Recent reviews by valczir

This game has been a mixed bag from the start. The turn based mode is neat, character customization is pretty solid; but options in dialog are pretty limited and NPCs are not particularly interesting. It doesn't seem like you have much influence over your companions' paths, either. The storyline seems kinda neat, if a bit linear. Writing is _fine_ - it doesn't draw me in like the Pillars of Eternity games or Tyranny, but it's consistent within its world.

In the end, the part that pushed me over to an outright thumbs down is the naive alignment system and class restrictions. In PnP, alignment is nuanced and usually depends on a character's reasons for doing something more than the actual action. In this game, the alignment-impacting dialog has zero room for nuance. The kicker for me was when an inquisitor is trying to murder anyone who disagrees with them, the lawful choice is to tell them they're doing a good job, while the chaotic choice is to call them out.

On its own, a naive alignment system is _annoying_ but not more than that ... but in this game, classes are alignment-restricted. So in this game, the naive alignment system means I have to choose between making choices that are within my monk's code but get locked out of monk levels, and making choices that violate my monk's code so they can continue to level as a monk.

tl;dr: combat and character builds: good; level and boss design: fine, but forgettable; story: poor, but ignorable. Kinda like a less-clunky Nioh 2 with better skill progression - the mechanics are fed to you gradually, to let you get used to the ones you know before new ones are unlocked.

I'm a huge soulslike fan, but I should note that what I like about them boils down to exploration (i.e. if you can make it back to the place you died, you won't be penalized for death); slower, more methodical combat; and the really cool builds you can make. I have also recently found out that I like the risk of invasion - the soulslikes I've played the most all have some type of invasion mechanic. While I basically never invade other people myself, I seem to really like the potential that I could be invaded at any time.

Wo Long hits pretty well on the notes that I care about. The builds are cool, especially with the looter aspects of the game. Finding weapons that work well with your build (or finding builds that work well with your super cool rare drop) is really fun. The combat forces you to pay attention and take your time, as any good soulslike should. The invasions (even though I'm pretty sure at least one of them was an NPC) have been fun.

The game falls kinda flat on the exploration side - Wo Long has pretty linear areas, and it discourages you from exploring because you have to kill whatever killed you to get your not-souls back. So if you were to end up in a high level area before you're ready and die to a high level enemy, you'd be unable to retrieve your not-souls. This is mitigated because, as I mentioned, it's pretty linear - you're not going to find high level enemies until you've unlocked high level missions. So the same mechanic that ruined Salt & Sanctuary for me isn't really a big deal here.

Beyond that, I'd say the other parts of the game are inoffensive - neither particularly bad nor particularly good. Bosses are fine - they feel fair, but not particularly distinct. Level design is nothing special, but it doesn't really _get in the way_. The story is pretty poor, but you're never forced to engage with it much. Characters are largely forgettable, but they perform their purpose.

Wo Long isn't the greatest game in the world, but I'm enjoying it. It's worth at least a thumbs up.

I bought this game on release specifically because Arcade Quest looked really cool, for some single player content. It seemed like Tekken might have taken a page out of MK's and SF6's books and added a genuinely fun way to pass time when you don't really feel like playing other players.

Arcade Quest is a glorified 4ish hour tutorial.

I _expected_ a few extra tournaments after the tutorial part was over. And sure, I could just play arcade mode - but then I could also just play Tekken 7. I want to take my character from Arcade Quest into post-game tournaments that actually challenge me. There was talk about building up a following of fans and then going into tournaments with people cheering you on - and I don't see _any_ of that. Just scripted interactions with people who've been following you.

The rest of the game is what you'd expect from a Tekken game. It's solid. It's _fine_. But it's also a $70 price tag on something that really isn't much different from Tekken 7.

I love this game. This is probably tied with Hellpoint for my favorite indie soulslike.

