Little Nightmares III - PC Review

Little Nightmares III by developer Supermassive Games and publisher Bandai Namco Entertainment—PC(Steam) review written by Richard and Natasha with a copy provided by the publisher.

 
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes  

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Hello everyone, it’s time to jump back into the land of dreams, where danger lurks around every bend, where grotesque creatures try to maim you… okay, not the land of dreams, but the land of nightmares. Or to be more exact, Little Nightmares III.

If you’ve played either of the previous two installments, good news is that it’s more of what you’ve hopefully come to love! For those newer to the franchise, no worries, no prior knowledge is needed. In Little Nightmares III, you go on an adventure with Low and Alone, looking for an escape from Nowhere. With both Low and Alone having their own unique item to help them traverse the Nowhere, you need to run, sneak, climb, and fight your way through the treacherous expanse of bad dreams. Can you help these two friends make it out?

Little Nightmares at its core is a 3D adventure puzzle title where you will be exploring a themed location, progressing through “rooms” to get to an exit. Sometimes you will need to solve a puzzle, like hitting a switch or pushing crates to make a ledge you can climb on, or figuring out what the heck you’re supposed to do with a jukebox (I got this purely by accident by the way). Other times you will need to sneak your way by the Residents of Nowhere. Sometimes they’re pretty lazy, but other times they will give chase, and you need to hurry and get away!

For the most part Low and Alone can do the same things, although they each have a unique item. You can run, jump, sneak, pick up, and throw. Yeah, that’s about it for basic moves, expecting more? Well Low has a bow and Alone has a wrench. The bow can be used to hit switches, sever frayed rope, or distract or stun enemies. The wrench can be used to break stuff, whether that’s a wall, an object, or a stunned enemy.

You can play either by yourself or with a partner online. No need for two copies either, a friend can download the guest pass and play along with you, although they won’t be earning any achievements for themselves. If you choose to play by yourself, the character you did not pick will be controlled by an AI, although there are a few changes. For instance, if you play as Alone, instead of making you shoot the bow to hit a switch as Low, they give you an item to throw. I played through the entire game with my fellow reviewer, and can honestly say that I enjoyed it a lot more as a team effort than when I went back to try it solo.

I do have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the cooperative aspect of Little Nightmares III. There was a good blend of things each of you can do on your own, things you need to do together, and being able to go explore in one direction while your friend goes somewhere else. Playing with a friend in coop feels a lot better than playing by yourself. It feels like it really clicks with the theme they’re going for with the partners controlled by you and your coop friend as Low and Alone.

Unfortunately it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, literally or figuratively. In this dark and dreadful world, what’s equally dreadful are: CONNECTIVITY ISSUES. Seriously though, there were a few times where we were making our way through an area when BAM, suddenly disconnected. And it doesn’t try to reconnect or anything, you just get booted to the main menu. Good news is that there are frequent checkpoint autosaves. Bad news is we had it happen a lot. There is also a bit of an issue we had where we got disconnected, and the checkpoint autosave put us in a position where we crashed every time we tried to continue the game. Luckily we could rollback to an earlier save, but it was certainly frustrating. Add into this the occasional lag spike and things can be a little dicey. As the partner and not the host, I had the brunt of it, and while it normally only happened between going from one room to the next, it also happened during a chase sequence. You do not want to lag out during a chase sequence. Or mid jump. Or both.

Ultimately what I’m trying to get at here is that there are a few stability issues and glitches here and there that can get rather frustrating. For example, I got stuck behind some objects once and we had to reload a checkpoint, or I tried to throw an object through a hole (like intended), but it just hit the wall in front of me. Low’s bow is also super finicky, as sometimes it would shoot at a weird angle, or not aim where I wanted it to. For the most part, you can’t really be aiming while moving or else your accuracy shoots way too far down. There were also the occasional moments where the character models would go invisible during scenes, or the locations wouldn’t be synced up right, and it resulted in some really weird moments.

