Recent reviews by Xaliber

Rating Cyberpunk 2077 is tricky, and I wish there was a Neutral option. It's an okay RPG that shines in certain areas, particularly level design and perk systems, but falters in many others.

If you approach it expecting a GTA-style open-world experience, you're in for a disappointment. This game works far better as an immersive sim RPG (and should've focused on being that), reminiscent of Deus Ex, or a staged crime action like Mafia (Classic). The open world is just a facade for a decent sci-fi story that has some good thriller beats in certain parts.

Returning to the game (now via Steam) after first experiencing on Patch 1.2 in 2021, the much-hyped 2.0 update brought some improvements, though many of these were features that the modding community had already made possible long before CDPR officially implemented them (e.g. rideable metros, vehicle combat and customization, Johnny riding as a passenger, etc).


Cyberpunk 2077 can never escape its "open world as props" problem. While the game features a massive world, much of it serves as mere set dressing. The towering buildings that initially impress are often inaccessible or reduced to low-quality mesh that you can pass through as they are actually empty backdrops.

Driving remains clunky. Vehicle controls feel heavy and slippery, so much so that at least 10 mods exist on Nexus to overhaul vehicle handling.

Traffic and pedestrian behavior are equally frustrating. Cars refuse to move when blocked by obstacles, and crowd reactions are inconsistent, with NPCs sometimes ignoring gunfire or violence. Children in the game are just resized adult models with adult voices, breaking immersion in laughable ways.

Worse still, the game employs a mechanic that thins out traffic while you’re driving, so you'll often find the roads empty, making the gigantic city feel lifeless.

The police/crime system is another low point.

While cop spawn mechanics have improved since 1.0, officers still inexplicably appear behind you in dead-end areas. Their patrol AI remains basic, unable to detect you even when you’re crouched behind some walls with nearby passage, and they forget your crimes after 30 seconds, even in 5 star heat level.

Even worse, this game goes out of its way to make sure the cop wanted level can be forgiven at every turn. Go to your apartment? Wanted level reset. Talk to a vendor? Wanted level reset. Visit a ripperdoc? Wanted level reset. What’s even the point of having the system in the first place?

Civilians are also no longer hackable in the 2.0 update, and their loot has been removed entirely.

All of this adds up to a game that discourages chaotic, criminal playstyles. Much like Mafia (Classic), the cops and civilians are merely props—or, at worst, roadblocks—to the story being told.


Two problems: the RPG aspect and the story.

The RPG aspect is very much streamlined for casuals.

The enemy AI lacks varied movesets, and the only difficulty comes from their bullet sponged bods. After the 2.0 update, the game suffers from the same issue as Skyrim: level scaling. Enemies and skill checks now scale with the player, eliminating any sense of progression. Every area feels the same in difficulty, and skill checks are so lenient that most obstacles become trivial.

This casualized approach clashes with the game's intelligent level design, which once rewarded tactical thinking. Previously, going in loud was a high-risk high-reward; while stealth-hacking took longer but offered safer paths. Now these choices feel meaningless; the only difference is which looks cooler for YouTube clips.

Side quests also suffer from excessive Ubisoft-style hand-holding. The game constantly feeds you quests through fixers who magically detect your location, prompting you with objectives the moment you enter an area, complete with markers. The vast world doesn’t encourage discovery, it just funnels you from point A to B like a checklist.

The story is serviceable but lacks depth for fans of the cyberpunk genre.

The most compelling narratives come from the side gigs, particularly those involving cyberwares (e.g. cyberpyschos). These missions often deliver the noir-infused psychological horror or drama characteristic of great cyberpunk media like Blade Runner or _observer. These gigs explore themes like humanity and religion with some nuance, but the main quest barely scratches the surface of these ideas.

World-building, a cornerstone of the cyberpunk genre, also falls short. The exploration of corporatism rarely goes beyond shallow critiques of “corpos bad” or “monopolies evil.”

