Recent reviews by Squirrels

Combat - Moderate,
Progression - Confusing, gains from leveling feel marginal compared to the area-based Morale system
Build Variety - Confusing, I honestly have no idea what's going on with the stats in this game
Performance - Great, no slowdown using an RTX 4070 on High settings
Level Design - Basic, generic little areas similar to Nioh 1
Enemy Variety - Low, most enemies in every level are the same
Difficulty - High and Confusing, the central deflect mechanic just feels counterintuitive and bad

Wo Long is a truly baffling game. I'm 6 levels in at the time of this review, and I still have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. The story is nonsense, which is typical for a Team Ninja game, but what's unusual is just how bad the gameplay feels.

The game is full of bad ideas: The basic stats are confusing and seem to be assigned haphazardly to each weapon class (that second part is annoying in Nioh as well). Every level starts you with an NPC companion, which trivializes tough encounters due to split aggro, but those encounters also feel unbalanced for solo play. The morale system (area-specific progression) is cool in theory, but giving every basic enemy in the game spammable super moves that can lower your morale (and vary wildly in how easy they are to evade/deflect) ruins it. The endless deluge of gear with a million randomized modifiers for increasing or reducing status effects that you won't encounter for another 4 levels. It's all so absurd, and that's coming from someone who played the Nioh games .

Worst of all, though, is that the basic deflect just feels so bad. Not only is the window fairly tight, but Team Ninja made the bizarre decision to map it to the same button as dodge, which means double-tapping deflect will cause you to evade instead. Given how rapidly enemies attack in this game, and how you're often battling monsters with wildly flailing limbs instead of just standard swordsmen, this means you need obscene reflexes to time out each deflect perfectly.

I'd save my money on this one, or try the demo and see how you like the deflect timing.

Combat - Good, most similar to Dark Souls 2
Progression - Excellent, leveling feels impactful
Build Variety - Great, many viable playstyles
Performance - Great, no slowdown using an RTX 4070 on High settings
Level Design - Moderate, interconnected world that looks bland
Enemy Variety - Moderate, too few new enemies are introduced as you progress (besides demoted bosses)
Difficulty - Moderate and Mostly Fair, some enemies have janky animations and bad hitboxes

Lords of the Fallen is a good Soulslike, but it isn't in the higher echelon that I'd reserve for games like Lies of P, Wuchang and the Nioh series. The game's Diablo-style aesthetic is okay, but the environments don't feel visually distinct and the world itself is never surprising or really worth looking at. Enemy variety is lackluster given the length of the game, and so many bosses are just reskinned and resized versions of normal enemies with a few custom moves. Too many bosses also suffer from poor hitboxes (most often on slamming attacks that have phantom range). That said, a proper endgame build will be deleting most of the later bosses before they get to show off their entire moveset. Lastly, I thought that the Umbral realm was an interesting idea, but largely unnecessary.

This game is still worth your time, especially after the updates have cleaned up performance, but I'd still wait for a sale.

Combat - Excellent, most similar to Dark Souls 3
Progression - Excellent, leveling feels impactful
Build Variety - Moderate, some builds are more effective than others
Performance - Great, no slowdown using an RTX 4070 on High settings
Level Design - Excellent, although one or two areas are a bit confusing to navigate
Enemy Variety - Excellent, lots of new enemies per area, even in the endgame
Difficulty - Tough but Fair, most bosses have intuitive movesets that can be countered instinctively

Having received many updates to performance and gameplay, Wuchang is now a top-tier Souls game that I highly recommend. The bosses are excellently designed, with many reminding me of the quality From Software exhibited in Dark Souls 3. Difficulty is high, but never unfair and most players will beat the tougher bosses within 5 tries. Opportunities for cheap deaths are kept to a minimum, showing restraint on the part of the developers.

Most impressively, Wuchang is a rare Soulslike that actually gets better as you get further into the game. Not only do your options in combat expand significantly, but the final areas are loaded with amazing level design and unique enemies. Enemy variety in general is very high, which is often a failing for this type of game. Finally, I loved the infusion of Chinese culture, history and geography into the world.

Nightreign is so close to being excellent, but falls short in one massive area: Meta-progression. Progression between runs relies entirely on unlocking "relics," which give you minor bonuses. Only three can be equipped at once, and they're awarded through RNG at the end of each run. You also obtain a currency called "murk," which can be spent on more RNG relics or gestures/costumes.

Unlike many similar games, there is no way to spend this currency on permanent passive upgrades for each character. This means that you'll regularly fail a run after 30-40 minutes and, if your RNG relics are bad or don't fit your preferred character, you'll have absolutely nothing to show for it. Being able to permanently upgrade your character's base stats, as well as raise the base level of your preferred weapons, would be a huge upgrade over the current system.

