Recent reviews by Glacial Symphony

Nostalgia in its purest form, even if the gameplay hasn't stood the test of time.

It isn't Dark Souls. But their entire period of working in the franchise has given them an understanding of battle design that they tried to translate to Armored Core. And if I'm honest, it worked quite well.

There are a few downsides, such as certain builds being able to bruteforce with little regard for heavy movement, or the fact that various bosses will pepper you with weak attacks, whittling your AP and Stagger gauges down before they unleash one attack that removes 80% of your AP while you're staggered.

I'm with everyone in saying that the difficulty is a good thing, but the battle design is still somewhat imperfect as they try to get their footing with balancing AC assembly with Souls-like design. All of the bosses are just as hard as each other, and as long as you remember to keep an eye out for the warning indicator (that one siren that keeps playing and putting a red square on enemies) you stand a pretty good chance.

It isn't a dog. It isn't a dog. It isn't a dog. It isn't a dog. It isn't a dog. It isn't a dog.

This is quite a reluctant recommendation, but I'm giving it with the belief that Hopoo will be balancing this and fixing many issues. They have said that they're going to iron out some of the bugs, but the fact that there are no patch notes makes it hard to even know what's bugged or not- Rusted Keys now even drop Legendary items at a 100% chance.

Railgunner is very pleasant to play, and while Lean Fiend McTwitcherson has lots of potential and a unique gameplay style, it's extremely underpowered- you're either an invincible tank or a pointless glass cannon.

The new items are great to use, although some are slighly unbalanced with how overpowered they are- specifically a few Void items. And the changes to Burn damage are welcome, except when you get hit by them. They WILL end your run... if the Void enemies don't.

Some of the new enemies are good, but the new Void enemies are extremely difficult to contend with to a point where it feels unfair. Jailers are hard to see amidst the chaos, Barnacles are hard to take down from a distance and usually manage to spawn in groups and end you with their homing attacks, and the new boss is extremely powerful, but has little attack variation; the arena itself was far more interesting than the boss, especially due to the lack of lore on it and the lack of a proper ending.

Simulacrum is fun to play, and is pretty much a major highlight, with one of my only gripes being how Void Boss waves can easily kill anyone early on, making it so RNG based that it's downright impossible if you get it in early waves.

Another highlight has to be Chris' contribution to the soundtrack, delivering with amazing music for the new areas, menus, and even a new boss theme.

Overall, Hopoo have a fairly decent track record when it comes to balancing (sometimes) so I'm leaving a positive review on this one in the hopes that they do so.

lord, please forgive me for what i am about to do

The "Oh ♥♥♥♥, this is still counting my hours" application.

Still generally useful.

"You are but one man", the game repeats, as you brutally slaughter countless demons. They've clearly tried their hardest to improve on the previous game, and it shows with this labour of love. The story has been improved over the original, the gameplay is more expansive, the brutality has REALLY increased, and the environments... Compared to the last game, the environments are much more detailed and go beyond the "facility/hell" the last game had going for it.

Could do with some slight improvements. The platforming is a little slow, as is the secret collecting, but it's still pretty decent overall.

When I first saw the reveal, I was skeptical. It looked like a nice concept, but was probably super annoying to use. That's until they were put on a HUGE price drop.

I can honestly say that while I always prefer keyboard and mouse, the Steam Controller is probably the best attempt to emulate mouse controls out there. It takes some getting used to, and it feels wrong at first, but this controller is MEANT to change your perceptions about controllers.

Steam also provides a very expansive configuration system for the controller. You can either use controller configurations that other users have made, or make your own. But it's not just simple "binding buttons to actions" either. You have all kinds of choices, such as gyro controls, trackpad presses, trigger pressures (which I use a lot as a Heavy on Team Fortress 2- just press it down slightly to rev up, and press it all the way to fire. It's fun.)

That, and to be honest, I love the controller's "turn on/turn off" audio options. It has such a pleasant tune that it's kinda cute.

I've played enough of this game to get a fair opinion of it.

Risk of Rain 2 is incredible. I have not played the first, but I've heard very good things about that one. The second one is pretty incredible as well.

Risk of Rain 2 is a permadeath third person shooter where your only objective is to survive in multiple stages, each one being different in terms of layout, enemy spawn, item locations, and items themselves.

No single run is the same, and your run will vary, there's no simple way to exploit the enemies. Your survival depends on your skills and luck. However, just remember that you will be playing for literal hours in single sessions. I mean it.

--Strengths--

• The gameplay itself is solid. You start off with a single shooter character that is basically just a familiar third-person shooter playstyle, but you get more characters as you play.
  
• The game does an incredibly good job at easing you in. There are literally no tutorials to this game, but with enough observation, you quickly get the hang of it, and everything becomes second nature.
  
• You can always feel your progression. Every new item you collect is visible on your character, and all items are essential to your run. You almost never want to just skip an item because it's unimportant.
  
• Ever-increasing difficulty keeps you on your feet, although you're inevitably bound to die. Don't want to? Some stages even give you an option to end the run anyway if you ever get bored or too overpowered.
  
• Despite permadeath, a sense of progression is still there through achievements and collectible items. The achievements unlock new items for future runs, while the collectible items are simple things like enemy data.
  
• Continuing from the previous point, the game has "Lunar Coins", a secondary form of currency that carries over between runs. This currency can be used in runs to get access to powerful "Lunar Items" that have horrific drawbacks, such as an item that doubles your damage while halving your health. These items aren't a direct upgrade at all, especially if you're not skilled enough.

--Weaknesses--

• Naturally, as a game in Early Access, there are some slight issues. These are either bugs, or incomplete parts of the game. These aren't noticeable, but they are there. This shouldn't affect your view, but it's worth noting.
  
• There could be a little bit more randomness in the stage layouts themselves. The only layout changes applied to the stage are pathways opening and closing, alongside a few minor changes to terrain. It does get a bit formulaic sometimes, even with the ever-changing spawns and loot.
  
• If you get the right set of items, you could even manage to go on forever. The game provides an option to end your run naturally using either the pause menu, or an object found in the world. But you'll eventually get bored of your run. There is no endgame content or massive obstacle if you manage to get powerful enough. There could probably be more goals to achieve.

So while the game has some ways to go, it's amazing to play at the moment, and I highly advise you get it.

It's a solid game that continues to improve.

Destiny 2 is genuinely fun, and the issues it had at launch have been lessened a bit with the additions of some features. I haven't played enough of it to make a full critique, but I'm enjoying the gameplay so far, and hope that it doesn't get too repetitive.

One of my main concerns, however, is that The Red War (the initial campaign) was shelved into "Legacy Content", so you simply start in a way similar to Destiny 1, and there is no actual story or guidance as of what to do to ease you into the game.

Regarding the campaign itself, though, that's a whole other thing on its own. It's not hard to understand why it was made optional- the campaign story is kinda subpar, with the progression being the same way.

I'lll probably edit this when I have more to say.