Recent reviews by random_script

This is a bit of a 50/50 for me.

I like:
- The simplicity of the game and its great execution
- The progression. Particularly discovering new ways to interact with the environment opens the game a lot.
- The art direction

I dislike:
- Most of the secrets are hidden off camera. There is an automatic camera rotation feature that is barely used and you can't control the camera manually (unless I missed something with the controls).
- Secrets (particularly those related to important upgrades) should not be no longer accesible after a certain point in the game, and this game has lots.
- The "manual" pages are a bit too obscure for my taste. I would rather have less pages but all of them being readable.
- The combat feels a bit off. I feel like it is not as precise as it should be. I have played plenty of precise games and in this case there are times where I take a hit but I thought I dodged the attack perfectly.
- Not seeing the path I have progressed in the door puzzles

I like the simplicity, the clever designs and it is also usually funny.
The music is great to the point I have it in my library.

But the movement precision is bad, it is as the characters were wearing skates because of how often they slide instead of stopping. This can make the game become very frustrating and at least for me stop playing it.
It is worth mentioning that I am not good at platformers, so your experience may be completely different.

I stopped playing at "do as I say, not as I do" when I only had 2 characters missing. I decided to stop because of the precision, not because I couldn't figure out the solutions on my own.

I have around 1k hours in ER and 3k in Fromsoftware's games. I have done lots of challenge runs and helped thousands of players online. I am pretty sure I have found and done every important thing in the DLC.
I don't like some of the direction Fromsoftware has taken with ER and this is more dialed up in the DLC. I can't recommend the DLC unless you really like ER and are fine with spending this much money and time on it. I don't want Fromsoftware to keep following this direction I am rating this as negative.
ER already was quantity over quality and this makes it even more bloated. To me it looks like they lacked ideas at several points and didn't polish the product enough.

I liked:
- Exploration, world design and scenery.
- Some weapons, AoW, spells, talismans, etc are very interesting.
- Some fights were very good and I think all the new bosses were spectacular.
- The legacy dungeons and particularly some of the side dungeons (pretty much the quality over quantity of the DLC).

I didn't like:
- Balance, particularly bosses and the damage from fast attacks. Their idea is that a hard enemy makes the experience rewarding, but that is only if things are balanced correctly and I don't think that is the case here.
- This trend of long combos. They have been doing them for years but they are getting worse in my opinion, particularly their speed and visibility has reached a point where it gives a frustrating experience.
- The blessing system. Is not a bad idea but I don't think it is executed properly, as it happens with the spirit system. These systems should not become an excuse to over speed enemies, gank fights or attacks that hit too hard. The seeds should drop from bosses and endgame enemies should not hit as hard as they do without them because they were meant to be optional. This is unbalanced to the point I even thought resistances and damage reduction were not working. I had to cave in at the last boss and use them in order to gain actual damage reduction.
- Performance and over cluttered world areas. I have no stutters but my fps drop slightly in the first major area. I had to change my settings to low for the last boss.
- Furnace Golems. I did beat them, but they were no fun and there were too many of them.
- Reusing lots of enemies from the base game, in some areas even exclusively. Also some of the new enemies are reskined from DS3. The base game already have too much of this and this is supposed to be a different realm. This is particularly dissapointing for bosses.
- The mandatory npc pvp fight. I have never liked them in their previous games either.
- Situations with artificial difficulty with far away enemies that hit like a truck, particularly those casters perma channeling the ground spell that can stun you in one tick.
- Some of the habitual camera issues, for example with Bayle.
- The 3D model for the Jar innards enemy looks like it was made in 10 minutes.

This is one of the best roguelike games I have played, but I can also find some things I would like to change.

What's good:
- The game is easy to grasp and at the same time have a lot of things to discover.
- The visuals, atmosphere and immersion.
- The amount of options and the quality of the graphics settings. Having a performance benchmark in game is awesome.


What's bad:
- The amount of content for the price. Compared to other roguelike games this is expensive, even when on sale.
- Some times it feels very unfair, like the difficulty spike of certain enemies was an excuse to force you to die and extend the lenght of your playthrought. I would like the game to be a bit easier in general too, like taking less falling damage and having more checkpoints near bosses or that those that you bought in another biome count. The general design theme of the game is don't get hit and if you do don't get hit again in a short period of time.
- The early biomes have a bit too many items locked until you get unlock skills later. In my case when I unlocked being able to dive and walk over lava I never came back to the first areas of the game, so those areas were always harder than they should be. This is something that happens in lots of games, but since I find this one harder I feel like this is something worth mentioning.
- Several important issues with coop. It seems like coop was an afterthought because there are several key points in the game where in order to even see the prompt to progress the other player has to leave the game and you need to save your cycle, restart the game and continue the cycle. Also if by some chance your partner gets kicked out because a disconnection, a game error or because they have to leave temporarily or for whatever reason, then in many points in the biome you are not going to be able to resummon him because you can't go back to the summoning sphere. Also your partner doesn't keep any progress made in your game, he gets your progress only when he joins you.

