Writing this post my first thought was to start out with something along the lines of "this game might not blow your mind but...".
But... I don't actually want to say that, because I don't actually think it's a fair way to start a text on my feelings on SteamWorld Quest.
So let's begin somewhere else. The SteamWorld games seem to be a franchise in which the core idea, i.e steampunk style robots in a cartoony aesthetic, has been crammed into a variety of game genres. It started out with SteamWorld Tower Defense, which I had never heard of before researching for this post. I, however, started out with SteamWorld Dig, which I loved, and that brought me to check out more games in the series. SteamWorld Quest looked like my cup of tea and suffice to say, it definitely turned out to be.
SteamWorld Quest may disguise itself as a role-playing game, but don't be fooled. This is 95% a deck building game. You move your characters around and you find treasure (almost exclusively more cards) and can buy things (more cards). You can equip yourself with some gear, but other than that the game revolves pretty much entirely around cards. I didn't know this going in, but fortunately I am a closet super-fan of deck builder games. I have tried a fair few, from the regulars like Magic the Gathering (2013 is the best edition) and Hearthstone, to more obscure ones like Card City Nights and Runespell: Overture.
Making a good card game is not easy, but few things can hypnotize me like a well-designed one. Maybe it's the board game nerd in me. SteamWorld Quest dresses all the card playing up in a story that starts out with friends Copernica and Armilly out doing nothing particularly important. They quickly get involved in a much bigger story and joined by a few more heroes as you move along. The story is simple and a reason for all the card battling you're going to do. I am actually happy they put the money, time and effort on the gameplay here because I would've accepted any excuse to get on with my cards.
And the way the card playing is designed is just pure fun - SteamWorld Quest manages to get gameplay that feels both snack-sized and more-ish, it's easy to jump in and difficult to put down. It has no ramp-up time to get into, and the rules are simple to learn yet so much fun to proper dig into.
Combining cards certain ways unleashes combos and each turn is a joy to figure out which cards to play. You can combine cards between characters or try to build chains, it all comes down to what you want to achieve a certain turn. There are buffs, debuffs, weaknesses and resistances to take into account. Between fights it's fun to tinker with your decks and try to optimize combinations, there are many fun and interesting cards to play around with.
Though I rarely got game over in my playthrough on normal difficulty, I rarely felt completely safe either. There isn't a sure-fire setup, but I do recommend that as soon as you find a combination of cards that feels good, you try to keep things fresh by swapping in one of the other characters. The balance of the difficulty is pretty spot on, some times I even wondered if enemies leveled along with me, though I never grinded for levels. You can return to already completed segments of the map, but that also meant re-watching any and all cutscenes so I quickly decided against that and just played onwards.
For better or worse it is difficult to prepare for a match before-hand. Theoretically you could, since you can see your opponents on the screen before you engage with them. This means you could go into your decks and tweak the setup before starting the fight, to avoid fighting fire with fire, literally. Practically this isn't something you're going to do though. There are some foes that have really annoying skills, like despair which prevents healing or bleed which makes you take damage for every action. You might want to equip something to counteract that, and the game throws gear at you that offers protection against or boosting of a lot of different stats.
The game doesn't really provide you with much information around debuffs and what they do, mostly this is not an issue since you can deduce them fairly quickly. I would've loved more information about what the different masks of Orik do however. There are some that I am still not sure of.
None of that takes away from the fun of setting up combos and trying new cards though and it's so easy to slip into the "just one more"-mindset. I pretty much "just-one-more"-myself through this game, and it was a long time since I played a game so hard as I did this. It really speaks to the fun gameplay that it feels fresh and engaging all the way to the end, which I reached in just under 20 hours. I accidentally engaged the final boss without a solid healer and only managed by the skin of my teeth. But that only shows to the strength of the decks that no one character or type of cards is absolutely necessary, but it all comes down to the abovementioned combination and chain building.
The music is another good thing about the game, and the battle themes are even quite banging. Which is good, since you will be hearing them a lot. Apparently the composers (Erik Gudmundson, Pelle Cahndlerby, and Oscar Rydelius) are all from Sweden, which is a bit extra fun for me.
