Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is a short but charming peak into a single case of the titular Duck Detective, Eugene McQuacklin. A hardboiled down-on-his-luck duck trying his best to make rent. The case that falls into his lap is to uncover who exactly The Salami Bandit is and why they are causing such havoc to this out of the way bus station.

I loved this game. It's so charming and over the top. Constant jazz and a rainy moody atmosphere. Eugene has walked straight out of film noir and is stealing the show of every dialogue he's in. Sean Chiplock gives a fantastic performance and frankly everyone else in the supporting cast does as well. They completely sell the animal office workers they are portraying. And that's good because the bulk of the game is learning about this cast and all of their interpersonal drama and conflict. I think everyone will find a favorite in the bunch. I'd love to tell you mine but that'd be giving away part of the gameplay!

Deductions! One of the first things you have to do is find out the name of everyone in the office. Using deductions and details in your environment you'll pickup clues and useful information that helps you piece together the case.
This game is overflowing with details too. The office feels very lived in. My favorite detail is when you go into investigation mode and hover your magnifying glass over a suspect the part you're investigating gets a lot more detailed. Almost as if you're focusing and seeing them for who they actually are in that moment. It's so creative and adds a lot of character to Eugene. It's like the cartoony artstyle is how he views things at first glance, barely giving them the time of day, before he focuses in and gets serious.

The Duck Detective is a two to three hour game so I don't want to give too much away. If you're into sleuthing and mysteries it's easily worth the asking price for the quality of what you're getting. This case is worth seeing through to the end.

Eugene is a character I'd love to see more of so my biggest hope is we get more cases from the Duck Detective!

A short and cute horror puzzler about a scientist trying to escape a lab. The atmosphere created by the rain pitter-pattering on the windows and the blue hue of the abandoned lab is nice and moody. The art has this adorable and bubbly quality that plays well with the horror elements. The puzzles were a good excuse to bust out some paper but were basically just math problems.

I would love to see what else the developers could do with this style of theirs. I'd easily pay for this to be expanded into a full game with some puzzles that aren't just math problems.

As it is, it's free! If you have an hour to burn in the evening you could do a lot worse than this spooky but cozy puzzler.

El Paso, Elsewhere is fucking incredible. All I was expecting was a Halloween flavored Max Payne send up and while I definitely got that I think it's unfair for this game to live in that shadow. It takes so much from that series but rearranges and tweaks those things to achieve it's own identity.

I love urban fantasy. Dresden Files, Vampire The Masquerade, Blackwell. A supernatural underworld just below the surface of humanity. Often treating humans like cattle or at least disposable for their own purposes. I find it so interesting and El Paso is no exception. The little bits of worldbuilding we get paint a similar picture but this one is much more abstract.

You play James Savage who is currently in a three-story motel that just got a 46 story expansion all heading down, courtesy of his ex, Draculae. She's taking part in some sort of ritual that will end the world and has plenty of hostages. Whatever this ritual is doing is causing The Void to warp reality with trauma into a nightmarish thrill ride all the way to the bottom where they'll confront everything that made their relationship come to this.

All supernatural chaos aside their abusive relationship manages to feel very real in the little ways they interact and the voice acting helps this exponentially. It's clear to me the writer knows what this kind of relationship feels like. It's not afraid to poke fun at the melodrama of two ex lovers confronting each other either. These two characters the story revolves around are flawed and fleshed out and I really enjoyed them.

James' descent into this hellish motel feels incredible. Diving past ghouls, rolling through their slashes and slow mo blasting them in the head. Saving hostages in between brief bursts of violence and popping enough pain pills to kill himself 50 times over just to tank through The Void's horde of supernatural horrors. If you hold down the dive button you can stay on the floor until you're out of ammo and need to get up to reload. Like I said it's Max Payne. The one main tweak in the gameplay besides enemy variety is an instant kill stake that you get 5 of and break various pieces of furniture to get more. Break shit, kill people. That's the gameplay loop and god is it addicting.

