Recent reviews by YuzuKawauso

I think this game isn't bad, but it's not at the level I would recommend.

I think that if it was $10 AND you're academically into exploring deckbuilders (though this is more like a skill builder?), then I think it would be a fun treat to play for a few hours until you move on and it gets inevitably buried in your library.

Fallout 76 is a game burdened by resource management beyond currency (item durability, carry weight limit, storage weight limit). This subscription made some of that temporarily more bearable, but even within the first month I was still spending a lot of time managing space and active items.

I think I would still be playing Fallout 76 with this subscription even longer if storage weight limits in your camp were completely removed. But once I kept running into the storage wall constantly after offloading ammo and junk into their respective special storage, that game overall quickly soured.

I did have fun in this game for a while, so I don't necessarily regret playing it.

With that said, I do believe that there are several game mechanics that turned the fun I was having into predominantly chore management: carry weight, storage limits, item degradation, and paying in-game currency to fast travel. The easiest way to mitigate most of these is to pay a recurring fee via consumables in the shop or the subscription. That's my biggest problem with Fallout 76. They've designed a game where it's acceptable for players to have infinite junk storage, or consumable carry weight boosters, but have made those things a recurring cost. For me, it started to make sense to pay money to start making the game more bearable after the shine wore off on it, and that's always a good indication of when to stop playing a game like this.

I played a long time ago prior to the Steam release, and played a little more here and there over the years (both from the dedicated launcher and on Steam). I remember liking it a lot, and have several friends that have played it the whole time.

Games like these change over the years, and honestly not always for the better. I think over the last few years, War Thunder has gone too far with its monetization and grind (which is just indirect monetization). I see my friends put hours and hours (and sometimes money) still into the game for ever-decreasing returns. Sunk cost fallacy is real. Maybe that’s why I still play Heroes of the Storm.

I jumped in on this after seeing Kripp's promo video for the game. It looked interesting, and I wanted to see what it did better than Duelyst and Hearthstone. I went 3-0 in my casual games and went 7-3 in my first arena run. So after 13 games, here are my thoughts.

It's interesting, but unfinished. A lot of non-blocker UI bugs, but nothing that is too distracting. There is a LOT of room for quality of life UI improvements. But there essentially was a built-in deck tracker buried in a menu in-game, so that's nice.

Overall I thought it was fun, but in 2 of my 3 losses I got utterly crushed by Lernaean Hydra (an OP legendary card). In Arena, a mode where you randomly draft your deck. The design of this card is so bad that it really just put me off, echoing similar poor design choices in Hearthstone. Seeing this card, I just said to myself, "Do I want to play another digital CCG where my non-combo opponent can win the game on one top deck when I'm at full health?" The answer ends up being, no, I don't. There are too many games to play out there. We don't have to be forced to play games with bad design holes like this, even if they do have a good aesthetic.

Currently, this is in beta, but it has a fully functioning cash shop from what it looks like. Personally, I consider a game with a cash shop released. The beta label is there to shield developers from criticism while accepting cash from consumers for an incomplete game. But that's really my own personal hill I like to die on, and doesn't really factor into my review.

Pros:
Great fun with friends [+++]
Makes you deeply care about minutia, like finding rice [+++]
You end up seeing great displays of the psychology of other players (or yourself) [++]
I get more paranoid/panicked/wary/jazzed in this game than most others [++]

Cons:
Alpha glitches, some that can be considered unfair (wall phasing zombies) [--]
Still not as complete as the mod [-]

ProCons:
UI isn't as good as it could be, but adequate [+-]

Final Verdict:
If you have friends to play with, this game is worth it even at its current version and price. If you're looking for something more single-player friendly, this might not be the right one for you right now until more features are added.

Pros:
- Unique and great looking art [+++]
- Fun turn-based combat system [++]
- Great underscoring [+]

Cons:
- The rewards/penalties for in-game decisions are inconsistent. You can't play a "good" or "bad" character. Help someone, get punished. Hurt someone, get rewarded. Or vice versa. [---]
- Short and somehow repetitive; about 9 hours for the first playthrough without
much variety [--]
- Story and gamplay are too linnear; not enough variety to warrant multiple playthroughs [--]

ProCons:
- The main narrative isn't as interesting as the world it passes through, which is terribly interesting [++-]
- Voice acting is sparse, but good when present [+-]
- There is almost as much (if not more) story than game, which would be a positive if the main narrative was better [+-]
- Limited character progression system, but diverse character options [+-]
- Initiative is interesting. One character from the player team will go and then a character from AI team will go. A character death will only reorder the initiative order of the team, not globably, until a team only has one character remaining. Then the last character will have to face the entire team in succession. This means that even if a team with two characters is grossly outnumbered, the outnumbered team is still moving every other character. [+--]


Final Verdict:
It is an interesting game and worth playing for the art and combat system. But it isn't worth the $24.99 retail price. You might feel you got more of your money's worth at $15 and below.