Recent reviews by Zedrin

Overall Haste feels really good to play so far, which is the most important aspect. It captures the sensation of speed, handles well, and is still challenging at times even in just the demo. What's more, it's a runner/speed style game that isn't locked to a specific path; even though courses are largely in one direction, they're wide enough with enough variability that you having to think and react about where you'll land and what paths you'll take.

'Shards' (or levels) consist of several stages arranged in a rogue-lite path. Stages typically involve you trying to outrun a killzone while getting to the final checkpoint. The final stage in a shard is a boss fight, which involves you chasing down a boss while dodging attacks in an open area, rather than a linear path.

Weak spots: the tutorial is kinda clunky and obligate in a manner that's inelegant (though it's at least short), the dialog engine feels a bit lackluster, and some of the UI feels a bit barebones. Challenge stages to restore an area sometimes could use a bit of an indicator of where you haven't covered yet; sitting at 1% remaining and not knowing where I missed was frustrating.

These are pretty minor inconveniences and don't impact the core gameplay, though maybe they'll still get a bit of a touch-up before the final release.

This is a good survival game for people who don't like survival games, and a great one for those that do.

It's quirky and weird and has a ton of nods to the original Half Life games, and it tackles a lot of survival elements in a different and refreshing manner.

It's one part bullet hell, 2 parts roguelite, and 4 parts MMO raid mechanics, with a garnish of cute girls throughout

what's not to like

If you like Binding of Isaac, bullet hells like Touhou Project, or the raid mechanics of games like FFXIV, this one can be worth a try.

Atlyss is a game with potential, but a lot of very rough edges at the moment, and probably needs some patches before it can actually be recommended. Many players seem weirdly defensive over it as well, and will almost seem to take constructive criticism personally. Early access does not mean a game should not be criticized; that's actually when feedback is most important, and is something the dev has been paying attention to.

The good:
Fast paced action combat with responsive (instant acceleration) movement. It's not quite a hack and slash due to less enemy juggling, but it's also definitely not a deliberate action RPG like the Souls games or Monster Hunter. You're capable of canceling out of actions and you're never locked into anything (other than shielding). I don't want to leave it as a nondescript "the combat is good" because the combat does have issues, but the controls for the most part are very responsive and can allow for good combat and mobility.

There's a free demo on Itch.io. Saves do not carry over but it's a good way to look at the character creation or see how movement and combat feels.

I won't comment on the character creator/designs as that is gonna be 100% subjective; I'm ambivalent to furries so it wasn't a selling point for me, but it's definitely been a selling point for others. I do think it's good that games styled like this are able to exist and meet success.

The bad:
There are bugs and missing QoL, which is normal for an EA title; many are being addressed, but their presence is still a thing and can affect your game, from things like invisible traps to all control inputs suddenly dropping.

My big complaint with combat stems with how prevalent "swarm" style fights are. Enemies of this type are all just as fast / faster than you and will rubberband to catch up. Your two approaches are to run away and kite them while poking at them while constantly dodging, or to group them up and try to parry them in groups. The prior can be tiresome after a time, but is predominantly an issue for solo play. The latter has the issue of enemy attack timings being very random: while the parry window is generous, the counterattack window is narrow, due to the constant new attacks incoming. If there were a way to synchronize enemy attacks, it'd feel way better.

Feedback from getting hit usually is either barely noticeable so you don't notice you're near death, or it sends you flying and potentially juggles you, with no real in between.

The recommended levels for dungeons do not accurately reflecting the difficulty of the encounter; you'd think a level 18 character could get through a level 16-20 dungeon, but the boss vaporizes your shield if you miss a single parry.

The ugly:
No host/session transferring. If playing multiplayer, despite accommodating several parties, if the host leaves, everyone is forcibly quit. Yes, this happens even when playing with friends, if your host forgets or they DC.

Players in a party who die during a boss fight will not receive credit for the boss kill if they don't respawn / make it back to the boss room in time. If they had a quest to kill said boss, they have to do the entire dungeon all over again.

Overall, the content is scaled to encourage multiple players, yet these issues often punish playing together in a roundabout way.

