Recent reviews by Odinbeard McSparkles

I would liken Caliber to what the now defunct Ghost Recon: Phantoms would probably look like if it came out today.

Good set of PvE and PvP modes and maps. PvE can either be a walk in the park or nails hard.

Most microtransactions are boosters or skins, the legendary skins effectively are xp boosters as well (25% for that operator). Overall it doesn't seem pay to win, although there are certainly operators who are stronger than others. But ultimately if you were worried, you could just grind PvE stuff to level up and unlock new characters until you feel ready to tangle with other players, which is what I did. It's grindy, but virtually every game that comes out these days is grind heavy so I can't really knock it. It's not so much a problem with this game in particular as it is an issue in the gaming industry in general. I think the F2P progression feels pretty fair, in my experience.

It definitely deserves a thumbs up in my opinion, there's too much to like here, flaws are present of course, but really stoked to see what the Steam release does for the game, hopefully lights a fire under the devs to keep on a good course.

So I have played this game quite a few times over the years, what's drawn me back in once again recently is how nostalgic this game feels for that early 2000s type and style of B-rate gaming. That's not to say it's bad by any means, and perhaps I haven't gotten far enough to get into the more complex and deep systems the game may have, but that does bring up my one and only con with the game; it doesn't explain certain things super well, and since there aren't many people playing, there aren't many resources, articles, guides, or walkthroughs to explain some of the systems. For instance, I've unlocked subclasses for one of my characters at Lv. 140, but I don't know why I'd want to pick a random subclass over simply advancing my original job class.

That being said, so far, I haven't really needed them. Run and jump around, kill a bunch of enemies in one or two shots, fight a boss, collect a bunch of items, sell the bad ones, keep the good ones, repeat. The gameplay loop is very simple and standard side scrolling action.

It's very simple, but there's something so incredibly charming and evocative about how it's all presented. The mix of hand drawn, chibi, and pixel-esque sort of art style, a vibrantly colorful world and cutesy characters (and even cutesy enemies), a very upbeat mix of jazzy, classical and synthy tunes. Seriously, the soundtrack to most of the zones and stages is amazing, again, very early 2000s feel, but in a really good way.

Overall, the world of La Tale is a refreshing place to get lost in for a while. Admittedly I'm treating it more as a single player side scrolling RPG than anything else, but still having a really great time, and that's also how I'd recommend it now: *solo players*. Maplestory offers a similar look and feel both visually and gameplay-wise, with a much more active community, so for people who are looking *to play with others*.

I'm suprised I only have 18 hours on this game at time of writing, as I remember being without internet for two weeks, and played this game for 2-3 hours everyday after class, so that must not have been recorded.

Regardless, short version is that I have to say that this is probably the best 2D Rogue-Lite out there. Addicting gameplay loop, amazing soundtrack, and lovely retro graphics style. You can easily fly through hours on your "perfect run," and either trying to hold out as long as you can on the final levels, or testing your build on the final boss.

The best part for me is that the game feels incredibly fair. When you die, you feel as though you made the mistake as opposed to the game randomly punishing you. There's a great push and pull in your strategy between "Do I stay on this stage longer to grind out more cash and items in hopes of getting lucky, or just rush the teleporter because the scaling difficulty timer is going to overwhelm me in the end?" The skill curve of mastering a specific survivor and their abilities and dodges is high, but not so much that you can't still have a good time becoming a whirling death machine on Easy or Normal modes.

Pretty much the only con I have on this game is the "randomization" of the stages/levels themselves isn't the greatest. Every level has 2-3 "base" templates, and there isn't a major difference between them, other than order of when they may appear, or the placement of certain platforms, jump pads, and ropes. But again, I would describe this game is more of a Rogue-Lite than a Rogue-Like, and given that difference is therefore is completely fine, but I just feels as though that is the one change to make this game basically the perfect marriage of the genres. It's still bloody brilliant, but would have been the icing on the cake, as it were.

TL;DR - Best 2D Rogue-Lite out there. Buy it. Then buy the soundtrack. Then buy copies for your friends.

Can't recommend the game in it's current state. As with many Souls-Like games, it doesn't appear to really understand what makes the Souls game so compelling: challenging, but ultimately fair gameplay. In Souls games, you can always be powerful enough to competently deal with whatever the game throws at you. I'm not saying I'm amazing at those games, but I've done all sort of challenge runs from no rings runs, naked no armor runs, to the infamous SL1 (Level 1) playthroughs on all of them. All of this exemplifies what I said about Souls games: difficult, but fair. Learn and master the mechanics, and you can excel.

So, I'm not going to go into great detail as most of my issue everyone else is saying here, so I'll just make a bullet point list to confirm the issues and you can make your own judgements.

- Gunplay feels flat and weak (plus obnoxious recoil considering that), meele weapons aren't very powerful either, with the bonus that the animations can be long and leave you open to attack
- The number of mobs themselves is super high, and they tend to perfectly completent each others weaknesses, such as crossfires of machinegunners on high ground, with meele enemies low and down the middle. A cool idea, if you could properly exploit and isolate...
- But the level design is such that you can't really do that, so you either have to waste tons of ammo (which is somewhat scarce, and majority of guns are highly inaccurate at range + heavy damage falloff), or your healing items, or both. Either way it's a chore and a bore.
- Checkpoints are spread out, hard to find, and buried behind loads of enemies
- Getting knocked down happens often and is essentially a death sentence, as unlike Souls-Borne games, you take damage when knocked down, and I-Frames on your dodge roll are...inconsistent, at best.
- FPS drops

Overall, a highly frustrating experience. Needs some major rebalancing, most guns need either a significant damage buff or better accuracy to even put you on par with the mobs. Enemy AI is smart, which is cool, but there are far too many of them in a single point of conflict to make clearing the area feel like fun and skillful rather than annoying. I love the idea of "Gun Souls" game, but this game needs a lot of work to meet that potential.

