Source: Free copy due to owning the original.
Price: £6.99
Where To Get It: Steam

When I reviewed Shadowhand, late last month, the last thing I was expecting was to be talking about the earliest “Solitaire with a story” game that I’d played, 2010’s Faerie Solitaire. And yet… Here we are. So… Solitaire, but with Faeries, and Remastered, how is it?

Ahhh, that twinkle, that sound you sadly can’t hear because it’s a screenshot. It’s nice to get rid of cards.

Well, there are, in fact, some changes under the hood. Eggs, for example, which had been a pain in the rear to collect, now drop more frequently, although the developer has stated that they’ll be adding more creatures to the egg pool. Spare cards have been replaced by wild cards, found the same way you find eggs and resources (by getting to the bottom of a stack, and finding them), and the game can now be put in an adjustable window. There’s new mechanics in the Challenge mode. So, overall? Yup, it’s an improvement!

None of this, of course, changing the basic idea, which is exactly what you’d expect: Get rid of cards, preferably all of them, by going up or down in numeric order, and filling arbitrary goals like “Get rid of seven cards in one go”, or “Get rid of all cards in three out of the ten rounds of this level.” Succeeding in these goals, and getting rid of enough cards in each round, means you get to smash a crystal with a fairy trapped inside. Before you even know why these fairies are trapped in crystals in the first place. Which is a nice segue into the story, such as it is.

In the land of Avalon, there’s magic, and a balance between these forces. But something is unbalancing them, and our young, male hero is out to repopulate the land by freeing fairies, and spending magical card money to give them buildings, which helps his card removing skills, his egg raising skills, and other skills that… Look, it’s paper thin, and you’re not really getting this game for a narrative magnum opus. You’re not getting it for the backgrounds of each area, either, as even with a remaster, they’re muddy paintings, a mere framework to let you know “You are in a mushroom land” or “This is the spiky place.”

Despite the backgrounds not feeling like an improvement, some of the art *has* improved.

No. What you’re paying your seven pounds for is 400 different rounds of Solitaire with puzzle elements such as fireballs to free up frozen stacks, roses to clear thorn stacks, and other fun things, split among 80 areas, themselves split among eight worlds. You’re paying for that minor serotonin rush of the cute widdle beasties you unlock and level up, and you’re paying for a free copy of the original game. Which is okay, as noted, so long as you’re okay with solitaire puzzles. Faerie Solitaire, even remastered, remains an okay game. Which is all it needs to be.

In the interests of disclosure, The Mad Welshman would like to note he didn’t spend as much time as he’d like with Faerie Solitaire, due to the unfortunate fact it fits with the more esoteric triggers for his epilepsy. Epilepsy can be weeeeird, folks.

Filed under: Game Reviews by admin

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £10.99
Where To Get It: Steam , Humble Store
Version Reviewed: Build 59i
Other Reviews: Early Access 1, Release

When things are this close to release, and the nicest things I can say is “Mages seem to work better, and bows are sort of viable now”, you may be able to figure that I am, as before, distinctly unfond of Vagante’s particular flavour of difficulty. I will, grudgingly, admit it has improved a little. But it still has many of the same issues.

Yup. He died, and so did I. WELP, RESTART.

To recap, Vagante is a procgen platform action dungeon crawler, where you pick a class, attain gear, try to defeat bosses and levels, and level up with each level you beat. Healing is very scarce, and if I felt the game were well balanced around that, it wouldn’t be a problem.

Unfortunately, bosses can best be described as “Absolute arses.” In more technical terms, even the first area bosses (Of which you will encounter all of them: A goblin warlord, a dragon, and a poisonous worm) are battles, not of tactics, but of attrition. Not all classes have an active defense (and those who do, only attain it through levelled abilities) , so taking damage is, in most cases, pretty much a certainty, as options with any sort of decent range are, to put it bluntly, crap. Bows don’t do a heck of a lot, Magic Missile doesn’t do a heck of a lot, wands have cooldowns and the same problems as any spells they own. The reason I found the Mage had improved somewhat as a class? Eleclance (One of the few spells with infinite charges per level, and a consistent, relatively high damage rate) by default.

Of course, this is all talking about the first area. Once the second area is hit, all bets are off, as bosses not only have vastly increased hit points, they also have some seriously beefy attacks and defenses. One boss, for example, has a ring of damaging projectiles circling it, and it can phase through walls. Good luck running away. Good luck getting close enough to hit it. Good luck surviving long enough to plink at it from range. I can’t tell you about later areas, because I haven’t gotten to them. I’ve beaten Spelunky. Heck, I’ve beaten LaMulana, and this game not only resists being finished, the kinds of deaths I’ve encountered make me, honestly, not want to finish it.

The Woods, the second area, is somewhat lighter. Still dark enough that you can’t tell what’s going on with a thumbnail.

I’ve fatfingered jump, very lightly, and died on spikes from a tile high. I’ve been lovetapped to death by misjudging a bat… After having beaten all three bosses of the first area. Heck, at times, I’ve known, before I’ve even found the boss, that I’m not going to win the damage race, because a goblin got lucky, or the aforementioned bat misjudging happened, or I came across a situation where I was going to take damage, be that due to unfortunate enemy configurations, or an enemy blindsiding me that I was sure I’d be able to murder (Explosive moths, for example, are best avoided, rather than attempting to attack them. Their movement is only technically predictable.)

Is there good? Yes, and that, really, makes how I feel about this game worse. The music is good, fitting mood pieces for the areas. The sound isn’t bad. The enemy designs, while not all new creatures, are still interesting. The skills are more clear. But if a weapon isn’t of at least Normal speed, odds are high it just isn’t worth working with timing (and some weapons have minimum ranges, less than useful when any melee enemy just wants to get right in your face), the first area is very dark, making it an eye straining and awkward experience to play… And, considering that all content is now in the game, bringing it fairly close to release? All these little frustrations, these decisions that seem more based on arbitrary difficulty than challenge, don’t make me confident that I’m going to be changing my mind about not liking Vagante on release.

Skills being more clear. Note: The shield blocks *physical* damage. So 2 out of the 3 bosses in the first area can still hurt you.

The Mad Welshman was correct in his last Early Access review: He’s already sick of the damn caves. Also the dagger remains what appears to be the best option.

Filed under: Early Access Releases, Game Reviews by admin

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