Recent reviews by Kiryu

One of the best Early Access games I've played, this is essentially a cliche at this point but RimWorld is exactly how an early access title should go.

In this game, you don't exactly control each colonist, instead, you set some tasks (cut some wood, build something here) and a colonist will carry out the task. Colonists have traits and things that they are good at doing, for example, Fred is good at farming and cooking, but is incapable of fighting due to being a pacifist. You're welcome to play the game as a sandbox and see how long you can last or you can go for the game objectives and "win" The only time you are able to directly control the colonists and move them at will is when you "draft" them to fight in combat, and all you can do then is move them and set them behind cover. They shoot on their own.

The game is FUN to play, building your own little base and surviving the weather, bandits, random events that may happen, sending out caravans to trade with other factions or even attack them.

With Workshop support and a very active and creative modding community, the game has an insane amount of weapons, armor, adds neat abilities like being able to ride on elephants or learning how to harness the Force and becoming a Sith or Jedi, the possibilities are endless.

The best RPG I've played in years, Divinity 2 is a straight upgrade in every way to the first Divinity.

The story is engaging, the dialogue options are varied depending on your background, quests have different endings and rewards, the skills and spells are varied, characters have distinct personalities, etc.

This game's magic lies in the ability to play the game how you want to and tackle quests in whichever way you like. Can't persuade that troll? Kill him. Can't kill him? Teleport him into lava and go along your way.

It should be noted that this RPG does not hold your hand. There are difficult puzzle sequences and a unforgiving level scale at certain points of the game. I had the absolute most fun playing this game on a single-save ironman mode if you're a masochist like myself. That being said, there is an easy difficulty if you prefer to experience the story and build a character how you want to.

However, the game does have one flaw that I feel takes a bit away from the experience. Enemies have two seperate armors, one for magic and one for physical attacks. This encourages parties that are either solely physical or solely magic. I wish there was a different armor system in place for an otherwise perfect game. I wouldn't take away too much from the game because of that because the game is still a masterpiece.

Update: With the DLC practices and lack of actual updates this game has been switched to not recommended. People complain about Paradox DLC practices but Firaxis literally charged us $20 for 4 civilizations, most which shouldve been in the base game.

If you enjoyed Civ 5, you're more than likely going to enjoy this game. The base game is better than Civ 5's was. In my opinion, Civ 4 was the best entry in the series however, if you're a major fan of Civ 4 this game would be better for you than Civ 5.

They made escorting units easier than Civ 5. Also the District addition is a fresh breath into the genre and adds a lot more options when thinking what to produce. You can also no longer wonder spam forcing you to be strategic with which wonders you build. The policies tree is refined from the Civ 5 policy tree. It could be debatable whether for better or worse.

A thing I dislike about this game, is the AI. In my opinion is still pretty bad. The higher difficulties only give them blatant cheats but still braindead. Firaxis really needs to address this problem going forward it was pretty much a huge roadblock from making this game a must have strategy game.

Also the map selection seems extremely barren, theres only a couple of maps to play from and they seemingly removed a bunch of map types

If you're new to the Civilization series, this is a great entry point for you, its much simplier than Civ 4 and before, but more refined than Civ 5 (minus DLCs of course)

The graphics look decent, not amazing but they aren't bad by any means. The art style they chose to go with is a far cry from Civ 4 and is more in-tune with Civ 5. The Civ leader choices are tepid at best, A lot of valid complaints about civs (civilizations) that were in previous entries are now gone from this game which is disappointing to say the least. The music is nice, I really enjoy the aethethic of the game and a large part of it is because of the music.

I would say if you're on the fence about getting it, to wait for a sale. If you're a die-hard Civ fan this will be a solid addition to your library. If you're a strategy fan in general or looking to get into Turn-Based Strategies, this is also a good entry for you. Future DLCs may make this game a must buy but for not it's just a solid game.

I will try to be as impartial as possible when reviewing this game. If you're considering getting Hearts of Iron IV and you are a fan of strategy games feel free to grab this one. If HOI3 was too difficult for your liking then HOI4 will be the game for you. You can relieve World War 2 as it happened (or not) You can also play as any nation you damn well please. The freedom in this grand strategy game is limitless. This is another great title by Paradox but does not deviate from their formula, so if you prefer an in-depth combat system I suggest you do not get this game.

As much as I enjoyed the game I do have two gripes which I will list:

• AI Incompentence - as of launch, the game is fairly easy. I had a playthrough as America where Germany lost before 1939 where I did absolutely nothing. However, with Paradox's track record I trust they will patch the AI to be much better.
  
