Reviewing March

I released four things in March:

• My review of Rytmos from last month was released. It’s a decent puzzle game with some neat facts about different historical musical styles across the world, but they don’t actually affect the gameplay, which is very basic puzzle stuff. It’s nice to have that musical connection, but it feels like a wasted opportunity for it to be solely aesthetic when the game is otherwise not that remarkable.

• I reviewed Phantom Brigade, which was a huge disappointment to be honest. I previewed the game’s demo the month before release, and my sentiment was that with a bit more variety, the full release would be brilliant. Unfortunately, the full release had no added variety compared to the demo, and was just dozens of hours of the same gameplay. I wanted to love this game, but instead it was painful to play.

• I reviewed The Last Spell, which somehow manages to make its interminably long roguelite gameplay interesting. I spent multiple hours doing the same thing and didn’t mind, because it felt strategic and different. On the other hand, the game struggled to communicate certain aspects, and the long-ass levels did make it less fun than it could have been, I think.

• Curse of the Sea Rats turned out to be fine. I had fun with it, but it doesn’t have any distinguishing features. It’s honestly hard to talk about because beyond every character being a rat, it’s so similar to every other game in its genre.

Outside of reviews, I spent most of the month adjusting to new medication. While this wasn’t an ideal month, I’m hopeful that the medication will improve things, and I’ll have a better time of it. April’s newsletter probably won’t be a lot bigger than this one, but we’ll have to see.

See you next month!