Recent reviews by scarecrow

i want to be columnist in a game and now i can be

good game

Ladies and Gentlemen - THIS is how you remaster a game.

Every single aspect of the game has been improved.
- Official ranked mode (with map bans and reasonable map pool)
- Dedicated multiplayer servers
- Quality of life changes
- AI improvements (for singleplayer lovers)
- Campaign remaster
- New expansion with new civs and new campaigns
- Improved graphics
- Well thought-out steam achievments
- More tools for scenario editing
- In-game mod support
- Game balancing
- Bug fixes
- Cross-play with countries where steam is not available
- Reasonable pricing
And so much more!

The two downsides with the new game:
- Lower fps for people with toaster PC:s
- New graphics makes differentiating units and buildings a bit harder

The downsides are minor though. I would expect people to get 60 fps easily in a game like this and you can get used to the graphics. If you are a fan of Age of Empires 2 you should definately buy this game. If you are considering between this game and AoE2:HD, buy this. Singeplayer is better in this game and multiplayer as well. This has all features and more

Good game but buggy mess

Thronebreaker: The Witcher tales expands the videogame lore a bit further. It's an interesting story, with some clever encounters/gameplay. There is real weight to the decisions that you make, although some less than others. The artstyle is remarkable. The voice acting is superb. The music is good, but doesn't compare to the Witcher 3 music.

The worse parts of the game is walking around and collecting gold/wood. Another point of criticism is that a lot of the encounters just feel like filler content. This game could easily stand its own with fewer encounters and more user friendliness when controlling Meve: faster gathering, faster movement for instance. The game is more enjoyable if you enjoy the gameplay mechanics of Gwent as well.

7/10

+ Great atmosphere, very calming.

- Everything else

Don't buy!

This classic 2003 platformer holds up incredibly well to this day. It's a very enjoyable experience with fun humor and decent gameplay. I'm happy it's ported to PC and also supports controllers. An enjoyable experience, especially for completionists.

The top scores and times in races/stuff are filled with cheaters though, which is very annoying.

WARNING: For those playing in the new hardcore mode, be careful in the temple run! The giant beetle is a one hit kill, and also you need to jump OVER the pit at the end! This advice hopefully saved someone a couple of hours.

Pit People is a good game. I really did enjoy everything about it when I first started playing it.

QUICK SUMMARY:
When it comes to the plot and the writing, the game is clearly not trying to take itself seriously. This is one of the strenghts of the game: It's silly and absurd, similar to that of Borderlands 2. The artstyle and the voice acting of the game, definately adds to the silly nature of the experience, and it skillfully made. The gameplay, while not perfect, is still polished and good.

IN DEPTH CRITICISM:

The game itself mostly consists of turn-based and positionally based combat wherein you recuit different types of warriors and races, and equip them with gear that you can also collect. All with their weaknesses and strenghts. The biggest criticism I have for the game, is honestly that some types units are just too weak while others are too strong, and that some weapons are just... straight upgrades. I do appreciate how most weapons are just sidegrades though, but in the long run you realise that having a lot of armor is USUALLY better than having higher attack. The gameplay style that annoys me the most is the team that has a lot of mortar humans, or unicorns, and they all sit in the back trying to attack your units. The most efficient way to counter this is usually to rush them down, but very often they will still end up killing one or two of your characters. The level-up mechanic is a welcome addition to the game as it makes it possible to beat, but it also makes many battles far too easy. One of the reasons why I think it has been implemented is that they sometimes swarm you with many more units than your own lineup can hold. Sometimes in the wild you may encounter teams that consist of 8 character slots, while you only have 6. If you didn't regain your health through the level-up mechanic many of these fights would be too difficult. I feel like there must be a sweet spot must be there in between.

The world map as a mechanic first got me really confused. I thought that it was randomly generated, as every couple of runs you did into the wild you got put into a completely new place. But as time went on I slowly understood that, the map is just switching between a couple of presets. This is completely fine but a new player has no way to understand this, if they're not paying enough attention. Chances are they are going to be more interested in the scenery, the art, quests, dodging the enemies rather than comparing the world map across several hours of gameplay. There is also a fog of war mechanic each time you get put into the map, which is also part of the confusion. If I have been in a location in a specific world map 10 times, why doesn't the game reflect it? Once we've been in a place it's a given that we should be able to see it more clearly, and enjoy how the game looks instead of looking at ugly gray clouds.

