Recent reviews by nwgilstr

If you liked FTL, this is a spiritual successor. It's a fun game, worth some hours. I do suggest a trip to the guides section to learn a bit of how to play. I think 10 minutes there will increase enjoyability for hours.

Great, next generation ARPG. Inherited everything it needed to from its predecessors and discarded everything that wasn't needed. Combat and graphics are in line with next generation ARPGs. Character building is in depth, fun, and just right. Mechanics are well thought out, easy to see and understand, and provide all the right amount of flexibility you need for in depth analysis while being intuitive. Itemization is rich and excellent for purpose.

Compare to other ARPGs (this being a next generation would say this)

Diablo 2 - Story not as front and center or refined. Character building and modernization make D2 just seem "old".

Diablo 3 - Action/play style is similar and on par with best part about D3. Story not as front and center or easy to follow. Itemization, class building depth, way better.

Path of Exile - Actually think there is more depth here than in PoE with character builds. Whereas with PoE you have a very massive skill tree to work with, most of the nodes have no meaning where here, the sum total of skill tree across all classes is equally as large, and everything matters. Game play here is more fluid, more modern, better graphics. Path of Exile definitely has more content (but is also much older to allow for that).

Grim Dawn - Gameplay here and graphics much more modern/fluid. Itemization is on par. Character build depth is greater here than Grim Dawn in practice. Grim dawn edges out thematically. This game edges out story wise.

Titan Quest - Like D2, this game makes Titan Quest just feel old.

Looking forward to what this game will offer in the future as more updates come out. It's on the right track to greatness.

Game is still early access, and I'm sure there is still a lot in store for the future as far as content and bug fixes. What's important though, is that the bones of this game are solid, addictive, and fun. It's the type of early access game where what is already here is good and you can easily see, and in fact eagerly anticipate, more for the game because it has so much room to grow with such a fantastic base to work with. I've never played the other Mount & Blade titles, but now I want to!

As to the game, everything is a bit "clunky", as you expect from early access, but you can easily look past it and see where it's going. Standalone, right now, it's fun to play and I can't stop playing it. Combat feels a bit clunky, and yes, it's buggy in places. However, when you get into a massive battle, in the deserts where the sand is flying, you can't see, and all around you is carnage, it's priceless!

The game tiers well, starting you as a single noble. You work quests, build up an entourage, join a faction for a while to earn the big money, break off to be your own king. Basically, everything is set to be great, and all you wish is for MORE right now. More fleshing out, more polish, more options. Just a great game, worth buying now! Worth being on the train to the future.

This game is really a work of art. That pretty much says it all.

For more detail: First, the narrative of this game is gripping and engaging. It drops you in a world and makes you really feel that world. The game touts that it gives you hard decisions and recourse for your actions, and that's absolutely true. You feel for your people that you are trying to help survive and you are always in a position of making those choices. And they exactly fit how they should! There's nothing "gamey" or "campy" about choices, they exactly fit the narrative.

Second, the game is just "enough" of a city builder/management simulation to engage you and make it fun. It does this is in what I can best descirbe as a kind of simple or lazy way where the city management is obviously the engine of the game but not at all overwhelming, in fact simple. Where the excitement and fun comes in, is in that ticking clock. So, it's less about management sim so much as it is about planning and making the right choices because the grim reaper is always right around the corner. Therefore, the game is simple to pickup and play. And challenging.

What happens as a result is that when you play through the campaign on the normal settings, you get really good and efficient. You get too good, and at that point, you may question replayability. BUT, I cannot encourage enough that you turn on Survival Mode and give it another shot! You'll go from white knuckle at first as you learn, to easy street, right back to white knuckle on survival. In fact, the scaling for survival mode is so masterful, it recreates a whole new interest in the game, making those choices REALLY COUNT EVEN MORE... and forcing you to focus a lot more on planning and logistics. Again, with all the pieces being just as simple as they always were.

I really appreciate all the design that went into this game. This developer REALLY through it through in all aspects of the game. Nothing is there accidentally, without reason, and without purpose. It really is a work of art.

I have great mixed feelings about this game, but ultimately, don't think I would recommend it for others.

Ambiance and thematically, this game hits all the right notes. Also, for turn based strategy, the game is spot on with mechanics and where it needs to be. The timeline feature is also intriguing and adds exactly the level of depth the designers were looking to add. Music is awesome. Art style is awesome. Everything about the art design is just great.

Ultimately, where the game falls to a not recommended in my book is actually around game mechanics, which is not typically something which drags a game down for me. This is a unique case. The game has a sort of best described as "bolt on" rogue-like element to it. It accomplishes this in 2 ways. The first is expecting you to die while simultaneously giving your large bonuses for your next run through remembrances. Ultimately, as most of the guides say, your best bet is to play through the first boss and immediately restart because the bonuses are so large, you can't win without them. And this is a very ham-fisted approach to rogue-like.

The second is the requirement to sacrifice daughters to heal other daughters. This has two knock on effects which really kill the "fun" in the game and stray away from what makes traditional rogue-likes work. The first is that because you are constantly raising and sacrificing daughters, you really don't get that "team emotional attachment" or "character emotional attachment". You have your daughters, you are constantly sacrificing and reviving them, ultimately causing you to just "not care" about them and see them as heal batteries.

The second and worst offender of this is the mechanism where you can only sacrifice a daughter of equal or lesser level than the one you want to heal. What this does is cause you to have to unnecessarily grind levels on other daughters just to heal your "main team". This creates a heavy, heavy grind on this game, which I think is really, ultimately the downfall. I'm only 7 hours into the game, and already I'm putting it down because it feels grindy to me. Progression is painfully slow, and my desire now to see how this mysterious story will unfold is just completely overcome by the NPE that is grinding heal batteries.

Right away, dramatic improvement here could be made by simply allowing daughters of lesser level to only heal "some" of another daughter (and definitely not replace the bonus of a higher sacrifice). That change alone I think would immediately reduce or completely remove the "grind" and return the "fun" to this game for me.

Ultimately, there just is not enough variety in classes and definitely not in mission types (and no driver to make missions more exciting coming from the story since the story is completely hidden... no idea why I'm here and doing this or what that lost soul is or what it means other than another res token for a heal battery...)... so you get no attachment to the mission or classes. Thus, it's just grindy. That's the best I can describe.

Basically, I think with a core rethink of some game elements to make it less grindy, the theme and ambiance would drive this game to great heights. Ultimately, the high ratings and recommendations I think come solely from this because it doesn't take long before you just plain get bored of the game due to grinding before you can really form an opinion.

One word: Classic.

Great game! Lots of depth, very challenging. All about buildling solid teams, learning as you go. Tons of options, new things to discover all the time. Easy to learn, hard to master.

Pure nostalgia! Thank you for remaking DD1, and doing it right. Game is a blast! Want pets! :)

Great game! Endless hours of fun and engagement.

Great game, very addicting, and very unique. Learning curve is somewhat steep as the UI is not always intuitive, and you need to know various keyboard shortcuts in order to play effectively. Once you got it down, and you should spend the time getting it down, game plays amazingly well and keeps you engaged for hours and hours. Perfect game if you like to experiment and tinker. Coop is also fun and rewarding! This game is best in class for these massive engine builder style games (read: factory simulators).