KoPAP2 is too greedy for its own good. It stacks even more gold sinks on top of its already money-hungry systems and then adds randomness to the mix to a frustrating result. I don't mind getting gold to buy the special furniture (like in the first game) or to buy more party members, even the seemingly infinite moneysink that 'equipment' represents isn't too bad in the long run, but everything else almost requiring you to grind combined with weird balance made me wary of the game pretty soon. Which is a shame because I have completed the first one.

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AuthorJérémie Tessier
Categories3/5, iOS, RPG

Undertale is amazing. It's a funny, whimsical, sometimes nonsensical, sometimes disturbing turn-based RPG with a flair that I cannot help but compare with Earthbound in some ways. The strength of its plot, the complex story you can experience multiple times, the depth of it's mechanics (pretty cool wario-ware battle system) and the humor make this a game you won't want to skip if you're a fan of any of these things.

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AuthorJérémie Tessier
Categories5/5, RPG

I vaguely remember playing Doodle God a while back; you would mix elements like earth and fire to create more and more elements. The concept worked because there is plenty you can make using your imagination and a few basic items and the 'goal' of the game to finding all possible combinations felt okay. Now with Doodle Tanks, you have to fumble around aimlessly with tank parts, engineers and other doodads, making matches that don't make sense, basically trial-and-error-ing the whole thing.

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AuthorJérémie Tessier

I'm a big Puzzle Quest fan, but I can't say that I enjoy roguelikes - or the FTL model - very much. This made my relationship with Ironcast a bittersweet one; Some of its core mechanics are pretty fun, others are kinda infuriating, and there's this inevitability aspect that stresses you in time and reduces the number of actions you can do in a set game that leaves some of the fun aspects of match-3 RPGs behind.

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AuthorJérémie Tessier

I've spent so much time on Adventure Capitalist. Countless hours tapping things to upgrade them so I would get enough money to buy more things and upgrades to get more money to do that ad infinitum. Then you reset your things but you get even more money next time. And the numbers go really really high and you can buy things to make the numbers go even faster. It's basically the only iOS game I've played so far that made me watch its ads gleefully - because it made the numbers go faster, and watching a 30s ad is always worth it to do that. If you like idle game - which I'm not sure what that says about you, or me - you gotta try this one.

Posted
AuthorJérémie Tessier
Categories5/5, Idle, iOS

Apotheon is a bit weird. It has the trappings of a metroidvania, but some of its elements feel more like Dark Souls-ish systems, and the basic controls didn't feel good to me at all. I gave it a fair try, but I didn't enjoy it very much. I'll take a few seconds to say that it has a cool graphical style and potentially neat concepts, however.

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AuthorJérémie Tessier

Sonic Runners is trash. I really hated it. And I didn't even play it that much. There was some loading, some menus, some clutter. Maybe if it only had been a sonic endless runner without fifteen layers of free to play stuff layered onto it. I'm sure Big The Cat is in it also. It also ran terribly on my iPad. Oh well.

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AuthorJérémie Tessier
Categories1/5, iOS

Does anyone remember what D3 was like when it came out? What a shame, what a bunch of wasted potential. I vividly remember not being unable to complete any kind of end-game fight since enemies overpowered me by a huge difference. There was also no good loot to find, everything 'nice' I had at that point was bought at the Auction House using gold. Also enemies regenerated when you died, so fights were terribly boring. There was nothing to do except run the story over and over... Heck, I remember when hanging around Tyrael in Act 3 and leave him kill stuff was a viable strategy! The diablo 3 expansion fixed most of these problems, and 2.3 is just another step in a path of greatness.

Posted
AuthorJérémie Tessier

Trulon is a classic turn-based RPG where you fight using cards that represent your different moves. You go along through a story, fighting enemies and collecting cards to build your deck, you equip various pieces of gear and complete quests. You walk around on a world map. It's neat and well-built, it also uses the strengths of iOS devices in the form of the card-based battle system. That being said, it felt way too slow for me, and that slowness turned into boredom.

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AuthorJérémie Tessier
Categories4/5, RPG

Infested Planet is a neat little tower defense/action game where you control a bunch of soldiers and you need to complete objectives that most often than not involve destroying alien bases and taking them over while hordes of enemies move toward you. I had a good time with it, even if I'm not a fan of the upgrade system/general and that gameplay often felt confusing.