The best part of this game is the combat.
- Sekiro-style perfect deflects are in, with a slightly more forgiving window but the caveat that you take wither (temporary) damage and you can only gain that health back by attacking.
- You can kind of come up with your own combos. Mix heavy attacks in with light attacks, switch stance mid-combo, throw in a little magic.
- You don't have to equip a spell catalyst or ranged weapon to main/offhand slots - they go in a special "ranged" slot, and then you aim them by holding a button.
- Arrows/bolts are a type of equipment, not a consumable. You get a certain amount of ammo every time you rest, just like mana.
- When holding the "ranged" button, you can cast a spell or switch ammo types by pressing the corresponding button - no need to cycle through the equipped spells.

Honestly, combat in LotF reminds me of fighting games. There are a lot of options and figuring out the best combo for your build takes a fair bit of experimentation. As does figuring out which build best fits your playstyle.

Coop is _mostly_ seamless, invasions don't feel like a frustrating lag fest, and I like the "revenge" mechanics to avenge other players by killing the enemy that killed them.

However, it _is_ a little on the janky side:
- Performance is getting better, but I still get some hiccups and churn here and there. Occasionally it'll happen in the middle of a boss fight.
- There are some wonky hitboxes. Not as bad as Elden Ring, but it's never fun when something kills you even though the visuals make it look like it shouldn't have.
- The camera really gets in the way in small arenas when you're up against a wall. Luckily all of the harder bosses are in larger arenas, so it doesn't get in the way _too_ often ... but it's annoying when it does.
- Boss and level design are pretty good across the board - nothing unfair, nothing extremely frustrating - but there's also nothing super memorable. No Ornstein and Smough or Starscourge Radahn here. The level design and world building never props up a boss fight the way that FromSoft does so well - so while they're fun fights, you probably won't be thinking (and talking) about the fight after it's over.

Overall, it's still a solid recommend from me. I'm having a blast. I wish Elden Ring had combat and coop half this good.

tl;dr: Remnant 1 with better boss design. If you enjoyed the first one, you'll enjoy this one.

I am a soulslike fan - I play as many of them as I can. Remnant 1 was one of my favorites due to all of the cool builds you could make and the way that it leaned into the roguelike similarities (I've long thought of soulslikes as only a few steps removed from roguelikes). Random world generation in a soulslike just feels _right_, as if Remnant is just acknowledging the roguelike at the heart of the soulslike.

That said, Remnant 1 had some really frustrating boss designs. Many of the bosses were fun, but several felt unfair - like you just had to get lucky with mob spawn patterns (gods forbid you get a couple mobs spawning right behind you during a boss fight), or they just upended the rules of combat that the game had taught you up to that point. But the cool weapons and builds, varied playstyles, and random world generation made me love it in spite of its flaws.

Remnant 2 has much better boss design, while keeping everything that made varied builds and playstyles so fun in Remnant 1. The archetypes add even more variety to the type of build you can make, and being able to equip different relics (rather than just the dragon heart) gives you quite a few more build options. It doesn't feel like there are as many options as in Remnant 1, but I played Remnant 1 after two DLCs had come out, so that's not a very fair comparison. Plus I don't even know if the community has found all of the items in Remnant 2 yet.

Unfortunately, there are still some bosses that can't be damaged at all by melee, meaning that melee builds will have to switch up their build for those bosses - and I'm sure that's not the only type of build that just won't work on certain bosses. But by and large, all of the bosses at least feel fair. No mobs spawning behind you and backstabbing you to death. No drastic changes to the rules of combat mid-fight without any indicator. Bosses have second phases sometimes, but the game never introduces a brand new mechanic in the second phase without any indication of how to use it (e.g. the damage buffs from the shadow realm in the final boss of Remnant 1).

Overall, while Remnant 2 doesn't take too many risks when updating its formula, it's still a solid step forward in the areas that Remnant 1 fell short. And the risks that Remnant 2 _did_ take (namely: archetypes) hit pretty well.

I am a huge fan of both the original Zeno Clash (and, to a lesser extent, Zeno Clash 2) and soulslikes in general. Clash: Artifacts of Chaos combines the two to make a really interesting soulslike brawler. It has a few problems, but overall I got quite a lot out of it. I am excited to continue my game in NG+.

