Recent reviews by pajakulebrc

When it was released some three/four years ago, the "early access" tag was quite accurate. It had issues, but also a potential. But as the months went by, nothing was really done to address anything and most changes were only superficial. None of the updates really made me want to play. The project was completely abandoned by 2021, which means that at this point, the full price alongside the "early access" is outright fraudulent. Do not buy this. It is not fun, and will never get better.

tldr: Game is dead, abandoned by devs. Not worth full price in current state. Do not waste money.

Disclaimer: At the time of review, only the first "act" was available. This review assumes that the next content updates will not significantly alter the core gameplay and NSFW elements of the game. Also, minor spoilers alert.

Considering how hyped this game got over the years, I can see why many players would feel disappointed. There are certainly areas of the game, that are quite lackluster. The ground grid combat is very cookie-cutter, and feels extremely dated. Combined with a lack of customization / new unlocks in terms of combat abilities (you cant upgrade specific skills or attributes, the numbers just get bigger as you level up), the ground combat gets boring very quickly. The space combat follows suite in this regard. Apart from choosing a waifu to provide a special attack, there is zero customization, because all the available upgrades just improve your numbers (+5% shields anyone?). So the "game" part of the game can be summed up as kinda "MEH".

The story is surprisingly captivating and definitely got me intrigued. Even though it comes at a cost of lot of dialog / exposition, I really appreciated the world building. As for the NSFW elements - sex jokes and innuendos are basically carpet bombed all over the place, often to the detriment of the story and immersion (especially when it comes to the Imperium storyline). The actual sex scenes and interaction with the waifus in your crew are on point though. I really liked the fact that you have to earn their affection and they dont just jump into your lap the second you meet them. The stark contrast of the main crew vs. the secondary characters has to be biggest detriment of the game. Many of the side characters use models that dont really fit in thematically and feel like they are just store bought assets - which gives the game a sort of "shovelware" tint.

Despite all these flaws, I feel like the game actually delivers on what it promised to be in the first place. A game where you can sex up some hot babes between rounds on mindless space schmup and point-n-click combat. Considering studio FOW was basically a bunch of SFM porn animators who decided to make a game, I have to say their first game outing turned out fine.

TLDR: It isnt as revolutionary as it was hyped to be, but after the game is fully released (with all the content), it will definitely be worth the 20-30$ price tag, assuming youre getting it mainly for the NSFW stuff and not for the gameplay.

Iam totally hooked. This is the best game Ive played in like 3 years. A perfect blend of rogue-like replayability where each run feels different, a meaningful permanent upgrade system that doesnt make you suddenly invincible or super strong. The resource system provides a sense of progression towards your next unlocks even when you do poorly on a particular run. And the RPG elements - so many NPCs, so much dialogue, so much story. And the aesthetic / design just fits perfectly.

One of the classics of the genre (very comparable to Diablo 2 in that sense), even after 7 years, it still offers ton of fun. If you happen to get it on sale / in a budle (Handsome Collection), it might have one of the best price to hours of gameplay ratios.

PROS: Its a very good game - from a stategic card game point of view. There are dozens of possible decks to play, and each turn theres lot of decision making. A lot of options how to screw up or turn the tide of the battle. The system that lets you mulligan a card every turn prevents unlucky draws being a major factor. Even though theres lots of decisions, the game is relatively fast paced and comebacks are viable (in some other games you just know youve lost after few turns - not in Duelyst).

CONS: This is the big dealbreaker. Duelyst is one of the many games that sprung up around the time Hearthstone gained mainstream success. And the playerbase of Duelyst is actually very small. Meaning that you will get constantly matched against players whove been playing the game for year or longer and have all the cool epics and legendaries and all the combos and synergy. So unless youre ready to spend a hefty sum of money to get yourself up to speed, prepare yourself for a beating of a lifetime. Youll get smacked around every single game - which gets boring extremely quickly.

Picked up the game during the recent sale for about 12 euros and cant be more happy about my spending... Its everything I expected it to be. Fun fast paced combat where quick reflexes along with long term planning about your ship layout go hand in hand. Combined with star map strategy part of the game - having resouces on different planets in need of moving + the multiplayer element offer lot of extra playtime.

The best thing is you can play it the way you want... If youre not into micromanaging your starmap, you can just run missions over and over and sell everything to vendors to progress in the game. Or if you want more efficient use of your materials and ingame currency, you can ship stuff to places where you need it and engage in the multiplayer market to get better than the vendor prices (either spend more time killing stuff, or spend more time managing stuff).

If youre on the rocks whether or not to buy this game, my advice as a tower defence enthusiast is to go for it, especially if its on sale

Played the game for about 20 hours a few years back when it was in the beta. Was really fun and promising. Then they started lockin content behind paywalls. Came back years later just to check out how its going only to find out they went full out on microtransaction money-grab. Uninstalled it immediately.

Bait and switch microtransaction galore... you would expect a match-three game to be casual, but actually if you want to get anywhere in this game you must play at least an hour and a half every eight hours every day, every night - its a grindy borefest. The company doesnt care about playerbase, they just want to squeeze money from people before they eventually realize the game sucks and quit.