Overall:
This needs more patches to iron out bugs and touch up some features of the game. I'm critical because there's potential here, but in its current state I cannot recommend it.

An absurd open ended fantasy roguelike.

-be a snail pianist. Lug your piano around with you to perform. Piss someone off with your performance so they throw salt on you and you die instantly
-Pick up some vomit. Give it to an ally. Watch as they eat it for nutrition.
-Why is there poop everywhere in my base? The garbage was bad enough.
-Find a statue of a god. Lug it up a staircase to break your neck. Then lug it across the world map, getting crushed to death with every tile you move, until you finally return it to your home. Watch as your net worth skyrockets as you place it in your base, making all those deaths worth it.
-Pick some flowers, break them down to get edible leaves, use the leaves to make arrows (that are also edible), put them in a compost bin, get a ton of compost from it, break down the compost to get corpses (???), use the corpses to make way too much fishing bait, use the bait to get way too many fish, put the fish in a sawmill to get even more bonito flakes, put the flakes in wine barrels, sell the wine, congrats, you're now rich
-Little girl is a job, not a description of one's age
-younger sister / little one are a genetically engineered species and Bioshock reference
-Play a potato that grows limbs!
-Farm up powerful foods that boost your stats to roided out levels before ever setting foot in a dungeon
-take copper scrap, make nails, break down the nails to get bones, grind the bones to get powder, break down the powder to get corpses, cook the corpses, enjoy a delicious copper meal that will never spoil
-drug someone with a love potion so they lay an egg. If it's fertilized, hatch it to get a clone of them
-GENETIC ENGINEERING
-eat some food made by a witch and accidentally milk yourself in the process. Feed the milk to an ally to boost their stats
-Regret not bringing blankets as you dive into a Nefia and cry as a mage incinerates/freezes all of your items with spell spam
-why is this hot spring mermaid an old man?
-pet anything with a fluffy tail, including foxfolk. They don't mind
-Collect the body pillows of all the gods!
-Try to perform some music only to be stoned to death, or at the very least piss someone off to the point they try to kill you. The guards will not protect you.
-build a tavern/inn and raise money from tourism. Make all your residents wear panties
-these panties are reliable throwing weapons AND instruments. Like microphones (including the throwing part)
-establish a town populated entirely by undead younger sisters
-Get ambushed by a legion of Hot Guys. They explode.
-Don't forget to pay your taxes

At the moment, this game has a huge breadth of content, all with the depth of a puddle. I very much want this game to be good, but it's so early into its early access cycle that it's difficult to recommend.

The combat has nice animations, powerful abilities, ragdolling, hitstun, slow mo, etc., stuff to really polish it... And bugs. After revisiting it after a while, if I use a heavy attack on an enemy, normal attacks no longer affect them until I swap weapons.
I've also encountered plenty of softlocks just for talking to NPCs, as well as inputs ceasing to respond sporadically.

There's lots of quests and runaround assignments, but a lot of them are just reskins of the same basic tasks, with some more unique ones sprinkled here and there.
There's the framework for a taming system yet the only things you can tame are slimes and bunnies.
There's crafting, yet the systems in place are a bit obtuse and pointless as you'll never make anything as good as you can find in world, and some of the crafting (e.g. fletching and armorsmithing) isn't even in game yet.
There's no inventory limit, yet there's also no way to sort or organize your inventory.
There's a massive world, yet you mostly explore it in a very low-effort "overworld" mode that's slow to navigate. Summoning allies is a pain, setting quick access commands is a pain, swapping equipment is a pain.
If you get stuck in the terrain, and the game autsaves on you, there is no way to escape; that save file is now just permanently bricked.

The update cycle has been fairly slow, and I'm honestly worried about whether or not the game will actually be finished as well. The recent patch seemed mostly focused on balance adjustments than anything, and supposedly squashed some bugs but I'm still running into softlocks and control issues as of 12/27, which are issues that I had encountered a few months back. It's got some great concepts, but there's so much being promised and so much still missing, and what is there has too many issues for me to recommend at this point.

