Recent reviews by RionRaios

I bought this near on release day with no special somethings whatsoever because I've always done that when I can for Supergiant's games. I have loved this studio since Bastion. They have never failed me. And even when I thought they did with Hades, it was really just me not getting what the signature Supergiant Twist was to the genre.

And this is me making this Review during Early Access. While the expectations are it's not polished, what's there looks mighty fine already. And for things that need to be polished, this is as much a process of discovery and helping a studio I love so much make this game BETTER.

The story's already intriguing. I think I need a new gamepad, though, haha, but just a few hours in and I'm starting to get the hang of the combat system. That's good design, in my opinion, given how I suck in these games. A good deal of the elements from Hades I are here, but there's also the fun in learning the new things. And the new cast of characters.

Battles seem harder than with Hades, though. But that's probably just me, haha :D

Underworld toad plushie when?

I love its blend of Roguelike, platforming, RPG lite, and story. The combat and skilsl system is also quite well done.

Once you get the hang of it, this game is quite the little time-waster gem. Not just about button-mashing and shooting everything that moves (well, there ARE hostages to think about), but also involves some tactics and use of the map. Very nice, indeed.

Secret Word: Angel

Fascinating that when I took this (at the urging of the special person who gifted this to me), I'd just finished Part II of 86 and was rewatching Ep 22 again and again.

What Lena told Shin... was what this game told me.

Omoshiroi.

Came for the girls - pun not intended - but stayed for the strategy needed to win the match-3 in later dates and when you get to have a more... intimate moment with the girls.

That latter Match-3 is especially harder because your score degrades overtime and the clicker is somehow off-center from the icons so you drag the wrong thing sometimes (often with some girls. weird) and you watch your score drop really quickly as you try to recover.

Has it really just been 10 hours?

I've spent most of my time building houses hahaha :D And, no, this isn't some vanity thing. You NEED proper shelter to survive this game. And shelter properly constructed. They actually have mex for smoke indoors! And its effect on fires!

I haven't even gone on to take on the first boss. Because:

1, I will first ensure my shelter(s) are fine, Plural. Because I built one near where the first boss will spawn so I don't have to worry about the environment.

2. I need to craft good gear. That will take a bit. Because the crude bow is crap, the flint spear even crappier, and the deer are hard to hunt.

3. And food. Can't forget food. Berries and cooked meat and cooked... reptile. I certainly hope that thing was a reptile.

Thank God for Survival 101 lessons.

This game should be nominated for Game of the Year.

By the time you're done with Supergiant's first two games - Bastion and Transistor - you come to expect at least one thing with that most awesome of indie developers: there is a good story in this game.

Yet, I wasn't prepared for it.

Right now, thinking about it, especially my first playthrough, that feeling I got from each successfully completed storyline was akin to what you get reading a Guy Gavriel Kay novel. Certainly not the beautiful heartrending melancholy of Lions of Al-Rassan, nor that image that haunts GGK's fans everytime someone shouts "Liadon!". But... there is bittersweetness to it.

There is a... poignancy to this game. As you play it more, the game aspect becomes almost (almost! It's a very good fantasy sports game, after all. YOU SUPERGIANT GUYS AND THE WAY YOU PUT TWISTS IN GENRES!) secondary. Where is the tale of your group going to this time? Will you once again sweep the competition? What happens if you lose this time?

And who will...

This game drew me in like few ever did. I think the only time I truly cared for a bunch of organized code was with my team in ME2.

In that last time I completed the game, I decided the last one up wouldn't be me. No, my friend, my teammate, you go. You be the last. They need you up there.

And then the story at the end played out.

And...

...

That's my heart, right there, Supergiant. Thank you, for such a beautiful game.

Edit 9 Feb. 2021:

Here's your TLDR: DO NOT BUY THIS GAME because you cannot play it consistently for even an HOUR most times without it crashing on you.

And the kicker? Ubisoft is probably saying "no, nothing's wrong with the Division, that's just a bunch of griping gamers" because THEIR OWN TOOL won't send the crash reports to them!

