Последние обзоры Skynred

Moonlighter is not bad, per se. You go into a dungeon comprised of one-screen square rooms, fight random enemies in them, loot their drops, go back home, sell what you got in your shop during the morning, close down for the day, and restart the cycle at night.

OK -- so far, there's nothing wrong.

But the combat sucks. You attack in the direction you are facing/moving towards, and only in four directions (no diagonals).

Keyboard+Mouse input seems to have been an afterthought, as the above is typical console-BS and the default keyboard bindings are also complete trash (you will have to rebind a bunch of keys if you intend to play this with K+M. And it'll still feel weird anyway). You can bind stuff to your mouse, though.

Navigating your inventory -- which you'll have to do a lot -- is a nightmare, because the mouse pointer doesn't work at all in the game. Only the clicks. You have to navigate it, your "notebook," trader-screens, etc. with W, A, S, D plus the keys you felt the least uncomfortable binding"Interact," "Back," "Close" and four other things to.

Character-growth is almost non-existent, as there's no skill tree in Moonlighter. All you can do is upgrade your helmet, armor, boots and weapons (of which you can hold two). You can pick 2 out of 5 types of weapons, and there are 3 different sets of armor, which give either a low amount of health and +speed, a moderate amount of health and nothing else, or a large amount of health and -speed. Each type of weapon also has two "paths" available -- high, sheer damage, or lower damage with an elemental debuff. But the problem is: once you decide what armor set and weapons you want, they evolve completely linearly afterwards.

What happens, in the end, is this: you go to Dungeon 1, get its loot, craft the strongest possible chosen armor and weapons you can, then kill Dungeon 1's boss. Then you go to Dungeon 2, and do exactly the same thing. You upgrade your items once per dungeon, and that's it. The only thing that changes is the monsters you face in each dungeon, but the way you play and the relative damage you do is always the same.

The whole game consists in repeating the exact same thing 4 times over, and then facing the final boss.

On top of that, I only died once, to the aforementioned "final boss." Killed him on my second attempt. And it also took me just 11 hours to finish the entire game (somehow, I still got the "finish the game under 10 hours achievement").

So, as the title of this review stated, Moonlighter is a mediocre game. It's the very definition of it -- it's not bad, but it's not good either. It works fine, it's a little fun, but it's also soulless and unexciting. Serviceable, but uninspired.

In itself, that's not particularly bad; alone, it doesn't earn Moonlighter a negative review, as I assigned it.

I paid $5 for the game (plus the DLC, which I'm still deciding whether I'm going to try out or not), which makes it the cheapest game I bought in the last 5 years or so. Maybe 10. I had some fun with it, and I don't regret my purchase.

So, why is this a negative review?

For two reasons:

1 - Because if we don't put some honest thought and effort in what we do, if we don't try to make things better, we'll never cease being the sh!t we, as individuals and as a species, are, and;

2 - Because there's a chance the developers of Moonlighter deliberately opted to abuse Steam's black-and-white review system (positive or negative only), predicting successfully that a mediocre, low-effort game would lead the vast majority of people to give it a positive review rather than a negative one.

The first reason is enough. If the second one is also true, though, then this is sociopathic and manipulative behavior, and I cannot endorse it.

The game's art style is fine, as is the soundtrack, and Moonlighter is bug-free. Its game-designer is some lazy and/or ill-intended fellow, but the other folks who worked on it did their job well.

Still, given how average Moonlighter is, the fair rate for it would be a "Mixed" review-rating, with 50% positive and 50% negative reviews. So, I'm contributing to balance here.

If you can get the game for $5 or less and you are in the mood for some rather casual, simple gameplay, by all means, do go ahead and get the game. Moonlighter will do the classic, stale rabbit-out-of-the-hat trick.

What do they ask for dinner?

Roasted chicken!

That'll make no sense whatsoever to those who haven't played the game. Those who did, though, are peeing their pants, gasping for air as they laugh themselves into tears.

Probably.

Anyway, Arco is the tale of native-Americans dealing with the arrival of the Europeans. Native-Americans and Mexicans (which I found odd and anachronic as I played the game, but I just went to check and the British colonization of North America actually did only start long after the Spanish had already exterminated the Aztecs and taken over Central America. So, the game is actually right... well, partially, because the Mexicans still act as native people, in the game, whereas in reality they would already have been well familiar with the "Newcomers").

You control 3 different main characters throughout the game's chapters, moving over the half-bottom of your screen from one map-node to another, progressing the story, looking for hidden stuff, completing quests, fighting enemies and making decisions.

