I’ve been bouncing through some dropped/forgotten and some never played at all games in my Steam library.
I took a quick trip back to Everspace, which I’d previously been disappointed in. It has changed some since my Early Access run, but I still find it disappointing. Maybe I just am not suited for space combat, but it feels like you don’t have much in the way of options during a fight. It doesn’t feel like you have the mobility to fight in open areas. When an enemy does hit you, it just keeps hitting you for a while. During EA, I felt the game was balanced more for players that had already unlocked a bunch of the permanent perk upgrades (this is a “roguelite” inspired game, with permanent upgrade unlocks), and I still get that feeling. Looking at the forums implies that people tend to unlock stuff and find cheesy/OP item combos to succeed (with the newer DLC apparently adding an even more cheesy/OP weapon.)
I played Apotheon for the first time; I think it had been sitting in my Steam library for a few years? It isn’t bad. The paperdoll animation gets a bit janky at times, but it helps that the character is largely just a black cutout. I was surprised, and later slightly annoyed, when I realized the game included weapon and armor damage/breaking. The biggest annoyance is that while you can carry a ton of items overall, you cannot carry more than one shield or more than one of most weapon types. At least in regards to offense, you can switch to another type of weapon when one weapon breaks (and there are plenty of weapon types.) When your shield breaks, you are stuck without a shield until you happen to reach an area that has one that you can pick up. Still, the game doesn’t seem bad.
I’m not entirely sure why I ever got Anima Gate of Memories, a made-in-Unity 3D action game that looks like a made-in-Unity game. I don’t mean that it looks awful. Honestly, it looks better than most games that look like they are made in Unity (which isn’t the same as actually being made in Unity. The better games made in Unity tend to not immediately look like they were made in Unity.) It had some attention, and presumably some money, spent on it. The problem, beside the bad voice acting, is that the action part of the equation is pretty boring. The combat is pretty limited, with a basic combo, a launcher, a dash attack, a projectile, and a dodge roll. You can’t really mix and match options, at least not in any meaningful way. Its combat is the 3D equivalent of a mediocre 2D beat’em-up. Nor does it make up for this shortcoming with amazing enemy variety, as you seem to keep fighting the same enemies in the same ways.
