Recent reviews by Stormsong the Fallen

Been with the game since its initial placement on the Steam store. Came back for Gloomrot. Came back again for full release. It got better every time and is now a satisfying and complete experience. I played the release version all the way through on the new Brutal difficulty and Stunlock did a fantastic job with it.

All around good show. Thank you, Stunlock!

After playing through and loving the first one, it wasn't going to take long for me to decide, one way or the other, if I'd love the sequel. Either it'd keep the magic, or it would lose it as many a sequel does.

I love the sequel.

Thanks for another trek through the underworld, Supergiant!

Completely finished Armored Core 6, all routes.

The gameplay was such a love letter to the games I remember. More than that, a love letter to my memory of those games. I'm sure if I went back and actually played them now, their age would begin to show, but Armored Core 6 was every bit as cool as my rose-colored glasses suggest the series has always been. Controls, performance, the visuals, the sounds. Just every minute I was in control of my AC from minute 1 to hour 57 was 10/10.

I do wish to reiterate, the above praise is STRICTLY about the gameplay.

The story was, uh, a vehicle to make you take part in more of the sublime gameplay... yeah that's about the most that can be said about that. No intend to spoil in a review, so I'll leave it there.

Overall, I'd definitely say this one's a pick up if you're in it for the mech fighting (I always have been) and a pretty hard pass if you're in it for the story.

A captivating experience! I played nothing else in my free time since I got it and still it felt like a blink. Wonderful. I could go on, but to what end? It deserves its score and its praise.

Summary & Conclusion (TL;DR): Age of Wonders 4 is just about everything I want in a 4X. It's what I would have wanted an Endless Legend 2 to be, if such a game existed. It's what I hoped Humankind might turn into (obviously minus the fantasy). It's a brilliant realization of many of my daydreams when I think on other 4X's I've played and their "potential." As it turns out, it's a beautiful thing when so much of that ever-elusive potential is brought into being right at the start of a game's life instead of being left as merely something to hope for.

Customization:
One of the big ticket selling points in the marketing for the game, both on the store page and ads/trailers delivered elsewhere and for good reason. AOW4 backs up the big game it talks when it comes to customizing a fantasy empire. What sets it apart here, compared to other games which also boast of customization, is that it doesn't stop being meaninful after empire creation. The quests, magics, and general aesthetics and even victory conditions keep the founding theme of your empire alive for the entirety of the game. Many games come up short in providing a lasting sense of identity for your empire and instead the player has to resort to keeping a headcanon in an effort to provide context for their actions and keep the story going, if that's something they're interested in.

Story:
While I'm talking about story: no, this game does not have a typical campaign. There is no button on the main menu that will tell you you're in the campaign mode. However, I find it pretty disingenuous to suggest that the game has no story simply because there is no big button labeled "Story Mode" on the first window. The game absolutely contains stories of varying lengths. These tales are told via specific story realms (which are themselves mini-campaigns with narration and interesting objectives), realms in general through the creation parameters, quests, and the empires at play which have strong identities in AOW4.

Gameplay:
AOW4 plays like a well put together 4X. It's not going to throw veterans of the genre for any loops. You can see the roots of the genre where you'd expect to find them, and then there's some personal flair on top. One example of said flair is in the city building system, specifically the idea of boosted production.

The process is usually as follows: select a project, it has a production time and a gold cost to start it. The typical answer to speed up the production time is to throw more production score at it. Many games have ways they handle this ranging from decrees, to civic bonuses, tile improvements which directly give production, etc.

All of the above are options that also work in AOW4, but a boosted project is something else altogether. Something very specific that I haven't seen elsewhere. It's quite simple, and even so it still feels incredibly good to work with. The way it works is that most "standard" city projects have a "boost" criteria in addition to the typical turn time and starting cost. This boost outlines specific province improvements (farms, mine, foresters, etc) which can be built in order to slash time to build and the project's gold cost. To be clear, the project can still be started without meeting this boost criteria! But the savings for boosted projects are significant and definitely worth trying to fit in. This one extra layer adds gameplay value to the city-building process without actually locking things away. You keep the freedom while gaining an avenue for skill expression and clever planning on top.

As part of gameplay I also want to briefly touch on combat. There is a lot of it to be done in AOW4. Each of the victory conditions are likely to see your empire drawn into conflicts with other entities just by the nature of striving to complete them. On a smaller scale; quests, resource sites, and roaming dangers are also often resolved through violence. Or at least violence is an option on the menu. So right off the bat I should mention that combat situation can be auto resolved. What's nice is that the auto-resolve here isn't just the game throwing the numbers together with no regard for how those unit might be employed (rest in pace, my many total war warhammer siege weapons...) and spitting back a result. The game will simulate the encounter and you can even watch the replay after it resolves to see what went right, or horribly wrong. If you're unsatisfied with the result, you are given an opportunity to retry the encounter manually and handle it yourself. Due to the fact that the auto resolves actually plays out the battle, I find that AOW4's auto-resolve actually behaves as expected (with allowances made for the fact that you may simply be better than the AI). It's not a forgone conclusion that I'm going to lose all of my high value units while my shield fodder which I recruited specifically to soak up damage and pin the enemy do nothing but watch.

