Recent reviews by Critical Manatee

I just had to leave a review for this game and to be fair the this game plain and simply. IS a good game, you will definitely get your money's worth.
if you compare it to the first mount and blade it is a lot more empty, and unfinished (by comparison) a lot of great features from the first game did not seem to make it to this one? (why?)
BUT it is still a GREAT game. on it's own. with no mods.

MODS however, take this game to the next level- with the right mods this is quite literally GOTY, possibly every year. the modding community is carrying this game on it's back while TaleWorlds profits off their efforts. EVEN WITH ALL THE BAD POINTS, this game with or without mods- is very fun.
--story takes an inconvenient amount of time to actually get going? easily fixed with mods
--repetitive boring side quests? mods
--stupid ai doing stupid ai ♥♥♥♥ like sieging towns while the cities burn? mods
--unrewarding level ups and bland equiptment? mods
--♥♥♥♥♥♥ economies? mods

if youve never played this game before i recommend you get it- you can easily squeeze 100-200 hours off the vanilla experience while still having great fun- however when you are ready check out the workshop and prepare to fall in love with gaming all over again

and with the boat expansion coming soon, who knows how great this amazing game will be.

once again... Team17 pulls off a classic Team17 move. which is abandoning their games. this is not the first time they have done this, given their history and the way they treat their own games i am compelled to believe team17 is a group of malicious devs in an office building somewhere with the explicit plans to make a game, work on it for a bit, and then when sales slow down drop it like a hot potato and do it again.
it's absolutely sad though, this is a GREAT game, GREAT ideas, but it's clearly unfinished. and severely broken. some of the promised features aren't even implemented!
these guys genuinely deserve to be banned from the platform

this game is very good, i highly recommend it. every update just plain outright makes it much better.

I do not recommend this game.
Does it have potential? yes.
is it fun? sometimes.
is this game ready? no.

this is a case of an early access game with a lot of promise being put out a little too soon, from what i've played it can be much more but falls flat on the case than the game is extremely inconvenient. the saving being an obvious and very important issue, there is no need for this type of saving anymore "save points" aren't a common thing anymore. but this goes the distance by making you come back to bed to save any progress, it's very tedious.

the game claims to be difficult, but it's simply a lot of stat checking and the "no hand holding" is taken to the extreme because you get genuinely very little direction almost to a sandbox level.

with more work though, this can be a great game. Buy it if you want to support the Devs, but you have been warned.

This is a good game, and honestly i originally felt bad not recommending it but because it had some serious issues i had to. Thankfully the Developers stepped up and addressed the most serious concerns so now i will gladly change my opinion from not recommended to recommended!

What i consider important in all games is the "did you have fun?" and "was it worth it? factors" And the answer to those questions are both yes!

First let's start with the good. Crying sun has a good "promise" of a story, and it has somewhat entertaining dialogue. The story is good enough to drag you into actually wanting to finish the sectors just to learn the conclusions.

Secondly if you even remotely enjoyed Faster than Light you are going to like this game since it is similar in some aspects. Namely the upgrade system and space travel system, it also sports a "similar" decision making process. I would go as far as to say that the FTL formula is improved by Crying suns thanks to the way battles are conducted.

Lastly the combat is actually fun, at times i actually went into fights just to use my ships and blow people up. However i still felt that combat was a something of a missed opportunity here because of it's overly simplistic rock,paper,scissors design.

Now for the bad, and there are still some issues with this game that hinder the "fun" factor, hopefully the dev team reads these again and decides to implement some more changes. Namely the issue with how "useless" hull upgrades are, ship weapon balance as MOST weapons are much pretty much worthless/situational compared to alternatives, officer powers ranging from pretty useful to completely worthless, the rock paper scissors system dominance where 1 ship superior squadron vs 2 countered squadrons actually wins i personally think it is silly. Also even after the update the ships don't stand out much vs each other and amassing squadrons is still the most optimal strategy therefore making the first ship arguably the best and most optimal choice.

Thankfully the team fixed the repetitive events which were a HUGE problem on release, so at the very least thank you it is good to have active devs taking care of their games.

first while the story is engrossing, the writing is still terrible. Although entertaining in it's own way it is hard to differentiate between when the interactions are joking and when serious events are unfolding. Also the story itself while good has some serious flaws/plot holes but that's more of a personal issue since it's good enough of a story to keep you drawn in.

secondly, The game balance still needs some tuning since the only real threat to the player is genuine resource management because combat wise the AI needs to get it's bolts together namely when it just has ships laying around doing nothing or sending disadvantaged ships into battle with their counters WHILE having the option and ability to use better ships.

