Recent reviews by Moros

First of all: I played for the free weekend, hence the 'received the product for free.'

I have nearly two-thousand hours in Crusader Kings 2. I'd played it since near its launch and occasionally over the decade. I experienced its ups and downs, good implementations and bad. There were a lot of things Crusader Kings 2 had done right and wrong over those years but they all eventually got ironed out into better implementations--but not perfect ones.

Crusader Kings 3 was the opportunity to massively improve on a better foundation.

...It failed.

I didn't buy it at launch due to a combination of worrisome early issues and not having the money or time back then. I'd yet to buy the game because I simply didn't need to, and over the years, I still heard and saw bad things. But: recently, there was a free weekend, so I decided to check it out for myself.

I gave it three hours. There is actually a lot that I do like about Crusader Kings 3 compared to its predecessor; a lot of annoying small things were paved over and made better. Half-baked mechanics were improved and fleshed out on a better foundation and initial implementation, but... there's a problem to that. It wasn't simply 'baking the rest to completion.' They took what they missed and half-baked it again. There is so much potential here to be done right, but it just isn't there yet even after four years--even as development still focuses on new things.

Now, that's par for the course with Paradox Development Studio games. Absolutely nothing new. Some games have weathered it better (Crusader Kings 2, Europa Universalis 4, and Stellaris) while others... haven't. Notably, Imperator: Rome.

This feels a lot closer to Imperator: Rome than it does to Crusader Kings 2, and it kind of makes me feel bad to say that.

There are mechanics introduced in free updates that require the premium content to actually be not only complete as one would expect, but *not* be an active detriment to the game. The worst offender of this is the 'Legitimacy' mechanic, which can only be improved by either buying the DLC or modding it out entirely. It simply should not have been implemented at all as part of the free update due to such an immensely bad implementation.

I really want to like this game. It's on a large sale right now but even then, it just... isn't worth it. Maybe things will change in the future. Maybe I'll buy the game once it's been improved. But as of right now, this ain't it. Wasted potential, crunched ideas, misdirected development, and deeply questionable token free update content are the reasons why I can't recommend the game and I didn't even pay for it to play it.

This game has absolutely exploded and it's some of the best value I've ever gotten out of a game.

It's got ONE developer behind it, and they absolutely deserve the millions of dollars they've discovered.

There are a few minor gameplay loop issues I hope get improved, but they (and new content additions) are in the works.

DREDGE a fun fishing simulator where as a fisherman and explorer you help an archipelago full of friends to meet. The world has many secrets, but you'll need to work hard to upgrade your ship in order to reach them. You have to manage your ship's cargo hold by balancing upgrades against cargo capacity and trying to fit as many fish as you can before returning--I personally like these mechanics.

The price is a bit steep as far as games go for the amount of content, and the replayability is up to how much of a completionist you are, but I still feel the game was worth it.

Remember: be back before the fog rolls in.

I bought the game because a friend of mine gave it high praise.

Well, having played it now... you should too. TUNIC is extremely good in lots of major and minor ways I can't even begin to describe with justice. The level design is amazing, everything is intuitive, and you learn by intended mistake and pleasant surprise as you go. The game itself tries to capture a faux-retro feel of an old console game, and does so masterfully.

Don't look up how to play. Don't look up spoilers. Don't look up guides unless you absolutely somehow need to. Don't look up the secrets. Just go in, explore, check every nook and cranny, and have fun.

I personally feel like the game just isn't for me, but in my opinion the issues it has is that it's over-complicated, doesn't have a good tutorial system, and feels like an attempt to combine the good parts of CK2 and EU4 only to end up with the worst parts of both...

Should have been broken into an Immersion Pack and a DLC. Some of the changes with the Dharma update, I just flat out hate as well. Why are they making Immersion Pack DLCs but not selling things as Immersion packs?

I can understand the territory and state changes in the free update. They incentivize the use of Client States. But the Client State system is utterly terrible, and you can only have 10. The hardcap was done so you can't make your own mini-reformed-HRE vassalswarm, but it'd be a lot better to just add a minimum development limit.

It's an okay game, but it has too many problems for me.

First off, the game is what I can best describe as 'Starcraft meets Supreme Commander'. It's very balanced, every unit has it's strength and weakness... but that's it. It becomes a rock-paper-scissors match with what you can build. In Supreme Commander and Starcraft, you have multiple different ways of achieving the same outcome, but still differently. I can see this being good for some people but personally it's not what I like. It's overbalanced, I guess you could say.

I like the territory system and the ability to win a game without needing to eliminate the enemy, it promotes actively attacking and expanding rather than just turtling up. That's a plus in my opinion.

