearby country, inadvertently embroiling the Order in an evil empire’s invasion plans. Can they restore peace to the people of Verroa, even with increasingly complex and painful decisions? I was impressed with the first Dark Deity, an indie SRPG paying obvious homage to Fire Emblem, so naturally, I have high hopes for its sequel. I’m happy to say that Dark Deity 2 improves upon its predecessor’s gameplay mechanics while also having an arguably stronger narrative. It makes for a polished SRPG experience, though a few weaknesses poke through its defenses.

Dark Deity 2 opens with various difficulty levels and modes of play to help tailor combat to your preferences. The versatility is much appreciated, allowing experimentation beyond story replayability. Fights occur when your squad of party members moves across a battlefield grid, engaging in combat once they come into contact with an enemy unit. You can also use a character’s unique abilities outside of combat to either boost statuses, heal, or do damage outside unit combat. Those who played the first Dark Deity (or SRPGs modeled after FE) should quickly get the hang of combat, though there are helpful tutorials in the beginning stages, should you need them.

During a chapter fight, you clear the stage by accomplishing a primary objective. There are various objectives, so you’re not always seeing something like “defeat the boss.” Side objectives also exist and net useful item rewards if you successfully carry them out alongside the main objective, such as rescuing civilians or putting out fires. You must strategize effectively to successfully get through stages, particularly if trying to clear all side objectives or get all treasure chests on a map since there’s a turn limit in fights, and you must keep Gwyn alive. I found fights to be rather polished affairs that kept me on my toes, especially with keeping under the turn limit to avoid automatic game overs. However, I imagine those more familiar with SRPG mechanics might enjoy raising the difficulty level to ensure a challenge. You can change the difficulty settings at any time. Like in the first game, injuries that negatively affect a stat occur following a character’s defeat in combat instead of permadeath. Unlike the original Dark Deity, however, these injuries only last for one chapter instead of an entire playthrough. Sometimes, stages also have puzzle switches to use as you advance your units.

Outside combat, there are several ways to customize and strengthen your forces. Depending on their class, you equip weapons that have two rune slots that provide opportunities for more customization and different status boosts. Removing a rune once it is fitted costs money, so it’s good to ponder which ones you want to use. You also find status-boosting elixirs that raise a character’s stats permanently. You can use specific collected resources to craft rings, supplying various statuses and ability boosts when characters equip them.

You can also use materials collected during fights or from the shop menu to level up multiple attributes of character and job class abilities, such as increasing the range of AoE moves or decreasing the MP cost of a spell. You can respec these modifications even if you max them out, again allowing for creative experimentation with combat. Characters have two tiers of four job classes each, gaining access to each tier after raising character levels to a certain point and acquiring a unique item. The level of character customization, even outside of combat, is pretty robust. However, the menu navigation for the weapons, runes, and ring-equipping portions can be difficult, thanks to the small text and UI.

Each party member, with one noticeable exception later on, has four other characters they can develop strong rapport with outside the main story, often giving status and item rewards for strengthening their bond. Staying within the range of a potential bond character during combat fills the bond leveling gauge. I managed to max out most of the bonds in one playthrough, though I stumbled upon a glitch that prevented me from maxing out two. Hopefully, that gets patched soon.

Suppose you attempt a playthrough of only Dark Deity 2’s thirty story chapters. I imagine battles might be challenging in that case, but the game provides a handful of training battles you pay gold to initiate. These training battles can help strengthen and level up characters. I found them helpful in keeping my party on equal levels with one another as well as in raising bond levels. However, there isn’t a lot of variety when it comes to the training stages, so it can get repetitive if you rely on them. As you advance, you also unlock challenge fights. True to their name, you can only do these optional challenge fights once and they usually have more demanding objectives or only allow for a smaller number of max squad numbers.

From a plot stance, I’d argue that Dark Deity 2 builds upon the first game’s world-building and characters to significant effect and, therefore, has a more personal and stronger storyline. There’s even a degree of choice in your plot approach that affects battle stages and alters some story scenes, adding more replayability into the mix. I wouldn’t say it’s vital to play the first game to fully enjoy this one, as I think it stands well enough on its own, but I do think a quick playthrough of Dark Deity allows you to appreciate characters such as Irving and Alden more. It’s a great writing technique to show that heroes can be just as human and prone to mistakes/regrets as the rest of us, which is the takeaway from Irving’s character arc here. Obviously, he cares greatly for his three children, but he has strained relationships with all of them due to how he raised them.

