Recent reviews by marv

All this plucky 90s Anime loving game needs is refinement and further commitment to its bit to shine beyond Stardew's Shadow. As the target Methusula audience of this game, I unfortunately am old enough know exactly what RPGs of the era were capable of and this beautiful art style could be better utilized by employing classic cinema scenes from even the Sega CD Lunar or Ys. You're on the right track with Juniper's Noblewoman Laugh having in game sound, push farther in that vein with other characters with more reactive sounds and heart/ important town events having their own cutscenes.

In a post MULLET MADJACK World, nice visuals aren't enough to really capture the spirit of the aesthetic you're going for.

Not much you can say about a game abandoned by the company after it fires a majority of its dev team. Except maybe Valve should do better due diligence in inspecting if a dev could be able to ever "finish" a game.

Melody of Moominvalley plays like if Jansson drew the game herself. Snuffkin always comes back the First Day of Spring. No park is safe. No Troll or animal should ever be caged and the cops deserve to shake hands with The Groke.

Bethesda has an amazing power of continually watering down the over-all quality of their games, that every generation will always wistfully look back at their older work and be right that it was a better game than what they play now. The Zoomer turning back to their 534 versions of Skyrim is now like the Millennial looking back at Morrowind, and Gen X playing Arena in 2023; as we all wonder how they managed to make ♥♥♥♥ even more dull for Starfield.

1000 planets where the same 5 buildings and 3 cave systems are your procedurally generated slop to mull about in between loading screen. Fighting effectively 4 flavors of raider bandit and a swapping color pallet of maybe 20 types of aliens. And if you're really lucky, you'll run into the exact same exact building and human enemy type no matter where you land or wander on the planet!

Factions that live in a static universe where, there were supposedly great wars a few decades before the game starts, but the player never engages with actual events. You don't need to understand what the Snake Cult is about, there's a party member that can give you everything you need to know as you mow down a "radical" sect of her people. Ryujin, UC and Freestar have barely colonized space to where you'd be confused at how they call themselves governments and be curious as to why there aren't maybe 10-50 more 3 planet or solar system based entities if Todd wanted it to be this devoid of activity. And there's even less reason to worry about joining everyone because you'll never really step on anyone's toes no matter what you do in their missions. You can be a full Citizen of the UC and a Vanguard of enough importance that you can talk to the Space President whenever you want, you be the Freestar Ranger that shoots a Space Senator in the face and the galaxy will just go on but with a few little more churps on Space CNN.

And for a game that is really more of a Looter Shooter than anything resembling an RPG at this point, you don't need to touch 99% of the garbage you can take to try and pawn for credits or craft with. Why even steal space ships to sell elsewhere when most of your profits will be eaten by the ship registration fee. You only modify existing gear or brew drugs and food you'd be better off avoiding and just huffing Med Packs. There's only a few cities to visit and where most major missions take place on, so there's no point to rack up a bounty or be a bloody Space Pirate. Todd just wants these aspects to be seen for vibes of the illusion of content, Seagull don't care for you touching them though.

Because the funniest thing of all is that the general story of the game is just to run through loops of New Game Plus. You can leave your extensive ♥♥♥♥♥♥ colony network and closets full of loot for another galaxy that wipes everything but level and abilities for a slight upgrade between playthroughs 1-10. Nothing really matters in Starfield more than keeping you playing a game Todd didn't even get one Video Game Award for and most people forgot in a month for Lethal Company.

Addendum: After 10 months of release, Bethesda's big plan for Starfield are paid mods with radically inflated prices and possibly one or two official expansions of a single world with theoretically human crafted content. Now, I know the response some defenders will give. "The Company that invented Horse Armor releasing worthless ♥♥♥♥, who could have seen that coming!" And that is correct, this is a continuation of the horror they started in 2006.

However, things have gotten worse in the 20 years since Oblivion because that game was actually a feature complete buggy mess on release. Starfield is asking $10 for each individual part of the Tracker Alliance missions in a Universe still devoid of purpose, things to explore and fun. 700 Creation Club points a piece for a murder this ugly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ radiant quest chain that doesn't even offer 1% of the reactivity of a HITMAN contract. Or a full 1000 points for a rustic ship module!

This is the additional gameplay fluff Bethesda hopes to earn enough profits through to fund the continued production of Shattered Space, much less future expansions of this level. The actual promised major DLC that hopes to steal from Prey 2017 and prove that 1 well crafted world is better than 1000 AI generated copy pasted worlds. The problem is that I doubt Todd really learned this lesson and they, of course, increased the price of the Premium Edition to cover this "newly added" content. With a launch price-tag anywhere between $20-40 for a few quests on a abandoned Space Station and one Planet, in a still empty Universe.

Progress.