Which brings me to the music. It's pulse pounding and intense in a way that feeds perfectly into the gameplay. Other times moody or relaxing but always experimental and playful. Any time a track with lyrics comes up feels like a treat. It's one of those total package things where the visuals, sound design, gameplay and music are all working together perfectly. The entire OST has me seriously considering getting the vinyl.

El Paso, Elsewhere is a must play. There's so much I didn't mention because I want you to unravel the rest of this one for yourself. I'll definitely be trying to 100% this in the future and it's safe to say I'll be replaying this for many years to come.

The Legend Of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC Review
Depth, Detail, and a sense that the world you're exploring is lived in.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in The Sky First Chapter had a reputation that intrigued me. I've heard that it's an incredibly slow game that's packed with text. That the purpose of this game was to serve as a 50 hour prologue to it's sequel, Second Chapter. And that it apparently has a brutal cliffhanger that justifies all of that. It does. I'm literally only writing this review in an attempt to stop myself from burning through the next game too fast. The reputation it has for being slow is very earned but being in the mood for a slow burn experience made that a lot less jarring. I can't recommend this game to people who don't want to read a lot though. It will kill the game for you.

In First Chapter you play as Joshua and Estelle Bright. Two 16 year old kids being raised by a legendary bracer named Cassius Bright. Bracers are a guild of freelance mercenaries with a very specific moral compass. Namely to help people. They'll get rid of monsters, save a cat from a tree, escort people from town to town, etc. They just can't intervene with the military or politics of any nation. Joshua and Estelle want to become full fledged Bracers just like their father but in order to do that they need recommendations from guild branches all over their kingdom.

You'll go from town to town picking up odd jobs from the local guild branch in order to complete enough work to earn that branches recommendation. All the while getting a familiarity with each town you go to and the people who live in it. A Bracer has a duty to the people after all. It may sound like pretty standard JRPG fair but this game does something incredible when it comes to talking to the townsfolk.

Minor advancements in the story will give EVERY person in a town something new to say, and this happens several times per town. A lot of these people have little storylines during your stay and may even pop up in future towns. Some will talk about what's going on in the story but others are absorbed in their own dramas. You don't have to go out of your way to talk to everyone but you will miss out on lore and flavor if you don't. There's a lot of fun stories and characters to discover. I've had entire play sessions just being talking to townsfolk because the story advanced a little. I really hope the sequel remembers these background characters.

The towns are gorgeous and they know it too. Every time you get to a new one you'll get this nice sweeping shot of the streets and points of interest. Each town has their own personality to them that keeps the game fresh but it goes beyond the aesthetic of the town itself. Each building feels intricately designed in a way that actually baffles me. Someone put thought into these buildings making sense in a way they genuinely didn't have to for a jrpg. There'll be rooms that you'll never have to enter for any reason but they'll be filled with props and purpose because THAT BUILDING would need that room. I remember being blown away that a weapons shop had an out of the way stock room that I never had to go into but was still decorated top to bottom. It makes the world feel so much more lived in. This game revels in detail on every level and it's easy to see the love that went into this world feeling like a real place with real people.
My biggest fear for future entries is that they stop this level of detail with the townspeople and their surroundings. I can understand them not doing some of this when we switch to a more traditional 3D view without the set camera angles but it would still be disappointing. Only time will tell if they can keep that up!

That said the main cast are so charming as well. Joshua and Estelle's bickering is hilarious and got several laughs out of me. Joshua being this calm and subdued rogue countered by Estelle being a rage tornado is so funny. There's a solid party to build in this one and they all bounce off of eachother in fun ways. They'll be swapped in and out as the story progresses and I liked that compared to just collecting them all. It makes it feel like they have things to do aside from hanging out with you. My favorite party member is easily Zin. He's this massive bear of a man who is also a monk. My favorite character is Nial though. He's basically just Spike Spiegel as a reporter and I adore him.

