Recent reviews by Kernalgohd

God, this game is so cool, I wish I were better at it. Just the ways the charts have been put together is almost mesmerising to watch and play.
To anyone coming from a real hardcore rhythm game, this is going to feel very familiar but look very alien. It is still a proper rhythm game, its just so much harder to parse than you're used to. Sight reading wont come until WAY later. I feel the only downside is the learning curve is pretty rough. There wont be a good way to ease into harder challenges because of the way "notes" work. Also it seems to be strictly 3k. It also has the absolute best latency setup from any rhythm game Ive seen. It gives you the sound, the visual, and then even lets you test it yourself. If you're new however you should probably take what it gives you, play until you're comfortable with the controls, then do it again.

Y'know I was sceptical hearing about it so much, but honestly, watching white women buying white bread at the store has a certain appeal to it.

Wowie. I normally have a really fun time playing bad games, ripping on it and sharing with my friends. But this one just felt icky bad.

I only got to the town before deciding it wasn't worth playing any further, here are some notes I took while playing. Some are bigger points than others, this is just the order I ran into them.

• The character keeps moving a half second after releasing a directional key
  
• When I push take all from a chest, there is no reason for the chest window to remain open unless there is still stuff inside.
  
• Tries to do the Breath of the Wild Opening, but they clearly don't have LOD models for distant trees, so the view is kinda crud.
  
• The player character knows more than I do? I'm here to sanctify some evil? How do I know this?
  
• The shield surfing is really bad, there is dust particles before hitting the ground, and there is no acceleration going downhill, its just a static speed.
  
• That poor deer in the water looked to me for help then poofed ;A;
  
• Why do the goblins drop resin. resin is a tree product.
  
• Why do I have to sanctify this chest, all its making me do is push the open button twice

All this (not including the deer thing) really makes it feel like its more of a cash grab while copying a lot of the aesthetics from games that did it much better such as genshin impact and breath of the wild. Straight up this feels like a knockoff of Craftopia, which isn't a great game by no means but is certainly functional and half as janky. Its worth noting I didn't have any issues with lag or anything but I have a fairly high end computer, though many people complain about it, and if my assumption about LOD models is correct, that would likely account for it.

I don't know how they intend for this to run on phones, unless the people complaining are just using very low end computers. The free to play nature of games tends to draw in some very low spec computers for sure but Im sure they would be better than a phone right?

On my whole list of complaints the part that really drives me off the most is the movement. The delay is only there after moving for a little bit first, so just tapping the movement key doesn't do it, but the whole delay thing makes me feel like I'm struggling against some grid the game assigns me to like its an RPG maker game in 3d. I really don't know why it does it. at first I thought it was just trying to sync up animations or something but that's certainly not it, there's no slow down to stop animation, I cant imagine its latency because I should be playing locally with maybe just items pinging server side, even if it was I'm under 80ms so there's no way that's the issue either. The most outlandish thing I can think of is that its trying to simulate phone controls using keybinds and that is causing some kind of delay. straight up the most speculative thing in this whole review, no fact there just wild assumptions. But I really don't know why it would behave like this.

I play a lot of janky low quality games for fun, often they have a unique charm to them that makes it interesting. This is the first game that its poor quality has drove me off before finding any charm to it. The visuals are there for sure, they've done a really good job of making something that looks like it "cant be that bad" but it really is. That said, when you're copying games like genshin and zelda for art design, its pretty hard to mess up.

I'm going to give it a little longer to see if there's any reason to play this other than "its free."

I gave it a couple more hours, as a big fan of Valheim, I find the near identical rip off of the music almost insulting. it tries to copy a lot of the progression from Valheim, but you don't need any of it, the only thing stopping you from taking the first weapon you get and conquering everything is durability. It then tries to copy the combat challenges of Genshin, but the combat is just not nearly engaging enough to care. Genshin's combat is fast, fluid, and inspires creativity. This game you have 3 buttons; Attack, Special Attack, and Cooldown Attack. these change based on the weapon you're using but changing weapons isn't fluid like Genshin can be and there is no reason to change weapons either other than durability.
I've mentioned durability a few times now, its worth mentioning you CAN buy weapons from the cash shop. Its about 50 gems per 1 usd excluding specials and bulk cost, and the weapons cost 180 gems, so at minimum you need to spend 4 usd, with 20 leftover, or the 5 usd bundle for 120 leftover. The more I played, the more it felt like these are EX Genshin impact UI designers and artists that probably saw how much "free to play" can earn and thought they could do it too. Its worth saying that out of all the free to play games out there Genshin has some of the most work and effort put into it, trying to copy that without programmers who are up to the task is silly.

