Recent reviews by Nomad

Game is good, but honestly I can't recommend it due to one absurdly stupid design choice - you cannot skip dialogues. REALLY? WTF devs?
No offense, but you're not BG3 or RDR2 level and even in those games you can skip dialogues. In your game, you can't skip them even if you repeat section 10 times. Thanks to that, game feels 10x longer. GREAT!

I guess due to this it's impossible to return the game - you're forced to watch so many dialogues, by the time you get to actually play the game and decide whether you like it or not, you'll have like 4h on the clock.

RPG of the year - no questions asked.
Game of the year - no questsions asked.

RPG of the decade - best contestant.

I like the aesthetics, I like the theme, I like that it's deck builder... but I can't say I like how it's balanced or rather not balanced at all.
Is it difficult? Yes and no, it's kind of 'Tarkov difficulty', meaning lots of things are forcefully 'difficult', but make little sense, making it not really masterable, but heavily RNG dependent. The longer the race goes, the more luck you need. Your HP vs enemies' HP and your (in)ability to really heal, makes it nearly impossible to complete. And the fact that you draw your cards and opponents don't (they just always have what they need) doesn't help.
Sure - in Slay the Spire you have to draw, while opponents have just skills they use, but your cards, your combos are more powerful, or at least you can use (theoretically) infinite amount of cards per turn, while your opponents do one action, which makes it really well balanced.

Plus the progress is PAINFULLY slow. It's like Slay the Spire - you level up, you unlock stuff (mostly) but there you have everything after couple of runs and you can get to the gist - Ascending. Here it's just practically time based and that's not really fun. Unlocks in roguelikes/roguelites usually revolve around skill, like Isaac - you do difficult (or not, but just specific) thing, you unlock something, you find something in specific place, you unlock it for treasure rooms and so on and so on. "Play a lot to unlock stuff" is just frustrating. It feel like it should be either "action based" or "give me everything soon and focus on ascensions".


Bottom line - it's nice for the first few runs, then... not really. It needs some heavy balance tuning.

Change the name to Idle Farmer Against Potatoes. Then you can call it "I FAP"

It's like Tarkov, but it's actually fun and with better design.

I'd definitely love to see some more content, not just new gear, but actual content - more types of quests, maps, something more to do. But still, for early access it's a blast and better than most games in full access.

Just play Deus Ex (original) or Deus Ex Human Revolution. Basically same mechanics, but better working.

It's... okay game. Everything is 'fine' at best, nothing really special about it. If you really, really want cyberpunk-style game, I guess it's alright. If you're looking for really good game, just play something else.

It's a good idea, with bad execution - f*** tons of RNG. Meaning - shotgun pellets. You can't possibly have consistent stragetgy, because one time your shotgun will hit and next time IN THE SAME F****** SITUATION it will miss and cause you to lose.

Using chess rules? Great. That part of the game is super fun, super clear, you know what to do, what to expect from each figure - cool, no problem at all. You have to predict and plan your moves, like in chess - it's super fun.
Shooting? Is HORRIBLE. Most of the time you don't lose because you messed up your movement, you lose, because your shotgun decided to work differently. Sorry, but that is NOT a good mechanic. Unless of course you don't mind losing because of a coin flip.

Never seen worse balance than this. Fights are scam.
Biggest ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of this year. At least it's free, I don't need to do a refund.

If you're looking to learn about D&D 5e and you don't want to just read books - this is a very good start for you. I mean it, it's probably the best 5e mechanic adaptation. Only other game that can compete (and probably will win) is Baldur's Gate 3. But, I think, Solasta has a bit easier to understand UI, therefore a new player should have easier experience than with BG3.
One more thing where Solasta shines - Dungeon Maker and Multi. I think BG3 will have multi, but here you can play custom campaigns, so if you don't have rulebooks and you want to play D&D with your friends - this is a good start.

However, where Solasta doesn't shine, sadly, is story, acting and characters' visual aspects. Graphic is not really important to me, but here it just doesn't really look good, characters (buildings, equipment etc is quite alright) are, well, just ugly. It's not a big thing, but it just looks weird in 2022, I hope they will improve character models.
Another thing - voice acting. It sound a bit low budgety...
And finally - story. It's maybe not bad, but it's definitely not really good. It's just... another RPG story or another session made up by your friend. Devs should work on that aspect with future campaigns (if they will release more) or we can hope users will create more content.

But overall - if you're looking for great 5e experience or you want to get into D&D - this is really, really good way to start. Rules are very nicely written, every aspect should be clear for new users. And despite my complaining - I definitely recommend this for any RPG lover. I enjoy it so far and intend to keep playing. Combat is definitely more satisfying than 'classic RPGs' (despite my love for titles like Planescape Torment), with actual turn combat with movement, action and bonus actions implemented. Once again - this and BG3 is probably best D&D 5e experience you can find in digital version.


EDIT: Now, after completing first campaign and Lost Valley once (playing second time at the moment) I can add few more things.

This game has insane potential, I said it before and I'll say it again - release more scenarios, campaigns and D&D lovers don't need much more. It's truly great, satisfying experience. I'd love if in the future they added more classes and multiclassing (mods solve that problem for now) and Dungeon Master for the multiplayer mode. It would be cool if you could actually make some ♥♥♥♥ up on the fly for your players, instead of creating a scenario and then being just a regular player there. But that's probably too difficult to achieve. But it would make Solasta best of its kind.

Lost Valley is really cool, done much much better than original campaign, has actual replayability potential - I'd love something like that again, but bit longer, with more options.

Things this game needs, in my opinion to give almost endless hours of fun:
- more scenarios - players create some stuff, but if devs would release some campaigns every now and then, it'd be really sweet (Lost Valley style - non linear)
- more content from D&D books - I don't know how much of it devs can use, but Bard, Monk and Multiclassing (PLEASE) would be sweet. I got the taste from mods and it's AMAZING
- some visual update - that's not really necessary, graphics is not that important, but characters are really, really ugly and there's almost no customization of them. If not visual update at least some customization options please

I had positive feelings about this after 2h of gameplay, now, over 70h later it feels even better and I know I won't stop playing anytime soon. Unless devs stop making new content I will really do every campaign path and character builds. But I really hope there's more to come for Solasta!

I play this while I'm listening to Critical Role ;)

I'm writing this after very short amount of time, but seems like a very interesting concept, taking lots of things from D&D that were never used in 'big' games like Baldur's Gates.
It would be nice if devs added actual campaigns, instead of mercenaries characters with some backstory, individual goals that can be fulfilled during the campaign etc. If some dies, we roll for another one - like in sessions. Then it could've been very interesting take on a digital D&D, being a nice adaptation of an actual session.

As for mechanics, it would be nice to be able to build your own keep or something like that, more reactive world, if you have good reputation in one place, it'll ruin your reputation somewhere else and in places with low reputation, maybe someone is hunting your party? Overall would be nice to see something more than just roaming around without much goal.

Multiplayer would be sweet, with one player serving as an actual DM, each player playing one character... but I don't know if it's possible to do. But it would be sweet for sure!