Those are my issues with the gameplay. Here are mine with the actual technical aspects, of which there are many...

Get the game, start it, start with the launcher, and I can't click anything on the menu. At all. Did digging, apparently it's a resolution bug... the game does not check your resolution (Or at least doesn't if you have an uncommon resolution, like me) and sets it by default. Which causes issues, because if you have an incorrect resolution that doesn't fit the buttons are screwed up. Only way to change is to manually edit the settings (The actual settings for the game aren't in-game, they're in a notepad accessed via the launcher... which only generates after running the game once and discovering this problem...).

Next is UI. The font is absolutely terrible. It's way too thing to accurately tell what your resources are. I tried upscaling the UI (Manually, because while you can in-game with this it ranges from 30% size to 70% size, I was already on 70% as it was the max. Game doesn't like uncommon resolutions much it would seem...) in the textpad, making it '1.10', or 110% normal size and the font was still near illegible.

Finally, and this is probably what bothers a lot of people but isn't so much an issue for me, voice acting. I can understand focusing on things other than VO work, if I enjoyed the game. The VO work feels as if it was recorded with a high-end gaming headset.

Had high hopes for the game and I can see people liking it but it just isn't for me, and it's filled with these technical issues. I'm getting a refund.

Do yourself a serious favor: Do not buy the game. Rockstar have no idea how to balance anything, apparently have never driven a car before, and have literally gimped certain elements of gameplay to make them more money.

All of this is not to mention the MANY small, annoying issues.

The PC port is ridiculously poor, it's just remapped controls and the barebones support for PC. You have to go into first person to actually swim underwater, you can have over 20 weapons you can access from a vehicle, with the only way to select to be scrolling through them. It scrolls one way, as for some reason scrolling down is for the radio, which DOES get a context wheel, showing they have the ability.

At launch, they had a massive problem with people who got tanks and jets just ruining the game for other people by contantly killing them. Their fix? Give everyone a homing rocket launcher (Which itself is terrible). Instead of giving people a way to fight back, they gave the people causing the issues in the first place something to be annoying with. Their next fix? Give all aircraft flare countermeasures, effectively stopping all ability to fight back. Again.

The car controls are terrible. I don't mean poorly ported, I mean with the actual game. Cars skid for no reason at all and mass is an arbitrary value. Again, you have the weapon selection issue.

GTA Online has Shark Cards, buy them for in-game money. A lot of in-game money. Which can then be used to by a tank and a military jet. Or an armored car you can shoot out of but can't be shot back at. There were missions that you could complete relatively quickly if you knew what you were doing, which admittedly was a balance issue, but let's face it: with all other issues, they chose THIS to fix? Why? Because if people are getting money quickly, that means they're not buying our shark cards.

There are so many things you get (And can only recieve from) having a console version of GTA V. Not even after years have they released it, you need to buy the game twice for that stuff.

They intentionally delayed the porting to PC to get more people from the hype to buy a console and the console version so they'd buy it twice.

The heists were, frankly, the highest quality thing they added. They have serious issues, but they actually added a lot of content. We've yet to see the same amount of content added, just more clothes, reskins of guns (Some are admittedly a LOT better than the original ones) and cars. They have added their Last Team Standing missions, which can be fun with friends, and we do get more of them over time, but because of them, they've kind've become the only thing keeping the game alive.

One of the worst parts about GTA Online? They have a swear filter. They have a SWEAR filter. On a game that is bordering on AO. Why? Because children play this game. Let that sink in. In a game where your generic name for another African-American as spoken by another African-American is VERY commonly said, in a game where you literally torture a dude, they're concerned about the children, think of the children!

Not, of course, to mention the actual engine and support issues. It's taken me this long to get to that, what's that say about the problems in the game? First, the game is ridiculously easy to hack. The actual server map can be manipulated from a joined client's game. They have a no-nonsense banning system that gets a lot of innocent bystanders banned. There is no support for these people, 'You were banned therefore you must have done something wrong!' is their mentality. In fact, their automated banning system bans people for ANY modification to game folders. Like an edited config file for your GRAPHICS, which are needed for many people to actually run the damn game. My friend can run ARMA 3 on max settings, but gets frame drops. That is how bad the optimization is.

Save your money. Buy literally anything else, you have the potential to have fun here, but it's really limited to your definition of fun.

They did really well making the game, it's beautiful and it gets the feels going. Controls of course can be a tad confusing, but it's needed due to the amount of abilities you get. Soundtrack's beautiful, the world's beautiful, everything is just beautiful.

Free and fun with friends. Very well made.