[blog] churros are fried until they become crunchy, and may be sprinkled with sugar

More Steam Next Fest stuff to try it out.


Bio-Gun: Such a weird premise, you are a pig DNA vaccine thing running inside the body of someone's dog? Anyway, the game runs really poorly, I had to lower the settings to get a stable FPS (and this is a cartoony 2D side scroller game). I didn't like the demo so much, but the trailer seems pretty cool...


Blu : Chronicles of Talpa: This game is all over the place. You have a Panda helper, looney tunes style signs pointing down a cliff saying "death", and an incredibly out-of-tone rap music on the trailer. And it's incredibly boring, for the single color background, the lack of impact of the combat, and the imprecise floaty combat. Feels like a random not-so-great pick from itch.io.


Minishoot': A polished bullet hell metroidvania. Surprisingly chill. Incredible boss fight. Liked it a lot.


Chains of Fury: It has that fast-paced always strafing feel of old school shooters, with an art style that reminds void bastard.
Confusing map, repetitive enemies, low frame animations. Boring.


Scathe: Weapons and enemies heavily inspired by Doom, but the gameplay feels floaty not in a great way, kinda like Shadow Warrior. The demo looks very generic, but the bosses on the trailer look good.


Zombie Rollerz: Pinball Heroes: A zombie-themed pinball game with a sort of a story mode. I don't like the art style nor the music, but what kills the game is that the ball physics it's not so good, which kills a pinball game. After DEMON'S TILT the bar for pinball games it's incredibly high for me, definitely passing this one.


Neon White: Shin Megami Tensei + High Hell. Amazing presentation. Interesting demons in heaven setting. Beautiful high-resolution simplistic graphics. Easy to pick up and play. The game plays just okay, but everything around the gameplay is so damn interesting.


Chronicles of 2 Heroes: Amaterasu’s Wrath: Low budget The Messenger. Boring dialog, boring pixel art. The most irritating music ever. Thankfully, the main gimmick of switching between a Samurai and a Ninja on the fly works well.


Whisker Squadron: How on earth they've managed to make a Star Fox clone that I found boring!?

Steam Next Fest doesn't sound all that exciting given the majority of the games you've played from turn out to be pretty boring or run horribly. I do know someone who has their game on there, been waiting for it to release. I think it was supposed to come out sometime last year but I think they've increased the scope of the game.

Season 1 - churros and the games that nobody plays

Imagine a kid that it's addicted to buying loot boxes on those not-so-great online games. Now replace that kid for an adult, and replace those loot boxes for cheap games on Steam. Yeah, that's me.

I can't resist trying to find a cheap hidden gem. I'm logging here my adventure of traversing into all the crap that is my backlog, hoping that I eventually stumble in a diamond.

