Recent reviews by Orbee

This is the saddest not recommended I have ever had to write! I have been following this game since the snippets of video first landed on YT and it is clear the devs have a vision and love this project, but there are some things that need attention before it is ready for full release. Let's hope Early Access fixes them!

Starting with the good, the game is very pretty. The art style is amazing and the creature design is creative. The sound design is also good, I love the musical scores, they aren't intrusive and fit really well with the art style. The characters themselves are an eclectic mix which brings personality and life to the story. The game itself has a slightly surreal vibe to it and when you view it in the light of a cosy, single player game, it hits the right notes in a new way. The devs also seem quite communicative and have implemented fixes quickly.

But... there's room for improvement. What distracted me from enjoying this game is the quality of life issues and the empty feel within the game. Let me explain.

The game I was expecting was an ecosystem builder that was slightly sandbox and that the enjoyment would come from the environment and being a part of that. In it's current state, the quality of life issues pull me out of that immersion and therefore the main appeal of the game is gone.

Firstly the environments are pretty, but quite insulated. For example, creatures show up but that's kind of it. They don't really interact with each other, or you, other than being a bit scared. There doesn't seem to be any creative way to interact with the environment either. Everything is behind the button 'E' and a gathering node, even animals will just drop an item. You can't build trust with them and harvest them like a lot of wildlife-centric games approach gathering. Harvesting is boring and you feel like you are walking around the map to collect x amount of a thing to fill in a quest requirement. Nothing really happens whilst you do this, you are just looking for indicators above the gathering nodes. This is made worse by the fact you don't really set your own goals for crafting as it's all quest line related.

To compound this issue the inventory management is horrendous. There isn't many slots for personal inventory, which is okay, apart from the requirements for building and repairing essential tools are quite high. This is because the resources you require will be difficult to find in large amounts and a lot of the resources require use of a tool, so you end up in a vicious cyle of trying to repair your tools all the time, rather than being able to focus on questlines. To make matters worse, tools are stored in the inventory so by the time you have x2 weapons, x 3 gathering tools and the assortment of items to repair these, there's not much room for anything else. This means you avoid combat, avoid exploring, avoid following curiosity because you might not be able to keep or use what you find. Not great for this type of game. Keeping in mind that harvesting is boring and that most of the game play revolves around depositing items into a different inventory, this really makes the game more of a chore than an enjoyment.

To compound this, the UI is also awful. It's convoluted. You use way too many key presses than are needed sometimes and it isn't consistent. For example, you can press E to advance dialogue but not to choose a response. This is the same for some menu options, where you might use F to choose an item, but R to do something else with it and then you need to click a menu option to confirm that action. What? The radial menu also requires that you assign an item, press R, move to the item you need and click a mouse button to use it. It's just not fluid. You spend a lot of time just fiddling around in inventory rather than enjoying the pretty environment or game play.

UI also doesn't display consistently. It won't show you your health bar or stamina bar, even when doing things that might require you to know this, like swimming. Instead it relies on sound cues, which are annoying for the most part. There's no options to adjust any of this, so it just adds yet another layer of management that takes you out of the immersion of this immersion reliant game.

The movement isn't too good either. It just feels inconsistent. Heavy and slow in some areas and light and fast in others, it makes it jarring to play and feels unpolished. Pair that with the fact that the player is fragile and healing in the game is cumbersome, it makes combat really not fun. You get hit a few times and you are listening to a heart beat noise for the rest of the session, because the game uses sound cues rather than just showing us the UI consistently. Drops will easily kill you, but it can be hard to control due to the heaviness of the movement, or you might fall because the UI isn't there and the only indicator is a flashing warning sign above the character when it's usually a bit too late.

There are balance issues with the character too, in that healing requires you to cook to get anything slightly worthwhile. But to use this you have to have it equipped, or on that cumbersome radial menu, to equip it and then use it. Combat isn't hard but it isn't fun either because there just isn't enough to allow you to want to engage in combat or explore.

Overall, these issues can be solved in early access. They are mostly quality of life improvements and I have hope that the devs will use feedback to polish the game to it's potential. It's a great concept, but not well executed currently. I wouldn't recommend, based on this, but maybe later on in the Early Access cycle, I will have a different view!

