Recent reviews by BossaNova

Easily the best VR game I have ever played in the four years I've owned a headset. Hands down. So many other VR titles feel incomplete, but this game is a complete package.

Physics based combat, progression, great visuals, unbelievably hype gameplay, and a unique soundtrack.

A MUST BUY FOR VR HEADSET OWNERS!

I have been looking forward to this game since the first time I finished Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen over ten years ago. The unique combat of DD:DA was so refreshing it instantly became one of my favorites. And by that I mean climbing up monsters to stab their soft bits instead of being a little ankle biter à la Dark Souls. It was no masterpiece. God knows DD without Bitterblack Isle was more than lackluster. But the Dark Arisen DLC was highly enjoyable, and an idea worthy of a sequel without the developers needing to worry whether it would even sell.

I am sad to say the sequel, despite having a literal decade to ferment old ideas and spawn new ones, is not worth playing. After 30 hours of digesting what the game has to offer, my overall conclusion is that there was no fervor or excitement to create this game. It exist only to be sold. So the team behind it could say: "We've created the minimum viable product, let's move on." There is nothing groundbreaking. In many ways it detracts from the original gameplay.

Horrid menus, depressingly few boss monsters, generic music, conflicting game design like SO MUCH conflicting game design, recycled bland copy-pasted terrain with a miserable little collectathon coin placed annoyingly atop the highest/lowest most inconvenient points, and a god awful main story.

Where did all of the years of work go into this game? Placing 240 Seeker Coins in the most CBT-esque locations?

Isn't what makes Dragon's Dogma Dragon's Dogma the fact that you are playing an arisen, thereby already giving you the soul purpose of killing the damn Dragon or die trying? What absolute imbecile suggested this stupid secret royalty inter-kingdom politics line of story? I'd be lying if I acted like DD1 had a radical story, but the focus was on adventuring when all was said and done. Especially when you consider Bitterblack Isle and the Everfall.

All of this graciously ignoring the nauseating issues with performance, controls, camera, and basic features.

I'm sure a different studio with some actual passion could take this style of gameplay and make a true gem. I pray someone will do it right in my lifetime.

Fantastic game. Can't really think of anything this game does that I don't enjoy. Easy recommend at full price. Works on steam deck now too, apparently.

However, there is currently an issue with joining multiplayer games and being able to actually log in to play, but these are temporary issues indicative of just how enjoyable and fresh the game is. These will be solved within a week or so I'm sure. The "mostly positive" rating stems from this temporary issue.

Game's environment effects gameplay in a very immersive and enjoyable way. Mechanics seem grounded in the game world.

Stumble across an old artillery station? Start that thing up and load it up with different ammo to shell bugs anywhere on the map.

Looking at more bugs than you have bullets? Call in an orbital strike from your ship in orbit.

Ever seen a wasp try and sting and kill after it's head has been destroyed? That also happens here. You can shoot off the limbs of a bug and it will still try to kill you.

Your fellow Helldiver was torn in half? Call in a new one from orbit. If you have random voice/body type selected it will be a new helldiver and not the same one that just died. This is how you are respawned in game.

Got smacked by a bug the size of a school bus? Yeah you're gonna go flying ragdoll style.

Need to be sneakier for the mission or want to enjoy the lightshow that happens during fighting? Pick the night time side of a planet in orbit to play a night mission.

Having a hard time killing bugs? Watch the enemies reaction to being shot in certain spots to find the most effective target per bug.

Don't want to use your resupply stratagem just yet? Walk around and find a point of interest for minor ammo, might even find an awesome support weapon you don't have unlocked yet. I was able to extract successfully from a nearly hopeless mission because I found an amazing arc thrower weapon.

Game does a marvelous job of never taking you out of the game world. Loading screens are almost all hidden.

Very unexpected was the ultra-patriot humor. It's actually pretty hilarious. I got to name my ship the Founding Father of Family Values.

