Aden – 12 minutes completed 2 battles. This one is a strange doujin game where you play a girl who falls on a plane I think and then has slapping battles with a girl. I’m pretty sure the first level is an homage to the slapstick comedy popular in Japan. You dodge attacks (bullets and stuff) to do this running attack thing until the opponent is down. Then it turns into a rhythm game which can be tough which if you complete damages the opponent and gets to the next phase, or ends the battle. Then you get some story, go into the next level, fight enemies weirdly beat em up style, and then fight a boss and do it again. It’s quirky and a bit unoptimized, but it was fun. If it is really cheap or bundled, I’ll pick it up. 7/10
DEVIATOR – 24 minutes. This one is another Metroidvania with graphics heavily inspired by Hollow Knight. The gameplay is a bit too, but I haven’t played Hollow Knight much. This one uses a lot of top of the controller (LB/RB) for shield/parrying and attacking which makes your hands feel a little weird. So much of this game is based on the parrying and eventually dodging system. Enemies have masses of HP sometimes especially bosses. It is Souls like as the bosses are quite hard and when you die you leave a grave you need to attack a few times to get your souls back. Overall, I feel this a pretty good one with a decent soundtrack as well. The controls take some getting used to and when the action gets intense the game lags a tiny bit making perfect parrying/dodging tough. I would get this relatively cheap on sale or bundled. 6.5/10
Lovey-Dovey Lockdown – 8 minutes finished demo. This is a weird simulation/visual novel about a guy who is working low on the totem pole under a movie director. He sees a girl he had a crush on in college and they talk and then God forces them in a room and they can only leave if they make love. You can only miss work three times and it’s game over. In the room you do repetitive actions like massaging to get love points and eventually do stuff to get out of the room. I’m sure over time (it only has one day in the demo) you get more interesting actions and dialogue. This one has okay Chinese voice overs and very decent animated sprites and good backgrounds. A little meh for a gameplay 18+ game overall, but there is some quality here. 6/10
Manifest Destiny – 4 minutes. Ultra jank go around creating a vampire simple looking RPG action game thing where your demons take over your mind in failure and then your run away from some red demons telling you to hug them. The controls by this point on the keyboard where a bit hard to manage and I was done with the demo. Good intentions in the game, but not extremely playable. 4/10
Nerd Survivors – 23 minutes. Yet another Vampire Survivors like. This stars guys from some nerd thing. The graphics are nice and the music is ok as well. The starting guy has a trash weapon and I hate one thing specifically about this game. In these games you usually level up and get more weapons, but here they and their level upgrades come from chests, in which there are two at the beginning of the game and bosses/events spawn more. This leaves generic level ups to be very generic such as more HP, critical chance, speed, blah blah blah. Also, the difficulty is not balanced at all. You get a lot of spawns of enemies at every event and it’s hard to whittle them down even with a well upgraded area weapon. This has a lot of potential and has polish, but it isn’t fun to play. I’ll keep an eye on it, but for now it’s pretty meh. 6.5/10
Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse – 12 minutes. This one is a Metroidvania, but more like Dead Souls or Hollow Knight. This one has nice enough graphics but next to no direction. The controls are fine with the Series X controller as well. This had zero story and I believe is randomized every run. It feels too generic feeling to have the random every run type gameplay. It really should have likely been a fixed map one. It feels OK enough to get in a bundle, but I just was getting bored already. 6/10
NIMRODS: GunCraft Survivor – 31 minutes. Yet another Vampire Survivors like. This one has guns, decent graphics, okay sounds and an okay difficulty. The upgrades come down in air drops and contain mods to your gun which also mod your character. It makes things a bit less fun, but it is cool to see the guns develop. I also feel the pool of stuff is a bit small, but I had some fun. This would likely be only a bundle game, but it’s very decent. 6/10
Pacific Drive – 13 minutes. This one is a walking/driving simulator after weird stuff happens. Feels pretty laid back, okay looking and the driving on the Series X controller is slightly clunky. I don’t know what to think of this, but it seems like a prime bundle game. 6/10
Pampas & Selene: The Maze of Demons – 6 minutes. An old school 2D platforming action game where you explore a castle as 2 characters who you can change between. There is very little guidance although it does give hints when you get things. I didn’t like this much, but it looked really nice and played decently with the Series X controller. 5.5/10
