I’m Kinglink and it’s the beginning of November 2020 which means it’s time for the Humble Choice November 2020 Review.

This month there’s a ton of games to discuss as usual. I’ve spent up to an hour with each game and I can now tell you how they are and who will enjoy them. Let’s get started.

Darksiders 3. The Darksiders franchise is a strange one. It has taken influences from Zelda, Diablo, and now with the third game, Dark Souls. I’ll just quickly mention I’ve bought and reviewed this game previously.

Darksiders 3 really focused on amping up the combat and the level design and added in some really solid puzzles that focus on the player having to do a little platforming. It’s a fresh take for the series and is done reasonably well.

Though Darksiders 3 can be a little harder than it should be, the difficulty balance isn’t always there, but there are multiple different difficulty modes you can use. The bosses are interesting with each being based on the 7 deadly sins.

Overall Darksiders 3 is a good game, if you like Dark Souls style combat this will be up your alley, and even if you don’t there are some options for less skilled players who like the franchise. I’d check it out especially if you played the previous two games at some point.

Yakuza Kiwami 2. This is one of my favorite games, not of just the bundle, but of all time. I’m a huge Yakuza fan, I am excited and looking forward to Yakuza: Like A Dragon in a couple of days. Being able to talk about Yakuza Kiwami 2 is great.

This is an open-world brawler where the player takes on the role of Kiryu Kazuma who has to deal with the Japanese Yakuza and navigate numerous dangerous situations. And yet at the same time, your character can go sing karaoke or hit baseballs, and it all works in a very unique way.

The story here is excellent, the gameplay is fantastic, and while I adore this series, I think Yakuza Kiwami 2 is one of the best.

Humble has offered Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami before, if you have played those, and enjoyed them, this is a no brainer. It’s a better game than Yakuza Kiwami and on par with Yakuza 0. If you didn’t like those games, you would be safe to skip this one. I don’t know if I’d play this as the first entry as there will be spoilers for Yakuza Kiwami, but this is a great deal and a great game, and new players should be able to slip into the series here.

Imperator: Rome. This game reminds me a lot of Heart of Iron IV. You maneuver troops, conquer the land, and go to war as you run your country. So really to sum it up. It’s Paradox Interactive’s latest.

I’ll be honest this one isn’t really for me. I totally get the idea and the game and I’m sure if you enjoy any game from Paradox you’ll love this. It seems a big piece is focused on conquest, and from what I’ve read this doesn’t have a true win condition, though the game ends in the year 727.

The interface is nice and filled with information but like I said personally this one isn’t for me, and I really can’t tell you the nitty-gritty of the game. However, it’s a new game from Paradox, which came out last year. If you go for this type of game, pick this up. Otherwise, probably a pass by most people.

Crying Suns. This feels a lot like FTL. You take your ship, have a small crew, fly through the cosmos, have enemies hot on your tail, and pray you can outrun them as you manage your resources.

But unlike most clones, there’s also a lot of new features and parts of the game. Crying Suns feels like a proper sequel to FTL, and in that it’s pretty good. Players will have to fight ship to ship battles, focusing on commanding squadrons of units rather than the crew members, and negotiate with numerous factions.

There’s also what appears to be a larger story, with a focus on exploring what happened in the system, but I also only sat through this one game, I’d probably say the story will drag when playing repeated attempts.

Definitely pick this up if you’re a fan of FTL, Rogue Lites, or Roguelikes, I think there’s a good level of repetition here. However, it is a strategic game so if you want a visceral feeling it’s not going to be here. The combat is good but it’s mostly strategic.

Darksburg. This is the newest game from Shiro Games who put out Evoland which was bundled two months ago, and now we have a completely different game.

This is a Co-op Roguelite in a Diablo or MOBA style world, where you and up to 3 friends or AIs can try to battle through five randomized levels. Each character plays differently and there are some great choices, such as a nun, an innkeeper, or a werewolf. This game plays a bit like Left 4 Dead with a top-down view, with hordes of enemies and items players will have to find to unlock stuff.

I’ll be honest, I dislike this one. I played two games solo and in general, I’m not a big fan of the Left 4 Dead formula. I liked playing the Innkeeper but couldn’t stand the Nun or the Werewolf. Each character plays quite a bit differently so that’s a good sign.

Pick this up if you have a group who want to play a PVE Moba game, or like the Roguelite formula. If you want a story, or something other than a rogue-lite, you can skip this one.

Little Misfortune. This is a shock game. Little Misfortune revels in this sense of how horrible it can be and how it can jar the audience. It feels like its goal is to get to people and disturb them.

