Recent reviews by Luwae

Played the game (demo) and can tell it's a good game, it even has a coop. It's one of those games that are unique that somehow only indie devs can only hit right. And well... This one hit right. Feels like playin RE, House of the Dead and Bookworm all at once on a walking dead setting.

Great game, fun and lots of QoL from Evolved. Honestly miles better than the original game. However, runs pretty ♥♥♥♥, FSR pretty much saves its ass. Snail games are terrible managers of the franchise, the price of a single DLC/expansion on old ark is just a single creature on ascended. Don't get me wrong the Dreadmare and the Pyro cat looks cool but I'd rather buy different games or just pay modders.

Personally I enjoyed it because it's Ark and well... Dinosaurs but in next-gen graphics!

Also: Please for the love of god have the option to uninstall other DLCs like how Evolved was. I can't afford to have 2 different Arks with both having all the DLCs (I love Fjordur).

BUY ONLY WHEN ON SALE.

It didn't have the strongest start I gotta admit but it ended pretty strong. The game puts you with 80% cutscene and 20% gameplay, but I am sure that changes when you're after Act 1. The game runs pretty ass, but the gameplay was quite decent. There are some noticable janks here and there but overall they were great.

Now for the optimization part, it is horrible, there are a lot of random framedrops on some areas then immediately becomes smooth after. big example for this (SPOILER ALERT) is where you the 2nd eikon of fire fights the phoenix, when they went underground, there's pretty noticeable drops to the performance. Another is the abysmally low volume. I played the game without upscaling to test the raw performance and set to ultra. Most of the time it stayed above 60, hovering around 70-80 fps on a pretty decent card (6700 XT).

Things to note: Game doesn't have the best visuals but it does look great at times.

Pro:
- Great story
- Visuals are decent
- Combat is pretty interesting
Cons:
- Bosses in act 1 are way too boring, I kid you not I fell asleep fighting the big ass plant on my own recording.
- Badly optimized
- Terrible audio volume


Do I recommend it? well if you don't care about the little problem it has and love final fantasy, go for it. The game has its own charm.

This game is straight up ASS, literally. I was 4 hrs into the game and someone asked me why I am standing in the lobby for hours. Did I mention that this game is a spyware?

This game is near perfect. It is so much fun. You step into a TRUE open world map with its own unique interactivity, you can choose your approach to your own story, your own progression. Don't like doing a certain objective? You can try alternative ways. The game doesn't really have a definitive quest system for leveling, instead it uses what they call "Heart" missions, you fill them up by doing a variety of objectives on an area. Those give you experience and a piece of story on the said area.

The combat is nice, no clunky movements on combat, everything is smooth and responsive and that is coming from a person that plays on an average of 240 ms ping (Yes, I am from asia). Most of the time I can't really feel that 240 ping tho, I managed to do all the game modes, PVP, WVW, Fractals, Strikes, Openworld, Raids without really complaining of the ping, manage to perform well in most scenarios too!

As for the story, I'd say it's pretty great, I enjoyed the interactivity of the stories. Some have choices that changes how it plays out depending on your choice but as far as I know, most of them only have minor impacts and you can replay those chapters too whenever you like.

The grind? Well it can be tedious at times, but fret not it is with its own reasons. The grind might be overwhelming at first, but that is because they have what they call horizontal progression, this means no gear treadmill, whether this is a pro or a con varies depending on the person. Personally I love this approach, I can grind on an item for a month and maybe take a break after, maybe months or years and when I come back, I will stay relevant. This means that there will be less pressure and might actually prevent the discouragement of a player's approach to the game when returning.

Finally for the balance. From an unbiased opinion, I'd say the balancing is great. All professions and elite specializations have their own way of approach on the game. Some are more needed than the others, but the rest shine in their own way. I have heard that all class can build a dps or a healer build which is something new. Sure, there are classes that do well better on healing/dealing damage compared to the other classes, but it doesn't completely take the other classes off the table. For a personal opinion/biased take, I'd say please arena net buff Elementalists. I do think that it is pretty unfair to make weaver the most complicated elite spec in the game only for it to be beaten by a lot of elite spec but with less effort. I was a weaver main, but I switched to tempest eventually. Tempest deals way more dmg, can provide better team heal, better boons and is tankier than weaver all while doing less effort. I know they believe that complexity does not mean that a class should be dealing way more damage than the other, but at least buff the hp of the elementalist. It seems like this has been a very long issue to the game now. If a holosmith can get a huge shield all the same while doing a little bit more damage for less effort and capable of self boons. Why can't a weaver/elementalist do the same? It has been bothering me for so long that I just meme about it, I understood now why they say downstate is part of an elementalists' kit.

Final verdict: I'd give this a game a 10/10 will keep playing. Also, thanks River for making the game more fun!

Honestly speaking, this game is quite disappointing. Movements are so clunky, combat most of the time will lock you in animations because of end-lags. The animations? I'd say it's a mixed bag, there are some cool animations but there are some that just doesn't fit well. I'd like to also note that the effects are quite lackluster.

The voice acting and lip sync are quite terrible, normally I can stand terrible things but I delve into this game with high expectations considering it's one of the most known MMORPGs out there.

The good thing about it? Well it has multiple classes (But all of them are gender-locked), great customization, fighting game esque combat and lastly it has pretty good graphics considering the age of the game but that's about it. Somehow the mobile version of this has better effects and movement than the PC version.

For a modern standpoint I'd say this game is a 6/10

The dlc is garbage but I'm here for it

I enslaved all the orcs, what a great game.

Great game honestly. My only problem with it is the lack of monsters. I think it adds around ~30-50 new monsters compared to the first game (subspec included).

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ it has sex 69/10