Swansonhart legutóbbi értékelései

This has been truly a blast to play. The combat feels extremely repetitive, but imho it's not the main selling point. To see what I mean, go on a trip to Phokis, then to the Valley of the Snake and lastly get to the grounds of the Temple of Apollo. If you go to its southernmost corner, you'll be able to take in a magnificent view. I've seen it in real life and the only thing the game can't convey is the heat of the midday sun and cool wind. Other than that, it's a dream come true.

The best aspects of the game as compared to Dark Souls are this:

• Extensive character customization. Yes, you can somewhat change the booba size.
  
• Adjustable difficulty -- you can use the in-game NPC/follower to help you deal with monsters. It's great.
  
• Story is engaging for what it is (more so if you like anime). It's not a masterpiece, but it isn't boring either.
  
• Unique character classes that you can adapt and modify during your run. This sort of flexibility makes it fun to try and complete the same level using a different approach.
  
• Easy to get into -- I haven't played anything like Dark Souls before, but I think that this game is a great entry into souls-like.

To sum it up, if you like anime and challenge, you will most likely enjoy the game. Personally, I haven't completed it yet, but I'm looking forward to it once I have more free time.

What started as an immersive story, very soon became a snoozefest after the first two chapters or so. It is full of mindless fetch tasks or talking to irrelevant characters. I wish I had read the book instead of playing this point-and-click game.

A deserted biome, minimum wildlife and sprawling ruins have been thoroughly scanned before the landfall, so the operation began.

A dozen space marine squads, a team of scout bikers and a razorback led by a newly recruited commander Arelius have entered what looks like ancient imperial ruins. "What in the Emperor’s name did Astra Militarum think when they established a desert colony?" The commander cursed while making headway before his squad.

The place was quiet all the way through except for some small packs of howling kroot hounds here and there. Suddenly, abrupt repeating wheezing has broke the silence. Green streams of hot plasma overcharged the city horizon. A moment later a detailed report from the scouts has been communicated to Aurelius over the comms. "Commander, several squads of necrons have been spotted on the outskirts, approximately 5 miles ahead. Their lord is leading the charge into what looks like...rival necrons..."

"Necrons fighting each other? Could they both be after the artifact too?" The commander pondered for a second. "Let's take this chance to get into positions, marines, before we..."

A fountain of blood in the peripheral vision of the Aurelius has cut his order short and the firing began on all sides. Green swirling rays crisscrossed with streams of bullet fire, righteous voices of marine sergeants gave regrouping orders and husks of necron metal plating started flying about. The fighting has begun…

---

Thank you for reading my short story. You’ve probably realized that you just read a description of my first encounter with the Necrons in the game. It wasn’t the first or the last encounter that made my imagination bloom with countless short stories. I dare say if you allow yourself to be immersed in the game and look at exploring, expanding and tactical combat as elements of your own story, you’ll surely enjoy the game to the fullest.

But will I enjoy the game without DLC though, you might wander. In short, it’s absolutely enjoyable without a single DLC and plays fine as a stand-alone product. Furthermore, to address two common criticisms of the game:

1. “Part of your army is behind a pay wall so I don’t recommend this game.” Are you kidding me? You don’t recommend enjoying four available factions with decent variety for 100 of hours? That’s just silly. Besides, once you’ve thoroughly finished playing those factions, you can always grab the next faction DLC that interests you on discount and go onto the next conquest. Don’t let yourself get into the entitled mindset of “Since I bought the game, I’m supposed to receive everything that comes with it for free.” If you want to see a continued development and support of the game, and you enjoy the base game, then buying DLC makes all the sense in the world. Every DLC pack adds something worth your time. Play the base game (yes, it's enough), pick which factions you'd like to play as next and go from there. Anyway, it's cheaper than spending money on one night out.
   
2. “The game needs voices. Without them it’s meh.” The game is perfectly fine without voices. Oftentimes you need to move and order dozens of units on the battlefield and hearing those voice lines would be annoying. They would become white noise pretty soon. If that doesn’t convince you, think about the game as a tabletop simulator of w40k. There aren’t any voice lines (not to mention special effects) coming out of those plastic models, are there?

Treat yourself to one of the best W40K games since the Dawn of War franchise. It’s not trying to be anything like Dawn of War, but it sure as hell gives it a run for its money as a tabletop game.