The cool stuff:
- When you die, you go unconscious and you possess a mannequin. If you defeat the enemy that knocked you out as the mannequin, then you can wake up your unconscious self and continue. I find this to be a really interesting take on the "bloodstain" mechanic of other soulslikes.
- The stances, special moves, and general combat mechanics are _mostly_ great. See drawbacks for some of the areas that combat falls shy of perfect; but overall, it's rewarding and results in some really cool moments.
- The world building and story are engaging. This game has more of a story than most soulslikes - maybe more along the lines of Remnant: From the Ashes? The game is mostly about fighting, but there's a neat story to keep you engaged when the combat gets a little frustrating.
- The only real collect-a-thon in the game involves collecting body parts for your mannequin at night. This collection aspect is really neat - it doesn't feel tedious or pointless, the dreamcatchers that the body parts are attached to are visible from a fair distance, and if you don't go around collecting the parts it won't hinder you in the majority of the game (night mode isn't required very often). It mostly helps you recover when your fleshy body gets knocked unconscious.

Drawbacks:
- Some bugs. Most notably, sometimes the game registers a quick mouse click as a charge attack instead of a quick attack, and you get locked into the full charge attack animation. There was also one point where the climbing animation was happening too far away from a climbable surface, so I would fall back down every time I climbed it. walking away for a few moments and then approaching the surface fresh seemed to solve it.
- Hitboxes don't seem to be balanced against the dodge distance as well as I'd like. A few enemy types have attack animations with very wide hitboxes (so you can't dodge to the side) that happen too quickly for you to dodge out of range before they hit. Generally, once an attack animation starts, I would like to have enough time to dodge out of range.
- Animation cancels are very tight, even with dodges. I really like how animation cancels work with combos, but trying to use animation cancelling for a dodge is extremely difficult. I am _fairly_ certain that animation cancels are only allowed in a small window after your attack makes contact with an enemy. If the enemy is winding up for an attack, the timing of the dodge is critical - but since you can only animation cancel into a dodge when you connect with an attack, there's no real way to time your dodge accurately. In the end, I gave up trying to use a dodge-and-weave playstyle and switched to a more hit-and-run playstyle, doing a lot of one- or two-hit combos before rushing back out of attack range.
- Weapons auto-equip every time you pick them up. Weapons are useful early game, but since they only have one set of animations, they're not nearly as interesting mid- to late-game when you've heavily upgraded your stances. Especially late game, it gets a little annoying to accidentally pick up a weapon while trying to pick up all the resources in an area and not realizing it auto-equipped until you're in the next fight.

Despite the drawbacks, this was a very enjoyable experience. My favorite game in quite some time.

The parts of this game that aren't monotonous are not particularly notable. The combat is uninteresting, and that's most of what the game focuses on.

The parts that _are_ monotonous include:
- A poor checkpoint system, which makes you replay far too much of the game when you respawn.
- Sluggish controls - the start of movement feels almost random because there are so many animations a character has to go through to change direction.
- Poor stealth. The very thing that made me like these games (the psychological horror you could inflict on enemies) is just plain nonexistent in this game.
- Low stakes - most of the crimes you are encouraged to stop are to protect property, not people.

I could go on. It's just plain not fun.

Hellpoint gives me all the Demon's Souls nostalgia I was looking for in soulslikes. Long story short: if you're looking for good character building and tight combat, then you'll enjoy Hellpoint. If you're looking for good level and boss design, you may be disappointed.

Pros:
- Extremely tight combat. Dodge cancels, input queuing, and stagger all feel just about perfect.
- Neat character builds. Weapon conductors act like Elden Ring's Ashes of War, changing how weapons work. Weapons gain experience and unlock abilities and stat bonuses with use.
- True coop. Once you've joined another player's game, you won't get punted back to your world unless either you or they want you to (or one of you loses your internet connection). The host can revive guests by sacrificing half of their health.
- Couch coop. The game has splitscreen support, so you can hook up a couple gamepads and a TV to your steam deck (or other computer of your choosing) and play coop locally.
- Speaking of steam deck: native linux (and steamos) support. No need to run through proton; Cradle Games clearly have solid multi-platform development experience. The game has had native linux support since long before launch.
- The Black Hole clock mechanic changes spawn points and enemy types depending on the station's position in orbit of the black hole. different positions open up special doors or change level layout. Feels like an almost-roguelike version of Event Horizon.

