Recent reviews by eiszigarette

7.5/10 - Has its flaws, but the potential is there. Just needs some QoL features, more content, some balancing, and further QA/bugfixing. To me, clearly one of the BETTER and rather more promising Survivor-likes. Fully recommending it for this price tag!

Pros:
+ The Diablo-esque Loot- and Craft-mechanic fits in this genre quite well! It's very much 1:1 cloned from Diablo 4. But that's not a bad thing. I enjoy it a lot!
+ Not too much vFx and bullet hell; actually rather good readability of what's going on on the screen; far better than most of the others Survivors-likes. Nice Dodge-roll, too! It never felt like I was losing overview or control. Great enemy density and vFx balancing!
+ Nice graphics. Nothing super special, but some parts (eg. the vFx of the boss attacks) look fantastic!
+ Great macro balancing! There's always significant progress between two runs. Not too much, but also not too little. To me, many other Survivors-likes feel too grindy. R.I.P. gets this just right!

Cons:
- Balancing issues (some Techs and Synergies seem totally OP (eg. +2 bullets, casually tripling your weapon damage and its procs), while a whole item/skill category (Throw/Grenades) feels just totally underpowered)
- many UX bugs when playing with a controller. Some are minor. Some require you to use the mouse to continue playing. But one issue is particularly annoying: If you just pressed Dash before you Level Up, the Ban-Function is pre-selected when picking a Tech/Skill. Too many times did I BAN a Tech instead of picking it. Several runs were severely impacted.
- some UI bugs overall. The game summary screen shows the Damage Sources, which of course is very important. But (at least in the English translation), in some cases it is not clear, what the name of the Damage Source relates to (which skill/perk/weapon).
- some QoL features are severly missing (eg. the possibility to view the picked Techs, the inventory, or the stats when deciding between choices, esp. during the Level Up / Tech Up.. what Chase-Techs do I still have, again? How many Movement Speed Bonus? I need those stats to make my decisions. It's a lot of unneccesary "remember or regret", right now.)
- aiming with grenades and some of the special skills is a pure hazzle when using the controller! The crosshair movement nearly renders it impossible to utilize some of the Techs.
- Skill Tree serves the same mechanics as the items. Neither unique perks nor exciting synergies result from the Skill Tree, which feels rather bland.

@Other Reviewers: Shame on you for voting down the whole game, just because the German translation is not complete on day 1 (just change it to English!??), or because the game is yet partially lacking balancing or content (it's still early access. and it's not too bad or too empty for an Early Access title. It's just about right.). tbh I'm not sure why Survivors-lGamers are so merciless, today. This is not another bad clone. And neither is it too expensive. Refund the game. Get some ice cream. Maybe even cry. But don't spread misinformation that this is just another bland Survivors-clone. (Also, if you really think there are "SO many way better Survivors-likes out there".. feel free to share them in the comments, please! :D)

I would like to like this game. The art is very lovely. The narrator is okayish. Game starts quite promising. Yet, the puzzles are very bland and uninspired. The environmental storytelling is 300% in your face and makes you feel like "Just in case you are too stupid.. ..here is the same asset / the same hint, again. And again. And again." - It's all a bit too obvious with the actual puzzles feel just forced. Not thrilling at all.

Been an Anno fan since 1602 — so, you know, for about 423 years now. Point is: I know my way around this series. And this Anno? It’s good. Very good. A genuinely worthy successor to Anno 1800.

Some folks here are raging about the campaign. The… what? Campaign? Come on. Anno 117 is a sandbox meant for hundreds of hours of cozy, slow-burn city-building bliss. Hundreds. A campaign is literally the last thing I need in a game like this.

Multiplayer? Yeah… that one’s rough right now. But give the devs a bit of time; they’ll get it patched, for sure.

And “lack of content”? Do yourselves no favor and replay Anno 1800 without any DLC. There was less to do and tweak than what Anno 117 now ships out of the box.