Also check out my mod if you're a fan of Space Wolves!
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2572170398

I'll keep it short. You'll most definitely enjoy the first 10 hours or so. The atmosphere and alien are both terrific. But the moment you figure out how the alien AI, missions and story work, it'll feel more like a drag. Yes, the second half of the game is essentially a tedious peek-a-boo routine.

Recommend on sale only, especially if you don't mind the slog fest that the second half of the game is.

Here's a hot take. Kind of. I've tried to gauge how much I'd enjoy the game in the two hours that I had available and I must say I was both overwhelmed and underwhelmed.

Before I get to the main, subjective part of the review, I want to point out that Japanese voice acting in this game is lackluster. Almost nothing is voiced. Simply compare it to Code Vein Japanese voice over to see for yourself. That was an objectively underwhelming part.

Moving to the main reason why I didn’t enjoy the game, two hours is simply not enough to understand how it plays even a little, unlike literally hundreds of other games without exaggeration. I had to skip so many explanations of mechanics, cutscenes and shopkeepers' banter. Normally, I would take my time and read everything, but seeing how much information the game throws at me, I realized that I really had to hurry up to get to the actual gameplay. By that time, I probably had 1 hour left. Naturally, I rushed to do some quests. I went through the initial running sequence, killed a few small jagras and then I had to get myself a big jagra. That's where time constraints really hit me and I couldn’t continue. Most likely I'd missed a piece of vital information in one of those dozen text boxes the game throws at you. I don't know, but I screwed it up essentially and had no time left (not for the quest itself but for the allocated two hours).

...And that were my two hours. In brief, I watched cinematics, cutscenes, created a character, created a cat character, watched more cutscenes, did a running sequence/tutorial, more cutscenes, lots of text boxes, tried out all weapons, more text boxes to get a quest, doing a simple quest, more text boxes and finally failed a quest. Time was up and I never got to fighting a stronger enemy (note that I didn’t have a noob armor on). That's roughly how it felt.

In conclusion, this is by no means a small, easy-to-pick-up game that you can get a feel for in the two hours Steam allows you; and if you're anything like me, meaning you don't have time to watch 6 hours of youtube guides and walkthroughs before trying out this game for yourself, then I wouldn't recommend buying it. What I suspect is a better way to try this particular game out is:

• watch about 4-6 hours of a playthrough
  
• pause to read all the text boxes with explanations (occasionally google some key information)
  
• watch weapon guides beforehand
  
• pick up the base game with a heavy discount
  
• don't spend time on creating a character
  
• skip through everything you've already seen in the playthrough as fast as possible in order to get to the gameplay and tougher enemies.

By this point in time, you'll have probably started a few quests and can actually get a proper taste of the combat (hopefully you got to stronger enemies than big jagras and still have time left), managing equipment, choosing potions whatnot and the whole game loop.

This is getting a bit long-winded, but I should say that the above-mentioned approach has a substantial flaw. You do not experience the initial 6 hours (or however long you’ve watched a playthrough for) of the game by yourself. You’re standing there on the sidelines, not knowing whether you’d like to participate or not. An indecisive onlooker. And when you get to the actual gameplay, you might find that it has already lost its gleam and shine… Should you have just bought the game no matter the price? Should you have avoided spoiling the game for yourself and withheld from watching playthroughs and guides that baby feed you all the information? Moreover, should you have simply bought it on release? I do not know but you’ll have to make that decision for yourself. As for me, I’ve already made mine.

Side note, I’m not simply hating the game or saying that you suck because you like the game. I’ve had a certain experience with the game, which I wanted to share. At the end of the day, you decide which games you buy or hold off on. Thank you for reading my review.

Enjoyable

• small scale land battles

Memorable

• race and faction variety
  
• certain but not all faction mechanics

Forgettable

• soundtrack (sadly no alternative to playing your own music)
  
• voice acting and some sound effects (partially fixed by a mod: Battle chants)
  
• army designs i.e. uniform colors, banners, shields (fixed by mods: Tabletop heraldry, Caledor banner for Imrik & Unique banners, Uniforms and heraldry)
  
• world map design (fixed by mods: Campaign forestry, Painted campaign map, Settlement panel landscape, Realistic fog of war, Antiqued campaign overview map)
  
• loading screens (fixed by a mod: Faction dependent loading screens)

