Leafsw0rd 最近的评测

I've 100% the game as of time of review. It's a fun little puzzle game, but currently the difficulty drops off more and more in the second half.

Once you switch from 'shaping the right to fit your box' to 'shaping the box to fit your rice', it's surprising how quickly it becomes much more trivial. I suspect the root cause is that the boxes can overlap in many ways, whereas the rice can NEVER overlap with other rice. That, and the cover-up mechanic creates a very prescriptive feel to the last few worlds.

There are more levels coming apparently and it's an enjoyable enough experience, but look at my current playtime and seriously ask yourself if the price is worth playing what amounts to a mobile puzzle game. Personally, I'd say it's not worth the full price, wait for a sale instead.

"The Best Digimon Game Yet" is finally starting to reach the point where it's not damned by faint praise... is what I would say if not for the softlocks.

There's several of them. Some are avoidable, like in the Factory Area, as long as you don't stray off the path (though this game loves points of no return until the absolute endgame. But getting through one random room in Chill Cosmic is merely a matter of luck. No game as ridiculously expensive should have so many places where it breaks for no reason whatsoever.

I have waited for a fix to this for a whole month. There is no acknowledgement of this issue that i can find. I would give this an unquestionably positive review if these softlocks didn't exist, and I will in fact revise this review if it happens. But until then, I am stuck. And 70 hours into my save, I cannot bring myself to restart to avoid it.

Edit: As promised, they've fix the bug and I am no longer softlocked.

Still, this is not a bug fix that should've been bundled in with a dlc update. This deserved a direct fix much sooner, rather than two months after the fact.

This game's developer has no idea what they want. That might sound unsourced, but it's the only possible explanation for the insane choice they made.

Less than two weeks in, they have fundamentally changed the mechanics behind monsters. This involved combining the types and abilities into one system called 'traits', in an effort to 'simplify' things. In practice it does the exact opposite, because it both removes helpful information included elsewhere (indicators that highlighted attacks with a type advantage or disadvantage) and bundles two different types of information together (high-level data about their elemntal matchups, and intricate data about their skills and abilities).

This has happened only two weeks into the game's life span. That's insanity.

And that ends up feeling illuminative on some of the other confusion after this game's design. For example, most of the monsters have names that feel either grounded or mythical - names like Ancient, Soft Paw, Owlbear, Luminous Grub. It feels very appropriate for a grim setting like this to have names that feel very pragmatic and frank.

...And then you have starters like IGNISURGE and HERBIFELINE, which look completely ridiculous and yank you out of immersion right from the get-go. A weird outlier that feels much more understandable if you take uncertainty as a negative trait of the developer.

It's a genuine shame, because this game has a strong feeling of gloom and dreariness, and it feels like a game where thought has gone into it to make it feel more unique. So many of the modern mon games are absolutely brainless poke-clones who are so dead-focused on outdoing pokemon that they're genuinely incapable of realising how derivative they're being. And this game is a much-needed breath of fresh air in the industry... for now.

But I cannot in good conscience recommend a game that may be entirely different by the time you read this.

This is a flawed game, but one with such a clear idea and a great core execution that it makes for four very satisfying chapters to puzzle through and understand. It's a shame there's actually five chapters.

TL;DR:This is a soft recommend, leaning more into a strong recommend if you really like the style of puzzle. flawed but compelling.

Chants of Sennaar is a game about languages. The puzzles are easy... if you know the language. the true challenge of the game is learning and inferring the language pieces from the scattered pieces of dialog, It's quite compelling as a premise, honestly, and very satisfying as you move through the area and slowly see everyone's dialog and writing make sense. I completed this whole game in two sessions, and one of those kept me up until 3am.

With that said, there's a fair few problems that don't sink the game, but do make the experience worse than it has to be. In particular, I think the whole ending chapter was very lackluster.

