Pharmakon - Tactical Puzzle

I expected so much more from this title... There was often updates, some developer streams, nice trailer + Tetris styled gameplay. But in the end its just an arcade game with very VERY basic inner parts. First of all, you dont have any real progression, you do have some skills to obtain, yet there are like 5 of them. Second, all levels are randomly generated and even if you lose, you just start from the point you died. No punishment at all. Third, the core gameplay consist from putting Tetris tiles inside a 'cube' as much as you can fit, then picking enemies for attacks while considering their elements. You know what? That system presents in EVERY rpg, strategy and most other big genres i know. Take Heroes of Might and Magic as example: you take care of units positioning, elemental stuff, turns / initiative etc. But, in Heroes this is just something you do BESIDES real gameplay. And in Pharkamon this is main core. Nothing else out there, just this. Itself game just cannot give you any...

Entertaining enough, but less strategy more puzzle style imo. Short, took 6 hours to beat and 1 was spent out to lunch. Once you realize you'll just respawn at the same point with a new fully geared drone, the game becomes nearly trivial. Still I can see this being an entertaining time killer, and I liked how the ending choice was structured.. caught me a hair off gaurd. Price is a bit on the higher side comparative to content amount, but if you tried the demo and liked it, it's not a big investment so why not get it? There is a thread in the steam forum that has a link to the demo.

I've spent ten bucks on worse things. Still, the game doesn't really seem to evolve much through its playtime and involves some (to me) counter-intuitive practices to do well in the game. The english is a bit spotty for most of the dialogue, but not as painful as some other games. The puzzle aspects are enjoyable once you get used to them and otherwise learn what the game wants you to do. All in all, I'd reccomend it on a good sale if you enjoy unusual puzzles, but not under normal circumstances for normal tastes.

The phrase "I really wanted to like this game" is getting way too bloody common in these reviews. Especially mine. I don't generally buy games I don't think I will like. Pharmakon included. It has all sorts of elements that sound really good. -> Tetris piece power ups! More components than power ups really. I remember these from one of the Kingdom Hearts games. It worked really well there. Here... not so much. There are statistical differences between the different elements but otherwise all the pieces are the same other than their shapes. In the first hour of play I have seen zero difference. -> Damage to your drone is represented by unusable squares! Seems like as good idea. Damage slowly makes it harder to use the Tetris components. Sounds good on paper but ends up being more frustrating than challenging. Given it is nearly impossible to avoid taking some damage you are constantly repairing your drone. The damage is specific to elements. So, fire damage must be re...

The idea of the game is original and intriguing. Unfortunately its execution is terrible. The game punishes players that are doing well and aids the struggling ones. This isn't sound. Furthermore the player needs to tend to a lot of repetitive mechanical tedium (repairing and putting pieces back) which gets old fast. After progressing into the higher levels I suddenly longed to solve a sudoku. Solving them at least makes me feel like I accomplished something.

Ultimately Pharmakon is a repetitive abstract tactical game. It would be nice if you could know the beasts coming up so that you could choose your powers and elements with some thought beforehand, this would enable a strategic component. But there isn't. Each level is pretty similar and I disagree with the "puzzle" tag, which suggests that there is something to figure out. There isn't. Story is text-based and slow. Sorry Pharmakon, I wanted to like you, but you're not my style. 3/10

Very limited mechanics, battles are random which can result in you getting dealt with an impossible to win situations. Luckily no penalty in death. Returning to the main menu does not save everything, so you get penalized if you leave a game. It does not save calibration nor any parts you collected at the end of a battle, thus creating artificial difficulty.

There is definitely an interesting set of ideas here, but sadly this game suffers from the same problem a lot of procedural puzzle games do and that's the whole 'unsolvable puzzle' problem. But more importantly, this game suffers from bad design and programming. Now what do I mean by that? Well when you load up an encounter against enemies you can actually quit to the title screen and then hit continue and then reload it and you will get a different encounter. That alone makes the game a gigantic let down. Also if you pick a power slot and then hit continue too quickly, you won't get the abilities you're supposed to get. So yeah...4 dollars is asking too much for a game that's poorly programmed, has a handful of middle tier bugs and also suffers from a fatal flaw in game design. There simply wasn't enough thought and effort put into this game to merit the 4 dollar asking price.

I didn't much like this game, almost refunded, but then read the developers plea about the price. I'll pick it up again later when I have more time. I'm giving it a positive review only because I think there is more to it that I have discovered and the time I did put in was very distracted time, where I really didn't give the game a full chance.

Cool Tetris companion FTL version .