In a point in favour for Little Nightmares III, I felt they did well on the atmosphere. It was mostly dark and gritty like the last two titles, and I felt it was aesthetically similar enough to enjoy the setting. On the other hand, the story made me feel a little ripped off. During the course of playing, the two of us were trying to piece things together from a seemingly eclectic mix of stages. In the first two games there was a somewhat reasonable, if not explained directly, storyline that you could follow. Here it was a complete wild guess. Maybe if I had read the comics or listened to the podcasts I’d have a better idea what was going on, but it feels like the only real story you get is in the last five minutes and then it gets cut off. As a neat little added unfortunate bonus, I crashed during the credits so didn’t get either of the achievements for completing the game, and I don’t have any chapter unlock progress. My partner does though.

Ultimately I feel like Little Nightmares III was a bit of a letdown with a lacking story, some control and connectivity issues, and some glitches that could really frustrate. I did really enjoy the coop feature and it felt like it added something fun, especially when you’re actually talking to your partner while playing. Looking past the connection issues, there was a lot of enjoyment here to be had, it just needs a little touching up first.

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Heya! Nyx, here!

Solaris and I ended up tag teaming together for Little Nightmares 3. It's always better with 2! This series has a way of really making you feeling small and feeble, even with a partner to help you escape the trauma. I got a lot of Split Fiction coop vibes when I played through and I definitely noticed an improvement with the multiplayer addition to the game. It truly requires you to trust in your partner and survive this grotesque world. However, this game also came with some issues. We had many connection errors and crashes throughout our play session and from time to time the environment would have pockets or corners where we would end up stuck. With a bit of polishing and some updates this game will become a more memorable experience for future players.

Always with gaming love, JaydaNyx!

Score: 7 / 10

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Super Farming Boy is part of June's Steam Next Fest!

Discover this action-puzzle farming sim featuring chain reactions and combos

June 4, 2024, Buenos Aires - Independent publisher Renxo Europe and developer Lemonchili Soft are proud to announce the participation of their upcoming title Super Farming Boy (website, trailer, gameplay explanatory video) in the coming Steam Next Fest that will be celebrated from June 10 to 17. Demo codes are already available for the press and influencers, feel free to request yours if you are interested in previewing it.

Super Farming Boy is scheduled to arrive on Steam Early Access and Epic Games Store in Q2 2025, and later on also on Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Android and iOS platforms.

THE STORY

In Super Farming Boy, you assume the role of Super, whose mom and friends have been captured by the evil nemesis, KORPO®©TM. Unlawfully hiring you to work on your own land, Korpo taxes all proceeds for himself! Now, with your friends and mom up for sale, you must harvest your way through some wacky challenges, saving enough to rescue them back!

MAIN FEATURES

• Superhero abilities: Super Farming Boy™ has the ability to walk, run, and even fly! Additionally, he can transform into any tool with a simple push or tap of a button.
• Chain Reaction & Combos: Optimize your farm by harvesting a single crop and witnessing the chain and combo effects efficiently harvest your entire farm at once. However, meticulous planning in your planting efforts is essential!
• Lots of Supertools to Upgrade: All SuperTools and powers in Super Farming Boy™ come in the form of old-school superhero trading cards. Unlock and upgrade them all!
• Outlandish Seasons to Discover: Explore a plethora of unique seasons in Super Farming Boy™, including Spring, Winteria, Volcanic, Radioactive, Underwater (coming soon), and Timewarp (coming soon).
• Idle helpers to collect: Rescue all your pets by purchasing them back from Korpo™®©! Each pet comes with a unique mechanic to help automate your farm.
• No inventory management: Super Farming Boy™ eliminates the need for inventory management. All seeds and helpers are creatures that follow you wherever you go, avoiding the hassle of an ever-filling inventory!
• Beauty Up and Customize it All: Personalize your BlobHouse with fantastic beauty items such as tables, rugs, and beds! Your home will be uniquely yours and look amazing with your creative touch.
• Boss Fights, in a farming game? (coming soon): Utilize your crops' combo and chain reaction powers to defend your farm against evil creatures like crop eaters and Seasonal Bosses!
• Mushroom Boosters (coming soon): Discover all the crazy Mushroom Booster power-ups that provide instant effects, such as Daylight during the night, Instant Weather changing effects, and more mysterious effects. Mix and combine them to see what happens!

