Recent reviews by Irrelevant

Shallow and uninspired game. Very streamlined mechanics and repetitive gameplay. Things like converting people to different cultures and justifying war happen instantly with the click of a button, spending magic resources of various shapes and colours. There are a dozen different religions and cultures in the game but they offer zero gameplay difference. Obstructive and hideous UI doesn't help. Given PDX's previous track record, it might be enjoyable at some point in the distant future, but with an additional price tag.

I could maybe see this being fun for someone really into the period, but otherwise it's not worth it.

Enderal is an excellent RPG that borrows a lot from Skyrim, but with a lot of mechanics reworked to feel more like an old school RPG. An improved progression system, a detailed world full of interesting lore and a brilliant narrative. It's not entirely without flaws, but it’s still far more polished than most AAA titles that have come out in recent years. The Steam release is essentially a definitive edition packaging together the original mod and the new Forgotten Stories DLC which is similar in scope to Dawnguard or Dragonborn for Skyrim.

It's one of those games where once you've finished the main story you go and read up on all the material you can get your hands on. The main characters and their backstories are leagues more interesting than the ones you find in Bethesda's games. I was enthralled by the game once the story properly kicked off and the game started to open up. This happens a few hours in, when you reach the central city of Ark. You don't need to have played the previous game, Nehrim, to enjoy the story. There's also a ton of side quests and locations to explore in addition to the main quest.

The reworked progression system feels more meaningful and fun than the one in Skyrim. It's more akin to oldschool RPGs where you allocate your stat points instead of the "good at what you do" system that's in vanilla Skyrim. There's a class system where combining certain skill trees gets you cool abilities, but you're still not forced to pick a certain class and multiclassing remains viable. Skill leveling is done in the form of skill books which you can purchase from vendors related to that skill or find as loot in the world. This minimizes grinding and also acts as a money sink, so you never feel filthy rich. You're still limited by your skill point cap which increases each time your character levels up.

Loot is fixed and enemies do not scale to your level. The difficulty overall is a noticeable bump higher than vanilla Skyrim but it’s nothing impossible to overcome. The most notable combat change is probably the health rework; your health doesn’t regenerate and there are no instant healing items. Your arcane fever, which gives you a debuff depending on its severity, gets worse when you cast healing spells or drink potions. Food is also given an actual use in that it provides long-lasting health regen outside of combat.

Visually, it's up to the same standard as Skyrim, if not better. There's a huge variety of different environments and locations, ranging from jungle islands and crystal forests to a city in the sky. Each new area you visit feels distinct and memorable, through their unique visuals, enemies and music. There’s a fair amount of repurposed content from Skyrim but the majority of it blends well into the rest of the game. The soundtrack is pretty good and the voice acting is on par with Skyrim's vanilla actors.

Mod-wise, the game is just as simple to mod as Skyrim. Most oldrim mods that do not utilize the original Skyrim worldspace will work straight out of the box. Armour mods and such will likely be unbalanced, but they'll work fine. ENBs designed for Skyrim will also have issues so you should use one made specifically for Enderal instead. The game comes packed with mods so do look at what the game already has before you go tinkering. I wouldn’t recommend modding your first playthrough, aside from whatever QOL stuff you might want.

It's superb, and it's free, so you really have no excuse to check it out.

Fun game, easy to understand, but still has a high skill ceiling. 20-30 min matches that could go either way till the very end. Wouldn't recommend it to someone new to the genre, though. Try one of the free games first.

Cost-wise, it's cheap in comparison to most other games in the genre. Sure, you can't grind for free cards, but if you don't care for playing competitively then you can make whatever type of constructed deck you want for 5-10€. If you have any luck with the free packs you get then you can sell the rares, build the deck you want and still have some money left as well. There's a handful of strong cards that you won't be able to get for cheap but you can definitely make do without them. A proper competitive deck would cost you anywhere between 20 and 80€, which is a still fraction of the cost of MTG decks. Alternatively, you could just play the draft mode for free. It's also fun and the matches will often be even more tense.

