Recent reviews by Lilytle

I wish I could give this game a neutral review, but I find myself leaning slightly toward the negative side.

The game is essentially a visual novel (VN) where you spend most of your time reading. The choices you make don’t significantly impact the story, which feels like a missed opportunity. The dice system, however, is a highlight—it’s fun to micromanage and combines well with skills to create interesting combos. That said, some skills are clearly inferior and not worth investing in. The setting starts off strong, introducing characters and a sense of urgency with a looming "deadline" that initially feels compelling.

Unfortunately, the game begins to fall apart in ways that are ultimately unsatisfying. There are no real consequences for failure; losing a dice check results in minor damage that’s easily fixed, and skipping a day to recover resources barely affects the deadline due to how lenient it is. This lack of stakes undermines the tension the game tries to build.

While choices do matter to some extent, they often boil down to picking between two sides of a moral dilemma, each leading to predictable outcomes. This brings me to my second major criticism: the game is overly clichéd. The story lacks surprising twists, and the ones that do occur are telegraphed from miles away. With only two approaches to most situations, the narrative feels formulaic and uninspired.

My third and most significant issue is what ultimately makes me hesitant to recommend this game. You start in one area, gradually getting to know the characters and becoming attached to them—classic VN progression. However, you eventually hit a wall because the mission pointers are vague and don’t clearly explain how to progress the story or side arcs. Then, out of nowhere, you discover a gate that opens up a whole new area, introducing a flood of new characters, locations, and opportunities.

At this point, you’re juggling multiple missions, including one that continues in the new zone. While this might sound engaging, the game forces you to wait for timers, pushing you to explore or take on other tasks in the meantime. This wouldn’t be a problem if the game didn’t keep overwhelming you with more content. Just as you start to connect with the original characters, the game throws even more new faces and locations at you, diluting your focus and attachment.

The cycle becomes repetitive:

- Do a mission.

- Perform self-care to avoid dying.

- Wait for mission timers while doing random tasks or exploring.

- Complete the mission once the timer ends.

- Play one scene, only to be sent on another chore (hack this, deliver that, etc.).

- Wait again.

- Repeat.

The lack of stakes becomes glaring. A character might claim something is urgent, but you can easily sleep for three days and deal with it later. Where’s the tension? The game becomes easier as it progresses, with failure resulting in minimal penalties—often just smaller rewards. This makes the experience feel increasingly hollow.

TL;DR:
The game is okay if you’re just looking for a story-driven experience with timers dictating your progress. You might grow fond of the characters and setting, but just as you start to connect with them, the game introduces too many new elements, overwhelming you and diluting the narrative. The characters, while initially intriguing, end up feeling like generic cyberpunk archetypes without much depth. The lack of stakes and the repetitive gameplay loop make the experience feel unfocused and unsatisfying. If you don’t mind a lack of consequences and enjoy visual novels, you might find some enjoyment here—but don’t expect anything groundbreaking.

This is probably the best game in the 4X and turn-based war genre—not because it perfectly captures every aspect of a 4X game, but because it masterfully balances simplicity with the strategic depth of the genre.

To create a great 4X game, you need to perfect the four pillars of its name: Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate.

EXPAND
The game has an excellent nation-building and expansion system, similar to the Civilization series, but without feeling bogged down. You feel like you're genuinely controlling your territory and waging wars for dominance. You can choose where to focus your expansion first, which adds layers of strategy. It’s reminiscent of Endless Legend and does it just as well.
TL;DR: Simple yet deep, with strategic choices about positioning and district construction.

EXPLORE
This game solves one of the biggest problems in most 4X games: the boring midgame. When there are no enemies to fight or places to explore, things can stagnate. Here, you can customize the number of NPC enemies, infestations, and other challenges, ensuring there’s always something to do. There are many points of interest to explore, and building outposts triggers political tensions if they’re too close to other players.
The “free city” mechanic (akin to city-states in Civilization) is outstanding. You can interact diplomatically by boosting your influence, completing their missions, upgrading your culture tree, or conquering them outright. Trade with them is impactful, and they feel like real allies when they become vassals—they can defend themselves or even your capital. The “Rally of the Lieges” system allows you to recruit powerful units from free cities, which you can also gift to bolster their defense or offense.
TL;DR: Perfectly balanced exploration. NPC enemies keep things interesting, without dragging on like Stellaris quest chains.

