Recent reviews by Explicit skill

A generational game. On the level of other legendary titles like Witcher 3 and BG3. Amazing soundtrack, fun game play, good diversity of "builds" for characters, smooth combat, beautiful scenes, and an amazing story. One of the few video games that ever made me cry over fictional events and characters. It lives up to the hype. Even if you don't like turn based games, give it a try. I normally don't care much for turn based games, but this feels different from the traditional ones.

Nothing else to say compared to the thousands of previous review. The gold standard of this genre. I didn't even like this genre until I played this masterpiece.

The game is fun if you like city building/management games with a small dose of action combat, leveling skill trees, and supply chain management.

Let me be upfront and say that if you're coming from Medieval Dynasty, you might be disappointed. Its missing some features from there that people enjoyed. Less content overall for sure compared to that game. But there are still good things I think that make this game overall positive and worth the price. I do think it is valid to criticize their 1.0 release as being incomplete and missing big features such as enemy raiding and a full child/offspring system. But for the price it is worth it even now, and will only get better unless they abruptly stop development.

Pros:
City management is fun in my opinion.
Environment is beautiful.
Music is good.
Leveling skill trees are good and feel impactful.
Overall Japanese theme is preserved throughout the game. No major immersion breakers.
Pulls resources from storage when building, so you don't have to keep running to and from storage to craft or build things (huge positive IMO).

Cons:
Combat isn't great. Blocking/dodging can feel weird. Arrows don't connect or go through enemies sometimes.
Can't sort things in management tab such as type of buildings, where they are located, unemployed vs employed workers, etc.
Crashes galore when I played CoOp with a friend.
Some minor glitches sometimes such as graphic artifacts or music just stopping for some time.
Citizens feel souless or zombie-like. They wander around without saying anything and talking to them give you very generic dialogue. Not even sure they properly stick to their work stations throughout the day.
Citizens all look the same because there are very few character models. Almost all the males have the same exact haircut.
Game missing some key features like enemy raiding and child/offspring system. They are working on it, but it's not there yet.

Overall I do think it's worth the price and it is fun. But I think it is reasonable to also wait a bit longer for some key features to come out before jumping in. Just don't expect this game to be or exceed Medieval dynasty, and you'll enjoy it.

An amazing ARPG game. 2nd best behind POE in my opinion, with future potential to surpass that too. Not there yet though, let's not get ahead of ourselves. The mixed and negative reviews stem from the server troubles the game had on 1.0 launch. Yea, it definitely wasn't ideal, but this won't last forever. Some pros and cons:

Pros:
- Accessible crafting system for items, even for newer ARPG players.
- Itemization is interesting and intuitive for the most part.
- Graphics are WAY better than in the beta and are very smooth now.
- Reasonable compromise in terms of clear speed. Not ultra fast like POE, but not sluggish either like other ARPGs. They buffed mob density in Monoliths which helps increase fun!
- Animations, skills, and impact of your abilities feels good.
- Endgame is reasonably fun for the first 8ish hours.
- Skill/Class diversity is good, lot of fun builds and balance overall is decent for 1.0 release (except ward mechanic).
- True offline mode is a saving grace if you plan on playing truly solo or SSF and want to dodge server issues.

Cons:
- Servers were bad on launch. Wouldn't be fair to disregard this. Has gotten better 1 week in.
- Lack of aspirational content in the endgame for now. No late endgame activities apart from intentionally challenging yourself to beat the same 10 monoliths in really high corruption. I know this will be addressed, but for now this will kill any try-hard's motivation after maybe a week at most.
- Monoliths lose their luster after like 8hrs of playing on a character. They'll start to get repetitive.
- Might not be fast enough pace or not enough monster density for some power fantasy fans.
- Not nearly as deep as POE (although this could be a good thing too).
- Group play is still a little buggy. They are still ironing out issues with multiplayer, as evident by their server struggles.

Overall if you're a diehard ARPG fan, there's a good chance you'll be surprised by how fun this game is. If you're completely new to the genre, it might also be a good entrance to the genre that doesn't require a PHD to play (like POE). If you are looking for a POE alternative, there's a chance you won't like it. At the end of the day, I'm giving it a positive review because I have fun playing Last Epoch and plan to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. Great job EHG.

Great soundtrack. A little overwhelming at first, but once you get an hour or 2 into it, you get the flow of what you need to do. For the price, there is a good amount of content. If you like a game with smooth jazz, min/max building, and work force management, this is a good game to pick up. There are a few little bugs with the UI that comes with the territory for an early access game, but nothing bad enough to make me dislike the game. So far a fun adventure. Will update this review if anything ruins the experience down the road.

There are so many illogical systems in place that it is hard to ignore. Cutscenes are sporatic, randomly placed, and a majority of them are pretty pointless. Romance is lackluster to say the least. Combat is pretty bad, to the point where you wonder why they even bothered to add it. The list of illogical systems is too long to include, but for example, you need hardwood to upgrade tools to the Golden tier. However, you can't chop down hardwood trees/stumps without a Golden Axe. But you can't make the Golden Axe without hardwood... You can bypass this with creative methods, but that is just a small example. Overall the game just doesn't feel fun and I wonder almost every day in the game why I'm even making money, planting my crops, turning in these quests, etc. Just wasn't for me I suppose. Also the game is extremely buggy for a 1.0 release, but other reviewers have this issue covered.

Pros:
-Combat feels very smooth.
-Variety of classes catering to different playstyles
-Rewarded greatly for effort, regardless of F2P or P2W status
-Lot of content to explore (adventure tome, raids, dungeons, rapport system, collectibles, etc)
Fun endgame raids that take team coordination and grant reasonable rewards for time invested

Cons:
-Daily and weekly gameplay loop will burn people out that don't enjoy daily tasks
-Bot issue was rampant for a while, although it is improving. Hurt economy drastically
-If you suffer from FOMO or compare yourself to other players, you will be very disappointed in other people's luck and ability to swipe to progress
-If you care about PvE progress, then the game is absolutely P2W.
-Guild vs Guild is actually P2W regardless of definition

Overall, its one of my favorite games ever. However my opinion is clearly subjective based on my tasts. I don't care if whales outdamage me because they spent $$$ on the game, I don't care for "competitive" GvG, and I actually enjoy doing the daily tasks to get my rewards. If you don't enjoy at least 2 of these "chores" (Unas Tasks, Chaos Dungeons, Guardian Raids, Weekly Dungeons, Weekly Raids), then there is no chance you will like this game.

Give it a try, see if you enjoy the classes. I transitioned to this game from Path of Exile and love it. You make permanent progress, don't feel like your time is wasted, and my wrists also thank me for making the transition. The leveling is terrible, but if you can stick through the process and get to Tier 3 (gear score 1100), then the game unlocks a wonderful world of possibilities.