Unlike the strong anticapitalist roots of the cyberpunk genre, the game's take on corporatism is so superficial that both socialists and conservatives can project their own "big bad elite" boogeymen onto it without meaningful critique. In fact, during the game's launch, parts of the fanbase rabidly crusaded for CDPR while simultaneously displaying hostility toward the game’s shallow attempts at progressive transhumanism, such as gender boundary-crossing.

Indeed, themes of transhumanism, a cornerstone of the genre, are largely overlooked. The story often sacrifices deeper philosophical inquiries of mind-body dualism for a commercialized Che Guevara-esque “rebelling against the system” narrative.

Some of the game’s more absurd elements, like clown-themed mercenaries or bioconditioned people, could've been used to delve into subcultural politics or transhumanist dilemmas, but never utilized to their full potential. One of the NPCs is called "Ozob Bozo" and never develops beyond the name.


Despite its flaws, Cyberpunk 2077 excels in its level design. The immersive sim approach shines, allowing players to tackle missions in various ways—stealth-hacking or brute-force shotgunning.

The city itself, when not marred by low-quality meshes or textures, is a visual marvel. Its brutalist architecture conveys a palpable sense of dystopian oppression.

While the NPCs are just lifeless bots with no purpose, you feel like the city is a place truly lived in through the verticality of the environments in the narrow corridors, streets, and complicated roofs and buildings overlayed on top of each other.

The 2.0 update adds some welcome depth to the perk system, allowing for creative and satisfying approaches complementing the amazing level design. Unfortunately, the game's balance issues persist, as the mid-game becomes far too easy. Overpowered perks and a broken economy diminish the challenge, turning the game into a power fantasy.

Perhaps the game’s saving grace is its modding community.

Mods have fixed bugs (at least 20 mandatory bug fixes by the time of writing), introduced QoL in the poorly-designed UX, and even added features that CDPR later adopted officially, like the metro system and vehicle customization. Some mods go even further, introducing dynamic gang wars or smarter cops and traffic AI.

The community's work highlights what the game could've been if given more time and care during its development. I post some links on the comment section below.


Cyberpunk 2077 is not the groundbreaking masterpiece it set out to be.

While its level design and modding potential offer glimpses of brilliance, it fails to deliver on its promise of a vibrant, open-world cyberpunk experience. Fans of immersive sims, action shooters, or casual No Man's Sky-esque screen-archers, may find enjoyment here. But the game’s flaws and missed opportunities are hard to overlook.

If this game had been released as a more modestly priced title like The Witcher 1, its shortcomings might have been easier to forgive.

As it stands, the chaotic release and unmet expectations, even after 2.0, leave Cyberpunk 2077 falling short of greatness.

I’d recommend skipping straight to the Definitive Edition (2020).

The original edition is a product of its time, suffering from dated gameplay. Trust me - Steam reviews praising this classic edition were written before the Definitive Edition launch, so they're as dated. I played this game back in PS2; coming back to it on PC after 22 years was not a pleasant experience.

The clunky camera and unresponsive controls are the two biggest offenders of this edition. These issues become glaringly obvious during shootouts and the infamous racing mission. Aiming and moving feel sluggish, and the vehicle handling are frustrating.

Bugs persist even when you use the Community Patches, like NPCs awkwardly standing around and refusing to progress in missions (I’m looking at you, Paulie). And then there is no menu in a modern sense, with maps, mission updates and to do list, etc.


The game itself is not an open world despite published a year after GTA III, so don't imagine something like GTA or The Godfather.

It’s a linear mission-based game set in a large but empty world. While the city itself is expansive, it serves as a backdrop to drive or walk through between missions. There are pedestrians and interesting mechanics like the need to obey traffic laws to avoid police attention. However these often feel like unnecessary distractions. With the sluggish cars and frustrating camera, getting from point A to point B feels like a bothersome chore.

One minor advantage of the original edition is that the infamous racing mission is far more forgiving than the one in Definitive Edition. But this benefit doesn’t outweigh the game’s many flaws.


A product of its time. Unless you’re a fan of nostalgia or experiencing the original version for historical purposes, do yourself a favor and get the Definitive Edition.

