I realize I’m late here, but that’s of very little concern. I was playing demos right up until Next Fest concluded, and was so exhausted by the whole affair that I couldn’t be bothered to think about what I’d just played. Anyway, I’ve had a bit to collect my thoughts, so here are the last round of demos I played from this past Next Fest.
Dungeons of Hinterberg
Elevator Pitch: an Action RPG where you dungeon crawl through the Austrian Alps.
Frosti’s Thoughts: Didn’t care for it.
I think there’s a lot to like about Dungeons of Hinterberg, but I wasn’t able to experience any of it. After about 20 minutes of playing the demo, I was starting to develop a migraine. It felt a lot like when I played God of War where the camera was too close to the character, and the field of view was too narrow. This destroyed my brain in short order.
I did check the settings menu, but wasn’t able to find an option to pull the camera back. So…uh…tough shit I guess?
Wishlisted: no
Clockwork Ambrosia
Elevator Pitch: a Metroidvania where players craft, and augment their equipment with a variety of modifiers.
Frosti’s Thoughts: I liked it.
Normally when playing Metroidvanias, I’ll skip the majority of combat. I find the majority of the trash mobs in these games to not be worth the time or energy to defeat in combat, so if I can, I’ll skip right past them. That’s actually a big reason why I enjoyed Hollow Knight so much: you can pogo jump off enemies so you never lose your sense of momentum as you’re exploring.
Having said that, I liked how Clockwork Ambrosia tries to address players like myself. Every enemy has a chance to drop crafting materials, which can be turned into new equipment. The demo showed this off by allowing for the creation of a few different mods for both the player’s armor, and their weapon. I thought this was really cool, and it actually encouraged me to fight the different baddies I happened upon instead of platforming around them.
Wishlisted: yes
Metal Slug Tactics
Elevator Pitch: a grid-based tactics game with all your favourite Metal Slug characters.
Frosti’s Thoughts: Eh.
I don’t even have a reason for why I didn’t like Metal Slug Tactics. It definitely falls within my wheelhouse, but after playing a few maps across the demo I wasn’t left with a strong impression of it. That’s not to say it left a bad impression – it’s competently put together, and seems to have a lot of fanfare for long-time series fans of Metal Slug. However, Metal Slug Tactics just didn’t click for me. I wish I knew why, so I’d have more to write, but I’m honestly at a loss.
I might keep an eye on it in the future. I know a friend of mine is keen for it, so maybe I’ll revisit it in future depending on his assessment.
Wishlisted: no
Nova Hearts
Elevator Pitch: Persona by way of Life is Strange, Gone Home, or A Night in the Woods. Maybe a cocktail of all 3 of those actually.
Frosti’s Thoughts: Eh.
Look, I already know what some long-time readers are going to be thinking: why on Earth did you play this? It’s a turn-based RPG with a focus on character dialogue. That doesn’t exactly scream, “this is something Frosti would be into.” I get it. But I saw Magical Girls in the trailer and said “fuck it. We ball.” Evidently, that might not have been the most sound decision making.
Having said that, I actually liked the writing in the demo. Nova Hearts did something that I think a lot of narrative games completely forget to do within their demo: it dropped a hook. This is something I’ve grown to really appreciate as I’ve gotten into reading a lot more. Providing an early narrative hook helps to draw the reader in while the author unravels their story. So many narrative games either don’t understand this, or don’t provide a compelling enough hook to actually draw me in. Nova Hearts does, and that was enough to string me along through the full 90 minute demo.
However, I found the turn-based combat boring. The short version is that it was both slow, and not thoughtful enough. The boss fight that the demo ends on was the only time where I felt like I really had to actually think about what order my party members were attacking in, and when it would make sense to use their powerful, single-use special moves. I’m going to give the fights that were obviously tutorials a pass as well, but that still meant that about half of the demo’s combat encounters were a snore fest. That’s not great.
That said, I’m ultimately half-in, half-out on Nova Hearts. I’m going to keep an eye on it, and maybe pick it up if I like what I see from reviews, but the demo didn’t fully convince me on this one.
Wishlisted: no
And with that, we’re done with the Next Fest. While I definitely needed something to clean the rust off with writing, the nature of these posts was a bit much. For what it’s worth, I hope those of you reading enjoyed the posts, and maybe found a new game that you weren’t aware of.
As always, thank you for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one.
Frostilyte Writes 