Combat is interesting, consisting mainly in turn-based action but also involving some cross-turn and real-time shenanigans. When a character fires a ranged weapon, the shots don't land immediately. Instead, they take half a turn or so to reach the target (which gives you time to dodge them). And there's also some Spirits that may (depending on your Guilt which, in turn, is a hidden number based on the decisions you make) constantly chase you around, in real-time, forcing you to rush your actions. If they touch one of your guys, these get damaged.

Your characters gain experience, and this can be spent to unlock new skills for them. The skill-trees are appropriately sized for the game, but many of the skills themselves are repeated between characters. I.e., double-arrows can be found on 2 or 3 different guys (the 3 main ones are not the only ones you can play with, though).

Playing through the game once took me 12 hours (so it should take you roughly the same), but there's room for replay, because your decisions can relevantly impact how the story develops and ends. Also, you only realize you messed something up when it's too late to go back and re-do it so, if you want to see what you really wanted to, you'll have to start over and do everything again.

There are also some hidden bosses in the game -- 3 or 4, judging by the achievements -- and I only found one of them. But I have the impression that taking the dark path (which I was trying to avoid) is required to find them all. The one I found provided the most challenging battle I had in the game so, if you want to see the best Arco has to offer (and unlock some of the rarest achievements), you'll have to make some morally-dubious and/or counter-intuitive decisions (and even then you might still need the aid of a walkthrough).

Although I've seen some people praising the game's story and writing, I didn't find either to be particularly noteworthy (but I'm an old man and I've seen everything; it might still hit home for you). The perspective of native peoples' lands being overwhelmingly invaded and violently overtaken out of sheer greed is a great premise, but what they did with it was just OK, in my opinion. And the writing itself... well, it's fine for the most part, but there are moments when characters blurt out emotes, and this is literally the worst possible thing you can do in writing. That infuriates me, and denotes some retarded Gen-Z's opinion was taken into account in this project.

Still, in short and all things considered, this is a nice little game, with a unique flair of its own. It's an enjoyable ride that does manage to keep you engaged from start to finish.

Arco's greatest downside is it's price, as it is a bit too steep for a 12-hour (for one playthrough) game. Those who live in third-world countries might want to wait for a 50% or so discount to give it a go.

Some of the very first NPCs you run into in the game have their movement animations and speed all wrong. Some of them get stuck in place, and then teleport away (and we are talking about deers here, not some magical being that is supposed to do so).

Need I say more?

This is trash. It's like Conan Exiles, but even worse.

The UI sucks, melee combat doesn't have much of a heft to it, casting spells is weird, enemies behave erratically and their animations don't quite match what they are doing. The landscape is fairly pretty, but the upgrade-menu is a bit confusing, there's no skill tree whatsoever, and you can't even tell when you get hit in combat. The crap interface that shows up when you die is pitiful, not to say laughable.

Whoever made this either had no idea of what they were doing, or they were going for a cash-grab.

It took me some 25 minutes to manage to get into the game and create my gay-looking character with an extended family tree that I had to pick for no valid reason. Then, 15 minutes into the actual game were enough to convince me I should request a refund.

Any real work put into this went into trying to make it look good on Steam's store page. The game itself is just an excuse to ask for people's money.

If you are an 11 year-old kid with Down's syndrome, this might be up your alley. Wait for a 75% or so discount, and give it a go.

Otherwise, don't bother even if it's free.

They implemented the abused space-worker premise of this game so well that it actually feels like you're slaving away when playing it.

Hardspace: Shipbreaker is well presented but, if you look closely, it's actually nothing but an empty 3D area with one crudely-modelled ship in its middle. It's a very simple game.

The real problem, though, is that the gameplay is just a chore. An annoying chore.

For starters, you are floating around in a no-gravity 3D environment, so there's that natural loss of sense of direction, since human brains aren't used to that. And you also keep moving in whatever direction you accelerated towards, forcing you to Break all the time.

Then, the game essentially consists in burning through some "connecting-points" to separate larger pieces of the ship you are salvaging, and throwing these pieces into a Furnace or one of two other "output points." These are 2 large squares on both sides of the ship and a large "portal" beneath it (more may be unlocked later; I didn't go far). Depending on the material you're handling, the ship-part must be thrown into a particular one of those 3 "exits."

Some of those parts are heavy. And they have momentum. So, they often don't go in the direction you want them to (your weird Grappling-tool doesn't make things much better), or they move very slowly. If they end up landing in the wrong spot, you lose all the money you'd gain from salvaging that part, and potentially some "mission bonuses" as well.

