Recent reviews by Kanery

5/5/2024
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Well, Arrowhead and Sony have decided to not go through with requiring your account to be linked. Hopefully this means the region buyback will come back. Will recommend the game again.

It's nice to see that feedback actually does matter (even if it was overwhelming).

5/4/2024
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To be honest, much of the reaction towards the PSN requirements were an exaggeration. Nobody should have been surprised considering it was everywhere at the start and if you had a problem with it, you should have addressed it at the launch of the game.

But watching them (and this is probably the publisher at play) double down by removing regions from purchasing the game on Steam rather than meet people in the middle ground is hard to stomach. Especially considering the next time it happens, Sony will have exposed consumer data for the 9th time. I know people need to be responsible for their own security, but they might as well be tossing it out in plaintext for anyone to see.

It's a sad state of affairs that went from an unfortunate requirement to now feeling like a rugpull, which is such a disappointment because the game's monetization strategy is so nice otherwise.

Aside from that, the game is still quite good even if it suffers from what feels like the developers trying to over-balance a non-competitive game.

Post-launch DRM added, bricks the game from running on Proton.

The game itself is wonderful - I've enjoyed playing Rise on Switch before moving over to PC on Sunbreak. Sadly I won't get the chance to play it on my Steam Deck because DRM practices are frankly more harmful to legitimate consumers than the piracy it fails to stop.

This is just bad practice.

USHER IN THE AGE OF GLUT

it makes doom/eternal feel slow and choppy. it's good.

evolution of d2, scaled up to 10,000x.

item and character variety is massive (not that they're all equally as effective). path of exile has a relatively steep learning curve even for ARPG players due to how many variables there can be in building a character, and there's definitely walls to hit that will stop you if your character was built without thought into it.

trading is still kinda ♥♥♥♥. wish they would stop pretending whispering people and finding items off of a website instead of just having a built-in, instantaneous asynchronous trading experience wouldn't detract from path of exile.

just play it, it's good.

perfect game if you enjoy groundhog's day and need to substitute a social experience that you missed out on in your adolescence.

Strength in numbers, Arisen.

Well done, Toby Fox.

It's incredibly hard to describe Undertale concisely without digging into its specifics, which ought to be experienced first-hand in the first place. It's hard to even categorize Undertale in a genre. The best description is often repeated though; "Earthbound with shmup." But even that statement doesn't necessarily do it justice either; the game is so wonderfully crafted with each section of the game feeling meaningful. There isn't a single moment of the game that feels unnecessary, and of course, further exploration is set to your leisure.

The game is filled with moments that will break the standard video game expectations that we are used to, so go into this game with an open mind from the start. Undertale is not the longest of games, but it will be a memorable one for me because it delivers in ways that recent games seldom ever do anymore. The reward isn't cheap, and filled with flashy rewards like inflated numbers in RPGs. The journey itself is the reward, and the motivation to move forward is purely to progress the game. In the ten+ hours I've gone through the game, I've never once thought about stopping due to any lack of interest. The pace of the game is brilliantly set and most importantly, the game itself never overstays its welcome at any point.

It's presented without fault. I'm not saying that to mean that this game broke the standard for video game graphics, but that it works for a reason. It's not a shameless retro throwback of "ohhh woooow a jrpg homage that looks like earthbound." Every aspect of the game feels crafted to work with its other components, and as a result, an 800x600 internal resolution of sprites doesn't take away from the game at all. It's essential and can't be replaced without making the game feel different.

Also the soundtrack blew my brains to Neptune. It's that great.

I basically gushed for the last few paragraphs, so I'll get on to the point where I have to actually take away from it.

• It's not the longest game, as I said before. Getting through ALL of the games content, of course, is going to take you a while, but this isn't a game that you can play for days straight and return to the following week. In fact, the replayability of this game will basically be the same as any other RPG: its value retains when you've returned to it in the future, forgetting the things about the game that make it so great. The initial experience is worth $10 easily on its own, however. Don't let game length determine how your money should be spent. At least not for this one.
  
• This game is largely RPG and shmup, with tons of creativity involved. If you don't like RPGs, shmups, or neither in tandem, then I won't try to convince you that this will make you love them. At the same time, I'm fairly convinced that you could finish this game purely on the writing and story, even if you dislike both RPGs and shmups.
  
• If you're looking for just a game-ass game, just to sit down and brainlessly play through, then this isn't the title. Undertale deserves your fullest attention. It's pretty pretentious to call it an 'experience', but that's what it seems like at times.

Trust me, even if you have no reason to. I went into Undertale with the expectations that this game would be as amazing as the demo that was pushed out a couple of years ago. It ended up doing exactly that, with the comforting and lasting gift of knowing that I'll come back to it again sometime later.

Games like this aren't made often. They don't make you so invested into the material without tugging on ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ plot strings or tugging on purely its writing. Playing the game is the reward in and of itself. For that reason alone, Undertale can be considered a fantastic game.

tl;dr
+ Incredible presentation. Simple and effective.
+ Difficult. engaging gameplay which dances on the line between challening and unfair, but never makes you feel cheated.
+ Diverse and in depth character building. Easily customizable parties, but enough randomness to make each unit feel unique.
+ Roguelike elements such as stress and the dungeons are well varied, and will test you and your character's limits.

- Pacing is, while meaningful at the beginning, can become dreadful in battles due to flavor text appearing as chat bubbles.
- Balance issues still remain currently. Difficult transition from dungeon difficulties and conflicting quirks on characters.
- * Lack of content becomes noticable after spending time with the game.

