Recent reviews by apidae xylocopa

It's a well presented experience with strong foundations; it has a competent, relatively tight control scheme that looks clean with the well drawn animations, it has pleasant area designs, it has great character art during dialogue, and more. However, the game is very short. And while I don't regret the time I spent on the game as I did enjoy it, it is absolutely not worth the current (12/5/24) $10 price tag.

I'm happy to pay extra to compensate for the labor of independent developers but $10 is simply too much for a game that can be beaten in 1-2 hours with no virtually no replayability as it falls very short on its claims of build diversity and exploration while also presenting a story that, in English, contains quite a number of typos and awkward verbiage which completely dilutes any interesting the narrative is driving.

I want to leave a positive review for this game because there's a fun concept that almost reaches fruition but it's ultimately held back by minor inconveniences like what seems to be a frame limiter, jarring or clunky elements such as slightly awkward animations, and more intrusive issues like only a sliver of longer item prompts being shown on the side of my screen leaving all text ineligible (at 4k).

The concept, the gameplay underneath the clunk, and the set pieces are all really great, so it's sad to see the execution fall short with attention to detail being spread thin,

Slime Rancher will immediately hook you in with its intensely cute aesthetics and will keep you hooked with generally satisfying exploration. Beyond the ranch, there is a world well designed to encourage exploration with the aesthetics to always keep it a pleasant experience. However, once the excitement of starting the game wears off, the ranch itself is only fun each of the few times you discover a new mechanic and lacks the gratification to make it more than a routine you occasionally tend to. Rewards are easily gotten and there is a stark limit on how creative you can be with the ranch's mechanics which leaves the ranching rather unsatisfying. In an ironic twist for a game named Slime Rancher, the exploration and collection is by far the most rewarding part and I would not go into this game expecting a system to get immersed in through creativity, ingenuity, or critical thinking.

Songs of Conquest is a rewarding title with a strong foundation for both singleplayer and multiplayer replayability. While the factions are fairly symmetrical for the sake of balance, there's just enough nuance that when combined with the highlight of the game--the conquest maps--you'll be left with many strategies to explore. Along the way you will be treated to some truly pretty spritework showcasing the wonderful unit and stage designs in a 3D space, giving the game a strong sense of depth and atmosphere. The soundtrack might be forgettable and the sound design is passable, but neither will pull you out of your enjoyment of the other aspects of the game. It's easy to recommend this game for nearly anyone interested in the genre, but HoMM3 purists might be disappointed when they find lower troop sizes, a higher degree of symmetry, and a smaller number of factions and units to explore--despite these things ultimately benefiting the balance of the game.

To elaborate on the gameplay, the game is very much reliant on the foundation of the various systems. Rather than introducing new mechanic after new mechanic and bogging down factions with a large number of things to balance, SoC instead focuses on delivering interactive foundations for each faction to build off of.

For example, the Wielders (viz. commanders, heroes) share a single spellbook across all factions. While this seems repetitive at first glance, the actual mechanics of many of the spells give you a great number of options for their usage, e.g., using spells that push enemy units to trigger attacks of opportunity for melee-centric armies or into mines/acidic clouds for spellcasters, using one type of essence (order) to stack high numbers of versatile buffs or introduce a second essence to focus on low-cost buffs for rushdown--buffs which can also be stacked for snowball strategies.

The factions themselves are also fairly symmetrical. Their buildings and first two tiers of units share fairly similar concepts: one lumber mill, one stone deposit, one gold farm, one guard tower, two tier one unit buildings, and so on. However, given the versatility of the basic mechanics, the seemingly few mechanics which are thrown into each faction shake up the gameplay enough to feel genuinely engaging. And a distinct benefit of the symmetry is that each faction feels very well balanced. While playing on high difficultes, I attempted and succeeded in finding good strategies that emphasize each individual unit.

But a big part of what makes that possible, and arguably the most well designed aspect of the game, are the conquest maps. These are the premade maps which can be used when creating games, and each of the maps tagged with 'balanced' are meticulously designed to change the pace and resource availability of the game which will always shake up whatever meta you've created. While one strategy might excel in the randomly generated maps due to their consistency and well-rounded starts, there will certainly be conquest maps which hinder that strategy and encourage a new playstyle.

Lastly, while the game is very rewarding due to its inherently difficult nature, this should not be a deterrent for those looking for less intense experiences: the game is highly accessible because beyond the 7 difficulty levels you can further tweak various options, such as starting resources or troop growth, when creating a lobby. There's also such a wide number of conquest maps with many of them presenting a much easier start and lenient win conditions than others.

Battlefield 2042 is a departure from the slower pace you would traditionally expect from the series but it remains fun and rewarding. The faster paced gameplay resembles something you would expect more from arcade shooters where actively outmaneuvering your opponents is one of the most useful skills you can learn while still incorporating distinctive Battlefield qualities like more varied map design, more layers of gameplay, and largely satisfying gunplay. Some new features introduced into the series, such as changing gear on the fly or 'heroes' with unique abilities, are quite fun as well. With few exceptions, each character is rewarding to play to their strengths and have strengths which shine on different maps.