This game is fantastic. The level destruction and physics blows my mind. How such insane simulation is possible in multiplayer is just amazing. That plus tight shooter mechanics, parkour, movement tech, and reasonable TTK might make this my favorite shooter ever. Absolutely amazing.

Focusing on the hard gameplay updates we need, such as:

ALLUSIONS TO REAL-WORLD HATE GROUPS

CHARACTER SEXUALIZATION & AGENCY

RACIAL SENSITIVITY

This is good for America

You know what you're getting with this one. Uncomplicated beautiful action, and it delivers. It's stable. It plays as you'd expect. I did stop playing the side missions after the second one so consider the 6 hour playtime an average Very Hard playthrough.

Excellent sound, visuals, and gameplay.

I don't know how but please give me this game in VR.

I'm glad stealth was almost never forced.

You already know the story is a shallow sideshow. Really wasn't expecting that backrooms crossover. Despite having the least combat that Soviet Base isn't my least favorite. It was a decent horror sequence. I appreciate wisely keeping things quiet.

Besides fuller-auto and burst pistols the weapon customization is pretty whatever.

Only the second to last boss fight really felt appropriate for this type of game. Just about every other boss was just a bit of a bullet sponge chore. The final fight really captures that horrid Dark Souls "die-until-you-memorize-it" attack pattern recognition which I so hate and While removing some of your abilities definitely up'd the challenge it also severely limited your options during combat, which on Very Hard lead to just over relying on cloak during the mob phases and just i-frame sliding the boss attacks.

Non-human enemy design kinda reminded me of Typing of the Dead. I am glad the basic zombie style enemy only ever shows up once though. It was really boring to fight.

Probably about half of the arenas in game could of used some more spawns.

Flashlight could be brighter and wider.

I wish empty guns would despawn after a while.

Only performance issue I noticed was a stutter after tabbing out for along period. Fixed on restart.

At $15 dollars, I'd be lying if I said it's not worth it, but it's no where near perfect. Best thing about this game is being able to drag downed people around and local voice.

The more people play this game and figure out what's best, the less fun it becomes. The way most maps are designed, the caffeine-fiend armed with his Kriss has a very easy time sprinting from house to house clearing out people playing the tactical shooter game. The houses are very close together, meaning less time in the open, and just by the act of holding his SMG, he is extremely fast. Tagging him isn't enough, he can regain speed very quickly. Sometimes it seriously feels like my opponent and I are playing entirely different shooters with the TTK difference between us. It's like I'm playing Halo and they're playing Counter Strike. The more I think about it, it might just be go for headshots or go home. The more bullets you can fire at their block head in 0.75 seconds the better.

I know for sure that this game allows you to turn on a dime while sprinting, making for some highly unnatural movements. If it doesn't already have it, the curve between standing still and full speed sprint should take about 2 seconds. You have stupidly tight air control. You can hop out of a third story window and circle back midair to catch the second story one. All the more reason to lean towards a super-light all times sprinter loadout.

The worst thing I'd say about this shooter is that it's one of those confused shooters. Are we tactical Q:E lean with quick time-to-kill? Or are we arcade-y sprinters with lots of time to react to incoming damage? This question is currently defined by whatever gun you're holding. That is to say: the balance between guns is bad. An LMG that slows you to around 75% of the max movement speed has much longer TTK than the 100% movespeed (maybe more) SMG the bunny-hopping halo-corner-jumping monster-energy-consuming twitch.ttv name is holding. Why? Because you probably have to reload the SMG after every kill I guess? Not like you'd want to reload the LMG anyways as you'll be sitting nearly 10 seconds. You're forced to setup an ambush, and EVERY action you perform will be animating much slower than the aforementioned kidney-stone pisser. That guy and you are playing entirely different shooters. Personally I think with the leaning, harsher than normal recoil, and comparatively slower movement this game should play more like Intruder.

