Recent reviews by darebrained

Up until yesterday I would've recommended this game. But the update they dropped today changed my mind on that. They added one of the most boring zombie modes I've seen in a long time - maybe ever. And accompanying that was the first instance of actual P2W, by allowing you to buy to unlock cards (you, AFAIK cannot get otherwise) to get as pickups in said zombie mode.

I hope they manage to reverse course, but I don't see it happening. This game is probably gonna die within the next couple of months, maybe a year and will just be another "what could have been" - because, don't get me wrong here: Up to this point the gameplay of Strinova was very fun and fluid.

So it's tragic - a bit at least.

The people who get your money stole the IP from the creators and most likely will use what you give them to hurt them.
Do not buy this.

More information:
{LINK REMOVED}https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-disco-elysium-writer-survive-the-winter

Better donate 10 bucks to him and find alternate ways to enjoy the game.

Had a blast with Hades 1 and this does a lot of the things H1 did and also does some great new things.

Even with all that said one of my biggest issues in Hades 1 were the many different resources/currencies. Something that just got *so much worse* with H2.
There are probably over 50 resources this time. Many things that you got "for free" in the first one - like to see your affection progress with characters for example - you now need to craft first.

Just get H1. It's still a good time. To me there is no reason to play H2.

What should I say about this? It's not that good.
The controls seem neither responsive nor precise. There are obvious bugs that should not be in a release version.

The only argument in favor of this over its contemporaries really is "big tiddy nuns". And... that's really all the upside this game has in comparison.

Maybe all those issues will be fixed. I hope so. But the fact that this isn't even marked as Early Access makes me doubtful. Overall just spend your money on Hades 1 or Death Must Die or... idk.... Mad Rats? That's at least so bad it is iconic. This one is just thoroughly unexciting and plays like a hackjob.

It's... better than the first one? Which admittedly is a low bar. But it also is the most positive thing I have to say about it.

Overall there are many better deckbuilders available. That's it really. This one does nothing great.

Disclaimer: I am an ultimate edition founder from Kickstarter, so I did get the chance to play during the closed betas before, though the betas I participated did not include campaign or coop, which is what this review will mostly be about.
Comments are on, I love to hear your feedback, but please behave.

Since I don't think this game really needs much of an introduction I'll skip that part and move on straight to my issues with Stormgate:

Easy-Anti Cheat
Stormgate makes use of EAC, something which was never communicated before that it would be the case until it was dropped on us fait accompli with the advanced early access launch in early August.
EAC is a kernel-level anticheat, which is quite problematic, not just according to myself, but also according to much more knowledgeable people. I won't go into the details here since this is a review of Stormgate and not a "Why giving Kernel lvl access to stuff that doesn't really need it isn't a good idea" PSA, but if you aren't aware I'd highly recommend you to inform yourself.

Warz
Warz is a coop hero (alike coop commanders in SC2) who was released as day 1 DLC for 10$. However the Kickstarter FAQ stated that founders would receive all year 0 heroes as part of their founder's bundle. This has since been edited out (Source 1) and of course you could now make the argument that Warz could count as a "year 1" hero - but I feel like this is being overly charitable towards FG, something I had been in the past since I bought into their "we couldn't do what we wanted to do with SC2 in ActiBlizz" stick, but this is clearly undeserved.
We (the founders) are apparently slated to become a "replacement hero" down the line to make up for it, but to me this has set a precedent to not take anyhting from FG at face value - and neither should you.

Always Online
While this isn't too surprising, considering SG being a F2P game, not being able to have offline skirmishes or play the campaign offline is definitely a bummer. In difference to other points I made here this certainly is among the weakest ones, but I still want to point it out.
What makes this point unfortunately a good bit stronger that I repeadetly experienced lagg during campaign play while my PC was running fine otherwise and internet was working well outside of this, too. IDK if this is because of EAC, because of bad netcode or whatever, but experiencing lagg during campaign sessions certainly is a new kind of frustrating.

The campaign
At the time of writing we currently have access to the first 6 missions of the campaign, and I cannot help but to call it "The Force Awakens" of Blizzard RTS - our (so far) main character is fem Arthas, hunting for definitely-not-frostmourne while being motivated by a loved one (her dad) having died to the initial assault of the not-scourge/zerg with an opening cinematic of her looking at a picture of him that really reminds one of the SC2 opening cinematic of how Raynor stared at the picture of Kerrigan.
And I could go on about this - somehow, even though we just have 6 missions released at this point. So far I experienced next to nothing that would feel original and I can really not recommend paying money for this.
Also one other thing I have to point out is that based on what I understand the "cinematics" at this point - except for the very first one - are using the ingame models and it shows. This however is - also as far as I understand - supposed to change and just an "early access feature".

Overall while you certainly can go and check the game out - it's F2P afterall - I cannot recommend you to invest too much into it unless you are here for the PVP.

Sources:
1 - https://youtu.be/BoI2S3ZpYoI?si=Oy70h8aOInQSwQ6E&t=472 (German; though the screengrab of the FAQ is in English)

This is a lot of nostalgia for me, I want to preface everything that comes after with this to make sure that this is properly communicated.
As always, comments are on as long as commenters behave. Criticism is welcome. Threats and insults are not.

Description
Urban Rivals is IMHO best described as a "Poker CCG", bluffing is a key element of this game just like deck building is.

