Recent reviews by Bwin

I brought this game during winter sale for 25% off, figure it will be a not very in-depth simulation game that is MOBA themed with card elements, but will never the less scratch my itch since i love both those genres. I am happy to say the game ends up exceeding my expectations.

The Good
-----------
- Players management: What you expected from other simulation/management sport game, as you have player stats, scouting, growth rate, training, and etc

- The Matches: It is actually very hands on and has a lot of strategy and planning beneath it. The way the game is structured is the game will run for a few rounds by itself, so you see heroes/champions pushing and doing objective etc. After a set period, you will have a hand fill with cards, then it is the "TCG phase". Your cards are hero specific and either move them, buff/debuff, damage, or force a "fight" that will take you to another screen that the heroes/champs will fight it out on their own (you have no input during that). When you play the cards require planning, for example if Dragon or Bull are coming up (just think they are like Dragon in League and Roshan/Baron in Dota/League), you want to see if you can force a kill so they have less people for object, so they will concede. Pointlessly starting fight isnt good either, because you farm less, and if you cant kill them, they will just tp to base and heal to full. That part mimic a real moba game pretty well and I love it.

- Extra feature: The game let you create or even import/export tier list for heroes/champions in game. You can even set your own "guide" as to what heroes are good against who or have good synergy with others. This is VERY helpful for the kind of game it is. Excellent job on the Dev side, felt like they definitely played it themselves and realized they need it

The Bad?
----------
- Hero Balancing: Unfortunately not all heroes are made equal, some are really trash and some are really OP. Its not that the bad heroes are completely unusable, but once you play long enough and the game added a large amount of heroes to the game, you have to pick and choose your players' hero pool, and obviously the crappier heroes you wont try to have your players learn it, unless it comes with the players you recruited. However this isnt really a "bad" thing potentially, because the fact that I am complaining about balancing is simulating the moba experience I supposed lol

- AI Generated Content: They label it in the store page, but basically they had a range of character parts for the game to do random mix and match, such as face, hair, body, clothes, and etc. While this does make every players you come across a little different, i think there werent really enough parts to randomize so i feel like there is a case of "same same, but different, but still the same". It isnt a huge deal because most players still look great, but I much rather have a larger range of unique character portraits instead.


The Ugly
----------
- Translation/Localization: There are quite a few events I have idea what anyone is saying in a conversation. I supposed they are mostly flavor text but it is kind of jawing when I come across those. But I do see some typos in some of the cards, that is probably less excusable.

Just like their previous games, quite janky to unplayable on release, but now after a year? You can tell its improved by a lot, performance seems a bit better for me, and SUPER EXCITED about the new talent trees. I think there is some balancing on it, BUT this is a great step to make a lot of the classes much more interesting, particular Psyker went from a ♥♥♥♥ class to VERY fun and good to use.

I do hope we see more daemons in the future. I like fighting monstrosities more than human or almost human-looking humanoid enemies.

TL;DR Is not the Diablo we deserves but the one we needs right now.

- Reminiscence of D2 or games from that era's aesthetic
- Somewhat challenging. Not overly difficult but you definitely don't feel like you can just cruise through
- Only played first 2 characters, but active abilities seems to be the same for them. Just unlocked the 3rd character so hoping to see if it is just going to be the same set of abilities again.
- Direct gameplay for these characters do feel different though despite the abilities. 1st one I naturally built more "tanky" due to being somewhat close range, 2nd character I mostly trying to stack crit% when available.

I may not have hundred of hrs into the game, and seems clear enough that I will be keep playing the game. There are other similar genre games where I spent 20 to 30mins and it just didnt click.

This patch make everything jankier. It seems like it needed more testing, or any kind of testing?

-1 perk point.

If you think being a dragonborn in a medieval setting is too boring for you, and you want to do in space and in style, this game is for you.