I briefly mentioned the main characters Armilly and Copernica - as mentioned they will be joined by a handful of other heroes before long and each new hero comes with a new deck of cards. They've done an excellent job of keeping each deck distinct from each other, and while I had my favorites I felt they were all useful and fun to play, if you make sure to make them work towards each others strengths and weaknesses. The characters are trope, but lovingly so. Their personalities also fit their decks and I not only enjoyed playing with all of them, I wished for more. It's almost crazy to say, but even after 20 hours I almost felt like the game was too short.
It is fortunate then that the game comes with a generous New Game +, in which you can try the hardest difficulty which not only makes enemies stronger, but also gives them new skills. I tried this for a bit and yeah... I was steamrolled immediately.
If you got this far and only end up remembering this final conclusion I am going to leave you with this: SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech is a solid Deck Builder game that makes time fly. It does one thing and it does it excellently. Play it.
Some times I like to theorize a bit around the development process of a game I am playing. Did they have a good story and borrowed some good gameplay? Or did they enjoy the gameplay so much from another game they wanted to create a story for it?
It doesn't matter when the end result is as entertaining as Crying Suns, but it is clear that they were heavily inspired by another great game - Faster Than Light (FTL) - when creating this one.
I spent around 50+ hours dying in Faster Than Light back when it came out, probably the most fun I've had failing in any game in a long time. FTL is notorious for its difficulty, and even though it could be downright mean, the gameplay was so well designed the thought of "just another try" was never far away in your mind.
While this isn't a review on FTL, it's worth mentioning this since Crying Suns takes a lot of what makes it fun from that game. What it adds that gives it its own identity is a different kind of combat system and a story (the story in FTL was a bare bone reason to move your ship ahead).
The story in Crying Suns has other good inspirations, the first that came to mind when playing it was the Empire- and Foundation-series by Isaac Asimov. The game starts out with you being reincarnated as Ellys Idaho, space admiral in the Imperial Fleet. Apparently the original Ellys Idaho died somewhere, and you are woken up as the spare (if you've followed the AppleTV+ series Foundation you get the idea). You meet your new BFF Kaliban who is an OMNI, a certain type of robot that you will soon learn helps humans around the galaxy with absolutely everything. It also seems Kaliban is the only working OMNI left in the galaxy, leaving the humans completely helpless and dying.
You set off together with a crew of characters that you will quite come to like through your run. Your task is to find out what has gone wrong and, if possible, fix it. You do this by traversing space in a huge battle ship and directing your armada in combat with a lot of different enemies. Everywhere you go you have a chance of encountering something; most often something that wants to kill you, but also people in need of help and objects to explore. Just like in FTL I find that the Universe is a harsh place, you're often tricked and trapped by people who pretend to be nice, and you're almost better off becoming the same asshat everyone else seems to be.
You will find yourself really struggling for resources quickly, especially the fuel that allows you to travel around, and turn every dime (or scrap as its called in this game) to make it just another jump, to hopefully better pastures. But the better pastures never come. Around every corner lurks evil and danger.
It's a good thing evil and danger is so much fun to fight then. As mentioned Crying Suns employs a completely different battle style from FTL, in which you control space ships in real-time on a grid. The combat area can be affected by all sorts of additional hazards like turrets or meteor strikes, and the enemy ship of course has battle ships and weapons of its own.
There is a lot to tinker with and keep track off here, there are many different ship types, skills and weapons to keep you alive and the enemy dead. Fortunately you can always choose to pause combat to issue commands and overall the combat is well designed and very fun - I never grew tired of it.
I did find that on normal mode I had to scrounge a bit too much for resources, which took away from the fun of exploring the story. In FTL this wasn't an issue since there wasn't any story worth exploring, just the challenge of getting to the end. But the story in Crying Suns is genuinely engaging. While there are encounters that are clearly randomly generated, I only came across duplicates two or three times on a full run, which is impressive. At the end of each zone you continue the story, and you also have a chance of encountering story parts within the zones.
Crying Suns succeeds with a lot of things; it has a story worthy of its own sci-fi series (if this gets printed I am interested!), while nothing spectacular and in certain areas cliché and predictable, it still explores a lot of themes that I personally find fun and interesting. It has a well designed and thought through gameplay, both when travelling through the zones and when battling through any of the very many battles you will encounter.
