I've asked for a refund, as I am not able to play with mapping, that hurts my hand. I have avoided WASD for half of my life and not going to adapt to it now.
I have this game on Epic, which I got for free. I am playing through all the library that I have accumulated. I can see why female gamers would like this game, and it has nothing to do with female protagonist - there are many female protagonist games, that males enjoy, but the main issue for me was male NARRATION hitting on my character and at the same time me, who has taken control over Red. Probably there are other things and this genre of action slash and bash combat is not interesting to me, but some of the things were getting annoying. This game has interesting artistical choice in combining art and music and have unique style and for anyone who would enjoy this narcistic Cali narration this game would be easily 5 out of 5 stars. I don't think that this game deserves 1 star, but in my current mood and seeing where the game progresses it is really not a game for me. Like I mentioned, this is a niche game - gamers who will enjoy it, will like it very much. For the rest of us this hype does not transfer that well and questioning why there is a hype is part of game that is not enjoyable. I don't hate the game, but frankly I would rather have someone tell me that this game is simply not for me, than spending evening and figuring out why I should enjoy it...
For me the most comparable game that comes into mind is with Prey(2017), but mild version of it. This game is a detective of some sorts. This game has found great compatibility with music of independent music makers - their score really accompanies the game. See credits(or search internet). Great music is main thing for me that makes even good games memorable. "Quantum Particles" and "Aurora" ambient scores made me to linger in space, even if that would mean suffocating... A Darker Heart was a great uplifting score as well. I wanted to give lower score, as I came to it with mindset that it is Subnautica in space(and I am sure that devs advertised it as such and it is all their fault as that type of humor backfired), because base building is not necessary to finish the game and can be entirely skipped, but if you put aside this misapprehension, then this game is a gem. It is UNIQUE game, that has UNIQUE story line and UNIQUE sci-fi characters - these clearly are hitting all the checkboxes for a great game and it is based on UNIQUE HUMOR - some of it is not my kind of humor, as glorifying anything about Soviet past is not my kind of humor and only because of that I am not giving 5 stars. While it might be taking inspiration of USA past from Bioshock games, it is just too close to reality while Russians are resurrecting zombies of Soviet past which was not as far back in history as Civil War era of Bioshock. Simply too close to reality. Even descriptions of Hell simply doesn't describe Gulags and you have to be fully ignorant about the dark side of Soviet past to glorify it. However I think, that it is worth to look what will be their next game, as whoever is behind Breathedge and have compiled all the different motifs from great games have done great thinking about it all. Let's hope that there will be steam for Breathedge 2 to continue.
I have almost all of the DLCs on steam for this game. Sadly, all of those DLCs somehow damaged the game experience by updating game for everyone including those that does not have DLCs when those DLCs came out with clear intent for gamers to buy update of the game, that is paywalled behind DLC. With every new DLC my enjoyment for game decreased. Generally to experience vanilla game, you should have an option to play older versions, where even for a GOG site it might be too much to cater. So, even if this is free, I must warn that it will be more like shareware version as investment into those DLCs will be required to even have access to content that was once part of the base game. It is quite a toxic approach from Paradox and that have made me to abandon whole genres of games, as they have taken over all of them. I would not give this game a zero star - this game truly deserves one star - it is one of the few games, that have Grand Map of world or part of it.
It looks like an emulation of a MMORPG as a single-player game, or as a single player campaign for that game. Essentially it is advertisement for Dogs of War Online game, which is also based on Confrontation figurines universe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confrontation_(Rackham) I guess, if Dogs of War Online is good and something that is enjoyable, then playing Aarklash: Legacy after Dogs of War Online might give satisfaction, that there exists game in similar universe. Looking on reviews in steam, DOWO was enjoyed, while there were players. And for the same reason Aarklash: Legacy is not enjoyable as a single-player game. It has world and setting and mechanics, but it lacks good story - that is essential for a single-player game.
This game weights 2,2 GB, so anyone who don't have fibre, will be really pissed. I could not proceed past the initial mission and demolish the road, so the same question - why even bother to download? This game looks like an attempt to build player base, but at current stage this will backfire, because it is presented as finished product, but it is not even a demo, but actually alpha access in early beta stage, where anyone playing will be used as testers. I would have rated it 0, if that was possible or even -1, if there was such option. Sorry, it is not really pleasant thing to hear both to GOG and developer, but this really looks a bit early for public as a product(in shop). Maybe GOG can make beta participation program or gamer gathering place, where gamers and developers can meet and help each other by nudging developers towards success, but this approach is balancing on insult, as it would be more honest to say in description, that this product is still in test phase.
To be fair, I bought this game mainly because of stellar meme review done by internet historian "The Engoodening of No Man's Sky": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5BJVO3PDeQ I probably imagined some other game in my mind and I am spoiled by other survival games, but it looks ok for what developer intended - if I was 10 years old I would be fooled by the idea of exploration possibilities. I generally do not like games, that impose WASD over directional keys, as that combination of keys arise in times, when mouse was of no great use to action games, but that might be a nitpick, that would require overhaul of UI and HUD which I am not using. Well, I reverted to WASD after a while, because they make sense to use with other keys, that has to be used a lot in this game. There is some repetition element, that is related to broken boxes - I wish I did'nt had to collect metal scrap and organic waste this way - it would make more sense to collect metal scrap by converting those broken metal items with gun and collect organic waste from bodies of animals, as currently they are sliding away. In a way this game reminds Daggerfall - seems to be the same procedurally generated feeling of emptiness - same things everywhere. Somehow Minecraft made this feeling to go away with proper biomes. I wish there were added some local regional mysteries to uncover - that would not need to hop and go for another planet. Lack of planetary map is disorienting - I do not see technical reasons not to use rudimental ones and given the futuristic setting, it seems unreasonable not to have them, but it is up to developer to come to conclusion that this game needs planetary maps - integrated with scanning. 4/5 - there are still many things to work on - like checking files if they are corrupted
