Recent reviews by Edgemorn

Cons:

This is not Gothic combat. Instead of learning the patterns of each enemy, I find myself button mashing. The offset camera makes it hard to know how to parry.

Mouse sensitivity is off the charts. I had to turn it all the way down.

Camera is too close.

The cut scenes are too numerous. Have one opening cut scene and then let us play the game. At the very start, I was holding a torch, but could not sheath it because I was in an "intro mode." This breaks expectations and is a bad experience.

I should be able to roll up to an NPC, initiate a conversation, and just walk TF away if I want. I should be able to come back and restart the conversation. The fall from the elevator could have easily knocked me out and Diego could have been there when I woke up. I get you are trying to show new players that Gothic is deadly AF, but they will discover that soon enough. You don't need this long-ass fancy intro experience that breaks game play every 20 seconds to achieve that. Just make the game like Gothic.

Similar to above, don't force the player into a battle they are meant to lose. This is bad UX.

Main character's voice acting is okay. Diego's voice acting is total ♥♥♥♥. The first one was better.

Jumping feels forced. Climbing feels slow and clunky.

There are too many little things that make the player lose control of their character for split-seconds. For example, climbing a ladder. It's so controlled that it's no fun. Looting is another example. I have to wait for the menus to slide TF in, then slide TF out. It should be instant. There's a ton of looting in Gothic and if I have to wait for that animation every time for the whole game, I'd rather stab my hand.

No mouse in menu--this is okay because I understand it's a POC.

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Pros:

Graphics are good.

Areas are very different, but the same. This is a good mix for old and new players.

The rest of the feel is pretty good. If you can fix all the trash above, this game could have potential.

I dropped 150 hours into this game within two weeks.

It's challenging and therefore rewarding. I started over six times trying to perfect moving out of the opening into the mid and end game. It's got a very pretty and unique aesthetic.

There are few city builders that have an end game experience that is thought through, but this is one of them.

Ships don't have momentum. As soon as you stop moving, the ship stops for you. Your primary weapon is a beam weapon that auto-aims, no skill needed. It has a great opportunity to be a real shooter intermixed with all the RPG stuff, but it falls way short of it.

The game does not guide you well enough in the beginning. Quests come and go, you fail them a lot, and you don't know why and it doesn't even seem to matter. A lot of the trash ships are just too easy, one-hit kills, which would be okay for trash if you actually had to aim. You have very few slots for upgrades and it takes forever to upgrade to extra slots. A huge amount of loot just gets vendored because you can't use it.

It is very clear from the start that Sid Meier's Railroads was the inspiration for this game. Many of the mechanics are nearly identical. The music, the theme, the gameplay, AI competitors, etc. all feel very familiar. If you loved Sid Meier's Railroads, you are going to love this game.

Pros:
Stable. Anyone familiar with Sid Meier's Railroads will know that while beloved, it would crash and had a lot of bugs. All software has bugs, but I've yet to experience any in this game.
Graphics. It's very pretty and a nice graphic upgrade. I do wish the trains were slightly larger (and not be to scale) so you could watch them at great a greater zoom distance. When you zoom out the trains become train-shaped icons. However I felt Sid Meier's Railroads went too far in the large direction.
Signals. Take the time to understand how they work. Once you understand them, they are indispensible when you start to get a lot of trains.
The latest update already lets you play through 100 years. At launch it was 20 years. This is a good sign that more updates are to come.

Cons:
No multiplayer.
City demand. It is still unclear in the UI what goods are demanded. If you click on a city and then click the info, you can see what's in stock and what's in demand, but it doesn't feel easy. It's a lot of work to get to that info and still, it feels like I can drop nearly anything off at a city and get some money. My expectations are not matched by the experience. I would like to see this clarified.
Trains and era ends at 1930. It would be cool to see trains through the mdoern era (I predict an expansion or update for this). Since locomotives are beloved, I am conent.

Keyboard and mouse feel super weird after a stint of this game. 11/10

I've had this game for years, when it was on Impulse Driven before Steam. I do not particilar like huge space strategy games, but my older brother can't get enough of them. This is the only game in the genre that I LOVE and it's the one game that he and I both keep coming back to. I like a few others, but this is by far the best.

There is something about it that I can't put my finger on, but it's got the right stuff. It's big, if you want it to be, it's rich and deep with features, it has complexity that adds to the enjoyment, but it's easy to learn. It feels like a modern game, though it released 5 years ago.

