Recent reviews by Chaotic Good Elemental

An overall fairly mediocre game made worse by a plethora of awful bugs making it virtually unplayable.

Armello is a virtual board game that takes advantage of the medium in order to do somethings that an existing board game wouldn't be able to do, particularly pertaining to asymmetry of information. While this is ultimately an interesting premise, it fails to deliver because of a couple issues.

First and foremost, the game is horribly balanced. It's not uncommon for the game to be decided on the first turn, and there is some extreme separation between different tiers of characters. For many in the upper tier, the counterplay is "keep them from doing their objectives", but in actuality this rarely works, as there are basically 2 ways to see another player's objective, this keeps you from doing your objective, and of course they will just kill you if you get in their way.

Secondly, at a technical level, the game just doesn't function in multiplayer. It's prone to crashes, freezes, and action lockouts, preventing you from doing anything other than stare at your screen. Couple this with an overall mediocre UI that seems to be made to frustrate players, in addition to no audio queues, a play-by-play for the game that fails to actually show you relevant information, and horrible fixed camera instances, it really doesn't try to be user friendly here.

And finally, even if you do manage to get past the balance issues, gameplay gets stale extremely quickly. There is not enough variety in playstyles, wincons, and cards to really satiate most players, especially when 2 of the wincons are the exact same, and a solid half of the cards are worthless. There's very little progression outside, aside from an arbitrary 20 games that need to be played to unlock everything (as there are 4 mutually exclusive challenges that require 5 wins a piece), and considering games can be about an hour a piece, progression in the latter stages drag by unless you unlock them with lowest difficulty CPUs (yawn).

I love board games, don't get me wrong. But it's hard to recommend one as fundamentally wrecked as this one.

I sure would like to recommend this product, but having to worry about if any of my players will be banned because the creators are bigots does not exactly make this a recommendable product. If they can change that, hey, great game, but until then, probably avoid. Getting banned 'cause the creator's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is not a good way to spend 20 dollars.

Control is an over-the-shoulder shooter that draws inspiration from numerous sources; the gunplay feels straight out of Infamous, the story is akin to late 20th century thrillers like Stephen King, and the worldbuilding would be right at home in an SCP game. It's a very fun shooter that has a couple hiccups along the way, but is ultimately a fun ride.

Pros:

• The shooting is fantastic. The camera never feels obtrusive, being able to switch which side you focus from helps massively, and the guns have enough variety that most playstyles will find something to sate their thirst.
  
• The main game story is superb. While the main story beats are standard and a bit predictable (although that doesn't make it bad), I still found myself engaged with the tale of the two directors, and how Jesse's past is intertwined with the Bureau.
  
• The powers are similarly great. The tree is simple, yet has enough depth to all you to customize your experience (for most of the game. I ended up unlocking 2 full trees, and splatterings of the rest throughout my initial playthrough)
  
• The map exploration is solid. Plays like a classic metroidvania, where you can unlock new powers to access new areas (although with some clever maneuvering, you can sequence break very slightly). Backtracking is not usually mandatory, but there's enough that is available that will keep folks who like that happy.
  
• The boss fights were so much fun. They could have been a smidge more difficult, as I only died like twice in them across the whole game, but they were pretty solid.
  
• The map design was exquisite. The Oldest House is one of my favorite settings I've played in for awhile. The constantly shifting geometry, the mazelike interiors in certain segments, the varied architecture, and the dynamic terrain all made the House feel very alive, and culminated in probably my favorite mission in an action game ever.

Cons:

• The DLCs vary in quality. I personally found The Foundation to be pretty bland, and I did not like the new mechanics that much, although the new enemies were decent enough. If the mechanics were not restricted to specific zones, and could be used at will, they'd have been much better, but as they are, they just feel pitched in at the last second. AWE was a bit better, but I'm personally not a huge fan of fourth-wall breaks in stories, so that kinda pulled me out. Still, was neat to see Alan Wake again.
  
• The crafting/loot system. Man, this was painful. Every 10 minutes I had to delve into my inventory to sift through all of the upgrades that I'd gotten just from playing the game, most of which were absolutely useless. Crafting was a good way to upgrade the weapons, but past that, I avoided it. Absolutely felt shoehorned in, and the game could have done without it.
  
