Tower Wizard

• Genre: Clicker
• Spoiler Free Review: Nothing to spoil.
• Time Played: 12 Hours(Mostly passive/idle time with some clicks here and there outside the few big pushes and resets)
• Too Short/Long: Fine, I guess. I feel like these types of games should be longer and more gradual.
• Soundtrack: The tracks are nice but just like, game sounds to fill the void.
• Why I played: A cheap game recommended by a coworker that had visual appeal. 
• Did I cry: No.
• Jank: No jank, everything is pretty straightforward. Maybe that the menus don't really resize even if you resize the window? So you have to position your "camera" correctly to view the menu if you have a smaller window.
• Difficulty: It's not really that difficult, but feels like the path of progression is pretty linear.
• Recommend to others: It's cute but it's hard to recommend a clicker game because it's literally just a waste of time. I wouldn't have gone out of my way to recommend it as it was to me.

Tower Wizard is a clicker/incremental game where you just upgrade stuff until you have the better stuff and then you can start over with more upgrade to be able to get more stuff until you have better stuff than you had before.

It's fine for what it is, but what it is, is just something to waste your time with. Some clicker games make it feel like there is strategy or consequence. Some make you feel smart for what you did, or have high moments where cool things happen after big upgrades that are super satisfying. Tower Wizard just kind of plays out until it doesn't.

As far as I can tell, the balance of the game is "too balanced" - meaning you just always buy whatever upgrade you can and you'll be able to within a reasonable time be able to complete what you want to complete. You have to "reset" a few times, but I feel like those are more or less standardized points with some slight variation. I only had to reset twice even though there are 4 tiers of upgrades and on that last one I had every upgrade(but not every level of every upgrade), and I literally played with the exact strategy I said, which is the closest thing to no strategy "buy an upgrade as soon as it's available". Basically, always ensuring the lowest cost upgrade is purchased until I can't purchase any more, and having my "workers" evenly distributed.

Without some kind of puzzle to solve it just falls flat.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

• Genre: Action Adventure
• Spoiler Free Review: Very slight spoilers due to mechanics and setting.
• Time Played: ~10 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's about right.
• Soundtrack: Another one that is mostly just ambience, though the ambience is very important to the experience of the game, and there are at least a handful of notable scores, and when they hit, they hit really well. They fit the mood perfectly. Notably Andy LaPlegua of Combichrist worked on the music. Also the ending credits is a licensed track from one of my favorite bands, VNV Nation.
• Why I played: I've been meaning to play this one for awhile. It was a pretty big deal when it was new, it just took me til they released a sequel to get around to it.
• Did I cry: A little bit.
• Jank: This is a pretty polished game. It's also pretty linear so there isn't much to experience jank-wise. There was one time after a cutscene Senua's hair was wiggling around wildly in a glitch-state until there was another cutscene.
• Difficulty: It has a difficulty that feels "just right" for the experience. It might be considered hard by some, but I don't think it really is. I think it just does a really good job at making it "feel hard", and most the puzzles are just looking in the right direction from and navigating the right way. The puzzles would only really be difficult if you struggle with spatial awareness.
• Recommend to others: I would really recommend this to someone who enjoys very a visceral experience and narrative. I can imagine it being difficult to play for someone who isn't in the right mental space, or if you just don't engage with video games on a certain emotional level.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a really good game and I'm disappointed in myself for not playing it sooner. It's not that long, and there have been times where it's come up in conversation where I now wish I could have engaged in back then. I imagine not too many people have it in recent memory unless they're replaying it before getting into the sequel.

Even though the combat is really basic, I really enjoyed it. You got your light attack, hard attack, block/parry, dodge, run. Run can modify some attacks, you can counter with parries, combos change up the attacks and I think even the dodge modifies the attack? It all feels really smooth and intuitive even though it doesn't really throw anything new into the mix. There are no skill trees. You only get an item that acts something like a "rage meter" or other similar mechanics. You use it, and time for everyone else is slowed down, usually. What's more is it ties into one of the main mechanics of the game you use for puzzle solving, in combat. "Focusing" is the main mechanic for puzzle solving, to see things as they truly are or should be? That's your "rage meter" and sometimes you can't even hit enemies unless you "focus". So it makes sense within the narrative without even actually giving Senua powers. Additionally there is probably some deeper meaning to the item that allows you to "focus" during combat.

