Senaste recensioner av Zariah

This made me cry.
My secret word was Justice.

How?! How is this game so frickin addictive?!

WASD. That's all there is to it. And yet.... HOURS later...

Just buy it. For a couple of bucks it's ridiculous fun. The upgrades come at juuuuust the right pace to make you want to do one more run. Just one more... Just one.

This was... Painful to write.

I really loved the original game. Sure it was a buggy mess on newer systems, but it was positively dripping with fun, music and cultural references aplenty.

Now they've revamped it, and fixed it up. It runs great on my modern system.

But they've completely sucked the soul out of it. By removing much of the music during gameplay the whole thing just feels stale and lifeless. A series of setpieces that don't flow, or make sense. I didn't realise until playing the reboot how much the music had tied everything together.

Really a shame.

I ... really wish there was a 'Maybe kinda sorta' button instead of a flat Yes/No for 'Do you recommend this game'.

I'm tapping Yes, but I have reservations.

First, it's beautiful. If you have the hardware this game really impresses visually. The lighting is great, and ambient noise and sound effects really help sell the atmosphere. The storyline is pretty good, and engrossing enough to carry through hours of sustained play at a time. On those strengths alone, it's worth a purchase.

But again, boy do I have reservations.

Criticisms Numero Uno? The ambient NPC AI is *terrible*. This has been said repeatedly, and to add my own beating of the dead pinata - If your new game's AI compares REALLY unfavorably to one released more than 7 years ago, you have a big, big problem. I'm of course talking GTA V here, but most of Rockstar's output in the last decade or so is so much better than this. Flat, lifeless NPCs shuffle around and respond terribly (if at all) to your character's actions. This is such a huge deal because it makes the entire world feel less real. And not in a good 'matrix' kind of way. I have to hope that somehow, CD Projekt Red knows this and is fixing it - but good grief it seems SO bad as to need a rework so large that I can't realistically imagine it happening.

Next, a whole lot of content seems to have been cut. I don't know that for sure - but there are glaring gaps that don't make any sense otherwise. And don't get me started on the jarring early game montage cutscene which feels like a section that had been intended to be played was snipped for time.

I'm also not a huge fan of the music - but I can't really rag on anyone too much for that as maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm too old. None of the tracks seem memorable. The bugs have been noticeable, but at least for me not gamebreaking. I trust they'll get fixed.

So buy it. Or wait for a sale. If your rig can handle this you'll probably enjoy it. But I can't help but think that Cyberpunk 2077 is punching way WAY below its weight class. I don't feel ripped off - but I'm a little disappointed.

Medieval Dynasty is a very pretty game, that at first blush *seems* like it should tick all the right boxes for an open world crafty buildy housey survival game. It should be precisely the sort of game that I'm looking for right now, but unfortunately falls short due to some highly irritating mechanics.

The structure building works well enough, and it is relatively easy to figure out the gathering/crafting/farming loop, especially with the simple main quest guidance that the game throws at you. NPCs are plain, all similar looking, but do the job. The irritation comes in the form of the 'seasons' mechanic which while on paper looks reasonable, breaks much of the rest of the game.

Every three days, on the dot, the seasons advance. And not in a 'ooh look the leaves are changing color' subtle way, but in an EVERYTHING STOP! fade-to-black that breaks any side quests even if you picked them up that day, half spoils any meat you are carrying (no matter when you hunted it), and throws you back to your bed even if you were exploring across the map. This mechanic is such an unpleasant jarring departure from the flow of the rest of the game that I have to wonder how it ever made it in.

The game has a lot of potential, and I'm hoping the flow is improved so I can change this review. Right now it's annoying because I want to like it so much more than I do.

Songs were removed from existing copies of the game after they had been purchased. This is not the first time this has happened.

For those arguing that this was required by licensing - it was NOT. There is NOTHING in their licensing agreement that forced R* to remove music from copies that had already been purchased, only from newly purchased copies. They did it because they were unwilling to spend the money maintaining 2 copies of the game. End of story.

