Recent reviews by null

It's okay, but gameplay too basic. I can't help but feel it could be more.

Update: It too too tedious. Far too many (boring) challenges that had me replay a stage simply because I didn't know objectives the first time around.


I'm enjoying it, but if I pause to play another game, I am never coming back to it.
It is a tower defense with action combat (not unlike orcs must die, dungeon defenders and many others) EXCEPT there's a little progression and very basic base building built in.

The game has a lot of nice systems, but neither of them is developed to a degree that adds depth. Like there's at least 4 ways to become stronger (kinda) and over 75% of what I experienced feels like it's designed to pad playtime. Is there any reason I'd want to beat a stage without using contraptions? It actually makes no difference, except I have to play a 2nd time, because the first time the game concealed those challenges.

You get access to a 3 move combo (+ 5 finishers 3 of which are combo finishers).
You also get jump, which could be disabled and nobody would notice. You also get a dodge, which is actually worse than just running most of the time. Most enemies either die in 1 hit or don't flinch so combos are only as viable as you can make them safe (usually unpredictable).

You also get a special attack that you can use like once/minute and bow that can later get upgrades.

To put it bluntly, combat boring kind of technical. Even on bosses that require you dodge it feels more like a platformer boss, where you just have to know when or where to move.

You get a limited amount of villagers and use somewhat limited resources to turn them into combat/support units.
It starts VEEEERY slow and does a terrible job at selling it, but it does get better, as you eventually get access to more units, and enemy variety actually force you to use more units.


There is one negative that's bugging me. Units can get upgraded (outside of run only) and upgraded units are just better than non-upgraded ones. This means that you might want to place an archer to deal with flying enemies, but if you don't have it upgraded it will not do much and you'll have to do more work than the archer. In other words progression locks your choices for a good chunk of the game. You can respec for free, but the sequence in which you upgrade is kinda obvious, because

Octopath Traveler games are very similar in most of it's core mechanics, but those games have more mechanics and are significantly more engaging.

Bravely Default 2 battles are won too easily (max difficulty) and are not rewarded well. They feel like a chore from the first hour.
Most jRPGs balance this, so this kind of gameplay is reserved for optional backtracking.

• There are WAY too many "trash" battles as it until you outlevel enemies they rush towards you.
  
• The core gimmick allows you to win most battles in 1 turn. Remember Octopath Traveler "BP"? Well you can spend BP you don't have, which has drawbacks that don't transfer between fights. i.e. there is no cost to insta-winning fights, which makes almost all of them boring. I only had to default(guard/build resource) in 1 fight in ~5 hours.
  
• Rewards aren't great.

Put all these things together and you're pretty much just running from point A to point B while buttonmashing to skip fights. It's tedious.

A worse Octopath Traveler isn't bad, but there are far too many 8/10+ games for me to recommend a 6/10 though.

This game has character, but I couldn't stand the controls.
I only played a handful of games with aerial combat, and I can't recall another one feeling so bad to control

Gameplay is Ace Combat adjacent, but in my opinion worse (control scheme contributes to that a lot).

Destiny and Warframe offer similar things, but blow this out of the water.

Grappling hook is the only unique thing this game has to offer, but it's limited in so many ways (uses, distance, locations you can graple on) that it fails to give any freedom or fluidity to movement. The actual movement feels great, but it only works at short distance and even then you have to look at specific angle until grapple marker appears.

Everything about combat looks good in isolation, but nothing feels right in action.

• Melee attack has weight when swinging at the air, but it just kinda bumps an enemy and they either ragdoll (paralysis look) when killed or don't react at all.
  
• Gunplay lacks in too many areas many things. For example: headshots do more damage, but if you didn't see the number you'd never guess you're hitting a weak point. There is actually no feedback when hitting weak spots.
  
• Skills like basic grenade look nice, and sound powerful when thrown at the ground. Their effect doesn't match the look when used against the enemy. Enemies either die and switch off or continue moving as if nothing happened.

Stuff cash can buy:

• Equipment slots (cash only as far as I've seen). By the way this is not storage slots. It's actual equipment
  
• Characters (also earnable through gameplay).
  
• Gold and Crafting materials
  
• Multiple experience and currency boosts
  
• PREMIUM battlepass and battlepass level skips
  
• Cosmetics, including FOMO ("limited time") ones

You judge.

Creative, goofy, frustrating.

This game has a few basic mechanics (Jump on head to knockout, hat protects from that once, enemies can do everything you can do) at the core and lots of hats that modify those mechanics in creative ways (like squishy hats that prevent your hat being removed by jumping on you). There's also lots of weapons to attack with that can bypass hats. The game's is fun.

What's not very fun is having to do several missions to level up a character and death (permanent) often feeling too random. You need 3 specific perks on 1 character to prevent "stupid" unpredictable deaths.

A random chance costing you time in game is stupid.

Rough around the edges. I'm amazed the game is so well reviewed.

This game features spells and trigger that charge mana for spells (and auto-cast them). It's a nice baseline for an action roguelike, however the game is closer to a survivor's game in gameplay, as movement is slightly too slow, attacks are effectively spammed and spells are pretty much automatic. The entire gameplay is moving out of the way while fighting enemies and then moving to the next arena to do the same.

The game on its own is already very good and unique, but on top of that devs removed always online requirements and somewhat aggressive monetization (Pricy micro-transactions + premium battlepass) as response to community feedback.

They put the players first and I think these devs are deserve the support.

The game on its own is already very good and unique, but on top of that devs removed always online requirements and somewhat aggressive monetization (Pricy micro-transactions + premium battlepass) as response to community feedback.

They put the players first and I think these devs are deserve the support.

The game on its own is already very good and unique, but on top of that devs removed always online requirements and somewhat aggressive monetization (Pricy micro-transactions + premium battlepass) as response to community feedback.

They put the players first and I think these devs are deserve the support, even if I already had every cosmetic from playing season 1.

Captures the feeling of a floaty Tao combat without actually feeling floaty.
Smaller than hollow knight, despite being adjacent in many gameplay elements.
Also cats...

The theme is right up my alley. Visuals, music and that, fluid floaty feel to combat really sells that eastern fantasy.

I love that a lot of combat is parry-oriented. Early stages are rough as they have some grouped enemies, which you might be able to parry, but cannot safely counter-attack (not without upgrades that enabled tagging multiple enemies). I'd call it Sekiro-adjacent. You don't have a million parry techniques to remember and parries/dodges aren't limited by stamina/ammo. Instead counters and dashes are on a short cooldown and failed counters can count as guard instead (so you take temporary damage which can be recovered). I prefer this approach over stamina management.

There's also some exploration. It's better than looter games, but it's not on par with best metroidvanias out there as only about a fifth of all finds actually feel valuable.

• XP loss is particularly annoying because XP in this game isn't a tiny stat boost as it is in most souls-likes. It's your combat options, INCLUDING ability to counter-attack multiple enemies, reflect projectiles and so much more.
  
• There's a type of delayed counter-attack which is impossible to learn without failing on each enemy that requires it first. I didn't like it in general, and it also feels clunky because it can't be initiated mid-air.
  
• 3 missable achievements (1 of which are fairly late in game), very low replay value and no cutscene/dialog skips, making replays a very tedious affair.