A fun little game that I'd recommend picking up on a discount. It’s the kind of game that feels better suited for casual, lunch-break sessions rather than extended, focused playthroughs.

The graphics and gameplay are reminiscent to Kingdom but with a little bit of everything from other games: more dedicated settlement building/resource management, combat and minion system, surprisingly fun enough puzzle and platforming, looter RPG mechanics (like Diablo), and basic story with a comedy spin.

Core gameplay loop is quite solid: conquer areas, gather resources (you assign workers on the conquerable nodes), upgrade settlement, get better equips, and progress. The RPG mechanics is basically DIablo-lite, and I had fun figuring out enemy types as well as optimizing my gears to the resistance and weaknesses. Enchanting and crafting systems can lead to some fun and effective item combinations.

The game starts off strong as the different gameplay elements interact seamlessly. Combat-platforming sequences where you command companions while jumping off ledges can be engagingly chaotic. The hand-crafted world, set in a crumbling fantasy realm, leaves quite an impression despite its minimalist pixel art visual.


Regions of Ruins however suffers from some of the common pitfalls found in indie games. As you get stronger, the game’s challenges quickly diminish. By around the 10-hour mark, my character had become OP. Most of the powerful stuff came from random loot drops, and reduces the benefit of enchanting and crafting.

The game’s resource grind adds to the problem. With so many areas to conquer, the repetition becomes tedious, and even the beautifully designed environments fail to stave off the monotony. Additionally, the game’s lack of in-depth guides or tutorials can lead to frustration. I'm an avid fan of Mount & Blade, so I don't need hand-holding. But trying to locate specific resources (e.g., leather) felt unnecessarily tedious. Better icons or an in-game guide would have been a huge help.

I found myself wanting to rush through just to reach the end of the story.

Perhaps one way to mitigate this is to impose restrictions on yourself: use weaker gear, fewer companions (I found 2-3 out of the maximum 10 to be sufficient), and limit upgrades. Alternatively, you could let your companions do all the fighting, retreat when they fall, and then hire new ones later - although unfortunately, the game doesn’t offer much customization for companions to make this approach more interesting.

The tavern clicker minigame also feels like a mobile game mechanic shoehorned into the experience. It essentially acts as an idle game that provides OP bonuses. If you want more challenges, best to interact only sparingly.

Last: storage management feels like a chore just like Diablo, and there’s no way to expand your inventory slots. Wish at least we could expand the storage slot.


Regions of Ruin offers a fun blend of mechanics that work surprisingly well together, but it stumbles in the mid-game with its lack of challenge and grind-heavy progression. It’s worth grabbing on discount and playing in short bursts rather than marathon sessions. I think you'd get the most out of Regions of Ruins that way.

Wildfire is a delightful stealth game centered around elemental interactions, reminiscent of titles like Noita and Magicka. In this game, you play as a newly awakened witch who harnesses the power of three elements: fire, water, and earth (grass), with skills that unlock as you progress.


The core mechanic of Wildfire is its elemental interaction system, which operates on basic physics. You can burn grass and melt ice as you walk through them with a fire spell (or when your body is ablaze). Objects and enemies can be set afloat with water bubbles, and forest fires can be extended by throwing grass and vines. Discovering these combinations is a joy, and even after 10 hours in, I'm still finding new ways elements interact with each other.

Though Wildfire fashions itself as a platformer stealth game, it is fundamentally a platformer puzzle game. Enemies and the environment are obstacles to be solved rather than simply combated, especially considering the only ways to kill them is through fall damage or high temperature. You can choose to run and gun or stealthily navigate through levels. Each level offers objectives that sometimes require abandoning stealth for a more direct approach, especially during speed runs.

The game also supports coop, which doubles the fun as you and a friend experiment with elemental magic together.


But what about the negative reviews?

They seem to stem from players who aim to obsessively complete all objectives in a single run. Many objectives are optional, and fortunately, you can revisit levels to complete specific objectives without redoing everything.

