Recent reviews by Kaldo

It's amazing, can't wait for the full game release!

Absolutely amazing once you get over the overwhelming intro; the dialogue, voice acting and world building are probably among the best I've ever seen. It's more of a book than a game so do adjust your expectations accordingly though.

Absolutely fantastic in every way. It is a well polished, excellently designed, extremely funny tactical/puzzle game about SWAT-like wizards breaching a series of rooms with an overarching narrative. I adore the dry British humor in it, the pacing is excellent, the challenges are *just* difficult enough to be engaging but not be frustrating (and can be customized if you struggle), the UI is practical and efficient... I can't stop gushing about it.

I've been following this game for quite a while, the recent demo blew me away and the fully released game just continues with the same charm. I can't think of anything negative to comment about the game except that I will surely want more of it once I finish it and there's nothing else quite like it!

It is a colony builder from a perspective of a single character that you control, you can do anything that your NPC colonists can and vice-versa. It feels fresh and innovative, it is very slow paced and immersive, but still very rough around the edges and definitely in early access.

Pros:
- The sense of progression as you get your village up and running like a well oiled machine is great
- NPCs most often perform their tasks well, if you setup a hunter correctly you can expect him to actually get meat on his own
- Some game mechanics like blacksmithing get surprisingly deep and complex and it really elevates the game
- The game is very atmospheric, the music is great, I really like the animations and environment although the colonist models could use an improvement

Cons:
- The UI is pretty bad in some places and it gets in the way of village management. It can be hard to see what the issues are or how to fix them
- The villagers will sometimes die for no good reason whatsoever because of some AI issues (hopefully will be fixed soon)
- The overall balance feels a bit off
- We don't really have any good tools to control the soldier villagers. Even a simple "follow me, wait here" would be helpful
- Villager deaths feel too punishing considering how easy they die

It's a fun game, for the price I'd say it is worth it now but if you want a more polished experience give it some time in the oven.

The theme definitely does the heavy lifting in this game due to mediocre mechanics and puzzles but it was still a very enjoyable experience that doesn't overstay its welcome... as long as you are able skip past the repetitive and boring sidequests. I did them in the beginning for xp and loot but there isn't really a point in that after the first few hours, especially since most of them boil down to combat that isn't very good and city exploration which is mostly just finding the correct street and then running there.

Still, the city is very atmospheric, the story is engaging even if a bit predictable or limited in choices, combat serves its purpose to add some danger and resource management to the formula and puzzles do sometimes make you stop and think a bit where to go next because it's not always perfectly clear (in a good way). It's a janky AA experience but it does have some soul and charm.

Overall a definite recommendation if you a fan of the Lovecraftian theme and want to play the part of a hard boiled detective in that world for a little while. Get it on a discount and don't expect too much though.

Fun game

It's a good, cheap DLC for a really great game. New really fun archetype, new map content, tons of new gear to unlock, what's not to like?

Well, the performance is pretty bad in some of the new areas, some enemies have been overtuned (but have been brought back in line already and will surely be tweaked further), and the addition of new items is adding a bit to the overall bloated inventory that is increasingly more difficult to search and navigate....

But these are all small things and pet peeves that will probably get addressed eventually. It's a good game! Get the DLC if you like the game and want more of it, it's as simple as that!

A really charming and addictive boardgame-like basebuilder! You're slowly expanding your village by allocating workforce towards specific resources while trying to fend off various seasonal or RNG requirements like for example providing enough cooling during summer or health to fend off sickness. The resources feel meaningful and scarce, you're always working towards *something* and it just keeps you pushing towards the next goal to improve the village which makes for a very compelling gameplay loop.

I don't know how well will it scale in the late game or if it's going to stay as fun since I don't have that many hours in it yet, but today I wanted to just give it a quick try and ended up playing for multiple hours due to the good old "one more turn" lie with which the game tempts you all the time. The game is easy to play and feels very polished, I haven't run into any issues or bugs so far and pretty much everything has been intuitive enough to figure out without struggling.

What I can say for sure is that it definitely feels like a big labor of love. The game itself oozes charm and soul, from the little pips hopping around your village to the UI and sounds and I can see myself spending a lot of time on it if it stays interesting with some new mechanics or challenges (like maybe more complicated production chains) in the later stages of the game. It's definitely a recommendation from me but if you're still on the fence - just try out the demo! It is well made and a good representation of the game.

TLDR: It's a good fun game, if you liked the first one the second one is that but bigger and better in almost every way!

If you played the first one you know what you're gonna find here - tons of fun areas to explore riddled with secrets, many many weapons, mods or other upgrades to unlock and use, bosses to fight and die to. The graphics and visual design look great, sound design is excellent and the game oozes atmosphere at every corner. Boss fights are (mostly) fun and well presented, the map generation feels much better and seamless than in the first game and combat is as satisfying as ever. Puzzles are sometimes difficult but satisfying, there definitely aren't any NPCs yelling the solutions at you if you get stuck! The archetypes add some fun new skills and ways to play the game so it's not just the mods that you build around anymore. There is a lot of variety in environments, each area feels like a very different game thematically and it's a good thing to spice it up.

As for some of the bad things... story is still kinda meh and irrelevant, don't expect anything more than a few cutscenes and lines of dialogue. UI is as bad as in the first game - no loadouts, no way to search or sort items, interacting with NPCs still takes a dozen pointless clicks. I really dislike the new relic modifier system, it feels like unnecessarily tackled-on RNG stat system to an otherwise perfectly well designed game and they either need to rework or remove it IMHO.

They also made kinda the same "mistake" as in the first one in terms of upgrades, you are continually pushed to upgrade weapons to keep up with levels (now even more so with archetypes leveling on their own) but this means any new weapon you get is unusable until you level it up - and you can't do that for even a third of them because you are constantly low on resources. Even with the scavenging amulet I don't have enough scrap and lumenite to maintain more than a few weapons at the time (and it feels mandatory to wear it meaning you're permanently locked out of your only amulet slot). No idea what is the goal here except padding in a game that doesn't really need it considering the amount of content it already has.

None of these take too much away from the game however and hopefully they have plans to address them down the line (even though I'm not holding my breath too much since they didn't improve much in this department for the first game either). Its an excellent fun game and I can myself replaying it many times before I get bored or unlock everything in it.

edit: They added loadouts *chef's kiss*

It's a good fun DLC with some interesting new mechanics like destructible terrain, limited solar/wind areas, reanimating enemies, etc. As before it is accompanied by a chunky free update to the vanilla game while the DLC itself mostly expands the campaign with some story and unique objectives on the maps. The new biome is fun, lack of usual energy generation buildings means you have to go out of your comfort zone and expand further out but thankfully its not as bad because you get new buildings like the energy pylon to help with that.

I didnt see any major bugs. The guy below with a negative review is complaining about being able to walk through destructible terrain, it's a known bug if you haven't updated your mods (that the mod authors have since fixed). Tbh EXOR is pretty good at addressing them sooner or later so I'm not too worried about them even if they do pop up eventually.

As with Metal Terror, if you like the base game and want to support the devs the DLC is well worth the small asking price. I hope they can continue to support the game in this fashion.