That's the essence of the game. And then, on top of it, you have Hazards -- electric parts, flammable things, radiation and whatnot. I only played the game for an hour and a half, so the only one I had to deal with was fire, as something that I have no idea what it was for some reason blew up in my face, took out 1/3 of my HP and apparently damaged my suit. Nonetheless, I can see those 4 or 5 different hazards adding up to become really aggravating.

There are also some fragile objects you have to retrieve and, if you bump them too many times on anything else, they get destroyed. And things that you miss, which should go to an "exit" other than the one the larger-parts containing them have to go to, which causes you to lose money.

Player-progression is based on upgrades, but these seem to be unlocked rather linearly. There doesn't seem to be much agency left to the player to choose a particular build or way to play.

As far as I know, the story also doesn't take any particularly interesting turn as it progresses (judging by other reviews).

So, in short and once again, playing Hardspace: Shipbreaker feels like a chore. By the time you're done salvaging your first two ships, it has already become more irritating and stressful than fun. And everything points to it becoming downright infuriating later on.

If you want to work without getting paid for it, go ahead and play this. If, otherwise, you believe your time and effort actually have some value, you're better off spending them both elsewhere.

Stranded: Alien Dawn is like Rimworld, except in 3D and more "user-friendly." Although it lacks some of Rimworld's features (I was particularly fond of putting cybernetic limbs on my Rimworld dudes, which cannot be done in Stranded), in general it provides a much smoother experience.

The game offers you 3 different scenarios to play, 3 different planets to choose (each with its particular weather, fauna and flora), and 3 different moons to pick from (which, from what I gather, determine the frequency of hazardous weather events).

Your objective varies in each of the 3 scenarios, but your goal and how you proceed about achieving it is pretty much the same in any of them: build a base, keep your guys fed, happy and alive, and fend off waves of enemy attacks until you can complete the scenario's actual objective.

There's a nice learning curve to the game, plenty of mistakes you make early on and some tricks you learn as you play, such as which crops are worth growing, how to efficiently collect manure, what to research first, how to set up your defenses and how to build your base efficiently.

There's a bit of "tower defense" in Stranded, as enemies will avoid your fences (though not always) and follow the path you lay open for them to reach your base, and you can build sentry guns and mechs to aid you in combat. Your guys can also be equipped with ranged and melee weapons, up to 2 tools, and clothes/armor (shirt, chest armor, helmet, pants and boots).

You can generate energy via solar panels, wind turbines, or a couple of different generators. When certain workbenches, lights or those very generators (which consume resources) are turned on or off can be automated by sensors, and doing this automation is pretty straightforward -- there's no need to manually connect things with cables or anything like that.

You should forget about those fancy bases in the screenshots up there. You'll be constantly under threat from the weather, enemies and famine, especially early on, so, in practice, you'll go for a very basic, square or rectangular single-build base surrounded by crops and fences. You can dedicate yourself to honing your architectural gifts if you want, sure, if you play on the easier difficulties and scenarios. If you are playing to win, though, you'll go for something rather rudimentary.

Finally, I should say that I'm not exceptionally fond of this kind of game. I bought Stranded hoping it would keep me entertained for 20 hours or so. After starting the game for the first time, I wasn't impressed. I intended to play one scenario, on one planet, see everything the game had to offer, beat it once and move on to something else. Instead, Stranded grew on me, and kept me going for 80 hours. I played each scenario and planet once, at last beating the Military Outpost one, on the desert planet, on Insane difficulty, with the Chaos Moon (all things combined, this is the hardest challenge the game has to offer). And doing so was quite fun, despite how nightmarish the early game was and how much I had to save-scum to manage to beat the frequent enemy waves.

In short, I liked this game much more than I expected to. So, if you are a bigger fan of the genre than I am, and you expect to be pleased, you most likely will. Learning the ropes and finally managing to build a sustainable base with an efficient layout, while defeating waves of up to 300 enemies at once coming at me every 3 days or so was fun.

The game is a bit pricey, though (at least outside the USA and the EU), so you might want to wait for a 25%-50% discount.

Troubleshooter is much better than I expected. It's so good that I bought the DLC before I even finished the base game (which is something I don't think I've ever done before). But there are "buts."

The game was made by a Korean studio and, to put it simply, it seems like 2/3 of it were made by South Koreans and the remaining 1/3 by North Koreans.

