CultofRoyal 最近的评测

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS(The exploration and discovery mindset).
Blue Fire starts with you waking up alone in a container filled with water, not knowing where you are or how you got there. Ok I know what your thinking and yes this sounds very much like the start of Breath of the Wild and... uh... well... I got nothing but moving on...

Other then basic tooltips for movement and other controls, the game doesn't outright tell you where to go, which is great because immediately Blue Fire is already setting a precedent that if you want to make progress, the only way to do so reliably is to simply adapt and explore.

On the topic of adapting, the first thing I noticed when hoping into Blue Fire is just how good it feels to move in this game. Running, Jumping and Dashing is incredibly fast yet precise all at the same time. This flows equally well into combat situations, which Blue Fire is certainly not shy to introduce you to.

Shortly after your first battle experience appears a chest, where you'll find your first permanent upgrade. A shield. Its a simple feature and doesn't come into play much in the rest of the game but it does sets the stage for the rest of your adventure. In just the first 5 or so minutes of the game, Blue Fire has told you that exploration and discovery for the most part is up to you, and that at least for now, your character is incomplete.

For those of you who’ve played anything close to resembling a Metroidvania... Alarm bells have already started ringing and you're likely already expecting that there may be sections made inaccessible until you've progressed a bit farther into the game. Within the first 5 or so minutes of gameplay, Blue Fire has already introduced you to the concept of dungeon keys and surprise encounters... and 5 minutes later, Blue Fire introduces the idea of quest, side quest, and a glimpse to the grand narrative of the entire story. All without direct explanations or immersion breaking tooltips. Its a small thing and not really something you'll notice unless you actively look for it... or unless something so directly pointed towards the player is said that it completely ruins any sense of immersion you may have gathered at that point....[/code]

DUNGEONS (COMBAT)
Combat takes... a bit of a back step in favor of movement here. Sure it can feel REALLY good at times to hit the perfect parry before delivering swift justice...

but that high only last for so long when your fighting the same 3 or 4 recolored enemies over and over again. Not to mention that enemies... Don't really do a lot of damage. Now before we continue with this line of thought... please do take this with a grain of salt as I have committed the unforgivable crime of selecting the... Normal difficulty... So... Just keep that in mind.

Very early on, it gets to the point where enemy damage output simply can’t keep up with how much health I have to tank with. This makes combat encounters feel very mundane to say the least. I thought I could fix it by just raising my difficulty but it turns out that once you start the game, there's no changing that...

The healing ability. Now having a healing ability on its own is certainly not a bad thing for a game like this to ship with. Dark souls famously has the Estus Flask and no one complains about that so why is Blue Fire any different? Well healing Items like this aren't usually meant to serve as a reset to combat. The Estus Flask will typically works as a walk back for maybe 2 or 3 mistakes before your back where you started. Blue Fire doesn’t work that way... for most of the game, your healing ability i enough to carry you all the way through a dungeon and to the next shrine or previous shrine if you have to backtrack...

The times where difficulty does spike up feel random and misplaced compared to the rest of the game. Add the fact that you really dont have to fight the enemies past a certain point as the currency rewarded for defeating them is used only as a way to buy a limited supply of mana upgrades. Once you’ve upgraded that mana bar completely, theres no other reason to even engage with these guys unless your forced to.[/code]

DUNGEONS (BOSS BATTLES)
I ran into 2 boss battles that I thought were genuinely entertaining. As far as all the other bosses? Well...

Throughout the entire game, there's an emphasis put on movement, exploration, and discovery. When ever you find a new permanent upgrade, the game either puts you in a situation where it'd be beneficial to use it or had given you the upgrade after leaving an area where you wish you had it. Yet when it comes to most boss fights... non of that stuff matters.

Kind a like now is a perfect time to round out this video.

CONCLUSIONS
Whilst playing the game there were so many moments where it felt like Robi Studios really wanted me to sit down, take a breath, and ground myself in the experience I was in... Yea that's right... This whole game is a huge vibe check...

