Dungeons of Hinterberg

I ADORE this little game!! It plays like an older Legend of Zelda game mixed with social elements like Persona but without the hard time limit. The art style is super cute, and it's just the right amount of challenging for a cozy hack and slash. Don't skip out on the Episode: Renaud DLC when you're done. It's short, wholesome, and super worth it!!

I found this game really mixed. There were some features that really got in the way of the gameplay. The art style is really bright and detailed, which often makes it hard to see where to go or what collectables there are. They also played with the perspective sometimes, and would take you from third person to isometric at unpredictable times. The game doesn't let you jump, and you have to rely on it jumping you to the right place, which works 70% of the time. The other 30%, the game accidently throws you into acid water. The good thing is that saves frequently, so it's usually just a bit annoying. Although the game regularly saves in dungeons, you can't save and quit whenever you'd like. I personally found this really restricting, as the dungeons were already such a grind. If you're expecting a difficult game, it's not. The first half of the game feels like the tutorial. I quickly outpaced the level that the game expected me to be at by trying to find all the chests, which made it kind of boring when the game forced me to loop back to the easier dungeons. The combat is also not that deep, and neither is the story. Despite saying that, I played to the end of the story, so the game did hook me! Some puzzles were fun, and how they made you use magic in them was really enjoyable. I especially enjoyed the magic hoverboarding! I would recommend, but approach it how it advertises itself: as a chill and relaxing experience. There's no time limit, so you can do as much as you'd like and focus on the character interaction side of it, if that's you're thing. You don't have to grind - finding all the chests doesn't really impact your gameplay, as the game forces you to go through so many dungeons that you'll naturally find equipment or the money to buy it. I didn't approach the dungeons this way until the last 5 hours, and they were definitely the most fun.

An excellent fixed dungeon exploration game with cool and varied puzzles and a decent combat system. It really scratched that Tomb Raider itch for me, even though the gameplay is not that similar. The progression is interesting and you get a bunch of new stuff to play around with regularly. If this game released earlier or had more eyes on it it would definitely become a classic. Of special note I want to highlight the bafflingly quick in-location fast travel and an overall stable 60FPS performance. You click it and you are literally there immediately, surprised me the first time it happened. Sure it has a couple of minor things I didn't enjoy like some parts of the story that droned about emotions or the strange decision to make it so you sprint only after holding the walk button for a certain amount of time, but they are very easy to overlook to enjoy like 20 hours of great gameplay.