Summed up: Sure, Anno 117 has its flaws. But “Mostly Positive”? Really? Nah.

This Anno is good. Very good.

Really bad input controls with contollers. You CANNOT EVEN AIM with the right analog stick. The game itself is lovely and I will edit this review as soon as the controller works better. But currently, this is no fun. I want to play this on TV with controller. Barely possible atm :(

simply the best narrative design ever since! an absolute masterpiece in game history!

SOOO satisfying!
This is just like doodling with Lego!
Makes you feel like an artist on every single click!
Well, it's clearly not a game.
But: What a GREAT example for a digital toy!

What's rather good: Yep, that graphics!
What's not soo good: All the rest..

First, the game is annoyingly buggy and unfinnished. Not only will triggers deny to execute, forcing you to reload the game several times. No, the whole "game" ends without any proper message. Having received the quest called "@ui_A1_Q5_S12_StepNameLabel", you will have to deduce on your own that you just experienced all available content and might want to close the application. Moreover, the minimap is buggy (does not save revealed areas, or turns completely black on a regular basis), enemies are stuck in stairs, checkpoints are not saved correctly (you sometimes must repeat a mission after quitting the game), and, and, and.. many minor bugs as well..

But.. well.. I would still oversee such flaws and really look forward to the final version of Wolcen.. ..if the game itself would be fun to play. But unfortunatelly, Wolcen lacks the most important aspect of quality: A good game balance and game design.

I actually LOVE to grinding creeps. I can collect items and compare stats for years. But there is nothing to love about in Wolcan! All the items barely vary in a meaningful way at all. There are 5 rarity levels, but rarity levels 3 and 4 seem not to exist at all. Unique items are super boring, especially compared to PoE or D3. You will definitely find a sh*tload of "rare" items (rarity level 2), but you will just have no fun digging through that garbage over and over again. I find that remarkable how the developers achieved to make the stat comparison of items a boring, nearly frustrating experience. Uh! Oh, and of course you can sell items for gold.. ..but you won't need gold for anything! All shop prices are completely imbalanced. And all shop offers are completely pointless. Let's put that in clear words: This is a grinding game, and I even had NO FUN finding unique items and upgrading my gear.

But well, what's maybe even much worse than the lack of a nice item variety:
There are NO real strategies for a possible character development and there is literally NOT A SINGLE tactical element while playing: It's just so super easy to pick ONE good skill and kill all the monster-filled floors with just that single skill. There is no real "skill" you can develop while playing the game: Just evade the enemy attacks (when they surround you, you are dead; when they do not surround you, you easily win..). Just keep button-smashing that one overpowered skill to clear every stage. In my case: I played as a hunter, and just setting up a single turret cleared the whole screen for me, INCLUDING BOSS ENEMIES! The game even to easier and easier over time! Not that there ever was a challenge at any given time. It's just that the game starts non-challenging, and then continues to get even easier with every single minute!

But well, at least the skill tree looks nice.
But, yeah, that's exactly it: It LOOKS nice.
Having checked out the actual opportunities, even the skill tree turns out to be absolutely shallow and pointless. Yes, you can add some percentage of damage here and there. But again, there is barely any tactical and/or strategical impact. You just get stronger with ever level up. Simple as that. No increasing complexity. No meaningful decisions. No unique style of playing a character. Nothing of that at all.

Plus, all the novel elements introduced by the game appear to make no sense at all. For example: In Wolcen, skills are gained by looting skill items that you will find occasionally from time to time (as normal loot from any creeps). But you will have found all five relevant skills for your class within an hour or so. And from then on, your inventory is just spammed with skills you already own. You can actually sell these skills for skill XP in order level up your skills. Nice idea. But here, again, there is NO BALANCING at all: You will have to gather and sell 30+ of these non-stackable skill items in order to successfully level up a single skill a single time.. ..but you won't do this, because all your skills already progress more than fast enough just by playing. The whole feature is implemented in a completely pointless and boring way. And the same goes for all the other features. Well.. "All the other features"? Sorry, I have to correct myself:

There barely are any other features! The game has about 90% less features than PoE and/or D3, and it seems SO FAR AWAY from being finished. The release date of late January 2020 should hopefully be a joke!

