I’m Kinglink and it’s almost turkey time in America so that means it’s time for the Humble Choice November 2022 Review.  

Like always we have 8 games from Humble and, after the last two strong months, we have to ask if this is going to be another one that will be impressive or will they stumble.  I’ve played each game on stream for mostly an hour, a few internet issues did pop up but I got my playtime in.  What’s great is I’m acquainted with a couple of these games previously as well, so let’s see how they are. 

We’ll start with what’s on the screen…

Hell Let Loose.  World War 2 multiplayer. 

When I played Beyond the Wire last year, I talked about how it accurately recreated World War 1 and showed how miserable it was.  Hell Let Loose does the same with World War 2.  But also it’s a damn good-looking game.  The sounds, explosions, and experience are incredible, and the action is intense and devastating.  

At the same time, I never actually saw an enemy and died so many times I couldn’t believe it.   This is a game where you slowly move forward and always take cover.  It’s also a heavily tactical game, where communication is essential, so having microphones is going to be important to the experience, and being able to listen to others. It’s probably better to just play with a squad of friends.

Pick this up if you like ultra-realistic multiplayer games.  You’re not going to be trading shots here, if you’re shot, you might be able to heal, if you’re shot twice you will die.  On the other hand, if you want to go for a walk in a war-torn country, well you kind of can do that here but watch out for snipers. 

Kingdom of Amalur Re-Reckoning.  A remaster of a classic style RPG. 

Kingdom of Amalur was released in 2012, three months after Skyrim, which is probably a big reason why it didn’t take off.  But that also should put players in mind of what they will see here.  This is a remaster of that old game that looks and plays well.  There’s a heavy influence from MMOs of the time as well as some work from Todd Mcfarlane and an attempt at world-building for a franchise that well… This is the only game from that studio, so clearly it didn’t work out. 

With this being a remaster, this is gameplay from over ten years ago, though there are not many RPGs done in this style anymore, so there is still a place for it.  The story is well told, but it’s a generic fantasy as well.  It’s more of a quantity than quality for the story, and while it came out at the same time as Skyrim, well Bethesda was already a force to be reckoned with, so realize this was always going to be a weaker quality. 

Pick this up if you like fantasy RPGs.  I actually own and beat the original release earning every achievement, and I’m even considered picking this up again because I enjoyed the original game and wouldn’t mind checking it out again. 

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun: Aiko’s Choice.  An expansion of an extremely solid tactical game. 

Aiko’s Choice is a DLC or expansion for the original Shadow Tactics but a standalone title.  This gives a fleshed-out campaign, where the same party again embarks on a new story focused more on Aiko’s character and past.  There’s a slick style to the combat, requiring players to coordinate different characters in taking out targets and mostly sticking to the shadows. 

At the same time, I struggled with this game, and maybe it’s due to being new to the game, but I had to use a lot of quick saves and loads.  These have an extremely fast loading times but some players might not love that idea.  Also, it’s not always clear if a strategy works until you try it, so there’s a lot of trial and error.  

Pick this up if you like a tactical game, especially if you enjoyed Desperados from March of this year.  The same studio made this, and it’s in a similar style, though the old west is swapped out for Feudal Japan.  I will mention that this is about a third of the length of the original Shadow Tactics, so the price might be a little high, but it seems pretty solid, though I would recommend playing the original game first, that’s what I’ll be doing soon. 

If you don’t happen to have Shadow Tactics, it will be available on Epic Games for free from November 10th to the 17th, Sorry if that date is in the past, but that’s why you should subscribe to my channel and ring the bell. 

Robo Quest.  An FPS rogue-lite that’s still in Early Access.

I played Robo Quest in March of 2022 for Game Pass, and playing it again now I notice a lot of differences.  This is still extremely fast-paced where players will use abilities and multiple weapons to take on a large number of enemies.  It’s a challenging experience but also a fast one where I was able to get through runs in under ten minutes, partially because of failing early. 

Robo Quest, as it is now, feels like a chance for players to have a fair but challenging experience.  But the new skill tree isn’t great, as the initial offerings are underwhelming.  The bosses are interesting, but all of this doesn’t matter, because while it’s in early access all of this can and likely will change before it’s finally released.

Pick this up if you like FPS Roguelites.  I just played Gunfire Reborn and that is better than this, but it also is a finished product, and there are pieces of Robo Quest I prefer.  However because this is Early Access, until the game releases hopefully early next year, I can’t say for sure what the final game will be like. 

Eldest Souls.  A Boss rush with Souls-like combat. 

