Recent reviews by Harlock

A brutally unfair, janky and rather old-looking sandbox RPG with base-building and trading elements. Instead of holding your hand Kenshi slaps it away, stabs you with a rusty wakizashi and throws you to the wolves - or sometimes to cannibals. Yet despite all the clunkiness, my all-time favourite game with incomparable emergent storytelling, screenshot-worthy sceneries and some of the best gameplay I have ever experienced (for newcomers, [F1] shows gameplay tips!). The modding community has done an amazing job expanding the gameplay and lore - and sometimes just joking around.

Starting options are widely customizable (+mods) but usually you begin as just a weak nobody who gets thrashed by a single starved thug or a random baby goat. Beaten by slavers and spending the rest of your days labouring in chains may even be preferable to getting literally ripped to pieces and eaten by the more horrifying local fauna. Not that the game cares, sandbox world just keeps going even when all that is left of you and your potential friends is a pair of sandals, slowly buried into the sand.

Kenshi's philosophy is that doing something will make you better at it. Obviously crafting, sneaking and such work this way but also taking punches only improves by getting hit, bonus EXP if you are already coughing blood and missing an arm. Learning to fight efficiently is a constant struggle of seeking battles you can win just barely - and then survive long enough to recover and try again. As long as you live, limbs can be replaced in an inventory screen much like other equipment and every battle will make you stronger, but it truly is pitiful for a mighty warrior to collapse in acidic rain out of hunger or bloodloss, having spent all the food and bandages despite hauling a backpack full of lost technology valuable enough to buy a city. Quicksave is a lifesaver, especially when your characters get stuck in terrain.

Story is a vague concept as the world is vast and there is no main quest. Explore at your own risk, talk to people (also at your own risk) and always stay alert. There is an immense amount of interactions, dialogue and quests but they all need to be found - and sometimes even getting near them is simply too dangerous before training just for that purpose. Find or buy some muscle, though you may need to train and equip them as well. "Go on new recruit, get your legs torn off by that little spider so I can slap these faster robot legs on you!". Many wondrous sights await and I will not spoil them, just be ready to run away when needed.

Combat is kind of turn-based and in vanilla game, only one entity can melee attack another at one time leading to either a hit, a miss or a blocked attack. But the time windows before another entity can attack are short indeed and outnumbered side needs serious skill superiority to win. This formula is skewed by hitting someone "by accident" as even fists have enough range to hit even three targets at once, where your intended target may defend itself but the two accidentals can't - though they may also have attacks queued at you. This creates some incredibly frustrating situations when a big enemy bodies 5 of your best warriors due to poor positioning. And sometimes your last man standing manages to swing an absolute homerun and chop multiple enemies down by sending their legs flying, saving your entire party. And then there are rather overpowered crossbows that don't care about your silly attack rules and just headshot you in the middle of a duel. Hilariously becoming better at not hitting your friends in the back gets easier only when shooting them by "accident". Luckily/unfortunately it is completely random what body part each attack hits.

Base-building is at minimum a campfire and a bedroll, at most a completely self-sufficient farm/factory fortress capable of creating the best meals, armour and machinery known to the continent. Also awesome weapons, though you can never surpass the legendary Meitous made by Cross and scattered across the factions. Starting a permanent base of your own is bound to get noticed, so be ready for a fight or serious bribery. Some weirdos even attack you just to have a good scrap.

Visuals are both ugly and beautiful: Animations look clunky but sometimes sync wonderfully, and the weapons hitting hard really feel like they hurt (my personal record is scattering 6 limbs high into the air in one swing of a plank). Textures are definitely dated and unsightly. But the scenery and especially night skybox are often so gorgerous my wandering party has a lunch break while I am busy taking screenshots. And then I take more screenshots as they do everything they can to survive another unfair mess I just got them into.

What are you waiting to buy??

Pablo Escobar
i love cocaine
HEHE Boyyyyyy

Stay away from this game it will take away everything you love !!!!