Gwyn is an excellent new main character, full of doubt over her role as Irving’s heir but trying her best even as she nears the breaking point. Riordan has a lot of conflicting feelings towards his dad but wants to be there for his siblings, whom he views as destined for greatness. Arthur is a mystery even to himself, and that sense of being “othered” from his family torments him as he tries his best to understand his dad and support Gwyn and Riordan. They’re a relatable and wonderfully written trio of characters whose familial bond always shows through.

Likewise, returning powerhouse mage Alden is their supporting uncle, torn between his apparent love for his niece and nephews and his conflicting feelings about how Irving and their mother raised them. He’s phenomenally written, too, becoming one of my standouts in the cast, which is saying something since I honestly didn’t think much of him beyond being the “kid character” in the first game. This sequel, which addresses how his upbringing as a child soldier impacted his growing up, is also fascinating. All of the party characters are either quirky or have interesting backstories and well-developed personalities (often a combo of all three!) that make them intriguing, especially as they interact with other characters and show more of their personalities and relationship dynamics.

That said, as much as I love the bond dialogues, there’s one noticeable weakness: they’re optional. I love the character development and world-building through the bonds, but hiding those scenes unless you actively seek them out is a disservice. I wish Dark Deity 2 could somehow include many of the bond scenes in the main story. Take spunky Valeria as an example: I love the surprising reveal about her connection to a particular general in the main plot, and seeing their bonds together only makes their later main story scenes all the more heartwarming. However, she also has a bond with another character that, if I hadn’t maxed out their bond beforehand, would’ve made later main plot reveals seem like they came out of left field. It’s a shame that they feel so separate, as I genuinely think the bonds add much more depth to the plot.

Visually, I admit to not being the biggest fan of Dark Deity 2’s UI, especially the font. It clashes with the detailed VN-styled backgrounds and beautifully detailed character art in story scenes. It can also be hard to read, especially when cramming a large amount of text onto the screen. The pixelwork in the game is colorful and nicely detailed, though I sometimes notice a visual discrepancy with the pixel outfit colors in story scenes compared to the ones in battle, which is a bit bizarre. The scriptwork is mainly excellent, though a few typographical errors popped up. The English voice acting is truly above and beyond in Dark Deity 2. I was pleasantly surprised at how emotive and passionate the performances got. I enjoy how much of the admittedly large script is voice-acted, which makes not having voice-acted bond scenes somewhat disappointing. Props especially go to Elizabeth Maxwell as Gwyn, along with the voice actors for Alden and the diplomatic-minded Laurai, but everyone does a phenomenal job in their character roles. The game’s soundtrack is also quite fitting and helps set the stage for the tense, fantasy-themed fights.

Overall, I came away from Dark Deity 2 impressed. As far as it is a sequel, it’s an improvement from the original Dark Deity in many ways, which is saying something since I enjoyed that title, too! It’s a solid indie SRPG offering much replayability and player experimentation. I wouldn’t oppose a third game in this series, especially if it keeps this positive momentum. Instead of being viewed as just a Fire Emblem homage, Dark Deity 2 proves that it’s a labor of love with its own merit.

The legends of King Arthur, Camelot, and the Lady of the Lake have been popular over the last few years, and a range of projects from bizarre action games to turn-based gacha are doubling down on these romantic influences. Neocore developed their own slant on the legend, King Arthur: Knight’s Tale, back in 2022 and the strategy RPG was well received. More recently, they have produced a different spin on the same systems and engine, through the stand-alone King Arthur: Legion IX. This latest game takes the themes and characters into Ancient Roman territory while still maintaining the flexible tactical systems, challenging combat, and darkly dour themes of its original inspiration. Having said that, longer-term fans will be wise to temper their expectations around how much Legion IX adds to the original game. Unlike their Roman namesakes, this legion is more iteration than innovation.

