Recent reviews by dvo

If you enjoyed Monster Train 1, you will likely love Monster Train 2.
It's expanding on the previous system and has even more clans to toy around with.

I've been playing this game a lot since release and have been really enjoying it. I hope they keep updating it, because it would be great to have a couple more random events available.
Also corruption feels a bit overtuned at times. At the same time it also makes the game hard enough to be a challenge. I don't have a good solution for it, but it feels meh if you're steamrolling a run to then get 3-turned in stage 8.

Aside from performance issues, which I personally never noticed, the game is fantastic.
Is it a bit on the easy side? Yeah absolutely, even as a first time monster hunter (I guess a couple hundred hours in souls likes help) - the game packs no real challenge. However it is beautifully crafted and the gameplay loop is addicting.
I feel like half the things veterans are complaining about are the reason why the game is so successful. The story, while not beeing an overly intelligent plot, is fun to watch and introduces you to the monsters and the world. But overall the game gets carried by the fluid gameplay. Movement feels good, the weapons feel unique.
Bit sad that it doesn't have content for hundreds of hours, but I deffo got my moneys worth out of it. Also there is supposedly a lot of free content updates coming. I know I could start to farm random things to extend the content, or play a new and different weapon, but I feel like that wouldn't necessarily add to my experience. Might just be personal preference at that point.

The game is fun, but the game is also a scam.
WWE on pc still runs on the old engine. I have no idea if that stuff looks better on Playstation, but the character models are pretty much on the level of Skyrim (2011). Also the new feature - not on pc. Also the audio quality of nearly everyone in the story mode is on the level of a 20$ walmart microphone.
If you are a WWE Fan, you will likely enjoy playing it anyway. Music is pretty good this year though.

So do I recommend it: kinda yeah, because the gameplay is fun. If you're looking for a complete experience and don't want to support 2k's scummy business tactics, rather don't buy.

It has a wild amount of issues, but I'm still enjoying it so far.
But really, if you want a polished game, rather wait with buying.
AI constantly gets stuck in open roads, the UI is straight out of hell and not very intuitive. The entire new pool feature doesn't work overly well. Surely they'll patch that in the coming couple months ... right?

Small update after finishing the game:

The story is really good, emotional, funny and makes you question the connections to our reality. From a gameplay perspective this game combines everything Atlus has learned from the persona series. They removed all the social grinding, which never felt good. The combat is a step up, offering you more options to customize your approach without the need to find the right persona or monster for it.
An absolute masterpiece, even if you don't usually enjoy jRPGs - this game could persuade you otherwise.

Small Nitpick: Game could easily be 5-10 hours shorter and it would actually increase the quality. Given the scope of a ~70-80 hour game thats fine after all.

It was a nice idea is probably the sentence that sums up the game pretty well.
To be fair I've only given this game 5 hours, so there might be stuff afterwards. But in todays world a game either captures you in the first 30 minutes or it doesn't. So I think I gave it a fair chance.

First of all: No fast travel.
Please respect my time and don't make me waddle everywhere, holding w is not gameplay.

The era and story was a nice idea. Unfortunately the budget only allowed for cheap voice actors and mediocre animations that feel out of place. At this point rather do some nice art and have a narrator.
The combat is obviously inspired by the souls games, but it lacks the elegance. I get that everyone is a robot, so it's supposed to feel robot-y. Unfortunately that just makes it feel clunky.
The exploration feels kinda terrible, sure it's fun to find shortcuts or a hidden stash - but aside from that there seem to be no meaningful or interesting items to be found in the first 5 hours of this game. There is like 4 Weapons, a couple upgrade mats - but not enough for 2 weapons. Aside from that mostly Trashloot.
And then you have to engage in more combat during exploration, which as mentioned before mostly feels clunky. It's not overly difficult, it's just slow and nothing deals respectable damage. So you're also at it for a while. Same goes for the first big boy achievement boss. Got 3 Phases, all of them feel the same, minus the last one - which doesn't last long enough to care about it. Boss deals nearly no damage, I deal nearly no damage. Fight takes forever because everyone is waiting a lot.

Maybe I just didn't find the secret sauce for this game, but after beating the boss and beeing told "go to some place that I already forgot" I couldn't be arsed to go for more exploration.

So in the end, it's not bad, it's not good. It's somewhere inbetween, but in todays gaming landscape a 6/10 is worth as much as a 3/10, because the competition is so steep. Given the price point, I can't recommend it. Because for that money there are a ton of better soulslikes to play.
If you're a french history nerd - buy it though, there is a lot of attention to detail that is entirely lost on me, because I don't care about it.

Really fun game, felt a bit easier than the previous one.
Takes some time to understand how the fighting system works and how to defeat enemies - but after that it's a cakewalk. Picked the Agi-Tree. I can imagine the Str-Tree to be a bit more difficult, but iirc it was the same in PC1.

While the game deffo has issues, the core - the gameplay - works really well and feels great. I'm one of the rare keyboard warriors in the game because I can't use controllers and while I will likely never reach a "good" level, I still enjoy it. Also Ed Boone said we get a wifi filter soon :D

Edit: Unfortunately NRS keeps overpromising and underdelivering. There is still no new content to this day.
The Skins you can unlock by playing are recolors at best, at worst they look like 13 year old photoshop andy got their turn. Also those skins are nothing but recolors too, with either scars, a slightly different skincolor or different terribly looking hair.

Adding 1 new fighter every 2-3 months and charging 8€ per fighter isn't it.

The singleplayer mode "Invasions" is beating braindead bots, which get "enhanced" by a lot of armor moves. You can win 95% of these battles by spamming d2.

Online is a mess, basically a johnny cage/stryker or raiden/kano simulator. Crossplay was a nice idea, but it didn't get added to koth.

At this point rather buy tekken 8.

Fun experience, good atmosphere, Some of the scares even got me, which is very rare.

Copy Paste of the first game, but somehow they managed to make the graphics worse.
While the first game had a bland story but surprisingly good gameplay - nothing really comes to mind when thinking about unique selling points of this game. The gameplay isn't new anymore - the nemesis system lost it's novelty and the story is still horrible.
If you just want a game to mindlessly waddle around and click on orks and uruks - the 5,99€ this costs on sale is probably worth it.

I don't quite know why people rave for this game, it has nothing that other games haven't done better.