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Static Spotlight

The Best Game I Played this Month

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon

Definitely the best mech game I’ve ever played (even if the bar was pretty low to begin with).

Having to replay the game 3 times to see every mission and unlock all of the endings was kind of a mixed bag. Playing the same missions over and over could be tedious, especially for those with particularly unfun objectives, but it was really cool and always caught me off guard when something unexpected happened between playthroughs. While I wish there was more variety among playthroughs and a few more weapon and part unlocks, I thought it was a pretty unique way to unfold the overall narrative.

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Completed

Desktop Explorer

I went into this expecting a pretty shallow experience with a few neat OS centered gimmicks, but Desktop Explorer ended up being a much more ambitious and interesting experience that impressed me overall.

While a few puzzles felt obtuse and others required significant effort, many standout challenges felt well constructed. The blending of aesthetics and genres that you dive into across all of the different profiles made for a really thrilling ride all the way through.

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ReStory: Chill Electronics Repairs

This game is very similar to Trash Goblin, and while I found the characters and story in that game much more memorable, I think the main loop and mechanics of this game are designed much better. That game had a lot of cruft you had to push through, whereas ReStory offers a very frictionless experience.

The main cleaning and repairing mechanics are very satisfying, and decorating, buying parts, and collecting upgrades keeps things feeling fresh the whole way through. Even though I found the writing pretty scattershot and the overall plot convoluted for a cozy management game, it was easy to push through the less enjoyable parts to focus on what the game does best.

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Mortal Shell II

Good

• The generous fall damage encouraged exploration and experimentation beyond a typical Dark Souls title- General exploration felt rewarding, and the map is full of activities and collectibles. It’s also jam-packed with secrets and optional puzzles to discover.
• I appreciated how the game injected fun and quirky elements into an otherwise serious soulslike setting
• There is excellent build variety with 8 unique shells (each with their own skill trees), 8 primary weapons, 8 secondary weapons, and numerous tarstones to customize your playstyle.
• The tarstone upgrade system was well-implemented and successfully incentivized me to swap items and try unique effects

Mixed

•  While it is great to have New Game Plus at launch, the mode feels a bit underbaked.
• The main boss fights were a mixed bag; half were excellent, while the other half were either underwhelming or featured frustrating mechanics
• The combat system works well overall, but relying on resolve as the sole resource for all abilities is limiting. Halfway through the game, I stopped using the firearm because primary weapons and shell abilities felt far more useful
• The narrative framing was cool, but it never quite reached the heights of a FromSoftware story or cast of characters

Bad

• I experienced numerous bugs and general wonkiness throughout the playthrough
• The stories told through the Shell memories were not interesting enough to warrant the gameplay, which often felt like a significant slog

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Vholume

Fantastic feeling parkour in cool liminal spaces. Not much else to it, but I had a great time with this one. It’s very nice to see it launch with Steam Workshop support as well.

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Twisted Tower

GOOD

• Solid voice acting and the fact that every journal entry is VCd is a nice touch
• Fun amusement park themed levels and set pieces to explore
• I liked that some upgrades in the Real Boy Station eventually went on sale, making them much more tempting to pick up on upgrades that I would have otherwise skipped
• Good amount of enemy variety
• Whatever Piper is doing

MIXED

• Combat wasn’t really all that great or interesting, but it was serviceable enough for what they were going for
• Very short (took me about 3hr and 45m to get to the end), but for the $15 price tag, I think that’s totally fine. And there are totally new areas to fight through in New Game + for people who want to get more out of the experience
• The traversal upgrades you pick up throughout the game are far from being unique, but they do help mix up how you can approach platforming and combat encounters

BAD

• Very dated looking visuals
• Bad final boss fight and bizarre ending that doesn’t mean well with anything that had set up previously
• Obnoxious enemy placement and spawning result in a cheap jumpscare every few minutes
• Really bad post fight one liners

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Dropped

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced

The improved graphics weren’t enough to overcome the terribly paced story, laughably bad combat, and bland naval battles for me.

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Sephiria

I’m 5 Chapters and 16 hours into this game and I’ve just completely run out of drive to see this one through to the finish line. Runs are starting to feel very samey as I tend to just gravitate towards 1 or 2 of my most reliable builds. I maxed out all of the permanent upgrades about 5 runs ago, so there’s really nothing to look forward to aside from finishing the story, which I find largely uninteresting.

While Sephiria doesn’t do anything particularly unique, it blends many great elements from modern classics in the genre to create a satisfying loop that I found enjoyable for the first dozen or so hours. I’m just at a point where I’m not finding much joy playing it and need to move on to bigger and better games.

Also, the multiplayer element of this seems really promising but I didn’t have anyone interested or available to check it out with me.

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Blood Dungeon

While the platforming helps curb the mindless sort of gameplay I’ve come to loathe in these Swarm Survivor games, it still has many of the same problems as other titles in the genre.

I enjoyed the early progression when there were new levels to unlock and characters to try out, but a few hours in, runs feel repetitive, and I’m just grinding to unlock the permanent upgrades that will actually give me a shot to finish any of these areas.

I’m happy to see Messhof bring back the weird, especially after being pretty disappointed with Wheel World, but sadly this one just isn’t for me.

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Beast of Reincarnation

I only played about an hour of this game, but I could already tell that it’s a total mess. A terrible in medias res starting sequence followed by a series of extremely bland encounters led me to uninstall it as soon as I finished my first session.

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