Recent reviews by xZidene

This game was a massive win even before it was launched! Great job Team Cherry, putting big AAA studios to shame!

(Now to play through the game and write a full review later!)

I have a somewhat hard time entirely recommending this game to each and everyone out there due to the current balancing of the game mechanics. If you are a veteran souls-player and enjoy rogue-like games, then Nightreign is a perfect combination of the two to try out!

Is it a fun game? Definitely yes!
Is it a challenging game? Definitely even more so.
Is it fair and balanced gameplay experience? No, not really (as of current balancing).
Are you entirely new to souls-like gameplay/difficulty? I would avoid starting out with this game.

Let's get this out of the way: Elden Ring Nightreign is designed to be played in a 3-player group. There is no going around this. Solo play is possible but be warned, it is not a great experience. 2-player gameplay is currently not possible either (however FromSoft have apparently informed this will be added likely later on). This leaves you with two options; either find 2 friends and play the game with good communication (preferred way) or gamble with the matchmaking and hope to get decent teammates who don't waste a good chunk of your time.

The gameplay loop is very straightforward. You get dropped into the map, run around killing enemies and clearing points of interest as fast as possible, loot new gear and level up, fight a night boss. Repeat this on the second day after which you get to go and fight the Night Lord. Win this fight and you have won a run. What makes this difficult is the extremely tight time constraint you are given. Rogue-like games usually tend to have some form of time constraint tied to them to push the players to rush and make quick decisions. Nightreign has this as well in the form of a Battle Royale style area closing in on the map periodically. When starting out and not knowing what to prioritize and what loot is good, this time constraint feels terrible as you are mostly left underpowered to face off against the bosses. The more you get accustomed to the game this time constraint will feel better but is still definitely on the tighter end among similar rogue-like experiences.

Regarding characters/classes and loot variety. Nightreign does not allow you to create a custom character as commonly seen in other souls games. You are presented with a roster of prebuilt character, each with unique strengths and weaknesses as well as unique skills to use during combat. I don't have much to say as negatives regarding the characters as each of them seem interesting enough, quite fun to play and all have unique strengths to support teamplay. Loot variety on the other hand is ever so slightly lacking in the game in terms of randomization. Rogue-likes are known to have a heavy focus on randomization to make each and every run feel different. Nightreign doesn't really accomplish this. You only really need to find yourself a handful of random weapons with decent buffs/perks on them and you are nearly set to go. The map itself is also not very randomized which leads to most runs feeling very similar to each other.

I only have a few major grievances to the gameplay. Firstly the fact that you go through "2 days" and "2 night bosses" is great. You have the day to go through the map and toughen yourself up to prepare for a bossfight. However for some reason after finishing the second night boss you are immediately forced to go challenge the Nightlord without any further chance to prepare? This seems odd and would prefer to see maybe one additional day to roam the map in between. Adding this additional day would also ease up the immensely tight time constraint you are faced with during the day. Balance this however you must, but this third day needs to be added to the game for more enjoyable runs. Additionally the solo experience (balancing of gameplay) and lack of 2-player mode is bad. These need to be looked at. I'm sure most people can't grab 2 friends at a moments notice to play this game since matchmade runs are not exactly a great experience either. Finally the grievance probably shared with everyone.. -> Who on earth decided on the revival mechanic for downed team members?! This is the single most awful design I have ever seen in any video game, ever. Period. FromSoft if anyone there is reading this, please have a chat with the person who approved this mechanic and make sure this doesn't happen again in the future.. ever. Give me an interact button to revive fallen teammates. Trying to "hit" your fallen teammates to revive them with ridiculously bad hit tracking is incredibly awful..

Putting the few bad parts to the side, overall the game is quite fun to play even if somewhat frustrating. It runs near perfectly with maxed out settings (highly suggest to use Lossless Scaling to boost fps further), core Elden Ring gameplay is present in a modified version making it much more high tempo, Rogue-like gameplay is a fun new spinoff take for this franchise (no need to make a habit out of it however). Again would I suggest this game? If you are a veteran souls player and enjoy rogue-like games then definitely worth a try at least! However if you are fairly new to souls games and/or aren't a fan of rogue-like games then you should probably skip this entry from FromSoft.

As the game stand today, I would give the experience as 3.5/5 and hoping for quick improvements to game balance and group play!

Time to Git Gud!

It's basically Lethal Company, but better!
Seriously almost every aspect of this game is better.

Pros:
+ 6 player co-op
+ The game loop is easily understandable and quick to jump into
+ Item variety, handling and delivering to extraction points is very intuitive
+ Physics based handling of items makes for funny situations
+ Monsters are manageable and fair while still being threatening (especially in numbers)
+ Difficulty is not based on random b******t but instead is based on a level/stage system, where each stage becomes increasingly difficult and chaotic
+ Upgrade system to improve aspects of your character during a run
+ Shop to purchase useful tools to help you out
+ Movement in the game is agile while still being contained by limited stamina
+ Already support for modding so the game will get even wilder over time
+ You can swat your friends with a frying pan
Last but not least: + You can flush your friends down a toilet

Cons
- The emoji used as the game's "cover art" is horrendous!