Wildfire encourages trial and error, much like other puzzle games, making each run a chance to try something new. That said, I understand the frustration of objectives being tied to skill points, as they are needed to unlock new abilities and there are no other means to progress.

Where Wildfire falls short is in its approach to extending game duration. The current system relies on players redoing levels for perfect scores, which can become repetitive. The addition of a level editor would greatly enhance the game, allowing for player-created levels and extending its replay value. This would offer endless opportunities for creativity and new ways to figure out elemental interactions.


With a price less than 10 USD (2 USD during Summer Sale 2024), Wildfire is a fun, little gem that you can enjoy solo or with a friend - a delightful experience worth revisiting once in a while.

Putting aside the sexual nature, this game is actually a quite competent detective voyeurism reminiscent of the likes of Beholder. Both games put you in the role of a landlord/dorm manager, the difference is while Beholder serves the interest of totalitarian state, Peeping Dorm Manager serves the player's rotten carnal desire.

The gameplay loop is almost the same: you surveil the activities of your renters through surveillance cameras and diligent observation of their daily behaviors. You need to talk to people, inspect their stuff, and get clues about their routines so you can eventually turn them as means of your personal gain. In this case, that would mean the typical hentai plot of blackmailing your renters and turning them as your personal flesh light. Unlike Beholder though, this game is not in real-time so you have more time to read through stuff and learn your potential victims.

The clues scattered through the game actually are quite creative and nicely spread, and it seemed like you need to be quite familiar with hentai tropes to instinctively know where you should look for clues (e.g., there is a secluded spot in the game that turns out to be a location for a peeping tom). I still needed a guide to help me go through some parts of the game (turns out I'm not that rotten), but even if you want to avoid playing with guides the game offers a helping hand in the form of muscular shibe who would offer his wisdom for a pair of girl underpants. The minigames to help you progress is a bit educative surprisingly (like teaching you how to sort trash), although they do feel quite grindy and repetitive especially during the few first hours of the game.

As a hentai game, the main selling point should be the porn itself. But I find that hentai scenes in this game are not that interesting to watch. Not even that interesting to see the sexual tension escalates.

Indeed, although the mechanics are quite competent, the presentation of the sex scenes in Peeping Dorm Manager is not the greatest. In addition to its typical H "mindbreak" plot with subpar writing, the instantenous CGI scenes left us with no build up to the girls' eventual submission. The sexually verbose writing that boils down to over-exaggeration of masculine prowess is also quite boring to read. I ended up just quickly tapping the mouse to get them over with. This is quite a shame considering that the art is quite good and the women are drawn in sexually attractive way.

Finally, the grindy end-game makes the game feels it overstayed its welcome, as end-game mostly consists of repeating minigames and clicking "next day" until you find the perfect time slot to get the right event to trigger. Despite of that, I still recommend this game if only to experience Beholder-like mechanics.

A story about troubled teen trying to find out their true self, revealed through your discovery of their lost phone.

The story is the usual coming-of-age story focusing on gender identity, The writing is not that impeccable - you would kinda figure what happend to this person half-way through the game - but the narrative is packaged through an interesting mechanics: digging through their messages, recover their social media access, to eventually uncover the person important to them and their story.

The similarity to Orwell (the game) instantly comes to mind, but it's presented in more light-hearted and ground-to-earth-manner. Although the game is largely linear it still offers us some responses to our choices. I would like to see more games employing this narrative style.

Silent Storm a gridless turn-based tactics game ruled by action points in the vein of Jagged Alliance.

I would've wanted to like this game, I really do, because this game features one thing that I have missed in my entire play of tactical games:

Destructible environment.

And boy, does this game really excel in that aspect - it's not a gimmick, far from it. While you can't easily destroy the environment to your liking, once you eventually manage to do it (with RPGs, grenades, etc), it really turns the tide of the battle. Tactical decision can instantly change and, the best thing, enemy's AI smartly responds to that change as well. Verticality really matters to this game, making every steps need to be taken considerably.

That being said, this is an ancient game. Graphics is not the issue - it's user interface and camera.

