Luna Abyss

TLDR: Luna Abyss is a good game and although it is short it is entertaining enough to keep me intrigued. The combat is not difficult so anyone who has always liked the idea of a bullet hell game but feels they don’t have the dexterity or skill to play one, can play this. There are difficulty levels that range from easy to very difficult. Luna Abyss is a 7-12hr (20hrs is you are a ‘look in every corner’ kind of player) experience that is well worth your time. It is £25 on Steam with a Very Positive rating (414 reviews) and is currently on Game Pass.

Luna Abyss is a bullet-hell game in the style of Returnal and Nier Automata. You run through alternating battle arenas where you face multiple enemies and light puzzles that are not difficult but rather are more dexterity or parkour based. As the game progresses, you acquire new tools that allow you to tackle new enemies and new puzzle mechanics. For instance there is a basic gun that damages all enemies but later you acquire a shot-gun style weapon that destroys an enemy's shields. These are used to solve various puzzles as well, as there are doors that have a force field that require the shield destroying gun in order to progress. 

At the begining of the game. you discover that you are a prisoner who is sentenced to thousands of days of delving into a centuries old ruin on a mimic moon called Luna. A deity called the All-Father requires you to explore the structures in order to bring back technology all the while being overseen by your artificial prison guard Alyin. She is a human head on a mechanical snake-like neck within your prison cell. The world outside on the moon has been changed by a world altering cataclysm called the Scourge which has turned the citisens of the city into walking monsters. As you make your way through you discover more about what happened to the people and the city via notes and conversations with the various non aggressive characters you meet. 

The levels are linear and guide you through corridors with both vertical and horizontal movement. There are new abilities that help with this traversal such as a dodge and a double jump, as well as abilities that are situational and require you to press the E key to activate them. I don’t want to spoil anything but if you have played games like this before I feel you will not be overly surprised when the ability is revealed. While moving around in later levels, you will often need to chain together the various movement mechanics and this can feel very satisfying when you get it right. None of the puzzles are particularly difficult unless you suffer from fat fingers like I do. 

The combat is not difficult. When you start the game there are multiple difficulty levels and I played it on the second most difficult. None of the basic combat arenas you enter were a struggle and I felt that on the rare occasion I died in these, it was down to me which is always a plus to me. The boss encounters are slightly different. As it is a bullet hell game, you can imagine that when you encounter a boss you will need to use all your current tools you have at your disposal in order to defeat the boss. Each boss has multiple stages although the stages are not necessarily that different from each other but rather are interspersed with a mechanic that requires you to either destroy multiple smaller enemies, destroy something (like a shield) that makes the boss invulnerable or move around the arena in order to press buttons or other such mechanics. There are also similar arenas that have your basic enemies as well as more difficult enemies that are not quite mini bosses but rather an introduction to a new, more dangerous enemy. These are usually indicated by a spinning head alarm system that goes off as you enter and requires all enemies to be destroyed before allowing you to progress by opening an exit. 

These arenas become more intense as you discover different types of enemies that require different tactics to defeat them, add to this the enemies have different attack patterns and their attacks have different speeds. This was a minor gripe for me as it seemed to me that some of the attacks at times would hone in on me, often careering around walls to hit me. There is no direct healing, but rather a skill you receive that allows you to recover a small amount of received damage by finishing the enemy similar to the mechanic in Doom but from a distance rather than with a melee attack. 

The characters in the game are one of the highlights for me. They are interesting and well voiced. I do wish the conversations were able to be set to autoadvance. You have to click after every voiceline in order to have the conversation continue and as the lines are only a sentence or so at a time this gets a little tedious. This may be in the setting somewhere, but I couldn’t find it. All dialog with the people you meet is purposeful and although you can have two options to choose from when replying to them, I am not sure that it makes much difference. 

The game isn’t long somewhere between 7-12hrs but I have heard people have taken 20hrs if they are looking in every nook and cranny for secrets. There are secrets in the game, but I feel they are not hidden everywhere and are messages for your codex or more law information. There are chests that contain health upgrades and Dust Crystals but I think the health is generally well marked and the crystals are not necessary as I have not found a use for them but there is a counter in the pause menu that let you know how many messages, crystals and health increases you have found and how many there are overall. 

The game is fairly short and concise and there are rapid enough changes as you go along to keep it interesting. Although the game is not doing anything new as such, it is interesting and unique enough to hold your interest while doing what it does well. The combat is fun, the shooting responsive and the parkour stretches you enough to make it entertaining. Although I haven't finished it yet, the story has kept me intrigued and the characters are endearing and I want to see it through. 

Overall I was impressed with the game as a whole. The mechanics are tight (always a requirement for games like this), the combat and shooting was fun and the story was interesting to me making me want to see the story through. I liked the characters (although you don’t have that much interaction with many of them) and the dialog was well written and voiced. I would definitely suggest this to most people and there is a demo on Steam if you are not completely sold and would like to give it a try although I am not sure how good a representation of the game it is as I have not played it. 

