Steam Next Fest 2025.3

Wishlisted games are Marked

Any demos that I played on Linux will have text in green.

Previous Year(s)

2025.1 https://rentry.org/bjsnf2025-1

Boughted https://store.steampowered.com/app/3263480/Divine_Orders/

2025.2 https://rentry.org/bjsnf2025-2

Boughted https://store.steampowered.com/app/3758120/hololive_Holos_Hanafuda_Demo/
and https://store.steampowered.com/app/1274700/You_Alone_Can_Defeat_Evil/
and https://store.steampowered.com/app/1904480/Absolum/

List

5/5 (Left me wanting more)

Link Thoughts
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2914150/Yunyun_Syndrome_Rhythm_Psychosis/ I love Nanahira! ๐Ÿ’œ 3.4 hours as of review Not a public demo (unless you were at Tokyo Game Show) but I got into the closed beta.Demo is public now! I won't say much other than the track list has a lot of bangers and the cultural aesthetic is perfect. I was considering buying it day one but since the English translation is complete fanfiction I'm having second thoughts.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3372060/Hell_Maiden/ Portuguese Power 107 minutes Vampire Survivors but if it had actual production values (and yuri). Loosely based on Dante's Divina Commedia you do the usual VS thing of killing enemies with auto attack weapons and collecting their souls so you can level up and get stronger. Weapons are represented as a deck of cards, you can hold 4 and each can have 3 upgrades. The fact that cards can be upgraded and the positioning of the decks matters (one card for example gives adjacent cards 1 more projectile) makes this game a lot more interesting than regular brainless VS. Also the anime cutscenes when you use your spell (i.e. bomb) are really cool. Excellent production values and the music is great too, even if it sounds familiar. I beat the demo.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1947910/OPUS_Prism_Peak/ Peak Cunny 51 minutes I had been looking forward to this one for a while but I was still pleasantly surprised that it's not just a walking simulator. Taking photos is good and all but the entire thing is elevated by the journal which serves as a sort of meta puzzle that you slowly fill in throughout the game in order to figure out what letters the weird symbols stand for and what's going on. The demo pretty much spoils it with the dream sequence at the end but if the demo is anything to go by the journey will be the important part, not the destination.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2696550/Aquametsis/ Iโ€™m an ill-tempered, heavily armed heating engineer asking about your ventilation system. 102 minutes as of review I really like this one, hard to describe it without just saying "it's Thief but Splinter Cell" but that essentially what it is. You're given a rough map, a series of objectives, and then the tools (in this case, a light detector and a knife) and told to get to work. I like how the real mission is the same map as the tutorial but with more objectives and hazards/enemies rearranged. I also like how you can deploy in several different places on the map. There's no dialogue or anything so it's not an RPG like Deus Ex or CONSORTIUM (there are lots of different kinds of equipment and weapons and even PSI powers) but there's definitely a lot of immersive sim qualities like luring enemies with noises or using grenades/explosive barrels on doors, leaning around corners, mantling and vaulting and sneaking through alternate paths, etc. Definitely looking forward to this one, don't sleep on it.

4/5 (Great)

Link Thoughts
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2432860/MENACE/ I have fallen off... 2.6 hours Very tough tactical RPG from the developers of Battle Brothers, not sure if it was that tough due to being a demo and a lot of the mechanics being unavailable or if this is the intended experience. Lots of interesting customizations of your crew which makes me wonder just how many characters the full game will have. Also the demo is missing mecha which honestly seems like a big selling point. Either way it's good but as I've gotten older I've lost the patience for these kinds of games.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2753970/MARVEL_Cosmic_Invasion/ I hope they add Batman and Robin! 19 minutes I also watched a streamer play it a bunch. It's a competent beat 'em up. I really like the concept of having to pick two different characters so they can cover each others' weaknesses (Venom for example is incredibly good at anti-air, while Storm has a projectile ability good against zoners) and the tag team combos/attacks. That said it's no SoR4 and with Absolum on the horizon I can't see myself giving it the time of day anytime soon.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2878580/Key_Fairy/ Carp 33 minutes It's interesting. Mysterious world filled with mysterious creatures, you don't really know what you're doing and why, lots of nonsensical and humorous dialogue, and zooming around feels really nice. The only downside is arguably the graphics (the actual aesthetic is wonderful) which are sometimes hard to read since it's all black and white (you can swap and find more palettes thankfully, I played on Toned Down).
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2688780/Odd_Town/ Number One: In 1945, corporations paid 50% of federal taxes; now they pay about 5%. Number Two: In 1900, 90% of Americans were self employed; now it's about 2%... It's called consolidation; strengthen governments and corporations, weaken individuals. With taxes, this can be done imperceptibly over time." 22 minutes as of review Warren Spector's "one city block" realized. Set in a kind of France-like facsimile after your car's engine breaks down, you get embroiled in some schizo conspiracy so you decide to beat up dudes in suits, eat pizza, sell drugs in a street corner to afford more pizza, accidentally steal someone's tools and get beaten up and arrested by the cops at which point you game over because you had earlier broken the window jail bars from outside (causing the window to be bricked up) and decided to sleep on the bed instead of escaping through the sewers. 10/10. My main concern is how long the game will remain interesting.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3187880/The_Fable_Manga_Build_Roguelike/ Not *that* Fable 55 minutes This one genuinely surprised me. When I started the game I figured I'd just play the first map since I'm not super into roguelikes but I ended up getting into it and beating all 3 maps. I really like what they did here with the puzzle fighting and having manga panels as moves, planning the entire round (page) as an actual manga page read from top right to bottom left, damage limiting your options for the page but being able to be fixed for free and healing after every page, being able to see the map for the entire run, picking routes, the minigames interspersed. I have no idea what Fable is, and honestly I feel like this same design could be done with almost any other action manga, but kudos to whomever came up with the idea.

