The soundtrack is fine. It works very well in its context and I still hum some of its tones every now and then, but that’s mostly it imo. The end credits song is one of the best end themes I’ve ever heard in a videogame, though.
2025 is the year of the X360. First the decomp tools, now this. Maybe we can even expect a serious attempt at emulating the system on PC? Xenia is still not good, unfortunately.
I’ll be honest, it doesn’t just “look like Advance Wars”. It looks like a rip-off. I love AW but I wish they went with a more original art style, like Wargroove did.
About the GoG store’s second class treatment: it’s always worth it to email the publisher and ask them if they plan on updating their game on GoG!
I did exactly that a few months ago when I wanted to buy I was a teenage exocolonist - emailed Finji and let them know that their game was not up to date on the platform I wanted to buy the game on. They replied rather quickly and the game was updated a few days later. It was very nice because the game was on sale and, thanks to their quick reply, I was able to not miss the sale.
AI techbros will have you believe that you can solve world hunger, cure cancer, and colonize Mars with a few prompts on ChatGPT.
Yet their AI is still incapable of answering two prompts consecutively without making shit up, or drawing a human without turning it into an eldritch abomination.
Game preservation could be fixed with open source emulators and fixing copyright laws so that I’m allowed to download a game nobody has profited from in two decades, but that’s not appealing to big corporations.
Mildly surprised to see another installment in this series after all these years, but I’m pretty excited.
For those who don’t know, Styx is a AA stealth game where you play as a goblin assassin (the titular Styx). It spawned as a spin off of another fantasy game (Of orcs and men) where you played as both the goblin and an orc warrior, which was unfortunately a bit too janky for my tastes.
The focus on stealth of the following installments really benefitted the series, imo. While they still carry a bit of janky-ness (as many AA titles do), they are nevertheless a lot of fun! The story in the first one was very good as well. I still haven’t finished the second one, so I can’t comment much on it.
The first two games are also currently discounted on Steam and GoG ($2 for the first one and $3 for the second), and I think they are very much worth that much.
If you kind of liked the XIII games, I highly recommend Lighting Returns. Time limits make me deeply anxious but that game’s timer is VERY generous, especially because you can stop time pretty much forever. I 100% my first run in, like, four days out of thirteen.
The story is wacky as hell (I honestly didn’t care much after XIII-2), but gameplay’s solid and exploration is fun.
As for the last question, I think that they should go back to their roots. They pivoted away from the JRPG genre with each title, but recent successes from similar games (such as Persona 5 in the AAA department, and Sea of Stars in the indie category) proved that people still crave a more traditional turn-based system.
I really enjoyed Tunic for the same reason as you! It has nice and cozy vibes but manages to challenge the player without ever feeling too cheap or overwhelmingly difficult, in both combat and puzzles. I really was reminded of old-school gaming, in a good way.
The only thing I disliked is how cryptic the last few puzzles were, to the point that I doubt the vast percentage of the player base would be able to figure them out without resorting to a guide. I certainly wasn’t. I love puzzle games and I love games like Talos Principle and Crosscode. I guess I just didn’t like how meta-gamey some of the solutions (and the reward for the puzzles) were.
PS. Another great post and the formatting is excellent. Congrats!
As a fellow enthusiast with an obsessive-compulsive drive to write about my hobbies (not necessarily video-game related, but quite similar) i know that these things take a while to write, especially when you take the time to format everything correctly, link the sources, etc.
So I wanted to echo the others here and say that I really appreciate your work here. It was a fun way to start my day, and I’m looking forward to your next post :)