We’re still catching up on games from 2025, which is fine for me. January is usually pretty slow for big releases as everyone recovers from the holiday period with alcohol and copious amounts of food. I’ve been playing a bunch of games this month including Powerwash Simulator, that new Fantasy Life title, Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma, and a heavily modded playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077. It’s only my fifth playthrough of Cyberpunk after all, and I had to do something special for it. Seriously, play Cyberpunk 2077 with mods if you can.

As you can imagine, that’s a lot of gaming. However, I’ve not been idle with my game coverage and I have plenty of fun things planned! Today I’m featuring Angeline Era, a late bloomer in 2025 that I have greatly enjoyed my time with so far. It launched in December which was too late to hit my Top 10 criteria, but this is an impressive indie title by Analgenesic Productions that’s received solid reviews across the board. You can pick it up for around $25, which is a solid price for the package available. I haven’t had too much time with the game yet, so consider this an early impressions review for now. After a few hours with Angeline Era however, you can bet I’m going to play more.

At its heart, Angeline Era is a 3D action RPG that carries some solid inspiration from classics from the old days such as Zelda. The studio also made Anodyne and Sephonie, and the artistic style from those games carries over into this one. I was a big fan of Sephonie back when I played it, so it’s good to see studios succeed. Out of the three, Angeline Era is by far my favorite game they have released so far. Given the Overwhelmingly Positive reviews it currently holds on Steam, it seems a lot of people agree with that!

The story in this one is surprisingly captivating, as is the world design. Set in the fantasy realm of Era, you play as a former soldier called Tets Kinoshta who embarks on a journey to uncover a mysterious angel ship called the Throne, delving into the world of humans, angels, and fae with all the secrets and beauty. It’s an interesting story so far, and despite the lack of voice acting involved I’ve gotten invested in the characters.

The combat is an odd thing that reminds me of very old games such as the Ys series and (shudders) Hydelide. Angeline Era’s system is very simple. Instead of pressing an attack button, you strike enemies by walking into them, creating a fast-paced and fluid combat experience. Success hinges on careful positioning, timing, jumping, and evasion through movement. Additionally, you can employ ranged weapons and other tools to help turn the odds, especially when it comes to the boss battles. The first boss fight took me a long time to work out!

The biggest strength of Angeline Era for me however is the exploration, which is done in a really interesting way. While the overworld looks basic, the levels are hidden on the unmarked map, and they require a lot of work on the player to experiment and explore. There’s no time pressure either, so players can explore the world at their own pace. Dungeons, forests, mountains, mines, and towns are filled with traps, hazards, foes, and sometimes surprising encounters that blend humor with challenge. The writing is surprisingly good, and the lore is pretty nice as well.

Overall, Angeline Era seamlessly blends freeform exploration, inventive bump-based combat, and an atmospheric world into an action RPG that stands out for its personality, pace, and its encouragement of curiosity.

Veterum has brought me quite a lot of joy over the past few weeks! We’re halfway into January, and a lot is happening behind the scenes here. It is usually a slow start to the year for big releases, and it’s given me some spare time to play the games I’ve had knocking on my door. Veterum is one of those examples, and if you’re a fan of Battle Brothers, this is one game you don’t want to miss. It’s in Early Access right now with a fair amount of content and polish, and is available for $19.99.

At its core, Veterum is a dark fantasy tactical RPG. That is quite the mouthful, but we do need more games like this. The punishing turn-based combat is in full display, but this is a kinder game than the brutality of Battle Brothers. While the game is still challenging with plenty of planning needed to survive, it’s not quite as cruel to your squad as Battle Brothers.

There isn’t really a narrative to the game yet, with the sandbox gameplay the core of the content right now. A campaign is still in development, but is scheduled for release before 1.0. Despite the light story, I appreciate the world and setting of Veterum. Order of the Gatekeepers in a mysterious and perilous world on the brink of apocalypse. You lead a diverse force composed of humans, dwarves, elves, and wildmen, with plenty of opportunities to grow as a mercenary band. Veterum is focusing more on the gameplay than writing right now, and that’s fine with me.