Cons:
- Still somewhat rough around the edges. Some bugs (usually minor) linger, some mechanics feel like an afterthought. For example, Eye Codes are scattered throughout the game and usable toward the end, but there's nothing in-game to record the codes in. An in-game note-taking feature would be great. Or just a place that automatically saves the eye codes you've discovered.
- Level design is a little convoluted. They did an admirable job providing multiple paths to navigate an area.
There are many shortcuts back to previous not-bonfires (breaches), reminiscent of the original Dark Souls. However, without an in-game map, those same multiple paths _will_ cause you to get lost. You'll take one path forward, then accidentally take one of the other paths backward _thinking_ that it's the path forward. Once you realize that you've gone in a circle, you'll start looking for the place you got turned around - but since there's no in-game map, you'll have to backtrack slowly, going by memory, looking for a branching path that you missed (or an area with still-living enemies). Personally, I found some fan-drawn maps on reddit to bring up when I got lost.
- Boss design is not particularly memorable. The boss fights are fun and never feel unfair, but they also aren't anything to write home about. You might compare notes with friends about a couple of them, but you won't see anyone making grand animated videos on youtube about them (see: Ornstein and Smough).

As with everything, my personal preferences inform my enjoyment of the game. I really like weird character builds and extremely tight combat, and I am not put off too much by problems with level or boss design. For these reasons, I have always considered Demon's Souls to be FromSoft's best souls game. Dark Souls _did_ have more memorable boss and level designs, but it also had worse netcode, less interesting character builds, and looser combat. I think that Dark Souls is probably a _better_ game, but I personally prefer Demon's Souls. Elden Ring's open world worked surprisingly well, but the awful coop experience (getting locked to a boss's area in a game about exploration... :facepalm:) and poor to awful build/boss balance killed it for me. I think Elden Ring is probably a _better_ game than Demon's Souls, but I personally prefer Demon's Souls.

Similarly, I don't think Hellpoint is _the best_ soulslike out there. It has its share of problems. But it may just be _my favorite_ soulslike - the things that it does best are the things that I care most about.

FTL, but less interesting.

- First and foremost, there's a single member of your crew who is apparently so critically important that if that person dies, your ship explodes. This is infuriating on _many_ levels - not the least of which being that this is probably how corporate executives actually see themselves. I have to put up with enough nonsense from executives in my day job, I don't need that BS in my video games.
- Managing fuel was fine. Having to manage food _and_ fuel just seems odd. Sort of like websites that require two things that you remember (e.g. a password and a secret question) and call it "two factor authentication". Food doesn't add anything interesting to the game - it's basically just the same resource management a second time.
- As far as I can tell, your characters are locked into their roles and are incapable of learning new ones. Already have a weapon tech and randomly roll another one from some rescue operation? Sucks to be you. At least in FTL, your crew learned skills as they performed their duties. If you had a crew member with duplicate skills, they could always learn new ones.
- The map is buggy. If you try to click on a destination that is too near to your current location, you'll end up clicking on your current location and going back to your ship view.

All this does is make me want to play FTL some more. FTL is, in every way, a better game.

The developers discontinued the linux/steamos version of the game and are not offering refunds. I can no longer play it, but I've still paid for it. This is an awful business practice, and is indicative of a predatory company.

Per the actual gameplay, from what I remember: combat was tedious and boring, puzzles weren't very interesting, and the level design was convoluted. It was enjoyable enough when it worked, but it was easy to get lost and making progress was a chore.

I would review the current version if I could play it, but unfortunately I have to go off of what I remember from an old version.

[edit] DavidM: I would rather not. The only reason I bought the game in the first place was because of the native linux support. If you had never supported linux natively, I would never have heard of nor purchased the game. Since you've discontinued the only reason I ever bought it in the first place, I'd rather just not bother playing it. [/edit]