Obscure Indie Spotlight

[Trumpet_Boi_208]

 

If you're new here, welcome! Since the beginning of this year, I have taken it upon myself to shed more light on some of the more obscure gems available on the PS4. My journey has taken me through the endless depths of the store's underbelly, and I am somehow always able to return with something brilliant. This thread serves as a place for me to document all of these hidden gems that I find in greater detail, including both their strong points and flaws, as well as their trophy lists, should I consider myself credible enough to make a decent write-up on them.

 

Here is my latest discovery: Death Road to Canada (because I was unsatisfied with my write-up of the game in the “Most Recent Platinum” forum.

 

Introduction

Roguelikes are a dime a dozen nowadays in the gaming market. They often revolve around dungeon crawling where you play through the same set of locations with different sets of items, hoping that you’re lucky enough to have a good enough combo to survive late-game content. However, Death Road to Canada is a confident breakthrough of this design with a fun concept that is well executed. Death Road is a zombie road-trip rogue-lite where you travel with up to four jerks on a journey from Florida to the Canadian Border, free of the ravenous and numerous zombies that infect the rest of the United States.
 

Presentation

Death Road to Canada presents its atmosphere as one that should not be taken entirely seriously, which is also carried over in its gameplay, which will be covered later. The graphics are relatively simplistic and pixelated, allowing it to retain a nearly solid frame rate, regardless of how many entities are present on screen, creating a consistently smooth experience throughout. The mostly bright chiptune soundtrack is cleverly juxtaposed with whatever is happening on screen, whether you’re desperately fighting for your life, or when you’re being devoured by the endless hordes of zombies.

 

Gameplay

Death Road to Canada is a mesh of making important decisions during randomly selected driving events, looting various locales for supplies, or fighting for your life during intense sieges. 

 

The driving events range from being fairly standard situations to ones that are borderline insane. For example, it might go from deciding who should stay up to watch for bandits, to discovering a mysterious portal that transforms anyone who walks in into an augmented creature with enhanced stats, or your friend might randomly turn into a malevolent demon who just wishes to have a slice of pizza. You never know what you might encounter while driving (or walking) down the Death Road, which makes each run consistently exciting and fun to play through.

 

The main challenge that stems from the gameplay comes from your ability to strategize quickly, whether that be during the looting events or during a siege. When looting a large city, you’re not going to be able to pick every building clean before nightfall, so you’re going to have to prioritize which buildings you want to loot first, while also quickly deciding which hordes of zombies are necessary to fight in order to slip by. Do you want to loot a house first, which might contain more food, or do you want to raid the hardware store, which might contain some much needed gasoline or even a chainsaw? When you’re in a house with a person in need of help, do you risk your supplies and health points to save them, or do you leave them behind, forfeiting any rewards that could have come from rescuing them?

 

Your ability to make decisions quickly also carries over to the multiple skirmishes you will have with the hordes of undead. Obviously, you will not be able to kill them all, but not killing any at all will lead to you quickly being overwhelmed, because during a siege event, a handful of zombies will periodically spawn at your immediate location, forcing you to either take them out as quickly as possible, or to quickly relocate. Knowing when to stand your ground and when to flee is very important if you wish to survive. The controls themselves are quite simple, with one button acting as an attack button, and another that could be used to pick up and throw furniture, but like I mentioned earlier, strategy and quick-thinking tend to take the spotlight more rather than a test of raw dexterity.

 

The element of strategy also applies to the characters that will tag along for the journey to the border. You can start with up to two random/custom characters, although some game modes allow you to start with more. Deciding which characters should be in your party at the start and who should and shouldn’t join can be the difference between success and failure during the harder game modes. When creating a custom character, you have to give them a trait and a perk, which will either affect their stats, starting weapons, starting car or supplies, or they might add something completely new, such as fire resistance. However, every trait you pick will come with a downside, whether that be in the form of lowering specific stats, or something that is entirely unique. Making characters that work well with each other will help increase your odds of survival.

 

As with any rogue-like, my only real problem with the game stems from the game’s RNG factor. While garbage runs aren’t nearly as frequent as other rogue-ish games of its ilk, when they happen, the game can be ruthlessly cruel, and can create situations that are entirely unfair or almost impossible to survive. For example, your car might run out of gas, potentially leading to a bandit attack, which will make you lose either your morale or your health. If you pick the former, then it might get low enough to spark a challenging all-or-nothing siege, while picking the latter might lead to the death of important allies. Thankfully, like I mentioned earlier, these runs only show up once in a blue moon, and the fun I had with the other runs far exceeded the frustration I had with these unlucky runs.

The Platinum Trophy

On the surface, without any decent knowledge of the game, this platinum looks absurdly difficult. Winning the first ten game modes in a row without losing? Beating the game with all characters that I’ve never even met before? Luckily, there are a number of strategies and exploits you can utilize to make this platinum a lot easier (not easy, per se).

