Recent reviews by yep cat

It's good at its core but not polished enough for me to not refund at this time.

Major issues at time of writing:
- Solo play enemy density is too high, I'm making it through, but it's a slog to fight 20 enemies every screen
- Matchmaking is definitely broken, I read a suggested fix someone put in forums, just make all difficulty matchmaking work as a collected pool it would be better
- No chat?

sick game

it's like... top-down twin stick shooter w/ "far cry outpots" (it's better than that...) + stardew lite

pretty polished as far as I can tell, which is good since it's not an early access title

yea I'm having fun

eh

it's a start but as expected, after leaving it for a while after a "custom" start, the world assimilated under the "Chinese" like faction I had started...

Actually I was hoping Nippon would take over. Also Murica was wiped out immediately. But anyway, there isn't much excitement I guess? Like there's alliances but I suppose there's no "strength" modifier for them, since "China" broke all of its alliances and the whole world became "China". Well, I guess maybe some months later it might have more interesting storytelling potential.

game sucks but bunny got that dumpy

this happened to my buddy Eric

Made me wish I was dead. Money.

good

I finished the true ending of this game over the launch weekend, but doing so was often not enjoyable.

First, I need to clarify, the biggest issues of this game aren't the microtransactions (these never played a factor in my playthrough, I always had enough RC to do whatever I needed...) or even the performance - though, yes, it is absolute crap in the town, but I'm confident this can be fixed. Instead my biggest gripes with this game are all core gameplay related, a developer philosophy that is anti-player in all senses.

I was a big fan of DD:DA, but I never played the initial DD launch. It's possible this game will need a full-on DA overhaul to make the issues I'm about to lay out go away.

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Issue One - Dragonsplague

I am so glad I did not encounter this during my initial playthrough, and instead got the first notice of this mechanic in NG+. This game revolves around a type of asynchronous multiplayer, with the Pawns summoned coming from other players. This is really cool, and was one of the reasons I loved the first game. The Pawn system is even better this go around - up until I got this tutorial popup. Basically, there is a chance that a Pawn you summon, or yours, contracts this STD. What does it do? Maybe a debuff? A boss fight? Nope!

If you don't catch this STD in time, and rest in town with a Pawn in your party that has it, the entire town will die, including quest NPCs.

Well, that certainly is an interesting gameplay design choice, but at least it's mitigated by quicksaves/quickloads, right?

Issue Two - Single Save

Okay, there are technically two saves, but that doesn't matter for the above section, because the inn save and your most recent save are now the same. I don't even know where to start with this thinking.

At least they are giving the option to start anew by erasing your current save? But why can't you

1. Have multiple save slots for unique playthroughs?
   
2. Have at least a couple save slots per playthrough, to prevent these game-ruining moments?

I understand they have this idea of consequences. It works for most of the gameplay, but this STD is still a major issue - because the only way to even identify it is through some rather innocuous voice lines like "I'll take the initiative!"

So you basically need to constantly quiz your newly summoned Pawns to see if they're gonna brick your single save file.

Okay, there is one thing I'm omitting for unbricking your save file if you find yourself in this situation. You can get this item, an Eternal Wakestone, that will mass revive a bunch of people. However, this brings us to

Issue Three - The Sphinx

The Sphinx is an interesting gameplay deviation from most of the game. I was making my way through its questline without reading up on it beforehand in NG+. And then I arrived to the Riddle of Rumination.

You may have heard of the 240 Seeker's Tokens you can collect throughout the game. A nice distraction when you come upon them, right? Well, I hope you remember where you picked up your first one, or else this riddle is a doozy. You need to go back to the exact location where you picked up your first Seeker's Token, and pick up a new item there, within a timeframe of 7 in-game days, or else you fail this part of the Sphinx questline.

I do need to point out, I've read this quest is optional insofar as getting the Eternal Wakestone, but it is not optional if you want the achievement - which is the whole point I was taking the time to do the Sphinx questline in NG+ to begin with.

So, the way to cheese this, since you only get 2 saves per playthrough (1 inn, 1 normal) is to immediately rest at an inn, then go through whatever Seeker's Token guides are out there, try ~50 locations, realize none are your first one, realize you're out of time, reset to your inn save. This resulted in me losing a full day due to

Issue Four - Lack of Travel Variety

I don't think the first game had a good fast travel system, either, but it was less of an issue since the map was far smaller, and there wasn't this Sphinx nonsense. Also, I remember the Dark Arisen version at least had an Eternal Ferrystone, I forget when it unlocked, but it basically allowed unlimited fast travel anyway.

The developers have gone on record on how happy they are that there's no good fast travel in this game. It wasn't that bad for the main game playthrough, but as soon as you're going for completionist runs, you see how this quickly breaks down. Additionally, this results in

Issue Five - Backwards Difficulty Scaling

This game is extremely difficult in the early-mid game, but quickly becomes mind-numbingly easy in the victory lap in the post-game and NG+. I also noticed I struggled with a non-tank class on my main character, due to the frequency of knockbacks (and chain CC), enemies focusing aggro primarily on the MC, and

Issue Six - Encumbrance

You can't carry ♥♥♥♥ in this game, full stop. Doubly so if you're not a Strength based class. You can carry your equipment you have on your person, and maybe like 5 healing items - any more, and you're Heavy which results in significant stamina penalties, which is at least a major exploration annoyance, and at most a death knell in combat. The inventory micromanagement required in this game is so frustrating.

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I think that about sums up my annoyances with the game, I guess I can talk about the good?

MAJOR SPOILER - My favorite thing about this game experience was the true ending and how it destroyed my expectations. I really thought the game was done, and was disappointed the game was so short, then I realized something was up, and got into the true ending. It added around 5ish extra hours and helped the game end in a satisfying way.

I also appreciated the greater variety of field bosses compared to the first game, like the Dullahan.

The new classes are fairly interesting.

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To summarize, I'm desperately waiting the Dark Arisen version of this game to make it what it was promised to be.

just try it

Solid game so far, stopping since I hit a bug that the devs are already working out - not able to place buildings after a while. Definitely has Frostpunk vibes, but more QoL than I remember Frostpunk having (could be misremembering). Rather than ice, you see a lot of dirt (even the roads are called "dusty roads"). Lot of polish for an EA game, think w/ some more bug squashing could be a top contender.