Recent reviews by Nemi

Graven is a game about wasted potential.

A modern Hexen or Heretic with evocative dark fantasy artstyle, a range of upgradable weapons going from fantastical to mystical, a sufficiently wide bestiary and classic puzzles, switch-pulling and key-seeking gameplay? The idea sounds great.

The implementation is unfortunately lacking and much of that can be blamed on the atrocious map design. While areas are beautiful and distinctive, objectives tend to be stowed away in odd places requiring extensive backtracking- and the removal of the in-game map with the full release in light of that is actually criminal, resulting in aimless wandering to try to find whatever door the key you found opens for longer than I'd like. That could be forgiven if the combat was more fun, but unfortunately that is lacking too.

Combat itself is fairly simple. Use weapon, shoot monster. Some enemies have weakpoints so you can bash them with your stick and dispatch them more easily. This is fine in Act 1, where you have a nice mix between projectile slinging cultists, burly warriors, expendable zombies and the like. The real problem comes in Act 2, where enemies are very, very durable, rush at you in massive hordes, sprint at Mach 2 and shear off a third of your health per swing. Some slow you and fire projectiles that are nearly hitscan. All do far too much damage.

I'm playing on Ordained difficulty, the 'normal' difficulty. More times than I'd like to admit I'd been suddenly mobbed by chilly zombies sprinting in from outside view range like cruise missiles and murdered, and frankly, I got tired of struggling through screens reading YOU LOST 271 GOLD to continue the aimless wandering, lever and door search to continue.

Wo Long is, at its core, much like Nioh 2- you make a character with a robust character creator and enter a mythical take on dramatic and pivotal moments of history, meeting important and notable figures and fighting demons, humans, and undead in sprawling levels. The addition of jumping and mantling opens up a great deal more verticality to the level design, which is also a nice plus.The actual core gameplay of Wo Long is fantastic. It feels like if Sekiro and Nioh had a baby and honeymooned in Three Kingdoms China; there's a great flow in attack-deflect-attack-deflect, and Nioh 2 players will feel right at home dealing with the 'burst attacks' used by many enemies. Exploration, intense combat, wild boss designs, cleverly hidden loot with lots of tiny % numbers, so far it has it all, and I've enjoyed it immensely.But there are severe, glaring issues that keep me from recommending the game. While the graphical options are decently in-depth, performance is lacking, with FPS drops, video flickering, and outright CTDs happening regularly, even in scenes with little on the screen. This is very disappointing given the quality of Team Ninja's previous ports. Further, important features of the game are not adequately explained if at all; I was not even aware there was a world map until I started menu-hunting at a banner, the game's equivalent to bonfires/graces/checkpoints, and thus missed four chapters worth of side missions and other content. The core of the game is fantastic. But right now, actually getting to it is a struggle and a half.EDIT: After the recent major patch, I'm pleased to report that the game runs much better than it had previous, with no crashes to my experience. While most of my points about the lacking enemy variety remain, I think I can actually recommend playing it.

It's pretty good.

Somewhat unstable, but genuinely incredibly fun to play. Vermintide 2 with the Warhammer 40k finish; the atmosphere, the sound design, the visual design, are all spectacular. I'm very much eager for full release.

Despite some bumpy DLC (and the introduction of some truly frustrating mechanics in Winds of Magic), this is a stellar game with visceral gameplay, a great feeling of immersion in the world-setting, nice new QoL features and memorable banter. Sienna's fourth class when?

Great goofy fun. A wild, wacky arcade experience with enough humor and violent fun to earn its price and a few replays besides.

Loved it. Also pre-ordered. Extremely viscerally fun to play. While there are optimization issues, I expect these are amongst the things most heavily reported on for fixes.

One of my favourite games of all time despite my relatively small playtime. While the loot system is basically Diablo-esque and thus not particularly thrilling and heavily RNG-gated, the actual storyline- being so intrinsically about /you/ while also about a historical figure weaved in with other historical figures and fantastical characters, and the fact that the story is its own sequel, prequel twice, and back to itself again, it remains interesting and entertaining and somehow more grabbing than William's story in Nioh 1.

The gameplay is clean, slick, and fun, the boss battles are satisfying, the combat is surprisingly deep and the movement feels slick, swift, and effortless. And there's a TON of content. Though some side missions are retreads of maps from Nioh 1 or remixes of main missions, things are varied enough to continually remain fresh, especially through later playthroughs thanks to the introduction of curses and set bonuses along with different monster distribution. It hits my looter ARPG itch while also hitting my Edo Period itch and I love it.

Game sucks. It's miserable to play, disconnections are still rampant, general gameplay is a mess.

I can't stop playing it. Help.

game's alright