There are still a surprising amount of static objects that can't be destroyed. Calling them "near-fully destructible maps" is a stretch.

I know in some games you can spam crouch but it won't immediately orient your model to that state to prevent insane movement. While I think that specifically is in the game; swiveling your view around back and forth, jumping frantically and sprinting makes you extremely hard to hit, as long as you aren't holding that slow LMG that is. Honestly you'd think in a game like this you could maybe lose your balance and ragdoll if you were shot while hopping around like a madman.

Second worst: there is hardly any pizzazz on this game. It's about as flat, bland, and non-dramatic as it gets. The most impressive effect I can remember is the muzzle flash lighting up the space around the shooter. Other than that the sound is absolutely horrid. It's like this game was developed in a fictional country where they aren't allowed to sell a game with realistic ballistic sounds for fear of setting off someone's PTSD. It's without a doubt the worst sounding war-game I've ever played. The default sniper seriously sounds like playdough being tossed at a wall. Getting hit by an RPG in a vehicle sounds like hitting a pot hole. Grenades sound like shards of pottery hitting a tile floor, not to mention extremely slow to throw out and have moon-physics.

While there are an impressive amount of options to configure, there still aren't as many as modern battlefield games would have. Most annoyingly you have little teammate pips that show through walls at all times across the entire map and seemingly can't be turned off, yet. Surely the option to set a max range to see teammates through will be added.

wahh im a multi million dollar company and can't let you aim with your mouse if you start with a controller plugged in waaahhhh

This is a very solid start and is worth buying at full price. It definitely recaptured that spark of creativity that's missing from pretty much every modern video game with it's unique combat. The non-combat features feel incomplete, but I'd bet there's not a single feature that'll remain the same by release. That's the short of it.

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Like I said it's definitely unique, quite fun to learn, and is enjoyable in it's current iteration. With that said there's tons of room and potential for improvement. I'll start with actual problems and go into what I'd like to see:

• At times the enemies would charge in for a quick kiss and shove my character backwards. When it worked it felt like a feature, but more often than not enemies would get in my face and not want to leave. When stuck like this they'd sometimes throw out attacks insanely fast while finally backing up, all of which did nothing thanks to great foundation the combat has, but it's was awkward. Enemies don't seem concerned with keeping you within THEIR weapon range. Also I wondered if I could do this same maneuver to the bots, but never figured it out. And no it wasn't just kicking. Maybe it was just the physics of them charging into me at full speed?
  
  
• Related to this, the movement speed cap is far too high in my opinion. Or at least the minimum difference should be lower between opposing fighters. Like they could only roll stats within a certain range of your team's average or something. That may well be already in place but it felt to me like that sort of stuff is tied to fight level. Could we do both?
  
  
• A lot of weapons have an undeniably "best" attack. One that comes out fast enough, has great coverage/length, and is easiest to deal meaningful damage. That's not unrealistic, but preferred attacks are so broadly applicable to any match-up that you can go a whole bout without using anything else. The double-sided battle axe is one of these. An excellent right side horizontal swings, and pitiful left-side attacks. The left sided attacks looked like they were meant to be pommel strikes, but if you bend your character torso around far enough, you can still touch them with the axe head, and deal an unrealistic amount of damage for such a short travel time. Two-handed swords felt the best to use due to all angles of attack being a full swing, which really allowed the combat to shine. With the axe I was stuck with in several of my runs as a god tier heirloom (a terrible design choice), I had no problems winning, but also devolved into only using half my available attacks. All angles of attack should be a full swing when fully charged, and pommel strikes should be controlled like thrust/overheads or low power (not fully dragged out) quick strikes.
  
  
• High-stat enemies show just how insane you can get your character to be. Some of them must be at the stat cap for their weapon, because they swing at lightspeed for full damage and expend very little stamina while doing so. I hope the upper limit for these things are brought down.
  