Visually every character is represented by a fairly rudimentary pixel creation, and space is littered with planets, space stations and battle ships that you visit in a framed style. It suits the game and works well for the gameplay and almost gives the game the feeling of a visual novel.
The world building and character exploration is just deep enough to fit the story and I would've loved to know more or be able to dig deeper. But that would've been another game. It's always a balance between game and story and overall I find Crying Suns has made smart choices. As mentioned however I could see this being further explored in a series of books that I wouldn't mind reading.
If I had to nitpick over anything its that you can't choose to engage in combat yourself, which left me frustrated a handful of times. When I was tricked out of scrap by a space station I was flying past, I wanted to destroy it. But I just had to accept it and move on. Maybe Ellys Idaho has a stronger moral code than I do, luckily for the people on that space station. When I came across some pirates that chose to bribe me to let them be, I had to accept it (some times you can take the bribe and attack, but I came across an option where I couldn't). This is barely even an issue however.
I played about a third of the game on normal before I decided to enjoy it on easy. Easy is almost too easy, but at least it allowed me to not stress and to have the resources to go out on a limb here and there which in the end I think was a more enjoyable experience. It took me just over 14 hours to complete my first run, and after that you have replay value in trying to beat the game with different battle ships and trying to find out more parts of the main story (or get a different ending, there seemed to be three).
If you enjoy rogue-likes, space battles, sci-fi or just loved FTL I can really recommend checking this game out.
Here we are. WoW Classic is almost upon us, although I don't think I will actually believe it until I log in for the first time and run around with my fresh little character.
I remember when I was little and thought about turning 18 and how cool that would be. It's kind of odd having a memory of yourself looking forward to something that is now already way in the past. Now, at 34, I also remember when I was younger and thinking about how weird it would be to ever quit playing WoW. Here I am years later and I am way passed both those milestones. I've even come some sort of full circle and am going to start WoW all over (too bad I can't be 18 again though, amirite)!
I've probably told this story a billion times, so just scroll past it if you've heard it before:
My original WoW journey started in 2005, when I had just turned 20. My brother, who had played from release, allowed me to create a character on his account (my very first character was an undead priest named Lahmia, but I quickly swapped to a night elf druid to play on the same faction as him). This would become a big source of argument between us until I got my own account somewhere at the turn to 2006. My first character on my own account was a human warlock, but I was quickly required to move servers because of overpopulation and somewhere in the spring of 2006 Zinn the undead priest was born. She was my first character to level 60 and she remained my main character all the way until I quit playing in Mists of Pandaria, April 2013 - 8 years after I had first started playing WoW.
And here I am now, a bit more than 14 years since I first stepped into the world of Azeroth and perched to do it again. It's difficult to explain what I am feeling. My attempt at creating my new characters probably illustrates it quite well;
At first I decided for an undead warrior and an undead priest. Then I thought I didn't want two undeads, and I also really wanted an orc warrior rather than an undead one. But the undead racials are pretty nice, Cannibalize can be useful when questing (thought probably less useful than I remember). Also I had remembered the orc racial wrong, thinking it would give me rage with no debuff, but apparently it increases damage and reduces healing taking and so makes it less useful for tanking.
While I was pondering these things, which I thought would take no more than five minutes, my 5 yo comes up behind me and wonders what I am doing. I explain it to him and let him tinker with making a character himself. He settles on a "bull-man transformer" i.e Tauren Druid. He wants the name Gojira but it's taken so we go with Gojera.
It hits me then that here I am, introducing my son to this game. At 5 yo I think he is still too young, mostly because without being able to read anything all he can do is run around and kill stuff, maybe (even probably) that will be enough for him for a while. But somehow I am so happy that I get a chance to show him this Classic experience first, rather than the modern version (the same reason we decided to introduce him to NES/SNES/MEGA DRIVE before PS4). I even hope he ditches Roblox for this. I hope that when we sit down to play something together, this will be one of those things. Being able to play this game with my own kid would be so cool.
