Recent reviews by Burzz

I recently revisited 7D2D after not having played in many years (holy crap this game has been in development for 12-15 years!), and it's been really strange to see that it's gone backwards in so many ways. Layers of poorly designed game systems stacked on one another. The skill book/magazine system is especially bad, locking critical progression behind RNG. I'm hoping they can turn this around, but as of now the game I bought and enjoyed is gone and this has taken it's place.

I'm not normally into survival games, but I'm having an absolute blast with Dune: Awakening. The setting is perfect for a survival game like this, the progression move forward at a fun pace, the graphics and sound are excellent, and it's not too punishing with it's mechanics (while still being a survival game). Highly recommended for fans of Dune or anyone who even slightly enjoys survival games!

Like watching a really gory, trashy movie from the 80's on VHS in your friends basement. A well made, bite-sized boomer shooter with punchy gameplay that's absolutely oozing with style from the visuals to the music. Highly recommended!

Not super far in yet but loving it so far! It reminds me a bit of an updated version of Castle Crashers but it's doing a lot of it's own things. The gameplay feels buttery smooth and responsive and the action is fast and hugely enjoyable. There's a lot of variety in the characters and weapons you can use so replayability will be high. Yet another example of why indie games reign supreme!

If you want to see what enshittification of a game franchise looks like, here it is. Torchlight 1 and 2 are really fantastic games and you should check those out instead. This game is terrible. Barely anything is explained and there is a patchwork of currencies and interlocking systems (that you'll recognize pretty quickly as mobile game time sinks, which is the developers bread and butter) that you'll need to figure out. Not that it's rewarding if you do, ARPG fans will be extremely bored with the outdated game play and shallow mechanics.

I guess if you enjoy mobile style games and want a dumbed down ARPG that will make every attempt to drain your wallet, go for it?

I don't normally play PVP games anymore, and I haven't watched any new Marvel stuff in a while. I had every reason not to like this game, but in spite of that, i'm having a ton of fun with it. It's deep yet approachable, the monetization strategy is generous, it has a huge cast of diverse characters, and it's just fun to play.

Games like this, fps takes on Vampire Survivors, were inevitable.. and this is an excellent example of how to do one well! Feels great to play with a ton of variety. Definitely recommended!

Very cool retro shooter with a unique setting. Will update this review later with more thoughts, but having a blast with it so far!

TLDR: Tedious.

So, I hated this game for the first hour. Then, I realized the scaling is weird and after getting just 2 or 3 magic (blue) items, the game went from frustratingly difficult to trivially easy. I guess I was having fun, kinda? I don't hate it as much now as I did, but I still feel like it's missing the mark and it's a no for me for now. Main reasons why:

* This game is slow. Leveling is slow, item acquisition is slow, movement is slow, combat is slow, animations are slow, the (ugggghhhh) dodge roll is slow. Maps are huge, so navigating them is slow. Filling out your skillset is slow. Upgrading your skills is slow. This game does not do a great job of respecting your time.

* The passive tree, while bigger than POE1, has way fewer interesting or rewarding nodes, so leveling doesn't feel good.

* I never thought I'd be saying this about a POE game, but the skills & spells are boring. Mostly direct damage stuff, not much in the way of support (hardly any with movement), just overall uninspired. This is the kind of problem that clone or 'also-ran' ARPG games commonly have so I was really surprised to see it.

* The soulslike influences. I get it- Fromsoft games are popular. I don't like them though. And I don't like their mechanics here. Especially that awful, awful dodge roll. It's too short and (recurring theme) too slow. Yet, you're forced to use it constantly during boss encounters and it feels terrible.

* The itemization feels bad. I get it, they want items to feel impactful, but no ♥♥♥♥- I went about an hour and a half before I had filled up my equipment slots.. not with good items- ANY item.. this led to frequent major power spikes that trvialized some early content that was previously way too difficult. Oh, did you kill a boss? Enjoy 20-100 gold and a single item, if you're lucky. Don't like it? Well, you're supposed to sit there and farm the boss. Haven't we evolved past this in terms of game design?

* The graphics are only okay. Actually, they seem slightly worse than Last Epoch to me, which itself is obviously worse than Diablo 4. I had intentionally avoided coverage of this game prior to release so I came into it with fresh eyes- the character models and textures specifically are pretty rough. They have a distinctly 2010ish look to them? The environments, while being serviceable, are all very drab and forgettable- compare this to the unique and colorful locations you go to in Last Epoch and Diablo 4 and you'll see what I mean.

* All enemies can body block you, but you have no weight or mass so you cannot push or dodge roll through them. If you get swarmed by a large group of small trash mobs, they will block you against walls and you'll be unable to escape if you can't burn them down quick enough. Gameplay consideration? I guess, but it feels terrible and looks ridiculous or broken

It's got a good core and I like the skill gem system even if the skills themselves are boring. The soulslike influences are the worst thing about the game for me, and unfortunately that's not really a design decisions they can just roll back at this point so it is what it is. The speed can be fixed and the itemization can be fixed so while I will continue to check in on this one, it will probably never be more than a 7/10 for me- and it seems silly to settle for a 7/10 when better games exist.

Frustrating and pretentious, if this game were a living person it would sustain itself on the smell of it's own farts. Some questions:

* Why can't I save anywhere I want?
* Why does it look like there's a layer of cotton covering the screen at all times, making everything look washed out?
* Why isn't there actual difficulty selection outside of "assist mode?"
* Why are the enemies so spongy?
* Why is there so much visual noise with raytracing turned on? it looks great in screenshots but in person it looks awful