The story revolves around a powerful ancient leader, Gaius Julius Mento, the commander of Rome’s legendary Legion IX and a distant relative of Julius Caesar. Along with his undead soldiers, brought back from the dead realm of Tartarus to fight for their futures, he emerges in the fey land of Avalon and soon locates the fledgling city of Nova Roma. From this point, Gaius explores the surrounding area seeking a way to bring his boss, Emperor Septimus Sulla, into Avalon and then into the living world and the new glory of Rome. As he does this, he soon gets embroiled in the characters and mythology of Avalon, with plentiful callbacks to the original game. The narrative passes by easily enough, even if it suffers from the same clumsy writing and blunt characterization as the original.

Legion IX presents a melancholy setting, full of swirling mists, skeletal trees, and angry Pict warriors. There’s not a great deal of variety or point of difference from the original game, with a few reused areas. The Roman detail on the new enemy faction and player characters is nice and evokes the macabre sense of a legion of dead centurions, but there’s nothing that takes the graphic design to another level. Music and sound function similarly, and the voice acting maintains a melodramatic and over-the-top approach. Don’t expect much nuance here or any memorable musical tracks or moments.

Nuanced, well-crafted dialogue, you won’t find here.

However, the developers added a few twists to the robust turn-based combat. Firstly, the roster of characters (just six total) all boast new classes and abilities. Although these don’t radically change the tactical approach, some are more successful at providing variety than others. The sorcerous Flamen class, embodied in one of your delightfully evil advisors, offers strategies around causing damage over time to multiple enemies, mirroring damage between them, and generally weakening them for everyone else to mush. That he’s not a strong offensive weapon is not an issue.

Later stages in the game introduce Ultimate abilities. Each character has their own, ranging from summoning an abyssal ally to simply whaling on an enemy with multiple hits. Ultimates gain power from soul energy dropped by fallen enemies in battle and indicated with numerical counters signifying their value. Once this part of the game opens up, strategies to create optimum movement paths to collect soul energy, as well as deciding who to collect and when to activate an Ultimate, add to the tactical decisions. It’s vital for more challenging maps later on: the ability to flood a map with additional temporary doppelgangers is very useful to take the heat from a few hulking Formorians, for example.

Finally, battles make more use of barriers and terrain chokepoints than King Arthur: Knight’s Tale, and when coupled with enemy healing or spawn totems, this adds to the complexity and demands of combat, especially with the limited roster. In the original, there was more scope (depending on who you recruited or discovered) to pack out a squad with tanks, scouts, or mages, whereas the focus on each Legion IX character having a specific role makes the maps and objectives more demanding and engaging. Although it felt initially disappointing to have so few characters, this design decision ultimately serves the game well.

It’s grim, grimy and misty. Welcome to the vast majority of Legion IX maps!

There are a raft of different equipment runes, relics, and banners to find or purchase to further empower your characters, and all abilities have several unlockable bonuses to make them more efficient. As there are only six characters and six classes, each build can be unique and offers lots of tactical choice. It’s feasible to focus on empowering a few key abilities or to spread your resources across many, even if they aren’t as strong or cost more action points to use. There’s even scope to focus on a few key abilities and max out a range of passive skills, such as increasing your movement rate or enhancing a character’s physical and mental resistance. Taken as a whole, it’s a good system and the smaller cast of characters brings it into sharper relief than previously.

Shortly after the opening battles, the base-building elements return in a slightly leaner format. Although there are no wounds or injuries to contend with, there’s a blacksmith for equipment upgrades and two different merchants as pathways to improving characters. Edicts, which enforce a specific set of circumstances or advantages for an upcoming battle, also make a return provided you have the coin and resources. One new area is the Lararium, where collectable Lar busts can be activated. These marble statues provide both a boon and a disadvantage during fights. On one map, a Lar’s ability to restore 10% of damage dealt as health (even if campfire rests would not replenish health as a downside) worked well when there were several smaller battles and the crew could hit hard.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the game is the lack of enemy variety. Fighting through waves of the same Picts, Lost, and Seelie adversaries feels very familiar, and even the mission objective variety can’t mask the familiarity. Coupled with the inherent dreariness of the setting, it leads to points where ploughing through a map to reveal new runes or a stash of precious relic dust is the main goal. The game does offer some cool new bad guys in the endgame, such as elemental sprites and a wider range of Fomorians, but it feels like it arrives too late. Issues around the fiddly UI and selecting characters in the battle maps persist, too. There were many times characters ended up going on an unintentional run and wasting action points for my liking, with no option to re-do.

