Recent reviews by TeshiKO

I really want to like this game. It has the best building system I've ever encountered and the professions are varied with plenty of unlockable content. However, that's where the good stops.

They added timers to crafting. This isn't a deal breaker in itself. Plenty of survival games add timers. But these are mobile game timers. For example, you need 100 charcoal to make bronze. You get 25 charcoal every 20 minutes. So that's 80 minutes of waiting to get the charcoal. Then it takes 15 minutes to make the bronze ingots. So that's 95 minutes of work (1 hour and 25 minutes) just to get a basic material. It's insane.

Resource placement also needs a look over. Basic materials like tin end up right next to high leveled enemies which are impossible for you to defeat. Devs say the goal is to cooperate with others but the player base just isn't there. I've also seen ore nodes spawn in mid air and lots of materials like to spawn hanging on the side of mountains.

Inventory management is another issue. You need so many materials to do anything and most of them have stack sizes of 25 or 50. You might think this is enough but it takes 50 wood just to make one order or charcoal. My house is basically a giant mountain of chests to store things at this point. There is just a major disconnect between how much chests store and the materials they require for recipes or leveling professions (i won't even touch on the ridiculousness in that as many other reviews already do).

I do not recommend this game at this time. The most pressing thing is the punishing timers on crafting and the sheer impossibility of inventory management. If these two things get fixed, then I'd change to recommended even with the other issues.

If you've played any previous Owlcat game, you know why you're here. This is an amazing game filled with phenomenal writing, intricate choices, and a dynamic morality system. Are there bugs? Yes. Is the game still phenomenal with those bugs? Also yes. If you like large scale, interesting CRPGs with amazing storytelling and writing, then you want Owlcat in any form that takes.

I keep trying. I really do. But this isn't it Bethesda. In fact, The game would have been immeasurably better if you had just dumped space travel and spaceship customization altogether. Give me one well designed, interesting planet with multiple factions that I could stomp about. As it is, this is just a loading simulator occasionally interspersed with some dumb samey combat and missions that fall flat. The Ryujin industries mission line was perhaps the mission line I looked forward to the most. Let me tell you right now, boy is that a let down. But maybe playing fetch quest for the boss isn't your style. So you join the vanguard. That's better right? Absolutely not. The vanguard quest line is somehow even worse where the only enemy you truly face is ammo counts. Which brings us to another issue: Why is everyone so tanky? It's like Bethesda graduated from The Division school of enemy design. Individuality? Interesting tactics? No, no, no. MORE HP. That's the ticket! As it stands, I don't even think mods will save this game - and that's assuming anyone even bothers making meaningful mods for this game.

This is absolutely what path of exile should have been and a welcome title that can stand alongside Grim Dawn. The skill tree is great. It's huge and expansive just like the path of exile one, but the important here is that the skill tree never feels complicated. You can draw a clear line to the ability you want and go for it while knowing exactly what you're working towards. More importantly, all the nodes along that route will contribute to the future ability. It's very well designed. The classes are well balanced with enough individual nuance that you can make multiple different builds. It's just a good game. You won't be disappointed.

Never had so much fun building space ships and watching space combat. It's great!

I wasn't sure what to expect when I went into this. I'm a fan of some other games of the same format with different themes: Sands of Salazar and Path of Wuxia. I played this game for 10 hours on the first day. This is a nuanced game, but everything is always clearly explained. It's fun to see the power increases as you get stronger. A lot of games could learn from this one. Your path to immortality actually feels tangible as you can see the content you play and the other cultivators you fight becoming easier to beat. If I had any cons, I do think that it's a little hard to raise your artisan skills. The only way I know of to raise forge, for example, is to beat a mythical beast and get a forge manual. You can get some exp from crafting artifacts, but you can't do that until you have a Forge of at least 20.

Also, a note on the insight thing. I saw some comments about needing to pick certain destinies at character creation to max out insight since it can't be raised in game short of rewrite destinies. It makes learning faster and gives you some more rollback points. I don't think the learning time is a big deal. It's easy enough to spend entire months learning, especially when you can have a lifespan of 100+ years. At 100, that's 36,000 days of activities. 100 isn't even that realistic though because I've only been playing 15 hours with my first PC and I'm at 148. On the other hand, rollback points get real thin real fast at earlier levels. Especially sub 100 skill levels when comprehending legendary/rare skills as one talent on those could cost 60 points to rollback.

I have played 5 hours so far and I really enjoy the game. There is definitely some quality of life work to be done and a few revisions on the script (mostly small misspelled words). That being said, what is here is already really enjoyable.