Despite this game having magic and ridiculous airships it all manages to feel VERY grounded because they explain the hell out of it. Orbments are the way you access magic and skills and you get a literal manual explaining how it all works. Depending on the combination of quartz you install you'll get certain abilities or stat increases. Every characters abilities can be customized to your liking but some have certain elemental preferences. I really like how customizable this system is.

The airships are these hulking technical marvels with all these cool moving parts and when you actually get inside and explore them you can see how thought out the vehicle is. There's so much technology world building like this in the game that kind of teeters on steampunk or something similar. They have these cute chunky designs that I like staring at.

I should probably mention the combat at some point! It's turn based with moves that can change the turn order of everyone taking part in the combat. Random effects like critical hits appear on the turn counter and if you delay someones attack someone else might get that random effect. It's pretty engaging because if you don't pay attention you could give that critical hit to an enemy. It's a solid system all around and I never got bored of it. There's some awesome special attacks too!

I loved this game and can't wait to play it's sequel. The world building is fantastic. The environments feel lived in and atmospheric. I love the people that inhabit them and all their quirks. The writing is genuinely funny and heartwarming at times. The politics and subterfuge were engaging. I love the party we've assembled so far and can't wait to see more of what they get up to. First Chapter felt like reading a REALLY good book or watching one of those anime that just suck you into their world. It's a fantastic experience that I recommend heartily to anyone that can stand a bit of reading and a slow start because this meticulous set up is clearly going somewhere incredible.

Kirby has always been a character I've enjoyed but I haven't experienced many of his games. As a kid I remember playing Kirby Super Star on the SNES and also a DS game here and there but I never finished any of them. I figured it would be fun to see what I actually think of a series that's always been in my periphery. Starting with the very first of his games, Kirby's Dream Land for the Game Boy!

Knowing nothing about it going in I was surprised to learn that Kirby doesn't have his signature copy ability yet. That's alright since even though you can only suck enemies up to shoot them out or kill them with a swallow there is still a lot of enemy variety that can change your approach. Some enemies resist your inhale and some might become enraged and chase you if you try. There are pickups that act as powers too so the gameplay definitely doesn't feel bare bones.

Kirby's Dream Land is pretty short at 5 levels with a boss at the end of each but when you complete it the first time you'll unlock 'extra mode'. It makes the game a bit harder and changes up the levels a little. The bosses are okay, pretty simple to learn their patterns but they were so fun to fight that I didn't even mind the boss rush at the final level.

The game is relatively easy the first go around but extra mode will give you a bit more of a hassle. It's worth the two playthroughs though and the generous life and checkpoint system will make sure you're not pulling your hair out if you get stuck on a part. Also that continue screen when you run out of lives is so cute! You gotta see it at least once haha.

The final level is where you fight my favorite boss of the game, King DeDeDe! This was really fun for me because he's my main in Smash Bro's so starting the boss fight and already being familiar with his move set was a trip. That aside he was the perfect boss to end this on and his move set complimented Kirby. It felt like he met his match (literally since the fight takes place in a boxing ring) and finally knocking DeDeDe out of the stage was awesome.

There is so much personality here from Kirby, the enemies, and even level transitions. Kirby has cute animations like smushing against walls and tumbling when he falls from a height. It lends a real bounciness to the little guy that I didn't expect from a Game Boy game. The music is pretty good too.

All in all I really liked Kirby's Dream Land. It pleasantly surprised me and has me looking forward to the rest of the games in the series. I can easily recommend this game since it's such a short breezy playthrough at around 1 hour for each difficulty mode. Give it a shot!

A Tiny Flicker is a fun short puzzle platformer that was made in two weeks for the NoticeMe game jam.

You take control of a little candle that can't jump unless they throw the head off of their body. The only issue being that your head is also your source of light and if you linger too long in the darkness a strange evil makes a grab for you.

That's the basic setup for this gauntlet of rooms you have to clear and the developer, OcO, did a great job incorporating this mechanic in fun and surprising ways.

My favorite levels are easily the ones where you have to race a moving platform with your head on it. Being careful to stay in the light when you're able to and make a mad dash to the next lighted section is so fun. The final level being the ultimate form of this, a test of everything you learned and a pure gauntlet. Tough but fun stuff!

