Recent reviews by Anton

Gameplay-wise, this is a direct downgrade to the previous instalment. While the factions and events were expanded, the other aspects that made rebuild 1 and rebuild 2 loved by the players are gone.

+ The events are more expanded and factions alliances is much more nuanced than in rebuild 2 and you can choose who to ally and who to antagonize.

+/- Characters are now given skills attached to their initial role or a general skill. While the characters are now being bottlenecked on their initial roles, this gives more "punch" toward their specific roles. You could still have a character to be an expert on multiple roles, but now they are less effective due to the skill system.

- The turns are now in hours instead of days, so events/actions only took a few hours instead of days. In early game, this is good as you can do and reclaim a lot of territories, but later it makes the game weird and borderline annoying. You would be swamped with management and lose the simplicity that made the previous games good.

- UI was focused on the mobile version, which translates horribly to PC port. Too many clicks to access minor things (inventory management, for one). This shouldn't happen in a standalone game outside of Flash.

- And to the main reason why I really dislike the game, the art direction. Up to this day, I still don't understand why they chose this art style, it does not fit the theme that is being told in the game . The game tackles child soldiers, children's death, slavery, etc., but I can never treat them seriously because of the wacky-looking characters.

It feels like the creator chose this art solely to soften the impact of the theme, which frankly made the game feel cheap. Looking back to Rebuild 2—while you can only read the story and see minor cutscenes—you can feel the dread and bleakness of the world during the zombie apocalypse. Hell, you don't even need to look far, see the game's content/trailer and the store's thumbnail to see the disparity of the tone.

tl;dr
The game tried too hard on being "user-friendly" in aesthetics and fixed what's not broken, which is a shame—this game could've been something better.

One crucial tip I can give for this game is Be Curious . This game has a lot, and I mean really a lot, of secrets to uncover. So let's unpack what to be expected from the game.

Much of the content in the game is randomized. So every time you redo a run/re-roll the campaign or adventure, you are not guaranteed to get the same story/loot. Some of the question you'll might be:
"What world am I travelling now?"
"What scenario am I getting?"
"What's the dungeon(s) variant I'm getting now?"
"How many secrets did I miss?"

The downside of this approach is that you can't really Min-Max effectively as specific items/gears are RNG-based due to the random generation (most of them are tied to dungeons, and those dungeons are tied to specific world and their unique scenario). So you could have a certain build, say a pyro build, but it can't reach its full potential because you haven't got a specific item from this specific world.

To keep it brief, some bosses have multiple/alternate rewards, this could go from how they are killed, sequence of actions you took before fighting, etc. Some dungeons have alternate rewards as well.

However, it can be frustrating to repeat sections you done because you missed a singular thing here or there.

You have no idea how many times I finished an area and then watched a video about it only to know I missed a hidden passage or hidden interaction. Every time I watched a video by wereulv about the game's secrets, I always go "There's a secret there!?" or "How did people figure this out??". It makes discovering secrets on your own even more satisfying.

So, if you are the type to play games as straightforward as you can (move from objective A - B - C) or feels that treasure hunting is annoying, this is not the game for you. Though the game's combat is good enough, you will feel that you are missing something.

This game's enjoyment stems from the exploration and its repeatability, making new runs feels fresh while you could hotswap your classes around to see which one are more effective for your build. If you love uncovering hidden mechanics and experimenting different builds, this is one hell of a game.

If you are not from the western region and planning on buying this, do note that there are no Asian servers

With that being said, the game's pretty solid in gameplay. Visuals can be tough at times, especially when the light's out, as my friends experienced some nausea while playing the game (it's the mix of color or contrast of the overall scheme). UX is kinda weird at the start, it's not awful but could've been better

The game's concept intrigued me, but I cannot recommend this for now as it gets a bit too unbearable playing 200+ ping

I won't recommend the game if you are looking for a quick slasher type game or if you can't dedicate too much time on training the MC, because if you go past the training phase, this game is an experience. With that being said, this game is a slow burner, you'll be playing a regular farmboy who slowly becomes a knight through circumstances and choices you pick. For reference, it took me around 20~30 hours to finally be comfortable with the combat system, and another 20~40 hours to finally understood the combat system. I got so engrossed, that I used to lose sleep because of this game.

