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I hear and see alot of people complaining about the 'janky combat' and how clunky the overall game feels. And while that is true, there's so much inside this game that far outshines the negatives. Personally, I always like comparing this game to TES III: Morrowind. Why? As someone who also finished and played Morrowind to death both as a little girl and as an adult now, Elex and Morrowind both have striking similarities.

-Morrowind had a very janky and clunky combat system.
-The structure of how Morrowind's story was laid out is very similar to Elex (multiple choices and a vast array of outcomes)
-Morrowind was punishingly difficult at first, just like Elex. It had very many useless skills and traits that you could spend with on your character, just like Elex. But if you knew exactly what skills you needed in the game (hint hint enchanting, youre welcome :3) then you could break the game wide open and enjoy it to the fullest, again, just like Elex.

There are other similarities between the two games but those are the ones that stand out the most. The point is that if you're someone who doesn't enjoy games like Morrowind which are punishingly hard at first and require a ton of research in order to find whats useful and what isn't, then this game is definitely not for you. And that's okay, alot of people didn't like Morrowind either because it was very janky even for its time. But if you enjoy taking time to know more about the game and poring through different videos (which is exactly what I did in Morrowind to get a level 47 character with broken stats :3), then you will see that it has alot to offer, just like Morrowind did.

TLDR: Elex is essentially TES III: Morrowind's red headed stepchild. There's no denying the fact that it is hard and can be very janky at times, just like Morrowind. But if you're willing to take the time to improve your knowledge about the game, then it offers you a beautiful world with lots of different choices that are very engrossing and a rewarding feeling that you overcame a big challenge, again just like Morrowind. That and shooting robots, raptors and people with cool laser guns while flying in the air is really, really fun. Pew pew. :3

I reviewed the base game for this DLC, Grim Dawn, and gave it a big thumbs up because the gameplay was very good and much more satisfying in my opinion than its ARPG competitors, mainly Diablo.

Ashes of Malmouth is a DLC that begins after you finish the main quest line, and while I think it really adds alot more content to the base game which is already good to begin with, it's not perfect.

My biggest issue with it is that Malmouth, the city in which the entire DLC takes place, is flawed from a level design perspective. Let me explain:

The level design from an aesthetics/looks point of view is perfect in my opinion. The city feels grim and depressed, which is exactly how I would feel if my own city started getting attacked by a bunch of grotesque monsters. There's a subtle but gloomy fog that looms over the whole place, and it reminds me alot of Diablo 3's Act 5 if you ever played that, but better. The design of the slums is rather compelling and captures the feel of what a slum neighborhood actually looks and feels like (I should know since I grew up in a place with a lot of slum areas around). It succeeds in the aesthetic department, thats for sure.

However, the areas are a bit too cramped. Like, really, really cramped. And while I get that they should be since slum neighborhoods usually are, it gets rather difficult to fight a large group of monsters trying to maul you because your character kind of glitches out when you're trying to move out of that area. It's hard to explain unless you've actually experienced it yourself. Imagine a really, really narrow corridor, a group of 15-20 large monsters trying to flank you from both sides and when you try to strategically get yourself out by clicking on a somewhat clear area, my character just does this weird aimbot animation where she just rotates rapidly instead of actually going to that spot. I'm assuming this happens because of how tightly cramped the areas are.

And I know some people will point out that there are skills to control large groups of monsters and that there are movement skills to get you out of sticky situations like this, but even they sometimes bug out because the areas are just so darned tight. It's a nightmare for someone like me who plays squishy mage characters because it forces me to tank everything in the face, and I ended up dying so much because of the level design flaws.

With that being said, I still had a ton of fun and I like how they portrayed the desperation of the city and its residents. I somehow found a way to still finish it in one piece despite getting mauled so many times lol. :'))

Plus, this DLC has a ton of must have features too, like increasing the level cap, new classes and skills and more which also greatly enhance the base game and any other DLCs on it, so I guess I can look the other way with regards to the level design flaws.