The camera is locked into one angle, makes it extremely difficult to see what's going on behind the walls. Due to the precise aiming the game employs, the terrible camera makes it very hard when you want to aim at a specific direction - especially important if you intend to destroy a specific point in the environment. And although the UI is not the worst that I've experienced in game so far, its experience certainly is not the most pleasant. Some actions are not intuitive and redundant; certainly deserve a lot of QoL improvements.

Unfortunately, perhaps due to this game being ancient and/or Russian, modding community is sorely limited. There's not much you can do in modifying this game. Which is unfortunate as I would've enjoyed it a lot more if not for its failings.

While there's a lot of improvements in terms of customization and build theorycrafting, the game is bogged down by its uninspired writing. If this game wasn't graciously saved by its mechanics, and sold at discounted prices, I would not have recommended it.

I will discuss the bad, the good, and the great of Fell Seal.


If you find the intro sequence/first battle awkward and a bit immature in setting up the tone of the game, the bad news is the writing won't improve for the rest of the game. The good news is if you don't like it in the first sight, you can directly refund.

The game's biggest flaw is in its characters. The three mains are wooden dolls of morally uptight respectable mentor, the naive student, and the jokey reliable uncle with a disturbed past. They stay that way for the remainder of the game despite the crisis, challenges, and events that turned their realities upside-down. The big baddies are, well, big baddies. They are corrupt, selfish, and morally wrought. Sometimes also arrogant. The lackeys are typical dumb henchmen incapable of coherent speech.

Trope is one thing; lack of character development is another. The only thing that change is the writing of their wits: in one instance, the main can quickly discover the ploys of the villains; in another, it would take them a few turn of events to discover a bad guy's motive, because the plot wills it.

Dialogue is written pretty poorly in particular. There is one instance when a villain threatens their incompetent henchman that they would "retire" them if they repeat the same mistake. The villain then adds, and I quote verbatim, "In case that is too ambiguous for you, by 'retired', I mean 'slain.'". Uuu. Scary. There's a whole lot of similar dialogues in the game, where the writers seem to struggle to sound smart or scary or whatever they intent to do with the characters.

Strangely enough, the first half of the game seems to embrace a faux-Shakespearean writing in the vein of FF Tactics War of the Lions. Then in the second half suddenly they just drop the writing style.

Last, there is a tonal inconsistency that fails to blend seamlessly with the game mechanics. At one point of the game, you discover a grim past of a character and find a way for them to cope. Then the character unlocks a special class named... Spymaster, which has nothing to do with the character's story.


While much comments have been said about the graphics - which I don't really have any opinion of - the game's better artistic aspect is the music. It doesn't hold up to FF Tactics' remarkable composition, but still manages to give a distinct character and leave memorable impression during more important battles in the game.

The game streamlines consumable a few aspects you typically see in tactical RPGs. Instead of having to micromanage items and end up hoarding too many potions, consumables here replenish after each battles. You don't have buy potions or revivals or remedies; you have a fixed amount of them and if you want more or stronger ones you need to upgrade through crafting.

Crafting here is not a huge element like you see in Monster Hunter series, but it helps the flow of the game as an alternative to buying things outright. You can get some better gears earlier before they're available in shops by crafting, and some items (upgrades, consumables) can only be acquired by crafting.


Fell Seal is really saved by its excellent customization, and you can see them right after you start the game.

You're offered customizable difficulty settings in the beginning where you can configure the enemies AI (their combat decision-making such as use of items, revive, etc), enemies gear and attributes, level scaling, and a couple others. There's a preset if you're too lazy to decide yourself.

If you want to customize even more, you can go to Documents\Fell Seal\customdata_examples to extensively tweak the game config yourself - from EXP gained to damage output.

Then after your first battle you're introduced to guild, where you can not only recruit but also visually customize your non-story characters: their unit models and portraits. Of course this is in addition to the usual class and abilities customization, just like in FF Tactics. Speaking of class, you have one main class with a subclass, with stat growth and various abilities you can mix and match, so you can theorycraft the perfect build to your liking.