Honestly a lot of fun. Not overly scary, puzzler elements and goofy mechanics that can help or hinder your team mates. Good with friends. Each of the monsters have their own mechanic and counter play. Would be great to see the roster expanded and maybe some more map types as currently it's just the one type.

Worth 8.50 for sure though!

A good little horror co-op. Set objectives to do while trying not to die to seemingly random spawns of infected creatures. Pretty standard horror co-op, doing objectives and trying not to die. The first few matches we died, sometimes to stupidity, other times because the creatures out numbered us. As the matches went on we learnt more about where things were and it made it easier, which was nice to have that feeling of progression through game knowledge.

There's a few perk points and things to buy with end of match currency, but I didn't find any of them really useful. The game itself isn't all that scary either, no jump scares, just more horror themed bad guys to act as roadblocks to your goal. The atmosphere is creepy, but the game itself isn't scary as such. I think it would be scarier with some more thought out mechanics for the monsters, they don't appear to be that unique from each other.

Overall though, fun game that I paid a tiny amount for. Will maybe play again for the sake of achievements. I'd recommend if you like the horror theme and want to play something with friends.

Climb stuff with friends. Try not to fall, or fall out with friends.

Fun little platformer with some collectables and a challenge mode. Puzzles/obstacles aren't too hard but silly mistakes (or people pressing E) can reset an hour of good work. Worth 4 quid.

Okay so... I'm not recommending this game currently.

What's there is good. It's got a really interesting base automation mechanic and I think all the unlocks for the character are great. The combat feels good and the random roles on your tribe members add a layer to your base automation. There's a load of solid and refreshing mechanics to be built on.

But it does need work. I didn't find myself wanting to explore. The wildlife is pretty boring, like it doesn't do anything other than attack you or ignore you, it doesn't flee or interact with each other and it feels like it has just been placed there. The world doesn't feel immersive. The areas to explore and collect items feel pretty copy paste, with random chests that look the same placed on the floor. The map has no verticality, like there's cliffs and hills and rivers but there's nothing on them or in them. There's no reason for me to want to move further than my base because it's not engaging.

I think give it some time, if they can make the world feel a little more engaging and alive, then there will be a real gem of a game here. But for now, just give it time.

I am editing my review as I had only played about 3 hours at the time of my initial review. I thought this was going to be a good game, but I under estimated how good! This is quickly becoming one of my favourite games.

It has the old school vibe and humour to it and despite being a survival craft game, each area feels like you have made it through a level. There's easter eggs! The map itself is phenomenal, it's unique in design and rewards exploration and map knowledge.

The resource gathering mechanic instils a sense of really being trapped with finite resource, but the portal mechanic balances this out so you don't get stuck or frustrated. The crafting is sensible and good quality of life features are there, either as upgrades or just part of the game.

The character levelling is simple enough but there's lots of ways to do it so you can easily re-roll on another save file to try new things and it gives the game loads of replayability. Unlike some survival craft games, where the story is a back drop, you are actively playing along to progress the game and this gives you objectives to play toward and for me, made me invested in the world building.

All of the other mechanics in the game, like base building and defence, crafting and managing health are solid but with refreshing additions, such as mini games that make mundane tasks much more engaging.

I'm sad that this game isn't receiving more attention, as considering as well that it's an early access title, is a real gem. You'd be crazy not to pick it up.

I followed the development of this game prior to release and was pretty excited for it, it appealed to me because it seemed like a Remnant series style of game with the re-roll style realms, but with a survival-esque twist. Sadly the game play just didn't grab me. It just felt a little bland.

I am going to come back to it after a few updates and some time as I think the potential is there. Maybe it just doesn't interest me, maybe it's not the game for me, maybe it needs some time to cook.

I have barely scratched the surface of this game at the time of writing this, but what I have played has been loads of fun. For those of you that haven't played a Dragon's Dogma game, I describe it as if some one had chucked Skyrim and Dark Souls into a blender.