  
• Focus Tree emptiness - Aside from the major factions the rest of the world has pretty much a generic focus tree. (A focus tree is a list of options that your country can take and will have nation-wide effects or affect the entire world, ex: Germany can demand the Sudetenland or choose to befriend Czechoslovakia) The following notable countries that lack a unique focus tree are: Canada, China, Communist China, Turkey, Every Middle East faction, Spain, Every Latin America country, and Australia. This is disappointing to see, a non-major faction playthrough esssentially feels the same as all the other non-major faction playthroughs in terms of flavor events, uniqueness (lack of unique troops/sprites/vehicles) and many gamers complained that even the major factions' focus tree is a bit barren and will be completed by the time the war kicks into high gear.

Other gamers have also stated the game feels much simplified compared to Hearts of Iron 3, so take that as you will. Whether you enjoyed/hated Hearts of Iron 3, Hearts of Iron 4 is a step away from it's predecessor.

uPlay is cancer. I can't play a game I own, thanks Ubisoft!

Coming from a longtime 2K Sports fan, I have mixed feelings on this entry of NBA2K. However, just because I have it not recommended I suggest you read the entire review to see if you would like it.

I am not going to get into day one issues like crashes, bugs, and server issues because frankly basing a review off that this early before they can fix things is stupid. But there are issues I PERSONALLY have with the game. But I'll say a few things this game offers over 2K15 first.

• Improved animations definitely.
  
• Finally readded create-a-team for MyGM, MyLeague, MyTeam, and other online modes. (And its actually really good)
  
• Tattoos are freaking amazing and you can place them all over your body.

These were a few off the top of my head I was pleased with.


However, as I mentioned before I had a huge gripe with this game. In my personal opinion they seem to have taken a step back when it comes to MyCareer. Others apperently like it but I was extremely disappointed by the fact the "story" was stereotypical, thoughtless and not enjoyable. I expected more from Spike Lee & 2K. So with giving us an actual story (if you want to call it that) they severely limited how we can play. This isn't OUR story. It is Freq's story. Yes the protagonist has a name and even if you had a simple name like Joe Johnson they will still say Freq regardless. You do not have a choice to be called something else like in previous MyCareers (my personal choice was "Silky" Johnson) If you want to play a white, asian, hispanic or really any race that isn't black you have to suspend your disbelief that your family is black and you are not. To make matters worse you have a fraternal twin sister so you really cant think your mom cheated on your dad either. You can't win Rookie of the Year because you can only play a few games in your rookie season. The "story" is insanely short, badly written, predictable, pointless and a waste of time. They took away more of our choices and options so they could waste our time with that?

You may be saying, but wait! Didn't they let you play through high school and college? That sounds fun. At first yes it was interesting to just destroy the high school competition and finally see some college basketball, but its exactly the same as a normal game just reskinned. You only play a few games of high school and a few of college then you get drafted. And after a handful of years MyCareer has been out, THEY STILL HAVENT ADDED A REACTIVE DRAFT. Meaning if you get drafted first, guess what? The Timberwolves get two number one picks. You and Karl Anthony-Towns. So the draft is basically pointless because it's always the same even though you are in it no matter what your position is. Sucks for you if you play PF and you get drafted first because you're gonna share minutes with a guy who shouldn't even be on the team. Teams won't draft based on needs either apparently, in fact its hard to say for sure what they'll draft on. But if you're a center for example expect Detroit, Utah, Sactown, and Orlando to want to draft you even if they have a franchise center because why not. Same for playing any other position, they will draft you regardless. They should have just placed the MyGM/MyFranchise draft AI into MyCareer so we could get SOME chance of being surprised even if they arent that great as well.

Once the story ends, its basically MyCareer as last year.

I feel so ashamed of 2K and Spike to have made this game mode such a huge selling point of the game. If you are considering getting the game because of MyCareer, do not get the game.



The other gamemodes are solid, if you can can see past the cheesers, hackers, etc in online modes you'll have a lot of fun in ProAm, MyTeam and other game modes. Personally I play mostly MyLeague/MyGM and I enjoy it throughly even though I was hyped to play MyCareer. The relocation aspect of MyLeague/GM was sorely needed in previous entries and they finally added it and its actually good and not bare bones. You can upload images to use as the team's logo, court logo, advertisements, arena name. You can edit the court exactly how you want it, all black if you want to. You can also do this in online modes, create your own team and court which is what it needed. The animations are fluid and smooth. They changed the passing mechanics a bit and a few of the controls so it's an adjustment. Still slightly disappointed that 2K still hasnt revamped the draft prospect aspect of League/GM because its still extremely generic. They could at least pull a Madden and give the prospects a storyline and allow us to actually grow attached or get hyped for a prospect. I was also going to say they could give the random generated prospects faces but they still use the team jersey portraits (say if you trade Damian Lillard it changes from showing his real life counterpart to some nasty ultra low settings doppelganger) so there goes that.

