TLDR : Offishal Recipe - Take one part Dwarf Fortress, two parts Rimworld, one part Hogwarts, one part Shaolin monk, one cup stock mix of Animal Crossing & Harvest Moon. Stir until combined completely. Cover with several layers of complex mechanics. Leave overnight at room temperature in darkness. Add 2 buckets of unlabelled chinese steroids. Add 2 tsp ginseng and one grated chicken foot. Throw in two decent handfuls of wtfery. Cook till frustration. Remove from oven and allow to cool between eating attempts. I'll state up front - I'm terrible at this game. I also don't care that I'm terrible at it. When I started playing this on a platform that shall not be named (I had NO idea it would be coming to GOG or I would have waited *shakes fist vaguely threateningly at a cloud*). I can't tell you how many of my games have ended in failure. How my best hopes were dashed. My attempts at fighting a storm wolf thrown in my face.... Yes this game has similarities to Rimworld - that comparison can't be avoided. It is NOT a clone. The depth of feng shui, the combination of elements, the unexpected talisman minigames, the character growth mechanics... all function to either completely tick you off or drag you in for 'ten more minutes'. Are translations bad? Yes Will you get frustrated because you teleported accidently into a pit full of demons and died? Yes Do you shake your head in disbelief when someone kills you with a bucket of water? Yes Is it a great feeling when your latest pet student wakes up alive and stronger? Yes Did you feel slightly abused on your third attempt to explore the south east corner and die? Yes Will you be slightly annoyed that your neighbors consider you a pathetic mess via diplomacy? Yes Will you be incredibly happy they consider you a pathetic mess and ignore you? Absolutely yes! If you know chinese will you still be confused? Yes Can you go over 9000? Yes! Will you be sorry you bought this game? Sometimes!
Works well on PC. Theres a bit of consolization but its nothing too bad. Story is half decent but classic RPG failing, you are treated kinda like a fetch puppy and theres no choice but to continue if you want to continue the story. Combat is good although a little repetative and very ranged focussed. Even if you choose melee theres way more range customization than there is melee. Overall worth it. Thanks for bringing it to PC.
There are no difficulty settings. If you don't like hard melee action games, then save yourself the headache. The comparison to DarkSouls is unavoidable. Its the best DS experience in a nonDS world. I didn't encounter a single bug. Some encounters were brutally unfair. I play KB+M so the camera was no real issue for me. Overall a great game.
Decent walking simulator. Story is on hardcoded rails with no real choices. 90% of dialogue can not be skipped (I am a subtitle reader, not a listener, drove me nuts). While I enjoyed the premise of the story, the writing of Alice was over the top annoying at times. Between the spineless main character you are forced to play and the demanding child that bosses the character around, I just couldn't get into the story as much as I could. Seeing as there are zero dialogue choices theres no way to change the conversation. The atmosphere in the first 10 minutes starts out great, but starts to fray fast. Odd graphics choice in some places. 3d models with 2d imaging pasted infill (the box in the childs room is brutal example). Combine that with the poor lighting (entire last 1/3 of game has ridiculous lighting) and the atmosphere was too fragmented to enjoy. The 'draw' mechanic seems very poorly implemented. Half finished and abandoned? If you want a short story walking simulator with no choices and loose ends, then pick up the game. I recommend not full price. Its not long enough to warrant even that.
Still a plethora of bugs and glitches. Developers have stated that they don't consider GoG important enough to update. DLC & Updates on GoG are significantly delayed, and some are just missing. Decent game for early access, its a pity they don't seem to communicate very well.
