Recent reviews by Rhunin

People say this is like Valheim. The only thing this shares with Valheim is the fact that you gather resources, use resources, build bases, and level up. V Rising is more like.. Tribes of Midgard without the waves and time crunch systems, replacing those with Open World Persistence, more akin to CryoFall.

The game can be fun, has PVE elements for exploration as well as character progression related to hunting "bounties" of special "boss" rank enemies, a research system using collectibles from killing a bunch of a certain type of enemy or finding tomes of knowledge that give specific researches, "Class" archetypes from feeding on enemies with a blood purity of a certain % and calibre
(the bonuses for eating rats are different from the bonuses of feeding on a brute/warrior/rogue/creature enemy and each can have randomized Quality %'s that determine what tier of bonus you get from what class of blood)

Base building is a bit basic, but for what it is, I've definitely seen worse and it's quite enjoyable IMO

The tutorial could be a bit better though.

-[will add more if it comes up while playing more]-

I have played this game as a duo with a friend, co-op'ing when needed/wanted and solo'ing while in chat at other times, fully exploring and enjoying regions as we go through and trying to explore every nook and crevice. At 256.8 hours (time of review) I have still not beaten the game and have the majority of 3 regions to still explore.

There has been a lot of build testing, experimenting, pvping, and farming, but 90% of this time has been exploring and doing 100% (where we notice hidden doors and such) of each dungeon we do and just thoroughly enjoying our time doing so.

We're not the best but we're not the worst either and most bosses except a few (looking at you Fire Giant....) have only taken about 2-3 tries and when there was the feeling of a hard wall preventing progress, looking at it from another point of view or strategy usually opened the way. In a PVE sense there is an answer for every build (usually involving bleed damage in some way) but it is possible at nearly all skill levels with the right tools.

I'm making the review NOW before finishing the game because Dark Souls 3, the previous Souls-like that I played I beat the story of 6 times on one character before losing it to wiping my pc to restore it and losing my character file because it doesn't have cloud storage for character files (Elden Ring DOES) and losing interest in starting from nothing BUT the point being, I spent 250ish hours doing that in DS3. I have reached that point in Elden Ring and am still enjoying it, still exploring it, and there are roughly 6 DIFFERENT endings from what I've read/heard. There is so much content in this game that if you have the time/skill/patience/courage. You could definitely get ATLEAST 1 hour per dollar spent on this game for one playthrough (unless you rush through mind you).

This game has some of the most beautiful scenery I have seen in a game in a good long while and the cut scenes are usually just as epic. When all is said and done, the game will not be for everyone but it is one of the best games I've played and will continue playing for a long LONG time.

Will edit this review once completing the game my first time.

EDIT: I have beaten the game and taken a bit of a break. My final notes on the ending? Mine was a bit lack luster, I had meant to do the Ranni ending but failed to notice her summon sign by the end option chooser and thus, decided to just pick the classic ending of becoming Elden Lord aaaaaand..... It's me sitting in a chair while a narrator says "It will be remembered as an age of fracture"... That was kind of... Anti-climactic

However I have seen some of the other endings and boy are they some fantastic cutscenes, so while I believe the vanilla core ending was bad, I think this is by design. You hear a friend say their Ranni or Dung Eater or Fia ending was phenomenal and you're like "dude... That wasn't mine... I wanna see that..." and so you play again, then once you have 2 of the 4-6 you're like "well... I might as well go for broke and get those achievements!" Thus getting you to play again, and again, keeping the game alive and forcing you to do another full completion which you can get some side quests you miss or kill some npcs to finish them early or kill all of the merchants and create a Walmart at the Roundtable Hold.

All in all, it is a game you could sink countless hours into.

TLDR: Game is too easy and portrays "mongolian" "japanese" "chinese" and yet there is only Chinese with mercenaries of the others. Game feels tacky.

The game boasts several different commanders and yet, those are just skins, the enemy still just spams weak units at you as fast as they can rather than amassing a worthwhile attack force, then when you need to win you just conquer the map relentlessly and send a "kill force" to finish the game. There is no challenge, no adventure to the game that it's predecessor(s) had and I'm quite disappointed that this is what has come of their several year long project....

