Recent reviews by magn0

This is Elden Ring + Risk of Rain 2 + Fortnite(or whatever game you wanna credit for dropping into a map with a shrinking circle) + Monster Hunter in one big package and it worked really well, if that sounds fun to you, it's a surprisingly accurate description if you know what those games are like. However, one big disclaimer:
The game is at it's core designed around co-op multiplayer, playing with friends while communicating enhances the experience tremendously, playing solo is not really fun if you're not challenging yourself to do it because it is just a lot harder, it is possible to play solo and offline, which had a great influence on my decision to purchase the game, but after a few hours it became clear that it is not the focus and not how the game is best enjoyed, so I gave up on the idea that I would play solo a lot. Matchmaking with the limited communication is inferior to having proper comms with your buddies, but by no means a bad experience. Embrace it.

It is hard, punishing, but proportionally rewarding, the learning curve is a bit rough even for veterans because sometimes it will feel like a speedrun, you will be rewarded for thinking fast and making decisions on how to navigate the map, they streamlined and accelerated the pace of Elden Ring gameplay by a lot. Those that dive in will find an unexpectedly weird but fun experience. The classes seem very unique, but this statement comes from observation and not experience, because I like to specialize and I'm only playing 1 one them for now(Recluse). The bosses are great, the music hits hard, and I'm loving it.

What I don't really like is that loadout customization feels quite limited because some of the relics you can equip are clearly better than the others, the character specific ones in particular feel like mandatory because their effects are just that good.

The other thing I don't like is that some of the rewards during runs do not feel rewarding... I beat a mini-boss, and the dormant powers it offers me are often things that do not benefit my character, so I don't feel the power progression as much through the expedition. Yeah, randomness is part of the game, but I think if the distribution of certain types of power-up rewards were specific to each nightfarer it would feel better, either that or make them always have a "gain X runes" extra option or an upgrade that is universally good instead of giving crit, weapon and guard buffs as options to a spellcaster.

This last one is a admittedly a nitpick, but the vagueness of the buff/power-up descriptions annoyed me a bit. Does "attack power" also affects sorceries? Oh there's "magic attack power" for those. Does it count as a ranged attack for ranged attack buffs? How long do certain effects last? And many other things I still don't know the exact answer to, the descriptions inform you enough to make decisions, but not enough to optimize them, which is something I enjoy doing. "HAHA NERD"

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding around what experience the game is going for, if it doesn't sound fun for you, that's ok, NightReign feels like an experimental side-project, you're not missing out if you don't think it's fun. I'll say it again, solo play is not the focus. But I'm all for improving the solo experience in future updates.

Game is already great, could be a bit better, but also NO MICROTRANSACTIONS

If you like slamming your head into a brick wall until it breaks or die trying, you might like Marvel Rivals, Your team either works and you win, or it doesn't and you lose. "Well no ♥♥♥♥" you might say, but the problem is that regardless of the outcome it does not feel good or rewarding, even when the match is not a stomp, your head will still hurt from being smashed into the metaphorical brick wall because that's the only option the game gives you. There is a single objective in every match and like I said, you have to keep throwing yourself into it with your team until no enemies are left so it progresses in your favor or the timer runs out. Unless you are gifted with the correct type of autism to be a top player it's hard to consistently have a meaningful impact as an individual in this game, and when you do it feels like stomping bots which is also not really fun for me. Friends that played before me described it to me as "it feels like 2016 Overwatch again", but I'm afraid that will never be replicated without a big innovation in the genre for those that experienced it back then. It was just interesting to learn what this game did differently for the first few hours.

It also feels bad to play, feels like a mobile game, weird interactions and bad feedback on hits/skills, sound feels off too, which is a problem that Overwatch does not have even after they made the most horrible decisions possible. Marvel Rivals is ambitious but feels unpolished, poorly optimized and cheap. All that on top of the fact that I just do not vibe with this genre enough anymore to keep playing means I cannot recommend this game.

All that said, I respect the f2p model, unrestricted role/hero draft and the bold balance design, wanted to like the game, but it never clicked. Can be fun with a full group of friends that are new to the genre.

Too many bugs as always, except it's worse. The changes since PTB were mostly balance changes, no bugs fixed at all. Dog gets stuck on terrain, cooldown takes an eternity to start because dog doesnt come back, path of chase command doesn't always represent the path the dog will go, search command targeting AND pathing is very inconsistent, and the stupid dog is loud and annoying when it's following you, and that's just the start. Figured this all out in just 2 games, it's either lazyness or incompetence, which sadly is expected from Behaviour. Even their silly "omg you can petterino the doggerino :O" animation is broken. Perks are alright tho.

