Super grindy and suffers from poor in-game descriptions. Has unnecessary inventory management elements that don't add anything. Probably would need to consult a guide to have a decent first playthrough. Gave it almost 5 hours before giving up and uninstalling.
You've woken up in this strange world. There is just a house with a lawn bordered by a white picket fence. You can see over the fence, things can be thrown over the fence, but there is an invisible barrier preventing you from crossing the fence. You've tried entering the house, but whenever you do, you just blackout until the next morning. Your only contacts outside of this tiny pocket dimension are your laptop, with which you can place 'orders' for things that will somehow land nearby, and some kind of inbox where requests of you periodically show up, as if by magic. How did you get here? Are these requests related to why you are trapped? Who or what is fulfilling the orders? What do the gnomes have to do with this? Oh yes, the gnomes. They are watching. Always watching. Ok, I've probably made this (I hesitate to call it a game) seem more interesting than it is. What you see is pretty much what you get. There aren't any deadlines or any stakes. It is a sandbox possessing all the depth of a mobile game, just with better graphics/physics. There are a couple non-game-breaking bugs and I have some relatively minor gripes (needs more land & inventory space, for starters). It is fine for the price point, just don't expect to be impressed.
While the game is rather mediocre for a large budget franchise and felt like it overstayed its welcome. Considering barely over a quarter of people are making it past chapter 3 (of 15), I'm not alone in that assessment. While it has been done in the structure of a GTA game, it feels sterile. While it is generally marketed at a younger audience, the large number of cultural references/jokes means that the person that would get the most out of the game would be middle-aged looking for a casual game that likes chasing 100% completion (there are a *lot* of collectibles/mini-games). It is one of the few games that manages to be consistently humorous without beating a joke to death. The game itself suffers from numerous game design issues. Nothing that is a show stopper, but constant irritants that suggest not a lot of thought was put in to the gameplay. For example; you have a health bar, but when your health runs out... you just pop up a few steps away. Why bother even having health if death doesn't do anything? Controls are inconsistent across various contexts; sometimes Enter is 'Yes', other times it is the jump button. The jump button is accelerate in vehicles, even though vehicles can also jump. On top of this, as others have mentioned, it is a so-so PC port suffering from instability, frame rate issues, and no mouse support. Don't fret about the lack of mouse support though. While it does make the game a bit awkward in spots, the game is more than forgiving enough to get by on keyboard. Like noted earlier, nothing so bad that it is a show stopper, just uncouth irritants. If you have a generous budget or really love the LEGO franchise, don't worry about the price; otherwise probably should wait for a sale.
The game is pretty much as listed on the tin: a lightweight management sim with H elements. As is par for my course, all H games are granted an extra star because the competition is so pathetic. As others have warned, it is very likely a ported mobile game. However, I am panning it because it was rather buggy, low effort, poorly balanced, and generally uninteresting. Most of the bugs weren't showstoppers (other than the one that made the UI disappear and required fully exiting the game without saving, because they didn't properly test the port nor implement keyboard commands), but were of the missing reference/image/text or typo variety. On top of the bugs, a non-trivial amount of features were either lacking explanation or the explanation was incorrect. To add insult to injury, the game would auto-resume from a paused state when accessing certain screens. Most of the girls have their own mini-questline (which includes regular match-3 minigames). However, I found almost all of the stories rather dull and the rewards for doing them basically worthless, outside of H-unlocks. As far as the H goes, there is a decent amount of it. Though be aware that it is almost all monster girls and relies heavily on image stretching/warping for 'animation'. The progress goals are frequently counter-productive. Almost all of the build/upgrade goals require you to do things that hurt your margins. Fortunately, these can be gotten around by just building->upgrading->destroying a room over and over. Each build/upgrade counts towards the goal. The rooms don't even have to exist at the same time. To conclude: Meh. If the average H-game wasn't such a sorry excuse, this wouldn't even warrant a glance.
This was a solid B. The story took a bit to get into and the ending was rather melancholy. The story does have a few decent rug-pull moments and keeps a solid pace, however it isn't anything to write home about. It does have the conveniences of highlighting of interactive spots and in-game hints, however there are a few places these fall short. Most of the puzzles are fairly straight-forward. There were slightly more clever puzzles than there were ones that didn't make much sense. Positives: The item list was generally fairly minimal, so if you reach the 'try every combination' point, it generally won't be onerous. I didn't encounter any serious bugs, though some flakey spots have been reported by others. They had the foresight to allow you to skip the potentially most obnoxious puzzle. Drawbacks: The cutscene art looked a bit weird and out of sync with the rest of the art style. There are a couple of places where the puzzle solution requires interacting with something that isn't flagged as an interactive spot and the in-game help was rather hit-and-miss as to actually being helpful.
