Recent reviews by Umbrawolf

Pretty decent with some more interesting puzzles than I usually see from these games. The human faces are creepy as heck though!

Glad the Remake kept the best part of the original: No Shinra guys even noticing the giant man with a gatling gun for a hand. 10/10

I definitely gave this game a fair shake, but it never really clicked for me. I can see the appeal of Harvestella to some people, but I am not one of those. In my opinion, it winds up being both a mediocre farming sim, and a so-so RPG with half-cooked combat, in a rather bland world.

Graphically, the game looks not much better than a Playstation Vita title, and the lack of variety amongst the NPCs also betrays the limited budget the team surely had. The music is halfway decent, but with all the dialogue (that I've seen) being text-based, and with unskippable cutscenes, there is just a certain dryness to the presentation.

The combat system is very uninspiring. The job system is a great thing and I am always a fan of those, but it's not remotely as deep as I would like. With enemies frequently having unavoidable direct damage attacks, combating bosses is usually just a matter of consumables. If you made/bought enough to heal, you will win.

Maybe this was just a poor next game choice after 100+ hours of Elden Ring. It felt like getting out of a Bugatti and into a Honda Civic. A Civic will get you from Point A to Point B but the journey will be unmemorable. I didn't want to finish this journey. 6.5/10

I decided to buy Elden Ring on the PC after beating it on my PS5 mainly to see how it performed on the Steam Deck during my holiday trip. Surprisingly well, as it turns out. Except for the font being illegible on that small screen…

I won’t extol too much the virtues of this great game…that’s been done to death. What I will say is this: if you have ever been interested in a Souls-like but intimidated by the difficulty, this is the game for you. It is as approachable or as dense and difficult as you want it to be. It is in my top-10 all-time games (and I’ve been around awhile) for a reason.

The PC port is…it’s okay. There is no in-game option to increase draw distance (that I’ve found), and the frame rate is locked to a max of 60 it seems. More annoyingly, the game has frozen on me multiple times, and twice I’ve lost controller input for no reason. Maybe it’s my system, but a review of the forums says that’s not likely. You’ve been so informed.

Otherwise it’s a 10/10 game…not perfect, but incredible fun with enough struggle tossed in to make victory feel incredible.

While I can heartily recommend this game, it is far from a good, polished game. This is a game that is greater than the sum of its parts. The combat is janky (i.e. imprecise, floaty, haphazard, unbalanced) but somehow fun...even taking into account that the combat AI is dumber than a Congressman.

The graphics vary from "omg pixel noise" to "that's kind of pretty!" The music is uninspiring, but the voice acting (despite some uneven performances) is pretty solid. The world building is well-done and interesting, and the storyline has enough to hold my attention. This is AA- gaming at its unpolished best.

But, be warned...it's harder than Elden Ring. The power curve is insane, and it's a LONG drag to get to the "can survive 2 beasts" point. Patience and plenty of quicksaves are a total necessity.

7/10 in eurojank glory

Hi, I am a AAA Dev from [Faceless Profit-Sucking Conglomerate], here to tell you this game sucks because it's:

-Well made
-A terrific value
-Has an engaging story
-Has non-cringy characters you actually want to know
-Actually lived up to the hype and surpassed it
-From developers not currently suffering allegations of abuse, harassment, and soulless firings

Please don't support this game! My boss needs another Ferrari!

New World has been pretty fun for the several weeks I have played it. Certainly I have not racked up the hundreds or thousands of hours that an MMO normally brings (yet), but I can give the newcomers’ view just fine.

Pros:
I enjoyed the gathering and crafting portions
Combat can be challenging and enjoyable (I do so like action combat MMOs)
The graphics are lovely
The community does not seem evil like WOW or League of Legends
No subscription fee
No serious P2W (but getting the expansion is not optional)

Cons:
Disjointed storyline
Mediocre music
Lack of significant differences between a lot of biomes
Not really sure about the future of the game
Very limited character creation. Shamefully so.
Framerate inconsistencies

Overall: 8/10, worth a try!

I think I will write somewhat in-depth review that will be ignored by everyone anyways…but why not?

I bought this game when it reached Early Access, which was around the time of the “not-to-be-mentioned” pandemic that never happened in the great land of China. Wolcen was not remotely close to ready for Early Access at the time; full of bugs galore and crashes a plenty. As a fan of Diablo and Diablo-wannabes, I decided to give it a second chance after several years of incubation…hoping this time it would be enjoyable (and I could get some value for my money). In the end…it’s alright. Just alright.

The graphics are pretty well done, with high resolution and a commitment to theme. Frame rates are high for me with a 3080, and I have encountered very few hitches even when surrounded by 30+ foes. It does offer nothing to stand out, however, and the limited budget shows in the reduced number of biomes and creature designs compared to its peers. On a side note, I wish developers would stop with the “warrior woman fighting in 5-inch stilettos” look. It’s goofy as hell.
The voice acting is surprisingly good and plentiful. I wish the sound and music were memorable but…they’re just present.

The campaign story is nothing groundbreaking. It’s the usual “save the world from the demonic menace” story we’ve seen more times than a Kardashian in her undies. I will say the couple twists and a few characters are pretty interesting, so there’s that.

Ah the gameplay…the meat of an actiony isometric hacker/looter. It’s pretty good! There are lots of build options and it’s nice that you’re not locked into one playstyle. With a little bit of gold, anything is possible. That said, my gameplay did not change much from levels 10 to 30. Same skills, same rotation, same results. It feels like combat does not evolve as much as it could as you grow in power. Also, the campaign environments are very linear. There are few/none of the open areas to explore, just corridors of enemies. And those corridors drag on a bit too long (if you ask me), perhaps to pad the campaign. On the plus side, quick travel is very easy and cost-free.

Others have commented on stability and bugs, but I can say up until now, I’ve had zero crashes and a handful of minor glitches, none of which prevented me from continuing. Your mileage may vary, but other than more polish to animations, the game is stable enough for my tastes.

In the end, what we have here is a competent, if unremarkable game with aspirations to be in the same vein as Diablo, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, Titan Quest, and a few others. Wolcen does not have the budget, style, or refinement to reach those heights, but it’s a decent effort. Wolcen 2 might be worth looking out for, but Wolcen gets a 7/10 from me and a sideways thumb that I’m turning upwards only because that is not an option.

Fell Seal is a fantastic game, considering the small size of the development team, the budget, and the price. A lot of comparisons have been made to Final Fantasy Tactics, but Fell Seal is really its own beast. The plot is much simplified and straightforward, though it does pay homage to FF:T with a few turns. It's really the class system and the balance that a player will enjoy. There are endless possible builds and each map is very distinct. While the enemy AI is nothing special, it at least will focus on vulnerable targets and use a lot of condition-causing effects.

The graphics are passable but it's the scenery that looks best, as the character portraits do not mesh well with the character sprites. On the other hand, that means the game runs extremely well on older PCs because it is so undemanding. Sadly, the music is forgettable (in my opinion), and there is no voice acting. I am sure the development team did the best they could with the resources at hand.
I really like this game, and I've already beaten it on Switch. The fact I am still playing it here says a lot. 9/10 - high recommend.

To be fair, while the graphics and gameplay are ludicrously ancient, there is a very large and engrossing story to follow, a couple dozen interesting companions, and a well-realized world. The character builds are huge in variety (but woe unto those who don't know how to build properly), leading to a wide array of options. Because of its age, I can only recommend this game to those with incredible patience--it's text heavy, you move very slowly and the AI pathfinding is abysmal. I won't give it a score...it's not appropriate for such an old game with a specific audience.