Recent reviews by Divino

absolutely incredible

buy it, buy it now, buy it for your friends, buy it for your family, the quotas must be met, the company must grow

The Concept is unique and very well thought out.

The Foundation has been laid for a while, and is very solid from a game play perspective.

The Execution and game feel is okay, and clearly needs work, but is serviceable for EA; issues like having to walk an absurd amount and some forgotten or undeveloped systems being kept around.

The Development is what a lot of people have an issue with, me included. I have owned this game for around 6 years, and while the story, the features, the balancing have all changed, the foundation has remained the same and at no point has the game felt polished in any specific regard. The amount of perceivable development for a "3 person dev team with no publisher working on this project full time" (from their EA game notice) is more akin to one or two developer's side project, especially at this point in time where updates are literal years apart.

People may say this project is not abandoned, but actions speak louder than words.
I would not give this project any more money, despite having loved the time I spent on the game.
If the developers posted any updates or status on Steam on even a bi-monthly basis, I would feel otherwise. However update "clusters" are measured in half-years now.

It is clear that this is a side project. That it is now an obligation, and not passion. The last significant update was two years ago. Two. Years. And the one before that? Two years.

It should be noted that, yes, the Pandemic did occur. Yes, games did slow down development. However, this sluggish development has been occuring since around 2018. A look at the update history changes shows this easily.

I hope that this game is continued to be worked on, or communication is improved, or anything.
But I've gone into and graduated college since the game went from 0.8 to 0.9.3, and I think I'm going to move on with my life with this game as a relic of the past.

Words cannot fully describe the laziness of the UI. It is CLEAR as day Bethesda expects YOU to fix it.
The UI is straight-up a WIP Dev UI. I write this review ENTIRELY because of how insultingly lazy the UI is. Nothing in this game could possibly redeem it.

+ The quick loot takes up the whole right side of the screen, has significant empty space, and the text is unreadibly small.
+ The health bar takes up less space than the day-night indicator and only changes color at the 25% health margin. It's also in the corner of the screen, barely visible, and shrinks TOWARDS the center of the screen, instead of away from the center.
+ The inventory as a whole.
+ The UI is the world's most boring stark white with not a single frill, flair, or stylization. Bars, lines, circles.
+ CONSTANT PRESSING AND HOLDING that slows down EVERYTHING significantly.

Simply comparing the UI to Fallout 4 shows how much of a step back it is.
The top mods on Nexus are already nothing but performance and UI changes.

As a preface, I'm not opposed to difficulty, and have beaten the game, and am working on NG+. Also, a sizeable portion of people don't have an issue with Balteus. Either due to simply having a good build for the boss going in, brute forcing it, or RNG.

But I cannot recommend this game to anyone who isn't a diehard AC/Fromsoft fan or a background in beating tough videogames.

HOWEVER it is an AMAZING GAME I absolutely love despite this boss, a solid 9/10, which makes this review hard to write.

Many people I know just want a cool mech videogame to play, and have picked up AC6; it is a really good game to say the least. However, many of these people also have made it to Balteus and struggled immensely, spending multiple hours on a single boss.. In the first Chapter of the game. Me included when I first played.

As a result, a lot of people will no longer want to play, simply because this has been the introduction to the game; some relatively easy combat and missions, followed up by a boss they spend hours and hours trying to beat, just to access the rest of the game. This was my introduction as well.

However, the issue lies in that nothing compares to the difficulty spike of Balteus for me, or others I've talked to that struggled as well. It's a boss that for a notable portion of people is unrivaled in it's difficulty for the rest of its game. This is due to a lot of reasons, from experience gained from playing more missions to the expanded equipment later, no boss is such a roadblock as Balteus was.

Below is a explanation/deconstruction of my reasoning.
So why do I dislike Balteus so much in specific?

- The complexity of the boss: I have played plenty of FromSoft's other titles, and the complexity of Balteus is on-par with many of the final bosses of their games.

This is an issue simply because of the boss's place in the game. It's the end of Chapter 1. Many will say 'it's a filter boss,' completely forgetting that it takes about 3-6 hours to reach this point depending on how fast people are trying to go through the game. It's not a 'filter boss'. The boss in the first mission is the tutorial filter boss. It's not too hard but still difficult for new players, and teaches them a lot of important skills with a set of equipment able to defeat the boss. The purpose of this is; if you are unable to beat that boss, the rest of the game is too hard for you. This is not what Balteus is.

