Recent reviews by seg

Quick first impression...

It slaps, man. Combos are super fun to learn and toy around with. Levels always feel fresh. Enemies feel well tuned. Once you get in the flow of it, it's a vibe like no other.

I'd wholeheartedly recommend you turn off the auto combo system and raw dog the combos. Although it makes switching between classes a bit strange, it really gives you a better feel for the class in general IMO. Feels more flowy.

Not sure if this is by design but late game, especially the final level, I don't think you can get close to winning without parrying. It's so powerful, and honestly not that hard to pull off. However, some classes flow better with parries than others (i.e. any class with a combo that starts with a whirlwind).

Some minor bugs I've noticed, if the dev sees this:

If you are close to the exit of the maw of sin when the final boss dies (e.g. when he just kind of runs over there and you have no choice but to go after him) it can immediately end the level. This prevents you from doing the "true" ending if you've done all the Trials, as it ends the game prematurely.

If you get the freeze-on-block ability and parry enemy elite boss abilities, the freeze time is so short and you don't actually interrupt their attack, so they eventually get to continue their original hit. This essentially gives the enemy two opportunities to hit with the same attack, with zero indication of when that second hit is coming. In this case, the freeze ability makes the game infinitely harder, and it ended a long run for me.

Just a banger. Could talk it up and down all day. 10/10, especially for the price. Up there with Ultrakill, which is saying something.

I just completed 100% of the base game in around 10 hours on the hardest difficulty, but I'm also a fairly experienced movement shooter gamer, so your mileage may vary! Thankfully, there's also a good chunk of endgame content which I was pleasantly surprised to learn about. And I haven't touched the roguelite mode yet either. Excited to keep playing & following updates.

The biggest selling point by far is the gameplay itself. Surfing on a hoverboard and grappling around maps while shooting baddies is exactly as fun as it sounds. The part that's been the hardest to get used to is that no weapons are truly hit-scan - each bullet has a speed causing a bit of delay before it hits. But I've come to appreciate this as an intelligent design decision that makes you get more into the thick of it, which is where the real fun & challenge are. Like most "movement shooters", if you just kind of keep moving fast enough you typically won't get hit by the walls of bullets heading your way, but a bit of positioning and strategy with the map and weapons will really take you to the next level.

The weapon variety is perfect. There's a good balance of weapon types and variants with a lot of customization and a "mastery" system that rewards you for using weapons more, which has been great for forcing me out of my comfort zone and trying weapon styles I'm not used to. Each weapon is pretty powerful in the right hands, although there are definitely weapons I think are better than others within each weapon type. Also like 50% of the weapon upgrades are just scopes & silencers which could have used some more variety, but not a deal breaker.

The map itself is super cool. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the open world aspect, but it really just starts to feel like an old school collectathon after a while, and each individual section of the map is fun to traverse with lots of neat little secrets around. As someone who loves being a completionist but is terrible at finding secrets, I was very thankful for the item radar in the bottom left in areas that I was particularly stuck in.

The bosses are just fine. They're pretty much giant vehicles for more standard enemies and orbs that you have to shoot. I don't know if they meant for this design, but it was pretty easy to just ignore the enemies entirely and speedrun through to each weakpoing orb, so by the third boss i was able to cruise through pretty fast. I think it would be cooler for a more "proper" bosses with their own movesets and gimmicks.

And it's not just bosses - there are quite a few areas of the game that you can cheese your way through. You make like or dislike this, but I found it fun at times, especially later in the game. e.g. sniping spots enemies can't easily reach, holing yourself up in a corner and just letting enemies spawn on you to avoid fighting mechs, etc. Most extreme is a perk later in the game that lets you shoot down to launch yourself upward, and it quite literally can send you into space far higher than the game ever intended you to go. But it makes things fun!

Update: Did try out the roguelite mode and it was just fine. I was expecting an arena or random sequence of levels, but essentially got a repurposing of the existing map. With permadeath in store, I felt more inclined to focus on winning rather than having fun, and enemies start to do a lot of damage fairly fast. I assume this was to kind of force multiple runs, but it just motivated me to cheese the game so I could win. Coming fresh off the heels of 100%ing launch content, I was able to win on my first try by getting the right perks to enable floating in the air permanently and raining down rockets doing 3-6x their base damage. And maybe it was by design to enable broken builds like this, but it just isn't as fun as the standard run-and-gun zipping around that is nearly impossible with how much damage enemies do. Overall, maybe a fine game mode that I'll have to revisit, but I think the core open world loop is still the shining star of this game.

