Recent reviews by Kevos Setzer

December 22, 2020 Review
I dropped this game for several months, but the Bloodtrail update made me curious enough to see if it is any better. I'm adding onto this review with my original review below.

I am happy to report that I have not seen most of the minor Quality of Life bugs that I saw at release, although the game still has its moments: items that cannot be picked up, a Bloodtrail Hunt ended abruptly when the trail seemingly went straight down into the floor, companion characters graphically flickering in and out of existence. For the most part, the game is smoother for me to play than I remember at release, but there are still big problems.

In Chapter 2, the vault door would not open but reloading the game and character fixed that. However, I have encountered a game-stopping bug in Chapter 3 that blocks progression. I am supposed to travel with an NPC companion across a desert area and through enemy lines, but my game locked my computer up and I needed two restarts to get the computer to properly load. That was highly annoying, but temporary. But when I come back to the game, the NPC character is nowhere to be found and the quests do not progress without her. This is not a unique bug, because there are several discussion threads with the exact same bug. Other players have a similar issue in other points in the game where a quest cannot progress because the NPC is missing.

While I would like to believe my bug will be fixed in the next patch, this game has been in retail for too long to still have people be stopped because a quest is left broken. I still cannot recommend Wolcen without pointing to a very similar game that is in a better state even when it is still under development.

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Original Review
I really want to like this game. There are good things here and things I want to explore further. This game has a great look and feel, and I think it would most appeal to those who prefer Diablo 3 over other ARPGs. I intend to keep playing it for now, but I cannot recommend the game for others in its current state.

This update should have been Beta Phase 2, not a Version 1.0 "We've finished the game" release.

Visually, the game is good even on my eight-year-old machine. The use of camera angles and cinematic panning creates some truly stunning scenery.

Combat is engaging and visceral, in a way that reminds me of D3 more than Path of Exile, but it comes with caveats. Most of my frustration in fights has been from weird animation locks that keep me from responding the way I want to. I have to hit the potion key several times to actually drink a potion or I have to burn a dodge roll to get out of an attack I should have been able to walk away from. I find the combat fun, but sometimes janky and unresponsive.

One of my main complaints with the game is how it went from Early Access to Full Release, because most of the specific problems other people have detailed stem from the sudden release. How can a game that's been in Early Access for so long have a release that so clearly was not tested? Because most of it wasn't in the Early Access build. Most of the bugged and non-working nodes come from the third ring of the passive skill grid, all but one of which were added at release. The Early Access build ended at Chapter One. It did not include Chapters Two and Three where most of the scripting errors are found. I do not think the EA build had the current endgame system, where players have organically created situations that stop the game from even loading.

If the current game had been brought out into an open testing environment, the way Early Access is usually seen, these bugs and errors could have been found and the developers would be given more leeway in dealing with them. When people see "Full Release out of Early Access" and "Version 1.0" and a publicity blitz that involves paying multiple streamers to hype the game, people expect some level of function from the game. I feel like the developers have been hosting a technical demo as their Early Access build while they worked on the real game behind the scenes.

The single biggest reason I cannot recommend the game right now is how the developers have responded to issues in the wake of the game's release. When players cannot progress in the game, when stashes and characters randomly disappear and reappear, when progression keeps getting reset, when players cannot even play the game, that needs to be met with constant communication and reassurances that the developers recognize those issues and are working as hard as they can to resolve them.

The Wolcen team says they are limited to one patch a week and they have to coordinate with their partners. Expecting people to wait a week when the game does not load is a joke. The fact they have to coordinate with someone else before patching a game tells me their partners do not trust them. I have never heard that kind of excuse before in something that was not related to a cross-platform release. It makes me wonder about the game's continued future.

I am playing the game, despite all its problems, and I will continue to do so in the immediate future. If the game was fixed and fixed up, it could be an excellent game. But as it is right now, with the problems involved and the inadequate response to those problems, I cannot recommend anyone else get into the game at this point.

This game starts with a simple concept -- a random dungeon game resolved by rolling dice -- but the various rules involved turn this from pure luck to a very strategic game if you work with the tools you have on hand. Several games have tried this path, but Dicey Dungeons is successful.

This game made too many promises in its initial promotion, and suffered for it when a rocky start kept it from living up to its ambitious claims. Even acknowledging its problems, this game was one of my guilty pleasures because its laid-back and somewhat directionless exploring aspect was exactly my jam.

In the time since then, the developer has continued to work on this game long past the point other developers or publishers would have abandoned a project. They have added features players wanted, and continued to build on what this game had. This is especially true in recent months, with the "No Man's Sky Next" update, the Abyss update, and the new Visions update. I think the developer deserves some credit for continuing to stick with the game despite its mediocre reception.

The devs keep working on this game, keep adding things on to it, but the core gameplay hasn't changed. It's obvious GGG still cares about this game, and still listens to the people playing it. Kaom's area too long? Take one of the sections out. Hopefully the earlier areas can be streamlined even more when they put Act 5 out.

This feels like the same game that was released, only better. I can't say that for other games of a similar style. That's why I keep coming back to this, and why I nominated it for the "Test of Time" award.

They also have a decent free-to-play setup. The transactions are a bit overpriced, but they're almost all cosmetic. The only things I would argue you really need are a Currency Tab and however many Premium Tabs you want. There are some great cosmetic skill effects, though.

This is a very small, very simple game, but it is a very interesting experiment. The twist is somewhat obvious once you see it, but do try to go into this with as few spoilers as possible.

The concept could go into a much more elaborate game, and I would be interested to see some kind of collection of the results of this.

One note: If you get "Cannot connect to database" it is because the game is run off a small server. Just try it again later.