Recent reviews by Ansis

I'll preface this by saying that I don't regret buying the game and that I do believe most people will get some hours of entertainment out of this. More than that - I also believe the game's potential could be expanded upon if the devs feel like it (which is always a gamble).

However, using gen Z (or gen alpha - I can't keep track) terminology - it's giving early No Man's Sky.
The game grabs aspects from pokemon, survival games and colony games, but none of those aspects are really well done.

The combat is extremely repetitive, simple and boring. Combined with poor pathfinding of enemies and alies as well as early access glitches and you've got yourself a mob slayer you just slice through. (I am playing on normal, but I feel like the harder difficulty would make it longer, not more fun)

The survival aspect of dealing with the temperature and hunger is nothing more than a little inventory inconvenience.

The base management will probably end up being the most decent aspect of the game once they fix pathfinding so that your pokemon won't get stuck falling down a cliff and once the raids become more challenging.

But my main issue is the same one we all had with no man's sky. It lacks purpose.

For now I would not recomend this game. I do hope they fix the bugs, improve combat and add some purpose to the game in the form of quests or a better RPG skill system, or a sense of actually having to try to survive against the pokemon, enemies and elements, but I have my doubts.

Honestly, this game is amazing.

- Wands, spells, perks and the environment make you actually think about how you want to adjust your build;
- Permadeath means that you'll be replaying it over and over again;
- The difficulty is just hard enough for you to make mistakes constantly, but not give up;
- There are plenty secrets and side paths to explore;
- Coming up with cool wands just feels great!

This.. This is not it.
This game feels dead, boring and lifeless.
From the very first moments upon starting in the vault, you realise that something is off.
Instead of a carefully crafted world I got the feeling of walking through locations of a 20 year old mmo. Yeah, there are more visuals here and there, but nothing you could really care about or interact with.

I have played fallout games from 1-4 + NV. Over time the game has changed massively. Some aspects for better, some for worse, some are simply a question of taste. But the underlying beauty of the game was the carefully crafted storytelling, characters and worldbuilding.
Items were placed where items made sense - be it as parts of the world or cruel jokes of the wastelands.
Even the post apocalyptic wasteland housed quirky characters that made you feel like it was populated.

This is more like a husk of a fallout game. Like someone took a fallout map, wiped it clean of all the characters and items, put some mob spawns on it and turned it into a multiplayer lobby.

0/10

Good for 4-6 runs (for me that was about 10 hours).

That's what it took me to see most of the items in the store, buy every upgrade and achieve one victory.
IMHO that's the extent of the content that the game has to offer right now and I won't be playing it again for the foreseeable future.

Although I'd say that for this little content the price tag might be a bit too steep, I'd still recomend the game as a decent time killer with some potential to improve if additional content is added.

Combat felt like a less intuitive version of Mount & Blade - it matters how you attack, but you're not always sure what happens once you let go of the mouse button. Blocking never really felt like it helped much and throwing weapons just made my gladiator look like an angry baby who doesn't like his toy anymore.

AI is fair, but I didn't get the impression that higher tier enemies are actually better at combat mechanics - they simply have better gear.

Item progression feels balanced and fun untill you hit the final item tear which can happen rather quickly.

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If by any chance the developer comes across this lonely review - here are some recommendations:
1. Try and make the combat more intuitive by giving the player a better understanding of what just happened. I know that there is a bottom left dialog box for that, but for me personally reading a dialog box takes away from focusing on the combat.
2. More item tiers.
3. Entourage is a downright broken cheat mechanic - nerf it, change it, or remove it.
4. Look into making the AI progressively stronger - if that's already being done, consider increasing their skill cap.
5. Include more information on skill stats - when do they level up, how do they impact combat abilities, and so on.
6. Maybe personalise the enemies a bit more. I'd be more intrigued by having to fight Rudibius Flavus who has 30 victories and 100 kills under his belt, than fighting an aspirant.

Finally - hats off to the developer! Building such a visually and mechanically decent game alone is a solid feat! :)

I have a slight urge to murder dragonflies for making me dizzy now.

Suggestion: Play this if you can get your real life friends to play with you. I have endured gods know how many matches of alien languages, erratic behavior and just sounds of hell playing with randoms. Some might call that added difficulty. Some - madness. All are correct.