Also there are LOD models, but they load in really janky and stuttery, I think the lag problems come when the game tries to load in chunks of harvestable resources, which includes the ground. Theres probably a reason Valheim looks as low poly as it does.

I played a bunch of this over a weekend, to summarise everything Im about to talk about in 1 word, its Potential.
Because I find those to be most important on my own lists of make or breaks.

• Not a lot of content right now.
  I played near the end of October 2023. I spent a couple of good days playing a whole lot and quickly ran up to pretty well all there was to do. Im sure theres a few finicky things here or there that I missed I wasnt really aiming for 100% completion, but I did run into a pretty big drought of stuff to do pretty quick.
  
• Artstyle
  While I am personally okay with a game looking like this, especially when its made by a couple of people at best, I understand that it can be a big drawback for a lot of people. You're never going to find something that takes your breath away visually. Conceptually however can be different.
  
• Theres a healthy amount of jank
  Its definitely no polished product, yet(?). Early access may make that seem obvious, but a lot of games end up keeping the subtle jank flavors no matter how hard they try.
  
• Very hands off story
  Again another one that may or may not change, and may or may not be your cup of tea, but when it comes to the general idea of what this game feels like its going for, if youre looking for a game where the path to "winning" is paved... well lets just say bring your hiking boots anyway. There are quests, but currently the game is about gaining favour with regions and you do that by doing quests for people. The quests so far are not bad for sure, but after the first couple to get you moving the game lets you fly on your own, for better or for worse.
  
• Solo dev
  This has its ups and downs and Ill talk about the ups later but a very apparent down with a solo dev is the rate at which they can produce content. While the overall engine is built, there is a LOT of tedious, time consuming work left in designing quests, talent trees, "class" systems, gear, items, crafting recipes, locations, etc.
  
• Stealth is easy and the enemies are dumb
  Simply put, I stood at the top of some stairs, crouched, and proceeded to throw javelins of light at goblins over and over. They would run right up to me, but somehow not see me, and then run away. This doesnt work everywhere but stealth isnt so much a mechanic as it is an on/off switch.

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Theres a lot I personally love about whats going on here, it doesnt help that some of the things are very close to some of my own game design documents Ive doodled up in the deep dark forgotten pits of my phones notepad app (one day... one day...)

• The game FEELS big
  right away when you start running around, the game does a good job of not faking much scale. and it manages this by not being an absolute open world, but rather in open world segments. At first I didnt like this but it allows for areas to be plenty large on their own, while still giving the devs time to actually populate it with stuff instead of open space. Right now there is a lot of open space unfortunately, but you can see the skeleton of what will be interesting.
  
• Combat is fascinating
  It honestly feels like no two skills are the same, as you level up and get points you can invest in skill trees, and there is a lot even right now, especially for magic. You can also clearly see the planned class stuff for later not yet implemented. Its reassuring to see the plan is there, just not the time. Ephemeral road maps, and podcast promises can only get so far but seeing is believing, like the skeleton of what will be in the world, you can see the same skeleton in the features.
  
• A LOT of work is here
  Ive talked about how much work there is to do still, and how some stuff is empty, and its concerning that theres just a few people working on it. However to come into what is here, and see how much groundwork has been done is very reassuring. I cant help but believe in the developers and this promise of a game when I see how much as been done.
  
• Gathering Minigames
  Its just always much nicer to have agency in a game and agency over how much xp you get for gathering feels very worth it. The minigames are simple, dont take much time, and pretty well work alongside the gathering animation itself, its benefits arent super high that you feel youve wasted a resource by failing or ignoring it, and you feel good when you get good enough at it to zone out and let instinct take over.
  
• Alchemy is interesting
  As are many game systems, but I fiddled with this one the most so Ill mention it. This game basically takes the ideas of The Elder Scrolls potionmaking and iterates on it. Every ingredient has 4 types of effects (though some duplicates, this may change) and its based on how its prepared for the potion itself. The preparation is simply selecting on the menu how its done, so not crazy in depth, but it makes you look at any ingredient as 4 times more precious.
  