EXPLOIT
You can leverage free cities in various ways: command them to attack your enemies while your main army focuses elsewhere, or support them indirectly through diplomacy.
Diplomacy with the AI is solid, allowing you to act as a third party by influencing wars, building teleporters, or donating resources. The grievance system encourages strategic planning instead of random war declarations.
You can also conquer cities and convert them to your race, eliminating the original population at the cost of alignment penalties—great for roleplay.
TL;DR: The free city system adds unique exploitation mechanics, while standard resource exploitation is functional but not groundbreaking.

EXTERMINATE
This is the game’s strongest aspect. The combat system is turn-based like Civilization but played on separate maps. Instead of cluttered “one unit per tile” mechanics, it uses regiment-based armies. Units have unique passive and active abilities, creating great synergy.
Spells make battles dynamic, borrowing from Heroes of Might and Magic. You can cast devastating spells mid-battle (e.g., explosions to eliminate archers) or summon powerful creatures like dragons.
The research system is unique—you research spells to use, not permanent upgrades. These spells aren’t simple buffs like "+1 attack"; they can fundamentally change your army’s capabilities. Spells require resources and upkeep, giving players a chance to catch up by targeting opponents’ economies or conducting guerrilla warfare. This helps mitigate snowballing, especially for casual players.
TL;DR: The combat system combines strategy and creativity with spells, unique units, and balanced research mechanics.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Many 4X games excel in one area but falter in others. For example, Stellaris and Crusader Kings have great roleplay but lack engaging combat, while Aurora 4X has deep mechanics but a terrible UI. Hearts of Iron IV has excellent combat but weak roleplay and nation-building.

This game strikes a fantastic balance between simplicity and depth, making it perfect for a day off where you just want to chill and immerse yourself. With its robust customization options, engaging midgame, and the Pantheon system (which adds fun meta-progression), it’s easy to stay invested, even when you lose.

TL;DR: A near-perfect balance of simplicity and depth, with excellent customization and solutions to common 4X pitfalls.

Just try it, if you enjoy games that you can just pick up and have fun. this is the game. same like overwatch where game last around 10 minutes. winning or losing doesnt matter, just pick character you like. do fun stuff and be happy

i usually do the same in OW2. but ow2 tank is more miserable than this game. you can still have fun game with no tank and just do whatever. just dont be a sweat or try hard. a hard stomp last even faster. so you can just queue up again after hard lost.

also ignore the negative review except the performance issues. the game is in UE5 which all UE5 game have terrible optimization. the rest of negative review are just OW2 shill that hate for no reason saying how the game is uninspired.

just ignore ranked or tryharding in general if you dont have full stack. and you will have great time. you already know from other review that all the hero is free. so just try it, its free game. lol

Fun concept, really simple and the tutorial is great.

why i dont recommend it for my own personal reason and for other to see:
-i believe some of the song is just off beat and the beat used didnt match with the one in game. for example world 5 music beat is literally off. and in the end you adjust yourself with memorizing instead of playing "on the beat" like playing an instrument.
- the visual effect, screen spinning and changing angle is hyper nauseating. i think you can disable it on the official level but not the custom made level. if you have vertigo or just easily get dizzy. you will not have a great time

if you are fine with that and still want to try it, make sure you calibrate your keyboard first. the game seems to have a pretty big input diff compared to other rhythm game, or maybe that just me

otherwise a good game so far.

wait 3 months for an update that add crappy looking cosmetic from finishing achievement.

wait another 2 months for a minor bug fix.

wait an entire year for a new map to be added

seriously. what are they doing?

