Recent reviews by Etlina

I wish I had done this review before the last update so it could be positive, but I never found time to do so.

Game has a very steep learning curve and yet after you take these first initial steps, the game does feel very rewarding. There is a lot of skill expressions everywhere. Starting from movement itself, shooting, positioning etc.

Last update added a new map, new battle pass, new engine and.. Sadly, new UI. Old UI was awful, that's true, many outdated features or tabs what lead nowhere. I'm sure it was hell for console players.. New one is hell for PC users, and even if you take it as it is, there are many questionable decisions and bugs. Why can't I just click on traits what I've on character and remove them one by one by clicking enter? Why does it switch to "take new trait" every time? So if you keep spamming "enter" you will remove and take same trait in a circle. Obviously, if I remove it - I don't want it back. And it's only one of many problems. Hunter list by default looks awful. I had many hunters as mules for items, and I knew they were on top, as right now I need to click each of them to find where is what. Why can't I look on not available hunters? Is there a reason behind this decision? I doubt it. And all these small details leave a very bad taste in my mouth. Maybe console players are happy, but many PC players, me included, are not.

Developers do not know how to communicate with the community. After falsely banning unknown ammount of people and leaving them without answers on their appeals for the whole weekends (prime gamming time for many) and later for nearly the whole work-week. My appeal took 6 days before I got unbanned. DMs in discord were ignored, there was no cooperation from developer side as far as we know. People were just sitting and waiting for nearly a week with: "AbnormalDetection" ban when they enter the game. All this while facing toxic community what is brewing around the game, where many people are sure that false positives do not exist. Mail with an answer came 3 days after my appeal was upheld, as an answer on my 2nd appeal, what was sent 1 week ago. There were rummors what turned out to be true that some users were asked for a remote acces for the PC to review the appeal. There still is no statement about false bans and they try to sweep it under the rug. There is no information about it in new announcement and no information in a patchnote.

Being left without acces to the game, hanging there in uncertainty about future of the account. Going to bed with "3 days ban" just to wake up and see "permanent" one is sure not something what I wish anyone to exprience.

I do enjoy the game, but it's not how you treat the customers and people over all. The game is very fun if you're not forced to communicate with the devs.

Firstly, I need to clarify that developers and famous people aren't our friends. It's called a parasocial relationship. We should be vocal when we don't like something about the product as it can affect future products positively.

I don't feel like this game has a live-service model in it. It feels like a glorified co-op with some social elements smashed on it. Will Dark Souls 2 become live service if we add some community goals on top and open DLCs based on the number of player deaths? I don't think so. I don't feel the live-service part when I play this game. It feels like co-op with some extra steps and battlepass on top. I'm pretty sure many people would be pissed by battlepass in co-op game btw.

Game started as a fully developed product and later small bits of content were added. It was never enough for a full product which can attract most people for a long time, as other games of the same genre do. Such games require a strong stream of content to stay afloat for years. Developers just can't drop enough content fast enough to keep players like me engaged. The third faction was leaked a long-long time ago. Many people who were hyped have already quit and won't come back or stay long because of reasons that I will state later. I remember when skyrim was first announced and there was one full year before it was out. In 2010, it was just insane for me. Now we wait for a small piece of content for the same amount of time. People do not like it when games are "cut" on launch and later "cut" content is added later. Ironically, I can say that helldivers 2 could only benefit from such an approach. But it's way too late.

The main problem for me was progression. Most progression is bound to warbond. I'll call it a battlepass, because that's what warbond is. Progression via battlepass, sounds interesting? They are always available? Awesome! Get community-rewards medals when you're not playing the game? Great (Limmited to 250 now)! Still need to buy new battlepasses for coins that drop sometimes in games, or you need to buy them with real money. As right now, I don't have enough to buy a new battlepass and I didn't play for a long time. They added new one. I love skins! What should I do to get them? Slug around making old content, farming everything with old guns, which may be the very reason for me quitting in the first place. I have 4+ battlepases of content that I have to grind for many hours. New battlepass isn't free at all, I can get nothing from it. No new content is available for me, as for returning player. No guns, no armor, nothing. I am left behind with medals what I can't spend. If you fall out of the constant stream - game punishes you for not playing. We call daily rewards predatory and when the scale is a bit different - it's fine.

It is a predatory co-op game with awful progression. Fun for new players and for people who are ready to play it without breaks or prepare ahead of time for the next pass before quitting to not fall off.

One of the best games this year

its a good game

Art is awesome, story is decent but it all comes down to lack of meaningful content. Finished 1st run on 2nd try, got a lot of unlocks but they all didnt seem like I want to try them out. All scythes are more or less the same. Curse cards barely make any difference in how you play the game. Posion damage? Ye, now your attacks apply poison and basically you get +X% dps without changing ur playstyle or even thinking about it at.
Art is cute, game feels very smooth, animations are pretty but sadly it is not what I expected from roguelike game and it doesn't "click" for me.

So far it's was my 2nd MH game played and 1st game where I really got into farming resources and grinding gear. Later I played earlier titles so I can see where this series started, I guess. Without expansion game is pretty dull and basic experience. You do not have many armor skills to play around. All Is very basic, but not boring. I played it before sunbreak was out. If we talk about the game without expansion - it's not worth it as standalone experience in my opinion. All fun starts in DLC and base game(low and high rank) is a tutorial. You can learn new weapons without getting hit too hard, get into build making basics without all complications and simply learn how the game works. Hunt starts right after u enter the area. You don't need to find monster 1st, it's already marked on your map, it's too extreme of a change and takes a lot of gameplay away compare to previous games. Monsters are there to be hunted, smaller creatures are there to help you (endemic life) and don't feel like part of big eco system. The process of hunting itself is very enjoyable, but still feels a bit scripted. You hit monster. It gets enraged. Roar. Run away. Repeat. They do not feel like living creatures but as targets with move set what you should kill (I mean they are targets, but In world there were illusion of them being more than that). Over all game is very fun to play if you don't think about it too much.

One of the first games what I played on PC back in 2006. Later I spent a lot of time playing similar titles, Diablo as an example and yet TQ always will be number one for me in this genre. It does feel slow at times, even can send u in half-meditative state, what isn’t a bad thing with such games. Bosses have different mechanics and some of them are pretty tricky. It can feel as a chore to grind higher difficulties because game is so long and you basically need to finish it three times. Weapon and armor are looking awesome, sadly some mods and cheats (yes, some of them were super fun to meet during your co-op with random players) were lost in time, and sites with communities (RIP persifona) around them are also long gone. New DLC do not have charm of original game but still are fun to play and are good experience.
Waiting TQ2 and hoping its better than Diablo4.

Very enjoyable experience. Played it mostly in expedition mode and had a decent challnge now and then.
As a downside can point out only human-bosses. When you're playign in co-op they tend to become just dummy-targets in corner of the arena. Same happens in singleplayer to some degree.
Combat is very fun. Collecting geat and abilities makes the game very engaging, same as build crafting and theory crafting how to kill especially hard boss, what aproach to choose. Maybe it's too hard and you need to consider summoning 3 cats?
Also: Stop making story achievements visible, please, I dont want to get major spoilers while checking.

Game has very similar gameplay in comparance to Shantae Half Genie Hero, its basicly the same game but with many improvements. Graphics are way better and stylish. Story is decent. Boss figths aren't bad either. Some minor mechanics what are really fun to use, but, sadly they arent very well implemented (card collection for what you collect cards from enemies who you are killing and get bonuses for equiped cards, but by the time you get better cards the game ends already). Wish it was longer experience or had some additional content.
+Awesome OST