Recent reviews by Throwback

I've got 80+ hours in the original. This version is just as addictive, buy it immediately.

This game is obviously a pretty good adaptation by its financial success. And yet, I find myself with so many complaints:
1. you have to equip every item you buy, there's no indication of it, no prompt to the player, and the game doesn't care if you go into a level without one equipped - and there is no way to equip in a level. In a physical version this would be a non-issue. In a computer version, it's a pain (and I am not the only party member caught out by this).
2. random encounters are just ways to punish you, often for a) doing the right thing; or b) engaging in the fiction. Very poor game design imo
3. the way the modifier deck works is obscure at best. It would be nice to have an in-game explainer.
4. once you get to a level and want to modify your cards, the UI covers part of your cards at the bottom of the screen - and there is vital information there. Very, very poor.
5. card deck design doesn't feel internally balanced, but maybe that's just me.
6. I challenge anyone to give 2c about the story after the first 5 hours, lol.
7. UI for targeting things is bad. You get used to it, but at first it is going to catch you out when you try to add an element or item's ability to your attack.

I'm still going to play this game, the design is good and I enjoy the strategy enough to finish it. But I wouldn't recommend it to potential buyers for the reasons above - games should be better.

It's close to being a great game. Presentation is fantastic, and the levels are pretty fun. I'll probably even play it after this negative review.

There are some key pain points for me though:
- The bosses suck. They take too long and they aren't fun. I especially hate the first boss, which offers 0 threat and does nothing except slow you down for far too long. But the next 2 I've found are also tedious. The game would be infinitely better if the first boss (or all bosses) was just removed.
- There are pointless and awful story beats that sometimes interrupt the game. They are badly written and they take more time than is fun.
- it's not a fast game. By which I meant that while each individual level is pretty quick (except the bosses), there are 10 levels of each 'world', so getting back to the last point you died is a slog. I'd love some sort of checkpoint system so I don't have to repeat 20-30 levels each time I play. Perhaps removing some of the more awful bosses would help this.

Low skill floor, high cieling. Tons of depth that I can see. Complaints about balance seem a bit ridiculous to be honest, so far I haven't seen anything that I can't counterplay. Defense is very active though and overall the game heavily favours offence.

This game feels like rivals of aether, streetfighter style. I love it!

It's good, very good. Cultist Simulator but you run a village.

Damn, this game is amazing!

Every time you play you will be in a 'scenario' that you have to win. Maybe it's killing a nemesis, maybe it's surviving for 20 minutes, or something else. Each scenario is accompanied by a new randomly generated map (with hills!), with random properties. It also might have other NPC factions that you can ally, adventure, trade or war with. During the scenario, you will have a bunch of randomly spawned quests to achieve. If you leave one for too long, it will spawn child quests such as monsters attacking your town, or forming a cabal of super-strong named monsters that will make life difficult. It gives every map a sense of urgency and dynamism that is unmatched in the ARPG space to my knowledge.

Character building is also unique: You choose a starting class, and get levelup points to put in various skills. So far, so normal. But as you level up, you have a separate mutation XP bar that will give you random mutations, usually with an upside and a downside. For example there is a mutation that gives you fiery hands: Bonus fire damage, but you can't wear gloves. You can also deliberately mutate your character with other classes to try and get new skills. And that's not even mentioning the class design itself, which isn't afraid to be different either. There is a build that lets you stealth when you are away from monsters, and gives you huge damage for 5 seconds after attacking (but loses stealth). If you don't kill your targets in that time, you are in trouble! To accompany this, there is a unique stat in the game called avoid notice which affects how easily monsters can see you - and monsters use a similar mechanic to avoid you as well.

I'm just scratching the surface on game design, it is too deep to meaningfully cover. Suffice to say it's exceptional, it's unique, and it's a shame it isn't better known.

So this game has everything you could want, gameplay wise. Why isn't it the most popular game on the market? It has a couple of downsides:
1) difficulty. If you don't get your build just right, some of them will become unviable pretty fast. Even if you get it right, some NPC spawns will hard-counter your character. You will likely fail some scenarios, even below level 20, rather than the auto-win that other games give you.

2) presentation. Ugly UI, basic graphics, somewhat poor sound design (although it has improved a huge amount from the developer's previous games). All serviceable and imo forgivable since this game is developed by a single person, but to enjoy the game you absolutely have to be willing to acclimatise to the presentation.

In summary: This game has the best loops, the best gameplay, and the best design of all ARPGs I have played. Get used to the barebones presentation, and you'll be coming back to steam to sing it's praises just like me.

is good. If you're new, mute your team.

One of the best games I've ever played, hands down....but it has peer-to-peer matchmaking. If you live in the US/EU, you should 100% buy. For everyone else, sadly no.

This game has a lot of good ideas and unique factions, and it's fun watching the battles.

However, I gave it a thumbs-down because of the atrocious UI. If for example I couldn't make mistakes and accidentally build in the wrong location, or I could see the number of every unit in a given city (particularly important for dwarves) then I would recommend it.

One other issue - there are magic items that literally kill your army, and if there's a way to get rid of the item other than giving it to a single guy and leaving him behind, I don't know what it is. It's pretty dumb.