Recent reviews by Ketamarine

Def worth the run through for anyone who likes survival crafters or moba style combat.

Super fun with a group of vampy tramps!

You know I was loving every minute of this game... until the late game puzzles...

Like WTF were the devs thinking.

You buy vague hints like the green eyed typhon and from the crimson star to the storm station and then again.

Like why in such a tight game would they add this weird set of guests that basically makes you fly around aimlessly in space hoping that you understood the puzzle the way it was meant to be...

Hope this issue is not repeated in the sequel!

I have NO idea why this game has such a high score.

It's basically a carbon copy of there are billions, but with pixel graphics so bad you can't even tell what is going on like 90% of the time.

The indicators for what tiles are going to spawn enemies is completely whack, you can't see the majority of the projectiles and your units end up as a un-recognizable blue clump.

I played video games in the 80s.... this is NOT what it looked like.

Pixel graphics are not an excuse for making a game where you can't possibly tell what is going on most of the time...

"You are under attack... you are under attack.... you are under attack"... STFU - most useless voice line of ALL TIME

I want to like this game, but the UI and story just won't let me.

There is SO much potential buried beneath layers and layers of useless information, extra button clicks, extremely long travel times where you do precisely nothing other than busy work (Want to go across the map? You have to fast travel between about 5 cities to refuel and it will take you easily over an hour).

Seriously could be a successor to sid meier's pirates or the perfect mount and blade air ship construction game if it would just get out of the way of itself.

But it takes SOOO long to do everything, 85% of the story is boring small talk (like did you hire writers to write this stuff? Or get two AI to talk to eachother or something as it seems like the latter...) and the good parts (combat and ship building) are a tiny -- TINY -- fraction of what you actually do... like 5% of your time at best, that I can't in good conscience recommend this game in its current state.

At least devs are listening on the forums, but I don't think they actually understand the core problems that would have to be fixed for this to rise to a great or must play game.

It would need:
- Complete story rewrite, reducing the read and voice acted lines by AT LEAST 75% but more like 90%
- Complete UI rebuild - way of interacting (left click exits menus???), endless nested menus in towns - like some towns have 20+ potential destinations in nested menus including 5+ different stores... for... reasons, and general clunkiness - for example 21:9 support is enabled by turning on the right and left parts of the screen, but the are not interactive areas, so you can't left click on them to exit menus, which effing drives you insane when you are spending EASILY 50% of your time buried in menus
- Serious reconsideration of the economy. There are probably 500+ different resources in the game and from what I can tell, there is ZERO reason to interact with 95% of them. Case in point: I bought some cheap tin at a tin mine and carried it around to ALL of the major settlements in the central area of the map. Not ONE place wanted to buy it for more than 10% of what I paid for it. Compared to other trading games where you can buy stuff at a mine and take it to a factory for $$$. There is NO WAY this is getting fixed as there are so many commodities it would take 10 full time economists to fix it.
- Combat needs the ability to control your other ships as well. It's overall great and super fun, but you could run the same battle 5 times and get completely wiped OR kill all enemies without taking damage just based on what your stupid AF AI ships decide to do with the exact same commands

I genuinely wish the team good luck, but I wouldn't hold my breath on this one.

I mean I paid like $9 CAD for all the DLC and just spent 3 hours building out a shell of a giant vault atrium to turn into my main base. I was trying to figure out where to build it and happened across vault 88 basically by accident.

Pleasantly surprised by the clearing out of the caves section being super fun knowing that you can actually use the space you are clearing if you want to. I might try sim settlements and let people build up some subterranean mushroom farms or something.

The questline is stupid and one of the worst in the game, but it's pretty short so... shrug.

So for the maybe $1 I paid for it, I got to loot a cool giant cave and then spend two hours building the biggest base I've ever bothered to in the game. So thumbs up for me.

Building system still leaves a LOT to be desired. Clipping issues are infuriating and the UI and having to press enter to place items is horrendous game design. But we all know that before buying the DLC so... again... shrug...

Balance is just AWFUL at higher difficulty. And lower difficulty is a complete joke.

The enemy heroes are completely untouchable after round 100 on anything higher than advanced. Like you can cast every buff and debuff you have and your best melee hero can't even touch their ranged or casters.

It's completely absurd and makes the game impossible to play beyond a certain difficulty and map size. Either you curb stomp the enemy immediately, or end up fighting invincible single units that could (zero hyperbole here) literally kill every single unit you have on the map in one battle without taking damage.

EDIT:

Playing through as mage class and HAVE to give this game a giant thumbs down due to how they keep nerfing the mage class.

The most egregious issue is wand durability. Some wands will die after like 25 attacks. Compared to closer to 100 for melee weapons.

What do the devs do? In one patch they REDUCE wand durability and now they reduce its damage AND make it harder to avoid taking damage while using it???

If it's DPS was too high, then lower the damage, with an increase to durability to compensate. Don't make it so that our MAIN WEAPON breaks in like 1-2 encounters.

Durability is obnoxious enough in most games, but this is by far the worst example I have EVER seen in any game.

Also the spell casting system needs a complete rework as it is slow and clunky. Just let us put a spell on a number key like Diablo and let us cast with left click.

Q+left click WHILE trying aim SUCKS. So does Q+scroll wheel to select spells.

You get your thumbs up back when you fix these issues.




Initial review - as melee class:
WOW.

What an experience. This game is an absolute gem and must play for any survival crafting enthusiast.

Stunning world to explore, amazing building and crafting mechanics, rich set of quests with a full RPG style questing system. Amazing locations full of loot with different rarity and levels so you always feel like you are progressing. Combat is much better than other survival games with a full RPG style skill web. Specialize between magic, melee and range/stealth.

True strength of the game comes out when you have a crew supporting eachother in combat and in exploration and building. Absolute blast with 3-4 players. Solo seems super fun, but I could see it getting very frustrating in difficult areas as a single death costs you a potentially super long death run, while losing your rested stamina bonus in some cases (where you have a closer respawn beacon and don't want to go all the way home).

And the update - WOW haven't even tried the content yet, but they have already added more in 2 months than say Valheim added in 3 years. This game is on an INSANE trajectory to be THE survival crafting RPG of the 2020s.

With friends, this is an easy 9/10 - maybe 8/10 solo.

MUST BUY for anyone that loved Valheim, Smallworld, fable, kingdoms of amalur... heck even Elden Ring or Zelda fans will just love it!

VICTORY FOR DEMOCRACY! I did my part!!!

EDIT:

Eff you playstation. There is not a SINGLE game I have ever seen on steam that needs an effing console account. I don't own a playstation, nor do I ever intend on owning one and the game worked just fine without your stupid info grab.

THUMBS FRACKING DOWN JERKS

Otherwise known as: How Japanese execs can somehow crush what was otherwise going to be a massive smash PC gaming hit.

You basically just stopped ALL momentum on the sales of your game dewfuses.

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It a game. Terminators and aliens and 'splosions oh my!

I mean Pokemon with guns... Come on...

10/10 Would Settle Patagonia Again!

Seriously, this is EXACTLY what every settlers fan is looking for.

Honestly surprised how feature complete the game is after one peaceful and one combat map. I'm sure there is tons more the devs will add, but seriously this game is WELL worth the price at this point in development!

Looking forward to some epic coop matches when it launches!