• The side missions (even ignoring the radiant ones that happen every so often) got very repetitive, pretty quickly. There was little variety, usually just relegated to "go here and kill thing". Could have used work.
  
  Overall, I very much recommend this game to anyone who enjoys over-the-shoulder, fast-paced shooters. While it stumbles at times, it's still an enjoyable experience, at least up to the DLC.
  4.5/5

This game makes no sense.

No, I'm not talking about the content. I'm talking about how, if you have even a slightly low-end PC, it deals with low FPS with lag comp(?). I'm really confused. 48 ping and I'm getting jerked around like crazy when I try to drive in a straight line. Players suddenly skip all the way across the map. That sort of stuff.


Yeah... No.

It's a pretty solid MMORPG, but it could use some work.

PROS:
Graphics - Pretty adorable little anime graphics, everything is well modeled, especially for an MMO.
Quests - If you do the quests, there's a fairly minimum outside grind needed, but of course it's faster just to grind, if you know the right places.
Storyline - Unlike many other Anime-style RPGs, the story is very scarcely cringy.
Character Options - There are numerous character options. First, you start out with a class (really just a weapon, but y'know), and a follower called an Eidolon. As you progress through the game, you can improve your starting Eidolon, or get ones that are way better. Each one has different skills and interacts with your character in various ways. At lvl 50, you can choose a second weapon, either one that makes your character way better at the niche that it has, or one that rounds it out better.

CONS:
Staffing - Pretty nil. Oftentimes, the serious reports aren't handled for a long time, while most things minor that happen when a staff is on will get handled right away, resulting in a ban. However, unlike most of the top reviews say, you won't likely get banned for the stupid stuff they say you are unless you are just doing it right in front of a mod, which is overall stupid.
PvP - The game is advertised as PvE, and it really lives up to that. But if you like PvP, then you might be dissapointed by this game.

TL;DR Good game, has good graphics and a decent story, but some of the people aspects could use some work.

Well, I've spent my time in it, and I finally feel like I've gotten a holistic view of the game.

• Very simple MMORPG. Nice mix of creative aspects of a sandbox with the combat of most MMOs.
  
• Plenty of Class variety - There are a dozen-odd classes, ranging from the tank of a Barbarian to the support aspect of a Pirate Captain. The newly Chloromancer rounds it out the bunch will a dedicated healer.
  
• Voxel Artwork is quite cute and upbeat.
  
• A short tutorial, not overly complicated and long like most MMOs today.
  
• Amazing staff - The staff respond to ticket request spedily, AND in person. Gone are the days when GMs were absent, or even worse abusive, in MMOs. Trove's dedicated staff is tremendous.
  
• Mac Capability - There are so few MMOs that can be run on Macs, and very few of the best ones are F2P. However, Trove works wonderfully on Mac. If you're a Mac user who loves MMOs, then this is definitely an MMO to try out.

• Lack of content - Compared to most MMOs, there is a massive lack of content. There are 6 (I believe) biomes, along with a single TRUE dungeon (with 4 stages, and 2 difficulties each), as well as a sky realm mainly for farming 3 things. In addition to this, each class only has 1 passive, 2 skills, and 1 ultimate. While there are many stats listed, most of them are largely immaterial and very rarely are choices made with which stat to improve and which to not.
  
• Grinding - Grinding is forced in this game. Past Mastery 10 (not level) there are no quests, only challenges which pop up every hour. In order to level your character, you have to gain experience, but ALSO craft high tier gear. However, in the shadow tiers, this requires you to craft 2 gear of the same tier, which you then deconstruct, and use to make your own. By the time you're done, you've had to spend the resources for exponentially more pieces of gear than you ACTUALLY use, which takes forever. The second type of leveling, mastery, requires you to craft and gain new things. This is great, except that you have to grind for THOSE ingredients, too, all of which are rare drops, or if they are common, they are present in stupidly large amounts.
  
• Microtransactions - While I get that this is the trademark of MMOs (and most games in general), there's just too many things that require real world money to get. It's not P2W (thankfully), but you can still get items that would take AGES of gameplay to get just by paying a bit of money. However, this isn't as bad as most games, so only a minor flaw, and more just of the genre.
  
