Recent reviews by DrakenKin

I beat the new map on apoc 6 on my second try, enjoyed the ride. The new DLC adds dwarves as a new race with some new perks, a new type of items "medals" which are basically trinkets that have perks on them, 3 new weapons, and a new map. Overall well priced and pretty good value for the fans of the base game who want more!

PROS
- Dwarves! They can't jump obstacles but they come with a different "column" of brand new perks
- The 3 new weapons are good for variety, but not overpowered
- A new map, kind of an endurance check, and needs a more memorable last night but good overall
- Very well priced I think, it's good value for the money
- Beer! (It's a new potion type with various positive and negative modifiers)

CONS
- I am not sure why dwarves can't jump obstacles like human do, it's a big issue. They can only jump of another ally is very close, and they have to sacrifice health to do so. We should not need to walk heroes in pairs just so they can jump a wall or a hole in the ground, it's thematic for the short kings yes but more a hassle than a fun flavor to have. This on top of starting with less move points is a bit much, and the extra 8 block doesn't even start to make up for it.
- The final night is not very clear about what exactly you have to do. I failed it the first time because i kept waiting for something to happen and just got overwhelmed around turn 14 or 15. The invulnerable targets gimmick is also not the most fun thing to deal with, it just increases number of turns artificially and i would prefer to see them come with more original ideas for bosses that can be hard, but can be beaten faster if we are strong or clever enough. I'd say more but i don't want to spoil the map for those who haven't beaten it yet. Enough to say that when you sink a dozen hours into a run, it's hard to have fun having to restart them all over because you missed a queue, or when finally you beat it on the second attempt, the result is hardly spectacular. I frankly thought there was another phase to the last night and was surprised when it just ended.
- They still haven't learned from past mistakes where when you have to destroy X number of things for something to happen, there needs some kind of visual or sound queue or even both so the player can confirm having done the right thing. Instead we have to rely on paranoia checking double and triple checking every tile of the map to make sure we haven't missed a single objective, and when we do we lose a whole turn of progress which can be the difference between winning or losing a run.
- The new map doesn't let players reach max level. I had to stay on 3 heroes for 7 days and hire 2 heroes on the last day only for a couple of them hit level 11. Most players will be getting a 4th 5th and 6th hero earlier and barely make the last row of perks if at all. I think this can be tweaked, even if it needs adding a couple of nights or boosting xp gain ORRRR making heroes on this map start with medals offering something like 30% more experience to boot.
- I want the devs to favor leaning on "interesting" and less on "more". For instance the last night relies on (mainly) surviving longer because the objectives take more turns. Why not introduce new mecanics, new enemies, new modifiers to the map or rules or enemy behaviors? I enjoyed the DLC, yet I'd love to see some new ideas beyond just introducing new perks, which is a nice touch, but doesn't change anything to combat. I'd love to have a few "oh ♥♥♥♥!" moments when discovering new content and this type of DLC is sadly lacking in that department, even if it's a good DLC overall.

CONCLUSION
The DLC is recommended for the fans. If you haven't beaten the base game you probably won't get much our of it since the new map is more of the same, except if you want to support the devs. But overall it's a good DLC with decent value and playtime for the price.

Cute game and very promising this early in the access.

PROS

- Atmosphere
- Innovative system where enemies get as much AP as you spend yourself
- Nice skill crafting system to come up with combinations of effects
- Nice darkest dungeon like atmosphere
- A skill tree similar to path of exile, well, a baby version of it
- Enough systems, from skill crafting, to story, to unique NPCS with their own unique enemies, trading, picking missions based on reward, enough things to do
- No difficulty scale, BUT it's innovative in the way it lets you explore by choice, and the more you explore the harder the game gets... basically exploration is the difficulty level

CONS

- Some story elements are not clear. Why are people trying to erase their mind?
- This early the map design is not very diverse, but it's not much of a problem
- Lack of marketing, nobody seems aware of this game, there are literally 12 followers on twitch!

Conclusion

Get it, it's well on its way to be a good game, and it's priced very reasonably you don't even need to wait for a sale. Highly recommended!

Well, i got completely stuck in the game after 10 hours. Explored all nodes in range, took 5 bases, did all missions. The story missions are now "unreachable" all the way in russia, europe, the north pole, and i have no materials left (and no missions left to earn it) so i can't keep expanding my bases for more territories. I also researched everything.