Cards are displaying the colorful citizens of "Clint City", the place where the plot (yes it has some plot. not saying it's deep but it exists) takes place. All of them are also members of one of 34 different clans, which represent different stereotypes or are (often very blatant) pop culture references. For example you have the sports-loving "All Stars", the circus of the "Freaks" and next to them with the Skeelz what is basically the aftermath of a X-Men and Harry Potter crossover, down to mutant students, "Definitely-Not-Dumbledore" as principal and his archnemesis... Waldegrin?

Cards come with their own abilities, which can be something simple like a stat boost or deactivating an opponents ability as well as a bonus. The bonus is depending on the card's clan, each having their own bonus, though some clans (especially older ones) share their bonuses.

The quality of the artwork, while often very good isn't consistent - the picture of some older cards can be quite pixelated, though this isn't the case with most cards.

Gameplay
In the most relevant formats - "Tournament" and "EFC" ("Elo Fighting Championship") - your deck will contain at least - usually exactly - 8 cards with a combined level of up to 25 and no duplicates; there are also ban lists and other restrictions, but let's keep it at that.
At the beginning of a match you will draw 4 random cards from your deck, one player (usually) chosen at random then has to play their first card, as well as set a hidden amount of "pillz", the opponent then will select their card and the amount of pillz they want to spend after that damage calculations take place, at which point both character's power will be multiplied by the amount of Pillz set to an "attack value", the character with the higher value wins, dealing damage equal to their damage value to the opponent.
After this the roles are reversed, with the player who just picked his character last having to pick first until either all four characters are played or one (or both) players hit 0 HP at which point the player with more HP left wins the match.

Monetization
As you probably expect for a long-running CCG it can be quite expensive, though overall I would argue it also is quite F2P friendly. I will not lie - lil me back in the days, probably ~15 years ago did drop some cash on it, so I can't 100% speak from the perspective of a free player anymore, however the game certainly gives you a lot of stuff without you having to hand over cash.

Glitches & Bugs
Unfortunately both the Steam and the Android client are not exactly bug-free. It is far from unplayable but it certainly is something that will rear it's ugly head from time to time. Especially in the new - well new for me, anyways - "kinda roguelite" mode, which seems to be completely free without any monetization. this happens quite often, unfortunately.

Other headaches
This part is really made for one thing in specific - while the game does allow you to forfeit a match, it does not want you to. Should you keep forfeiting matches it will give you a short matchmaking ban.
To be honest I just wish I just could forfeit, no questions asked than push myself through another 3 fights when I gambled big on the first combat (and lost).
My biggest problem with this is however that the game fails to tell you that you aren't supposed to forfeit - well until it does by timing you out for a couple of minutes (dunno the exact number, would guess anywhere between 2 and 5?).

Summary
Overall I think I can recommend Urban Rivals for anyone who likes CCGs and wants to try a bit something different or even just likes the comic art style. It certainly isn't for everyone and it has its fair share of issues, most of which I am aware of I have touched above.
See you in Clint City - or not, you can do whatever you want. I'm not your dad.

7/10

The skirmish mode that was introduced in the most recent patch on Jan 31st also came with a bug that would make game speed in skirmish go absolutely insane.

This bug is now in the game for 3 months as time of writing, with little to no communication from the developer regarding this.

Do not buy this.

As someone who is a huge fan of roguelikes/-lites and is invested in the Endless universe I was very much looking forward to this.
Because I managed to play a development build at TwitchCon Amsterdam in 2022 I knew going in that while core elements of "Dungeon of the Endless" would carry over that the core gameplay would be much more action focused. I also visited their booth at TwitchCon 2023 in Paris and while I unfortunately was not able to test it that time, only being able to have a look from the sidelines as others were filling the stations, I did see some progress, including some changes that I pointed out when talking to them the year prior.

All this made me pretty positive about the game, to the point that I did preorder it.
After I played it for a couple of hours, while I was not ecstatic about it, I still felt like it would be a decent ride. While it certainly has enough problems - chief among them it just not really doing a whole lot to stand out from "top down shooter roguelites" - I felt like there was enough potential in it to be a genuinely good game.
I still think it could be. But I do not believe it ever will be.
The devs only communicate with those that are positive about them. They do not interact with any form of criticism and they seem to be hell-bent for leather to have their game featured in a NerdSlayer video. Instead of allowing players to play the game the way they are comfortable with they force them into their envisioned gameplay loop.

All that resulting in average playercounts on steam in the low triple digits and having only a SINGLE streamer play this game on a Saturday late afternoon while there are Twitch drops active for any streamer streaming this.

Ultimately I cannot emphasize enough to keep clear of this walking disaster. Well, assuming it is still walking as you read this and didn't finally die like the devs seem to intent it to.

Just play Enter the Gungeon, or the original Dungeon of the Endless, or Risk of Rain Returns or... anything really. Hell... just play Bad Rats, that one at least never acted like it was good.

"Assemble with Care" is very much in the "short & sweet" category of games. Completing it (including the epilogue) took me only a bit over 1.5 hours but it definitely felt like time - and money - well spent.
I can see how for some people the short playtime might dissuade you from buying this game, but if that isn't a reason for you and you are looking for a relaxing, almost soothing experience I would definitely recommend you to give this a try.