Metallumere の最近のレビュー

Caves of Qud is such an enticing setting, with great gameplay, and with devs that are truly awesome in delivering regular content updates and even porting the vast majority of the game from Unity in about a day's time.
I'd also recommend the book "A Canticle for Leibowitz" for something that explores similar theme and setting; a world of history and knowledge lost, yet with remnants and hints of what once was, all sorts of perverted and confused by the inhabitants who survive.
Can't recommend both enough.

Your thirst is mine, my water is yours.
Live and drink, friend.

Going into Lost Ark, I had reserved my early judgements and expected things to show their fuller colors a little later.
It seemed so cool and upfront about some things; the skills, the classes, that part feels so right.
My expectations were:
-Follow a linear path until the game FINALLY opens up around level 20 or 30 and really gives you the meat.
-I thought for sure this was going to be a much more open-world-esque experience, just based on what I saw of zooming out from the map and seeing all the islands and this open ocean.
-I thought, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that later on there would be mobs or bosses that I could just hang out and grind xp on. There was no way it would be nothing but quests, not with how cool the combat was, right?

The reality however, is that what you see early on seemingly never changes.
-Unless you want to kill 62,500 mobs for a single level, there is seemingly nothing you can do to grind for xp. Even then, there aren't any regular mobs that pose even a slight threat or challenge to you.
-You will always be pursuing the most asinine, uninteresting, uninvolved quests, for xp worth thousands or hundreds of thousands of mobs, and at least part of the time have to endure unskippable cinematics.
-World bosses are what I thought dungeon bosses would be like, "hard difficulty" in dungeons is completely meaningless and still too easy. Rud is such a cool precedent for a boss, hard CC and summoning swarms to smack you silly was a blast. Seeing nothing even remotely challenging like that in later dungeons, as bosses or not, is outright depressing.
Oh and, if you thought you could slay dungeon or world bosses for xp, you'd be wrong.

Seriously. The game stubbornly refuses to give you meaningful xp through what is objectively the most entertaining part; combat. It'd be one thing if the combat was at least challenging, that could be its own reward, right? But, even with mobs giving 1 xp each, they also die just from pressing a single button in their direction. Ugh.

I don't understand what is with this concept of games only "really beginning" when you max out your level. That makes everything before that genuinely valueless and non-memorable. You know what I remember most fondly from my youth? Maplestory, and the absolutely titanic grind that it was. Level 50 was such a hard wall for me, seeing someone level 150 was mind-blowing in comparison. The sheer investment of time and effort and maybe even money was absolutely legendary for anyone at that level, and even then they still had 50 more levels to get to 200, a truly legendary accomplishment.
That grind was boring as hell, but even then it was a very real and tangible challenge and accomplishment, and the best painkiller was interacting with anyone you met along the way.
So, what is the point here in Lost Ark? How is getting to level 50 or whatever any kind of accomplishment when everything before that is COMPLETELY meaningless and non-challenging?

The singular saving grace I have found and enjoyed about Lost Ark, has been the PVP arena. It's such a blast. It doesn't reward anything, you don't get money or xp for doing it, there's genuinely seemingly no reason to do it, but it just being an actual real challenge makes it so much fun. And that's all I need; fun.

• Add a 0 to every single mob stat. Their health, damage, defenses, everything. And have them actually reward decent xp, not just 1 or 4, something more like 100. Killing 2,500 mobs for a single level is infinitely more reasonable than 62,500, especially if they actually pose a challenge and maybe would require the assistance of others and having to form a party. Have bosses, as an actual real challenge that would require a full party, reward a good big chunk of xp.
  
  
• Add a 0 to every single quest objective. Seriously. If quests were even remotely more involving, they'd be infinitely more enjoyable. Yes, I would enjoy moving 20 boxes a short walk away into a golden circle. It at least feels more significant than moving just 2. It'd be better than sitting there and mashing G anyway. I wouldn't even care if it rewarded the exact same xp still.
  
  
• Allow party members to enter into main quest instances with you. I was really confused as to why the quest zones would prompt you to accept entry as-if it was a dungeon, but not anyone else in the party with you. The way it is now makes playing with friends feel so detached. This design decision seems overall so out of touch with any semblance of co-op.
  