1. Anime Standing
2. Gynophobia
4. Helltaker
5. Raging Justice
6. iaidoka_interlude
7. Raindancer
8. Super Dungeon Boy
9. Devolverland Expo
10. Kind Words
11. Road Redemption
12. Ravenfield
13. Bighead Runner
14. Hellpoint: The Thespian Feast
15. DEMON'S TILT
16. Find this!
17. Polygoneer
18. Hoo-Boy
19. Pumpkin Jack
20. Lonely Mountains: Downhill
21. art of rally
22. The Touryst
23. Indivisible
24. Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight
25. Cyber Shadow
26. Speed Limit
27. Snowball!
28. Box Factory
29. TEXT
30. Barro Racing
31. Barro
32. Undermine
33. The Medium
34. Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae
35. 3dSen
36. Whipseey and the Lost Atlas
37. Star Wars Episode I: Racer
38. 30XX Early Access
39. Steam Next Fest Demos 1
40. GRIME Demo
41. Sable Demo
42. Biomutant
43. Mortal Shell
44. Recompile
45. Gamescom's Indie Booth Arena Online Demos
46. Arboria
46. Devil Daggers
47. SkateBIRD
48. Severed Steel
49. Melbourne International Games Week Demos
50. A bunch of Metroids
51. Steam Next Fest Demos 2
52. Metal Unit
53. Steel Assault
54. Hot Wheels Unleashed
55. Super Mombo Quest
56. A bunch of Ninja Gaidens
57. A bunch of Halos
58. A Firm Handshake
59. Escaped Chasm
60. KID A MNESIA
61. The Artful Escape
62. Hextech Mayhem: A League of Legends Story
63. Tunche
64. Twelve Minutes
65. The Gunk
66. Top 10 objectively best games of the year by churros 2021 edition
67. COGEN: Sword of Rewind
68. Medal of Honor
69. Sifu
70. Steam Next Fest Demos 3
71. OlliOlli
72. OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood
73. Vampire Survivors
74. Firelight Fantasy: Force Energy
75. Infernax
76. Aztech Forgotten Gods
77. TUNIC
78. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
79. Marsupilami: Hoobadventure
80. Rift Racoon
81. Pinkman+
82. The House of the Dead: Remake
83. Samurai Bringer
84. Haiku, the Robot
85. The Rusty Sword: Vanguard Island
86. Ganryu 2: Hakuma Kojiro
87. Temp Zero
88. Trek to Yomi
89. Soda Crisis
90. Record of Lodoss War-Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth
91. OlliOlli World
92. Steam Next Fest Demos 4
93. Terminator: Resistance
94. Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course
95. Stray
96. Babylon's Fall
97. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time
98. My retro gaming room
99. Grapple Dog
100. HunterX
101. Death's Door
102. Thymesia
103. Steelrising
104. Rollerdrome
105. Frogun
106. Final Vendetta
107. Beholgar
108. Midnight Fight Express
109. Valkyrie Elysium
110. Trombone Champ
111. Ex-Zodiac
112. Ultra Age
113. PAC-MAN WORLD Re-PAC
114. Evil West
115. Neon White
116. Top 10 objectively best games of the year by churros 2022 edition

Season 2 - churros is stuck in 2023

Life happened and I (sad, sad, sadly) do not have the time to play all the one dollar garbage from Steam AND play all AAA games that catches my eye AND buy all games at release price. I'll miss those days.

Before moving on to playing old nostalgic games and games on my backlog that I'm ashamed I didn't play it yet (like Nier Automata), I want to play everything from 2023! Yeah, 2023 was one of the best years ever in gaming and I just can't let it go. Sit tight for my top 2023 games, coming up in 2025!

1. En Garde!
2. SPRAWL
3. Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider
4. BIT.TRIP RERUNNER
5. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
6. Wild Dogs
7. 9 Years of Shadows
8. South Park: Snow Day!
9. Resident Evil 4 Remake & Separate Ways DLC
10. Diablo IV

Check out Dictators:No Peace Countryballs
I remember playing it when it came out and liking it.I also finished it and it took me around 8 to 10 hours. Its also cheap on steam

Check out Dictators:No Peace Countryballs
I remember playing it when it came out and liking it.I also finished it and it took me around 8 to 10 hours. Its also cheap on steam

I'll check it out someday, thanks for the suggestion! But to be honest, it's not the greatest time to role-play a dictator taking the world...

The OlliOlli series never grabbed my attention until I've seen the freshly released OlliOlli World, which looks amazing. So I've decided to play the previous games in the series before jumping into it.

The first OlliOlli game is a little rough, the pixel art is not that great, I hate the music (please turn it off and play a podcast or something instead), and the later levels designs feels unfair.

But the most important thing is there: the gameplay. OlliOlli is very unique, you jump while performing a particular trick, using only the left analog stick for both, and counterintuitively you land with A button (X on PlayStation). Having to time your landing and jumping with the analog stick required some rewiring on my brain, but when it finally clicked it felt amazing.

I was having fun not only beating all levels but also doing all the extra stuff, until I've reached the last scenario (set of levels), which has a god-awful design.

In the end, I didn't like anything about the game except how it plays. I'm a sucker for games that have interesting ways to move or control the character and I love how they did it here, just wished the game were more fun to play. OlliOlli 2 next!

Result: retired

Rating: 7/10

Pros:
+ creative controls
+ addictive gameplay

Cons:
- boring graphics
- boring music
- no character customization
- bad level design at the end

Everything is improved here, but there is still room for a better game. The music is a little better, but I still ended up turning it off. The visuals are not that ugly anymore, but it's a bit boring. I still can't customize my character, and this is a skating game!

