Recent reviews by Joe_Reaver

Let me first of all say that the only reason I'm recommending it is because it is free. If it was paid, I would not. I played a bit of the beta back in October and I've about caught up to where I was then, so I feel like it's an okay time to write this.

I would say that this feels like a love child between Destiny and Warframe, except there wasn't enough love and it was just a surprise pregnancy after one month of dating and the parents decided to stick it out and see what happens. There's technically potential for it to turn out okay, but probably not a lot. Let's start with the pros.

-Character design of the actual Descendants is solid. I think this is where the most attention went.
-Some mechanics have some nice quality of life perks to them, like weapons keeping mods slotted when you swap for the same weapon of a higher level.
-Gunplay is okay, not amazing, not particularly great, but it could have been worse. Definitely developing some weapon preferences early, especially with the Auto Rifle.
-Voice acting is decent for what it is. Just the voice acting though.
-Enemy design is pretty okay. Nothing super memorable, only issue I take is the Cabal Phalanx ripoff but they're not the only ones to do it so meh.
-A lot of the similar elements from Destiny, Warframe, and Division actually do well. The weapon gear system, the mod system, the Mastery system. I hope they have more weapons and more Descendants over time. I think it could be a less successful but still decent Warframe style game.
-There's been day 1 hotfix and maintenance compensation handed out! It'd be nice if they kept that up beyond day 1.

Cons:
-Script writing is atrocious. I can't tell if they're lining up the Guide to be a villain or if the writing is just so bad it just sounds like it is. Either way it's a bad time. Voice lines are predictable after knowing hardly anything about the characters. It sounds like a 15 year old wrote it.
-The subtitles often don't actually line up with what the characters say, either using different words or having grammatical errors. Haven't noticed any spelling errors yet.
-The lip sync on the characters is awful. Either being completely out of sync or just so lazy with the animations, I've seen better out of Skyrim.
-The default poses and animations of some of the characters are so strange for creative choices. Alpha always has his hand on his chin, like he's trying to subtly cover some strange bald spots. Nobody actually talks like that for minutes at a time. Guide has a computer hacking looking animation, but it's only like a 2 second loop. Super repetitive.
-I hate Jeremy. Not like a douche-y character that's designed to be a douche, but like I'm not sure there's enough of a brain behind the design to even really call it a character. Also his voice acting is actually pretty bad.
-Not a big fan of some parts of the UI. Having the character health and ammo count right next to the character isn't great. I know The Division did that too and it was okay there, but it was also orange. Here it's just white and a faded red for the health, so it's not nearly as noticeable or easy to see. I actually was several hours into the game before I knew where my health bar was even at.
-The NPC that doesn't actually talk and just has subtitles for tutorial sort of things for Descendant and weapon upgrades goes way too fast. I can barely read what they're saying before it's moved on, and if I stop to think at all about what I've read then I fall behind. Not great for reading comprehension.
-I immediately don't care about the story. I want to care, but there's not really any exposition on why any of this stuff matters. "The Ancestors are great people that were really smart" Who are they to me? "Oh no! He's got the Iron Heart!" So? What does it even do? Just the world building outside of the immediate "crisis" is non-existent. I don't understand why I need to care about any of this? Also I don't understand what makes Descendants special. They kinda seem to be a halfway between Guardians and Tenno, but not in a good way.
-Servers have not been great with performance, dealing with some massive lag spikes. It is also day 1 so it's not a serious problem at this point. If it's still a problem in a month, then it's serious.
-Season pass is awful. I didn't buy it, so not actually a problem for me, but the free track is bad and the paid track is somehow worse? Like I thought at the end they might have a Descendant skin or something to unlock. Nope, just colors for armor and weapons. Not sure if they're consumable or toggled.
-One again it's impossible to buy just enough premium currency to get what you what, you have to get a little extra. This is typical in the industry but I still hate to see it. Also $70 for a singular skin is really dumb, idc what it looks like.

Tech cons:
-No screen border option
-No option to change reticle color

I'm sure I'll find more things to say but the essences are there. Because it's free to play, feel free to give it a shot, but it's really not great. You want the same scratch for that itch, play Warframe, play Destiny, hell even play Division. There's a lot of games out there that are more deserving of your time and especially of your money. I'll keep at it for a while longer just because I'm a leveling addict, but that's about it for me.

Thanks for reading, have yourselves a good one.

Coming out of a middleschooler's edge lord fantasy, this checks a lot of the boxes for a good fantasy game. Combat was somewhat simplistic and towards the end very repetitive. Most the combat didn't have any true meaning towards the story or end goal, seemed like enemies were thrown at your for the sake of having something to do. Controls are a bit weird and take some getting used to. Voice acting was good, if somewhat a little basic. I'd wait for a sale before buying, $5 maybe $10 if this is nostalgic for you.

Saw this game, watched a video on it, bought the game, proceeded to spend all night playing, bought two more copies for friends, tonight we mine. 10/10 would spam Rawk and Stone again

Yes, I have actually played this for 75 hours at this point. Not just sitting at the menu, but playing for that long. I made it partly through the second world when I lost my save and had to restart, Now I'm back about to where I was and this is my third most played game. I personally have a hard time playing games consistently that aren't easy to pick up and put down. Thus the two games I've played more are GTA V and CoD BO3. I love this game to death. I want to ask for a second one but without any changes from this one, so I guess more levels? Even 75 hours in there are still some levels I fail and have to retry, but this game is phenominal in it's simplicity and in improving hand eye coordination and tracking speed/skill. Anymore I don't even really think while playing or even blink but I'm still all enraptured with the battle on my screen. It's a very epic game, its easy to start with a great system for making it more difficult as you improve and scaling it back as you fail. That system alone is deserving of much credit. I've spent a half hour straight in a single round of survival and nearly reached 3,000 kills. I've been playing for over two years now and it's as fun still as the first time I picked it up. I've actually booted up the game 5 times just today for some free time and my intended time spent alreadys ends up being stretched as I say "Just one more level". So to break it down
-No load times (Not really)
-Simplistic yet entertaining graphics
-Cheap buy
-Hours and hours of fun
-Scaled difficulty
-Don't button mash

I'm waiting to see how long my mouse lasts as long as I keep playing this. I'll have to replace sooner or later from the wear I've put on it from this stupid amazing game

Not a bad game. Beat it in 8 hours on normal. Just a good all-around shoot 'em up. Adds a couple of interesting dynamics like the odd weapons and the leash. The story wasn't as crap as I thought it would be, but it wasn't much either, however 8 hours isn't much to work with. If People Can Fly made a second game, I'd probably buy it.

Warning: the characters have quite the mouth on them, but it's nothing deal breaking in my opinion.
Haven't played co-op or multiplayer, but singleplayer seemed good enough in it's own right. There's plenty of challenge in certain parts, and tricks to most everything.
The only critique I really have is that the shotgun is op while the assault rifle is nerfed, kinda odd but still a good play.

Fun old style indie game. Great for when you have a bit of down time.