Recent reviews by Michael Fedora

Honestly a great soulslike. No complaints, only a few bugs, (normal) co-op worked fine. I recommend following a questline guide as it contains the same problem as normal souls-games in regards to those.

Upsidedown/"Die twice" mechanic is pretty well done and enjoyable. Thehk is bestboi, lore is alright, but it's clear this is a godless realm looted by death and hunger; the only solution is divine judgement.

8/10

It's not an *awful* game - it's at least better than Ubisoft... but I honestly found it boring. Just about 100%'d the main campaign (NG) in 70 hours, on max difficulty, and have no motivation to complete the achievements in NG+. The world is neat, but stark, and there is no motivation to walk through the world once you have fast travel unlocked. The story is historical fiction which is fun, but its hyper dramatized & centered around you, the hero figure, instead of the actual key players -- and this is painfully obvious in the "dating simulator" feature of the game, where everyone from the Geisha's to the Princess want your hand in marriage; and they are not subtle about it (cat lady literally talks about coughing up blood due to her suffering of being so in love with you). Oh, and the gear system is negligible besides set bonuses. I played with an underpowered wooden katana for the last chapter of the game and ended up doing just fine.

The worst part, IMO, is the combat. It *looks* like it should be good, and it *feels* good when the enemy has consistent telegraphs and you start dancing, but in actual use it's just parryslop. Karma/XP punishment being linked to a critical hit becomes very painful in lategame/NG+, and making the combat "harder" seems to just make your parry window obtusely small. It's worse than Sekiro, worse than Nioh, and worse than Darksouls in general. While the "combat forms" are cool, it just becomes light-mashing and some special attacks and then throwing in a parry-parry-parry-parry, getting punished when you are 0.33s early from the boss's delayed 3rd attack out of his 7 attack combo.

You consistently feel like an "average" super hero who is great against ads and then chugging healing pills whenever someone with actual skill shows up, and when you finally defeat them, they stand back up and go "Heh, nice job, I'll get you next time," and you let them run away covered in their own blood.

It's "content." If you want a neat look into the prequel to the Meiji restoration through historical fiction, I'd recommend this as a 70 hour tour. If you want a fun game, look elsewhere. (I also had no performance issues, it ran fine but YMMV).

Quite an enjoyable game, but definitely Early Access. Very similar to Hyper Light Drifter combat pacing (dodge heavy, dodge often), with a difficult to use parry mechanic and no medkits to start with, inside a technomancy post-apoc world with a wonder-filled aesthetic.

The primary game occurs in a world that has three bosses, lasts 4 deaths before (re-)cycling, gets more difficult with time (both per-run and overall), and -- if you don't feel ready -- has an early extraction mechanic so you can grab loot and leave, and reset the run (not world) timer/level. These early extractions don't count towards the 4 deaths, so you can build up your character to last longer and longer in the runs and start knocking out bosses.

It's fun if a bit tedious, but I'm looking forward to it accompanying ROR2 on my coop rogue-like rotation as it matures.

A good puzzle game with cool locations, lore, and mechanics. Good vibes, would recommend.

Great rendition of the soulslike genre with some inspirations from Hollow Knight and Sekiro as well. Cute artstyle, fairly difficult (but slightly easier than DS), and a rather... depressing story about ocean pollution, with a slightly uplifting ending.

Would recommend!

It's a better ARK, with elements from Breath of the Wild, Elden Ring (old churches and ever-gaols), and obviously Pokemon as well. It's definitely still in Early Access but a fully functional game nonetheless.

It's very good, I recommend it even at full price.

An excellent game with a rough launch. Still, I recommend it at full price. It's absolutely beautiful, with pretty great gunplay, the tamest microtransaction system, and some really cool world design with localized missions on a global map with day/night cycles and dynamic weather.

Congratulations to Arrowhead for the massive success ^^

It's alright (tm). Good for early access, and most issues can be fixed within EA, but I fear about some more critical issues:

1) It's a pretty bad story, although you can tell they put a lot of work into it. "Power hungry men wake up zombie fungus and it becomes an apocalypse" is... very trite and boring at this point in our culture.

2) The building system is very clunky; you can tell they've put work into it to make it easier... but it's till clunky. It's like a "blueprint"-ized voxel system, where the voxels are about a cubic foot, so pretty small. You can place down large sections of them (like a wall), add and subtract one block at a time, and then add furniture/decorations later (doors, window panes). Sometimes limitations are good, though, and bigger brushes make simpletons better artists.

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Before I hit the gripes, let me list some good parts:
- It's very good for Early Access! It feels like it's hitting right in the middle of a Beta, needing more content but has good bones
- It's a pretty game! The lighting, models, and UI are good
- The voice acting is passable -- quality enough, I wouldn't really expect more
- It has a fast travel system! Not as cool as portals but definitely still very useful
- It has a well made map/decent world design

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Some major gripes, but are somewhat easily fixable:

3) NPCs are cool but nothing more than a animated crafting bench and quest giver. There is no reason to not just have them lined up in a row because all they do is stand around and say things every now and again. It'd be great if they milled around and required a bed or something.

4) Farming for materials is long and arduous for a tiny payoff. Do you love mining until your stamina bar empties, just to wait for it to refill and empty it again five times in a row? You'll love mining! This is doubly an issue because building your house can become quite expensive.

5) Combat is... boring. It's alright for EA, but with one type of attack, no special moves, a clunky parry mechanic, and an awkward dodge, it just feels boring. Bosses are pretty boring too, and the combination of that and the one-dimensional combat makes this fall very flat.

6) The world needs some water. Lakes, rivers, rain, you name it. If all the water has been turned into mushroom blood I'd be a little sad.

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Some minor gripes:

7) The world is almost a little too massive. I was getting bored of the same biome for the first 15-20 hours, with the same animals (wolf, rabbit, goat), same two ores, and yet I never had a reason to leave because there was still more to explore. It was more of the same and still boring, but it still had to be discovered.

8) More wildlife and a livelier / more diverse world in general. Enemy diversity too. I have a feeling this is up on the list already, though.

9) The world needs a way to be purified. I'd love a way to just clear up the mushroom areas and turn it into meadows again.

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Valheim is better if you are torn between the two - it just has more/better content, and has an amazing sailing mechanic for exploration that I don't think this game will ever have. However, this is still very good for EA if you wanted to try it out.

It's quite good for being a free game. Cool writing, universe, and decent enough twitch shooter mechanics.

Just don't get lost in the grind.

It really is the best RTS out there for space battles. Tons of fun for being over 15(!) years old.

Still getting maintenance updates all these years later, too.