The whole is greater then the sum of its parts and for that reason, If you’re even a little bit interested in what Blue Fire has to offer then I’d say Its definitely worth picking it up.

WATCH THE FULL REVIEW HERE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azV32E3ePe8

Driving cars is fun and this game has alot of cars. Easy recommend for anyone even mildly thinking about jumping in. TONS to do here with even more content on the way.

"Wow that's a lot of hours." Once I realized what this game was, I made a mouse macro in a virtual machine and just left it running like an idle game. I just wanted to unlock all the achievements.

Video format (goes much more in detail. apologies for poor audio quality)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO8meqvxhi8

Alright on to the written review.

First impressions are everything. Sure some things require a bit of a slow burn before they really start to get going, but at least... most people will have a general idea about whether or not they like a game within the first hour or so of gameplay.

Swag and Sorcery starts the game with one of the worst cutscene voice effects I have ever heard in my entire life.

The Voice Acting itself is... I mean... it wont win any awards but it gets the job done. Its the dialogue that doesn't have voice acting that's really... just... Lets just say its the first sign that Lazy Bear Games created Swag and Sorcery to torture their players rather then to amuse. lol. Ok maybe not but it just sounds awful.

The music selection on display isn't that bad though. Its playful yet calm, and loops nicely. That said, there isn't much here to listen to, and what is here loops just slightly longer then what you'd realistic want to it listen for.

The core gameplay loop revolves around the questing system. Heroes are sent out in groups of at most 3, to fulfill quests, fight monsters, and earn gold and resources. Once the heroes return to the village, we take that oh so sweet loot, level them up, craft better equipment, potions, buffs... the whole nine yards. Of course, all to do it over again a tad bit more efficiently. For an idle game that's... not a bad idea!

Much like an idle game, this game is pretty grindy. Unusually so actually.

Most idle games start fast and fun to ease the grind onto you before you know what's happening... That's not the case here... It didn't take long at all before I hit a point where the only thing I could do to progress was to send my heroes out... wait for them to get to the brink of death... and then force a retreat which meant I only got 30% of anything they found. This goes on and on and on... until your heroes are finally strong enough to survive the whole encounter without supervision.

I didn't know it at the time, but the process of escaping from this retreat fest really... was just the beginning.

The truth of the matter is Swag and Sorcery is an Idle game that doesn't want to be an idle game. It doesn't advertise itself as an Idle game. It does everything it can do to force player interaction just shy of making changes that would benefit from something like that.

Idle games played actively are suppose to feel fast paced, like your always on the verge of increasing your output just by being there watching the numbers. Good idle games always have a way to involve the player so that even the process of standing idly by can feel engaging in a way. Good Idle games always reward the player for hitting milestones, and every step of the way there? Provides satisfying smaller rewards, decisions, and improvements to min-max over. Swag and Sorcery is almost a good idle game. Multiple times playing you can just barely see the light that could have been. But nope!

Every aspect of Swag and Sorcery always comes back to this idea of being a manual idle game. By that I mean it takes what is usually a passive part of idling like... watching cookies go up in cookie clicker... and turns it into something that wont happen without Player Input regardless of what you do. So... manual idle. **This isn't fun. Its a chore.** It feels as though every design decision made was to make the game feel as unintuitive as possible to play.

The thing that bothers me the most is that... Most of these flaws would have been seen *EASILY* with just a little bit of playtesting... were Lazy Bear Games just too lazy to... to even play the game? Or maybe they did and realized just how flawed it was. Maybe they decided it wasn't worth the development cost and just released it as is to work on something with better legs? It would explain a lot of things like... how there's 9 hero slots for adventures but only 8 hero's or how they reference two of the boss fights with the wrong name in your quests or again... no weapons or equipment with a base level above 20? and have you seen the latest patch? Some of the things they added a year after release I... did they seriously ship without this? I mean its good that's its there now but there's no way anyone there played this game and thought this was ok. And bribing at the fashion show was JUST added? Seriously? And added hotkeys? What are they? Its... Its not listed anywhere! I've tried everything! You cant add hotkeys and not tell anyone what they are! and seriously... Why is there no auto questing feature!