When looking at the reviews for this game, I highly recommend paying attention to the quality and criticisms offered. In true gamer fashion, a huge portion of negative reviews carry extremely limited play-times, strictly false information (calling it dead despite being one of the most populated multiplayer games on Steam while having crossplay), or are closed-minded and reactionary comments about it not being "real" Battlefield.

Unlike the 2024 remaster, this version of Dark Forces is the original DOS game ran via DOSBox. One would hope that by being advertised as the 1995 original Dark Forces it would deliver the same experience as it did back then, but it does not. Due to a poorly configured emulator, the game feels unresponsive and runs slowly. Dark Forces' visuals were designed with low resolution CRT displays in mind, and this iteration of the game offers no compensation to maintain the intended visuals on modern displays. Consequently, what is a genuinely nice looking game becomes a visual mess with the limitations of that day's hardware being highlighted and put on full display instead of cleverly hidden as it was then. The out-of-box experience of this version of Dark Forces is not worth playing, paid or otherwise.

There is a fan-made "remaster" of this game which exists as what can be thought of as an extremely comprehensive mod.[theforceengine.github.io] Setting up TFE is easy thanks to being packaged in an executable and requires only a small amount of effort to get it to log playtime in Steam. It is an incredible feat and display of passion by being the most true-to-source way to play the game on modern computers. Visual issues which don't stem from a lack of a CRT display are solved while offering the ability to utilize high refresh rates, the UI upscales wonderfully, and the game feels as snappy as the original while introducing the ability to play fan-made maps and use mods. As of posting this, the primary drawback of TFE compared to the 2024 remaster would be not having cleanly upscaled cutscenes, but this is being worked on and not a major issue regardless. If you're going to play Dark Forces on modern computers, this is the way to do it. It is a genuinely enjoyable experience for the right audience.

However, even with TFE, playing Dark Forces in the present day means playing without historical context. Dark Forces brought mainstream life to the Star Wars extended universe at a period where Star Wars content was highly desired. Releasing only a year and half after the massively popular DOOM, it brought huge refinements to the genre in addition to fulfilling the desire for Star Wars content--multi-floored levels, being able to look up and down, the ability to run at 72fps, intricately detailed sprites, and more. But these refinements, while incredibly exciting at the time, are to be expected in the modern age. This means that a large part of what makes Dark Forces so historically significant is so incredibly normal.

Dark Forces is worth playing modded for people interested in historically significant games, fascinated by retro games, love Star Wars, or have a diehard love for old-school shooters. Unfortunately, I don't believe that's enough to warrant a recommendation.

There's an undeniable sense of reward that can come from idly progressing in a side game while busy with work, chores, or even a main game; however, the measure of that reward should be more substantial than "number goes up". Progression through a game should afford you new opportunities and encounters within that respective game, but you will only come frustratingly close to that here.

Once you adjust to the poor performance and lazily ported UI, it becomes clear that there are genuinely worthwhile things about Perfect World M. The character customization is surprisingly fleshed out, most music is legitimately good, and there are some truly fun gameplay ideas ranging from the heavy emphasis on socialization through the abundance of party and guild bonuses to underexplored character archetypes in MMOs such as shapeshifting classes. Not to mention that the actual enemy designs are wonderful and I would have loved to see them in a different game.

Sadly, each positive thing that can be named about this game will be marred by two or more negative things. While the character customization is strong, this port does not take advantage of the stronger hardware of PCs whatsoever which means you're stuck with mobile optimizations like drastically lowering the resolution of your character on most screens and offering limited gear customization. The individual music tracks are great, but they loop so frequently with no ambient noises to compliment them that they become irritating. There is certainly a lot of content that you're encouraged to do with others.. and that content will be so mindless that there's literally no reason to be in a party other than the devs praying it'll aid in player retention. Any unique or fun aspects to the classes will be quickly lost to each skill boiling down to do basic damage with a slightly different visual and some sort of stat buff resulting in highly repetitive gameplay--which you probably won't manual anyway since most content won't require it, opting instead to expect you to face tank and chug health recovery.

I wanted to play long enough to find if paywalls would become a problem. I did not find any but I stopped playing earlier than anticipated as after my fourth game crash I realized I had literally no desire to actually play the game.

Many other reviews contain antagonistic comments about the game being a cashgrab but I don't believe that's a fair assessment of the game. It is a 'remastered' version of Tantra Online; however, there is no monetization at the time of writing this. The game is not abandoned either. The date of writing this is February 26th and there have been eight substantial updates (mostly bugfixes) since January 29th.

Regardless, there are still issues and many will be encountered early on. While the game is advertised as having "fully customizable" characters, this is hardly the case as you're only given four face options, four hair options, and a very limited color palette. I was hoping at this point that the characters being "fully customizable" would refer to the leveling system but that's not the case either.