The problem of Early Access RPGs is that after enough years, you can make so many human Tavs which annoy Larian, that finally experiencing full release feels like a chore. However, I pledge that in August of 2023, I will roll another White, Conventionally attractive Male Tav so bland that will make Swen Vincke personally don his LARP Armor to declare war with me on Twitter/Youtube.

A wonderful little experience with some extremely unfortunate bugs that can ruin progression or money generation and thus halt your ability for this bear to build themselves up. Hopefully the devs add in other means to generate cash to work around problems or allow more industrious players to not wait hours until enough guests have came and hopefully, successfully got on the bus to pay you or else Henry's just stuck needing coins that won't come. Like selling items or material we don't need anymore.

Potion Permit manages to brew its own identity in an already crowded life sim RPG genre.

Its 2022 and everyone wants to make their own Harvest Moon. From big developers like Square Enix's Harvestella to the already unfathomable depths of the indie farm game abyss that can't hold a candle to modern Story of Seasons or Rune Factory, let alone touch the crown of Stardew Valley. And if MassHive Media's plate wasn't full enough, it can't even be the first notable entrant into the game about alchemy scene. Potionomics, Wytchwood, Potion Craft. Hell, it can't even be the first "cozy game" in this crowded pond with SUNNY SIDE UP's Little Witch in the Woods absolutely killing the cute, 90s retro inspired, farming and potion crafting to help your buds vibe!

And yet, Potion Permit mostly succeeds in emerging from this overpopulated clown car with a distinct playstyle that doesn't feel too derivative of its contemporaries, nor relies on just cute sprites to sell shallow content.

The story is simple: You are a Chemist. Some nobody sent to the island where the association of chemists you are a part of had previously committed multiple incidents that caused massive ecological damage and personal casualties enough to where the locals despise all Chemists. So no pressure sending a newbie to clean up this decades old mess, yeah? But what could be seen as deliberate career sabotage by your peers in The Capital, thankfully, turns into you finding ways to solve any issue with Better Living through Chemistry. All you need to do is grind for ingredients and relationship points to unlock the issues you need to pour out your Potion Ex Machina. Run a clinic, manage your time across the day and maybe make friends along the way.

The Potioncraft: Simple and Elegant, Potion Permit uses the perfection that is Tetris shapes being put into a grid puzzle to translate chucking different ingredients that, somehow, make the same balms or salves each time. Your reagents are broken into 4 elements and have different block shapes that could make them more valuable pieces to utilize in your limited number of moves and possible elemental restrictions you have to solve the equation. While time doesn't progress when you're over the cauldron and you thankfully have infinite attempts to plan out your solution before you boil your ingredients, your pot has a built in limit to how many pieces can be placed so the game WILL make you upgrade it eventually to progress through the more daunting story important potions. There's no one definitive solution to every formula, but certain plants are likely going to be your preferred solution to brute force your way to success which only helps the game stay casual - but not too easy.

The Combat: Rune Factory without any farming nor stats what-so-ever is strange. And even weirder without a list of mostly mediocre weapons replaced by just your three tools, the Sickle for plants, Hammer for rocks and Axe for Trees that become more powerful both on flora and fauna with each upgrade. Dog roll and attack the wildlife is all the Chemist can really do and its serviceable in the sense that monsters only exist as obstacles to the raw materials you need to grind. Neither great nor awful, this aspect of the game was never important to core of the game and it shows.

The Undercooked: While brewing and social aspects shine, there are parts of this game's broth that taste flat when they hit the tongue. Like the tailor not really offering much player customization outside of buying new dyes for skin or the same outfit and four sets of hair; the arcade underneath the inn having basically one game and the lackluster "romance" you can unlock after reaching max friendship with certain townsfolk. Things that the dev can patch up later, but leave the mixture feeling like it isn't living up to the full potential of itself and I hope can be improved.

The Verdict: For the most part, I like what I see. It could be more, but it has its own character among many other games that fill any niche it could claim. You want a nice stop and go RPG, give Potion Permit a shot.

A zen garden you power blast away until it magically fixes itself into pristine condition. The most cleanliness many people who play this game will ever willingly engage in. While it is indeed a relaxing game, it still lacks something of a real narrative push for you to go to wherever weird dirty location in this fictional town hires you next. If there was more of you starting up as a business or seeing Muckingham after you washed it off could be the little push to take this from good to great.

There's nothing worse than seeing each game reduce what was good and fun from the initial piece until what is left is barely recognizable from the game that started it all. If this was another generic Obsidian RPG, I wouldn't hate it as much as I do. But as a Dungeon Siege sequel, its unforgivable that they took away the best part of the original game - roaming the land with a mob of 8 adventurers, into a barely 2 player co-op snorefest that pretends that the dungeon siege story and lore is what anyone cared about the original game.

It tore functionality, AI and content from itself to release this year, it ground devs into paste for over seven years of development, it desperately pushed rushed delay after delay and what does CDPR have to show for it? A game that makes Fallout 76 look respectable.