Idle Thoughts

Sultan’s Game

Card skill checks have never been this sexy or exotic (★★★☆☆) What a difference a game’s theme can make. One day, a strange magician shows up on the doorstep of a decadent sultan with a set of cards. To play the game, the sultan has to do whatever act the card requires, whether Conquest, Extravagance,…
BallxPit

Cargo cult gaming (★☆☆☆☆) BallxPit is basically a simplified version of Breakout or Arkanoid. But wait, how can you simplify Breakout? It’s already one of the simplest, dullest video games out there. Hold that thought, look at all these level ups, each with a random choice of a new ball with a special effect. This…
Silent Hill f

What does that “f” mean? Silent Hill five? Silent Hill flower? Silent Hill fox? (★★★☆☆) Silent Hill is back, baby! It only took twenty years. I suppose it depends on how you count, but Silent Hill f is the most authentic new “Silent Hill” game since Silent Hill 4 in 2004. Time flies, huh? I’ve…
Look Outside

Monsters are people too, you know (★★★★☆) There are a lot of RPG Maker-type RPGs out there. I suppose it’s an easier point of entry for anyone that wants to make their own game. Many of these are completely earnest Fantasy-Hero-With-A-Sword-Meets-Girl-With-A-Mysterious-Pendant RPGs. No thanks. That story has been done to death. Even if I wanted…
Fuga: Melodies of Steel 3

The finale falls flat (★★☆☆☆) TL;DR, This is going to be another post about the sequel not being as good as the original. The first Fuga: Melodies of Steel was something of a revelation for me. It’s something you never see in JRPGs: a concise, 20-hour game. All killer, no filler. There are a few…
Death Stranding 2

Come for the Kojima antics, stay for the delivery sim (★★★★☆) Death Stranding 2 is one big expansion pack to Death Stranding 1. That’s the gist of it. It adds some tweaks, which honestly are pretty hard to notice if you’re not very familiar with the original. Other than that, you get the same challenges,…
Roadcraft

Paving the long and winding road (★★★☆☆) I had to hire a contractor to repair some pavement once. That’s how I came face to face with the asphalt paving machine. It truly was a vision of hell: dirty, searing hot, spewing noxious diesel fumes and vomiting gooey molten rock. It had a smell that carried…
Grounded

A small world full of possibilities (★★★★★) I’ve had a fondness of late for crafting/survival games. There’s something about their hybrid nature that appeals to me. For example, you sometimes have the choice of solving a problem through brute force and platforming or through engineering. Make some careful jumps or build a bridge over your…
Blue Prince

The roguelike Myst I never knew I’ve always wanted (★★★★★) Sometimes the universe just smiles at you. I wrote about Animal Well a little while ago, an onion layer game that’s a puzzle fest hiding behind a conventional platformer. One of my takeaways was that I wished that both those layers were better integrated. Here…
Library of Ruina

Put the dice away, edgelord (★☆☆☆☆) Here at Idle Thoughts, it goes against our Code of Conduct to write about a game without finishing it. That being said, it turns out it takes more than a hundred excruciating hours to beat Library of Ruina. Eh… maybe the Code of Conduct is more like a set…
The Talos Principle 2

Does it not follow from first principles that a great puzzle game can be appreciated despite its bloated storyline? (★★★★☆) The Talos Principle 2 is another one of those games that has the unenviable task of outdoing its spectacular predecessor. Alongside Antichamber, the first Talos Principle is my favorite “Portal-like first-person puzzle-game-with-a-gimmick”. Talos doesn’t have…
Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster

Let’s go to the mall (★★★☆☆) This is going to be a quick one. Before this remaster the only game in this series I had played is Dead Rising 2. Playing a remaster of the first game makes me miss what the sequel added, such as goofy makeshift weapons and extra objectives like needing to…
Animal Well

Down the rabbit hole (★★★★☆) Spoilers ahead! Animal Well is part of a genre. I guess a “Fez-like” is a thing now. Or maybe a metroidbrainia, I’ve heard that somewhere. Whatever you want to call it, Animal Well is one of those, namely: a game that’s ostensibly a normal platformer, but that hides underneath the…
Slitterhead

Welp, looks like we’ll still have to wait for the next Siren (★★☆☆☆) So here it is, Keiichiro Toyama’s newest horror (?) game. The setup is this: you’re a body snatcher sent back in time to the Kowloon Walled City to eradicate other body snatchers. When you’re the one stealing other people’s bodies, the effect…
Siren

Still the best survival horror game ever made (★★★★★) Siren is now more than 20 years old. A new version of it was released this Halloween: it’s basically still the same as the original PS2 version, but with a new emulator compared to the 2016 re-release. Slitterhead, a game made by much of the original…
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess