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AuthorJérémie Tessier

Magic Touch: Wizard For Hire is a game about drawing symbols on your iOS device in order to burst balloons. It's a pretty fun game! Although the core mechanics are very enjoyable, I didn't play it for too long because of a lack of clear progression, luck-based difficulty spikes and the abusive usage of full screen video ads in a free game - an eternal debate I'm having between myself and the iOS game space.

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AuthorJérémie Tessier

Time Clickers is an idle game where you have to shoot at cubes to destroy them. Doing so nets you money, which you use to upgrade your pistol and to buy other guns that auto-shoot at cubes to destroy them. Doing so nets you more money, which you use to upgrade all of that stuff until you get to a level where the cubes have so much health that you can't get through anymore. But never fear! You get special Time Cubes at certain levels, and you use them to upgrade many stats, in order to be stronger, to be able to destroy more cubes. You get the idea!

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AuthorJérémie Tessier
Categories4/5, Idle

Noodles! is a mighty fun game, I've spent a bunch of hours with it and never did its mechanics fail to amuse me. That being said, there was too much of it, I've stopped at about 40% of the game being over, and what was left to do was more of the same. Some games overstay their welcomes and without adding new mechanics or without metaphorical carrots to dangle in front of me, I had to stop before I got really bored with the same puzzles over and over.

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AuthorJérémie Tessier

SkyForge did not grab my attention at all. It might have been a neat free MMO, but I really don't enjoy the combat system - and what else is there, really? You might be able to change jobs at-will and some of the systems might be neat but if I don't enjoy killing things, there is not much left for me to do.  

Posted
AuthorJérémie Tessier
CategoriesMMORPG, 2/5

You Must Build A Boat is a perfect iOS game, it's build from the ground up to work on touch devices, it has no in-app purchases, no timers and no ads, it could be a bigger product on a portable console without much changes. The #1 block-sliding upgrade-buying boat-building game of 2015 was a blast and with only a few blemishes to an otherwise amazing title, I've only had fun with it and probably would've kept playing if the New Game+ carrot had been more enticing.

Posted
AuthorJérémie Tessier

Valkyria Chronicles is a weird mix between a turn-based strategy game and a third person shooter set in fictional Europe during a parallel world World War. With plenty of content, neat style and somewhat deep systems, it could've been a great game for me, sadly it doesn't go over "good" since the mix of strategy and shooting created a bunch of frustrating messes that I didn't enjoy slogging through at all.

Posted
AuthorJérémie Tessier

Tadpole Tap is a simple little game where you're a tadpole, and you tap on things to stick your tongue out and grab them. By doing so, you accumulate flies that can be used to unlock new upgrades and different tadpoles. It's an okay game, I suppose, but it didn't grab my attention at all. After playing for about an hour, completing a number of runs during that time, I put it down and moved on to something else.

Posted
AuthorJérémie Tessier

In this latest PoE expansion, a few things change, a few are added and much is left as-is. It's still a good occasion to come back and play some more Path of Exile and I'm having a good time with it, but PoE:A doesn't solve all my problems with this game. In the crowded realm of action RPGs, it's very hard to strike a good balance between complexity and fun and I feel that PoE is leaning too much on complexity while keeping the game a bit too obtuse and difficult to fully enjoy.

Posted
AuthorJérémie Tessier

Century City is an okay idle game where you build a city and spend time by tapping in a mine to get more money to build you city. It's not the worst idle game I've played ever, but it's a bit boring. There isn't much to do besides tapping inside the mine - and sometimes playing some very simple mini-games - so it didn't grab my attention for super long. The isometric style is kinda cool, however.

Posted
AuthorJérémie Tessier

GemCraft is great, I remember the old days when I actually paid for the complete version of such a game on Kongregate, something that was unheard of for me back in that time - paying for flash games - but it's a nice tower defense game that might last you a long while. There's so much stuff in it and it all is based on solid core mechanics and titular gems. It's not an entirely flawless game, but after you get over some bumps in difficulty and some clunky UI, you'll have a solid game to keep you playing and unlock stuff, level, and get better at it.

Posted
AuthorJérémie Tessier