Terminus: Zombie Survivors is “a 2D turn-based survival roguelike set during a zombie apocalypse.” In brass tacks: Terminus uses an action point system, making the player budget them out and decide what’s important for each turn he takes as he attempts to stay fed, watered, and warm. All of this goes on against a day/night cycle in which the zombies get nastier at night and resources quickly begin to dwindle.


It’s a simpler, less bloated, less gay version of Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead for people looking for a zombie survival game with actual goals and an actual endgame. It’s pretty fun, but it may leave CDDA veterans pining for something a bit more complex.

The primary goal is to survive long enough to reach the Terminus, the grand safehouse, which is always somewhere far to the north. The new endings include researching a cure for the plague, escaping the city, and taking it back by establishing bases.


When you first start, you have a survivor profile of one. The higher your profile, the more points you get to spend on unique starting traits. These include things like bigger morale boosts for smoking cigarettes, more hit points, and so on. Your profile levels up from completing runs and unlocking achievements. You may also get points for finishing the game with bonuses selected―you at least get a “COMPLETED” stamp for them―but the game isn’t very clear on it.


At the beginning, you have access to three basic occupations, and more become unlocked with every finished run. All occupations have one or more special skills. For example, the soldier is the melee fighter of the group and gets a big bonus for hitting zombies with things, while the student can speed read and reread books for more bonuses. Each occupation starts with an item, some predetermined stats, and some spendable points; the student is an exception, starting with no stats and 12 spendable points.

There are six stats:

• Strength - Determines how much you can carry before it starts to affect your APs per movement. Also helps you clear debris out of paths faster.
• Health - Determines how many APs you regenerate per turn.
• Observation - Determines how much of the area is revealed as you move.
• Combat - Determines how much damage you do per attack.
• Agility - Decreases AP cost for movement and increases dodge chance.
• Dexterity - Determines how fast you craft and how durable the things you make are. I think it also improves how fast you repair things since my dex monkey student could mend his clothes really fast, but it took my sausage fingered soldier all day to stitch a sweater.

Once you’re done making a character and choosing what he looks like from the head down, you can pick how hard you want things to be and the starting scenario, of which there are only a few to choose. The default is your standard end-of-the-world situation in which you rummage through homes, stores, and other places while trying not to die. Other scenarios are things like 'Out of Stock', in which all the special places have been picked nearly clean while houses have slightly more things, or the 'Frozen Zombies' scenario, in which everything begins coated in snow and you almost always die of exposure within hours. The only occupation I could see possibly surviving this is the Park Ranger, who has a class skill that gives resistance to cold exposure. You also have the option of running a custom game, but this shuts off achievements. Last of all, you can turn off permadeath, but don’t assume that turning it off makes the game easy: instead of dying, you walk back one step or one map, so if you were already starving to death or dying of disease, it probably won’t help much unless a lucky break was waiting for you on a nearby shelf.


You always start in a house at the bottom of the map with the Terminus somewhere in the far north. You have seven values to keep track of: Health, Action Points, Satiety, Hydration, Energy, and Morale. Weather and temperature play a role as well, and, as the game goes on, the days will grow colder and the nights will get longer, but Terminus does not run on realism. Water never freezes, and you can start a fire inside a building without burning it down. Staying well fed, hydrated, and happy also grants bonus APs per turn, but that's easier said than done. Perishable food begins to rot straight away, so finding sustainable sources becomes priority one. Water doesn’t evaporate, but may start turning up less later on, and most cooking recipes require it. Morale can be increased by sleep, booze, or antidepressants. You can also come across books like novels, which start with a 2 point bonus to morale and decrease as you read them, and bibles, which give a steady 1 morale per read, or 2 morale if read in a church. Yes, the word of God brings hope in times of despair, so it’s always worth having one on hand.

Once you’re out of APs, you end your turn (or, in emergencies, inject adrenaline shots, but mostly you wait). Each turn equates to one hour of time. After your turn, next is any survivors on the map not controlled by you, and then any zombies. Sunset starts at 20:00 and gets earlier as the game moves on. Zombies aren’t too bright during the day and lose track of you if you leave their sight, but they get more aggressive at night, during which you can’t see shit without a light, so it’s best to hole up close to sundown. Getting into a place can be an adventure in itself since a lot of places are locked up. If you have a crowbar or fire axe, you can pry doors and windows open quietly. Doors and windows can also be picked with a lockpick, but otherwise you’ll need to smash them down, which makes loads of noise.


Once you’re inside, don’t go expecting to turn any places into full-blown fortresses. At best, you can reinforce doors and windows a few times with planks or metal sheets and a hammer. You can also cover up windows with rags, or, if you’re lucky, you can make a gut bucket out of zombie guts and smear the windows and doors to make them invisible to nosy brain-eaters. The problem with spending resources on fortifying an area is that you’ll always be running out of resources and thus always on the move. You can craft traps to catch small critters, fish, and even plant crops, but that means coming back to check on things later, which takes more time. There's irony in setting a trap to catch food only to be unable to check it because it would mean starving to death.


As you continue to survive, you’ll gain experience. I’m pretty certain you get XP from doing just about everything from reading books to killing zombies, but the in-game help doesn’t say. Every time you level, you get to pick from three different skills at (almost) random. If you have any occupational skills left to level up, these will take priority in the slots. Otherwise, the skills are chosen at random and provide bonuses like searching shelves faster or starving a bit slower. Most of these skills have a level cap and take more than one character level or book to reach it. Stats also require books to raise, very big books that take a long time to read. If you intend to do any deep reading, it’s in your best interest to at least find a basic desk for a 10% reading bonus or travel to a library, if possible, for a 20% bonus, but, like everything else, this will take time and resources away from something else that may be a lot more important. While we're on the subject of books, there are also two special vehicle operator skills for boats and helicopters that require an entire series of books in order to learn. Once you know how to drive the vehicle of your choice, you'll still need to track down a marina for a boat (which is at the other end of the map), and, to be quite honest, I have no idea where they hide the helicopters (but it's probably on the other, other end of the map).


