Saturn Quest: Shadow of Planetus

Edit : actually I am in romantic love with this game, it's so elevated by its music, art style and melancholy ambience that it makes me feel things, and every minute of pain was worth it, and Arkhouse please upload Lullaby of Space to Youtube with the rest of the soundtrack, it's such a touching tune This game both sparked my imagination and seriously tried my patience. It's true that there is a lot of RNG, and serious game design problems, and the music tends to be on the short-and-badly-looped side, but overall I still recommend the experience (and it's good music to be sure, I'm not slagging the music at all, it bangs) For less than three bucks, you get to see some seriously original and impressive art. And it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ WEIRD and I loved it. And although it was well worth it, the latter half of the game can get really irritating. Regardless, Captain Navigator IS very cute (if very stupid), and I wouldn't trade Arkhouse's weirdness for anything in the world. It's unique, it's precious, and we can endure some mixed bag gameplay for it. But please don't use RNG like this again, this isn't how randomness should be used, ever x)

Great music and atmosphere as always, clunky game play and game design as usual. Shadow of the Colossus theme was present in the first part, but the latter part became a mumbo jumbo of puzzles, mazes and shmups, which I don't understand why they took that route while advertising the game as a SotC clone. Compared to other Arkhouse's games, this game was a bit more easy to play, since you have an NPC telling you what to do or where to go next. Still a pain to figure out what to do at certain spots, especially the "final battle" that took me 1 hour to figure out that you can actually do something with the "K-Weapon" that's not explained anywhere. The ending was puzzling, but I'm sure it ties into the sequels, Blast Effect and R.U.N.E. 3000. Cleared in about 3 hours or so. I'd recommend this game to anyone who has time to waste for the atmosphere and experience.

Rather fun little game. Great sounds and art design. Works on steam deck no issues. My kids also enjoy it. Not bad for a game made by essentially one dude. Leans a bit too hard on the RNG in the late game. Arkhouse should get a play-tester. Aside from that very cool game. You can do far worse for far more money so check it out.

Really fun retro game with some heavy Shadow of the Colossus influence. I had a blast with this one.

press K, Captain

TL;DR: Battletoads by the way of Ys I & II. If you know what that means, you'll probably love this. Otherwise, you probably won't. I have a large fondness for the era of gaming that Saturn Quest: Shadow of Planetus goes for, that being the 80s. I wasn't alive for the games, but I find the creativity and chaos that was going on as a new industry was establishing itself to be harrowing. I've always enjoyed games that capture that spirit, warts and all. The Mostly Negative reviews will ring true for most. Most will come away frustrated more than satisfied. That said, it absolutely grabbed me. The music is great and sets the mood, the visuals do just enough to make the game feel interestingly weird, and the constant changing gameplay is great when it works and (usually) easily forgotten when it doesn't. The (relatively) generous checkpointing the game helped me get through the game, even if the intros of the later stages would have been nice to skip. Some will disagree, but I'd rather start a screen over than be blasted back to the ship. More generous checkpointing would have hurt the excitement of victory. Overall, had a great time, loved the ending, and I'm excited to play the res…