Recent reviews by Thanatov

Having played Dark Souls 2 for a long time now i feel i can now give it a fair review. That being said overall the game is pretty great but pvp has suffered greatly from previous games in the series.

Basically if you've never played a Souls game before, you will die, alot most likely, until you get the hang of it. This means the game is extremely challenging and even beating the first boss the first time feels like an accomplishment. This is not a game that is going to hold your hand and tell you where to go and what to do. Its up to you to explore the world and find new items/spells/weapons etc. That being said, if you don't want a challenge don't buy this game because it will do nothing but frustrate you until you learn how to play properly.

Basically the games only currency (so to speak) is souls. You get souls by killing things and they are used to buy items and level your character. The problem is, when you die you lose all your souls and have to return to where you died to get them back. This can also be frustrating to newer players but it also adds to the challenge of the game.

As far as leveling goes there are several stats to level up and they allow you to use heavier armor. increase hp, magic ability etc. You have to have certain attributes to use certain weapons, and weapons also receive different bonuses from stats depending on their attributes (for example a giant club would get increased damage from higher strentgh attribute if you had strength beyond the minimum requirements to use it). Dark souls 2 also adds quite a few weapons and upgrade choices that allow scaling with intellect and faith meaning casters can finally be able to use quite a few good weapons also. On top of the stat/weapons a new addition is powerstancing. Basically if you have 2 weapons and have high enough stats you can enter power stance and attack using both weapons at the same time (as opposed to having to alternate between each weapon attacking normally). This adds even more options to upgrade your character and can make things really interesting.

As far as choices on how to upgrade there are literally probably about 100 different weapons you can choose from, Anything from longswords to katanas to giant axes and crossbows; even crazy weapons like twinblades and rapiers. The choice is yours, because once the game starts you can level anyway you want. The difference is Dark Souls 2 (unlike previous games) seems to work better with jack-of-all trade characters. So don't be afraid to be a guy using a massive sword and using magic. Everything fits together quite well.

As far as enemies go this game has some of the best boss battles you will probably see, and general enemies throughout the game are pretty varied and challenging. You will also have to use certain resistances against certain enemies which adds greatly to the RPG aspect. Also certain enemies are more susceptible or resistant to certain attacks (i.e. some enemies may be weak to fire but strong against physical attacks, or strong vs slashing attacks but weak vs blunt weapons like maces).

All in all the PvE aspects of the game are great, and finding people to coop with is never a problem and I have no complaints at all, and in fact think they did a fantastic job but my only gripe is what PvP has become.

Previous soul games had the dilemna that anytime you could invaded by another player and have to fight them. This added a certain aspect of randomness to the game, and it made walking around human very dangerous. In Dark Souls 2 all the items for invading have become extremely limited, and the covenants which have invasions are limited to very specific areas. This means you can play through the whole game and never get invaded once where as previous games you would be invaded several times, even multiple times in certain areas. Essentially they made PvP a consensual affair limited to dueling either by putting down signs to be summoned, or by dueling your OWN pvp faction to level up (yes the red phantom invasion covenant levels by DUELING not by invading and killing people).

This is good for people who did not like being invaded, but it seriously limits people who enjoyed playing the game with that threat looming over them. The areas where invasions do happen frequently are quite interesting however and present a really unique and fun challenge but as they rely on people to enter those areas they are often not completely reliable pvp areas because at higher levels people can just breeze through them and spend no time there (also these ares are optional and do not have to be completed).

The covenant meant to PUNISH invaders, gets little to no action because no one invades so they are seldom summoned to defend people, and no one invades so there are very few "bad" people to punish. This essentially makes that covenant pointless as the only way to level is to help someone in coop and use the item you receive to duel and gain rank (meaning the only pvp you do for this covenant is a duel.....).

While these changes may have been intentional, and maybe the community overwhelmingly supports it this way over the way the games used to be, but in my opinion it has made pvp far less interesting and desirable. On the bright side coop has become much more fun and enjoyable, making it a fun thing to do in the game to gain extra souls and regain your humanity when you have died.

Overall though I would highly recommend this game because it is a top-notch rpg experience that is really challenging and allows for multiple options on how to upgrade your character. It truly is a throwback to how hard games used to be. If however, you want this game based on how fun pvp used to be in the Souls games you may be disappointed, BUT do not let it deter you because just the PvE alone makes it an amazing game well worth playing.