 

The only gold trophy requires you to beat the first ten game modes (Normal, Rare Characters, Familiar Characters, Short Road, Long Winding Road, Deadlier Road, Rare EX, Familiar EX, Marathon, and K*E*P*A) without losing at all in between. If you have a spare USB drive or a PS Plus subscription, then you do not have to worry about losing, as long as you upload your save after every successful run, and turn off auto-upload. Even without it, there are a number of exploits you can do to keep your streak alive. Did you make a bad decision during a driving event? Quit the game before accepting the results and reload. Are you unsatisfied with what you got during a looting event? Quit the game before you leave and reload, and you’ll load right back to before the looting event starts. Did you lose an important ally during a siege? Simply quit the game before you all die or leave, and you’ll load right back to before the siege begins. Is a run just not going your way? Simply delete the save from the menu and try again. That’s right, deleting a save from the menu will not end your streak, but deleting it by exiting to the main menu during a looting/siege event will erase your streak, so be mindful of this.

 

If you’re scared that you might have to rely on RNG to give you the rare characters needed for all those trophies, don’t be, because there is O*P*P mode, or Overpowered Party Mode. At the start of each game in this mode, you will be transported to a special location that contains close to every rare character available in the game, as well as a special few that can not be found normally. Prior to the most recent updates, this lobby did not contain every character needed for all the trophies, more specifically being Hermit and Clown. Thankfully, the recent updates added these two characters to the lobby, making every trophy obtainable in O*P*P mode. 

 

However, this mode comes with a catch. It TRIPLES the zombie hoard right from the start, meaning that unless you have some truly powerful people, you are going to get overwhelmed very quickly. But, there are two characters that are perfectly adequate for this game mode. Mecha Mountie is a powerful option, since he has an infinite supply of devastating “eh-zer beams” that almost instantly demolish any crowd of zombies that might stand in his way. However, he has relatively low stats, and he will kill your teammates during driving events if his morale falls too low. Alternatively, there is also the Grim Reaper, who has EXTREMELY high Strength and Fitness, a powerful scythe, as well as decent Wits. However, he can not pick up items off the ground, and you can get overwhelmed during sieges if you’re careless. Both of these characters work well in their own ways, but make sure to bring a character with the “Civilized” trait for the high personality stats.

 

Personally, the hardest trophy in the game is “Don’t Let me Die,” which requires you to beat K*E*P*A mode with the character, Kepa. For starters, what is K*E*P*A mode? In short, this game mode doubles the size of all zombie hordes, and makes bandit encounters more cruel. It also starts you with the character, Kepa, on top of the two random/custom party members that you bring along. On top of having to deal with a severe increase in zombies, Kepa is a character that can die/leave very easily, due to his very low max health (1 vitality) and personality stats. If his morale falls too low, he will leave pretty quickly, and if he gets hit once or is forced to fight off bandits, then he will immediately die.

 

So how do you survive? First off, you need a custom character with the “Civilized” personality trait, which gives him/her very high personality stats, as well as a bonus point in Mechanical and Medical, with the trade off being that his morale can not go higher than 3 (the blank face expression). While the big hit in morale might cause them to reach zero morale more quickly, their high Loyalty stat will hopefully help them stick around longer. Since Kepa only has one vitality point, it would be wise to control him, so that the A.I doesn’t wander into a zhorde and suffers a cheap hit. Since you’re going to be controlling him consistently, try to train Kepa’s combat stats wherever possible to help make up for his other shortcomings. Until you train his combat skills, your team is going to be pretty weak, so it would be wise to bring someone with the “Martial Artist” perk and a trait that increases fitness.

Conclusion

Death Road to Canada is a consistently engaging (if infrequently frustrating) roguelite that challenges your ability to strategize without pushing the challenge level too far, as long as you utilize proper strategies and exploits.

 

Rating - Outstanding

 

Difficulty - Moderate (With exploits) or Very Hard (Without exploits)

 

That's all for now! Feel free to start any discussions if you want to! The next game I will cover on this thread is Crawl, a dungeon-crawling rogue-like that is centered on competitive local multiplayer.

[realm722]

19 hours ago, Trumpet_Boi_208 said:

That's all for now! Feel free to start any discussions if you want to! The next game I will cover on this thread is Crawl, a dungeon-crawling rogue-like that is centered on competitive local multiplayer.

 

Hey! Super happy to see you finally decided to start a trophy cabinet of your own. You're a familiar face for those of us who always are hunting down the next great indie. There are honestly a number of games I'd love for you to break down. Selfishly, I bought GoNNER ages ago but haven't touched it yet (and boy it sure would help to have more info on the game widely available :P)  Thumper is a game I got as part of the PS+ package they gave away back in April and haven't touched due to being intimidated by how difficult and intense it can be. Rain World, Apotheon, & Furi are all games I'd love to hear your take on as well. 

[DrBloodmoney]

Nice start to the checklist, my man - that’s a great breakdown of DRtC - and very informative!

 

I’ll be following along - I’m always on the lookout for good indie games (I like to think I’m a big ‘indie’ gamer too…  

…but really, you’ve already got an endorsement from the real “Indie King of the Checklist Subforum” above, in the form of @realm722 ?)

 

Still, there’s more great indies out there than any one man could ever break down, so the more threads concentrating on indie games, the better the site is for it! 

 

Looking forward to your updates ?

Edited November 16, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[Trumpet_Boi_208]

On 11/16/2021 at 1:34 PM, realm722 said:

Hey! Super happy to see you finally decided to start a trophy cabinet of your own. You're a familiar face for those of us who always are hunting down the next great indie. There are honestly a number of games I'd love for you to break down. Selfishly, I bought GoNNER ages ago but haven't touched it yet (and boy it sure would help to have more info on the game widely available :P)  Thumper is a game I got as part of the PS+ package they gave away back in April and haven't touched due to being intimidated by how difficult and intense it can be. Rain World, Apotheon, & Furi are all games I'd love to hear your take on as well. 

