Recent reviews by CTRLton

bonk

It's great. Top notch movement, very good gunplay, fun modes, smooth gameplay all around... Fun arena shooter

Feels good to rediscover Oblivion and read old game forum posts from 15 years ago when you Google stuff that you forgot about, and seeing new players asking questions about this relic. It's exactly what you want out of a remaster

Kill monsters, level up, get all the loot, laugh at the jokes, die, learn the game more, rinse/repeat. It isn't easy, but it's fun and rewarding.

It's a great turn-based dungeon crawling roguelike, loads of replay value from classes and loot and whatnot, cool systems, and chickens.

The universe game is good.

They've fixed a lot of problems people had and the game itself is a lot of fun. Mechanics are fun and there is a lot of charm for each character.

On launch it de-synced/lagged out a lot of matches and there were a lot of people upset about battle pass progression and they've made good changes for that and then some, excited for the future of the game.

So far, I have disagreed with most folks and reviews about Phobies being "too" P2W.

100%, you could be a whale and you could progress a LOT faster than anyone else that is playing strictly F2P, but that doesn't mean that you won't be able to outsmart those whales and have better plays.

Multiple times I've been able to outsmart an opponent that is over 10-20+ stress levels than me (which is basically your account level, there is a separate ranking system that is not at all related to what level your account level is at, and every 10 levels, you unlock a new Phobie, a new unit to use).

Sure, someone that is smart, and has the advantage due to paying up some money and having slightly higher level units and/or more units from spending money on packs could turn the tide and defeat you...

It's going to happen with games that are monetized like this. But those folks are also going to get to a higher ranking a lot faster because of the wins that they will be able to rack up quickly just from spending money, but, in the end, it really does come down to the plays that you make.

But I've noticed that most of the people I go up against that are much higher level that have obviously paid their way into progress, have made worse moves than folks that are closer to my level and being 100% F2P.

I'm only stress level 20 (account level 20), with almost 24 hours game time on Steam with this review, maybe another 10 or so hours on mobile since it's cross-play/cross-progression with mobile. I usually do arena matches on Steam (live turned based, 1 minute turns) and I do the async matches (make a turn whenever you feel like it within 3 days) on my phone.

So far, I truly don't feel like it is this predatory, strict, P2W game. There is plenty of fun to be had and a lot to learn without spending a dime, and I don't see why someone wouldn't want to spend some money on the cheap packs (around $5) here and there for a chance at a cool new Phobie (unit to use in matches). There are some optional monthly costs and you can spend money on some of the resources which basically makes it faster to progress through the account leveling system to unlock new units.

And to be straight up, I usually absolutely despise this type of monetization model in games. But this is designed in a way where, if you make the right moves, you'll definitely be able to outsmart and outplay your opponent who is miles beyond your account level that has more units and has possibly paid money to play.

Granted, I'm in the third to highest rank currently in the ranking system in the game... Maybe once I reach a higher tier in the ranking system, maybe I would change my mind and see that "end game" is whoever pays the most money... But when I take a look over at the leaderboards in-game, most of the top ranked players aren't even remotely close to being at max level yet. There are definitely some players in the top 20 players in the world where most haven't paid, or at least haven't paid nearly as much, as some other players.

Would love to see this game take off, my biggest gripe is the "cap" that you have every day, they want you to spend "coffee" points on reaching a higher peak but I wish the developers would just get rid of that. Because you "could" spend money on those "coffee" points, but you can also earn them in-game through the grind and afford double points, but it's so much of a grind that is purposely designed to entice you to want to throw a bit of money in.

I understand their monetization model, they gotta make money somehow, but people would be more active and want to play more if there was no true "cap" on collecting resources in order to get new units. Hell, even after every match, making those resources a lot less after a while, rather than absolutely nothing with the cap, would be a huge change and make me want to keep playing over and over again.

So yeah, I recommend the game. Who knows, maybe that changes if/when I reach the top tier ranks in the game, and yeah the monetization isn't the greatest but it's also not the worst, they have to make money somehow and it's designed in a fair enough way because of how you can outsmart/outplay people.

Also, the animations/artstyle/graphics/feel of the game is top notch. It's cool to see all of the units they they've designed, hell I think I only own around 20-25 units so far and there are definitely over 130+ units each with unique stats and unique skills.

Imo, It's worth a shot if you enjoy turn based strategy games! It's 100% free, so might as well give it a shot. 👍

This is the first Rogue Legacy game on steroids.

If you enjoyed the first game, you should definitely get this because it has a crazy amount of content and is an amazing sequel to the first game.

If you've never played Rogue Legacy but enjoy roguelike/roguelite games in general then this is an absolute 100% snag, it's extremely well done.

Thanks to the devs for making this, it's an awesome game.

Firm handshakes to y'all involved in making this.

Chillaxed Bomberman battle royale game

This is the best VR game right now and probably will be for a pretty long time, until Valve releases another VR game but this'll still be top tier VR gameplay for years to come