This PR fiasco is entirely on the publisher.

*** EDIT: The dev has now implemented a rudimentary save feature, which means I now give this a cautious thumbs up, instead of a thumbs down. Many of my other criticisms still stand, but for 10 bucks, it's now worth the money in my opinion. ***

Original Review:

This game has a lot of potential. A gladiator ludus management sim, with the choice of manual or automatic control of fighters in pits? Sign me up.

Unfortunately right now the sim falls quite a bit short of expectations. The lack of a save/continue function makes the game only playable in a single sitting, and as a playthrough can take several hours, that put its out of reach of many. The game is also limited to a single year (with days passing pretty quickly), so there is no 'career' mode. It's a single linear campaign with no open-ended play.

But the biggest bugbear for me is (still) the incredibly fast time-to-kill in the medium-to-late stages of the game. Domina has an interesting skill/tech tree, but pretty much *all* of it will become inconsequential as you level to the point where each match will last but a few seconds. What's that I hear people say? The dev added a feature to cut weapon damage and slow down matches? Yes. I'm talking about WITH this feature selected - by the end an average match will still last <10 seconds. The problem seems to be (at least partially) with a small number of ridiculously overpowered traits (available to both players and NPCs) that will essentially one-shot-kill targets. This also makes the late-game Retiarius class *utterly* pointless.

So right now I'd avoid picking this up, at least until save games, balance issues, career mode etc are patched in. Keep it on your watchlist. The dev seems responsive at least.

I just cannot in good conscience recommend anyone buy the game in its current state. The bugs have been pretty horrific, but I'm sure they'll get fixed soon enough - no it's more than than. The game itself is not great.

Don't get me wrong - NMS has potential in spades, and the procedural generation system for planets is pretty cool. Still, it's clear that a whole HEAP of promised content and features were cut. Not only that, but some of the stuff in-game is disjointed, and seems to have been designed for an earlier build which didn't materialise.

A couple of examples - transmissions: When you uncover a new waypoint you're often told that you've discovered a new point in the stars, or a new planet in the great infinity or whatever. But no, that never actually happens. You just found a factory a couple of clicks away. Also relay towers: Early videos suggested they were used to upload new discoveries. Now they're completely pointless, serving no purpose that isn't already done by other things.

Once you get over the initial beauty of some of the planets, you quickly realise that the gameplay itself is incredibly thin, and gets stale within an hour or so. If you've played for a few hours, you've likely seen *everything* the game has to offer. Grind resources, to get more inventory space. That's essentially the game in a nutshell.

And of course, last but not least, I don't appreciate being deceived. Whilst I'm not going to say that Hello Games deliberately *lied*, they certainly didn't tell the truth in interviews and marketing material. The videos on this very steam page are *completely* unrepresentative of the game as it was released. We all wish we had THAT game.

If the fun (and missing features) get patched in at a later date I may update this review. I'm not holding my breath.

Edit: It's been pointed out (quite fairly) that I've played a fair few hours for someone who doesn't recommend the game. I'll add this addendum - if the game cost 20 bucks, I'd probably be giving it a thumbs up, if only as an interesting curiosity. Right now I feel compelled to squeeze any enjoyment that I can out of this overly expensive toy.

EDIT: Updating for the 'He took our money and ran' award. ;)

I honestly can't say enough good things about this game, and it would be a 'must purchase' title even IF it never received another update. The fact that the developer keeps improving it is just a bonus.

For me it pushes all those relaxing buttons that Harvest Moon did, with some extras thrown in. If you don't like farming, you can fish, explore dungeons (one static, one randomly generated each time you enter), socialise with the villagers and pursue a love interest (including same-sex, if that's your thing). The completionist will want to do a bit of everything. There is no time limit, no real 'end', you can play as long as you like, and customise your farm to your heart's content.

WELL worth 15 bucks. Buy it now. Your steam library will thank you.