Let's focus on the main stuff, because the game is so full of things that I can't possibly mention them all here:


The Combat:
Right off the bat, you'll realize the game uses the classic "2 Action Points" scheme: you move once and attack, or move twice and do nothing. I hate that, because it usually gives the player very little freedom. But Troubleshooter overcomes that.

Though we only get 2 APs, characters have Speed, which means that, if they are fast enough, they can act two, three, maybe even four times before the enemy does. And there are also Cover, Retaliation, Forestallment and Counterattack maneuvers, which allow them to attack when it's not their turn -- and to do so a lot of times. This completely nullifies the downsides of having only 2 APs.

Missions can be quite long, with up to a hundred enemies in a single one, often taking some 30 minutes to finish (even with animations set to the highest possible speed).

Most of the time, enemies are initially unaware of your presence, which allows you to position your characters as you want before engaging them.

You can take all of your guys into combat (up to 12), meaning none of them is left behind, lagging in levels while the ones you take to missions advance ahead.

There are three distinct kind of enemies -- criminals, beasts and machines -- and a total of 280 or so different ones, which includes boss enemies (nothing too fancy, but potentially way harder than normal dudes, and who also drop legendary items and some specific Masteries, both of which you may have to grind for).

Mission objectives can vary a little, but most of the time it consists in killing all enemies or all bossess (especially in Challenge mode, which you can access after finishing any given level once).


Character-Building:
This is where Troubleshooter shines, and very brightly.

All characters have a detailed attribute sheet, with Attack Power, Block, Dodge, Armor, Speed, Movement Points, etc., which are deeply affected by the items they wear and the Masteries you set on them. They can use one Weapon, wear Armor, "Gloves," Boots, one (in a few cases, two) Accessory(ies) and one (in a few cases, more) Consumable. The items are all "Diabloesque," varying in rarity and with random attributes.

The game's biggest deal is the Masteries mechanic, though.

Every character has one Mastery screen, where you can select their passive skills. These are divided into Basic, Attack, Ability, Support and Defence ones, and combining 4 specific Masteries, of varied kinds, together can unlock and create Mastery Sets, which give you an extra, strong bonus.

Masteries are not just "+5 attack" or "+2% critical hit chance" bullsh!t -- they can deeply affect how a characters act and perform, There's an absurd amount of 630 or so different Masteries in the game, and they are all relevant.

I don't have enough room to go into details. Suffice it to say that how they did this in Troubleshooter is nothing short of brilliant. It's one of the best ways I've ever seen to customize your characters in a game, if not the very best one.

Masteries single-handedly manage to overcome Troubleshooter's downsides (which I'll mention ahead) which, in any other case, would be potential game-killers. If how you build your characters is your thing (as it is mine), you have to play this.


The "North Korean" Parts:
As it commonly happens with Chinese games, Troubleshooter developers went for a sh!t-ton of content and varied mechanics, which led to many of them being severely neglected.

Your Troubleshooter Company has some 8 possible ranks to climb, but you can only reach Rank 2. This was meant to be "a thing," but they clearly abandoned it at some point and, now, it's just completely irrelevant.

One of your characters can summon and control robots. You can fully build and customize your Robots like entirely independent characters, with their own specific items and Masteries. But they are kind of weak, and summoning them into battle is more of a drag (because you have to take turns to play them) than anything else. They are so-so at tanking, and can be useful to draw enemy fire, but they are not quite worth the effort of building them, and certainly not the effort the Devs themselves put into making them.

Another one of your characters can tame and summon beasts. Taming is a huge pain in the ass, so much so that I only ever managed to succesfuly tame one. Tamed Beasts are like robots: they also have a ton of specific Masteries, you get to select some extra Passive skills for them when they Evolve, and they can use 1 item. The real deal about them is that getting some Masteries by killing enemies is nearly impossible (like 1.23% chance of getting it from a monster that spawns only once, and only in one mission), so, instead of killing them, you tame and then raise them, to get the Mastery you need. But it's just not worth the trouble, because taming tends to end with either your "tamer" or the monster being tamed quickly dying, and the process failing.

There's crafting in the game. You collect a bunch of different resources, craft items to unlock better ones, and eventually you are able to craft your own sets of gear, which give extra bonuses to characters. But there are very few sets in the game, half of them are low-level and, if not for them, the whole crafting mechanic is basically useless.

The second DLC (the first one is now included in the purchase of the base-game) is only half-done. It was clearly cut short. While the first one brings us two new characters and two chapters of story, the second gives us just one of each.

There's this small "Multiplayer Area" in the game, but it's useless. I don't know why they bothered implementing it. It was another loss of focus and waste of development resources.

