This is a stunningly beautiful, meditative, subtly addictive dream; it's also the best game yet from Thunder Lotus, they of Jotun (pretty-but-clunky top-down action) and Sundered (decent roguelite metroidvania marred by randomly encountered hordes). You play as the newly-chosen ferryperson to the dead, making new friends, tending to their needs, feeding, fishing, farming, crafting, etc., all while sailing on the most magnificent open sea since Wind Waker. The main loop reminds me of the game Don't Sink, a stripped-down Sid Meier's Pirates with base-building and missions. You don't directly control the boat but instead choose locations on the map as you travel from island to island meeting spirits, fulfilling requests, and gathering ingredients (all without pirate encounters this time). Crafting is done via soft minigames, the platforming challenges are minimal, and the sea is so large you'll have plenty of time to sit back and take in Thunder Lotus's best art design and most fluid animations to date. Is it perfect? No, but what is? Of course it has its niggles: it seems like the crops ALWAYS need watering, for one. I also wish I could see everyone's mood without having to talk to each of them in turn. And some of the animations can be a little self-indulgent: I sometimes wish it didn't take almost 30 seconds to saw down a tree. None of these are deal-breakers though; I still come back to this game again and again for its soothing atmosphere, stress-free open gameplay, poignant storytelling, and goshdarn shear friggin' BEAUTY. This isn't a game that will challenge you; in fact it openly refuses to do so (except maybe emotionally). This is "comfort gaming" at its finest, and many gamers will be turned off by its lack of combat and only mild puzzling. That's fine; we have our fixes for *that*, don't we? Here, though, we will lay back, relax, and enjoy a truly great thing, and like all great things, it's not for all the people; it's for the right people.
Some games age well: Sid Meier's Pirates is still great, Quake is truly a classic, and Cannon Fodder is a friggin' blast. Some games absolutely do not age well: Super Mario 64's camera is the devil, Final Fantasy VII's gameplay is plug-boring,... and Alien Breed's crap hitboxes and frustrating design choices can eat me. This is me during my time with Alien Breed: "How did I not hit it? It's right in front of me, and this is an arcade shooter. Alright, keys, keys, keys, where are the all-important-so-of-course-there-aren't-enough-of-them keys? Ugh, the aliens respawn as soon as you walk away, so there isn't even the satisfaction of clearing a room. Gauntlet got that right, game; why didn't *you* 6 years later? How did I not hit it?! It's right in front of me, and this is an arcade shooter! Say, where's that terminal that this game insists is the godsend? It's got a map, and you can buy weapons and ammo and hopefully KEYS. I wish I knew what it looked like. I wish it stood out from all the gray. There isn't even a picture in the manual, and it's all-important! These levels are all just gray-walled mazes, aren't they? Gray-walled mazes with infinitely spawning bullet-sponges. Awesome. Okay, this is my last key, so I should be careful going down this narrow corridor not to open that door WHY DID THE DOOR OPEN ANYWAY AND WASTE MY LAST KEY, GAME?! WHY?! I DID NOT PRESS THE DOWN KEY; YOU'RE FULL OF S**T!! HOW DID I NOT HIT IT??!! IT'S RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, AND THIS IS AN ARCADE SHOOTER!!" I hate this game. I don't often say that about games, but I'm saying it about this one. Good for older PC gamers who are used to frustration; modern PC gamers and those who grew up on consoles should avoid it like the plague. Seriously. It's not even fun in a clunky way.
(Note: I do not hate RNGs; I am not that guy.) Love-hate relationships are the devil. Luring me with a charming aesthetic and the promise of dungeon-crawling card-based roguelite goodness and then presenting me with a solo digital board game where YOU CAN'T DIRECTLY CONTROL YOUR AVATAR was bad enough. But then for me to get into it anyway (cuz I'll give anything a chance) and find a poorly-balanced nightmare of monstrous RNG and samey gameplay that is still tragically addictive (if only for a while)... This game is like bad drugs: it might take you out of yourself for a time, but it will ultimately ruin you. This game knows how to frustrate, how to torture, how to lull the player into a false sense of success and then destroy them utterly. There's a level, for example, in the Pirate's Cove DLC where you have 10 turns to reach a boss that's 8 or 9 spaces away; doesn't seem too hard, right? Well, the balancing is so f****d that getting the cards to move your avatar in the right direction is extremely unlikely: the deck is stacked with dead ends! DEAD ENDS! And throwing myself at this brick wall would be okay if this level didn't play just like all the others So I'm stuck at this point not too far from the end, and that's bad because, as frustrating as the game is, it's also very easy! All the levels are pretty much the same, and hey, remember that balancing problem I mentioned? Well, allow me to break the game for you: *SPOILER* ...once you get the Shapeshifter it's all over; you will FLY through the game. You will never want to play as anyone else simply because its deck is the most balanced of all. Maybe the Ranger too. Maybe. *END SPOILER* So I'm putting this game away. It's not a good one. Good ideas and cute characters are no match for undercooking: the woeful lack of polish indicated by poor balancing and monotonous design. This one needed more time in the oven; shame it didn't get it before two DLCs were released.
