Recent reviews by rinimt

You can find my full review here.[www.the-backlog.net]

Clannad takes you into the life of Tomoya Okazaki as he experiences his final year of high school. For several years now he has been a delinquent with no goal after school ends, but after a chance meeting his life begins to change. How it changes is up to you as you make the choices of his life in this massive Visual Novel.

Clannad is absolutely massive. Don't go into this VN expecting to be done in a few hours. Well, perhaps you can finish a single path in a few hours (depending on your reading speed), but if you really want to dig into the game, it's going to take you much longer than that.

I personally found Clannad extremely slow to start off, but once it got to the later parts of each story path, it really picked up. Once it does start to pick up, your emotions are going to get hammered as the story takes a lot of turns. That said, the slow ramping up parts made it really hard to read for me.

I do recommend Clannad in general, however the story does start off a bit slow. The asking price is also extremely high for most (though considering how much content you are getting, I do feel the price is justified), so if you're on the fence about getting this then you may want to just try and wait for a good sale.

Disclaimer: I was provided a key for review by the publisher.

You can find my full review here.[www.the-backlog.net]

Ant War: Domination is like a clicker game combined with some strategy. You take the lead of an ant colony and must build up your army until you take over the world. You’ll need to breed ants, get food, and build up your army so that you can defend yourself from the world.

To manage your ants, you must set what percentage of each type you'll have doing that job. Gathering food and having a decent army are all pretty important. The more you grow your colony, the tougher your opponents will become.

The problem with Ant War is that is all you do. You set what percentage of each type do each job and then just watch, sometimes interacting when it comes to doing battle. Sometimes, even if you're able to win a battle, the game will still suggest you run away. The goal is so exceptionally high that it's not something you'll just complete in a few hours.

I cannot recommend Ant War: Domination at all, and I'd rather recommend you find a game that actually lets you interact a bit more. The constant "Like us on Facebook!" ads also get exceptionally annoying whenever you level up, and really do make it feel like a flash game (perhaps because it was one).

My full review can be found here.[www.the-backlog.net]

Growing up, I've always been fascinated with the Titanic. When I saw Fall of the Titanic come up on Steam, I grabbed it instantly and dived into the exploration mode once it was installed. The ship is pretty well built, however there are quite a few issues.

You have the option of two modes - Exploration Mode and Escape Mode. Right now, Escape Mode is the only "finished" mode. Exploration Mode is extremely barebones. There are no other passengers or crew members on the ship, and a lot of doors are blocked off. I only tried Escape Mode once, but the one time I tried it, I ended up getting stuck in the Grand Staircase and being helpless as the water quickly rose and drowned me.

The biggest problem Fall of the Titanic faces is the camera and motion blur. Even just taking a few steps, the blur gets horrendous and the camera starts swinging a bit. Start running and these issues are just multiplied. This really killed the game for me, forcing me to have to stop playing it for fear of having to go throw up. It is due to these issues, along with the issues of getting stuck in or clipping through railings, that I cannot recommend this. The game feels like it should be in Early Access and not released as a "full" game like it is.

My full review is available on The Backlog.[www.the-backlog.net]

Dreaming Sarah delves into the dreams of the comatose Sarah. Within, you'll find things you'd only find in dreams - magical beans that can make upward drafts, mansions with things that can only be seen with special glasses, and the ability to turn into a fish. You'll only receive small snippets of story as you explore the area.

The platforming in Dreaming Sarah is pretty well done. While playing on controller it felt pretty responsive. Switching around items can be a pain at times, and you may often find yourself deactivating your parasol when you accidentally open the menu. There is a large amount of backtracking to do in the game, but it does generally push you along in the right direction.

While I do highly recommend Dreaming Sarah to those who like puzzle platformers, I only give that high recommendation if you can get it on sale. At full price the game just feels too short.

My full review can be found here.[www.the-backlog.net]

Let me tell you a story. A story of a miner - we'll name him George - who was bored of his regular mining life. He wanted tod o something different, something that most would even consider to be impossible. George wanted to dig into an infite pillar of ore! Oh but of course they told him no, because that's just silly! George would have none of it, and thus he started to have a Miner Mayhem.

Miner Mayhem is basically a clicker game where you need to move the mouse back and forth, avoiding the pieces jutting out of the ore, all while you try and get as high of a score as you can. Interesting in concept, and it does work... Just not in this game. A game like this desparately needs the ability to click both the right and left mouse buttons, not just the left. The sensitivity on where you can click got me killed more times than I can count. You can unlock additional skins for the miner depending on how you perform in the game, but that's all they are - skins. They don't do anything special or different for you.

Skip Miner Mayhem and go play better titles (like Timberman). Tell poor George that his dreams are hopeless, all thanks to the TOO minimal controls within his poor game. He also needs to not go after ore that looks like it is straight out of Minecraft, and if he really wants to then he should just go play Minecraft instead.

You can find my full review here.[www.the-backlog.net]

Have you ever wanted to commit the perfect murder? The one where no one suspects you and you get what you wanted, the estate? You can live out that dream in The Deed, a game where you plot to kill your sister to try and get your father to give you the estate instead.

Despite how short The Deed it, and the fact it is Built RPGMaker, it's a suprisingly good good. The story is quite good and gets the point across, and you also get a good look into the backstory of your character. Figuring out what you need to do to get away with the murder can be tricky, and I still don't think I've seen the "best" ending (I got the estate but the butler and maid quit). In the time I've played it so far, I beat it 4 times, with one of those getting a decent ending. It does get a bit annoying playing through the opening sequence constantly though, and I do wish there was a way to skip it more easily.

