Recent reviews by TankTheta

Mechanically, I think most of the game's improved.
No weird wirebug mechanics or Clutch claw. Hope they don't add that. Just keeping to this focused gameplay with some nice additions has been great.
I do think the earlier monsters are a touch too easy but they've really raised up the setpieces in main missions. And the monsters have been fun to fight. And the focus mechanic, while a bit weird does lead to some really awesome moments.

But man. The Performance. It's pretty bad. Like easily the worst Monster Hunter has had. I need to lower all my settings to the lowest to get 30 fps. I have to effectively curb stomp all the visual fidelity the game had to offer just to run it at half the performance of World. This isn't how things should be. I can play the game, enjoy my time.
But this is astoundingly bad. I can't recommend the game in good faith if I'm getting that bad performance.

So, until a major performance update comes along, that's the score. I don't recommend the game. I don't want to encourage this horrendous level of performance for the future of Monster Hunter.

Fix the softlock.

Deadlock lmao

EDIT: I'm going to keep the review negative and wait. Just to see how this all pans out. But it seems as though the PSN linking has been averted through glorious consumer pushback.
You've done your part.

My fears have come to pass for Helldivers 2.
Sony reaches it's clawed hand over the developers.

Through requiring PlayStation Network accounts to be linked to your STEAM account. Just so you can play. PlayStation, (notorious for massive data breaches, high tracking of user activity and more), want to link to your steam account.
What a joke.
Forcing PSN is a death nail to this game. And we know they're going to reach further, of course. Because this is already so outrageous that any move is justified. Just like Stella Blade's censoring, it will probably happen here too, if not worse. Or lets be honest, the extreme monitzation push that makes gaining new weapons and other enjoyable elements a horrid grind or even basically impossible.
So if this goes through, I think a lot of us are done with the game.

I hate to say it, but this is what happens when you shake hands with the devil.
The Devil eventually takes his due.

EDIT: There appears to of been ALOT of publisher interferance this time around. While I don't recommend the game still, I think I'm a bit more sympathetic to dev. It seems he has the 2.0 update, but wasn't able to release it due to said interferance by the publisher.

It's a bit tragic. I only hope this gets resolved eventually.

RIP, Revita.

Tbh, I don't think there's that much depth.
It's an interesting concept, but the lack of action variety is a serious problem. Especially since most rewards are very similar to each other due to this. That being "new dice". Perhaps some relics/ run modifying items would be nice? Ones that give boosts on specific tiles, ones that encourage specific builds, etc?
As it stands, I think the demo has shown most of what the game has to offer.

I'm not sure if the game will be able to solve that without some serious changes.

I think, as it stands, the game needs some polish.
First notable issue, lack of feedback. Alot of sounds feel missing, especially regarding firing sounds and hit sounds. I think this is important for the game, kinetic wise.

Second issue. I feel like I'm not interacting with the game once I put down the cards. I'm waiting, ages, for a round to end. Once or twice it's fine, but it's every round that it's like this. It's my main issue, arguably. I'm just watching a machine I set up go to town and I'm not involved. It'd be nice if the charge bar was charging mana each 5 seconds, and you acted in real time. As it stands, it's an incredibly uninvolved experience. And when I compare to other games of the two genres it's trying to fuse together, I don't think it's there yet.
I mean, lets look first off at deckbuilders. You place your cards, at at most you gotta wait like 2-5 seconds for an attack to happen. And the high end is usually for 3 or so enemies.
Then the "Tower defence". Well, you usually get a major active tool you can use heaps. And the rounds are generally pretty quick. AND, especially with some of the best TDs, you get to act in real time too, if you are fast enough.

There's none of that here.


Third issue, I don't feel many enemies are interesting. I've gotten pretty far, but they just don't feel very dynamic. Nothing really surprises me, because aside the fun animations they all act pretty similar. I think Dome Keeper had much better variety in that regard.

Forth issue, the tower and upgrades itself. This is a real sour point. I find that having 2 slots for AGES is extremely punishing, but more importantly it's not fun. I want to really build that tower to the moon, I want to place my garisons around it and really control the flow of battle. But I don't have any of that. There's no control and very little engagement in this regard. You spend a good majority of your time trying to max out towers until you get another slot or waste that chance by grabbing another relic.
And, the other items, aren't very engaging. Most are stats up in a specific "type" of damage, or a "tower or garrison". A few cards spice it up, like reload, but there's not very many. For a deckbuilder, it's really quite limited. There's not even a block, or reactive attacks back (because enemies die immediately when they touch the tower), no heals except via draws, no interesting mega attacks that are just playable as cards. It's mainly just focused on damage buffing permanently, and tower building. Which isn't exciting.
There isn't much build variety. Because there isn't much cards, especially not many that define how the game plays as a deck builder. I'm sure the other candidates might have more, but I don't feel like this was a great showing. Because I can't SEE that, with this demo. I can't check the others and give my honest thoughts.

Ontop of that, some towers are just not well designed. Judgement, especially. Judgement is an "orbital" based one, but the moment your enemies pass the radius, it becomes useless. An entire tower slot for this? If it at least moved back and forth based on the closest enemies that'd be nice. And the Garrison minions feel inconsistent, even at their very best it's an issue. If there was a way to target, that'd help.

Overall, I wanted to like this demo but I'm not feeling it. It feels half baked. A cool idea, but not much under the hood. Which is a bad sign for a deckbuilder.
I hope some changes are made. There's a strong concept here.

Game's quite a fun trip. The bosses and varied enemies do make it interesting, as well as the varied weapons. And it can be quite brutal too due to the low HP at base. Dev clearly cares about the game and is constantly making changes :D

The game has alot of style, but man does it feel half baked in the gameplay department.

Everything just feels incredibly slow recovery wise. It feels like there's not correct feedback and this sort of weirdness to it. It sucks because I really enjoy the enemy designs and the style alot. But I want a game that inherently feels good to play. Not a stiff one.

With
-The money makin model. (Goodbye customisation)
-The ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ GODAWFUL bugs (Especially for hit detection, melee and rockets get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ the most with sounds going off "indicating a hit" but no actual projectile or damage even firing)
-The small amount of maps (One of which is awful. You know the one)
-The lack of forge (They'll add it, totally)
-The lack of bloody customisation (Ah yes, pay for season passes for even less customisation)
-The bad gimmicky game modes added (The "Fortnite" mode was the worst mode by far. Why on god's green earth is this in a Halo game)
-The new weapons that are just ineffectively or poorly designed (Ah yes, a piss poor shotgun that takes 2-3 hits at CLOSE RANGE to even kill.)

And on top of all that, the knowledge that this game was assembled by literally 1000 developers, making this outright the buggiest and most unstable Halo (which will kill any chances of Forge, trust me on that)

Well, you wonder why the numbers are spiralling down the drain.
Game sucks lmao