Recent reviews by spicybtran

Overall 6.5/10. Solid souls-like, but maybe I'm just addicted to parrying and puppets. The game is definitely a buy on a heavy discount.

The game play was solid, but I lost interest in the story pretty fast even though I did like the atmosphere/automat vibes. I still have an enjoyable time doing all the side quests/collecting the echoes as it helped expand the world and level building.

Enemy variety was pretty lackluster and you often get swarmed hard in some areas - so you just end up running away a lot of the time and wait for your endurance bar to recover. The loot system leaves a lot to be desired as most drops/chests mostly contained consumables that i never even slotted. Also, there is a huge bait with the ENGINEERING stat increasing loot drops (what loot exactly?).

Enemies don't drop any weapons and there's no way to re-spec stats, so investing in a build early was kind of yolo. I initially thought the alchemy system would be neat, but ended up going straight AGILITY/VIGOR with the starting nemesis claws all the way til endgame (immobilization is one hell of a drug).

Bosses are also not too challenging and very forgiving, but maybe that isn't a bad thing. The game is a great entry-point for people thinking about getting their toes wet with the souls-like genre.

This game gave me newfound respect for filipinos. 10/10 shmup. My butt was clenched the whole time

Rating: 9/10

Pros:
[X] Probably the best witcher tale told by CDPR. It turned Meve into one of my favorite characters. All supporting characters have their own arc and are fleshed out. Honestly, they could make a Netflix mini-series on this ♥♥♥♥ (and hopefully do it better than season 2)
[X] You must make difficult decisions and wont know their consequences until you least expect it (hint: you're going regret it a lot)
[X] The music is phenomenal as well as the voice acting
[X] Lots of Gwent-like action. The puzzles really wracked my brain in a good way.
[X] Lengthy campaign about ~25 hours for me (doing every battle and grabbing everything)

Cons:
[X] The deck builder has its problems. I wish it could filter by faction and recruit cost so you could plan out your deck better. Also the ability to save different decks would be nice. Because if you wanted to switch decks you would have to rebuild it from scratch, not that it would be hard - just annoying.
[X] Standard battles become your bane because they take forever. I get the depth of strategy (i.e. sort of a best of 3 without a hand refill), but it got kind of tiring towards the end.
[X] Variation in standard battles would be nice. There is differences on what you need to do vs. different factions (i.e. monsters, Scoia'tael, Nilfgaardian, etc.), but you can pretty much roll the game with one deck - with the exception of one or two fights.
[X] Game felt like a primer and advertisement for Gwent, even though Gwent kind of plays differently. I wished the gold chests served more of a purpose within the game.

Overall, I would highly recommend the game. Long live the queen.