I have over 3k hours in soul likes and I found this to be an overall good game and I recommend it to anyone that it's interested in this kind of game. I could play it again if there is a DLC or another ending in the future.

The Good:
- The concept is great, in that sense it blows other games out of the water. I love the aesthetics and the atmosphere. The game has a good sense of when it needs to be pretty or ugly. I love the design of most of the enemies and powers.
- It's goofy and funny, but in the right amount. I love that they used stuff like air bubbles popping under water for dialogue sounds.
- It is clearly inspired by Sekiro, one of my favorite games. This means the core combat is quite good. The option to resurrect at boss locations like in Elden Ring is also nice.
- The customization is good. You have: skill tree like Sekiro, levels like most RPGs, stowaways like Hollow Knight's charms, boss skills, shells each with their special skill and stats.
- There is a difficulty setting for those who want it. I beat the game in hard and it was ok, maybe a bit too hard for hp and hp recovery. No idea about the other difficulties, but I also know there is a gun somewhere. My strategy was investing into shell, defense, hammer and leech, the rest went into attack and vitality. I did use spells when it felt necessary and in my opinion electricity is op. With this setup most of the last bosses were so easy I thought the game had changed my difficulty setting, not the last 2 though.
- The game has well designed levels and it's usually worth to explore around, there are lots of upgrades and even some hidden bosses, but they are always optional and you will probably find more upgrades than you need.
- Some QoL stuff like shell insurance.

The Bad (nitpicks, can be ignored):
- The character some times gets stuck ignoring your latest command because the input was a bit too early for the buffer to queue it. This is something that also happens in other games like Sekiro, but I think it is a bit more frequent here.
- Stowaway summons often gets stuck and you need to resummon them manually, making them rather annoying and at least for me not worth the trouble.
- Your movement is a bit weird and it makes part of the platforming a bit annoying. The attack patterns of some enemies is also a bit weird. But also on the good side it kind of feels like you are actually battling under water, so it's okish.
- A bit too much platforming for my taste and a bit tight on the controls. At least there is a stowaway to avoid taking damage when falling into the abyss and you can change stowaways at any time.
- A bit slow at the beginning. My advice is to follow the main route and don't explore much until you beat a couple of bosses. This is also due to some skills are need for certain parts of the exploration.

The Ugly:
- Too many snipers in early-mid levels, where you don't have many options yet. This is a form of artificial difficulty and bad level design present in other games like Nioh (and particularly in Nioh2). I hate being forced to fight multiple enemies while being shot from afar. This is something that is often mixed with stuff like poison swamps and these snipers have more health and poise than most basic enemies and their attacks are not as easy to block as snipers are in for example Sekiro. It is alright to have a level designed around a sniper and buff him a lot, giving cover and everything, but having normal rooms with snipers both in the front and the back in higher ground and also with ground soldiers in between is just lazy. Also the telephone crabs near the end!!!.
- The camera in certain spots is just terrible. Avoid getting trapped in small rooms and remember that hitting through walls works both ways. Unfortunately this is somewhat common in the genre.

Even though it is quite similar in structure to Baldur's Gate 3, this game feels like like a proof of concept. I was surprised to find this released 6 years earlier and it feels like it's actually 15 years older.
I think this game is ok for one playthrough for most people and that most would rather replay BG3 instead of this one. For me at the end it became a bit of a drag and I just wanted to be done with it, meanwhile with BG3 I had the same sentiment but to a much lesser amount and I did finish it 3 times (so far...).
I problably became bored because I didn't find the story and characters that interesting and act 4 feels a lot like a stretch (even the scaling goes crazy unbalanced). Again, it was not bad, but other games make this one seem so-so. Mechanics like the luck find also make the game more tedious instead of fun for people like me that must know if there is something valuable in every crate (which is actually not hard, unlike in BG3).
I like that this doesn't follow D&D rules and just plays like whatever Larian wants, but there should be a better balance. Particularly ground surfaces are incredibly important but too easy to change.
The game has a lot of interesting mechanics and fun encounters but they can often become frustrating due to how they are hidden. For example in act 4 there is a group of enemies that resurrect unless you get rid of any fire surfaces in at least a couple of rooms, but it starts with necrofire (which requires blessing it to transform it to normal fire and then clearing the normal fire, or using the tornado spell) and they also can create more.
In short it is an incredibly deep game in some regards that some people would like a lot, but it will not engage other people as well. Just be mindful of the amount of time you want to spent on it and temper your expectations.

Pretty much another Portal 2 mod game. It is a good game but my least favorite. I particularly didn't like the backtracking you have to do in the puzzles in the early chapters. After that it goes into the usual Portal pace.

I did like the new light devices and the use of the air tubes.
The story is ok and it has great voice acting.

Content wise the DLC is enough for the price.
Nothing in particular stood out for me, but in general I am happy with the quality.
After replaying this with several characters in apocalypse, including hardcore, I like the decision to make the it an one shot in adventure mode. It reduces what's probably the greater weakness of these games: finding items that only apear in certain places, which are random.