I’m very aware that throughout this review, I’ve treated the game almost like a DLC, but Legion IX is a strange game in many ways. It feels like it was an offshoot design of the original game: a sort of parallel-world approach that leads to it being not only very similar but a step back from its predecessor in some cases. There’s no doubting that the morality system is simplified and the base-building has far fewer elements to manage. Even the combat, slick and effective though it is, only iterates around familiar systems; there’s nothing that alters the dynamics or shifts perceptions. In keeping with its tight focus, Legion IX is not a long slog either, and apart from choosing the Demonic or Humanist path and some tough final boss maps, there’s little else to justify a replay.

This genre and approach are my catnip, and I could happily play Legion IX again just to explore different character builds and attain the full demonic morality bonuses, but I suspect many gamers will bounce straight off it even if they liked the original. If you really enjoyed the original, and want more of the same, you’re in the right place. If you enjoyed the original but wished it addressed some of its issues or innovated on its designs, this trip to Nova Roma won’t provide solutions. You can decide whether you’ll come, what you think you’ll see, and if you think you’ll conquer. Veni, Vidi, Vici, indeed.

In space, no one can hear you gargle.

Mouthwashing sees you as a spaceship captain aboard an interstellar freighter on its long journey home. The ship’s computer warns that a minor course correction is needed to avoid an asteroid. But for reasons unknown, you decide to steer into the asteroid instead.

Our small crew of five actually survive the ensuing crash, but with limited food rations, their only hope is a massive supply of — wait for it — mouthwash to sustain them until rescued. Also, the ship’s captain, Curly, was horrifically maimed in the incident and is now stuck in the medical bay, lacking limbs and the ability to speak (outside of crying in pain). He also needs to be fed a constant supply of painkillers lest his injuries catch up with him. Our cast might have the freshest breaths in the galaxy, but their ability to cope with their harrowing circumstances becomes increasingly grim as they deal with steadily depleting supplies and the mental toll of uncertain survival.

First, I recommend playing this game blind. Mouthwashing was an instant hit and has quickly found a dedicated fanbase thanks to its memorable cast and story. It’s also very short: The 2- to 4-hour length and on-rails nature make it a great “movie-esque” experience (even priced about the same as a ticket). To mix and match a few games: Mouthwashing hits the same disturbing depths of a Silent Hill game, visually reminds me of FromSoftware’s PS1 adventure-horror game Echo Night, has that deliberate horror-game-meets-horror-movie influence of Until Dawn, and has the short and sweet scope of What Remains of Edith Finch. And all of these games feature many people dying. So, uh: Vibes check!

Mouthwashing is developer Wrong Organ’s second title after How Fish is Made, a philosophical sojourn into the ups and downs of life as a sardine. It’s a strange little game that leaves itself open to interpretation. There’s also a DLC chapter where you play as a small Eldritch mass that rolls around (Katamari-style) and meets the Mouthwashing cast! Although it’s not required playing ahead of Mouthwashing (though it is freeware), it demonstrates Wrong Organ’s ability for crafting clever and tight narratives — where even short amounts of time with a person (or fish) can reveal a lot about them — especially if they’re under pressure.

Even during our brief stay aboard the freighter, there’s so much to say about each of the five main characters. It’s their desires, their struggles, their fears — and especially the contradictions — that make them interesting. Is it bad that our ship’s nurse Anya gets squeamish around the severely injured Curly? Or is it bad if our mechanic Swansea pours 15 years of sobriety down the drain to survive off high-alcohol mouthwash? What could go wrong? (In a word: everything.)

Meanwhile, it’s been ages since I’ve been so upset with a game’s villain, a person both truly twisted and unforgivable once the truth comes out. And while our main baddie is the worst of the bunch, the rest of the crew isn’t entirely off the hook for their choices either. But the reveal is subtle, and it pulls the curtain back on the entire game’s narrative, even giving new context to earlier parts in the story that makes Mouthwashing worth replaying (if you can stomach it).