Terrible

• seige battles (removed by a mod: Even faster sieges, Fast sieges 50% attrition, No wall=No siege)
  
• how quick the battles are (fixed by a mod: Delayed reinforcements, Scotvince's longer battles)
  
• AI army composition (fixed by mods: Table top caps)
  
• diplomacy/confederating/starting wars (fixed by mods: Confederation options, Dynamic AI restrictions)
  
• victory condictions (changed by a mod: Victory conditions overhaul 2)
  
• visual clutter (fixed by a mod: Brighter borders, Less buff and effect VFX)
  
• how little lore you're given (partially fixed by a mod: Legendary lore)
  
• needlessly slow campaign (fixed by mods: No insane growth requirements, No more rogue armies, Upkeep based on difficulty, Upgrade units, Buildings generate more income, No extra upkeep, No great power, Turn-time destroyer, Vampire coast sack only)
  
• small font and ui problems (fixed by mods: Larger font, Custom faction currencies, Clearer unit card UI, Building progression icons II, Skull rank icons)
  
• misc problems (fixed by mods: Community bug fix, Improved AI skill selection, Blood performace pack, Skaven plague nerf, Encounters at Derp, Total unit resize II)

Verdict
All of the points in "terrible" category can be made "enjoyable" when you use mods. Literally every major gripe with the game you might have can be fixed to a reasonable extent.

Honestly, without mods I wouldn't dare play this game for longer than 50-100 hours and that is extremely little for a Total War title! After using mods I fell in love with battling AI, achieving campaign victories for my favorite factions and roleplaying as legendary lords (played for 300h at the moment of writing). Simply unforgettable! Bottom line is, I would recommend this game only with mods.

Bonus
If you're interested in solving almost all problems posed by the game, I recommend checking out my mod collection for the best experience.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2517614434

Enjoyable

• level design
  
• playing with friends

Memorable

• first and last mission

Forgettable

• character customization
  
• gameplay loop (grinding)
  
• mission objectives

Terrible

• hack and slash combos (left click+positioning)
  
• story overall
  
• loot system
  
• loot system
  
• loot system
  
• enemy variety
  
• character movement (not as fluid or enjoyable as in the sequel)

Verdict
I played this game to catch up on the story in the sequel (took me 12h). Turns out there's not much to catch up on. Also, this disappointment got reconfirmed even further after I finished the second game. I would not recommend playing this game for any reason. You're simply not missing out on anything.

Enjoyable

• level design
  
• loot system
  
• playing with friends

Memorable

• first and last levels
  
• character classes
  
• co-op with a friend
  
• prologue

Forgettable

• customization
  
• gameplay loop (grinding)
  
• story overall
  
• mission objectives

Terrible

• hack and slash combos (left click+positioning)
  
• playing with randoms (had people jump instead of run, fake-enter teleports etc)

Verdict
If not for the friend, I would not have enjoyed playing this game (24h total). So, play with a buddy and chat while in game to make the grinding process easier on your nerves. As a bonus, you just might enjoy the level design and atmosphere. I would not recommend playing this game alone.

As of the moment, I've clocked in about 30 hours by finishing Julii short campaign and kinda finishing short Greek one. It was a blast to immerse oneself in this nostalgic masterpiece. I've literally watched every general speech, played almost all battles without auto-resolve and it was genuinely fun. I remember doing the same as a kid and it's a blast seeing life breathed into this game of old. However, it's really not the game itself, but nostalgia that pushed me to play one more turn to experience early childhood days. I don't think any game I've played had ever accomplished it so well as this one.

All good things must end and it's a pity, but I think I'm done with remaster for now. While playing, I've noticed a couple of quirks. The AI isn't challenging even on Very Hard, there are no sound in battles (very low volume clashes etc.), no remastered wonders cinematics, no pop ups with major events, pathfinding is noticeably annoying, Sparta logo hasn't been purged from Macedon fleet (lol). All of the above, didn't stop me from enjoying the game to the fullest, but personally I feel like they definitely diminished longevity. I think from watching all wonders cinematics alone, I could have continued playing for twice as much time because it all adds so much to the atmosphere of the game. The veteran players know what I'm talking about.

Overall, it was once in a life time opportunity to enjoy a newly painted and restored merry-go-round (carousel) that you used to ride as a kid. It's not the same thing anymore, but you remember vividly what it was like. And I'm grateful for that.