Your characters can change classes, somewhat like in Final Fantasy Tactics. But, whereas the UI has enough space for some 8 classes per character, they all have only 3 -- a basic one that you level up and never use again, and two to actually choose from.

There are certain Mastery Sets, such as Musician and Clown, that are listed in the game but simply do not exist. You don't find a single mastery belonging to them.

Finally, the game's 3D art kind of sucks. But I've seen the developers acknowledging this, assuming their lack of skills at the time to do something better (which is unheard of), and vowing to do much better in Troubleshooter 2 (which I fervently pray they will, indeed, end up making).


In Short:
Don't let Troubleshooter's dated graphics discourage you. Despite this, as well as the game's lack of focus and many unfinished bits, the core gameplay is very good (to turn-based combat fans, of course), and Masteries bump it up to some five levels above what it would otherwise be.

Taking the game's asking price into account, and given that these Korean folks are not nearly as greedy as their Japanese counterparts, I wholeheartedly recommend this to any turn-based combat fan, at full price, with the paid DLC included.

Despite the game's shortcomings, I absolutely loved it (which says a lot about what they did right).

If they make a "Troubleshooter 2," I'll be all up in it.

(Pun intended.)


As far as building and managing a wizard school goes, this is the game. Forget Spellcaster University -- Mind Over Magic beats it in all aspects by a thousand miles.

Like many others have said, this game is somewhat like a lite Oxygen Not Included. Klei even handed Sparkypants their "task management" code, as Mind Over Magic clearly uses the same logical structure as ONI's, while also having a very similar UI.

Basically, this game is a non-headache-inducing ONI with magic. And also combat. And directed training for your wizards. And Relics to equip on them. And a strong focus on how you build your school.

If you are as much of a fan of Oxygen Not Included as I am (got 800 hours in it), don't be fooled -- despite being a "lite" ONI, Mind Over Magic keeps you busy all the time, and hooked for hours without end. I've been playing this some 8 hours a day for 10 days in a row, and I'm just about to stop simply because I'm nearing the end of Early Access content.

That "lite" doesn't make Mind Over Magic one bit less entertaining. This is an excellent game, the kind that is very hard to find nowadays.

Now, to get into some details:


School-Building:
Building your school is not easy, or boring.

Building rooms that fulfill certain requirements give your wizards some nice (and necessary) bonuses, but it's not just a matter of making a square room and randomly filling it with whatever needs to be in there. In Mind Over Magic, the shape of the room is also taken into account, as well as how many/which rooms lie beside, above or below it, what kind of roof it has, what lies on top of it, etc.

You also can't build everything ideally right away, because you need to conduct a bunch of different research projects before advanced rooms can be built and, meanwhile, you need to have half-S'ed versions of everything up and running, otherwise your wizards will freak out and everything will go to sh!t.

Even after you do have all researches unlocked, figuring out where to put each room and how, exactly, to build them is still a puzzle. You gotta put some thinking into it, pay attention to a lot of details, make mistakes, and rebuild stuff several times.

The way Sparkypants did it, building your school is very interesting, engaging, fun and rewarding.

And, after you succeed, it all also looks pretty damn cool.


The Fog:
You might have read some other reviewers complaining about the Fog -- a dark mist that constantly encroaches upon your school, which you have to keep repelling via rituals. I've seen people saying it keeps you constantly over pressure, as if you had a clock running non-stop and you had to rush through everything.

That's bullsh!t.

The Fog is very easy to handle. When it's nearing your doorstep, the ritual to repel it costs just a few of the most basic resources. And then, the farther away it is, and the farther you want to repel it further, the more and more advanced materials you need to do so. But, at least on Normal difficulty, it's not an issue at all -- I felt no pressure, managing to keep it away just fine, always repelling the Fog back when I felt like doing it instead of against my will.

What the Fog really does, practically, is forcing you to amass higher-level resources to be able to push it further which, in turn, unlocks even more advanced resources for you to grab. It's a neat idea, and it works perfectly fine.

As someone who hates a clock ticking behind my back, constantly rushing me, I can safely say the Fog adds to the game, not detracts from it.


Combat:
Something that ONI doesn't have but Mind Over Magic does -- thus surpassing its main inspiration, in this aspect -- is some actual combat.

Your school will be assaulted every now and then by Rifts that, if not closed, will spawn monsters to wreak havoc in your personal Hogwarts. When exploring the Underground beneath it, rooms will also be protected by enemies. And more things will haunt you, which I won't spoil.

