SwapQuest is quite interesting with it's core systems and the ways you can upgrade your character and improve it, but ultimately the act of playing it is boring, mostly because of the main idea that you walk along a path made out of tiles and you have to switch them around in order to progress forward; a needed progress because of the wall of darkness that follows you. Doing so, you fight monsters and pick up chests and things like that.
Much like Ragnarok Online of last week, DFO is a mess from another era, a Korean MMO that got brought back more or less into the future that I've played for quite a while. Unlike RO though, DFO is fun to play and while it's quite obtuse with it's mechanics and systems, the core beat-them-up merged with RPG and the straightforwardness of most quests made it a fun - albeit mindless - experience that I would recommend if you have some time to burn away.
TouchTone has a much interesting framing device than the actual gameplay most of the time and the relative boredom I had while moving move rows and columns of lines in order to reflect beams on targets outbalanced my desire to see the story through. Which is a shame since it seemed at least interesting and novel, setting you as this spy going through communications in order to assess whether someone is relevant to national security or not. I'm a bit disappointed by it.
When I was in high school, Ragnarok Online was one of the games I almost played religiously. All MMOs of that time were typically weird, in the pre-world of warcraft days, mostly coming from non-english speaking countries and featuring endless grinds, obtuse mechanics, sometimes harsh death penalties, a low potential for custom characters and the level of interaction you needed to have with other players was more or less random depending on the game. RO was fine for it's time, since I didn't know anything better. Seeing as it was on Steam, I decided to give it another shot. This is a situation where I grew up and the game didn't.
When I think of 'mining' games, much like the Motherload of old, I think about digging down to find valuables that you sell for various upgrades in order to be able to dig deeper for more valuables that can be sold for more upgrades, ad infinitum. If you're telling me that your game is a 'mining' game but with multiple levels and you need to get to the bottom of each mines in order to continue, I might find that a bit weird, but the potential is still there for a fun game. Obviously, the more you'd progress, the tougher the levels would be, so you would need upgrades. Pocket Mine 2 takes a tiny sliver of that idea and fills the rest with nonsense.
Pillars of Eternity is to Baldur's Gate what Wasteland 2 was to the old Fallout games - and Wasteland 1, of course. It's a nice throwback to old school RPGs mixed up with new systems and mechanics. I had a good time with it, but I feel like I had an even better time with Wasteland 2. Some of the systems in PoE were too complex. the story felt too verbose at times and the level progression was slow and somewhat unrewarding. I have to preface all of this with the disclaimer that I haven't played any of the older games because I also found them a bit too dense for my tastes.
AlphaOmega is a puzzle game where you swap letters around in order to make words on a scrabble-like board. The core idea of the game is interesting, but it's full of little systems that could have been polished a bit more and some tasks could have been designed as to help the player be less frustrated rather than annoyed at how stuff works. I did have a bit of fun with it, but ultimately it's a bit too flawed for me.
Cities: Skyline is what Sim City wanted to be. It's the proof that you can make good city simulation games, it's an amazing game that brings back to me all of my memories about city simulators - the last one I had played before Sim City was the SNES version of Sim City, so bear with me here - and while I struggled to understand the core systems of the game - and some would argue that even when I had 'finished' my time with it, I still struggled to understand how proper city planning worked - and found a weird glitches here and there, I had a wonderful time and would recommend it 100% to anyone enjoying city sims.
ROP is a little puzzle game where you move ropes around in order to match shapes shown at the top of the screen. The difficulty comes from ropes being tied around in weird ways and you not being allowed to place two rope ends at the same place on the grid. It's not bad, even if there isn't much to say about it.
Oddworld is a unique idea; even with its old age, not many games tried to do the same thing as it did. It's a platforming puzzler game where you have to escape an evil factory while at the same time attempting to rescue your friends. Your character has close to no weapons - bar grenades you find in dispensers, an array of keywords you can say and a mysterious chant - and your enemies are many and pretty dangerous, with their guns and mines and other lethal means to stop you.