Once I finish Crawl, I'm definitely interested in breaking down some of the other indies I played, including the ones you mentioned. The only game I'm a little scared to cover is Rain World, since I'm not entirely sure how to thoroughly break it down without wandering too far into spoiler territory, especially considering that a lot of simple things, including the game's basic mechanics, are considered spoilers by the game's community. Also, critiquing the game is going to be weird, since it is as much of an art piece as it is a game, which means that some of the features that contributes to its vision might conflict with its fun factor.

 

Thumper's platinum is comparable to Furi's platinum, in that there is no luck involved with earning it. If you have the patience and perseverance to continue practicing, then the platinum is more than doable, especially considering that you can restart a sub-level however many times you want. Also, there aren't any trophies involved with beating any levels in Play+ mode, a harder game mode with no checkpoints and a considerable increase in the game's speed whenever you're doing well. Above all else, though, Thumper is a fantastic rhythm game that I will probably cover after Crawl.

 

On 11/16/2021 at 2:08 PM, DrBloodmoney said:

Nice start to the checklist, my man - that’s a great breakdown of DRtC - and very informative!

 

I’ll be following along - I’m always on the lookout for good indie games (I like to think I’m a big ‘indie’ gamer too…  

…but really, you’ve already got an endorsement from the real “Indie King of the Checklist Subforum” above, in the form of @realm722 )

 

Still, there’s more great indies out there than any one man could ever break down, so the more threads concentrating on indie games, the better the site is for it! 

 

Looking forward to your updates 

Thank you for the kind words! It always warms my heart to see someone giving a good indie the love they deserve, especially considering that finding a good indie game nowadays is the equivalent of finding needles in a haystack, if the haystack was the size of Mount Everest. I'm hoping that this thread, in conjunction with the other indie threads, will encourage others to join us in the effort of searching through said haystack in search of indie gems! If you wish to hear a breakdown of any particular indie game you're interested in, feel free to say something!

[Trumpet_Boi_208]

Hello again! Today I wish to discuss a well-executed local-multiplayer destination, Crawl!

 

 

Introduction

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you combined a rogue-like with simple yet satisfying hack and slash combat, a mod where you can compete against your friends, and a sinister retro-arcade atmosphere? Well, you don’t have to wonder anymore, because we have a game exactly like that, which is Crawl! Crawl is a dungeon-crawling rogue-like where up to four players compete to escape the loathsome crypts as the lone hero, alternating between playing as the hero and as the monsters and traps that oppose him. 

 

Presentation

Crawl's sinister atmosphere oozes out of every aspect of this game's presentation. Visually, the game relies on pixelated graphics, which appropriately sells the retro-arcade part of the atmosphere. However, you will need to pay better attention to the action if you don't want to lose track of what's going on. However, once you get used to the chaos, then everything is perfectly readable. The models range from the relative simplicity of the heroes and lower-level monsters, to the gorgeously detailed bosses, yet all are quite appealing to look at. The limited yet memorable selection of ominous chiptune songs perfectly fit what's going on, whether that be the dread that comes from the menu song, or the fast, hectic song that erupts when a boss fight commences.

 

Gameplay

My description of the game in the introduction was pretty barebones, so allow me to describe a match and the combat in further detail before I present my critiques.

 

Each match starts with up to four players duking it out in a small arena. Whoever survives the battle gets to continue on through the dungeon, for now. Their slain comrades will rise again as ghosts, who are able to possess traps, objects, and monsters in an attempt to slay the hero, and whoever deals the final blow to the hero gets to take his place. Whenever the hero gains a level, the ghosts gain wrath, a currency of sorts that can be spent at the end of each floor to evolve their monsters. The ultimate goal for every player is to defeat the boss (a big bad beast that’s controlled by the other players) beyond a mysterious portal, which can only be reached by a level 10 hero. If the hero successfully defeats the boss, then he will win the match. If not, then he is thrown back into the dungeon with a sliver of health left. Be careful, as all players share a collective three attempts at defeating the boss, and whoever loses the final attempt will end the game in last place, regardless of their overall performance.

 

Before every match begins, each player is required to worship a certain deity, which will provide them with different starting items, depending on which one they worship. For example, one deity will provide any players with items that will strengthen their monsters, while another will start them with 40 gold (which is the game's currency) and an item that decreases shop prices. These starting items add a nice layer of depth to each game you play, without bogging down the player with needless complexity, which is great. Alternatively, players may also choose to taunt a deity (also known as "The Divine Trials"), which will inflict certain penalties upon them, such as reduced health, permanent starting weapons, or even a curse that periodically turns you into a frog. This feature helps create a more even playing field, where more experienced players can willfully handicap themselves, giving their friends a better chance of winning. Or, it can also be used to create moments of overwhelming satisfaction where players overcome these daunting odds, or they can use it to flex on those who were talking a lot of smack during the pre-game.

