So this is a game which is too tied to its rails to really be considered an RPG. Want to defend a town that the story demands be destroyed. Sure, but you can't win. . . Why give the player the choice to do something futile? It only wastes their time and guarantees frustration when, after repeated attempts and a restart to respec, they finally look for a solution online only to find the devs confirm its impossible. . .They designed a scenario as an option for players to pursue which literally cannot be beaten. The two fundamentals of an RPG are choice and consequence alongside risk and reward. They obviously don't believe in choice or reward which leaves something kinda broken and less than satisfactory. There is another fight later on where you are supposed to rescue an acquaintance from their captors. If you agree to help the town priest with their own plan a member of your party throws a fit, if you change your mind and do it their way without assisting the priest. . .You end up locked out of completing the quest because it fails to update to reflect the decision you made -after a lengthy combat against overwhelming odds when you are severely under-leveled. Again, no respect for player choice or agency. Again, all risk, no reward. Again a waste of time. It isn't a bad game, but the developers need a lot more seasoning. Hopefully they learn something from this. They are so set on telling the story they made they forget that the player needs to shape the narrative too. This is rough, but it isn't bad. Its low budget, but stable and lovingly made. It has some personality even if narrative aspects are a little thin. It is obvious a lot of care went into this, but it is equally obvious that it needed a little more work conceptually. Hopefully they will all go on to make better games and enjoy greater success.
So if you are familiar with Lovecraft's short stories in general you will see a lot of references. Its sort of like Disney Land, like, everything associated with the creator has been consolidated into one small area. That makes it kind of fun. . .For anyone else, well, you will have to rely on your judgment. The only real criticism I have is the color pallete. Everything is very muted, very drab, its all browns, greens, and greys, there is also a lot of clutter which doesn't help anything. I really wish they had worked with a greater spectrum of tones and hues to lend vitality and contrast to the environments. The open world is nice, exploring it isn't nearly as exciting as it should be
I'll update this when I've completed the game, but first impressions. . .It's really rough. I like the idea of the game, but considering how much of this title is steeped in combat and exploration I wish those had been a little more polished. Formations are almost useless. Squadmates don't travel in formation, they kite behind the primary character. . .Not that it matters. There is no way to attack outside of combat, so every encounter is your side freezing in position once you are noticed while the enemies close in, the overwhelming majority of the time they will go first and target the weakest character sundering and damaging their armor so that in successive engagements this only get worse. Every other encounte enemies will inflict status impairmments so you are constantly crafting things and forcefeeding your squadmates medicine. . .None of which makes anything more enjoyable. This is a game that lacks a central vision of a what they wanted it to be, it feels like something kit-bashed together from other, better, games without understanding what those mechanics contributed to those titles. My biggest complaint at this point is that I just can't enjoy anything. Everything has some built in tedium that holds it back from being actually good. There's a lot of loot, but I was still largely using my starting gear until level 7 because I never got anything better than what I started with. How is that even possible? Hell, even at level 8 I am still using a level 3 sword. Merchants offer loot as random as the drops, so don't count on anything there to bail you out. There is one encounter where you can find tracks signifying an ambush, but even when you use that knowledge in conversation the enemies still appear and their initiaitive is so high they all go before you and take out your weakest character before you get a chance to act. How is anyone supposed to feel about that? And. . .that is the game. So far it has all been like that.
Your mileage may vary, but personally I think this is on par with the greatest RPGs ever made.