The combat itself is JRPG-like -- like Final Fantasy's and the such. You take up to 4 of your Teachers and/or Students into battle; they take one side of the field while the enemy takes the other; each unit plays in turn, according to their Speed; you give a command for your units to execute when it's their time to act and, once one side is defeated, you either win or lose (winning gives you experience, spell-class experience, and items).

Each enemy has certain strengths and weaknesses, and you gotta take an appropriate party into combat to exploit the latter. Battlefields can have special effects on certain tiles. You must put your beefier guys in the front row, to protect the glass-cannons behind. Potions can be taken into battle. Attacks can have area-of-effect. And strong enough wizards can even use Ultimate skills.

Mind Over Magic uses a tried-and-tested combat style, and it works. It's not something poorly done, disconnected from everything else and thrown in there just to say combat is present. No. Like the Fog, the combat adds to the game, blending in perfectly with everything else.


Schooling:
Other than for your 3 starting Staff wizards, all the ones you'll get will start off as Initiates. These can be turned into Apprentices (when you get to pick a second spell-expertise for them) and both Initiates and Apprentices can then be turned into Staff (the Apprenticeship is optional, and not initially available).

"Multi-classing" your Apprentices adds another layer of depth to the game, because each pair of spell-types you can combine leads to a different bonus. You have to consider what combinations you'll get, taking into account both the combat and base-maintaining qualities of each. (You must also consider your wizards' Race, their Quirks and Traumas, the types of Relics they can use, etc.)

So, there is some nice depth to character-building. If you do things right, you can get some very strong battle-mages, as well as some extraordinarily useful wizards to do chores around the school.

After 80 hours, I gotta say that I didn't manage to get a perfect Staff together. I made mistakes, and I'm still not entirely sure of what would be the perfect set of wizards to have permanently around.


Rituals:
There are several different Rituals to be conducted in your school.

Mainly, you have the Fog Repel one, and the ones that handle your wizards: Hire Staff, Graduate, Retire Staff and Expel Student. But there are more, which you'll probably want to find out by yourself.


Summing Up:
Mind Over Magic is awesome. There's much more to it than what I described, it's completely bug-free (every time I thought I had run into a bug, it was because I messed something up), and it keeps you constantly entertained.

Despite being in Early Access, there's already enough content in the game to keep you going for some 80 hours. This is better than the vast majority of AAA games and than the vast majority of EA titles. And it also costs way less than the vast majority of both.

This is not a soulless, uninspired game made industrially to enrich some psychopath CEO further. Mind Over Magic is what a game should be like, and it far exceeded the best expectations I had when I purchased it.

This is a no-brainer -- 100% recommended, at full price.

My congratulations to the developers. Classy job.

Helldivers 2 is yet another game made for console and ported to PC, which entails the usual underwhelming graphics, poor level-design, small scenes/missions, weird key bindings, painful menu-navigation, lack of proper RPG elements, dumb AI and "arcadey" vibe of console games.

You can't properly set your mouse's sensitivity, because the game only allows it to be changed at 0.4 increments, which skips the sweetspot for mouses with high DPIs. Crouching and going prone are a little slow, messing up the flow of movement. Enemies just shoot or run straight at you, and they do so at a somewhat slow and unnatural pace, so that those playing with a controller can target them. Any moving around sends your aim wiggling all over the place, completely messing up your accuracy. Using Stratagems, activating consoles and etc. during missions brings up the classic, console-typical and overused arrows-minigame (i.e., "press: W, W, D, S, S, A").

I don't have much of a gripe with the game's anti-cheat software or its EULA. It just doesn't feel good to play this, and no thinking whatsoever seems to be required to do so. Compared to something like W40k: Darktide, Helldivers 2 feels... amateurish.

Given how overpriced Helldivers 2 is, you should wait for a 75% or so discount to buy it -- if you are in the mood for some plain arcade action. Otherwise, if you've long outgrown that juvenile phase, just skip over this game and go find something more intelligent and inspired, with some heart and soul, and that was actually made to be played on a computer.

I first played this during early EA, and it took me 13 hours to beat everything the game had to offer. Two years down the line, version 1.0 came out and I played it again. This time, it took me 53 hours to do everything.

For those lazy and/or scamming devs out there: this is how you develop a game using Steam's Early Access. These 5 Swedish guys managed to quadruple the amount of entertainment their game offers in 2 years' work, without ruining anything or adding a ton of bugs (zero, in fact) to it.