The biggest, most consistent problem has to do with the glyphs are arranged and organised. Each language consists of about 32 glyphs judging by the total, and it's not like they're randomly created or assigned. for example, in the very first language, the glyph for 'preacher' is 'man' and 'talk' combined, and other jobs in the first language follow the same pattern. The problem is that the list as a whole is sorted only by the order in which you encounter glyphs. this means that, once you're done with a language's main chapter and only doing the occasional circling-back puzzle, you have to scroll through the list every time to find everything you need. Having them sort by topic or 'root word', either as you deduce them or once you complete the language, would make it a lot less tedious to revisit in the occasional puzzles. This also has the effect of forcing the actual puzzles to be really simple. Making it worse is that later levels front-load more and more of the language at you, which does prevent you from being able to just bludge your way through pages unless you're making at least somewhat-informed decisions (like randomly places the four glyphs you know match up with NESW directions until you stumble across the right arrangement.) but makes the sorting problem worse. this sorting gets at it's most egregious with the fourth language, which has a whole set of digits... which are not only given to you in two halves, but those halves aren't even sorted within themselves.

Probably the most awkward language to learn is the third language. they speak in Yoda, and the only times i really struggled once i knew the relevant languages for a topic was trying to figure out not what glyphs i needed to use, but what order i needed to use them in. the unsorted nature just adds to the tedium, as these circle-back puzzles often feel like trying to use a tourist's book to muddle your way through a convo... except it's just a jumbled pile of flashcards. you'll get there eventually, but you'll spend a lot of time stumbling over yourself trying to get the glyphs arranged right. this is a game you need to play in consecutive close sittings - you will forget the nuances if you leave for more than a few days. and it's telling every other language is pretty basic formats.

fast-travel system is pretty meh at best. When using it to teleport, it's fine, nothing to write home about, but fine. But several terminals have most of the puzzles that require you to circle back to existing languages in them, and if you're not at that terminal, you need to access terminal - move to map page - select icon - wait for transition - access terminal - move to talk page. It's just not at all an elegant system for what should be a very simple task. you could also remove at least one click not having the terminals start up on a screen you never need to do anything on, maybe by integrating it into the talk page

Related is the fact that several levels are fairly mazy, and navigation is rather confusing. There were times when I was actively working through a level and i was still getting lost in it because colour palettes are one per floor and many levels consist of largely very similar rooms. The second and third levels were the worst for this, partially because the fourth had a map, but moving often feels tedious throughout, especially when you've either solved a puzzle or know how you're going to solve a puzzle when you reach it and you just have to get there, travelling down several flights of stairs slowly. About the only time i could confidently say I could get to exactly where the fast travel was without making any wrong turns is when i teleported to a terminal to do one thing and just had to walk back.

Now, the final level is really why i feel compelled to write a review. Despite everything i've complained about being present in all the chapters up until the final one, I was having a great time in spite of them, because the gameplay is unique and compelling because of that uniqueness, and the anticipation propelled me skyward. seeing the world actively change because of your communication is really cool too. But i don't think the final chapter is all that well structured and the answers given were just unsatisfying. spoilers from here.

The biggest problem with the last chapter is that it tries to skip the actual, compelling main gameplay loop. most of the fifth language is given to you in large bulk through a series of not that difficult puzzles, and you basically go straight from not understanding any of the language to understanding all of it and just being able to read things plainly - and yet also not, because you don't actually know any of the symbols, you just mouse over the glyphs and get the whole thing. you never have to try to figure out what someone is telling you, it's just handed to you. The most interesting part of the game is skipped in it's final act.

And what it's replaced with is a lame Skynet plot with the most lethargic skynet in existence. how does skynet control the populace and keep them divided? i don't know. maybe it just controls the top floor. really if you start to look at anything too closely, the worldbuilding falls apart - like the whole conflict of the first floor being entirely avoidable with no need for language translation if literally any guy walked through a certain public area while literally playing any instrument. but you don't really question it the first time through because you're more focused on how fun it is to learn the language than if it makes sense as a whole. it's only when you don't get to learn the language organically that you really just have to start looking at whether what you're doing makes sense.

then the ending degrades into a standard glitching simulation twist (fortunately one you're only put in at the end of the game, whole game isn't a simulation). and then degrades even further into a chase sequence that thinks if it puts enough weirdness on top of the levels you're just doing again, you won't mind that this has NOTHING to do with the game's main premise? and the fact they use the monster for the simulated chases kinda raises a lot of at least somewhat important questions - like does this mean that the monster was created by skynet? how? why? and why don't you get the same fate? are you a robot? if you're a robot, why do you have to write everything down manually? why don't they give you their own language to start if they're just gonna hand it over when you get there?

you never learn what sennaar is, and nobody chants either. skynet's actual name - Exile - just seems to be arbitrary. and the final rearrangement 'reveal' of the links symbol works for at most 2/5 languages.