Overall however, aside from MyCareer its what you can expect from a yearly sports game release.

A very solid entry within the Nobunaga's Ambition series. It is a must have if you love KOEI strategy games. For someone who is new to these type of games, if you're tired of the same old game formula I'd recommend trying this game. Do not be fooled by the screenshots, the game's focus is not on the battles but on managing your castles, building fortresses, carving alliances and enemies, recruiting great (and not so great) generals to help lead your armies and manage your bases.

If you love the Sengoku period of Japan, you will absolutely love this game. The officers' bios while not extensively written, give infomation on even the most obscure general during this period. The game explains so many things about whats happening and why, there are cutscenes which are beautiful times, and also make you feel engaged in the history of this era. You can also recreate history by following the optional quests given to you to reenact historic battles such as the Battle of Sekigahara or the Battle of Okehazama. But fear not, you can also completely change history, want the Oda clan to perish under the Matsudaira? Go ahead. You can create your own officers and clans, there are scenarios you can choose to start from, either the Birth of Oda Nobunaga all the way up to The Battle of Sekigahara.

You can play as literally any faction, of course this is to be expected from KOEI's flagship strategy game Nobunaga's Ambition (and also Romance of The Three Kingdoms) unsatisfied? Just create your own faction and conquer Japan how you want to.

Gameplay is very typical for KOEI, so if you played past titles you know what to expect. For potential new players, the game is essentially a grand strategy but not exactly. People will liken it to Paradox titles and honestly they have nothing in common aside from a lackluster combat system. At first sight it may remind you of Shogun 2 due to the Steam Store screenshots but I assure you it is nothing like that as well aside from the era. Essentially the gameplay consists of starting off at a castle (or a fortress if you feel confident enough) and raise troops, grow crops, and collect/earn money. You assign officers as overseers of castles/forts and officers are the number one most important thing in this game as of any Koei strategy game. They dictate how strong your forces will be, some will be so great they can turn the tide of an overwhelming battle due to their sheer skills. You can forge alliances by sending officers to other clans and increasing their relationship points with you, once it hits a certain number you can send the offer and they will accept. You can request reinforcements depending on your relationship points with the clan, you can coordinate attacks with other clans and form coalitions against a huge clan to cut them down to size. You can vassalize other clans, form a lifelong alliance by sending marriage offers to other clans or if your daughters have good enough stats, keep them as officers. Construct new fortresses to increase your troop size even more. While it's not at the level of Paradox titles deep, it is very respectable and offers a NEW formula to strategy games.

The AI is extremely competent. A big thing in this game is you can only control so much of an area, once you conquer outside that area you need to move your capital or create a province for an AI general to control. You appoint a general to lead the province, give him officers and a few bases and he'll be good to go. The AI can grow their own playstyle and abilties as an overseer of a province. You can dictate who they attack, assist, and whether they transport spare resources. They do this on their own after you set the settings, however you can also force them to attack someone to coordinate a joint assault or defend a important base. If you set the dificulty settings high enough, you will be challenged by the enemy AI, they will attack you with large forces (if they are large enough) they will coordinate assaults on you with their allies, they will attempt to woo your officers into not fighting them or even worse, joining them.

Difficulty settings can be tweaked, Japanese voices are available (and recommended) The graphics, while not ultra-realistic or amazing in today's standards, are beautiful to behold and I found myself looking at the map and taking it all in, the officer portraits are also well done and it is easy to recognize someone from their portrait. I personally haven't had a crash yet in 55 hours of playing this game. I haven't ran into a major bug worth noting, If you were worried that KOEI may screw up the game because of their past ports you can feel at ease. KOEI has created strategy games and the Nobunaga's Ambition series in particular since 1983. This is their bread and butter, they have a formula and it works.

There will be complaints of the price point, complaints of DLC practices, and complaints how the game's battle system is lacking.

In regards to the price point, It is priced at a hefty $60. People who have never heard of this series will wonder why it costs so much and also read it is a "port" but further investigation will reveal that it is a TRANSLATION port of the game, the base game was made for PC in Japan. This version of the game also includes the PUK version of the Japanese game (which sold seperately in Japan) PUK stands for Power-Up-Kit, the equivalent of an expansion for the game.

