I played some demos again. Praise me.

Entropy

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3940340/Entropy/

Party based RPG with a neat aesthetic and some fun worldbuilding? Yay! Randomly generated mercenary party members? Not so yay! Playing Wizardry taught me to no longer fear the Generic Mercenary Party, but it still just isn't really my preference, particularly for games that do have an actual narrative throughline.

The game's battle system feels appropriately grimy to match the visuals. There's standard turn-based, front-line/back-line battling, but you can also target specific limbs on enemies a-la Vagrant Story or Fallout to sever them in a shower of blood for debuffs. Magic spells are powerful, but will backfire instead of missing, which killed me at least twice. If the battle starts going poorly, your characters will start to freak out and things'll get even worse.

I wouldn't say I'm sold on this one yet, but I'll at least keep an eye on it. It piqued my interest enough that, upon immediately soft-locking the demo the first time I played it, I was willing to reset and keep going. That's gotta count for something.

DEMO VERDICT: ★★★★☆

A Fighter's Nova: Mindara

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4198610/A_Fighters_Nova_Mindara/

This bills itself as a Tag-Fighter JRPG, which I suppose has some potential? I was reminded mostly of the Mario & Luigi series, where you're tagging between characters on the overworld to do basic switch-pushing type puzzles, though the battles in those are the turn-based stuff you'd expect from a JRPG. Mindara instead swaps to a 2D fighting game mode any time you get into a battle.

I feel like "Fighting Game RPG" is a concept that has always sort of floated in the mindspace but has never truly been realized; Shenmue is what comes to mind first, and I suppose Street Fighter 6 made a valiant attempt with its World Tour mode. Plenty of RPGs have action-heavy combat, and some are even on a 2D plane, but specifically battling in a 2D fighting game? I can't quite think of any.

All told, it's pretty simplistic and mostly based on how long you can keep juggling a guy, but the art style is fun enough and it's just a prototype and all. Hope they make it in this messed up world.

DEMO VERDICT: ★★★☆☆

Deorum

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4129040/DEORUM/

This is a fairly barebones dungeon crawler with some solid, workhorse dark fantasy aesthetics. All of your actions are based on coin flips, which is immediately understandable but shows its limitations quickly. By the end of the demo you've got three coins and can choose their sides from four options, which just about sustains the two floors currently on offer, but I don't know if it's got any legs to support the remaining 10.

But also, maybe that's fine? The Steam page says it's aiming for "6+" hours of gametime, which is appreciably brisk. I don't need some complex combat system or tons of novelty for something that's just meant to scratch the dungeon diving itch. What I do need is for them to tone down the CRT filter; it is intense.

DEMO VERDICT: ★★★★☆

Echoes of Aincrad

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2244210/Echoes_of_Aincrad/

I couldn't help my morbid curiosity. This is a Sword Art Online game that's positioning itself as pretty much the closest you can get to being another character in the series caught up in the same situation, which in practical terms means it's a dully competent action-RPG taking design cues from the Souls games and Genshin Impact types.

Now, obviously, we're in the real world and this game fundamentally can't be some kind of bizarro fully immersive VR mega-game. BUT. This still slams headlong into the problem faced by any game where you're playing an in-universe MMO: it simply can't actually be as interesting or detailed as the narrative claims. (Aside: I love CrossCode, but it absolutely still suffers from this.) It stands out even more here because the whole premise of SAO is that the series is in the game.

Basic concepts that one would normally write off as Just Game Things suddenly come into sharp relief, because we know they aren't supposed to work like that here. If I'm playing the in-universe Sword Art Online, of which many details have been directly shown to the audience, why am I limited to changing equipment at my room like I'm playing Monster Hunter? Why can't I just roam out into the open world instead of only teleporting to cordoned-off instances like I'm playing Monster Hunter? Why aren't there any Spears or Throwing Weapons or Unarmed Combat, like I'm playing fucking Monster Hunter?

Also, I just hate Sword Art Online, so, I mean. Not for me.

DEMO VERDICT: ★★☆☆☆

Torii: Beyond The Gates

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3933180/Torii_Beyond_The_Gates/

Pretty enough, I suppose, but the action-platformer game feel is gummy and weightless while actually fighting anything is like trying to cut steak with a butter knife. Nice art only takes something so far when the physical act of playing the game feels actively unpleasant. Alas.