The balance is in a pretty decent place right now and pretty much every match will be really close, assuming both players have some idea of what they're doing. The bar between a budget deck and a wallet warrior's deck isn't very big, so you can definitely win even with weaker cards. Random effects are pretty rare and there's only one card (cheating death) that's pure RNG you can't really play around.

updated at ~35 hours

it's pretty fun

here's some cool bullet points

good:

- gameplay is great, magic is more fun than it sounds
- everyone and their mother is in this game, and they're all pretty fun to play (even the ♥♥♥♥ characters)
- no cloned movesets
- they've like tripled the amount of dudes on every map
- weapon fusion rework improves on prior systems
- less grindy character bond system
- the game supports steam's controller api so you can play it with a steering wheel or something
- general improvements here and there like horse calling actually working

meh:

- SW characters' movesets are a bit stronger than DW (hyper attacks)
- WO1/2 mystics still use their 2008 movesets, which are pretty outdated for how the game plays
- WO3 guests are gone (Joan of Arc, Ryu etc.)
- AI occasionally shows some signs of life but is not quite there
- small map variety (~20 maps, 70 stages)
- no post-story grind mode
- the game looks like it has just reached the PS3 era

bad:

- menus seem rushed and unintuitive
- difficulty is all over the place; you will get stunlocked and killed from full health
- items/abilities are gone, replaced with unnecessary skill trees for every single character
- the music is worse than usual, it's not bad but it lacks the usual energy
- corridor maps, the blight of newer musou titles
- less character interaction than before, minimal mid-battle bants
- no art gallery
- mountains of useless DLC

you can also wait for the hyper special ultimate mix xtreme edition re-release in like two years

Everyone is happy to see Age of Empires 2. I mean look at it, it's the best. It's the best. It's number one. It's number one. It's always number one. It's the best. It's the best strategy game. It's the gleaming gold standard against which all strategy games must be measured. Microsoft put it on Steam and the prices go low so anyone can own it and it's the best. It's the best. It's number one. You play Age of Empires 2 because you want the best and you deserve the best. Only the best will do. We're the best! It's the best strategy game! You root for the paladins, you love the militia. You get Marlin. That's the best fish. That's the best fish. I have the best strategy game. You put on Tazer at every party, I mean really who's gonna complain about Rippy? You make posts commemorating teutonic knights I mean who would downvote that? TRASH UNITS, TRASH UNITS, LOTS OF TRASH UNITS. WOAD RAIDERS TEUTONIC KNIGHTS FRANKISH PALADINS trash units CHEESE STEAK JIMMY'S AGE OF EMPIRES My heart goes out to the victims of the URGRHGH. THE BEST.

While I'm not certain why I bought this game, I didn't quite expect myself to be playing it for 4 hours straight.

Although it may look cute and girly, there's quite a bit of strategic thinking required to get anywhere. It does however depend largely on trial and error towards the end.

Overall it is an excellent use of your time, and of course there's the added bonus of being a cute pink magical princess.

An excellent expansion, I found it more entertaining than the base game.

It's basically the same game but set in the Boshin war. The combat now relies more heavily on guns. The higher level units are actually better too, so you can no longer beat the game by simply charging with peasant spearmen. The game looks pretty and the music is magnificient.

As for multiplayer, I haven't bothered with it, it's probably full of people camping at their sides of the map with riflemen in some inpenetratable formation.

It's an enjoyable 4X game.

The combat is a little bit dull, though. You send small fleets against other small fleets with really no input on the tactics, and the game gives you a cinematic sequence that shows your fleet in no formation whatsoever just shooting lasers and whatnot at enemies.

There's a quite enjoyable soundtrack in the background that reminds you that you're in space. The ingame menus are also well designed and the graphics are pleasant to look at.

The game might seem needlessly complicated in the first few hours, what with all the science stuff and silly abbreviations. The tutorial doesn't teach you very much, but you'll probably understand it after a few tries.

All in all, it's a rather enjoyable game. If you're a fan of 4X games such as Civilization or something then go on and try it out.