Well, the game wasn't that great to begin, too simple, lack of attention to details, half the classes seem useless, it's just very very average and i've seen so much better. Time to move on.

I would not recommend this, it seems somehow unfinished or at least very lacking / uninspired.

Great game! but takes too long to unlock cards so you see people playing interesting decks and you have not the cards to be as creative. The grind is real.

PROS

- Many cards
- Great concept, nearing genius how the game is simple with only 6 turns and 12 cards decks yet diverse
- Works on desktop and mobile, so you can play anytime
- Gambling! You can snap to bet more cubes, meaning it's like poker where you have to guess if you're winning or losing so you can either bet or fold (snap or retreat)
- Mind games, you often don't win by having the better deck, but by guessing right what your opponent has and what he plans to do with it
- The "area effects" are random and make every match unique, even when you're playing similar decks against similar opponent decks the areas really change tactics and can completely give the advantage to someone

CONS

- Insanely grindy to unlock interesting cards and decks
- REQUIRES a battle pass since you don't earn anywhere enough credits to make any progress playing for free, and it's like 13$ per month since seasons only last one month
- Hard to watch videos and streams since people have widely different decks and cards from what you can achieve
- The people who played beta are already level 1000-1600++ and me playing an unhealthy amount since release (75 hours with 2 battle passes) i am barely scratching level 200-300, it feels like i need another 3-4 months just to unlock cards and THEN i will be competitive, but not before
- I keep playing vs people with vastly more interesting cards and decks i don't have access to, even if we are in the same pools... i had a 100 games againt people with jubilee and the infinaut, never had those cards, missing the cards to make a good destruction deck, missing cards like cloak to make a good movement deck... why am i playing vs these people? I hit rank 60 and now i can't advance further because of lack of cards and not being able to climb is really demotivating, will actually be the reason i quit if i stop playing

RECOMMENDED?

It's a very close call, as it is FUN, but requires too much of a GRIND to unlock the ability to make interesting decks and compete with the best. It's not even a money issue (since pvp card battlers like hearthstone or gwent are expected to cost some money to start a collection) but a question of TIME. I don't think it's reasonable to give beta players such a head start, there should have been a reset. And i don't think you should need to play 4 months just to have a decent collection. For these reasons i am leaning towards NOT recommending it. At least i advise you to play for at least a month before buying the battle pass, because if i could i would never have bought mine. They did nothing to get me where i wanted to be collection-wise and it ended up being a huge waste of money.

Cute "SFW" dating sim with charming presentation and extremely lacking interface, the result is tiresome but overall enjoyable and i do recommend it.

PROS

- Nice visuals
- Nice characters
- Nice positive / happy dialogues
- The haggling card game part of it is actually enjoyable
- I was able to do all achievements in one run, which is nice when possible (it's doable if you rely on gifts, contrary to what some negative reviews say maxing out everyone is NOT mathematically impossible)
- It's actually a bit more involved / harder than your average game in this genre, which tend to be extremely easy and brainless
- The devs released 2 patches with fixed in as many days after release, good to know that the game will be supported and improved
- Capitalism! Most game in that category are extremely bad, so it's good news when you get a half decent one in there


CONS

- Extremely lacking interface, finding ingredients without filter takes forever, and you can't make recipes to speed up the ingredient adding... it's OK at first but around day 20-30+ it really gets tiresome and personally i had to skip a bunch of things (like expeditions which burn through a lot of potions) just to finish the game faster because i was getting crafting fatigue
- The competitions are not actually that hard, you just make the right potions, and have a lot of time to haggle your way to victory
- I would not call this a strategy game, just a "logistics" game where you manage inventory, ingredients, and crafting... the hardest part is finding time to interact with NPCs between all that, and there are actually many traps that can prevent you from doing that (tip : don't ever hangout, just gift and spend time upgrading npcs for more cards, also once you craft the 3 potions for the competition stop the money making and focus on the npcs)
- Weird loading screen between menus when you are in your shop, feels like a badly ported mobile game. Hopefully they can fix that at some point

What's challenging about this game?

The main challenge is doing math to fit ingredients together perfectly to get higher priced potions to make money. This also works with exploring and finding new ingredients and buying them to find the right "numbers" that won't give you a headache to fit together to make the various available potions.