Todd spent all these years thinking what possible way they can sell you Skyrim without calling it Skyrim for like the 7th time, and this is the answer. Unfortunately the madman did it.. and it is actually a fun game. I do wish the game come with more frames per second though.

I am not a big reader in general so i wasnt expecting much, and i only get the game on sale because the art was very appealing and reviews are good.. once i pass through the tutorial i am pretty hooked both because the writing is interesting and the RNG/dice-roll mechanic isnt particular difficult. Rather, it is built so even you low roll can be used for something which is something i appreciated a lot.

At the time of this review i have about 11hrs and finished a playthrough, however there are a lot that i havent done. I just didn't realize the path i took will lead to one end of the game, fortunately quite a wholesome ending.

It is a game that I think overtime i will play it a couple more time. So i think it is worth a Yes on review.

Overall the game is good (I completed it without rushing it), but as most people say the performance is seriously suffering thanks to the crappy 2K launcher. Look up on how to run the game bypass launcher will give a significantly performance boost.

Beyond that, I enjoy pretty much everything the game has to offer:
- Original hero introduced in this game which is you
- Don't get discourage by potential card-based RNG. It may actually be better than XCOM % RNG lol
- Between different heroes you have variety of playstyles based on who you are deploying
- I personally like the relationship building stuff, also help everyone's dialogs help built out this particular Marvel universe. However disclaimer I really like Marvel IP and a huge fan of JRPG like Persona and the later Fire Emblem series. So this type of gameplay is exactly for me. May be a deal-breaker for some though

Having said those points though, there are some rather minor things (quality of life) i dont really like
- For a card-based game, their ui when it comes to opening new "packs" is kind of terrible. Sure you see what is current in your deck.. but there is no way to view whats currently in your inventory. This become a bigger issue especially since they let you add random modifiers into your cards later in the game
- Sorting cards for some reason is non-existent in deck building menu.. you can just filter. This is just a big over-sight
- I wish there is a way I can see if i have gotten all the cards for a character.. i am not aware of a way to see that
- Again, FUJCK the 2K launcher

More variation of the "Vampire Survivor" genre, but the game has its charm that standout. Overall I like it, there are good amount of characters already, and there seems to be 3 character archtype that based on your fantasy rpg games - warrior like class with focus on melee skills, mage class with magic, and ranger with bombs and arrows. There are a lot more characters/classes, but they are just different variation of that core atm. Though the skills you get during the game makes for a fun build every time because there are a lot of skills synergy - such as stacking abilities that bleed, and have a "finisher" that deal damage based on stacks of bleed, while also picking up passive that improve on the bleed.

i do have a minor complaint unfortunately, which could be a deal breaker for some, is depending on the character or build you are playing, your skills can potentially cover such a wide area that both the enemies AND the attack telegraph visual effect will be blocked and you cant see anything. I feel like the dev should make the telegraph be always on top of other skill effect, so even if we dont see the actual skill, good players can tell the direction of the marker and react according similarly to a raid in MMO.

If you like frostpunk and the idea of being a fantasy settings instead and with different biomes sounds good, you should check it out.

Oh.. and all the buildings are locked beside a few essential basic when you start each game. You choose your unlocks from a random selection as you play out each game, and they do not carry over to next game.

I don't usually have much expectation for games that come out of Early Access, however this is quite a pleasant surprise for me. I noticed that everything is functional and didn't come across any noticeable bug personally which is very nice. The game also has enough content that last me past 20hrs already and I can continue to play many more.

TL;DR - This is a solid CRPG to pick up for fans of the genre, especially ones enjoy some Rome history.

My thought as I am playing this game: it totally feels like I am actually someone that get isekai'ed into this world based on how they insert me into the story since you will be replacing an important Roman and essentially ♥♥♥♥ up the rest of the timeline for how actual events take place.

But it is all good, since I destroyed all other barbaric civilization aka anything thats not Rome anyway, defeated my political rival, and slept with another important person in history while already romanced another character. You know what they say, "When in Rome..".