Recent reviews by Darmak

Finally getting around to buying and playing this game 10 years after it's release. I had meant to pick it up when it released but a combination of ADHD and other games I was focused on meant I never got around to it.

Everything has been said that there is to say about this game, but I'll give my thoughts anyways. It's a love letter to the Infinity Engine games I loved in my teen years, but with some nice QoL stuff. Plus while it's close enough to D&D to be familiar, it's different enough that I'm not bored. I love D&D and the Forgotten Realms, but my ADHD makes me crave novelty so getting to dig into not only a new system but a new setting really is my jam. But they're not so different that I can't parse what's going on, and for a lot of things you can hover the mouse over certain keywords to see an explanation, which is one of the QoL features I mentioned earlier (and it seems like they're focused on things that differ from the D&D rules, like the devs knew that those of us coming from D&D backgrounds would have questions about those things more than the familiar things). While I'm still quite early in the game the story seems good, the characters I've met have been real interesting, the writing is good, the voice acting is quite excellent, and the art style is really nice (though colors seem quite muted, lots of greys and browns too). I'm playing on normal difficulty and the fights so far haven't been too tough; having so many abilities be per encounter as opposed to per rest means that I don't have to hold back too much in each fight. That means each fight is more interesting since I get to do more stuff, but it also means I don't have as much tactical resource management where I am slowly getting whittled down between fights. I guess the endurance and health system fills that role, which is also a system I like and think is cool. There's a lot more stuff I could probably talk about but my brain is drawing a blank and this review has gone on too long anyways.

tl;dr: game is real good

I honestly wouldn't have ever expected a game that tries to do it all to be any good, yet Palworld somehow manages it. It's basically a survival crafting game like Ark or Conan: Exiles, but replace dinosaurs and human slaves with pokemon-esque creatures called pals. The pals, like pokemon, have elemental typings which are weak and strong against other elements, and they each have their own unique abilities for combat as well as for use in your home base and while exploring the world. While the game is still in early access there's already quite a lot to see and to do and there's a decent amount of polish here, and the devs seem to be producing new content at a decent pace and also taking feedback from players.

I'm not usually grabbed by these sorts of games but something about this one has pulled me in. Maybe it's the charm, maybe it's the not-pokemon, maybe it's just the sheer amount of stuff in it, or some combination. But it's worth keeping an eye on for sure.

I am an incredibly casual player, I don't plan out builds or trade with other players or even use the currency to reroll or craft items. I just pick stuff up, click monsters, and select random skills and gems to use (whatever sounds cool in the moment). This game is still incredibly fun for me, with a cool setting and art style and storyline, and apparently if you're more into mixmaxing and optimizing then there's enough depth and options here to keep you entertained for ages. Plus the game is constantly changing and getting things added so I come back every so often to check out what's new.

I will say that while the game is free, I would recommend buying some bank tabs to hold all the stuff you're bound to pick up as the few tabs you're given are not enough. But considering basically everything else in the MTX shop is cosmetic stuff and all of the game's actual content is free, buying a few bank tabs to support the devs is incredibly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fair imo (and cheap)

I never played the originals, though I did briefly play the first one on the NES as a child (and never got anywhere in it lol). I'm enjoying this quite a lot now, however, and I'd recommend it to anyone that likes old-school, party-based dungeon crawlers.

It's been around for a long time so there's a lot of content for it, both official stuff and mods. The shooting feels good, the difficulty is rather high, the zeds are varied and the difficulty levels add variants of each so there's a lot of different tactics you get to learn. There's a lot of cool weapons, and the 10ish perks let you mix and match to fit whatever play style you prefer. It's a pretty neat game overall

It's neat, you click on cubes and then click some more and it's pretty

It's cute and it's got some fun exploration and base building stuff in it. Fun to relax and vibe in.

If you liked the first game, you'll like this sequel. It's adorable, the graphics are colorful and beautiful, the music is soothing, and the entire game is relaxing and a joy to play. The gameplay loop of collecting slimes and feeding them and exploring and unlocking new areas/tools/etc. is incredibly satisfying. Much like with the first game, sometimes I load the game up just to mess around on the ranch without really doing anything, soaking up the ambiance and relaxing. Highly recommend to anyone that thinks it sounds interesting.

I had an ox say, "Moo" to me. It didn't make the noise, it literally said the word, "moo". 10/10 game

It's a nearly 20 year old game that's charming, has a nice little skill system, fun combat, a nice story, and lots of stuff to run around doing. It is both serious and goofy in turn, and it lets you ignore things like gear's stats if you want to play pretty princess dress up. Cool game, I'm glad I revisited it so long after first playing it back in 2004.