 

Although the combat is relatively simple, with the hero and monsters only having two buttons to work with, it is still responsive and punchy, thanks to solid sound design and an adequate injection of game juice. Each hero is provided with a rusted blade and a basic dodge roll at the start of each game, but they are able to purchase other weapons, items, and even different special abilities, allowing each player to better personalize themselves during each run. The weapons you discover in shops also have a high chance of having a random modifier attached to it, such as a percentage chance of inflicting a certain effect, or you may even discover a magic variant of the weapon, which adds a powerful magic attack to their basic combo. There are also various items found in the shops, which can either passively augment a player's power, or it can completely change the tides of a match, with some items allowing the player to steal gold, or even swap gear with the lead player. Shops also contain spells (the special abilities that you use by pressing Circle), as well as potions that increase one stat by two points and decrease one stat by one point. These items can be used in combination to create some interesting synergies. My favorite one is where I max out my Agility stat, while also packing items that boost my speed and Strength when my health is low, and a spell that temporarily doubles my Strength and Agility, while doubling the damage I take. If you are able to get this synergy of items, then get ready to run and strike faster than Usain Bolt! While there aren't as many item synergies as other rogue-likes (mainly because there aren't nearly as many items, with there only being 61), the synergies that you can find are insanely fun to play with.

 

When a player goes through a portal, they will challenge one of three bosses that is controlled by the other three players. These bosses include Kourok, an immobile, one-eyed beast that shoots bubbles and sludge from its tentacles and lasers from its eyes, all while bombs drop from the sky, Ghidraak, a hydra that spits fire, ice, and poison, and Tezeckal, a stone head possessed by a fiercely religious lunatic. All of these fights are equally intense and make use of three-player team-work in interesting ways. However, in terms of design, the weakest boss is probably Ghidraak. Both Tezeckal and Kourok encourage the hero to take risks, with Tezeckal requiring you to knock out the lunatic in order to start dealing damage to the boss itself, while hitting a bomb into Kourok’s mouth will lead to a big opening. On the other hand, Ghidraak strongly encourages the player to exploit the A.I. to avoid getting shredded. What do I mean by this? In the arena where you fight him, there is debris scattered across the arena, which acts as cover. The only problem with this is that the hero is able to hit any entity through any wall, should their melee weapon have the range to reach the other side, and the debris in the arena is relatively short in length. Whenever you attack the boss from behind a piece of debris, the A.I has an aneurism for a moment before refocusing itself on you. Combine this oversight with the fact that being out in the open is essentially a death wish, and you’ll have a fight that boils down to moving in between pieces of cover and hitting a dragon in ways that are logically impossible. That’s not to say the fight can’t be fun, as it can get quite hectic whenever your cover is blown and you are forced to move out into the open to find new cover, frantically dodging whatever you can from the three heads.

 

One thing that surprised me about this game is that garbage runs are almost non-existent, thanks to clever design choices. For one thing, players are rewarded for playing both the hero and a ghost, with the former providing you much needed EXP to get to level 10, and the latter providing you gold for every hit of damage you deal to the hero. Plus, just because you are behind, does not mean it’s the end! During one of my Divine Trial runs, I was only around level 5, while all my adversaries were or almost were level 10. Once I had finally delivered the killing blow, I was eliminated shortly afterward, still only being level 7. Miraculously, I was able to regain my humanity, and was lucky enough to get rooms where I could face a monster 1 on 1, which was enough to propel me to level 10. That run was one of the most exhilarating victories I’ve had with this game, and it was one where I was consistently on the back foot, which made it all the more rewarding. Of course, not all runs are going to end up the way my run ended, but the point is that each run is consistently exciting, and there are plenty enough opportunities for a comeback to warrant sticking with each one.

 

Although it is disappointing that the game's multiplayer is restricted to local multiplayer, if you're able to get friends together to play, the experience is absolutely magical. No friends? No problem! You are also able to compete against A.I. bots, who are surprisingly competent at playing the game, with the hard difficulty bots occasionally being absolutely ruthless. Their play style adequately changes according to whatever they have on them or whatever they are possessing, as opposed to sticking to a single style with every weapon and monster, which greatly contributes to the game’s replayability when flying solo. However, this comes with the drawback that the A.I. will sometimes have reflexes as quick as lightning, reacting immediately with a dodge and following up with a devastating counterattack during your moments of vulnerability. This renders some monsters (mainly the ones with slow attack wind-up and cooldowns) a lot weaker than others when in a strict 1v1 (with no other distractions) against the hero. However, these 1v1s don’t generally happen in normal games, but they do happen in vault challenges. Vault challenges are essentially a survival game where you try to kill the hero as many times as possible with a single monster, while the hero gains better equipment and stats after every round. Each monster has their own vault challenge, with differing round requirements needed to pass them. The occasionally unfair reflexes of the A.I will be felt here whenever you are tackling the slower monsters’ vault challenges, and you will have to learn to utilize the brief window of opportunity after the dodge roll to deal damage to the hero.

 

The Platinum Trophy

This trophy list contains a handful of tough challenges, followed by a slew of miscellaneous trophies and a grind to 100%. The difficulty of the miscellaneous trophies depends on whether or not you boost them with a second controller or a friend via share play. While most of them are doable without boosting it, there are a few that can cause quite a headache, such as defeating three monsters with a single bolt of a crossbow. Luckily, these requirements are also fulfilled if you kill slime monsters, which are far weaker monsters that can be easily summoned in greater numbers. If a ghost, whether that be a dummy account or a bot, summons three slimes in a single room, move to one of the four corners of the room, and wait for the slimes to align in a diagonal form. If you’re playing with a dummy account, you can make the dummy possess one of the slimes to make it easier for yourself.

