Recent reviews by Ellye

The most glaring problem and the issue that I won't be able to get over is that every skill is just some random VFX that all looks the same like some generic gigantic slash effect, probably all from the same "100 VFX Assets" bundle in Unity Store or something like that.

Compare this to good Survivors like Vampire Survivors where each skill has a very obvious effect and you can clearly tell which of your skills is which, focusing on improving a specific skill has a cool pay-off and seeing it do its thing, etc. Here it's all just a jumble of generic slashes that all get mixed together.

There's also absolute no impact effect, you feel like you're only fighting air.

There's a lot of systems and stuff to grind and unlock but it won't matter for me as the base itself isn't fun. And most of that stuff is just in the "+1% damage" variety.

Balance and card design seem to be done by blindly throwing darts, everything is way too swingy.

If you ever thought that creatures that don't have Haste or ETB effect were bad in M:tG, here it's on a whole other level. Nothing survives from the turn it's played to the player's next turn, ever. Every turn consists of some swingy play that completely wipes the opponent board, until either player misses their play and loses the game.

Cards have a bunch of random abilities that often have no connection to each other, no theme with the card name/art, nothing.

There's no concept of a power curve either. Some card will be a 5-cost 2/2 with some useless ability (anything that doesn't instantly affect the game); while other will be a 5-cost 4/4 that summons a 3/3 that spellbosts 3, destroys one enemy unit and summons a 3/3 ward rush. It's absurd.

The art is even better in this one, but I think the previous one was a better game overall.

Still, nice short story.

It's really well made, but it's too simple, too little, too same-y even for the standards of this genre.

At first the number of systems and progressions might give the impression of complexity, but it's all extremely shallow.

I feel like Chronicon and Grim Dawn are far better choices for single player ARPGs.

Crossplay / cross-progress with mobile, and it's a nice game to play there.

The mechanics of this cardgame are pretty neat - simple rules but with good gameplay due to how you have to adapt to different locations each game. It manages to present a lot of decision making in a 6-turn package.

There are two game modes:

- "Ranked" is the default mode, it's a ladder that will match you mostly against bots for a long while before you start playing more humans. Even when you do start playing humans, the game matchamking prioritises putting you against people with a similar collection level - so you won't be constantly facing people with access to lots of cards that you don't have right out of the bat.
- "Conquest" is a gauntlet style that you face a sequence of players to earn rewards at the end based on how many wins. This one also has bots but only on the lowest tiers and only on your first match on the other tiers. Here you'll be able to pitch your starter decks against opponents playing the latest meta decks a bit more often, if you so wish.

And speaking of which, the game balance seems surprising decent when compared to most other CCGs. As always, there are meta-decks and staple cards and such - but the difference in power between the top tier stuff and the medium tier stuff doesn't seem that large. I feel that in most matches the differences between player skill will be a much more deciding factor than the differences between card balance (as long as both players are at least playing a reasonable deck, even if a starter one).

The monetizing system is the same labyrinthite mess that every single f2p game nowadays is - a thousand different currencies, currencies that exist to buy other currencies, etc, etc. It doesn't matter that much as the game doesn't offer a lot of way to purchase cards directly, even for the people that do want to throw money at that - the biggest sellers here seems to be cosmetics.

I've played only a bit, on a game with slowed research modifiers, and will probably wait until the game leaves early access to play more - don't want to "spoil" too much of it for myself before that.

But the impression I've got from the game is quite positive, it's already a very competent city building game that can be either relaxing or challenging depending on game setup choices.

It looks extremely cute and all the mechanics are there for it to be a great base building game, but it feels like I'm constantly fighting against the user interface and the lack of in-game information and proper management windows.

The weird console-style controls where you can't just use your mouse to hover over icons when navigating menus like the research tree or report windows is a constant pain.

You'd think a game about rats would have better mouse support.

It's a very well made mix between Musou games and action roguelikes. Character combos and such follow the basic style of every Koei's musou games, and there's a nice system summoning allies at the end of each different combo type (customized based on your formation), and synergies between allies for unlocking bonuses.

Sophie is tired of killing gods and decided to go kill demons for a change.

Enjoyed this one more than Mothmen 1966, fun short game.

It doesn't make any large change to the gameplay itself, but the Expeditions and the beasts artifacts are a nice new progression track for the endgame. Most importantly, its progress that happens at a more steady pace than the normal endgame progress.