Right now I've settled on an orc warrior and an undead warlock, and though that might still change before I start playing I feel pretty good about my choice at the moment. Professions will be mining and blacksmithing, herbalism and enchanting respectively.
My initial plan was to stay up past midnight to be able to log in as soon as possible, but I scrapped that plan almost immediately for many reasons.
First of all I doubt if I'll even be able to get onto the server straight away, these things just do not launch without major hiccups. I don't think Blizzard has launched any expansion without major log in problems even though they really should've learned by now. I noticed Blizzard has already added several new servers in the last few hours alone, so it seems they underestimated interest as per usual. Secondly it's not like I can stay up several hours past midnight anyway, my kid has school tomorrow and my daughter does not care about my WoW playing and will get up at 6 am anyway. With what little time I can possibly squeeze in I'll only be able to get the starter quest anyway, so I'd rather just give myself proper time to do it. Thirdly, related to secondly, I've got a lot of other things and plans tomorrow - life moves on even though it now contains Classic WoW. I need and want my sleep more than I want to play WoW. I want to be awake and fresh enough to be in a good mood for my kids way more than I want to play WoW.
Addons is another thing I've given some thought. To begin with I'm going to go au naturale, mostly because I am too lazy to tinker around with addons right now and also because I've been away from the game so long I feel like I need to see what it is I want to "fix". I remember a bag addon and maybe a UI addon being quite necessary, but we'll see if I think so this time around. It's not like I am going to sink anywhere near the same kind of time into this so I'll probably get away with not having to change too much.
You can rest assured that there are going to be a lot more posts coming on how this experience turns out to be for me. I am also going to be curious on what you think about it, if you happen to play it!
Let's not beat around the proverbial bush here. Did you play Symphony of the Night? Did you love it? Are you secretly hoping that Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night will be a carbon copy of that game to fulfil your Metroidvania needs? If your answer to those questions are yes, yes and yes respectively let me just say that yes - Bloodstained: RotN is what you have been waiting for. Now that the TL;DR section of this review is out of the way, let's get to the meat and bones of what I actually enjoyed about this game.
Because of course it isn't an exact copy of SotN. We could just all go back and play that game instead then. But it is definitely close enough of a copy that if anyone else than the master brain behind SoTN and the Metroidvania formula, Koji Igarashi, had been behind this a lot of angry voices would've been yelling words about property theft. In fact, even though IGA and his teams have been clever enough to rename and rework everything just enough to avoid any lawful actions from Konami who own the actual Castlevania property, it is clear that names is pretty much everything that really has changed. In body and soul, Bloodstained: RotN is Symphony of the Night. If you ever wondered what "spiritual successor" means, Bloodstained: RotN is the dictionary definition henceforth.
In it you play as Miriam - a shardbinder who because of reasons needs to go after evil things in a big castle, killing everything she can set her eyes on to find a vast amount of weapons, gear and magic skills. On her journey through the castle she finds new skills that allow you to open up new paths, there are occasional secret rooms and walls here and there and a load of bosses to take down. Sound familiar? If you've played any of the Metroidvania, or as they really should be called, Igavania games between Symphony of the Night and Portrait of Ruin on the NDS you will recognize the concept.
And it is clear IGA has let himself be inspired by more than just SotN for this game, we see gameplay elements borrowed/reused from several of the games in the series that so weirdly teetered out into nothingness after the (frankly) not so good Order of Ecclesia. That game was released in 2008, so even though Order of Ecclesia wasn't as great as the other games in the series, fans have still eagerly been awaiting another instalment (I know for sure I have), scratching their heads as Konami seemingly just decided to let the property mold away in its loneliness somewhere. Why companies do this we will never know, but IGA seemed to think there still was potential in the concept when he left Konami in 2014, and we all agreed with him. When IGA took the idea to Kickstarter it was quickly one of the most successfully backed video games on there.
