Recent reviews by Xune

Don't be fooled by the pretty screenshots and positive reviews, this game is TEDIOUS.

Levels are comprised of uninspired rooms that require you to build your own platforms and paths to find 3 main McGuffins, that the game calls idols, to progress. There are also numerous optinal ones throughout each level too. Spotting a potential hiding place for an idol is followed by boring clicking to create a path of Tris to get you there.

Portal and Q.U.B.E. get this right, you can be stumped on a puzzle for a while, but once you've figured it out you're done in a few clicks. In TRI there is no puzzle; you decide where you want to go, then spend several minutes clicking to build your paths and platforms.

Puzzle games are supposed to be about figuring the puzzle out, not the drudgery of enacting the solution.

If Dark Souls is a flawed masterpiece then Dark Souls 2 is ham-fisted fan fiction.

From the very outset things feel wrong; movement has changed from a fluid 360 degrees to an 8 direction snapping, meaning that precision when navigating the game is greatly diminished and feels bad.

Player animations are agonisingly slow. Get hit or become staggered and your character will take an eternity to regain their footing, if they're knocked down they take a quick nap before getting back up. This extends to every aspect of your character's movement, everything just takes far to long to complete compared to Dark Souls.

The lighting engine is full bright in a lot of places, over exposing textures, making everything look flat and washed out. This also has the effect of lighting areas that were obviously not meant to be seen by the player, revealing sloppy and incomplete texturing work and excessive tiling over large areas.

Sound design also takes a back seat, with enemy hits sounding less like you have caused them a mortal wound and more like you just hit a bag of water. There are areas in Drangleic Castle that are slick with rain, however when you fall onto them it sounds like you have jumped into a swimming pool. In other sections you will climb obviously wooden ladders yet they will play metal sound effects. The game is littered with repetitive or inappropriate sounds for what they are trying to represent. Then there are the bugs in the sound engine itself, cutting out environmental noises when you cycle through items in your inventory.

Bosses are insipidly easy with limited move-sets and tells that are telegraphed and quickly learned. Seemingly to compensate, From have littered many areas with overwhelming numbers of enemies. When this happened in Dark Souls they were either manageable, such as the hollows in the Undead Parish, or could be pulled individually if you took your time and assessed the situation. In Dark Souls 2 you are regularly swarmed by multiple enemies and there is usually nothing you can do to mitigate it.

Level design is linear and uninspired. Whereas Dark Souls' Undead Burg made repeated use of the same bonfire in the foot of the bridge, DS2 litters it's levels with bonfires and other than dying and re-spawning, it's highly unlikely you'll use the same one twice. The best way to sum up the experience for someone who has only played Prepare to Die or Remaster is to imagine Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith, with their boring and linear level design, poor lighting and texturing (especially on the lava), copy-pasted enemies, uninspired & unfinished bosses, and the general sense of being rushed and incomplete. Now extend that to an entire game and you have Dark Souls 2.

There are some nice touches. Allowing you to wield your weapon left handed and shield right handed, two handing the weapon in your left hand, and power stances which allow certain pairs of weapons to be dual wielded for extra damage. The DLC is definitely a step up in terms of level design, enemy placement and boss design; the highlight being the Fume Knight which feels like a mash-up of the Artorias and Gwyn fights while having it's own unique mechanics to overcome. However it's still hamstrung by the poor player movement, slow animations, lighting and sound.

Overall, Dark Souls 2 is highly disappointing for someone who was hoping for a Dark Souls experience with the rushed second half of the original given the time it needed. Instead I experienced a game that was developed by a team that didn't understand what made the original so great and floundered in their effort to ape it.

Killer is Buggy & Boring.

Sound frequently cuts out for no apparent reason. Not that I minded too much, the overly long and nonsensical cut-scenes were doing my head in. Gameplay is also dull button mashing and quicktime events.

TIMEframe is a short game of exploration and discovery, reminiscent of MirrorMoon EP but without the puzzle solving. It feels like wondering through an abstract museum.

Short but sweet.

A touching tale with great environmental storytelling, set in an atmospheric and well realised house.

Football with cars. An immense skill ceiling means you're always striving to improve while feeling challenged at every level by those around you.

The Long Dark is the survival game. No zombies, no PvP ganking; just you and a cold, uncompromising world that doesn't care if you die now or in a hundred days time.

An oddly compelling game. A pleasent experience to unwind and relax with.

Not without it's flaws, some glaring, but hands down the best game I have ever played.

The thought, the attention to detail, the nuance and subtlety that has gone into Dark Souls is astounding.

5 years to achieve nothing, no communication for 2 years, this is just rubbish. I want a refund. Can I have a refund, please, Dejobaan?

EDIT: It's been a further 3 years since writing this review, during which time ABSOLUTELY NOTHING has been done to this game. I have also not been able to get my money back. Definitely do NOT buy this game and seriously consider not buying ANYTHING from Dejobaan Games, LLC.