The game has loads of quests. I wouldn't say the writing or the stories to these are great, they aren't on the level of something like the Witcher, but they are fun (sometimes painful too) and can have a few choices to make. NPCs can die for real for real including quest line NPCs. You can revive them with in game mechanics if you need to. You can also feed the NPCs you don't like to the brine.

Travelling about is fun, there's usually something that wants to kill you around each corner. Exploring has reward and there's roleplay elements hard baked into the mechanics, such as needing to rest and fast travel has the opportunity to engage in combat along the way. It's more immersive and means you actually feel like you are out in the wild rather than just running/fast travelling from location to location.

Combat is great, probably the best bit of the game. There's a fair few skills attached to each vocation and you can level each one up, you aren't locked into anything. There's a load of creative ways to defeat enemies, be it rolling a boulder into a strategically placed explosive, yeeting them off a cliff or just using a clever combo of spells. It's a game where it's actually fun to fight even trash enemies.

For the technical bits, the graphics are... okay. Nothing spectacular. I haven't had the performance issues that some people have gotten (i7, 3070ti) but if you are unsure, I'd do your research before buying. I enjoy the slightly online aspects of the game, it's interesting to see what characters people have made. Character creation in this game is brilliant, not too much but enough for me to spend an hour making a character. Sound design and voice acting is... alright. The game play its self makes up for any of the shortfalls in these areas though. The game really allows creative approaches and in an RPG you'd think that was standard, but DD2 does it so well.

The price... I think it's a bit high for what it is. I will get loads of hours out of it, but in it's current state I'd say unless you know you are going to get loads of hours out of it, wait for sale. I do recommend the game, especially to people who enjoy RPGs but just be sure before you buy full price!

I describe this game as Minecraft meets Darksouls and I guess Valheim is also a fair comparison. The general gameplay loop is explore the area and it's resources and use them to unlock the next tier to explore the next area. Each area has points of interest, which can include caves, ruins, enemy encampments of varying sizes and puzzle based towers and dungeons. There's areas between biomes that are unsafe and you can only survive for set periods in these areas.

Combat in this game is fairly straight forward but it's simplicity means that you can try out loads of builds, which is supported by a fun skill tree. You can reset the skill tree at any time to change your fighting style. Combat has dodging, blocking, parrying, ranged and magic attacks, stealth and aggro mechanics, underpinned by stamina and health. It's fun.

You also have various weapons and armor to play with, which are crafted by various crafting NPCs you can summon to your base. They unlock more things to craft as you progress and will even give you quests as you progress. In the recent update you also need to meet some basic needs for them such as a sheltered bed, to access recipies. Alongside these NPCs you can recruit other townsfolk as well as farm animals and pets, which makes your base feel a lot less static and pointless.

The building in this game is phenomenal. It is block based, with conan style decoration placeables, so the community have some wildly creative things out there. It's such a joy to build, with quality of life such as undo and you can use the blocks to carve out building space, or your pickaxe. You can make pretty much anything, from tiny hobbit homes and tree houses to huge fortresses.

The game is really worth a look. I think it deserves more attention than it gets, because there's a lot to it. If you are an RPG or survival fan, don't skip!

Palworld is an automation crafter centered around creature collection and some light survival elements. It's a refreshing take on the crafting genre, where your creatures are your crafters and the gameplay loop surrounds finding, raising and utilising your pals in an efficient way.

There's lots of comparisons to other games but really it's due to the overlaps that Palworld has with these genres. It clearly takes inspiration from lots of areas of successful games in creature collector, survival craft games but it really is its own thing.

There are dungeons, various mini or overworld bosses, 'proper' boss battles and settlements with basic traders to find around the map. There are also raids that can happen and bad guys out in the wild. Creatures can get sick and you need to make sure they are well fed and cared for. The exploration is fun, with mounts, gliding and climbing. The survival elements aren't too punishing but can be ramped up or toned down to suit your play style.

As an early access title, it's perfectly playable and enjoyable. One of the best EA releases in a while. However, there are areas of the game that still feel a bit bare bones. There is a lot of potential in this game and I really hope that the devs continue to pour lots of love into it, I want more!

I strongly recommend this game as a relaxing creature collecting title, that's worth full price imo.