Recent reviews by sidra

loot pinata!

I finally made it to act 3 on a ranger (pathfinder) in Dawn of the Hunt. Starting at the start of the league open is important so you can afford to trade with other players. I've reached a point where I'm blocked from progressing by a boss fight in a dungeon or a boss fight in my second ascendancy trial. Both bosses I died to today have some ridiculous AE effects because everything but the player moves too fast. (And that's as a pathfinder with now 23.x% movement rate. I'm fast!) But I literally cannot get past these bosses without some luck and probably better equipment.

Except the loot drop rates are so absolutely low that I cannot get better equipment. I spent a few exalted orbs to get a couple of pieces from players through act 2 but now I can't tell what's actually definitely better and the exalted orbs aren't dropping any faster like they supposedly do at higher level. I spent 3, saw 1 more drop in most of act 3. I think I have 3, and 2 of those were from another character. (that was a lucky day let me tell you.)

if you ever wished diablo 2 was a soulslike, but with less loot, this game is for you.

pros
- the skill tree is really freakin' interesting
- instances don't reset as soon as you leave them
- checkpoints in your active maps so you can teleport from one area of the map to the other
- option to use wasd movement

cons
- loot drops are low. you'll hear this anywhere I think.
- most monsters and bosses move inhumanly fast compared to the players speed which is slow
- status icons on the screen are small and hard to decipher and you don't have time to mouse over them in the middle of a boss fight because you are too busy dodging ♥♥♥♥ and trying to attack in between dodge rolls
- a lot of boss fights aren't hard but the bosses are hp sponges and you might just die to RNG eventually anyway
- crafting is more like gambling and difficult to do since the crafting currency drops are ultra uber rare
- gold drop is low and paying to respec is expensive
- maps are large and windy and cramped

and worst of all

It doesn't seem like GGG is actually paying attention to most of what players are saying and that is why I don't recommend this game.

It's definitely a jrpg and definitely made by atlas. I kept comparing it to persona 3 reload and kept finding it better. Some of party member details so far are a bit full of tropes. Not surprising. The music is way more interesting than the dang brown cow song in P3R. So I'm buying the full game. (Partly cause it's on sale during the spring sale.)

I feel like this game has aspects of Oxygen not included and Dwarf Fortress and I like that. I actually wish there was a way to "retire" or "abandon" a school that you've just made mistakes and everything has snowballed and it's bad.

I haven't actually found a particular thing about this game I don't like. I did start changing starting settings, if I'm starting a school I feel like I'd be able to know how to cook food for people and have a "nurse's office" at a bare minimum. Oh and storage. So I definitely like the difficulty settings for starting.

I haven't advanced far enough though to really comment on the meat of the experience. Trying to get rooms arranged right to get all the effects I need for the rooms I want to have is a fun puzzle also.

Now that I'm this far I can say the only issue I've run into is trying to build over what's already constructed - like the game says you can do - when it's where walls and the roof meet - then I usually end up needing to demolish things for the game to cooperate. That's the only issue I've run into so far.

The magic flavor is fun. There's some added replayability with the requirements to do things or the rewards for things not being the same all the time.

It's dragon age. I enjoy the voice acting, the dialog options where I can sarcastic, the scenery. I wish it wasn't so much action and a little more turn based but I guess everything is more action based.

my biggest complaint so far is I want more freedom in remapping the controller. I want to make the controller more like elden ring but I can't because of the way dragon age settings are limited. I feel like the controller would be way more fluid, but just not on the default settings.

Reasons you might like this game:
- you have to figure out how things work as you go, scratches the discovery/exploration itch
- you have to pay attention to the little details because the order you place tiles is just as important as where you place the tiles
- art is good. just the right amount of detail.
- you can play 15-30 minutes at a time and still accomplish a few levels
- the scoring system is set up so you can get a score above a gold metal and oooo better dopamine hit! but also you can end up 5 points under a bronze metal (requires bronze at a minimum to consider the puzzle complete)
- the undo once button is useful. Use it. I appreciate that it's just a one undo at a time and that it's there.

For anyone in 2024 who sees this game on the current sale where it's 99 cents: It's totally worth it at that price. If you can't get the game's graphics to load properly, try full screen. It's cute. Puzzles are interesting. Music isn't bad either.

More of a first impression... but it's cute. And I like the magic system.

Haven't finished my first game yet and I'm playing on easy ... but I feel like this game is sufficiently detailed for a sufficient amount of micro-managing.

Now I have over 200 hours and it's past the realm rebuilt update - (9/29)

Game better! Play!

They did some rebalancing along with the major changes, I've seen little things. Difficulty feels different. However, I am also happier playing on hard because I feel like you actually need to update your armor and make heal pots and upgrade your survivor's armor. You know, do the things. Instead of half-assing half of it. I'm not far in on a new playthrough though. The recruited survivor has some improvements. I think augs are better because it's clearer how things work. I had no issues up to sylvan's cradle boss with essence on balanced. I definitely burned through more essence on hard, but I don't think I would go so far as to say I had issues.