My Time at Sandrock comes to show us more about a new place, which looks just as amazing as My Time at Portya was

Here we have a continuation of an amazing and very captivating game. The game, like its predecessor, has several mechanics to manage and explore the world. Which is amazing and diverse. Now in Sandrock, with a larger map represented in a desert environment, it offers a little more challenges and we gain new interactions across the map and things to do, in addition to more people and places to meet. It really is an amazing way to start a new adventure!!

Gameplay

It's difficult to talk about everything that the gameplay offers in this game, but what happens is that initially you're thrown in a city, where you have several NPC's at your disposal with whom you can interact and get to the point of even getting married and having children. , yes the game is very interactive. And these NPC's have their own "life" and their tasks around the world, in addition to stories and missions, which you will help them with. You own a "Construction store" and with it you are "obliged" to do favors around the world to develop the city and the people who live there. And that's the basic principle. But with that you will find several difficulties to find and craft specific items that are only found in Dungeons and inhospitable places, certainly protected by some increasingly difficult bosses and monsters and appeals.

Each time you evolve, you can craft more and more machines, equipment and everything else that helps you on your journey. I still have no idea if it has automation. But in a way, it's a possible questioning or idea for a sequel. But everything you can do by evolving is very rewarding. How to evolve your "Store", your house and everything else, buying more land and increasing your factory.

Problems

Really here we remember why the game is in Early Access. In some parts it is having FPS drop issues. I have much more than the recommended requirements and the game is running at full throttle. But frame drops happen sporadically across the map. So it could be some lack of optimization yet, which is to be expected in an Early Access game. I also recommend putting the game on an SSD

So, having said all that, and despite all the problems, it's still a game that we can really enjoy and enjoy what's available at the moment. And as development progresses and sometimes a big update in the future, I'll be back to tell you more about the game and its status.

If I somehow convinced you to buy the game, I'll find you in Sandrock looking for items in some scrap heap around...

Good game to play with friends

This game is excellent, the community is also very good !!!

Pure nostalgia i love this game!!!!

For anyone who played btd4/btd5 and liked it, I would say BTD6 is a huge improvement and well worth getting. For people new to the BTD series, I think this is a good tower defence game with plenty of strategic possibility both for casual/lazy players and those keen on higher effort gameplay. Placement/combinations absolutely matter, and all towers can be put into reasonably effective use, but don't expect to just throw random towers around and win everything.

This game is NOT!!!! pay to win at all, despite containing one useful iap (double cash), and some typically irrelevant ones which nobody ever needs (the usual assortment, basically ingame money, skillpoints, and free consumable towers).

People who are more interested in achievements/full completion than just playing for fun, be aware that some achievements are grindy/slow and certain track sub-mode completion medals are ridiculously hard to get, involving VERY accurate placements, spot-on timing, and some random factors which effectively force multiple attempts. I have all singleplayer medals though and only one achievement left (cant be bothered buying race attempts to get it sooner) so it is doable.

I think this is a great single player game, co-op however, either stick to easy modes or play with a friend, else frustration is likely. And I will say this one more time, tower combinations matter. Buffing effects matter. Don't just throw random things around without thinking, learn what towers pair well or you will miss half the point of the game and fail to defend on basically anything above beginner difficulty.

Its like Ark/Conan meets Terraria, build a home, defend it from things that come at night or are launched every few days in attack waves. Simple at first but get tougher as your home gets more advanced.

Massive procedural map so its different every play through. Like Terraria only mobs and food respawn so if you clear an area your done there. But there is a lot to explore. Boats and carts are available to help bring stuff back to your base and you can make portals to get about easier, however you cant bring some resources through them, hence the need for boats.

Combats fun with different styles of play depending on the weapon, theres a lot to craft and also boss fights. The boss fights a very cool and the music and atmosphere during them is metal as f**k.

Building is great but needs a bit of working around, you cant build out or down very well so need to stand on the side your building towards, you can build from the side but some times things dont snap in place. Once I got used to it I find it better than Ark and Conan's building. Building over water is difficult though as its hard to place stuff with no land to stand on.

Over all a great game so far, we have 5 people in our village and its been a blast. Home is made, gear is crafted and were ready to explore the world.

I cant wait to see how this game does in the future. What they have so far is well worth the money, gives you a lot to do and has so much potential for the future.