The great thing is, the game doesn't penalize experimentation if you go crazy trying out different classes. There's no "wrong build" - even if you feel so, there's an option to reset the character to level 1. With the DLC, you can use AFK-timer missions to send your non-story units to gain EXP and Ability Points (as well as money and items). You don't have to turn on your game all night because the time counter works outside the game.

If you like tinkering further with class, modding this game is extremely easy. You can download class packs on Nexus Mods (I recommend the most balanced Simon's Class Pack) and/or you can make some yourself through editing the XMLs in Documents\Fell Seal\customdata_examples.


Fell Seal, like the inspiration it cites, similarly inherits the game's failing at balance. Some classes are awkward to use or downright useless that you'd get them only for their passive abilities. At certain level too you'll slaughter your enemies in seconds just like you'd do in FF Tactics even when playing in the harder difficulties.

And as already mentioned, the writing is completely forgettable to the point it ends up dragging the game, making optional battles and one-off sidequests more enjoyable than reading the character's interactions.

However the extensive customization and seamless gameplay really saved Fell Seal. I suggest at least you try this game (at discounted price) once and see if you like it.

Despite what the tag on Steam says, this doesn't have co-op campaign. Not yet anyway.

So here goes: this game is an odd mix of Mount & Blade, Diablo-like, Chinese/Korean MMOs, and also bits of roguelite/New Game+ element. I'll discuss the pros and cons in a bit, but I'd like to talk about gameplay briefly.


Game has a campaign and a sandbox mode. In the character creation, you can pick 1 from 8 predefined classes or craft your own class. Classes affect both combat and diplomacy. Each classes have skill trees unique to their own and a more general "Talent points" on the non-combat side of things (movement, army building, survivability, diplomacy, etc).

You traverse through a map just like you do in Diablo-like games, but with troops and companions in your party like in M&B. The map is separated to 6 areas, each initially controlled by major factions. Just like M&B, each areas have settlements (towns, villages, camps) which each factions vye to control. Settlements are upgradeable and the sultan (governor) assigned to that settlement can decide its development and economy.

The settlements are a bit mix of M&B and Diablo-like games: important NPCS (merchants, bartenders, rulers, etc) usually can be found only in the central building. But you can also meet some random NPCs, quest-givers, and some important ones around the settlements. Those NPCs also travel around the map, most of which you can engage in battle. Like M&B, in battle you're transported to a different battle map.

Here comes the Chinese/Korean MMO part. Some people describe the combat as ARPG-like/Diablo-like, but honestly it's closer to those MMOs: you click on an enemy and the character will attack them until they die. You can also use skills and it's the same. Imagine Ragnarok Online or Fantasy Westward Journey. Distance matters as well.

Like Diablo-like games, grinding is a major part of the gameplay. You can find many "dungeons" with several floors scattered around the map for this purpose. They reward you with EXP, equips/items, and resources for army/settlement building. Some of those dungeons are explorable, but mostly they are just screens of dialogue where you will be taken to the battle map when you encounter enemies. Some dungeons are lore dungeons or sawmills/mines that you can dig for resources.

Equips/loots have prefixes and randomly generated, so their attributes can be very different. Ordinary troops (spearmen, archers, etc) can't have custom equips, but you can assign equips to your companions. Equips play major role in combat - so make sure you always grind those stuff or you won't be able to progress further.

Last, the roguelite/New Game+ element is the Legacy points. In character creation you're bequeathed Legacy points which you can use for additional skills, items, etc. Those points are the collected from your previous campaigns: story progress, sidequests, and other stuff you do such as conquering settlements, brawling, etc.


This game is "the world moves with or without you" type of game and I love it. I'll put it alongside M&B, Drox Operative, Rebel Galaxy, etc. Raiding caravans affect settlements' economy. Factions wage war. Territories change. Individual lords can be friends/enemies with each other.