If you haven't tried this yet, please do yourself a favor and try it out.

The game runs pretty well and looks pretty nice!
If you're a fan of Monster Hunter games then you should definitely give this a go! MH Wilds has a much more MH World-like feeling to the game (instead of what MH Rise was).
So far I don't really have anything negative to say about the game and am looking forward to finishing the campaign and seeing what the end game grind brings us!
My only worry is pointed towards the slight easiness of at least the story quests so far.
Roughly 9 monsters down, both story quests + additional investigation, 0 carts/deaths, 0 failed quests. All this while not really paying attention to stats on weapons and armor, rather mostly wearing whatever looks fun or good.
There is a bit too much hand holding by the game present as well even though most of it is unnecessary due to the mentioned easiness.
I'm hoping this is only an issue present during the story and will get better when proceeding to high rank hunts later on in the game (and hopefully eventually master rank hunts).

Might edit this review later on when in the proper end game.
For now 4/5 :)
Happy Hunting!

It's a space game. It's a really good space game. Try it! It's worth it!

Pretty much the ARPG everyone has been waiting for. Might update this review later on once I get more hours in but for now the game seems very good. Totally worth the Early Access fee as well (full release some 6 months from now will be free-to-play), since you get the money's worth of paid game currency to purchase stuff anyways so it's basically like purchasing some paid game currency to play the game and supporting this great developer. Fair game developers!

You go up together and you will fall down together.
A simple rage inducing platforming gaming which is best played with up to 4 people!

Rock and Stone!

It's a great game! One of the best free to play games to come out in a long time!
Try it out! It's FREE for crying out loud!

The game itself is an interesting mixture of many games such as Rust (primarily), Palworld (surprisingly yes, but done much better!) and many zombie survival games (not just zombies though, but different kinds of alien-mutation virus creatures as well as opposing humanoid factions).

Once Human has a quite straightforward gameplay loop similar to many other games of the genre: find resources, craft better gear, progress to tougher areas, gather better resources, craft better gear... etc.
Contrary to what you might initially expect, this loop has actually been done really well and nothing feels like a chore. Resource gathering is extremely fast, meaning you do not need to spend hours upon hours of your time gathering wood to craft something simple (find a few specific Deviants and they'll even gather the basic resources for you!). Upgrading your gear and facilities is meaningful and naturally progressive. Exploration is rewarding as you get a lot of usable materials, furniture and gear blueprints. The furniture system makes base building oddly satisfying and addicting.

The game has both PVE and PVP servers so you can pick your poison between those!

The only negative aspect (for now) I can think of is regarding servers as currently there is no way of joining your friends on a server that is full. This means if you have started playing the game and your friend wishes to join you later, they can't. The Dev's are aware of this and there will likely be some form of workaround implemented during August (2024). Until then we will need to wait and see what happens. It's a bummer right now, but will highly likely be fixed as soon as possible as this is causing quite a lot of frustrations in the community.

Also regarding the seasonal server wipes. This has raised a lot of complaint among many since they do not understand what the purpose is and what get's carried over. Please do your research as this has been clarified by the Dev's. Almost everything can be carried over after the season ends as long as you save your Territory as a Blueprint (you can just plop the same base down next season). Your gear, deviants and resources will be stored into your private "Eternaland" from which during the start of next season you are able to choose some amount of materials to carry over (using a given amount of Material Points). All Blueprints and such will carry over directly along with some end game resources. The only thing to fully reset is your character level progress but this is completely healthy for the game as it will directly give you a reason to play the next seasonal content. Leveling is relatively quick so getting back up in levels is no problem especially since the weekly seasonal tasks give very large amounts of XP anyways. The purpose of these server wipes is to refresh the world during each season, change up and bring new content to the world and (to my understanding) merge servers and players to avoid keeping so called "dead servers" running.
Final comment regarding the server wipes, the Dev's have confirmed this "6 weeks" is not always the case. This first season is 6 weeks long but future season might be much longer or in some cases even shorter.
These server wipes will likely NOT be an issue in the long run, but rather be very healthy for the game. Keep an open mind people, not everything is a bad thing just because you don't like the sound of it.

Try it out!

Worth a try and also free to play!
Feels like a weird mix of Warframe and Outriders for the most part.
Gameplay feels quite nice. Gotta see how it ends up being on the long run.
Pick it up and try it out, it's free so you ain't losing anything for trying!

Likely more fun to play with friends (4 player co-op).
The matchmade missions have clearly suggested so.

It's a Nexon game so MTX shenannigans for a bunch of cosmetics and more are present.
This was expected and honestly you can ignore them.