Recent reviews by HMNS

Yao-Guai Hunter stands on its own as a great addition to the roguelike deck-building game genre and a must-have for those who want more of this style of gameplay. Don't allow the old top negative review (from a guy who has played it for less than two hours) or the game's shallow similarities to StS fool you.

Each character operates completely uniquely and expects the player to approach them in different ways. As the vessel for the player to explore the game's mechanics, they are a treasure trove of options, and it feels like rather than chancing upon the right relics (though in this case Elixirs), the major focus for each character is their deck and some inner-skills that help you to focus on specific strengths you've built within the characters.

As a side-note, whilst it irked me at first, the limited energy regeneration forces you to consider all of your moves and what you can afford to handle before using up all your energy, adding to the complexity of gameplay with just this small difference.

A good example of when this game really clicked with me is with the character Ao Yu. I found one of her inner-skills (the one that has her start in dragon form) completely useless if not actively detrimental.
But after spending Act 1 and part of Act 2 cultivating the cards for it, it became the key to making one of my best builds with her.
It seems that every character has at least three different areas you can focus on (or not) when building them, Ao Yu just lays it out in the most obvious way: dragon-form, ancestor cards or spells?
Each character has a central 'gimmick' that helps to define them, but there's a lot of workaround and options within that sphere, to make sure it doesn't feel like a restraint, but instead a direction. There's many unique buffs meant for each character to benefit from as well as the usual universal stuff.

There are no glaring problems with the game like having annoying enemy types that completely shut down a build, or terrible end-game bosses that work off of shutting down your ability to be creative as a player. Neither are there any mechanics that force only a single approach to work. Instead, they all offer their own challenges to be overcome by your carefully crafted deck.
I don't find myself needing mods to further increase my choices either, because the game has a wealth of choices that doesn't diminish the challenge that the enemies can pose. Even the Special Events offer up a lot of additional room for the player to commit to specific options, and there's always a way to avoid particular enemy types you may dislike, like the crab with a counter-hit, or the guy with the sword army.

It's hard to really sell how good the game is with just words, if card games interest you at all, buy it and the you'll understand.

TLDR: This game is incredibly deep and no it's not a Slay The Spire clone. I personally think Yao-Guai Hunter is a lot better but also demands more from you as a player so it's less chill to play (take it from me as a player who has Ascension 20'd every character in StS, and then also the Hermit from Downfall).
When you fail it doesn't feel like you got screwed because of a bad match-up or other factors out of your control, but instead most of it is your fault. The game has FIVE deep characters to get good with and explore their options. The enemies are also incredibly fun to figure out and learn how to prepare for and deal with. All this for less than $20.

Been trying to figure out why I can't seem to like this game and why others like it so much, and I think it comes down to how much you enjoy the RNG, because when you get used to it, it's the liveliest part of the game.
I played Battle Brothers on a friends computer while I was waiting to get paid so I could get it for myself, I was so excited to play such a well-received medieval turn-based strategy game — and with party management? Absolute gold.
The issue is that, after playing 20 hours, I got bored. I'll try to be concise and talk mainly about the gameplay, because the sound, music and art is good.
Bear in mind, this is my opinion.

The Good:
-RNG for combat
-RNG for finding rare weapons in shops
-RNG for finding talented brothers
-Some enemies require you to outfit your brothers with different weapons

The Bad:
-RNG for combat
-RNG for loot
-The fatigue system
-Enemies with abilities that ignore RNG/abilities that are too strong
-Boring perk system
-Little to no actual strategy in combat (feels very repetitive even with RNG)
-Dead world with very little to do outside of combat
-'Negotiation' for contracts is RNG
-Finding good brothers is RNG
-Leveling up brothers is actually boring

Playing Battle Brothers feels like shallow gambling. I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love landing hits in this game, I like going to town to find brothers with diverse backgrounds (changes base stats) and to roll some of their stats and talents. I love rolling high numbers when they level up in attributes they're talented in. There's a huge hit or miss commitment in this game, and when I get lucky. It's good.
My main issue is that RNG is all it has. Weapons have different abilities depending on their type, but since everything is RNG, your plans hinge on RNG anyhow. Pre-battle preparation is the closest you get to strategy, and you barely do this, save for enemies with very specific and annoying abilities.