As demons fall, grass grows back anew, the mountain looms (★★★★★) “To celebrate the first time Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess goes on sale, here’s our interview with a dessert chef and images of the sweets we digitized into the game” How can you not buy a game that tells you stuff like this? Before…
Silent Hill 2 (2024)

Look, grandpa remade his old game! (★★☆☆☆) There’s a reason Silent Hill 2 is considered the grandfather of “psychological horror” games. Before that, in Resident Evil for example, things were scary, sure, but once you killed the big monster at the end, everything was basically all right with the world again. The first Silent Hill…
Castlevania Dominus Collection

The last great Castlevania games (★★★★☆) This review is going to end up being a self-imposed history lesson more than anything else. Sorry. There’s not that much to say about the actual Castlevania games in Castlevania Dominus Collection. I had never played any of the three Castlevania DS games as I’ve never owned a DS.…
This Bed We Made

It’s a competent murder mystery. So what? (★☆☆☆☆) This Bed We Made would have been an excellent point and click circa 2002. The graphics are decent, at least by indie standards. It has a novel angle: the “detective” is a maid in a Montreal hotel in the fifties. It has everything you’d expect from an…
Slay the Princess

A great setup, but not much of a punchline (★★★☆☆) By the standards of visual novels, Slay the Princess was a massive hit. It seems to have had great sales on top of receiving multiple prizes. A lot of that success probably has to do with the simplicity and pure efficiency of its title, which…
Insurmountable

A magnificent premise for a game that sadly doesn’t reach the heights it could have (★★★☆☆) Man, I really wanted to like Insurmountable. I have an immense amount of respect for developers who try to make games without any combat or violence. It’s especially unusual for a roguelike. Here, it’s just you against the mountain.…
Darkest Dungeon II

A roguelike that falls short of its illustrious ancestor (★★☆☆☆) The first Darkest Dungeon was one of the biggest indie hits of all time. It was also one of the biggest Kickstarter darlings as well. I don’t care about the exact sales number, but I’m pretty sure your game is a resounding success if multiple…
SaGa Emerald Beyond

Maintaining a tradition of quirkiness and awfulness since the eighties (★★☆☆☆) What the hell happened here? I left the Saga series oh, two decades ago, and it turned into *this* while my back was turned? My last Saga game was Frontier. I played the remastered version recently, so I got my hopes up for the…
Made in Abyss: Binary Star Falling into Darkness

Deliciously cruel (★★★★★) It’s been a while since I played this, but I wanted to write about a game I really, really liked. I’m writing this from memory, so some stuff might be wrong. Anyway, here goes. This game is deliciously cruel. Made in Abyss is a survival sim/JRPG where enemies respawn all over the…
Rise of the Ronin

An average open world game that doesn’t do its setting justice (★★★☆☆) When I played Nioh in 2017 I said: “That Ki/stamina thing is a great system! The developers should cut out the monsters, make all the enemies humans with similar stamina bars and put the game in a realistic historical setting where you’re a…
Pacific Drive

Stalkcar – Shadow of Carnobyl (★★★★☆) I have to say Pacific Drive gives a pretty bad first impression. It asks, “would you like to look at the settings before starting?” Ok, sure, why? And then it shows you almost 200 settings. You can turn off everything that makes the game what it is with extreme…
Silent Hill: The Short Message

A sign Silent Hill might finally come out of its long slump? (★★★☆☆) I like it. It’s not groundbreaking, but it checks all the boxes of what a current-day Silent Hill should be. It has: terrible trauma, a “symbolic” monster, the Otherworld, a plot twist about the nature of your character, nods to PT, a…
Choo-Choo Charles

I don’t Choo-Choose you (★☆☆☆☆) The game is pretty awful. Mercifully, it can be 100% completed in less than three hours. Like many people said, it’s a meme game. The entire map just feels like copy-pasted stock assets of a derelict mining village. Ok, Choo Choo Charles looks great. As he should. He’s the whole…
Have a Nice Death

So many roguelikes, so little time. Pass (★★☆☆☆) I was charmed by Have a Nice Death’s art style and theme, but I think the game is quite weak, especially since there’s a million action roguelites now and they’re demanding games. The developers clearly tried to channel Hades and Dead Cells. I don’t think it worked…
Everhood

The Anti-Undertale (★★☆☆☆) Quick, name that quirky, Earthbound-inspired JRPG with a quirky battle system where you meet a cast of quirky demi-humans that intermittently act as friends, enemies and comic relief and where the entire plot is governed by a twist that reveals itself differently if you pursue a pacifist or a homicidal route. Nah,…
Tunic