 

There is also a gold trophy that requires you to win a match without dying at all as the hero, which sounds impossible, but it is more than doable if you play against an easy bot while worshipping the deity, Chz, which gives you an item that heals you for every hit you deal to enemies. Although it reduces your health and the health you receive per hit is small, it adds up quickly, allowing you to better survive in the long run. Plus, the easy bot will be relatively docile, making their monsters easy to outmaneuver, meaning that your odds of winning will be relatively high (especially if you have experience with playing against Hard bots), as long as you are not careless.

 

The real difficulty of this platinum trophy stems from playing and winning against the hard bots, whether they be through winning the Divine Trials, or through other feats. While there are a small handful of tough challenges regarding the hard bots, I will only discuss the three hardest ones for the sake of brevity. The “Unstoppable Force” trophy requires you to get a kill streak of 12 (excluding slimes and heroes in the intro battle) against three hard bots. What makes this difficult comes from a variety of reasons, which includes the lack of a solid healing source, the ruthlessness of the Hard bots, and the fact that some monsters are quite annoying to defeat without sustaining much damage. As with the No-Death run, the best deity to worship here is Chz, since the mediocre damage dished out by low-level monsters makes the healing properties of the Vampiric Ring work over the course of 12 kills. One strategy for survival is to make it so that the A.I. only worships certain deities by continuously selecting a deity until the A.I. worships the deities that you want them to worship, with the most favorable ones personally being Gholoth, Murkan, and Gor. Apart from that, it all comes down to learning and being able to dodge the monsters' attacks and getting lucky enough to get rooms that are free of traps.

 

Another tough challenge is “S’hrim Denied,” which requires you to taunt S’hrim, and then proceed to win against three hard bots. Should you taunt this deity, you will be permanently given items that will not only make you insane, but it will trap you with a frog curse. The insanity debuff causes your hero to slow his movements by looking around in paranoia for a few moments. These moments can be cancelled by simply hitting the attack button, making it more annoying than a hindrance. However, the frog curse is a different story entirely. About every 20 seconds, you will be transformed into a harmless frog for about 5 seconds. Not only will your health be drastically reduced, but your movement speed and ability to attack are restricted, making you extremely vulnerable to any moderate threat. In order to make this trophy more manageable, you need to go through the rooms in a rhythm, where you wait in a cleared room (preferably clear of traps) until a frog cycle has passed. Also, try to dedicate the time between frog cycles to memory, so that you can prepare early, because although you are given a warning as to when a frog cycle is about to commence, this warning only passes a few moments before you are immediately transformed, giving you no time to flee from whatever threat you are dealing with. Even if you don't slay many monsters with this curse, you can leech a good chunk of EXP from dealing the final blow to the hero, although I advise against relying exclusively on this method to reach level 10.

 

One of the toughest trophies available in the game is “Qaahl Forgotten,” which requires you to taunt Qaahl and proceed to win against three hard bots. Taunting Qaahl will not only reduce your health by a drastic degree, but you will also be locked with an extremely weak bow. Thankfully, Powerhoof was kind enough to also give players a hyper dash as well, which is a blessing that makes this challenge a lot more doable. If you want a chance of winning a run, it would be in your best interest to kill as many monsters as possible on the first floor, because once the monsters evolve, your bow will not be nearly enough to kill them without being absolutely shredded first. Once the match starts to progress, your main method of earning EXP will come from dealing the final blow to other heroes, which will also land you a healthy sum of gold. The most important stat to consider when examining the potions in the shop is Vitality, since surviving the boss will be next to impossible if you keep your health the way it is, unless you are able to dodge almost every single attack the hard bots can throw at you, which is incredibly difficult.

 

Once you are done with everything mentioned above, it all comes down to grinding for 100% completion, which includes all vault entries and vault challenges. Discovering every monster is a relatively trivial matter, with you simply needing to evolve your monsters into every form possible. Finding the right weapons, items, and objects is a whole other beast in of itself, as you are at the mercy of RNGesus to give you the entries you are missing. However, playing against a dummy account will not only allow you to have complete control over the game whenever you want, but it also allows you to move through each room as quickly and as efficiently as possible. I recommend frequently visiting the shop to buy items and potions that will increase your speed. I also highly recommend creating a checklist on a separate device, consisting of all the objects you are missing, as well as a picture or description of it, so that you don’t miss anything.

Conclusion

Crawl is a well-made, exciting competitive local multiplayer dungeon-crawler, perfectly fit for playing with friends. Although I mainly played and enjoyed the game solo, I would not recommend it purely as a solo experience, since you might not enjoy the single-player elements as much as I did. The platinum will require decent mastery of both the hero and the monsters, as well as the time needed to discover everything in the vault. However, if you are playing with a dummy account, then the overall grind factor of the game shouldn’t last longer than 15 hours.

 

Rating: Great

 

Platinum Difficulty: Challenging

 

Thanks for reading my lengthy post! The next game I plan to cover is the intense "rhythm-violence" game, Thumper. See you soon!

