Recent reviews by YourpalZ3R0

It's alright.

Okay-ish game. If you want an overall idea, just skip to the end. If you are looking for an overtly detailed elaboration, proceed:


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- combat is clunky as hell, NPCs are literally paper cut outs. I can make better conversations than the NPCs can by talking to myself. It is an absolute walking sim. Optimization is abysmal and loading screens can take longer than Fallout 4's loading screens if you're playing on slightly older hardware and among other stuff I'll mention down below;


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I'll begin with like, the simpler stuff; for example, there is barely ANY ambiance; super basic stuff like Rain has no sound and you can barely hear anything from the environment. The only sound effects that come, come from your character walking and running and fighting. Sound design in general isn't very good, it is the most mediocre sound design ever and while it isn't horrible and its pretty serviceable, it isn't anything to praise.



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Combat; to elaborate, is also serviceable at best. Enemy hitboxes are extremely dumb, there is barely any feedback to your weapons actually hitting the enemy for the most part and that comes down to horrid sound design again but on the fair side it does have plenty of pros which I'll elaborate on after I'm done with the criticisms.



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- Visuals; Very good oftentimes and the game while looking like it came out a decade ago has alot of charm and style to it. Will elaborate further below. Character faces do not look human I swear to god, it makes up for it with great variety in armor but I never knew you could even create something so ugly like how can every single face look so bad, there aren't any sliders either. You just choose from presets.



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- NPCs, Lore and story; not the worst I've seen but the NPCs are your usual JRPG blabber that one can barely stomach even talking. Something like Monster Hunter World's NPCs would be a good comparison. I mean they're there, just not very good.

The writing isn't top notch either but its OK at most, and lore is decent. Plot involves pretty interesting political tackles between kingdoms and tribes and it feels pretty lively, will also elaborate further below.

To end this part, I just get the feeling that the game is an early access and that's how I felt ever since I played it, it can feel like an asset flip sometimes from all the rough spots and what annoys me most is the fact that instead of focusing on the base game, the devs made two whole DLCs instead.


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Pros, there are quite a bit of them and I'll elaborate on some points from earlier;

For the combat, I'd compare this game to something like Morrowind. So while very rough it can also be very enjoyable. Tricks and traps are a big part of the combat and its honestly a favorite since I have a soft spot for being able to set ambushes and such. And this just allows you at full, setting up all sorts of traps and being able to place almost anything in tripwires for exmaple, from basic stuff to being able to literally use weapons, dangerous animal parts and horns for it. And it can be really enjoyable just watching a strong enemy biting the dust in seconds after you setup an elaborate trap.


The Magic system is phenomenal and is very varied. You can go with a ton of different magic builds, from runic to hex to just basic magic etc.
Runic is my favorite since it lets you literally just make a sword out of thin air in combat by combining runes and even turn said sword into a greatsword or make traps etc. Was Definitely a superb highlight.

The build variety is insane, and you can essentially make anything you want, and this not being a level-based game and only a loot/skilltree based game, you can always switch to something else or change playstyles.

The game has some of the most intuitive and best crafting I've seen around, and with some of the more complicated crafts you can make a fat stack of money with and can get quite immersive with the fact.

The armor-set variety is fantastic and most armor sets have superb designs and you can just mix and match.
And there are a couple of other decent parts of the game but I won't elaborate for spoilers.



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TL;DR Decent game, only buy at a heavy discount and with a friend if possible. Because the Co-op is an essential part. Most of my enjoyment was enhanced by having a great friend of mine tag along on a playthrough with me and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I enjoyed my time with it but it is a very flawed game but still enjoyable and gave me tons of hours of fun, especially early game.

Viking Minecraft.
That's all I'm gonna say, thanks for coming to my ted talk.