The combat boils down to meeting in the middle, getting locked onto one another because retreating back after contact is RNG, alternate attacks for weapons range from useless (axe 360 roundswing, shield Hunker Down) to godly (Riposte, aimed shot, two-handed sword's multi-target attacks). Alternate attacks on weapons take like twice the amount of fatigue, and when this maxes out, you can't attack anymore. So you've got AP (max 9) and Fatigue to limit you. While enemies like Barbarians get Adrenaline (better than yours), Barbarian Fury (better Rotation), spiders capable of locking your positions with webs and using poisons, Nachzehrers instant-healing and getting permanent stat-boosts after landing on a corpse.

Finding loot after battles sucks, want armor? Surround someone after you've killed most of their friends, switch to your daggers, stab him with an attack that uses twice the amount of fatigue and gets a -15% chance to hit. It's not all bad though, it completely ignores armor! Except it can't critically hit, so you bypass someone's armor by hitting them in the most unarmored and vulnerable places (neck, armpit, eyes), but you gain no bonus damage for that. Even when you do avoid destroying their armor, it's still up to RNG whether you're rewarded after going through the trouble.

Now we get to a really bad part of the game. Enemies can be tedious and annoying to deal with, they have one or two abilities that just don't seem to care about RNG or just ignore fatigue, health and logic. Also, most enemies generally have better stats and hit-chances than yours do, especially when you're in early game.
Barbarians are capable of spamming Adrenaline, allowing them to act first, they have a perk called Barbarian Fury, which lets them swap positions for like 5 fatigue, while your Rotation does the same for 25.
Nachzehrers have good attack chances and damage, but if they land on a corpse, be it friend or foe, they can instantly eat it, allowing them a full heal and a health, damage and hit-chance buff, as well as improving their morale (affects hit chance and defense).
Hags can Charm your brothers from a distance, making them team-kill each other, which is why you bring a bunch of maces to stun each other with. Once you finally get to her, she can run away, Hex one of your men — so that if you decide to kill her now, you lose one of your brothers as they now share the same health pool.
These hags get a guaranteed chance to somehow tie their life to your brothers in just a second, and or charm them — it's morale-based and you are only allowed to level 3 stats every level up, so good luck.

Do you see a pattern here? Enemies have some strong stats and abilities that allow them to just not care about RNG. Fighting the same weak bandits over and over again is what you'll end up doing most of the time. And trust me, it gets boring.

Your own perks are lame just increase your chance to hit or not get hit, some your chance to injure. Some reduce fatigue costs for basic abilities. Rotation is kinda nice though.
Negotiation boils down to: 'Are you feeling lucky, punk?' Because if you ask even once, you could piss off your employer and he decides that letting his own village get burnt down is better than dealing with your spineless mercenary captain. (If his village even burns down, nothing ever happens).
Party management seems good, except: you pay mercs to show you what they can do, or just hire them without knowing (I love gambling). When brothers level up, they can only increase a few stats at a time. So good luck giving him some individuality. I do have to praise the early game grind though. It can be boring, but getting all your guys solid armor and an alright weapon feels nice.

The game world is really empty. You can get relations with towns and villages and whole factions and it simply does nothing. You have a reputation system that seems to have minimal to 0 effect. As time passes the game makes things harder: upgraded enemies, more exotic enemies, even whole crisis events that really amount to nothing and just seem like lazy ways to make the world feel like it's 'changing'. This sort of 'it always gets harder' pacing seems to clash with the game always telling you to expect to lose people and that 'losing is fun'. Because losing someone makes you weaker, and the game world moves on and gets stronger. There's no 'dynamic' growth and loss to the factions, towns, villages, enemies faced, no such thing as small enemy factions that could grow over time whilst others become weaker. There's no fun to the losing because there's nothing to learn, since you'll usually end up losing due to the game's over-reliance on RNG in the place of actual strategy.

Mods fix some of this, but at most, they elevate the game to a 6/10. And it still doesn't fix all the boring. All you'll be looking forward to, is the same thing that makes the game so lame. RNG. So uh, pick it up if you like RNG. BB Legends helps make character progression less boring but kinda bloats things. Finding mods to decrease hiring costs and increase loot gain, whilst making the game more immersive or fairer, can actually make the game more boring, because you get too comfortable.


TLDR: Game world is empty as all hell. RNG is the only thing worthwhile when almost every encounter is super samey, enemies have strong abilities/skills that ignore RNG altogether or just have extremely high chances to hit and 0 counters. Even if you download mods to make things more 'fair', it doesn't help the fact that the game is boring and has 0 strategy. It's only claim to fame is being 'difficult', but it has no substance.

It nearly got me