When leveling you gain both stat and skill points to distribute. There are four stats you can distribute those respective points among with each stat being very directly linked to a broad playstyle (a stat for each melee damage, ranged damage, health, and essentially mana) so there is minimal choice here. You're also lacking choice for skill point distribution: I chose the Assassin class which starts off with effectively two skill trees which only have two branches each--a tree for melee, and a tree for bows. Perhaps this becomes better once reaching level 30 but I did not reach that far.

I would also like to note that I picked Assassin planning on going down the ranged specialization as it was described in the most unique way on the character creation screen. Consequently, I invested all my stat points into the relevant stat for ranged accuracy/damage. But for some reason you can't equip a bow or arrows until level 10 with no other ranged weapon options at this point. This means that once I finished all the main quests you can before level 10 at level 6, I was forced to grind until level 10 with a weak character that dies to monsters higher than level 3 due to misses and a low health pool. What little customization there is can lead you to struggle even when done within the game's expectations.

By choosing to limit player choice in character customization you can more easily create meaningful interactions with the game's world but that's not the case here. The game's world is conceptually interesting by drawing heavily on Hindu beliefs and concepts but it remains interesting in concept alone.

There is no real narrative for the first few hours of the game at least. Quests are poorly translated into English with awkward dialogue and are riddled with grammatical mistake. Even if they weren't poorly translated then it wouldn't change much as the actual content of the quests are extremely trite. "There are suspicious monsters to the west so attack them", "go meet the jeweler", "I'm feeling under the weather so bring me a health potion", and "one of my guards wanted help with something so go check it out" are all actual topics for early quests and it did not get better.

It is truly a shame as quests exploring the Hindu concepts and mythos displayed throughout the game could have been so interesting and easy to become invested in. When you have such an underutilized yet deep basis for your game's world then it presents a rich opportunity to teach players about a whole new world to get them invested, but it's simply a missed opportunity here.

Beyond the narrative of quests being weak, there are mechanical issues with them as well. Early on you'll encounter a quest in the first questline that requires you to be level 10 to continue. A few quests later, the quest goal is to reach level 10.. which is necessitated by earlier quests so you can instantly complete it. I also found many other quests that I could inexplicably instantly complete. These were quests that typically involved interacting with other NPCs, so I am fairly sure that I was able to trigger the quest flags before actually receiving the quest when I was going around talking to every NPC trying to find who to buy arrows from (which ended up being the pharmacist..).

Seeing as this is an old-school MMORPG, I was hoping that the quests being weak was a sign the game world was going to be ripe for exploration. Maybe the quests won't show me much of the Hindu mythos I'm interested in but maybe I can experience it instead by exploring. This, unfortunately, is also not the case. Each enemy on the first map has an interesting design but there's little enemy variety, and the actual groups of mobs are so large that they quickly become repetitive. If you're going to work with limited monster variety then the groups of enemies should be small but dangerous to give each individual enemy their own significance and, most importantly, presence. Had the enemies been scaled up in size with more meaningful individual encounters then I wouldn't have minded the low variety nearly as much. This issue is also indirectly exacerbated by the emptiness of the world. There is nothing to engage with outside of enemies once you've left the main town. They're the main focus of the world yet they're uninteresting to fight after the first few times.

Most exploration of the game world will be looking for the next type of enemy you're told to kill. Any structures you find will generally be pointless. They offer little to nothing in terms of worldbuilding, they never have NPCs to interact with, and they almost never contain anything special (eg rare mobs). There is no reason to go off the beaten path. The feeling of emptiness is made much worse by the fact the game lacks ambient sounds and music plays for the first minute you log in then stops completely.

With a game that has left such a huge emphasis on combat you'd expect it to be deep and engaging but it ends up being neither. Early on you'll primarily be auto-attacking in a classic RPG-style system of hits-and-misses. Enemies do feel like a threat early on which is terrific, but there's no mechanical depth to enable you to fight enemies of a higher strength than your own. The most strategy you're likely to employ during combat is running backwards between ranged attacks. This relegates most combat to being nothing more than a stat check.

Stat checks being the heart of your encounters wouldn't be the end of the world if the grind to achieve better stats was an enjoyable one. With a world that leaves little to explore, repetitive encounters, and low player expression via character building or mechanics, the grind simply isn't fun. Truthfully, this is the single most disappointing part of the game. Gear drops from mobs on the overworld and can randomly drop as any rarity with its base stats and bonus attributes being improved significantly as a result. Between the classic RPG style of combat, the random loot progression, and interesting basis for the game world you have a wonderful foundation for a grind-heavy game with an emphasis on vertical character progression but the game simply does not successfully capitalize on that foundation.

I would sincerely love for Trimurti to become a good game. The roots are there for an MMO that you can play on the side and idly progress your character through or take on as a main game for those who love grinds but there's too many oversights and little to engage with. It's not a frustrating experience, just not a fun one. The dev team is a small one (the company has 14 employees according to LinkedIn) so I hope they have the passion to improve the game and I'll happily change my review if I find out they do.

poor fish-wife

it's good