Recent reviews by Ygdrad

This game is what you would get if you asked yourself "What if turn-based JRPG... but soulslike?".
"Turn-based soulslike JRPG? How does that work?" I'm sure you're asking yourself. Let me give you a few examples.

Combat:
Attacks are turn-based with quicktime events to boost them, but getting attacked gives you the option to time a dodge, a parry(harder, high risk-reward), or a jump. On expert difficulty, learning the attack patterns/timings of enemies so you can dodge/parry them is simply not optional as even the weakest enemy tears you a new one if you let it hit you, gotta "git gud". Don't worry though there's a normal and easy difficulty if that's not your cup of tea.

Bonfires;
Your healing items are limited and refilled at bonfires expedition flags. These flags are where you spend your attribute/skillpoints and rest up, which respawns enemies.

Trope:
Near the beginning you run into the Chromatic Lancelier, a completely optional enemy on the side that is way out of your league at the beginning and can 1-shot you, but with perfect play you can beat it for a special reward. This is a staple of a lot of soulslikes. Here's how that fight looks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5hIYCRtlOQ

I'm not overly far in the story so far but it starts out fairly dark. The characters are actually written believably and sound like real people rather than sounding like formulaic comic book characters. The voice acting is A+

I hate JRPG. Last one I was able to bring myself to fully play through was Xenogears as a kid back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The gameplay is usually boring and the story is not interesting enough and too full of predictable overused cliches so it can't convince me to stick with the repetitive, easy, and boring gameplay found in most JRPG's.

I am thoroughly enjoying both the gameplay and the story in Clair Obscur so far though and would fully recommend it, even if JRPG's usually bore you out.




Side note: Ignore the steam deck icon, I have no idea how well or poorly it works on it. I play it on pc, I just use my steam deck as a controller through virtualhere which made steam flag my PC as a steam deck.

This is an early review, I might edit it once I've beaten the game.

This game is a Nioh-like. Nioh had its own unique take on the souls-like genre and this game takes so much inspiration from Nioh you could say it's 70% Nioh, 30% Sekiro with an anime coat of paint. Most of the Nioh systems you know and love are here aside from weapon-swapping. Fast-paced combat with lots of skills reliant on efficient aggression and good stamina management like in Nioh, but with quick reaction perfect blocks/parries/dodges like Sekiro. It has ARPG-like gear system like Nioh too and allows crafting and upgrading.

I'm an experienced souls player and this game made me sweat for while with some of its bosses so far(looking at you Viper!). So far it definitely seems like you're going nowhere until you learn how they work. The devs do have a pity system for those stuck on a boss where you get some lacrima(souls) everytime you fail the boss, which does allow you to level up. Even with this pity system though it feels like the bosses will still be a brick wall unless you 'git gud'.

I'd say this one can get pretty high up there when it comes to difficulty so far when compared to the souls-like genre in general. I wouldn't recommend the game for anyone unwilling to spend some time learning enemy/boss patterns and improving or who is averse to struggle.

Performance-wise, the game runs great, none of that UE5 garbage. I've personally have the game have a short freeze 2-3 times so far, but outside of those things have been smooth.

As per Valve's own recently changed/released rules on season passes:
"A Season Pass must include at least one released DLC when it is made available for purchase"

Giving us a single portrait is barely a technicality and does not, in my opinion, follow the spirit of the rules put in place by Valve to protect us, the consumers. Paradox is willfully trying to circumvent the new rules. I would encourage everyone to be vocal about this as if nothing gets done, these rules might as well not exist.

With that out of the way, I'm not a hater. I've gotten more or less every other DLC from Paradox and want to save money so I got this one. I expect that, as usual, the DLC's will probably release in various kinds of broken states with questionable balance and exploits that will get worked out in the following months but will expand gameplay and roleplay options in interesting ways.

Edit: I love Stellaris and don't want to hurt it, launch sales of games and DLC's is what convinces shareholders to keep supporting a game and this one was released now because the 1st financial quarter ends March 31st and the CEO wanted bigger numbers to show.

I am NOT telling you to not buy the game, please keep supporting this amazing game's development. My hope is that others who care about this rule and Valve's pro-consumer moves reach out to steam support/Valve and let them know that if they meant what their new rules implied, they need to change the wording because you can technically call ANYTHING a DLC, including a single PNG or even a few words of text. Valve needs to update the writing of the rule so it can't be lazily circumvented.

Tried playing it but the mouse input was borked. Slow mouse movement resulted in no camera movement. It's like they convert the mouse input into joystick input with a deadzone. I've never experienced this in a game and it makes just aiming and looking around unbearable.

Going to have to refund this one despite being a big EDF fan.

I'm only a few hours in and I can already tell this is is going to be one of those really unique and engrossingly weird games I love Arcen Games for. I might add stuff to my review later as I experience more of the game but I can already tell this is something special worth playing.

Sadly, despite efforts from the devs, the trailer does not really do a good job, in my opinion, of showcasing what the game is really like in action as all those event and action shots lack the context of discovery and progression which are a core part of the game experience. Sadly, I don't think it's possible to make a trailer that would do it justice or for me to really try to in writing without spoiling some of the experience.

If you are looking for a unique take on 4x and roleplaying/exploring various takes on a newly sentient AI interacting with/growing alongside a corrupt world, it's worth grabbing.

The devs' december roadmap, which is clearly being either delusional or dishonest with its mountain of features made me refund the game after I noticed it. I Did enjoy the quirkiness I got from under 2h of gameplay, but the roadmap gives me zero faith in the developers. Will keep on my wishlist and check up on it in a year or two and see how much got done.

Also finished the game in one addicted sitting.
3.4h of mindless dopamine release for when you wanna check out.

I wish I had waited to buy this game. It says Square Enix on steam for the publisher and dev but this game was actually handled by NetEase with their developpers Ouka Studios. A single day after launching the game, NetEase fired most of the dev team and basically plan to shut Ouka Studios down. This is not a practice I want to reward and I wish I learned about it before getting past the refund window.

This game is not bad, there's a fun combat system and the story is ok albeit a bit weird with how everyone is just accepting their doomed fates cheerfully. On hard mode it hasn't actually been challenging so far which is a bit disappointing, but what really gets to me is that every zone and town is a collectathon hellscape. They went so heavy with it that the illusion of exploration is gone for me, you just see these shiny things littering the whole place and you've got to go pick them up because a lot of them are important. This turns a small zone that would've taken you 5 minutes to get through with a couple short fights into a half hour of going into every corner of the map systematically.

TLDR: Combat is fun, story is a bit weird, zones are collectathon hellscapes, hard mode isn't really hard so far, and the real NetEase are scum and killed the dev studio a day after launch.

Gearbox bought and then proceeded to break a beloved game. I'm refunding and will probably avoid it and other gearbox products until they show they can treat games and their customer with at least the very minimum amount of respect. They've just fumbled way too many things at this point.

For those without free healthcare, this is the cheapest epilepsy diagnostic test out there. Highly recommend.
Oh it's also an amazing game.