Iratus: Lord of the Dead

"How utterly annoying" -Iratus You will hear this rather often. When the enemy -once again- double crits one of your Minions. I'd really like to like this game. It looks good, sound and music are nice, and it is quite fun. Until you lose. Again. For no other reason than bad luck. Which, sadly, is not very funny at all, and makes the game fail at the most essential part. When I want to be annoyed, I can always visit my mother in law, here, after 35 hours (played through once on the easiest difficulty, which does not count for unlocking you troops), I'll have to uninstall. Sorry, but I have better things to do than fancy coin flipping.

... but I found this game pointless and boring. "Rogue-like"? Nop. Acceptable graphics and sound, good voice acting, but no replayability for me. It could be addictive at first, but after finishing it once the thought of playing it again makes me sleepy. Good old Angband or any other character based game is much much better than this.

Even if I wanted to I couldn`t find anything bad to say about this game. Brilliant game. I haven`t purchased it, I got it from gog when it was free and for that I`m very grateful. It was and still is such a good and fun experience for me. I never played these type of games before, so for me this was such a great time playing it. I like mostly everything in this game from voice acting, unique art-style, management. I haven`t finish it yet, I am still playing and learning how to become better. There are few things I don`t like that much gameplay can be repetitive at certain point specially if you are playing for longer period and lack of any options in the menu. No keyboard controls, shortcuts, no graphical options whatsoever. But these are minor things I don`t like and they do not affect gameplay that much. Maybe if I played Darkest Dungeon I would have different opinion, but I haven`t, so for me this game is absolutely amazing.

I really liked the game, it is the kind of gripping experience I am always looking for when I want to play something either in a short session or all night long. The only problem is the game's stability. It crashes every other battle, the clicks continue to register but the image just stops. You can alt+f4 and open the game again, but losing battle progress is upsetting. I might buy the game again on console, just to be sure.

2nd star for graphisms&animation. Review looks limited to 2K chars, so sorry for silly format. I assume early access looked promising, but played full game, which felt very unpolished. Overall, game looks like a big waste of potential (and ammount of work) -- So, what else ? Interface : Very cluttered for nothing. e.g. : - Annoying zoom-in/out on EVERY creature action during combat. - Building graveyard requires units. Say you want to lvl-up your library to lvl2 : • Go graveyard • Click library • Click a slot, then check needed unit's name by hovering on it. • Close both windows • Leave graveyard • Open "creations" • Select the chosen creature • Click "fill" and.. wait 1sec for a useless animation • Then, click the new "craft" button. You have your worker! • Close this menu. • Go graveyard again • Open library again • Click the right slot again • Put your minion to the slot • Validate your choice. You're done ! • Well, you still need 1 more click to leave graveyard. 15 wasn't enough. - Intro vid always plays. Outro can't even be skipped, and plays voices even with them deactivated. - "Ambient" voices subtitles overlapp&hide your interface's elements - Effects/skills incompletely documented. Infos about enemies didn't seem accessible during combat (= when needed) Gameplay : - Very repetitive, due to bad balance. - Floors too big => games last too long. - Most mechanics are innefficient. unit placement, stress attacks, minion "stuffing"... Balance is terrible: - Most minions/enemies/skills/spells/artifacts/game concepts are useless. - Some OP enemies (WTF Royal gunner stance ?) - Just stick to something working and repeat it for ~100 fights. Won easily up to eternal harvest 1 with a simple build (Dampire, 2wolves, Bone golem). Didn't bother stuffing minions with unco+ parts or items before last boss. Optimized or not, one might die randomly. In 2K chars, I should have uninstalled earlier :)