Marvel Snap is a good take on how casual Card game should be.
This review will focus on monetization

The main reason people are complaining so far is the card acquisition, while it is true in a way, that doesn’t mean it’s a massive issue. The game promotes something called “location” where every game feel way different based on how the location interact with your deck. On the other hand, Snap also promotes tactical retreating. Sadly, that was the core concept of the game is that people tend to forget. Therefore, complaining that they need “strong meta deck” to win, when its far from the truth. If you learn how to cut your loses early and using the “SNAP” mechanic (double your win point) at the right opportunity, you will 100% guaranteed to rank up. I hit infinity multiple times at this point without spending for those fancy new cards.

This happens because most people that tried this game treat this as another card game like hearthstone, MTG, yugioh. When it plays more of a tactical board game than a card game. There is also a confirmation bias, you will always be guaranteed to match someone that has a similar collection level (level that shows how many cards you own). So, it is very rare for you to find someone that “whale” and have better cards, its simply untrue and I checked it myself because my partner is a whale and he always fight against optimized deck, while im a F2P and only fought unoptimized deck.
I have level up from F2P to low spender that just spent 10$ every month for the season pass, and I can guarantee that this game is the best card game/tactical board game for low spender. Season pass covers lotsa stuff, getting multiple cards faster and more currency to bling out your card cosmetic.

If a card too OP balance change happens every week, location makes the game bearable against OP cards, and tactical retreat allows you to minimize your losses against said OP cards.
The game problem is mostly about FOMO, missing out on a card can be painful. Because you need to wait before it shows up again. Doing daily mission can be a chore but it’s only like 15 minutes per day and 2 daily mission that easily be done every 6 hours. And you can play on your phone so it’s not a big deal.

Overall if you thought this game has bad monetization, you are wrong. It’s not perfect, but it’s acceptable compared to others

very cool game
good for relaxing if you like civ like turn based 4x
art direction is amazing

i know a lot of people didn't care and sometimes trashtalk people who have a budget pc. but i need to address the depth of field things

First thing this is a Good game, XCOM vibe, with warhammer 40K lore, its like dream came true for table top fans.
You can find all the good stuff about this game in other review, i want to bring up the less noticeable things

I want to continue playing but sadly this game lack Video option and its hard for me to optimize the performance. there is barely any settings to tweak only basic stuff check mark like anti aliasing and ambient occlusion.

now you maybe wandering why do i need flexible settings?

I ran this game on 30 fps stable, its enough for me. i met the minimum requirement and i don't have a beast PC. but sometimes when the action came in, it slow down the game and drop the fps to 24. classic budget PC. this should be not a big of the deal for me because i used to play with potato Graphic and performance.

the main problem is the depth of field, oh man... its so bad. like really really bad. it doesn't even line up properly sometimes. combine it with lack of video option to negate fps drop, make this even worse for me who easily get dizzy by motion blur and depth of field in game, this really doesn't allow me to play. i'm only 40 minute in and already want to puke cause it make me dizzy. if i can turn that off i will not complain but for now i'm sorry that i cant play this amazing game.

minor things: its a shame that the camera is not controllable enough to appreciate the model details. only basic rotation and zoom in (and the zoom get ruined by depth of field)

really want to continue playing, love the sound design, animation, model, everything is in high quality. but im really really sorry i cant play more, and will refund in the meantime. i will definitely comeback if the dev put more video option and give option to disable the depth of field.

thanks and im sorry

This game is my go through ASMR experience
Sit on the couch and relax while parrying orc
while listening to extremely satisfying neck breaking bone shattering knife slitting
repetitive yet still engaging
recommended for time killer!

Great game ruined by the dev and the publisher
the devloper ban people from playing their game online for saying the forbiden CCP keyword

stay away! dont support them and their overlord
there is better rhythm game out there who respect the player and support free speech

and for you dev, so sad that you betray our expectation, good thing that i almost buy the DLC and prevent myself from wasting money, oh no....
anyway