Évaluations récentes de Frozen

A nice addition that conversely to the previous DLC The Pale Reach feels like it's made more for endgame.

Unlike Pale Reach, I didn't blast through the entire DLC because I had endgame equipment. It took me roughly 5-6 hours to 100%, though I was trying to clean up the fishing catalog during the DLC story and not saving it for the end. It retroactively made the Pale Reach's reward (an anchor that you can throw in the ocean to make a two way portal) much more worthwhile especially since The Iron Rig takes you across the whole map (sans Pale Reach).

Mechanically it is still pretty simple, every time you finish a major part of the DLC's main quest cracks begin to form beneath the ocean releasing an oily substance into the waters of one of the areas from the base game. And you are being sent out to survey the area and collect samples of both the fish and the strange substance bubbling to the surface. Outside a special trawl that sucks up the goo you aren't doing too much different from the base game. While within the oil, you are slowed slightly and at lower sanity levels gain some unwanted attention from the monsters. Though even with the slowed speed I still didn't have much trouble avoiding the monsters with vanilla endgame equipment.

The Iron Rig does add some neat little toys. Mostly just some fishing rod upgrades to let you fish in the polluted waters and some consumables for repairing your hull/net/pots/sanity that I never really felt the need to use. They even added a trawler and pot that picks up materials instead of fish, which honestly is a nice passive way to get materials for the crafting they added for most of this stuff. You can also upgrade your lights, horn, and spyglass. The lights were probably brighter and sanity saving but I never really noticed, the horn did an excellent job of showing me things I could already see, and the spyglass was a legitimately nice QoL improvement. They even added some 1x1 passive stat improving items that work so long as they are somewhere in your cargo with improvements like less heat generation from Haste, faster fishing/dredging speed, faster turning and reversing, and better trawl odds. Useful for those corner slots in your cargo that you can't squeeze things into. Lastly and probably most useful for players that haven't caught every fish yet are the 3 new baits. Aberrated Bait, which will always give you an aberration appropriate to whatever biome you're in and whatever rods you have equipped. Insta-Crab Bait, which acts as an instant crab pot on demand, which for me personally came far too late to be of any use. Lastly is the Exotic Bait, which is used to recapture the exotic quest fish. I guess I should mention that you can upgrade to a Tier 5 hull and while the space is nice (I can finally have all the aberration fishing equipment equipped at the same time now), it isn't super useful since I get to use it for a grand total of one area before I have nothing I need to stuff in my ship anymore.

As always the new aberration art is appropriately grotesque and disconcerting as it should be, and the DLC even adds aberrations for Exotic fish (just use Exotic Bait in whatever biome you found them in the first place while holding a rod that could catch them and use Atrophy on the temporary fishing spot) as well as a new aberration only fish (must finish the scientist quest line, use Aberrated Bait directly beneath the rig's drill, may take a few attempts and you may need to finish the main DLC quest first).

Tim, you will never be a real competitor to Steam.

TL;DR - Generally good Soulslike, probably best for someone who wants to get into it but may seem too simple for someone who is already really into them. Even then it's fun enough for at least a play through.

There aren't builds there is the build, which is everything. there is one weapon (two if you count the skill that attaches a shell to the end making a heavy weapon until it breaks), and 4 upgrade-able stats. The stowaways (ring/amulets/etc.) aren't particularly game changing and you will still be getting in the fray like a melee build even if you were trying to make a magic focused build. The stat requirements for Stowaways are also mostly void since you can upgrade every stat besides resistance without using not!souls (weapon upgrade, skill tree, and not!heart containers). You pick whatever shell which has an ability you like and stats and weight (Small, Medium, or Large) you can tolerate. The coolest skills scale with both attack and magic so you don't really have to choose between being really good at hitting things and magic. You get so much upgrade materials that you will have all the skill tree and adaptations upgrades easily by the time the game is in the final stretch. This lack of builds will probably mean most people will only have a reason to play through this once, its not like other Soulslikes where you have a bunch of different weapons and builds to try for each individual time. Maybe if you want to do a challenge run, but otherwise there isn't much replayability.

You have no stamina, so you can attack, block, dodge, and run to your hearts content. While you have no posture meter, if your shell breaks you will be launched usually away from the combo that was about to kill you. Your opponents have posture and when filled you can knock them down with heavy/special attacks/a parry to whale on them or if you got the skill use an execution attack. Speaking of a lot of the more common Soulslike abilities like parrying, riposte, execution, standing dodges, dash attacks, and plunging attacks are hidden away in the skill tree.

On the bright side you get a grapple hook almost right after the first mandatory boss, which gets an upgrade that let's you pull anything towards you (heavier/stronger enemies you need to do a failable mini-game) and one that let's you pull yourself to them and bash their heads in. The game will also lock you into animations, so you can't just heal in front of the boss only to cancel out with a roll when they decide to punish you for it. Healing even has a little mechanic where if you get interrupted you drop the not!estus and have to pick it up or use another one. All bosses, and some enemies, usually also have a shell smashing move and a grapple so you can't just block/parry everything.