TLDR:
Is it worth buying this DLC if you already have the base game? Yes!
Is it perfect? No, some areas will not be very suitable for certain players/builds because of how tightly cramped the city is.

Ashes of Malmouth, despite its glaring level design flaws, is still very, very fun to play and grind, and the atmosphere of desperation within the city was executed much better than Diablo 3's Act 5 which is very similar to this DLC. I'd still recommend buying it especially if you already have the base game or are planning on getting it. Plus, tanky builds won't even notice the design flaws too much since they can take hordes of monsters coming at their face anyway, so if you're primarily a player who plays tank builds, then you won't even notice it too much. And there's the fact that you get tons of new features that also enhance the base game, so I'd say its still a great buy despite the few annoying issues. :3

I've been playing many ARPGs since I was a little girl; I was saw my daddy play them and love them alot and it kinda rubbed off on me to this day. My first ARPG was Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance on the Playstation 2, and I've played it's sequel, Champions of Norrath, Untold Legends, Diablo 1 and 3, TitanQuest and some more that I forgot about. O.o

I've always been eyeing this game for a while now and decided to buy it when it went on sale. My verdict is.. it's the perfect ARPG gameplay wise. It's build system is so much better than D3 and so is it's gameplay; it's essentially the better version of Diablo 3 except for the lore because the story is kind of generic in my opinion.

I've also never liked the idea of "Seasons" and resetting your characters back to zero in ARPGs. While I understand that making alot of characters is fun (I have several in Grim Dawn already), it kind of defeats the whole purpose of playing an ARPG in the first place: the grind and satisfaction of getting a rare item after lots of grinding. I've invested so much time into one of my characters in Diablo 3 (1,127 hours to be exact), grinding so much for the best gear only to know that the build is obsolete 3 seasons later and that, to get a bunch of cool cosmetics and to enjoy the newest buffs and items for my character, I have to go back to level zero and forfeit all of my normal items. It's really dumb to me and I feel like it only caters to players who literally have nothing else to do in their life but play ARPGs, and while I've loved these games for a long time, I feel like it alienates the rest of us who only have a limited amount of time to play each week. I certainly don't have time to make a new character every 3 months in order to grind for the absolute best gear, oh no, no.

TLDR:
Does grim dawn have seasons? No* (Yay!)
Does it have massive replayability despite having no seasons? Yes!
Is the gameplay satisfying and fun to grind? Yes!
Is the skill and build system engrossing and deep? Yes!
If you like games like Diablo, please get this. It's ridiculously good, caters to regular players like me who don't have time to play 20 hours a day while still feeling like I'm progressing and getting stronger, the gameplay is so satisfying and it's just plain and simple great.

If you want a good story though, I think you're better off with Diablo 4 or a Lord of the Rings game in my opinion, it's kind of weak in that regard. But I don't really care too much about lore in an APRG, it's all about blowing up screens of monsters, at least for me anyway :P

*Update: Grim Dawn DOES have seasons, but with a twist: It's run entirely by the community and absolutely does not force anyone to play it the way Diablo and GGG did. They add alot of cool features to the game with new mechanics, and anyone, even people like me who don't want to compete in the season, can still enjoy it by getting it as a stand alone mod offline. Oh how I wish I could have done that with Diablo 3's Ethereals, but those were for season plays ONLY. :'( (I was one of the first people who thought of a magic missile build in D3 but I didn't want to play in the season) Now even non season players can enjoy season items, buffs and skills now too. This is honestly how I've always wanted seasons to be executed in competing ARPGs.

My verdict stays the same with this game; it even does seasons better than Diablo and Path of Exile and caters to all players, competitive or not. If you love ARPGs, then there's no reason for you not to get Grim Dawn. The only weakness I see the game has in the generic story, but even that's starting to grow on me for some weird reason. I guess I'm just fangirling at this point. :P

This review is going to be more of a review about Tekken 8 rather than 7, to provide some perspective between the two games and their major differences so that newer players can understand just why T7 and T8 are so different. Tekken 8 has already released as of the making of this review, so I can't help but compare the two. Plus, by understanding Tekken 8, you will understand Tekken 7's true strengths.

