Recent reviews by AngryToilet

For those that have never played ASE, this might be fine.
Honestly, it's playing a game thats been played for 8k hours ... again.
It's 100x prettier than ASE, but, at the same time, there is way too much foliage and "stuff" all over.
Its not better, its not worse. Its just a polished turd.
Yes, at the time of this, Steam has me at 3 hours. I have many many more hours than that in ASA... just not with Steam. I mean, in the end, why re-sell a product you should have made to start with? Why re-sell a product that you were making look like this (well, you SAID you were going to make it) with "TLC Updates"? Oh wait, you stopped all those updates to make ASA seem "special" and different. Ugh.

You played thousands of hours of ASE? Probably wont find this as enjoyable....
Never played ASE? You might dig this. Its not a bad game, really its not. Its just a recycled game as "new".

Let me start off with saying: This is not a survival game. The fact you can build a "base" doesn't mean its SURVIVAL. Let that preface the entirety of the game for you. This is a 3rd person Adventure RPG. Like Zelda, or, you know ..... not survival games. There is 0 penalty for anything in this game. This is a 100% reward and 0 loss game.

There is food. Its a buff, nothing more. You can turn food into worse food. Its great.
There is water, you don't need it, plants do. See how that's different? Shaking it up!
Weather? None. 0.
The time does change, but, you know, like anyone else, i skip night time.
Cold in the mountains and hot in the desert? Nope, you would think that's how it should be, but, we are doing things different so people are like "huh, wow, i wasn't expecting that, so stunning and brave".
Bases provide nothing more than a buff that boosts stamina. Stamina that you use a ton of to do any action.
The voxel world is all surface level. Once you get past a couple layers, its all stone baby, all stone.
The world is less than populated.
The enemies are all the same (im guessing maybe 10 total different types in the entirety?)
Its a "my ♥♥♥♥♥ broken" sim. You will spend more time running back to repair your stuff than actually fighting stuff.
Want to get ore? Have fun spending hours on 1 node because every 5 swings you get 1 ore. Tin? Its junk, but, you need like 20 to make 1 bar. Whats that equate to? Like 2 hours of swinging a pick and repairing it ... oh and waiting for that sweet stam to regen. Have a ton of stam? No, you don't.
Crafting is a joke and 100% pointless. Craft arrows by the millions you rangers/hunters. Everyone else, spend days on end crafting bandaids. You will need them.
Classes? Not really. 2 choices: Ranged or melee. Both are good. Magic user? OP. Healer? JK! Beastmaster? Yeah, what the F is that for? lulz.

I can go on and on, i wont. The entire game is a feature. There is no core to this game at all. The story is AI generated. The world feels dead and the voxel aspect is laughable at best. I dont want to hear about "ohhh, you big mad, its early access". Sorry, I dont make excuses for companies. They released it in the current state, it gets a review on what it is not what i think maybe someday it could maybe be.

Multiplayer? Not really. Its like playing WOW, but, without a group or guild.

I feel like no one in the company had any real direction and everyone was working from home and wasnt talking about what they were working on. Imagine if your boss was like "hey you 20 people, draw me a house, but, you can only draw your one section. No discussing anything about style or anything, just draw". That, thats the game.

Is it fun? Sure, flying around killing stuff. Its not terrible. I got my time from it. Is it replayable? (ie: make a second class and play). No 100 times. Its a one-trick pony.

Updated Review:

So let me start out by saying this is 100% not my typical game genre. I loved Neverwinter Nights (no, not the crap MMO one) and the actual Balder's Gate series. Those, yes turn based, were a little more on the side of aRPG and not cRPG. If you are into the fast paced "♥♥♥♥ the story, gimme ♥♥♥♥ to kill" with loot falling from the heavens, this isnt for you.... at all.... in the least. If you ever wanted to play the entire story of LotR word for word at realtime .. this is for you.

