Recent reviews by Nyx

Definitely a different direction for the franchise.
Warning ahead of time, I do not consider this playable on Windows
RX 7900xtx + AM4 5950x Ryzen
PCI-Gen 4, M2, 4tb SSD

The game stutters SEVERELY on windows, using MSI tool V3 to set your GPU to high helps, but there is obviously something wrong.

On linux the game is running beautifully, but it is a bit of a monster in terms of Vram usage.
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Back to the game, It feels very much inspired by Genshin in terms of its open world approach, tons of small things to find and puzzles to solve, they aren't particularly hard but fun little things to run into, they made the game feel a bit more like a collect-a-thon than what I would typically consider an Atelier game, and I can definitely understand why not everyone enjoys this direction.

the only downside that urks me a bit is I feel the achemy is too simplified, but I have a friend who is new to the franchise ( started with ryza ) who thinks its an improvement.

personally I don't think people should dismiss those who lament over the changes of the game as it's very much a new direction, I personally have been enjoying it and look forward to sinking my teeth further into it

but the performance issues on windows is real, and so is the fact that the game have undergone a massive change.

I'm getting 70fps on windows 11 with massive stutters, I am however running 130fps flawlessly on linux ( nobara )
I personally am enjoying the game immensely, but I recommend people try out the DEMO, what you see there is what you get, that said the game got PLENTY of content I'm 15 hours in and I only just unlocked access to the second area, and I still need to collect everything / finish up the first area based on the map size I'd say i'm 10% into the game

Feels extremely snappy, and is probably the closest I've come to chasing the feel Hyrule warriors gave me.
Will update with more information once I get further into the game.

This review is Contextualized around that I bought the game for 5 Euro (95% sale of the 99Euro edition )

So initially I was skeptical as I heard the game immediately is bad/grind/unimaginative etc.
You definitely catch certain dialogue that is just outright cringe, and I feel the bigger a fan you are of DC the more of a dissonance you will feel.

But overall as a live service the game isn't terrible
it isn't amazing either and most definitely not 70 dollars
nor 100
but they are doing certain things right.

It got proper ultrawide support
It got HDR support
It actually precompiles shaders properly so performance have been really solid for what it's pushing
and while it is using the battle pass model, is it not going FOMO about it but more like helldivers.

honestly if people hadn't been so burnt out on live services already I could have seen the game succeeding but little too late for that and the price tag should NEVER have been so high they could have gotten away with it for 30-40 bucks though

part of me feel however they would have done better if they kept the base game free, and allowed the extra characters as purchaseable DLC / something you could grind to unlock

For 5 bucks I said if I had atleast got 10 hours of fun out of the product I would consider that worthwhile I'm now 17 hours in and still having a hoot, it's better with multiplayer ( all loot and experience is duplicated and shared even if you're in different areas of the map )

This is NOT an Arkham game, and calling it a superhero / DC game would be a stretch it's a gimicky looter shooter where you fly through the game with different traversal mechanics which initially can feel a bit jank and the abilities are at best inspired by the character you're playing.

However, if you stop considering it a premium 99 euro purchase and instead consider it a cup of coffee you spent at starbucks and simply plan to have a laugh with your friend for a while, then the game is rather enjoyable, disable your brain, go pew pew and have a laugh.

End conclusion, pick this up at a heavy discount, it's definitely not worth full price, but on this deep a discount it's been a hoot.

I wish I could give a neutral rating, but I cannot.

Let me get down to it, the game is pretty good, but the monitization is extremely intrusive and almost constantly rubbed in your face, if it's not the battle pass, then as of right now there is 120 euro of bundles in the store that barely gives much more a combined of 20 cosmetics.

While the game itself isn't bad, you constantly have to deal with being reminded it wants your wallet and applies FOMO, both with a rotating shop, battle pass, and more.

Ultimately I wouldn't judge this as harshly if the game have kept the course as these things are pretty standard for Free to play titles.
but the game isn't free to play, you have a box price, and a rather hefty price for the DLC.
above that, you have a battle pass, and rotation fomo store.

insisting the reason is that they are providing a premium product.
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now lets take a look at a similiar contender
Palia online.
the game IS free to play.
they do have a store, but there is no Fomo rotation
and MTX is not pushed at you unless you seek it out..

HOW is a Free 2 Play game, more ethically moneitized than a full box product price/with expensive dlc.
this supposedly "Non" premium game also have Ultrawide support and HDR support.

I want to like Dreamlight, but ultimately I use Cozy games to relax and forget the world, not to be reminded that I wish I had more money.

Now for the positive aspects.
I do adore the characters, the little story, progression is pretty satisfying.
and most of all it's a very well made Animal crossing style game, removing the one true frustration I have with animal crossing which is the reliance on IRL time, there is no time for upgrades to build, and you can engage with the game at any time of day as the characters will rotate their sleep and actions at different times, the stores are also open at night, all of these things are things I consider pretty positive.