Replaced

I have been looking forward to this game since the first time I saw the trailer. When I played the demo during Steam’s Next Fest, I really enjoyed the small slice of the game they showed. What I played was an excellent example of how a demo can create excitement and hype for a game and a strong argument for more developers to release them, even when taking into account the work it entails to create it. I played the game on PC Game Pass and was pleasantly surprised when I saw it added to the list of upcoming games. It is available on Steam, GOG and Epic on PC as well as the Xbox store for PC and the Series X/S.

While playing the demo. I was amazed at how a side scroller managed to pull me in. Generally sidescrollers don’t keep my interest for very long, they tend to become repetitive and I find it hard to engage with the single or at best dual planes that they tend to work on. Replaced’s play area focuses on a single depth plane that you move across, sometimes you move up or down a little into the foreground or background in specific situations, but on the whole your movement is from left to right or vice versa and is focused in the middle of the screen. But it is the level of detail they have added to this game that sets it apart. While in the city, for instance, the NPCs walking around all look different, they walk around at different speeds as well as in front and behind each other and each of them have unique motion. Birds scatter as you walk near them, open doors swing in the wind and vines on the brickwork sway from side to side. These little things add a sense of life and lived in feeling. Now sure if you look closely and pay attention, some of these things are on repeat and just play on a loop, but if you immerse yourself in the world it draws you in. While looking at something on your Wingman 2 (the device that acts as your journal to record all scans and information as well as your to-do list more on this later), people pass by in the background slightly out of focus. The depth of field is more  natural in this game when compared to many other games, rather than being a filter that is inserted over the screen to give a sense of focus, it is more gradual as it moves away from the point of focus in the scene. This is not always the case as sometimes it does look as if a piece of glass covered in Vaseline has been placed between you and the background, but this is few and far between and when it happens it stands out starkly as it is not the norm. The environments are full of little things that increase the sense of depth in front and behind your character. Instead of a foreground middle ground and background, they have created multiple layers that add a sense of 3D in a 2.5D environment. The area is littered with little items and vegetation that make the world feel full and well rounded. 

The graphics in this game are incredible. Although it is pixel art style graphics, the sprites are clean, sharp and high definition. When they move they are smooth and don’t judder like many other pixel art games due to them having multiple frames of animation. The lighting is perfectly suited to the area, with light and shadow areas having multiple illumination levels. Shadows created by items in the world move and flicker in response to their perspective to the light. 

But I am getting ahead of myself. Replaced is developed by Sad Cat Studios and published by Thunderful. The basic story of the game is that your character is a scientist or programer that was tasked with creating an AI called R.E.A.C.H., the reason for which is unclear at the beginning. Through a mishap the AI is inserted into you and as the player you are unsure whether your character is dead or alive. You play as the AI controlling the person. The AI is childlike and is not wise to the world or has any understanding of its role within it and it has a simple, childlike impression of the work it was created to do. For instance, the AI is constantly speaking to you, telling you what it has noted about the world and your situation, as well as what it thinks needs to be done and what it is doing even though it never receives a reply from the human protagonist. This is an unsettling one way conversation. You are chased out of the lab and outside the city walls by the police and R.E.A.C.H. is unsure why. You, as the AI, realise you need to return to the city and the lab in order to try undo what has been done, a task you know to be near impossible. You make your way towards the city again and come across a group of people that turn out to be hostile.

This is where combat comes in. You have 2 distinct phases in the game, exploration and combat. The exploration phase includes traversing the environment and solving simple traversal puzzles including jumping, climbing and moving items around. These get more involved as the game goes on with new mechanics and skills being introduced. Combat involves either single powerful enemies or bosses with multiple attacks and attack phases, or, more commonly,  being attacked by multiple different enemies at once. Again this becomes more intricate as the game progresses, with enemies initially just doing 2 attacks (heavy and light) but later you encounter enemies with armor for instance, that require you to use a tool and heavy attack to remove the armour. Most times you are fighting multiple enemies all with different attack styles and requirements in order to kill them. You have a healing stim that starts off with two charges which increases as you go further through the game via collectables. When you leave the city a policeman dies near you and you are left with his gun that, even though it is locked to him through biogenetics, is broken which allows you to use it. It can transform into a police baton allowing you to have a melee attack. You initially have a basic attack and a counter attack.  When the enemy does a light attack, highlighted by blue and yellow lightning bolts above the enemies head, you can perform a counter attack with multiple animations. You also have a dodge in order to evade the enemy's heavy attack which is indicated by red lightning bolts. Later you enable the ability to use the gun which has a battery that needs to be charged via melee attacks. When the gun is charged up you can shoot one shot and you use the gun to perform executions on the enemies. Combat is basic but effective, especially in the beginning and when you do it well it resembles a dance with the enemies, with you darting from left to right, countering their attacks and performing finishing moves. Combat is fun and when you pull it off feels very satisfying. The controls on PC are straight forward, with the same keys being used in both the combat and exploration. For instance the space bar is jump while running around exploring but changes to dodge while in combat. The distinction between the two phases is clear cut as combat plays out in an arena where the enemies are in the background and then move forward in groups to engage you. 

