Recent reviews by Strider

When I bought this game, it was $10.

It has been worth every one of those dollars, and then some. It's really demanding for an RPG, which is a nice change of pace. Leveling up won't result in you hitting a break point where everything becomes trivial.

This is yet another game where I wish I could suffer some sort of concussion that would make me forget about it, so I can play through it fresh again.

It's a touch basic, if you're a gamer. Lots of running, jumping, and somewhat simple puzzles where you have to cooperate with your coop partner. However, it's definitely the right price, and it's fun. The fact that if you own the game, anyone can download and play the "friend pass" version with you a pretty convenient.

Transferring my data from the demo may have hosed my achievement progression. I'm not sure how, or why.

That's really the only gripe I have about this game. It's a JRPG that isn't afraid to hand you tools, then ask you to use them. Combat can be anywhere between trivial, and absolutely insurmountable. But, you can almost always push it towards the trivial end just with some cunning skill choices. In some fights, you can even rely on the consumable attack items to turn the tide of battle. If things seem tough, don't be afraid to switch up your strategy. Something that seems like a sure bet can rapidly become a liability, and vice versa.

It's a very good game, and probably one of the shinning examples of JRPGs as a genre.

Yo, there's like... 8+ hours of game here. If you're fence-sitting on Metaphor, just try this. You should have a pretty solid idea of what you think of the game by the time it's over.

This is a very good game. I appreciate the inclusion of tank controls, but the reach and aggression of enemies tends to be too high to be able to actually use them. I did feel like I was wresting with the camera every now and then, but it was generally a small enough issue that I didn't give up any hits to it.

The devs have successfully guided their game out of early access, and into full release. Admittedly, I don't care for PvP personally, but there's *a lot* of content to chew through in this game even setting that aside. It borderlines on something like Shadow of the Colossus, where every boss fight is just preparing you for the next boss fight in the chain. Unlike that game, there are little minion enemies wandering around, and the level of threat they offer varies from "pushover" to "suprisingly competent".

Difficulty varies at times in the game, with some bosses feeling like real roadblocks. Sometimes, having an ally makes fights easier, and sometimes it makes bosses supercharge their attacks or summon more minions.

I found it difficult, but in the way where you overcome most challenges and wonder why you struggled so badly with them to start with once you do. Bosses typically do a great job of telegraphing attacks, or using combos that can be evaded with normal movement.

The base building is pretty fun too. The game definitely encourages you to build certain ways, but my friends and I all had fairly different approaches to meeting the game's demands.

The game is playable, and pretty good. I had issues with it crashing after pretty much every mission, and it not being able to get past the initial epilepsy warning screen though.

Also, I had maybe one person try to join my game, once. Their attempt failed though. The computer controlled teammates are kind of awful, and will basically leave it to you to scythe everything down. It gets a bit tiring, since every encounter has enemies for three players. As soon as I got the Las Cannon-ish weapon, I stuck with that as much as possible. It pierces through crowds, and it generally makes short work of the more durable enemies. It might not be necessary if you can get human allies, but your lone bolter feels insufficient against pretty much everything.

The health/armor system is different from the first Space Marine game. It takes some adjusting to get used to not steamrolling every enemy as fast as you can, and taking the time to routinely put enemies into the execution state so you can recover armor while fighting.

edit: I figured out why multiplayer wasn't happening for me. It turned out my firewall had a security feature that is supposed to help computers better randomize the ports they're selecting to communicate over the internet. Space Marine 2 wasn't playing so nice with that. I had to bypass/disable that feature, and tell the firewall to use static port assignments. (Basically, just map the ports the way the computer was trying to tell it to.) It may or may not have been a double NAT issue as well, but I eliminated that from my setup before I found the static mapping fix.

Send help. The beavers keep grilling me to add more improvements to their society. Reservoirs, retaining ponds, flood plains, diversion channels, and wells. They have so much food, and so much water now. Their happiness only increases with each day, and they in turn grow stronger. I'm in the process of constructing some sort of power grid that transmits power via logs.

I want to play Dawntrail, but they keep dragging me back.

Also, the devs are working on updates that will make it easier to move water around the map. I fear for what will happen to me then.

Sony burnt all the good-will towards this game with a failed ploy to force players to link their Steam accounts to PSN accounts. They then geo-banned players from regions where PSN accounts aren't available, a decision that stands to this day.

It's a real shame. This is a really fun game to play. Now the player base is a shadow of what it used to be. The people that are still around are fairly active though, and the devs have been adjusting objectives to be within reach of the reduced numbers. This could have been a really big exciting game, a phenomenon like Pokemon Go. That seems to be over now.

Oh well. Here's your "L" Sony. It was a giant "W", rising over the landscape before this.

Threw a flashlight at a barnacle that had kidnapped my friend. Got eaten by a snail after tracking down another friend that got abducted by a slug. Next outing, I got body slammed by a creature made out of knuckles, after being chased off by something made out of ears.

If you're still reading this and haven't ran off to buy this game, I don't know what else to tell you.