Recent reviews by Typheus

I'm still giving it a positive review, but take it with a massive grain of salt?

There IS a fun game here if you want to just play a roguelite. The powerups, drops, chance encounters, etc, are amazing. They didn't skimp on the amount of customization and upgrades. So the sky's the limit when it comes to the insane ♥♥♥♥ you can build, and when it clicks it CLICKS.

On the other hand...

Hades 1, despite being an older game, despite being as unrefined, still feels better to play. I even went back to try it again after sinking a ton of hours into Hades 2 and I enjoyed it more right away. It's more fluid. It gives you more freedom to do what you want. Combat feels much more "up to you" in terms of fighting style, because the boons are more suggestions than requirements. You CAN outskill that game and it feels fun to do so. Hades 2 feels like the devs really wanted to say "No, you do it THIS way". I can never abide action game devs that step into the realm of telling the players they're wrong for liking a certain fighting style, especially if that style was present in the previous game.

Aside from trying to force you into a playstyle that feels blatantly constraining compared to Hades 1 as if the devs had a hate boner for instant dodge mechanics in video games, apparently there's just a MARATHON of unresolved stories with the characters and a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ending that, after learning about, I don't really feel compelled to reach.

As much as I played this game. As much as I wanted to love it, they kinda missed the mark.

Like I said, I'm still giving it a positive review, because it's not a BAD game by any stretch of the imagination, but I'd say Hades 1 is still superior.

Until a difficulty patch comes out, I'm not going to recommend this game.

It LOOKS beautiful. When the combat works, it feels incredibly satisfying. The music is great and the platforming feels fun, especially when you master new tricks to speed through some of the older areas.

But the difficulty and just...I dunno. This is probably one of the most "mean spirited" games I've ever played, and I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ beat the SotE DLC for Elden Ring, I know mean spirited ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. And this is RIGHT up there. It's crossing from "mean spirited" into being a total, uncompromising ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Between punishing minute or longer runbacks that can waste most of your health (if not outright kill you) on the way back to a boss, to enemies that are specifically programmed to get a little speed boost to get in your way if you dare to try and ignore them, to the extreme scarcity of checkpoints and the fact that you may not even be able to use a checkpoint because it costs currency to unlock them. The same currency you lose if you die like in most Soulslike games. So if you died twice in a row, lost your rosaries for good, and then you finally get to that checkpoint, you may not even be able to activate the damn thing and you'll have to farm rosaries which is NEVER as safe as you would assume it is.

Also? Cardinal sin? You take 2HP of contact damage from a DOWNED/STUNNED BOSS.

I gave it such a long try. But this game is just starting to feel downright miserable. I don't know if I'll quit playing entirely, but I'm in Act 2 and I really want to play something else at this point.

Edit: I keep trying. I'm pushing. I'm struggling as hard as I can to get to the end despite all of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, but I just can't take it anymore. I'll just wait for a balance patch or something because I can't deal with this ♥♥♥♥. I like challenging games, but this game just screams "♥♥♥♥ YOU" at every turn and I can't deal anymore.

Just came back to see if there was any hope of this getting finished. Nope.

They straight up stole everyone's money with a glorified tech demo and ran like hell.

I REALLY tried to like this, but it's obvious this game is unfinished. No basic communication should have been the biggest red flag for this game.

On top of that, the net code is still hot garbage and breaks on the regular. That was already bad when the games weren't meant to be played with a party all the way through, but I can now safely say I'm so glad Elden Ring failed to put in a good co-op option because Seamless Co-Op was able to step in, with a mod, by a single dev, and outdo the entirety of FromSoft's development team when it came to making a game fun to play online.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of this game, I doubt a mod will come in and undo the mess that is a company that can NOT, for the life of them, figure out how to do online play in a world in which online games are everywhere you look and blueprint upon blueprint has been finished to help guide them.

FromSoft has devolved into the Bethesda of online multiplayer. A total laughing stock that people will defend because "Oh, that's just FromSoft". I can forgive this in games that don't require online play in order to feasibly succeed. I can't forgive this in a game advertised as a multiplayer focused game from the very first trailer.

Stay the hell away from this until they fix this abomination. IF they fix it.

I have a 3070 and the raytracing is forcing me to the lowest settings and even then it's not a smooth framerate. Forcing people to use a pointless resource hog like raytracing is kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Imagine if you loaded up a game and it forced your anti-aliasing to the max settings and didn't give you options to turn it off.

EDIT: I'll probably update this if they make the raytracing optional.

I hate to do this, cause I'm having fun with the game, but WOW they did us dirty with the optimization, weird graphics glitches, and crazy hanging frames. All that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about "Oh don't worry, the beta is an older version" was to buy time, huh?

I'll change my review in a heartbeat if they fix that, but this is just too much to give it a positive review. I forgive this kind of thing for smaller companies or inexperienced teams, not multi billion dollar, founded in the 1980s, CAPCOM.

"Realistic physics simulation"

Because boats regularly sink underwater when they stop moving and then do a kickflip when riding over a small wave. Give me a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ break.

Used to be good until Valve decided to continue raking in microtransaction profits while ignoring the game's abysmal state and the rampant bot issue.

RIP Tango Gameworks

♥♥♥♥ Sony.