But enough about me, let's talk the good, the bad, and the gray.

(+)

• Mod Support: make your game easier, harder, or anything that floats your boat.
  
• Immersive setting: I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the environment is really beautiful.
  
• Challenging combat system: this one grew on me, a sword in your hand would not give you an advantage fighting 1v3 or more. So you need to play it a bit creative,
  
• Rewards exploration: Often times, you'll be rewarded for being curious. Stumbling to hidden stashes, ancient ruins, and even unmarked bandit camps is exciting.

(-)

• Master Strikes/perfect counter: I dislike this due to how much it pushes players to play defensive. want to do a combo? nay, get master striked and take damage. Its especially infuriating when you need to train the skill from a swordmaster but some random fisherman and woodcutter could do the same! Fortunately, there's a mod that could help with this.
  
• Optimization issues: No matter your specs is, passing the time or quick travel to a highly dense population will slow down your pc.
  
• Loading amounts: It's just annoying, there's almost a loading time for almost anything. washing your face, eat from a pot, a 5 second cutscene, etc will be followed by a loading screen.
  
• 1v1 focused combat: The game is focused on fighting a singular enemy. so when fighting multiple people, it could be confusing and really painful (I really hate fighting an enemy camp with patrol dogs). The camera makes this worse as well, as it a lock-on to enemy type thing.
  
• Guards and crimes: This is a personal gripe of mine and probably should be in the gray area, but sometimes the guard accused me of crime that I didn't commit or somehow know I did something even though it was a perfect crime.

(gray)

• Learning curve: Henry (the protag) is a blacksmith's boy, so his fighting skill at the start is absolutely horrendous. As I mentioned before, I spent quite some time to be good at the combat. For example, to dodge and to parry needs you to be fast on the draw.
  
• Bugs here and there: Some quests and interactions could be bugged here and there, such as The King's Silver , but nothing major.
  
• Save system: The save system needs you to drink Saviour Schnapps, an alcoholic drink that you need to buy or brew yourself. It's unique, but inconvenient at times.
  
• Big map: The map is quite large, travelling from one point to another is time consuming and most times boring if done without fast travel.

KCD is unique and ambitious that offers an immersive and challenging experience, even this review of mine couldn't fully grasp the greatness of KCD. It has its flaws, but if you are patient with it, it is worth it.

Short and concise fun gameplay, it will test your reaction time and decision making amidst the bullet hell (and hey, you get to kiss ghost girls! Neat). The difficulty is quite up there, but it's fun challenging yourself after every death.


hmm.. i guess my friends have a point about me being a masochist..

The amount of insults I used to my friend is probably enough to get me into a watchlist or something.

Defeated Chronos in 6.9 hours (nice). All I could say, Hades II got great atmosphere, the enemies and the music are all excellent (vampire elite from stage 3 got hands though, I have more trouble dealing with him than the others). I eagerly await the full release!

Quite proud of what I did, below are how many attempts it took for me to win the bosses.
1st Boss = 1st try
2nd boss = 1st try
3rd boss = 3rd attempt
Chronos = 2nd attempt

[ b u g ]

- Hecate's green fire move, have inconsistent hurtbox. there are time where I was clearly hitting the flame and I received 0 damage. No "dodge" text come out either.

- Cerberus' bite lunge attack warning (flashing white) have a chance to not show up.

- The blade and sickle weapon occasionally refuse to hold down for some reason? Can't charge the omega and special properly for them, more obvious after a dash. the omega targeting is also off, I hold down the lmb button, but it can't latch on the target. I only used the weapon once though, maybe it could've been fixed if I simply reload the game.

If you create a blizz account through steam, you need to do a whopping 20 quizzes of Audio questions or dice question.

Incredibly stupid.

Y'know, buddy of mine who gave me this, it's starting to tell about you than me.

I am now addicted to democracy

PSN Fallout edit:



Democratic edit: You've done well helldivers, now let's continue the long climb to liberty.