The 1 hour that I have in the game was a single skirmish with me+1AI vs 2AI all of them the japanese commanders. I haven't played a stronghold game in years and still won with double the enemy score and 3/4th of my allies, but only because they attacked nonstop and I mainly fought via buying attacks from the warlord fiefs surrounding us.

It has some promising mechanics but it would be much better suited if it was hard focused as a "Chinese" themed game rather than trying to diversify as an "multi-asian" game

I have not even tried the campaign because I played the stronghold games for their skirmishes and would often go 4+ hours on one map (when not using exploits like 100 archers in a tall tower) and this game just... Falls short. Very short. BUT I will say that it is atleast playable, unlike Stronghold 3... That game was horrifying....

End statement, if this was Early Access and they were still working on other factions/playstyles, might be worth it, but as is cavalry are barely faster than infantry, anything that isn't a mercenary is Chinese, and not all samurai fought on foot or wore plate. Could be worth it if they made changes and upped the difficulty, but I wouldn't count on it

I follow a very strict, "A game is worth it if I can get one hour of enjoyment per dollar spent on it."

I completed the game once, was allowed to rollback before a point of no return in the story and continue playing, I was VERY satisfied with the ending I got and the content up to then (80 hours btw). I never felt blocked or impeded without it being a direct consequence of my own actions. I progressed a lot quicker than article writers would have you believe. Most importantly. I played with Medium Graphics on a ASUS with :

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz 2.21GHz
16.0 GB Ram

And I averaged at about 40fps (console levels) when doing anything but streaming via Discord or driving at 200 mph/kph (whatever speed the game uses) through the crowded parts of the city at which I would drop to 20fps, 10fps if doing both at the same time.

There are a lot of people saying the game is garbage, I say those people don't know how to be happy. After my time in the game though? I can say the game is very enjoyable and I will definitely come back in a month or so for another 80-120 hour playthrough more focused on the side missions (of which I did a lot of btw and when I finished there were still certain zones labeled very hard, so there was much more progression to be had, let alone the fact that I was level 30 and the max level is 50) once they have done some updates and fixed some bugs.

This is NOT because I think the game is too buggy, this is so I can accurately gauge the difference in gameplay between now and then.

I fully recommend and endorse this game because it is worth it and enjoyable. If you cannot get the game to start or play within the first 2 hours, refund it via the automated system. If you CAN get passed the 2 hour point and still find game breaking bugs (most I found were fixed upon saving and reloading btw) and still want to refund, make a legitimate ticket and appeal to Steam for a refund, rather than their bot which will auto deny.

TLDR : Game is good, give it a try. But be cautious if you're prone to saltiness over imperfection.

I am giving this game a thumbs up because it shows GREAT potential to be an amazing game BUT

I do not recommend it to anyone who doesn't have a full crew of 4 players, it is not an "up to 4 players co-op game" it is a "bring friends or you will f*cking DIE!" game...

The game combines limited loadout selection with class focused gameplay in the form of support items (a scanner makes you a tracker, a turret makes you a support gunner, etc). You use these support weapons to accent your gameplay and designate your location in the fights and events. Beyond that, it is more focused on what you find in the missions (like ammo packs, equipment packs [things that allow you to use your support item like turrets more often], medical packs, etc)

It has very Dead Space meets PayDay vibes and that is super dope but the mobs are so tanky that as less than 4 people you will run out of ammo just doing the basic areas, let alone the security alarm doors where they horde at you until you unlock 4 locks, which 4 people would be able to do in one go but as two or 3 players you have to do the timer twice waiting for all of the security checkpoints to read a person each time, and as less than 4, one or more people will have to do 2 areas as one person, making the timer have to count twice as long as it would if you did all 4 checkpoints at the same time. All of this WHILE you hold off the oncoming horde that is so tanky you need to kite them while you shoot them (but you can't because you're stuck in location waiting for the scanner to read your dumb face because you brought less than 4 people)

Both the videos of the game and the "recommended games like this" compared it more to Age of Empires style of gameplay however having played the first two missions of like 8, it is They Are Billions with a Conan theme rather than a zombie theme.