Balteus has a lot of complexity for a Chapter 1 end boss. It has arena-wide tracking attacks, arena-wide AOE attacks, tracking melee swings that require dodging at a specific angle or staying under the boss.. And that's just it's primary attacks. It also has a secondary weapon it switches between it can shoot at any time it's not using a primary attack. This requires players to memorize and keep track of two attack patterns at the same time, and do be able to dodge both of them, as taking damage from one can lead to being damaged by the other.

A boss with the same complexity of hard to dodge arena-wide AOEs interwoven with melee attacks and secondary weapons.. Doesn't appear until the end of chapter 2, and is much more appropriately difficult. The C-Spider. At this point, you have effectively doubled the available equipment for strategies to defeat the boss, and most importantly, it isn't a DPS check like Balteus is.

In a lot of ways, Balteus has qualities comparable to Elden Beast, and yet is MORE complex than even Elden Beast. Massive AOE homing projectile spam in in both, Balteus having the various homing missile attacks reminiscent of Elden stars and rain of stars. The large sweeping melee attacks with high tracking except in a specific angle which you must dodge towards. Large area-denial attacks which force you to move away from the boss. The boss constantly running away from you and requiring you to chase it down while it uses large AOE attacks.. The similarities are rather apparent to say the least of it.


- Gimmick weapon: Balteus heavily implies the use of a gimmick weapon to defeat them. You must have bought beforehand in order to even have the choice of equipping it for the fight, due to not being able to access a shop during the fight.

This is due to the health of the shield being exceptionally large and it's rather quick recharge time compared the amount of damage many might be outputting at this point. A lot of people will struggle to chip a fifth of the health bar simply due to not having enough damage, or running out of ammo early.

The weapon that you are offered in the store about a mission before Balteus' boss fight is specifically meant to damage these types of shields, which no enemy before Balteus even had, and nearly none after has, except for AC abilities and.. The second Balteus fight.


- Limited time to damage: When his shield goes down, it negates all damage from the attack that downed it; it does not carry over. The shield also regenerates instantly to full after a set amount of time, requiring you to deal the damage again to have a chance at damaging the boss.

The shield also regenerates no matter what at the end of this timer, including while the boss is staggered, and can lead to a lot of frustrating moments.

This requires you to use a high burst-DPS strategy with the ability to take down the shield reliably, and without running out of ammo first.. Further encouraging use of the aforementioned gimmick weapon, as it is EASILY able to take down the shield compared to the other weapons available. Where the shoulder-mounted plasma cannon will take 6 fully-charged shots to break the shield alone, the bubble blower gimmick weapon will do it in 2 bursts.


- Inconsistencies of the boss: There's a few issues with Balteus' programming and design that are either inconsistent or dishonest.

The Shotgun: I have done testing and found out that the shotgun's spray effect is purely visual. The shotgun fires an invisible 'slug' that deals major direct damage has minor damage areas around it. If you are within a certain distance, this invisible slug will do full damage if you do not dodge it like the bazooka he fires. If you were wondering why you take 1700 AP+ despite the spray seeming to mostly miss you, this is why.

The weapon swaps: Balteus starts with the Bazooka equipped and fires 1-3, switches to MG, fires 1-3 bursts, switches to Shotgun, fires 1-3 shots, then repeats. This pattern is fine.
However, Balteus can skip firing one of these weapons if you move out of the firing arc while they are about to shoot. This can result in Balteus switching from the Bazooka straight to the Shotgun, which is an issue.

The Bazooka has a loud and obvious audio queue when it is about to fire, and requires you to dodge AFTER it has been fired due to the slower projectile speed but good tracking. However the shotgun has no audio cue, and fires quickly and instantly after it is readied, as the machinegun that comes before it is SUPPOSED to be the cue that it is going to be used next. Skipping the machinegun after Balteus has fired only 1 bazooka shot can lead you to taking max-damage shotgun blasts when expecting another bazooka shot.

Firing weapons while staggered: If Balteus is staggered while preparing to fire a weapon; the Bazooka, MG, Shotgun, or half-ways through firing a missile attack, they will continue the attack regardless. This is bad for a lot of reasons you can infer.

Rapid AOE phase transition: Balteus can initiate the phase transition anytime it's below about 55% of it's HP, however does not always do it immediately. If you are not keeping an eye on the HP at all times while nearing this point, you can lock yourself into unavoidable damage due to just being too close to get away when the phase transition occurs, feeling very unfair when it does happen.

