Recent reviews by Memento Crepo

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.

Playing Runescape when Brighter Shores is out is just self-harm TBH.

Oh, yes, please, I want to play OSRS when RS3 is the MTX shield OSRS hides under, and is propped up by a few whales and has CVC Capital Partners eyeing up OSRS like a fat carcass they can pick apart.

I'm not saying Brighter Shores is just the better runescape game. I'm saying in a few years Brighter Shores will be the ONLY runescape game and you won't get a choice in the matter. We love vulture capitalism, don't we, folks?

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.

You need different gearsets to simply walk around in the overworld.
There is no way to create presets and you have to equip each piece of gear one at a time.
You will keep changing outfits over and over again as a result and this is really annoying.

Palia is a gold standard by which other all other comfy games should be weighed. The game was good when it was launched and upgrades to the flow of gameplay have only made it better, so you're no longer waiting 1/3rd of your day for a house expansion to be built. Timegating was a problem for players that expand their house aggressively, and since has been fixed to be only one ingame day. (About an hour real life time.)

Economy has been rebalanced so that it's not all just cake parties, but you'll still find that having cooking parties with your friends results in much, much faster XP gains and far better returns on gold, and in general doing activities with passerby and in parties both have been improved to make things less cutthroat. In short, doing activities in a group is a pull, not a push. You are encouraged for group play, yet not punished for doing things on your own.

This has encouraged a positive atmosphere amongst the players to cooperate, and resulted in one of the friendliest and least toxic games I have ever played. The only pain point for players doing FYGM stuff tends to be flow trees, since some few players either do not understand, or do not care, that you only need to tap a tree once and will get credit and loot for yourself when the flow tree falls. Fortunately, only the smallest of trees can be chopped by one person, which usually results in the impatient person losing out on an insane amount of lumber when the group finally clears the flow tree grove, since the individual refuses to wait for a few minutes and will run off.

Basically, this is the only online persistent world Stardew Valley/Harvest Moon game on the market, and it's a very good one. Definitely a must-play for any comfy games enthusiast.

It's good.