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New Arc Line Review: A Steampunk RPG Adventure

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I was sent a free copy of New Arc Line to review. While I am very grateful for the opportunity, I won’t let it sway my opinions. This will be my honest review.

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What is New Arc Line?

New Arc Line is a steampunk RPG currently on Steam Early Access.

Many have been lured to the new world for a new life and abundant opportunity. Every day, boats empty with hopeful faces and ambitious hearts. But something isn’t quite right. People disappear each day and there are rumours of something sinister brewing in the shadows.

You landed on these shores like many before you, but you come with your agenda. You’ve come to deliver a bit of contraband and find yourself wrapped in the middle of something bigger than yourself. Make your way through this industrializing city as you complete quests, solve puzzles, and fight off anyone who gets in your way. What will your journey uncover? What trouble have you gotten yourself into?

Gameplay

New Arc Line plays like a tabletop RPG. Players build their party of noteworthy characters, perform skill checks to complete tasks and engage in turn-based combat. The choices a player makes and the results of various skill checks impact the story, so think carefully and roll a balanced team.

Combat feels like playing a tabletop RPG, albeit a little clunky. Characters in a player’s party each have their own initiative and action economy. Combat is over when certain tasks are completed, or the party wipes.

Review

New Arc Line has a roughness to it that can’t be ignored. While the game looks great, the performance isn’t always good. Combat for example is clunky, with noticeable stutters that can make the camera go crazy at times. It is not unplayable, but a few tweaks here would be much appreciated. This game also has issues with its voice acting. There are a few times where the actors are switched, or AI is used. I understand the recording may not be done yet, but it is disorienting. Finally, the quests can be a bit boring. This game has a lot of fetch quests, which is fine until it isn’t. The story and flavor are what kept me playing, but sometimes it takes a little too long to get to the point.

That said, I found New Arc Line an enjoyable game, and can’t wait to see a better version. While combat was clunky, it worked well enough. I also enjoyed making skill checks and feeling that uncertainty that came with each role. While the animation does look wonky, the world and artstyle look cool. I would have loved to see more of the world, but exploration is restricted.

If you enjoy tabletop RPG’s and want something similar on your computer, New Arc Line is a solid contender. The biggest issue this game has going against it is the lack of polish, but the game is still in early access. There is still time for the team to make improvements. If you don’t mind the roughness, and want to support the making of a solid RPG, you can get your copy of New Arc Line on Steam for $19.99. If you would rather wait for the better version, make sure the game is in your Wishlist.

video game reviews

Tevi: The cute metroidvania game that almost could

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I was sent Tevi as a review code. While I am very grateful for the opportunity, I won’t let it sway my opinions. This will be my honest review. If you enjoy my reviews, please leave a like, comment, follow, and share this with your friends. You can also always buy me coffee.

Tevi is a cute bullet hell Metroidvania releasing on Steam later today, but you can try out the demo in the meantime. You play as Tevi as she fights her way through intricate dungeons in search of ancient tech.

If nothing else, Tevi will be one of the cutest games you’ll play this year. I am a huge fan of the art and ethics, but the story didn’t do enough to hook me. I found the story a bit generic as it spent more time hitting certain anime tropes than developing an interesting story. There is voice acting, which is nice, but it is much more efficient to read through the cut scenes. If you aren’t already skipping them.

The main draw to this game should be the gameplay. The game runs great, and the gameplay has a retro vibe that I enjoyed until the novelty wore off. The game starts to feel repetitive after a bit, even when new bosses and skills are introduced to shake things up. I like how the game slowly introduces new combos and abilities as you progress through the game. It makes progression feel more fluid and manageable.

Combat is simple, but it has its charm. After memorizing enemy patterns, this turns into your traditional Metroidvania with the occasional boss to mix things up. Bosses are unique in flavor and strategy, and they never felt unwinnable. I played the game on Normal difficulty and found it too easy, but the game offers an easy way to change the difficulty in game when you need to. 

Honestly, I am somewhat in the middle when it comes to Tevi. While I enjoyed the casual retro vibe, the pacing of the combat, and the cute aesthetic, this isn’t a game I can spend too much time on. I certainly wouldn’t finish the game if I bought it with my own money. The problem with Tevi is that if you don’t care about the aesthetic, there are simply better options. Even then, I would wait for a sale and play something like Frontier Hunter: Erza’s Wheel of Fortune if you want to play some good Waifuvania, or Nocturnal for something more serious. Don’t get me wrong, the game isn’t bad, but you have better options.

You can pick up Tevi on Steam later today. There is also a physical collectors edition available for $106.39 on the official website. 

The Collectors edition includes:

  • Original Soundtrack SteelBook x1 (4 discs with a total of 72 tracks)
  • Enamel Pin x1
  • Art Board (Shikishi) x1
  • Astral Gear Wireless Charger x1
  • Commemorative Number Card x1
  • Collecter Box x1
video game reviews

SteamWorld Build A Cute New Casual Village Builder with a Twist!

