Recent reviews by LittleTale

A great classic completely ruined by a broken co-op save system

I have so many great memories playing The Lord of the Rings: War in the North on its original Steam release, especially playing through the campaign with friends. I was genuinely excited to see it available again so I could experience it once more and introduce it to even more friends.

Unfortunately, I discovered something absolutely unacceptable: the game does NOT save your friends progress when playing online co-op.

How is this even possible? The original version of the game is still playable today and did not have this problem. Yet this re-release, with its rushed-looking AI-upscaled assets and the addition of Epic Online Services, somehow manages to break one of the most basic features of a co-op game.

What's the point of playing through a long campaign with friends if your progress isn't properly saved?

This is completely game-breaking for me. I was really looking forward to playing this again, but until this issue is fixed, I will be requesting a refund. I sincerely hope the developers address this quickly, because the original game deserves much better than this.

Dragon Sword: Awakening has been a really pleasant surprise. Considering its low price, I honestly think it could have been sold for a bit more.

The game takes a lot of inspiration from modern open-world gacha games, but once you've bought it, that's it. There are no characters or equipment locked behind random pulls. Everything can be unlocked simply by playing through the story and exploring the world. The only paid content is optional cosmetic DLC, which I think is a much better approach.

Exploration is one of my favorite parts. It reminded me of a lot of open-word gatcha games and Immortals Fenyx Rising, with plenty of environmental puzzles, hidden chests, and little mechanics scattered throughout the map that constantly reward curiosity.

Combat is also surprisingly fun. While there is only one main attack button, the variety comes from combining your different party members and creating stylish combos. One detail I really appreciate is that characters don't instantly disappear when you switch. Instead, they often stay on screen to finish their attacks or continue interacting with enemies while you keep fighting. It makes battles feel much more fluid, dynamic, and alive than in most games of this style.

The graphics are very nice, the world is colorful, and performance has been excellent. The game runs smoothly without requiring a high-end PC, which is always welcome. having DLSS and Frame-Gen is also always great.

Coming from the developers of Dragon Nest, I wasn't expecting something like this, and I'm genuinely impressed. I'm still early in my playthrough, but so far this has been a fantastic surprise, and I'm looking forward to spending many more hours exploring its world.

I had a lot of fun with the DEMO, at first it reminded me of something, then I realize it's that Night Sing game I played a few years ago but from a different perspective.
game needs a lot of polish and fix some bugs, but it is promising and looks better gameplay wise than the first game.
The animation style manga panel are a really great addition to the game and makes the player enjoy the story way more.
I think the game should really remove the auto-aim function as it makes it WAY TOO EASY to play and remove all challenges !
Kudo to the dev, and I hope he will make a good game this time !

like a diamond in the rought... needs a lot of polish, but there's a really good game under all this ! With time it could be great !

I really like the charm and the character animations... background and other graphics could really use a boost in quality... pace is a little slow, and you get a lot of charges and not a lot of money from customers orders at first...
Demo really needs a lot of PATCHES, got stuck 2 time where I just couldn't advance in the story and just stay at nighttime indefinitely and once got stuck while wanting to converse with a character and just got stuck on that screen... not able to use TAB or ESC, had to use Alt+F4 . . .

Game feels really fresh and different, I had a lot of fun learning the dynamics of the parry dodge counter and attack all at the same time, it was a first time for me playing this kind of game, don't know if there's a lot like this out there but I had a great time with this one. I wish there were more story related part and maybe a free roam mode inside the academy where you can increase relationship with other students, train and upgrade your character/deck and spend some time would be great.
Will keep an eye out for full release.

Has a lot of potential but still need more polish regarding combat, it's a little lackluster as it is and quite repetitive, you reuse the same moves over and over again, dodging feels finicky and doesn't telegraph well unto the screen, they should be more frame skip animation with hard combo hit and a slow-down/counter parry system when you achieve a perfect dodge.
Also, the maps are too big and nothing to find in it. They should or either populate them more or reduce them.
If the game want to be a pseudo risk of rain style of game, the upgrade and item you get from your run are really missing in that department. You should feel way more overpower with great combination, but sadly it does not apply here and as I said earlier you end up using the same button over and over again while dodging attack

DSX has a clean interface and a lot of features on paper, it offers a large number of customization options, including button remapping, deadzone adjustments, trigger tuning, controller emulation, custom profiles, and various haptic settings. These features are useful and easy to configure through the software's interface. That said, Steam itself has greatly expanded its controller customization tools over the years. Between Steam Input, per-game profiles, remapping, deadzone controls, and community layouts, some of DSX's customization features feel less essential today than they did when the software first launched. But at first glance, it looks like a very polished tool although quite confusing and it's really baffling that there is no F.A.Q !

The biggest problem is that after all this time, it still doesn’t fully deliver on what many people originally bought it for. One of its biggest promises was proper DualSense support over Bluetooth on PC with features like advanced haptics and adaptive triggers working as intended, same as native USB functionality. Years later, that experience still feels incomplete !

What makes this harder to overlook is the extra paid DLC and add-ons, which create the impression of paying more for features that still don’t fully live up to expectations and look more and more like a way for the devs to get money out of you !

That’s the frustrating part: this is not a new program, and expectations were set a long time ago. Meanwhile, free alternatives on GitHub from the community have shown that some of these features can be achieved without asking users to keep spending more money !

DSX is not useless — it does work for basic controller emulation and customization — but for a paid program that promised so much, it feels like style and presentation have moved faster than actual delivery. That’s a real shame, because the idea behind it is genuinely great.

Also it's really annoying that the progam won't even work without steam ! It's not a game, it shouldn't have DRM !


Since writing this review, DSX has released a beta update that finally adds Bluetooth support for the full DualSense feature set. From my testing so far, the implementation seems to work as advertised, including features that previously required a wired connection or were simply unavailable.

I still believe the criticism in this review was justified at the time. These were features that users had been requesting for years, and it took a very long time for them to arrive. However, credit where credit is due: the developers appear to have finally delivered on one of the software's biggest promises. But now a new player is in the game with DS5Bridge and competition seems to close the gap.

I have also learned that some of the free community alternatives may have benefited from research and discoveries made by the DSX team over the years, although I have not been able to independently confirm the full extent of that contribution. If true, it would mean DSX has had a larger impact on the DualSense PC ecosystem than many users realize.

For now, I am cautiously optimistic and will continue testing the new implementation.

Ariana and the Elder Codex is a really charming game that stands out thanks to its unique style. The character design is lovely, the art is beautiful, and overall it feels quite different from most 2D platformers and action games.

The characters are genuinely cute, and the magic-based combat is where the game really shines. Mixing and swapping spells to create combos feels intuitive and engaging. It takes a bit of practice, but once it clicks, it becomes very satisfying to adapt your magic to different enemies and situations.

The story is on the lighter side, but still enjoyable. It does its job well, and the small tales you discover when entering books are a nice touch. They feel like little fairy tales and add extra charm to the world.

I’m having a great time with the game so far and plan to keep playing until the end. That said, the PC version has a few issues. The biggest one is the cloud save synchronization, especially if you switch between devices. There are also some graphical options that feel vague and don’t seem to change much. Ultra-wide support is missing for now, although there is already a mod that helps with that.

Overall, it’s a fun and refreshing game with creative combat and a lot of charm. If you enjoy magic-based action and experimenting with combos, this one is definitely worth a look.

Works as described !
I can now use my PS5 over bluethoot and have haptic feedback + trigger force feedback. . .