The best thing about this game is that it still plays amazing, and they've introduced manuals, making long combos easy and fun. The worst thing about is that there is still some of the unfair level design at the later levels, which made me retire the game again.

If you see both games on sale, I'd say go straight to the 2, it's better in every way and you're not missing much by not playing 1.

OlliOlliWorld next!

Result: retired

Rating: 8/10

Pros:
+ creative controls
+ addictive gameplay
+ good use of color for meaning
+ combining combos with manuals

Cons:
- boring music
- no character customization
- bad level design at the end

It's like a boring shoot 'em up with idle game mechanics. I honestly don't know why this got so popular.

Your characters automatically shoot Castlevania-themed projectiles into ever-spawning monsters. You pretty much only just dodge the monsters and pick up new powerups after leveling up, until the screen gets cluttered with them, and you inevitably die.

It's kinda a roguelite, you have a currency that allows you to buy permanent upgrades.

Everything about this game feels underdeveloped, the lack of animations, the boring background, the boring music. Some sprites seem straight-up stolen from Castlevania.

Result: retired

Rating: 4/10

Pros:
+ easy to pick up and play
+ addicting

Cons:
- grindy
- ugly
- underdeveloped

While browsing the souls-like tag on Steam I've found this on sale. The screenshots looked horrible but the reviews weren't so bad, I was intrigued.

The screenshots were right, this game is terrible. It's not really a game, it's just someone practicing game development with some reusable assets. Nothing feels good about it.

Result: completed (30m)

Rating: 1/10

Pros:
(none)

Cons:
- no hit feedback
- poor performance
- a single enemy on the entire game
- a single scenario on the entire game
- unpolished and unfinished
- boring unskippable story
- buggy controller support
- buggy options
- not fun

Screenshots:


See that chest? It doesn't open.


An invisible wall in the middle of a staircase.


Is this water? Am I walking on water?

This seems to be a homage to Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, classical Castlevania gameplay with some obscure backtracking.

It's not really 'NES hard', but it's a challenging yet incredibly balanced game. I was always eager to get the next upgrade and then face harder foes. It's quintessential gameplay loop without much innovation and it works.

The game makes you take some moral decisions on quick cutscenes (help a thief versus kill a thief kind of thing), but for some of them it's not immediately obvious what's the morally 'good' or 'bad' option. I wanted to go for ultimate good on my first playthrough but I felt the game tricked me at a couple of moments, which didn't feel so good.

Another aspect that I didn't like was the backtracking. Don't get me wrong, I love metroidvanias and all but there's a pinch of adventure game here, sometimes you don't really know where to go. I've never played Castlevania 2, but I think I understand where the hate comes from.

That was mostly for the side quests, which I left a good amount of them unfinished. Being a completionist, it bothered me.

I got mixed feelings in the end, loved everything about the game except the custcenes choices and puzzly backtracking. As with some retro games, I think this one plays best with a guide, and that's what I'm going to do: replay it while following a guide.

Result: completed

Rating: on the next review!

Very charming and unique game. You are the daughter of an archaeologist living in a modern city constructed along with Aztec ruins. You've lost an arm due to an accident in the past and coincidentally conveniently you find an ancient magical technological whatever Aztec arm on one of the ruins. Oh, and you have to save the world.

The Aztec arm it's what dictates everything about the gameplay. You use it for punches, exploding stuff, and as a jetpack from the energy that it emanates. The scenarios are really open and big, you have a lot of room to fly around, which is pretty fun.

Using your arm it's awesome, except when it isn't. The problem is that sometimes it can be janky and buggy, you can almost feel how such innovate gameplay in a big 3D environment was too much for a little small studio. What almost kills the game is that all the bosses have some sort of gimmick, but they never feel really well made, and to make matters worse, it's kinda of a boss rush game, there is really little content other than the boss fights and cutscenes.

It has long cutscenes with character development, surprisingly for an indie action game. I like the story and most of the dialogs despite the lack of voice acting being noticeable and the dialogues at the end could be shorter.

The game is not really beautiful to look at, but it has some cool visual designs. The sound effects are awful, they are mostly too low and hard to understand, I wonder if that was a bug and not really how they've intended to sound. The sense of impact is ruined due to that.