I cannot in good faith recommend anyone play this game. You probably saw that coming but hopefully if you made it this far then you'll see why I've come to this conclusion. There's so many management like games out there that both respect your time, provide unique and engaging gameplay, and look good while doing it.

If this review helped save you time then perhaps consider leaving a steam reward. Otherwise, I've been me. You've been you... and this has been yet another *other* review..

Its the same cookie clicker you know and love. Its still getting updates. The soundtrack is amazing. Theres incoming workshop support. Cloud saves. One of the greatest idle games ever. No cash shop, No temptation to spend more money then is warranted.

Yes. Its exactly what you think it is.

Scroll down for the summary. Read for the why.

Don't play it for the adult content as there isn't much here. The story is decent though and handles sexual abuse pretty well for the kind of game you're playing here. I wanna skip to the summary as there isnt much to talk about here but before that... one main gripe.

Spoiler territory though but only in the kind of relationship the MC shares with another one of the characters... No story points are spoiled but... I'll leave it up to you if you want to know (Trust me... its not that big of a deal).


Regarding how the game handles MCs Incestuous relationship with his sister.

yep. that was the spoiler.

The game defaults the relationship between brother and sister to just show that their friends in dialogue. This wouldn't be an issue if ANY of the dialogue was written with this in mind.

Instead you get weird stuff like...(This is paraphrasing btw)
"Isn't it weird that were friends and lovers at the same time?" or..
"Should we tell them were friends? Maybe not. They wouldn't understand." or..
"We shouldn't kiss... I mean were friends. Its wrong and society will look down on us"

Obviously the game was written for that to say "siblings" rather then "friends".

Not a big deal but possibly my biggest pet peeve. Luckily you can change it in the settings page if you just pressed enter on it originally. I just don't understand why this would even be an optional thing if the writing still heavily implies what the developers intended there. You could even change it to a mother son relationship or something ridiculous like "Waifu" and "Husbando" haha

Ah well. Minor gripe but something to look out for when playing. Make sure to change that or future dialogue wont make sense!

In summary...

- Pretty good story though a bit flat and predictable at times, it kept me turning the page so to speak. The characters are all unique and lovable in their own way. Unfortunately they stay in their box pretty consistently and as a result this leads to... well pretty predictable story telling. Lets just say there wasn't many surprises...

- Pretty good art. Wont win any awards but it gets the job done in conveying story, emotion, and characters. The backgrounds leave a bit to be desired sometimes but I think this is just the general quality to expect from Visual Novels that use Daz3D (I think?) as their primary art driver.

- Pretty good adult scenes though it'd be nice if the gallery left all the talking out. Not that you'll be spending much time their when you're done. The adult scenes are good but only so much as it conveys the story well. You wont be getting off here so if that's what you're looking for then there are better options.

- Pretty good music choice and atmosphere. Serves the story well but you wont be looking for the Spotify after.

For 8 bucks its worth a read I'd say... Though if you just read this review maybe you might think otherwise. My experience with it is "Meh" teetering on "I kinda like it" purely because the characters are well written and somewhat believable... Well some of them anyways... OK maybe 1 or 2 of them are believable but they still... yea I'm conflicted. I'll give it a thumbs up though because... I think I liked it more then I didn't like it.

EDIT::

Update. My mind has changed. I thought about it some more (As you do when finishing a story game) and the more I thought about it the less fondly I thought of my time with Avalon. The game, not the character.

Alot of the other reviews talk about how while the NSFW content is lacking the game makes up for it with a stellar story but I've found that to not be the case here. Not really anyways. The story is just a series of connected dots with a line drawn between them in whatever way leads to the most conflicts. You'd think this would make for something interesting but all it does is lead to lots of problems with seemingly 0 stakes and consequently, rushed resolutions to move on quickly to the next 0 stakes problem.