Indeed, a major strength of Mouthwashing is that character conundrums are worth ruminating on and don’t feel forced or arbitrary — a genuine sense of history builds its confrontations. But otherwise, their personalities are easy to parse and come from sensible places (and dialogue is even colour-coded for convenience, like Anya figuratively and literally being the “blue” one). Meanwhile, character mental states are thoroughly divulged and sometimes literally explored through bizarre dream sequences. This speaks to Mouthwashing’s final half where it goes full space-horror and that delirium and darkness take hold of the story.

Gameplay largely occurs through linear sections aboard the freighter; however, the story is told out of order. You take control of a pre-crash Captain Curly, with co-pilot Jimmy picking things up during post-crash sequences, alternating between the two protagonists to piece everything together. Tasks take the form of minor puzzle-solving and straightforward point-and-click mechanics. There are about three “hands-on” segments to keep you on your toes, but there are no health bars or Game Overs to concern yourself with. Mouthwashing is definitely a story-game, not a gamey-game. As a fan of puzzles, it left me a little wanting, as these are easily the least interesting parts of Mouthwashing. But for those just wanting to get to the “juicy bits” (of which there are many), it’s serviceable and no part will leave you stuck for too long. I still recommend walking around the ship to chat with the crew and take in the environmental storytelling of Mouthwashing’s time-hopping narrative (such as the board game in the ship’s lounge changing each chapter).

Music-wise, Mouthwashing flips between starry lo-fi ambiance, complete silence, and creepy electronic tunes designed to put you on edge. It’s all very immersive and delivers contrasting sounds very well. The game has very little voice acting (outside of a few screams and one animatronic corporate mascot, Polle), so it’s nice to hear so many unique pieces of music made specifically for the one scene in which each appears.

I also enjoy the cheeky radio “muzak” and a mixed-media TV set that plays live-action clips and old-timey cartoons. It all gives a false sense of security, comfort, and foreshadowing in a game otherwise teeming with doom and gloom. And again, without voice acting, the game does well relying on sounds. White noise, loud alarms, footsteps clanging through long, empty metal halls — and it’s hard to forget Curly’s painful cries throughout the ship! It all clawed at the back of my brain, even when no immediate threat presented itself.

And on that note, it’s worth talking about Mouthwashing’s horror as I am the ideal horror audience. That is to say, I’m bad with it, and I get creeped out easily! But I appreciate how the game doesn’t use many cheap scare tactics for its chills or thrills. To be clear: A LOT of bad things happen. The worst of the worst, in fact. And it’s all very gruesome… but it also looks like a PS1 game — so on the “bright side” no fleshy parts look too gooey, textured, or realistic. Yet a lot of the violence packs a punch, even when it’s off-screen, simply due to their effective setups. I viscerally felt the horror through difficult scenarios that’ll make your skin crawl. A few scenes had me going (direct quote): “Noooo—” or just left me with my mouth wide open, but it was never anything I needed to look away from. There’s a fair amount of pitch-black hallways, flickering lights, blood splatters, and a concerning amount of empty mouthwash bottles that effectively relay the fear and misery. Still, you won’t suddenly be chased by something out of the darkness, at least not without ample sensory warning (one surprise encounter ends up being more cheeky than actually distressing). This is all to say that Mouthwashing carefully crafts how it scares people.

On the downside, character animations are simple and repetitive, and the models seldom emote (with their admittedly great dialogue doing most of the heavy lifting). I find it strange that Anya has cartoonishly huge eyes, and that Swansea’s arms look haphazardly attached. And characters rarely walk so much as they just appear in place. It can feel a little low budget, but it’s quite impressive how Wrong Organ can work within its limits, relying on a good story, cast, and various moods to pick up the slack.

Worth mentioning is the use of transition shots taking a “glitched” effect (a gamer-targeted horror if there was one), and the game often cuts to parts of the story when they hit a dead-end or to quickly bridge storytelling gaps. It’s genuinely great when the game transitions into an emergency situation without any context given! Additionally, semi-random text pop-ups (often compared to Neon Genesis Evangelion title cards) relay thematic messages and warnings like a subliminal shot to the head.