The shardbinding that Miriam uses is very similar to the soul collecting from Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow and thus comes with the same gameplay pro's and con's. On the one hand, finding new shards is fun throughout and they range from genuinely useful to truly whacky (one will let you summon a chair). On the other hand, once you've found ones that work for you, there is little reason to change and play around with your setup. Though I had loads of different shards to choose from I found myself using pretty much the same setup throughout the game. While I don't dislike this system neither in AoS/DoS nor Bloodstained: RotN, I am personally more fond of the card collecting from Circle of the Moon where I often found myself tinkering with different combinations to fit the situation I was facing. The shard collecting makes sense in Bloodstained: RotN however and in fact the entire story is built up around it - my only humble wish is that if (hopefully) IGA is encouraged to continue making these games, he'd explore one of the other or perhaps a completely new style of using magic.
Simple and flexible.
Running through the castle is fun though and it is monstrously (pun intended) large. You'll go through pretty much every kind of environment, from fire to water to ice to buzzing saws. Every enemy is not like any of the enemies in the Castlevania games and yet exactly like in the Castlevania games - they might not be called Medusa Heads, Axe Knights and Slingers but you know that's what they are and it all feels comfortably familiar exactly the way Shakespear meant it when he wrote "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". Just like in the Castlevania games, Bloodstained: RotN reuses enemy models throughout the game. When you see an enemy you've killed before with another coloration, you know it's going to be a little bit harder. It never bothered me in any of the other Castlevania games and it doesn't bother me here, in fact I almost prefer not having to relearn enemy patterns for every new area of the game.
The bosses are varied and generally fun to fight against but I didn't find any one of them memorable like the Zombie Dragon in Circle of the Moon or Legion in several of the Igavanias. This especially is where I would've liked to see myself being forced to go outside of my comfort zone regarding the shards and maybe have to stack up on certain resistances or use certain weapons. On the other hand, the Igavania bosses are never meant to be road blocks or feel like insurmountable challenges à la Dark Souls and it's not like I feel like I can run into a boss room in Bloodstained: RotN without making sure I am properly prepared and saved. Except for the final fight there was only one boss that managed to kill me but they were generally sweaty challenges.
I mean… just look at it.
The game is on the easy side, but so was SotN. And while the difficulty of Circle of the Moon didn't bother me, one of my biggest issues with Order of Ecclesia was in fact that it was too hard in the not-fun way. And there are definitely areas in Bloodstained: RotN where I have to tread carefully and pray to find the next save room quickly because I have run out of healing items and am hanging on at the skin of my teeth. I find that overall the game has a good pacing where it alternates between giving you areas that are easier to traverse and some that require more effort. I wouldn't want the game to be more of either, it hits the right balance for me.
The game employs a variety of gimmicky skills to allow you to traverse the castle and some are almost criminally underused to the point where their inclusion almost feels pointless. Early on you learn that Miriam can direct her arm to interact with certain objects in the castle, to for instance move them out of the way. While the directing of the arm is used in combat, though I never found it practical enough to actually use it myself, the moving of objects this way is used in only one or two places. The whole hand-directing could've been removed from the game entirely if you ask me. The Reflector Ray is almost in the same camp. It's rarely used to get to new places and fills no other function in the game. The double-jump and inverse skill are much more thought through and practical and thus more fun. Whenever I have to dig out the Reflector Ray shard I just sigh.
Otherwise the inventory is one area where Bloodstained: RotN is an improvement over SotN, but that wasn't hard to achieve. The fact that you had to equip healing items like potions to use them in SotN was one of that games only flaws, and one that Bloodstained: RotN of course does away with just like all the other Igavania handhelds. Not only is there an abundance of gear to find, unlike other Castlevanias many of them show up on Miriam (otherwise it's only been the weapon that's changed). Miriam can tout some truly hilarious combinations of hats, scarves and masks that could ruin the immersion of the game a bit, especially in cut scenes, but to me it's definitely a fun and welcome addition. You can also change her hairstyle if you are so inclined, and it turns out I am. If I had to complain about one thing though, it's that I can't flip through the inventory lists with my right analog stick like in many other games, meaning that you have to scroll through some long list of items occasionally to find that one thing you need.
The game also allows you to craft items, disassemble items, cook food and enhance your shards so there is a lot of reason to pick up all those weird knick-knacks the enemies drop. All of these extras are well designed and fun to do, and their inclusion feels justified and not just like padding. I only had some issues with the cooking as I found it quite difficult to find some of the ingredients for the food I wanted to cook, but on the other hand once you've cooked something you can buy that finished dish in the shop. Considering that you can only carry 5 high potions at any time, being able to craft some high-healing food items soon becomes something worth investing your time in.