Parry Nightmare – 8 minutes. This one is yet another Vampire Survivors like except you play some eyeball thing in a nightmare world where you must parry and your friend comes over and lasers them. The goal in the level I played was to get to 100% light. It is one of the more active of these type of games as the parrying is done when your circle lights up and enemies are in it. The level and the scene afterwards had okay enough graphics, and the music from the level sounded like a copyright infringing version of Never Had a Friend Like Me from Aladdin. Once the level is done you get your sleeping scene where you can awkwardly with the controller click on things till you get another nightmare (level) and do it again. I like this has a story, but it wasn’t crazy fun. I’m guessing there will be more weapons or powers later one as this was a bit too simple as it is. Also, this wasn’t optimized for wide screens as a part of the screen was cut off at the top. 5.5/10
Perfect Dice – 15 minutes. This one is a strange almost not rolling dice game where you try to manipulate rolls with special dice. It had decent graphics and all but the battle system is confusing. I like the music as well. This has some potential, but the main system is just not as intuitive other than things activating by being part of your die pool. 6/10
Phosfi – 6 minutes. Yet another 2D Metroidvania. This one has decent graphics, controls and sounds and music. I thought the fighting in it was decent. Overall, I felt this was a very clean polished game just lacking a little bit of the oomph. It still would be great bundled. 6.5/10
Plushie From the Sky – 4 minutes. I’m not really sure what this is. It’s supposed to be quirky souls like Anime looking graphics game. Honestly, it’s just roaming around in a decent looking 3D world. This feels like an alpha and a proof of concept. It feels really loose especially with the jumping so this is a pass unless it becomes a lot more polished. 4.5/10
Princess Pomu and the 5 Moons – 6 minutes. Yet another 2D Metroidvania about a Princess and the graphics are kind of tiny and the music is pretty good. The controls were good enough with the Series X controller. Not enough direction here either as I wasn’t sure where to go in the village. 5/10
QUIT TODAY – 12 minutes. This one is a stylized 2D beat em up combo game thing about a guy quitting his job. It’s very loose feeling but has a cool feel to it. It does need polishing, but would make a decent enough bundle game down the line. 6/10
Rack and Slay – 2 minutes. Rogue little billiard ball game. You hit yourself around and try to get enemies in holes. It’s not very exciting although it is original. 5.5/10
Realms of Ink – 19 minutes. This one is a Hades like. You play some Chinese warrior I believe and move around and it looks and plays pretty nice, but feels a lot more repetitive here. I also think the sounds are quite good and the controller with the Series X is solid. Enemies also show you attack places where their attacks land to make for some good timing. Overall it’s a bundle game, but not the worst Hades like game I’ve played. 6.5/10
Shadow of Depth – 7 minutes. This one is a top down action kind of Diablo like game. It plays OK enough and reminds me of older games where the action is okay but clunky. It has decent graphics too and plays pretty well with the Series X controller. It is alright, but I think there are better action games like this. 6/10
StormEdge – 12 minutes. This one is a souls like game with auto attacks and dodging to make attacks that can only get rid of shields of those types. The main enemies are fun but the bosses pretty much take you out in 2 hits. It’s really cheap, although it plays OK. 6.5/10
Sword of Convallaria – 18 minutes completed a few battles. This one is a Final Fantasy Tactics going to be F2P type game with nice graphics/music and alright gameplay. It feels optimized for mobile platforms. The demo is very long if you want to play it approximately 10 hours. I’m not sure if it will be badly monetized, but it has a lot going on. The battles are okay overall, but probably the weakest part along with a slightly generic story at times. 7/10
Swordplay～Karakuri～Strange Tale – 3 minutes. This is a strange throwback to the PS1 days with decent samurai times graphics and AWFUL almost worst than tank controls. This was a choice and a horrible one, especially since it sounded and looked alright even though the fighting felt very basic. The controls just need to be changed for this one to be playable. 4.5/10
Tales of Kenzera™: ZAU – 27 minutes. This one is another 2D Metroidvania, but this one has wonderful graphics with an original story about a Shaman going on a journey. It also some cool forms and just plays well. It controls very well with a Series X controller. I thought there was a challenge early on that I tried about 15-20 times and it was way too precise. I didn’t like that at all, and it felt cheap and random instead of fun. Other than that this one is gold and is from EA originals, so the quality is to be expected. 7.5/10
Tendryll – 23 minutes died on one run. This one is a cross between Slay the Spire and tactical strategy games. You have in 2 heroes you control in the demo who have movement cards and attack/magic/whatever else cards. You have 3 energy a turn like in Slay the Spire and can play your cards. You also get to use the terrain to do things like bumping an enemy into something for more damage like Into the Breach. Overall, I liked the graphics, the UI was OK enough, the gameplay fun but hard, the music and sound were decent and I was having fun. This seems like the type of roguelites I like. 7.5/10