I want to love the game I really do, but for crying out loud gameloft, sanitize your monitization, either you're a free to play game and using all the tricks in the F2P book, or you are a premium product, make a choice

(corrected some minor mistakes, you can indeed buy duplicates from Scrooge MC-ducks shop of items you've unlocked it will only hit your wallet in terms of ingame coins which is fairly easy to get)

also final side note, I did some rough calculations, and I will need to drop around 1000 euro+ if I desire to have every item for the prestige of owning 100% of all the things in the various collections ( there is a % counter on your collections where the game encourage you to do so )

So the game have released into early access.
I understand where many of the complaints are coming from, and in it's current state it is indeed incredibly rough.

However this is a "true" early access, not a preview demo, but what most would call "alpha", textures aren't done, modelling aren't done for cut-scenes and more, if you look back at baldurs gate 3 when it released in early access it was equally rough around the edges, but that's the point, I do feel 1 year is a bit optimistic, but the game is nowhere near done.

the Improvements between the 3 tests have been significant, new units, new factions and a lot of "gameplay" polish.
even went from no ultrawide support to perfect support on my super ultrawide monitor.

that said, I strongly recommend people wait to the F2P early access release, and try out the game itself with no strings attached, I personally don't like 1v1 matchmaking pvp which is the games most fleshed out feature at the moment, but I have immensely enjoyed 3vsAI co-op, and I've played a lot custom matches me vs bots&friends

judging by the progress from first "test" to now, which have been 4-5 months, am I not worried about the game,
I do suspect that it might still be rough in 1 year from now, as lots needs to be done, but I can deeply respect focus have gone into the foundation itself ( gameplay ) doesn't matter how pretty and shiny the game is, if the gameplay sucks.

I'm still very early into the game might change this later.
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Immediately the introduction into the game felt really good, the visuals are pretty the game on my PC ran absolutely flawless, it's been a long time since I just booted a game up and it ran with 0 stutters and no "but"
everything was extremely smooth, the telegraphs felt solid, and the combat feels good.

I've honestly just been enjoying myself like a little child, the game have much of the same feeling as first time I discovered the YS series many years ago.
as of right now I've only positive things to say, I've been having a blast.

What are you getting.
You're getting what is equivalent of a living season, the price isn't too bad.

You're effectively getting
Lws season story
Skyscale fast track unlock boost
And a battle pass that allows easier access to certain stuff like ascended.

Rest is on the preorder it will be in the game at some point trust us bro.
Wvw alliances have been promised since heart of thorns and every expansion since.
And the new weapon might come sometime in the next 6 months.

Overall it was very underwhelming to purchase at launch and learn that the stuff I wanted won't be in the game anytime soon.

This is less of an expansion but rather a really good booster pack for new players at a not terrible price.

So where to start, It's a solid successor to the Torchlight franchise if you consider it as a Live service evolution
at the current state, do I still consider Torchlight 2 the better game with more content, but that is riding on all the mods and community made enhancements that have been created over the years.

My initial joy of Torchlight infinite was the freedom of experimentation, up until lvl 80 is all Skillpoint / build resets completely free to do, so instead of knowing exactly what you want to do with your class, or crunching numbers on an external spreadsheet, does this game fully allow you to TRY your ideas, they even have a training dummy in town for you to test on.

I can confirm even the highest grade of endgame is reachable on whatever character your desire, meaning that you're never going to feel forced to buy the "early access" heroes / traits through the shop, but if you're not in a rush would have the full ability to slowly expand your rooster of playable heroes as the game goes on through Hero marks.

( hero marks are earned through events or the free tier of the battle pass)

This is a live service, so lets talk about exactly what you guys want to hear, is this Pay 2 Win.
and here I need to define what pay to win is to me since if I don't make a clear definition would every single game with a cashshop fall into that category.

to me the answer would be no, and the reason is quite simple, I can pick one of my free characters, and play all the way through the entirety of the game and potentially bonk heads with the top players of the game without ever spending a dime,(or needing to grind more than them for other reasons than pure RNG meaning that the MTX in this game does not hinder your ability to enjoy the game at any point.

New heroes introduced can be a contention for this, but unlike overwatch where heroes is needed for the meta, is heroes in this game just another way of playing your class and enjoying your game, I bought both the trait and the battle pass, and I honestly haven't gotten around to playing them properly yet because I decided to focus on moto which is one of the base heroes.

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Now how does monetisation work?
They have 2 types of Gems, I'll for reference just call them perfect and broken gems.
broken gems are the free currency the game showers you with, they offer you for every maintenance, you get through events etc etc.
These gems can be spent towards certain tiers of the Gatcha, or account features like Expanded bank and storage space, in the gems I've earned in the past week while playing have I expanded my account storage for items by 64 slots, and bought 4 extra bank stash tabs.
I spent a free token I got towards the pet gatcha so I have a pet that can pick up for me.

