Recent reviews by grimphoenix

I may have low hours on steam, that is because i mainly play on my smartphone, so apologies for that.
this is an amazing game that suffers from feature creep more then almost any game that I have ever seen, the first world is one of the best designed idle games I have ever seen, maximizing gear, few systems but each system is well flushed out and required for progression, and everything is useful, world 2 follows the same principle, simple but fun, class upgrades are added which complicates juggling skilling on all your characters but not enough that it truly matters, a bit slower but not so much that it hurts the game... but then world 3, world 3 adds a ton of systems that you need to check into daily as well as requiring you to juggle multiple skills per class for almost all upgrades, and it adds trapping and worship which cannot be afked fully and you need to check in on them to get any progress making it very easy to burn out, or if not to burn out then to simply check in once a day and leave. then world 4, world 4 only adds 3 new skills which are not particularly specialized which is a good thing, breeding and cooking are actually quite good, the problem is the uploading characters mechanic, you put multiple characters in test tubes to buff your other characters based on how many you upload and the lab level of those characters, this completely takes the character out of the game for as long as you want to have the buff. this system is actually nice in that it simplifies things but it conflicts with every other design choice in the game, the rest of the game says "have all your characters working on different stuff so that you can get upgrades" this one says "leave all your characters here to get upgrades"

All things considered, i still suggest you try the game, its quite fun and the dev tends to listen to criticism well, and if you dont mind the piles of different systems in world three and four its great all the way through, I suggest playing until you are through world 3 and deciding to continue from there.

its pretty ok i guess, bit too easy

Finally replaying this game with more then a 1080 laptop gpu, basically a different game when you dont lag so hard that you have variable dodge timing, now its even easier! 0/10

like overwatch but does not support human rights abuses
recieved game for free because game is free

DO NOT BUY,
I have wanted to support this game for so so long, ive been playing since it came out and always had a good amount of fun after expansions dropped but unfortunately i find myself unable to support this game any longer.
Apparently the ban system on this game is hyperactive, I appear to have been permanently banned for running autohotkey in the background and hitting a hotkey that was bound to a mouse click, forums i have found have indicated they ban based on digital mouse click detection, the program was shut down as soon as i realized it happened but was banned within 5 minutes anyway. do not waste your money or time on this game.
will be updated if bungie decides to reinstate my account or approves my refund for shadowkeep, unfortunately there is NO RECOURSE FOR BEING BANNED, this is unacceptable, if they bother to watch my gameplay they will see it is nowhere near ban worthy and my accuracy is nowhere near good enough to have any kind of aimbot or trigger bot, but to keep costs down at the cost of their paying customers they chose to not have any kind of dispute system for bans. i can only say that this game will never be worth your money until they decide not to permanently ban with a hair trigger with no recourse.

Edit: I am true to my word and editing this review a couple days later after my refund of shadowkeep was accepted, I am taking this as a show of good faith from bungie, however I cannot in good conscience still recommend this game. whilst it is good that I was able to get my money back having an automated banning system whilst not having a system to appeal bans is absolutely unacceptable.

TL:DR
game issues permanent automated bans with no possible appeal or recourse, if you need an automated system at least have an appeals team.

I had my doubts about this when it first came out, I was a big fan of the first game and didn't feel like the verticality and butt clenchingly tight platforming would translate well to 3d, boy was i wrong, I cannot recommend this game enough, and I cannot recommend the first game enough, buy both, don't wait for a sale, support the devs, give them all your money.

this game still crashes, a lot, even on a pc that is more then capible of playing any other game I chose.
I was told that it was an incompatibility with nvidia antialiasing, i disabled it, it worked for 20 minutes then started crashing again.
I was told that it needed me to disable all nvidia control panel settings, I did so, got 20 more minutes out of it.
Then dunovo, the absolute plague it is upon gamers, started crashing its background process which kicked me out of game and I had had enough.
Refunded, get your games in working order before releasing them.

different, fun, and quite a trip, a great experience for the price, i suggest you pick it up.

Earlier review left at bottom for reference, my opinion since writing the original review has since changed. Previously I found that the game was a cool concept hamstrung by a few obnoxious flaws but worth the half AAA game price for the time that you would get out of it.
Unfortunately for me and for this game I feel that the devs have added to these issues instead of fixing them.
I made 3 points in my original review
1) when you get shot it is extremely difficult to figure out where the shots came from before you die (this has not been tweaked but is only personal preference)
2)the game needed a killer POV deathcam (this has been added, YAY, 1/3)
3) Team play offeres very little in the way of rewards (this has been made EXPONENTIALLY worse with the advent of the greediest loot box scheme I have ever seen, more below)
so as you can see, one of my problems went almost unaddressed, the most minor of my complaints (one not affecting rewards or gameplay) was fixed, and the rewards system was gutted into the ground by the 1.0 patch.

TO CLARIFY
the greedy loot box practice i am talking about is not the practice of the loot boxes themselves but the fact that loot boxes are now ONLY avalible through payment. the old system had loot boxes with (admittedly crappier) gear avalible to STICKER PRICE players which allowed them some level of customizability. Now the ONLY way to get loot boxes is to earn them in game, THEN shell out $2.50 each for keys to open them, no free option, no nothing.