Comments are open

I want to love this game, I want to love it so bad. But I don't. The balancing for melee combat is horrendous.
TL;DR, if you want to do a melee build in this game, do unarmed/fists, swords, or look up a guide.

Trying to play a melee build that isn't unarmed (ironically enough) is painful for mid and late game as most other melee enemies can debuff you to the point that you become effectively comatose without spamming adrenaline in every-single-fight, and even then, that's just to get back on equal ground. You can stack armor, anti-crit, all of the damage resistance, and some guy wearing an iron oven mitt will in fact solo you in your full plate armor.

Here is an example fight, very common with any humanoids;
- A melee enemy (sledgehammer, dagger, fist)
- A ranged enemy (crossbow, pistol, machinegun)
- A rush-down enemy (dog)

The rush-down enemy will usually spot you first, unless you've tried speccing into being a stealthy full-plate knight somehow, or just have multiple armor sets.

When the fight begins, the rush-down enemy will usually have first initiative, and proceed to do as intended, going in a straight line to you, and attacking you
.
As this is usually a dog, regardless of if you completely block ALL damage from them, you will have the "tackled" debuff applied for multiple stacks. If you are a heavy armor user, this effectively removes all of your movement points, and chunks your action points.
Regardless of if you are able to kill the dog, the damage has been done. You are now standing there, unable to move, unless you ran the measly 3 tiles you could after being "tackled" several times.

The second part of the fight begins, where the melee enemy moves in. This is usually one of two enemies; a one-handed melee, or a two handed melee. If it's one handed, it's fists or a knife. If it's two handed, it's a sledgehammer.
Both the fists and the knife can inflict a horrible debuff, and the AI will always try to spam it;
Crippling Strike

It's another stacking debuff, which is reduced strength. The usual amount of stacks the AI will manage to apply at any given time is 2, resulting in -4 strength. Even with maxed strength, this results in you unable to meet the basic sledgehammer, or upgraded spear's strength requirement, meaning that either two-handed weapon now has a 55% hit chance at most, regardless of enemy dodge. This issue is further compounded if you had a semi-full inventory, which you likely do, as your armor weighs about 60 on its own, and if you're using a sledgehammer, another 20.

The reduced strength affects your carrying capacity, usually putting you encumbered as a result, and further reducing any movement points, alongside action points.

As a result, within the first round of combat, you have usually been reduced to standing there, tanking hits, and swinging (twice, at most) at anything next to you.

When the melee enemy is a sledgehammer, instead they will first use "Pummel" which reduces your dodge and evasion to 0, making you an easy target for them and their friends. And you remember that heavy armor you made? It's COMPLETELY 100% useless against the sledgehammer. It just ignores your armor. So hope you have the HP pool to tank a few hits.

Then, the ranged enemy is involved. You better hope they're not a pistol user, or a crossbow user. If they have either, they will regularly spam their special debuff too.
Kneecap shot

If you still had any movement, somehow, you now don't have any. For 3 turns. You also take 125% of the original damage over a few turns as well.

Crossbow enemies also tend to pack special bolts, and spam them at every chance they get. Usually poison or stunning electric bolts. This is added on top of the kneecap shot.

If you're a heavy armor user, seeing an enemy with a machinegun is good, because while they hurt, they let you play the game still. The only ability they spam is "burst" which just makes them shoot more.

As a result, melee combat turns into a slogfest. You attack twice, then stand there, and hope you don't get critted despite your anti-crit equipment. This repeats until the melee enemies die or you do, at which point you are given the privilege to walk to the ranged enemies and beat them to death.

Energy shields are supposed to help offset some of this, however, finding one or a blueprint for one is nigh-impossible. Everyone sells components. No-one sells a blueprint or the real thing. Debuffs are also still applied, especially if it's a one-handed melee user, who usually ignores 40-80% of an energy shield regardless of it's impact speed tuning.

Ironically enough, due to the action point economy being so harsh to two-handed melee, it is usually far more effective to throw frag grenades at your own feet than try and melee the three dogs and a hobo with an electric stun-shiv swarming you.

A lot of the debuff issues could be fixed with one simple thing; companions. Something ranged to kill thing while you stand there and occasionally hit things, and take debuffs as well. However this was never intended to be put into the game. So, stand there, occasionally melee something, and listen to the tin can sound of your armor getting dinked endlessly.

Buy it if you enjoy interactive art.

You can, in fact, pet the dog.

made me feel emotions no other program could ever
pure rage
absolute ecstacy
10/10

yes

i asked for this