November, 2018 - Squackle.com! The Funniest Site on the Net!

Developer: Dark Star | Publisher: Another Indie || Overall: 7.5/10

Personally, I have very little interaction with the “Soulslike” genre. I know what Dark Souls is, but never had a chance to play the series. Games that pride themselves on being hard aren’t necessarily my thing, but I will dabble and see how far I can get sometimes. Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption is a boss-rush “Soulslike” that feels like you started playing right at the end of a game and missed about 20 hours of gameplay.

Since Sinner has been designed as a boss-rush, it relies heavily on the gameplay of its bosses, how they look, and what skill set you are given. As the title of the game implies, each of these bosses are influenced by Biblical references. Since I know nothing about any of it, it may as well have been based off the Wikipedia page about the seven deadly sins. All I know is that the bosses are all very interesting to look at, and a big pain in the fucking ass.

All together there are 8 bosses, two of which I gave two hours to exclusively. I tried the others to see what they looked like, but decided to commit to the two I thought I could beat. One boss I thought I beat, but she ended up turning into a new boss with full health, so fuck that. The other guy I beat, but the game allows you to reverse your progress and now it’s like I didn’t even beat him. Even though it says the boss will recover, it didn’t explicitly explain I would have to beat him again to progress, so I fucked up there. Additionally, each boss has a little lore piece that is a bit interesting, and you can kind of piece together a greater narrative that is going on.

Each boss will require a “sacrifice” of your stats or equipment to enter and try to beat the boss inside. This is a “leveling-down” system that will layer these sacrifices as you beat more bosses. Though beating a boss also gets you stats, you’re inevitably going to be trading off stuff you have for unknown prizes. This demands you to plan out your boss progression and figure out which bonuses or stats you need to beat certain bosses before giving them up; you can’t just beat what you think is easy now. So, in this context, it makes sense why they allow you to have a boss recover; you can gain back stats to beat another boss, then go back and beat the original boss, though this may make it more complicated depending on what other debuffs you have gathered since then.

I would say the graphics are pretty. Though much of the game is very gray, it is an obvious design choice to make it look this way to have more of an ancient/religious context. The main character is essentially a blank avatar without a personality, and the areas you fight in lack detail outside of their functional level design. The bosses are very creative-looking as the emphasis focuses on them. It is unfortunate other artistic aspects of the game seem to have suffered, though the music is okay as well.

I had some personal problems with how the gameplay works in general. It takes a while to remember which buttons do what since there is absolutely nothing other than bosses to practice on. There is one pack of enemies that spawn to help you get acquainted with the controls, but they are only around for a few minutes. The bosses killed me about fifty times before I even learned there was a run button; previously I was just using the dodge button over and over to get out of the way. There’s something to say with having filler in a game; it helps you learn how to play and get familiar with the controls before a difficult challenge.

The character has a sword and shield or 2-handed sword option for melee attacks, and a spear/fire bomb for range attacks. The range attacks don’t do much damage, but the spear can be used to stumble a boss at the right time. My biggest problems are with the bosses’ hit boxes. You have to get right into a boss’s asshole before your sword will connect, and it is endlessly frustrating to be swinging 3 times an inch away from where you need to be and make no hits. Many of the bosses have cheap abilities or deal extra damage at times which require you to run away or hide behind something, and this can add to the strategy, frustration, or both.

I would be remiss to not comment on the release of the title and the “controversy” around it. Initially this was to be released on Steam, but the developers made a deal with Discord, who opened up their own storefront recently, to give an exclusivity window. As one would now expect, the Steam version got delayed into next year, but it is currently available through the Discord store. I don’t personally have a problem with this as it is something you see on consoles all of the time. It is a new ripple in the PC field, as there isn’t much of a competition between Steam or any other non-publisher-specific storefront. Inevitably I think it is a good thing for developers, but probably a wash for consumers… unless you hate Steam.

While I technically like this game, I don’t really want to keep playing it. Games that make me yell “what the fuck!” or grunt and groan don’t often stick around. I can only enjoy pounding my head against a wall for so long. If you like this sort of experience, Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption may be up your alley.

Developer/Publisher: The Voxel Agents || Overall: 9.5/10

The Gardens Between is one of the most beautifully crafted games I’ve ever played. Creating games that can be appreciated as art can be a bit of a challenge, since it has to be a full package. The graphics, music, story/symbolism, gameplay — every little part of the game needs to be paid attention to, or the risk of not being taken seriously as art becomes a possibility. The Gardens Between accomplishes this very well and only in the way an interactive medium, such as gaming, can.

Each aspect of the title ties into the story, giving you a certain emotional feeling as each level is completed. You’ll soon realize that each level is based on an event, shared between the two female characters “Red Jacket Girl” and “Glasses Girl.” While they technically have names (Arina and Frendt), according to the Steam description page, there is no formal identification of the two girls in-game, nor does it really matter. There are no voices, no text bubbles… the story is told through visuals alone and you get the sense that something happens in their relationship that forces them to take this trip through surrealistic memory lane. After completing each set of levels, you are treated to a more direct reference to what the elements of the level refer to, which builds the relationship between the two girls further as you journey along.

The gameplay itself is an interesting mechanic, as you are dealing mostly with the concept of “time.” You can rewind and go forward, performing certain tasks in a certain order to get through the obstacles at hand. The main mechanics consist of Red Jacket Girl (aka Arina) holding a lantern, lighting it, and using it to get through obstacles. She can place it on certain items to activate them/complete the level, or leave it on little jumping cubes. The pursuit is typically to get the lantern lit when it needs to be, and make sure it isn’t lit when you don’t want it to be. Glasses Girl (aka Frendt) has the ability to toggle certain objects, some of which are simple binary toggles, or manipulating the construction/deconstruction of a portion of the level so that a pathway can open up. These mechanics are used in all sorts of combinations, making for an interesting challenge, but there was never anything that I was stumped at for too long. There were one or two puzzles I had to look up, though; I would never have thought to complete them the way I needed to.

The graphics, and music are beautiful and match each other very well. These two elements also tie into the story quite well, and really sell you on the emotional aspect of the girls’ relationship with one another. There are also nice touches in their animation, where they are visibly frustrated, curious, or affectionate (such as holding each other’s hands for a few seconds as they walk through the level), which gives the girls a lot of personality. The types of things they did also might remind you of an earlier time in your life when you listened to audio cassettes, watched VHS tapes on terrible TVs, and had a household printer that used feed paper. Of course, most people below the age of 25 are probably not going to be very nostalgic for those things, but the aspect of having a best friend when you were younger is a timeless reference.

I really enjoyed The Gardens Between. With about 4 hours of actual gameplay, this is a quick title that deserves another replay just to pay attention to all of the little details one more time. While not everyone may relate to the events that are being relived, the gameplay is unique enough to entertain anyone for the duration.