The heroes are 4 crappy choices, units cost WAY more than what you would think and it shows the hordes coming at you in dozens if not hundreds and you can only use more of single digit per type maybe a dozen or two vs them while micro managing multiple different directions they could come from rather than building a fortress that makes you feel good about what you've done, instead you make a hack job maze that you feel like your haphazardly juggling poorly on the verge of dropping something into your eye....

This is in no way what I thought I was getting and I recommend you watch a LOT of gameplay before you do unless you LOVED They Are Billions, even then, you'll likely prefer it.

Have 300+ hours in this game from it's initial release, unlocked 90% of the gear and cosmetics, was quite proud of it and thoroughly enjoyed the game, game started to get choppy for me with some new mechanics and tweaks that came out and I would lose duels/fights to random things as well as it just being super repetitive after a while, quit and hoped to come back and enjoy it later..

VERY sad to find out that most of my purchased items have been undone and yet my level has stayed the same, meaning that all of the level up rewards I received prior to this happening is no longer obtainable and yet I'm forced to buy tens of thousands worth of items again... Looks like it's getting uninstalled AGAIN... Guess I'll find something else to hold me over till Bannerlord releases...

The best movie I've played as a game. 10/10

It's very souls-like however it has more of a "I'm a badass that can overwhelm a select few situations per run" than Souls-likes usually have and it has REALLY catching story, even if the panchos are horrible.

Why is this game still purchase-able?

"At Bossa Studios we love taking risks and making stuff that no one dares to do in order to create great original experiences for players. Worlds Adrift was an ambitious undertaking for us: a community crafted MMO built on freedom and player agency with multiplayer physics, set in a huge world. We are proud of what we achieved with the game since development began five years ago out of a humble game jam.

We are immensely grateful for every Traveller that’s come to experience this community crafted world. However, Worlds Adrift just hasn’t reached the level of popularity it needs to continue. The challenges that came with our ambitious project meant that all our work went into making the game work rather than making it the experience we wanted it to be. As a result we failed at making a game that could capture the imaginations of millions. Creating an MMO like Worlds Adrift is a huge financial commitment and unfortunately the game is just no longer commercially viable.

What does the end of Worlds Adrift mean for its community?"

Copied from a link gathered from this VERY PAGE... DO NOT BUY THIS.

EDIT: Apologies, apparently it is not purchase-able, only view-able ^_^ sad though, as this would have been a great game to jump into and enjoy with my fiance.

12/22/2018 POST :
If you are here, you own one or more copies of Ark and are looking to expand the journey... You're going to buy the game regardless of whether or not you like it because the company making it is well funded and will continue to work on it and has made games good in the past (if you call Ark good)

So I say get it now while it's on sale and is only 24.99 (less than half of what Ark was a bit ago when it was released and some of you bought it)

Yes.. There are connection issues... But do you see that BIG BABY BLUE banner that says Early Access?
You know what you're getting yourself into just because of that... Be patient, play some other random games, and enjoy it when they fix the problems :)

PS:
Btw STEAM had issues selling the game... Does that tell you anything about the volume of people interested in this? On Day One.... Latency issues will insue, what did you expect? :)


01/11/2019 EDIT :
The game is much better after relentless updates and patches.
- Latency only occurs when a server is near maxed or above maxed population.
- Ships of the Damned have been nerfed to be more so "creatures" that roam the waters to be attacked or avoided and made so that you actually can do so.
- A lot of the grind has been removed via doubling resource harvest rates and weekends having double resource gather and tame rates.
- Wind has been optimized so you don't have to have more than a basic knowledge of wind patterns, physics, etc to sail your ship where you want it to go.
- Overall survivability and usability of characters and companies has been improved to be sustainable to say the least.

HOWEVER
- Be courteous and ask permission to land and/or claim territory or you will be met with hostile force and probably repelled.
- Avoid the mega clans and especially the Chinese, by no means be racist and slander them and such, but don't poke a sleeping bear, go ahead and run away while you can get a headstart.