Recent reviews by Deva

It's got its good points, the building is fun and the first run I had was fun. But the longer you play the more you realize that it's becoming oversexualised junk. Cosmetics are nothing but sexy outfits clearly designed with a specific demographic in mind.

There's hardly any story to follow up on, and the story you do have feels disjointed and completely unfinished at best. It lacks cohesion, a natural flow to things. There's no real lore to follow, nothing to find out that explains more. They don't go back and touch up old campaigns or add more quests (which there's a huge lack of in my opinion). PVE hardly feels PVE when the story is shallow and there's only a handful of quests, but I'm also personally a story-enjoyer.

It started as a really cool aesthetic and for a first playthrough (at least on the Manibus campaign) it is just that. But the tutorial is awful, I had to google so many things because it didn't popup to tell me until sometime later, well after I had figured it out on my own. The maps are so large with so few people in them that if people weren't talking in world chat then I would've thought the game was dead. If you have a group of friends to play with it might be different, but if you're a solo player? You're going to find the world very big and the 'solo' experience is pretty literal without anyone around for miles.

The UI is awful, there's so many different menus and the CURRENCY, oh god. There's at like 8 or more different currencies for different things. It's absolutely nuts, I hate it. I've never seen a game with so many different types of currencies for stuff. It's also got lootboxes and gacha with a battlepass, so if you don't like those, avoid this one. They also charge you IRL cash to 'unlock' the achievement sections (yes, plural. They've got multiple sections and you have to pay to unlock each one), which I've never heard of in my life.

It's good for a first run, but if you're looking for a long-term, fun, gothic horror aesthetic MMORPG? This isn't it. Not any longer, at least. It's hardly a surprise though, because the game is owned by NetEase which is notorious for ruining the things it has. Every. Single. Time. Honestly, seeing 'NetEase' on anything should send you running for the hills. I'm only playing it now because I like building my little house and occasionally running the Manibus campaign every now and then.

I was going to play this game, but I can't even get it to run. With the launcher needing to be reinstalled and the game just stuck on loading for the very first screen. I'm just gonna take this as a sign not to play another gacha game, lol.

This is not an old-school Dragon Age game. It's decent if you don't consider it one and turn your brain off to just enjoy it for what it is at face value: shallow. This game feels like it was written by people who never played the first three games and never had a serious conversation in their life with another human being.

I'm going to ignore things like graphics for right now: engines change, and maybe they wanted to take a more stylized approach so it ages better than their previous games. But that's not where the issues in this game lie, so I'm going to put my current thoughts down for someone to read and then maybe, eventually, expand on this.

They have sanitized this game to the point of no return. They have decided that this game cannot be "dark" or gritty or anything too "bad" or god forbid mean. The Crows, what was supposed to be a morally dubious faction (that was involved with buying children to raise them specifically to survive torture), are now a "found family" that has each other's backs and protects Treviso's best interests as its "guardians."

You treat your companions like five-year-old toddlers that can't settle disputes themselves without Rook's 'gentle guidance.' Everyone talks like it's a therapy session and they're working out their feelings.

Characters aren't allowed to dislike each other; everyone is forced to work out their differences, and it's one stop short of becoming a musical with people breaking out in song about their feelings. The stakes never feel there because of this, honestly. Nobody ever makes what is essentially the end of the world feel like that. There's no urgency in any of the companions, their dialogues, or their tone.

Minrathous, the heart of Tevinter, doesn't have ANY blood magic (at least not to the point it's described because if there is, it's in quests, but you don't SEE it as much as you would expect from TEVINTER of all places). It's like the game decided all of its lore was too dark and needed to retcon all of it. It's why we don't get to see previous companions like Fenris or Zevran. Those characters are some of the ones most affected by the dark and gritty lore they established, and the game doesn't want you to see that. (DESPITE Fenris being canonically around Tevinter helping slaves, DESPITE Zevran having been a Crow). They couldn't have that, so they opted not to have characters that would've made sense, showing up at all.

The story is linear; your decisions don't really matter until the end (and I don't mean that in a 'what you decide in the beginning affects the end', I mean the 'the important decisions with consequences are at the end'), but even then, the stakes don't feel there. All of it feels like amateur writing, and nothing builds up to a climatic conclusion.

They told us our Rook couldn't use Blood Magic as a specialty tree for "reasons we'd find out in-game," but there's never a reason given. You just can't. It's probably too dark.

Also: Is nobody going to explain why there are suddenly Eluvian Mirrors all over the world? In convenient locations, at that?

If you like'd Sun Haven and Stardew Valley you'll love this game. Even at early access it's well polished. The characters feel alive and genuine and listening to the conversation between Juniper and Valen every Friday is the best. The sprites are very Salior Moon-esque and Juniper even got that anime That Laugh™. It's a great game so far, just keep in mind it's early access and unfinished.

One thing I recommend if you feel like you're zoomed in too much is to go to Settings > Display > In-Game Scale and set it to 1x. Mine started at 4x and I felt like I was having to open my map every few seconds to see where the villager I was chasing was.

Sunk cost fallacy.

This game has been a blast for me so far. Yes, there's some issues with graphics and optimization but that's about all I've run into.

1. You don't have to buy micro-transactions—pretend they aren't there, that they don't exist! You can 100% play the game and get all of that stuff IN GAME.
2. Yes, you can change your appearance. Just like in dragon's dogma 1, you spend rift crystals (which you get in game via monsters and people renting your pawn out)
3. DD has only ever allowed for 1 save file, and likely just as in the first game there's going to be a NG+ which carries everything over (hopefully, I'm not there yet). I personally don't need more than one save file so its a non-issue for me.

YES there are issues. YES it is scummy for capcom to have micro-transactions blatantly out like that for people who've never played the first game and don't know the intricacies. Yes, it is extremely stupid to have Denuvo for a single player game.

That said, I'm having a great time with it. I'm ignoring micro-transactions (as you all need to do, just pretend it doesn't exist) and try to enjoy the game where you can, if you can. If you're a DD1 fan, I recommend the game, if not, then maybe wait and watch someone play so you understand how stuff works before we get more ppl crying over micro-transactions (which are entirely OPTIONAL)

Yes, I get that we all hate micro-transactions and we don't want them in a lot of games. That said, money talks, just don't buy it.

Great game, the dialogue options are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hilarious 10/10

Addictive and highly re-playable. Tons of mods to mix it up. I'm not great at reviews but this has to be my most played game on steam. Absolutely love it and can't praise and recommend it enough if colony sim/base building is your thing.

A fantastic relaxing game to play and easily the cutest. 10/10 Great game to pick up and put down anytime.