For a game made in two weeks the art direction and atmosphere is surprisingly polished. Everything is animated well. The throw feels satisfying and snappy which is good since you're doing it a lot. Also the little candle you control is adorable and has good animations.

This is an easy recommend if you like challenging puzzle platformers. You can complete it in an hour or two. Plus it's free!

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky is my second mystery dungeon game and I can't get enough of them! They've both been filled with lovable characters, fun gameplay, and heartbreaking moments.

Something I like about these games are how personal they feel. First it gets to know the player with a personality quiz that helps it pick a pokemon for them. Then you get to name and choose your partner as well. It all ends up making this feel like a journey specifically tailored to you. By the way, I got a Pikachu and my partner was a Riolu!

Explorers of Sky has you joining up with an adventurer's guild after you mysteriously wash up on their doorstep with amnesia and a new pokemon body. Pretty much the same setup from the first game but there is new hidden depth and complexities that make solving this mystery so rewarding. From there you get to meet all of the interesting Pokemon from the guild and the surrounding town. There are some real gems here, one of my favorites being Bidoof, yup yup! The mystery dungeon games have been great at getting me to like Pokemon that I was pretty indifferent on by giving them fun personalities and quirks. By the end the goofy guild and townspeople are going to feel like family. They are a small part of a bigger picture though. They drive the first part of the plot forward but there is a grander overarching thing going on that I won't spoil. That said I loved it and it's set up quite well.

While this makes it difficult to pitch you on the story, thankfully the gameplay is very solid. The core loop is accepting missions through notes on a quest board and then delving into whatever dungeon said mission places you into. You'll explore the dungeon collecting items and fighting multiple pokemon in turn-based style trying to get to whatever floor the note said to go to. Once you're there you do your task and warp on home. Rinse and repeat. It's a really solid formula and there's a lot of quest variety here. You've got your standard rescues and deliveries but now there are bounties! I love these. It basically amounts to you hunting down minibosses that behave differently depending on what the bounty says. They're a blast and are a test of how well you react to situations in combat.

Once you're back from your mission you can explore the town, and man what a town it is! My favorite part is Spinda's cafe. Watching them mix up gummi drinks never got old and there's this new recycle shop inside as well. It's basically a way to declutter your inventory because you're going to be picking up A TON of stuff. You'll be making a routine of coming here after missions to get rid of all the junk you don't need and hopefully get some fancy stuff in return for recycling!

All of this is wrapped in some amazing art direction and music. The pixel art here is top notch. The sprites and portraits are super expressive and endearing. The town is beautifully made with plenty of little details to stare at. Every once in a while the game will cut to a gorgeous pixel landscape shot that sets the mood wonderfully. I couldn't help saying 'Wow!' every time one of these appeared. Pair that with a fantastic OST and you're going to be very immersed. I've gotten chills from the music alone in this game. The pixel art of Red Rescue Team and this game being so well done is why I'm dissapointed seeing the later entries decided to move to a 3D style. I'm sure 3D can be done well but I haven't seen it match how much personality these portraits have or how detailed and impressive a pixel art landscape can look compared to a 3D one. I'll still play them eventually but it's a bit sad. What I wouldn't give for a modern PMD in this games style!

While I've completed the main story there's still plenty to play too. If Red Rescue Team is anything to go by I've got plenty of end game content to mess with so I can't wait to dive into that. It's safe to say that if you pick this up there will be plenty of content to sink your teeth into.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorer's of Sky is a total package kind of game. Incredible art, lovely music, a fantastic story, all wrapped up with fun gameplay that has a lot of depth. It's a must play in my opinion. If you like Pokemon, roguelike's or gorgeous pixel art this is definitely one worth picking up!

SOMA is a depressing sci-fi horror tale that takes the Cassette Futurism aesthetic from Alien and thrusts it deep into the bottom of the ocean.