Game definitely rewards you for exploring now. And on hard there's sometimes I felt like the game was actively trying to kill me. Makes it more fun.

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Now that I've got like 60 hours in (4/1)

This is not a game in alpha as far as I think. It's beta. There's some clearly worked on parts and some clearly needs more work parts. If you're looking to speed run through, probably not great currently.

I ran into multiple dumb bugs that didn't break the game but made it more obnoxious. But then they just sorta fixed themselves. They were all early on. The game definitely has some details that could be obnoxious too but I think that's mostly because they are different. I started liking this game more when I stopped playing it like it was Valheim. (And started taking a maul to the stuff you can break down.)

I see people complaining about lots of different items not stacking in your inventory, well, they are different items, they have different stats. 75 inventory slots is quite forgiving and the first storage built upgrade is 40 slots. 40. Compare that to Valheim! You can't carry ♥♥♥♥ in Valheim unless you have mods.

I haven't run into any game breaking bugs, recent one is I have a POI with a chest that I've built everything but then realized there's no NPCs there so I can't finish it. I assume that's a bug. I also discovered that damage numbers are off by default so apparently I haven't been seeing any information about weaknesses? That could explain some things. Also missed the rewards in the menu for the longest time so I wasted some time farming bottom level essence - not a lot thankfully.

I don't like how a lot of the cool looking stuff is just that, but it's early access and I don't know what all their plans are. I'm assuming there's gonna be some additions. I played Planet Crafter which had lots of neat looking is this going to be anything? stuff.

How you unlock some recipes can be confusing. But it's also confusing because it's not like Valheim. I like the different sorts of mats you can use to get different stats on your armor. I do not like how you can't do anything with that solo fabled hide because nothing uses 1 hide. Maybe they'll do something about that later. Debating how to craft an armor upgrade is part of the fun I think. Armor colors need work. But there's dye later? The cheek/face makeup needs some work too. I ended up making another character with 0% intensity on makeup just to make sure she wouldn't have hideous makeup.

The few reviews I looked at didn't mention the realm cards so I wonder if anyone has really messed with those - I know I kept forgetting because I was trying to play Nightingale like Valheim and you miss a lot that way. Finally used the artisan card on my abeyance before I made some upgrades and wow the durability increase! The cards are one thing that makes Nightingale different from something like Valheim. People complaining about the tradeskill augment things could just use the artisan realm card.

I'm looking forward to the AI for the survivor recruits being upgraded. Maybe give us some tickboxes to enable. Side note: they will only add fuel to active fires. I control their access and don't let fires burning everywhere. I've also finally given my recruit a knife and a torch and I think I like that better. Their best purpose is pack mule but also it's worth it to upgrade their equipment so they can revive you or be a meat shield longer.

I wish the map was different. Maybe toggle a fog of war. Or toggle the dungeon type POIs (like the fae towers).

I kinda like all the info in the menu. I do like being able to plan. If I go for a walk in Valheim it's to search for mats to make something or to find not enough deer to feed the tame wolves. (in the world I played last anyway) That's it. There's nothing else. Nightingale has lore, interesting architecture, landscape that's not all the same - like way more varieties of the kinds of fallen logs you see in the forest compared to Valheim. It's just more variety in what I'm looking at. Lichen on rock? That's interesting.

I think building so you can set up a framework first is great. You don't need all the mats on you. You can get an idea of what it's going to look like before you farm all the mats. I wish there was some variation maybe on size of pieces? But it's no less than starting out in Valheim. (And the base square wood log building piece just looks flat and uninteresting now.) I only played the demo of Enshrouded - didn't see anything that made me want to buy it - but the building in Nightingale is better than the building was in the Enshrouded demo. Which based on some people saying this game is in alpha seems like a reasonable comparison.

All in all, if you're the sort, buy the game and support the game. And poke at it so you can see where it's at now. I wouldn't recommend it as your main one game to play through from start to finish this weekend. I've been loading it up and wandering around whatever biome/realm I have a portal to or doing some crafting upgrades or adding an addition to the first house I built in the abeyance. (No wait, that was the second. I made the mistake of building in the walking path of big moosey guy.)

If you expect a perfect polished game, don't buy it. Or rather, stop playing video games because that way leads to frustration and madness. But otherwise, I think it's definitely worth the price just based on the time you see people putting into it.

I'm excited to see where this game goes. The level of detail put into some aspects of the game shows the potential for other aspects of the game to be great once done.


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**FIRST IMPRESSION**

Good. Solid. Pretty! Still figuring stuff out but I haven't run into anything unstable (yet?). And I had no issues building. Curious to see how creative you can get with building but that takes resources and don't wanna do that yet. Puck is an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.