Reseñas recientes de Xaelon

If you're considering trying this game, don't. Sega's recent decision to put the ability to Automatically Sell items behind SG/paid subscription confirms precedent that any and all QoL features moving forward will be monetized. Do you REALLY want to play a game that's going to charge you time or money to temporarily access what should be basic features?

To be clear, you can earn SG just by playing the game BUT, this game has SO many important things locked behind SG that it's borderline unplayable without spending SG. In hindsight only tolerated the amount of features locked behind SG because I had a large amount of SG saved up from the days before NGS launched. There's no way to permanently unlock these features either. You have to stay subscribed or constantly pay SG to make this game somewhat playable.

It would be one thing if Sega was doing a good job fixing problems and improving the game but that hasn't been the case. That's the reason why putting a feature like Autosell behind SG has made me so mad. The game has been passable at best lately with around 6 months between any major content updates yet Sega still decides to put the only QoL feature they've ever announced for the game behind a semi-paywall.

The other reason why what they're doing with Autosell has made me particularly angry because it's something I've wanted the game to have since launch. Why have I wanted the feature since launch? Because it would improve this game's mindless grind significantly. I wouldn't have to open my bag every 5-10 minutes to get rid of the garbage. Yep, that's right. This game shoves SO much worthless garbage into your bag that it requires constant management or else you risk being unable to loot something you actually want. They could have added Autosell as a basic feature (as it is in MOST other games) to address one of the game's main pain points but instead they decide to sell access to it instead.

Of course Autosell wouldn't be needed if 99.9% of the "loot" wasn't garbage. That's the other big problem with NGS. You spend hours and hours grinding and nothing you get matters. You have better odds to win the lottery than you do to get any worthwhile drops.

The combat is the only part of this game that's worthwhile. Outside of that NGS is a boring game that drops nothing but worthless loot, treats its F2P players like garbage and is run by a company so greedy they decide to put the only major QoL feature behind a semi-paywall. So, ask yourself does that REALLY sound like something you want to spend your time on?

This is a case where I wish I could give the game a rating between "Yes and "No".

This game is a pretty simple turn-based "Mystery Dungeon" style rogue-lite. You explore corridors and chambers collecting loot and fighting monsters. Sometimes there's little sections of one-sided dialogue between Drahn and his Fairy between dungeons. There is a simple death penalty where you lose everything you've looted on a given run. This was more punishing before stamina was removed, because you lost stamina too.

There's few things that make this game interesting. Any monster you kill has a chance to drop as a 'Fang' allowing you to equip the monster to one of your three slots, improving your stats and giving you an additional attack or skill to use. Some fangs have melee or ranged attacks, others buff/heal you and the last type causes status effects. Fangs also have a passive effect which range from status resistances to increasing damage or critical chance.

Drahn's equipment is limited to a sword and a shield. Equipment has simple properties that seem to be limited to buffing the damage or defense of fangs based on element or creature type or causing/resisting status effects.

I enjoyed the starting levels but now that I'm about 30 hours in I'm starting to hit a grind wall. This would have been trouble earlier in the game's life, but now with recent removal of stamina, it's just a matter of time and some luck. The game pretty regularly drops fangs for you to use as fodder, but you need so many of them to level something past 20. I hope the devs will remedy this in the future by offering regular event dungeons offering more metal blobs (these are fangs offering MUCH higher amounts of EXP).

In regards to the microtransations:
Your first single pull gives you an SR+ to start with (I think everyone gets one). Tenpulls cost 50 premium currency and guarantee you an SR fang or higher. After 30 hours, I have only gotten around 30 emeralds through normal play plus two or three "emerald stars" that function as single pull tickets. Currently it doesn't feel like I need the higher rarity fangs to progress. The R+ and SR/SR+ fangs are definately more powerful, but are offset by having a higher equip cost. Whether or not R+/SR/SR+ fangs are available outside of the gatcha remains to be seen. The devs have also announced something called "friend summons" which functions appears to be another source of free pulls, there isn't any detailed information as of yet.