Finally doing a review of this game after a LOT of time playing it and I have to say if you are a strategy game fan this is a must buy. At the release of the game there were some pretty big problems with balance and bugs, but as of now (February 2014) the game is pretty well polished with a sizeable dlc under its belt.

Basically you can play any nation in the world from 1444-1821. This means you can be a european country and colonize the world, or be a tiny little tribe in north america trying desperatly to survive the hoards of europeans coming to your shores. Every nation can be played multiple ways, and you can pick idea groups that give you bonuses to things like trade, income, or military. This means that (for example) you could play as England and instead of colonizing (as they historically did) you can upgrade your country along a military line that lets you steam roll other european countries and never even touch the new world creating a british empire on the european continent. And that is just one of several interesting scenarios you can try out, and there is lots of replayablility in that you can play a country over and over again and try new ways to play.

I do admit though, when the game first came out playing anyone that was not sufficiently advanced technology wise (i.e. western europe) was a major challenge and sometimes just not fun at all. With the recent patch native tribes and other "uncivilized" countries have a chance in the game and can more easily become westernized creating some crazy scenarios, like say the Cherokee becoming westernized and dominating north america. As the game stands now though almost every country is very interesting to play and has at least some form of ideas and bonuses unique to it.

One draw back though for someone new to these "grand strategy" games is that there can be a learning curve involved. While this game is much more accessible and has much better menus and tutorials then previous games in this series, it can still be a bit overwhelming at first. This is not so bad anymore as the game now provides a more or less guided tutorial you can play as portugal which will teach you all of the basic mechanics for the game before you play your nation of choice.

Above all though, the reason I really like this game is because it does not hold your hand and let you win like many games today do. It can be extremely challenging and just because you can pick a country does not mean you will win. This is especially true in ironman mode, which is a game mode where the game constantly autosaves and overrides meaning a bad choice is a permament bad choice. This makes playing smaller countries extremely challenging and fun (in my opinion) and can lead to some epic wars and come back victories. The AI is not merciful at all and will gang up on you if they sense weakness (just like would happen in real life) and you can easily lose some wars from time to time if you are not careful. Overall though, it really adds to the tension, and leads to much more meaningful decision making.

The last great thing I want to bring up is the mods for this game. There are a lot of them and some of them are really really good. There are mods that add earlier start dates. later end dates, custom countries, completely made up countries, mods that completely change game mechanics, and many many more like skins and music packs. And since a good majority of them are on the steam workshop it is as simple as clicking subscribe and downloading the mods to play on your game.

I would definetly recommend this game to any big time strategy fan, or anyone just interesting in a really challenging and fun game with a great modding community and the potential for more great updates/dlcs to come.

EDIT: Oh and for anyone who likes/plays crusader kings 2 there is a save converter which allows you to put your save game into Eu4 and continue to play as them. The save converter is pretty awesome because it means there is the potential to play almost 1000 years of history between the two games and create some truly incredible empires/countries.

Save your money and do not buy this. Completely unfinished and unoptimized. The game has a lot of potential and good ideas but they are no where near implementing them at this time, and as the game is at the moment, there really is nothing to offer. If the game is improved in the future I can always update this, but seeing as how they have not had an update to the game in like 3 months I don't see them improving it anytime soon. The game is in no way ready for the public and for them to release it the way it is is just a shame. As of now (February 2014) I would not recommend it at all there is simply no game to play at the moment.

A really fun turn based strategy/rpg game, that unfortunately is a bit short on its own without mods.

Basically to compare this game to a more recent game, i would compare it to x-com: enemy unknown. The big difference is that cover is not as important, and Shadowrun has a lot more rpg elements. There are several classes/races to start as (anything from mages to hackers and humans to giant mutant trolls) you can mix and match classes as you see fit (so mage samurai hacker is certainly feasible).

As far as art style i'd compare it to things like the matrix deus ex. and ghost in the shell. If those things catch your fancy then this is right up your alley. (I guess shadowrun is something that's been around for a LONG time but its never been something i've been aware of.)