Traveling to a new place is as simple as finding the pathway at the edge of the area or scouting it through other means. Sometimes a path is blocked by debris, which means you either need to go around or move it with a shovel. Terminus is not an open-world, but a bunch of small zones linked by roads. On a normal map you’ll see three dangerous places which continually spawn more zombies; you can’t visit these, but the closer you get to them, the harder things will be. There are several resources that can help you scout ahead; one such is guidebooks, which let you find all the different grocery stores, gas stations, and so on on the map, if you take the time to read them. The most valuable of all is the road map, which lets you scout a few areas next to your location at the cost of some AP, but for less than it had cost had you traveled there on foot.

There are also ways to save your precious AP when traveling. The two relevant skills can be picked up either by leveling or from books. Pathfinder knocks 10% off the AP cost per skill level; Aradine’s Thread saves you a whopping 50% when travelling to any place you’ve already visited. As resources run low, you’ll be gambling between going to places where you’ve set up traps or water gatherers or somewhere new to see if it has something else you can swipe. You can save all of your AP if you can get a working car with gas. This is easier said than done, but if you manage to get a gas station working long enough to fuel up a car and fill some cans, the game becomes much easier. Points of interest include the usual sights in the end times: grocery stores, police stations, and so on. Supposedly there are gun stores, but these never showed up for me, not even after I scouted most of the map. I found one military base, but it was too far out of the way and I was starving, so I never tried to get there. One valuable type of place is fortified houses; these are where other survivors have holed up.


They won’t let you in, but they will give you jobs you can do to build trust. These always seem to be fetch quests of some kind: getting them food, bags, etc. In exchange, they’ll lower their rates for general trade and let you ask for favors. The more trust you have, the bigger the favors you can request, like asking for food or improving your gear. Knowing where the fortified houses are can be the difference between winning and losing. According to the achievements you can join a fortified house, but, like a number of other things in Terminus, it's rather vague on how to go about it, and it's probably quite a time investment.


No zombie game is complete without crafting, but this is another point on which Terminus breaks hard from CDDA. You won’t be crafting entire warehouses full of equipment to use in your fight for survival. In most cases, you’ll only make a few basic things and then move on. The game starts you off with recipes for rudimentary versions of most tools such as stone hammers, axes, and so on. Crafting books teach you how to make the real deals and that's it. There are no extra recipes to learn, no laser guns or double necked chainsaws. The only scenario in which you might make the real McCoy is Out of Stock, but you’ll never find enough metal items to break down into scrap in that scenario because it’s all...out of stock. I spent most of my crafting time making traps to catch food and needles to repair gear, and that was about it.


While there are quite a few cooking recipes in the game, good luck getting to make anything but the most basic ones. Cooking is more for preserving a meal or squeezing a few more points of satiety out of something simple. I've never been in a situation in which I've been able to make cheese or bread. I've only been able to pick vegetables once, which was when I came across a random garden, and I ate all the vegetables right away because I was starving (of course). It's as if these only recipes exist to taunt you while you choke down a bunch of rotten food and finish it off with an antibiotic chaser to get rid of the accompanying disease. Speaking of which, the medication system is very basic. The game keeps a running tally of the drugs you take: generic medication, which restores hit points, antibiotics, which remove disease, and painkillers, which can temporarily remove negative status effects. You also get things such as vitamins, which can boost APs for a few hours, adrenaline shots, which give you more on the fly, and sleeping pills, which boost sleep quality but tank your APs. As you take more meds, you will develop a headache, which makes it impossible to read and screws with accuracy; keep going, and it will turn into a severe headache; push it too far, and you'll pass out. This keeps the player from abusing drugs for perpetual APs or unlimited health when he's dying.


Gear in Terminus is dedicated mostly to keeping you warm: a bunch of topwear ranging from cardigans to padded coats, three types of gloves, and a selection of bags to help mitigate your weight. For some reason you never need to worry about your pants. I’ve only encountered two pieces of armor: makeshift armor made from some tape and a book that will take a single hit, and some kind of survival armor that can take a few swings. Most clothing has a small armor value, but that's a consolation prize; it's far better to not get hit.

All equipment, tools, weapons, and clothing have some kind of durability score, which is random. Not all pots and pans are created equal, so it’s in your best interest to find the most durable stuff you can or make it yourself, if you have high dexterity. All gear breaks down with time and usage, and the only way to fix tools and weapons is with a repair kit or wood glue. Wearables can be fixed with a needle and thread, which you’ll be doing quite often since clothing breaks down from the mere act of walking. Be you not careful, your precious hiking backpack can turn into a pile of rags while you traverse from one side of an area to the other.


Combat is easy to understand. You can strike at one of three parts of the body: head, torso, or legs. Only a strike to the head can kill a zombie, but some weapons are better suited for other parts of the body, and some zombies have armored noggins or armored everything. Every attack degrades your weapon, and every weapon has an associated proficiency, so you will become a master in the art of frying pan if you practice. Sometimes you’re better off taking out a zombie's arms or legs than trying to break through a helmet if it can’t bite you. If all else fails, you can shoot the bastards, provided you actually manage to find a gun and some ammo. When it comes to guns, all firearms run on universal ammunition, and all guns make noise unless modified. You can find gun parts on random zombies or in places like fortified houses, police stations, and gun stores (if they ever show up for you). In my experience, ammo is really rare and best saved for rainy days.

Zombies have three modes of attack: grabs, which drop your APs and do minor damage, claws, which do more damage and can cause bleeding, and bites, which only happen if you're already bleeding and out of APs. If you get bitten, you turn into a zombie unless you have the trait that lets you shrug it off as a treatable infection.


There isn’t too much variety among the shuffling hordes―no slime spewing boomers or long tongued smokers. However, there’s enough to keep you on your toes. Hitting a decaying zombie up close will give you disease. There are tough zombies that can take a major beating and knock off half your health in a few blows. You also get fast zombies that can close with you in a hurry, but these kinds are all few and far between. The thing that usually kills you is a lack of preparation.


Misery loves company, and sometimes you’ll come across other survivors along the way. Don’t expect anything deep, or even dialogue. Interaction is limited to building trust, trading, or threatening the other person. Building trust burns APs, but the more trust you have, the better trade rate you get. If you can get his trust to ten, you can ask the poor slob to come with you. After you’ve tamed another survivor, he's yours to micromanage, with all that implies. With one other person this isn’t too bad, but I can see having several becoming a hassle. The guy I picked up was level 1, and I was already towards the end of my run, so he wasn’t that helpful.