The game:
Core Keeper is a top-down Terraria -- you mine the environment, loot all sorts of random drops, collect increasingly valuable ores, craft new tiers of armors, weapons and crafting stations, plant crops to make food that buffs you, and then you fight some tough bosses to unlock whole new biomes, with new hidden scenes to find and a bunch of new items, stronger items to loot.


Skills:
Unlike Terraria, Core Keeper also has a nice little skill tree. Your skills (Mining, Melee, Ranged, Magic, Summoning, Gardening, etc.) level up as you use them, which is a levelling-system I'm a fan of. There are 8 different skills per Tree, you can get a maximum of 4 of them (and up to 5 levels of each one of these), and they are all relevant.

Each Skill Tree goes up to level 100.


Food:
You mostly plant your own food, because you need to eat (there's a Hunger Bar) and also because you need vegetables to craft potions, Boss-summoning items, etc. But you can raise cattle too (though I hardly used any animal products in my playthrough), and fish (for food and more) as well.

Whatever two different edibles you throw into a Cooking Pot will yield a unique result, combining and/or increasing the buffs the ingredients temporarily give you into a stronger meal.

Gardening, Cooking and Fishing are all separate Skill Trees.


Combat:
The combat in Core Keeper is how you'd expect it to be on a top-down game. There are melee, ranged, magic and summoning weapons available for the player to use and, regardless of what you pick, you'll eventually find gear sets, lanterns, off-hands, bags, necklaces and rings that will suit your needs.

Bosses are a big part of the game. It's pretty much all about gearing and building yourself right, preparing the arena and yourself appropriately for combat, learning Bosses' attack patterns and, after multiple attempts, finally managing to beat them. I think I only killed 3 of them on my very first attempt, while there's a total of 15, or so. The whole struggle, both in gearing up and during the actual fights, was a lot of fun.

The only critique I'd make, possibly regarding everything in the game, is that you have a mouse-pointer on the screen and also a crosshair that circles your character, pointing in which direction he'll shoot in case you fire a ranged weapon. And having both things on the screen at once can be a little confusing. It might have been better if they just turned the pointer into a crosshair when the player has a ranged weapon in hand, abolishing the other one altogether.


Summing up:
It's not hard to convey what Core Keeper is as a game, since pretty much everyone is already familiar with the concepts involved. Like I said before, it's a "top-down Terraria," with a suitable skill tree.

Whatever you expect from that brief description, you'll find in the game. This is an honest project, crafted by competent people and executed very well. The game is completely bug-free, and it's very well balanced.

The only thing that could make Core Keeper better is having more content -- not because the game lacks in that regard, but because that's the only thing that can make a game that already works perfectly even better.

If there was more to do in the game, I'd still be playing it right now. I'd really like to try my endgame, total-badass build on something even meaner than everything I've already slaughtered with it.

So, wrapping things up: Core Keeper is great, it was made by honest, competent a diligent folks, they've delivered everything I hoped for when I got the game during its earliest EA stages, and handing a little bit of our money to people who deserve it is pretty much the whole point of having an economy -- if there's one thing money is for, this is it.

Buy the game, and don't wait for a discount -- it's well worth the full asking price.

The only other game that comes to mind that gives as much of a sense of adventure as Outward does is Valheim.

In this game, you need to prepare before going out of town because, wherever you are going, it'll take a little while to get there, you'll have to fight and, if you die, you may respawn in a random location, with little HP and Stamina left, starving and thirsty while not knowing where you are or how to get back home.

You need to take the above into account, as well as locations' weather, what kind of enemies you might or will run into, and potential environmental hazards as well. You must keep your backpack light to be able to bring as much loot back with you as possible, to make some money. You gotta bring a tent along in case you need to sleep outside, and pack some extra fuel for your lantern. You need to decide where you are going next, plan how to get there, do what you want to, and get back safely.


Character-Building:
Outward gives us a rather unique way to build our characters.

There's no Skill Tree per se but, instead, several different Trainers spread throughout all of the game's regions who can each teach you a particular set of skills, in exchange for money. Getting the most advanced skills from any of them requires you to acquire a Breakthrough Skill first. These are all passive skills that have a big impact on your build and on how you play the game. You'll want all of them, but you can only get 3. If you pick a single wrong one, your character will be pretty much ruined and there's no Respec'ing in the game, so you must choose very carefully. (You can respec via Debug Console, though, if you really don't want to start over from scratch.)

You also have 5 gear slots: Weapon, Off-Hand, Helm, Armor and Boots. There's also a slot for Arrows, and you always carry a Backpack with you.