One of the best things is that you can play how you want. My brother loves the economy and the diplomacy. He is always rich. I love the combat and I always max out my fleet. As allies, he will be usually be the funding and I will be the muscle. What an excellent game when the mechanics reward the player's preference of play style.

Two hard AI's with pirates can be a real challenge.

The devs continue to update and add DLC that is worth buying. We each have every DLC and expansion pack.

I just finished the demo, and wow, I love it. Here are my notes:

1. People say this is like Dark Souls, BUT...
I want to clarify this. Fall of Light is its own game. Yes, you die a lot like Dark Souls and the number crunching is minimal. You have squares that represent HP, you start with 5, so it's very simple, but not in a bad way. I like number crunching a lot, but I was not detered by this system. But this game is very much different. I love the camera (it does not jack with you), I love how it feels like an isometric ARPG in its presentation, but it is not an ARPG.

2. The comabt is really well done. There was a game called "Examina" that tried to do very physical-based combat, and this has strains of similarities, but Examina failed miserably. The targeting makes this game awesome, but even without, it was far far better than Examina. I liken this to the combat from Gothic 1 and 2 (LOL Gothic 3 was terrible). You have to learn enemies and time your attacks and defensive moves. Once you learn an enemy, you can dominate him.

3. There are fresh ideas in this game and they are good ideas. The companion you bring with you adds some really cool elements. The aesthetics are fantastic.

Really well done devs, well done. I immediately bought this game upon completing the demo, and the price is right!!

I think the team behind this game is very talented and has executed their vision exceptionally. My main beefs are witih their vision.

Pros:
* I run 21:9 3440 x 1440 and the game immediately picked up the setting and ran with it. A+
* The story telling is grand.
* The lore is wonderful.
* The visuals are so pretty.
* The responsiveness is there.
Why the downvote?

Cons:
* The combat is clunky and unrewarding. For me, combat is primary. I feel like the devs started with a premise and this premise was a bad starting position that led to bad conclusions. This premise was probably something along the lines of "let's have a party-based combat system centered around collision physics". It sounds awesome, but the reality is dull and disconnected.

* The introductory fight is a really bad intro. You dominate that fight, which is misleading. Subsequent fights are much harder. I felt like it didn't matter what I did during the intro fight.
* White damage is abysmally low compared to special attacks. The disparity is far too great. This requires pausing the game relentlessly to run a tactical special for each party member every 1.5 seconds. Unlike the intro fight, this is so far the opposite, that it felt oppressive. I had to nuance every single move. There wasn't a moment where I felt like I could kick ass, not even in a small way.
* The physical collisions felt like they got in the way more than they added to the experience. Friendlies trying to path around one another failed all the time, even when there was room! Managing physical collisions and movement is great when you just have one character to manipulate (think Counter-strike). This was just a chore in this game.
* Loot, gearing, and character growth were very shallow. Don't expect the game to shine in these areas.
* The camera always center-focused on the selected party member. This was aggravating when trying to view the battle field. There is no camera pan during combat.
* Combat felt like homework to get throguh so I could get back to the story.
* Targeting misfires regularly. Sometimes I would pause the game, but a specific enemy would not be target-able. I would then unpause and pause immediately, and then I can target said enemy.
* The world map is just a digitized mini figure that you move around like a chess piece. If an encounter "pops", you go to battle. This model can work, but the world map is actually very small when you realize you can only move to and from specific points of interest on the map. There is no free roam of any kind. That said, the integrated story-telling on the world map was just awesome...so good. I would be so forgiving of the encounter-based combat if combat was actually fun.

I've played RTS since Dune 2 (early 90s).

The campagin play and story are very engaging. Captivating imagery in a fitting art style, leveraging game engine footage, and proper voice acting all contributed to a rich story with minimal production cost. I casually completed the campagin in 13 hours, which was fitting for an RTS that's meant to go multiplayer. Unit design is superb, the missions were interesting, and the game has a great feel overall.

This is another example of game design theory that believes "the more realistic things are, the better." I started getting the hang of the physics based combat (more realistic third person combat than any other game I played), but it just wasn't fun. It was nice finally not dying all the time, but in the end, I felt there wasn't enough there to enjoy it.

Historically, I have enjoyed more involved and even difficult combat systems (Gothic 1 and 2 combat comes to mind and it was amazing to me), but this just goes too far.

The story is lacking too.

That all said, the devs are trying to make a "new kind of RPG". I'll give them credit: they've done that. There is probably a market for it. It's not me.