Recent reviews by Denroth

This game is like someone taking Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon, blending them together into a smoothie, then dumping a rogue-lite-bear into the mix. A tasty drink it is.

Remember May 6th as our liberation day, where all Helldivers stood together to fight the galaxy's greatest threat: Snoy

The game is a blast, the devs are amazing and responsive, and the community stands together.

We dive together or not at all!

I really, really liked this game. The game was fun to play, had a fairly fun concept, and the story was honestly enjoyable. But why... why after 3 years have they not fixed the crashes in this game? I got to about 12 hours of play time and had about 6 crashes total. Each crash set me back an hour plus of play with no fixes found online. This is the first game I've ever had to give up on purely because of technical problems.

Sad really...

First game was really fun, enjoyed the characters and the story! Great concept and left it open for the second game!

The second game tested my resolve and it won. By won, I mean I chucked it out the window. The second game is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ slow, and CONSTANTLY stops you and goes 'OH NO! You can't continue this story line! You gotta come back later! ;3'
After the 3rd time it did that, I gave up caring... and everyone that played it kept going 'Oh just stick with it for another 40 hours! It gets good then!'

Wat. Why? Why would I waste 40 hours of my life to enjoy a story??? Ah yes, let me go watch paint dry to eventually go see this work of art. If I could give this game set two thumbs up and a middle finger I would.

This game has a learning cliff, but once you start to put the pieces together it becomes a lot of fun. With friends, even more so.

If it goes on sale for like 5 bucks, yes, it is worth it. Not nearly as in depth as other dating sim games, but a fun romp for the first time. It gets really skip heavy once you play through a full rout once though.

I've never seen another game make me go through the cycle of grief multiple times.

Denial: 'Ah! That wasn't too terrible of a game! It will get better!'
Anger: 'THE ♥♥♥♥ WAS THAT?! Why are games so unbalanced!?'
Bargaining: 'Please for the love of god just one FUN match! Just one!'
Depression: 'Why... why do I keep playing this game? I hate it. Playing Killer is asking to be bullied; Playing solo is asking for pain.I am having no fun.
Acceptance: 'DbD is a ♥♥♥♥ game, and there is no other game that is like it! Time to never ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ play it again!'

6 months later~

Denial: 'Ah! That wasn't too terrible of a game! It will get better!'...................

Ok, let me just say at first, I got this game for like 3 bucks, and you know what? It wasn't that bad, I'd even say enjoyable. I, like many others, listened to reviewers talk about how this game was boring, stale, and not metal gear all while using a metal spear the entire time.

This game does have a little bit of a slow start, not going to lie. You get a garbage weapon and not all that much to do at first, but once you start to explore, things open up as do the playstyles. The gameplay of this was genuinely enjoyable, if a little unpolished, the idea was fun. I don't think I ever got to a point where the game was just a drag to play. Sure, I took breaks between playing, but I never dreaded playing it.

However, the things that this game doesn't have is a good story. The idea is great, the theme is great, heck there were a few nice plot points... but damn did they slip up on everything else.
The characters are so generic. Too much so that it felt like I was talking to paper cut outs in a funhouse. I cared for basically only one person, and that was because they were competent. Everyone else was just, there to be there practically. You never get a chance to like them, or understand them, or see anything other than 'Let's do X.' They are so damn flat they'd be invisible if they lay sideways.

This game also lacks polish, mainly design choices when playing. The controls are meant for controllers, which is extra apparent the moment I had to bind things to weird keys on my keyboard just to not get carpal tunnel in my index finger. Having to hold keys to place things which is also awkward as hell on keyboard. Almost no need for stealth after a few hours...

TLDR:
The game is fun and enjoyable for the actual gameplay loop. The story CONCEPT is honestly not all that terrible either. But damn, the characters might as well be not there since they are so 1 dimensional in personality. If this game goes on sale for 5< dollery doos, not a bad buy honestly.

After finishing this game, I must say, I had a good bit of fun playing it. You know those games that come out year after year that have 1000 hours of content? The ones that have so much stuff that after a while you just get bored of doing it? Sometimes, you just want a game that gives you something fun to play with. Gives you a new toy for a weekend... and right as you start to get tired, it ends. You feel satisfied for finished it, and leave content. This is one of those games.