And it's probably nothing wrong with your rig, even one that's old as mine! DX Dialogue is open. It's saying "no problems detected". Hellfire, I play DOA6 on this rig and that game WORKS FINE. Before I abandoned it a month or two ago, I was playing Genshin Impact on this rig with my net connex WITH NARY A HICCUP.

So it's not my rig or even my crappy Philippine connection that's at fault, Ubisoft: it's your bloody infrastructure that's still crap in 2021.

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. EVEN ON SALE.

In fact, I should have listened to the people who warned me about Uplay and not plunked money into this game. I thought, "can't be that bad, right? It's an old game. How horrid could Uplay be? I mean, it's not EA."

I'm just playing it because I have to make the PhP I put into this thing and the 40 gig it ate from my bandwith somehow worth it. Even then, given the aggravation I get from the crashes - sometimes with you just STANDING THERE IN A SAFE HOUSE DOING NOTHING - makes me think it maybe isn't worth it.

Maybe I'll just DL Insurgency. Or reinstall ME2. Or just get my adrenaline fix from Hades.

-------------------- Previous Review Begins here -------------------

This is going to be the first negative review (I think) I am going to make of a game.

Normally, I don't bother - I mean, if I didn't research a game enough before buying it, why go public and condemn it, right? Age of Information. That stuff should be on me - but I felt I have to do this to warn other people about the problems with this game.

Or maybe any other game from Ubisoft that requires both an Internet connection and UPlay.

And you don't have a fast Net connection and specs that can run, say, CP2077.

The Division is actually a good game. In the currently 9 or so hours I have been ABLE to play the game, the experience has been nothing but stellar. Even at the low settings I play it on (because my rig is old) WHEN I CAN PLAY THE GAME she is still quite an experience.

I have played a good deal of FPSes - Resistance: Fall of Man; Crysis 2; all of the Fallout FPS RPGs; Borderlands 1; the first Metro; the ME trilogy - and only one or two of them can compare to the kind of game experience in even a game as old (in 2021) as The Division.

This is a VERY VERY GOOD GAME.

That requires crappy digital infrastructure from the developer/publisher to play.

Seriously, I have spent more time trying to connect to effing Uplay, consistently getting those MIKE and ROMEO errors when I can easily stream even hi-res videos on my connection.

And when you DO connect, you get dumped by the game for one reason or another. Twice, there was an actual error that prompted the reporting tool but it refused to send because I guess Uplay is being a hard-to-get little bugger.

It's 2021, for God's sake. You'd think they'd fixed the bloody thing by now.

And if a game is not an MMO, then maybe make it so the bloody thing can run even without a Net connex?

This game is great. Excellent even.

But unless you have an amazing Net connection and great gear, don't buy this. Then again, I checked several forums and people with far, far better gear than I were also reporting problems. Heck, I checked the DX tool and found out that, except maybe for the VRAM, I actually have better than the minimum requirements for the game.

I just want to unload some stress after a week of work by unloading my Police M4 and Classic M1A on some bad digital people trying to abuse good citizens during a pandemic. I do NOT want to have to wait for hours trying to connect to some bloody effing system and then the game dies for no apparent reason when you do.

I remember playing Crescent Hawk's Inception. We'd been playing the 2nd ed (or was that first ed?) boardgame for sometime then.

This brings back so much awesome memories and then some. Despite the changes in the stats, it truly captures boardgame Battletech for real.

As usual, Supergiant delivers. Their (first?) foray into the... Souls-like genre, added to their always-fresh take on mechanics for old game modes is great in my books. Although the Souls-like aspect of always coming back to the start when you die can get... tiring.

This is basically Bastion + Souls :D

Still good, and a worthy addition to the pantheon of Supergiant's games.

Edit [04/02/2021]:

I take back what I said about the dying. That's the NARRATIVE DEVICE.

I was wondering where the story was. Supergiant is always - ALWAYS - amazing with its narrative. I CRIED that first time I finished Pyre.

Death is the narrative device.

It's that age-old question of game design on how to make failure meaningful. Well, here it is: it's how Supergiant tells the story.

Got this during Early Access. That was already a full game. v1.0 is even BETTER.

And we get a nice ending.

Ending?

Just the start of a new chapter in the narrative.