Recent reviews by mysterious badas

nioh 3

i generally don't like them, so i can safely say this is the most fun roguelike i've played

impossibly good game

Dark Arisen is better and more polished, but this is still a fun game. It has more flaws than it's predecessor, while not really changing up the game in any way for the better, but it oftentimes will show even greater flashes of ambition - even if it stumbles trying to reach for the sky.

kino

kino

the most soulless game ever

This game definitely has interesting ideas, but it starts to lose steam halfway through. I am writing this review before getting to the end of the game, and while I do plan on finishing it eventually, it feels like I'm just forcing myself to after sinking so much time.

One of the biggest problems with this game is the exploration. The issue is intrinsically linked with the developer's idea of making a seamless, no-loading voxel-based world filled to the brim with platforming puzzles, which sounds cool on paper and it is at the start of the game, but spend enough time with it, and you'll start to miss traditional RPG overworlds.

First off, with the world being this way, coupled with the lack of a world map and story guidance, means you will spend hours upon hours walking around clueless, trying to see how far you can reach with your jumps until you can potentially find another area. It doesn't help that the areas basically look the same -- it's really just recolored tree and grass with a different weather for the most part, making the exploration all the more repetitive.
Despite the world being so big and open ended, there usually is only one right path to take around the platforming, especially before you have all the mounts. This means that if along the way you dare miss a jump, you'll have to make the long trek back up. And I really mean long: some of these platforming challenges can be very extensive.

The combat balance also has some questionable design choices, especially on Hard Mode, But the threat management mechanic seems to become basically useless as the game progresses, as more and more often, you will find enemies tend to spam more and more AoE spells. Enemy AoE abilities can -- and will! -- frequently one shot your party, which creates a very one-dimensional, repetitive gameplay loop of applying a debuff as soon as you see an ability icon on top of the enemy on the turn order and then using Curena to heal your party back up to full on boss fights.
Also, the resistance stat is a real luxury in this game. If you meet a group of spellcasters in a blue flame, which is supposed to represent enemies at your level of strength, there's a very big possibility you will get instantly wiped if you don't have appropriate crowd control in your party.
MP is also a a luxury in this game. It makes physical damage rule supreme, especially when the best AoE magic spells are so slow to cast.
Enemy patterns are also basically static. They will always do the same thing every time, even on random enemy groups. This was probably made to counter act that even these random encounters are extremely powerful, but at the same time, this completely undermines the attempt at making random encounters more challenging: since enemies will absolutely always do the same thing, you can always apply the exact same strategy every time.
For a game that tries to have an incredibly flexible class system, a lot of the battles seem to force you to have certain tools in your party or die, which really hurts the creativity this system could grant you. I can't comment on class balance, but I found the active abilities lacking in synergy. Class combos seem to work out on innate passives and stat growth, in no small part thanks to a lot of these abilities being limited to specific weapon types. In turn, with classes being based around sub-class synergy, it seems little thought was put in synergy between party members. I never felt like I could use two different characters to work together towards something: they all did their own thing.
This game also has A LOT of grinding. The gold economy is scarce. Ever thought to yourself "I really need to upgrade my gear"? No worries, because in this game, you will get so little money from your battles that you'll level up enough to trivialize the content. It doesn't help that most of the money you get will probably be better spent on consumables. LP gain is extremely slow past the first few levels if you don't use the Dry Kid method.
Keep in mind that most of this is adjustable through the Assist Options menu, but I wanted to keep my experience vanilla. Or maybe I just suck, who knows.

There's also basically no story. The whole memento mori deal is respectable, but it's completely missing compelling characters and progression. The only real thing that happens is the banishments and that's it. I understand the focus on exploration and gameplay, but even the most hardcore action games have a story, no matter how cheesy it may be.

Even with all these issues, I did genuinely enjoy some of my time with this game. It has a lot of great ideas and fun segments, and undeniably, the developer put a lot of soul and passion into this project. In his future games, if he takes some of the criticism to heart, I believe he can create a real hit. For now, it's still a bit rough.

kino

rollback please