While that's definitely simplifying things quite a bit the aesthetic of big clunky technology wasting away at the bottom of the ocean is initially what drew me into SOMA. It's so much more than that but it's also the gel holding everything else together. The hum of electronics and the creaking of the station as it drips with water set the mood perfectly for the tragedy of PATHOS-II.

I don't want to give too much away but the story here is awesome. It's a story that might challenge some of your beliefs and it gives you a lot to chew on even after it's finished. All of the actors did a great job and pretty much melted into their roles, which is good since the biggest way you'll get story in this game is through snooping through terminal messages and listening to tapes of these characters.

When you're not being a snoop you'll probably be running for your life from nightmarish creatures. The combination of music and sound design really messed with me in the best way. They sound horrific even when they aren't chasing you, the dull thuds of a corpse's footsteps being surprisingly intimidating. The animation on these creatures was stellar too and I'd watch them more if I didn't have to be in their line of site to get a good view of them.

Investigating the decrepit environments of PATHOS-II and the surrounding ocean was a joy. I love seeing nature reclaiming things, and while you'll get a good deal of that there's also something else trying to set it's claim on the facility and seeing those two things intermingle fed that part of my brain all the same. There are plenty of horrific sights which made me stop in my tracks, seeing the havoc that took place can be mesmerizing but the beauty of coral and barnacles growing on flooded facilities was nice as well. Sometimes I would just take a moment to look up and see all the fish floating by. The team seriously did a wonderful job on environmental design and world building.

If you enjoy classic 70s sci-fi, deep sea stuff, terrifying body horror, and deep philosophical questions, SOMA is definitely up your alley. This one really struck a chord with me and if anything said in this review intrigues you I'll bet it'll do the same to you.

DUSK is a campy splatterfest, a smorgasbord of everything I enjoy in horror mashed up into a fast paced classic FPS. The passion for level design, atmosphere, music and fun radiating off of every level and detail in this game is blistering and I don't want to give any of it away. It's just the complete package.

I enjoyed playing this so much that as soon as I beat it I started up a drawing of the main character AND a new playthrough to 100% the game and get all the secrets that I missed. There were a lot.
If you like FPS games and horror media I highly recommend you just pick this one up right away as blind as possible if any of this has piqued your interest.

As for me I can't wait to try the other New Blood games!

Kona is an incredibly comfortable mystery survival game set in an isolated town during the 70s. It makes you balance being a detective and investigating the lives of an entire town with surviving in the harsh elements of the Canadian wilderness.

Kona combines this all brilliantly by making sure the survival aspect isn't front and center never getting in the way of the real meat of the game which is snooping into everyone's lives and reading all of their business. The survival aspect is akin more to flavoring because if you're diligent it shouldn't affect you too much.

The game saves when you activate or are near fireplaces so it can create these nice mundane moments. I've found myself in a new house without a log to make a fire a few times, but I just had to wander out back into the cold to get a log from the pack of my pickup truck. Same with the sanity mechanic. It basically amounts to needing to smoke or drink something but after a tense moment lighting up a cig can be really cathartic.

Snooping around the various houses of this town is great. The detail in the various rooms and cupboards make the routine of driving from house to house pretty entertaining. Each house reflects the person who lives in it perfectly and while there are some real standout weirdos a lot of them just lend to this feeling of loneliness. You're in this big warm house, drawings litter the floor and food is packed in the fridge. Where is everyone?

The overarching mystery is interesting but I don't want to mention too much of that. It's very much worth untangling this thread on your lonesome.

From the snowed in setting to the amazing attention to detail it's safe to say I loved Kona so I'd really like you to experience this game for yourself. There's a lot I didn't mention that I'm sure you'll get a kick out of, I know I sure did. I recommend getting it on sale if you think 6ish hours is too short but I could see this immersive gem justifying that base price with it's experience alone.

SteamWorld Dig 2 is a perfect sequel to this Metroidvania series. It takes everything the first game was and improves on it while adding some neat bells and whistles to the formula all it's own.

