From my overall experience playing Highwater, it’s a game with good visuals, music, and world-building, but suffers from jarring transitions and rough story pacing as the game progresses. The most fun to be had in Highwater would have to be the challenge and creativity of its combat mechanics— interacting with the environment can lead to satisfying and sometimes hilarious ways to defeat enemies.

That isn’t to say everything is lackluster here, as the artwork is fantastic and the music and sound are also quite solid, but it isn’t enough to carry Tamarak Trail when so much could be improved upon elsewhere.

Overall, this is a perfect budget friendly cozy game if you’re looking for something simple and stress free.

Overall I think this game is so fun and expansive, I would love to play with friends so they could help me build and fight, but it is also kinda relaxing just playing alone. Especially now that cold, cozy weather is finally here, this game is perfect for a day off or night in to just get lost in.

Once again, I still enjoyed Astor: Blade of the Monolith’s combat and gameplay. Given the small team that it was made by, they have done a nice job delivering an entertaining experience. It just falls short by trying to be too many things in its gameplay and not having enough depth in its story to deliver the best experience possible. So, it is not that Astor is a bad game. It just feels like the developers kept having moments where they wanted to add another and another feature, until individual features were not incorporated enough to feel worth being there. With more attention to storyline and fewer, but more utilized mechanics, Astor could have been great.