Story:
You command a group of partisans during the invasion of Russia, starting out small before going on full raids of Nazi compounds. The games story is honestly one of the parts I was a little let down by. There is a lot to be left desired, but at the same time, it's kinda like an early Rambo movie; It's short, sweet, gets to the point, and doesn't throw you around too much along the way. The Nazi's are bad, you kick them in the loins repeatedly as they shout how much better they are, before shanking them in the jugular. That's pretty much it. Characters get introduced, shown off how cool they are, maybe have a quick mission about them, before being just part of the unit.

Gameplay:
The early game is what you would expect of a rag tag group of partisans-- the whole unit has one rifle they found in a garbage can with 4 rounds among them, two rocks, a bottle, and a rusty butter knife. Safe to say, this is when the game heavily encourages stealth. Though you can still go loud, it isn't the best option all the time. Speaking of stealth, this game does a fairly OK job at it. Vision cones that see up to a distance which start to alert guards, or sounds that can be heard through walls or over fences make up most of the sneaking experience. It's simple, it works... kinda. The issue with the game isn't how stealth works, but how stealth goes RIGHT into combat if you screw up. There is no grace period, no short pause to give you a chance to fix your mistake with quick acting, not even a search phase-- 99% of the time, the moment you screw up stealth, everyone knows where your partisans are. They could be in the trees crouched down in the middle of the night, and that still wouldn't require searching. Still though, besides this, stealth is fun... sometimes clunky but fun.

Combat on the other hand is amazingly fun! It's cover based, and % to hit, but besides this, it's a blast to set up an ambush on a huge group and come out on top. Where stealth is slow and methodical, combat is quick and deadly. Someone gets caught in the open, chances are they are going to go down. This applies to enemies too, which can make killing a whole unit all the more enjoyable. Although, I would say the one major issue I had with combat was how later levels it just felt like my squad was a team of unkillable murder machines. The enemies can be... dumb at times; Dumb as in they would not find any immediate cover, and instead, just sit in the middle of the road to be knocked down. Sure they use grenades to flush you out of cover, but never try to flank or do anything more than get to cover and shoot. Due to this, I was driven towards more combat to a point where if the story didn't require stealth, it was guns out for funs out. Alerting the whole map where I was and screaming out 'COME AND GET ME NAZI PIGS!' became custom on missions about halfway through before gunning down droves of the 'well trained' soldiers.

THE INVENTORY IN THIS GAME IS BAD! Ok, maybe not the worst I've seen, but damn did they screw this one up. Sorting items doesn't put similar items together, it just stacks them. So if you want 9mm ammo, you have to dig through the inventory (I'm talking about the one at base), and drag it over. Item slots have to constantly be refilled when used up. It doesn't matter if you have 9 more bandages in the backpack, you have to drag a new set to the hotbar. Resources don't go to whoever has a matching resource when you want to pick them up, so it becomes a game of 'Where's the Weed in the Inventory'.

Characters are a mixed bag which is something I don't understand. They give you 8 partisans total, which all come with their own abilities and skill trees... but you can only have three at a time with the commander being one 99% of the time. The sad part is many of the characters aren't all that good. Others just do their job better or have more perks that work better. Why have a flashy ability that does next to nothing or requires great positioning to pull off, when I can have Mr. Machinegun man just kill everyone in front of him with his ability?

Graphics:
This game is amazing for the style they picked. It's colorful, fits the pallet that you'd usually see in a WW2 movie, and goes for a weird realistic/cartoonish feeling. Cartoonish is probably not the right word, but you get what I mean. However, I did have issues with my FPS not being constant even though my rig isn't low end. Some maps that were a bit smaller were perfectly fine, but the moment the map became too big, it was almost always 30 fps during it.

Final Score:
8.3/10
Well worth checking this game out if you want something fun and about 14 hours of gameplay. Also, if you somehow finish the hardest difficulty, you are some sort of god.

You ever play Valkyria Chronicles 1? Hate it due to the clunky and sometimes unfair gameplay?

Valkyria Chronicles 4 says f$%k that.

