Recent reviews by Dapper Raptor

Well, I just finished Moons of Madness in a single sitting. At about 4-5 hours, the length is nice for this sort of game IMO. As for the game... that on the other hand is a little more complicated to rate...

I enjoyed MoM a lot, and I don't regret the purchase. But it did fall flat in a few areas for me. Obviously I don't want to spoil anything so I won't talk about anything specific to the story, but there are definitely a few points where your character shifts from fairly intense moments of panic to very casual and almost cheerful soliloquy. The issue is that they are very jarring tonal shifts, because there's no passing of time between these moments, your character literally goes from gasping for air and fear of dying induced panic to jovially talking about his childhood within seconds. It really hurts the overall pacing for me. I also feel like the narrative beats were a little too telegraphed, and there weren't really too many surprises.

Overall, my biggest issue is that while there is a lot of Lovecraftian themes and notes that are very successfully incorporated into the game, they are a little at odds with the character and his actions, and it ends up feeling a bit like two different games were smashed together and sometimes that works, and at other points it feels very inconsistent.

I think if you are someone who likes to eat up any Lovecraft inspired works, you'll probably have a pleasant time here. Likewise if you are just looking for a nice horror story, you could do a lot worse (some of the jump scares in this were incredibly well timed). But if you aren't sold very heavily from the trailers, I'd wait for a sale.

EDIT: Just wanted to add on that the level design in MoM is, for the most part, incredibly well done. This is true also of the artistic direction. I personally found the music to be somewhat forgettable but that is obviously going to vary quite a lot from person to person.

Lets get this out of the way - lets address the disparity between the alpha and the current game and then look at the game on its own merits... Overall TLDR at the end for those interested.


COMPARISON TO ALPHA:
A lot of changes have happened since the alpha was released 6 years ago. This should have been obvious and expected to everyone - the developer even clearly stated as much in his infrequent updates. But what do the changes mean?

The alpha of Cube World was a much more standard RPG formula. You grinded mobs for XP, which let you put points into a skill tree and level up. This is pretty normal, and there's a reason it has become the standard - it works. Its rewarding and enjoyable, and there's always a clear path for progression. It makes a game more accessible and for many, more enjoyable.

The 2019 release of Cube World completely abandoned this structure in favour of a more unique one that has players essentially abandoning most of their gear each time they move to a new region and making only small incremental skill progression over time. Whats more, the skill progression, at launch at least, is tied to fairly passive stats such as mount riding speed, swimming speed, lamp radius and hang glider speed.

The change is seen, by many, to be quite reductive and something that penalises exploration. Detractors claim that they never want to leave their initial spawn biome, due to the fact that their gear becomes useless. Those who enjoy the system see it another way, enjoying the push to "clear" a region entirely before moving on. Which camp you are in is going to be very much dependent on the sort of player you are, and realistically neither side are "right" - they are simply different playstyles.

In terms of longer term progression (the incremental passive skill upgrades) - as you explore a zone, doing location-based quests and such, you will have NPCs talk of artifacts, or find locations of artifacts in other ways, that will do this. Artifacts give your character these passive skill upgrades, as well as "level up" your character. In truth, levelling up seems to be merely a numbers thing, as it does not appear to have any real impact on your player (obviously the passive skill upgrade does) and is just simply a way for you to track how many times you have got an artifact.

Regarding gear - yes most of your gear is almost useless (becomes super low level) when you cross the border into a new region. Not just your armour and weapons, but also your transport gear (boat, hang glider, climbing spikes, etc.). This is a little jarring and there's not really any in-game explanation for it (such as it being tied to a magical power source in each region or anything like that). It just happens. Again - whether this bothers you or not is going to vary from person to person, but its definitely something you should be aware of. You can get special "+" gear (ie. a sword called "sword of killing +" ) that will allow you to use it in adjacent zones, but the transport gear will never carry over (at least not as far as anyone has found yet). This essentially forces you to start over every zone, with a minor passive skill upgrade, or maybe a few bits of gear. At the time of writing, no one has found a way to reliably find + gear, and it appears to just be a low percentage RNG drop (can also sometimes be crafted or bought in the towns).

So what have the changes done? Realistically, they've taken a exploration RPG with wide appeal to the gaming community due to recognisable systems and turned it into an exploration RPG that appeals to a specific crowd. Its not a bad game, but I would argue that its a different type of game now than it was in alpha. Understandably, a lot of people are upset about this. But in contrast a lot of people are also enjoying the new system.


THE GAME ON ITS OWN MERITS:

So if you are just hearing about Cube World... what is it? Its a voxel-based exploration ARPG where you go from location to location, killing enemies and engaging in a few other simplistic systems to acquire specific gear, as well as armour and weapons.

On paper, the game is really very simple - there's 4 main classes, each with 2 sub classes, and they break down as you would expect (warrior, mage, rogue and ranger). Each character has a few attacks and some movement abilities to break it up, and while the classes do play fairly differently, the simplistic nature of the game means that you can fairly easily find a groove in whatever playstyle you choose and make it work. You will be dodgy attacks, attacking enemies, running away and hiding to heal, etc. All the good things you've come to expect from exploration RPGs.

The goal of the game is to go from region to region, exploring each region quite exhaustively, acquiring gear to make that process easier, and getting better gear. Once you are ready to move on, you will have to do it all over again in the next region. The ultimate goal, if you are looking for one, is to acquire powerful artifacts that give your character some passive skill buffs that become permanent. There are quests, but these essentially boil down to "npc x tells you that item y is at location z" and you go to that location, kill the bad guys and profit.