All kinds of items must be taken into account in your build (except Arrows, if you are not using a Bow). There are one-handed and two-handed weapons, swords, maces, axes, spears and staffs. In your off-hand, you can use a shield, a lexicon (for Rune Magic casting), a Lantern (which you can otherwise just hang in your backpack, providing light; some give you buffs that only activate when the Lantern is in your hands), a Chakram or a Pistol.

Helms, Armors and Boots mainly give Protection, Barrier, physical damage reduction, or Impact reduction (too much Impact damage received will knock you down). But there are several different sets of armor, some of them unique, and they can all increase or lower your movement speed, stamina or mana consumption, and increase or lower your elemental resistances and damage as well.

In short, you need to take everything -- passive, active and breakthrough skills, as well as every item -- into account to make a consistent build. I own the game in Epic and purchased it again on Steam to try out the DLCs, have played it twice now, and had to play both times with pretty much the same build because I couldn't think of anything else that might work. Now I have 2 or 3 others in mind, but I'm not entirely sure if any of them would work as I imagine.


Factions:
Outward's Main Quest involves you joining one out of 4 possible Factions. Each of them has its own quest line, and each one rewards you with different skills (passive and active) and unique items. You can only pick one faction, forfeiting all the rewards from the others.

If you mess up a faction quest, you lose unique rewards that can't be otherwise attained, and your character will be ruined once again. Most faction quests are time-sensitive, though the timers are fairly lenient. But you can also make wrong decisions in dialogues, or miss some optional objectives (not all of which you'll even be aware of), and then you lose the rewards just the same. So, you are more than welcome to try to figure everything out on your own on your first playthrough but, if you want to get all of any Faction's rewards and make your character as good as it can be, you will need to read a walkthrough. I seriously doubt anyone can get everything right on their own (there are, for instance, some items that you need to find and you don't know you have to, or have any idea of where they might be).

So, combining Faction Quests and all that Character-Building entails, Outward is very punitive. A single mistake on either account will ruin your character. If you wanna get everything right on your first playthrough, you will have to look up all skill trees, all items and all Faction rewards beforehand. If you want to enjoy the game's difficulty, then don't, but be prepared to create multiple characters and play for dozens or hundreds of ours before you finally manage to get things right.


There's more:
Outward has 6 distinct regions (Definitive Edition, with both DLCs) and they're all big. Travelling between them requires Travelling Rations and wastes in-game days (which matters, for timed quests).

Your backpack slows down your dodge, so, as a rule, you have to drop it down on the floor before any serious fight. Some don't have that effect, and there's a skill that allows you to roll normally with any backpack. And this is something else you have to take into account when planning your build.

All enemies do one or more types of damage, and resist some as well. With the wrong kind of damage, you simply won't be able to kill certain bosses.

All kinds of items can be enchanted (with the DLCs), adding some potentially very interesting benefits to them.

Foods and even some drinks can give you all kinds of buffs. There are a ton of potions that do the same. Healing, Mana and Stamina potions are not very easy to come by. You will run out of stamina every now and then, unless you are playing a mage. Getting damaged or spending any stamina will cause Health/Stamina Burn, lowering your maximum amount of either until you sleep.

Tents can give you different temporary (and rather long-lasting) buffs when you sleep in them, and different Inns can do the same.

Silver coins weight quite a lot, so you have to convert them into gold ingots every once in a while, to save backpack space.

You only have 8 slots in your action bar, so how many skills you have and how often you use them is one more thing that comes into play when building your character.

There are 4 Legacy Chests scattered throughout the game, and you can leave items in them for a new character to inherit. Some items left in them will be upgraded to something that can't be otherwise found in the game. Your new character will have to reach each Legacy Chest location on his own to grab those inherited items, though.

Pretty much everything in the game has to be taken into account. You don't just consider how to make yourself stronger, but also how to make your life easier in Outward, which is quite interesting.

I should also mention that some may say Outward's combat is a little clunky, and/or that all the long walks are boring. I personally hate both of those things. But, for once, they didn't bother me. I love this game, as it is. Combined, everything in it works and makes perfect sense.


TL;DR:
A single [second] playthrough took me 90 hours. If you go in blind and somehow manage to beat the game, doing so should take you about 120 instead. And then you can do it all over again, because the variety in classes and play-styles available easily allow a re-play.

This game is brilliant. I don't have anything bad to say about it. I've ran into no bugs whatsoever and, even though the game is 5 years old, I just replayed it and it didn't feel dated at all.

I totally recommend buying the Definitive Edition of Outward, at full price.