Recent reviews by cusp

This game feels like the love child of Pokemon, Scott Pilgrim, and Secret of Mana. The writing, music, game play, animations, exploration, combat, and art SLAP. I played 41 hours in 6 days: completely hooked.

This is my game of the year.

If I could skip the cutscenes this game would be perfect.

liar ahead

Incredibly difficult and unforgiving, brutally punishing, and so satisfying.

At first, I thought the game was just unfair because some maps just don't give the resource you need to get to the next. In reality, I needed to be spending knowledge points to see the future & get more cargo space so I could plan ahead by bringing resources I'd need. I needed to use markets to exchange for that last item I couldn't farm. Disasters can be punishing, but you have the ability to cancel a small number of them.

As far as the Eye is incredibly rewarding once you realize long term planning is the key to success. When that planning pays off it feels great.

I went into this game expecting an oceanic 'Don't Starve' or 'Minecraft'. A re-skinned oceanic survival base building game with crafting. Make base, get better gear, fight better things, get better goods, go scarier places, enable power fantasy.

I was wrong. I was horrified and awed by splendorous beauty. I must have said "Oh my god..." playing Subnautica more than any game in memory. I was teased with actually compelling mysteries and secrets of an alien world that came together to form a broken history of this place. I went from survivor to archaeologist to....well, I won't say.

The entire time, it was never about me. You remain a fish among sharks; a lovecraftian speck struggling for meaning in a vast darkness. Violence is almost NEVER the solution and, when it is, it's usually done as a desperate prelude to flight. I spent my time respecting the power of the nature I was a tourist to.

As the game came to an end, and I passed by the landmarks I'd used to navigate and bases I'd built and memories I made one last time, I cried. I came to really love this horrifying place. It felt like home. Before I left, I created the gift of a time capsule that I gave back to the planet. When you find the courage to play this game (it sat in my steam library for a year XD), it will be waiting for you in the depths.

Play this game single player and love it. I've invested over 170 hours into it.

Online is riddled with bugs, exploits, cheaters.
I just finished a game where another player attack me during MY turn, before I was able to select the cards in my hand. It auto selected the cards, I was killed, and a blurry overlay and the 3 decks blocked my ability to see the screen and finish the game. These bugs and exploits are becoming the rule, with 3 of my last 5 online games being ruined by player abuse of manipulation of the godawful netcode or by disconnects. You'll love the single player, bore of the ease of the terribly programmed AI opponents, then be horribly disappointed by a broken online experience.

Even the act of trying to open chests and receive awards for playing online will often result in network errors and the inability to receive any reward for the games that you manage to finish.

Also, too much RNG, which is great when you're new and horrible once you know what you're doing. There is a follower called the stranger that sticks to you, is difficult to get rid of, and will sometimes kill you by randomly walking you into deathtraps. Many players, myself included, just quit if we have it forced onto us.

480 hours in this game. In 2021, DO NOT pick up this game.

1) No dedicated servers. HUGE advantage for whoever is hosting the game.

2) Tiny player base. That person hosting the game is on a different continent most of the time. Most games are stomps as there aren't enough active players to create a fair match. 7 minute wait time for 4 minute games.

3) Terrible updates that make it harder to carry bad teammates (for example, gold on experience on kill goes to your teammates that didn't participate instead of all to you. Imagine this in another MOBA)

4) Basic quality of life features absent (no surrender option, no voice chat, no !badconnection vote to end game, no feedback from reporting system, etc.)

5) Broken reporting system. Known scourges to the community with dozens of reports go unpunished. People just quit (rightly) when these people are in their games.

6) No character balance patches. In a MOBA. Let that sink in. To add to this, there is no draft pick option like there is in every other MOBA, only blind pick. Choosing a character or team comp is very rock-paper-scissors. You can show me the character match up and I can tell you the winning team with 95% accuracy.

7) "Brawl" game modes with modified rules are there, but don't expect to get into that 8 minute game without waiting for 20 minutes as no one is Queuing for it.

It's a real shame, too. There really aren't other options if you want a 2D Moba. It's as though Ronimo knows that they have no competition so they feel no need to implement the most basic elements that keep a MOBA or an online 2D brawler's community active and healthy. I've been here since the beginning and it hurts to finally admit that no amount of wanting to enjoy it on myself is going to bring this game back to life and make it fun again.

You will love everything about Absolver. The atmosphere, the fighting, the character progression, the cryptic lore, the interactions with other players, the expression the comes from building a custom moveset in your favorite style.

Then late game comes. The only thing there is to do is fight other players 1v1. Over and over.

Many hack. There is little to no effort to prevent this. Look up one of the hundreds of youtube videos on it.

If your opponent isn't cheating, they'll all use the same style and similar movesets. Abandon your dreams of being a bumbling drunken master, a heavy hitting slow brawler, or anything other that a fast-move-spamming parry bot if you want to win. Say goodbye to the personal expression, joy, and wonder you experienced expressing yourself with a unique style that satisfied whatever kung fu fantasy you had.

Perhaps if there was some sort of matchmaking system so that after 15 or so losses I could play others wishing to live some fantasy other than fast-move-spam parry fast-move-spam parry.

This game made me believe, then it pooped on me for it. Absolver is a cruel lover that will abandon you when the fire is hot. Enjoy the chase if you wish. I don't recommend.

UPDATE: Came back to try the 3v3 combat. Great in theory, but the player base is so small that games were always a stomp as there are few players left. The only progression is pvp based. You will lose over and over against stacked premades. More fun losing repeatedly in 3v3 than 1v1 though so that's a plus! Actually had fun while losing for a couple hours against the same stacked premade. Then I uninstalled when I realized it would take about 20 more hours of that to get anywhere.