The game is incredibly simple - but that's not to say its a bad thing. A lot of us have poured hours and hours into the alpha, as well as the pre-release beta, and thoroughly enjoyed the game. But is important to go into the game not expecting an over-arching narrative-driven experience - this is simple exploratory fun. There is no real puzzles or complex systems at play here - its akin to traditional MMOs where the enjoyment is simply in doing things over and over.

I do wish that perhaps you could buy a map showing all locations in a region (make it very expensive) and that maybe artifact buffs were a little more meaningful (attack power, health, etc. not just glider speed and so on), but I am excited to see where the devs take the game. Even if it were to receive no more content, I've gotten more than my money out of the beta already (and that's not to mention all the time I put into the alpha).


TLDR; Cube World is great fun. But its not a game that is going to satisfy everyone. If you want a more traditional RPG experience, whether that be a narrative or loot driven one, you might be better looking elsewhere. If you simply enjoy exploring and whacking bad guys - maybe give the game a go. I'm hoping that the developer expands upon the base game and maybe diversifies progression and activities a bit, but it is a solid title that deserves recognition IMO. Your mileage may vary. :)

I actually hate tower defense as a genre... but I love factory building games. And for some reason that fixes the whole tower defense part. Apparently theres a mobile version of the game, and a few of the controls kinda make it feel a little like a mobile game at times, but especially given its price, its a good time. Looking forward to stressing over the later levels!

Easily one of the most stylish and sleek shooters I've ever played. Enjoyed it thoroughly - completing it in a single sitting with a grin from ear to ear through the entire thing. Easy recommendation!

I've never really been a fan of games that limit you to sniping. I enjoy sniping and playing as a sniper, but usually I get a little bored of JUST sniping. That is, until I played the first Nazi Zombie Army game (which was later remastered and made part of the Zombie Army Trilogy).

ZAT is a hilariously pulpy game, with incredibly well designed mechanics and gameflow. Sniping feels amazing in this and even with the difficulty ramped up to maximum, it never feels unfair. I am sad that the trilogy seems to conclude in a story "ending" because I would love to see more of these games - but I will continue to replay the trilogy many times over and over again!

Borderlands has always been one of my favourite franchises ever since I first played it, and Borderlands 1 still remainds, to this day, my favourite entry in the series. This enhanced edition of the GOTY release is great in a number of ways - adding a mini map, a slightly less clunky inventory, and a new coat of paint. However there's also a lot of issues - this release seems to have a LOT more bugs than the original, players get caught on world collision a lot more, and the progression of the game can be straight up broken using the golden keys on the chest (due to the fact that the game simply wasn't built with them in mind, so the guns you get from them are almost always more powerful than ANYTHING you get from just playing).

I'm still going to give this a thumbs up, because - at the end of the day its a great time. But if you don't mind a game looking a little more dated and can deal without some quality of life features such as a minimap, I do think you would have a better time playing the original version of the game (I started my current playthrough on there, the day before the enhanced edition dropped and it definitely has less bugs in my experience).

I was relatively new to the Monster Hunter franchise, having only dabbled in a single PSP title back in the day when that platform was relevant. I would have had, maybe, 8 hours in that title, and it was so long ago that it was basically meaningless.

After all the hype MH:W received on console, and already being interested in a full PC release of the franchise, I ended up pre-ordering the game. Upon launch I jumped in and enjoyed it quite a bit, but I tired of it quickly. There were a number of server issues at launch, and even when you were playing solo you would constantly get popups telling you the servers had disconnected.

Beyond that, the game is incredibly overwhelming to a newcomer - there are so many hidden systems and mechanics that just aren't explained in the way a "normal" modern title explains them. This is usually something I love, but the menu system in MH:W is a little cumbersome, and between that and the constant disconnect errors, I just gave up after about 20 hours of playtime.

A few months later, after several patches, I picked up the game again and started a new character - this time playing with a friend. The disconnect errors were gone, I had done a little research on how the games' systems worked, and I had someone else going on the journey with me. These things made all the difference and I fell in love with Monster Hunter. I still haven't gotten nearly as many hours in the game as I want to - but that's more due to my friends' schedules and wanting to progress together.

There's still some annoying things - you can't start a story quest with your co-op partner/s... you have to start it and progress to a certain point (because apparently watching cut-scenes together is something Capcom just couldn't work out?). The menu system is still very cumbersome and feels straight out of early JRPGs. But once you start to understand the sheer depth in the game and how all of the various systems work, all of that kind of fades away.

Monster Hunter World (and I imagine the rest of the franchise) is unlike anything else I've played - you feel incredibly powerful, but also so damn vulnerable. I'm looking forward to the DLC later this year, but I can see hundreds of hours of content already waiting for me in the base game. Definitely a good purchase, and one I shall continue to play for quite some time!

Snakeybus is a blast. Its a pretty novel idea that is executed very well. Combine crazy taxi and snake and you got yourself a snakeybus!

At the moment content feels a little light, but its also a very cheap game so I think that the amount of content on offer sits well with the price for sure. Read the blurb, watch the trailer - if it looks like your sorta game, you'll have fun. If you are the sort of person who needs direction on how to play a game and that, then you might be better off looking elsewhere, as a lot of the fun here comes from just trying to beat your own high score and such.

Amazing game. Shame its only on Steam and not on the Epic Games Store though. Would be even better then!

Honestly... I don't even know how to express how well Hopoo managed to take Risk of Rain (the first game) and translate it into 3D. This is an amazing base and already has more than enough content to keep you happy for hours and hours. I can't wait to see what they add to it. Easy recommendation.