It would be easy to write off Mouthwashing for its short runtime or linear nature, but the experience is very well-paced, with no scene feeling superfluous or running too long. Like any good horror movie, you’re slowly eased into the madness before sliding down it uncontrollably. A few light moments offer needed variety, and periods before the crash tend to feel “safer” than those after the crash — but it’s always building towards heavier themes and climaxes. I believe a few scenes could have benefited from further elaboration, as some story beats aren’t always crystal clear, but this could just be me wanting to spend more time with everyone.

While the theme of “taking responsibility” is plastered all over the game, I became more fascinated about what Mouthwashing has to say about disability and mental health. Despite Captain Curly taking the lead in all the “before crash” segments, it’s interesting that his role diminishes to an injured bystander during the “after crash” chapters. Most of the main cast is clearly going through serious problems, often rooted in circumstances beyond anyone’s control. Yet, these burdens we try to fight or hide can resurface in awful ways, especially when they clash against others similarly facing their own demons. Maybe if we could better address our problems at their source, we could avoid worse problems later on. But it’s never really that simple, is it?

While a sorrowful game like What Remains of Edith Finch chooses to end on more of a “life is short, but beautiful” angle, the opposite can be said here: Mouthwashing waits until the last minute to deliver its final, devastating punchline. Even if the gameplay here isn’t revolutionary, it’s hard not to be drawn by the gravity of games that “go big on story” (like how Yoko Taro games tend to revel in delightfully twisted storytelling). After a certain point, you simply can’t look back and need to see how this ends, even if it’s all in tears. But the best parts of Mouthwashing have sat in my mind for a while now, and Wrong Organ has quickly established itself as a developer worth keeping a creepy, unblinking eye on.

1000xRESIST: now here is a game that completely flew under my radar in 2024. I value and work hard at acknowledging indie games that get overlooked, but I completely missed 1000xRESIST until 2024’s end-of-year buzz caught my ear. I thought, “Hmm, I should play this.” And so I did.

Bold colors and varied textures define 1000xRESIST’s visuals. The graphics are not the most technically complex, but their stylish use of color and texture reminded me of how Solace State utilizes colors in its visual design to elicit certain moods and emotions. I loved how unsettling places in 1000xRESIST caused that visceral response through their evocative use of color, texture, shadow, light, perspective, and all that good stuff. Every aspect of the visual design feels thought out and many small details encourage investigating every nook and crevice in 1000xRESIST’s world.

I’m not sure where to even begin with 1000xRESIST’s incredible story. Even describing the impactful opening scene feels like dropping a massive spoiler. During the chapter following that scene, I felt like I was thrown into the deep end. I had no idea what I was doing or why I was doing it, but I still felt compelled to keep exploring this twisted rabbit hole the game dropped me into.

I also liked the game’s use of a literary device similar to that in James Dashner’s first Maze Runner novel where characters used slang and jargon unique to their world without immediately explaining the meaning; only as I kept reading did I have those, “Ohh, NOW I know what they’re saying” moments. 1000xRESIST has one of those stories where the less you know going into it, the more engrossing your experience will be.

I appreciate subversive plots and, like Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!, nothing is as it first appears in 1000xRESIST. I enjoyed seeing the various ways the game turned classic tropes on their ears. For example, a character named Bang Bang Fire is a calm and reflective type who exemplifies proverbial “water” traits rather than explosive “fire” ones. 1000xRESIST’s subversion goes far deeper than that, though, and saying more would enter spoiler territory. Even the means to achieve one of the game’s many endings subvert typical visual novel expectations. 1000xRESIST’s excellent story is why fans consider it a must-play.

The conceptual gameplay has good ideas to enhance player immersion. 1000xRESIST primarily uses a third-person perspective but often throws you into first-person or 2D side-scrolling perspectives without warning. 1000xRESIST also engages players in various tasks such as exploration, graphic adventure-style puzzle solving, and some mild action sequences. The jarring transitions between varied perspectives and gameplay styles feel appropriately disorienting and truly put me in the bewildered protagonist’s shoes.