The iffiest thing I have seen with the microtransations is with the devs selling a limited number of packs that give an instant boost your cost limit. Your cost limit does naturally increase as your home level increases so it's not as if the packs are the only way to increase your cost. I don't know if being able to buy more cost is more than an early game boost. Your Fang Cost Limit is what restricts what and how many fangs can be equipped to a single loadout.

If you like Mystery Dungeon style games, it's worth a shot now that the stamina system is gone.

Updated review posted 6/24

I backed this game on Kickstarter.

There were no bugs or technical problems with the game aside from two very rare cases where I got stuck and had to take damage or use an item to warp to town. At my current playtime of 30 hours I have killed the final boss and collected roughly 75% of the different stuff in the game.

My feelings about Bloodstained have not changed upon completing the game. It's the best classic styled metroidvania title we've had in years.

Koji Igarashi has made what I would consider a 'greatest hits' style game with Bloodstained. Takes the unique mechanics from many of his previous Castlevania games and blends them together into one cohesive package that is a pleasure to play. If you've enjoyed any of Iga's previous titles on the DS or GBA, I recommend this game.

I did find Bloodstained to be a on the easy side overall, but I was over leveled with a very good equipment loadout. The optional bosses proved to be more of a challenge.

I am looking forward to returning to the game on a harder difficulty level, as well as to play the various announced DLC modes.


Old Preliminary Review
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At 5 hours in, I am willing to give Bloodstained a preliminary recommendation. I have fully enjoyed the time I have spent so far. I will update this review later if the game radically changes somehow or once I have finished the game.

If you enjoyed Symphony of the Night, or any of the “DS-vania” games (Order of Ecclesia, Dawn of Sorrow, etc) you will probably enjoy Bloodstained as well. I would encourage you to check out live gameplay before spending money on any game.

This one really is Castlevania in all but name. It’s got a very large labyrinthine level to explore with plenty of secrets. Combat is simple and fun with tons of different options.

It definitely seems like Bloodstained has all the aspects of a great Metroidvania.

I did not expect to be recommending this game.

I spent a fair amount of time with the original MapleStory and I thought this game would be little more than a graphical facelift of the original. I was very pleasantly surprised find out that this game is much more than that.

The absurd amount of grinding that the original had has been abandoned. You can hit the level cap of 60 by doing the story quests and little else (it took me 25 hours to finish the story).

Combat is on the simple side and mostly revolves around timing your character’s dodge skill to avoid different types of AoE markers. It works well and is pretty fun.

Dungeons are generous and give plenty of loot. They also scale based on the number of players. Want to avoid grouping as you level? Go ahead, the dungeons are comfortablely soloable. Dungeons start out pretty easy, but do get difficult enough to be fun, but not overwhelming. They’re pretty short (5 to 10 minutes), but that makes sure they don’t overstay their welcome.

At cap the game plays like other MMORPGs. You do your daily quests, you do your dungeons and your gear improves. There’s a little RNG with what substats you roll for your armor, but not so much that you can be hamstrung by getting unlucky. The game also gets huge bonus points for allowing you to dismantle unusable gear into useful resources (breaking down epic gear will let you make boxes that let you pick gear for your class). All in all, it offers a high degree of rewards for the time spent. I am always a fan when a game doesn’t waste my time.

As you may have heard there is a daily limit of 10 dungeon clears per day and a weekly limit of 30 total runs. You wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that sounds restrictive. However, in a move that sounds uncharacteristic of the Nexon I knew, the devs have already announced that the total number of dungeon clears per day/week will be doubled in the patch coming on November 8th. 10 player raids are also being included in the same patch.

The game is certainly off to a good start. If you’re on the fence you should give the game a shot, you might enjoy it more than you think you will.

I have a bad habit of buying games and then forgetting them. Redout is special among most of the games I own because I periodically return to play the game every so often. It's not something I play a lot of because of how difficult and unforgiving it is, but it sticks out in my mind because of the visuals, awesome audio and superb sense of speed.

The description on the store page touts Redout "as the fastest game ever made" and it is absolutely true. I've never seen it's like before or since. I don't know how they did it, but the sense of speed in this game is just amazing. Videos and screenshots don't do the game justice. Play the demo. It will blow you away.

