Recent reviews by Memento Crepo

Edit: Review changed to a cautious positive since the community map makes the game infinitely more enjoyable. Reliance on an external tool is a pain, but also understandable given the new small devteam of owners. The old review is still being left up as it is relevant to the experience with the frustration after leaving tutorial island. Please make sure to use the map tool in conjunction with your gameplay experience, as certain spots (Like the one I ran through after getting to the mainland) are on a to-do list for adding content and have nothing in them. Use the external map and the game becomes really enjoyable.

----- Old Review -----

The game is a pretty fun -if buggy- grind all the way through solitary isles.
The bank will sometimes eat your loot that you put into it, but the auto-deposit button tends to be an okay workaround.

Once you get out of the tutorial islands and onto the mainland, the game turns into the worst kind of neverwinter nights "I mAdE tHiS" module. Big empty areas that take 25 minutes of walking simulator to get to your quest goal? Check. Undefined challenge on the quests themselves, with level 1 trash mobs followed by a group of 2x your level invisible-till-they-aggro monsters? Check. Copy+paste corridors and assets that give an uncanny valley flat look in your combat areas? Check.

Tutorial Island was more fun because everything was compact.
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The gameplay is a little bit of Stardew Valley and a little bit of Animal Crossing put on top of a whole lotta Marmite. It's got your usual cozy game aesthetic, but beyond the change of the four seasons affecting what crops and wildlife grow, the only real pressure to turbonerd out and get stuff done around the island is what you impose upon yourself.

There is a little spice mixed in, because the game takes place in definitely-not Australia. So you'll have to worry about crocodiles, cassowary, and other baddies that want to give you some thunder from down under. The combat's got some nice light complexity in that regard. You won't be dodge rolling, but you can get tacticool with it. If it's dark out, you can use your flashlight to blind your target to get free hits in. Hammerblows to the head will stun your target, Spears have extra reach, and your cricket bat can get a fire upgrade that doubles as a light source and has a burn damage effect.

Farming is likewise simplistic but competently done, with little tricks you can employ for example, like intentionally leaving gaps in your crop fence where you can plant cage traps. It'll snap up the pests and you can sell them off for big dinks. Or digging water channels through your crops, not only for watercan refilling, but also to plant rice in the water channels, which will never need maintaining as well as rice being a year-round crop. The water will also act as a barricade to keep plant offshoots from spreading out and wasting space. Lots of little details like that.

It's been a great cozy game experience tied together with some Aussie humor that you rarely get to see. The progression has a lot of that stardew valley feel to it, and I wouldn't be surprised if you see Nintendo lifting ideas from Dinkum, especially the scientist villager's QoL features and Dinkum's terrain manipulation ones.

So good to hunt again.
Game's fun, runs smooth on a ten year old PC at medium settings.
I'm only writing this review because I played for 11 hours straight, need to sleep, and am laying awake in bed thinking about waking up and playing more.

Satisfaction from gaming. In 2025. I didn't think it could be done.

Took a second look to make sure I wasn't missing something.
I wasn't. This game is big on crafting that is needlessly convoluted - not complex - and is plagued with monetization that is insanely expensive at 2x EXP/Hour for $4 per hour. This is on top of a $8 Monthly sub and a deed that you have to maintain upkeep on with silver. Which you buy in the cash shop. And the upkeep costs on your deed is variable based on land size and guards hired.

You know it's bad when the answer to "How much IRL $ am I going to have to pay?" is to look at the wiki, and then use the external deed upkeep calculation tool.

Very good port. Runs on windows with 0 issues. Linux can very, very rarely have a repeating sound bug depending on your distro, but that's Linux for you.

The game itself is a very fun romp through fantasy holland, with many animu/JRPG tropes alive and well. The game wobbles a bit into creative territory with the storyline and people's motives. It's not pulitzer prize winning, but it's good enough to get immersed into.

The gameplay is fairly fluid, but could do with a dedicated tool button when you clear a room and want to harvest some ore or wood. Fortunately, there's a lot of binds for combat abilities and spells, and you'll want to use a variety to train up magic attack, element resistance, and intelligence, so that keeps you from being buried in menus to swap those at least.

The leveling system while dependant on XP, plays more like an elder scrolls game. While you do get levels and those seem to boost your HP/Rune Points (Stamina), it doesn't seem to do anything to your raw stats. If you want to be anything other than a more durable punching bag, you need to train skills which give you the base stats you need. Don't be suprised if you go big on being a greatsword user, never cast spells, and then eat a ton of damage by the first magic attack you get hit with.

Difficulty is adjustable at any point in town, if you find it too overwhelming or underwhelming. The game won't ever punish you for adjusting your playstyle and I only wish more games were like this. As a side note, increased difficulty does more than just up the numbers. Monsters will get new attack patterns and their AI will be more aggressive and intelligent. Spiders will back off from melee range after webbing you up and let spellcasters pelt you from ranged, or hide behind their tougher allies, for example.

To sum up, it's a really fun game to play and makes for a fine entry point for a first time player of the series. It'd be a great pick full price even, but is a must-have when it's on sale. You won't be disappointed either way.

If FFXIV dies, it'll be because of this expansion.

Removing all the modern day political nonsense from the discussion, the storyline is utterly TERRIBLE this expansion and the Mostly Negative score at the time of writing is well-earned.