Considering how cheap the game is, The Deed is more than worth what you pay. It has a high replayability factor, and as I said the story is really good.

My full thoughts can be found here. I will try and do a full review should this game ever leave Early Access.[www.the-backlog.net]

Minecraft was a runaway hit, and since then many have tried to copy it. Voxelized is no different. After a rocky start, including 5+ months of no updates (despite a promise of "Beta in 2-3 weeks"), the game has finally started to see some updates. I played some of the game back when it was in "alpha", and I decided to come return to it with it in "beta". What I found was a revamped game... but it's still not much better.

Voxelized's screen is extremely small, and it doesn't play well at all with the Steam Overlay. The screens you're shown are pretty much Minecraft (including one of the default splashes saying Not Minecraft). The world creation is an extremely stripped down version of Minecraft, and you can crash the game if you make it too large. When you enter the world, you're plopped into the very corner. You can enable flying mode to get above the sky box, or dig down to see the moon/sun as it goes below the world.

While in the alpha version, the most fun I could find was just going for an infinite loop with falling. The beta version provided even more fun - you can use dynamite to flat out break the game. Should you place it too close to the bottom, things start getting buggy. Place it (and explode it) on the very bottom layer? Things really start to break. (I have a video of this in my full article).

Voxelized is looking very promising at being a bad Minecraft. My suggestion is to just play one of those many other Minecraft clones out there (or just Minecraft itself) and just pass on Voxelized.

You can find my full thoughts here. If this ever leaves early access and sees a full release, I will do a full review at that point.[www.the-backlog.net]

Have you ever wondered what it'd be like to play Diablo with poor English and horrendous movement? Well you're in luck, because here's Magician's Apprentice! Magician's Apprentice is an early access Action RPG that attempts to give that old school Diablo feel. What it actually comes out as is something that looks like it was run through Google Translate (note: with English set as the ONLY language), and combat and movement that feel extremely clunky.

Movement is available in 8 directions through WASD usage. As of now, there is one area in the Prologue where you can climb to the top of a building to kill some zombies and skeletons. Once you're up there, have fun getting down. I was stuck for several minutes out there as I tried to find the exact right angle to get down, nearly giving up thinking I was just stuck there for good.

Combat comes through setting up runes (spells) for use. Certain runes will let you continue chaining them across and down, while some will only let you continue down. Once you've set a rune, it's stuck there unless you set one that will end the across setup. I couldn't find any sort of key that would let me remove them from being set without doing that. You can also set special abilities to these runes which are extremel useful but do increase the MP cost (MP cost also increases based on how many pieces you have set for that key). If there's any sort of melee combat for those times you run out of MP, I couldn't find it. MP and HP do recover fairly quickly however, with HP often recovering faster than enemies can hurt you!

Right now, I don't see much hope for Magician's Apprentice. The developers have not responded at all in the discussion board. They do state that the price "will increase over time", and right now the game doesn't even feel like it is worth the $10 asking price, even if you do get "all future updates for free once you buy it". Unless the game improves by leaps and bounds, you're much better off just avoiding Magician's Apprentice and finding a better Action RPG to play instead.

You can find my full review here.[www.the-backlog.net]

Disclaimer: I was provided a key for review by the publisher.

Steel Strider is a game in the style of old classics such as Super Contra and Turrican, where you take up the role of a MCR (Manned Combat Robot) and work to answer distress signals across different planets. As you play, you'll receive a variety of upgrades and new weapons that will greatly help in your quest.

Playing through on Easy, I felt that at times there weren't enough checkpoints (for easy mode), causing one to have to constantly replay difficult sections should they die at a bad time. The weapons all have their uses, though the arc on the grenade launcher did feel a bit odd. There also didn't seem to be enough health packs (again, for easy mode), often leaving me having to attempt to go through sections taking no damage as I'm extremely low.

Despite those complaints, the game is fairly enjoyable, and will last around an hour (if you don't die a lot - deaths and some cases of rage quitting from a launch bug (since fixed) are what caused my playtime to be higher). Replayability comes down to if you want to try it at higher difficulties or not, and trying to beat your best high score. If you're a fan of this style of game then be sure to check it out.

You can find my full review here.[www.the-backlog.net]

Disclaimer: I was provided a key by the publisher for review purposes.

G-senjou no Maou - The Devil on G-String follows the story of 20-year-old Azai Kyousuke, the foster son of yakuza leader Azai Gonzou. Kyousuke is a slave to money, working for his foster father to pay off his father's staggering debt. When a new girl, Usami Haru, transfers to his soon, a mysterious man known only as "Maou" also appears. A stange series of events begin to unravel, including kidnapping and murder threats, in this 30+ hour crime/mystery visual novel.

The Devil on G-String is by far one of the best visual novels I've read to date. The writing is absolutely fanastic, although I did feel the endings were a bit weak. The artstyle and music are also fantastic, helping to show the scenes perfectly. Fans of the old fan translation may find issue with the fact the CG scenes were adjusted to fit the 16:9 format, but I felt the CG scenes looked amazing. There are some spelling issues within, such as Gonzou being spelled "Gonzo" once. Also, while the original version had erotic scenes, this version does not, though the lead-ins to them are still present. I didn't really feel like I was missing much with them not being there however, so they don't really seem to necessary.

This VN is more than worth the asking price. The voices do add to the experience, but for the asking price of getting the game voiceless, you're getting a fantastic deal. G-senjou no Maou - The Devil on G-String is an easy recommendation from me for fans of crime/mystery stories, and for fans of visual novels in general.