Very fun isometric survival game. The blood mechanic in place of food is super interesting and fresh, and leads to a lot of meaningful decision making (when should you feed, is it worth feeding or trying to save a person as a prisoner, what type of blood should you look for, etc.)

The rules can be tailored to your preferences of PVP, PVE, or solo, the fights and combat feel solid, and there's a good progression loop that feels rewarding. It's one of the few survival games where I haven't even felt prompted to look up any guides for it, because it's fairly intuitive and good at pointing out where you need to go to get some material.

It's a little short if you don't plan to do multiple runs or completionist runs, but it's VERY fun. It has a very satisfying balance between a town management game and a roguelite combat experience, and alternating between the two keeps things fresh and varied.

The animation is also fantastic, with a lovely style and sprite method that has a lot of identity to it.

I've had this game for a while and have attempted 2-3 runs before, usually burning out somewhere in act 2. I decided to try again after finishing BG3. Unfortunately, the burnout is now coming even faster, as I find myself getting frustrated by a lot of small nitpicks.

I want to like this game really bad, and if it weren't for these, the game would be amazing, due to its character writing and open ended-ness, but they're so many in number that they add up to a very soured experience.

Most significantly, this is the kinda game where, if you know how to play optimally, it can be a cakewalk, especially given the predictability of NPC behavior. However, anything less than optimal will result in fights swinging against you hard, given the way armor and CC works. This can result from something as simple as trying to split up your characters to initiate combat, and they weren't in a pixel-perfect position, so now everyone's exposed and going at the end of the turn order, with plenty of units to CC them before their turn comes up.

Or, it might be because of odd interactions between abilities and talents when it comes to character building. I like the idea of how character stats are allocated, but the execution makes for some very absurd and nonsensical interactions--e.g., a Pyromancer is most optimal when most your points go into Huntsman.

The micromanage aspect at least is made significantly better if you can play with friends (or a friend, lone wolf feels like the way the game was made to be played), so you can better coordinate these things instead of trying to herd your party of cats into position one at a time. (Honestly, if you 100% are gonna play with a bud, I actually would probably recommend this game instead of against it.) Otherwise, I found myself save-scumming so much cause of what felt like terrible luck or randomness that it was slowing my progress down to a slog and just frustrating me.

Decided to try the game more after a few months. There have been some improvements to the game, but it still has a long way to go.

The map, glider, grapple, and exploration is a strong part of the game.

The building is also very nuanced, allowing for a great deal of customization. However, the limited inventory (even with bag upgrades), as well as the amount of resources required to build even basic blocks seriously slows things down.

Overall, the crafting progression is a lot of baby steps of progress. You get a quest to get a tool for a craftsman, go through an area or fight a boss to find the tool you need, and it unlocks maybe 1-2 items in progression and a few decorative things. This isn't unheard of--other games have done similar, but the process of tracking down those items or bosses is much faster than essentially going through an entire dungeon or town to unlock the upgrade.

Inventory management overall is very painful; sorting chests, depositing items to them, and the fact that stack sizes are too small in proportion to the amount of items you need.

The most exciting moment to me was getting to the desert highlands in the northeast part of the map, where a LOT of things opened up to me at once. However, after that, it was back to the usual "get a quest to get an upgrade from a long dungeon that unlocks a single new recipe you might not even want."

And this all wouldn't be as big of an issue if the combat wasn't as monotonous as it is. I've tried two of the Hallow Halls dungeons, and it was a slog: out of the skeleton mobs, you have basic skeleton (who rushes you and swings), skeleton dogs (who rush at you and lunge into a bite), tough skeletons (who rush you at swing, and have more health), skeleton knights (who rush at you and swing hard with a scythe), and skeleton mages (who do NOT rush you and instead keep their distance with spells and summons). Every melee enemy in the game currently has the exact same logic: charge the player and do a running attack, then stay as close as possible.

This makes AOE very potent (jump attacks, etc.) but it isn't very interesting or fun. Your weapons lack any form of combo system and have only a single attack chain, so things get monotonous very quickly.

Overall, still needs work. I hope the devs plan to upgrade some of the systems in game.