Recent reviews by Reset

Endgame (afflicted) monsters are damage sponges that drop rewards to use in a RNG/gacha (augment armor and talisman) crafting system.
Mixing time consuming sponges with RNG is not a good idea.

This is the type of game that plays unskippable ads trailers on startup about updates or whatever.

Game has since been heavily updated. It's now great; amazing, even. Play it.
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Conflicted as hell about this game.
I love it.

Gameplay feels really solid -- the game is balanced around focus eliminating ranged enemies as soon as possible while, if possible, taking cover, before dealing in melee with other enemies such as armored elites and hordes -- of course, your conduct being affected by the situation, available ammo and class.
Gunplay is amazing, melee feels even better than before with saw weapons and the thunder hammer needing special mention.
While maps don't feel exactly "good" to traverse when comparing with map design monsters such as L4D, they are very atmospheric and beautiful.
Enemies are nicely designed. I only have problems with the Hound, since it almost teleports depending on network quality and pretty much runs through objects while being crazy fast. Other than it, though, they feel amazing, especially how ranged enemies react to stuff like suppression fire, formation and distance.

Problem is, I can't for the love of god convince any friend to play this game for a very simple reason: grind.
Vermintide 2 had the same problem.
You need to level up not only to unlock skills, but also you need enough "power level" (weapon level indicator) to be able to handle higher difficulty enemies.
So, you basically have to put up doing the low difficulty for the first few levels before being allowed to actually go have some fun.
Even worse now is that it shares no progression between characters whatsoever. Vermintide at the very least you could the same crate drops you got between chars. Here you have to start from scratch when playing a new class.
Another common complaint is that weapons are level and rng locked -- Some of them start appearing only after a certain level in the store, and even then the selection is random. I didn't see another submachine gun (that my class had from the start) on the store for the last few days; so some players are somewhat forced to play with weapons they didn't even want to.

Despite having a blast with challenging content, I myself am having little fun grinding -- How can I ever convince someone to play this if even I see the problem?

Months after release, the game still suffers from random disconnects and crashes for me and friends, limiting our fun while playing together. Big no from me -- even though the game itself was fun at first.

Memorable boss fights, cutscenes and music.
Even though the camera, the multi-target lock-on and the stealth segments are ass, it still manages to be one of the best games of the genre.

This game is a completionist's nightmare. Or a joy pot. Or both.

One of the best games ever released, Elden Ring mixes rich open world exploration, full of rewards in form of weapons, spells and other valuables, with their trademark FromSoftware's Dark Souls combat design. Honestly, even me who hates Souls-like games must admit this game is fun. Very, very fun.
There are secret passageways and little jump "puzzles" through the map and densely placed in "main dungeons" (castles and the like), too.
My biggest concern -- "will I even be able to see and use everything during my first playthrough?" is easily remediated by the New Game Plus which allows you to bring your gathered equipment and level for your next journey. And there is a way to reset stats after beating the second main story boss, too.

Currently, as of release, the game is suffering from stuttering when loading new areas, which is why there are a lot of negative reviews. If you don't mind some initial stuttering during closed areas and random ones during the open world segment, the game is more than worth it.

Coming from Nier Automata, one of my favourite games, Nier replicant was a pretty big disappointment.
The music is great and the ideas behind the story are too, but the writing is overall pretty damn overdramatic, with a lot of moments that you could see the writer was saying "see? ain't that sad? I'm sure that was sad. I mean, that NPC you don't care about just died a very, very sad death!".

The old-fashioned game design doesn't help, with NPCs only being able to deal with one quest per time, for example, requiring you to reset them by leaving and entering the room again or finishing one of the quests that use the same NPC.

In order to view the different endings, you have to clear it at least three different times (doing the same fights, viewing the same cutscenes with small added scenarios here and there) while collecting every weapon the game has -- which was a literal pain in the ass.

After everything is said and done, this is not an horrible game, as I said before the concept is good and the music is amazing, but I really don't recommend using your time on this for the story itself.

If I could tell something to my old self before playing Nier, I would say: play it to the end of Ending A and then just watch every other ending on YouTube or something. Then it would be worth it, considering the time invested and the lack of time wasted re-doing content.

I usually dislike survival/crafting games, because I feel hollow playing the classic pattern of "hit some wood, then go hit some stone and idk, upgrade your stuff till you are tired of the game I guess?", especially because I don't think the content presented is worth the trouble.

Craftopia, while it follows the same "material evolution" logic, hits different. I will now present the reasons I prefer this one to most of the others survival/crafting hybrids.

-Getting materials is not a headache. There are some slightly rare unlimited supply of materials on some maps. Thanks to them, running out of ores to get isn't a thing. The "automation" marketed helps, too.

-Running from point A to B is easy. The map system works like this -- there is a teleport system where you can unlock islands and teleport to them (their level gradually increases). The size of each island is limited. Thanks to that, there is not a sense of "I want to go there but it is way too far away and I will take hours walking". It allows for easily accessible diversity.

-This game is quite goofy, having a clear zelda influence, with gliders and even bonfires making gliders fly higher. A lot of climbing included. There are cannons to launch you higher. There is a fortnite like building system allowing to make stairs to heaven. And, of course, there are rewards waiting for you on high places.
Thanks to this, the game feels fun. My friend, for example, made a system where he used cannons to launch him to the sky, where he then quickly made another platform while still flying and placed a second cannon there and so on until he reached a high platform where God Anubis was. What he did then? Transformed Anubis into a pokemon, and used him to generate battery (by placing him on a "hamster wheel"). Yes.

-Skill tree is fun because it unlocks active actions, not just passive buffs. You can unlocked dual wielding swords, use of dual handed weapons, OP magic and so on.
The combat honestly isn't a strong point because it is still clunky, but I like it, especially because I like using the active skills present on the game.

The negatives are:
-The game is still in EA so it has a lot of "Under test items" and locked content.
-The english used is clearly ESL. It does not feel machine translated, however. It is understandable.

Overhyped.
Combat is really simple - Hit, dodge, block/parry. It seems good, but feels clunky.
Survival is really simple - Eat food.
Building is fun, so there is that.

Yeah, only purchase if you do like Early Access survival games. I thought this would be better since the reviews are so good, but it isn't.