I don't mind a linear game, but something about it feels like a game that should have a little more navigating, and more secrets to find. There are secrets to find, exclusively in the way of lorestones, and they're worth finding. I think they put a slight spin on some of the stories, but they're generally just telling you about Norse mythology, and the stories are also usually analogous to something that has either happened or is happening with Senua.

All together I think the most impressive thing they did with the game is make it cohesive, when the whole idea is that things are not as they seem. Senua's schizophrenia is the main theme of the game, and when first getting into it, the combination of audio and visual feedback pulled at my chest in an anxiety inducing way. I mean this as a compliment, it was wholly the intention of the game to do so and they succeeded well.

Inside

I just realized I can add captions to images(easily, without going into html view). You have no idea how many times I wanted to add captions to images but also didn't want to make a habit of using html for my stupid little blog posts. Anyway, if I wasn't just explaining that I found captions, I would caption this: "This is the most interesting screenshot I took that isn't a spoiler."

• Genre: Adventure
• Spoiler Free Review: Yes.
• Time Played: ~4 Hours
• Too Short/Long: While it's pretty short, it's fine for what it is, much longer would have dragged it out.
• Soundtrack: There is barely a soundtrack, it's mostly just ambient noises with a couple swells of tones.
• Why I played: I've been recommended Inside a lot. Both indirectly via youtube videos or articles from sources I enjoy, and directly by people I know. It's come up more than most games. I played Limbo and... kind of liked it, so I figured I'd give this a shot.
• Did I cry: No.
• Jank: There isn't much to be janky. Maybe the worst thing is sometimes it seems like the interactions can be particular when they should give a little more range of access.
• Difficulty: It's not really that difficult. There are a few moments in the game where spatial awareness combined with clever maneuvers are required but it starts you approximately 10 seconds before that so you get to try again right away.
• Recommend to others: Maybe it just didn't click with me, but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend this. I don't think it was a bad game, it just wasn't that interesting. I didn't even love Limbo the way some people did when that was newer, and I don't think this is as good as that.

There isn't too much to elaborate on here. The game is pretty... straight forward. As in you walk straight forward, interact with the one or two interactable objects and then continue to walk straight forward. Sometimes you need to have specific timing to your walking forward and sometimes you need to jump while walking forward. Occasionally you'll be swimming forward, and there are a few instances of the game where they mix it up, just a little bit. In interesting ways mind you, ways that some other games would(and have) made entire gimmicks out of.

That said, I feel like you could have really expanded on any of those mechanics and made a more full game play experience. Not that I think its entirely incomplete, but it lacks something, for me. There is no dialog, the narrative is entirely contextual. You're a little boy and you're running from some people and as you go on you see more and more things. There is room to speculate on these things, if you're someone who likes to do theorize. If you don't, then it feels pretty... straight forward.

Transistor

• Genre: Action Rpg
• Spoiler Free Review: Yeah.
• Time Played: 10 Hours
• Too Short/Long: About right, could have done with maybe a little more?
• Soundtrack: Like Bastion before it, this soundtrack is amazing. It's one I've listened to a lot before finishing the game. 
• Why I played: I've picked up Transistor at least twice before this third time, started, went through the first few battles, etc. I just fell off because it's a bit slow moving in the start. I knew it was a game I'd enjoy, I just didn't stick with it before.
• Did I cry: Yes.
• Jank: It's not too janky. I'd say it could use a couple quality of life upgrades, like the UI for equipping/unequipping your skills, but it's not janky, per se.
• Difficulty: It can be pretty annoying/difficult at times. Overall it's not entirely difficult, but you either have to play with your strategies for battles a good bit or otherwise perfect your moves for many of the later fights.
• Recommend to others: I would definitely recommend Transistor to anyone who played say, Bastion, and really like the style and music. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone who player, say, Pyres or Hades. Overall though, I'd say I'd recommend the other games first.