The second challenge is just to not mentally die doing all of the above repeatedly without any ingredient filters.

Finally there is a "time" aspect and you have to plan your day ahead to know when to craft, when to sell, when to buy, when to interact with npcs, etc


OVERALL

It has its flaws, but overall it is enjoyable and reasonably priced, so i do recommend it. Also the main issue is the sorting, and so many people have complained about that, it should be fixed relatively soon.

First quest, craft a bed with something called "plant fibers". Wasn't able to interact with plants, punching them destroys them, no tool can be crafted to harvest plants. Ran out of ideas. Spent an hour running around killing zombies, finding plenty of beds in houses that apparently are not good enough to use or break down for materials so i can make my own bed.

How is this still in early access 10 years after release?

Gave up. Next game on the list.

Made it to day 22 then got one of the endings (ending 9 of 20) I don't want to spoil it, but it has to do with an assassination.

It felt like there was still a long way to go if not taking that ending. Is the game good? Yes. Do i want to grind more of repetitive paper checking just to find out what is going to happen next? No.

Again a really good game, original, well done, well written, all that. The game loop is just too repetitive for me. It really does feel like a real manual job, and it doesn't feel like a good use of my time. I guess the developer succeeded at creating that soul crushing job feeling, a bit too well!

I heard a lot about this game, and i am glad i know how it is now, but really, the gameplay is too repetitive and doesn't evolve enough past the first 2 hours to keep your attention. I would have solved that by automating some of the more basic tasks as i created new more interesting ones... for example the district can be highlighted in green if correct or red if incorrect so you don't have to keep checking the rulebook for geographical information.. while again, introducing new mechanics or things to do or check. Right now it's too much of the same, again and again, and without a better gameplay loop there are just too many games out there with more fun to give.

Mediocre to OK-ish survival game. The main issues is that whole game is a glorified "fetch quest" simulation without anything interesting enough to spice it up.

PROS

- It's decent visually and in terms of performance, just generally too dark
- The controls and shooting are crisp, it's very easy to headshot things (except for laggy multiplayer)
- It goes on sale for 10$ and might be an OK purchase at that price (currently free with xbox game pass)
- Are you the type of player who moved all the cheese of the world to your house in Skyrim? If you like fetch quests and grindy A to B looting this is for you
- The fights are actually challenging at medium (3rd) difficulty and up, in fact i highly recommend you play on the highest difficulty you can handle to get that survival feeling
- Three different modes, sandbox, story sandbox, and multiplayer "wave survival" offer a little bit of a change of pace
- There is a little bit of meta progression in how beating a game with a specific leader unlocks some bonuses for the following runs, but because the gameplay is so repetitive you don't end up wanting to do many runs in this game so it's a bit of a wasted effort

