Recent reviews by iMatty01IT

)First part is in English,second part in Italian, it's basically the same but translated)

ENG

Holy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ i'm starting to lose my patience. I'm always skeptical of negatively review a game because it usually is my opinion and can be biased,but this time i had enough.
Another update with big expectations,new enemies and so on and i was "okay wow! let's see this"
The only good stuff were the QoL updates and some buffs to the stratagems,but there were hardly needed. Again,nerfs hit the famous weapons of the period because God (or AH) forbid that we can have good weapons.
Now i'm literally buzzed: you add stronger enemies and make then join the cluster♥♥♥♥ of being constantly ragdolled at 6+ diff,you even make them part of patrols,and at the same time you nerf our only viable weapons?

I feel like this game is becoming the PvE equivalent of War Thunder and generally how Gaijin thinks: a giant ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ monkey paw that curls one of his fingers every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time a weapon/stratagem in this game starts being "meta". Buffing other weapons?please no! let's nerf the viable weapons instead,and after we did this the finger of the monkey paw curls in happiness.

Jesus CHRIST guys,you're ruining a *PvE* game because you're afraid of a calcifying meta. Learn from Destiny 2 and how they treat the PvE endgame: they rarely don't because the skill floor is high enough with enemy density,mechanics and so on that playing it good with meta weapons is your reward,and once every X months the meta is shaken and people are still happy.

As long as nerfs will feel more vocal than the buffs,this game will plunder quicker into the drain,get a hold of yourselves.

ITA

MANNAGGIA A C****O STO PERDENDO LA PAZIENZA CO STO GIOCO. SMETTETELA DI NERFARE LA ROBA BUONA MENTRE AUMENTATE ARTIFICIALMENTE LA DIFFICOLTÀ AUMENTANDO I NEMICI E RENDENDOLI PIÙ RESISTENTI,SE DOMANI IL PROSSIMO PASS SARÀ PENOSO DISINSTALLO IL GIOCO E CI RIVEDIAMO L'ANNO PROSSIMO

I've finally finished this game with all the achievements,so it's time to make a long ahh review of why this game is fantastic and why you should buy it (review that nobody will read since it's long)

First of all, let's start with the Pros:
1. The Ambience is wonderful,i personally think that it's not as beautiful as the first game but it's still a solid 9/10,there are zones that literally makes you stand still for how beautiful they are;

2. The plot is very well written, it's a solid 8/10;

3. The buildcrafting is easily a 10/10. You have three weapons,each with 3 levels, different upgrades and moveset. You have two different class of prayers. You have Altarpieces that literally can change how your flasks works, how your weapon works, how your prayer works. You have abilities that enhance the gameplay so much. You have the return of the Rosary Beads. You'll pass a long time trying different builds,trust me;

4. The bosses are actually hard. I'm not gonna spoiler anything, but bear in mind that the difficulty spike of this game,compared to the first one,is ramped up a little even tho you have a world of buildcrafting. 9/10

5. A good lists of achievements for who wants to 100% the game

Now for the cons:
1. Lack of a meaningful immersion: in this game,you somehow feel detached from the world,not only because a long time has passed, but also because you don't get an explanation of why some zones are like that. This is something that Blasphemous had: the lore of every zone,NPC and boss was very expanded. Here, instead, you're just being told "these are the enemies,go kill 'em"

2. Rush: as stated above, the game doesn't make you have the time to examine the bosses, why they are like that and why they're there. For some of them, there's a lore reason, but not for all of them.

3. Rosary Beads: in Blasphemous,Rosary beads were the part related to Damage Resistance and various movement effects. Here, they're the shortest stick of the buildcrafting: only 5 slots (that are rather easy to find) and 90% of the time they only give damage resistance to X damage. Most of them are even scalar: one of them gives the littlest,one the average amount of resistance,and the last one the maximum amount. So you basically need to find the most resistant one and you're good to go.

4. Quests: in this game there are 9 quests,2 of which that are the Health ane Fervour. You would say:"DAMN! that's a lot of quests!" and i would answer:"yeah, sadly tho only 3 of them are actually long and meaningful,the rest of them are either short, don't have enough lore or don't give you a good reward. Don't get me wrong,i like the fact that the world is littered by small quests, but by doing so the longer quests don't feel long enough. For comparison, Blasphemous had basically the same amount of quests, but they were much longer.

5. Endgame and lack of Skins: as we are speaking (26th Jan 2024) there is no endgame content: no NG+,no Boss mode,nothing.So you'll finish the game,get all the achievements if you want and... that's it,no challenging difficulty.
Furthermore, there are no alternate skins available for the Penitent One,which is a bummer since Blasphemous had more than 7 different skins to earn and choose from.

6. Cutscenes: minor concern, but in this game there are no pixelated cutscenes. Don't get me wrong,the cartoon-like cutscenes are really cool and creates hope in me that one day we will see a TV show of Blasphemous,but i really miss the pixelated cutscenes of Blasphemous because they made the immersion greater.

You've reached the end of the review,Congrats! Here's theee cookies 🍪🍪🍪

Overall,this game is the perfect sequel to an already perfect indie game, that created an entire subgenre of videogames and shaped part of the gaming industry. It has its flaws, however,but i'm confident that The Game Kitchen will resolve them all.

Now go,oh Penitent One,and defeat the Miracle once again!

I'm updating this review after i first published it on the 20th of May 2023. That day i wrote a bad review regarding the very toxic environment the game was,and i'm talking about Gaijin's greediness.

Almost 6 months have passed,and oh boy the game now is very healthy. I've passed from having negative earnings in battle to having 1 negative earning every 150/200 matches. The state of the game is so good that i even raised my skill level.

The combination of dynamic repair costs-cuts in repair costs-cut in Research costs-raise of every SL multiplier nailed the deal for me

This game still has some toxic traits,but trust me when i say that it's enjoyable to play as of right now.
(As i am writing this review,there is a review bombing campaign regarding a "bad premium sales campaing" done by Gaijin,so i'm taking the time to say that they don't deserve this behaviour this time and therefore you should ignore every player that is angry because his OP vehicle wasn't discounted)

I wanted to write a review only after completing 100% of the game,and now that i did it i can say it:

MY GOD THIS GAME IS THE BEST

There are countless things that are just perfect in this game: the skybox art,the character design, the combat style (simple,but not unforgiving),the locations, the Bosses and so on. But the most beautiful thing of all is the plot.

This review is obviously spoiler-free,but the lore of this game is so well expressed not only via dialogues or items lore, but also via the locations, the bosses and even the obstacles that litter the world of Cvstodia.

This game not only is a gem amongst Metroidvania and souls-like games,not only is a gem amongst Indie games, it is a gem of an artistic medium.
Play this game and complete everything, because otherwise the experience will not be complete.

And now,let's wait for the sequel.

Imagine creating a game where your character literally says "i want an harem full of Demon anime girls in suits" and then he gets them,girl after girl.

Before this game,i didn't like Anime girls or generally falling in love with a 2D character, hell i ran many games and still pretended to be a cold man. But this game literally made me fell in love with those demon waifus. Am i now a weeb? probably,but i don't care because this game,as short as it is, it's a pure gem. Hope to see a sequel, a comic adaption or something like that because it totally deserves every award available