Recent reviews by Syth

Need more balancing. They did a balance pass but that doesn't really help the new player experience. The enemy AI might play poorly but their stacked decks and premade starts ensure they can be insanely overpowered (unlike your deck the AI's is not randomized on first play, they get their cards put in an order the devs want to give them an edge).

You get nothing for a failed run even if you make it to the final boss, which is another downside. So no progression unless your entire multihour run is successful. And unlike rougelikes there is very little knowledge to be gained, learning about card that are bad and good helps, and knowing what bosses decks are could be of limited use....but the random nature of the chips and cards means you can't actually build towards anything concretely like in rougelikes.

Overall this system should be a rougelite instead off rougelike given its RNG based nature and limited ability to make use of player knowledge.

Also the AI being able to burn/steal cards after you stand is not a very fun mechanic, yes you can do it too, but the AI gets decks tailored to do this, and you need an insane amount of RNG to get half as good a deck to perform it as the AI.

As a brand new player to the X4 universe (never played any X series games), this DLC was a poor experience. First off the game tells you after completing the basic tutorials that it recommends to start Timelines so I did. That is a mistake, Timelines does not teach you anything, so as a tutorial its terrible.

You're dropped into scenarios asking you to trade and build up funds without so much as any instructions, tasked to mine specific ores with no idea how the scanner works, put in charge of fleets with no instructions on how to control them, and more scenes each with zero instructions. Worse, the story details are basically non-existent, like worse than Dark Souls levels of text scrawl before the missions and then a scene happens that I have no idea or context aboubt.

Honestly, the shame here is I see how this mode could have been useful, with some guidance these would make better tutorials than the actual in game ones. And after reading up on some tiny bits of lore around it it seems these moments we played through could have been really cool, if only we had any context to know wtf was going on. It's overall a shame as this was my first experience and had I not had let's plays that I've watched convincing me that the open sandbox is worth playing I'd probably be asking for a refund right now.

I'm off to go play the sandbox but I'm left feeling this DLC wasted time and frustrated many others like me. And from the other reviews I've read on it seems I'm not the only one.

Quite a fun game and worth its low entry price. Its honestly a great way to learn coding, specifically python since its based on it.

The only real fault I have with it is it should have focused on unlocking the program functions sooner and added challenges to restrict yourself later. Coding up a solution for a plant while missing tools, only to get them later is annoying and I never actually went back to my code and updated it as it wasn't worth it. That and I was confused with sunflowers till I found out you can use measure() on a still growing sunflower.

A great little game that I may come back to in the future but for now I'd feel like rewriting all my code now that I've unlocked everything but I'm too lazy to do so. Also my seed purchasing function really sucks but again don't want to rewrite it.

Notes for the Dev:
- Focus on quicker unlock of core programing
- Add optimization value for plants other than sunflowers (I had a lot of fun optimizing it at level 1 since the more efficient the ops the more power per cycle you can get)
- Add challenges/bonus for creating solutions with limited programming instead of baking it into the progression path
- Polyculture is either poorly explained or a terrible idea, I actually never used it due to not wanting to have to deal with what I'd assume would be less efficient production of pumpkin, sunflowers..ect.

Even ignoring the Pokemon aesthetics of the Pal's this game has a good core loop with Exploration, Base Building and Pal Collecting.

I've gotten over 150 hours out of the the game before I felt like I ran out of fun to be had with the content in the game, and given that this is week 2 of early access I'm sure I'll be back once some more content comes out.

To note, there are many bugs, multiplayer especially has even more. Nothing game breaking happened but many small annoying things that do sap the enjoyment. We've already seen one patch that fixed some of these so I'm hopefully this will improve too.

I'll be brief, this is like Divinity Original Sin 2 which was amazing, but somehow even larger. For those like me who loved Dragon Age Origins, this is what I dreamed of that series becoming, instead of where it did go.

Also there is no microtransations, and while many are fine with them it feels so refreshing to have a game be whole, no cut content, no giant missing pieces designed to be filled in with DLC. This is simple a full game for one price, and boy is that rare these days.

I great city builder with several unique twist. And no the beavers surprisingly are not among them.

Instead the first twist is the water and drought mechanics. This leads to what I could best describe as good planning direction. You're always trying to allocate your limited water front area for farms and trees.

The next twist is the districts system, a very unique expansion mechanic that forces you to segment out your growing empire into smaller cities.

Finally is the well-being system. It makes super workers if you get it high enough. This means you can boost productivity for a smaller population if you manage the well-being bonuses correctly. It is a bit fiddly but overall this makes for a nice sub-system to work in.

Overall I've had a lot of fun and plan to keep diving into more details. The water system is great fun and an excellent twist with all the other additions.

I've played 3 alpha builds of this including its Steam NextFest launch. I'm putting this review out here early so people can know a bit what it is like.

First off visuals and music are great. The steam page shows that off well enough.

Second gameplay. It's honestly great for me, its more arcade racer than things like Trackmania and is far faster paced and faster turning then things like Distance. The physics are solid, controls feel tight and reliable and the speed run community was already very active during its demo's and alpha so I think there will be no complaints there.

Finally level design. The developer Axan has outdone himself, not only by creating some amazing levels (again just look at the steam page) but by creating a level editor for others to use. Even during the alpha we had lots of custom tracks being designed and tested out. I've never seen an Indie game launch such a full featured level editor on day 0.

Overall this is a great package, but if you want the TL;DR I'll use my wife's words. "It looks like beatsaber but with a car".

A good game, worth its playtime. However, I do feel its inferior to the first game. I won't spoil either game but know that the first game is a roller coaster ride with an insanely clever and imagine plot that feels like pure genius when you complete the game. This game while having a clever design does not feel like pure genius but forced. The overall design relies on very strict information control to prevent the player from discovering the twist, this is unlike the first game which required absolutely no information control, and I imagine its possible for some people to have 'solved' the first game before being informed in game. This sequel obviously knew its fan base would be more aware so took many steps to protect the mystery which in my opinion went a bit too far and made certain sections of the game far less enjoyable than the first.

Overall still a great game, just unable to compare to the first to me.

The game is short, it's a bit like Portal in that it's length is well paced and it draws up to its ending without dragging on when it shouldn't. Sadly it's ending isn't as mind blowing as Portal, but honestly nothing never has been.

The world built up here was crafted with far more love and attention that needed. This is clearly a passion project, with the obvious love of the creators poured into it. The only negative this game has is its short and its ending maybe not be the best (minor things I'd like to change but its still satisfying).

Overall this is a game well worth trying, if you want hours of gameplay for your money this isn't it. But if you want to pay for a hand crafted experience that immerses you in its atmosphere then this is it. The devs here made a fantastical deep world given the short runtime and this type of game is almost unheard of these days.

Just too short. I had a lot of fun but there really isn't much content here and while I'm sure some might find it fun to replay on higher difficulty or challenge the firefight mode to score higher it didn't attract me. I got 5 hours out of the campaign and a bit of side grinding firefight but even fore a nearly half off sale price I still feel a little let down. Its a interesting game but just not explored enough to justify its price.