Recent reviews by riipah

I just want to start by saying, I really wanted to like the previous game, Ender Lilies. There was just one problem for me: it was HARD. I was playing Elden Ring at the same time, and it's really piece of cake compared to Ender Lilies. Ender Magnolia is basically the same as Ender Lilies, but it fixes the difficulty problem. Difficulty is now adjustable. Most of the time I'm playing on normal, but it's good to be able to switch to easy if you're stuck on a boss. Additionally, there are multiple new progression systems. When gaining levels, you get both attack and defense power. Relics can be upgraded. Skills have unlimited uses, which is also good. Other than that, the art style and level design is good. I miss voice acting a bit, but I understand it's not a AAA game, and other aspects are more important. Overall, definitely worth the price.

Good:
+ Looks good
+ Feels good
+ Level design
+ Progression systems

Bad:
- No voice acting

Atmosphere is good. Voice acting is good. The game looks fine. Those are the good sides. It's a walking simulator with some puzzles and quick-time events. That's fine. My main issue is that the guy walks so slowly. Yes, you can "run", but it's still very slow running. The map is too small, it's almost useless. Combining the slow movement and bad map, you end up getting lost, and then you have to slowly walk back, which is very frustrating. The computer screens are hard to read because of the angle. And this is just a personal opinion, but I would appreciate first person view. It's not a bad game, but it could be much better.

Gameplay is pretty standard roguelite. You do runs with rotating stages, with boss at the end. Controls are very responsive, which is important for high-speed game like this. I also like the graphics, they're sharp, renders look good and smooth animations. Characters have voice acting, but it gets a bit repetitive. There's also story sequences, with voice acting. Every character has a huge number of moves, it can be a bit hard to keep track of all of them. I couldn't find a simple list of all unlocked moves. As a disclaimer, I was aware of BlazBlue, but never played any of the previous games.

Good:
+ Responsive controls
+ Looks good
+ Voice acting

Bad:
- A bit repetitive
- Story is a bit meh

It's good modern tower defense game. Works fine and voice acting is a plus. You can save any time. There's multiple "challenge" options for every map. It's a bit too easy on normal, a lot easier than the original, and after completing the story mode there's not much to do. I would appreciate an official expansion with more challenging levels.

Mostly what others have said. Pretty good platformer/metroidvania exploration game. Perfect for handheld (I've been playing this on ROG Ally). Cute pixelart. Awesome, memorable soundtrack, best part of the game IMO. Story starts good, but becomes nonsense. I didn't bother paying attention. The game also becomes a bit too easy in the middle at least. The time mechanic could have been explored more. There are only 2 timelines. You can stop the time, but it's only needed a few times.

Good:
+ Soundtrack
+ Looks good
+ Multiple character progression systems

Bad:
- Nonsense story

It was okay. Definitely wouldn't pay full price. I liked it better than Diablo 3 for the most part. D4 is darker than D3, it's closer to D2 in that sense. I really liked some of the dungeons. You can also upgrade skills again, although usually only 3-5 levels max. Most enemies and equipment will still auto-level with you, same as D3 2.0. I can't say whether it's a good or bad thing. Oh, and it's open world now, yay. You can complete sidequests wherever (there's quite a lot), and sometimes the main quest also allows to complete parts in order of your choosing. I played on "veteran" (the highest before completing the game?), and honestly it felt very very easy, compared to D2. D3 had more interesting boss battles. D4 bosses don't have any creative patterns and generally the fight is over in less than 60 seconds anyway. Even after the end battle with Lilith I was like "that's it?"

Update: I've been playing another season with new GPU which as 16 GB VRAM, and for some reason I've been noticing massive lag, and the game is hogging all system memory (I have 32 GB RAM). Not sure if it's related to the VRAM, or if it's a new issue with the game. I saw others complaining about the same problem since the beginning. It's crazy that Blizzard hasn't found a way to fix the memory leak yet. Anyway, it's really preventing me from playing too long sessions, because the game and system starts glitching when RAM usage goes to 100%. Yes, the game can really exhaust 16 GB VRAM + 32 GB system RAM. This is now my main issue with the game.

Good:
+ Looks good, great cinematics
+ Good voice acting
+ Lots of endgame content
+ Open handcrafted world

Bad:
- Memory leak
- Story is meh, even more boring than previous games
- Too easy
- Boring boss battles
- Some minor quest glitches
- No Diablo :(. Hope they will make a comeback in a DLC.

I feel a bit bad giving this a negative review. There are a lot of good things about this game. It's a decent Heroes of Might and Magic / Age of Wonders clone. But for me, the graphics are too pixelated. It's hard to see what's going on on the world map. To me, pixel art should be easier to figure out that high res. Some others have pointed out this same problem. In my case, I started missing HOMM.

It's a semi open world JRPG. Graphical style is similar to Final Fantasy pixel remasters, with added 3D effect. Gameplay reminds of those classic Square RPGs. Battles happen mostly randomly and they are turn based, similar to Final Fantasy X. I highly prefer real turn based battles over real-time or active time battle (ATB), so that's definitely a plus. Random battles feels a bit odd and outdated concept, though. The game has story sequences separated by semi open world exploration, where you're mostly free to travel in the world following paths. You start with a single character and when you begin traveling, you encounter and unlock different characters with their own stories. I think you can unlock every character, it's just a matter or which order. Every character has a fixed main job and possible customizable side job. As said, battles are turn-based. There's a huge emphasis on breaking the enemy's block by exploiting their vulnerabilities. It's actually quite satisfying when you get the combo right, one character breaks the block and the other deals massive damage.

Good:
+ Looks good
+ Great soundtrack
+ Story seems good
+ Turn-based battles
+ Less cringy than some modern JRPGs
+ Voice acting

Bad:
- Random battles
- Characters not that memorable

I have played Civilization series games since Civ 2. Alpha Centauri is my favorite game in the series and the one that I have spent the most time with. I own the original CDs also. The main reason I like SMAC is the world building. Alpha Centauri has distrinct, original theme and story. It's just very well thought out scifi story about future world. The civilizations are different and their leaders have clear personalities. You can build cities on land and water. You can raise and lower land. You can't do this in the actual Civilization games! The game designers had to come up with technologies and backstory for an alien world. Many of the technologies and secret projects (wonders) are tied to the fictional leaders and events in the new world, with voiced narration. Playing as Deirdre working in harmony with the planet's native life feels very different to building a war machine as Spartans. In the newer game, Beyond Earth, the civilizations feel very bland, meaningless. SMAC has also aged pretty well. It looks old, but not bad.

Good:
+ Good backstory, leaders, techs, philosophical quotes
+ Secret project videos
+ Environmental mechanics

Bad:
- A little buggy. For example, it's possible to get deadlocked during AI turn
- Some of the civilizations feel a bit unbalanced

The cloud saving feature does not work. It is mandatory for me. The devs have said they will fix it. I'll update review when they do.