The visual style is hard to explain. It falls into this wierd place between realistic and not. Redout has a very slick look with a great vibrant color pallet. Whatever style the game is, it works and looks great in motion.

The sountrack of this game is fantastic. The music is EDM-like with great bass and delicious transistions. Great fit in game and a great listen outside. Really, really good.

The AI is challenging and relentless but doesn't cheat. If I can't manage to place in the top 3, I know it's because I hit too many walls or couldn't stick the landing off a jump. It is definately possible to get first place, IF you're a good enough driver. With as fast as Redout is, there is a large learning curve. Jumps will quickly become your worst enemy as messing up the launch will very easily send you off into the void. It's a great feeling once you are able to get a handle on the controls. Carving a clean line down a section of track and hitting your boost to zip into first place is super satisfying.

Don't let the large number of DLC packs available scare you off. The game and all DLCs go on sale for reasonable prices pretty often. I like the tracks the DLCs add. Each of the regions present is distinct enough from the others.

Post Launch Review Update <Added 10/13/2018>

I am happy to report that the Devs have kept their promise and have been adding more content and improving the game at a reasonable pace. They have been very receptive to community feedback and have corrected the issues I had with the game at launch. If you were on the fence before now would be a good time to jump in.

TL:DR:
Take an arena-FPS like Quake or Doom, mix it with "gun-legos" and rogue-lite elements and you get MOTHERGUNSHIP. I would encourage you to try the demo if you're curious.

A single 'run' lasts about 10-30 minutes. No bugs or other issues encountered at time of writing.


Detailed Review
==============
Movement is very fast and precise with a large degree of midair mobility. Gunplay is solid with a large amount of different weapons. You can find parts that behave like railguns, shotguns, machine guns or rocket launchers as well as some types that don't fall under standard FPS archetypes

Weapon crafting is interesting without being confusing or restrictive. Muzzles are required to face forward, and there has to be a socket and enough space to attach a part but other than that, the game doesn't care how many things you attach to one hand. Want to slap 6 railguns on one hand? Go for it. You'll only get to fire once before you'll have to wait a few seconds for the gun's energy to recharge though.

Besides building crazy arrays of different weapon combinations you'll also have access to what the game calls 'caps'.
A cap is essentially a weapon mod that gives a passive bonus to every muzzle attached to the same hand.

Rocket projectiles not flying fast enough? Find a cap to boost shot velocity. Wish your gun's projectile spray bounced off walls? There's a cap for that.

One fun interaction I ran into is I had a mini-rocket launcher attached to a couple minus gravity caps and that actually made the rockets arc upwards into the roof. Oops.

Additionally, you can gather EXP from defeated enemies and use that to boost your starting HP, move speed, and starting number of jumps (these upgrades persist between missions).

A given mission will have you run through a chain of differently sized arenas (they can be tiny or large with a large amount of vertical space). There are a reasonable variety of enemies (enough to encourage you to balance your the range, damage and firerate of your weapons). Sometimes the game will stick turrets on most of the surfaces in the room, which is where the bullet hell elements come in. Combine that with shield generators that let enemies fire out or towers that heal enemies and it makes for a frenetic dance of shooting and dodging enemy shots.

Missions are also further diversified by what type of ship you're attacking. So far I have run into three types: harbinger (pretty standard), foundry (lava floors and plenty of environmental hazards), and another type that has lots of bounce pads and lots of verticality.

A mission can run from about 10 - 30 minutes depending on how much time you spend tweaking your weapon rig, and if you choose to kill all enemies or not.

I have not fought many bosses. Those I have fought are as advertised: Large and shoot a large amount of bullets.

Death isn't much of a set-back as you only lose any gunparts you take with you or find on the run.

The only things I haven't enjoyed stem from RNG. Sometimes you don't get enough money or there just arn't any stores.

The devs have advertised that they will add additional post launch content. I will update this review at a later date if necessary

I don't normally leave reviews. But, with as much criticism as the time limit feature has been getting, I feel that I should explain my thoughts about it, having initally disliked the time limit. I will address that after I give some thoughts about the game.

