Recent reviews by Odoku

played in EA almost 2 years ago and they have made so much progress its incredible. dev team has shown interest in making a great game and improving it, and that they care about fixing issues promptly. gameplay is very enjoyable

as for the launch connection issues: if amazon and blizzard cant launch an online game without a week of problems, why do we expect anyone to be able to? It would be nice, sure, but realistically at this point why are we still playing an online game on day one and being surprised when there are server issues?

felt pretty bland for a game of this type. something about it just didnt land. the combat didnt feel good. the constant going back to a loadout screen really kills any kind of vibe or flow

its like banished but not awful

absolutely excellent. one of the few games in the past decade that has consistently held my attention and been enjoyable for this amount of play time.

im constantly blown away by the amount of well hidden and interesting secrets to discover. going back through areas I thought I had 'cleared' I find entire zones and bosses that I'd missed, not to mention all the items.

another plus is the variety of the game worlds one visits throughout the campaign or adventure. Right when I start getting used to a particular vibe, it shifts or changes and I find myself somewhere totally unexpected once again.

also of note: this is the only game ive played where I actually wanted to go through the campaign again, and do "new game +" or whatever.

fascinating. no scifi author ever imagined that in 2023 f2p games would cost $60

update: i purchased game after refunding because of all the reviews that say you have to unlock everything and then its awesome or whatever. so i tried playing again and remembered why i refunded it all over again. Unless there is an entirely new game you unlock after beating the story, im not interested

it looked really interesting, and i enjoyed the tutorial mission.

then i couldnt figure out how the F to actually find a game to join??
i needed to find online communities and tutorials just to learn how matchmaking works, which is apparently mainly through discord. what?

how do you make a quality multiplayer game and then force people to matchmake outside of the game? i cant even comprehend. i genuinely wanted to play, and the game actually prevented me from doing so.

absurd

i wish i could just give a thumbs up without having to write something.

i like it. i like it because its a very detailed atmospheric world to explore and i get to enjoy being there. exploring the castle is fantastic.

fantastic game, great concept. its like building a castle in minecraft except its a castle of doom and you get to watch a first person replay of people being obliterated by your spike traps

update:
changed to negative. totally inept dev team taking months to respond to very basic community cries for very basic balancing. its like they went on vacation after launch and left Eric the intern in the office to handle everything. super unfortunate.

i wont mention the horrible performance I have on a top of the line system as a reason for not recommending. that can be fixed.
what cant be fixed is the constant feeling I have while playing this that it could have been so much more. This game suffers from a terrible identity crisis. The game design its telling me its going to be a deep open world RPG, but the actual experience is not that. It even feels like its designed to be an MMO, but theres no multiplayer. Its begging for more depth, multiplayer elements, meaningful exploration, actual open world, choices that matter, meaningful rpg elements, etc.

It doesnt feel like an RPG to me. an RPG is a role playing game. Here it feels like a Role Watching Game: I watch my character say scripted lines and while I can pick the arrogant or humble response, the NPC im talking to isnt affected. Theres no choices to make, anywhere, thats ive found. Nothing I do feels like it matters in the game world, because it literally doesnt. Which again, is more noticeable because its a game that makes you think its a deep, open world RPG with meaningful choices, but its not.

Another weird feeling: Im atleast 5 hours in, and I keep feeling like im still in the tutorial and the 'real game' is going to start soon... but it doesnt. I think this speaks to the design vs experience crisis here. It looks and feels like i should be getting dropped into a deep open world at any moment... but it doesnt happen. Once I got to explore the open world that does exist, it was exciting for a short while, but quickly started to reveal its shallowness.

The positive: there is alot of charm, and if you can go in without any expectations, its a fun world to engage in, and its a good experience. The problem for me is this identity crisis as Ive said. I grew up with the best of the best, prime time open worlds, RPGs, and MMOs, and because of that, a shallow imitation isnt going to land with me. If this game presented itself as simply a story driven adventure narrative, it would be great, and I could have chosen not to buy it. However its identity is so wrapped around being an open world RPG, that everyone I knew thought it was an MMO until it the day it launched.

for like the 4th time, im changing my review, this time back to positive. (ive got negative positive negative and now positive)

This game has grown on me quite a bit, and I had to get past a lot of my own comparisons with Vermintide 2 to see it shine more on its own. The main issues I had were with crashes, disconnects and long loading times. The game is much more stable than at launch and loading times are better (and honestly im not sure if thats because of the latest patch or because i just put a 4090 in). I like the new crafting/item progression system, and overall it just feels like a much better base game than where we started at launch.

The fact is im having a blast with this game. Its just that: a game! Alot of games these days feel like harvesting simulators or simple dopamine stimulators. While this game includes some collection and levelling aspects, which are fun in moderation, the game itself is enjoyable to play. The core gameplay is engaging, rewarding, and it doesnt feel like im just trying to level up. I genuinely want to explore the different weapons, play styles, classes, get to know the gameplay better, git gud, and just have a good time.

There is so much that can be added to this product in the form of maps, classes, QoL improvements etc, and I mean this in a good way. There is a lot to look forward to here. There are still things to polish or improve in its current state, but its getting better step by step.