3/5 (Good but flawed)

Link Thoughts
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2879980/ZAKO_NO_AHIRU/ ARE YOU CEREAL? 4 minutes 2.13GB for 4 minutes of playtime is a bit ridiculous but whatever. It's essentially 'Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy' but you have a mesugaki taunting you and calling you a loser. She does reward you with some nice ASMR when you do beat the tutorial though which is nice. I'm not sure how the full game will hold up if it's split into stages and needing to stop to look at the subtitles if one doesn't understand ๆ—ฅๆœฌ่ชž.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3524760/AMNYAM_Demo/ Jyamp King 9 minutes Jump King but it's a cat girl who wants to become God. Rather than jumping you aim your mouse and click to boost towards floating orbs that are either stationary or moving in a cycle, you can use mana-draining abilities to help you overcome certain obstacles like an air jump or a spin attack. I think it looks great and the music is pleasant but after a couple of times of miss-clicking an orb and losing a ton of progress I can safely say this game isn't for me personally.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3756520/PIXEL_DASH_Toast_of_Destiny/ Am I kawaii? Uguu~ 5 minutes Auto-scrolling side-scroller. Good art and pleasant music, feels a bit like a puzzle game where you figure out when you have to press jump/dodge rather than a platformer. That's probably why the game is at its hardest when there are obstacles but no stars, since the stars signpost where you have to be at what point. A single stage took me 5 minutes to beat but it does have a score system that penalizes you on retries, so even if there's only a couple of levels in the full game I could see replaying them to get a better rank or perfect score.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3820390/Touhou_Iyuushou__What_the_Bullet_Hell/ Glory to the CCP 18 minutes Impossible Spell Card is my personal favorite of ZUN's output, it removes the boring stages and puts the entire focus on the spell cards and how to beat them. While this forgoes Seija for Marisa the concept is very similar, do your best to stay alive using tools or pure gamer skill to do so. Of course this has a lot of improvements over ISC, including difficulty selection, a "boss rush" mode where all of the day's bosses appear in sequence, and (in the full game) building your own challenge runs and daily challenges. Unfortunately by forgoing Seija the game also gets rid of all of the interesting items she could use to avoid bullets. Ultimately it will depend on how good the spell cards in the full game are.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2158550/BIRDCAGE/ Pilot? PILOOOOOOOT! 16 minutes Decent enough shmup, borrowing a lot of its aesthetic from MGS1 (UI, codec calls). The level design is more interesting than the average Touhou slop but the bosses aren't particularly interesting. I like the existence stage hazards even though some of them don't make any contextual sense (why are there round lasers with an opening and why do they spin when you shoot them?) although they're not as interesting as Radiant Silvergun's or Ikaruga's.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2702300/THRASHER/ Thrasher? I hardly know 'er! 14 minutes I'm a big fan of their previous game, Thumper, to the point I even S+ ranked a bunch of the stages. That said, the controls for this game feel very finicky. The game was designed with VR in mind so playing with a controller feels less than ideal. It asks you to be very precise with how you angle your left stick in order to break/dodge objectives and enemies but if you're even slightly off angle it throws the whole thing off, this is most apparent in level 2 where you have to go in a straight line for long distances or else you don't get the objective. A skip from me, unfortunately.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3757210/Agreeee/ ใใ‚Œใงๅˆๆ„ใ™ใ‚‹ใฎใฏใฉใ†ใงใ™ใ‹๏ผŸ 12 minutes In order to play this game you have to accept the terms and conditions, but there are 12 of them and each requires you to beat a minigame in order to click the Accept button. If you fail to press the Accept button in time (or press the Decline button) you are forced to do them all over again. There's a good variety of minigames and the difficulty escalates nicely despite them being presented in random order. As it is the game is too simplistic to be worth a purchase unless it's very cheap or adds a lot more to it.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3503810/TERRORtypeALCHEMY/ Aam Yok Taar 23 minutes I wish I could've played more but unfortunately it crashed and there's no save/checkpoint system and I didn't want to start over to possibly have it crash again. I probably shouldn't even be rating this game but from what I experienced (and then watched on YouTube) this game is pretty interesting. Janky as all hell, but interesting. I do like the alchemy crafting with the Arx Fatalis style drawing and throwing bombs and shit, but I do wish the inventory was bound to Tab and not I since you generally want to keep your right hand on the mouse and your left hand on WASD. Oh and climbing up ledges is too fucking slow. Extra points for the biblically accurate angel though.