This is the overly similar sequel to "Hero of The Kingdom". While I didn't expect a major departure from the formula, I did have hopes that at least either the writing or the UI/UX would improve, but these hopes were rudely dashed against the rocks and lays amongst the other shipwrecks dotting the shore (if you squint, you might see it). I gave the prior 3 stars in part as it was a first release. The lack of improvement along the fundamentals of the game makes this release disappointing by comparison, hence the lower rating. Like the prequel; this is basically an all-ages-appropriate (content wise) browser/mobile adventure (not an RPG) game without the paywalls endemic to the genre. It is pretty middle-of-the-road for that kind of game, but effectively zero stress. No timers, no RNG, no planning builds, etc. Pros: Effectively stress free. Cons: Some poor UX/UI items; only main questline is tracked (even that tracking is a bit a spotty), can only buy/sell one item at a time (really only matters for grinding cash), etc. Story is very generic and linear. Conclusion: If a casual adventure game is the ask, this will do the trick adequately enough. The game almost certainly won't excite or thrill you, but that isn't always a bad thing. Full price is a bit high for what it brings to the table though, so save it for a sale. The game took a bit longer than the prior's 4 hours, clocking in at 6.5 hours. If you noticed; yes, I copy and pasted large chunks of this review from my review of the prequel. Just another indicator of how little the game evolved between installments.
This is basically an all-ages-appropriate (content wise) browser/mobile adventure (not an RPG) game without the paywalls endemic to the genre. It is pretty middle-of-the-road for that kind of game, but effectively zero stress. No timers, no RNG, no planning builds, etc. I was looking for something to wind down at night with and this fit the bill. Total game length was just over 4 hours, with 90%-95% of the core game done (a very conservative run though). Pros: Effectively stress free. Cons: Some poor UX/UI items; only main questline is tracked (even that tracking is a bit a spotty), can only buy/sell one item at a time (really only matters for grinding cash), etc. Story is very generic and linear. Ending feels rushed like the developer(s) ran out of budget/patience. Re-reviewing cleared ground for new items to pick up can be a bit tedious. Conclusion: If a casual adventure game is the ask, this will do the trick adequately enough. The game almost certainly won't excite or thrill you, but that isn't always a bad thing. Full price is a bit high for what it brings to the table though, so save it for a sale. Gameplay Hint: By the end of the first 1/3rd of the game or so, you can effectively print as much money as you want through making bread and selling it as long as you have at least 35 gold to begin with.
This game is at about the level of a higher-end free browser game. It isn't bad for what it is, but it is short, rather simple, and fairly repetitive. It kind of plays like an idle, but doesn't have the automation mechanics to actually be an idle. If you like that kind of thing, this will probably keep you amused for a couple of hours. Game involves a *lot* of dragging icons around and you are always working against the clock, so using a mouse (not a trackpad nor controller) would be advised.
This is an open-world fantasy-RPG hybridized with a brawler, which is an interesting mix. Gives a feeling that your success is more than just having bigger, badder numbers. This is it's big selling point. It sounds small, but it is actually quite important. A large percentage of the game is spent in combat and it is your primary interaction outside of moving. Of related note, (over) leveling (within reason) isn't a chore. This allows you a lot of freedom to set your own difficulty level. The game feels pretty forgiving overall, like the designers generally tried to give the player every reasonable way out they could. (though this didn't prevent them from lobbing a few curveballs) The story is probably not going to be compelling and boils down to; child-of-destiny rescues loved one from evil wizard. The writing is pretty typical fantasy fare (overwrought by today's standards) with the occasional bad joke. A person can probably complete a first pass in 10-20 hours with a guide. There is at least one guide and a 'let's play' available as of this review. Overall, I found it to be a generally pleasant & well put-together experience, with some marring caused by the lack of a manual and the occasional platforming. Pros: Solid progression rate. Generally satisfying combat. Cons: Overworld travel is a bit clunky. Utilizes save points. No in-game volume control. No manual. Hints: You can push (some) statues. Sometimes you have to fall into a pit to advance.
Skyrim was an ambitious project and a minor cultural milestone. A game with this size of a static (neither random nor generated from a seed) world was nearly unprecedented. While this later edition improves on the buggy mess that Skyrim was, it doesn't address the core major flaw; Skyrim was highly repetitive and thus dull. The rubberbanding of encounters to your poorly-conceived 'level' helps keep you from feeling like you are making progress and creates major problems with learning certain skills. Don't get me wrong, if you haven't played it before you'll probably have a fine time for the first 10-20 hours. However, after the 10th 'turn the pillar' or the 5th claw puzzle, you'll start to wear. You'll start to notice that the devs didn't have enough ideas to fill the massive space they created, so they repeated a very small bag of tricks with minor variations hundreds of times. That the game balance is rather easy to break, in both directions. If you go down the modding rabbit hole, you'll find that mods can help paper over these core flaws, but that the mods can only really mask the problems, not fix them. This is a game that'll drive you nuts if you are a completionist. So buy it without expecting to ever finish it. When you load in, remember that while you are learning to pick flowers, the Draugr are training. (google the last four words)