If you're not a raider, there's nothing here for you here. If you are a raider, log in once per week, get your clear and then log off for the week, because there's nothing ELSE for you here.

The content cycle is supposed to be 4 months, up from 3 months per major patch, but in practice it tends to be a 4 month patch with major missing features that get added in over the next several months.

Save your money. Do something else for the next three years. I'd argue don't come back to this game even, because the game is so formulaic at this point that it hurts.

Stardew Valley meets Elona/Ancient Domains of Mystery blended with some madcap Japanese humor.

It's easily a must have for any roguelike enjoyers out there. If you like stardew valley, it's not as comfy due to the roguelike elements being unexplained to the player - this is intentional design - but you only lose gold and a fraction of the stat training to next stat level if you die. You never lose xp/levels/gear.

If you die from your backpack squashing you, you do drop the item that squashed you, but that's just so you don't respawn and immediately get squashed again. :^)

It's very forgiving compared to other roguelikes, very fun, and deserves to be a best seller. If you're at all curious, the game's worth it even if roguelikes are outside of your wheelhouse.

Solid changes have been made to the game to warrant a recommend, but be aware that the game is still largely second monitor gaming territory.

Combat has been made universal and this change is in the game already, so you won't have to start over with your levels or gear when you enter a different episode. The combat gear you get in episode 1 is good to go in every other episode. At the time of writing, other skills which are also similar across episodes (Forager and gatherer I.E.) are being compressed into this global skill line as well.

Other QoL improvements have been made to the game and quite a decent amount of them: There's now a queued action system, so you can tell your character to gather from every node in an area without having to mother hen every last flower or tree they pick or chop. A potion belt has been added into the game, so now you can use potion buffs properly without juggling inventory space. You can now drop all of any given kind of item in your inventory now, instead of one at a time.

Player to player trading has also been added, as well as an expanded bank space for pieces of gear you have, both for trading purposes and for creating gearsets specific to enemy damage types. Additionally, you can tell the game to automatically pick the best gear of a given damage type to use, and it will equip it. No hunt and peck needed.

If the game had released in this current state - and specified more that it's basically a grindy & chill single player RPG with a multiplayer component, not Legally Distinct Runescape :tm: - there would have been a lot more players that had stuck around than there currently are.

The game as it is, essentially boils down to being a Lo-Fi RPG grind to relax/study to. It's quite therapeutic what they've created here, with the game's aesthetic, music, and gameplay. Very calming and enjoyable with the "vibe" that it sets.

A very good French Battle Brothers-esque game.

The setting is great, full of dark humor, and moments of sudden out-there fantastical horrors in the wilds among the more mundane ones. The gameplay and power progression is some of the best I've ever seen in a strategy RPG game as well! There are no empty level ups. Every skill tree choice is important, and the stat points even moreso. Every piece of gear you get determines the attack and defensive skills you have to pick from. One thief dagger may stack poison, another thief dagger will critical on a backstab, a different thief dagger will strike everything in a circle - your units included - and make a poison gas under every creature it hits, if it hits more than one - your units included.

It's like this for every skill, every different class, and every piece of gear in the game.

Much like in Kenshi, or Battle Brothers as well, there's different mercenary company game starts that encourage you to try different playstyles via the challenge system. Your method of play that you engage the game with unlock perks along one of the four different types of 'challenge' trees. The background you choose will give you a unique challenge, that provides a fast track to leveling that specific tree. Shipwrecked pirates? Go do a crime. Starving peasants? Get as fat as possible as fast as possible.

There's so much good gaming packed into here. I could go on about the positives forever.

There are problems however.
Unlike Battle Brothers, the translation to English and the UI elements are spotty in places that will wipe your party as you get used to how the game works.

For example, if you come across two armies fighting each other, and you see 10 guardsmen currently fighting 10 outlaws, and your 7 men attack the 10 outlaws. It's a 17 vs. 10, right? Wrong. It's a 9 vs. 10 and you're the 9. What happened? When you select a group to attack, scroll down. You'll see an 'Allies (# of allies)' at the bottom of the list. In this case, it was 2 allies. What a beginner's trap, huh?

It couldn't get more confusing, and worst of all, there's lots of fights right out of the gate that you can be curb stomped with. You would think put your allies at the top of the combat list, not at the bottom off the screen.

Adaptive difficulty (free exploration mode - starting choice) can make a good chunk of these fights more fair, but not all fights will level scale well, especially early on. I wouldn't do that though, because forced level scaling is always annoying, and it makes the game world more believeable if it isn't. Region-locked difficulty is the way, gamers. When you comprehend the abilities of a group of bears twice your level, play around them, and come out on top with no casualties, it feels REALLY good.

It's a good sign of a game when I go through the negatives and start to talk about how I like it. Whatever you do though, stick through the first couple hours and their pain points. You'll be rewarded with a game that makes you go "Oh god it's 4 AM." Save often, save in multiple slots. If you want to do ironman or limited saves, just self-enforce and pick unlimited saving, just in case any bugs exist. I haven't encountered any, and will update the review if I do, but 40 hours in and so far not a single bug has been found.

There's a little bit of dirt here on top of a mountain of treasure, stick with it and you'll find this game to be your new addiction.

Stinky poopoo game keeps getting two trash changes for every good one. Just play something else that's survival centric instead and steer clear of this game.