Howler for an Hour Stream: Xenon Valkyrie (Part 2)
1http://store.steampowered.com/app/573780/Xenon_Valkyrie/
This is split into two videos because Twitch wanted to hiccup midway through playing this! Whee!
This is a pretty solid shooter-slasher action game with rogue-like elements and dungeons and bosses to blast through. It reminds a bit of things like Spelunky, especially since the terrain is destructible.
This was a multi-platform release, with it coming to consoles first from what I understand; I've run into a few bugs on this PC version that probably don't exist in the other versions. (Namely, 'Up' on joystick not registering for all actions while 'Up' on D-pad does, and glitchy windowed mode and resolution options borking.) I am guessing this stuff will get efficiently patched, however.
As for the gameplay itself, it is pretty fun. I think it's a tad too punishing in how the treasure system works; each floor seems to have a key and a chest you can use a key on, and finding them can be fun...sometimes. Each floor is very vertical however, with you often dropping down long chasms that you may not be able to climb back up from; if you get a key at the bottom of the chasm and the chest is far above, well, guess you can't open that particular chest. Also, some chests/keys are blocked into self-contained areas you need to grenade-dig open into, which costs far too many of your limited explosives to be really worth it. The guns and swords in the chests can be quite useful too, so it can be frustrating when these situations occur.
But overall I find it to be a fairly fun game, definitely with difficulty that is still mostly-fair. Worth a play! -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/charemplaysgames