  
• Either A: Start the game at Luterra Castle, or B: Add about as many NPCs and services to Prideholm. Prideholm, as a starting hub, was such a sad excuse for one. I never would have guessed there was so many NPC facilities and services available, and the game should really let you know way sooner that all of that is a thing.

That's it. This, in my mind, is the simplest way to make the game an exponentially more enjoyable experience in nearly every way for as little effort as required. The sad reality is, this is still probably the best MMO to release in years, maybe the past decade. But it could be so much more, just through some extra 0's.
It's probably good fun if you can tolerate reaching the tail-end of it, but I cannot in good faith recommend it to anyone unless the above changes happen.

I find this game conceptually interesting, but the part with being stalked and hunted by two bad dudes is executed poorly I feel. Mostly by nature of feeling very gamey and not at all logical or intuitive, which is in sharp contrast to applying logic and intuition to the reports you're otherwise tasked with sorting out.

This'll be a long read, but in short;
Play detective mode, or get decked in the mouth.

Nothing about the badguy behavior makes sense. Which sounds correct, right? They're psychos, of course it doesn't make sense. But, no, what I mean is that they behave more like a typical game ghost that happens to be incorporeal until they deck you in the mouth. I expected some level of realism to be applied here, I don't know why, but there is nothing realistic about how this game handles a home invader.
It's a game of course, but it plays a lot like tic-tac-toe. Do certain things or get guaranteedly decked in the mouth. Leave the lights on, shine a flashlight at the windows, turn on the three cameras and blink the lights for no longer than a total combined access time of .7 seconds otherwise the power goes off. Don't finish doing what you're supposed to be doing otherwise you get autopulled into a game over.
It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
This sucks too, 'cause the part about investigating reports and sorting out what's valid or invalid is genuinely cool.
I guess this is why detective mode exists, but I feel there's real value to just overhauling the home-invasion-side of things instead of settling for removing the parts that people must also commonly have problems with.

So, here's my initial experience:
I sit down at the desk, and immediately realize that my eyes are now bolted to a monitor, which I was not really expecting at all. I figured it would possibly be at least somewhat of a free perspective, at the very least allowing for some left right movement to potentially zero in on audio cues. But, no. Fixed perspective.
No big deal though, surely the character would still respond to potentially catching a glimpse of a flashlight, or hearing funny things happen.
Firstly, I read the email that the lights are faulty, or there's a problem with the electrical fuses, whatever right?
Next, I read the two bolos.
One mentions a woman kidnapper in the night or something and mentions locking your stuff and leaving the lights on. "Well, that's silly.", I think to myself, "If there's a kidnapper busting into peoples' windows, you'd obviously want to leave the lights off so you can either catch them shining a flashlight, or hear them fumble around in the dark and bang their shins on something or whatever".
So, I just go around the house, close every window(I did not lock them, unaware that it was even possible), and I turn off every light except the one in the hallway.
The other bolo mentions some guy just creeping around in peoples' yards, shine your cameras on him and he skidaddles off into the night once more. Odd really, but I figure if he's going to be busting in then he'll probably make noise in the dark even more than the other guy would.

So in my mind now, the faulty lights is a subtle way to eventually inform the player that there will be noisey things happening in rooms that are left dark if someone gets in. Ingenious really. But of course, the real danger would be walking into those dark rooms unaware of what could actually be lurking, the only hint of anything actually being there being the hissing of wind through an open window. Even better, this means they could mess with you by opening windows in several different rooms and potentially throw you off from where they've actually entered.
Now this, I like. In my mind, this game is poised to do some interesting things with what it presents.

What I then experienced was tragic.
I completed/failed 4 reports, unaware of it INSTANTLY pulling you away with no opportunity to get up and do a pass of the house, and find myself with a cutscene of getting decked in the mouth in bed, cut to a game over screen, all in the span of about 10 seconds.
So, lesson one: Do not file that last report without looking around the house first. Poor design i'd say, but easy enough to deal with after it happens the first time. Still, why not just... you know... be given an opportunity to turn in for the night over guaranteedly getting decked in the mouth from being forced to? But hey, I'm not the devs, maybe there's a good reason for this, or some mechanic I've missed going over my head like that.
The next try, I repeat the above; turn off all lights but hallway light, close windows(leaving them unlocked), file reports. This time I stop just before sending the last one, and exit the monitor to do a pass of the house before I am spontaneously thrown into a cutscene of being in bed and getting decked in the mouth.
What I experienced was... beyond any expectation i could have had. From exiting the monitor, I see that the lights in the room are on. "Odd, do they turn themselves on too?", I think to myself. Turn left, get decked in the mouth.