Good concepts do not always translate into good execution, however, and therein lies 1000xRESIST’s biggest downfall. Using the left analog stick to highlight decision tree choices felt slippery. First-person sequences had annoyingly spotty hotspot detection. Some of the puzzles or actions needed to progress certain scenarios were unintuitive or obtuse.

My least favorite gameplay segments, which I can only describe as “floating/falling ragdoll physics hookshot mazes,” highlight every gameplay flaw: awkward button mapping, a poor tutorial explanation, slippery play controls, spotty hotspot detection, and obtuse navigation. One late-game hookshot maze even adds a time limit, mushy platforming, and moments when the camera gets hung up on walls to this already distasteful mix. These hookshot mazes occur often and soured my overall experience with 1000xRESIST. I groaned about wanting a “skip this sequence” option every time I encountered one. I appreciate these hookshot mazes’ attempt to simulate feeling lost and untethered in a memory or thought pattern, but I found playing through them clunky and messy.        

Exploration is a key component in 1000xRESIST, but even that has hiccups. For example, a circuitous location called The Orchard is a fun and expansive place to run around, explore, and get lost in during your first visit. Unfortunately, because you spend so much time in The Orchard, constantly running around in large sweeping circles just to do a few basic tasks gets irritating. Some places (e.g., the protagonist’s apartment) are tricky to find and the crudely drawn in-menu map is unhelpful. A fast-travel option within The Orchard would have been most welcome.  

The minimalist soundtrack consists of fitting but forgettable music for every circumstance. Sound effects and sonic textures play a larger part in creating atmospherics. 1000xRESIST features full voice acting that runs the gamut from decent to dismal. Primary characters are convincing enough, but some side characters have amateurish acting that sounds like they’re out to lunch or reading lines for the first time. I understand that this is an indie/art-house game, but I’ve played many indie/art-house games with superior voice acting.

2024 was a stacked year for video games, making 1000xRESIST easy to miss (even for indie game fans like me). If your 2025 resolution is to check out any cool 2024 games you missed, 1000xRESIST is worth a shot if you desire a compelling narrative and can endure clumsy gameplay. The game is also not very long (I finished this ten-chapter game in about twelve hours), so you’ll still have plenty of time to play 2025’s offerings. 1000xRESIST is a diamond in the rough that, despite its flaws, I’m glad I experienced.

If your first thoughts upon seeing the trailers for AI LIMIT are “another one?” I wouldn’t blame you as it is indeed another Souls-like, blending Bloodborne-esque combat and anime aesthetics as its selling point. But what else does it bring to the table besides a surprisingly rare combination of gameplay and art direction within the genre?

Before delving into AI LIMIT‘s spin on the Souls-like formula, I have to commend how good it feels to just play as a baseline. Snappy controls and supremely satisfying feedback for every attack (particularly critical strikes) serve as a strong foundation upon which AI LIMIT conducts its experiments on the well-established tropes of the genre.

The biggest of these is the Sync Rate system, where you manage a gauge that determines damage output and the ability to unleash a variety of powerful spells and weapon arts. Successfully landing hits on enemies increases the gauge, while getting hit or using spells and weapon arts drains it. Maintaining a high sync rate is rewarded with even higher damage, with spells benefitting particularly from the increased damage output. Aggression is the key to maintaining a high sync rate with features like swift light attack combo strings, a combat dash with generous invincibility frames, and infinite stamina facilitating this playstyle.

But the system, while undoubtedly an interesting take on Bloodborne‘s rally mechanic, felt a couple of pieces short of being just right, particularly when grappling with a low gauge. Not only do all your attacks deal less damage in this state, but defensive utility spells lose some of their functionality, with offensive spells becoming entirely unavailable past a certain threshold. Your only real recourse at this point is running away to safety as a fully depleted sync gauge results in a nasty stun, completely inverting the aggressive gameplay AI LIMIT is trying to promote. The system as a whole feels too feast or famine, where a single mistake starts a vicious cycle that can be difficult to break out of in the heat of battle. AI LIMIT does provide some reprieve with the stability stat that reduces the amount of sync rate lost from enemy hits, but managing this can become a bit of a chore in its own right with how the game handles crystals, the leveling currency of the game.

