Recent reviews by ToxicFrog

As someone who's been waiting for a spiritual sequel to Warship Gunner 2 for over a decade, this game makes me very happy. This early access is still very much "the game is not finished yet" rather than "we need public beta testers for final polishing", so (e.g.) most of the storyline isn't there yet -- but the actual *gameplay* is already fun as hell.

The game also brings some neat improvements to the WG2 formula rather than just blindly re-creating it, like the superstructure system, which rewards you for placing bulky "decorative" structures on your ship by giving you more room for passive upgrades, and the ability to mount some smaller parts (like AA turrets) on top of larger ones (like aft bridges).

It's got a ways to go, but it already has solid bones.

Looks good, plays smooth, interesting storyline, fun puzzles. Perhaps a bit on the easy side, but not so easy as to be boring. A few puzzles where even after figuring what to do I had trouble doing it with the right timing, but it's not nearly as bad about that as, say, Portal.

So why the negative review? 90% of the dialog has no subtitles because of "a deliberate artistic choice by the developers". Have trouble hearing what they're saying? Too bad. It's an accessibility disaster that would have been trivial to fix, but which the devs explicitly refuse to.

It looks ugly, the UI could use some work, and the balance is, often, questionable.

Despite this I routinely stay up way too late playing it. It's worth a look just for all the crazy units, spells, and abilities you can discover. Want to summon demons until hell is empty, then dig a tunnel into hell, conquer it, and use it as your base of operations as your demon armies march across the world? You can do that. Want to conquer an enemy capital by planeshifting their entire defensive army into the land of the dead? You can do that. Want to roam around the oceans building up a gigantic murderball of fishmen and merfolk before suddenly emerging from the waves as an unstoppable force? You can do that too.

If you want all the glorious madness of Dominions in a more accessible, singleplayer-friendly package, CoE4 is what you're looking for.