I appreciate that skills unlock dialogue choices. I appreciate that the skills that do so state this clearly in their description. One of the things I liked best about PoE was how your background choices changed how you can interact with the world (and sometimes how the world interacted with you). I don't think it's that complicated here, but I really appreciate that "making friends by using magic to set people's hair on fire" is a dialogue tree that exists behind a skill. My only complaint behind the skill system is that it's very easy to be useless. Mages only get a few spells each level and once those spells are gone, they're useless. Sure, you can buy up rods and staffs, but right now my to hit on my convoker with a 6 in rods and staves is only 30%. You can run into the same issue with a ranger, for example, where once you run out of ammo (a thing in this game), your to hit with a hand weapon can be terrible. It's almost like the game penalizes you for not picking fighter who gets 3+ weapon choices a level.

One thing that really needs to be worked on is combat balancing. Man, there are certainly no punches held here. I'm not sure if the intention is for you to run around the main city doing some quests first, but I wasn't able to find too many quests. I did find one side quest, but it didn't give me any XP. Of the companions I had found, those quests were all over. One was in the academy district in the city, but that area of the city never opened up to me so I've just set it aside for now. However, the first major quest you get is "find ingredients in the wood" and that graduates immediately to "fight like 20+ scorpions in a home."

There are also some really annoying things that happen with the UI. For example, the hall of records has ~15 bookshelves to go through. If you hit tab, it highlights all of them. The thing is, not all of them have items. Some of them (I'd wager about half or more) are just empty. Can the UI only highlight items that have something inside them? That would be better.

All of that being said though, if you enjoy CRPGs and want a good one to scratch that PoE itch, this is an easy recommend. If you aren't terribly invested in CRPGs, maybe hang back a few months for a few more QoL changes to roll down the pike.

Addition: I just want to note that I specifically mentioned empty containers being highlighted in this review, then the developers fixed it 9/3. They're listening.

Edited April 2022: Ok, I thought I should update my initial review. I've played through a few games and they finally added an unlimited turn option (But oh boy, more about that later).

What works: It's a good concept. Civlization choice feels impactful here and being able to create and customize your own AI leader to play against others in their own games is neat. The territory versus city system is ok, though needs to be balanced. I appreciate the tech tree and how easy it is to understand what you're unlocking with each research project. The district system is probably the best part - though it gets super cumbersome late game.

What doesn't work: Combat is just...annoying, really. There are generally three ways to play through the game: Focus on Money (In this respect, the game can be fun, because you end up making thousands of gold a turn just by stacking trade routes), Focus on Food (Don't worry about starvation, just kill off some of your citizens for a forest or some ♥♥♥♥), or just absolutely murder everyone. The last of those three tends to be the best choice most of the time. Era Stars are annoying, as is cultural conversions, osmosis events, and religions.

Further Explanation:
FIMS - Ok, look. I appreciate that this has been reduced to a simple system that allows you to focus more on building your nation. On the other hand, it has been reduced so much that there's not really any point in fiddling with it. It really says something about a game when one of the best winning strategies is to focus on food production, build up a lot of population, and when they start complaining about starving just sacrificing them to build a boat. I get it. I get that rushing the production is a feature, but I just can't feel good about being encouraged to off citizens for a forest every few turns to stop starvation. And the thing is, at a certain point, that lost pop doesn't even impact the rest of your FIMS output. Money is the other side of that coin and if you have enough of it, you can do whatever you want. Given the bonuses from some of the merchant civs, it's practically impossible to not make bank.

The Era Stars - Oh boy. I wanted to like this feature, I really did. Look, the thing with Era Stars is that you're either going to dominate the era progression or you're going to end up in a late game where 8 of 10 civilizations are still on Era 4 and 2 of 10 civilizations have somehow already reached Era 6. It's especially galling because research can be painfully slow and building infrastructure on existing cities (upgrades) can be damn near impossible.

Combat - Which brings us to the combat system, which is equally good and bad. I actually like the unit limits being based on civilizations and research. I like that you can build garrisons to serve as spawn points and fortified positions. I like that the battles happen on the actual world map and that things you do on the world map can change the battlefield. I like how you can still participate in the rest of the game while battles happen and I love that you can bring in reinforcements from nearby cities while battles are happening. You may think: It sounds like you like the battle system. Hang on, I didn't say that. While it may have some good points, it can suck the fun out of your playthroughs faster than osmosis event notifications. For one, what is even the point of a fort. The enemy can just walk into it. I built stone walls. I fortified them. Then I made them bastions. Does that stop the enemy? Absolutely not. "But we have siege weapons..." And they're useless. You don't even need them. You can attack into the fort. Once a unit is no longer on a square inside the fort, just have your footsoldiers walk right in. Even better, now you benefit from the enemy's fortification rating. Because what the hell are gates, am i right? Then, as if that wasn't enough, as another commentor has mentioned the battle only lasts until one side loses all war support. At which point, you get 'points' (war support) based on your actions during the war that you can use to do things like 'force an enemy to become your vassal," or even "give over a city." This essentially means that you could go to war with a civilization multiple times over the game, win multiple times, and never be able to take out that civilization. I don't even know how someone would ever actually finish the 'eradicate all civilizations' ending except by blowing the world up with pollution or nuclear armaments.

