...But also one of the most frustrating. It's easy to admire Darkest Dungeon. Its mastery of atmosphere and ambience is unsurpassed. Wayne June is a phenomenal voice actor and a herald of what quality VA work can mean for videogames. The writing and worldbuilding synergize perfectly with the medium. Darkest Dungeon has that kind of passive, subtle narrative that you absorb without noticing it, until you're up to your elbows in horror and it suddenly clicks what's going on, why you're fighting these people, and why their faces are shaped like molten cheese fondue. This art and style and voicework haunts me to this day. How many games from 2016 can say that? I am still thinking about Darkest Dungeon, in a way that no other game can rival. But it's also difficult to recommend Darkest Dungeon. It is a stressful and frustrating experience - on purpose. The latter half of the game is unfun, unfair and unrelenting. On the highest tier, enemies hit for half your health before you take a turn, your characters often miss, and before you know it, several party members are on deaths door. This happens basically all the time and deaths are hard to avoid. Any character lost requires significant grind to replace and it's just this unending slogfest, for what feels like no reason. That's what the game is about. Stress, loss and trauma. In an era of skinnerboxes and live service, I think that's a worthwhile experience to center your game around. I wanna validate the haters here: this probably isn't what you play videogames for. The Darkest Dungeon endgame will crush you and leave you demoralized. I can recommend levels 0-4 to most people interested in squad management RPGs. Level 5, 6 and the Darkest Dungeon? You probably won't enjoy them. I didn't enjoy them and neither did my friends. Buyer beware.
Apocalypse wasn't bad content, but when it came out in 2018 it was already very meh. It didn't fundamentally alter the game, it just adds encounters to the mid-game which steadily become irrelevant. 20 bucks is too much. As it stands, in 2022, this expansion isn't worth money. Get it as a package deal with all expansions, or just pirate.
As a 5$ timewaster, this is an okay purchase. Shadow of Mordor is AssCreed in Middle Earth. The game didn't do much new at the time (though they like to pretend they came up with the concept of a nemesis) but it was a competent clone executed by uninspired money makers who would rather steal a good idea from others, than make a poor product themselves. This sounds rather negative perhaps? I'm just pointing it out because there is very little wrong with the game itself. They polished out the bugs (unlike the sequel), the story isn't too long or too nonsensical (unlike the sequel), and it wasn't a frustrating slog meant to exhaust the player and render them vulnerable to microtransactions (unlike the sequel). 3,5 out of 5 stars, I would recommend this game to someone looking for just another AssCreed clone.
Phoenix point is a fascinating squad management game. As a spiritual successor to XCOM, it shares some mechanics, like base building, research, flying around the overworld, recovering the dead bodies of enemies, permadeath, etc. But the differences are immense and they're the exact differences that make Phoenix Point excel, to the point that I like it much more than XCOM. The shooting mechanics are changed, so the ridiculous 95% misses, that I personally found the stupidest thing about XCOM, are gone. Many weapons shoot multiple rounds with a directional spread. Meaning you can fire a weapon with a high bullet count at close range and absolutely destroy tough, large enemies. You can fire at longer ranges and still reliably cause at least SOME damage. You can shoot through a wall and hit enemies BEHIND the wall. You can even hit enemies behind other enemies! I've wanted a system like this for years, and Phoenix Point finally introduced it. Another big change is the damage model. Each enemy and friendly unit has bodyparts that can be individually targeted and rendered unusable. This way, you can decrease stats or remove special abilities from enemies (or lose your own). Are you using a psychic powers team? Shoot the enemies in the head so their willpower goes down and your powers become easier to use. Using a long range team with high damage? Shoot enemies in the arms, so they can't equip their guns and can't shoot at you. Acid spitters or mind control giving you grief? Shoot the bodyparts that give those abilities. In short, it is a FANTASTIC system. Moreover, that's not even the scope of the differences with XCOM. There's vehicles, non-linear weapon options, a skill tree that's not just binary choices. In a hundred subtle and less subtle ways, Phoenix Point discards the simple fail states and success states of XCOM and replaces them with layered, more interesting options. The only thing I hated was releasing as an Epic exclusive. So one star off for that.
I don't usually play these anime, dating, visual novel type games. I probably could've picked better for my first foray into the genre, but I imagine it could've been much worse. Just Deserts is a simple and straightforward title. 'Gameplay' almost doesn't even deserve the word, it's a token interlude between the interactions with the girls of your harem. Click to shoot at aliens. Click enough and you can get upgrades to make your clicking more effective, click, click, click. Meanwhile the story is largely predictable from the first minute, but feels sincere enough and there are occasionally cute moments and twists. The endings I've seen were mostly letdowns but it didn't detract from the experience for me. All in all, I didn't have a bad time. It's popcorn, McDonalds level trash, but sometimes that's what you want.
I truly admire how distinct they managed to make all the clans - and then they just add another one. At that point you're just flexing, right? Just showing off how much better you are as a game dev compared to the competition. There's a sense of brittle resilience to the Wurmkin deck, which lacks the healing or defensive power of clans like Umbra or Awoken yet in specific situations, when played right, suddenly outperforms either of them. Likewise Reap is not just another version of Frostbite, since it's tied to the gem economy. Then there's cards that deal with consuming, eggs, etching, inspiration, the list goes on. I haven't even mentioned the new boss yet. I sincerely hope that the dev didn't get crunched or put under undue stress to make this DLC or the base game. It's excellent, but it's also the sort of excellence that the parasitic games industry loves to tear apart and destroy. Let's hope the vampires of capitalism ignore this
Wow, they're selling this thing for 30$? I got it for free and I can't even be bugged to play it. It is not complete trash - I noticed no bugs, it was mostly streamlined and the tutorial mission was only occasionally confusing. At least in this respect, it's better than most citybuilder or strategy releases I've seen in recent years. And it's a finished product with no gated content or microtransactions! That's rare. Unfortunately, all that praise is wasted on a game with so little gameplay. Most other building games quickly deploy tiered systems and layered choices, exploration, something other than just straightforward plopping down one more building. My entire experience consisted of a single core loop: need X, build X. It was a dreadful, vapid experience. Pretty and colorful like a children's book and about as engaging. Not recommended.