THE MECHANICS

In Super Farming Boy, there are no tools because you are the tool. With the simple push of a button, you can transform into a shovel, a hammer, a pickaxe, a watering can, and more! Super Farming Boy can even FLY! The game's central mechanic revolves around chain reactions and combos! The magical seed creatures in this world, once harvested, trigger specific chain-reaction effects that enable you to optimize your farm in ways never seen before in a farming game.

For more information, follow the developer socials, Discord server and Steam page:

Twitter: http://www.x.com/lemonchiligames

Tik Tok: http://www.tiktok.com/@lemonchilisoft

Discord: https://discord.gg/lemonchilisoft

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/lemonchilisoft

Steam Store: https://store.steampowered.com/app/659300/Super_Farming_Boy

About LemonChili Soft

LemonChili Soft is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and is responsible for Boop Kids, one of the biggest subscription services on iOS and Android, also mobile games Floyd’s Sticker Squad and Tower Power. Its partner company, Renxo LTD, is specialized on User Acquisition via carrier billing and has businesses everywhere in the world, from South America to Europe and Asia.

About Nando Sarmiento, the game designer

Nando Sarmiento (Little Nando) is the creator of Super Farming Boy. He’s also the creator of several projects like Silvertongue 30xx Manga, Tough Coded:Live, featured on SXSW, and many festivals around the world like TwitchCon & TGS (won Best Experimental Game and Best Presentation in Tokyo Game Show). Nando was also the VJ for many artists back in the day, like Hernan Cattaneo, JunkieXL and Jimmy Van M, for festivals such as Creamfields. Also a film director, having premiered short film E.L.A. in Love at First Byte in SlamDance 2009 and medium feature Girl(Boy)14 in various festivals, winning a few awards at the early age of 20. Nando is also the CEO of PepperMelon, a character-driven commercial powerhouse with clients such as Disney, Viacom, Google, Microsoft, among many others, and was responsible for the executive production of the insanely popular Mama Lucchetti campaigns in Argentina.

 

Article by: Susan N.

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Batora: Lost Haven Review

Batora: Lost Haven by developer Stormind Games and publisher Team17—Microsoft Xbox Series X review written by Nick with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

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Batora: Lost Haven came out a little under a year ago, and it’s promising mix of action, RPG and puzzle elements had long been of interest to me, but until recently I hadn’t yet played it. The developer for Batora: Lost Haven is the someone who made Remothered – a horror game that is pretty much the polar opposite of Batora’s bright visuals and gameplay.

That being said, don’t let Batora’s pleasing (almost adorable) visuals fool you. It looks vibrant, but there’s still some underlay of darker themes here. Choice weighs heavily into the gameplay, and the further you get into Batora’s twisting narrative, the more it feels like you are making some morally gray decisions out of necessity. These choices certainly feel meaty (and lend a great deal of replay value in the process), as they impact dialog and the spirit that tags along with you during those trials. It is interesting because I didn’t see hard forks in the path (like more binary good / evil morality systems seen in many games). All of this makes some sense, as the game itself is not terribly long, which likely leans into that aforementioned replay value to see if you can make things a bit different on subsequent playthroughs.  

There is a bit of tonal inconsistency that struck me as a bit odd at times. It’s sort of a dark theme – worlds are dying. Yet our protagonist, Avril, gets strange powers and finds herself making tough choices with no real right or wrong answers. Her sister perished with her world’s destruction. Avril is traveling with her best friend Mila, which likely helps Avril’s mindset throughout the journey, but I found Avril a bit light-hearted given the circumstances. As a character who was previously pretty ordinary and now sees these terrible things happen, it just felt… off.

Combined with really solid combat and some interesting (if light) RPG and puzzle elements, Batora: Lost Haven does a lot of things well. A few things really well. However, there are times that lack of singular focus keeps any single aspect of the game from being excellent. The combat is really solid – but not something that I really enjoyed most of the time. It starts off well enough, but the further I got into the game, the more the combat started to feel very same-y, with less squishy opponents that created longer engagements that felt a bit more chore-like by the end. It never got the point of being bad, but my enjoyment dwindled the longer I played. This might be dubbed an action-RPG, but it lacks the flow of better ARPG titles like the Diablo games.