2/5 (Mid)

Link Thoughts
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3712860/Wonder_of_Blue/ I just Aliced myself 40 minutes Too hard for me, even on Casual. There don't seem to be too many ways to recover HP so it's easy to get whittled down before even reaching the first boss; also MP recovery is a mystery to me so I am unsure whether it can be abused or not. The dungeon/level design isn't particularly exciting and I got stuck on doors multiple times (and one time it didn't screen transition) but otherwise I don't have any complaints, the combat itself is decent and the art and music are nice.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3264850/That_Time_I_Got_Reincarnated_as_a_Demon_Hand/ This is the only SFW image on the Steam page 29 minutes Vampire Survivors but horny. I do like controlling my character with the mouse and slapping anime babes but having to avoid so many AoEs puts a damper on going all out slapping without taking damage, ironically going summons and just sitting in the corners avoiding enemies seems like the best way to play even if not the most efficient. Also not sure if it's a Unity or Proton issue but it boosted my CPU to max and ran really really hot.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3508910/Abyss_Kitchen/ There are no kitchens in this demo 12 minutes It's okay, I guess. An auto-scroller where you collect materials, you seldom dodge bullets and rarely shoot enemies. The food art is really nice but the lack of an actual cooking minigame was disappointing; I came away from the entire thing feeling like the game basically played itself.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2885530/MeowPowerYachiyo/ The most powerful pussy 14 minutes I wish I could score this higher, and after playing two other beat 'em ups that are much worse I could certainly justify it, but I don't think I could recommend it unless you're a genre purist who's played everything else. I do like the cat power move that changes depending on distance and whether you're in the air, but I don't like that it's bound to the same button as siccing the cats on an enemy. The stage design was decent (definitely a lot better than the other two below, although I don't appreciate my combo being broken due to a tutorial) and the time attack mode after beating the first level of the demo was pretty fun but you can't base a whole game around it.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3411060/Broomstick_Exorcist/ I'd let her broom my stick if youknowwhatI'msaying 8 minutes Good animations and feels responsive to play. I like the estus healing system and having multiple abilities bound to LT+face buttons, there's regular attacks and a heavy attack that can be charged up too. Enemies are varied and there's other hazards as well, and despite the monochrome art style things do pop out (except the ghost lady that I assume purposely goes grey). I guess my the only complaint I have is that the game is too straightforward; you go from left to right and beat things up and you're done, there's no stage design at all, no platforming, no obstacles (just hazards) and since there's no Z axis it feels very linear.

1/5 (Bad)

Link Thoughts
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3756910/Cat_Girl_Survivor_2__Beyond_The_Veil/ I don't want to know what Cat Girl Survivor 1 was like 17 minutes The only good things about this game are the player character designs and animations, everything else is pretty bad. Stages are super linear go to the right, enemies have basically 0 variety other than the dragons that throw projectiles at you and shit is just randomly strewn about in chests for no reason. Balance seems not great either considering the Taoist has a X X Y spam into Rb attack string that deals a ton of damage and melts bosses while Y hold Y crowd controls the entire screen; speaking of which the boss fight was alright since you can parry with Y and requires dodging (and i-frame dodging is very contentious in a beat 'em up).
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2369580/Mad_King_Redemption/ There isn't anything that can redeem this game in its current state 9 minutes For a 2D beat 'em up with lo-fi graphics (even if they're 3D) this game runs like ass. I assume they're lazily using some kind of real-time lighting and it tanks the performance to shit. On top of that the game only has one attack string, why? The other attacks are throwing weapon (limited charges), character ability (on a cooldown, yuck) and special ability (picked at the start of the run and costs health). I guess each of your other attacks having a different limiting factor is interesting but at least add a heavy attack or something. The stage design was pretty decent, having obstacles and holes that needed to be jumped over and whatnot but the enemies are... unfathomable. They move incredibly fast towards you but then take their sweet time attacking, which means you can't really use the block since you don't know when the attack is coming (the animation is arguably too fast to do it on reaction). I did like attacking projectiles to reflect them, but I didn't like that projectiles were shot directly at you even at a diagonal meaning you have to dodge both sideways and down/upwards rather than just up/down as is convention.

Need to review:

Looking forward to:

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Pub: 04 Oct 2025 16:37 UTC

Edit: 18 Oct 2025 18:00 UTC

Views: 265