Result: completed (5h 30m)

Rating: 7/10

Pros:
+ charismatic characters
+ visual design
+ character visual customization
+ unique gameplay
+ unique setting

Cons:
- clunky
- too floaty
- slow start
- bad sound design

Screenshots:


Does it count as a Superman game?


Probably.


A story about family.

This game broke my heart. Everything was so perfect until I've reached the last boss fight, that I find it too hard and I have no desire to 'git gud' to beat it.

The sense of exploring, finding new items, remembering places that you didn't reach, the excitement about a new weapon is unmatched. It kinda reminded me of how some people describe the magical experience of the original The Legend of Zelda on NES back when it was a new game.

The scattered manual parts throughout the game is such a clever and fun idea, to have unexplained mechanics soft locked by not knowing about it, instead of gating it behind some logic in the game code. Oh, and my god, how charming and beautiful those manual pages are.

The electronic ambiance soundtrack could be a product of its own. At times, 've literally stopped moving, put the controller down, and spend a minute or so just appreciating the music.

Result: retired

Rating: 8/10

Pros:
+ beautiful artstyle
+ beautiful music
+ many secrets
+ memorable character designs
+ innovate manual

Cons:
- unbalanced boss fights
- easy to get lots

Screenshots:


Like a diorama.


Castle in the sky.


Cute, beautiful, and nostalgic.

Tunic looks like such a CUTE game! It has these perfect Legend of Zelda vibes and I really, really want to get to it soon! But I've read about it being hard a lot and I feel like if I start playing it, I should probably concentrate on it, so it can't just be a side-game I play for a little every week. Insofar I'm going to wait a while longer before actually playing it.
The idea with the manual pages looks really cool, too.

I have zero nostalgia for this game and it seems to be overpriced for what barely feels like a remaster and more like a port. For some reason, the price on Epic Games Store is much lower (at least in my country) and there was a sale on top of that, why not?

Well... it didn't age too great. Quests, dialogs, and characters are the most generic D&D-inspired thing ever, I couldn't care less. The music is boring, graphics are not too great, but at least it controls well and you can change the control scheme (which I did and it made it much better to play).

There are a lot of quality-of-life improvements missing in this re-release, the lack of auto-save, important items visually hard to spot, "easy" difficulty actually being "normal" for solo players, etc. All of them bothered me in some way.

If you do have nostalgia for this game and if you have a co-op partner I imagine you going to have a better time than me.

But all things said, considering that this is a PS2 game, I think it's not too bad of a Diablo clone for consoles of that era.

Result: completed (8h 20m)

Rating: 6/10

Pros:
+ controls well
+ good joystick support
+ shallow learning curve

Cons:
- no auto-save
- bad music
- no sprint button
- unbalanced difficulty options
- easy to miss important items
- boring story

Screenshots:


A typical hot medieval bartender.


Hey, you are a beholder, just like the bartender was saying.


Isn't this the blue something something dragon, the yugioh card?

This is such a hidden gem, I'm impressed with how polished this game is. Controlling Marsupilami feels just like a Nintendo platformer, it handles incredibly well and it's fun to sprint with him and jump dangerously on foes. Time trials were a blast.

Since I mention Nintendo I also have to say, this game is straight up a Donkey Kong Country Returns clone, enemy design, level design, and even the character physics resemble it a lot. A great clone of a great game, works for me!

I like the animations of the characters a lot, especially how the tail 'flows' around the character while moving it. If you watch too closely it's not perfect, it could have some more frames on some particular transitions, but it's cool nonetheless.

The last two stages (an optional level and a level for the last boss) were awesome! The difficulty ramped up considerably for those two, but nothing felt unfair about it.

What could be better was the amount of content (only 3 worlds with few stages) and having more difficulty options (it was too easy), but it was really affordable on Steam so I can't complain much.

I also won't lie that having some nostalgia for the character helped me decide to buy the game, I still remember watching the cartoon show as a little kid:



Result: completed (6h)

Rating: 8/10

Pros:
+ polished
+ controls well
+ easy control scheme
+ good animations
+ fun level designs at end game

Cons:
- too short
- too easy
- achievement bug

Screenshots:


Just like DKC Returns.


Bonus.


Yay.