First, its rogue-like meaning you have one save and no control over it. Second, you can have a full equipped party, fully levelled, fully geared and then miss two attacks and get wiped from full health the very next round before you get a turn. Nothing you can do about it. And that is on the third tier of difficulty. Lastly, "Golden Shields" are a pretty miserable mechanic. The entire game is geared toward alpha-strikes because no party can stand up against damage (on tier 3 enemies hit for 5-7 damage where you have an average of ten, most enemies have multiple attacks, no matter how you build you just can't take that much punishment for more than a round), so how did they decide to ensure you got to see all the stuff their bosses can do? Make them invincible so you can only take off between 10% or 30% of their health per turn Alone those Golden Shields would be fine but the procedural elements and RNG influence make prepping for those encounters totally ad hoc and often forces you to improvise rather than plan and often results in failed runs and a total waste of your time -and these are not short runs Some things are just obnoxious, like having your Flamesoul getting burned to death by a walking toaster spitting fire (because even though the fire is the visual element the actual damage is "true" damage), other things are just incomprehensible -like how often chests give worthless gear. Just put in a trader with limited stock who takes LP. Give your players variables to weigh for themselves rather than rewarding their efforts with frustration. RNG is meant to keep things interesting so that they aren't predictable, because predictability is boring, but players need to have a reasonable degree of realistic expectation of what results they will have with certain actions. If RNG exists to such an extreme degree that it can completely undermine the deterministic aspects of the game, like player input, then it is being used badly Good effort, bad execution
Buy it if you want but know what you are in for First, the tutorial is frustratingly opaque. Hacking requires you to input two different codes with two different control schemes during a seizure-inducing display of rapidly changing alpha-numeric symbols. If you were unfortunate enough to alter the control scheme directions given will reflect your selection but not the reality -default select key will still be Spacebar rather than what you chose Second, the gameplay is horrid. Enemies can simultaneously block and attack, switch fluidly between fire-arms and melee for John Wick style combat, never run out of stamina, and run, aim, and fire. You can do, literally, none of that. There are boss fights with infinite adds, bases that you clear will be filled again with enemies at the end -for fear of being too easy it robs you of all agency and reactivity Third, hidden and hard-bound keys. How do you switch shoulders perspectives when using a firearm? No clue, if you accidentally managed to do so there is nowhere to look in order to find out which key it is let alone customize it. Want to open the PDA they keep referencing? It's Tab, but the game won't tell you that Fourth, the game saves for you at its own discretion. You have no control over your saves Fifth, poor AI. Enemies soft track the player, can fire through walls, and, unlike the player, never get stuck on doorways or terrain -which you will, frequently, every time you try and round a corner in combat Sixth, dialogue which influences everything (from story to relationships) without giving any clue what you are going to say and only the tone of your delivery Seventh, triggers are bound to design choices not reflective of gameplay. Be as stealthy as you want, alerts will sound and bad guys ambush you anyway. Build your character anyway you want, but there is a reason why half the available skills are for melee or firearms -because no matter how sneaky you are everything ends with big, terrible, gun fights
I have played a lot of early access games, I don't mind seeing them in a rough state and there is a lot of joy in seeing a thing take shape and improve. Besides, when I was a kid they were all rough even when they were done. That was just tech limitation This though? Its not for me. I can recognize the effort and appreciate it. There is a better than even chance that if this makes it through development and becomes a finished product is it will be a competent game. . .But I am not sure its one I would want to play. Not because it's Eurojank, but just because it seems thin on those qualities which matter most to me. . .But because doing dark things in a dark setting doesn't interest me The narrative borders on non existent. There is some environmental storytelling but most of the set pieces are detailed but interchangeable and nondescript I am going to guess that this game is going to rely on cinematics to convey whatever story there is. At the moment those aren't present. There is enough that the game doesn't seem totally incoherent but not enough that you have a clear idea of who you are, what's going on, the stakes, or why the player should care. There is no emotional or intellectual anchor for the player What you do get right off the bat is that your character is some sort of knight, possibly a crusader type, which has become possessed either allegorically or literally. As you fight through the dark, debris strewn environments your insanity meter will rise and when you become overwhelmed by the death and destruction you inflict it can/will overwhelm you and turn you into a horned berserker. We have seen this before in other games like The Suffering and Baldur's Gate 2. In both of those games the mechanic was about power and its price. You could draw upon those abilities whenever in suited you but at the cost of your humanity -and your ending. Here, however, It doesn't feel as though any such struggle exists and it isn't as interesting Review limit reached
I will be brief because as this is a DLC I am going to assume anyone interested is already familiar with the base game. Compared against what has been released so far this feels incredibly limited and very rushed. There may be players which prefer being whisked from location to location via cut scene rather than party travel but I'm not one of them. Especially when it is used inconsistently and without indication or warning. Worse, when you can party travel the ability to change direction en route has been removed so if you passed on an optional portion on a quest to speak with a character because it seemed they might have have some insight into the task only to discover that arriving at their location proctors a cut scene which immediately transitions you into a new quest and a new location you cannot load any of your previous auto saves because they are all tied to combats on the road so you are left with the choice of abandoning ten hours of progress to restart the quest or continuing with something important undone. Dungeons layouts are also truncated often consisting of a single chamber, or if there are more chambers, rarely more than three combat encounters none of which are interesting or challenging. The demons are a nice addition but don't feel very threatening. In fact, nothing does. Most enemies can be taken out before they even have a single turn. Cities are Potemkin Villages with nothing beside shops and places to sleep, completely devoid of colorful NPCs or side quests. In fact the only characters which exist are tied to the main quest. If you like railroads then this is the DLC for you. There is very little player choice in anything, it is somehow less of an RPG than Gloomhaven. This addition isn't really bad, but it certainly isn't good and it is lacking considerably in polish. I like the development team, I think they have a real vision and a real passion for making these games but this one needed a little more love than it got.