Pipkin

I just wanted to give this an early review for now, but I'll come back to make a full review once I finish the game. If you played the demo, this is still very much the same game, but now you do not start at a high level and everything looks a lot better visually. There is a new title screen, new Pipkins to catch, and the surrounding areas are beautiful. Pipkin has always had great pixel art, but it really feels like it has improved even more. It's very cute and comfy monster tamer game, and it seems to have made a lot of progress since the demo.

Really loving this game so far! Easy to get into and learn how to battle. The music and artwork feel so cozy and calming even though I'm battling. I like that each battle gets increasingly harder but the game doesn't feel too grindy. Look forward to playing more, especially the different types of battle styles you can choose in the beginning. Also this game DOES PLAY ON STEAM DECK. You'll have to change some controls but even a newbie like me could do it.

lovely creature-collecting game, with dang cool character designs!! the battles are really fun too-- the addition of the weapons system as well as the classes make for a very nice time tinkering and working out strategy :')c

im having fun, and liking it so far, the only thing that i need is to scale down the resolution so i can do other stuff, not having it full screen all the time.

It's nice to play a cute Halloween game instead of a scary one for a change

This game is a very excellent Pokemon and SMT mix. I haven't quite finished it yet, but I feel I've played enough to share my thoughts. To put it simply, while the art and music are fantastic, the gameplay is truly superb if you're looking for just a well paced, but still satisfying gameplay loop. It doesn't have the deepest systems of course, but the number of strategies available to you are very high, all without much busywork. [h3]Pros[/h3] For starters, the gameplay loop is as it was described: no bloat. Majority of your time will be spent in battles against npcs with their own various hand crafted teams as you go from area to area. There isn't much of a story to speak of, but the characters and their dialogue are charming and humorous enough and fit the setting. If there's any excuse to battle, they will have one. It's all gameplay here. Now for the most important aspects: The pipkin themselves of course and the balance/progression. Majority of their designs I absolutely adore and they all have their own little lore bits. Even though there are only 65 of them and there's no evolution or anything, they all still feel very distinct and have just enough to them to where you never really [i]feel[/i] like there's not enough. This is also due to the fact that the game has [i]15[/i] types, all with their own distinct playstyles on top of the 4 classes which give you a general idea of the movepool and stat spread they have, but it's very flexible. A lot of the types follow pokemon's logic, but with some differences here and there. I was a little concerned at first that there might be too many or that the game would center around the memorization of them, but while they definitely do make a difference, it's not so much so that you have to center your strategy around them and you can usually learn as you go. All pipkin have a base set of 6 moves that they learn through leveling up. This is what also makes them unique as they cannot be changed whatsoever, but you do have customizibility in the form of the weapons that you obtain throughout the game which each has a set of 2 skills. This in my opinion adds just the right amount of depth and freedom to what you can do for your teambuilding as it complements its excellent pacing. Every wild pipkin that you encounter will be scaled up to your highest level so it's very quick and easy to try out new ones. The ones in your storage however do fall behind so if you want to use that particular one again later, you'll either have to grind it up, or just find and catch another which is usually the way to go. You can access the storage any time so when you're going between areas, if you don't feel like going back to heal or using items, you can have some backup members take over, but do keep in mind how you split the xp with members you likely won't use in the long term. It's still fun enough to do though. I've been pretty satisfied with the balance of hard mode as well and just the mechanics in general. A lot of NPC battles will come down to the wire as they really test your team and strategy, but not so much so that you feel you have to start min maxing or grinding as you can usually win most battles as long as your strategy is solid and you learn what to prioritize in particular battles. The pacing of the battles themselves also feel just right as you have an energy system which regens naturally and through specific moves, and it's also deliberately hard to heal. The NPCs also have this same limitation so after the first few turns where a lot of the heavy hitting and setup happens, you then have the aftermath where you're both scrambling trying to either recover or finish each other off with the little scraps of energy remaining. It's a very satisfying back and forth. You are very much expected to be at or near full strength for most NPCs (at least on hard) [h3]Cons[/h3] Now, with all that being said, the game of course has its various.. quirks which might get in the way of your enjoyment, although I overall didn't have too much of a problem with these. The main one is the UI and the information you can access. I'm sure you've seen others mention this, but the biggest is the fact that there's no way to just remove the weapons as you have to swap it with another. There's no summary screen or anything either so you can't look at the moves that your pipkin have or know what they do outside of battle. The pipkin dex is nice as it shows the general stats, class, and moveset of each pipkin, but it's only a picture so you'll likely not know what a lot of the moves do. On the screen where you use items, you can't actually see your hp/ep either. The screen where you do see it, it's also a little hard to see. Outside of that, I do feel like you move a [i]tad[/i] slow and there isn't any fast travel or anything, but the map is tightly designed enough to where it's mostly fine. An actual map to look at as well also would've been nice as you could occasionally find yourself wondering exactly where you are in a area as a lot of it looks similar, but again, never becomes a super huge problem. [h3]Conclusion[/h3] While there may be some rough edges, I do find the overall experience to still be fantastic despite them. I understand if they are enough to put some off though, but for those that fully vibe with that the game offers, it's honestly near best in class as it executes exactly what it set out to do. If I had to put a number on it, it's probably an [b]8.5/10[/b] for me, but if all the UI kinks were to get worked out, it'd easily be a 9 or higher. It's solidly among my favorite monster tamers that I've played, and it seems to be built on replayability as well. If the game at least interests you even a little and it sounds like it has what you're looking for, I'd definitely recommend you give it a go. Edit: I've finished it and all of my thoughts still stand. Only thing I'll add is that the ending is quite abrupt, even when not expecting much story wise.[spoiler] The final boss itself also doesn't stand out enough versus everything else, but is still a decent fight. It really could use a phase 2 and especially a unique theme though. [/spoiler]

Very cute short fun halloween creature catcher, 7 hours to beat on hard