The "day one DLC" issue many seem to have, as stated in the previous point, this is a translation of an already existing game. We should not expect to get the DLC for free that non-English customers paid for. You do not need the DLC, they simply add more scenarios.

And yes, the battle system is lacking as it always has in all KOEI strategy games. The game is essentially a grand strategy, there are very few tactics involved in these games. If you prefer a strong battle system, this game is not for you.

Many newcomers will ask themselves, if this game is so good, why havent I heard of it before? Well, KOEI had a policy of not exporting their RoTK/NA series to English speaking customers of the world for quite some time, they had released a few before, but they stopped for a while. This is the first time in a good amount of years they released Nobunaga's Ambition to western audience. This is also the first time they released the PUK edition to western audiences as well.

I can only hope that they will feel confident in the western market and continue to release english versions of their amazingly well done strategy games. They were sorely missed from this reviewer.

I am going to be brutally honest about this review. I am going to nitpick and say what could be (This is Early Access) I will be doing this because I absolutely love this game. Personally it's if X-Com & Mount & Blade had a beautiful baby. Now, you're asking me; "Is this game worth buying in this state?" I will say, for $20 no. BUT it can be worth that very very soon and possibly hopefully beyond that.

Right now the game feels stable-ish but a lot of the content feels missing. There's not much to do other than do a few contracts and die to werewolves. It just feels empty to me. Again, I am not bashing the game I just want it to improve and I hope the devs see my concerns and at least consider them. I do not want to assume how hard implementing more stuff will be, I am not an expert.

Devs, if you are reading this, I am sure you seen/considered all these suggestions before but please consider potentially adding the following

More contract variation; attacking a merchant cart for rival merchant, assassination, escorting public figures, etc.

Add more things to the map, more towns, more castles, more unique-ish locations you can visit (perhaps quests you can stumble upon exploring the map to earn a new "legendary" battle brother or legendary/unique artifacts I heard was possibly getting added?)

Possibly consider allowing us to create our own weapons? We could use tools and supplies and other things as materials to create our unique weapons. (AND LET US NAME AND PUT OUR OWN DESCRIPTION)

Allowing us to potentially hire non-human battle brothers? Maybe for example an orc, werewolf, undead.

Adding more fantasy or original races. I mean I don't want it to be a fantasy cliche but more races to fill out the map won't be such a bad thing right? (perhaps friendly races)

This would probably be low on the list to add but perhaps more backgrounds & traits for your Battle Brothers? JUST A PERSONAL OPINION: As well as making the current backgrounds more 'noticable' as in making the positives higher as well as the drawbacks so you get more specialized Brothers.

Allowing us to have our own mercenary guildhome? Where we can let our injured brothers rest faster, have our own smith to create custom weapons, train our Brothers, stash our weapons/loot/money/supplies, and other things I'm sure you guys can find more uses for.

A reputation/karma system: influences the contracts we can take as well as how high the payout would be. For example if your company is well known enough you'd get contracts to personally escort the King or some cool stuff like that. Karma being if you took evil contracts and did evil things you'd get even more evil contracts from seedier people that would allow you to assassinate officials, poison a town's well (I'm not judging) and other things.

Don't skimp on the unique/legendary weapons/armor/accessories, for lootlovers such as myself a game with tons of unique loot is a game that has multiple playability just for the loot itself.

I already seen that you guys plan to flesh out the UI, I hope there was some discussion on a follow caravan/unit option and a straight to/follow road pathfinding option that allows us to decide if we want our company to just cross a mountain that's in our way and prolong a simple fetch quest 50000000000 years or just take the roads there.

Enemy mercenary companies you can take out for a monopoly on contracts (higher payout?) or to poach their best members to your company. I mean surely we aren't the only merc company out there are we? D:

I mean theres plenty of other things I'm sure I could think of but I don't want you guys to feel like we don't appreciate the game or telling you how to make it. These are just things I hope you guys could consider to make this game truly amazing. Devs: if you're a bit shorthanded I could help with some of the writing ;) lol

Fellow players, if you disagree or wish to add on to what I said please feel free to tell me.

This game alongside with mods is amazing. Get this now.

If you have any interest in city builders, get this game immediately.

This game is extremely moddable and therefore has, in theory a humongous amount of content. I'm sure, like myself, you have been burned on city builders before. Well let me tell you now, Cities: Skylines is the city building game to play currently.