Recent reviews by Jesus Juice |JJ|

Still banned in 180 countries due to Sony, They brought back many weapons from the nerf hell, but there is still lack luster end game content and it can be quite repetitive with very little to work towards.

The space station recently added is just a resourse dump to create a permanent bombardment that most of the time kills you.

Battlefield without the graphics and better gameplay

Human fall flat, medieval combat edition

Exanima a game where 90% of the underground population is affected
by a form of fetal alcohol syndrome,
including YOU the mastermind behind the wheel of your flesh automaton of your choice
(Right now I only know about the unkown fella, but there are others)

There is a quasi-permadeath system, which can become more forgiving the more armor you have,
I'll come a bit later to explain why it becomes a little easier.
Don't worry if you don't know what quasi-permadeath means, because I didn't hear about this term either,
but in short for the game exanima, it borrows concepts from permadeath but with 'checkpoints', where you return with all the items you had
when touching the checkpoints and the map loot and enemies will be randomised again, execpt for certain stuff.

Just like in real life, in Exanima your life is represented by a yellow bar of health.
Also there are a 2 types of damage your (unfortunate) character can sustain
Stamina and *Permanet* damage(the moral and emotional damage will be directly transfered to you),
Stamina damage is displayed as a dark shade of yellow and *Permanet* damage is
a thicc red bar,(if armor good, thicc red bar not so thicc, that's why easy)
that can only be healed by ingesting magic glowing limax juice(no ideea what's in the healing potion, but that's what I like to think it is)

Your avatar will be forced to continue risking his life(by you) until he will inevitably die
during an encounter or until you git gud and stop dying altogether.(DO NOT GOOGLE EXANIMA TRAINER)
Another quirk of this game is that, you will not meet death unless you take too much permanent damage,
You will insead lose consciousness and the enemy/enemies that attacked will lose interest and go away,
but what will propably happen is that the enemy will still be there breathing over the neck of
the uncontious body until you get up just to be smacked again into the void
(the second time could be the last time depending on the sustained damage).

First contact with the character locomotion feels a bit like CBT without the ♥♥♥♥ and balls.
The controls for movement itself resemples one from a clasical rpg game. Hold right mouse to move in the pointers direction.
Left click to interact with the world, where you can open doors, move objects, pull levers, etc.
BUT THER IS A CATCH: Your character will always try and face the cursors
and this can be problematic during an combat encounter.

The combat can seem overwheling, there are a few attack types,
there are 2 ways to move during combat and there
is an ugly bastard in front of you swinging wildly trying to unalive you.
But breaking it down and practicing it separatly can help you a lot.

There are 3 ways to aim/use your weapon in an offensive way:
===Slashing Horizontally, which are faster, easier to cancel, and most basic attack

===Slashing from above, high risk, high reward, being able to knock down or
outright kill your opponent, because the attack will generaly hit the head
or shoulders, but you will be exposed to an attack from the sides

===Stabing/thrusting, a powerfull and controled hit
(the character will try to hit your cursour) to a certain body area, it is
generaly less risky than Slashing from above but it is not a safe attack.
It can be used to hit less armored spots like the head, neck or shoulders.

Looking at/or participating in a fight in the early game will look
like a bunch of first schoolers first fight, nobody being able to
held their balance and everyone flailing their attacks wildly
and mostly moving like a bunch of brainless amoebas.

A very important element of fighting is timing,
when you chose to hit, parry and/or dodge will
represent the different between a hit and a wiff.
If you did not master those elements,
you will feel utter powerless as your attacks
don't connect with the enemy

Once you get the hang of it, attacking and footwork feel natural
It start feeling satisfing and every hit counts
And landing a one hit gnogin smasher feels extremly gratifying and rewarding
Due to combat being physics based there is some randomness involved and
unxpected things might happen, like sudden love hugs
The sound of the metal crushing and weapons clashing is feels realistic
and you can help you tell if the weapon connected or has been blocked/parried.

I very much recommend beating the arena practice, at least on novice, it will grant
you a confidence boost when exploring the dungeon and you would be able to grasp the basics of combat.

The way I enjoy the story was by going in blind, because for me the less I
know the more interesting and atmospheric the experience will be.
The for this is: maps are handmade, apart from some of the loot
which is randomly generated and certain important items.

The atmosphere is eerie and tens, never knowing when the next encounter will be and where.
This is helped by the music and the environment sounds.
For example the squeaking and the slamming of doors can be quite anxiety
inducing because you don't know who heard those sounds and
sometimes you can hear distant door slaming caused
by who ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ knows what thing.

A storie about something that happend to me while playing:
The first time I meet a non-zombie, we talked and got to know eachother,
after that I gave him some of my equippent and I asked him to follow me,
I finally started to feel more at ease because I was no longer alone.
And that was a mistake on my part because, the first enemy we encounter,
he decided to fight it and tripped on some logs and fell like a sack of potatoes on the floor while fighting.
The devious zombie had a sledgehammer and immediatly hit my buddy twice in the
back while he was down, the struggling had stopped after I dispatched of the zombie.
I was ready to mourn my comrade, but, when I was about to leave he started twitching.
I talked to him and he was in a really bad shape. So I escorted him to a room and
barricaded him inside until I could get him some medieval
gatorade to replenish the electrolytes he lost while bleeding.

There is also another mode besides Story mode and that is the arena.
You the Champion of Kvatch must become your own gladiator manager
and do amazing aministrative tasks like: buying equipment, paying employees,
managing fighter teams, employing new gladiators and staff, sepcualating winning and much more.
Welcome to the hustling side of Exanima, where your capitalist dreams come true,
climb the arena ladder and live your, "rags to maidens" fantasy.

Belive it or not, Exanima is supposed a stand alone dungeon crawler and a prelude to Sui Generis.
"Amazing, I love that game so much, I can't get enough of it" would be what you would say if
the game developers were not kidnaped by the IRA and forced to
develop the game as a training simulator for pub fights and fotball-games afterparties.

The developers are actively pushing updates to Exanima, they are working
hard to complete the games but their scope is huge, the team is small and .

When released Sui Generis should be an unique open world RPG with the same gameplay as Exanima
but with an open world and a dynamic story. I would say it is something to look for in the future if you like
the potential and the gameplay of Exanima. ( It will probably release in 2040 after UK becomes a region of Ireland )

TL DR sort of:
In my opinion, the game is meant to be played with the minimum amount of knowledge (If you skiped the wall of text, you are already doing good),
the only things you should know are the mechanics so you can navigate and interact with the world more easily
letting you be emersed in the dark world of Exanima

If you are interested in the game, I recommend to at least beat arena practice mode novice if you want a more smoothsailing of the first levels
and an overall confidence boost in combat.

This is by no means a guide, just a quick long summary of my experience.

First competitive experience, fun and engaging.

Never forgety