Straight adrenaline to the veins

Quick first impression, about halfway through the game in terms of Shard progress

This game is great! It's a lot more difficult than I was expecting, but once you get in the mojo of it, the game feels fantastic. The roguelite elements are neat too, with lots of items and upgrades to unlock. Truly feels like a game with a lot of heart and soul in it, as well as one that will give a lot of longevity if you're wiling to climb to its colossally high skill ceiling.

If I could change one thing: I don't think challenge levels should make you lose health - Update: the mad lads updated it within the day and resolved this, as well as a few other balancing concerns I had. Bodes very well for the future of the game. All hail Landfall <3

Update 2: Wow. I just beat the game and was surprisingly blown away by the story. It holds a surprisingly profound lesson about fighting through fear in life and not dwelling on the past, as well as the value in community. A neat lesson for a subgenre that typically shirks story elements entirely!

After ~10 hours I'm still no master by any means, but feel quite comfortable with the game difficulty. It all scratches a nice itch, and I could see myself coming back for a long time to watch for updates and run a few shards. Beautiful peace of art all around.

Is a good game! Like the loot, like the silliness, like the mods. Lethal has its place and should be credited for starting its own craze, and I hope it continues to grow over time, but that doesn't necessarily protect it from criticism. Give it a try if you haven't already.

Now dweeb talk. TL;DR: Try out REPO & Content Warning, which I consider superior.

My biggest gripe with Lethal is that there's little reason for teamwork. The most successful runs I've had consisted mostly of everyone running their own direction and just banking on someone making it out alive. You pretty much need 4+ people to play, but this is primarily as padding so its harder to get everyone to die. Later iterations of the subgenre have done a much better job with this. The latest darling child, REPO, has this top to down. Players must heavy objects together, recover each others bodies, bring loot to a central cart, etc.. Content Warning took a larger twist with it, requiring everyone stay together in order to get the right footage. Lethal really has no mechanical requirement like this to stick together, so players don't!

Additionally, I think the monsters are too punishing. Most of them are pretty much instant kills with little room for error. You can work around them, but you need to know the meta, and it isn't always clear. e.g. I'd have never known Thumpers are purely sight based, requiring you to repeatedly break line of sight to escape effectively. Again, later iterations like REPO & Content Warning feel better tuned to me in this regard, allowing for a bit of room for error with select few things that are instant kills, giving room to learn the game without being harshly punished while you try to learn it.

Super fun! Very well optimized & balanced, especially for such an early release. And the major selling point is the charm of the monsters & the character models.

A lot more silliness, teamwork, and interactivity compared to a game like Lethal Company. I also personally find it more fair in terms of monster behavior compared to Lethal Company. And it seems like runs don't go quite as long as Lethal, which is good in my opinion.

Only complaint so far is that the fragility of items. Some items are way too fragile. I've seen a number of gems break instantly on pickup, and large statues lose thousands of worth by one side being dropped a few inches. It's not game breaking, but I think it just needs a bit of tuning still.

Also: I adore the robot voices, but you can't understand them a lot of the time. They need persistent an option for persistent on-screen subtitles, not ones that require you look at who's speaking. Until that point it's just a gimmick rather than a viable alternative to VC.

But I'm sure these will be addressed in time. Can't wait to keep up with updates & see some of the later level content :)

Ayo, wtf. Why is this so good. Perfectly polished, tons of room for growth & content which I'm sure will come in the main game. Like. Damn. I think I'm still in shock

Still working through all the classes & races, but goblin shaman troll army go brr

An underrated gem for sure! Clean gameplay with little to no bugs & a vibe unlike any other. Especially with the DLC's, there are tons of ways to play, and the new assist settings mean that anyone should be able to tune the game to their liking (albeit without the innumerable Steam achievements). And the multiplayer is seamlessly done and really adds a lot to the game. (And can make it a lot easier!]

The game does have its niche. It's quite difficult with a lot of inter-connected systems at play. The resulting learning curve can be a turning-off point for some, like it was for my wife. But my experience is that the early game is the most punishing portion by far, acting as a funneling out point for bad runs. If you remain patient, know your limits, use your resources, and complete levels thoroughly but carefully, you'll find that your character can snowball into an absolute monster once you get past the first set of levels.

