Recent reviews by WompyTree

To sum it up, it's like 2d Toribash (With simplified movement) and more weapons.

Great fun and looks very promising.

Though, it does take a little time to learn the basics, like many games worth playing, "easy to learn, hard to master". Plus it's $3.

Quite possibly one of my most favourite hack and slash games, the art style and plethora of mods available for this game are simply amazing. I'm disappointed that Ruinic felt that they were competing with Diablo 3 because I'd love to see a Torchlight III in the future.

Skyrim's Dialogue and Inventory menu were absolutely atrocious and a mess to navigate, I'm glad that SkyUI was made as earlier as it was to make inventory management, interacting with Traders and being able to order equipment/items by weight, value, armour and/or damage was made possible. It's unbelievable that they allowed for such a clunky menu to be shipped with the final version.

Also, the benefits and differences between each of the races compared to the previous titles were completely lost, every race can do anything and be equally proficient at it. In Morrowind if you tried to make a Spear-wielding High Elf, you'd spend the next 20 minutes trying to hit a Mudcrab. But in Skyrim, you can have a spellcasting Khajiit or Redguard and it would be completely fine. And let's not forget that the Novice level spells end up being better for knocking Dragons out of the sky compared to the higher-level destruction spells. With no Spellmaking, being a Spellcaster feels incredibly empty simply because there's no real reward for investing so much time into improving that aspect of your character. Sure enough, there's no shortage of mods which improve, or customise how you would like the base game to be, yet, none have been able to add Spellmaking.

However, in saying that, all playstyles are supported, but they all end up feeling the same in the long run, due to Smithing being able to make you take as little damage as possible, while dealing as much damage as possible - Literally making it harder hitting than Spellcasting. Every character in Skyrim will always end up being the same, much like in Fallout 4, yet in the Fallout series (With the exception of 4) there were options and choices to make in relation to skills, perks, traits, etc, that you could take that would ultimately refine your playstyle for that character.

Dragons are enjoyable, but the fights are incredibly bland and samey, after you've killed 5 dragons, each encounter feels more like a time sink, playing on Legendary you come to realise very quickly that the only real difference between fighting a dragon on an easier setting is how long it takes before you can cause it to stay on the ground, it seems like a wasted opportunity that Bethesda decided to add dragons, but didn't make the encounters with them anywhere near as engaging as it should be. They add a plethora of new abilities which are based on the Dragon's langauge, yet, with the exception of Alduin, all dragons will use just 2 shouts - Being an elemental gout, similar to the Flames spell you start with, or another slow-moving, but ranged spell of the same element which they are. Why not allow each Dragon to have the intelligence to use different shouts based off the situation they're in?

And then the Leveling system is also a huge issue, since they removed attributes, you're only given 3 choices for what you can level up, while in Oblivion and Morrowind, favouring a high endurance in the earlier levels would be advantageous in the long-term as it would provide you with more health each level up, Skyrim completely dumbs this down by providing you with 3 choices, Health, Magicka or Stamina, with each being increased by 10, and choosing to level up stamina (The more useless of the 3 in the default game) you also gain 5 Carry Weight, but the main difference I feel is that the Perk System does add more choices compared to Oblivion or Morrowind, as each skill now functions as a skill tree, whereas before it was a linear progression where you would be rewarded when your skill reached 25, 50, 75 and 100, Skyrim gives you choices based off your skill levels by allowing you to choose Perks which would compliment your playstyle, but even then, the Perks trees are nowhere near as thought out as they should be, they are poorly conceived when you compared them to the Ordinator's Perk Tree mod, where the majority of each Skill Tree branch off to support different playstyles, but also intertwine with other Perks that allow you to circumvent Perks that don't seem too useful, or relevant for your character.

Skyrim's Dialogue and Inventory menu were absolutely atrocious and a mess to navigate, I'm glad that SkyUI was made as earlier as it was to make inventory management, interacting with Traders and being able to order equipment/items by weight, value, armour and/or damage was made possible. It's unbelievable that they allowed for such a clunky menu to be shipped with the final version.

Also, the benefits and differences between each of the races compared to the previous titles were completely lost, every race can do anything and be equally proficient at it. In Morrowind if you tried to make a Spear-wielding High Elf, you'd spend the next 20 minutes trying to hit a Mudcrab. But in Skyrim, you can have a spellcasting Khajiit or Redguard and it would be completely fine. And let's not forget that the Novice level spells end up being better for knocking Dragons out of the sky compared to the higher-level destruction spells. With no Spellmaking, being a Spellcaster feels incredibly empty simply because there's no real reward for investing so much time into improving that aspect of your character. Sure enough, there's no shortage of mods which improve, or customise how you would like the base game to be, yet, none have been able to add Spellmaking.

However, in saying that, all playstyles are supported, but they all end up feeling the same in the long run, due to Smithing being able to make you take as little damage as possible, while dealing as much damage as possible - Literally making it harder hitting than Spellcasting. Every character in Skyrim will always end up being the same, much like in Fallout 4, yet in the Fallout series (With the exception of 4) there were options and choices to make in relation to skills, perks, traits, etc, that you could take that would ultimately refine your playstyle for that character.