In terms of combat, I enjoy brawling in taverns/tournaments much more than the day-to-day combat. Brawling has a separate skill tree which points you can only acquire by winning brawls or buying scripts from other brawlers. You can't spam those skills to win as you need the right combo to pin the mdown. This, combined with the small arena where tactics became important, feels really rewarding and is a major improvement to M&b boring, mostly "just for the sake of it" tournament.

The story is pretty standard, but I appreciate the time put to write down the lore. Lore bits are scattered through the game world and if you're interested you can dig into them. I also really like that there is a Campaign option in this type of game, that gives me some sense of purpose. Each character classes also have their own quests, which is nice.

Although it's a bit too trope-y (silent killer ninja, luscious minstrel, loli witch that's actually hundreds years old, etc), I also like the personalized, unique named characters in this game.

I also appreciate the fact that there's a console command so if you just want to mess around with your game, you can do that. The modding scene also seems to be huge, however at the moment most mods are still written in Chinese. Hopefully there will be localization as the game gets more updates and more players.


Unfortunately, the game seems to copy M&B down to its kinks. There are issues that really bug me such as:

• ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fetch quests. Get someone to pay their debt, hunt this deserter located around this settlement, escort caravans, etc. Although usually there's a hint from talking to other NPCs (Morrowind style) or direct "Location" button to show where we have to go, sometimes it's inconsistent because some quests have the location pinpoints to the quest-givers instead.
  
  
• If you encounter skirmishes with two hostile factions, you can't participate in them. This is one aspect that has been remedied in many M&B mods. This is especially important as the only way to build reputation with named characters as of now are only through fetch quests - which can be daunting.
  
  
• Settlement management kinda wastes your time as you have to travel from one settlement to another to foresee and manage the development. A more centralized place to manage them would be nice.
  
  
• Changing your lords' equip is a bit of hassle: you have to drag them to your party, give them equips, then let them wander around again. Again, somewhere centralized would be nice.
  
  
• Tracking your lords' whereabout is also a bit of hassle, you have to open the map, check from one town to another where they might be. Some kind of search bar would be nice.
  
  
• Lords can't die nor be put in prison even after their faction crumbled. We can do this in M&B: Bannerlord but not in M&B: Warband. I hope they add this dynamics in the future.
  
  
• Minor factions are there just to be kicked around, they don't have the chance to get big and beat major factions. Again, this is mostly remedied in other M&B mods, also this is one feature that shines the most in Drox Operative.
  
  
• This game is very combat-oriented. There's not much option to "win" the game as a pacifist or business mogul who just buy everything.

Day-to-day combat can be very hectic due to the visuals, and there's no option to auto-target. As such if you're a ranged combatant, you're in disadvantage as you can wrongly click the ground and move into your death instead of attacking enemies.

AI pathing during combat could use more wrok as well, as troops sometimes get stuck on rocks or buildings, and sometimes the bosses do that also so you can just cheese them.

NPC dialogues is kinda repetitive and template-y, despite the fact that most named characters have unique personalities. It's really jarring to see a silent killer ninja who in one dialogue would elaborate carefully how to effectively eliminate enemies and in another dialogue would say "Friends know no secrets!" with an upbeat tone.

Last, English translation is mostly fine. But some can be confusing. Like the dialogue option to dismiss your vassal when they're in your party. It says "Get out of here and don't come back!" I thought that option is to kick them permanently. Pronouns also need more work; for example, regardless of the NPCs gender, NPCs will refer each other as "he" and "him". Really odd to listen to someone talking about your waifu and they refer her as "him".


Despite these several cons, I still recommend this game. Sands of Salzaar being M&B-like is 80% reason I recommend this game. I usually finish a game first before writing reviews, but this game is an exception.

Black Desert Online is perhaps the best MMO I've played since Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) with sidejob professions and player-run environments (city/business control by guilds, guild taxes, player marketplace, etc).

Heck, considering BDO's vast detailed landscape and cities (with no fast travel), beautiful sceneries, and high-end graphics, BDO could have been a single player RPG (or multiplayer/player-run servers) that would make Elder Scrolls series (Skyrim etc) envious. Feature-wise, I'd say BDO is as close as an online game can get to expansive strategy RPGs like Mount & Blade or Romance of Three Kingdoms.

