Recent reviews by WildRyce

At first glance from others reviews and such, this game may seem like a turnoff and not worth while to play. I'll say now, definitely wait until this game is on sale if you want to play it. That being said, after 15hrs of playtime and 100% achievements, I do think this is a fun game to mess around in and try out some cool builds.

Pros:
- High starting skill ceiling making it difficult in first couple runs, after that it opens up once you unlock more cards to allow for some really fun builds. 100% crit chance & high crit dmg + inflict cursed + frenzy + surge = Ping-pong master
- Starter traits and specialisations at first glace (at least to me) seemed worthless after I found a broken combo (Ulvar/Greataxe or twin axe/Berzerker), but after some messing around with others, there is some real fun and more broken builds that make the game much more enjoyable if you like running around killing
- Bosses are hard and at first seem like guessing games, but after learning patterns they become much more easy to fight and learning which ones are worth going to for specific item builds or survivability. They are definitely more fun to fight the second time around after learning their moves.
- My favourite addition by far is how they handle rewarding speedrunning through zones. If you beat a warden in under 10 minutes, you get access to a second boss chest (nothing new from other roguelikes), but any remaining time left transfers over to the next zone allowing you to have more time to complete that zone for the chest.
- A cool addition is the fact that during any the zones (mainly once you are on to the final boss), you have access to everywhere in the world. Although not very useful, a couple of my runs turned into full clearing regions after clearing the 3 tombs and before I decided to tackle the final boss (even if you can only get so many pickups before the hatred system).

Cons:
- Game is short; it is very much like what a lot of people say: just fly from point A to point B as fast as possible, especially if you want the speedrun chest for completing a zone in under 10 minutes.
- World bosses are much more difficult than any of the Tomb bosses, including the final boss I've found, and although they have a card drop, I've never been in a position where I found I needed it making them not worth going for unless you just feel like killing things (i.e. final boss free time)
- There isn't much else to do, quests are basically all fetch and/or kill and you are limited to one a zone, world boss fight but like I mentioned before, not really worth, and flying around.
- A very weird but existent gripe is that there is an upgrade later down the skill tree that increases the max amount of coins that pots can potentially drop; although there aren't a lot of pots around in the game to break in the first place unless you go to fortresses or the first ever spawn area below the zone selection room, and in my experience 90% of the time they don't drop anything anyways (in one run I broke i'd estimate about 50 pots minimum and not a single one dropped, spent half an hour flying around trying to find)
- Some enemy camps I've found just are not fun at all to clear: the Ultagi Very Hard (and even sometimes the Hard) just enemy spams, and unless you have a specific build to clear them out very fast, if you enter you basically live on dodge/guard sometimes since they sync uop in such a way where you cannot get an attack off without getting posture broken.

There is more pro's/con's about the game that aren't here, I didn't want to word vomit any more than I have already, but all in all Ravenbound I found to be a fun mixup to the usual roguelike formula. It definitely had more potential then what it was left off on, but the mechanics (like the Hatred system which is a unique way to have the player play a risk/reward factor) that do exist are in my opinion well thought out and enjoyable to experience. I'd say look at the gameplay to see if it interests you, and get it on sale if it does. Game is definitely not for everyone but as a singleplayer experience, I think I got my times worth out of the game and plan to come back for more.

Also, there is many secret areas that have potentially some hidden lore, always a good time to theory craft and learn more about a games story.

First off, would I recommend this game? Absolutely yes.

Bias & nostaglia thoughts: This game is a simple platformer with fun progression mechanics and backtracking, a great soundtrack that fits the aesthetic of the game, and overall a short and sweet experience. The game is not at all long (given the under 15min trial challenge), and a fun Time Trial mode to see how fast you can beat the game. Visual style of the game is well done and enjoyable; character, enemy and trap designs are nice to look at.