Story:
You play as anime man commander Claude Wallace, who has a serious problem with the 'Oh no, all is lost!' trope. I didn't count exactly, but I think there are about 10+ times he does this, then instantly remembers he should stop whining and just do his job. You command squad E(z) (Band of Brother's much?), an 'elite' group of anime soldiers that power through every obstacle with the power of friendship and headshots. Ez as a whole has some pretty damn interesting characters; Everything from a French Knight to an ax wielding maniac who is scared of women. Some of the backstories are... ehh... while others will make you want to keep em alive (Looking at you Stanley you ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!). You start out doing... army stuff... for Operation Northern Cross, to kick the Empire in the nuts once and for all. About half way through it goes from normal army stuff to secret army stuff (Like rangers are supposed to do?). There are moments when you'll want to punch some of the main characters in the face simply because they either pull a 'stupid', 'mega stupid', or 'WHAT?! WERE YOU EVEN THINKING???' though the last one only happened a few times. Don't get me wrong, there are some pretty interesting moments and interesting plans you end up going through, but more and more near the end 'just because' being the reason felt a little too often the reason. The end boss is Mr.Evil, and I say that because I skipped all his dialog and summed it up with the words 'I'm an insane doctor. Mwahahaha!' Speaking of story, there are times when said story is locked behind a thing called 'Ace Hunts' where you'll need to kill all the Aces in a battle. Let me tell you, it sucks. There are fights that you have to waste hours on trying to kill these guys just so you can unlock a few cut scenes. Some might find this fun, but I hated it. To add to this, there are squad stories too. Squad Stories require one of the characters of the story to have used 20CP during the game to unlock the story. It feels a little forced since you can just go into a skirmish, select them over and over till you reach the amount needed (Skirmish only gives 1/2 useage though). Overall, the story is pretty solid, fun, but has a lot of stupid/dumb moments that stick out.

Gameplay:
People that played VC1 (I did) will understand the phrase 'escort mission' plenty. The first game, if you lost either main character in combat, you failed. To me, this was the worst part about it because you'd spend an hour or more on a mission, do everything in your power to win, then get screwed sideways because of ONE mistake. VC4 threw all this out the damn window on at least 90% of the missions. If a leader goes down, you have 3 turns to get them up or have an engineer to revive them. Even the tank can be destroyed without missions failing, which is the reason I dropped VC1. Speaking of which, a new class added in made this game way more complex: Mortars. They are amazing to use and suck to fight against (Usually), but well within reason. They are frail nerds that blow things up from range, and damn they are good at it.
When it comes to combat though, the game is fairly simple/easy most of the time. A fairly annoying problem the game has is with hidden game mechanics that pop up halfway through a mission after you did many stupid actions on your first turn. Near the end it gets a lot better/smoother at telling you what to do. In fact, I would say that even with all of the weird bumps on the way, the combat in this game is fair and fun... usually.
The single most annoying, glaring, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ issue it has is the twins.

The twins. Imagine you have a unit in a TACTICAL RPG GAME, that literally tanks bullets to the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ face, dodges gunfire, and gets what is basically an anti-material rifle. Combine this with their snarky voices, annoying dialog, and the fact they show up in every other mission about half way through the game, and you've got a winning combination for a garbage, unfun combat scenario. You set up cross fire? They don't care about it. There is literally ONE weakness to them, and that is nuking the ever loving hell out of them with mortars. That's it. You have to spend at least 5-6 turns just dropping bombs on them for them to die. Spoiler? Yes. Do I care? Yes, because you will hate yourself the first time you need to fight them. If they didn't exist as units, and just came as commanders, I'd be OK. Just my two cents.

Graphics:
It's nice, better than the first one obviously. It's honestly nothing to be astonished by, but what can I say? It's Valkyria Chronicles. The game could probably run on a toaster (Not that it's a bad thing!)

Overall:
8.7/10

It cleaned up so much of the negative from the first game that combat is finally enjoyable for a change! The story is solid with a few blaring, stupid moments (But they are excused). The Twins suck, that's why it isn't a 9/10+; Because annoying, almost invulnerable, edgy ♥♥♥♥♥ with crossbows.