Once you have a grip on things, the goal is to find the Terminus. You can either brute force it by heading north and hoping to stumble across it, or, if you can get a radio working, you can tune into the signal ,which will pinpoint it for you. Once you get the signal, you can tune in once per day for a helpful message, which can be about something like a supply drop or a blocked road.


And then, whether safety at last or failure, a final tally of your score and the stuff you unlocked. I only played on normal and found the base game to be pretty easy once I figured out the gameplay loop. Out of Stock was quite a bit harder and I came close to losing several times. Every attempt at Frozen Zombies ended in a matter of minutes. I enjoyed Terminus quite a bit, and, while there were points where I could have stood a bit more simulation in my survival, I still appreciate not having to fuss over a hundred little details to try and make it to the next hour. It’s also nice to play a survival game that has a real ending. All in all, I had fun and finished the game a few times with a desire to try for more endings and scenarios. Be advised that there are no real modding capabilities for Terminus right now and the dev seems to be undecided on adding any.

If you’re interested in Terminus: Zombie Survivors, the game is currently out in Early Access and goes 1.0 on August 20th.

Hello Adventurers!
Today I am showing you Dungeons of Sundaria!


INTRODUCTION
Dungeons of Sundaria is a cooperative action RPG with an emphasis on nostalgia, where players explore procedurally generated dungeons filled with monsters, traps, and treasures. They can select from various character classes and team up to defeat powerful bosses and uncover hidden secrets. The game emphasizes teamwork, character customization, and replayability through its dynamic dungeon layouts. Developed and published by Industry Games, an Arizonan developer, it was released in 2023.

PREMISE AND STORY/NARRATIVE
The storyline in this game isn't a main focus; it's mainly a pretext for exploring dungeons (the devs pretty much went all-in on the dungeons) and completing quests. Tasks typically involve finding missing persons or collecting items for NPCs.

The quest descriptions are straightforward and simple with minimal narrative depth. The overarching plot is simple: "Bad guys are causing trouble; go stop them." Players receive quests in Galdrin's Crossing and embark on their adventures from there. That's the gist of it.

Before arriving at Galdrin's Crossing, players create their characters, choosing from standard and exotic races along with classes.

Character Creation

CLASSES

The Champion excels as a warrior, utilizing either a two-handed weapon or a weapon plus shield in combat. Ideal for close-range fighting, they offer a variety of abilities.

Clerics function as fighters and healers, competent in both melee and ranged combat through spells. Indispensable in team play for reviving fallen players. They can employ one-handed weapons with shields or two-handed weapons, their primary attack being a divine flying hammer, enhanced by multiple protective spells.

Rangers, the "Bow and Arrow" class, or dual crossbows, may find playing alone challenging due to confined spaces and rapid enemy approach. Although they can use shields and other weapons, their limited melee abilities suggest focusing on ranged attacks.

Rogues are designed for surprise attacks, their abilities reflecting this role. They can become invisible, appear behind foes to inflict heavy damage, and possess self-healing abilities due to their lower resilience compared to the Warrior or Ranger. A valuable addition to a group.

Wizards deal significant ranged damage while appearing stylish. They can wield any one-handed weapon, but must keep one hand free for their orb. Without it, they cannot cast spells, rendering them ineffective. In my opinion, the Wizard was the most enjoyable class to play.

The game also has a system called Heroism meaning you can continually increase your power, akin to the Paragon system in Diablo 3. After reaching max level, you still earn XP, but now it goes to raising Heroism, earning points that you spend on multiple passive abilities that make you stronger, such as faster attack speed, more resilience against fire damage, and so forth.

RACES
You've got Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, Orcs, Goblins, and Drog'al. The last one is a lizard race, which is nice since there are not many games where you can play one.

Race selection is purely cosmetic, with no impact on abilities, stats, or interactions.
WARNING: However, smaller races like dwarves, halflings, and goblins experience more camera issues. Also the crosshair is body-blocked...
UPDATE: Despite a recent patch aimed at improving the camera, these issues persist, especially for dwarves.



After creating your character, the game greets you with a pop-up explaining certain things to you before you begin adventuring. Instead of moving freely through Galdrin's Crossing, you click on buildings to enter them and interact with NPCs. These interactions feel like a cheap Flash game. The town comprises thirteen buildings, each housing NPCs who offer quests or services.



At the Blacksmith, you encounter Kadrick, who assists with crafting, salvaging, selling, and buying items. Gweyir Dorra initially seems unimportant but later becomes somewhat important for increasing the Star Level of your items. Cletus Thornhue offers armor painting in different colors, though he is a bitch that insults you after he finishes recoloring your gear.

In the Guardhouse, Captain Laurent provides quests that advance the storyline, though his usefulness is limited beyond this role. At the Hovel, Singen offers services to change your appearance for a fee, requiring gold to alter your look without changing your race and a Token of Change to switch races.

The Ivory Tower is home to Morfec, the master alchemist, who sells potions and components necessary for gear upgrades. Meanwhile, the Silver Dove Inn features Samrock, the innkeeper selling various brews, and Leena, the tavernmaid offering different food items, though both have little else to contribute.

The Bank, devoid of any NPC, serves as a valuable stash for your items, providing much-needed storage space. Lastly, the Guildhouse hosts five NPCs, each corresponding to a specific class. Only the trainer matching your class will teach you new abilities, making it a critical location for skill development.

Thus, Galdrin's Crossing becomes the hub of your adventures, with each building and NPC playing a distinct role in your journey.



When you are done checking out Galdrin's Crossing, there are two bridges leading you to the world outside the Town.

CAMPAIGN MAP
The campaign map features three difficulty settings: Normal, Hard, and Nightmare. Each setting offers a progressively challenging experience, with enemies becoming stronger and more dangerous. The map includes multiple areas, each akin to a dungeon, and each area has three modes corresponding to the difficulty settings,
I'll highlight two of them:

At Dreadforge, your journey starts in a windswept dune. Suddenly, a roar—Smoulderwing soars above, raining fire. You must dash through this inferno, taking cover under rocks scattered about. The ominous Black Gates of Dreadforge loom ahead, beyond which lie layers of battles against fiendish orcs, demons, and grotesque creatures.