• The game is not afraid of you.
  This is going to be the most out there one to explain, but theres a lot of different aspects to this. First of all, you can get combat skills in this game that quickly make you a god. The game compensates by increasing numbers of enemies, and ranged enemies, but its not afraid to let you be strong. Ill get into the next part in its own category.
  
• The skills are imaginative and ruthless
  The other aspect of this is in a lot of games like this, games are afraid to let you be a bad guy. I dont mean like "ooh scary I killed nice people in fallout, Im so naughty tee hee" Dragon Age has Blood magic now and then, but it really only costs health, you use your blood to damage others instead of mana. Whenever villains use stuff like blood magic its to rip the blood out of you and then stab you with it. Well this game will let you do that. This game will let you lift someone up off the ground by their blood, and turn their pores into flechette launchers using blood bullets. The game will let you yoink the blood out of some guy to give you some health back. Blood magic isnt the only well loved category. They all are but I think necromancy got a glow up most games dont give it. A lot of games let necromancy just be the summoner class, but this one expands on it. You arent just resurrecting the dead, youve got a few different kinds, youve got soul magic that does its own fancy stuff, lazers, life seeking bullets, the fun stuff. You even gain little soul nodes that create floating skulls next to you that fire automatically at enemies. You dont feel like a simple walking zombie factory, you feel like you properly control death.
  
• Solo Dev
  With a solo dev, you get the little things that matter to that person that normally wouldnt happen in something big budget. There is a type of flavor when a single game director has full control (Kojima) and for better or for worse, its enjoyable.

There is a lot of things I could talk about and gush about but so much of it ends up being like so niche subjective that I wont bother. If you ended up reading this far, thank you. I dont normally make really in depth reviews, nor bother putting in the effort to clean them up and make them slightly less of a wall of text. Im not a writer though, I dont use commas right, dont bother putting apostrophes in places very few people would care to see them in. I just feel like it would be silly to talk about the effort put into what is here without at least putting in some of my own. If you pick up this game right now there is a fun weekend of playing around, there are some console commands you can use to try out the skills and play around I would simply treat it like a small sandbox with some cool abilities to use and think of the rest of it as an investment in the future. I look forward to needing to update this review.

The game is less than 2 gigs on my drive, and is more interesting, compelling, and visually interesting than anything Ive seen over 100 gigs. The gameplay takes me back to the tony hawk days, and does a really good job of compelling you to take your trick "lines" as far and wide as you can. Mix that with one of the hottest soundtracks in years and I often find myself getting lost in crazy long combos while listening to the songs.
The complexity, or difficulty is actually quite low, and what the game asks for more of is creativity. I love that before the game asks you to pull out your best tricks, it gives you plenty of time to learn the area you will compete in first.

Taking some of the best movement options from mario, adding it to an adorable character, and a nice tight amount of gameplay that doesnt overstay its welcome, the only thing I could ask for is a map. But I definitely understand how hard it would be to make one for a game like this.

if you like the skill/talent building parts of Diablo or Path of Exile, but wanted to play from the third person perspective, this is your fix.
Its pretty tough depending on what you want to build. Theres a lot of different ways to blow mobs away, but bosses are really where your build and skill is tested. It does a really good job of splitting the build and the gear close to 50/50 in terms of impact.
Also the Developer is so ridiculously active with the community on Discord. My friend and I found a bug, and in around 3 hours a patch was out to fix it. We brought up a suggestion in the discord chat, the community agreed it sounded good, before the night was over, it was implemented. Ive never seen someone so open minded to community feedback. Mad respect.

Hey guess what, they fixed a lot of issues. Theres still some but it mostly has to do with loading the game at strange spots, or is entirely visual. The new talent trees is also really good at making you feel like you represent that particular stat. No matter which tree you invest in the climax of each is basically becoming a maniac. The overhaul on the clothing/cyberware is nice, I can now focus more on how V looks rather than install other mods to modify clothing I like to keep up. And the way your stats add to cyberware now is great. It was tough trying to argue that Sandevistan or Berserk was able to keep up with quickhacks, especially with how many missions would like you to be quiet. However if you go hard on the cyber, you can get stuff to compensate. Currently with the Sandevistan gorilla arms build Im running its very easy to just dismantle an enemy group before they even raise the alarms.