That’s not to say there isn’t anything interesting to the combat. You attain new skills as you go, and there’s a sort of binary state of having to match your enemies’ state in order to damage them that we’ve seen in other titles that works well. It’s a snappy feature that keeps the early progression from being little more than button mashing. I just wish the enemies were a bit more imaginative and interesting, but after awhile they just feel like more of the same.

Thankfully I enjoyed the boss encounters quite a bit more. They were interesting, with the developers really taking the time to make these encounters the sort of unique culmination one would expect. A couple of them were almost devious, but there’s a genuine sense of satisfaction when their health bars are depleted and I was celebrating their demise.

Additionally, most of the puzzles feel pretty good, but a handful were borderline frustrating and a couple that I found just downright annoying. Thankfully these were far more the exception than the rule, with most of the puzzles feeling pretty organic to the gameplay and rewarding upon completion. Unfortunately the couple that really strained my patience made me feel as though I just wasn’t quite ‘good enough’ and thought perhaps my adventure was going to stall out before I had that ah-ha moment and progressed through them.

One area that could have used more fine tuning was the camera. I enjoyed the colorful visuals that rather reminded me of the Torchlight titles, but the camera has no ability to swivel the view. You can move to a fixed distance either close or further away and that was it. Generally the camera itself is in good positions, and seldom did I find the environments obtrusive – but a bit more control would have been nice

Batora: Lost Haven is a pleasant game that mashes up a few genres pretty well. As is often the case for a game like this however, it becomes a case of doing several things well but none of them great. It’s enjoyable, but never really seems to fully reach its potential. I played through it a couple of times and started through a third session before I felt like I had played it enough. I’m glad I did, even if Batora left me wanting just a little bit more in the end.

Score: 7 / 10

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Undead Citadel Release Date!

We're excited to announce the release date of our VR game, Undead Citadel, on Steam VR: Thu June 8th, 2023. Soon the game will be released on: Quest 2, PSVR2.



Undead Citadel is an action-packed title exclusively built for VR, focused on physics driven close/ranged medieval combat with real-life movements, immersing players in a visually stunning universe threatened by undead annihilation. Developed by Dark Curry

Storyline

When you, as soldier of fortune sir Anvil Capheus, discover a colossal citadel in the midst of a storm, hopes surge - you might not die today after all. Armed with little more than a sword and other weapons and consumables that you find along the way, you need to overcome hordes of monsters lurking in the shadows 

Features

● Innovative 100% physics-based combat engine that prioritizes unobtrusive interaction with objects and characters.

● Smash or cut your enemies down with over 60+ different close combat weapons with real life movements: swords, axes, warhammers, maces, shields, longswords or even your own hands. 

● Take the undead down with ranged weaponry like bow and arrows, or blow them up with powerful explosives. 

● Engage against dozens of different close combat, ranged or heavily armored enemy types. 

● Find and use slow motion, strength, invulnerability or freeze magic potions to mutate your power and obliterate the dead ones.
 
● Full-size campaign: find your way through a huge apocalyptic fantasy environment, with 10+ levels to explore, including exterior and interior scenery. 

● Horde mode: Survive through endless armies of foes and reach the top leaderboards. 

● Solve a variety of puzzles to advance through the single player experience. 

● Armory: Collect all the weapons you acquire from the other modes in your armory and test your weapons in this sandbox mode

DARK CURRY

Dark Curry was founded in 2014 by a team of passionate designers, engineers and artists who all share the same passion for making action-packed, visually stunning games that can be played and enjoyed by everyone. Dark Curry isn’t just a place where we create great games. It’s where we all work side by side to push the boundaries in gaming.

 
Article by: Susan N.

