The last game you completed

[Johnway]

Well that was quick, but i finished Neon Chrome, a rogue-lite sci fi shooter where player are tasked with overthrowing the maniacal overseer. Players pick their human, prep their gear before beginning their assault to reach the top of the Neon chrome complex. Throughout the complex you can switch/find weapons and upgrade abilities to make them strong and survive the security forces that await you.

Surprisingly easy this one. i beat it on my 3rd try and i had a literal blast playing through the game. its not difficult to complete the first run (or i lucked out). once you've beaten the overseer, you can do it all over again like new game + with harder but more rewarding settings. But besides unlocking the rest of the items or visiting all the detour areas (there are a fair few) theres very little reason to play the game again. there is a lot to recommend with the game as the action is pretty solid, there are a wide variety of guns (broken down into various classes), music is top notch and the story gives some context to things on how bad things have become in the Neon chrome complex under the rule of overseer 1.0.

are there any downsides? i think that variety wise its a bit limited. You'll see the same few enemies recycled and although theres like 30+ floors of action, most of those areas look very samey. The residential, medical, office and labs just blur into the samey style feel. Perhaps a bit more variety is in order. i would also recommend perhaps an ability to zoom out a bit more so i can see much further ahead and plan accordingly.

its fairly cheap these days to get it so if you have a spare bit of cash around there are worse ways to spend your money. A thumbs up from me but not quite good enough for must buy,

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I finished Returnal some time ago. So now Im here to waffle about it because its great!

Fantastic game, highly recommend it. Fast and frenetic movement a little Doom 2016 except with an Iframe dash and in a 3rd person bullet hell with some roguelike elements justified by the in game lore quite nicely. It has an eerie and organic alien art style, dark environments and weird synthy soundtrack with loads of atmosphere. Nothing else quite like it Ive ever played.

Structurally its a rogue lite, so each main biome (there are 6) has a good number of possible room types that can spawn when you enter a door. These can have different monsters, chests with items, and or upgrades each time as you level and gear up in order to beat the boss and unlock the next area. This also means that if you die then it's back to the beginning. There's a checkpoint after beating Biome 3 meaning that from then on you will start at the beginning of 4.

This got a little frustrating toward the end when I had solved biome 4 easily, but not 5 and 6. Its possible to beeline to the later areas, but in order to really have a fighting chance to beat the new areas you need to grab all upgrades possible. However the movement is fluid and feels so good the game is a lot of fun moment to moment, its super satisfying to master enemies that are really tough when they first appear.

The rogue lite part is very lite, because you lose all stat upgrades, boon providing artifacts, and parasites (which give a benefit and a debuff) each time you die and return. At certain points usually after beating bosses there are permanent upgrades, the first of which is a light saber melee weapon. Each of these upgrades then allows access to more of the single run upgrades from then onwards. For example youll be able to access platforms you could see but not reach before, break energy barriers etc.

Good selection of weapons that all play differently and are all mostly viable. Each weapon you find has up to 3 rng traits which can really alter how they play and how good they are. They also have one of several special attack types on a cooldown timer which are all quite different which cause interesting decisions around whether to take a more powerful weapon or stick with a slightly less powerful one with traits you might prefer and so on.

Decent enemy variety, and most of them can kill you if you arent careful even by the end game. All the systems work together really well and make the decisions made in each run meaningful, which weapon, upgrades, artifacts and parasites to take really depend on how you like to play and there are some synergies to look out for.

Took me about 55 hours to beat, but most seem to be quicker than me. I wasnt rushing as it just feels so good to play. Each run also lets you potentially level up some of the many traits on the weapons so you usually progress something that could make later runs a fraction easier. A real flow state game.

Really sad that Saros is only coming to PS5 most likely. This is one of my favourites of the last few years now.

 

[Johnway]

justa quick update. I finished NeverEnding nightmares. An indie horror walking simulator of sorts with multiple endings depending on which directions you take. As the namesake of the title, its about a young man (thomas) who appears to be unable to wake up from a Neverending Nightmare. Every time he does wake its into another version of the nightmare and the line between truth and reality starts to blur.

Whilst i like love the hand drawn artwork, premise and artwork of the game, i think the repetitiion of it is serious issue with this game. Repetitive backgrounds, the same rooms used, same spooky locations and the same monsters. But i guess thats the point, the horror of never escaping from the horror of those locations. Too bad that it also desensitises you to it all by the hour mark(ie: it gets boring and monotonous) . There are multiple endings but they don't make much sense nor all that compelling.

Would i recommend it? maybe if it was free and was for one playthrough but the game did outstay is welcome at the 1hr and half mark.