The enemy design is your usual cyberpunk/fallout aesthetic, but there is a decent amount of variety to the enemies you face. I really liked the design of the bosses I encountered and a lot of thought was put into the mechanics that the enemies utilise as well as the mechanics needed to defeat them. 

The game is set in an alternative 1980s America, after a nuclear catastrophe. The history of the world is laid out in articles of interest lying around the world. You snap a picture of various environmental items with your Wingman 2, a very retro styled device with a monochrome screen and tactile mechanical controls on it reminiscent of a Game Boy style device with a BlackBerry functionality. Important items are usually highlighted by a shiny twinkle in the environment. On the side of the device is a scroll wheel that your hand scrolls as you move through the records and journal entries, a nice little mechanical touch that adds immersion. All the computers and electronic devices in the world have that retro monochrome screened artstyle all the way through. The art style sits somewhere between the shiny, neon high colour of Cyberpunk and the gritty, run down rusted environment of a game like Fallout. As I said the pixel art is of such high quality, with hi-res sprites that move smoothly through their animations. If you watch the idle animations of different characters, they move through the usual sequence of idle frames but the transition between the movements is so smooth and natural. 

The characters you meet along the way are all believable and distinct, but their personalities are not over the top. The first person you meet who is not trying to kill you and saves your life, is angry and frustrated but it doesn’t leave him incapable of thought though when compared to a character like Ryuji from Person 5 even though they are similar in temperament. The story centric characters all have backstories and their own motivations. There are also many side characters who are in need of help, that make up the side quests along the way. Their quests vary from fetch quests to more intricate requests that take more effort (such as a little girl who you help to repair her arcade cabinets that then requires you then to beat her top score on said machine). 

I do have gripes but they are minor and some are personal as well as things that, although I understand why, would just be nice and add a lot to the game. An example of this is voice acting. I understand the expense that would be necessary in order to have a fully voiced game, but it would be so nice to be able to watch the screen and hear what is being said rather than having to follow the subtitles at the bottom. Adding this would be the cherry on top. I am hopeful they take a page out of the Disco Elysium team's book and add this later because, as in the case of Disco Elysium, it would just add so much to the game. 

I would love a skip cutscene or dialog option. I found out while playing that you can hit escape and in the menu screen there is a skip cutscene option but a more accessible or easily usable option would be appreciated. While fighting one of the bosses I died a few times and having to go into the menu (or having to rewatch the cutscene over and over again) was a little jarring and a pain, especially as that boss had 2 phases and multiple cutscenes. 

I wish you moved a little quicker at times. Pushing Shift to run when the area is clear or you are running from one side of the city to the other would be appreciated. Although it is nice to take in the view as you saunter past, after a few times of moving through an area a quick run to get to where you are going wouldn’t go amiss. The controls could be a little tighter especially when you need to enter multiple button pushes in a row. The number of times I rolled to dodge an enemy attack to come up behind them and ended up shooting the wrong direction because it didn’t register my key press to change my direction to face the enemy is frustrating. This can also be a frustration while platforming. This is a common thread through the Steam reviews. The game also teaches patience in many of the sneaking and platforming puzzles.

I would also like some way to know if you have done all the side content before you move on. The quest log is a little loose. 

I will always advocate for a manual save option in every game. I appreciate autosave, and it is quite good in this game, but there are just so many things that can go wrong and only having autosaves can ruin a game if you are not able to go back to a previous save. There are reports of bugs (not an uncommon complaint in today's world) and this is something that would absolutely be a deal breaker for me.

I was really hopeful this game would be good and am relieved to see that it is. Although I haven’t finished it and cannot comment on the story as a whole it is interesting and I am drawn to complete it. I have not grown tired of the art style (another running theme through the Steam reviews) and I am intrigued as to see what the end of the story is. Another bonus is that there is an demo so I would actively encourage anyone who is slightly interested to try the demo. Although it isn’t a full showing of the mechanics in the game, it does give a good overview of what to expect from the game. I would strongly recommend this to anyone who enjoys this style of game and encourage anyone who is even slightly interested to go try the demo. The game is also only £17 on Steam. 

Please feel free to leave any comments below as it is a good indicator of what people think and any comments would be appreciated.

Voidtrain

It took me a while to finish this game mainly due to other things coming up. I spent around 37hr in the game (way above the How Long to Beat numbers) but that was due to my insatiable need to loot every single item in sight. The game is on Game Pass and was one of those nice surprises as I almost bought it the week before it came out.

The story is kind of vague. You are an engineer that goes to a deep dark forest and while there gets lost. You find a cabin and break in only to find a strange structure and a train cart. After fixing the lights and electricity you throw the switch on the table and a portal opens up in the structure and you, the train and half the items in the cabin are sucked into the portal. You wake up in an endless void on the train cart and so starts your journey through the Void. All the way through this you are being narrated to and spoken to directly by an ethereal narrator. He is predominantly there for comic relief and to explain the story. Think high on life or similar style. He seems to know more about this world and ensures you have an understanding of how things work and what is expected of you. You have a journal that updates with what you are doing next.