Lastly This game is not a true "rogue-lite", it is still not as enjoyable on the replay, and aside from the story and SOMETIMES being geared for combat the game can genuinely get boring especially IF YOU DONT LIKE TO READ. Honestly this is more of a interactive story where you occasionally fight than an actual game.

Crying Suns IS a "Good" game and i recommend playing it if not buying it. BUT It is frustrating because this game could be so much better but falls short of greatness.

There is "something" missing in Crying Suns that Faster Than Light has, i honestly don't know what but i can sit down and play a few rounds of FTL and genuinely enjoy/become frustrated at. I can't say the same for Crying Suns, maybe because the whole appeal to this game is the story and once you "finish" the game you basically know everything. Or maybe it is all the reading, but one thing is for sure.

Crying Suns is a good game you should at least play once.

Honestly this game is not worth 11.99.
It IS a decent side scrolling spaceship shooter, sound is mediocre, design is boring and the story is weak.

compare this game to R-Type, Gradius, or even Darius and it doesn't hold a candle.
I mean if this game is your thing, and you enjoy the genre by all means go for it. Keep in mind that there are much nicer modern side scrolling space shooters now which are better choices.

I absolutely love this game.
a solid platformer, cute music, nice difficulty curve, collectibles, humor.
a solid game!

too bad you CANNOT play this by yourself.
so for all of you people who have no friends willing to sit down and play as a goat trying to cross perilous bridges, too bad my friend. You cannot play.

*edit* as Rockocalypse mentioend you CAN play this by yourself if you map the controls correctly, however it makes the game very challenging!

for my video review check out.
https://youtu.be/SjJv3vu45CI

For a video of my review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bMTK75Fomc


Honestly only recommending this game because of the price.
But otherwise i would give it a solid NO.

It isnt a bad game but also not a good game, which to me is a bit unfortunate because the game had potential.
The story is silly, the graphics are disjointed? bad? confusing? i dont even know what to describe the graphics as.
The level design is bland, and the fodder enemies are boring.
I know this sounds bad but trust me ,it could have been much worse.

the whole game feels like a beta version of a great idea... much potential and it just falls short in every way.

however it does have its good points and it really isn't a terrible game.

Duelyst is a fun game, very strategic and much more deep than the more popular Hearthstone.
This game falls under the format of "action card game" in which it is not a real card game, but rather you build decks with creatures, spells and artifacts which you can use in a battlefield to defeat your opponent.

The cards are varied, the generals are each unique, and the match diversity is very high.

Even if every opponent you ran into opponent used the same deck, same general and drew the same cards as you, each match would play out differently. This is mainly due to the combat grid, positioning and hand recycling which essentially eliminates mirror matches.

My favorite aspect of Duelyst is the card animations, and card feel. Each spell and each creature is animated while in card form with a preview of the attack animation making the game pretty cool to watch. However this is also a gripe, because while they show they can animate every creature, spells are only animated in your hand. when you play them they are not animated nearly as much as the card.

Yet like all games Duelyst has some serious flaws, the main one is more of a professional one, the player base. There are not that many players which is unfortunante because this is a great game. The second one is the Lore and Fluff.

The lore in this game is good if you seek it out and force yourself to read it, which can be a very dry read.
and then the fluff, very few cards in this game have any fluff, aka flavor text.
Those who do have terrible flavor text.

Personally i enjoy flavor text on cards because i feel it gives them a little bit of soul.

all in all this is a great game, you should try it if you enjoy strategies and card games.

here is a video of my review
https://youtu.be/dRkxPEHRobg

Interesting game, even more interesting to play with friends.
ill be completely honest here but if you enjoy story telling and not putting in any effort this is a fun game for you and pals
it has nice touches if you bother exploring the events which are limited but memorable
it had potential to be much better than what it currently is but it is an acceptable game
if you can spare a dollar or three for a small amount of entertainment and intrigue then go for it.

i put 70 minutes into this game and honestly that is MORE than enough.
i "bought" this game in one of those humble bundles and i am not disapointed NOR am i suprised.

all in all i recommend it to people who enjoy stories and consequences
i do not recommend it to people that enjoy any sort of action at all ( there is none)
i wish there was a neutral option for recommendation but its not a "bad" game although it is neither a "good" game.

Defaulted to Recommended because ive had worse.