DEMO VERDICT: ★☆☆☆☆

Joy Malignant

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4608380/Joy_Malignant/

A distressingly blatant Citizen Sleeper clone - this is the Coffee Talk to Citizen Sleeper's VA-11 Hall-A - but instead of Guillaume Singelin's evocative sci-fi art it's got a wet-and-fleshy Photoshop-collage aesthetic. Thanks for the offer, but I'm good.

DEMO VERDICT: ★★☆☆☆

IRON NEST: Heavy Turret Simulator

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2950790/IRON_NEST_Heavy_Turret_Simulator/

A "war crime drudgery" simulator (see also Papers, Please or what have you). This one in particular is about consulting your range tables and spotter coordinates so you can load, aim, and fire your gigantic gun to blow up dissidents. It's neat! It's pleasantly tactile! It does exactly what it's supposed to! Sometimes you need some drudgery in your game because you're depressed and have no energy for anything other than rote tasks like triangulating the position of the enemy infantry while under fire from enemy artillery!

DEMO VERDICT: ★★★★★

Aegis Force: The Scorian War

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3154550/Aegis_Force_The_Scorian_War/

Indie-tier HD-2D aesthetic (though this is closer to Star Ocean 2's modern remake instead, I suppose) with grid-based tactics battles. The dev cites a few influences on the Steam page, and the one I felt the most is Shining Force for the Sega Genesis. This has a similar gimmick in that battles happen on the same map you were just exploring. There's also the framing device at the start which is very much Shining Force.

I admit I was not terribly compelled by what I saw of the plot. I've played multiple JRPG demos over the years that think "morally complex story" means "start out as a soldier doing war crimes on camera," and this one ain't hooking me with anything else. Contextualizing the entire party being playing in battle as the protagonist's semi-unique Battle Meditation-like ability is kinda neat? I guess??

DEMO VERDICT: ★★★☆☆

Nocturne

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1374860/Nocturne/

Earlier we had a Tag Fighter JRPG, now we've got a Rhythm Game JRPG. To sum up, both sides' attacks charge up automatically, but if you miss notes (probably because the enemy did a big flashy animation and distracted you from the prompts) you get stunned and your bars stall out. It makes sense, but it means every battle always spans the full length of the track; imagine every battle in Persona 3 lasting until the second time BABYBABYBABYBABY starts up. I also had trouble figuring out the best way to set up the buttons for the way my hands naturally want to hit the prompts, but that's on me, not the game. I had to go through the same growing pains with UNBEATABLE.

The starting premise is interesting, even if the incidental dialogue gets a bit twee for my tastes (maybe don't open with the obliviously hyperactive child and the stereotypical zen monk?). This seems to be a world where people can upload their consciousness into some kind of shared MMO-like server at time of death. The main character does so, and within the gap of time between their body losing consciousness and their avatar gaining it, 1000 years have passed in the virtual world, which naturally means it's now overrun with monsters and glitchy "corruption" on various objects.

All told, seems solid, might be worth keeping an eye on.

DEMO VERDICT: ★★★★☆

Kaido Genkai

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3113580/Kaido_Genkai_An_Anime_Racing_RPG/

This bills itself as a "Racing RPG,", which in practice means you drive around listening to J-Pop and sometimes race an anime girl to increase your Reputation stat. Sure I guess.

DEMO VERDICT: ★★☆☆☆

Brigandine Abyss

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3211430/BRIGANDINE_ABYSS/

I've not played any previous Brigandine game, but my understanding is they occupy a sort of grand strategy lite with mild tactical combat niche, and this sure is that. It feels like a PSP game on every level, from its modest scope to shoddy animations to its bizarre 30 FPS lock. This seems like it'd be great on... well, a handheld device where you might pop it out and play for 15-20 minutes at a time. Too bad those don't exist anymore!

Appropriate to the above, any story here is perfunctory anime cliche. The demo had a Blue and Red faction available, and the Red one is absolutely your standard "evil usurper, fleeing princess, sworn revenge, fight goons" excuse plot endemic to the tactics RPG genre. I think I would like this a lot more if I were still 13 and trying to fit in as much game as possible on the way to school, but I've got bigger fish to fry these days.

DEMO VERDICT: ★★★☆☆