GRAVEN

So when graven was announced I was so excited. A spiritual successor to Hexen? A modern FPS with coop? Hell yeah! What could possibly go wrong. Well, just about everything. Loading points just thrown willy-nilly into the MIDDLE of rooms. A terrible save system that dumps you back in town instead of continuing where you left off...which for an exploration game is just shoooocking. Exploration that is basically walking down a corridor and hoping you have the right puzzle piece with you. Enemies that all kinda dumbly float towards you; and play some of the worst attack animations I've ever seen. Weapons that have no power, no heft to them, and no concept of range in the slightest. SLOOWWWW game play. Sit on a boat while some guy talks to you about all the monsters in town, then wander aimlessly around said town until eventually you find some zombie dudes. Spend the rest of the game fighting zombie dudes. Reload your game and hey, the zombie dudes are back. Turns out you can just run past them too... so, there's 0 point to the unsatisfying combat. :/ All in all, it's a slow old mess, and given it's no longer early access, and this is the game the developers wanted...It isn't worth the asking price.

I don't know what the reviews that give this game barely any points are on about. The combat is slower paced than Heretic or the like (it's not a boomer shooter), sure, but that doesn't mean it's bad. It's more complex than old games (not by much, but I feel it), there's actual story, you aren't running million miles per hour, etc. I've enjoyed it greatly so far.

This is Heretic for 2021 with Hexen's atmospheric levels and Hexen II's visual style. Do note that the spells apparently aren't finished, and one of the devs specifically said they are for UTILITY, not direct combat. The "Ignite" spell is the only one I have seen in the demo, and is basically a Zippo lighter at a distance (no attack capability), but you can burn wood and spiderwebs, and undead dislike light so there *is* a tactical purpose to this. Thing to note is that fiery explosions set other things adjacent to them alight, not just heat (which is actually like real life, otherwise people would erupt in flames just be being near a fireplace). The only concern I have is that once an area is complete, enemies don't respawn. This limits replayability: maybe I want to kill zombies and dragonlings in the swamp forest again 'cuz I'm tired of the mages and skeletons in the castle, hmm? Enemies *do* respawn in the level you have the current main story mission in if you quit and return. I think this would be good for the entire game, and is an excellent compromise: you have all sorts of stuff to kill when you start out each time (which is the point of this game, honestly) but don't trip on cleared areas during your current playthrough. Kind of like going home to sleep and things wander back in. Levels are seamless, some slight loading like Half Life (but on modern computers you will be unlikely to see the loading icon for more than one second, literally). Secret areas make this game, and you absolutely must love checking everything multiple times (or have a walkthrough). This is a 90s-style FPS/RPG-lite combo style game, action heavy with errand-and-keyhunt gameplay, light story and heavily kill-everything-because-reasons. Setting is an exquisitely detailed (for the 90s styling) gothic fantasy setting with suitable arsenal and items: you will love or hate it accordingly, so: KNOW WHAT YOU ARE BUYING OR BEWARE!

Graven does many things right, Graphics, environment, atmosphere and level design get 10/10 for me but the gameplay holds the game back by giving very little ammo like some kind of survival horror with respawning enemies. I really hope they fix this in the future, cause the game is amazing

The game it self has lots of problems... including bad respawning system, poor AI and most glaringly... NO SAVE SYSTEM. However, for me, it all pales in comparison to the *attitude* 3D Realms has over the whole thing. I speak of it at https://www.gog.com/forum/graven/poor_responses_by_3d_realms 1 Star only cause I can't give half a star.