A clever game about the glorious days of the instruction manual (★★★★☆) Tunic is a mashup of three games: The Legend of Zelda (the original NES one), Dark Souls and… a third one. I suppose making a reference to the third game is kind of a spoiler in and of itself, so I’ll get into…
Elden Ring

A worthy sequel with all the qualities and flaws that come with going open world (★★★★☆) By my account, Elden Ring is Demon’s Souls 7, or Dark Souls 7 (i.e., three Darks Souls, Demon’s Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro). I’m opening with this to give a sense of what Elden Ring is: a sequel with one major…
R-Type Final 2

Shmup fans should rejoice there’s a new R-Type, but it’s far from perfect. (★★★☆☆) First of all, if you’re a fan of R-Type, just buy this, no questions asked. It’s the first new R-Type shmup in 20 years! If you want to go into details, well, the game does a lot right, but it also…
Pathologic 2

Even as a partial semi-sequel, there’s still nothing remotely similar to Pathologic (★★★★☆) I love this game. It’s a piece of crap, but it’s also the best game ever. I don’t think there’s any game more topical for the COVID-19 era. But nevermind being topical. Pathologic (the original) is one of the ten best games…
Red Dead Redemption II

This is supposed to be the greatest game of all time??? (★★☆☆☆) Red Dead Redemption looks great, even fabulous. It’s the best looking game yet. Extra kudos for the clothes, the streetlights in St Denis, water physics in rivers, the starry sky, fog in the bayou and, well, pretty much everything. But I did not…
Sunless Skies

Sunless Sea, now in space, still fascinating, still a chore to play (★★★☆☆) I’ve beaten one ambition after 35 hours and I give the game a score of 3 Vivisected Pugilists out of 5. It’s basically a slight improvement over Sunless Sea, but they haven’t fixed any of the bigger flaws in their design. Random…
Blade & Bones

A bargain bin Dark Souls clone (★☆☆☆☆) In Blade & Bones, you’re some kind of mute samurai dude looking for seven swords guarded by seven bosses in a small, metroidvania-ish open world. Blade & Bones is not great. It’s pretty terrible. It’s a tiny crappy Dark Souls wannabe, with lame graphics, wonky combat and lots…
Cultist Simulator

Mysterious but tedious, like the Necronomicon written by an accountant (★★☆☆☆) I have to admit the game makes a great first impression. Cultist Simulator has cool visuals for its budget level, plus the feeling of things not being quite right is immediately apparent and the quality of the prose is far above what you see…
Metal Gear Survive

A game this shady has no business being this good, and yet… (★★★☆☆) Metal Gear Survive is very much a frankengame, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It has a single player campaign and a multiplayer element, which are quite different in style, yet let you share resources, something more games should do. The…
Persona 5

An average game wearing a spectacular mask (★★★☆☆) With a title like that, let’s get the game’s biggest strength out of the way first. I don’t mean to sound too dismissive, because it’s a really, really good one. Persona 5 is simply the coolest game ever made. Period. Everything in the game’s presentation oozes a…
Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon

A spider simulator for conspiracy theorists (★★★★★) Good indie games find their own original concept, but great indie games also explore that concept to its fullest. Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon is one such game. So it’s a spider simulator. You shoot web lines by jumping off surfaces and any enclosed space between multiple…
The Count Lucanor

Pixels, horror, fairy tales and Bach (★★★★★) 10 year old Hans does not get candy for his birthday, so he leaves home forever to make his fortune, only to end up in a mysterious castle. Things then obviously take a turn for the horribly worse. Despite first appearances, this is a real horror game. If…
Cradle

A taste of life on the steppe, and not much else (★★☆☆☆) You are alone in a yurt in the middle of the Mongolian steppe with no companion other than a broken android chick with a flower vase for a lower body. Cradle sure is an intriguing elevator pitch! It’s a shame the actual experience…
Resident Evil: Revelations 2

More gun-fu Resident Evil is always a good thing, even if this is just a spin-off sequel (★★★☆☆) Resident Evil Revelations 2 is both a retread and a budget title, but despite that it’s still pretty good. Even if it doesn’t reinvent the wheel and has quite a few flaws, I still like it. You…
NEO Scavenger

The only survival game that has anything to do with survival (★★★★★) NEO Scavenger is a turn-based, roguelike scavenging game. I like it a lot, because it’s gritty, fairly in-depth and more realistic than almost every other survival game. NEO Scavenger first asks you to choose your perks/flaws: Botanist, Strong, Myopia, etc. There are no…