Terra Memoria – 9 minutes played 2 battles. This one is an RPG where you play a rhino mage and it has a timing system similar to Grandia where actions take a certain amount of time. The graphics are really solid other than the backgrounds. The music is also a little generic sounding but good. The battles run a little long and I don’t like how you don’t know how much HP an enemy has. Overall, this needs some polish in parts and maybe a little tweak for battles so it’s not just guesswork for choosing damage on attacks. It is fun, but feels more like a bundle or cheaper sale game. 6.5/10
TH3-M15 GUILD – 10 minutes. Yet another Vampire Survivors like. This one takes place in a robotic office looking environment. This environment reminds me of the level in Holocure. I felt the primary weapon for the demo player was a little off in aiming until it gained levels, but otherwise was a decent game. You have missions to do and try to do them. You need money from defeated robots to open doors and activate different things. Honestly this is a decent, but not great one, but still had good music and graphics, and okay controls with the Series X controller. 6.5/10
Time to Strike – 7 minutes. This is another Vampire Survivors like more in tune with Brotato. This takes place in a small arena and you have a blaster with ammo and a beat. You have a stamina meter for hits as well which can knock back red bullets and also reload your gun if you hit an enemy, which also slows time. At the end of every round, you get a choice of 3 upgrades which include generic ones as well as new attacks. This is an alright game with decent enough graphics, but the arenas feel tiny. I think that’s the biggest knock other than feeling very simple. 5.5/10
Tiny Chaos – 4 minutes. This is yet another Vampire Survivors like. This one is very, very simple where you play an anime looking avatar class and shoot your weapon a bunch at slimes and stuff and get boring upgrades that are percentiles like damage and attack speed. Very, very, very generic. 5/10
Tokyo Waning Moon – 2 minutes. One of those stand in place and attack to the left and right only games. This one looks OK but plays horribly. It all felt loose and the enemies just kept coming. This felt so unpolished almost barely a game as well. Felt like a very basic arcade game. 4/10
Toree Saturn – 5 minutes completed 1 level which is the whole demo. This is a 3D platformer in the Toree series with good music, decent graphics and okay controls with the Series X controller. One main issue is the camera sucks a lot and must be manually controlled. This is a good speed running game, and I should play the others in the series before this one comes out. I wasn’t crazy about this and felt it was pretty loose and likely will be very short on release. I would only get bundled. 5.5/10
Tower of Dreams – 3 minutes completed 1 level. This is a 2D platformer collecting diamonds and get to the exit game. It’s pretty much the most basic of basic from platformers. The graphics are kind of small, and the music and sounds are just OK. The controls are a little loose with the Series X controller, but it’s clean for the most part. Way too basic for me and would only get in the cheapest bundles. 5/10
Trash of the Titans – 7 minutes. This a very basic, very small graphics, minimalistic music turn based strategy game where you play animals defending trash. You use skills and attack and try to win. At the end you play a Tetris mini game (doesn’t move just the placement of tiles) with the trash to feed your heroes. It’s another that’s way too basic and minimalistic to want to play long. I would only get in a cheap bundle. 5/10
Ultros – 16 minutes. This one is another 2D Metroidvania except it feels like an acid trip. The graphics are the most stunning thing with being all neon and weird looking. You go around and eat stuff to get level ups and explore in this weird space. You can also knock out parts of the environment to go places. This feels way more style over substance as it doesn’t control amazingly, but it is an experience. Not my favorite, but would be neat bundled. 6/10
Underling Uprising – 6 minutes. This one is a 2D beat em up game with loose feeling controls, pretty decent graphics, sounds and music. Overall, this one felt clean enough, but I didn’t enjoy the action as much. It also didn’t help a lot of these enemies had a bit too much HP. 5.5/10
Veiled Edge – 11 minutes. This one is a keyboard only for now 2D action platformer about a guy who wins an award and is put in a game to show his action skills. Honestly it looks and sounds pretty cool with a thumping soundtrack and good sounds, but the keyboard controls are not amazing. The worse is the shift button shifting to these little round things and the dashing and slashing. This desperately needs native controller support as the keyboard controls feels convoluted. Other than that it’s pretty clean, but not very exciting with very few enemy types as well. 6/10