And the rewards for getting past those first levels can be incredible. I'm currently in a run as a goblin shaman with an entourage of 4 trolls beating up anything that breathes in our direction. We just finished a warrior run where I could pretty much button mash the final boss, I was so tanky.

TL;DR: 7.5/10. This is a great example of the raw power of filling a game world with interesting stuff and letting the player run free. It's worth a try for anyone looking for a relatively simple stealth shooter and is willing to search every nook and cranny. However, it can get repetitive and could use an increase in play variety options.


Aesthetically, the game was fantastic. The PS1-like vibes were stylized enough to remain consistent while enough detail to emphasize character details. Each Act has a unique map to explore, and they're visually distinct from one another while maintaining the cohesive style. Additionally, each area is incredibly detailed and makes the game world feel real.

This cohesiveness fits into their sound design as well, as each enemy had unique voice lines and other neat ambience. Although I was happy the whole game was voice acted, I'm sad to say the performances weren't the best. But this is a minor complaint in the grand scheme.


There's a story! It's just alright. You're summoned back from the dead to destroy evil! Then, uh... do it again! And again! It's pretty unobtrusive and does enough to keep you interested, but clearly wasn't a focal point of the game design. There are in-game notes, side quests, and environmental story telling that help flesh things out as you explore, so that's a plus.


This is a stealth game through and through. You sneak around, poke a few baddies, maybe run & hide after getting caught out, rinse and repeat for the ~19ish hours of runtime. It's worth mentioning that the game doesn't force you into this loop, containing some level of "immersive sim"-like feel for how to approach each area. However, running-and-gunning will surely get you killed.

Where this game shines compared to other stealth games is its openness. No minimap. No lengthy, intrusive quest log. No laundry list of collectibles. No lengthy tutorial and hand-holding. Just exploration, loot, and murder. The real entertainment here comes from exploring that little nook and actually finding something cool. It really brings the genre back to the basics, and sometimes that's all you need.

This openness wouldn't be fun to explore without the game's peak level design. Lots of interweaving paths to approach each area, and a great variety of environments that you get to explore. From the church to the hunter's shack to the graveyard, each area is offers unique challenges while remaining consistent with the fiction.

There is a decent number of equipment available, with a variety of weapon types, ammo types, and unique artifacts to discover. While the treasures are innumerable, and I surely missed a bunch, I did find myself yearning for a few more unique items with orthogonal variety. That is, I wished for items that offered different ways to approach challenges, as opposed to simply being number increases.

Additionally, there's a levelling mechanic, which was quite lackluster. It's a perk selection system, and many of them are about what you'd expect: health increases, stamina use reduction, etc.. Unfortunately, there are a number of perks where they introduced negative mechanics just to make you spend perk points to mitigate them. As an example, and my biggest annoyance: weapon sway when ADS. It exists by default, and you level (or find equipment) to get rid of it. Altogether, this just made for a bland leveling system that seemed to play it exceptionally safe. Like the equipment options, I wish there were more unique perks that allowed for specialized types of play.

The enemies are varied and offered a good variety of challenges. As a basic example, "humanpedes" aren't super dangerous, but their heads are not visible from behind. This means you can't sneak up behind and headshot them like most other enemies. On the contrary, there are a number of enemies who must be hit from behind for an instant headshot! And enemies who move in weird ways, requiring exceptional aim for said headshots. I won't get too into the weeds here, but the variety is welcome. I will say that enemies do get more annoying as the game goes on. As the difficulty increases, it isn't always in a way that's fun. Oh, and the bosses are just fine. A bit of a challenge but nothing to write home about.

Mechanically, the game is well implemented. Little to no glitches & well balanced items all around. Primary complaint is the aim. I've already touched on the weirdness of weapon swaying, and there were also times where it felt like I was aiming right at an enemy only to miss entirely. Thrown weapons like tomahawks were the worst offenders, as they always veer to the right in addition to falling down, making them borderline useless at anything more than 5 feet. Minor complaints among a sea of well-polished gameplay

Unfortunately, the game does get repetitive. They certainly tried their best to provide a lot of content with a variety of play styles, but I felt I was kind of forcing myself to finish the game, especially towards the ends of acts 2 & 3.