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Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine - Retro Reflections - TBT

Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine by developer Compile Corporation and publisher SEGA—SNES Throwback Thursday retro reflection written by Hamza. 1993.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

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One of the many reasons why I love me some puzzle games is because of the ability to cause a chain reaction. Yes, I love chain reactions in what ever game that carries it. There’s something orgasmic about it, something inexplainably seductive about watching many things blow or disappear in a continous succession. Take Boomshinefor example. That game is nothing but12 levels of majestic chain reaction. You do nothing except hope that the reaction you started manages to explode the required bubbles on-screen to progress to the next round. Other such examples are Bangai O-Spirits and Henry Hatsworth. Both on the NDS and both worth checking out.Though Columns on the SNES is my current love for the moment, I believe I can make a big space in my heart for Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine – a Genesis “match-and-disappear” classic that’s as long and funny as its title. It is simply too good a game to miss and too addictive to put down under fifteen minutes.

Dr. Robotnik as you all know is the main villain of the Sonic the Hedgehog universe. As one of the few titles not to include the blue blur, Dr. Robotnik takes center stage and stars boldly in his own game in his own spotlight, with no restraints or regrets. On the surface, Mean Bean plays similarly to the other titles in the genre, and you’re instantly forgiven if you were reminded of other identical games. So what if you replace blocks with beans? So what if you eschew specifically-tailored characters for world-wide recognizable ones?

Little do simple-minded people know, and as every able-minded person knows, that these subtle variations make all the difference. If you take the same mentality to (especially) scrollers and platformers, you will notice that no two platform or scrolling games will be the same in design-or-character-wise, but one will undeniably be a doppelganger to the other; whether in terms of the aforementioned or execution or story, that can be discovered and discussed later.

Mean Bean Machine apparently has a story that I couldn’t bother to worry about in the least bit. The gameplay was all I was interested in, and thus directed all my attention to that only. You go head-to-head against a villain character, whose visage with brilliantly animated expressions rests in the middle of the screen. Anytime you see him giving a mischevious grin or smiling like a maniac, you know you’re in trouble and that he’s winning. If he’s frowning or crying or praying, then you’re in the lead and that his “game over” is just around the corner. But there lies a catch. If you decide to lay back and go easy around this time, then there’s a good chance the villain can catch up and turn the tables on you. I’m not sure if this is a genuine game mechanic but I’ve fallen pray to my own over-confidence one too many times, due to the game’s assurance that the enemy is losing and that I’m winning. If it isn’t, then I enjoyed it all the same anyhow.

Fans of the genre know the drill to “match-and-disappear” games; or as I like to call them “Now you see them... ha, ha, ha... Now you don’t”. Anyway, your aim is to combine a set number of blocks to make them disappear and possibly, start a chain reaction, and in general rake up high points and survive longer than your opponent. In this game, the blocks are replaced by beans and fall in pairs vertically. You have to combine 4 or more beans of the same color to make them successfully disappear. You can only change the position of one bean according to your, er, taste. When the cute little anthropomorphic beans meet their colored match, they link themselves together, forming a living chain. Somehow this all sounded better in my head, yet now it seems as if I’m writing a synopsis of a rascist prison film.

Continuing on with the gameplay, if one’s screen fills up completely with beans, they lose. When one causes a big enough chain reaction, the disappeared beans become refugee beans, or “has-beans”, and start falling on the other’s screen. These refugee beans act as flaks, and instead of shielding you from enemy fire, they prevent you from achieving your M.A.D. goal. They cannot be taken out in the normal way. The only way to do that is to match up four adjacent beans, and any nearby refugee bean will disappear along with it. Apart from making you rework your strategy or improvise, refugee beans really only obstruct a perfectly good game.

And one game can go from five to ten minutes easily, even more in the harder levels. Ten minutes equals to almost nine-to-fourteen chain reactions and I can live with that. But don’t let the time scare you; if you’re experienced enough, it might end early for you. The game, I mean!

In conclusion, Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine didn’t quite give me a craving for beans but it did re-ignite my love for puzzle games, and you can bet I’ll be playing more of them in this year... and the year next... and the year third!


Note: Screenshots from all platforms that were available at the time can be found here at Moby Games.