I only played 2 months after its release and I only had fps issues in a hallway of an optional part of the town, apparently because it was loading stuff on the background.

Comming from Remnant 2 has made me appreciate more how good Remnant 2 is, particularly:
- Graphics are much more better in 2, like if the gap was 10-15 years instead of 4.
- Archetypes. I miss them so much in Remnant 1. Having the skills apart from mods is much better.
- Bigger world.
- More different bosses. In 1 lots have mob waves making them very similar.
- More weapon and mod variety.
- 2 more rings, meaning more customization.
- Loadouts, so instant swapping to another setup.

Remnant 1 is not Remnant 2, but it is still a good game and I am not a shooter fan (or good at them).
Both games are great at:
- co-op with a friend. I have some of my favorite gaming moments with them.
- Finding secrets. There are tons of rewarding traits and items in these games, some are very hard to find. And they usually are cleverly hidden or in cool events.
- Well designed areas.
- Well designed enemies, particularly some of the bosses.
- Weird characters.

There are some things I dislike in both games like having to redo areas many times in order to find certain items or events, the power level based on your weapons, how stagger works and how much some enemies spam attacks, but those are minor complaints.
The only things I really disliked in this game are all in Clementine's dlc:
- The last boss. I really hate this kind of bullet hell anything goes everywhere at the same time design. This also happens with the final boss of 2 but to a much lesser degree in my opinion.
- The shammans that froze your vision.

This is a great game, but not without flaws, as it is usual in the genre. Many of its flaws are also the usual too.
I think that as of now this ties with The Surge 1 as my favorite soul like outside of FromSoftware.
I think I will do another playthrough right away.


What's good:

- Some enemies were fantastic. My favorite is Victor. Some areas were very good too.
- Performance, flawless. I have never notice any fps drop or problem and neither with the demo.
- Having cheap respect options.
- Many weapons and also weapon combinations are amazing. Being able to mix blade and handle is genious. This will probably be my main reason for replaying this game.


What's ok:

- Story and characters. I wasn't expecting anything but they were actually good and interesting most of the time.
- The dialogue choices had more depth than I expected.
- Customization was better than I expected. But I miss having tanking options like poise and not just physical damage mitigation.
- They did a good job with the combat changes. I think it would be better if the amount of guard regain you lose on taking damage was much much less, even having the P-organ makes almost no difference.
- The pacing of the game. I had the sense that I was reaching the climax for a very long time, which made me be even more eager to continue. I think this went on for 10 hours at least.

What's a bit bad:

- Attacks feel floaty. Particularly heavy attacks feel like they have unreal speed and acceleration, making some of the animations weirdly fast, making those attacks hard to read.
- Attack patterns feel unnatural and bait you into attacking before they are finished. This happens almost with every boss. Sadly it is an increasingly common trend in these games but in this one is pretty much a norm.
- Bosses attacking when they are supposed to be stunned after a charged attack when they are staggered. There are only a few instances of this, but it is like the previous point, something to spice the combat but in a bad way in my opinion.
- Combat distance. There are a couple of bosses with a moveset that makes them frustrating with certain short weapons because they move back constantly at the same time they are giving you an opening. Particularly Fuoco.
- The game is extrimely linear. The only secrets you find are part of backtraking quests that are only possible after finding the hint item.
- Hitting enemies with a charged attack after they become vulnerable is more difficult when playing a motivity (strength) build, because those weapons are usually considerably slower and with less reach. This is annoying at the beginning of NG but it becomes tolerable once you find better weapons. The trick is that you can use certain items to proc it instead of a charged attack and also switch to another weapon with more reach and speed just for triggering it (upgrades and stats don't matter). But still it can be annoying with fast enemies and in hard situations.
- A bit too many ledges with snipers. They didn't give me much trouble but I can see how they could be frustrating, particularly when there were more than 1.


What's bad:

- Some hit boxes. Particularly those that hit before that part of the enemy actually makes contact with you. I know they are hard work, but they are extremely important.
- Many attacks are too fast and some are almost impossible to see. Having a boss is no excuse to give it ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ attacks. I think this could be fixed just by giving 1-2 frames to most of those attacks and some more to those very few lightning fast attacks (yes I am referring to you Laxasia).
- That quest that requires you to have a certain terrible boss weapon, with a quartz reward.
- Gang fights, particularly the gang boss, twice.
- Weapon bouncing at walls, while hitting enemies through walls just fine. This happens in a lot of spots and with many weapons.
- Not having poise. There is some hyper armor though.
- Having to reach NG+ to fully unlock the P-organ tree. In NG you don't even know in that there are more hidden parts in the tree, making it 7 subtrees instead of 5. There is a mod in nexusmods called P-organ 7 phase unlock that allows you to reach the last part in NG, making it a better experience than vanilla, because many options in the P-organ tree feel like filler and are very dependant of your playstyle, and I personally find a lot of those useless or weak.


In any case, you can beat the game just fine with a bit of patience, consumables or the summoning system.