If you set out to play your battle manually, you're zoomed into a battle space that is inspired by where the battle is taking place on the overworld. If it's a siege, there will be fortifications and a massive wall bisecting the field. If it happens out in the forest there will be trees and pushes which have material effect on the battlefield by providing things like "obscure" or just blocking movement altogether. Armies take turns starting with the defender. Units move in accordance to their actual overworld movement value, different unit types provide things like zones of control, pins, shield walls, and even their own miniature versions of some spells. Any enchantments that your empire is sustaining come into play here as well and augment their weapons and armor and finally this is also where you as the player get to use your "tactical spells." Battles come in many sizes, from heroic 1v1s to 18v18 sprawling bloodbaths which may also feature in-combat summons!

Pacing:
Matches are tight, action packed affairs that tend to last me around 70-110 turns and I've seen reports of people smashing through realms in 40. There's not much of the "index finger on the enter key spamming end turn while waiting for the inevitable approach of the heat death of the universe (or even more immediately, your CPU)." Unless you are deliberately padding things out or chasing personal goals, each turn offers the chance to bring victory noticeably closer.

I'm not much of a deck builder and I nearly put this one down after the free weekend. There is a lot to learn up front about the different symbols and how mechanics interact but there comes a point where it clicks. After that, there is a complete perspective shift and now looking back I don't know why I was so confused; I'm looking forward to making better and better decks, and I'm having tons of fun with it.

I think this is my favorite cRPG. There, I said it.

It has its flaws, yes, most of them technical. I reported no less than two dozen bugs through the ingame (Alt + B) report system. I also think it's fair to say that the incredible ambition of this project went a bit beyond Owlcat's capabilities as a studio. However, I appreciate what they've done. I respect the audacity to go a bit beyond, instead of being completely safe and thus doing nothing new. They got enough of it right, more than enough really, for this to have been an incredible experience.

I'm going to go play it again.

I suspected I was going to give this game a recommend pretty early on in my time with it, but I wanted to actually finish a campaign for a broader take on it. Now that I've done so...

Let's start with what I found to be pain points, since the largest offender was in the ending portion of the game and as I just finished my campaign, that's what's on my mind:

Pollution - I just don't really see what has been added with this mechanic. Full stop. It just feels really separate from everything else going on. When you first encounter it, your main way to fight it is a mere stopgap, planting trees. This takes up a build spot in the city's queue and in many cases, the build time for the forest is longer than the cleansing effect it has on pollution (2 turns). The scaling for its severity makes absolutely no sense either. Even just going from very low to low makes for a really strange jump in severity on both the local and global levels. The entire mechanic needs some iterating. Attach some fame to the more overt actions of combating it, or for being the "greenest" empire perhaps. Maybe have the narrator announce its presence if it's going to be a whole new mechanic at the end of the game. Or if you can't get him back in the studio, a pop up at least. As it stands it's just a little number thrown on top of the competitor emblems late game and if you miss it (you'd be totally forgiven for doing so) or don't quite know what to do with it beyond plant trees, welp, good luck! Also, yes, in my game I did figure out how to manage it and kept it no higher than "low" but that doesn't forgive throwing an entire mechanic 2/3s of the way into the game with little explanation beyond a few gas mask icons dotted about. Anyway enough about pollution...

Religion -- It's flat. It generates grievances for war. That's... about it, really. There's no fame attached to it and no, fame attached to a wonder that just so happens to give faith doesn't count. Nearly all kinds of wonders gave fame anyway. So, right away it's not part of the victory system. Going further though, even if we consider that religion only being good for war serves its purpose within the game, well even that argument gets thrown away at the end of the religious civics! The Irreligion civic takes all of religion and gives you two choices. On the one hand, Secularism, it throws the entire mechanic out. No exaggeration. The button itself just stops relating to you entirely. No more holy sites, no more grievances neither for nor against. All done! OR Atheism, your empire's one religion is that god/s don't exist, and now the narrative side of the mechanic is at complete odds with the function of it. Your people are galvanized against outside faiths (fair enough) you can still push faith claims (???) and in fact faith is boosted (???).

Pace -- The game was very much balanced around the normal 300 turn speed. That's not a problem on its own, they have to use something as the barometer for what is, in fact "balance." I just feel like all of the game's math really falls apart when you try to go faster or slower than that. Things don't adjust well at ALL. I was playing alongside a friend. They were on normal, I tried endless, and our experiences were vastly different ranging from how the AI was handling fame to different productivity markers not lining up in any sensible way.