It is still a great game. But that's in spite of it's ending chapter, and it's ui and similar reveals the game is yet unrefined.

And for all it's intended premises, the irony is that nearly every problem in the game could have been avoided if one language ruled them all.

TL:DR. This is probably one of the best "Pokéclones" out there, but it still doesn't really escape feeling like a Pokéclone. If you're really hankering for something in that peripheral line, by all means get this, this is one of the best ones. If you want something that truly feels more unique, get Siralim or Monster Sanctuary. And if you want a Pokémon game but you can fuse them, you should try infinite fusion before you shell out the bucks for this.

This is another game trying to be "Pokémon but better". Like a lot of those games, it starts in Pokémon's shadow and tries to take steps away to escape. Unlike most, to a degree it does... but unfortunately, it escapes from Pokémon's shadow into the shadow of what I can only describe as painfully generic indie tropes, something that feels like it should be an oxymoron.

Here's the retro pixel-style graphics with oh-so-scary eldritch abominations being represented by art shifts. Here's the main cast of people somewhere between 15 and 30 with no identifiable traits in any direction. Here's the world of people from dozens of different times and cultures, by which they mean "Stranger Things aesthetic, modern tumblr sensibilities and a few jokes about historical events that didn't happen". And I can't be the only one that immediately figured out the "ooh beeeg tweeest" pretty much the moment that the game tried to play coy about who the strongest warrior fused with.

This game is also a victim of timing, which I feel sorry for, because it was at least a little bit smarter than most games of the sort. Unlike a fair few indie and indie-adjacent mon games, it understood not to try and rush itself out to capitalise on the scorned fans from Sword and Shield or Scarlet and Violet, because those sorts of scorned fans do not a healthy game ecosystem make. Unfortunately, right as it's coming out, so does Pokemon Infinite Fusion take the spotlight, a game which much more directly answers the fantasy that Cassette beasts wanted to use as it's niche, and doesn't hold back on letting players indulge in it by using it's unofficial status to let players toss in their own ideas and fan-references, and by letting players do it early and often. Cassette beasts' own fusion system, meanwhile, is algorithmically generated, and if you're like me and like to explore other characters and test all of them first, rather than diving deep with your starter character and doing all their content at once, then the game can feel very stingy with it during your first few hours. (Fusion runs on Steven Universe rules, with the exact same implications - specifically I believe you need to hit Bond Level 1 to unlock it with a given character, which means you actually need to quest with the character and can't just get it by adventuring with them). Even when it's not, it doesn't feel like something you get to really play with as much as you kind of need to to make it a tentpole of your game. So what's meant to be this fairly pricey indie game's core feature is completely overshadowed by a free fangame of the thing it's trying to distance itself from.

The starters are... merely okay. There's nothing strictly wrong with either one individually, it's just that they feel like they have a hefty amount of thematic overlap (to the point that the question of which starter you want being framed as "spooky" vs. "sweet" felt kinda ridiculous). Monsters overall are pretty good, having a notably more civilised theme of being largely associated with human jobs or tech than most rosters. A shame that the potential of that is largely wasted, as you don't catch monsters, you just copy their forms, and it does change how you perceive them. You're not collecting a team, you're collecting a closet.

Catching has been frustrating. You tether on to a monster at the start of the turn, skip that character's turn then anything that happens to that monster or to you over the course of the turn affects the likelihood of success. This means that it feels just... bad a lot of the time, as you watch your HP and your chance of recording it plummet because i guess the monster or monsters both decided to make the catch harder. A classic case of making something worse from the baseline to try and make it more unique, as well as not understanding that sometimes showing the exact number is a bad thing.

Another thing that the game tries to distinguish itself with, but instead makes the game feel less interesting, is something I can only think of as monster symmetry. When you start doing things like the bootleg system which means every monster can be any type, and have so many moves that just inherit types from the monster, they just lose identity. And if I have one more game that thinks "monotyped Pokéballs and nothing else" is a great idea for their specialty Pokéballs I will feed them an entire cactus.

