Larva Mortus

DO NOT PLAY: Buggy and boring. Firstly, this game is kinda boring and it's not clear what all the side-missions are for other than grinding for levels. Enemies and crates are hard to distinguish from the background. Most damning, enemies keep disappearing from rooms. Sometimes stuck in walls and other times they are nowhere to be seen. Maybe they're out of bounds. This happens WAY too often and most egregiously in a room you can't leave until you defeat all enemies.

This game is beautiful in its simplicity. It doesn't have much, but it uses what it has to great effect. Basically, it's a top-down shooter which casts you as a paranormal detective set on securing an ancient artefact of great evil. That's the plot summed up in one sentence. It's told exclusively through pop-ups and cut scenes. It's pretty fun to read, but not overly complicated. The cut scenes are text-only and made using simple animated sprites. The combat feels similar to the original GTA game, but the levels are procedurally generated. You'll move through a series of rooms, secured by 0-3 keys depending on complexity. There are many different weapons and powerups to collect, come temporary, others permanent. The weapons would be right at home in that Van Helsing action film from 2004. In fact, this entire game would be right at home there. Basically, when your kid asks you if they can play a Van Helsing video game, and you assure them you have one at home, this is the game you have at home. It does seem to be pretty free of bugs, which is the least we can expect given it's relative simplicity. One nice touch is that every aspect of the game can be studied between missions, either in your base or in the journal. The enemies have simple patterns, but they're all different enough that you'll find that no weapon is useless. For instance, there's a tesla-gun that shoots chaining lightning. It's pretty weak, but it can hit ghosts in their immune stage. The game has just enough depth to not be boring, but isn't too complex to be confusing. At the same time though, the combat isn't exactly challenging. It can be tough in places, but it's hardly difficult. TLDR: This game is a very nice indie game for the few bucks it costs. Totally worth it if you're into Dark Fantasy and/or top-down shooters. PS: One final note is that the game's permanent buff items are directly linked to the achievements. So directly, in fact, that I think the game relies on the achievements in order to provide them. I think this because when you start a new game, you will still have the permabuffs that you unlocked in previous games. Even if you completely uninstall the game and delete all save files.