Virtua Unlimited Project – 8 minutes completed opening level. This one is 2D anime looking Mega Man/Zero inspired game. This one has some girl who shoots guns and also gets a sword to do moves. The controls are a tiny bit janky mainly cause the long jump command feels weird, the shooting is on the RB of the Series X controller, and the dashing is just OK. Overall, I feel the controls need a little polish, and the graphics/sounds are neat looking, but a little blurry pixelated overall. It has potential, but there are better Mega Man/Zero likes. 6/10
V's Rage – 4 minutes. I liked the parody nature of the story in a 2D beat em up game, but other than the hand drawn graphics the action is very first game quality. The animations are not all quite there and the gameplay is floaty and a bit repetitive. This feels like an alpha for sure. 4/10
The Weird Dream – 15 minutes. Yet another 2D Metroidvania game starry a bunny with a sword. This one feels super janky especially in jumping and combat. There are even jelly floors which make the bouncing around even worse. This has some potential as the graphics and music are alright, but it felt a bit too jank to not just want to get it in a cheap bundle. 5.5/10
Welcome to ParadiZe – 27 minutes. This one is a relatively polished not quite AAA title about a zombie open world living area that has gone wrong. It has quirk characters, relatively just OK voice acting, somewhat finicky controls, especially for commanding your zombie to do thing, and is a little generic in the gather junk to make junk game. This feels like prime bundle material or very, very cheap sale game for those who like open world zombie/survival games. I know this is getting a physical release on consoles, but I’d wait till it’s on clearance to get it. 6/10
Welcome to Planet E1d0r4d0! – 4 minutes. Another janky quirky doujin style game about a girl who hears from her sister and travels to the planet to find her and her bar in a 2D action adventure game. This one has where you can move with the controller but do nothing else so you have to use a lot of keys on the keyboard in an action heavy game. This is not optimized well for wide screen computers with a lot of text being cut off on a recipe, so I had to guess when I served a girl in the bar. I also didn’t like how in the text boxes they would bounce to signify emotions or something and it just hurt my eyes seeing the screen shake and bounce so much. The graphics for the game are OK, but the ones for the character portraits are decent. If this had better controller support, I would say it was OK, but without it, this seems a bit hollow and quirky with maybe not as much substance. 5/10
Wings of Seduction: Bust 'em out! – 26 minutes completed demo. This is yet another Vampire Survivors like game but this in 18+ space shooting one where you kind of play an arcade thing where you do get more guns and levels slowly at first and fight some bosses, but you also need to attack areas to unclothe a female. It’s really dumb and has some challenge, but is way too long for a level for how repetitive it could become. One cool thing is that you get enhancements for your weapons that do different effects and make them more powerful. Overall is was more quality than I expected, but it still felt cheap. 6/10
Wishbound Empires – 6 minutes. This is a weird pretty bare bones slightly confusing deck building Japanese themed 18+ game. The music is very standard sounding and the graphics other than visual novel parts are bare bones. I actually really like the faces for the characters as they are less anime and a bit more realistic. The gameplay itself is a mess and very confusing. I didn’t get much more past the tutorial. 4/10
Youka and Her Summer – 5 minutes. This is an ultra janky horror walking simulator way too much motion blur clunky feeling couldn’t get out of the first room type of games. I don’t mind these first-person horror games too much, but you can’t make someone feel so bad in the first room. Also, the blink of the girl adds to the janky graphics. 4/10
Zero Division – 16 minutes. This is a Neo Tokyo taking place CCG cross deck builder where each ally clone has energy to play cards and can also drag itself once to attack with its value. It honestly was pretty easy to play and had a decent enough tutorial (not a bad thing when compared to many other demos and some games). I thought this one had good enough graphics and music, had straightforward and decent gameplay and was a pretty good game. The only thing I would change is to make it a lot easier to tell who’s going to take damage instead of just seeing it on mouse over. 7.5/10
Zet Zillions – 21 minutes completed first area. This one is a deck building somewhat Slay the Spire type of card game where you play some space captain and have to use your card to deal damage. This one has really unique graphics and music. The sound is also very good. The unique thing about the gameplay in this one is the ability to combine some cards to power them up or change them and also a population thing on enemies where you can send your people in them and once it meets or exceeds their population, they become stunned for a turn. Honestly the story is quirky and wacky and doesn’t interest me much, but the space exploration is different, I like the combat quite a bit, and the challenge was pretty good especially for the main boss of the area. This one is more unique, and I think somewhat risqué as well for like showing muscle bodies. I like this enough to get it bundled or on an okay enough sale. 8/10
ing scam artists.