Score: 9 / 10

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Terracotta Review

Terracotta by developer Appnormals Team and publishers Freedom Games, plusDSgames—PC (Steam) review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 16 minutes

Terracotta, ancient stone warriors, or action puzzle game? Why not both? Terracotta is an interesting title with a focus on solving puzzles while alternating between Yin and Yang, the goal to bring balance. Unfortunately, Terracotta doesn't strike a very good balance between concept and implementation.

While I don't normally do this for my reviews, I'm going to put a notice right here: Terracotta, at the time of me writing this, is receiving patches fairly often to fix at least some of the issues I have experienced with it. While I liked the concept and if most of my issues were resolved it wouldn't be a huge deal, but there are currently some game breaking bugs. As such, I can't recommend picking up Terracotta until some time has been given for the developers to fix some of these issues.

In Terracotta you take on the role of one of the Terracotta warriors. All the Terracotta warriors, except for you, have been cursed, and it's up to you to rescue their spirits. You will need to traverse multiple realms, bringing balance via torches in order to cleanse your fellow warriors. Alternating between the realms of Yin and Yang, discovering new abilities, and mastering different mechanisms are all required to accomplish your goal.

Terracotta is a mashup of two genres: action and puzzle. Sometimes a little more biased towards one genre than the other depending on the level, your primary goal is to balance the torches. Pay attention that I said "balance", not "light them all", although they do all need to be lit to progress. Each level will consist of a number of torches, both unlit and lit. Some are purple, and some will turn blue when you activate them. The number of torches and their current state can be seen at the top of the screen, and are divided between blue and purple. You need to fill all the dots, as well as have an equal number of blue vs. purple, then stand on a specific panel in order to clear a level.

The game is divided up into different elemental paths that constitute the stages, with each stage being further divided into levels. At the beginning of each level you can step on a stone to activate a tree which functions as a checkpoint, and at the end of each stage you will face off against a boss. Levels are generally fairly short if you know what you're doing and don't mess up too often, but can also take a long time for some of the larger ones, especially if you keep screwing up. You do have a health gauge, and taking too much damage means you have to restart the level. The thing to remember here though is that you have no invincibility frames on hit, meaning enemies can combo you to death given the chance.

Thankfully you have a number of abilities at your disposal to help you out! The most important of these is the ability to alternate between the realm of Yin and Yang. While in Yin mode you cannot run, but enemies will be unable to move and mechanisms will pause in their function. You can use this realm to plan out your puzzle solutions, as well as skirt around the enemies that you more than likely don't want to deal with. The realm of Yang is where the mechanisms and enemies are in motion. Enemies will move and attack you, mechanisms will activate, and you move a lot faster.

The next most important ability is channeling Tao. Basically this allows you to activate mechanisms by pumping a bunch of Tao into them during Yin state, and then they will activate upon returning to Yang. Some mechanisms are always active as well. Tao can also be channeled along the ground in Yin mode. Upon returning to Yang, the Tao will create walls which can be used to: redirect arrows, box in enemies, protect yourself from enemies while standing on a pressure switch, or activate certain pattern switches by matching the design.

You only have a limited reserve of Tao, but can recover all of it when needed. Unfortunately, you either recover all of it from where you left it, or none at all. I'll give an example. Let's say you activate two statues that cause wind to blow and dropped a line to deflect an arrow at a switch. If you recover your Tao, it returns the Tao from the two statues and from the wall, meaning you would need to set those up again if they are required for a puzzle but you ran out of Tao while trying to solve it.

As you continue through the game, you will occasionally learn new abilities, such as a short term shield to protect against arrows, or the ability to send out a ghost clone to draw enemy attention. Certain abilities can only be used in certain realms, and most have a limit on them, whether you have a timer on the ability use, and then it enters a cooldown, or if you need to meet a specific requirement before use.

At this point I'd like to give a few… words about the abilities. First off, while they aren't all strictly required to solve the puzzles, most of them are and will be used fairly often in the stage you find them. Also, jumping and dashing are abilities, and they're on that timer I mentioned. Once you jump once, let's say, you then have a limited time to keep jumping. Once the timer runs out, you have to wait for the ability icon to refill before you can jump again. The same holds for the dash.