I won't particularly get into the assist mode for the gud-impaired, but 2 of the achievements (Shell Seeker and This Kills The Crab) will require you use it to get the Gun shell.

TL;DR - I guess my main problem is that as soon as I started to really get into it, it was over.

GeoDepths ends where it feels most games in this genre would just start to open up. You start off just simply smelting ores into ingots, and then you get access to the alloy refinery. In most other crafting games this would be where things start to get more complex and in a few research levels you will need to start mixing and matching a bunch of different crafted and refined items to make advanced products while performing a balancing act of keeping other important basic resources up to snuff since the advanced stuff tends to need more than 1 of each composite base resource, manage the new drains on your power, make more storage, maybe throwing fluids and/or wastes into the mix, transportation of resources, base defense depending on the game, and many other misc things you need to take into account to keep your spaghetti factory from spilling all over the floor. In this game, the complexity of these alloys never goes past combining 2 basic ingots, and each alloy never needs more than 1 of each of its basic ingots. There are only 4 alloys to make, 1 of which (steel) is consistently used while the other 3 are misc junk that are used once for story macguffins then never again. The moment you recreate those 3 artifacts you will literally never need to use the special ingots or the machine that makes them ever again (outside cosmetics if you really want to put a glowing cube on a table somewhere).

Let me put it in perspective, I was able to beat this game at a reasonable pace with 2 smelters, 1 alloy refinery, the artifact creation machine, 4 or so of the basic power bio generators, and 6 or so of the basic power storage units. This took about 4-6 hours just casually bumbling through the game, and 9 total to get all the achievements while ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ around with some of the cosmetics.

Honestly I'd prefer a middling review to an outright positive or negative for this game. The game itself is fine, enjoyable enough for me to finish and 100% it even. I guess if you are the type of person who can't get into games like Factorio, Satisfactory, Subnautica, etc. because they get really complicated and take a good chunk of time and just want a similar but shorter experience there is something here for you. As for me, it just left me wanting more.

Probably the part of Dredge I like the least, at least meta wise. This stuff feels like something that should have been base game with a side quest to get it instead of a paid DLC. So what does this give you?

You get a key to Blackstone Isle's workshop, a workshop that will remain there even if you don't buy this DLC. Already annoying enough, but the opening the workshop gives two items. First the Arterial Engine, a 1x1 engine that while helpful in the beginning of the game quickly fades to uselessness with a few upgrades to your ship. The other item is another 1x1 piece of fishing equipment known as the Sign of Ruin, which grants a 5% increase to your chance of getting aberrations. Unlike the engine this is an obnoxiously useful item that you will want to try and keep on your ship for as much as possible all the way up to endgame. While the other collectible aberrant items grant an added bonus (I don't know if they added that in an update or it was a hidden stat because on release the items didn't specify any bonuses to fishing up aberrations), a flat 5% buff for an only 1x1 space is still stupid good.

If you buy this, you are effectively paying $5 for a minor speed boost at the start of the game that will quickly fall off along with a general 5% boost to getting fish variants. I won't say that the Sign of Ruin isn't convenient, but I still find the entire DLC extremely scummy. I wouldn't even minded it as much if it gave a quest to do for the key or something. You just get a key and can grab these items almost immediately. I would barely even consider this worth it if it was only $1.

For context, I played and 100%'d the original game before any of the updates and waited until this came out to launch the game again so I will also be talking about the new content briefly since that was part of my experience playing this. I also played this DLC on that formerly 100% save file, which in all honestly was a mistake that poorly painted my experience.

First let's get the free updates out of the way, so skip this paragraph if you only want to know about The Pale Reach. the Map Markers were welcome addition but honestly should probably have been in the game on release. Photomode & Wildlife obviously added a camera item that while nice isn't really something I am particularly interested in. The wildlife on the other hand were nice additions that made the world seem more alive, even if I wasn't particularly interested in taking screenshots. The Boat Paint update gave some paints and flags for the boat, not particularly interesting to me either but nice I suppose. It also added crab aberrations that are used to get said paints, but I personally think that the crab fishing in Dredge is the least interesting way to fish with only Trawling trailing behind it slightly. There were a few other added aberrations for normal fish since I played last and they are appropriately grotesque and I enjoyed finding them. Supposedly there was a new enemy type added that appears in the shallows, but I never encountered it.