After a while, you confront Smoulderfang in a magma-filled chamber. A long, arduous trek through this black and orange sludge culminates in a fierce duel with Molabog, the grotesque Demon King. There are also many jump-and-run sections in the game, where you either die because you timed your jump wrong, or you land way down and have to go back up and do it all again. The Dreadforge has these sections, and they are in rooms full of magma, meaning you insta-die.

The Icy Depths: You start outside in a forest, right before the cave entrance adorned with a huge dragon skull with horns, covered in ice. You run through an icy corridor full of barricades and ghostly enemies. A huge wall of ice then blocks your way, and a summoner attacks you while calling forth her ice giants. Afterward, you reach the city of these ghostly beings. After dispatching the archers in the towers and defeating some bosses, you reach another cave entrance adorned with a huge skull.

As you enter, you see only a slab of ice covering the floor. When you jump on it, it breaks, and you fall way down into the water. Now the difficult part begins. You must jump and run through these mines. As if that isn't bad enough, there are enemies here that can knock you away from afar. You also reach a number of caves adorned with tombstones emanating evil energy. You climb ladders (you probably will die once, as a goblin is just waiting to knock you back) and while jumping around you reach a cave full of treasures and its owner: The Goblin King.

You can also ride a mine cart here, and with the final ride, you reach a big arena-like cave with a very angry cave troll called Migion. After that, you jump on ice blocks and reach the last boss of these icy depths. In this huge arena made of ice, you fight against LORG, a very jumpy troll. After beating him, you ascend steps that look very much like the Icecrown Citadel from Warcraft, leading to a long tunnel full of trolls. At the end of this tunnel is a big cave full of red and blue crystals and one big, angry crystal demon called Valu'Nathala.

After killing him, you jump around on ice slabs towards what appears to be the exit but is just the next layer of the dungeon. Here, a big metal and ice platform immediately catches the eye. To reach it, you have to clear the room of the Ice Giants. Then a portal opens, and here you fight against Holdurbraan. After that, you have to fight King Joldurbraan in the next room. You don't kill him; rather, you defeat him and his guards so that you are allowed to descend into the depths to reach the halls of Quoron the Dread. After a hard-fought battle to the death, you teleport back to Galdrin's Crossing. Overall, this was way too long and should've been reduced by a ton of layers. (Remove the jump and run sections and it might've been nice to play).

Higher difficulty settings not only increase enemy strength and damage but also introduce more frustrating challenges, such as instakill attacks that make the game even more unappealing. For instance, in one part of the game, you traverse a town-like area with watchtowers. Archers in these towers shoot arrows that can take you down before you have a chance to react, forcing you to restart from the checkpoint. Not very fun if you are alone.

In summary, while the campaign map offers varied and increasingly challenging dungeons, the difficulty spikes can sometimes make the game less enjoyable, especially for solo players.

ART DIRECTION
Dungeons of Sundaria features a colorful fantasy style reminiscent of Dungeons and Dragons, with classic characters and environment designs. This aesthetic helps create an immersive dungeon-crawling experience. The areas are thoughtfully designed, with each new layer of a dungeon logically connected to the previous one, enhancing the sense of exploration. However, the dungeons can feel excessively long, often stretching about six layers more than necessary.

The game successfully balances vibrant, cheerful areas with darker, more atmospheric crypts, caverns, and other brooding places of evil. It embodies the spirit of a Dungeons and Dragons game in every aspect except name and license. Many characters, enemies, and locations clearly draw inspiration from this iconic franchise. For instance, the game features "cacodemons", which are essentially beholders, and a boss resembling an Illithid or Mindflayer, further underscoring its D&D influence. (Tsk, Ghaik.)



VISUALS
Despite the positive aspects discussed in the art direction, the visuals in Dungeons of Sundaria are quite dated. Compared to modern standards, even mobile games often look better. While the game’s aesthetic might invoke nostalgia, the graphics are poor, with character and environment designs lacking the detail and polish expected in contemporary games. Additionally, the outdated animations contribute to the visual shortcomings, making it difficult at times to comprehend what is happening on screen.

SOUND DESIGN
The atmospheric music of the town and various areas is well done, enhancing the immersive experience. However, other aspects of the sound design fall short. Footstep audio, enemy attack sounds, and dying sounds can sometimes be grating and hurt your ears. Character dialogue, when present, tends to be dull and uninspired, often missing the context of the gameplay. Despite these shortcomings, the soundtrack stands out as a highlight, with each area featuring a well-composed track that sets the tone effectively. Unfortunately, these tracks are frequently interrupted by combat music. For a better experience, you might prefer muting the sound effects while keeping the music on.



ENEMIES
Standard
The game presents a varied roster of enemies to challenge your progress, including humans, beasts, demons, and supernatural beings. This diverse cast adds to the richness of the game’s world. However, as the difficulty increases, these enemies become progressively more frustrating. On higher settings, they often spam abilities and spells that can stun or freeze your character, making encounters more annoying and challenging.



Bosses
Each dungeon is populated with numerous minibosses and culminates in a final boss encounter. These bosses are designed with unique weaknesses, immunities, and special attacks. They also feature distinct phases, adding complexity and variety to the battles.



GEAR
The game offers a standard array of gear, reminiscent of what you might find in World of Warcraft. This includes light, medium, and heavy armor, cloaks, rings, and a variety of weapons.
The gear quality improves with higher levels of difficulty, as indicated. The rarities in order of quality are:
Common
Superior
Rare
Epic
Legendary
Eternal
These rarities reflect the quality and value of the items, with higher rarities offering better stats and attributes.



ISSUES
There are problems with the hitboxes, resulting in missed attacks despite proper aim. The animations appear outdated, lacking the justification provided by older games. The game might grow on you, but more akin to a tumor. The gameplay turns repetitive quickly, losing appeal after the initial dungeon. Enemies frequently use abilities that restrict movement, making the experience more annoying than fun. Using races other than human can lead to camera issues, and even human characters face these. The enemy strength matches your level, making it hard to overpower them. Improving gear through grinding becomes less effective as the percentage boosts are outweighed by enemy scaling on higher difficulties.