This game is so good, holy crap.

What this game excels in is having a simple design space that they then exploit to the absolute utmost. Literally, everything you see in the game can be counted on one hand, but it all works together in so many brilliant ways.

When the game wants to introduce a new mechanic, they do so in such a way that new pieces almost never get added, the existing pieces just get a new interaction that you didn't see before. Eventually, this reaches an insane level where you circle back to old levels and quite literally break them apart.

If you like puzzle games, you are going to love this one.

The main character's sprite - no matter which one you pick - is misaligned with every other character in the game, both vertically and horizontally. Many other things have similar misalignment issues.

Your character creation screen from your wardrobe can get parts wildly misaligned.

Your following monster's sprite can overlap with yours when walking south, when it should be behind you per the camera. This can happen even with one of the starters.

When you finish a dialog with an npc, your following monster will teleport into, then walk out of you.

I've had the menu get stuck on my screen and render me unable to save.

You can even see, in one of the screenshots for this game, the word SET clipping through the text box.

The game can't decide whether to use hard black outlines or not.

this is a game of a constant, nagging list of minor annoyances. And it's gameplay, to me at least, doesn't justify that level of sloppiness.

Temtem's an enjoyable enough game, but I don't think it's worth the $35 price at this time. It's firmly in the 'wait for a sale' and/or 'wait till it's done' bucket. FTR, I completed the first island of 3 in this build.

Issues that are early-access based, which I expect to be fixed no matter what:
- Poor Temtem/Move variety
- Character faces are low resolution and really fuzzy
- Lack of explanation of various mechanics or tricks (e.g. that it's generally more efficient to buy Smoke bombs than Balms).
- Numerous areas are listed only as 'WIP' and inaccessible.
- Game makes a big deal about Digital Temtem at the start - but you can't catch even ONE in early access.
- ALL TEMTEM CAN KILL THEMSELVES WHEN YOU'RE TRYING TO CATCH THEM
- Too easy to lock yourself out of some very handy items without the game warning you this can happen. (happens on third island - i've heard this, not experienced it myself)

Problems that are more endemic:
Splitting types as two big blobs on each island makes early teambuilding hard. Why are the first few areas wind-based if you're going to be given a wind temtem as a guaranteed starter, and wind resists wind?

Makes a big deal about Accademia at the start of the game - but it's a completely optional area. All it has is two sidequests - one just a fetch quest, the other not possible until much later. While I'm at it, should it be called 'Apprentice's Eve' if it's the day you start, not the day before?

Early game in particular is an absolute slog of beating one or two tamers, heading back to town, then walking out to beat another two tamers. The winding paths of the early areas make this worse, as well. Gets better if you use a nessla with electric synthesize to storm through the water areas. And even more so that you get your first really meaningful battles at level 20 - which feels very late.

NPC tamer Levels are all over the place, with many evolved temtem that should be impossible.

No mention of Freetem (the replenishable money source) until after the first island. And the lore of that makes players look really, really bad - you catch temtems (which is implied to be very unpleasant for them by the Freetem people) to 'free' them again, to get money from these guys. You basically exploit their good will to make money off them. Perhaps a system that involves donating temtem to work projects/pets-as-therapy/etc would have less... bad implications?

Temtem designs are often... detailed but lack a core concept that ties it all together. Pigepic, Platypet, and Cerneaf are examples of temtems that I feel have a stronger core concept, while Temtem like Sparzy and Taifu are a bit more confused and messy.

Music is pleasant-sounding, but lacks impact or anything interesting. I don't think I could recite one bar of any overworld theme I've heard.

Surrounding community (important in an mmo) is very 'git gud or gtfo', not fun to interact with. Not having chat is honestly a feature at this point in time.

I'm not intending to continue the game. It's just too slow right now. But I'll be keeping a close eye on any updates that come out.

Turn any music track on your entire computer into an exciting rollercoaster challenge! It even makes "Land Down Under" Sung by 10 Russian Tenors more epic than it already is.

Very much a successor to Portal. It's a puzzler based around physics, which, like portal, focuses on an idea that's simple in theory and AWESOME in practice!