ZCW Reviews

  Flowing Across Dimensions-A Risk of Rain 2 Review I am gonna subvert expectations here and just spoil the score for this game at the very start: It’s a ten, it will always be a ten, and the continually love and care that Hopoo games have put into Risk of Rain 2 will always keep it at a ten. I wanted to highlight this game because, even at over 350 hours of total playtime, I am nevertheless stunned at how utterly fantastic this game remains.  Commitment to tradition Like the first title, ROR2 revolves heavily around its unique difficulty system. In short, as you spend more time in a run a meter will continually move and the level of difficulty will continue to rise endlessly. Immediately, you are given a reason to move quickly and not waste any precious seconds as the game’s enemies continue to scale up and up and up in health and damage.  The second core feature from the first title is the idea of item stacking. Every single item in the game features unique effects that...

  Speedy, Simple, and Superb-A Lovely Planet 2 Review Gonna be honest here, went into this game completely blind off of the steam interactive recommender. That being said, Lovely Planet 2 was quite the delightful little indie gem despite what I perceive as a complete lack of exposure.  Pleasant Platforming In Lovely Planet, the goal is simple-blast your path as fast as possible to the end of each level, defeating all the little enemy squares with your gun on your way. The mix of precision aiming and smooth movement make going through these short burst levels, and I mean short as most levels can be completed in under 15 seconds, a speedrunners dream. Because of that raw simplicity, the game encourages you to try and be more accurate with your shots and as efficient as possible in your movement.  In terms of length, the main campaign from start to credits will take somewhere from 2-4 hours depending on skill level. However, Lovely Planet features an entire set of alternate ...

  A Rotting Tree With Pretty Leaves-A Gonner 2 Review I went into Gonner 2 hoping to see improvement over its quite lackluster first installment that I played right at the start of the switch’s lifespan. What the sequel brought was moderate improvements, but nothing substantial enough to make that original formula all the more enjoyable. Downright Frustrating Mechanics To make things blunt, the way that taking damage works in this game is beyond salvageable from a game design perspective. Art in heart has doubled down on this frustrating system of being hit, losing your skull, then frantically trying to get back to your skull without any way of defense. This mechanic literally invalidates the form of having any hp, as more times than not you will die when put in that helpless form and either have to pay currency gained throughout the run to get another chance, or just go all the way back to the start (Not to mention, when you get hit your gun, backpack, and skull can fall off cliff...

  Bullet Hell Bliss-A Nowhere Patrol Review In creating a video game the essence of a boss is to create a strong enemy that requires the player to utilize all elements of gameplay presented to them from previous levels. As of late, some developers have decided to twist this idea on its head and create games where the only enemies are bosses. Slugsoft’s Nowhere Patrol is an exquisite indie example of this, and a criminally underrated example of superfluous game design.  Simple, Yet Strategic Just like Furi, a similar boss rush type game reviewed here in the past, Nowhere Patrol keeps its mechanics simple, and let’s your application of those mechanics create the depth. In short, you will shoot, dash, jump, and special your way through Nowhere Patrol’s vastly unique set of 12 bosses back to back until you see the end screen. By the time you land that final blow, each of these abilities will be pushed to its absolute maximum potential. Take the dash for example, which grants invin...

  A Lesson of Innovation-A Pac-Man Championship Edition DX Review Many retro studios tend to struggle with modernizing a classic formula to work well in the modern age of gaming. Now more than ever, the push of modern video games in terms of mechanics and accessibility has left countless classic titles of decades past in an archaic limbo of outdated design decisions. Pac-man championship edition is a prime example of what it takes to modernize a distinctly retro IP and create something truly enjoyable of dated source material. A Maze of Changes PCE introduces many modernizations while still staying true to the main gameplay loop of the 80s arcade classic. In short, you will still be eating pellets and dodging ghosts, but with far more variety than the old one screen gameplay many are accustomed too. In fact, PCE has many different mazes for Pac-man to go through, and as you collect power pellets they shift around and change the map's orientation. This change is not done in a disori...