CONS

- The big bad issue : everything in the game is a grindy fetch quest, move things from A to B, repeat
- Can't play solo / single player without internet
- The multiplayer survival seems like a nice break at first, but most games are laggy (zombies rubber banding or invulnerable to your bullets) or crashing and host disconnecting (waste of time because rewards are lost). On its best day, it is repetitive and grindy, since you mostly want to unlock building blueprints from the survival mode so you can use them in the normal campain, but even with 20 hours put in (played some on xbox too), i didn't unlock a single building! Just more weapons for the survival mode
- Base building could have solved a lot of the game's issues, unfortunately it is super bland, linear, and uninteresting
- Same with character development, super bland... a lot of filler specializations, and all characters feel generic
- While it is not a bad game per say (i did enjoy some of my time with it), every single thing here was done much better in other similar games
- Built around the single player experience, so coop kind of sucks compare to similar titles, in coop you're barely a glorified NPC.
- The pacing is wrong. The everyday zombie killing is way too easy, and taking hearts part can be brutal in comparison (especially when it is placed in an awkward house layout), this makes it challenging to pick the right difficulty level, you either are bored out of your mind until you go hearts, or everyday shooting is fun but then hearts become very frustrating, especially with perma death of your characters.
- Again with the heart difficulty... awkward house layouts that gives you zero vision / awareness or that prevents using explosives or fire without hurting yourself or your companion(s), inability to see dangerous zombies coming (like ferals) before it is too late, getting easily stuck and surrounded by a horde that comes from every direction... all of these issues are fine day to day, but when you're taking hearts it's suddenly impossible to play safe, or smart, or survive from a bad spot when you're unlucky... in the end i started only doing hearts with companions i don't much care about, because again you never know when you'll get unlucky and lose one
- Many many MANY bad design decisions. Why do i have to cancel my quest if i switch characters? the gameplay has been balanced around switching characters all the time so why punish the player for it? Why can't i have a hotkey to switch to my companion (especially mid combat) instead of having to initiate dialog everytime? Missions expiring yet for a lot of them you don't seem to be able to tell how much time you have left...? why so many useless—yet required to build something specific—skills? I need computing to upgrade my base but then to dismantle a building i suddenly need programming? Why are those 2 things different? Whats the difference between all these sound alike skills like mechanic, utility, crafter... ? It just feels too much like an alpha stage game that needs a lot of refining before prime time. Oh and don't get me started on how everything in the game uses E as a hotkey... trying to pick something off the floor? too bad, you just opened a door. Trying to talk to companion to switch to him? too bad, you just entered a vehicle. Dying to a juggernaut and tying to enter your vehicle for safety? too bad you just started talking to your companion... All these things use E as a hotkey, frustrating!
- The way zombies insta respawn as you move a few inches away makes it not worthwhile to clear areas, not even the immediate vicinity of your base
- Companions are brain dead, standing in front of your shots and absorbing bullets, getting easily overwhelmed and pinned down... if only we could have a hotkey to switch to them that would be fine, but in the middle of heavy combat you almost wish they weren't there... and somehow they always end up being a plague magnet, you have a big fight and by the end you are 8% infected and your companion is 80% infected... how? That being said you always bring them anyway because you need them to carry things, so companions are basically mules for transporting things that sometimes help in a fight. I've seen them kill 4 zombies quickly, but i also saw them get charged and pinned by a single zombie, right in the open spaces where they could have shot it from far away... all this to say, they are very inconsistent.

WORTH IT?

Free on the xbox pass or very cheap this could be worth trying and seeing if you like it. Especially going in with low expectations after reading this review. It's better yet in the harder modes playing with a buddy (because the AI is stupid), i could see it being enjoyable that way. More so if this is your type of games.

I will however generally not recommend it because at full price it's a pretty bad purchase compared to the very wide selection of better games out there.

Amazing amazing game. Had a blast for an hour, was really unexpected.

Big issue is, hackers. Auto aim, but even worse "no death" hacks where people get shot or fall over the map and stay alive.

I'll still recommend it, because not only it is great and deserving, but you should play it with friends and family. That would solve the hacker issue also. :)

I think it's a perfect game for a gift. Someone can absolutely have no idea what they are doing and still have fun.

A great concept, that would have been a great game, if only there was more balance to the RNG, the exploration events, and the game flow in general. This game in its current state is barely Russian roulette with better graphics. Enjoyable maybe yes, but certainly not by most people.

PROS

+ Great concept, explore lands to find artefacts and secrets all around the world
+ A nice selection of explorers from history, each with their strengths and weaknesses. Unlock more with meta progression

+- Interesting dice based fighting system. Just does not feel quite mature yet compared to other games
+- When it is a its best (lucky), can be very immersive, when at its worse (unlucky) absolutely infuriating. If they replaced the gambling / RNG elements with actual tactics, this game would be a gem

CONS

- Big fat issue #1 : A lot of the events are basically RNG traps. They will wreck your 3 hours expedition giving you no chance of recovery. It will require from you a lot of hours and multiple failed runs to know which events to avoid or how to handle them correctly.
- Big fat issue #2 : Requires memorization even when you encountered a situation before. You might die to a bear because you didn't know how strong they are. But the next time you see one and want to decide to fight or flight, there is no bestiary or inspect option. You can't tell how strong the bear is, how many there are in the pack, nothing. You'll have through experience remember all this, or spoil yourself by checking the wiki.

- The two main resources of the game are sanity (goes down as you move around, it's basically move points) and inventory space. Sanity can be managed, in fact it’s management is the main gameplay loop of the game. But inventory space is always a big issue. There are a lot of things you NEED to carry, food, weapons, rope, Healing items, torches, dynamite, etc etc... and it's never enough. Yes it is a strategic choice on what you carry and that will affect your play, but I think it's a bit too brutal when you're new to the game and don't know what to prioritize keeping.

