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Brotato is only difficult to write about because of how easy it is to get sucked into. More than once already when trying to start this review I've opted to just try another run of this arena-based roguelite instead. It's a very tough game to pull yourself away from, but at the same time Brotato is one of plenty of these kinds of games you could be playing. To be fair it's a good one of those, but it doesn't do anything I'd say is particularly original.

Potato guns

In Brotato, you play as a potato that somehow is very good at using all kinds of weaponry. In most cases, you can equip up to six different kinds of weapons, which can be anything from standard firearms to ethereal blades, and try to survive wave after wave of alien enemies that swarm around and attack you.

Each wave lasts a limited amount of time, and–provided you survive–you get to spend any currency you collect from defeated enemies on upgrades that should better prepare you for the next wave of enemies. All you have to do for combat is steer your potato, and they do all the attacking themselves. All of the upgrades in between are menu-driven and play almost like a puzzle game where you are trying to optimize your spud into the ultimate killing machine given some randomization and the tools at your disposal.

The humble spud

If this all sounds familiar, it's likely because it is. This exact kind of gameplay gets dressed up in different ways and iterated upon constantly. There does seem to be a new wave of games like this coming out off of the success of Vampire Survivors, which is probably the newest and most well-known game of this type at this time of writing. Part of what made that game get so much recognition though is just how differently it approached so many aspects of the arena-based roguelite, which is something that Brotato doesn't really do.

This is a much more traditional experience, where every upgrade really matters and your skill at controlling your potato is the key between a successful run and one that ends prematurely. Provided you make it deep enough through waves to create a pretty formidable potato, all is not lost if you catch a stray bullet. Brotato has a ton of unlocks to discover based on different ways of experimenting with builds and achieving certain milestones, which adds a lot of the much-needed variety that keeps run after run of Brotato compelling.

Pocket potato

The original version of Brotato launched on Steam back in September, but this mobile version is fairly faithful and mobile-friendly. Action-oriented titles–particularly ports–are not usually easy to handle on touch screens, but the simple and straightforward control scheme here makes things manageable. That said, Brotato is a fairly tough game, so making sure you're on your toes piloting the virtual joystick is a must.

On smaller screens, some of the stat screens can feel a little smushed or get hidden so you have to reference things more often than you might like, but otherwise Brotato feels complete and good on iOS. It even has built in iCloud support allowing you to carry unlocks between devices and a way to resume runs if you have to close the app for an extended period of time.

The bottom line

Brotato is a lot like if a video game was a potato. It's basic and expected, but can surprise you with its versatility. There's a reason it's a staple food. Much in the same way, Brotato is an all too familiar kind of game, but that kind of game is good for a reason and it's executed very well here.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/brotato-review/

All through playing PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, I was holding multiple, conflicting thoughts in my head. This horror mystery game is novel and inventive, but also spends a lot of time being pretty flat with its characters and story. Throughout the journey, there are also some genuinely surprising twists, but the way in which they are deployed makes you feel less like a detective and more like someone who is just ushered along from surprise to surprise that you can't see coming until it's too late. In any case, I did enjoy the game, but more than that it gave me some perspective on why other mystery adventures don't operate the way PARANORMASIGHT does.

Cursed crime-solving

PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is a little diffilcult to explain because of its dense setup. It takes place in the Sumida ward of Tokyo some time in the 80s, and it revolves around a set of characters interested in investigating an ancient ghost story about seven different curses that people can inherit and use to perform a seductive form of forbidden magic.

This investigation starts out innocently enough, but descends into a dark and complicated web of unearthing each curse-bearer's past and current motivations for using their curses for their own gain. As you weave between these stories, you'll do some light puzzle solving, but way more often than that you'll simply be tapping on people or your surrounding environment to prompt the next wave of text that pushes you further along a path of the story.

Choose a path

Some of the most interesting points of PARANORMASIGHT are when the game asks you to critically think and reflect on what you've already discovered about these curses to figure out how to pivot the story in a direction you want it to go in. The only problem with this though is this trick isn't deployed very often, and the few other more “mechanical” puzzle-solving moments of the game are so poorly implemented that they can feel like the game isn't behaving correctly.

This issue is compounded by the controls of this iOS version of PARANORMASIGHT, which are mostly fine for tapping to talk or swiping to look around environments, but way less so when asked to do anything remotely more complicated. In some ways, it feels like PARANORMASIGHT couldn't bring itself to commit to more puzzles, but the ones it leaves with you are very inconsistent in quality and can sometimes lead you to think you're stuck or the game is broken.

Full, but missing some flavor

There's certainly a lot of story to dig into with PARANORMASIGHT, especially if you opt to pursue all of the game's endings, but even after discovering them all I felt a little disappointed by the game. Sure, I was compelled enough to keep playing, but a lot of its reveals feel like their buildup and payoff are in the exact same scene, and something about the character design and dialog reads as a little flat. I think the game looks great and the characters are cool, but without any voice-acting and additional incidental dialog revealing much about each character I felt like I only got a taste of who they are instead of an actual understanding.

In a lot of ways, PARANORMASIGHT justifies why other visual novel games that I have enjoyed seem to go out of their way to tell unrelated side stories, use caricature, and drop a ton of hints about what may come later. It's because that stuff works. As goofy as a lot of those games end up being, they end up feeling like mysteries you can solve on your own before reaching the end and allow you to intuit things about characters that you wouldn't be able to do if they just stuck to the main story script. I'm not saying PARANORMASIGHT does none of this, but it definitely doesn't do nearly enough of it.

The bottom line

PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is an enjoyable ride with mystery trappings, but it doesn't actually feel like something you can puzzle out on your own. This is fine, but it can also feel like a shortcoming when comparing it to other titles that seem to have an easier time making their stories come alive.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/paranormasight-the-seven-mysteries-of-honjo-review/