==

Darkest Dungeon is either a refreshing journey back to the roguelike for those familiar with them, or potentially a nightmare simulator for those who have not touched them. Regardless of your experience with the genre, you can only be pleased or debilitated by how the title consistently manages to surprise you while playing.

Presentation is an important factor for me in any video game I play. Making sure that what I see, hear, and really just overall experience will be the takeaway from any game. Darkest Dungeon will succeed in making me remember, because of how it presents itself: unforgiving, dark, and filled with enough despair and reward that I can't help but feel that it's the only game for a while that's made me feel like something was on the line, or worth risking. While it doesn't have an interface that will innovate RPG UIs in the future, it is shockingly effective in relaying information you need, while keeping its smooth and simple visuals crisp throughout the whole game. The art assets and backgrounds are well-drawn, and watching the game feels like you're letting a graphic novel draw itself infront of you. All actions in this game relay the emotion meant to be given tenfold: Dispatching enemies gives you a sense of immediate relief and victory. Getting critically hit by an enemy leaves both you and your characters demoralized and battered. Losing your characters (especially ones that you have named from close relationships) is the nightmare scenario that you will try to never encounter but always will.

As an RPG, Darkest Dungeon especially makes its mark on players through the mechanics within and outside its turn-based combat. Factors such as character position make great deal in effectiveness in combat: you'll have to spend some time thinking about what party members to take in a dungeon run and where you want them to be used most effectively. At the same time, Darkest Dungeon introduces 'Stress', a status which gradually increments as you progress through a dungeon, which can sharply spike in its rate of increase depending on certain conditions. While the combat does in fact focus on keeping your party members alive and making sure your enemies aren't, Stress is what truly dictates the status of your party in a dungeon. Accumulating too much stress on a character results in an event which will most likely cripplingly debuff that party member, as well as rapidly increasing the stress of all other characters once it occurs. When your party suffers a critical hit, specific attacks, or encounter obstables in the dungeon they can't easily pass through, they will all accumulate stress.

That's what makes the game so exciting and addictive: the difficulty forces you to pace yourself and adapt depending on the situation. Reducing stress isn't cheap; and neither is making sure your party is properly trained and outfitted for the dungeons they clear. You'll often have to switch out and keep track of an entire roster of characters, as taking the same character in can result in them becoming a burden due to your overreliance on them. Gold is hard to come by, and the artifacts gathered to upgrade the essential town facilities don't come easily: you'll have to suffer through many hardships in the dungeons before you can even feel close to becoming self-sufficient. From the first mission onward, the game throws goals and dungeons at you which will test your decision making, party building, and even your faith. Although you aren't being pushed to rush through the game, it certainly does not get any easier nor does its difficulty remain static: sometimes you'll be at your ends trying to even scrape by. And that's okay even if you are in that kind of scenario. You're expected to take the fall.

The different character classes work surprisingly well together. Although synergy between classes is largely up to how the player uses their roster, progression for each character is deep enough to grow them in ways you'd like. Alongside the relatively small roster at the beginning, this results in characters becoming meaningful and important to you a la XCOM, except this time there's no way to save scum and save your elite party members. Attachment to your character and the struggle to keep them alive, and the loss from having them slain is all a part of the game, and that alone speaks volumes on how much it involves the player.

Aside from the concerns which are fixable by the time Darkest Dungeon's Early Access status ends, the game itself lacks the extra depth of customization which I've come to expect not only from RPGs, but games overall. While balance itself could be broken by introducing a plethera of skills, perks, equipment, and dungeon difficulties, Darkest Dungeon seems more like a very extended rail-ride rather than a full-fledged, open RPG. It sits you down at exactly where it wants you to be, but as a result the scenarios you run into feel repeated. And although the game is only just rarely tedious, it does make a sour impression when you find yourself conforming to a "sensible" way of playing, just to get by in the game.

* The other issues I've had with this game all seem like issues that can be easily fixed by the developers as they continue to work on this game. Pacing in particular can become an issue later on. While it's not a good deal to ever rush an RPG and completely mutilate its pacing, having a party of stressed/motivated characters can result in an obnoxiously long amount of time being spent on them having something to say. While the flavor text can be interesting and amusing to read the first time, seeing the same lines repeat and take up those few precious seconds can get very tedious as they tend to appear at avery other action in the worst case scenario. I found myself waiting for battles to end rather than feeling like I ended them myself at times.

The developers have already stated that new dungeons and character classes were in the work to being put out. And while I'll hold them to their word, you can definitely tell that at the moment (Feb 16, 2015) the game runs into some redundancy even at higher difficulties. New monsters and foes most likely return as upgraded versions of the previous difficulties, and overall the amount of "content" in the game is locked basically until you get to the higher difficulties.

Even then, the balance in the game can also be perceived as somewhat flawed as well. There's virtually no transition from the Apprentice (Level 1) to Veteran (Level 3) dungeons, and you'll find yourself being brutally pounded into salt the first time you enter your Veteran dungeon with a party that is ill equipped to be there. What's worse is that the game doesn't necessarily make it easy to fund the upkeep on keeping your roster stress-healthy, so a lot of your gold will be spent on remedying the issues caused by earning the very same gold, which can lead to some painful repetition in going out to dungeons.

However, Darkest Dungeon DOES deliver satisfying and interesting gameplay, and more than warrants its current $20 price tag even in its current state. Your expectations are well worth being saved for this one.

game for squares
nonexistent drops
caters to ultrawhales

1/6 nexon wins again