- Very unclear descriptions. Take the telescope for instance it says "extra map point chance 30%", now what does that even mean? Extra movement points? cheaper movement points? More map points / areas revealed? more spawn chance for interesting points / sites to explore? I had no idea. Turns out it's none of the above, only locations discovered will give you map points, and you need 3 map points to get one exploration point. What are exploration points? well it's what you need to level up your companions, meaning experience!! This is written nor explained anywhere in the game, good luck understanding all the items you find and what they are good for. The only solution is to check the wikis and forums... which absolutely kills the whole premise of the game. Are we "exploring" and discovering things, or are we spoiling ourselves reading wikis? Not only it kills the primary appeal of the game (organic discovery through exploration), but it also kills the immersion too. If RNG didn't kill the game this would be the second worst offender… the necessity to check the wiki for the most basic stuff.

- Many inconsistencies and interface limitations. Why can i trade, get away, then back into it. But somehow if i want to recruit and i need to have a look at my team and come back, recruitment is locked? Why the flute shows a 1 tile range visually but actually has a 3 tile range? Why some of the descriptions (like "abandon everything" to unlock an explorer) are so misleading? Why can't we see how many animals are in a pack? Why can't we hover the enemie's dice to see their effects? Much critical tactical information is hidden for absolutely no good reason.

- Some nonsensical game mechanics. There is a compass that is supposed to point to the pyramid, this compass gets more accurate the more of the map you explore. Yet with most of the map explored the compass is useless, not only that but there are many magnetic mountains that disturb the reading in considerable range so basically nobody looks at the compass because it's literally the worst thing ever. I remember that one time i had half the map explored and found the pyramid, i was literally 1 tile from it and the compass was still going left and right in a wide 45° angle. What's worse, I had the "navigator" perk which is the only way to increase compass accuracy in the game, by 30%.

- Dead community. Try asking a question on steam or reddit, no one will answer. Try to find tips videos or expert let's plays on youtube. There are none. The few let's plays you find are from 5+ years ago and not even finished, proving that even youtubers stuggled with the game. It seems this game didn't generate much buzz even years ago when it was at its prime.

WORTH IT?

As i said when you're new to curious expedition, it will feel like you're playing Russian roulette. This is the kind of game where you die because you "did not know" something, wasting hours and hours just to discover one detail the hard way, and have to restart. And even when you know, RNG can still bite your face off.

For example you go rest, and you wake up to a dead companion and another who turned into a cannibal. What!? The worst is that you can’t tell what triggers some of these events so you can avoid them in the future. Maybe your sanity was too low, maybe you ate something, maybe something bit you, maybe you were cursed, etc. It will take many trials and painful deaths, or checking the wiki as you play. Checking the wiki bothers me a lot, so i learned most of the game through making mistakes (I love hard game so i have more tolerance than the average) and it wasn't a very fun time. Once I got a better understanding of which event to manage, and which to avoid entirely... I didn't lose a single expedition. This to say that you can learn this game and you can beat it consistently once you learn the events and what makes them tick.

If you are OK with either playing with wiki in hand, or dying a lot to RNG until you understand the outcomes of all the events and how to avoid the worst, then this game does have some depth that is worth checking. It's definitely a labor of love, even if misguided sometimes. I liked all the history inspired explorers, unlocking them, and adapting my strategy to their strengths and weaknesses. I liked doing some of the achievements like "hire no one", "sell nothing", "always stay in good terms with the natives", and others, as they made me explore different ways to play the game. I especially enjoyed my self imposed "ethical" run where i did not loot shrines or offend the native population, something that is quite challenging in a game that pushes you to be the evil colonialist who's just here to loot and burn. I enjoyed the art, some of the humor, and the general exploration focus of the game. So there's a lot to like in this game, if you can get the RNG and interface limitations.

This game is hard but definitely winnable, you just have to be either lucky, stubborn (high tolerance for losing runs in the most stupid ways possible), or spoil yourself with the wiki. If you're OK with some of that, then i do recommend you give this game a shot. Just do it preferably at a discount to limit your risk. I know this game will infuriate most people and most won't stick around get good enough at it to enjoy it, and this is why I ultimately decided to not recommend it in this review.