GAME MODES
The game is playable both solo and 4-Player Co-op. It is also possible to play locally.
A word of warning though: playing solo makes you more prone to being stunlocked and quickly dying because of it. During solo play, you may find yourself having to accept death more often, as nearly every enemy has some form of stunlock or snare ability that can overwhelm you. I know I did.

CONCLUSION
I played the game up to lvl 20 (max level for normal difficulty runs) it took me about 8 hours but I simply cannot recommend this game in good conscience. It is just not a good game, simple as. Everything in this game feels outdated, tedious and ugly. The only good thing about this game is the dungeons since they look nice.
It's a shame that it didn't meet my expectations since I was looking forward to it prior to it's release but wasn't able to play it because of work and personal life. It did however save me frustration back then because it surely was worse than it is now.

4/10: Cannot recommend it

Lords of the Fallen was initially a Polish Dark Souls clone launched in 2014, published by City Interactive and developed by Hexworks. This game is a "reboot," but in many game files it is named LotF2 (indicating it may have been planned as a sequel). What can you expect from this souls-like? The same thing as every souls-like: difficult bosses, punishing traps, awful platforming, and deadly gravity

OVERVIEW :

But this game also does some things uniquely. The main difference between Lords of the Fallen and other souls-likes is its navigation method. You need to travel to a parallel dimension (similar to the upside-down from Stranger Things), called Umbral, in order to progress in many regions. If you die while in Umbral, you return to the "bonfire", and drop your "souls" (called vigor in this game). If you die in the real world/Axiom, you just go to Umbral. You can use your lantern, infused with dark blue Umbral magic, to peek at Umbral. Staying in Umbral for too long brings the attention of many nasty enemies, including a "red reaper."

The magic in the game is more otherworldly. Radiant magic is associated with the Church, Infernal with Adyr Cultists who worship the Demon God, and Umbral, which is similar to Dark Souls 2 Hexes, scales with both infernal and radiant attributes. The game has only six attributes: strength, agility, endurance, vitality, infernal and radiant. The other main difference between this game and Dark Souls is that around mid-game, you can infuse special runes into your weapons and shields. The game also differs from Dark Souls because, at NG+, you can put modifiers into the game. The unique difference between the classes is the starting point in attributes and gear.

CLASSES & CHARACTER CREATION :

The basic classes are: Hallowed Knight, Udirangr Warwolf Partisan, Mournstead Infantry, Blackfeather Ranger, Exiled Stalker, Orian Preacher, Pyric Cultist, and Condemned. Condemned is like the deprived in Dark Souls; they start with almost nothing. The hallowed knight is the typical knight with a sword and shield and a grenade as a starting ranged weapon. Udirangr Warwolf is the typical "barbarian" with a two handed swrod and a hatchet as a throwable weapon. Partisans start with a flail and crossbow. Mournstead Infantry starts with a spear and shield. The Blackfeather Ranger starts with a bow, axe, and shield. The Exiled Stalker is the dagger assassin. The Orian Preacher starts with a mace and powerful holy spells. Pyric Cultist starts with a staff and powerful fire magic, but I recommend for those who play as one to get the infernal scaling axe early on.

There is no class for Umbralist casters in the game. If you plan to play the game as one, you will have to start as a Pyric Cultist or Preacher and get a catalyst in Skyrest, the main hub of the game. 

The game has four hidden classes: one locked behind a relatively long quest and three locked behind the game endings. Dark Crusader is a class unlocked after a very long questchain, and the last 3 classes are "hybrids" of the mage and melee classes and are respectively the Lord and Radiant Purifier. Both start the game with great armor and long-range damaging spells. Below is an image of the "Lord" class and the "Purifier" class. The lord is the "red" one on the left, and the Purifier is the yellow one on the right. 


The Lord and Purifier classes

The last class is "putrid child" and requires the hardest to obtain ending to unlock. It is a hybrid of melee Umbralist with caster Umbralist. The class starts with a Putrid Child Sword, a short sword that inflicts frostbite and has a very subpar catalyst. The character creation in the game is very good in every aspect and allows you to choose everything that you could ask for, including tattoos, skin tone, hair, and facial hair, among other things. [Editor's note: The developers have removed "body types" in a patch, the game now uses male/female sex.] My only problem with character creation is use of "body types" instead of gender. 

Contrary to other games, in Lords of the Fallen, every class starts, and stays, good at range and melee. Yes, this includes casters. Casters can get good Inferno or Radiant scaling melee weapons early on, and umbralists, despite taking a very long time to get a decent weapon scaling with both, can use poison weapon spells and have a decent weapon relatively early on. Martial arts classes always start with a bow, crossbow, grenade, or any other long-range tool, but instead of mana, they use ammunition.

Radiant builds are considered the best in this game because you can get a "lightsaber" from a boss with a short blade, a very fast moveset, and a pure radiant scale early in the game. Many umbral creatures and demons are weak or non-resistant vs. radiant damage. The sword also deals "smite," which deals massive damage after some strikes and makes the enemy vulnerable to holy damage. 

LEVEL DESIGN :

Level design is excellent in this game. The game is very well interconnected, similar to Dark Souls 1. It is full of shortcuts and secrets. Level design helps with the combat a lot. For instance, you can use your "umbral lantern" to spirit-move deadlier enemies into a place where they can die. Umbral is a really nasty place, and the mimics are a unique twist over Dark Souls mimics; they drag you into Umbral and eat most of your life. Each location has its own lore and is very interesting to explore. The unique problem of level design is some platforming puzzles for optional stuff. Jumping in the game is a problem. Many times your character ignores the "jump" command, and you need to start running before you can jump.

The unique problem that I found in my run is the following: if you progress too fast in a certain area of the game, an NPC will kill another NPC who sells the best items for mages. There is no indication of it. Many quests are also nearly impossible to complete without a guide. 

COMBAT & BOSS DESIGN :

Combat in this game is great. I personally didn't like the fact that some enemies are protected by a strange umbral parasite, forcing you to go umbral or use the lantern to kill the parasite before the enemy. Many reviewers, like Asmongold, and many Steam reviewers, complain about the enemy density. In my opinion, this is just a matter of taste. I had no problems with enemy density in my playthrough. When you beat the game, you unlock modifiers (details later in the review); one of the most popular modifiers is increasing enemy density. There are a lot of ways to deal with the huge enemy density in the game. You have grenades, large AoE spells, and halberds, among many other things. 