Huh. Between that previously announced Moomins game and now this Marsupilami one, this is two games based on childhood cartoons that I did not expect to see these days at all.

- Matt

The physics of the character feels off (which is unforgivable on a platformer), and everything is boring (scenario, level design, art style). There is a teleport mechanic that had some interesting level design made around it, but that it's a glimpse of creativity in which the game never really expands.

This game is just a short and cheap platinum on PlayStation. It's ridiculously easy, I'm not sure why Sony allows such a thing. You can get two of them by the way, one for the PS4 version and another for PS5.

Result: completed

Rating: 2/10

Another cheap and short platinum trophy on PlayStation. At first glance it reminded me of LOVE.

It's a pretty standard platformer, you have a jetpack that recharges with time and you can wall jump. There are dozens of small stages, and the game keeps the gameplay fresh by putting spikes in your way, breakable platforms, guided missiles, etc.

Oh, and apparently it's not a jetpack, it's the character farting. You can only know that by reading the game's description because the little cloud of pink pixels under your character could be really anything.

Even though the music is generic and doesn't quite match the 256-color art style, but it was OK enough for me to keep it on while playing since it's such a short game.

I wouldn't say it's a great game, but I had a good time while playing it.

Result: completed

Rating: 5/10

Pros:
+ controls well
+ small learning curve
+ good level design

Cons:
- sometimes the color palette is too bright

I think I've played this game only once at the arcade, saying that I have nostalgia for it would be a stretch.



But I do have nostalgia for motion controls. I learned to love my Wii back in the day, despite the motion controls. Funny enough, today I miss exactly the motion control games.

Bought it on Switch and beat it 6 or 7 times (it's a short arcade after all). Always with motion controls, I can't imagine playing this with an analog stick (maybe with a mouse, but also sounds too easy). It's not as good as a light gun of course, but the fun to control is there.

It was fun. The default sensitivity of the controls is unplayable, but after fine-tuning on the options, and some getting used to recentering the crosshair (it's just a button press, but you should do it often), it became second nature to play it.

Unfortunately, it's still hard to recommend the game. The loading times are incredibly long on Switch and, while it's highly replayable, it still felt lackluster in terms of extras.

Result: completed

Rating: 7/10

Pros:
+ motion controls
+ weapon variety
+ multiple paths

Cons:
- spongey last boss
- long loading times
- few reasons to replay

This game had strong PS1 early 3D games vibes (even though is not low poly), which is just my weak spot.

The combat system is surprisingly deep, you can customize and combine moves in god knows how many ways. I loved to try out different builds, but the enemies and level design were lackluster. The boss fights were incredibly unbalanced, sometimes way too easy, sometimes way too hard.

On top of all that, it's a roguelite, and unfortunately I have no desire to play this game over and over again.

Result: retired

Rating: 6/10

Pros:
+ charming graphics and presentation
+ interesting combat system
+ weapon and armor variety

Cons:
- bad level design
- bad music
- unbalanced
- roguelite structure

Screenshots:


I think I'll stay down.

A bread-and-butter metroidvania. I mean that in the best sense of the expression: it does the exploration, world map, and character powerups really well.

It has a robotic dystopian world setting. You are a robot that mysteriously didn't get infected with the virus that took over the world, which made most of the robots go rogue.

The main currency of the game is scrap, which can be spent with items and powerups, but also anytime to 'fix' (or heal) yourself when needed. That's so clever.

The pixel art is lovely, but I do like more the background scenarios than the main character/enemies designs. Music is serviceable, most of the time just stays on the background setting the mood. Powerups are great, even though I've missed having more traversal powers early on.

I like the setting but I couldn't really care about the dialog with the side characters I've found along the way. While they were short and easy to understand, I was just too excited to explore and open up the map on my own to care about it.

Result: completed (6h 41m)

Rating: 8/10

Pros:
+ good world size
+ powerups
+ pretty pixel art scenarios
+ healing mechanic

Cons:
- can't withdraw currency once deposited
- can't mark the map yourself
- few traversal powers

Screenshots:


Morphing into a ball while already being ball-shaped?


A cult dedicated to fire.


It was nice to find some greenery after a lot of dirity, scrap, and flames.

A short 2D Zelda game clone.

