Recent reviews by Carinasan

What Smash_Daisaku said pretty much hit the nail on the head.
TLDR: Great nod to PS2 era RPGs with a modern Action RPG twist. However there are some things that could use polishing.

The tutorial(s) in the demo felt really disconnected along with the story. It's a demo, so I'll forgive that.
I don't mind the run around and figure out what the heck you need to be doing, cause that does put some classic RPG flavor to it.

The combat feels smooth, comboing feels fun even in early game but movement might feel a bit "floaty" for some. However, it's really responsive so I appreciate that for a game that's a work in progress.

The music is absolutely stellar for me.10/10 whoever the composers are or is, amazing job. All the tracks are amazing.

I unlocked the skill tree and I can see how this can get pretty fun in customizing your playstyle with the gemstones and skill tree. Reminds me of FF a bit with materia and skill trees!

One thing I can't get around is the visual clarity and ESPECIALLY the lighting in the first "tutorial". The "shadow realm" I'll call it is so dark and you can't see anything. The camera is a bit TOO zoomed out for me where when I get too many enemies on the map I can't really see whats happening. It's fine for bosses but good god, I almost stopped playing in the very first tutorial.

Overall, games a bit too hard to play for me in a couple aspects but I really like what they are cooking up here. I would like an "easy" mode for my gaming style, but don't think it's a necessary (just a personal preference).

Would recommend if you don't mind some of the things I mentioned and are looking for a combo based action RPG.

Ape stronk together.

slime

I would refund a Free Weekend if I could.

Pretty excited for the game as I love a good survival craft. I played for a little over an hour and I couldn't even give it a chance anymore.

I play a lot of ASA (Ark Survival Ascended) on my sub-par computer so I'm use to frame lag and frame drops. But holy hell this game plays like it runs on a PS1.
The combat is horrendous, my animation is showing I'm hitting the rabbit/fox but it's not doing any damage. The controls are clunky and the amount of animation needed to switch between weapons/tools is ridiculous. Unfortunately I could not get far before getting tired and irritated about the combat/gathering. The upgrade trees looks interesting and exciting but I could not get that far.

I only played on single player so I'm not too sure about the bots in multiplayer.

Game does look rather gorgeous graphically but as single player the lands feel empty and barren. The UI on the other hand looks like a cheap chinese MMO.

There's so much better survival crafts out there and this one did not seem anything special or scratch any itches.

TL;DR: Valheim meets deadly fog.

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It's a damn shame the timing of this Survival craft when it came out onto early access cause it got 'enshrouded' by other more popular game releases.
Recommended for those who prefer to focus more on base-build/exploration and not so much on combat in a survival craft.
I would call this an atmospheric survival craft. If you get into the lore, it will boost the enjoyment of the game. How did this world turn out like this, who lived here before, and what happened to them? The combat is not too challenging, but the world is gorgeous, and crafting is the best I’ve ever seen especially for early access.
I would also not recommend to large groups as the current quest progression is SHARED on the world. If you got one friend in the group who likes to speed-run the quests, it will not be a good time for the others. I’d say max 4 people and you MUST do the quests together (as of this review, devs are planning on addressing this).
Excited to see how they expand and grow this game. I’ve only hit the 3rd biome as of this review and hope they don’t take years to add more biomes/features -eyes at Valheim-.
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List of features to mention-
🗹- Building system is 'block-by-block' but textures mesh together making it easy to build WHATEVER. The building system is one of my favorites in all the survival crafts I have ever played.
🗹- Terrain manipulation similar to Valheim. Ground too bumpy to build? Flatten that sh*t out.
🗹- Fast travel to bases(+towers) from any non-shrouded area. The balance that you can't teleport from shroud but can teleport at any time when you’re doing the material grind is great and speeds progression.
🗹- Skill tree allows you to make your own character unique and also freedom to choose what YOU like.
🗹- Gameplay loop between base building, puzzles(towers and shrines), exploration, and shroud combat is balanced.
🗹- EZ personal hosting server (non-dedicated) is very nice. I don’t think there is a tether either- never fully tested it.
🗹- Takes out some frustrations (but some people find enjoyable) of survival craft games. Keep equipment when you die, check! Have occasional ‘save points’ near deadly foes, check! No weight limit, check-Hold how many items slots you have! No need to manage food/water (except if you want buffs), check! It would be interesting to see if the devs allow these options to be tweaked for hardcore survival fans later. However, I like how it is.
🗹- Music –the music is pretty atmospheric when you’re exploring, but it’s a bit odd when you’re just building in your base and you have spooky music? I think they should have different music in the background in your bases.
🗹- Combat – can be simple at times. It’s not rocket science and ranged becomes far superior late game. If you want more of a challenge I would recommend going melee throughout (with a bow to help out occasionally with puzzles).The enemies do pack a PUNCH though, but they have tells that are easy to spot especially if you have played other action combat games. I personally prefer this as I’m not particularly a ‘souls-like’ combat enjoyer.
🗹- Performance- I had very infrequent lag spikes when playing with 1 other person so I can’t say very much about larger parties and how it runs.
⨺- Character customization- Bare minimum so don’t expect something fancy with character customization. Also, you look kinda like a short human, so that might bug people.
⨺ - No climbing on terrain- It’s balanced out by the Glider + (if you want to cheese) Pickaxe 😉
⨺ - Shared quest progression - mentioned in the beginning of the review but devs are planning on addressing this.

I have crabs.

Build raft, explore islands, and solve fun puzzles.

IMO best played with 2 people to get just the right amount of productivity and exploration enough for everyone.
Really excited for future updates. The more updates the more the game will be worth it to pick up. With Chapter 2 out + Renovation update I already think it's well worth the 20 bucks.

Overall:
B+/A-
Amazing tale of shinobi. I'm a sucker for men in kimonos so when I saw such high ratings on Steam I had to get it.
OST is very well suited for the game and most CGs are passable in terms of quality. The VAs are amazing and bring each
character to life. The localization is pretty decent, I think a couple parts could've been changed to be more consistent.
My only gripe is the general story is pretty similar in all the routes even when each route branches out. I also wished
there were a bit more CGs but thats just a personal preference... The character designs are so pretty though ;-;.
Highly recommend this game for anyone into not all fluff and cute moment otome games but one with a dark touch on the story. However, the storyline can get pretty boring after 5 characters, but if you can get past that this otoge is great!
One of my favorite otoges is Brothers Conflict and that had so much similar routes...I played almost all the routes too.
Therefore the copy paste routes didn't bug me too much, except for the parts that were similar in other routes but
since you were on a different character it didn't count as the same thing, now that was frustrating.
Regardless, really loved the game and like most people, Hanzo was bae.