Many bosses become regular enemies, and the boss design in the game is great with few exceptions. If you are having trouble with a boss, there is always a strategy that can help you negate the boss's main advantage. I had problems with one boss, whose name I will not spoil. Not because he was too hard but because the arena was too small. The camera made it very hard to know where I was and where I should go to escape his deadly magma attack. I only won against him by spamming Barrage of Echoes.


The Barrage of Echoes Icon

The spell creates a barrage of umbral orbs, each dealing a bit of damage. If all orbs hit the enemy, which is not hard to do in melee, the spell works like Shrapmetal in Might & Magic VI, dealing incredibly high damage.

But if someone wonders about seeing shittier bosses like Bed of Chaos or Dragon God in this game, I haven't found any bosses like them in Lords of the Fallen. 


GRAPHICS & PERFORMANCE :

This game is gorgeous but is considered "too heavy" by many. I wouldn't judge much on the performance of the game. Why? I played in Debian 12 on a GTX 1050 Ti, below the minimum requirements. It wouldn't be fair for me to judge a game in this aspect. And played with everything in minimum, and to run in Linux, I had to use the proton 8 and run with: 

VKD3D_SHADER_MODEL=6_6 gamemoderun %command% 

Without gamemode, there is a huge delay between key presses and movements. Without VKD3D_SHADER_MODEL=6_6, the game stuck in "running" forever, and I only managed to find this problem via protonlog. With a high end PC, the game look gorgeous. But I played with everything as low as possible.
NG+ :

This game in NG+ allows you to change a lot about how it runs. After completing the game for the first time, you can choose to replay with modifications, such as random loot, permadeath (essentially transforming the game into a roguelike), increased enemy density, upgraded weapons, and no place to rest. This makes subsequent runs more unique, similar to how NG+ in DS2 is better than 1 and 3. In DS2, NG+ features new enemy placements and changes in enemy bosses. 


The NG+ Modifier Menu

SOUND

The sound design in the game is great. The sound enhances the atmosphere while in Umbral. The voice acting of most NPCs is great, and everything is fully voice-acted. However, if you plan to play without sound while listening to podcasts, many "clues" that you destroyed a umbral parasite protecting an enemy can only be heard through sound. 

Overall I rate this game 8.5/10. It would be 10/10 if it had: a starting Umbralist class, no small arena bosses with bad cameras, no easy-to-miss item merchants, and more enemy variety.

SKALD: Against the Black Priory, is an 8-bit turn-based RPG that successfully Kickstarted in 2019. It has finally been released, after its original June 2020 target was pushed back by almost 4 years. This game was created by a single Norwegian developer who was heavily inspired by the Gold Box games and Ultima. You control a party of up to 6 characters in a fully turn-based environment for exploration and combat. As you travel by land and sea, your goal is to uncover the grand scheme of the Gallian Empire, explore a progressively maddened world, and fight countless horrors along the way. The game successfully strikes a great balance between combat, exploration, and story sections.


Firgol is not as peaceful as it may seem.

Setting the Stage
The game throws you into a familiar scenario: trapped on a struggling ship headed towards a distant continent in search of a mysterious girl. You awaken on a strange shore after a dramatic crash. A brief flashback tutorial, set two weeks prior, prepares you for your quest.

A significant portion of the story is conveyed through illustrations and in text form, featuring consistently good artwork. The same is true for the background music. At no point does it take over or try to be overly dramatic or melodramatic. Instead, it always nicely underscores the events happening on screen. Consistency is also demonstrated throughout the rest of the game's presentation. It is clear that Skald was created with one vision in mind, skillfully executed.


Much of the plot is advanced by illustrations of this type.

Venturing Forth
Exploration unfolds like combat - in turns. You navigate through smaller, handcrafted maps that are designed to be easily memorized. In some cases, these maps guide you along a linear path. Although you don't have a map or a minimap, navigating through more open areas should not be too difficult. Even if you need to backtrack, you can traverse entire maps quickly thanks to the fast movement speed. Each map is uniquely designed, featuring interesting locations waiting to be discovered. It always feels rewarding to explore every corner of each area.

On your journey, you will find an abundance of crafting resources for alchemy and cooking. You will find recipes for both along the way, but significantly fewer for alchemy than for cooking. Alchemy does not offer any effects beyond the usual healing and protection options, which are also available from other sources. On the other hand, cooking is crucial for your party's health as it provides a resource for resting, which is the only way to heal wounds. The only difference between different recipes is the food value, determining how much you need to eat to fully heal up. You can further enhance your party with minor buffs by assigning them different activities while resting at camp, although these activities are limited to just four options.

Travel between different areas is facilitated through an overland map. Despite free movement, the exploration experience feels rather limited. Random encounters and basic loot can be found here and there, but in general, you are quite clearly directed towards your next objective. These random encounters tend to be considerably more challenging when compared to quest battles. Skill checks can be attempted to avoid them, and by the midpoint of the game, I found myself doing just that. Due to their repetitive nature and weak rewards (basic loot or XP are no longer necessary at this point), these encounters become tedious quickly.


Exploring the lands.

Character Development and Lack of Depth
You will only gain XP for active companions, not for followers left behind in camps. XP can be gained through combat, completing quests, and to a lesser extent, by using out-of-combat skills. In addition to your PC, you can recruit up to 5 companions by either allowing written companions to join you or hiring mercenaries along the way. Mercenaries are essentially walking stat sheets, while even written companions do not come with their own quest lines, romances, or any other overbearing narrative. They chime in occasionally, and you can use them for various skill checks.

There are a total of 9 skills. There are few instances where failing a skill check leads to an instant game over; usually, the effects are much less severe, such as missing out on some loot or lore. Sometimes, failing a skill check even yields XP. In most cases, characters can be freely switched out for skill checks. In at least one instance, however, the PC is forced to be the checked character. This may have unfortunate consequences.