In addition this game's cheating has gotten out of control. especially because region locking would simply fix the problem. At this point the cheaters are making enough money opening loot boxes that the expense of their accounts being banned can be easily written off as the cost of doing business, we need better anti cheat, on top of that they only allow players to report for snap aiming, move speed hacks, and other aimbots, there is no option for HP hacking or other exploits.

for these reasons my solid reccomendation is turned to a no go, bring back free lootboxes and make the cheaters lives at least a bit harder and I will address this review again.

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Old review for the record
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I cant say much about this that everybody else has not, the game is amazing with a couple caviats.

it SERIOUSLY needs better indicators of where you have been shot from, at least in single player. I would suggest a classic "blood splatter points in the direction you are shot from" system to accompany shot noises, with things like flash hiders and suppressors making the indicator less clear.

I would love to see a kill cam from the POV of the person who killed you, at least in solos.

Better rewards in team mode would also be great.

I love this game, gameplay, theme, difficulty, i am NOT reccomending this game because of one thing. the DLC.
I bought the non deluxe edition because it was on a greater percentage sale then the deluxe edidion, not realizing that the reason for this was because the DLC almost never gets discounted even as part of the deluxe editions (noting the lower % which put the deluxe edition at the same price as the normal edition with the season pass). this means that even at the summer sale price you are still spending $40 on the game minimum, this is not a problem because of the price itself but because people will buy the game thinking they can get the dlc on sale at a later date. months after my purchase and a big sale later there has been exactly one discount (%10) on the season pass dlc.

all this is a problem because the majority of the best pvp weapons are in the dlc, ringed knight great swords, rapier and daggers (i recently found out are named the crow quills), friede's scithe, all dlc only, all are (or have been) the best pvp weapon in the game at one point or another.

TL:DR
THE BEST OF ALL THE DUELS GAMES HANDS DOWN
if you want the stupid planechase anthologies box, get this instead, its cheaper and plays the same way but with more powerful decks and cards, and more selection (select your deck, dont build it, and be pre balanced against all other deck options, then either do or do not do planechase) buy the deck unlocks if you want to jump right into multiplayer.

A very good game with flaws, this game should be compared against things like planechase anthologies or the archenemy box rather then against MTGO or normal paper magic. for me and my friends (highly experienced magic players of multiple years) we like how all the decks are actually quite good (yes I said GOOD, precon decks, WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED?!?!?!) the fast decks are fast, the blue deck goes infinite at the drop of a hat, and the 5 color deck has ramp, progenitus, and godsire. but it also keeps you within the confines of the precons (you can unlock better cards by using the deck, ill address this later) meaning you dont reach the point where you have to play black, blue, or kill before turn 5 to be competative (thanks modern) while still using stupidly powerful and in many formats banned cards, vindicate is amazing but not oppressive without thoughtsieze, path, and dark confadant.
also keep in mind, this is the only duels game that feels like it knows its not supposed to be "babbies first mtg" (though it is a great jumping off point for learning the game) or "the full mtg experience" it plays like a box set of precon decks, and for that purpose its amazing, dont expect anything else and you wont be dissipointed.

THE BAD
ok, this game isnt perfect, to start, if you start from nothing and your friend has all the cards unlocked (or bought the unlocks, this isnt pay to win its pay to skip, though i do advise buying the deck unlocks if you want to do multiplayer and compete) you are going to get STOMPED! for instance, the blue deck may be a bit too strong but doesnt really get good until you have unlocked 25 or so cards or entered all the free codes (included in the game, check the extras menu in the main menu) for just enough "take another turn" spells to pull through victories against even the AI. though this is the most aggregious example most of the other decks are similar, the best cards are all unlocks, and you need to spend about an hour per deck (if you know what you are doing) smashing the AI and getting cards to be able to play them online.
This game plays slower then MTGO, theres a lot less weird f6ing and such to swap priority but you get a timer, and on one side, if you miss the timer you dont get another chance to do whatever instant speed thing you wanted, and on the other this timer is not skippable, even if nobody has anything they CAN do. fortunately the games quality is high enough that it doesnt bother me, and if you have gotten to this point in my wall of text it probably wont get your goat either.
Planechase is inherantly unbalanced, the main draw of this game is the multiplayer planechase mode, and the cards in the planechase deck are absolutely nuts. if the first card is the one that gets you lands when you attack and you are against the green elf deck you are probably just dead. run into the rebound plane against the blue deck? probably dead. double strike and haste against one of the agro decks? DEAD! fortunately there are very few planes that insta lose the game, and the game tends to be very short if those planes get hit, but keep in mind, every plane is going to be good for someone and bad for someone else, and sometimes the dice will stick you on a plane that isnt good for you.
ALSO, THIS GAME USES THE 2013 RULESET, THERE ARE CARDS WHICH WORK DIFFERENTLY THEN THEY DO CURRENTLY, PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND.

so to re summarize, weigh this game against your options buying the new nicol bolas archenemy or planechase anthologies, and to a much lesser extent commander anthologies, not anything else in MTG. prepare to spend some time or money grinding or buying to unlock cards in the decks if you want to play with people who have the cards unlocked before you. the game plays a little bit slow. the decks are fairly well balanced, the campaign is cool, and I PERSONALLY think the game is worth the buy even off sale, if you see this thing on sale JUMP ON IT!