Instead of dropping all your crystals and getting a chance to recover them all by trekking back to your place of death, you instead drop a percentage of your total upon death. An equipable “nucleus” affects the percentage dropped and the number of crystals you acquire from defeating enemies. Initially, this change appeared to be a quality-of-life upgrade compared to most other Souls-likes’ stark all-or-nothing death system. But after the game’s opening hours, this change hardly brought me any peace of mind due to the steep leveling curve and surprisingly expensive vendors. Crystals have a much higher premium than other similar “souls” currency among AI LIMIT‘s peers, making any loss that much more painful. If anything, this made “gotcha” deaths all the more annoying as those were guaranteed currency losses instead of simple mistakes you could recover from. And there are a lot of “gotcha” deaths throughout AI LIMIT.

This doubly pains me because I want to extol the genuinely brilliant level design of AI LIMIT. Havenswell, the ruined city serving as the primary setting for AI LIMIT, isn’t only intelligently designed, but it feels real. Individual levels are intricately crafted with branching paths and perfectly placed shortcuts, with many connecting in ways that show a dedication to worldbuilding usually reserved for more prominent projects. Cleverly hidden pathways lead to genuinely good loot most of the time, though some were a bit of a pain to reach with the horrendous jumping control scheme. Nonetheless, the effort SenseGames put into making the actual traversal as engaging and coherent as possible can be felt at every step of the journey. It’s the unfortunate enemy placements that knock the level design from outstanding down to just okay.

If enemies aren’t busy hiding in crevices and corners waiting to gank you, they’re silently charging up a devastating ranged attack off-screen. They are often placed close to precipitous drops almost with the express purpose of making you fall to your death from the momentum of a missed swing, but you’ll probably end up getting launched off these cliffs anyway with how often AI LIMIT wants you to fight two or more stagger-resistant elite units at a time. This is particularly frustrating given that these elite enemies are engaging fights in their own right, often showcasing the best parts of the sync gauge, the few times you can get them one-on-one. The tax you pay from most of these deaths is frustrating and needlessly bogged down the game’s pace.

Bosses, on the other hand, oddly felt too easy compared to the journey of actually getting to their arenas, primarily due to their tiny health pools. Aggressively fishing for parries into a follow-up attack demolishes their health bar, but they also often lack the unrelenting aggression required to challenge highly defensive playstyles properly. Even towards the lategame, where bosses start to pose as actual threats with their increased damage and speed, I was surprised at how effective it was just to hang back and let my spells do all my work. Admittedly, giving players meaningful build variety while also designing bosses they can’t cheese is a bit of a cursed design problem even FromSoftware hasn’t solved. Still, AI LIMIT nonetheless feels like it’s treading water rather than trying something new in this area.

Speaking of build variety, I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of the offerings available in AI LIMIT. Weapons come in all shapes and sizes, each with a unique weapon skill. Swapping between the two weapons you can equip is fluid even in the heat of battle, thanks to a slick transition that lets you chain together some impressively long attack strings. A wide range of offensive spell choices also enables you to tailor ranged combat to your needs, while your gauntlet provides a variety of utility spells to tinker around with.

Aesthetically speaking, AI LIMIT feels uneven across the board. Though Arissa and the NPCs you encounter sit comfortably within the typical anime-style art direction, their non-combat animations couldn’t quite escape the uncanny valley. This is especially apparent with the rigid facial animations in every cutscene. This uncanniness similarly extends to the visuals of the enemies, as they often clash with those of the environment. Levels are decidedly less stylized than the characters inhabiting them, making any visible enemy pop out in ways that almost feel like a mobile game. The more monstrous and cybernetic mobs fare better in this regard due to their varied silhouettes providing some interesting contrast, but human enemies almost always look like misplaced action figures on a playground.

Despite my gripes with the game, AI LIMIT ultimately was an enjoyable experience. Its faults only peeved me as much as they did because I was having a genuinely good time for most of my 20-hour playthrough. However, the cracks in its gameplay run deep, with aspects like encounter design being persistent issues to the very end. If these aren’t dealbreakers for you, AI LIMIT is a worthwhile time sink; otherwise, it remains a cautious recommendation for anyone else.