What in the ♥♥♥♥. You're telling me I've been sitting there with all my senses interfaced directly with this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ monitor? Unaware of some asshat in my living room, with the lights on, maybe playing a movie on the sofa right next to me, probably raiding my fridge for snacks and drinks, just waiting for me to unplug my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ brain from this monitor and turn around to get decked in the mouth?

I don't understand.
Now don't get me wrong, I have heard audio cues of funny things going on, but I couldn't even be bothered to investigate because... why would I? I'm in a pitchblack room sitting in the far corner of the house, if anyone was going to come up behind me I'd know, right?
Further more, even if there is someone in the house, what the hell am I supposed to do about it? So say this all did happen exactly as I expected in my mind; Sounds of a window being tampered with, fumbling around in the bathroom or something, lights still off. What now? Do I just open the door and go "Got ya!" and say "Kidnapper no kidnapping!" three times?
No matter what way I look at it, it seems like there's no winning. The endgoal of this game must be to get decked in the mouth. Maybe I'm supposed to make a call on a phone or something if I suspect there's someone inside with me, but I haven't noticed a phone if so.
Maybe I'm supposed to jump up at every sound I hear, run around the house flicking the lights on and off three times, open and close the windows 7 times to ward off evil spirits, lay a line of salt along the bottom of the doors, and pray to the Nine that none do me harm.
'Cause again, let's say I do that and constantly shine my light at the windows which apparently makes the badman go away(which I was unaware I even did until I exited and saw I got an achievement for it), why the ♥♥♥♥ would this stop him? They've seemingly already cased the place or have experience with doing this kind of thing, I don't see a light being shined through a window doing much other than causing them to move to another window, or even just busting in all the same 'cause what are you going to actually do to stop them? Bolt out the house and run for the neighbors? Well the door doesn't open, so that's probably not an option.

I just don't understand.
But, hey, if you enjoy getting decked in the mouth by a bald Sam ♥♥♥♥♥♥' Fisher who stripped off all his gear just before doing that, then you'll probably enjoy this.
But, to be real; maybe this confusion is simply due to a lack of player-feedback; maybe this would make a lot more sense to me if Miss Monitor-eyes commented more on what was going on, even if she wasn't right about what she thought she saw.
"Oh ♥♥♥♥, did I hear something in (name of room?)" "I think I saw someone looking at me through the window" "He ran off... maybe?".
There's a certain level of uncertainty that the game could benefit from like that.

There's room for improvement.
Text limit, ayyy.

Bannerlord is a dream come true.

Start at the bottom as some worthless nobody, and work your way up to being emperor and lord of all who'd oppose you.
The best feature by far is of course the ability to not only assemble an army, but fight and lead alongside them. Anything they can do, you can do. The unit command system is fairly robust and effective for what you'd want, enemy AI is quite effective at commanding their units and formations as well, so it's a good time.

A lot of the game exists as simple xml files, so modding potential is huge and open as can be.

It's got a ways to go still, being in early access, but it'll only get better with time and there is no doubt in my mind that it will become one of the greatest war games to ever grace this world.

LESS REVIEWING, MORE RAIDING.

Get your rocket buildin'
Head out on the launchpad
Lookin' for optimized delta-v
And whatever things explode
Yeah Jeb go make it happen
Take the contract to get into orbit
Fire all your engines at once
EXPLODE INTO SPACE

Great game.

This is the greatest Finnish summer simulator on the market currently and probably always will be.
You will find yourself fully immersed as you explore the Finnish countryside and its culture and music.
You will quickly find out that everything short of never showering or sleeping will kill you. Then you get to do it all over again!

Also the dev is a really cool guy~

This might be the greatest game i have ever played. And the gayest. And i love it. As such, i have nominated it for the Gayest Game award. Nothing can really compete with it.