Recent reviews by kaye hdn

As of the 2.0 patch, this game is actually playable now. It was released two years too early, but now that development's finished, it's pretty okay. Get it if it's on sale.

It's okay, and I'm going to give it a recommendation, but it's nothing special.

The Lord of Nothing misses what made Through the Ashes so unique. That one really made you feel the struggle for survival - a single masterwork item was a major treasure, and hitting level 3 made you feel like a god. Through the Ashes is just a normal mid-level campaign. Yes, you're restricted on rests, and yes, you don't trip over major artifacts after every battle, but it just lacks bite.

The plot is interesting enough, though, and the basic gameplay is still solid. It's just nothing special. Buy it if it's on sale, otherwise it's safe to skip.

This game is extremely rough around the edges, but strangely captivating. I'd recommend that you hold off on buying it for another 3-4 months, but once all the balancing problems are ironed out and all the bugs are fixed, this will probably end up being a classic.

The game is extremely long (a non-completionist playthrough will easily take 100 hours), with intricate mechanics, and there aren't any real guides available at the moment. So, be aware that this is going to be one hell of a commitment. But the mechanical depth does arguably make it worthwhile, and there's something to be said for adapting a system as hilariously intricate as Pathfinder.

Repentance ruins this game. I've never seen a DLC that's quite as tedious as this, and because of how tightly it's integrated into the base game, I can't enjoy those parts anymore either.

The new rooms are chock full of forced damage layout. The graphics are ugly, too busy, and too dark; it's hard to tell what's going on. Performance is terrible.

There are too many worthless items, cluttering up the item rooms, and too many enemies with projectiles that are difficult or impossible to dodge. The new characters are aggressively worthless, and I just can't stomach the idea of continuing to play Binding of Isaac. The money I spent on Repentance was wasted, and I'd strongly caution against buying it.

Get the base game and the previous DLCs, though. Those are good.

The Mass Effect games are well worth playing, even today. They aren't modern classics, but there are very few sci-fi RPGs around, and most don't hold up as well as Mass Effect. ME2 is easily the weakest game in the trilogy, but it's not like you're going to skip the middle part, so...

The best game of the 2010s and it isn't even close.

I'm going to give this game a weak recommendation based mostly on the great soundtrack, the worldbuilding and the aesthetics. The actual gameplay is paper-thin at best, and it quickly gets repetitive. After about 1-2 hours you've seen everything the game mechanics have to offer, but playing through the campaign only takes about 3-4 hours, so I guess that works out.

It's worth mentioning that absolutely every single character in this game is a gay man. If that's the sort of thing that influences your decision.

It's okay. The meta-narrative elements are... very 2016, but the gameplay is decently fun.

Loved the writing. Didn't really love the gameplay. Be aware that, in terms of gameplay, this is less of an RPG and more of a bullet hell shooter stapled onto an adventure. But I had a great time all the same.

The verdict: I wanted to like this game, but I can't. This is the game for you if you're a supernaturally lucky person. Otherwise, can't recommend.

The good: The writing is excellent. The graphics do a very good job of getting the overall mood across and are creepy without getting overboard. The character classes are quite interesting. The music and sound effects are also pretty cool, and I love the overall idea of this game. However...

The bad: Success or failure is mostly random. This makes the game difficult, as advertised, but it is an extremely frustrating sort of difficulty. The game may give you a mission with eight combat rooms and corridors full of further combats and traps, or it may generate a mission with tons of loot and maybe a single fight. In combat, one crit from your enemy - or even an enemy using a particular attack, chosen at random - will often lead to a situation going rapidly out of control. If your party ever gets surprised (random chance), you may as well pack in then and there. You'll frequently have to skip a full turn to get everyone into a position where they can actually do something, and by that time your party will have a crippling amount of damage inflicted on it. It is generally not possible to salvage a bad situation. Some afflictions are utterly crippling, some stressed-out characters will skip their turns, whether a character who is "at Death's Door" will live is up to chance and so forth. Abandoning a mission (if you can roll a success on your flee-from-combat attempt!) will leave you with a group of stressed-out characters and not enough money to outfit a worthwhile expedition, so you'll have to go back to grinding the Ruins for a while so you can get another shot at the success roulette. Most combat skills also have random effects (apart from miss chance and dodge chance); the Occultist's heal skill, for instance, can do anything from "heal 10" to "inflict 3". This is not good gameplay. This is a slot machine.