Recent reviews by Enoby

Review forthcoming

The most creative and memorable levels in the game so far, some competing in memorability with even Dark Carnival levels in L4D2, especially the museum level. The new weapons and cleaner are extremely fun to play with and the addition of melee attachments is a huge boon for the game.

B4B is the most fun I've had in a co-op game in a long time (including the 18 hours of the beta I played). It's not L4D3, it's an evolution on the formula that, in my opinion, is an improvement pretty much across the board in terms of gameplay. In terms of systems, there're some questionable choices (e.g. how solo play works) which might put some people off, but IMO are far outweighed by the gameplay itself.

Pros:
+ There're 33 missions on release - that's 13 more than L4D2 had on launch and a solid amount of content.
+ Every weapon feels good and has it's place. An SMG is going to take out a horde like nobody's business, but a sniper will deal with specials in a way an SMG will struggle with. It also encourages you to mix-and-match within the party so that you don't overlap ammo types too much and can share ammo.
+ The specials are varied, interesting, and constant. Sometimes you'll be dealing with 3 or 4 at the same time back to back and those encounters are insane, and feel highly rewarding to get through.
+ The card system is fun. Being able to specialize your character for Melee, or Healing, or anything you want really, really adds a sense that you're working together with a team of individuals with distinct strengths and weaknesses instead of four of the same character with different voices.
+ The bots are really good (a stark contrast to the beta) - they drop you ammo, use explosives during hordes and while reviving you to keep you safe, and call out items that they find. I've had more success with them than other players.

Cons:
- Solo play doesn't earn you progression points. It does however come with all cards unlocked. This is strange decision, as it is impossible to progress through the game without playing with friends or randoms online, but it does act as a nice sandbox mode for testing builds before you have all the cards unlocked.
- Matchmaking for non-act-starter levels and quick play is SLOW. The matchmaking system there is kinda weird and feels like it was only built for continuing campaigns with friends.

God I wanted to like this but I just can't.

NARAKA does everything right in its core systems - free movement, easy to use UI, cool core gameplay loop, great graphics and sound design, lots of combat depth and diversity in the combat, but it just feels jank. The movement feels imprecise, the combat feels off somehow. It's obviously taken some inspiration from Sekiro, but unlike in Sekiro where when my character does something cool it's because I told my character to do something cool, in NARAKA it feels like my character is doing something cool in spite of my inputs. I was feeling it from the tutorial even, and once I got into a real game I noticed it even more.

It reminds me a lot of Ring of Elysium - lots of cool, core, interesting mechanics, decently good looking game, but there's just this inherent jank to the game that I can't get over. If you can, great, you'll have a lot of fun, if you can't, you'll probably be like me, wishing that Hunter's Arena had an actual player base.

I feel like I need to revise this as I've played a TON of this game since. I like it enough that I'd recommend it on sale, but not at full price. Most of the performance issues and bugs I mentioned in my original review are also fixed now (though I did still experience a few in my playthrough).

When I wrote my original review, I'd only tried one of the four classes available in the game (the pyromancer) and I stand by my original review if we're talking specifically about the pyromancer. However, after a sale I decided to give this another shot, and tried out all of the other classes. They're all FAR more enjoyable. There's a lack of enemy variety, the story is ok at best with some sub-par acting early on, but the core gameplay loop and abilities and guns you get feel solid.

Once I gave up on following the story and just put on a TV show in the background and played it like Diablo 3 adventure mode - mindlessly killing things but in a third person shooter instead of ARPG, I had a hell of a lot of fun.

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OG Review:

Played the demo and main game about 3 hours total (2 in demo, 1 in main game), ended up refunding.
The acting and story feel on par with The Room.
The world was interesting but they wasted it by switching over to "Generic Military Shooter" after the prologue.
The abilities feel clunky to use.
Your character teleports all over the place while using objects/doors.
Sometimes enemies just don't respond to your presence.
Enemies spawn out of nowhere all around you, seemingly with no rhyme or reason.
Even with a 3080 I'm having performance issues.
I was interested in the core systems and interesting looking builds, but honestly, with everything else wrong with the game, I just can't force myself to play more.

Good concept well executed, except for one major flaw - there are no audio/video calibration options - the music and visuals will be out-of-sync on a lot of hardware and make the game nigh unplayable. If they ever add this feature I'll probably flip this review to a recommend.

It's fun because they mess with the balance and available heroes and core gameplay ideas every few days so it's always fresh, especially because I basically just play against bots. Super chill game to play on my phone when I got a few moments here and there, or when I'm watching TV or whatever. Would not recommend playing competitively.

Undoubtedly the best game I've played this year so far, and probably the best platformer I've played in my entire life.

Level design is challenging but fair, with new mechanics being constantly added in classic metroidvania style to create more challenging and more interesting puzzles. Visuals are absolutely stunning, with each hand-crafted area having a different theme and new enemy designes to spice things up. The story is minimalist, purposely constructed in such a way that it won't slow down or stop the gameplay, while complimenting the visuals.

If I were to describe this game in one word, it'd be "Beautiful".

Do yourselves a favour and buy this game. Ideally at full price. The game is made by Moon Studios, an indie studio founded by former AAA developers, and supporting them will only mean more games from them in the future.

Really awesome game. Think Megaman with Sonic's speed in a Bastion-style universe with a Mirror's Edge style movement system. Unique, super solid mechanics (though not very forgiving, which in this case I think is a good thing considering it encourages skill over assisting you), good level design with multiple routes to get to the same place with varying difficulty and speeds, and heaps of replay value in trying to improve your times on levels, I'd say it's one of the most fun games I've played all year.

Probably the deepest casual game I've ever played. No in-app purchases, solid level design, really nice mechanics, and nice to play on the bus or train to work when I've only got a couple of minutes to spair, since I can just jump in, die, and come back later! And it regulates your play for you so you don't get stuck for too long! Strongly recommended for any mobile gamer coming to PC or general casual game player :D