The content is fine, new characters and stages are interesting, music is fire as always, the items not so much, but there are lots of cool ideas and potential here, it all seems fine at first. HOWEVER, all this was incredibly poorly executed. Really, I don't know how to make it worse if I tried.

Why would it all come with an update that changes the very core of the game mechanics and breaks everything? It doesn't even feel like the same game. Lots of interactions are broken because for some reason now everything is calculated in a way that is tied to framerate, in a game where the frames can be all over the place, this is a baffling decision that was clearly not thought through at all! And I won't even get started on the stupid new elite designs are, it's like they're patching the fun out of the game... It is sad.

FIX THE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ GAME!

I was going to just give it a thumbs down and move on, but I wanted to like it so bad that I think it's worth putting my thoughts here. This game is the biggest victim of the fall of Blizzard in the last decade, I had about 400 hours on the first year of OW1, and this "sequel" stripped it of everything good it had going. I came back because I heard things were improving, and while it's true things have been worse before, it's not exactly better now. I really wanted to like it but I can't have fun in this game anymore.

Stupid monetization decisions aside, the base Overwatch was built upon has some fundamental design decisions that can make it frustrating to play, which can work in a game's favor when dosed correctly, specially in PvP games, to make the ups and downs to feel meaningful. I could brush it aside before because despite the lows, the highs I would experience in this game were incredible, but that is not the case anymore. Every match feels like a slot machine with the odds tremendously against me and I'm not talking about win/loss.

The roster and maps feel imbalanced and just not fun. Some game modes are better than the others, but you have no control over what mode you're gonna play. Over time it became increasingly rarer that I would end the match and think "wow that was fun", most of the time I could only think "thank god that ♥♥♥♥ is over" even when I win. When you put it on a scale, it's not worth chasing that one good match through countless bad ones.

Overwatch feels like it's just a soulless product now, another one of Blizzard's cash cows, they came up with the excuse of making Overwatch 2 for the PvE story mode that got scrapped, now the game's only purpose is to be milked dry with a battle pass and microtransactions while everything else is just an afterthought, if you have friends to play with you might probably still be able to have a good time, but with good friends you can have fun anywhere.

TLDR: Blizzard lost the sauce and this game is wasted potential. OW2 sucks, find something better

THE GOOD: I have only done a single playthrough of the base game and the DLC, and I can confidently say these were probably the best 100 hours I have ever spent in a video game. This game is a piece of art. The sheer scale of the world and content is worth every cent. The progression and combat feel satisfying, the visuals are amazing and the exploration is well balanced with time/rewards. There is still so much stuff to do if I want to, different builds, completionist runs, pvp, just to name a few.

Some encounters feel unfair at first, but figuring out solutions and effective strategies is a fun way to tackle the obstacles, and there are lots of ways the game lets you overcome these challenges. You CAN do it, and you WILL feel great doing it!

I had high expectations of the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, but even then they were exceeded, this is a proper expansion on the base game, the Realm of Shadow map isn't as big as the Lands Between but it feels like it has a lot more verticality to it. And still beautiful.

THE BAD: I had some performance issues with slight stutters in the beginning and in some specific areas, nothing too bothersome but still worth pointing out.

The DLC areas feel more empty in some places with a few dead ends, making exploration feel a little bit worse, but not a deal breaker, exploring was still very enjoyable in the DLC for the most part.

Refreshing take on the original RoR game, controls are a bit odd for those unfamiliar with it but are easy to learn. The soundtrack is a banger as always for the franchise, and the ammount of content is great, my only complaint is the maps are a bit too big and boring to explore and navigate without much loot to offer most of the time, the start of a run is very slow and takes a while to get things going, at least for me in these first few hours.

Its fun as long as you dont take winning too seriously, treat is as the "party game" it was meant to be and you're all set for a good time. Specially with friends.

The base game is already really fun, but after 200 hours I was not that into it anymore, and then this dlc came out and it hooked me right back in. Everything is nice, i feel like it needs a bit more polishing but it's really minor stuff and nothing that takes away from the experience. It also makes the game loading when it starts up really slow for some reason, I hope this gets addressed soon. Those are all the negatives, there's a lot of content and it's all great. Special shoutout to the new music, that ♥♥♥♥ is fire like always.

Awesome game, awesome soundtrack, awesome mechanics. However, the 1.0 update came filled with bugs, and is somewhat lackluster with some really unnecessary nerfs, some extra skills and loadouts that were labeled as "work in progress" from the early access were sneakly removed, final stage seems unfinished, but the boss fight is insane. Very good game but could be a lot more. Hopefully the bugs continue to get hotfixed ASAP and the game gets even better, maybe add some QoL changes too.

Long story short, game is great but has some annoying flaws that will show themselves after the first few hours.