Edited November 23, 2021 by Trumpet_Boi_208

[TristanBrown17]

This is awesome @Trumpet_Boi_208! I think a lot of these indie games don't get he hype they typically deserve, so being able to read your experience with the game and see someone who plays these and promotes them is somewhat of a rarity! That upcoming game sounds really interesting, and since I love rhythm games, I'm looking forward to reading your review!

[Trumpet_Boi_208]

 

Hello! Sorry if it took so long to get this out! I’ve been a bit busy, and writing this was more challenging than I initially thought. Never mind that, let’s talk about Thumper!

 

Introduction

I would like to start this write-up by pointing out that I am somewhat of a musician (having played the trumpet for around 4-5 years before swapping to trombone, an instrument I have been playing for roughly 2-3 years as of right now), and as such, the idea of rhythm games has always been personally enticing. However, almost none of the games I’ve played or heard of resonated with me for one reason or another. Thumper is the complete opposite, immediately grabbing my attention and never letting go until the very end of its 9 dangerous levels.

 

Note: You are able to play the game in VR. However, this breakdown will focus exclusively on the non-VR version of the game.

 

Presentation

Thumper sees you playing as a metallic beetle, riding along a track littered with twists, turns, barriers and dangers. The void that surrounds you is uncomfortably empty, with only Lovecraft-esque tentacles that occasionally line the sides of the track to keep you comfortable. The various “creatures” that will cross your path are quite abstract in their designs, being either strange or even uncomfortable to look at. The most notable example is a face that you will encounter at the end of each level, growing more inhuman as the levels progress, all while vomiting up the tracks you travel on. Although there are a lot of questions that can be asked about what all of this is and what it means, Thumper doesn’t bother to explain anything, mainly leaving it up to the player’s interpretation, especially after the game’s ambiguous ending.

 

When you think about the soundtrack in video games, you often think of songs that feature instruments, synth, chiptune, or other forms of conventional music. However, Thumper’s sounds are foreign and almost industrial, backed by a sinister drum rhythm, immediately separating itself from other games of its ilk.

 

Gameplay

Thumper is quite simple when it comes to its gameplay. You thump with X, you hold X to slide, holding left and right while sliding will make you turn, holding up while holding X after a thump will make you fly, and pressing down while flying will make you pound back onto the track. That is all there is to it, yet there is still some depth for those who wish to truly be the best by utilizing mechanics that the game never explains to the player.

 

The game runs at a relatively quick tempo, requiring intense concentration and decent dexterity if you wish to leave alive, or with a good score. Luckily, the game holds up well during its most difficult moments, thanks to a consistently smooth frame-rate and responsive controls that are easy to pick up, yet hard to master. What starts out with simple thumps and turns will eventually evolve into quickly stringing together inputs with remarkable intensity, demanding your full undivided attention until the final thump. When played for the first time, each level feels like a dive into the unknown. It starts by gradually introducing game mechanics that are built on at the beginning of each level. However, once you think you got a feel for the game, it thrusts you back into the dark by using more challenging time signatures. Yes, each level uses a different time signature, ranging from the simplicity of 4/4, to the generally obscure 9/8 time signature. Considering that there is no sense of familiarity to lean on, you are genuinely kept on your toes as you zip your way through the levels.

 

What makes Thumper special when compared to other rhythm games is how much feedback everything is given here. Most rhythm games give players very little feedback whenever they correctly hit a note, which is understandable, since it might be more of a distraction than a tangible reward for getting a note right. However, Thumper is able to seamlessly integrate plenty of feedback into every thump, turn, tick, ring, and pound. Thumps are satisfyingly deep and turns are violent and jarring. Rings and ticks produce a sequence of blings at progressively higher pitches, which is where the majority of the syncopation in the rhythm comes from. Best of all, whenever you pound an illuminated panel, the game will lock up for a moment, before sending a powerful shockwave through the track. Although this would normally hinder any average rhythm game, Thumper is able to prevent it from being jarring by adding it to the rhythm, instead of having it be its own thing. Think of it as adding another beat to a measure. If you pound a glowing panel during a boss fight, then the feedback is even stronger, as if you took an average illuminated panel and injected it with an even greater dose of dopamine. This aggressive responsiveness to every single action completely enticed me, often putting me into a zen-like trance until the very end. 

 

The game also features a Play+ version of each level, which makes them considerably more difficult. On top of speeding up the game whenever you earn a 3X and 4X multiplier respectively, but you also only have one life. If you die, you start from the beginning of the level. Also, thumping an illuminated panel will only restore your shell if you have a 4X multiplier, meaning that your mistakes need to be far less frequent. It’s a neat game mode that is a substantial challenge for anyone who is brave enough to attempt a high score, and is what drove me to invest over 60 hours into the game hunting for a high spot on the leaderboard (particularly level 8+). However, the completion of this mode is not in any way required for earning the platinum.

 

The Platinum Trophy

Earning the platinum for Thumper is incredibly simple, only requiring you to earn an S-Rank on all 9 levels. Just because it is simple, does not mean it is easy, since the BPM and difficulty of later levels will increase considerably. However, it is a platinum that takes little more than practice and a bit of patience.

 

For starters, I highly recommend using the D-Pad over the left stick, since it will allow you to string together turns and slams more quickly. Whether you use R1 or X to thump the panels is a matter of personal preference, although I personally used X when I earned the platinum.