The basic loop is you head down the track on the train while collecting items (wood, metal scraps, chemicals and so on). You can float away from the train but are attached to the train by a cord. You can control the speed of the train and can stop it if need be. As you go along you build things on the train. Some make your life easier (like the little creatures that help you collect the floating resources) and others are used to make items you need (worktable and weapon bench for example. There is also a research bench that in order to research things you need to add items you collect along the way to generate science points. Each item adds a certain amount of science points to the reader. You can research better train parts (an engine or storage) or get additional or upgrades of workbenches. 

As you move along the track you come into contact with various different creatures such as floating fish that move through the Void and a large shark like creature that gnaws at your train. There are also instances for you to investigate and the variety of these changes as you progress through the game. There are outposts where you can find snippets of information on what exactly is going on although this continues to remain vague throughout. 

A good gun will help along the way. You start with a revolver that has endless ammo but only has 4 shots before you need to reload. This is also not particularly high in damage. There is also a rifle and shotgun and these have composite parts that can be upgraded and changed out to facilitate different bonuses and effects (ice, fire, secondary fire effects, headshot damage and so on). 

There are also ‘human’ enemies around. They are present at these sites along the way as well as at the depots you pull into. You reach these depots along the rail and as the music swells and gets louder you enter through a door that looks like a triangular doorway into an underground tunnel with Norse runes all over it. The train then hurtles forward and stops at a station. These stations are all different but have similar feels to them. There may be a small depot where you get a snippet of information about the world you are in and there is usually a battle arena with a group of human enemies that fill your inventory with new guns (although they don’t change that much) as well as gun parts to upgrade your weapons and a selection of resources. You then leave the station and enter the loop from the beginning and continue to gain resources.

You go through this loop time and time again and although they are procedural (and there are ways to manipulate to a small degree what you will likely find on the journey), they are filled with similar instances. As you progress and upgrade your train, weapons, armour and backpack you encounter new resources that are needed to upgrade your items further and so on and so forth. This can get tedious but I think that may have been due to my usual instinct to get everything I can and store everything you can in case I may need it. This is not the case and at the end of the game I actually ran through the loop without actually picking up any resources as I had a train full of wood and metals I was never going to use. And yes I am the person at the end of a Final Fantasy game with 999 healing potions and other resources that I never use because you just never know when you are going to need it! But in this game I could have moved through a little quicker and not suffered from that feeling of tedium. 

There are tools you are given to make collecting items in the Void easier such as a grappling hook that magnetically draws items to it if you hold the button and creatures that, as long as you keep their water topped up a their pet bed, will appear in the Void and collect excess items as the train goes along. There are also creatures that can be added to workbenches and other tables on your train that can work there. For instance there is a table that is for farming and if you add one of the creatures to that they will work the farms and grow food for you and themselves. If you add a creature with a farming skill they will increase the yield or speed up the process. But again by the end I had so much food and water and other resources that I was kind of swamped and ran out of storage. There are some very good QoL in the game including craft from chests and store all similar items in the storage that is on that train cart with one button. 

The research is a little strange. There are a few items in the research tree that I found useful but most of it I could have done without. There is a huge amount of customisation of your train, including new carts, items to decorate your cart with, sides on the cart, items for your creatures on the train and so on. Most of it is not useful things but rather research of items that make your train pretty as it is mostly cosmetic. I never even completed the research tree. As I said you use items you find in the Void as well as items you craft to add research points at the research table (each item has different values). You then use those to select research. There are one or two major research items and up to three minor ones per research page. The major items need to be researched in order to move to the next research level. The major items tend to be important new discoveries (new engine type, fuel source, smelter and so on) that you need to move the story on. The minor ones are mainly cosmetic and upgrades to your tools. 

The gameplay loop is fun for a decent while. The upgraded tools and new resources as well as the variety of different encounters and events you come across along the way are entertaining enough to keep you coming back. My personal loot hoarding and need to collect everything did ruin the zen-like nature of the loop between stations or depots as they are called. I could have dialed back on my enthusiasm to have everything and the game would have gone quicker. The story was there but up until the end it was ropey at best. It is not the driving factor but is the reason you are doing what you are doing. The narrator is constantly ensuring that you know where you are going and what to do and this was helpful to ensure you stay on track. If, while driving on the tracks, you come to an important spot in the Void, the train will stop and the narration will let you know what you need to do. 

I really enjoyed the game and it is definitely worth a try. The game isn’t difficult and if you die you just return to the train and carry on. There are a multitude of difficulty options at the beginning to tailor the experience to how you would want to play. The game ran smoothly and I don’t remember any crashes. I never tried a controller so I can speak to how good that is. The ending was OK and as a game it is a solid game but not an amazing game. If you have a spare time slot in between games and are looking for something to play that isn’t too difficult, has some puzzles but nothing that will stretch you and has light combat, then maybe this is for you. I feel if they make a second one they will have learned a lot from this game. My biggest suggestion is don’t get too bogged down in resource collection because there are resources everywhere in the Void and you can take 20min to move between depots and it is unnecessary, especially after the midpoint.

Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts on the game yourself or if you know who the narrator was. I cannot find who it was anywhere.

Kingdom Come Deliverance I and II

With Kingdom Come Deliverance I and II being dropped on Game Pass I figured that I would put my two cents worth in for what the games are and why people should at the very least give them a try and lastly, give a little advice to make it a little smoother to play the games.

I played Kingdom come Deliverance when it initially came out. I played for a good 40hrs and then petered off. The game was great and I was enjoying it but I got to a section where I died and lost progress due to its divisive save system. I will speak about the save system later but the long and short of it all is you need a consumable to save and many people found this to be a deal breaker. The game is extremely immersive and this is one of the games biggest selling points. You feel part of the world and Henry, the main protagonist, becomes an old friend very quickly. A quick thing to note is this is an adult game, this does not mean a game that a mature teenager can play as it is worth noting that there is visceral combat and full sex scenes (if you want to go down that path with the various choices). The fact that there is a gay romance option has also been a cause for some negativity but to be honest in both games this option is essentially hidden and something you effectively need to go looking for. I never even got a hint of it until I saw it mentioned somewhere and only then did I realise where this branching path in the relationship between Henry and the other male character could move towards a more serious relationship rather than the friendship I encountered. It is not forced in any way contrary to what some people have reported. 

The basic story is laid out in the prologue. It is a typical prologue designed to teach you the basics of the game. It also helps set up the sort of Henry you will be playing. This is an RPG but not a create your own character kind of RPG. You play Henry, a blacksmith’s son, in a small village in Bohemia in 1403. The prologue sets you off on a ‘quest’ to collect a few things for your father before you are allowed to go off and join your friends. This includes you collecting money from someone your dad did some work for or alternatively returning the goods he bought, secondly buying some coal with the money you retrieved, getting some beer from the pub (where the young lady you are interested in works) and getting a cross hilt from the chamberlain from the nearby castle all in order to help your dad finish the sword for the local lord, Sir Radzig. As an example of how the game allows you to complete your quests and goals in various different ways, when you speak to the local drunk that owes your father money, he refuses and tells you to go away. You can complete this in various ways, including using speechcraft, sterling back the goods or just plainly beating the living daylights out of him. You can fail at all of these methods and these each have consequences. Again the save system comes into play here as at the time you need to save you don’t have or have a minimal amount of the consumable you need to save. There is actually a fair amount of content to complete here in the prologue before you head back to your father to complete the quest, and many of these I would strongly suggest people to complete, especially on your first playthrough, as they explain many of the game's systems through story. You also get a hint into the fact that you can play your Henry in various different ways. This is evident in your interactions with your friends, the barmaid and other people around the village.

Eventually you return to your father and the two of you complete the sword for Lord Radzig. You complete it as the Lord himself turns up. After some conversation and deepening of the characters, you get a cut scene as your village is attacked. There are many story beats in this attack and to explain them would spoil some of the twists and turns of the story but suffice to say there are events that transpire that change your life as Henry forever and you end up first in the local lord’s castle and then through more story, in the castle of his lord Sir Robart. From here on the story really starts as you begin your journey as Henry proper. 

The game is full to the brim with quests, side quests, small interactions, world events and ‘random’ encounters. There are also characters that have a huge part to play in Henry’s development as a character as well as smaller side characters as well. There are various skills and vocations you can interact with (such as alchemy and repairing your armour and sharpening your weapons through a mini game). The game is chock full of things to do which are all entertaining and rewarding if you give them the time to engage you, but I can see how they could become tedious if you are forced to engage with them and you do not enjoy the mechanics. The important thing to mention is you do not need to engage with these mechanics and side content if you do not want to. It is all icing on an already complete cake. 

This brings me to the combat. This is probably one of the biggest gripes most people have when they speak about this game. It is very different from the usual hit RB for light attack and RT for heavy attack. It uses a directional system where your attacks can come from various directions, like the points of a star. They have 5 points (Up, Left, Right, Lower Left and Lower Right) as well as a central dot for a stab. I played with Mouse and Keyboard and you moved the mouse around when locked onto an enemy to change your attack direction. It seems complicated at first but actually it is more complex than complicated. It becomes more intuitive over time and you learn to move the mouse around in order to get past the enemies defence. You defend by keeping your sword directed towards the enemy's attack direction. But in all honesty it ceases to matter later on once you learn to Master Strike. This is probably the biggest bit of advice I can give to anyone trying this game for the first time. Play through the main story from where the attack happens until you meet Sir Robart’s Master at Arms. He will be asked to teach you some weapons skills. Go through the tutorial until he teaches you Master Strike. From here on combat is infinitely easier. You will still be overwhelmed by multiple enemies but at least you will be able to be attacked and compete on a more level footing. I would also suggest that everyone goes through as many of the trainings as you can but once you have the Master Strike ability everything else is a benefit. There are different types of enemies and some, especially the Cumans, are very difficult until you increase your skill levels and multiple enemies will always be a challenge. People oversell the difficulty of the combat, not to say it is easy, but with a little practice and getting far enough to have Henry be taught a few new strikes will make a difference. This is where many people give up as they cannot get to grips with the combat, but it is worth noting that the developers designed the mechanics to feel realistic in the difficulty as Henry is not a soldier and has no experience in combat, therefore when he is faced by experienced soldiers he is at a severe disadvantage. 

