Recent reviews by Logicomix

If this is considered a mediocre SaGa game then I'm glad there are even better SaGa games than this because it's everything I wish JRPG's would evolve into after their dungeon crawling roots: Minimal story, branching of areas, lots of combat, execution, preparation and party composition matters etc.

My only problem was the text speed, but since there's minimal talking I guess I can overlook it.

Steam's overlay asked me if I would recommend this game.
Consider this: Do you enjoy puzzles that have clear goals but their solution is open ended and up to your creativity and desire? If yes, get this game, great starter in Zachtronics.

I call games like this one the "one more" games. You can never play only "one more" quest.

Devs went missing to (supposedly) fix a broken mess of a Switch port they've made.

They came back with 2 DLC nobody asked for:

1) A randomizer
2) A playable character similar to how Richter was playable in Symphony of the Night

Here's my beef: Both DLC require you to beat the game once. Why? Because the character is basically slapped in RAW, with sloppily opened locked areas that would be otherwise inaccessible with the main character.

Randomizer also puts a novelty spin on things, if you're a sucker to see what you're gonna get for the first couple of chests. Problem is, there's not much to look for. It's fun for the first 20 minutes, then you realize that you have already beaten the game once and the randomizer forces you to start over with nothing and you're like "but why?".

The store page right now says at the bottom:

Expect a worryingly large amount of announcements and updates, everything from updating the look of this Steam page to the game in general. It's going to be one wild ride.

Yeah... I don't see that happening at all. The base game is "okay" but in the age where you can get godly games like Ori and Hollow Knight, this feels like it's clunky and sells for the power fantasy pandering. Speaking of which, I have no problems whatsoever. Hell, I LOVE me some Doom! But even that game did difficulties RIGHT!

You know what they say "these kinds of games were always a broken balance mess because that was the point" well that is my point. It does nothing to improve the formula. To move the genre forward, towards a better tomorrow. Where I can tailor my experience appropriately, without having to actively pretend that 9 out of 10 items in my inventory do not exist. It's the game designer's job to deliver a well balanced experience, not mine.

So if you were the type of person who just wants to walk forward and mash attack to feel super power ranger of the 9 dragons of the 7th sun of the milky way, I'm sure you disagree with me. And that's ok.

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If you have friends, by all means this is a good game to start with risk of rain.
If you don't have friends but you have hundreds of hours playing Risk of Rain 1, you can somewhat have fun if you use Discord to find others to play.

And I say Discord because "quickplay" is a mess right now. You have to hammer that "look for game" button and if you are lucky enough you may find a game. If you're luckier you may find a game where people don't quit 1 minute into the game. If you're even luckier you may find a game where people decide to stick around and aren't complete asshats because the devs decided not to tweak the loot distribution system for quickplay. You played enough online games to know what this means.

If you don't have friends and you're new to Risk of Rain, there are some bad news. The game plays similar to the first game, and that's a bad thing for beginners. You'll have a hard time finding people who have the patience to play with you when you're a beginner, and to be considered a "not beginner" you gotta clock more time since you're catching up to literal monsters who played this game for hundreds of hours.

Game can be enjoyable on single player but the single player aspect alone doesn't deserve the full price. If you want a pure single player experience you can put an extra dollar or 2 and go for something tailored for single player, like Dead Cells.

Lastly, I said that the game plays a lot like the first game, but the devs forgot to improve on things they CAN improve when they made the transition from 2D to 3D. Not only you have to worry about enemies coming from more directions the moment the camera restricts your view (compared to the 2D game where you have a wide range of view around you), but the teleporters are a pain to find on 3D landscape. But even with the teleporters addressed, your gameplay will revolve around kiting the mobs into your field of view.

Atrocious framerate with an in-game tool that gives false reports of "steady 60fps" when you're in reality stuck in 32-40.
Matchmaking is dumb, you can't tell which player has strong connection and which one has a weak connection. On top of that, if someone disconnects everyone takes it as their loss. Everyone.

It's as if Square-Enix has this gigantic two-handed sword and can't stop butchering one of the most iconic IP's in video game history.

Imagine releasing a Japanese anime game without Japanese audio.

The price is right when on discount.

Newcomer to Atelier games, started with the fan translation of Atelier Marie.
Game is as comfy as people claimed. I love the characters, the setting and the soundtrack from the first few hours.

My only problems are some random micro stutters which thankfully don't happen too often, and the abysmal graphical options.

The game as a game is a great entry point for Atelier games and to understand what makes an Atelier game an Atelier game. Wholesomeness + planning your alchemy = win.