• Combat - The combat in this game is lacking. There are very few actual variations of enemies. There are light melee (low health, low damage, but no windup and garunteed hit), medium (mid hp and dmg, but slight windup), heavy (lots of damage, mid hp, and large windup), as well as a single ranged enemy which functions basically the same. Bosses are typically just a permutation of these setups, and can summon a turret or spinning hazard, with the exception of Tower bosses, which are actually enjoyable to fight.

• The Playerbase - Dear God, help us all. The global chat is filled with spammers looking for invitations to join clubs (guilds), spammers looking for invitations to challenge locations, or spammers looking for groups for a dungeon. Super fun! Very little actual conversation goes on, so little that it's very hard to find an invitation to a club, and if you go fishing for one in chat, you won't get one of the best ones. If you want to try a true social experience in an MMO, trying partying up with people in a couple dungeons, and then ask if they are in a club that you can join.
  
• Balancing - Now I get it. No MMOs are perfectly balanced, but this is a little overboard. There are 3 main situations that I will talk about and the balance thereof. (Also ignoring Gunner, which is ridiculously Underpowered...)
  PVP - One single class dominates PVP, and it's easy to see why: Ice Mage. The Ice Mage is able to a. slow you from MASSIVE range and b. Insta-kill you while ALSO stunning you. The ultimate combined with this slowing ability is absolutely horrid. Very few other classes can handle the sheer bulk of this class's power.
  PVE - While it's understandable that certain classes are good in some niches and others have their own, the polarization of this is slightly ridiculous. There are some classes that don't have bulk, but have AoE attacks with status effects (Neon Ninja can stun and also attack multiple with his Batk), while other classes have next to no damage to multiple targets (Shadow Hunter, a ranged DPS is an example). Shadow Hunter is indeed made for massive damage to single targets, but I'll address why this doesn't work next section.
  PVB (Player v. Boss) - This is where our final type of class gets its use. Shadow Hunter (and a couple like it) have very little AoE damage, but work really well against bosses due to debuffs (well, mainly just stunlock) and large damage potential. However, this is offset because a. Tower Bosses (the main ones you'll care about fighting) are immune to most debuffs and b. Your basic attack's damage is naturally scaled lower than other classes. Specific examples of this is the aforementioned Shadow Hunter and Neon Ninja. Both are DPS classes that have a form of stunning ability. Ninja's is simply a movement stun, while Hunter is movement AND attack stun. However, bosses are immune to Hunter's status, Ninja's ultimate can sustain this lock if you hit the boss continually, and Ninja has a scaled basic attack that deals significantly more damage than Hunter's. You can have a Hunter with the same Physical Damage as Neon Ninja, but the Ninja will naturally have a higher damage. But I digress.

I would recommend Trove under a couple situations. 3, actually.

1. You are a Mac user who enjoys MMORPGs, and is looking for a F2P one. This is wonderful for that, but don't look for the sheer depth of PC ones or paid ones.
   
2. You are new to MMOs. The laid-back feel of this is perfect for those just being introduced to MMOs, and the simplicity makes for wonderful teaching.
   
3. You are looking for a very casual, simple MMO. Regardless of the grinding required, the overall tone of the game is very light, and not at all stressful. If you use a potion, don't worry! You won't have to craft another. You just refill them from the next potion station. If you have poor gear stats, just reroll them! You don't have to grind for that Legendary Weapon. The first weapon you take works just fine.

A very simple MMORPG, perfect for new or casual players, but don't expect anything grandeur or terribly exciting out of it.

I will repeat the words of so many reviews before me.

If you're looking for another Super Smash Bros, this isn't it.

In fact, you'll be sorely dissapointed.


There are something like 5 types of attacks in the entire game, and each character is just a different combination of 2 of them. The stats vary slightly, but they don't make much of a difference. You want a challenge, best look elsewhere. The players in this game are very unskilled. The ranked matches are easy, and usually the only loses someone with any skill will have would be due to the natural hierarchy of weapons. Some weapons are just better than others.

Also, not only are the characters rather flat, but they are also available for a limited time. 6 characters are on a rotation for free every so often, and the other character have to be unlocked. And guess what? The characters that you have gotten used to will be switched out periodically as well! There are new skins for characters and weapons and new taunts, but these cost ridiculous amounts of money, most of which is the paid currency instead of the kind you get during matches.

I mean, if you want a free beat-em-up game on PC for parties, go ahead. But if you want something that will stretch your skills to the limit, you'd best look elsewhere.