Yet, there’s something about how absolutely horrible the topics that Misfortune deals with and plays with. There are references to a kid shooting and killing her parents, dead whole rabbits in the fridge, and a dog who gets squished when Misfortune plays with it. But at the same time, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t considering playing the rest of the game just to see where this game goes.

That doesn’t make LIttle Misfortune into a great game, it’s the same type of game as a walking simulator. The player moves along and the story plays out. There is a good narrator, and I kind of want to see bad things happen to Misfortune as I see her naivety is a bit too phony. I’ll admit it’s not boring and that would be far worse.

Play this if you like disturbing content. It’s not really horror, but more just shock content for topics they talk about. But if you can be triggered, expect this game will do so.

Smile For Me. This is another strange game. It’s a game where you go around and try to cheer up all the residents of The Habitat. A place built to create smiles, maybe air quotes on that. I’m not sure.

This game has a weird feeling, and it gives off a bit of a horror vibe, reminding me of Danganronpa in some ways. This vibe is intentional but strangely, I don’t know if there is much horror in Smile for Me, I haven’t seen anything other than some creepy video when I stayed up too late once. But if it’s a happy game, why even have the hint of horror.

The one interesting part of the game is you can move your view up and down to nod yes, and shake your head left and right to say no. I honestly haven’t seen that in a game before and it’s kind of a cool feature here. The rest of the game sees to be a point and click adventure with a first-person view. The only issue is sometimes the game isn’t clear how or what you’re doing with different objects.

This seems like it’s a strange point and click game. I don’t know if I’ll play much more but it’s unique and could be fun, if you like what you’re seeing definitely check this one out.

Darkwood. Speaking of horror, we have a top-down survival horror game. I’m not a horror fan and this game is pretty focused on horror. It sounds like there are rogue-lite elements to map.

I spent only thirty minutes on this game, it’s really not for me, but if you’re curious check it out. It’s very intense and skillful in how it limits your view and ability, as well as not giving a ton of ways to fight back against enemies, but for me, I’m not a huge fan.

Still, the experience here is unique. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on and it feels like this story might be a little hard to follow or random due to the randomized nature of the map. Still, if you want to be scared or feel like you’re in danger, this is great.

Definitely check it out if you like horror, just the opening prologue should let you know if you like this one, and it’s not bad, just definitely not my type of game.

Tsioque. That’s T S I O Q U E otherwise known as a series of random characters that makes a word. This is a point and click adventure and… God, this is rough.

If you want to know what annoys me with point and click adventures check this out. You have all the classic issues with the genre. Moon logic, as in it’s not clear why something would work. Timed puzzles, that reset immediately. An inability to see what is interactable and what’s not.

The art here is also a little odd and the main character looks odd, however, the rest of the game is beautiful at times. It just feels like it’s not clear what the player is supposed to do in many scenes and the game feels like it’s not giving the player enough information.

If you really want a point and click adventure game check this out but personally, after an hour, I’m getting more annoyed by each puzzle, so I’ll try something else instead.

Rover Mechanic Simulator. This is yet another simulator game. This time you walk around and repair Martian Rovers. You have to pull pieces off of the rover, create new pieces, and put them back on. It’s.. a simulator game.

I’m not really sold on the simulator genre as a whole but I had fun in my hour on this game. I worked on two different rovers. The real challenge though was to understand where the pieces they were talking about are. It’s a huge pain to remove six wheels to find one broken bearing, but I think that’s what people like.

This game is in early access as well, and while it’s playable I’m always hesitant to recommend a game because of that, however overall this is a pretty solid and interesting game, and if you’re curious about it and like exactly what you’re seeing on the screen, check it out. But this appears to be all it is.

Check this out if you like simulators or are really interested in the Martian Rovers. Skip it is disassembling similar parts of similar objects and putting them back together doesn’t sound like fun. Though I’ll personally play a little more.

Youropa. This is a 3d platformer where players can walk on any wall and have to solve puzzles to explore a large map of floating islands.

In many ways, this reminds me of Etherborn where players move around corners of the level and will use different forms of gravity to complete the level. The game also gives a few different abilities in the first hour, such as grabbing objects and throwing them.

So far it’s pretty decent with some good puzzles, though there’s a couple of hit or miss pieces where if you don’t understand something you can be locked off from the rest of the game until you get it.

If you like platformers or puzzle games this seems like a solid choice. If you hate 3d platforming, this probably isn’t for you.

Townsmen – A Kingdom Rebuilt. This is a medieval resource management game with a focus on assigning workers to different buildings.

There’s a long tutorial mode here, as well as a series of Scenarios, each with a different storyline. The Tutorials are reasonably short, but the Scenarios seem to have a good length to them as well. There’s also some combat but I haven’t really gotten to that point just yet.