Now, I'd like to point out how frustrating this is when you put in a series of large blocks you need to jump up, but are forced to stop 5 times on the way up because you have no more jump for the next 3 seconds, or if you're running along a path and go to jump, only to fall off the path because you are currently on cooldown. Add to this that the jump and dash are most likely going to be your main mode of avoiding enemies, that you cannot kill and can only get stunned under specific conditions, and this gets really annoying really fast. The rest of the abilities? Sure, no problem with how they function, but the movement techniques can get you really frustrated.

Thankfully you can upgrade your abilities, either letting you use them more often, or shortening the cooldown between uses. As you roam about each level, you may see these glowing yellow coins. Each one acts as an upgrade point. Putting five points total into an ability will upgrade it. I did however have a few issues with the abilities. Sometimes when entering a new area with an ability to learn, the statue that hands them out wouldn't give me the ability, forcing me to quit to the title screen and then resume in order to unlock the ability.

Also, at one point I suddenly had a very large number of coins in my inventory. Next time I booted up the game, I was back down to my normal number of coins, but had lost two of my abilities. Thankfully they weren't required, just helpful, but it was a little frustrating. On the plus side, the ability statues are at the beginning of a level, usually at the very start of a stage, so it's not too much trouble to quit and come back to reset it, as annoying as it is.

Alright, so I think it's about time we start discussing the, quite frankly, staggering amount of issues I've had with Terracotta while playing. Many of these have probably been patched out as I went, and hopefully the ones that haven't will get resolved soon, but good lord are some of them insanely frustrating. First up is the number of times I managed to softlock, forcing me to either die and restart the level if possible, or quit back to title screen and try again.

This ranged from being unable to cross a bridge for no discernable reason, falling into a pond I could walk on but couldn't leave (which I believe is addressed in the most recent patch I saw), or clipping out of bounds. Occasionally I would also have certain gimmicks just not function until I reset or I would need to activate mechanisms multiple times because they didn't work the first time. Also, sometimes arrows will bounce off your Tao walls the opposite direction to what they should. No idea why, but I found this only happened mostly when the arrow was going straight down, and occasionally while it is going straight up.

The worst issue though has to be in the Thunder area. Basically, every time you finish a level, you screen transition to the next level by walking out the door at the end of the stage. I had the game crash way more times than is even remotely reasonable while trying to load the next level. After level 4, it was about a 1/3 chance of actually loading the level, otherwise it would crash. A 67% average crash rate isn't good, especially when the checkpoints are after the level and at the beginning of the next, meaning you're forced to redo the level and hope it doesn't crash this time.

Keep in mind that 67% crash rate is the average, not the worst. Some of the stages I made it through to the next on the first try. One took me 7 runs before the next level loaded. This only happens in the Thunder area, but seriously needs to be addressed. After the first few times I nearly dropped the game right there, but I'm nothing if not stubborn, so at least I can confirm for you guys, at least at the time I'm writing this, this is a very serious issue.

Other than the glitches and crashes, there are a few other complaints with the implementation. First up, the game is sort of 2D isometric, and…off-corner isometric? This would be all fine if more objects had shadows to help gauge depth, but they don't which makes a lot of jumps and arrow puzzles. A little frustrating when you think you're setting it up properly, only to be a few millimeters off, forcing you to redo the setup for the whole puzzle. A few arrow shadows could do wonders, or at least a line on the ground indicating where the arrow really is.

Thankfully you get used to it as you keep playing, but it's still a bit frustrating. The end panels for the stages also have a much smaller hitbox than is probably reasonable. No, seriously, the amount of times I died to a boss because I kept running over the panel but not activating it? Guargh. Other than that, I feel like some of the switches on the ground no longer have indicators while in Yin mode. I feel like they used to show as grey or black placeholders to show you where they were, but they don't anymore? That could just be me though.

Considering that the music and art direction are actually quite good, it's sad to see many of Terracotta's good points overshadowed by the bugs and glitches. The puzzles are all unique and I felt they were nicely planned out. The stage themes are well portrayed and the puzzles make good use of the themes. The puzzles also get you progressively more used to the abilities you've just received, as well as making use of previous abilities to keep them fresh in your mind. Honestly, given some more time and a few more patches, I think Terracotta could be a really great title, if not a little frustrating at times.