I did not hire any mercenaries, and I only filled the last roster spot by the halfway mark. There are no respecs, but everyone levels up from scratch, regardless of when they join the party. During level-up, you get to increase the ranks of the specific skill trees for that specific class. Most skills are not terribly interesting or capable of changing the gameplay in any way; they are simply number increases. For most classes, the choice feels rather obvious. In fact, for some classes, I didn't even bother allocating my few remaining levels' worth of skill points, as all the relevant skills, even the mediocre ones, were already maxed out.

In total, there are 9 classes to choose from. You can further customize your PC by selecting one of 15 backgrounds, granting you minor bonuses to attributes. Usually, I always choose a magically related class, but after hearing that magic was only an afterthought, I went melee instead.

And indeed, magic is clearly underdeveloped in many ways. Your arcane caster has only 3 schools available: fire, air, and earth, each with a mere 11 spells per school. There are a few spells that deal significant damage; the most powerful skill I encountered during my playthrough, Thunderclap, came from my arcane caster. However, spells have limited utility beyond causing damage. There are a few crowd control and debuff spells available, but I found none of them particularly useful (though others have reported higher-level utility spells can be useful). Additionally, the use of magic is severely restricted by mana (or attunement, as it is referred to in this game). Attunement only replenishes during rest, and there are not many potions available to restore it during a quest (although some flexibility is provided via attunement potion crafting).


Straightforward choices during level-ups.

Combat on Autopilot
There are also no standard enemy casters in the entire game, so no mage duels. The only caster enemies are certain bosses. You also have the usual support casters such as clerics or rangers, which offer a wider range of spell choices. Many of the healing or buff spells can only be cast upon targets within touching distance. Additionally, spells, attacks, and movement can only be directed over the cardinal directions. There is no diagonal targeting.

Mobility should be crucial. Instead, combat is unfortunately static. There are no dedicated combat maps, and the turn-based combat takes place on the regular map. However, the grid size is quite small. Prior to each encounter, you have the opportunity to position your characters within a specific range of tiles. By the second round, most of your characters are usually engaged in duels.

Frequently, the grid becomes so cramped that movement becomes impossible. Additionally, disengaging does not trigger an opportunity attack but instead immediately ends your turn. Although swapping places is technically feasible, it also brings an immediate end to your turn. As a result, after planning the initial positions, starting from the second round, the combat primarily revolves around smashing down the mob before moving forward. You have only a limited number of combat maneuvers at your disposal, such as flanking or backstabbing. The lack of alternatives makes them seem like obvious non-choices.

Besides not having to worry about enemy casters, you don't need to be overly concerned about debuffs. Stun can be problematic, but other negative status effects are inconsequential. While there are ranged enemies, they will switch to melee when you approach, giving you the opportunity to engage in a duel once more. Additionally, enemies behave in a very static manner. Once they commit to attacking a specific tile, there is no turning back for them. The combat system as a whole feels very focused on melee, especially given the scarcity of arrows for your archers in the early to mid-game.

Early on, this is engaging enough. Combat is generally fast and fluent, and it's fun to experiment with different combinations of skills and positioning, especially when you have fewer characters and the grid is more open. However, the lack of depth in terms of options becomes apparent over time, which ultimately makes combat feel like a tedious slog.

The lack of options also applies to your equipment. Often, items only provide a +1 bonus to skills that you have already maximized. While weapons and armor may enhance your strength, they do not offer any distinctive abilities or significantly change your gameplay. It is rather uncommon, to say the least, to witness a thief backstabbing enemies with a dagger and a tower shield of thievery +1.


No room to maneuver during combat.

Limited, but well thought out, scope
SKALD: Against the Black Priory is a short game, taking about 20 hours to beat. By that time, you have likely seen most, if not all, of the content. Along the way, there are a few side quests that are reasonably well-designed and different enough to keep you interested. In general, the game does a good job of pushing the plot along and provides motivation for the PC's actions. The pacing is consistently well-executed throughout the game, as it never feels like the developer is attempting to include unnecessary content solely to lengthen the playthrough time.


Travel swiftly across the overland map.

Conclusion
Overall, the experience feels very harmonious. There is no filler content, no sudden difficulty spikes, and no half-abandoned ideas, with the exception of magic. The developer is self-aware enough to focus on what he is capable of and delivers a well-put-together game based on his original vision. The end result is a fun and enjoyable short adventure, although at times it may feel overly simplistic and predictable. Recommended for any RPG player who can overlook somewhat shallow underlying systems, such as character development and combat.

Hello adventurers!

Today I am showing you the somewhat older and rather unknown game, El Matador, a 3rd-person shooter developed by the Czech developer Plastic Reality Technologies in 2006 and published by Cenega Publishing.


PREMISE AND STORY/NARRATIVE
In this game, the player takes on the role of El Matador, a DEA special agent tasked with bringing down drug lords. A new drug cartel is on the rise in Central and South America, sharpening its claws and expanding its influence. Locate the camps, infiltrate the headquarters, and put an end to the cartel's influence.

El Matador has a generic action movie story in order to have a guns-blazing loner killing dozens of criminals.
Here's a short recap of the story with slight spoilers:

After Victor Corbet successfully rescued a DA’s daughter in a nightclub owned by a drug lord, he is sent to Colombia to help the police take down the La Valedora Cartel, who were involved with an incident that affected Victor in a personal manner. In Colombia, Victor works with Captain Enterrador and his fellow police officers: ADA Mia Rodriguez, Sgt. Gabriel Montego, and his close friend Rico Altemetra.

Victor's first assignment involves him eavesdropping on a meeting held in a Bogota Hotel. His team is then ambushed making him the sole survivor. He proceeds to go Punisher on the cartel and earns the nickname „El Matador“

Victor and Rico raid a factory serving as a drug operation base for La Valedora. They are tasked with arresting, a drug kingpin who is controlling the operations. During the raid, Victor destroys the Factory with C4 but the Kingpin escapes. Victor and the Team corner him and in the ensuing shootout, the Kingpin gets wounded and gets executed.

After that, the police find out that the cartel has a training camp in Columbia’s jungles led by a former Israeli Agent (Oy vey!), and Victor is sent to take care of it alone. Due to the information he recieves, the DEA learns about the leader of La Valedora - a former SS Soldier - leading to a high stakes raid on a island fortress.