I like this game more than I thought I would. After doing around five runs, it has grown on me considerably. Rogue-like games arn't normally my cup of tea either. I also bought this game with the expectation of online multiplayer, but I have found it very fun in single-player.

TL;DR:
"Swords of Ditto" is a fun Zelda-style adventure, sporting tight combat, and interesting level design supported by some rogue-like elements. The time limit isn't as restrictive as it seems to be.

If you want full details, keep reading.

This game borrows many aspects from the Legend of Zelda series. If you enjoy Zelda games, many things will be instantly familiar. I've played every main entry in the Zelda series(except breath of the wild, no switch) and beaten all but Zelda 2 and Majora's Mask.

Exploration:
The overworld has secrets and plenty of things to discover from caves locked by mysterious contraptions to hidden holes that lead to underground areas. I opened one in my last run, and the NPC inside complained about me blowing a hole in his roof.

Combat:
Not quite as fluid as Zelda, but very good. Your items are powerful, and the enemies are dangerous, but designed in such a way that encourages skillful play. There are also light RPG aspects in the form of simple equipment management. You'll find stickers that do simple things like give you more HP or defence to some that give you additional sword techniques or immunity to explosions.

Dungeons and 'puzzles' (problem solving aspects):
Seeing as all the game's maps are procedurally generated, the dungeons in this game can't quite reach the level of complexivity of those in a normal zelda game. Non-the less, they are fun and interesting to complete with some rooms requiring a reasonable amount of thought to complete. The 'anchor' dungeons are suprisingly well done with interesting gimmics built around the dungeon's tool.

There's also the aspect of random modifiers. I like the way they handled these. Most of them seem to synergize with one another, creating interesting combos that force you to adapt. Some of the combos you can get are evil though. Seeing as I have only completed one run and have only had two total make it to the final showdown, I cannot accurately guess at how much varity the game has. I will update my review later if I run into a lack of diversity.

Story:
I won't talk too much about this, but most of it is communicated through the environments, light character dialogue and collectable log entries. There is definately something strange going on in Ditto from what I have been able to gather though.


Now I will talk about the game's rogue-like aspects.

The Time Limit:
One of the things you are introduced immedately to in this game is the 4 'day' time limit. I don't know exactly how long an in-game day lasts, but it's not too long or too short. Time passes as you wander the overworld but time freezes if you're inside a structure or cave. I wasn't able to finish Majora's Mask because the time limit in that game always made me feel rushed. I feel that it does actually work well in this game since it encourages you to plan what you're doing or where you're going. The BIG difference is that after several runs (I believe I unlocked it on my third run), provided you explore enough, you'll unlock the feature to extend your run by a whole day of in-game time. This feature changes the feel of the game completely since you're now free to explore much more of the overworld.

Death and Progression:
While dying does result in some things being lost. You retain your character level and currencies. Certain other special things persist too. The only things you 'lose' are your "Toys" (think items in Zelda, bow, boomerang those sorts of things), but there's always the chance that you'll get one of them back in the next dungeon. Upgrades to toys are also lost (finding upgrade items does not seem to be very difficult).

There are a few things I found irritating.

I'm not fond of locking the dungeons behind a level requirement, since it's frustrating to finally navigate to a dungeon only to find that you need another level to get in. Assuming there is a level cap, this will eventually become a non-issue.

I don't like how they handled gateing portions of the overworld. Instead of requiring a new item to traverse a specificly designed obstacle, a sort of living-wall is used. To break the block you have find the wall monster's eye and damage it enough. The eye is only accessable from one side though. It does force you to explore the overworld more. But, I'd rather have the choice to head straight into dungeons, if that's what I want to do.