Unit Upgrades - Little combat sidenote, if you find yourself in a situation where one civilization out of the however many you're playing against manages to pass to a new era before you, you should just give up fighting them. Or that's what I would say, if most of the nations that manage to do that weren't the ones who are super aggressive. You will lose, though. The unit upgrades are ridiculously unbalanced. Even if the UI tells you that you have higher combat power, don't trust it.

Diplomacy - The easiest way to deal with diplomacy is this: Just don't. I mean if you can, just make everyone an ally. Form an alliance with everyone. You won't be able to, but it's worth a try. "Since I'm in an alliance, I must get some resources and assistance?" Lol, absolutely not. If you go into an alliance with another nation, you can sign some treaties that will benefit your trade routes with them or even increase your influence/science gain, but they're going to be absolutely no help in a war. Some guy attacks you? Ok, good luck. What's that? You want your allies to come help? Hahahaha. Oh you were serious, let me laugh harder. Hahahahahaha. The diplomacy system itself is shallow and I dislike that the default mode is to 'accept skirmishes' with new nations. Essentially, any nation you don't have a non-aggression pact with can just roll up, kill an entire squad, and then walk away. "But surely that would result in a war declaration." Haha, no. You might not even get war support for it. Here's what you do with that. Open up their diplomacy window, go over to crisis, and demand they pay you some money for the people they killed. Then just sit on it. Because the AI won't accept it, but they won't deny it either. I've only had one case where the AI did anything with my demands - and it was to add a demand of their own and then immediately ask for a white peace (Which is a clean slate agreement). Otherwise, just let it sit. Use it for war support.

Overall: I mean, it does some new things. It even does some of them great. Eras and new civilizations aren't a terrible idea, they're just implemented weirdly here. Same with the FIMS and Territory system. I just think it needs a bit of balancing. The end game is terrible currently. And there's no effective way to deal with aggressive civilizations. Additionally, while I appreciate the diplomacy system doesn't end up with me being stuck in situations like in Civ 6 where a nation is mad at me because I won't go to war with them, the whole thing is just shallow.

Side Tip: You can build districts in your territories (Since that just gets skipped over in the explanation).

PS: Unlimited Turns - This just means the game won't end until you unlock all era stars - including the war ones (So good luck I guess). But also, after 600 turns, be ready for lag city, because the game will start to stutter since it obviously was not built to last more than a few hundred turns.

My initial experience with the game was creating a playfault account. The UI will tell you to verify your email, but never send the email. You'll have to go to the website to do that.

Assuming you get past that, you end up in the main menu where you can queue for games. It took my 10 minutes to queue for a game. Not because it took 10 minutes for a queue to pop, but because I went through several queues where a game would pop only to be thrown back out into the main menu under the error: "Player didn't choose a hero or left. Match reset." One might think that would put you at the top of the queue, but it does not.

If you do manage to get into a game, you find out that it's mostly annoying. My understanding is that they got all the Paragon resources, not just some of them. Which makes it even more amazing that the item shop is barren. Ranged combat devolves into a game of keep your enemy inside your blue line and the range is mostly ridiculously low. If you love bloom, you'll love the graphics though, as everything and everyone suffers from the 'bloom makes things look good' syndrome.

It's early access and generally I could forgive a barren item shop, some queue issues, an account creation UI that doesn't work, and some balance issues. Here's the thing though: They have a $60 tier. There's a 30$ tier for unlocking all the heroes. This isn't an early access, they really think this is a finished game. If they didn't, no sane person would ever try to release a $60 tier for an early access game.

Is it worth it right now? Yeah, maybe for $10. Is it worth $20? Maybe if you were a die hard paragon fan and can wait. Is it worth any more? Absolutely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ not.

Look. This game has a solid base. The combat is smooth and the ability trees are nice. But what you need to understand is that this game was released August 2019. It's now July 2020. That's 309 days. In 309 days the item store still says coming soon. The ITEM STORE. Spend your money on something else. Like Last Epoch, a game of a similar vein that actually gets updates, or go play Path of Exile for free.