For everything I said above though, the game does feel really good to play even despite what I've laid out. Furthermore, I believe everything I said above can be fixed with some iteration and some more looking at the math. These are things that can be addressed during the post-launch support cycle for a game. Amplitude Studios does significant post-launch work on their titles. I have every reason to believe this stuff will get touched up.

On to what's good:

The War Support system makes sense to me, it's not the first time I've run into such a mechanic (Stellaris) and here I feel it's even more clear.

The trade system's framework is probably the best trade framework I've ever interacted with in a 4x, period. The math could use a little touching up, I actually think trade is a bit too strong right now, too front loaded. I'd like to see more of its wonderful effects be pushed into the "wondrous effect" tier of any given resource but that's details. The actual act of playing with the trade system is absolutely beautiful. An empire has a thing, we discuss our trade level, I buy a portion of it. Access granted. Nice and simple. None of this only one of us can have access to any one share of a given resource or the constant SPAM of garbage tier trade deals of past game. You now the ones.
____________
"I'll give you 70 gold lump sum for lifetime access to your oil."

"No."

*15 turns later*

"I'll give you 70 gold lump sum and 2 bottle caps per turn for 10 turns for lifetime access to your uranium, oil, silver, AND you give me 2000 gold lump sum in return"
_____________
Infuriating.

In fact, I'd extend my praise for trade to the diplomacy system as a whole, with a caveat. I don't think it's done yet. What's there now is excellent as a framework, and pleasant to use. Building levels of permissions as trading peers with very clear differences as you push across the table. From no trade, to just luxuries to all trade. Good stuff. Some other basic states. Open or closed borders, Sharing maps. Non-aggression. I even like what currently exists for alliances. I just think more can be done with it, allies helping with your cities' shared projects or giving gifts (separate from demands which are often on threat of violence and have a way of souring relations) just as example, and perhaps an espionage type system down the line. Sharing intelligence basic intelligence intel? Spy corps working together completely? That kind of thing.

Anyway, the game is also gorgeous to simply look at whether it's panning the landscape in search of new exploitation opportunities or zooming in to take in all of the moving parts of everyday life in your empire.

Music is another good one here. Particularly the battle music. I found myself manually attending to some battles which were forgone conclusions just to bob to the battle rhythms.

The AI does a decent job on the whole on normal speed and the proper difficulty setting (whatever is proper for you). You'll find yourself middle of the pack (or lower) and have to do some maneuvering to take the top spot. There is some snowball to be had, but that's just 4x gaming really. Depending on difficulty though and your own skill level though, you might not crest that point until the 4th or 5th era (empire difficulty). I intend to try Civilization difficulty next and see how that goes for me. Finally on the micro level, during the battles. The AI does a very good job of keeping terrain bonuses in mind, utilizing range and opening firing lines for the units who need them. It will also focus fire effectively.

Taking everything I've said in this review into account, I can certainly recommend this game at its current stage, at the very least it's one worth keeping an eye on. This is the most foundationally sound 4x I've put my hands on in a while. There's nothing that sticks out to me here on Day 2 where I think to myself "yep... I'm definitely going to keep hating this at the end of year 2." The problems it has can, and have in the past in other games, be addressed. There are no fundamentally broken things that just can't be reconciled. And when the game is in its stride doing its best, and you're invested in that "one more turn" mentality, goodness does it sparkle, even now. Hours fly by in Humankind! I can't wait to see where this thing goes.

No long review this time. If I'm being totally honest I don't know what it is about this game, but goodness did it click with me. If you're a fan of the genre keep an eye on this one. Great game already and the devs are very active, both on their more official channels and in the game itself. I have a strong feeling this one will escape the infamous hellhole that is EA, and escape it with grace.

Can't wait for the May patch!

Only three weeks into Early Access and already Dyson Sphere Program is very much a complete game. More can and will be added, yes, but I do not feel like I've been handed a half baked concept as is so common in EA. The creators' vision is plain to see and the gameplay loop remains intact with an engaging increase in complexity that uses the Science Matrices (bright, colorful cubes you will be producing and consuming to advance through the research tree) as checkpoints. Aesthetically, the game is a treat to look at and I find the soundtrack enchanting, if a bit limited. Hopefully more tracks are added down the line. Lastly, it runs like a dream on my system, even with materials belting and flying every which way on multiple worlds.

Personally speaking, I've not experienced any bugs so far, though I've read about a few. Even then, taking into account all that I've read, there simply do not seem to be many bugs. Notably, a few slip through sometimes right after a new patch, but those are resolved so fast at time of writing that I hadn't even had time to get back to my computer to run into one before being fixed.

Looking forward, Dyson Sphere Program very much looks like one of those gems that will successfully navigate early access: the developers are responsive (they're on holiday at time of writing); there is enough here already for a fantastic playthrough with a defined ending; and their EA goals do not seem far fetched, especially considering how far they've come already.