Sumsumsummer sales are going on everywhere, millions of games being bought, millions of games being backlogged. Did you play anything last month? What was your game of the month for June?
Sorta all over the place for me in terms of stuff I played, barely got 20 hours in all month. So no single standout game. But I do have 5 honorable mentions!
The Park , fun walking sim with a few good jump scares. Rising Storm Vietnam , where did I just get shot from simulator. Domina , a ludus management sim for gladiators who die in 20 seconds of battle. Last Hope Tower Defense , fun TD game, Indians vs Zombies. Gat out of Hell , finally getting around to this mini open world dlc, if you liked Saints 4 please do find time for this, its good.
Before I reveal my game of the month, I’ll review the runner-ups.
The first is Pathfinder Adventures. Great concept, pretty good execution, very interesting gameplay. I’m happy I bought it.
The second I bought at the current Steam sale, and it’s Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows. I’m pretty sure it’s the best tower defense game ever made, and it’s crazy how addictive it is. I’m having a great time with it.
But my game of the month is certainly Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls. It’s not only a pretty good and funny Nep-nep game, but the changes it makes to the combat system improve it so much IMO that I find it hard to consider going back to the classic battle system in the series. It’s easily the most fun I had in the whole series so far, so I highly recommend it for fans of the CPU goddesses. It might not be the best choice for a first Nep-nep game though - many of the jokes and situations expect you to have some knowledge of the characters and typical situations that happen in the series, so I doubt it would be as good for a first-timer.
I really got nothing this month either. I didn’t play a lot. Was sick a couple weeks, and also spent half the time working rather than playing.
So I guess it would default to Final Fantasy XIV StormBlood. I started a fresh character on a new server and have put in some good hours slowly leveling a bunch of classes. It’s a solid MMO but after a point certainly feels like treading water and wasting time really.
Mine will be Star Fleet Armada Rogue Adventure.
An amazing throwback to a time where games were trying to innovate every other release. On paper it looks like a silly smash-up of mini-games, but what an addictive blast! I can’t stop accumulating resource for my impending defeat. The game is very surprising in having an actually quite demanding strategic layer, as bad resource management has proven to be my regular downfall.
To be honest, the one that should be in this spot is Pathfinder Adventures. It is such an amazing game. It is also an incredible mess of bugs, a bunch gamebreaking (characters and items and even saves disappearing?!), some incredibly bad, and a lot showing extremely poor attention. I had to pull myself away from that game, as the hassle was just not worth it.
Freed up some time to play PS Now stuff before it loses Vita support. I’m really going to miss that service.
Atelier Shallie. Great game, but the last chapter was disappointing. Didn’t really feel like the end of a trilogy. Played through it twice (new game+ was quick) and got my 3rd platinum.
Beyond Two Souls. The “Condenser” stage was extremely good. Excited to see what they do with Detroit.
Dynasty Warriors 6/7 Empires. Fired up randomly without any clue what it was about. I wasn’t enjoying it at first, then I tried “Chaos” mode which kills you in a couple hits. Got around 30 hours of fun out of them! Wishlisted the rest of the series.
Uncharted 2. That train level, wow. I’m glad I listened to all the people who say the sequel was better than the first game.
I suppose for me it would be LOGistICAL, followed by Star Fleet Armada Rogue Adventures (what a pleasant surprise!) and DOOM. Didn’t get as much gaming time as I’d like last month, but it was solid gaming time.
Although it doesn’t sound like there will ever be the mods or expansions I was hoping for, I’ve been playing the hell out of Battle Brothers this month.
I got a bunch of games in the summer sale yet can’t tear myself away from this game to try them.
I was in and out of town (summer camp with the Boy Scouts, where I got eaten up by chiggers!) but I made some progress in Underrail, which requires patience but gets better as you go.
Also started one of those cheap JRPG-like games made in RPG Maker (50 cents on Steam sale). Meh, it’s ok but I’m probably about 70% through Underrail and will focus on that in July.
FTL: I haven’t revisited this in years and it is still a lot of fun trying to put together a winning ship configuration and get a victory. I lot of it is luck in what you encounter, but still have enough agency to feel like I have a hand in the success or failure.
Pathfinder Adventures: Simple risk management with a good theme. Still going strong after 12 hours.
Dirt 4: More quality racing!
Stevens Sausage Roll: Devious puzzles that I can only try and handle a couple at a time or my brain gets barbecued.
Endless Space 2: It wasn’t able to meet the expectations I build up in my head, mostly due to some UI hangups I have that makes the game feel more tedious to me. Still has great factions.
Tomb Raider Anniversary: Definitely not the same type of game as the newer Tomb Raiders and for me not as good. Some fun exploration to be had, but after 4 hours I may be nearing the end of my limit.
Ooo, no idea which one should be it… Europa Universalis 4: it’s my all-time runner-in for the trophy. Everspace: Managed at last to get to the lab… It was fun, kind of, not sure if I’ll continue. Total War Warhammer: Kind of finished my empire run. All the basic factions done. Started Chaos, but not going as planned.
Some Cook Serve Delicious! and Human Resource Machine, they’re the honored mentions.
I spent the litte gaming time I find these days on replaying Venetica. This little story-driven action RPG has nothing in common with Deck 13’s later games Lords of the Fallen and The Surge. It has a unique setting - Venice -, simple but effective combat and more depth to it than the it appears at first glance. On the negative, budget restrictions are showing at some places, and they’ve pushed their open source engine beyond its limit in a certain area.
The game is on sale at Steam for 2.99€.
“Lite RPG” depends on where you’re coming from. Venetica isn’t as lite as a simple Diablo clone, but it’s far away from the heavy-weights too. Very briefly, it’s story driven, has a nice comic look - a more advanced and polished version of Deck 13’s early adventure games like Ankh - and looks a bit consolish. The PC was the lead platform though. It controls fine with mouse & keyboard. Combat is 50-70% of the game. Mostly single opponents or small groups up to 3. The few boss fights are standard stuff: run cirles until you find the weakness, then exploit it. Combat is 4 weapon groups or so, combined via rock, paper scissors with the enemy types. Wrong weapon does no damage. The implementation is simple, surprisingly spectacular and very effective. IMHO the combat system is well designed and fun to use.
There are a lot of positive things to say about this game, although it’s certainly no masterpiece.