Swap Heroes 2 is a fun little game where you swap heroes on a grid in order to have them attack monsters or use special abilities. It's a bit too simple with very light RPG elements and there is one tune that reminds me of a Super Mario RPG boss fight theme - which is funny. All and all, I've had a few good moments with it, but it didn't last very long, as the core of the game is doing the same thing over and over.
Although the South Park brand of humor might not be your cup of tea - and I have to admit that it's not mine either - the game inside SPTSOT is quite solid. Against a backdrop of high fantasy only existing in the character's minds - and everyone plays along - you control a normal kid going around South Park, doing quests, fighting enemies and collecting loot, all of that done in an ocean of poop jokes and pop culture references. I had a ton of fun with it and I would recommend it to most turn-based RPG fans.
Switch&Drop starts by asking you to agree to a EULA, this is always a good sign. Otherwise you just can't play the game. S&D is a game where you drop blocks by sliding lines of colored puzzle pieces and the goal is to match three or more to break them and activate special bonuses. It would probably be fine if it didn't have in-app purchases, energy timers and best values. This might sound a bit reductionist - I'll admit I haven't played that game for very long - but putting your worst foot forward isn't a way to make me care.
I have nothing against ports of ports of games, but GameBoy Advance-area platformers are weird things to port on PC. SRRDC is one of those games, added more or less as-is to the world of personal computers. It's okay for what it is, but I didn't spend more time on it than I had to. Some weird art choices, some weird systems here and there and precise platforming using the keyboard don't collide well in this weird belly-dancing metroidvania.
Although this game has some RPG elements, Zombieville USA 2 has clunky controls and a weird sense of uncertainty added to mechanics as simple as buying new weapons. It's a game where you kill zombies using guns in order to get money to buy better guns and perks that will help you defeat more tougher zombies. The game controls with a virtual joystick that mostly works and I had some fun with it before being frustrated with certain systems and uninstalling it.
Wasteland 2 is a masterpiece, it's one of the best RPGs I've played recently, and while I wasn't aware of Wasteland 1, nor haven't I played the old Fallouts extensively, the setting and characters were something interesting vis-a-vis the fantasy settings of old. I might not have built the best team for the job - and I might be stubborn on some things, I might have some complaints about the way the game works in some spots, but overall if you enjoy turn based roleplaying games you owe it to yourself to try W2.
Mujo is a matching game where you match 3 tiles in order to do stuff - mostly damage to enemies, but you can also use them to level your heroes and collect treasures as well - and you can also 'combine' matched tiles in order for them to do even more effects. Tiles aren't destroyed automatically if 3 touch and breaking them brings the stack down. You can also raise the stack of tiles if you don't have any moves. An interesting fact about Mujo is the lact of 'lose' condition, you can play most levels forever and never lose. A fact that is rendered pretty moot by the battles that take forever and render the game boring to play after a short number of levels.
While I gave a 4/5 to Hotline Miami and enjoyed the puzzle-esque ultra-violent psycho trip, the second game didn't catch my attention as much and I found it much more difficult and frustrating than the first one. It is still the same shooter/puzzle, pitting you against horde of enemies and you always need to kill them all to proceed. With a weird story and a large cast of character this game could've been pretty amazing and I really tried to like it, but it just didn't compare.
Area 777 is a slot machine 'rpg' where you fight aliens by spinning reels to match symbols and attack them. You're also trying to get more cash to continue playing and to get experience to level up and unlock new type of reels, new machines and new power-ups. I didn't have a terrible time with the game but the huge full-screen ads that popped out all the time, combined with unrefined RPG mechanics and the unpredictability of chance games made me uninstall it after I had seen one too many advertisement for some product I didn't care at all about.
Although for me, gameplay is king and systems will trump over the story and graphics of a game, LISA is a case that reminds me how I play games to escape reality and its brutal problems. I'm not a big fan of games that relate the sorrows and tribulations of people in our modern society - or in a realistic past. Games that deal with heavier subjects are things that I don't tend to consume, no matter what genre they belong in. LISA was no exception, presented as an earthbound-inspired RPG with a ton of party members and systems like using russian roulette to power-up your character, I didn't get very far in it and didn't enjoy my time with the game overall.