Recent reviews by Effigy

Like the first game, but with different content and some new/changed mechanics. Overall a fun and high-quality game, especially for Early Access. I suspect it will be a frontrunner for GOTY when it fully releases.

A classic game that is being kept afloat after more than a decade by a dedicated modding community. However, Bethesda insists on releasing pointless updates to the game that break all the existing mods, which is why I have to leave a negative review. I can only imagine the thousands of man-hours that have been wasted by players and modders trying to fix things again and again after Bethesda thoughtlessly dumps yet another turd of an update that we're all forced to install. This company has really lost its way.

The superlative turn-based RPG for the modern era. This game has a huge amount of content and actual roleplaying opportunities, not just "kill 10 rats" for Generic NPC #6. Even the guards and random flavor NPCs around towns have unique names and voice acting. It's incredible how much detail they were able to add to the game. I think there's a good balance of humor and dark/serious moments to be found in the world.

My only real complaints, both of which are minor:
1) The UI can be a little clunky at times. For example, pouches within your backpack being opened in a window behind the inventory window and not remembering the last position you dragged the window to.
2) D&D systems can be more "crunchy" than necessary. That's not a criticism of BG3, just D&D in general. You need to be cross-referencing wiki pages constantly to plan an optimized character, especially for multi-classing. That said, having optimized characters may not be important, depending on your difficulty level and turn-based tactics experience.

If you like high-fantasy RPGs and turn-based squad combat, you can't go wrong with this game. Easy 10/10.

Best $5 game you could hope for. Buy it now and thank me after you realize you're still playing at 2:00am.

Not as great as it could have (and perhaps should have) been if it had stayed an extra year or two in dev before release, but ultimately it was overhyped and destined to disappoint as a result. If you look past the hype and the famously-buggy release, what you have is a fun RPG with a good main storyline, fun combat, and somewhat lackluster open-world gameplay.

Worth the price of admission IMO. It's just a shame we didn't get to see what could have been if it stayed in the oven longer.

If you liked Modern Warfare 2019, you'll probably like this.

If you like WH40k and horde shooters, don't miss this game. Disregard the haters. Purge the heretics.

An addictive mix of action-RPG and rogue-lite with an intriguing story, stylish artwork, and extensive voiced dialogue. While I've only played about 60 hours so far, the game feels like it should have a lot of replayability due to the large amount of character builds, unlockable upgrades, and gradual story reveals. An average run is in the 30-minute range and you can save and quit mid-run, so it's a good choice even for players without a lot of free time.

This game is truly excellent. I'm not that big a fan of shmups, but I haven't been able to stop playing this game since I bought it. The character building aspect makes it much more interesting for me. You can play a wide variety of builds with the given options, including sniper, burning degen, minion master, battering ram, and many more. The mechanics are deep enough that you can get really creative. It's also a challenging game and trying to beat your high score is addictive. It doesn't require much time commitment though; the average run is a half hour or less.

It's important to note that the movement system is based on forward thrust, without the ability to directly move backwards or sideways (barring some optional ship upgrades). This takes a little getting used to, but it's part of the challenge of the game.

Overall, this game is excellent and is getting consistently better over the course of development. I consider it well worth the asking price even in its unfinished state. Be advised there are some flaws in its current state, although I think some people complain excessively about them.

PROS:
- The artwork, audio, and general atmosphere of the game is excellent. I would say it beats any similarly-themed game I've played in this regard. It does the Lovecraftian horror theme about as well as you could hope for a combat-focused game, albeit more in the vein of horror-comedy than pure horror.
- Diverse character classes with real personality. You have fun classes like Occultist and Grave Digger instead of the typical Mage and Rogue.
- Positional combat system adds a lot of depth to selecting your heroes and their skills. It also influences combat tactics significantly.
- The gameplay is a sort of hybrid between tactical RPG and sports manager game. Instead of managing a sports team, though, you manage a crumbling hamlet filled with mercenary adventurers.
- The game doesn't have an ending yet, but there's plenty of gameplay to be had for both min-maxers or an roleplayers.
- It has no "game over" condition, but your actions do have lasting consequences. You can't just load a saved game when your favorite hero dies--everything saves automatically, and they're dead forever. You can always get more heroes and train them up though.
- "Stress" is a novel mechanic that adds more long-term considerations than just keeping your health bar filled. The positive and negative quirks also add more flavor to your characters.

CONS:
- While all the classes are interesting, some are clearly over- or underpowered. Until more balancing is done, some classes not worth using except for flavor or extra challenge.
- There are a handful of scummy tactics you can use to your advantage. The devs are actively trying to fix these, so I wouldn't worry too much about this. In any case, it's your own fault if you choose to cheese your way through the game.
- Grinding isn't really necessary, but it's somewhat encouraged by the game mechanics. By "grinding" I mean doing easy dungeon runs with disposable teams, with the goal of gaining loot rather than directly advancing your main characters,
- There is quite a bit of randomness in the game. Whether on not this is bothersome comes down to personal preference, but keep in mind that your success or failure is mainly dependent on your own choices. Most of the players claiming they died to RNG either don't realize or don't want to acknowledge their own mistakes. If you do hit a string of terrible luck, you can always recover from it.
- The user interface is sometimes clunky and important information is not always presented clearly. I would say these are the exceptions though, as I like most of the UI. I do wish there were more keyboard shortcuts though.

If you have $20 to spare the game sounds at all interesting to you, I'd recommend taking a chance on it.