Recent reviews by Balten

The fact this has only 50 reviews on it is attrocious. This is a masterpiece that can be enjoyed by all ages and is incredibly written. I've seen Netflix series with worse production in every way from visual usage, interactivity, voice acting, and animation.

Get this. It's better than any movie ticket you could buy, and will last you a lot longer.

The game is incredible for what it is, having an amazing duality of puzzle-like dice rolling and deck building mechanics. As a novice to deck building games, I love this game but also hate it for being punishing for its own RNG but encouraging experimentation and strategic testing while trying to manage your dice deck.

There may feel like a lack of content as there are only 3 playable heroes so far, and there is a lot of possibilities for other dice ideas, characters, play styles, and relics, but they are very open and honest about the fact this is an early access release that is playable on the spot with the core mechanics well established and some very nuianced and exciting mechanics that totally change around your gameplay.

I would say my biggest problem is that I'm not used to deck builders, and often run off of 'vibe' rather than hard strategy, making most of my runs not last into the 2nd round. If I'm not clearing the first boss in just a few turns, I don't expect to make it far with how fast enemy damage hikes up into the second phase, especially when you need to eventually be balancing perfect sustain with perfect attack. The decks that I have go the furthest in those situations are ones that got early energy increases during the first stretch, and ends up making me reluctant to spend time on other avenues of play since I know how stacked I have to get later.

I'd going to recommend because it's early access and I can't wait to see where this goes, but also be warned that this is not a completed product. Plenty enjoyable the way it is now though, and I think I'll enjoy playing it as it expands with more content and creativity.

Basically Fallout 4 with more issues. No seriously.

Ammo is and gear is all over the place, areas are only limited in travel by difficulty of enemies and random doors that are 'locked' with no other indication on how to get in / explore the area, indicating its quest related or main plot related so you "shouldn't be there". Gun play is just like Fallout 4 without health bars, so enemies are bullet sponges regardless of where you hit them and your 'better weapons' do 'better damage' because they're 'better'. This itself isn't offensively odd for a shooting RPG, but they missed the most vital part of an RPG which is the progression of character skill / level, which means just having the best gun in the game means you ARE now the best player in the game. Otherwise your own limitation is how much ammo you have, which while plentiful in random containers is not dropped by enemies in any meaningful way.

I ended up rushing into some weird military compound and killing 50 something 'military men' just to find canned food and no ammo at the end with a 'locked door' proceeding to some story area, no ammunition, and enemies spawning in behind me. I've had multiple times enemies spawned in behind me within aggro range who I had just killed within 60 seconds, so I first learned of them appearing by me being shot in the back of the head.

This does not promote exploration, reward insight, provide intrigue, or allow you to feel like a free agent. You are on a railroad, and they added Mod Support to fix it.

GET TO IT MODDERS! FIX THE GAME!

There are some games that are so good that when you've put it down, you think you've played it for 15-20 hours as you've been completely enamored, immersed, stunned, and involved in the story and gameplay.

Then you realize it's only been 5 hours, and you've basically added time to your life.

Stop wasting time on the grind when you could be spending time on your life. Or just a better game.

Another corporate decision kills an entire game studio. Good job Sony.

Game has 2 hours of non-stop exposition and introductory sequences before you even get to the core mechanics. Absolutely meant to waste initial playtime to pad out the first 2 hours before you can return the game. Doesn't matter if you like it or not, predatory development of the introduction like this is disgusting. Not even a funny joke, the dialogue is so slow with strange pausing throughout the ENTIRE introductory really pushes the timing to the maximum.

Note for anyone trying to play with friends, the host is the only one who gets dialogue AND gets a custom character (at least until the 'mercenary mechanic' is unlocked, god knows when)

Now THIS is podracing!

Game only has 1 achievement for "Completing the Intro" and immediately becomes listed as a perfect game on your steam account, The definition of bloat, absolutely unacceptable on this platform. At that point just don't have achievements.

Psychotic.

3 hours in and the game shows an incredible amount of promise, challenge, wit, variety, mechanics, customization, and quality. I have encountered no bugs or glitches, no hard stops or artificial difficulty, and have seen only a single misspelled word in a module description. The character dialogue is engaging, the music is AMAZING and hasn't felt reused or abused thus far, in a single fight there can be a huge amount of variety hype and there are A LOT of different fights. The combat is rewarding and handles really well, as you get used to the speed and techniques of speeding up / slowing down with trial and error. Very much a play model that allows the player to grow and improve with their own skill versus simply increasing numbers or stats to ease difficulty. With so much content already released and the incredible quality I've seen so far, I'd say this is a MUST play. Definitely worth the $15 price tag, and the DLC does not improve or change any of the core gameplay for the game.

Considering you will not experience any of the DLC content without intentionally seeking out additional challenges or changes, I think the dev's decision to set it apart was to facilitate this lower price tag. Easily this is a $20-$25 indie game with what I've seen so far, but it feels more like the dev's are 'betting you'll like it' and keeping the DLC there to even out the price for those who really enjoy the game.

GET IT.

EDIT: For those wondering about the controls, there is a lot of arrow key usage for movement, and the game does advertise controller support. I don't have much info on that tho, I stand by the keyboard style gives great control and reliability.