Some things I didn't enjoy:
1. The game is painfully slow. For the first 4 or 5 times. I went from 7-8 hours in Act 1 to maybe 20 min in Act 1 full complete.
2. The choices are not really choices. They are choices how the game wants to lead you. Yes you can 100% screw yourself, and the story .... and end the game at the end of Act 1 with the wizard (killing all 3 bosses.... and the entire world... roll credits), but, the game will do everything in its power to not really allow you to do that.
3. Items: if your not a melee, melee, or melee, you get nothing. The gear that is "good" for anyone else is super general, or, overly specific. Its a situation where you think "ah, yeah, thats not terrible" and then you find some other item and your like "this is terrible, but, man, this one thing... i dont use that one thing.. but if i did, i would be awesome!". Really directs you how to play that class that you have full freedom of choice... lol... nothing in this game is "your choice".
4. Why the ♥♥♥♥ is everyone trying to ♥♥♥♥ me!? The world is ending and all anyone can do is try and smash. Even the alien emperor is trying to smash. I think some slow progression in that regard would be much better than "oh hey, we are in the same party, so, ♥♥♥♥ bang?". Gets old real fast.
5. Its 5e. Yeah, i know ... 5e is more "the DM has the power to screw you because the story is more important then the players". It makes things slow and progress like molasses.
6. Stats don't matter, kinda. They dont really save you from the RNG of the rolling system. Yeah thats D&D sure, but, with 20 DEX and with tools, i should never fail a lock-pick skill check.... 5e.... again... 5e.
7. Clunky mouse and controls. Its just poor response and the camera has some really odd positions. Sometimes you click a door ... and endup blowing up your party on the trap 10 meters behind you.
8. Unless you know 5e and its class rolls specifically, you can screw your entire build by level 2. Sure, you make the choice, but, do you know that the choice you are making will have some serious issues in a few hours? Its not too bad, 100g respec. Whatever.
9. Game gets really boring to play and has no direction. There is a story. There is a journal. There are markings on your map. I get that. They are there if you happen to be in the same exact area as the quest you are on. Outside of that, nothing. Maybe group the quests by area so i know where to at least go to turn stuff in? Maybe im a SBS (Space Bar Spammer) and need to read more, but, ♥♥♥♥ it, this is how i play! My character my choice!
10 (last one, there are more, but, last one here) The games performance is total trash. FPS = frames per second and this game it rolls a dice for time check. Sometimes, I get 1 frame per 2 to 4 seconds. It gets really really bad.

What I did like:
1. Eats your time. You can ♥♥♥♥ off in this game for days!
2. Killing people without knowing the story.. yup... ♥♥♥♥ um
3. Getting my party to fall in love with me .. then murdering all the children i see in front of them.
4. MODS! Mods make this game 100x better. Right now im playing with the "party extender" so I can have everyone in party. The dialog between party members and such are great! There are tons of mods that "fix" a lot of the limitations set by default (ie: setting the initiative rolls on a 4D and not a 20D ... things like that). You can make the game as hard or easy .. or whatever ... you wish. Great addition (they have been around for a few years).

Again, this game isnt for me. I would wager to bet its not for about 75% of the people that got it thinking it was an aRPG. Its fine, day 1 sales dont dictate if the game has staying power. My bet (and we will see how this ages) 6 months from now this game will drop 80-90% of its entire player base. The game gets old rather quick. 5 full runs of the game and all 5 were exactly the same. Sure the relationships changed based on my choices, but, in all 5 endings, its the same outcome.

Game should have been called "Balder's Misdirection". The game is Balder's Gate in name only. Yup, they have the IP, but, I can assure you from many years of the series... this is not Baler's Gate anymore than Neverwinter is Neverwinter Nights.

