I was sent Power Chord as a review code. While I am very grateful for this opportunity, I will not let it sway my opinions. This will be my honest review of the game.
Power Chord is a rogue-like deck builder available now on Steam similar to games like Slay the Spire or Monster Train, but with a metal-inspired aesthetic.
Demons run the city. It is up to you and the band you assemble to defeat them. As you make your way to the top of the demon tower, you will collect cards that you will use to make a deck worthy of killing the four warlords that guard it. Along the way, you will also find gear or trigger random events that can help or hinder your ascent. This game is very RNG-reliant, and this can make your runs fun or miserable.
For the most part, the gameplay is solid. The animation and art style are neat, the attacks and flavor are fun, and it requires enough strategy to keep me engaged through your first run. The story doesn’t really matter because most of the gameplay exists within the grind. My issue with the game is that it is repetitive. I like card games enough that I didn’t mind the repletion so much, but this isn’t a title you will no life to completion.
The RNG can be an issue in this game. When it is fair, and you get excellent pulls, the game is a lot of fun. Other times, you will pull the worst cards, and your run becomes nearly impossible. While the RNG might give the illusion of variety, it makes the grind feel harsher than it is. Unlocking new cards and champions felt slow because I kept running through the same scenarios. They have been adding new playable characters to the roster. This gives the deck building side of the game a bit more diversity, but you still have the issue of facing the same types of battles.
I liked the game, but I love deck builders and metal. Because of how repetitive this game is, the price is an issue. If you are looking for something you can play in small bursts when you just want to chill and listen to some cool music, the game is fine. If you want a challenging and complex story, wait for the sale. If you are a fan of the genre, you might be disappointed by the game’s lack of diversity. I would probably wait for a sale or for the developers to add more content.
This game is available on Steam.
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Game Review: Lovecraft’s Untold Stories 2
I want to start out by saying that I got this game as a review code and while I am grateful for the opportunity, I will not let that sway my opinion. This will be an honest review of the game.
Lovecraft Untold Stories 2 is a 2D isometric dungeon crawler for pc based on Lovecraft lore. You start off choosing from three playable characters: the witch, the professor, and the detective. Each character has its own unique abilities, armor, and weapons. You control your character through randomly generated dungeons as you try to solve a mystery.
I was very excited about this game. I liked the art, I liked that the cutscenes were comic-like, and I had fun at the intro level. But once you get out of the intro mission, the game becomes frustratingly unplayable. Movement becomes clunky and slow in the cluttered rooms. I was constantly getting stuck on boxes, holes, and trees, making kiting enemies virtually impossible. To make matters worse, I was getting stuck on the invisible boundaries of boxes and trees. The witch has a cool teleport ability that could pass through enemies but would get stuck on invisible artifacts. I died so many times because my teleport was constantly being canceled by nothing. There are instances where I would teleport only to be trapped in between an inescapable grouping of trees. When the environment is more deadly than the enemies, that is bad game design.
I thought the randomly generated dungeons were cool at first, but that view quickly turned sour. I quickly learned that the room generation was quite unbalanced. Some rooms were laughably easy, with only two enemies standing in my way. Others were impossibly hard, with too many enemies and no way to escape. There was one room I couldn’t even complete because there was a wall blocking the exit. I love the randomness of life as much as any other gamer, but this experience was frustrating.
The insanity mechanic is nonsense. If you get hit by an enemy, you slowly get stacks of insanity. If you get too many, you die. The problem is, there is no clear indication of how much insanity you have, nor is there an easy way to clear it. Because the environment made movement difficult, it was impossible to clear a level without getting stacks of insanity. You either got killed because you got stuck trying to run away, or you died because you gathered too much insanity. This poorly designed mechanic made this game harder than it should be.
I was beyond excited about this game because it reminds me of the Arkham Horror board game. I have been desperately trying to find a group to play with, and I believed this game would be my only chance. The disappointment I collected from this game was so painful, I couldn’t muster the strength to finish this game. I forced myself to play as much as I could, but I can only be so patient. This game is broken to the point where you won’t get any meaningful enjoyment out of it. Lovecraft Untold Stories 2 isn’t worth your time as a free game, let alone the $25 it is asking for. But if you don’t believe me, you can buy it on steam.
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