For an incomplete game Dead Cells is extremely enjoyable. Fast fun movement combined and satisfying combat mixed with great level design and interesting equipment choices make make for one very replayable game. The fast paced nature of this game and it's unlock and upgrade system really make you want to do one more run. Even if you don't have lots of time your runs will probably last from 5 minutes to an hour depending on your skill and playstyle. I don't like roguelikes, but the way this game combines aspects of castlevania and Dark Souls with random loot makes this a fun time. If you like castlevania or roguelikes at all pick this game up it's fantastic. The one issue I have with this game is that the difficulty curve could use to be smoothed out a little bit. The difficulty spikes in the last half of the game. Even so, that can be mitagated somewhat with enough caution. I am really looking forward to seeing how the Developers expand this title. Even in it's current state I enjoy this game enough to come back and do at least one run on a daily basis.

Note: I have not played this with a keyboard and mouse. Runs REALLY well on a 360 Controller.

I really like this game. It's been a long time since I ran into a game that grabbed me like this one has. The entire overworld is super mysterious. Combat is fast, tight and challenging. The gameplay deftly balances exploration and combat. The game reminds me of Ys and Dark Souls and has difficulty to match. It has that 'HARD but fair' balance that keeps you coming back for one more try and once you finish that section or finally kill that boss, success is sweet. Really satisfying. Rounding out the package is the art and music. Both of which ooze style and atmosphere. The backgrounds and environments that you traverse are gorgeous. Not much else to say really. TLDR: Looks great, sounds great, plays awesome. Buy the game already.

I don't understand why this game is still $10 after all these years. The patches they add to this game are insane. To give you an idea if you're seeing this game for the first time, what was originally the end of the game is now only about a fourth of the entire game. You're probably looking at 50-100 hours if you want to defeat every main boss in the game. Double or triple that that if you like collecting rare items or building an amazing town.

They have expanded this game to an amazing degree. What was originally a pretty simple, but fun combat system has evolved into full-on class-lite progression with weapons and armor sets that cater to different playstyles. Then you can find accessories that decrease mana usage, buff your melee attack speed or give utility effects like double jump or status-immunity. Weapons and Accessories can also roll random modifiers like a very simple version of items in Diablo.

A lot of people compare this game to Minecraft, but it's so much more than that. This game has enough biomes that you won't see all of them in a single world. Each biome also has a unique enemy set and loot list. It's also got bosses that progressively increase in difficulty and complexity. If you wish Minecraft was more of a game and less of a fun building toy, you really need to try Terraria. It's like someone mashed up your favorite 2D action RPG with Minecraft's building and randomly generated world.

As far as sandbox games go, this game has everything. Tons of loot with awesome bosses to use it on, huge interesting worlds to explore, robust building features with tons of cosmetic furniture to use, fishing, and resource gathering with LOTS of cool stuff to craft. As of 1.4 you can play golf, scored and everything. The last patch also added "Journey Mode" (think creative mode, except that you could play the game regularly if you wanted) as well as the super hard Master Mode difficulty. If you've never played the game or even if you've already beaten it completely, 1.4 has something for you.

If you haven't played this game, and you like sandbox games buy it already. One warning though. This game will make you lose track of time. Even after beating it four or five times I still end up playing all day.

If you need further endorsement: look at the number of positive reviews. It takes a really special game to be super popular and for almost everyone to agree that the game is good.



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Older Reviews (for posterity)
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Terraria is the best procedurally generated exploration crafting sandbox. Take Solid sidescrolling combat (with screen filling bosses), combine it with minecraft-esque digging and building and then add a TON of sweet loot to find and you'll have Terraria. This game will devour your free time at a speed you never thought possible. It's scary good.

The amount of playtime you can get out of this game is insane. For playtime VS money ratio I don't know of any single player title on steam that can beat this game. Add drop-in online multiplayer and the game gets even better.

I keep coming back to this one because every content update they release makes it better. Like REALLY better. I'm talking: new bosses, tons of new equipment, more NPCs, the good stuff.

If you haven't played this one yet, buy it. It'll be some of the best money you can spend.

Original Review
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A stellar blend of sandbox exploration and sidescrolling combat and the best fusion of 'game' and 'sandbox' available. Terraria offers just enough direction to point you in the right direction while still offering satisfying exploration. Content patches (while infrequent) offer enough new content to warrant yet another playthrough. Better with friends, but still fun by yourself. It's worth noting that v1.3 has streamlined the multiplayer so it's now easier than ever to play with your friends.