The second bone of contention is the save system. This is a system that I understand why they designed it the way they did but with a little work you can eliminate this as an issue which makes it a bit irrelevant as a system overall. I would suggest you collect all the ingredients that you need for the Savior Schnapps which are nettle (which is found everywhere) and Belledonna (which is quite hard to find and is probably the only thing I would suggest people look up where to find) and spend a while brewing Savoir Schnapps. Eventually your alchemy skill will be high enough that you will brew quite a few at a time. You have a storage chest and I just stored the ingredients in there so that if I was running low I could just brew a few more. I bought the Belledonna in the beginning just to get my skill up. You can also use your alchemy skill to brew potions to sell in order to purchase the Belledonna. It is worth noting that on PC there are also mods that allow you to save at any time as long as you have one Savior Schnapps in your inventory while not using the schnapps up. 

Kingdom come Deliverance is best played slowly and deliberately. By this I mean I believe you will get the most out of it if you explore and immerse yourself in the world the developers have created. They really took their time and put a lot of effort into building a realistic medieval world that feels alive. The towns, villages and cities in these games are beautifully crafted and deliberate in their aesthetic. This is not to say that you have to do everything there is in the world. The game can take you 100hrs or more if that is what you want but realistically the main story is only 42hrs long according to How Long to Beat and 136hrs for a full completionist run. I have 120hrs but that is across one comprehensive but incomplete playthrough and a comprehensive full playthrough where I knew the first part of the game and made sure I had the Savior Schnapps and did the training. I feel many people will be somewhere in between. The game is certainly worth the time and effort it asks of you. 

This brings me to Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. It is difficult speaking about this without any spoilers for the first game as it takes place almost directly after the ending of the first one. There are characters that cross over into the second game from the first and that adds to the feeling of continuity and many who loved the first game really felt that having these familiar faces around helped settle them into the second game like putting on a pair of old comfortable shoes. 

The easiest way to set it up without any spoilers is to say that you and some of the returning people from the first game are sent to a nearby land to try to encourage them to join your side in the war that kicked off with the attack on your village which is still going on . While on your way to the lords castle, you are ambushed and most of your party are killed apart from yourself and a major returning character. You are chased and end up injured and near death being taken in by a local woman who was shunned for her abilities with herbs. This woman saves your life and this explains your slow return to form and abilities from the first game that you lost. You and the returning character attempt to contact the Lord but are turned away as you are without your fine clothes and appear to be vagabonds and after a period end up in the stocks in a local village. Once you are released the story begins and you need to build yourself and your reputation up as you are in a foreign land where nobody knows who you are and you have no friends. 

That's the basic premise and my advice here is the same as before. Learn sword skills and practice your alchemy to create Saviour Schnapps. There are new minigames including blacksmithing to immerse yourself into, but again only if you want to. The story in this one is deeper I feel and the characters are more numerous and therefore have more variety and depth. The combat has been reworked and I found it better but the same as the first one, once you learn the power skill, the combat is nowhere as difficult. You don’t have to have played the first one I suppose if you wanted to watch a catchup video but really you will be doing yourself and the games a disservice if you do. 

These games have been made with love and care and you can tell the development team really loved the world they were creating. They handed out helmets to content creators in their press kits for crying out loud! There is an incredible amount of passion in this game and everything feels deliberate and hand crafted in the world. You can feel that if there is a tree there, it is because someone decided it needed to be exactly there. In any other year they would have won game of the year quite easily. Of course the first one came out with the new God of War game and the second one was in the year of Clair Obscur. The first game when it came out was a relatively unknown game from an unknown developer that gained a following as time went on. The second game was hotly anticipated and extremely well received, but was in a year packed with incredible games and Clair Obscur which blew every game out of the water. It received a lot of praise but it was just never going to compete with the masterpiece that is Expedition 33.

I feel everyone should at least try these games and give them a good go before deciding to give up on them. The things that make the game fiddly, complicated and challenging, is the same thing that makes the game comforting, engaging and immersive. It is quite possibly not everyone's cup of tea, and I do understand that but I think if people give it a try and let themselves be drawn in and find ways to not get frustrated, they will discover why these games are so beloved.