I have been playing Tekken for over 18 years starting in the arcades back during the Tekken 5 era, then 6, Bloodline Rebellion, Tag 2 and Tag 2 Unlimited, 7 and Fated Retribution all the way up to this point. Some of the highlights I've had during those 18 years was 2-0'ing the current Combo Breaker Champion back in 2021 during a high stakes sponsored player only tournament. I've been playing Tekken for quite a long time, long enough to understand how Tekken works at a fundamental level.

To start, Tekken 8 has many, many flaws to point out, but some of the most notable ones is the ridiculous combo damage. Players, casual or veterans, can easily pull out 100+ damage combos without much effort and it severely damages the game leading to terrible balance issues. The whole point of a fighting game is to be as precise and strategic as it can be, but there's not much satisfaction from getting a win (or losing) from just doing a ridiculous combo that empties the opponent's life bar without much effort. This does *not* happen in Tekken 7 (unless you're playing against a high level Akuma/Geese player.. which is why people dislike 2D characters at all levels, but that's another story altogether).

Another major flaw in Tekken 8's game design comes from the infamous Heat system. It can instantly turn the tide of a match, again without much effort, and most if not all attacks from this mechanic result in an instant comeback. This encourages panic plays; even when you've strategically cornered an opponent, they can just easily use the heat system to instantly turn the tides on you. No effort, no thinking; they can literally just mash out of a bad situation with the Heat system. This system does not exist in Tekken 7 (which is a good thing) and encourages players to be more precise with their decisions rather than just encouraging them to panic and throw big damage moves at each other.

Speaking of panicking, another major flaw of Tekken 8 is how it generally encourages players to panic, which is NOT a good thing in a fighting game. Unlike Tekken 7, panicking usually if not always results in you losing a large chunk of your health if you're fighting a strong opponent. However in Tekken 8, it's actually a viable strategy to just panic and throw a launcher (which is a combo starter if you're not familiar with Tekken jargon) because the resulting combo will do so much damage that it's actually a decent gamble to take now, completely nullifying the whole point of strategic thinking in a fighting game.

T8's biggest flaw is shoehorning every single player to play in a very specific style ("offensively") extends to every system the game has and it suffers from it as a whole. Tekken 7 gave people the freedom to choose a style and although at the meta, Korean Backdashing and defense are usually superior, a smart player can strategically find ways around this with enough effort.

Now think about this; wouldn't T8 have sounded and become so much better if they said: "Tekken 8. The game that encourages YOU to find YOUR style. Defensive? You are welcome here. Offensive? We are open to warriors like you. Something in between? Absolutely. Test your mettle in a game where everyone is encouraged to find their own style!" instead of "Tekken 8, play offensively. That's it, just be really offensive and press alot of buttons. Don't think."

The direction in which they took this game's sequel was flawed from the very beginning, and several veteran players are already shying away from it because of how fundamentally broken it is. None of those issues are present in Tekken 7.

TLDR: Tekken 8 could have been great. The graphics, the voice acting, the sound effects, even the UI and the enhanced replay feature are all wonderful and welcome additions. However they flubbed where it mattered the most; gameplay. It encourages players think less and press more which is counter to how classic Tekken always was. It will force you to play in only one style and if you don't, the losses and frustration will simply rack up. There is not much strategy in this game and if you want the satisfying feeling of outthinking your opponent with a perfectly timed, tactical play, then you're definitely better off getting Tekken 7 instead. I eventually uninstalled T8 after reaching Tekken God and didn't want to go any higher because of how repetitive and brainless the meta is. And so after after playing this game's sequel for 200 or so hours, I decided to come back here, because the point of playing a game is to have fun, after all. And to me and alot of other people, Tekken 8 is *not* fun. But Tekken 7 is. :)