Dragons are enjoyable, but the fights are incredibly bland and samey, after you've killed 5 dragons, each encounter feels more like a time sink, playing on Legendary you come to realise very quickly that the only real difference between fighting a dragon on an easier setting is how long it takes before you can cause it to stay on the ground, it seems like a wasted opportunity that Bethesda decided to add dragons, but didn't make the encounters with them anywhere near as engaging as it should be. They add a plethora of new abilities which are based on the Dragon's langauge, yet, with the exception of Alduin, all dragons will use just 2 shouts - Being an elemental gout, similar to the Flames spell you start with, or another slow-moving, but ranged spell of the same element which they are. Why not allow each Dragon to have the intelligence to use different shouts based off the situation they're in?

And then the Leveling system is also a huge issue, since they removed attributes, you're only given 3 choices for what you can level up, while in Oblivion and Morrowind, favouring a high endurance in the earlier levels would be advantageous in the long-term as it would provide you with more health each level up, Skyrim completely dumbs this down by providing you with 3 choices, Health, Magicka or Stamina, with each being increased by 10, and choosing to level up stamina (The more useless of the 3 in the default game) you also gain 5 Carry Weight, but the main difference I feel is that the Perk System does add more choices compared to Oblivion or Morrowind, as each skill now functions as a skill tree, whereas before it was a linear progression where you would be rewarded when your skill reached 25, 50, 75 and 100, Skyrim gives you choices based off your skill levels by allowing you to choose Perks which would compliment your playstyle, but even then, the Perks trees are nowhere near as thought out as they should be, they are poorly conceived when you compared them to the Ordinator's Perk Tree mod, where the majority of each Skill Tree branch off to support different playstyles, but also intertwine with other Perks that allow you to circumvent Perks that don't seem too useful, or relevant for your character.

Bought it to see if it was any good.
Not really anything to write home about, combat is extremely repeatative doesn't seem to be any faster ways to level up.

If you like grinding just to get from level 1 to 5 however, you might enjoy this game. But I didn't.

-- 4th June, 2021 --
I mean honestly, the game is kind of still the same unfortunately. I found very little entertainment from playing the game and basically was waiting for the game to 'get good' but levelling up in this game is a chore and your only incentive to do so is just bigger numbers. Not that it makes killing enemies faster, since they gain health every time you level.

It's unfortunate that it's 4 years in the future and the gameplay is still exactly same.

-- 21 March, 2017 --
if you play this game for 30 minutes, you've already experienced the entirety of the game, it doesn't seem to offer too much in terms of variety, you're stuck with killing the same 4-5 enemy types.

The loot system is good, but it doesn't do enough to make up for, what I found to be, lackluster gameplay.

It's a good game and the custom factions which people have made breathe new life into it, though some aren't as balanced as others -- It's still an enjoyable title.

Game is the perfect mesh of Binding of Isaac and Diablo.

Only issue is some of the classes seem pretty boring until you get to level 24, but it's still a good experience if you're looking for an RPG with loot.

== UPDATED 4/3/17 ==

The issue I've seen is that many of the classes, particularly the Melee-based ones stand little to no chance in the late game of Wormholes as at a high enough level as when enemies die they leak poison which slows and hurts you and is arguably the most frustrating cause of death ever.

Additionally, the classes also play very similarly as there's not much variety amongst the skills which is truly disappointing, however for the current price of US$6 it's not unreasonable.

The most played high level characters I've seen seem to be Paladins, as they have a skill which makes them invulnerable to statuses and damage (Which at higher levels is incredibly important) and Marksmans as they have an incredible set of crowd control and range.

Wormholes being the end-game doesn't seem to have a set limit as you'll be able to keep going until you're beyond level 1,000, which also allows you to find much better gear than what you'd have started with, keeping the sense of progression continuing to grow which is important for the longevity of the game.

== OVERALL ==
+ Wormholes are an excellent end-game even if Blizzard's Diablo 3 had the idea first.
+ H-Levels similar to Paragon Levels in Diablo 3, except each one provides bonuses to all Stats
+ Relics are great for rewarding players who don't die an idea taken from Risk of Rain
+ Price is hardly an issue and the game provides more than enough entertainment at US$6
+ Item Quality actually makes a noticible difference which I really enjoy.
- Classes are pretty boring, though some skills make the classes viable for end-game
- No shops available to buy better equipment for your character such as Gambling, etc.
- Crystals/Rubies are useless unless you want character customisation or skill/stat resets.

I spent ages looking for an Action RPG game, found this by complete chance.

If Squad-based combat (with optional pausing) tickles your fancy, give this a try.

It's free, so there's no reason to play it.

After playing for 2.5 hours I was able to get to my first Warp, which seems to be the 'end-game' content as the game begins to get progressively more difficult and there's no grinding involved, progression is linear enough that it's enjoyable.

Also the autobattle AI is a bit daft at times, but overall it's rather impressive.

While I was initially expecting to see randomised loot what one would expect from an RPG title, such as Torchlight, Diablo, Path of Exile, etc. It seems that items are in a tiered manner with each tier improving on the last by +10%, which I'll admit that I was disappointed by, however, any items you find, you are able to give to your next dungeon party.