Steam Next Fest February 2026: Part 2

When checking through the list of games there were a lot of horror games, visual novels, shop simulators, anime games, side scrollers, card battlers, Co op ‘friend slop’ type games, and chill games. It was also the first time I have heard the phrase ‘multiplayer social deduction game’ and there were a lot of social deduction games. There were also a large amount of games with unique art styles that really didn’t appeal to me. In general, there were just a huge amount of games to choose from, the list just didn’t end.

I collated a selection of games that I thought were worth a try. This is Part Two of the games I tried.

Pragmata: Capcom’s newest IP—PRAGMATA. An all-new Science Fiction action adventure with its own unique hacking twist! It is the near future, and protagonists Hugh and his android companion Diana, must work together as they make their way through the cold lunar research station.

This is a major publisher’s game so I feel a little strange putting it in here as most people know what this game is. I do feel the discourse around this game has been a little weird. There seems to be a disconnect between what the game actually is and if the system they described will actually work. This is the main reason I wanted to give it a go.

The game is set on a lunar solar relay station and you as the only human you are aware of find and join forces with an android with the intention of restarting the solar array to contact earth. As you move around the base you are attacked by the droids that are supposed to be doing a lot of the work on the base. There are story elements told through emails, journal articles as well as CCTV footage that you find along the way. There are collectables in a currency that was discovered on the lunar surface and that is dropped by the droids, I assume this works as your money in the game but I don’t think I found a use for it.

The combat is as you would expect from a sci-fi game. There are a variety of guns in the demo and I found 4 including a pistol, a scatter or shotgun, a net gun that immobilises the enemies to make it easier to target them for hacking and after I had finished the demo through once, there was what effectively is a snipper rifle but it needs to charge up. You can run, dodge and after the first run through I was informed of a perfect dodge that slows time for a small time. At the same time you can use Dianna to hack the enemies in order to increase your damage to them, an act you have to do because otherwise you don’t really do any damage. There are also enemy weak point that do increased damage. At the end of the demo there was a boss fight which was fun. There are massive damage attacks the boss does and the need to hack and do increased damage through the canisters at the back of him that are his weal point. I died the fist time I did it because I didn’t see the massive AOE attack that he does towards the end of the fight.

There is hacking for Dianna to do outside of combat and after a series in the boss battle there was also a minor QTE where Dianna performs a manual override if you push the corresponding at all. There are going to be a lot of these kind of hacking game.

This game is what people have been asking developers to make for ages in so much as it is a cool game with interesting mechanics. Now if people actually like what they ask for is a completely different situation. I think it is interesting and some will find it easy but at times it is a little like patting your stomach and rubbing your head (or the other way around). That is not to say that it is impossible to do, but it does take a bit of practice to become accustomed to it. I won’t be playing this game on hard as having to deal with hacking on one side while attacking and dodging at the same time while the enemies have increased health is a different prospect I don’t think I am willing to even consider.

I would strongly suggest people try the Pragmata demo as you will know immediately if you like it. I think people will be surprised by this game and will be thinking of it come release day, hopefully I really hope it does well as gamers keep lamenting that gaming has gone to the route of tried and tested games, but everytime a game that ticks those boxes comes out, they find a way to ignore it. But this is a Capcom game so your never know.

Puzzle Spy: Pursue diamond thieves and a trail of cryptic puzzles in this short ‘60s spy adventure. As Agent Epsilon you’ll choose your path as you chat with (or chat up!) suspicious contacts. Deduce the puzzle rules, decode cryptograms and decipher clues as you solve wordplay & logic puzzles across the globe!

The demo leads you through one puzzle which, as they are making a puzzle game, makes sense as they don’t want to have you complete too many of the puzzles. It gives you an idea of what they game will be. The puzzle wasn’t particularly difficult once I figured it out but in the beginning there was no indication as to what you had to do, just a bunch of words and columns like a crossword. When I tried it it was at the end of a long day and I was a little tired so it may not have been the best time to try a puzzle game that needs you to decipher the puzzle before you can solve it.

Ecto Mercenary Program: Ecto Mercenary Program is a sci-fi looter shooter where you and your friends form a mercenary group to forge a path for yourselves. Rise from a destitute crew fighting raiders for scraps to a feared force on the station. Survival is not guaranteed.

I tried this and just couldn’t get what you were supposed to do. I am not sure if this is a problem with the game or the demo. You are confronted by a menu that when you click play it leads you to new menu with a bunch of options that you have no idea what they mean. You have to hire mercenaries with money you are not sure where it is and then it hires a random mercenary. You are then dropped into a speaceship?? Where you are told to move forward and find an exit. You have no weapons but can punch but the enemies you encounter do a weird lurch attack or have guns. You pick up random things on the side but have no idea what they do. I just think this demo could do with a tutorial level to get you to understand what you need to do. A clearer step by step initial gameplay walkthrough would probably make this demo a better showcase for what the game is.

Pirates: Rogue Fortune: A rogue-lite action and adventure game set in the Caribbean! Explore the ocean depths in search of treasures, survive intense naval battles, and upgrade your ship to reclaim your place as the greatest pirate in a world to discover with every attempt.