*- This game picks up almost immediately after the end of Tomoyo's Route in the original game CLANNAD, so if you haven't played that Route, you will be completely lost in terms of the overall context of the game, its main characters, and the various references and callbacks obviously won't make sense to you.

Also, I don't have a review for CLANNAD at the time of writing this, but I would highly recommend it; it is a quality VN with great music and varied and well written characters, and is definitely one of the better VNs on Steam.

I'm also going to avoid mentioning really any characters names or specific plot threads from either game, as discovering those things and coming up with your own impressions is the main fun of these types of games. -*

As you might expect, I can only recommend checking out this game if you enjoyed the world of CLANNAD in general or really liked Tomoyo's character and want to continue her story.

That being said, my first annoyance with the game is that the recurring characters (Tomoya and Tomoyo) don't entirely act the same way as they did in CLANNAD. The beginning of the game shows this most glaringly. I think I mainly found it hard to believe since almost barely any time has passed since the end of the original route, so in theory the characters should be much more familiar than they are. Tomoya is a lot more forward and kinda pervy in the beginning, and Tomoyo is much more girly and has mostly lost her tomboy-ish charm. She also basically ingnores Tomoya for a good portion of the game when a certain character is introduced, which is odd considering the game seems like it wants to setup the continuation of their romance and life together. I got over it pretty quickly, but I had just finished Tomoyo's Route for the first time the previous day before starting this game, so it was a little offputting.

Which brings me to my other big problem with the game, (and I feel like CLANNAD and Air seem to have this problem as well) which is that a lot of the depressing and bad things that happen to the characters kind of fell like they are there simply because they CAN happen, rather than whether or not the SHOULD happen. I'm not saying that everything needs to always be tied up in a nice bow by the time the credits roll, but overall it feels like the the final overall tension in the plot is somewhat forced rather than organic.

Example: The tension in the original Tomoyo Route in CLANNAD makes perfect sense given what you know about Tomoya and Tomoyo by that point, so all the drama and strife that complicates their relationship and how they respond to it makes perfect sense and is totally believeable (In fact, Tomoyo's original Route is probably the most realistic/believeable one in CLANNAD).

Those are my main issues, other than that, it is actually a really fun ride just watching Tomoya's everyday life. The side characters are decent and fun to talk to, if not lacking a little depth. The final arc of the True Ending was actually quite touching and very enjoyable, but again, I felt the actual final moments of the game with a bit half-baked and forced. In most of the endings it seemed like they were going for a "bittersweet" vibe, but really ended up feeling a bit abrupt and unsatisfying. Specifcally, the final CG "cutscene" quickly runs through a lot of really important threads that could have maybe just been expanded on in 2-3 normal VN gameplay moments to make a little less rushed.

The best thing I can say about it is that the True Ending will surely make you feeling something about it, whether that's good or bad. The overall normal day to day characters interactions are really good, but lacks some side character depth when compared to the original game.

I'm also not going to comment on the Dungeons and Takifumis (D&T) JRPG mode because A). I haven't tried it yet, and B). it's not the reason I got the game.

Ultimately, it's more CLANNAD if that's what you are looking for (which I totally was), but I personally was hoping for a little better execution of it, given how excellently done the original Route this is game is based of was. It's by no bad, but also not great. It is simply a good VN, no more, no less.

Just finished the main campaign today, started the Bonus campaign from the extended edition and it's already awesome.

FYI: The 3 Shadowrun games on Steam are not in any significant chronological order. Events in each game are independant of each other, so if this is your first SR game, you won't miss much other than a few small references to other games/characters.

I'll keep it brief, but to make a short story even shorter?: Buy this game, it is excellent, my personal favorite of the three. Would recommend it even as your first SR game. As of writing this, I have not made a review for the other two, but they didn't compel me to write a review as much as this one did. (The other two being Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun: Dragonfall)

So here's why you should give this game a look:

+Awesome writing/story
+Excellent Character Companions (Gobbet <3, Duncan, Is0bel is meh but her side mission is hilarious)
+Solid classic turn-based combat in an isometric perspective
+Runs (this world's missions/quests) were well structured, lots of skillcheck options and ways to approach situations
+Revamped Matrix looks and plays more fun (hacking minigame is simple to learn and fun to do, if a bit same-y by the end)


All cons are from my experience, take them as you will
-Noticably buggy throughout, abliet none were game breaking (Random FPS drops, UI is sometimes slow to respond)
-Occasional typos (noticed multiple "in in" and "is is" typos, again, not major, but distracting)
-Main character felt really underpowered for most of the game/possible scaling issues (first time playing a mage in any of the HBS SR games, had multiple lvl 3 spells by the middle and almost maxed out Willpower and Spellcasting, still did meager damage until late game. Maybe I just didn't know how to use it as well early on.)
-Possibly too much dialogue in parts; if you don't like reading lots of text, may not be your thing