Sunday, October 8, 2017

A week in review: Freeman: Star Edge, SORE and Under Hero.

So this week brings with it my first overall negative preview. I try to avoid publishing a review unless I can score it at or just below average or it has some sort of hook. Something that a rating system can't cope with and even a poor rating cannot eclipse. Here goes!

Freeman: Star Edge [ALPHA]: 5/5
Full disclosure: I love this game so much I'm trying to help promote it any way I can. This article snippet is part of that but not in the pushy way. The demo is free on KickStarter. Judge for yourself.

I will be revisiting this title quite often but for now I'll give you my initial impression. Which was a good impression. Quite impressed. Very impressive. This unity based open world promises a lot of what we loved about the Mass Effect and various Bethesda games. All in a tighter package and based on unity! This means that even low spec machines should be able to enjoy this entire game with very little reduction in the visual aethetic.

The game needs more polish but before that can be done many features need to be added. You don't polish the chrome until after you've put the engine block back in, Granddad. It will be some time before the game is ready for Beta. As it is right NOW it feels fairly complete and would trounce most of what's on offer via Steam Direct or the old Greenlight system.

The various systems will see some loving soon and we're about 2 weeks away from an update. The music and audio effects work. The lore is being worked on pro-bono by someone who really loves the direction. The art and aesthetics leave much to be desired but are functional. You can also fall through the map, get stuck on map features and end up with bandits flying across the screen as they die. Even then. In this alpha state, it is obvious the dev and community care and are working to improve everything they can bit by bit.

SORE: 3/3
Boy. This sure is a game. It's one of those Room-isodes. Try to leave the room by any means. This is gonna be short because there's not much going on here. The aesthetic is retro and minimalistic. The dialogs are translated from Russian (I believe) and it's tone is very dark.

You are a ghost and you are somehow stuck in the cell you recently committed suicide in. Your guard doesn't seem put off in the least that there's a corpse and the corpse's ghost on the other side of the door talking to him. He gives you clues and some dark humor. That's about it. You have to find the keys needed to unlock the door by interacting with your environment.

There's not much going on here but the existential and psychological ramifications seem quite clear for the protagonist. He just wants out. I could spend hours trying to MacGyver my way out and I did on a live stream. I had to quit as I was over time and no closer to the last key. An excellent time sink. It earns a score better than most mobile games and earns a bonus for not having micro-transactions.

Neorj: This is the game I can't even being to try and explain away. As of 10-8-2017 I've no opinion to express so I won't..

Under Hero [Demo]: 7/7
Another retro styled game. This one is a platformer with a very unique combat system unlike other unique combat systems but similar to a few. Keep in mind there are two modes: Exploration and Encounter. Both have different control schemes. Also, and this is VERY important, when in doubt do not use Escape use Backspace. I threw myself into a tizzy trying to exit a shop dialog because I forgot to use backspace.

So what happens when a world has gotten used to the same gimmick over and over? Bad guy kidnaps princess, hero rescues princess. New bad guy kidnaps more recent princess and a new hero shows up. So on and so forth. Gotta get tiring huh? Well sir... someone did something about it. I low order minion dropped a chandelier on Smug-face McSmartpants and his stupid scarf. Now he's inna pickle. With no Szechuan sauce in sight. It's up to the lil masked kid to do his errands, level up, and defeat his own boss before it's too late.

RIVETING amirite?? We're looking at high marks for sound, music, graphical quality, content, the whole shebang. After you acclimate to the controls and dual modes you should feel right at home along similar titles like the Mario and Luigi and Paper Mario games. Though you may relapse and sometimes forget you are in an encounter and not exploring which tosses your button timing out the window. Over all the demo shows a lot of care and polish. Once the full game is out I'm expecting it to be as widely played as Undertale. But only if the story is up to snuff and the price is right.

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