Recent reviews by Private Shorty

Gonna keep this short cause there's a LOT I could say about this game.

As somebody that doesn't really like BR games most of the time, this is probably the only one that keeps me coming back every once in a while. Character designs are super anime-inspired but you probably already knew that just by looking at the screenshots, so if that turns you off it is what it is. If you have 2 other friends the game will be much more fun, as all games are. The routing and build-crafting aspect of the game is just dense enough to be fun to mess around with, while not being unapproachable. The ability designs are very heavily inspired from other MOBA-style games like League and DOTA 2, but you can't usually look at any one character and just say they're a direct copy of a character from one of those games.

TL:DR - Game is fun. If you like MOBA-style games check it out, it might click for you.

Solos - Negative reviews for them removing solos is cringe, that game mode was unplayable the majority of the time in NA.

dog

If you like League of Legends, or if you just love the lore and world, this game is probably worth it assuming you're a fan of turn-based RPGs. If you're a fan of turn-based RPGs but not League of Legends, this is still probably worth picking up on sale. $30 feels like a fair price, to be honest, but I am biased towards League of Legends content as I love the world and characters.

Little about the actual gameplay, there's a overworld like feels a little like a top-down ARPG, you've got puzzles and traps to avoid, as well as can see the monsters and interact with them before you go into the real turn-based battle system the game utilizes. Speaking of, the turn-based mode is a combination of Star Renegades and FF13. It's got a timeline of actions on the bottom, and you have access to 3 different types of attacks/abilities. Instant, Lane, and Ultimate. Instant abilities work like a typical turn-based RPG, pick the move, the character does it, you wait for your next turn. The difference is that you can see where your next turn will be on the timeline, and the timeline can have various hazards that only attack certain areas of the timeline. Lane abilities have a "cast time", so the move isn't performed right away, but you can augment the damage and speed of the attack by choosing between "Speed", "Balanced", and "Power" lanes. They're fairly obvious, so I won't explain further. Ultimates are instant, but use up a meter that charges as you make attacks and take damage.

There's a lot more to the combat system, but that's the quick and short of it. It's very satisfying to use, and with an RPG like this, the most important aspects are the combat system and storyline. So if you like League of Legends, or just the universe of League, and enjoy a turn-based RPG with some twists to the usual formula, I would highly recommend checking it out. If you only like one of those two things, wait for a sale maybe, but I'd argue it might still be worth it. If neither sound like something you'd enjoy, it's a hard pass.

The GOOD:
- CLASSES: Each class feels unique and different, as well as each subclass (specialization) feeling like it drastically changes how you play each class, essentially giving you 9 classes
- LOTS OF LOOT
- RESPEC: You can respec at literally any time, if you want to respec your slorm investment it only takes 10% of the refunded amount (which can be a LOT at higher levels, but you regain it fast enough for this to not matter)
- BUILDS: There are some SERIOUSLY fun builds based on proc chance here, so if you like RNG this game will not disappoint. If you hate RNG there are plenty of ways to build for consistent damage as well.
- WEAPONS: Slorm Reapers, as they're called, are unique enough that you can completely change your build to fit a new drop you find from closing a breach (Portals that open when you step on a ritual-like circle on the ground and spawn enemies nearby). They each have their own level, which I'll talk about in it's own section, that scales different stats depending on the weapon itself, but not all slorm reapers scale up in base damage as they level. For example, one I found for the Knight class scaled with %xp gain, and as it leveled up it gave me more %xp gain, so if I had found it early enough it would have been a fantastic weapon to level with.
- ATTRIBUTES: I absolutely love the way the attributes work here, every level you get a point to spend, and while individually they might not do too much (+4 dmg here, +1% attack speed there) every 5 points spent will net you a larger bonus in the main stat and a small second stat (+10 dmg AND +5% crit dmg, or +2% attack speed AND +4% crit chance). On top of both of those, every 15 ranks will get you a cool new passive ability, more powerful than a simple bonus to a stat or two (though you will get a stat bonus too). Oh and did I mention you can take points out literally whenever you want? Found a new piece of gear that gives you mana regen so you don't need to have that stat that gives you mana regen, no problem just take the points out and put them somewhere else, easy as that!

The NEUTRAL:
- EVEN YOUR XP HAS XP: This isn't strictly a positive, or a negative, so I'm putting it here and you can decide where it goes depending on how you personally feel about it. Pretty much everything in this game has xp, the weapons level up, your character levels up, your skills level up, your equipment levels up. You get where this is going? This feels good at first, since it's easy to level things up early on, so you feel like you're getting more powerful in every conceivable way. The main issue that comes with this, however, is that you have to invest so many resources into new skills or weapons to make them come close to your current power level, since you can't really do "easy" expeditions as they scale to your character level. This is somewhat alleviated by being able to respec so easily, but you can't just transfer xp from one weapon to another, at least not that I've found so far, maybe there's an NPC for that.
- NPCs: Speaking of which, the amount of NPCs and how you find them (at least so far in EA) is awkward to say the least. As far as I know, they crop up randomly as you do expeditions, with a couple notable exceptions being freed as you do the roughly 16 mission story mode. The main issue I have with these NPCs is that they seem to give me new abilities to find loot, one in particular being a guy that lets you find the slormite? (or slormfact or slormicle or slormwhatever it is) needed to upgrade your gear to +1 and beyond. Eventually this same NPC also gives you the ability to find gems that the blacksmith can use to reforge stats on gear! Huge things, and you just can't find them until you find the NPC, talk to him back in town, find enough of the t1 slormite for him to give you the next dialogue option, and repeat these steps until after about 4 or 5 trips he lets you find the gems. Not to mention you most likely have to find the blacksmith first (I found his daughter before I found him) otherwise those gems won't actually do anything. After all that, you then have to spend gold to unlock the ability to reforge your gear at the blacksmith. So many steps to unlock a feature that is usually key in games like this. This is in neutral and not bad, simply because I was able to still play the game perfectly fine without any of these features, so they're clearly intended to be used late game.

The BAD:
The biggest negatives here have been solved with how long the game's been in EA tbh, look at the edit section to see my one negative thought.

EDIT (After Patch 0.9): I think there's enough here now that I can feel confident recommending the game. The above still seems to hold true but I do need to give it another play soon to confirm. Still kinda don't like how it feels hard to swap builds because of the systems in game, there's a lot of ways to respec, but with all of the different leveling and upgrade systems, you end up feeling significantly weaker after a respec. If there was a way to transfer xp from one weapon to another, or one character to another I think I'd have a lot more fun experimenting with different builds. (There might already be something like this now, like I said I haven't played enough recently to fully know all the changes)

Good game, glad to see it updated still.

Play with friends.