Overall, it's really difficult to recommend Terracotta at the moment. While the puzzles and mechanics are well conceived, the package as a whole has too many issues between game crashes and softlocks, only made manageable through frequent checkpoints at level starts.

Terracotta has wonderful potential that just isn't being realized as it is now. Perhaps in a month or two, and some more patching, Terracotta could be a game that really shines through, but not in its current state.

Score: 5 / 10

Updated Summary (December 12, 2022)

After the most recent patch release, patch 1.0.9 I believe, almost all of my major concerns with Terracotta have been resolved.

I tried to replicate my softlocks and was unable to, the game ran smoother than I remember, and checkpoints have been added into stages so you will no longer cry at losing a lot of progress in the longer or tougher stages. Furthermore, anything I had previously lost has returned to its initial point, including skills, and I was able to get them again.

I'm really glad to see the developers take such an active and quick response to the issues noted. With the adjustments, I would now consider Terracotta an 8.5 / 10.

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First Person Shooter 'Phantom Fury' Coming to PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC in 2023!

AALBORG, Denmark — Sept. 16, 2022 — Phantom Fury, a road movie-inspired first-person shooter starring Ion Fury’s Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison developed by Slipgate Ironworks and published by 3D Realms, debuted today at Realms Deep 2022. Join Shelly on her next action-packed adventure on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC in 2023.

Years after Shelly’s fight against Jadus Heskel, an old colleague rouses her from a coma. She awakens with a bionic arm capable of incredible feats and a new mission: track down the dangerous Demon Core, an artifact capable of unprecedented destruction before villains get their hands on it.

Set off on an adrenaline-amped adventure across the USA to battle menacing soldiers, vicious cyborgs, vile mutants, and challenging bosses. Blast through enemies in satisfying skirmishes in seedy Albuquerque hotels, explore abandoned facilities in Los Alamos, defend the streets of Chicago, and delve into more sinister locations on her journey.

Phantom Fury’s world features an incredible amount of interactivity. Pilot helicopters, solve environmental puzzles, hack into fully usable computers, play arcade machines and air hockey, and much more — if you see it, you can probably play with it. Each mission comes with surprising ways to interact and creatively circumvent obstacles.

Shelly’s predisposition for powerful weapons requires an awesome arsenal, and Slipgate Ironworks delivers. Wield more than 20 weapons, from her trusty Loverboy revolver and Bowling Bombs to new equipment like armor-piercing shotguns, electrified foam shooting devices, and controllable drones. Upgrade armaments with mods like new fire functions to unleash hell. Unlock new abilities for Shelly’s nifty new arm like punch attacks and electric shields to overcome challenges on the way to the Demon Core.

“We’ve been quietly working on Phantom Fury in hopes of really surprising everyone at Realms Deep,” said Frederik Schreiber, CEO at Slipgate Ironworks and 3D Realms. “This was a game we wanted to make for almost a decade, and It feels awesome to finally show it to everyone. We know you’ll love going on this explosive road trip next year.”

Phantom Fury will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC in 2023. Follow 3D Realms on Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube, or join the Discord for up-to-date information.

About 3D Realms

Founded 30 years ago, 3D Realms was the publisher, developer, and creator of many legendary gaming franchises, most still going strong: Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem, Shadow Warrior, Max Payne, and Prey.

To learn more about 3D Realms, please visit the studio’s official website.

About Slipgate Ironworks

Slipgate Ironworks is a game development studio located in Aalborg, Denmark, comprised of industry veterans and talent, having worked on both indie and AAA titles for the past 2 decades.

Slipgate Ironwork’s first title was the critically acclaimed Rise of the Triad, under the Interceptor Entertainment name.

Since then, they’ve been involved in a range of games, including, Ghostrunner, GRAVEN, Rad Rodgers, and most recently, Tempest Rising, their new AAA Real Time Strategy title.

To learn more, please visit their official website.

Article by: Susan N.

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