Unfortunately, it's a Korean MMO: its amazing potential is gated with outlandish waiting time, endless grind, and long-session AFK activities that can be bypassed with in-game purchases (Pearls).

(most of these make BDO feels like a single player RPG)

• Unique combo-based/input-based combat mechanics, with different classes having different play style.
  
  
• Complex, detailed landscape and cities. Discovering secret spots and pseudo-parkouring in the capital feels great. Discovery nodes that are useful to create a trading empire give us incentives to explore.
  
  
• Breathing world: patroling NPCs in the wilds, NPCs have background stories. During night time, fewer NPCs roam cities. Shops close. Ships travel from one island to another and we can hitch a ride.
  
  
• Interesting thematic lore depending on the region you're in: plague and heresy in the capital, family feud in rivaling faction, JRPG fantasy in elvish land, etc.
  
  
• Branching quests: pretty basic but get you to explore different side of stories.
  
  
• Trading empire mechanism makes it feels like a pseudo-strategy management game.
  
  
• Side-job activities such as sailing, fishing, horse training, etc lets you decide for yourself the kind of playstyle you want to get immersed in (there are "life skilling" guilds dedicated to these activities).
  
  
• Fantastic, very-detailed character creation to date.
  
  
• User interface is extremely customizable.
  
  
• QOL features: most info is already described on items so you don't need to play while opening your browser, escape to nearest land if stranded on sea, remote collect horse if you forgot to put your horse, etc.

• Dumb enemy AI. Except for bosses, most enemies are only meatbags for you to butcher.
  
  
• Tiring combat. You're going to grind A LOT, and the interesting combat mechanics is wasted only to button mashing since the enemies are dumb. Some find it fun, but to me it's just dull. Not sure if it's better with controller.
  
  
• Janky traveling animation. The movements are clunky visually.
  
  
• Under-utilized karma and jail system. You can play as manhunter but there's just not enough incentives to do so; the punishment is too severe.
  
  
• No player trading except for few items like potions. Apologists excuse this mechanics to prevent RMT but RMT happens even with the system: account selling, grinding service, etc.
  
  
• Dev is catering to players who prefer luscious virtual girls. Class is gender-locked and the male-female ratio is imbalanced (13 female vs 8 male); outfits mostly are skimpy outfits with high heels.
  
  
• Customization option is limited: you can only get the more interesting outfits either through purchasing it with in-game purchases or waiting for seasonal event.

• See that 700 hours in my playtime? About 600 hours are wasted for AFK. Want to move from one city to another? Enjoy that 5 minutes horse travel. Want to cook delicious dishes? Enjoy waiting those cooking timers. Want to be the greatest horse racer? Enjoy AFK horse training for 12 hours. This is an idle game that will cost you your electricity bill.
  
  
• Timer, timer, and timer. Almost everything in this game has some rubbish waiting time. From board minigame to feeding your horse carrots and using teleportation map. Wait for 5 minutes to 5 hours before you could use the item/activity again.
  
  
• Ridiculous grind. From getting your characters to high level to building an immense worker empire, all these require grind that will cost you either time, energy, or real world money. Or all of them.
  
  
• Frustrating RNG. BDO is the manifestation of gambling in MMO format. Want to enhance your hard-earned legendary boss ring you just got? Just expect to lose it, even though it says you have 70% chance of success. Want to train your horse to the best? Pray to the RNG god that you acquire the proper set of skills. Etc. I mean, the term "RNG-carried" is a thing here.
  
  
• BDO is not a pay to win game. It's a "pay for convenience" game, as the apologists put it. That means, in-game purchases won't even save you from the hell of grinding and RNG-driven mechanics. You just spend more money on it, in the hopes something good will come out of that.

This is perhaps the only game where players religiously repeat the mantra "BDO is a marathon, not a sprint." I thought it was an aphorism about life, not an online game.

Don't repeat my mistake. Stay away from this MMO hell.