Outside of bias and nostalgia factor (Played this way too much back in 2015/2016 on iPad), everything about this game is well made. Although the cycles of enemies and traps are fairly good (this will all be from a speedrun point of view), the cycles almost feel like damage-boosting is required for some to get the fastest time possible, taking into account that you get knocked back opposite the way you are facing at the time of being hit. The final boss is pretty basic overall, with a single attack and movement pattern that can be cheesed slightly with again, damage boosts. It is also just straight linear progression, so even though the world feels like you can go wherever, it becomes apparent pretty quickly that you have to follow a specific path (minus getting the secret hearts). I also wouldn't really consider it much a metroidvania. Sure it has progression abilities but outside of that it really does not have that charm of a metroidvania.

Overall:

• Is this a simple game? Yes
  
• Could it be improved upon? Definitely (Super Dangerous Dungeons by the same team and somewhat similar style)
  
• Should everyone give this game a try? 100%
  
• Is getting all achievements in the game easy? Also yes

[Long review ahead] Having originally played this back a lot on release on the Xbox 360, and in the past bit playing the PC variant of the game, I feel that this game has not aged much since I first played it. The game is quite a long experience, especially for exploration-type or achievement driven individuals, with a variety of different objectives scattered throughout the game and the different sequences within leading the game to be a 16-30+ hour game, depending on the experience of the player. The early game (first 2 hours) does a great job of of building the atmosphere for the whole game, creating a sense of dread within the player who has nothing to help them survive other than natural survival instincts.

The story-line of the main campaign is well developed and fits well into the timeline of the Alien franchise, paying homage to the original Alien movie with its general atmosphere and interior designs. The layout, although at times feels repetitive in certain areas, feels quite unique with each new area giving the player a variety of options on how to tackle traversing it. I feel the story was the strongest at the beginning and the end of the game, with it dropping off a little in the middle where characters were harder to make connections with personally. The way the game also handled story-based objectives at times felt repetitive, with unique differences at times. Overall the story is one of the highlights of the game and definitely made the game stay strong even to this day.

The game-play I consider more of a hit-and-miss type situation, due to the key focuses and main play-style of the game. Stealth mechanics within the game are one of the primary focuses of the game, relying on sound and visual cues to traverse without being seen or heard. Various tools and upgrades are given throughout the length of the game to allow an array of options on handling particular situations that the player may find themselves in. Utilizing these tools can help the player in keeping stealth, but if used at incorrectly either timing or placement wise can be quite punishing. These tools paired with the implementation of hiding mechanics such as hiding underneath a table, in a cabinet, or under a medical bed, with the ability of peeking over, under, or to the side the cover allows the player to still be hidden while gaining information of their current surroundings. A major flaw does come from the hiding mechanics specifically when in a closet or cabinet in my opinion, where when a hostile is searching the spot, the holding of breath and leaning back mechanic while great on paper, is rather poorly done in my opinion. Often times my deaths when hiding in these would come directly from this, as there is no clear indication of when to stop, and with taking damage from doing so after some time and no room for error it detracts from the horrific experience leading to more of an aggravated feeling when hiding. I feel that if it did not require split-second reaction to initiate the quick-time event and if it wasn't as punishing where you let go a second too early, it would be much more polished and a better form of hiding. In its state, I prefer avoiding using these unless absolutely required. I also have always been caught by the Working Joe's no matter if they saw me enter or not, which leads me to believe that there is no using these to hide from them, though as this is from personal experience, this is not fact and thus could just be a timing issue on my part.

Combat in the game is also one that is a hit-and miss situation as well, as while ranged combat excels in the game, melee drops off very early on. Starting with the ranged weapons, each one has a slight difference from one another, whether having a charge time, area of effect, or increase in accuracy over time, each weapon has specific use cases while still being beneficial in many other scenarios. On the other spectrum exists melee weapons. There are only two within the game, with different use cases. [weapon spoiler warning] The maintenance jack, which is the basic early game melee weapon, excels at defeating human enemies, and is semi-useful for taking Working Joe's. It does fall very short when fighting a Working Joe head-on as unless they are in a stunned state, if you try to attack they will block and counter-attack. To this day the only way I found to deal damage using it is to sneak up and land a couple hits from behind, run and hide and repeat the inefficient process. Either avoiding, using ranged weapons or using tools to allow you to land more hits are the main way to deal with these enemies. On its own, this weapon is often not very viable to use and I feel can only be used in specific instances. The Stun Baton, which is the second melee weapon, is what I consider a support melee weapon that does not deal damage, but instead works in conjunction with the maintenance jack. As the name suggests, it is very effective for setting up attacks on the Working Joe's in the early and middle sections of the game, though near the end of the middle section and in the end portions of the game, becomes basically unusable due to (without giving a spoiler) a new Working Joe enemy variant. Overall, combat in the game although viable, is not the best way to play through the game in my opinion, especially when playing on harder difficulties where ammunition and resources are more and more scarce.