It takes a bit to get each village going but they do seem like they run on their own and there’s a decent amount of downtime here, though that’s common with this type of game.

Give this a shot if you like resource management games, with a minor focus on combat. If you want more action or more instant gratification you probably can skip this one.

Those are the choices for this month, but wait there’s more, I always wanted to say that. This month has a single bonus game.

Torii That’s T O R I I. It stands for the gate of Shinto Shrines. Torii really feels like someone is trying to get the same type of feeling from Journey, and most of thatgamecompany’s games. Honestly, I like the thought but in practice, yikes.

The game is very jarring in just throwing up large words on the screen. There’s a lot of text and dialogue when the game should have been minimal about it, and the art can be rough, especially changing to this dark mode.

From what I see so far it’s clear this game is about someone dying, and I have some theories about what’s going on, but the gameplay and graphics really make it hard to want to continue playing. Where Journey was elegant art, Torii really shows how amazing Journey was due to all the stumbling blocks this game trips over.

The graphics have glitches as well, and I feel the story is a bit too heavy-handed to be enjoyable. Still, this is a free add-in but I’m not sure I am crazy about this one.

So that’s November 2020. Coming into this month I was pretty hyped up as I really enjoyed two of these games previously, now that I’ve had a chance to look at them all, it’s a good month, not great. However, I try to look at the best games, every game doesn’t have to be amazing, but I want to see some games that I would recommend for people. This month definitely has it, but it doesn’t have a huge selection of games in that range.

At the same time, there’s really nothing that bad this month and even the game that’s in Early Access feels pretty interesting and unique that I can ignore that fact.

So with that said let’s talk about the strongest and weakest of this month.

Three games on the weakest list, and just to be clear I really don’t think there’s a true weakest just the ones I think the bundle struggles with. However…

The third weakest this month is Darksburg. There’s really nothing wrong with this one and I’m sure people will have fun with it and get into it. I just am not a fan of the style, but if you are, pick this one up.

The second weakest of this month. That’s going to be Darkwood. I understand this probably will be some survival fans favorites, and as I said, there’s really not a true weakest, but a lot of people aren’t going to be interested in this game.

The weakest of this month is Tsioque. I really should have liked this game, it’s a point and click adventure that does all sorts of things that make me hate point and click adventure games. This is the only game this month I wouldn’t recommend to anyone.

So that’s the weakest, but let’s talk about the strongest games this month starting with…

The fifth strongest this month is Little Misfortune. Honestly, both my wife and I were screaming “what?” and “Really?” at the screen, but I also admit I played through the rest of the game after writing this. It’s probably not the most amazing game, but I admit it’s the most curious I’ve been about a game.

The fourth strongest this month is Imperator: Rome. This game isn’t for me, and I’m not sure how many people get down with Paradox Interactive, but it’s a relatively new game, and for what it is, it feels like a solid and deep game. If you like heavy strategy games this one might be worth learning, as it can give hundreds of hours of playtime.

The third strongest this month is Crying Suns. I like FTL a lot, I love the idea that there’s a game like FTL. While I think the story might bog down the game, I still think the experience will be fun and the ship to ship combats is pretty enjoyable.

The second strongest this month is Darksiders 3. I actually bought this for myself at about 20 bucks for the game alone and found it to be a good enjoyable game. It’s at least 20 hours long and has some really solid boss designs. Hardcore fans of the franchise might have issues with the story, but the game is still quite enjoyable.

The strongest of the month. Yeah, I try not to give these games Best of the Year because it’s a default, but Yakuza Kiwami 2, is just so good, I gave it a perfect score after a lot of thought. It’s such a great game. If you don’t like this series that’s fine, but if you haven’t tried it, I heavily recommend all of the games but especially Kiwami 2. Though like I said, start with Yakuza Kiwami or Yakuza 0 for first-time players if possible.

That’s what I have for Humble Choice in November 2020. Thanks for watching this far. I wanted to take a moment though before I sign off instead of doing the usual youtube mantra.

Last week, my father passed away, and it’s been really rough on me. I’m just coming to terms that I will never speak with him again. I also know this last week with the election has been rough on many people, relationships, and families. But I want to recommend that people reach out to those that they love and care for and let them know how much they mean to you, because one day potentially sooner than you realize, you may no longer have that chance. I no longer do, and I just wish I could have one more conversation with my dad and let him know how much I miss him.

Sorry to end on such a downer, but that’s just something I felt the need to share. I’ll put up the links to my reviews of Yakuza Kiwami 2 and Darksiders 3 if you want to know more about those games, and I’ll hopefully return with more soon.

Until then I’m Kinglink and thanks for watching.