As for the story quests, I won't spoil anything. The final couple of quests, that were added in the full release, were also very good but in some ways they seemed rushed. Especially the cutscenes. If you compare the cutscenes early on in the game and the ones in the final quest, you would think you are playing a beta version of the game still. They clearly rushed things in order to finish it up for the official release date: Which is something I can understand, especially for an indie studio, so I am more forgiving than some people.

Multiplayer is great fun, you can co-op the story mode or play against random people online. The one thing missing in it though, is to see how many other people are online OR searching for a PVP opponent. I waited an hour several times only to find nobody else was searching. Maybe include a link to a steam group, or discord, so you can find someone to play against? Something that also isn't made clear either is wether or not your fighter's level matters at all in PVP.

A game of a buggy nature, enjoyable gameplay and a good storyline. The more you are willing to look past some of the lack of polish, it becomes a very enjoyable RPG. The first thing that really struck me is that clothes, armor, and humans clip through one another, even in cutscenes. It made me really upset at first, and rightfully so; That the immersion was not great enough. Imagine entire hands sticking through plate armour, clothes of magical materials clipping through body parts et cetera.

Several quests are partially bugged, and you sometimes need to go back in order to play them properly.
The ending is bugged (although I heard you need DLC to properly complete the prologue quest for some reason).
Several times I was unable to do a task, and I required a restart in order to be able to do it properly (for instance attacking, equipping arrows, alchemy etc).

There is a rich gameplay experience, and the game doesn't hold your hand. The first time you perform a task you have absolutely no idea of how to do it. Sometimes you miss out on a tutorial on things that are fairly important only to rediscover how to do them later on in the game. It's really a shame that they don't have a "failsafe" if you mind, for instance a quest to do tutorials on skills, etc. Leveling system is fine as it is... Your choices matter since you can't undo them. The combat also really grows on you.

Story wise it's all-right, mostly good. I like how you are not expected to be a superhuman that can do everything (although in some respects you are definately highly skilled compared to everyone else, which can be a bit unrealistic too). A comparison can be made to Elder Scrolls V Skyrim, where you are instantly treated as a god from one of the first quests. Here you're just a blacksmith's son.

This game is good, however, you realise how it's not fully polished when you play.

GUNPLAY

First runthrough is great, most weapons can be used etc.

But when you play it in True Vault Hunter Mode, a huge chunk of the weapons is useless. In Ultimate Vault Hunter mode most weapons are trash, and this is where you notice that several characters need very specific gear to perform well. In the overpowered levels (with DLCs), you HAVE TO farm legendaries, or get really lucky with the purples to get a good loadout. So many guns are useless, a lot of skills in the skill tree is ♥♥♥♥ and cannot be used in any universe.

STORY/QUESTS

Story is pretty good, characters are well written for the most part. In the main game, you can easily get overwhelmed by sidequests, and a lot of them are frankly just "Go to A. Fetch X. Go to B. Fetch Y. Go to C. Fetch Z. Go to A." with the occational boss in between. You really notice this pattern once you've played through the main game a couple of times. There are some missions that are really good and interesting, but some are just annoying. During some parts of quests you also have no idea what to do because the game isn't clear enough. Some quests are clearly there for the meme and others try to be serious and fail.

DLCs:

These three DLC's are extremely boring and feel forced.
- Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty
- Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage
- Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt
I pretty much only play these if I need an item that can be dropped in them.

This DLC redeemes the others slightly:
- Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep

The level cap increases and the OP level dlc are pretty fun though. The Headhunter missions are often better than the three bad DLCs, which is a plus, I guess.

SECRETS/COMPLETIONIST STUFF
Finishing every quest is annoying and is not rewarding. It feels like a chore. There are also "Badass Ranks" which are kinda cool I guess, BUT there are some that clearly were added last minute, who don't add anything interesting at all.

Examples of these ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ones are "Find three hidden vault symbols in area X" or "Explore every location in area Y"

CLASSES/BALANCE
Interesting abilities, ♥♥♥♥ balance.
In higher playthroughs vehicles are trash due to not scaling along with everything else.
Barrels do a million damage to yourself in OP levels.

CONCLUSION
This review may seem negative but it's honestly a good gaming experience, it's only after you spend more time with it when you realise all of its flaws and a lot of them are fundimental and not fixed due to lack of polish.