The enemies and their AI in the game is quite well done, apart from a few nitpicks that I have with specific circumstances in the game. Going over all of the AI, let alone the Xenomorph's AI would take way too long to describe, overall I feel it was very well developed and created a real sense of danger when exploring new areas. The couple nitpicks I do have with the Xenomorph AI itself is that it feels too aggressive, with it having a stalking range and once alerted in an area will not stop searching. Many times have I been stuck sitting for many minutes just waiting for the Xenomorph to move further away to have a slim chance to progress a little. Hiding in the lockers or cabinets when the alien is around can cause it to wander to where you are and start a quick-time event which is probably the most punishing event in the game, apart from the Working Joe's counterattacks. Although I know mods allow for this, I feel that if the Alien was instead to have a roaming system where it roams the station as a whole and if in the area hears a sound, checks the area and after a bit cannot find anything moves on, would give the game a much more horrific and atmospheric experience with not knowing when you would need to hide.

The overall experience I have had with the game is very positive, as it has me coming back over and over to play in new ways. If you are either a fan of the Alien franchise (or wanting to get into it), enjoy stealth games, or both, this game delivers in most areas and leads to an enjoyable and horrific experience that does not fully rely on jump scares. game overall I'd say is an 8/10, even to this day.

Quite a phenomenal game, great storyline, decent side-quests, and loads of secrets. Different endings (leading to similar dialogue-endings but with differences, and some with more depth) make it a worthwhile game to play, especially difficulty-wise keeping you on your toes.

Some nitpicks were near the end, traversal of the second-last area of the game was very tedious and seemed like it would require luck to get a quite difficult jump done to get to one of the endings bosses. The beginning did feel a bit slow at times for pacing, but overall kept enough engagement to see through to the end.

Have yet to explore and 100% the game (very close with a couple missing areas for pseudo post-game traversal), but overall with the somewhat multiple endings and the newgame+ and nightmare mode, there is some replay-ability to the game.

Played this game on and off for hours and each new iteration brings new experiences each time, especially with the expansions and the more recent update. Although the game has its quirks and odd combat spikes where sometimes the logic for damage isn't always there but mechanics overall are quite flushed out and with different ways to play the game replayability is quite high.

This game has been mine and a couple of my closest friends childhood games to play on xbox. We would use to either LAN play or internet play when we all got gold, and it was one of the best feelings back then. To see that this game has moved to a platform that would complement it further is fantastic.

I haven't played a whole ton on PC currently, but from what I can tell, it is shaping up to be great.

Personally, the biggest flaw I see right now in this game currently (and this was the same for when it came out on xbox) is the Skills system. For myself it feels very clunky and weird to work with, as say you level up your woodcutting, you unlock being able to mine iron from one of the levels, but using a hatchet to do so makes little to no sense. The skills overlap and have no specialization, and to get some of the more useful things like making a door for your house requires you to be building and crafting level 8. For me the system needs to be vastly reworked, so for now playing with the skills disabled will be a more enjoyable adventure.

Overall, I still enjoy the original content when the game was first released (back when spiders were the only enemy) because it was so simplistic, difficult and made for hours upon hours of fun. With the newer versions, as I do like the new enemies, features and little additions here and there, the game doesn't have the same feel that made it what it used to be. Regardless, the game is still fun and definitely look forward to what the future holds for it; I definitely recommend the game to anyone who is into voxel sandbox games because the gamemodes and just overall gameplay is enjoyable!

Absolutely perfect game. 10/10 on graphics, gameplay, items and customization options! A must buy for those who love 2D and vastly large exploration games.