The only drawback is the length of the game. It can easily be completed in around 10 hours and that just doesn't seem like a long enough game to fool around with a lot of the great RPG elements they have. The length of the game sort of punishes you for trying to make a hybrid character and forces you to develop your character along a certain path to be strong enough for the end game (I.E. No real optional missions to build up xp and money). This isn't too much of a problem as it may have been at release though because there are several mods out now that add loads of additional content and tweaks that will give you plenty of incentive to keep going with your first character or make whole new ones.

The story is pretty decent, but if you don't like reading a lot of text you may be in for a disappointment. You have to be paitent and read a lot of the dialogue to catch subtle hints on how to solve problems and get clues. I think my biggest gripe with the story once again has to do with the length of the game however. You meet a lot of really interesting characters, but it just seems like their stories drop off when they begin to get interesting, making you think "wait is that it?" The game is set up big time for sequels/spin-offs and i'm not sure if the devs just made a short campaign and gave it to the community to develop everything or if sometime down the road they will be releasing additional campaigns of their own.

Overall a really great rpg/strategy/turn based combat game, which is just too short; but fear not mods abound that will make the game enjoyable and replayable for a long time to come.

Really fun sidescrolling action/platforming game. Basically the game starts by picking a hero, then you proceed into a castle and kill stuff until you die. When you die, your gold items found etc. go to your next hero (your kid/descendent) which allows you to keep building your heroes until they get stronger and stronger. As you get more and more money you can also purchase upgrades and new heroes. This makes it so you can kind of focus on upgraded the heroes you really like, but there is never any guarantee that your choices among descendents will ever be one of your preferred classes. This adds a lot of randomization which is really fun to mess around with. Also your descendents can have a wide variety of afflictions like being obsessive compulsive, having tourette syndrome, and even irritable bowel syndrome. Some of these are just simple funny things, but some of them can change how your character works completely (for example if you are nearsighted, everything farther away is blurry). Overall it is a great game that seems to have a lot of replayability (the castle you enter changes with each descendent unless you activate a certain upgrade) and for as cheap as the game is i'd say you are going to get your money's worth.

Really fun (and short) platforming/puzzle game. The graphics are really simple but it is pretty fun to play and the narration in the background serves to put some story on top of everything you are doing. Basically you find different "blocks" as you go through the game and each one has different abilites like jumping higher, being able to go in water, etc. You have to use all your different block things together to solve puzzles and move each block to its respective exit portal on each level. Overall its pretty fun and you can get this game for like 1$ in an indie bundle so i'd definetly recommend it for that price to give you around 3 or so hours of entertainment.

Bought this game on a whim and was really suprised how much fun it was. Basically its a combination of civilization and an RPG as weird as that sounds. Combat takes place in a top down grid and is turn based kind of like a final fantasy or any other JRPG. On the world map you go around finding monsters to fight (or other people if you are at war) and you get xp and items. You also use pioneers to found new cities to add to your production. What is really cool though is the customization. You can make custom units, heroes, factions and maps. This really adds to the games replayability and you can even do stuff like handicap your race to make the game more challenging. The one big thing missing of course is multiplayer, but it is a really fun game and i'd recommend it to fans of civilization and rpg games (also wait for a sale to get it cheap if you can and you can get 50% off the expansion).

Pretty fun sidescrolling action rpg. It is kind of complicated but doesn't take too long to figure out (plus there are some good wikis for it.) also buying the first game gets you the second game for free. The biggest problem with this game though is the graphics and art work are really really cheesy. Movement on guys looks like the first episode of south park. I wasn't too phased by the graphics, but most of the really low reviews the game got were because of it. So if you get past the pretty bad artwork and graphics it is a really fun game and you can get it cheap on sale.

Just as good today as it was back then. Not much has changed other than the addition of some new characters which are pretty cool (that and you can make your resolution higher without destorted graphics). You can also pick it up on android/ iphone/ipad if you'd like to have it to go. Basically playing this game makes me realize how modern games have really dumbed down and it is almost depressing. If you've never played it get it on sale for 10 bucks and its also worth revisiting if you've played before you won't be disappointed.

Got this for pre-ordering AoE2 HD. Pretty enjoyable and people still actually play it online so that's a plus. Any other time you can get it on sale between like 5-10 dollars and i'd definetly recommend it if you like old school RTS games with huge armies.