I don’t think Eldest Souls deserves a Souls-like comparison but the word is in the name of the game.  Eldest Souls appears to be focused on exploring an interesting world and constantly running into bosses.  I ended up getting stuck on the second boss but also enjoyed throwing myself at the extreme challenge that it provided.   The music here is a bit loud but man, it gets you pumped as well. 

The downside here is it’s not a Souls-like experience in that the only real gameplay is the bosses, so it’s more like a hard version of Shadows of The Colossus without the implied morality.   The fast-paced combat is all about reading attack patterns and trying to survive long enough to see and learn the move sets of enemies. 

Pick this up if you like challenging games.  I enjoyed this quite a bit but the focus here reminds me of Furi, where players will have to play challenging battles over and over to beat each boss even as those bosses made me feel foolish after every loss. I spent almost fifty minutes on a single battle and still want to come back to get that win. 

UnMetal.  An attempt to inject humor into the original Metal Gear. 

On paper, this should be fine.  Someone has taken the outdated NES Metal Gear and modernized it, giving it a different story and humor.  And if the humor on the screen is working for you, ignore the rest of what I’m about to say and check this out.  I’m sure there’s an audience for it. 

However, for me, I disliked everything about this.  The humor was painful as was the story. They said “I was sentenced for a crime I didn’t commit” at least four times.  We get it, it’s the A-team, it wasn’t original the first time you said it.  The game constantly stops for well voiced, but awful cutscenes that try too hard to feel needed.  The graphics are average at best, but the gameplay just never felt fun.  Even the boss battles felt weak. 

I can’t recommend this game, like I said, if someone loves the humor here, which is why I’m trying to show it, maybe they’ll get a kick out of this but the humor here disappointed me, and the rest of the game made me dislike the mishmash of different features and ideas that never worked together. 

Raji.  An exploration of Indian mythology. 

Raji is a story about a circus performer whose brother is kidnapped and she has to save him while battling monsters.  The Indian Mythology is pretty fresh and is explored well here.  The world though is exceptional with the game’s backgrounds just being beautiful.  You often see parts of the level you’ve traveled through or will traverse later and the animations are incredible, showing off the character’s acrobatic background. 

I played this on Game Pass, and I’ll say the first twenty to thirty minutes is a little rough.  After you get a good handle on the combat, the game starts letting you use upgrade points and then gives you a second weapon, and suddenly everything clicks, but that opening is looks amazing but is on the weaker side.

Pick this up if you’re like a solid platformer with good combat, or are interested in Indian Mythology.  The story here works extremely well and the character and world design are exceptional.  I enjoyed this game quite a bit the first time I played it, and I am thrilled to have added it to my collection and will be giving it another playthrough. 

Morbid: The Seven Acolytes.  A Pixel-art Souls-like.

Another attempt at the popular formula, Morbid: The Seven Acolytes goes with a more stylized look, but a recognizable combat system.  Morbid has a heavy focus on parries and stamina management rather than dodges, making it similar to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.   There are also only minor penalties when players die and an absence of corpse runs to regain lost items which reward more experimentation. 

Morbid: The Seven Acolytes can feel great when the player nails the system, but frustrating when the player runs out of stamina without realizing it.  Parries are so essential that it’s hard to overstate that, but the difficulty here is pretty reasonable.   However, the early enemies were not as impressive, and I hope to see more variety after the first Acolyte, at least I hope so. 

Pick this up if you like Souls-like games, and enjoy these graphics, the game is very bloody, but in this pixelated style.  Still, this is a pretty interesting take on the formula and I look forward to seeing even more. 

And that’s the eight games of Humble Choice, but you know how this goes.  Let’s look at one more game, was released onto the Humble Game Collection on October 27th and is available to any Humble Choice Subscribers now or shortly.

Signalis.  A pixel-art Resident Evil-esque horror game. 

Signalis evokes a style of game that doesn’t get made as much.  This game screams Original Resident Evil from the PlayStation and does a fantastic job with it.  Players start on a crashed spaceship and need to find out what happened.  The exploration of the ship, static angles of the cameras, and disturbing cutscenes all feel authentic to the survival horror genre.  The art is extremely good as well.

Signalis isn’t perfect though. It’s sometimes hard to figure out what’s part of the background and what needs to be picked up.  This gets into resource management, and the game tells you not to shoot the hell out of everything you run into.  The game is disturbing but that’s also what I would expect from this genre. 

Pick this up if you want a classic survival horror.  I always say I’m not a horror fan, but this one might make me play more because it’s got a classic design to the gameplay. 

In addition, there’s also now Ghost Story, which is already in the Humble Games Collection, which maybe I’ll cover next month, but will also cover in the Game Pass video in a couple of weeks. 

