Recent reviews by milk ape

In its current state this is NOT going to be the D4 killer, though take that with a grain of salt because this is obviously incomplete and still having things added to it.

But as it stands now this game has two glaring issues that I think hold it back from being truly fantastic even with its missing content. That is:

Combat & Loot.

I'll explain.


Combat in this is EXTREMELY slow. Especially if you're coming into this off of a mid-game PoE or D4. Basic mobs take some work to kill, and the boss fights, while fun, are usually multi-stage, sometimes several health bar, battles of attrition, a la Dark Souls. Instead of the usual speed race ARPG's tend to lean towards, this one wants you to take your time, observe your enemy, dodge, counter, look for openings, etc. This isn't inherently bad, it forces the player to think and to try to tune their build appropriately. Except that this game almost punishes experimenting with your build by making respecing your class insanely expensive, especially for the amount of gold you get in this. Which raises another issue, your build in this won't really feel good, or powerful, until late-game to end-game. That isn't helped by the way loot is dropped in this. You can only brute force your way through the acts in this for so long, and usually the last boss of every act will, in some way, force you to grind to optimize or build in some way, if it isn't already. And this issue is further exacerbated by how Ascendancy is implemented in this game, which is now by Trials, either Chaos or Of Sekhema.

Both trials have their own gimmick. Sekhema has you going through 7 rooms, each one has an effect that will last the entire trial, and a reward, the whole trial also has an honor bar along with your health, you lose honor if you get hit, if honor hits 0, you fail the trial, there are a few ways you can gain honor back. The issue with this is that because combat is now more focused on dodging, and everything moves slower, and this specific trial punishes you for getting hit by anything, some builds in this that you may try literally cannot complete this trial

Chaos is slightly different, chaos has you going through 4-10 "rooms", each room has you pick a negative effect out of 3 to go with it, these effect persist the entire trial, and stack as you go. These effects are entirely luck based, and often times it is more worth it to just leave one of these and reset the dungeon than it is to try to push through. Some negative effect combos in a Trial of Chaos can make it so the trial literally cannot be completed. Conversely, if you get lucky on these, Chaos trials can be very fun to do, and often have rewards that make it so you want to push further into it. I personally do not like my enjoyment/completion of something being more based on RNG than my build or skill, but some people do, and these are optional.

Either way the combat definitely is very overtuned, and also very punishing. Unless you're a god gamer or play very very conservatively, you're going to die in this, a lot. Bosses will one shot you, mobs will one shot you, traps will one shot you, you will one shot your self, your grandmother will one shot your dog, etc. etc. it very much feels like hardcore should not be something someone does in this until they have damage numbers nailed down a little tighter.

WITH ALL THAT BEING SAID
Combat IS still fun, it IS still engaging, and you WILL keep coming back to it to try to beat whatever has you stuck. It shares a lot with Dark Souls in that regard. When you finally get that build down that you want and you're clearing mobs and doing damage, especially knowing how difficult it was to get there, it does feel good.

They reworked the loot system in this from PoE's screen full of garbage, to having less, more meaningful gear drop. GG has been very upfront about this, however, while less gear drops, yes, it's still mostly garbage. Most of the time dropped gear will be white, or magic items with a horrible base affix that isn't worth building off of. A lot of the items you may have by late game could be something you found in Act 1 at level 7 because it's just flat out better than anything you're finding in Act 3 at level 40. Or worse yet, items you've bought from a vendor because it's easier and almost better luck to gamble than it is to find a decent drop. I expect this to be tweaked, because as stated previous, the game is incomplete, and early access, but this lends itself to the first problem being combat, because no good gear again makes you feel less powerful. You will be on the back foot in this game from the get go.

That isn't to say the game doesn't do things well. The boss fights are very well done, the soundtrack is great, the sound design is great, a lot of the skills feel great, the story (whats there of it right now) is engaging, the maps are much bigger than in PoE (some see this as a downside, I like the freedom it feels like it offers), it's still fun once you actually do get that build down, the issue is just everything leading up to getting that build down.

Goes crazy hard

Goes crazy hard

Somehow feels like they topped the original in a lot of ways, and the only real complaints I can find I have even I would consider nitpicks at their worst. You can tell they optimized the HELL out of this game before release, because the only performance issues I've run into is the typical occasional half-stutter from UE5, and even that isn't that common (Epic render settings on a 7900 XT). If you're curious about this game and played the original SH2, or even if you haven't played the original, I can't recommend this enough.

you know that joke about killing ET with hammers

you can do that here

Kinda goes crazy ngl

All of the positive reviews are right, it's an amazing game

You just can't play it

Edit: nvm you can play it again, goty

I play Steve I don't need my feet

Also Tekken Ball is back

I caught a guy who was shooting at me and put him to work

he's my favorite pal

a shadow man dragged my friend away from me