Recent reviews by Kaerus

edit: wtf refund refused and only 35 mins of gameplay

i can see why others like it, very nice artstyle/atmospherics, even feels smooth to run around and interact with the world which are huge plusses

.. however I'm hating the combat more with every minute. positioning with a set distance dash puts me on edge when platforming and is always janky during combat, dual stick aiming projectiles feels horrible and wastes the limited ammunition quickly, the enemies invariably have annoying qualities to them, where every hit they land feels like it was gained cheaply; either long invulnerability phases, ridiculous damage or near instant retaliations, so it never feels safe or smooth to approach, space or bully

i went from the old reboot to the new one, and going back and forth between the two games... theres a few key mechanics that force you to put yourself in danger and then enemies insta spawn on you, the graphics also become very muddled, with enemies exploding into shards that look like enemies instead of just sparks... its just a bit of a frustrating mess. i understand wanting to improve and iterate but this is a step backwards, despite the appealing graphics.

tricky to learn the units at first since small decisions can sometimes have a big impact, whether its being few spaces closer or further away from an enemy or taking one upgrade over another but the tutorials and bots to practice with for a few matches and get a hang of some basic strategy really helped before moving into ranked and I've had a good time with it so far and still improving

good game :) lots of simple mechanics, struck a fun balance between managing resources and exploration

It's what destiny 2 should have been

games full of robots should have better mechanics

Have played it 55 hours (in like 3 days) and so far can't really fault it. Addictive, really fun, tight mechanics, interesting combination of RNG and strategy. Progression and unlocks compliment gameplay instead of intruding on it.

Great game, very well made and very fun to play! :)

Was hoping for a grounded rendition of a classic setting with character that work hard to achieve big things, like defending the universe from disgustingly evil characters. Instead it feels like it tripped over and got amnesia, forgetting it's heritage and gravitas before it even got started.

Pros n cons:

- Game appears to be very focused on slap-dash arcade style grind with little story or stakes to back it up
- Music matches this, being very upbeat and cheesy
+ Level design and aesthetic is stylistic and reminiscent of the animated series
- Level textures are low quality and sparsely populated, they also clash with the design of the characters
+ The UI is clean, responsive and looks nice
+ Controller support is definitely there and works well
- Some basic character animations like walking are bad, cheaply whipping around with no smoothness to them
- Plastic-faced NPC's that have nothing interesting to say except small talk and shove you into a portal
- Why does it give me a vehicle in town when my character can evidently fly, that's so dumb
+ It has combat tutorials that you're introduced to quickly
- They are not very invovled, you basically play simon says over a dumptruck of instructions being poured on you
+ Combat animations and lock on system work fine
- Combat feels shallow and spammy despite having a few different useful and strategic move-sets
- Camera very zoomed in, feels stuck in a claustrophobic close-up
- Directional movement in 3d space toward a target (even when locked on) feels unintuitive and clunky
- Tries to funnel into ranked matches after first tutorial combat, again reiterating how little else there seems to be going on in this game

Maybe this is the game for other people, fans of the 3d fighting genre that love a good button mash grind/quickplay combat, but it's a no from me unfortunately and I'll be refunding, even though this was only $10 on special.

gameplay 5/5
really interesting gimmick, executed really well. great level design, intuitive puzzles that don't break easily. definitely brings back the essence of the original portal.

other details 4/5
easy to setup and install, just loads through steam and piggy-backs off portal's existing assets. only downside was some of the ambient audio was tuned a bit too high, there is a bass-y white noise that's perpetually blasting throughout the entire game, unable to disable that in options without also turning off the rest of the game sound (it's not music) and also the voice overs, although impressive that they were able to mod in custom ones and queue them to each level, had really predictable and kind of cringey jokes and sarcastic lines by the ai guiding you, so it doesn't live up to the wit that the writers of the original portal managed to bring to the table and that element of the game becomes a minor let-down (at least comparatively). other than that though...

overall a very good mod and I'm enjoying it!
9/10 !

Has enough positive and interesting features that stack together to give the gameplay its addictive hooks, even if the late-game is lacking the in-game guidance it ought to have to be consistantly good experience.

early game : will feel somewhat similar across most char/build, but the main gameplay loop is good enough to avoid making this feel too stale. Some will run and jump a bit faster, some spend more mana or health, but ultimately you're spamming your way through the main story campaign blowing up tonnes of monsters

lategame : maps will arbitrarly brickwall your exp gain..
.. you'll fluctuate toward levelling up and then suddenly losing 30-70% of your exp running the same level maps with the same level mods and you won't know why you suddenly can't progress, even if you were perfectly able to just minutes prior.
This brick-walling effect, is by far the worst designed and worst handled part of the game and it creates a fairly limiting and needlessly frustrating knowledge barrier between you and completing the post-campaign content.

I recommend this game, to try out the skill tree, skill gem system and crafting/market, it at least offers more than diablo, but don't expect these experiences to carry you through the late game.

Like many games that try to claim they are high difficulty, their difficulty is inflated by just being poorly designed or uninformative in many important areas. The devs expect you to bridge these gaps with virtually anything other than in-game guidance (go look up spreadsheets, go look up forums, go use the external market, and so on)

Don't play this game expecting completing it fully to be fun..
..expect it to slowly turn into an uncomfortable grind/slog with constant frustrating setbacks and to quit early/restart every season, or invest hundreds of hours into research, to understand it sufficiently.