This game’s description is exactly what the game is. It is a roguelike where you sail your boat from one point of interest to another, these being either resource gather spots that entail a battle as well or a person to speak to that adds to the story or you can purchase upgrades from. At the resource gathering spot it is a little like Dave the Diver mixed but mining. You descend from the boat and mine out resources (iron gold and so on) while a timer runs out at the top. You have a bag that carries up to three items before you get weighed down and swim slower through the water. There are various power ups that help with this such as increased number of slots in the bag or a balloon that takes up to 2 resources back to the ship (this is on a cool down). There are also run based power ups and chests you can collect that are trapped in rocks.

When the timer runs out at the top of the screen the battle segment starts and you need to ensure you have returned to your boat in order to fight off the enemy boats. Your boat starts off with cannons that have 3 shots before they needs reloading. There is a reload mini game where you need to press space bar when it hits a green segment reload bar to get a perfect reload otherwise the reload still happened but takes longer. The enemy ships vary in size and health and get more numerous and powerful as you move to further points of interest along the run.

There are various people along the run that offer varying items and powerups as well as story notes. Many of the power ups are double edge swords with a bonus and a curse.

Overall this was a fun play and if you enjoy roguelike games this may be of interest as I think it mixes different ideas and could have a lot replayability especially if they have a large variety of items, bonuses and curses to deepen the experience.

A small caviate is that the game will release into early access so if you try the game and like it know that it will not release immediately as a 1.0.

Valor of Man: Forge your party. Master your fate. In this turn-based roguelite RPG, lead four heroes through a fractured realm of danger and destiny. Build synergies, unlock powerful abilities, and face ever-shifting challenges in an epic battle for survival. No journey is ever the same.

Another game whose description is exactly what the game is. It is another roguelike with 4 heroes all with different abilities. The ones in the demo are classic DnD clases, there is a fighter, a healer, an assassin/rogue and a spellcaster. As you progress down the roguelike tree, have different encounters such as battles, different story beats and campsites. Story beats, interactions and campsites give you either new ability, increase your current abilities, give weapons/armour and so on.

In the battles the heroes have Action Points (in the demo they have 2 each) that can be used to move and or attack. You can either move and attack, double move or double attack. Some abilities have other ways to use them (once every turn or 2 turns, once a battle, using mana and so on). The controls are intuitive and if you have played a turn-based game before you will have an intrinsic understanding of the game.

As with all the roguelikes that I have played this could be interesting as long as they add a big variety of abilities, enemies, heroes, synergies and encounters. I did find sometimes it was unclear what the ability would use and then why I couldn’t use it again at a later time. I think the more you play the more you will learn what all the icons mean and it will be a little clearer.

Replaced: Uncover the sinister secrets of Phoenix Corporation, through the eyes of its own creation, R.E.A.C.H. - an AI trapped in a human body against its will.

The premise for this is an AI has been trapped in your characters body. You have escaped or been disposed of outside the city walls. The area is desolate and, in the demo at least, there is no further history of why this is the case. There are journal articles and other highlights you find along the way that give context and more information on what is going on. The game is a side-scroller but there are places where it moves to upper or lower levels and for art 2.5D style there is an incredible feeling of depth and distance to the levels. There is a sequence when you are above some enemies in an airduct and you can really feel the sense of perspective.

This is going to be a special game. The art style is amazing, the pixel art graphics are in that incredible hi-res crisp style that is just gorgeous and the colour pallet they use is vibrant and sharp. The combat is precise and although not difficult as such in the demo at least, is satisfying. It gives you the feeling of being something special without feeling overpowered. The tutorial was clear and gave you enough information to complete the demo without too much trouble. The enemy designs are interesting and although they are similar, there are enough differences to them to make them unique but obviously part of a whole or collective. The one other non-enemy person you meet is clearly stylised and interesting. There is enough in the demo to hook you and want to know more. I think this will be an interesting game and it will certainly be a highlight for the graphics.

Alonitaire: Break the rules of solitaire in this atmospheric roguelike deckbuilder. Unleash forbidden sigils while the Jack of Spades begs for your help in secret. Forge game-breaking combos under the Joker’s watchful eye and uncover the truth behind the deck. Don’t investigate… just play.

This is a fresh take on Balatro with the base game being solitaire instead of poker. The cards are asleep and need waking up as they are being held captive by the joker. When cards are woken up they gain abilities to use to help you win the game against the joker. There are abilities that allow you to move other cards abilities around, one that moves the cards around, one that allows the card to be placed on any card of the opposite colour that is of a lower value, and the initial card that you can use being the one that wakes other cards up. I didn’t play a lot of the game as I am working through the demos I have downloaded, but I will come back to this one when I am done with all the others. Definitely worth a play if you like Balatro.

These are the demos I have tried so far, there were some really good games in there. The Steam Next Fest is a really good celebration of gaming and if I had infinite time and I wasn’t working fulltime, I would certainly play more if games. I whoever is reading this has any suggestions please leave a comment below.