Overall the game had good merits before, with some big drawbacks. Theyre not only solved now, but improved.

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Original Review:

The story is cool, and mister keenu reevu is involved more than most celebrity cameos would be. But, the game is a disaster of bugs, glitches, animation problems, unintentional clipping, physics issues, AI freezing, quest locking, pretty much every problem under the sun is wrapped up in this. Every now and then I have some time of nothing messing up, and its fun, but this really needs more time. Just as Im getting into it, and immersed, a main quest npc will just start floating, or walking nowhere, facing the wrong way, and you gotta play around those problems, just takes me right out of the moment and it loses all its momentum. If you can help it, just pretend they delayed it another month to iron that out, and then come back when its fully cooked. It will be good, but not right now.

TLDR: Buggy mess atm, give it a bit to fix them.

As someone who participated in the founder pack for the original game, I eventually fell off the original because a myriad of reasons, mostly being that the core gameplay loop just wasn't very engaging, very few enemies try to make you change your gameplan, and basically can run a rotation, which is poison for an action combat style of game. Now and then Id hop on, play for a bit, remember why I stopped, and then find something else. That said for this to come back now, my money spent gone to the wind, my character progress vanished into the ether, and the game to be nearly identical, is very disappointing. I understand that by switching off the publisher and going on their own with it makes it unreasonable to think they'd keep my characters, progress, and purchase history, I honestly don't care. It probably should have stayed buried to avoid these concerns rather than just refuse to address them.

If you liked dragon nest, but wanted more human looking character models, you'd probably like this. personally the only difficulty really comes in when the bosses have super armor.

If youre a fan of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series, but wanted a more Dungeons of Dredmor feel from it, this is a definite good place to start. Legion's Crawl is a top down roguelike RPG that plays like Mystery Dungeon without the plot and in between level scenarios, but gives off a difficulty and brings choicemaking skills that one who has played Dungeons of Dredmor will remember vividly.

If you are not familiar with those previosly mentioned titles, then read on, otherwise this chunk of text is dedicated to describing that, and you are free to skip this paragraph. In this game you have 8 directional movement in hallways and rooms that are revealed as you traverse them. Along the way there are monsters that only move after you move, in a turn based fashion. As you continue along the floors you amass experience, wealth, and loot, that you can use to give yourself an edge. Of course as you continue, things get harder, and the entire way along is a scamble to make the decisions that will help you survive the later trials. Dungeon delving is of course a rough business, and you will get hungry after a while, making sure you have food so you dont starve is a major deciding factor as to how long you spend on a floor in search of food, or to simply trust your power and move on.

Important things to note, as to major differences between the previously mentioned titles. Unlike Pokemon, you are alone, and ranged attacks/combat is not directional like pokemon either, when you go to shoot, you shoot the selected target if its in range and in line of sight. Compared to dungeons of Dredmor, most things break down into just a few ingredients, so as a crafter, you wont have to scrounge around for specific items just to make the item you're after. But even if you dont pick up crafting, any material you do find can be sold at merchants along the way. Each crafting station on a floor can only be used once, whether you use it to break down some items, or to craft something. The depth of which items are or can be used is not as vast as dungeons of dredmor, but as this game aims for a more simple experience, it doesnt take away from the experience.

Even if you are a veteran of these style of games, I would reccomend starting at Initiate difficulty until you understand how some of the basic things work out in this game, because Adventurer will wipe you out if you dont understand how certain enemies work and what recipes or skills you want at certain times.

While this game is still in early access, I would enjoy some factor to encourage replayability other than to experiment with new things. While experimenting will bring be back a few times after completing a run, I feel like the stand against unlocking new things upon reset will hold back my desire to keep coming back, and players who intend to just see everything the game has to offer wont find too much after theyve tried each thing once.
Though even for the struggle of completing 1 successful run, the price is definitely worth it, and moreso if you come back for another.

As a side, I saw someone complaining about visibility in hallways, and for my own 2 cents, Ive found hallways to save my life far more than endanger it, as ranged enemies cannot see you in that hall either, and are great chokepoints for when you are overwhelmed numerically.