First of all the game is just gorgeous with this really interesting painterly art style. Big bold colors and fun shapes are used everywhere. It all perfectly sells the town of El Machino, the incredibly detailed main hub (including it's denizens) of this adventure.

It picks up where the first game ended and you're playing as Dorothy searching for Rusty, the previous main character, who vanished at the end of 1. The game breadcrumbs you story bits every now and then to keep you intrigued and wanting to further dig up this mystery. The story was kind of bare bones in the first one so I'm surprised they cared enough to expand it but I'm glad they did.

Don't let the extra care to the story fool you though, the main draw here is still the core loop from the first game. That being to dig up as much ore as you can carry, haul it to the top, and sell it to kit yourself out with upgrades that will let you carry even more and mine even further. Along your descent you'll find challenge rooms that will test your ability and reward you with various treasures, upgrade stations, and a new resource: cogs.

Cogs are one of my favorite additions to this game that adds a lot of depth and replay value. As you naturally upgrade your gear to be more effective you'll also unlock optional mods. That's where the cogs come in. Some mods cost 1, 2, or more to activate but they're not permanent. If you find that a mod isn't useful anymore and want to spend upgrade cogs elsewhere, you can slot them out and put them in the new thing. This essentially gives you total control of your play style and the freedom to experiment. You never have to worry if a weird upgrade will ruin the experience for you, just take your cogs elsewhere.

There are some great additions to your arsenal and gear that I don't want to spoil, just know that the developers keep things fresh and the gameplay ever evolving. There's always a new upgrade to learn, a secret to find, a challenge room to conquer.

The level design is in top form too. With all the options the game gives you it kind of has to be and they don't let things go to waste. There are some levels I'm never going to be able to forget and I'd reckon you won't be able to either.

All in all SteamWorld Dig 2 is one of the best Metroidvania titles I've ever played and I urge you to try it yourself if you like the genre. I'm surprised they gave this away for free. From the goofy steampunk western setting to the gorgeous artwork and the addictive gameplay you're spoiled for choice at finding something to like here. As for me, I eagerly await SteamWorld Dig 3 but I bought the spin-off SteamWorld Heist to tide me over.

Alan Wake is a solid horror action game from Remedy Entertainment. Great setpieces, good atmosphere, and fun writing await you in this game. That being said I want to talk about a very particular part of this game that really left it's mark on me, the town this twisting horror takes place in, Bright Falls.

Remedy has an eye for the mundane world. The small town bookstore, the tv mounted on a piece of plyboard, a beer can covered armchair overlooking a great view. I continue to adore their attention to the little details and the stuff off the beaten path. Alan Wake is filled to the brim with little things you could miss if you just ran from setpiece to setpiece itching for a fight and I really think it's the little details that hold this world they made together and makes the more surreal and terrifying elements work as well as they do. Without the mundanity and grounding what normalcy could Alan return to?

Bright Falls feels like a real place and exploring it and taking in the community is a real treat. Pat Maine, the radio host, is one of my favorite characters in the game and I always made sure to listen to his radio show when I could. He's this nice warm presence that seems to know everyone who calls in and is great to listen to after a tense battle with the Taken.

When you're not being swarmed by possessed lumberjacks and hunters you'll have plenty of quiet moments to take in your surroundings and notice places you've already been far out in the distance. This was always really fun and does a lot to sell that this is a real place and you're not just being transported from zone to zone. Nope, way past the trees and lake is the gas station you were at a little bit ago. They didn't have to do that but because they did Bright Falls feels all the more real.

Alan Wake also has really satisfying combat. You have to shine a light at the Taken to break their "shields" before you can finish them off with your weapons. And man are your weapons punchy. Letting out a shotgun blast at a taken making it burst into light particles as the camera does a cinematic sweep around the final kill never stopped being rewarding.

I'd totally recommend this game. I focused more on the settings and worldbuilding in this review because those are the aspects that landed for me the most but this game has a lot to offer! Give it a play if you enjoy strong worldbuilding, satisfying combat, and mindbending horror stories.