During the final showdown, tensions rise within the team. Victor gets betrayed and has to make tough decisions. The Game ends with significant changes in the characters lives, hinting at new beginnings and future assignments.


Unfortunately, the devs didn't include the iconic Paynesque comic book cutscenes and instead focused on conventional ones. However, they did take some inspiration from Max Payne in terms of the look and feel of the missions and some characters. For example, Alberto Marica is a spoiled brat gangster who loves to party, similar to Vinni Gognitti. He screams at everyone and even orders his goons to “fucking kill” Victor , echoing Gognitti's line: "Ow no! Payne! Not him! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! What are you waiting for?! Circle him and kill him! Kill the cop!" El Matador also uses the "Here's an important character, let's slow down time and show the players the name of the character" trope (see screenshot). Here's a fun fact: His last name is the Spanish word for Faggot

CAMPAIGN
It's going to be a short experience (4 hours) The game has 4 difficulties:

• Easy, Normal, Hard, Nightmare

It has six Chapters - seven if you count the prologue - and a tutorial.


The tutorial is set in a Costa Rican training facility for spec ops.
The first thing you might notice is that the game looks and feels like Splinter Cell but has the gameplay of Max Payne. That's because the game is developed on the Max-FX Engine, the very same engine used for Max Payne 2.

In the tutorial, you learn how to crouch, jump, and interact with the environment. Then you get to the shooting range, where you have access to pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles, shotguns, snipers, grenades, and C4.

The first real mission is set in Tijuana, North Mexico - specifically in the Baracuda night club. You and your "SWAT" team try and rescue someone here, blasting through criminals all while Disco music is blaring from every side. It sets the tone quite nicely and does hold up. It's also here where you first really have to use your “Powers”, meaning bullet time. Like his role model Max, Victor can slow down time while dashing to the sides or back and forth.


The game has quite the diverse set of locations, be it a disco in Mexico, or even the most famous city in Colombia, Medelin.

ART DIRECTION

It doesn't exactly have one, though it is similar to Max Payne, except it has no deeply suicidal, pessimistic Philosopher as the main character and the game isn't overly depressive in it's depiction of the areas. In fact, most areas are hot, bright, and full of color. The graphics of the game do look good for a game that came out in 2006, but that also applies to Max Payne 2 too.

(The Devs 100% took Max Payne and Punisher as their inspiration, see the picture here)

SOUND DESIGN
The voice acting is fine for a low budget title like this. The main character is voiced by Tom Clarke-Hill. He’s known for Sniper Elite and has a gruff low voice, perfect for a Max Payne/Punisher mixture. Most of the weapons that are usable, have the same sounds as the Max Payne guns. The soundtrack is also very similar to the soundtrack of Max Payne 2.

ENEMIES

STANDARD CRIMINALS- THE GOON SQUAD
They will be the enemy you most encounter, and in huge amounts. They have all kinds of weapons: pistols, assault rifles, grenades, shotguns. Everything you have, they do too. They will also wear protective gear and can take more damage.


HEAVY CRIMINALS- FAT BASTARDS
Those are big fat brutes and will always have weapons that hit hard, Such as machine guns, grenade launchers and rocket launchers.


BOSSES- IMPORTANT PEOPLE
They will be either in the middle of a mission or at the end, with a closed off area (an arena of sorts) where you can take cover, run away, or flank them.

(Ignore the 100.000 Health, since these screenshots were made after completion of the game)

EQUIPMENT
You have a arsenal of weapons at your disposal, I'll list some examples

HANDGUNS

• Beretta 92FS- Pistol ingame

• Colt Anaconda - Dirty Mary (Easter Egg/Reference to Dirty Harry)

• Colt M1911 variant - with silencer - Silencer ingame

SHOTGUNS

• Pancor Jackhammer

SUBMACHINE GUNS

• Heckler & Koch MP5A3

ASSAULT RIFLES

• M16A1, when fitted with scope, looks like the M16 from Golgo 13

SNIPER RIFLES

• Remington 700 AICS

MACHINE GUNS

• Hand Held M134 Minigun

LAUNCHERS

• Type 69 RPG

GRENADE LAUNCHERS

• DefTech 1315

TIDBITS
The devs were a small team and it shows as it only got mixed reviews and they also had to close doors in the same year. Almost all devs went on to Illusion Softworks, a.s - now known as 2K Czech, s.r.o. responsible for Mafia 1 & 2.

In itself, the game is solid and does many things just as well as its role model. For example, the allied AI is smart and can efficiently eliminate enemies before you arrive. But it also has one unique thing going for it: if an enemy is protected by bulletproof glass or other means, you can shoot somewhere close to them so that the bullets ricochet and hit your target, provided the material allows for it.

NEGATIVES
I'd say there are almost none. The game is very responsive. Gunplay feels good, graphics hold up quite nicely, voice acting is fine, there are plenty of different types of guns, cover and enemies. Most Levels have clutter that act as cover, be it walls, fallen over columns or tables, which is good because enemies come from all sides to deal damage. The last time I played, it had some graphical glitches, but those didn’t appear in my most recent playthrough (but that may have been due to playing on GOG this time, instead of Steam) The game usually doesn't tell you where to go next. Some might dislike that, but it wasn't exactly rocket science to know where you need to go.

CONCLUSION
It took me about 4 hours to beat the game on normal. There are no secrets to discover or achievements to 100% complete the game. It's a straightforward action shooter that just wants you to go on a fun killing spree akin to the Punisher.

If you enjoy Max Payne-like games, i'm sure you'll enjoy "El Matador" too.


PROS:
The gameplay is almost exactly like Max Payne, along with some unique little twists that make it it's own game
Diverse set pieces with their own feel
Bullet Time is well done and can even be extended by killing enemies
Main Character is a no-nonsense Punisher of Criminals, no sparing them
Saving is possible at all times

CONS:
Short game, might be disappointing for people
Steam version of the game is basically dead and does not have any support unlike GOG version
Simplistic gameplay could be a deterrence if one wants more

El Matador feels like what would happen if Remedy handed their Max Payne homework to Plastic Reality Technologies and said, 'Just don't copy it exactly,' and Plastic Reality Technologies replied, 'Sure thing.'
Overall I do recommend it as it's a short and fun experience for small change.