Total score (honestly): 4/10
Keeps me playing (lol, "playing") but really offers me nothing more then a time sink. Replace the lore and giving aliens BJs with murder and loot... got yourself a winner. Remember, the game itself is like 4 years old and a copy/paste of the previous title they have. Watching some side-by-side video of the other titles .... its really kinda sad that everyone thinks this is some "new" game and totally "refreshing". Its the same thing they have always put out .... just shows how little everyone knows about the studio honestly.

Got this game when it first released in 2018. Might have put a few hours in before the 3.0 update. The base game itself is pretty boring and uneventful. You can probably fumble your way to the end in about 2 or 3 days casually. The entire "vanilla" experience is lackluster and a massive lack of content.

Mods make this game 100% what it is ..... or isnt. This isnt a review on Game + Mods, just the base game.

Got this free and I still feel like I need a refund

The game is exactly how i expected. Bland. Like eating celery and drinking water. It has way too much going on to even start understanding the system. I have been just following the little icons on the map and pressing F as much as possible. I play a "healer" and have to use healing potions on myself. I mean, assuming i actually get hit. I did some dungeon and have no idea where it was or what i was doing, i did it solo.

I spend more time being confused then actually playing and enjoying myself. Get 20 quests, look for icons on the map, go there, kill stuff with icons on their heads. You dont even have to turn stuff in, a window pops up and you win! Its like a ported Android/iOS game ...

Its exactly what you would expect from an MMO based out of Asia. Its like all the other copy/paste games.

Cant have my computers running without it!

The game is ok, at best.
It feels like someone had a bunch of people toss in all the ideas they should add to the game. Then they pulled the ideas out, they only did the very basics ..... of all of them. It feels like everything in this game was done 25% and they went "meh, good enough".

Travel is trash and slow
Healing is freaking joke, rather spam potions ...
Nothing makes sense, its like instead of explaining anything or giving direction (at all) in this game they decided "too much work". The last quest is "hey good job, go figure it all out on your own" ... yea. I wish i was kidding.
The tiered weapon system as levels doesnt provide much boost in anything, at least from what i can see.
Its a farming sim. You will literally just spend hours farming trees and plants and rocks.
There are no merchants or gear rewards (there are, for PVP only) so you have to make your own stuff. You 100% will spend money (real money) to keep up with your gear needs, or, spend hours farming your arse off for that 1 item ... but then get sad because you have to do it like 5 more times to fix the rest of your gear.

I can do this all day, but, i wont. Its not a terrible game, it, just feels like a half baked idea that never got finished.

Original review was recommended, but, as of 3.15 changes, i can no longer.

This game is 100% "pay to win". I say that because anyone you watch as a streamer is using real money trade. Of course, against the rules, but, they do as they please (as per GGG). These guys are getting 10+ Mirrors (about $150 to $200 a pop) and they are like 1 in a million chance to drop .. but hey, they have 10+ per build in currency and several hundred in Exaults one week in leagues.

Besides that (as it effects my game play zero), the changes made to the game in 3.15 are horrible. The game is near impossible unless you are the luckiest MF on the planet with drops and crafting. Normally, i can Sirus all day, this league? I get one shot as soon as i walk in the room. I even died 3 times at the end of dialog ... wtf?

The games direction is getting worse. 3.16 is bringing on "fixes" to problems GGG made themselves in the 3.15 patch. This game used to be good, was fair, and, with work you could progress.

The exp loss is freaking MAJOR. A good example, at 98% into level, i died on a boss while mapping, all portals gone, 100% of my level gone. Not too bad, tho, right? But its taken me over 5 days to get that into level 91. Its not about "wah, i lost exp" its about "well, F those several hours to a death that i have no idea how it happened". The game has gone to sh-t. The head of GGG doesnt even play (poe or any other games, as per his video chats) and has totally lost touch with the community and vision.

The end result will always be the same. I used to play with a large group, but, no one logs in anymore and its all pretty much for the same reasons. Leveling, exp loss, item drops, changes .... skills no longer make sense, scaling is trash ... defense is there, but, proven in several youtube videos to not even work ... its just gone to hell.