Currently, Wolcan is more a TECH DEMO than a proper game.
It's a copycat that looks beautiful, but has nothing relevant to offer under the surface. The whole game design is boring and the game balance does not exist.

Oh, and just a short word comprising the narrative design: Random. It's so random and boring I can not even tell. The dialogues are basically just a concatenation of stupid fantasy words and I never felt so disconnected to a game universe. Humm.. What else.. Boss fights are 10-20 seconds showdowns without any suspense or challenge. Winning fights in general is purely due to keeping up attention, not having any skill. There is never ever a moment where you actually have to use more than 10 of your brain cells. These are needed to match the creep allocation on the screen with your one good skill. Oh, did I mention that there is no challenge??!

What else.. Dungeon generation is boring. Some sounds are just weird (VERY russian voice for african king, I actually had to laugh). Act 1 was super fast to play through (without bugs, it would have taken me 2.5 hours, I guess) - so even with Act 2, 3 and 4, there would not be enought relevant content. Yeah.. More does not come up to my mind, right now..

Summed up:
Wolcan is not challenging AND not rewarding at the same time.

Do only buy if you'd like to see a tech demo for a hack'n'slay game made with the cryengine.

Dieses Spiel als Rollenspiel wahrzunehmen, wird dem Produkt bei weitem nicht gerecht! Ja, es mag ein "nur ganz gutes" Rollenspiel sein. Aber als Simulation ist es ein absolutes MEISTERWERK! "Kingdom Come: Deliverance" ist ein dokumentatorisch-interaktives Konzert an gut recherchiertem Mittelalterwissen, welches sehr erfolgreich fesselnd und unterhaltsam in ein (nur in mancherlei Hinsicht klassisches) Rollenspiel überführt wurde. Wer sich für das Mittelalter, wie es wirklich existierte, interessiert, der MUSS dieses Spiel gespielt haben!! ... Ich wiederhole: MUSS! Und lest euch insbesondere die Texte mit den Hintergrundinformationen zum Leben im Mittelalter durch! Kein Geschichtslehrer dieser Welt könnte einen besser oder informativer - und kein noch so kompakter Wikipedia-Artikel bündiger und packender - mit realer Geschichte unterhalten und weiterbilden als: "Kingdome Come: Deliverance"!!!

Kurzum: "Kingdom Come: Deliverance" ist einerseits ein gutes Rollenspiel. Es ist aber zugleich aber auch eine extrem hochkarätige Mittelalter-Simulation: Die erste ihrer Art - .. und eine, die die Messlatte für weitere Mittelalter-Simulationen extrem hoch angelegt hat. Vielleicht bleibt "Kingdome Come: Deliverance" auch einzigartig. Fakt dabei ist jedenfalls:
Es IST einzigartig.
Ein wahrlich einzigartiges Meisterwerk!

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@developers:
just THANK YOU for this rpg-styled masterpiece of interactive medieval-documentary! i would have paid 300$ for this game. it's brilliant, it's ambitious, it's clever and it's everything i ever wanted to know about the dark age.

I rarely write reviews on Steam.
But!
Hell!!
THIS actually IS just AWESOME!
You can play it for minutes.. or ages!
You can play it for the chill.. or the thrill!
It would be worth at least 10$. Hell, I would pay 20!!
3$ is just a bad yet good joke.
Everyone, just buy it & love it.
I'm very serious about this!

Very simple gameplay that makes up for very complex challenges! Minimalistic yet beautiful artstyle embedded in a very clean UI. Definitvely worth to be recommended!