The learning curve is steep, the game is ruthlessly hard, and you must use your imagination as a graphics card. But that's par for the course among rogue-likes and this one is truly worth the effort. The character creation is extremely open-ended. There is 2 main type of characters: mutants and human cyborgs. The cyborgs are more powerful right out of the gate and allow you to learn the game with (some) ease. Once that's done, the mutants allow you to make: * an horrifying spider person wielding two 2-handed great-sword * a carnivorous hedgehog person who digs through walls to get behind a nasty laser turret * a coward who use his two heart to run away while his uncanny regeneration replenish his hp * a psionic gunslinger who keeps legions of giant leeches at bay with a force bubble And those are only the highlights of the 30~ amazing hours I had building characters, growing attach to them, and watching them die swarmed by sentient crabs. You might be starting to understand that the setting for Caves of Qud is... well a little weird. That's the best part. The game has a mix of handwritten content and lore, but also an impressive world-generator to make sure even the lore will be different each time. Not only is there generated villages and dungeons, you'll get to search the jungles of Qud for tales of the Sultans and their powerful artifacts. I could write more, but it has been a joy to discover this game for myself. It will probably keep my interest for a long time since the development is still going. Updates have been plentiful and there's a big one right around the corner. Some older reviews mention that the mods are locked to the steam workshop, but there is a workaround that works these days: steamworkshopdownloader(.)io
Note: To experience most of the content, you will require a save from the second act or a brand new one. Calling The Bastard's Wound an expension is a bit of an overstatment. You'll get a bunch of random events, 3 companion quests (Verse, Barik and Lantry), and a new settlement with political intrigue to solve. The worst addition of this DLC is the random event that pop up while traveling. You get to choose how to resolve them, but the only impact on the story is the favor/wrath boost you earn. It feels like busy work. Fortunatly you can turn them off in the option menu. A very welcomed feature is the three new companion quest. They do a good job at making your companions more human. They aren't amazing, but they aren't bad either; They are fine. The voice acting is really good, though. The biggest addition of The Bastard's Wound is the new settlement. You'll meet a group of refugee and, as the Fatebinder, will have to solve their mess, or cause their doom. The new area is very disapointing. You'll have to cut your way through the same three enemy types (the banes) while exploring yet another piece of the Oldwall. The narative is nice and I feel like I missed out on some of it due to my choices, but I really dread having to crawl the oldwall again. I was very disapointed by this expension. The random events are fillers, only three of the companions get a quest, and the new area lack novelty. I didn't regret my time with the expension, but I know I won't go through it in my next playthrough.
I've never played an Harvest Moon game before and I really enjoyed this game. I think my perspective might be useful since most of the comment seem to compare this game to HM . Stardew Valley is great if you want a relaxing experience. There's a lot to do each day, but I never felt overwhelmed or pressured to accomplished too much. The farm slowly grows and gets more diverse preventing me from settling in the routine. The season also helps keeping the game fresh by being short and distinct. A new season brings new crops, new events and new music. Stardew Valley is not perfect though. The mouse and keyboard control are awkward, but the interface isn't design with a controller in mind. The game doesn't do a great job teaching new all there is to know. It took me 4 in game days to realize how to properly feed the chickens. In conclusion, Stardew Valley is a game that stand on it's own. It provide an outlet for your escapism and doesn't get repetitive.
The moment to moment gameplay is terrible and just waste your time. You'll have to walk around the same bunch of building to get to the actually interesting part of the game. A lot of the stuff on the map as no point. You have a stamina bar and no other needs, so why would you play at the arcade, go to the movie or buy beer? The game as no mechanics to make you act like a human, you're a machine that works on sandwich and don't feel any other needs. Talking and interacting with other character is nice, but I found that a lot of time nobody had anything to say. I guess I'll go work at the bacon factory then. That mini-game is the worst, all you do is a simple math problem and press multiple button in a menu to input your answer in the most time consuming way possible. The game also seems to force you to make horrible choice. (Spoiler?!) One example when someone can't pay their hospital bill is to either do nothing and them die or blackmail the doctor. You can't negotiate smartly, you can "try" to ask for FREE treatment, but you get no choice during that dialogue it's gonna be refused. You can't just give me 2 dumb option and call it a though choice. To makes things worst, the doctor goes out of is way to be as unlikable as possible, so far every character were one dimensional.
I won't go in much detail for the single player since you can try it out with the classic version for free. It's the same, but with a lot more enemies, bonus levels and items. The multiplayer for this game is simply amazing. Each player control a character, but the camera only follow one of them, there is no split screen. It may sound horrible, but it forces you to stay together and try to work as a team. Note that I said "try", because the game is way more difficult, not because there is more enemies and traps, but because there is friendly fire. Communication is key if you're not a fan of getting shot in the back by a clumsy friend armed with a shotgun. Control is essential if you do not want to whip your buddy in a spike. It may sound dump, but half of the fun come from the failure you'll have with your friends. Because there is always a new way to mess up in Spelunky. The nasty part is that there is no online/LAN play, you will need to gather your party of spelunker on your couch and it's sadly not always an option.
I know that roguelike are difficult and involve a lot of luck, but this one goes a bit too far in my opinion. The trap system is pretty interesting since it can help you with healing trap or ruin your game by breaking your only firearm, but there is no way to know until you try one. So if you fall on the trap that break an item, if your gun break and you are not the marine class you are as good as dead since the game isn't possible with the knife of the other class. The sickness system seems interesting at first until you realize that a lot of enemies cause infection at random. I am not sure of the specific, but I think that after X round you have a chance to get better or worst, if you get past lvl5 you die. You are punish by death for being unlucky and item that can cure you are somewhat rare. A good feature would be the different type of weapon. You get the pistol witch is your standard long range one shot moderate damage, a rifle who is a high power pistol, the assault rifle who give you the ability to shot in burst and the shotgun with spread shot. Add to that a bunch of melee weapon and the ability to switch between them instantaneously. The core game is pretty fun and I hope there will be either some kind of mod or balance patch to make it an awesome game.