I have no doubt that From will be making major changes to Nightreign over the coming months, but for now I can't say Nightreign is an enjoyable experience. I'll also say that I don't think multiplayer is From's strength, and I'm hopeful that they don't spend too much time on games like this in the future.

Avowed is a very solid game with the best first-person melee combat I've experienced. All three ways of playing (melee, ranged and magic) are very fun, and the recent balance patches have addressed a lot of the rough edges that early reviews were griping about.

Exploration is rewarding, loot isn't overwhelming and feels valuable, the UI is great and upgrade systems are simple and effective. The story is relatively compelling, but that's mostly because of how playing thoroughly and choosing the right dialogue options can give you some really different outcomes. This is the first game I've played in a long time where it feels like I'm consistently outpacing and humiliating the main villain at every turn, and that's very satisfying.

My biggest complaint would be the enemies. There isn't enough variety at all (something like 10 unique enemy types for the entire game), and their designs are very uninspired. Skeletons, spiders and lizard people are all so conceptually basic, and the designs themselves are about as generic as it gets. My other complaint is the world itself, specifically how un-immersive it is. The slightly-cartoony overall aesthetic of the game makes it really hard to say "this is a real place" like you can in an Elder Scrolls game, and I think that's harmful to a first person experience.

Still, easy recommend from me. If you like snappy combat and robust exploration, definitely give it a try.

I had a feeling when playing Wukong. It was a feeling that I haven't had since 2009. I wanted to be certain that I completed the game fully before confirming that feeling was real.

That feeling was "This is Game Science's Demon's Souls." It's a masterpiece that comes out of nowhere, takes players by storm, and oozes with immense potential.

The combat is fun and challenging without ever being frustrating. The huge enemy variety is second only to From Software. The world is beautiful and the characters have memorable personalities. The story even manages to be quite solid, if a little abstract, and you'll certainly want to know the basics of Journey to the West to get the most out of it.

If you're a fan of any Souls-like or Character Action games, Wukong blends the genres beautifully.

Do yourself a favor and play it.

While I don't think the game has enough content to warrant a full priced purchase, what's there is both fun and polished. Combat options are extensive for each character, hitboxes are precise and the artstyle is very appealing.

With that said, there's a ton of room for improvement. If this game had a more open structure with significantly higher enemy variety, it could be a top-tier ARPG.

Updated review after 75 hours and 100% Completion: After switching to a more powerful build (from Champion to Reaper) and beating the game, I'm going to revise my impressions somewhat. If there was a "neutral" recommendation option, I'd give it to this game.

My issues with the clumsy combat still stand, it isn't much better in the endgame than it is early on, but having a complete build makes it less of a slog. More enemy variety would have gone a long way as well, since you'll see everything the game has to offer fairly early on (with one or two minor exceptions).

Where the game does improve is the story. It's still very formulaic (every companion has essentially the exact same narrative arc, where Rook helps them arrive at a place of self-acceptance by defeating a foe from their past), but the main story is decent enough and the conclusion is quite strong.

Ultimately, it's a medium-quality Bioware game that probably would have had a better reception if it hadn't come out so soon after Baldur's Gate 3. I don't regret playing it, but I don't see myself ever returning to it either.

I was a decades-long Bethesda fan who felt very disappointed with the exploration in Starfield's base game, but was excited to hear that Shattered Space was an attempt to return to Bethesda's roots. It was not that.

The DLC is short, the story is nonsensical (you immediately become the most important person in this foreign culture), the new weapons are few and far between with no uniques, the enemies are almost all basic reskins of base game opponents and, most importantly, the exploration is still bad. Not as bad as the rest of Starfield, but worse than any other world Bethesda has made.

I'm worried that an over-reliance on procedural generation has crippled Bethesda. They've either forgotten how to make games like Skyrim, or simply think they can make more money with less effort by doing things like Fallout 76 and Starfield.

Like many games that try to shake up Fromsoft's formula, No Rest for the Wicked has the soul of a good souls-like ARPG, but it's buried underneath an enormous amount of tedium and and superfluous systems.

Imagine if you had to craft your basic healing items in Elden Ring.
And you didn't heal at checkpoints.
And Fromsoft brought back weapon durability.
And you had to frequently manage your inventory.
And you had to wait real time to progress certain events.
And your equip burden is absurdly low and raised by it's own stat.

None of those things would make the game more engaging, all of them make it more annoying. Souls games have had many of these features in the past, and Fromsoft rightfully jettisoned them over time because they detracted from the core experiences of combat and exploration.

NRftW combines these issues with combat that's promising, but unrefined (lock-on is barely functional and seems to break constantly), and I don't think this is worth a purchase now. The art is great, the cinematics are beautiful and the VA work is excellent, but none of it can cover up for the gameplay being "Souls with a bunch of bad survival mechanics crammed in."

Hopefully the devs listen and remove this junk as soon as possible. This game has the potential to be great.