An example... "Oh no people broke into my hou-" nope just took them out. Easy. "Hey I think we should see a therapist" scheduled for the next morning. From my perspective? Barely a dozen clicks away. Easy. "Ooohh no they all abandoned me I'm so sa-" oh they came back and forgave me immediately just a few hours later. The only long standing issue the characters face is Avalons fear of jumping too deep into sexual relations due to her being... well you know. Don't worry other characters take the mantle there to make up for it.

I wish I didnt think so negatively of my time here but the only saving grace I could think of is that one of the characters relationship with MC is incredibly humorous. I made the mistake of picking the character the game said would have a better story. Turns out that story and character was so ridiculous shes probably the main reason I look so negatively at this game. Rather then introducing more story it just feels like shes there as a plot device designed to solve literally any issue the characters come up with.

"OK. So it has a weak story... Fine..." you think to you'reself because you're probably not reading out loud. "But I can jack off to anything so bring in the-"

porn. This is probably why you're here. Otherwise you'd be looking at a much prettier, much better written, slightly more expensive Visual Novel with maybe a tad more creativity. Unfortunately what I said earlier up there hasn't changed much even with more thought and consideration. While the scenes themselves aren't bad, they serve more as a vehicle for story telling then for porn. Meaning that even though there's a gallery, you wont be getting off here. Even if you thought to maybe try, the gallery for some unknown reason includes all the text from the story rather then just jumping right to it... Just kidding, the reason is because the porn requires you to be emotionally involved for it to be even slightly arousing. Like I said, there's better places for this kind of stuff. Better games for it too. oof

but if the story is weak and the NSFW content is equally not the selling point here then whats left? The non copyright music? Well of course not. The story has its moments but its always just barely enough. Just barely promising that something big is just around the corner. Just barely keeping you hoping that it gets better if you just keep turning the page.

It doesn't and at the end of it all I was left wishing I hadn't fallen for such trickery. Ah well.

Wasn't planning on typing a full review here but I'm glad I got I got my thoughts out there. Maybe my standards are too high but... well not much I can do about that. This is a game in my library I was both looking forward to and at the same time had little hope for. I'm somehow both glad I got it out of the way and disappointed I tried it.

I've been me, You've been you, and this has been Another other review. The other view! (patent pending) :]

As I love the raw consistency of Ni no Kuni's art style, the majority of the game will be spent in Combat... and above all else, Combat is precisely what this game fails at.

The steam store page describes it as an exciting battle system that combines real time and turn based tactical elements.. and its not wrong.. I would probably describe it in exactly the same way minus the exciting part.

Combat in this game revolves around what the game calls familiars. Essentially these friendly creatures act like pokemon that can be trained, fed, and collected through overworld combat encounters? Like pokemon, each familiar has and gains powerful tricks depending on its current level. Its these tricks that make up one of the primary means of dealing, and recovering from damage...

Characters also have spells that do pretty much the same thing. Each of these tricks and spells cost mana to use which means spamming your most powerful techniques while certainly doing alot of damage, may leave you vulnerable during the next enemy encounter.

Aside from tricks and spells, each character and most familiars can simply attack without mana for varying degrees of damage depending on equipped gear. The same thing applies defending though some it seems familiars can defend in different ways and some cant defend at all, the premise is essentially the same.

Ok so yea.. I mean pokemon is pretty great so this cant be too far off right? well.. yes.. if it wasn't for one crucial fact. All of a characters familiars share both their health and their mana. So if you were to get caught off guard casting a healing spell for example.. Everyone in that characters roster including the character themselves gets punished for it. Imagine you were playing pokemon and you got attacked by a fire spell while you were playing bulbasaur.. And your entire roster took the same amount of damage that bulbasaur just took. The game tries to explain it away with story logic and stuff but it just doesnt feel good when you get hit by an unavoidable attack and everyone in your party suffers.. and the same thing applies to mana usage too.. because it certainly doesnt feel good not wanting to use mana for heavy damage spells because chance are, you'll probably need that mana later for healing... and why would you need it for healing you might ask?