  
• AI spearmen are the worst. And by this I mean incredibly hard to beat. I think it's to be expected that a spear thrust is hard to block without a shield, but the rate at which these little fugs can pump out decent damage if they want too is horrific. I know if I gamble on a 1-v-Many fight and see three enemy spearmen coming out the gate my line is over. I think it's fine that this is a somewhat boring but incredibly strong combo (spear and shield), but the previously mentioned lack of useful attack angles turns this from a challenge to frustrating slog. I feel like I should be able to block an attack, dash in close, and rip away the shield for an opening. The move speed and attack angle issues hurt most in this situation. Also since this is such an easy and strong combo put a cap on this class entering a single bout.
  
  
• Speaking of shields there should be a cap on max shield allowed in a single bout or more ways to deal with them (give better attack angles).
  
  
• There were times where I'd throw out a undeniably weaker than normal attack but still made a good connection with my sharp side on bare skin. These attacks almost always dealt no meaningful damage. I'm pretty sure this game is half-and-half on the physics based combat. Like the damage hurt box isn't as precise as to consider flat-side vs sharp side hits for damage. Could be something else but it was quite annoying.
  
  
• In Many-vs-Many fights most of my kills would come from backstabbing people. I wish the AI did a better job protecting it's vulnerable areas. It's so easy to hit and run. They'll walk at you for a bit then go fight someone else, leaving their backside open again. It's too good not to do, especially when first starting out a run. I think the audience should hate those "dishonorable" kills and AI should change their target to you if you approach too close. Maybe give the cheer button a taunt to make enemies fight you until one of you is dead? Also they are too quick to give you a 1v1 even if you've been hitting both of them. Bots should be mean and dishonorable to the PC.
  
  
• I wish you could like dash into your shield as it's connecting with an attack to send the attack flying wild and leave the enemy open. Like real parry. Maybe you can already do something similar but I'd like it to be a dedicated feature.
  
  
• Low strikes get extremely floppy and can be impossible to read. There needs to be some animation fixing here.
  
  
• Throwing weapons is awesome, but it's easy to lose track of or literally lose your starting weapon if you throw it. Maybe give your weapons a godray indicator and protection from being picked up by enemies for a few seconds? Also I'd LOVE to make a throwing-centric Aspirant, but there are currently no weapons with multiple things you can throw in one slot. Like a throwing knife belt/quiver of javelins or axes.
  
  
• pleasemakerapiers
  
• andworkshopsupport

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• Patreons hardly matter. Of course they will be receiving more content, but I think the issue right now is that there's no reliable way to garner favor with them. I don't know why who's hosting a match is hidden info, it shouldn't be. I really think this should be your main goal/focus outside of winning in combat. Getting in good with a Patreon. Patreons should make request during rounds to increase favor gain too.
  
  
• Please immortalize successful characters in a hall of fame with top stats in their careers. Also don't just end the run after you win your story start; put character in an impossible fight to the death. This society is all about it's blood-sport sacrifice right?
  
  
• Slave start should have earnings made outside of arena fights be exempt from the 50% tax.
  
  
• Heirloom weapons should not exist as it is now. You can already invest in your next character. You shouldn't be able to pass down a top tier axe from one line to the next. It's trivializing things, and that's a very very bad honey pot trap for gamers. They don't even realize they're ruining their own fun.
  
  
• Audience interest needs to be fleshed/matter out more. I like that they'll start throwing fruit at you if you piss them off though. Goes to show the creativity of this developer, and I have no doubt this and everything else here will be given more depth.
  
  
• Would like to see training mini-games, or at least auto-buy needed equipment. Will be changed I'm sure.
  
  
• Betting. Easiest way to lose all your money for only a 20% gain. I can get down with the high risk but there's little reward now. Make higher returns and more realistic goals. Again, will be changed certainly.
  
  
• Gold on death should be invested automatically, maybe with outside factors increasing/decreasing gross amount like perks, patreon favor, etc. Very strange to do it by 1000 and 10000 for a 10% return.