 

The greatest asset you can have during your quest towards the platinum (or a high score) is knowledge of how each mechanic works, so allow me to better explain said mechanics in order of importance. One of the most important factors to keep in mind is your kill count. A lot of sub-levels will have tentacles that  line the sides of the track you travel on. If you pound a thump, regardless of whether or not you have a combo, any tentacles in the shockwave will retreat back into the void. These are counted as kills, and can be worth a pretty amount of points if you are able to rack up a good amount of them. If you end up taking damage or missing a thump, kills are a good way to make up for the mistake you’ve made and to still have a chance at an S Rank on the sub-level you are attempting. In fact, sometimes you gain more points by pounding a panel for kills instead of jumping on it to hit rings.

 

Another important mechanic to fully understand is double jumping. Holding X and up after thumping a panel will allow you to fly (or jump) for a brief time. However, if you jump while you are already flying, you will be able to fly for an indefinite duration. When you are score chasing, this will allow you to score a few more kills or to illuminate another panel, giving you the slight edge over those who are unaware of this information.

 

If you pound a panel while you have a combo of X2 or greater, a panel located a short distance ahead of you will be illuminated. Only thumping this panel will grant you a small amount of blue orbs, but pounding it will illuminate another panel ahead (if possible) and grant you a greater sum of points. Knowing when to double jump or pound the final thump is important if you wish to earn a few more points in each sub-level. If you are struggling with S-Ranking a boss, try pounding the glowing thump at the end of a phase, since doing so without missing will reward you with two illuminated thumps instead of one. Pounding the second illuminated thump is a good way of scoring extra points to compensate for damage taken. However, if you miss a thump, you do have to restart the phase, kills and extra orbs are impossible to get, and no rewards will be given for passing it, but don’t give up hope if you miss! Like I mentioned earlier, if you rack up a good amount of kills from other phases of the fight, it can do wonders to make up for your mistakes.

 

Conclusion

Thumper is a relentlessly intense and rewarding experience that is an excellent showcase of what this genre has to offer, while also deviating from what many come to expect from a conventional rhythm game. The platinum difficulty may vary greatly, depending on your experience with rhythm games, but it is ultimately doable with enough persistence.

 

Game Rating: Outstanding

 

(Personal) Platinum Difficulty: Moderate

 

Thanks for reading! This review took longer than I expected to make, since it was quite challenging to cover this game without it seeming like a collection of ramblings or a reiteration of what others have said about this game on YouTube. The next game I will cover is the 2D action platformer coated in Greek mythology: Apotheon! Once that is done, I should hopefully be able to cover the challenging cartoonish platformer, Splasher!

 

That is all for now! Take care!

[Trumpet_Boi_208]

 

Welcome back! Usually when I cover games in this thread, they are usually games that are played by fewer than 5-10,000 players. However, when it comes to games such as Apotheon, I’ll be happy to make exceptions.

 

Introduction

The selection of PS Plus games have always been wildly unpredictable in terms of quality. Some games that have appeared on there were actually ones of moderately high quality or better, such as Enter the Gungeon, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Rayman Legends, and WipEout: Omega Collection. However, a lot of them were either mediocre or have been received quite poorly. Apotheon just so happened to have appeared on the list of games, which attracted a large sort of people, ranging from the average joe who was enthralled by the unique style only to quit due later to the gameplay, to the hardcore trophy hunters who go into it for the easy platinum. While it is not without its flaws, Apotheon certainly deserves more love than what it got.

 

In Apotheon, you play as Nikandreos, an adventurer who rises to Olympus in hopes of saving mankind from Zeus’s decree of oblivion. You will fight a variety of popular Greek gods during your quest, including Artemis, Poseidon, Athena, and more.

Presentation

The game may not be perfect to any pair of eyes, but I can confidently say that Alientrap perfectly hit the nail on the head when it comes to style. The game takes great inspiration from the art found on Greek pottery, whether that be the limited color palette, the character and object models, and the dents and cracks that line a pot if one looks closely enough at the screen. Models Character animations are a bit stiff, but they are not enough to break your immersion. The soundtrack is equally sublime, providing a selection of orchestrated pieces that would not feel too out of place in a God of War game.

Gameplay

Apotheon’s combat should not be treated as another action platformer. Where other games emphasize twitch reflexes, this game focuses more on timing and positioning. Weapons have a very strict hitbox, with most weapons (axes, maces, etc.) requiring you to hit enemies with the tip or the blade of the weapon, lest your attack will completely miss your target. Most weapons also attack relatively slowly, giving your enemies plenty of time to escape if you are not adequately coordinated. You are also restricted by a stamina system, where too many attacks in quick succession will lead to attacks that are even slower. As such, you have to play the game more deliberately, appropriately positioning yourself and accounting for the enemy’s movements in order to land blows. Landing overhead blows will deal more damage, but dealing an underhand blow will knock your enemy into the air, creating some distance if you need to recover or deal with a different threat. It’s a form of combat that will feel a bit clunky when starting, but it is rewarding to master.

 

The worst aspect of the game revolves around a noticeable lack of polish in certain areas, with the biggest offender being the relatively frequent crashes. This would usually occur whenever I am searching the contents of a lockbox, especially when I am within Athena’s maze. While there are only a few of these “rigged” lock boxes scattered throughout the world, the crashes they deliver are consistent, preventing you from pillaging whatever is inside. Luckily, you are not required to fully loot every lockbox to earn the platinum, which makes this bug (at least somewhat) tolerable. The aiming system is also relatively weak, often feeling stiff and difficult to control, which mainly affects the aiming when making more precise shots. Thankfully however, this gripe is only really prevalent while I was in Athena’s lair, since the rest of the game does not demand much, if any precision at all when taking aim.

