Recent reviews by Ultrazaero

A gem of a game. Very fun!

Only reason I give a thumbs down is because the game is in forever early access. There's an 'ending cinematic' but it's like in half of the journey what you set out to do.

> Be detective character
> Try to find a person with a face no one remembers
> Think 'oh, nice, I made a character with a type of path I'd want to explore'
> Get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ in unavoidable fights as you're too weak to fight and don't find enough junk to sell for better weapons
> Barely get through some battles, always close and some retries necessary but eventually with some luck you could do it
> Then you face ghouls

> Make new character, combat focused
> Breeze through the game, still don't miss anything fun it has to offer

Have to say, there's something wrong with the approach here. Although I loved how you've put the lore alive, the execution was meh

A very extensive character creation, and the game telling you that combat is not a main focus. But it is, or you should build around it in any case

A great game that seemed too much at first, once you get into it it seemed really easy, until you expand a bit further and discover new mechanics that halt your entire strategy.

It's remarkably deep, although it looks like there's a lot it's easy to learn and hard to master.

The only points I have are rather minor inconveniences AT MOST:
- I'm not really getting how influencing a city works. The confederated AI was able to get some cities this way, but if I do it it seems to have little effect for much resources.
- As Sparta, I arrive at Krete and suddenly my troops are starving. 'ok, new mechanic, let's discover' but it was kinda hard to figure out what you could do except retreat before their morale dropped too much. Still haven't figured it out
- The tutorial at Macedon left me a bit puzzled. It introduced me to a lot of mechanics, but kind of left you in a bizarre situation "damn, you couldn't take the city. You have 3 turns to do so. Good luck BTW, as this is the end of the tutorial."
- Sometimes there are messages that talk about cities, AI civs, etc. But there's only the name, possibility to close the message to browse and search this city or AI on the map yourself. In the beginning, I don't know most names of cities or city-states, so I'm usually searching the map until I find them.
- The way other civs are unlocked seems very random to me. It is my turn, I move my settler to plains to build a field, and suddenly I have unlocked another Civ for later playthroughs. I mean, that's awesome, but how did I do it?

But honestly, that's about it. The game itself has tons of elements to take into account in your approach, several different ways, it'll just take you some time to lean into them and discover what is possible, and adjust your strategy on that. Also very helpful and responsive devs

I really, really tried here. Have played plenty of roguelites and difficult platformers. I tried this once, failed at it, came back later, but just failing again.

Maybe there's some kind of OP perk combo that I'm missing here, but the rooms are often built in a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ way. It's not really forgiving either; you can have an amazing run, and then have that one room where you fall into a trap you can't get out of and get 130 damage trying to get out, with a lifebar up until 150. (No invulnerability if you get hit, unless you find/unlock a certain perk very randomly)

I give up, I'll watch a lets play on youtube for someone who spent more hours into it. That's what is needed eventually, hours of your time, just to immediately recognise the type of rooms and being able to see immediately what the danger zones are. They're really unclear and more often than not, the way to clear the room is absolutely disastrous.

A very solid citybuilder with a lot of content and a lot of love over the years. I have nominated this game for labor of love due to doubling the content since launch and the level of care given to this game.

If their next game is even near quality as this one, I'll be a loyal follower of their journey

Fair warning though, you best play this game on hard difficulty, not on easy, otherwise you'll get bored pretty quick

As someone without nostalgia goggles on but still trying to see this in the spirit of a game back then, not today:

The AI is so clunky, buggy and disappointing that I really can't continue my campaign. If you drag me as the Netherlands in a war as Britain vs. France and Spain, two powerhouses that are near your mainland and sending continuous waves, massing your own armies and playing defensively the entire time, never leaving your island, it just gets increasingly frustrating. Hell, I don't remember medieval 2 being so frustrating.

Negotiations is bloody difficult here as you have no inclination what so ever what would sway an indifferent major force more towards peace/alliance.

It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ if you are dragged into wars and your defensive allies don't participate, because it's not a direct declaration of war from that force vs. you or vice versa (eg. you declare war on New Spain, which is a protectorate of Spain, so you go into war with Spain. You allied with France? Too bad, France doesn't participate because Spain didn't immediately declare war on you, or you not on them)

Doesn't help that naval warfare is also so, so slow and basically a must to always battle instead of resolve as you might even 'lose' a 10 vs 1 with a 95% win chance according to this game


Hope for a remaster of this game or a sequel as the time period and setting is plain awesome. With the TW technology of today it'd be more than epic. It just needs to be made

Why is this gem of a game so hidden? Why have I gotten this game from a random bundle back in the day while it deserved such massive attention. What an experience. I'm normally absolutely not a space or scifi fan in stories, but what an amazing ride this was.

I understand the game not being complete for a while was off-putting to some people, but that last 'chapter' is basically 2 times the game you just played. What a labour of love to finish it, not in a rushed manner, but in providing THIS much content.

One of the best indie games I ever played. Buy it, you won't be sorry.

Builds from previous game, but a lot more strict and waaaay easier to get stuck here for, honestly, dumb reasons. First one was better, but it's still a fun game

An interesting, unique story with an amazing narrative that keeps you on the edge of your seat

Another great game, although story-wise it's dropping off and taking a lot from it's first game's success with tons of references you wouldn't get if you didn't play through those games, it's a solid entry for fans