Recent reviews by Silveressa

Great game on the off chance you actually get to play it. Expect to sit in the server queue for 60+ minutes anytime you want to play. Better off picking up something that you can actually have fun with during your gaming leisure time...

It takes a little bit to fully open up into the expected open world Rogue Trader experience (around 10-14ish hours?) but it's a thrilling journey all the way nonetheless.

The good:

A worthy translation of the TTRPG rules, you'll feel right at home here if you've played it, and the keyword hotlinking and in depth tutorial will get you up to speed just as easily if you're not.

In the beginning fights feel a little on the easy side, but once you start exploring the various planets and points of interest the difficulty ramps up to an enjoyable challenge, and one which on higher difficulties, forces you to make wise tactical choices and good uses of your various abilities if you wish to succeed.

Also worth noting, difficulty for both personnel and ship combat can be separately changed at any time in the options menu, with a full suite of customization options alongside default settings so you can tailor it nicely to your preferences.

Choices feel impactful, and there's a lasting feeling of weight behind your command decisions on how to lead, and those same choices will pay off down the road (and/or bite you painfully in the ass depending on the circumstances,) leading to a high replayability potential to see how other paths might lead to glory or ruin.

The soundtrack adds nicely to the atmosphere as well, and is a near perfect mixture of subtle notes and rising choirs in all the right places, making the climactic battles feel truly epic. (It's worth picking up the deluxe dlc for the OST alone.)

The Bad:

Due to budgetary constraints only key scenes and npc's are fully voiced, with a lot of the side quests and interactions fully text based, which for those expecting a Baldur's Gate 3 level of spoken dialogue are going to be disappointed. The writing however is of excellent quality and conveys the grim dark setting very well, so is not as big a deal for anyone used to other Owl Cat Games like Wrath of the Righteous or King Maker that have similar limitations.

Graphically the game is superb, although the fixed camera angles limit how well you can zoom in on the action and cut scenes, leaving some of them with a bit of a scenic view that feels detached and lacking. Animations in some scenes are also lacking, with character gestures and such missing, despite being mentioned in the text. While not a deal breaker, it can feel a bit jarring to those who have been spoiler by BG 3 levels of quality.

Overall

It's one of the best turn based rpg's to come out this year, and absolutely worth your time, especially if you're a fan of the WH 40k universe and Rogue Trader ttrpg in general. While not on BG3 levels of quality it delivers beautifully on an exciting and fulfilling sci-fi rpg, and is one of the best WH40k titles to come out since Battlesector.

Worth it for the amazing soundtrack alone, the bonus items are pretty nice as well, especially the chainsword and auto pistol. No matter your build you'll find the extra gear is useful on your allies even if they don't fit your chars archetype.

Incredibly fun title, and has an engaging story line, with some really good voice acting, and enough depth to the rpg mechanics and class system to keep the combat plenty interesting over the entire story arc.

While it's not Baldur's Gate 3 levels of depth and quality, it's not trying to be, and it excels at what it sets out to do, and is absolutely worth your time for anyone that's a fan of the genre and a great value even at full retail price.

It's also worth noting the most recent patch added some great QOL features, such as being able to set the scale on the slow motion time effects, so you can have the combat move as quickly (or slowly) as you find enjoyable. (The devs are still very involved in the game post launch, and are continuing to improve things and make an already wonderful game even better.)

Fun little game, very relaxing and an interesting story told via the in game mechanics.

The only downside is for the price 3 hours is an incredibly short time to completion, with the game having virtually zero replay value. (It's great the first time through, but not much point doing the same levels a second time.)

What painfully overpriced at $20, I'd say it's definitely worth picking up on sale, somewhere close to the $5-$7 mark, or snagging it in this months (nov 2023) Humble Bundle.

Worth supporting in EA.

Did you enjoy Raft back during it's EA days?
Did you enjoy 7 days to die back during it's (earlier) EA days?

If the answer is yes then you'll certainty enjoy your time here.

The game has a rewarding core play loop, and like most others of the genre, you'll spend your time crafting/building, and harvesting along with exploring an open world (both above and below the water) and fighting a variety of enemies, both armed raiders and mutants.

It's got it's expected share of bugs, given it's day 1 of EA, *however* the dev is one of those rare ones that fixes them pretty near as fast as they get reported, and is actually active in the Steam discussion page rather then expecting every player to join their Discord. (such a nice change from the norm)

Worth grabbing now if you want to support its development into a truly excellent title, or sit on it for a couple months to see how it shapes up and grab it then, either way, it's worth your time if you enjoy survival games that are more than just over done zombie killers.

No way to rebind keys, making this game unplayable for left handed gamers, or anyone that doesn't use WASD for movement.

If Legend of Mana and Project Zomboid had a baby, this would be it.

There's the world building of Legend of Mana, and the play style and over all feel of Project Zomboid in the character animations and general graphics/layout as well as the combat.

However much like a baby, this game is still developing, and needs a fair bit of work before it's ready for full release. The menus feel a bit clunky, and the character animation needs some additional frames (esp the movement/run) and the trees rocks just magically regrowing every few minutes is kind of irritating when you're trying to craft a specific landscape near your home.

Overall it's a relaxing game and has potential, looking forward to seeing how it shapes up over the coming months.

Come for the combat, stay for the... Well, there's not much else to keep you playing unfortunately.

For fans of BSG Deadlock's simultaneous turn based combat, you'll find a lot to like here, the 5 second turn game play loop is rewarding, and there's plenty of incremental weapon and component upgrades for your mechs and mobile base to keep things interesting.

However, that's where the fun meter runs out, and beyond the combat encounters you find a mostly non existent story line, (behind the relatively empty "reclaim the land from the enemy." )

Unlike the Front Mission series, which the mech designs and set pieces may remind you of, there's no character development of any of your team mates, or the op for. Unlike HBS's Battletech which had interesting pilots that had in game battle chatter, and between battle random events, In Phantom Brigade after the opening tutorial mission your mech pilots are mute and lifeless, both during combat, and out of it.

The enemy is also equally lifeless, with no named villains or evil dictator you'll love to hate, the entire enemy is essentially faceless nobodies who you care about slightly less than the non existent personalities of your own pilots. Much like the enemy, the plot is paper thin, with no over arching sub plots or unique commanders for each enemy territory; once you've conquered three or four areas you've seen pretty much the entirety of what the game has to offer in so far as storyline and combat challenges.

While the combat is quite fun at first, it very quickly begins to feel stale, and the enemy forces blur into one another, with one encounter feeling very much the same as another, which slowly sucks the fun out of wanting to continue wading through the endless waves of hostiles to liberate the entire country.

If endless random battles with no fluff or compelling plot line to get in the way of the next encounter is your thing, then this is probably the perfect game for you. If however, you've came from playing the Front Missions, or Battletech, you're going to find the lack of world nuance and story development somewhat jarring, and will probably want to wait for a steep sale before picking this one up.

The game's a valiant attempt at a C&C style RTS, but it falls short on so many levels, such as:

No way to save in mission. (Super helpful if real life interrupts you.)
No way to rotate base buildings
No way to rotate camera

A campaign story that's poorly presented, leaving you far more questions than answers and doesn't do a decent job at all of presenting charismatic characters that you find compelling. (If you're expecting character depth on par Kane or Tanya you're going to be deeply disappointed.)

Over all it feels low budget and lacking a lot of features even relatively old RTS games have, you're much better off playing Act of War Direction Action, or World in Conflict: Soviet Assault, they stand up better to the passing of time than this comparatively new offering.