With all those games out of the way, how is it?  Well, again I think this is exactly what I’ve hoped to see from Humble for a couple of years now.  A few big titles, a solid array of games, and something I was interested in checking out. 

I’m displaying information from is there any deal including the prices, and admittedly the games this month have gone for cheap, but overall there’s a solid value, especially if you’re interested in Hell Let Loose, remember this is 12 dollars.  

At the same time, if you aren’t interested in Hell Let Loose, that’s a big loss, and a key part of the bundle, but I probably won’t return to it, and yet I’ll be putting in a lot of time into my favorite title of the month.

I’m just going to say it though, I think even though they’re different, Morbid and Eldest Souls feel like they overlap and while some people will enjoy playing both, I think Morbid probably would shine a bit brighter when it didn’t have the competition.  

With that said let’s shove the games on a tier list.  We have the Bundle Sellers, for which you should buy the bundle, The solid Add-ons which you might want to grab two or three to make it worth it, and the Also Rans which I can’t recommend.  And I want to be clear, this is not a value proposition but rather if you should pick up the bundle based on enjoyment of the game.   If you want to know the value, you can just check out IsThereAnyDeal on your own.

Starting with the bottom, we have UnMetal.  I am just not a fan of this game and the hour I spent with it was annoying, it didn’t help. I eventually got frustrated and had to look up a guide just to find two different items and the answers were not that intuitive.  This one frustrates me, but again, someone will like this. 

Luckily, that’s the only title in the Also-Rans, so let’s move up to The Solids Add-ons starting with Morbid: The Seven Acolytes. The art looks great here, but it’s the combat that I think is the core of this game, though it can be a little repetitive.  However solid level design is what will keep people coming back. Though the lack of a corpse run may turn off fans of the genre, as there’s no major penalty to experimentation, that will also welcome new fans to the souls-like genre.

Next up is Robo Quest.  I put this firmly in the middle of the chart.  The devs have made a few changes like the new skill tree, which I disagree with, but also are showing huge improvements, so it might be worth taking a shot and seeing how this game leaves early access.  But they also can equally make some big mistakes before then. I’m just not sure about it. 

Then there is Eldest Souls and this game impressed me.  While I’m not a huge fan of the Souls series, Eldest Souls cuts out a lot of the needless parts and has players challenging just the big epic bosses, and it feels like this one is going to have a lot of fans.

At the top of the Add-Ons is Raji.  Maybe it’s just my opinion but I love this game and think a lot more people need to check it out.  It’s gorgeous, it’s a unique topic, and it has some great style.  If you give this one a shot I’m pretty sure you’re going to have an amazing experience. 

And that’s how the tier list looks leaving only the Bundle Sellers, and it’s not a surprise that it’s the headliners up here. With that said, let’s see which order they fall in. 

At the bottom of this Tier, we have Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun: Aiko’s Choice which is a mouthful.  This is a great title, and worth checking out, especially for fans of the original game.  The only issue is it’s short but enough is going on here that it might be worth replaying a couple of times. 

The middle of this tier is… Hell Let Loose.  I’m not a fan of this one, but I can’t deny people are going to go crazy for it, and it’s a good experience even if everything popular about it is not for me.  If you want to see the hell of World War 2, this is a good choice, and it’s extremely active which is a good sign. 

Finally, the top of the Bundle Sellers Tier is Kingdom Of Amalur. I spent 80 hours beating this game the first time, and I’m considering tackling it again.  It’s the style and world that I enjoyed here, and if you missed out on this game the first time, I think you should at least consider checking it out now, whether it’s on Humble or on its own. 

And that’s what I have for the Humble Choice, I am genuinely impressed with this month and am looking forward to seeing if they’ll be able to deliver another great lineup next month. 

Thanks for watching this video.  If anyone is interested, I ended up getting the youtube.com/@kinglink as as my new address, so if you want to update your bookmarks… What’s wrong with you?   But you can use that link from now on and I’m excited about it. 

Hope you enjoyed the video if you’ve watched this whole thing it means a lot.  Consider subscribing and ringing the bell if you haven’t already, and if you want to help out, give this video a like, or leave a comment, it’s important to the channel.  Let me know what you think of the bundle, what you’re hoping for next month, or even what you think the best game or month from Humble has been in 2022.  It’s coming to that time of the year when we start discussing that. 

If you’re American, Happy Thanksgiving, and if you’re not, have a great November or whatever memeable version of November you celebrate. 

With that said I’m going to do the usual and pop up a couple of videos for you to check out if you want to watch more, you can click any of these.

See you next time.