It lasted 18 minutes until completion. It's cheap ($1), but lasting so little and having absolutely nothing special about it (no item other than a standard sword, barely any puzzles) made it feel exactly like a demo. A paid demo.

Result: completed (18m)

Rating: 4/10

Pros:
+ easy controls
+ pretty pixel art
+ coop option

Cons:
- way too short
- too short
- too easy
- short weapon range
- did I mention that is too short?

Screenshots:


Start screen.


It's like a 2D Zelda game.


Yup, it's like Zelda.

I was browsing through the new releases section on Steam and I found this game. The gameplay on the trailer and the sprites looked pretty good, but I confess the "2" in the name was a turn-off (that feeling of "maybe I should play the first game instead").

Then I decided to unmute the trailer, and this came to my ears. Dang, listen to that music. Now I have to buy this game.

What a pleasant surprise, this game is awesome! It reminds me a lot of old titles such as Ninja Gaiden or Castlevania, in which the enemy positioning and movement/attack patterns are what make the game. You are fragile just like the protagonist in those old games, however, here it evens out because you are super powerful.

Running and slashing, jumping and circle slashing, dash attack, kunais, you are a superhero right from the get-go. That balances out the game difficulty beautifully. It's a hard game, but every time I've died I was compelled to try again.

The main downside of the game is how buggy it is, from sprites not loading to falling out of the screen boundaries. I lost count of how many times I had to restart a stage due to a buggy run (stage 4 specifically).

Stages 1, 2, and 3 didn't give me much trouble, but stages 4 and 5 felt way more difficult. When I finally beat the last boss, I felt like a million bucks. Good luck to the other 97.8% of players out there, you gonna need it!



The game says 102 minutes after I completed it, but considering all the attempts and forced retries due to bugs, I know I took at least 5 times that.

Result: completed (1h 42m)

Rating: 9/10

Pros:
+ fluid gameplay
+ fun to control
+ beautiful sprites
+ great music
+ great boss fights
+ stage variety

Cons:
- buggy
- lives and continues
- sharp difficulty spike
- no extras

Screenshots:


Start screen.


The backgrounds are beautiful.


Last boss.

Oh, I just don't learn it, I'm retiring another rogue-lite.

The game is a dual-stick shooter/slasher, with abstract scenarios and enemies, and some (good) electronic music

The gameplay is pretty simple and satisfying, that is for the first couple of hours. Then it is just too repetitive. I found guns much better than the melee weapons, but that may be just personal preference.

Result: retired

Rating: 7/10

Pros:
+ easy controls
+ good music
+ powerup variety
+ quick gameplay sessions

Cons:
- repetitive

Screenshots:


The dark side of the moon.


Boss fight.

Samurai, sword, blood. That's always just enough for making me playing a game.

I want to love this game, but I think I just 'like' it.

I absolutely love the predictable and easy-to-follow story. I love how memorable the places I've been are. I love the visuals. I love the sound.

I like that sword fighting is simple. I don't like at all how repetitive and easy to abuse it is. Puzzles aren't so great either. The game has no depth.

Result: completed

Rating: 8/10

Pros:
+ gorgeous
+ easy to control
+ atmospheric
+ great story

Cons:
- repetitive combat
- lacks gameplay variety
- camera sometimes hinders the combat

Screenshots:


Feels like playing a movie.


Duel.


Every screenshot looks like a cutscene, but it's gameplay.

Samurai, sword, blood. That's always just enough for making me playing a game.

I want to love this game, but I think I just 'like' it.

I absolutely love the predictable and easy-to-follow story. I love how memorable the places I've been are. I love the visuals. I love the sound.

I like that sword fighting is simple. I don't like at all how repetitive and easy to abuse it is. Puzzles aren't so great either. The game has no depth.

Result: completed

Rating: 8/10

Pros:
+ gorgeous
+ easy to control
+ atmospheric
+ great story

Cons:
- repetitive combat
- lacks gameplay variety
- camera sometimes hinders the combat

Screenshots:


Feels like playing a movie.


Duel.


Every screenshot looks like a cutscene, but it's gameplay.

Looks like just a fun time. Honestly, I've nothing against that. Games that are designed just to be fun I feel are definitely missed. Got my beady eye on this title.