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I was sent SteamWorld Build as a review code. While I am very grateful for the opportunity, I won’t let it sway my opinions. This will be my honest review. If you enjoy my reviews, please leave me a like, comment, follow, and share this with your friends. You can also always buy me coffee.

SteamWorld Build launches on Xbox, Switch, PlayStation, and Steam on December 1st. If you enjoy village builders or are in the market for a new game, you need to buy this game.

Take command of a group of robot settlers as they make their last-ditch effort to escape a dying planet. Together, they must build a settlement, recruit new citizens, and mine for the materials that will lead to salvation. But getting off-world won’t be easy. Can you find a way off the planet before the monsters destroy your settlement?

SteamWorld Build is an adorable addition to the SteamWorld universe and a must-have for any fan of the series. The game does a wonderful job of capturing the quirky and delightful vibe of the franchise without sacrificing any of the fun. You don’t need to have played any of the other games to understand the story, but you are going to want to after. SteamWorld games are always a quirky good time and a fantastic addition to any library.

The art, graphics, and animation for this game are adorable. The scrappy design reminds me of the Warhammer 40k Ork Aesthetic, and I love it! If you are a fan of the SteamWorld games, you’ll appreciate the attention to detail put into capturing the essence of the series. If you aren’t a fan, you’ll appreciate the amount of detail put into bringing this world to life. Little details like watching them walk through the wash or getting a drink at the saloon as they carry on their tasks make the experience feel vibrant and alive.

Be prepared to lose a couple of days as you scrutinize the most efficient way to grow your settlement. I had so much fun with SteamWorld Build that it became an addiction. I restarted a few times as I tried the different maps and strategies until finally forcing myself away long enough to write this review. The casual gameplay yet engaging gameplay, the cute and quirky gameplay, and the pacing all come together to create an experience worth having.

SteamWorld Build is a fantastic blend of village building, resource management, and tower defense. It starts like any traditional village builder, with limited resources and a space to build. As the settlement grows, new mechanics are introduced to keep the game feeling fresh. Each world is split into four levels, each with unique gameplay and design. At the top is a basic settlement game where players recruit new citizens, keep them happy, and trade with the passing train. Lower levels introduce a mining game where players dig for resources, maintain the mine’s stability, and defend against oncoming threats. The lower you go, the more dangerous it is. It feels like playing three games at once, but it never becomes overwhelming. Building inefficiently does impede your progression, but I wouldn’t worry about that until your second or third playthrough. I recommend you go into this game as blindly as possible before looking up guides because learning from your mistakes is half the fun.

I love SteamWorld Build and recommend anyone looking for a new game these holidays to pick it up. It’s cute, it’s casual, and an addicting amount of fun. SteamWorld comes out on Xbox, Switch, PlayStation, and Steam on December 1st. Don’t forget to wishlist if you haven’t done so already!

video game reviews

Game Preview: Sovereign Syndicate (Review Code)

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All pictures are screenshots from the game

I got the Sovereign Syndicate demo as a review code. While I am very grateful, I will not let this sway my opinion. These will be my honest thoughts and opinions about the demo.

This demo is too short for me to form a meaningful opinion about the game, but it is long enough to at least get a taste of the gameplay. Sovereign Syndicate is a top-down cRRP that takes place in a steampunk fantasy version of London. The full game gives you the choice of three characters, but the demo had me playing as the minotaur Atticus Daley. At the start of the game, you are given the option of four classes that provide boosts to certain attributes. I played as each one, but I never felt like the choice made much of a difference gameplay-wise. 

This game ran real smooth. The top-down view was interesting, and the city was nice, but there wasn’t much room for exploration. If the demo is any indication of what the game will be like, the setting is going to be dank, dark, and dirty. Most of the gameplay was in the form of dialogue. I got to speak with a couple of NPCs, each providing you with a choice of responses and the occasional skill challenge. Skill challenges are neat in that they are determined by picking from a set of tarot cards. Your skill points affect the kinds of cards you can pull, but the game was too short for choices to matter. The choices you make can provide buffs and debuffs, but mostly they affect the types of responses you get from the NPCs. 

My biggest complaint about this game is the font. Some of the dialogue is written in an italicized font which was hard on my dyslexia. The writing itself is inconsistently flowery. Some descriptions are fine, but others are long and awkwardly worded. It wasn’t so bad that I stopped playing, but it is something that gave me trouble. It is also written in an English dialect I am not familiar with, but it offers definitions for certain slang words and phrases. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough gameplay in the demo to judge this game on its character and world-building.

I am very much interested in learning more about this game and possibly getting a longer demo. I liked the text-based choose your own adventure aspect of this game. I can only hope the full game will include meaningful choices that affect the story. I also enjoyed that the skill points are personified. Wit, for example, is an old woman who will give you advice on how to respond to an NPC. Each skill point will offer its suggestion, but the choice is always in the hands of the players. This is a neat little feature for people like me who can’t make a single decision. I will certainly be keeping an eye on this game. 

The game is planned to release during the 4th quarter of 2023 for Xbox, PC, and Playstation. If you want more information, check out and wish list it on steam.