I do really like Transistor. I think all of Supergiant Games' games are great, but I do think Bastion and Hades are a bit more celebrated for good reason. Transistor has a bit of a weird mechanic that I don't think everyone is going to enjoy. It's a little light on the explanation, so it takes a lot of experimenting to figure out what works, what doesn't, and exactly what the perfect way to do things is. There are times it offers little tidbits on screen, but I think it could do a little better in that department. Even if it did, it's still and odd system, and an unfortunate aspect is - once you get to a certain point in the game, it's a system that is constantly trying to prevent you from using it.

Part of me thinks it would have been a little better if it leaned a bit more into the action, than the strategy of the combat. You're given this toolkit of pretty neat abilities to use, and various ways to use them and combine them, but so many of the enemies attacks and responses are trying to prevent you from using them. Additionally, you'll lose access to certain skills for a few battles should you perform poorly enough. I think less enemy moves specifically countering your abilities, and a health system that didn't take away your abilities would have made this game much more fun - and more accessible to the average player.

If this was a design decision to incentivize players to experiment with different abilities, I still don't think it excuses it. They have challenges that force you into different ability combos, they could have offered more of those that made players try new moves, and also offered another bonus like win X # of battles with this skill placed here. Which they kind of offer with lore, it's just one battle with each skill in each placement, but since these are just text biographies and such, I imagine many people will skip out on that, I didn't, but I'm a bit of a completionist.

That said, the combat is still interesting, unique, and fun. Every other aspect of the game is great too. The music, the art, the tone, setting, etc. The story is all a little vague, throwing you directly into a scenario in an extremely futuristic society far removed from our own, presumably the entire course of the game is one night, but it serves it's purpose for the experience and is fleshed out with the consistent voice overs.

Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma

• Genre: Farm-sim Action RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: Pretty much, other than the screenshots.
• Time Played: 60 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Actually maybe too short? I felt like I was left off wanting more.
• Soundtrack: It's okay, it fits the setting and such, and it has some unique effects an queues, but nothing I'm in a hurry to listen to on it's own.
• Why I played: I've always tried getting into the Rune Factory games, generally I like their style, and some of them have pretty fun game play. It's the gameplay loop that always had me fall off. Guardians of Azuma just looked so good I had to give it another shot.
• Did I cry: Almost, but not quite.
• Jank: It's pretty solid. There might be a couple very tiny issues where you climb something/don't climb something correctly, but it's mostly pretty tight.
• Difficulty: I think the difficulty is highly dependent on how well you balance what you do and how efficiently you do it. If you focus too much on progressing through the story, it'll make it harder. If you focus too much on just farming and pursuing relationships, it'll make things take longer.
• Recommend to others: I definitely would recommend this to others. At least for me, it's a great balance of farming/management and action rpg. The story is okay, but the dialog is very fun and the characters are great, and there are a lot of ways to approach how to play the game and I think that's why a lot of people will enjoy it.

Upon finishing Guardians of Azuma, I read some review of it which seemed... a little unfair. Now maybe from the perspective of long time fans of the Rune Factory series, there may not be enough of this or that, but I really liked Guardians of Azuma. Maybe it's something superficial and the better visuals or more Japanese inspired designs drew me in, but I think that it's a little more what I like, and maybe a little less what the typical cozy farm sim enjoyer likes.

There is a clear story when you start off Guardians of Azuma. You're engaged in a battle to stop the destruction of the world, and you are tasked with restoring it. You start off modestly in a small village inhabited by the goddess of Spring and eventually venture to towns for each season. Each town has some npcs, "development areas" where you do your farming/building/customizing, and outside the town each has it's own pseudo-open area, followed by a dungeon. Some of the development areas are rather small, making it a bit tricky to manage what you can work with, while some give you plenty of room for customization. Some are large enough to basically make a whole town within them.

But by far and large the biggest sections of the game are those where the action occurs. I find that a lot of these farm-sim/action rpgs usually have much smaller dungeon areas, or at least less focus and not quite as many large areas. There are many areas that cannot be fully explored in a single cycle. Thankfully there are shrines/save points that allow you to pick right up where you left off, should you need to return to town and rest. One thing that bugs me is having to always start from the beginning of an area, and this game thankfully respects your time to be pretty generous with those shrines which also act as fast travel/teleport locations.