The Pale Reach is short, extremely short. five quests long and about 2 hours to beat short. 5 hours for me to 100% but that was also including the stuff added in the 3 updates since I last played. Fair enough I suppose since it is a single area and the DLC is only $6. The main issue I have with it is that it seems to be designed more like a mid-game DLC than an endgame DLC. It feels like its designed to take place at any point in the game, but you benefit and enjoy it the least from it if you play it where I was (All quests done, encyclopedia filled, all upgrades and research, thousands of unspent dollars, right at the end where it gives you a save so you can get both endings). The only two upgrades (The Icebreaker and Iceshaper) you get don't require any money or resources, just finding the missing parts. The latter which makes fish conserving ice cubes, which were completely useless to me since I had no real need to preserve fish for any particular reason. I was already rich with nothing to spend it on and had no quests that needed me to keep my fish fresh. The major enemy from the game was basically no threat because with my endgame engines I could outrun and outmaneuver it with little thought and almost no thought at all once I got the Icebreaker. I didn't even need to engage with its gimmick of keeping it fed to sate it for a time, I could just get whatever I needed done and be out of there before it could ever catch up much less hit me. I even let it hit me to see how much damage it does and it barely scratched the surface of my maxed out ship before it decides that's enough and slinks away. The rewards are also not particularly useful to someone endgame either. An anchor that acts as a reusable two way teleporter, a nice addition but the islands are close enough together and I was so fast that it wasn't particularly useful. Especially because I would rather spend the time traveling so I could pass time for crab aberrations I was fishing for at the different areas. The other was a special Trawl which is basically the definitive general trawl that can get Shallow, Coastal, and Oceanic fish (and Ice too I guess) with a higher rate of aberrations. While these would be excellent for someone two or three areas into the game, they were just barely helpful to me. It also built up the big thing at the southern end as something that would awaken or be a danger were we to make progress in the quest, but it doesn't do anything. It drops the reward as soon as you free the last crewmate and just dies(?). The only "threat" is the monstrous narwhal.

TL;DR it's short, but fine. If you are going to play it don't play it on a late game save file or else it will be trivially easy and its rewards will barely be any use at that point.

A fairly unique take on a fishing game, though I'd describe it more as a time/resource/threat management game based around about 3-4 fishing mini-games that are more or less skill checks/QTEs. A lot of it is managing your inventory while under the threat of various monsters, as well as time management so you can avoid being out in the night where most things that want to drag you down to the depths will be. Of course there are various fish that can only be caught in the night, so at some point you will have to take that plunge. And naturally there are still threats present even during the day in most major areas which is part of the threat management; "do I have time to fish/dredge here before the big monster comes to take a bite?" and "I gotta sort this ♥♥♥♥ quick or the big monster is definitely gonna take a bite out of me."

A major part of the game is the atmosphere. If you aren't the type to be immersed and focus solely on the gameplay Dredge ironically might not be deep enough for you. Boiling it down to its base a lot of the game just ends up being fetch quests to improve your boat and fishing equipment to become better at fetch quests. While it is by no means a walking simulator, there are clear threats and failure states, most of the game is "go to place to get something and bring it somewhere else." You are at best able to temporarily drive away the monsters, you won't be defeating anything. So actually getting invested in the world, talking to and learning about its characters, reading descriptions of the grotesque mutations taking place, finding bottles and monoliths to find out what is happening and may potentially happen in the future, is fairly important to your enjoyment. If you engage with the setting you'll find it drags you in really well with its various little touches.

While it is good looking, the game is very much style over substance. The world feels more like an excuse to show off the art and cardboard aesthetic over any thought of actually challenging or being fun for the player. Most of the main objective (CDs) are haphazardly thrown around without many real challenges to get to them. There are a few sub areas with platforming and speed challenges and that is where the game really shines if briefly but those come and go in the blink of an eye. Brief is another way to describe this game, if you have any experience at all in platformers then you can get 100% in less then an hour.

If roughly half an hour of dashing around doing basic platforming in pretty environments for 7~ dollars sounds good to you go nuts, otherwise probably not the game for you.

It is everything I liked about Spark the Electric Jester 2's platforming and fast paced action. The movement and platforming is everything 3D Sonic wishes he could come close too. Unfortunately it doubles down on the combat mechanics I didn't like from Spark the Electric Jester 2.

Said combat is now even more annoying with the addition of unparriable yellow attacks and grabbing green attacks. This doesn't make it particularly more difficult, just more of a chore to move out of the way. The difficulty options for combat mostly just change how much damage you give and can take, so there is little reason to choose one of the higher difficulties. The less time you have to engage in combat in this game the better. While it was an annoying but rare occurrence in 2, 3 takes great pleasure in slamming your face into an invisible wall in the middle of the speedy fun bits of levels to force you into its new combat.

The vehicle additions were mixed. I rarely got into the car without it ending up flipped over by the end of the ride, but the hovercraft was surprisingly nimble and usable. It begs the question "why am I driving a car or plane in a Sonic-styled platformer?" Also the free fall mechanic was a mistake and I hated the free roaming "find all the coins" and score attack levels. It probably doesn't need to be mentioned but I hated the combat arena levels too.

Everything I liked about the previous entry is just as good, but it adds on to the pile of stuff I didn't like about it. I just want to go fast.

SONIC IS ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ DEAD!