 

Although the game only spans about 6-8 hours, there is little to no padding at all, consistently introducing new ideas throughout the course of the game. One area might focus more on normal combat, while another might have you playing a game where you constantly go back and forth as hunter and the hunted. In fact, you might not even engage in combat at all, and you may be tested for your marksmanship and skills in dodging obstacles. Each god you fight . Another point of interest is the durability system, which is a system that some may be turned off by. However, weapons are generously distributed throughout Olympus, so decisions made are more focused on choosing the right weapon for the job, as opposed to figuring out how to scrape by with as little usage as possible.

 

The Platinum Trophy

Earning all of the trophies in this title essentially boils down to 100% completing the game, and finishing a playthrough on Olympian difficulty. The collectibles in this game include lock boxes, rare weapons, and optional god powers, although the rare weapons are nothing to worry about, since you usually find them in lock boxes or on the main story path. Obtaining the optional god powers revolve around going to the right place and completing a mini-game, a quest, or a basic puzzle. Despite there being 75 lock boxes scattered throughout Olympus, you are more than likely to stumble upon a lot of them if you have an insatiable lust for more weapons, armor, and resources. However, some of them are harder to reach than others, and these more challenging stashes make up the majority of the silver trophies in this list. As long as you follow a guide, you should have little to no trouble completing this portion of the platinum.

 

Once you are done with your first playthrough, all you have left to do is to finish the game on Olympian difficulty. While you can use a glitch to easily unlock it, I decided against using that method out of curiosity to see what the Olympian experience was like. This mode increases enemy damage output and attack speed, slightly increases health, and getting hit will interrupt your attacks. While there was another change regarding a lack of health recharge, it was a change that was insignificant to the point of being unnoticeable. While not terribly tough, there will be a few sections that you need to be wary of if you wish to come out on top.

 

Money needs to be spent wisely early on, since it is not easy to come by until you have access to later areas. For the beginning half of the game, I recommend focusing on armor and weapon upgrades, as well as the recipe for the repair kit consumable item. Exploration is highly encouraged, since it will reduce or negate the need to buy weapons or consumables.

 

The best order of gods to challenge is as such: Apollo, Demeter, Artemis, Athena, Poseidon, and Ares. Defeating Apollo will negate the need to constantly carry a torch, making Hades much easier to navigate for Demeter’s Sheaf. Plus, both of these areas serve as preparation for Artemis, since her boss fight is the most challenging in the game. Once you have access to the Acropolis, Athena is by far the best god to challenge first, since her aegis will have your shield recharge after every fight, negating the need to worry about finding new ones before big fights. Poseidon is not particularly notable in terms of difficulty, but there is an area within his dominion that will net you a good sum of gold, which will help you prepare for Ares and Zeus.

 

As mentioned earlier, the Artemis boss fight is the most challenging aspect of Olympian difficulty. You start off as a harmless stag while Artemis attempts to hunt you down by shooting arrows at you, setting up traps, and having a small amount of animals chase after you. In order to lift the curse, you must touch four illuminated pillars, which will turn Artemis herself into a stag, giving you the opportunity to attack her. Once she touches the four pillars, you swap roles, and this repeats until the fight is over. Although her traps are not too difficult to dodge and are not deployed incredibly often, she shoots with relatively high accuracy, making it easy for her to quickly drain your health. Your best odds of surviving will be to always overheal when you are moments away from transforming into a stag to maximize the margin for error. When you swap to offense, the Hydra Fang arrows are your best bet for consistently landing shots on Artemis, since each shot fires 3 arrows instead of one. From there, it’s a matter of quickly stringing together shots to make the fight as quick as possible to avoid consuming too many resources.

 

Zeus is another challenging fight when playing on Olympian difficulty, yet there is a method that makes it significantly quicker and easier. Before the fight begins, be sure to have an Assassin’s Dagger (preferably in good condition) with you, since it is the key to making short work of this fight. The first phase is the most challenging of the two, since you will need to be able to quickly swap weapons to make the most of this strategy. Once you have struck him down with the lightning bolt, quickly dash behind him, pull out your Assassin’s Dagger, and spam the attack button. Attacking from behind will not only deal a significant portion of damage (+800% damage, plus any upgrades you may have bought) to Zeus when compared to other weapons, but every hit will knock him back down, allowing you to stun-lock him until he reaches half health. The second phase is easier, since you have to rely on a shield to knock him down, as opposed to a weapon, making it easier to swap to your dagger. Once you knock him down again, simply repeat the process until he falls.

Conclusion

Although it’s certainly not a masterpiece, Apotheon’s quality should not be underestimated based on its flaws or differences. It’s an enjoyable action-adventure game with practically no filler content and a unique presentation that fully realizes the beauty of an old art style. The platinum trophy can be decently challenging if you wish it to be, but it is by no means required.

 

Rating: Good

 

Platinum Difficulty: Easy (with the exploit) or Moderately Easy (without the exploit)

 

Thanks for reading! The next game I aim to cover is the vibrant challenging platformer, Splasher! Take care!