*REMINDER: This game is not finished and any review of any early access game should be taken with a shaker of salt and considered "first impressions" only yadda yadda yadda.* This game is on point in so many ways. It's gorgeous, for one. Checking out the scenery really is half the game (the point is to relax, right?), and on that this game delivers in spades. The music is also quite beautiful; it sounds like the album-length soundmists of Steve Roach and really fits the mood and purpose of the game. Mechanically the game is spot on; everything is kept nice and simple to facilitate the whole relaxation thing. If you find yourself using the phrase "dumbed down" in this regard, this may not be the game for you. Stellaris or X it ain't, to be certain. But does it need to be? I don't feel like every space game should require you to be able to dock manually (for example); heck, this game doesn't even have a docking *animation* (yet). And that's fine. It's its own thing, and it succeeds on its own terms. There are times, however, when trolling this lovely galaxy that I wish something... ANYTHING... would happen. Yes, this game is light on content yet; it needs stories, and it needs events. They don't have to be *stressful* stories and events, but they should be there. In lieu of other players making trouble for you in this arguably EVE-like universe, written content is sorely missed. There are also times I wish I knew what was being offered at each station without having to physically go there each time or write it all down myself (that would be my major quality-of-life gripe). But that's an early access "thing", right? "Basically solid, needs fleshing out and tweaking"? Isn't that ALL of the best of early access in 7 words? I will say that, for its stated purpose (relaxation), the game is exceptional. Now we need a bit of stimulus here and there to accentuate the calm...
Hamburgers are delicious: chewy, juicy, satisfying. Nothing else like it, and for that very reason, also quite ubiquitous here. You go to almost any restaurant in my country and chances are they sell hamburgers just to please the children. However and obviously, there are also restaurants that specialize in them, and they are truly to be treasured; when you go to one, ANY one, you have a pretty good idea of what you're going to get, no matter the name on the sign out front. BUT... just because that place sells a thing that you've liked other places is no guarantee that you're going to like the one served in THIS restaurant, no matter how much they try to make it just like the other place's thing that they know you like; sometimes you just enjoy that other restaurant's hamburgers more and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Grim Dawn is Titan Quest (which in itself Diablo II) with a "grimdark" paint job (hence the clever, clever name and all the zombies and amorality). Kill, Loot, Optimize, Sell, Repeat. It's an addictive gameplay loop for a reason. I'm not going to say that this game makes any leaps and bounds in the genre because it absolutely doesn't; what it does is what anything in the genre does, no more, no less, and *that's fine*. If you're going out for a hamburger, then you'd be upset if you got something else, so the fact that this game does what it does and as *well* as it does is reason enough to recommend it to people. I really like the setting and the music, so I'll choose this restaurant over, say, Torchlight Fish'n'Grits (although FATE Diner and Coffee Shop is always tempting for me). None of the above means a whit, however, if you're just plain ol' sick of burgers, so if Titan Quest put you to sleep, skip this. As for myself, I still love burgers. *grins*
I really wanted to give this game a chance. It certainly has a reputation for greatness, and I feel about 80-100 hours or so was enough time to decide it isn't for me: 1. The voiceover quirks (you knew that would be first) had their odd charm at first, but after a while they just started to break immersion. 2. The game gets repetitive as all heck. The dungeons end up mostly all the same, and everything respawns. This actually discourages exploration for me; what's the point of going inside if the only thing I'll find there is the same thing I found in the last one: things to kill and chests my character can't open? Seriously, once I closed my first Oblivion Gate, I felt like I'd seen enough. 3. The writing is dull, and the quests are uninspired. "Here, go here, kill these guys, and bring me back a guy or a thing." And that's the MAIN quest. No wonder I felt the need to simply ignore it, puttered about like the game is designed for, and then got bored about 10% of the way through. 4. All of Bethesda's games (the ones they developed) are broken, but this one is especially so. Bugs, bugs, bugs out the butt. Have at least 10 save files per game and save every five minutes, I say (even with stability mods). 5. Building a character = exploits, exploits, exploits. Nothing like walking into a wall with an enemy around for an hour just to build up your Sneak skill. How about jumping everywhere and constantly depleting your stamina to build up your Acrobatics skill? Repetitive busywork!? Sign me up! This review hurts. As I said, I wanted to like it. It's a beautiful game, to be sure, and the world you inhabit is large and... *somewhat* varied. But the decision to uninstall and forget was an easy one to make. After a while I just wasn't enjoying myself. There are many other games, and we're only here for a short time.
No lie, it's a bit of a slog at first as you're introduced to the characters and setting with vague hinting at the madness to come. But after chapter 4 or 5 is when things just go... well, I'll also say that the less you know about this going in, the better. It's becomes a real cracker after the first 4 or 5 chapters, is all I'll say. It's vile, it's maddening, it's heartbreaking. It's art.