The core gameplay loop is probably Veterum’s biggest strength, and you roam around the open world picking up quests, navigating tricky encounters, and dealing with environmental puzzles with some potent battles. Everything is procedurally generated with everyone’s favorite phrase, ‘no two playthroughs are the same. I’ve always disliked that with roguelike tags because it’s more often than not bollocks, but Veterum makes a decent swing at things. The battles, town resources, and quests change with every map, which does make things somewhat unpredictable, and all this feeds into the gameplay. The game does a good job of blending exploration with managing your growing army, and it made me care about my party and make careful decisions about where to go next.

The combat system is another key point, and I’m enjoying the careful balance between challenge and punishment. Combat takes place on a hex-grid and is turn-based, requiring careful positioning, thoughtful unit selection before a battle, and effective use of the environment. Factors such as morale, fatigue, line of sight, terrain, and weather all impact the outcome of fights, which I appreciate. Not everything is about having the most magic or blades. Environmental interactivity is another important part of combat, and you can deal with threats through cool things such as freezing rivers, building barricades to funnel enemies into kill zones, and so on. It’s pretty cool, and I wish more turn-based RPGs had more environment interactivity.

Despite the Early Access tag and lack of a full story right now, I feel Veterum is in a pretty good place already, with most of the core systems in place and plenty of content. There are even some impressive modding capabilities through the built-in unit and map editors, so that people can develop their own scenarios and worldspaces. I haven’t dabbled with this part of the game yet, as it’s an impressions review first, but I love games that do this.

To conclude, Veterum offers a rich strategy experience that’s impressive for an Early Access title. As I always stress with games in constant development, only buy an Early Access game if you feel the content and polish it currently has are enough, rather than buying based on a hypothetical future. If getting beaten down in Battle Brothers got you down (awesome game though!), and if you want something a bit more experimental, I can easily recommend Veterum.

We’re back! We’ve had snow this week, and the cold snap is rather irritating when you have a long commute to work. The Game of the Year discourse continues to be entertaining, and I find it funny how seriously people take it.

As always, we are back with the video games, and today’s review features SWAPMEAT, a colorful roguelite shooter that’s been enjoying a fairly solid reception. It is one of those games I hope gets more attention, and while it’s in early access with a long way to go, it has a solid core that nails one of the main reasons we play video games. We play them for fun, and SWAPMEAT is oodles of that, wrapped in an artistic style that drips with character. It’s not perfect, of course, but I am enjoying myself with this one so far.

SWAPMEAT has some interesting mechanics that set it apart from the torrent of roguelikes and ‘boomer shooters’ on the market, making it more engaging for players interested in innovative gameplay. I make a lot of jokes about how the indie market has its own version of the ‘AAA Open World’ model, and that’s usually the roguelike and deckbuilder genres. Regardless, I appreciate what SWAPMEAT has on offer. In this galactic adventure, players can take on body parts from the monsters they butcher, swapping out fleshy appendages for different bonuses. That is a creative way of powering yourself up. Most games offer dull methods like picking up the weapons of the fallen to bolster yourself in the big fight for survival.

Pulling off somebody’s arm and wielding it as a weapon against the poor corpse’s mates sounds disturbing and hilarious, and it is how I prefer to do things. SWAPMEAT comes with a decent amount of content for its alpha Early Access build, featuring a partially complete campaign, several difficulty levels, co-op multiplayer, and random solar systems to run through after finishing the campaign. I quite like how the devs are approaching this one, providing a solid core of progression and gameplay systems, a tasty campaign, and promising replayability that hints at more content to come, keeping players’ interest alive for future updates.

I’ve been having fun with this one so far, with both the visual design and core gameplay loop keeping me engaged. I do sometimes wonder, though, about the value of playing story campaigns while they are incomplete during Early Access. It usually means having to replay everything when it’s complete and polished for full release, which can lead to a rough first impression. Besides that quibble of mine and a few weird bugs, however, SWAPMEAT is living up to my expectations.

The price tag of $24.99 is relatively high for an indie game in Early Access, especially a FPS, but the combination of content and decent polish makes it a fair value. As with all Early Access games, though, I would purchase based on what is available now rather than what is planned, because anything can happen in this industry. This approach helps readers make informed choices and manage expectations. Regardless, however, I do recommend the game for its sheer creativity alone, which is evident even in its current state.