.... but what about the Pay 2 win aspect of pets providing you power?
well my honest opinion is that yes you can get lucky and get a pet that does slightly compliment your build, but you're talking a 10% increase for potential 1000's of dollars of gambling, you would be much better off just farming and upgrading your gear, besides people are easily maxing out the dummy without pets even equipped.
my current strategy is I will throw whatever free tokens I get for the gatcha towards the permanent heroic pactspirit pack, and call it a day, personally if feel the contention around the pets is silly, the gain is minimal to a point I personally would rather spend IRL money towards the cosmetics than try to gamble for the pets.
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anyhow now to perfect gems.
these can ONLY be obtained through paying money, and they can be spent towards 3 things primarily.
1: The early access heroes/traits sold for money.
2: The premium battle pass, ( also includes a hero )
3: The special gatchas, often the cosmetic gatchas and certain event based gatchas.

as I mentioned earlier, it's more like buying early access to said heroes, it's confirmed the current paid hero in the shop, will be moved to the hero shop, next Season and if I don't buy Yuuga I could purchase him for the free tokens on release, they have promised plenty of events with hero marks, and as it stands right now can you in this season earn 175 hero marks I believe the number was, and spend 100 on yuuga, leaving you needing 25 marks more for the shotgun version of the gunslinger if you want him.

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conclusion, it's a mobile live service ARPG, the UI is very "mobile" but they have promised to work on that and is of highest priority, co-op is coming, and controller support is confirmed.
not much to say else than finally a Live Service ARPG that allows me to farm without hindering me with energy systems, pay gates or other BS, and some fun interesting builds to play around with.

I have faith in this franchise at the moment, I will change my review if anything I said no longer stands as the truth.

This is the closest you will get to a solid experience with the game.
(Had a person ask me to define this line so let me do a quick FYI)


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Rune Factory 5 released for the japanese market around 2 years ago, and finally released as a Switch Exclusive to the western market around march.

There were a lot of us who wanted to love the game, but due to hardware limitations of the switch was the experience extremely sub-par, with Slowdowns and outright freezes mid combat of bosses, and roaming around in town during events would often be single digit framerate.

Those issues were all tied to the hardware limitations of the steamdeck and is no longer problem either on the PC or the steamdeck.

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RF5 is a new entry in the Rune factory franchise and everything that includes.
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For those new to the franchise, it's effectively a Farming sim seemlessly merged with an action combat RPG, enjoying the best of both world, the franchise originally started as Spinoff to the Harvest moon games ( now called Story of Seasons ) and have been widely loved.

The Purpose of the game is a very seemless loop of tending to your farm / village just like you would in Harvest moon, Stardew vally, Story of Seasons, but what makes it unique is that you can bring the towns people along with you for combat into dungeons / monster filled areas and further use the crops you farmed on your farm as potions / etc to fight monsters that you will then use to upgrade your weapons/ armor / Harvest tools.

You can also catch the monsters and by "becoming friendly" with them allow them to help you out with your farming duties, furthermore EVERYTHING in this game have levels, including crops, soil and even the partners you decide to befriend/ romance / or just use as meatshield.

Recently the franchise have gotten more traction since they decided to port Rune Factory 4, which originally was a Nintendo DS game to Switch, with such success it ended up being ported to PC and the other consoles as well.

With the Success of RF4, RF5 originally targeted Switch exclusivity but in my opinion ended up being a bit too ambitious for the hardware they were targeting.

The game itself is solid, there is clear tells this is targeting a handheld, but that's fine, the biggest downside is the camera stutter and jumping that is happening, this is not to be confused with the slowdowns and freezes in the switch version, but simply a 3d camera not properly managed, you can alleviate this a lot by setting the game to exclusive full screen.

Which is an unfortunate side effect of this being their first true jump into 3D for the franchise, while RuneFactory 4 does look slightly dated, do I share the sentiment that RF4 is probably the more polished game as by that game have they almost perfected the formula, RF5, is in no way bad, but you can feel that it is relearning certain aspects, and I do hope to see slight patches to Rf5, and that they learn from this iteration for the next franchise entry.

Furthermore you can have a flawless 60fps SteamDeck experience, if you set the resolution to 720+ and set quality to "standard".
to fix the scuffed video, simply go to properties, and set it to run the newest proton experimental.
you're welcome, you now have a portable version of the game running without Switch-itis <3

I've not managed to play it for very long but what I've seen so far seems to be interesting and enjoyable.

The game works very well with the steamdecks track pad for mouse function.

However the game does NOT work on steamdeck/ proton Linux
As it keeps giving you an error every time it saves, meaning you will either need to play the entire game in one sitting or utilize windows/ wait for a fix.

I look forward to playing this game thorough in the future.