Recent reviews by Calculated Risk

I first played this game a decade ago, and enjoyed the combination of class/mood stats, multiple branching paths and deaths that you can encounter. Coming back to it now, it's still a fun visual novel adventure, with a lot more depth than I remembered. There's a lot of interesting choices and outcomes (there may even be new ones since the last time I played). Still a recommended game, and look forward to the new game from the devs.

A neat concept, a 3D puzzle platformer where you can modify the world with photos you can take with your camera. Pretty short, and maybe a little underbaked at times as some of the challenges didn't really seem to push the game mechanic as far as it can go, but overall and enjoyable experience. Hope to see this iterated on.

Rejoice, we got a game that is for the wikipedia rabbit hole delvers in us all.

Jokes aside, this was a lot of fun in a low stakes detective game where you research everything you can to fill out information in a famous family tree. It took me a bit too long to start using the notebook to keep track of stuff, but otherwise the game does a great job of signposting what you need to look up and where for crucial information and photos.

It's a lot of reading, cross-referencing, and deduction via process of elimination that also doesn't overstay it's welcome. There's also essentially a "sequel" built into the game that got close to that, but ultimately brought the game to a satisfying ending.

Highly recommend this to anyone looking for a fun sleuthing game done right.

Strange Jigsaws is a game

Someone made this game

You can play it

And have fun

What a fun game. Didn't think bullet hell spaceship zelda-like was gonna be on my radar, and I'm glad I picked this up. It's short and sweet, with a fun progression system and pretty good challenges with both the races and the boss battles. There's also some surprisingly deep lore to explore. Well worth the price for a couple of days of fun.

I first picked up Hollow Knight in 2018 on the Switch. In the years since, I replayed it 4-5 times, always enjoying the return to Hollownest. Once this game opens up, there's so much to explore, background lore to discover, and fine tuned game mechanics to master and fall in love with. It was hard, but fair.

After the release of Silksong and the step up in challenge it provided, I decided to get the game again for PC and see what it was like to return once again. The result is that I discovered how much better I had gotten at it than I realized. I could actually do Steel Soul quite easily, get the speedrun achievements, and finally try the pantheons. After a week, I have 100% a game I was certain I never would.

Ultimately, I can't recommend games by Team Cherry enough. I think they have a knack for using their gameplay to teach you all you need to know. As someone who had over 30+ attempts on certain bosses the first time he played this game can attest, it's possible and you don't have to be lucky. The reward is usually just more challenge, and I'm here for it.

Hades 2 is equal parts sequel and director's cut of the first game, in both good and not as good. The excellent gameplay mechanics and meta progression is there, tons of interesting characters retelling ancient Greek mythology, and a well defined if not too original roguelite format. You are Melinoe, daughter of Hades and Persephone fighting four layers of depths into Tartarus to rescue her family (and later, a whole different four layer location that actually changes up a whole lot more than expected).

It's a game that very much feels like Supergiant had a ton of ideas they couldn't fit in Zagreus' adventure escaping Tartarus, and stuffed it all into a new game that kinda makes the original. The one key difference is the narrative, whereas the original had a compelling story that was actually quite small in its scope as it relates to a family reconciliation, Hades 2 ups the ante with the original house of Hades in peril at the hands of Chronos only for the conclusion to fall rather flat.

So I'm left with a game that feels improved and polished over the prior game, but without the same narrative payoff. If that doesn't bother you, than this game is probably exactly what you wanted in that it's more Hades! If it does, there's still plenty to do and I can still recommend it if only to the point of the end of the main story. The dual paths offer plenty of variety so that runs don't get rote, There's a ton of weapon and boon combos that break the game, and it isn't all that daunting to get to 100%. Very fun, with a little bit of a letdown.

My take after 100% completion (no speedrun or steel soul for me)

Silksong is great, but not for everyone. In many ways, particularly in sound design, narrative, and traversal it really shines. Hornet is a great character to play as, and while it took getting used to her movements, vast bag of tricks, and combinations I think the reward was a main character who really felt fun to play around in. Which is important because there is so much to discover in Pharloom.

I do think there are going to be a lot of people who won't get to do that, though. I think Silksong is hard, but maybe a little too punishing. If I have a critique about the difficulty, I think Team Cherry's choice to have a lot of arena style gauntlet fights with mobs who also do two mask damage is a bit much. One or the other, but not both, would have served the game better. Because the boss fights really shine, with some among my most favorite in any game.

Overall, I had a great time, and I think the key is Hornet's wide array of tools that you can play around with to get the edge you need to overcome the challenges and discover everything that is wrapped up in this big little world.

I recommend Silksong, and not just for people that played Hollow Knight

Ender Lilies is pretty damn good. That was my main takeaway after 100%. It's not great, but excels is a lot of areas, namely art and gameplay, that made me want to continue to get everything.

The story is complete and compelling, though not particularly original. I enjoyed learning about the history of Land's End, how it came to be covered in the Blight that you are fighting against and to purify. Luckily the game is short enough to not overstay.

Mechanically, the game is a lot of fun. You purify spirits and add them to your collection, and can carry two loadouts of three spirits for which you can use to fight and traverse the world. There's a couple of platforming puzzles that can only be completed with with a handful of combinations, and some of the later bosses almost require changing out spirits to better handle them.

And this is where the game is held back a bit. It doesn't do the best at training the player to understand how some of these combats work. There aren't enough platforming challenges that really encourage you to experiment; I found myself often thinking there's probably a metroidvania unlock that will help me later and 90% of the time, that was the case.

Lastly, the art is beautiful, but the world design is a little lacking. I enjoyed every area, but the backtracking didn't yield enough rewards to really feel like the world expanded enough as I gained new skills. The map itself is pretty, but there weren't enough places where I truly felt the layers of the level design.

So overall, a really fun experience that doesn't drag to the point that the weaker elements ruin the time. As a first gaming entry for the developer, it makes me look forward to the next game.

Review after 100%

The gameplay loop is solid, with enough changes to the formula for each region. There are only four regions, with 4 sub areas, which may seem short but I think the game does a good job of not overstaying its welcome. The endgame area does have a new step to the process that is a bit tedious, but thankfully you only have to do it once.

Overall I enjoyed how chill it was, how only a couple of trial and error moments allowed me to grasp each new mechanic. I played through the normal difficulty (I think) and found it pretty manageable for someone who doesn't play a ton of grid based strategy games. And the twist of restoring nature was nice, though it took me a region to finally grasp all the ways to make the dang animals happy.

All the achievements save the rarest one were done in the process of normal gameplay. If you really want to, it just took one curated session for me to play around and get the final one.

Solid game for the time required.