Well.. Avoiding damage in this game simply doesnt feel good nor does it feel like a predictable outcome after a series of events. So what do I mean by that? Well lets first take a look a the combat UI. I'm sure youve noticed the thought bubbles on the bottom left of the screen there? Well these bubbles are the primary way of both attacking, using tricks/spells, and most important for the topic.. Defending against damage. Theres no keybinds to jump from one end to the other so the only way to navigate is scroll through it one at a time. Any time a move is used, the menu resets back to the attack button.

The forced delay in scrolling through a menu like this wouldnt feels so awful if you didnt account for the insane delay every aspect of casting spells and tricks. I mean.. Real time turn based action doesnt mean making combat hard through shear inconvenience. Everything aside from defending and sometimes attacking has a wind up time, cooldown period, and sometimes a wind down time. The cooldown period is there to make sure you cant spam one single category of move weather it be spells, tricks, or provissions. No problem there, but its the wind up and down time that more then anything makes taking damage feel like undeserved punishment. Its during these times that your locked our of moving, defending, or even switching to another character or familiar. This doesnt really do much damage in fights against the overworld familiars but against boss fights? When one attack from a boss while not defending can easily bring your entire team to the brink of a wipeout? Theres some bosses in this game that give such low times to react to incoming damage that it makes tacked on delay like this feel brutal. When there's this kind of delay in a combat game, it makes it feel like taking a crap ton of damage is simply an aspect of the fight that at times is not at the fault of the player. Thats not a good thing to feel when most of the game takes place in combat.. but while were on the subject of boss fights..

I've never seen a game with such a heavy level barriers all over the place. Boss fights in this game are the scariest things to encounter; Not because of the force tactics that go into completing such a task (more on that later) but because of the insane amount of health that these bosses throw at you... and its not like you can use your status effect tricks to make the fight a bit easier; because the developers for some reason decided that every status effect spell or trick in the game has no effect on bosses whatsoever. This turns boss fights and times even overworld fights with wild familiars into essentially an overblown dps check.

But I did say there were forced tactics to make it easier right? Well every boss has a unique gimmick to help make that dps check go by just a little bit faster. Some of these gimmicks are *really* helpful towards getting some damage in and others feel like the developers are just trying to kill me honestly.

During my time playing this I found that for the most part these "intense boss battles" devolved into just spamming the attack button whilst occasionally backing off to heal myself. If I was loaded out of my mind with cash however, then spending a crap ton of it on Olivers caffeine addiction in order to spam powerful spells the entire time was also a valid strategy.

Because of the insane dps check some of these bosses have, on more then one occasion I found myself suddenly underleveled after just having been overleveled for the previous boss fight I'd just completed.

and I think the developers at Level-5 knew this, as at the start of a few of these pain point boss bottle is a small chance that a variation of a wild Toko will spawn.. and depending on which pain point boss battle your at and the subsuqent variation of toko that spawns, these wild familiars can give insane numbers from 2400 all the way to 25000 experience points.. To put that in perspective the final boss in the entire game gives about 10k experience and most bosses dont dip above 3000.. and if you think you can just get that same xp by farming regular familiars then keep in mind that at the very last dungeon in the game before fighting the final boss in the main story, the combat encoutners that spawn there only g give about 300 to 400 experience points. Just killing one toko variation in the right place can easily cut the experience grind in half when it comes to gaining levels along with the subsequent increased dps.

With all that said; I found that most of my time with Ni no Kuni was spent either grinding for experience points (atleast before I found out about tokos), and grinding for money for better equipment. Both of which involve alot of combat encounters and non of which happen to be much fun all on its own.

Moist.
I heard this word is amaze-balls?

I havnt played much but so far its not bad. I probably need a few more hours to get a good feel for it though.

EDIT: Yea I dont get it.

I think im becoming addicted..

Really fun competitive game. Sure sometimes you run into a few toxic players but thats just that nature of the beast when your playing any online game. If your new to the game, dont be discouraged when your not suddenly amazing at the game. Playing this game at even a semi decent level is an acquired skill.

glhf.