Often the larger enemies are less annoying than the small ones.
Graphically there is just no way to beat SotN, it is one of the most beautiful games not just on the Playstation but on any console, period. I've heard there were initial concerns about not going more 3D, considering this was supposed to be part of the new generation, but whoever made the final decision on art direction for SotN absolutely did the right one and proved any disbelievers wrong. To me Bloodstained: RotN can't come close to that and at first the sort of sheen given to everything in the game even bothers me. It looks like everything is a bit wet and since the first stage is literally on a boat in rain it makes sense, but as soon as you get into the castle it just looks weird. I don't know if that is a thing in modern games because I had the same issue with the Resident Evil 2 remake. As I move on through the game I quickly forget about this however and actually come to some truly gorgeous areas, the icy one being a feast on the eyes. Bloodstained: RotN is colorful and fun to look at and anything that irked me about the graphics the first hour of the game is completely set aside before long thanks to interesting and well designed areas and enemies.
The same goes for the music. Michiru Yamane returns to compose yet again and as always she does a tremendous job. The music in Bloodstained: RotN is atmospheric, relevant and good in its own right but has yet to become iconic like most of the music from SotN. This is an impossible task not because of Yamane's skills but simply because of how human nostalgia works. I fell in love with the music to SotN long before I even played the game and every time a new track comes on I just want to blast the speakers. The music in Bloodstained: RotN is lovely but perhaps a little less memorable and same-y sounding. I'm sure that is mostly my rose-tinted goggles talking though as this OST sports some truly great tracks.
I haven't said much about the story or anything about the characters because as with the Igavanias there isn't really much more to say. They are as interesting as they need to be and all characters fill their parts just fine. What motivation do you really need to go and slaughter loads of enemies to find cool stuff and skills? We don't play these games because of the story, but because of the fun gameplay and Bloodstained: RotN delivers all the elements necessary to fulfil that need. Not only are there loads of items to kill and collect, but also loads of secrets, side-bosses and optional quests to do. A handful of times I was lost and confused as to where to go next, but this has happened in every Igavania I've played at some point so it probably says more about me than the game design. I will honestly say though, there were two times where I know for sure I couldn't have figured out what I needed to do next to advance the game so I am glad internet is a thing nowadays.
I had some tiny technical issues, like words disappearing in texts, loot being uninteractable because it didn't drop properly on the ground or a hold-up when opening the menu specifically in save rooms for some reason. These were rare and never detracted from the fun of the game though.
Some of the critique pointed at this game has been that it's a step backwards and that the Metroidvania formula has evolved since Symphony of the Night was released. To me this is like pointing at a game like Shovel Knight and complain that the platform formula has evolved since the NES era. This game, and a lot of throwback indie games, are intentionally backwards in style because that is what people are after. People don't want the evolved style, they want the old one. And they can both exist without it making the one lesser than the other. Also Bloodstained: RotN is not an exact copy of Symphony of the Night, as already established. IGA has deliberately and carefully chosen the elements of all the Igavanias that he thought worked and blended them together in this throwback that is not just a delight to play but exactly what he promised all those people who threw money at him on Kickbacker.
What is it about cool characters and wearing deep red?
There is a saying - you can't step into the same river twice. I often hold Symphony of the Night up as an example of a game that is objectively good, regardless of what kind of genre you usually like. It is also greatness that is impossible to recreate. And Bloodstained: RotN makes the right decision in not trying to. However, while this game doesn't want to be Symphony of the Night it definitely wants to be part of the Igavania handheld series, and as such it fits the team just perfectly (Order of Ecclesia gets to sit on the bench though). It is so easy to forget it's not in fact part of the Castlevania series, but considering Konami doesn't want our money I am more than happy to give it to IGA who knows what to do with it. I think SotN to Portrait of Ruin are some of the best and most fun games ever made and Bloodstained: RotN is a worthy successor. It delivers on everything I hoped for and sets a standard for spiritual successors to come.
Images from Steam, Bloodstained.fandom.com, kotaku.com.
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