Recent reviews by MercurialJester🌡

If you enjoy tactics lite games, wizards, low magic settings, and oodles of dry sarcasm, you will love Tactical Breach Wizards

This game does not mess around. You're into the action immediately, tutorialising is both short and very aware, and the writing, OH MY GOD, the writing. Sharp, clever, and incredibly funny in an understated way. So good.

Art style is spare but it doesn't need to do any more than it already does. Information is easily understood, and the game brims with complexity even as it is ostensibly simple enough to understand at first glance.

This is a stellar game, and while I obviously haven't finished it, I am willing to stake whatever reputation I have on this. Even if it may have post-launch hiccups, it's already smooth enough and I trust the dev to fix things as they need to.

10/10

DON'T NOD excel at storytelling, even if their game-play falters. They've come a long way since Remember Me and honed their storytelling craft through the Life is Strange series, and it shows in this game. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is an emotional, deeply human story of relationships and pain. Our two leads are wonderfully fleshed out, the major characters they meet have their own agendas, and the overall story is one of pain, loss, revenge, and ultimately about letting go. All told, stellar writing as expected from a studio with a real talent for it.
Unfortunately, combat is hit and miss still. It doesn't flow very well, it feels a little janky, but there is definitely improvement since their last attempt at action. I think if they could really iron out a good combat engine and flow, they could make a stellar game that marries both their exceptional storytelling with solid, enjoyable game-play. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden falls flat a few times with the combat, and has a tendency to overstay its welcome just a tad, but nevertheless I feel it's an incredible experience worth playing.
I give it a hearty 8/10.

Y'know, People Can Fly have made some great stuff before. So what the ♥♥♥♥ happened here?

Honestly, this is just okay. But I recommend staying around World Levels 3-6. Anything higher and you better be running co-op or a glutton for punishment that partakes in CBT just to feel something. The sponginess of enemies gets much worse, and combined with the swarms of enemies as the level goes up makes for hell solo. So bear that in mind.

I also got some nasty lag even on an SSD. Mostly just audio and visuals not lining up, however this mostly only happened after extended sessions of play. YMMV

Weapons feel beefy for the most part, and once you find that sweet spot for your skill/comfort level, combat can feel very nice, but as I said earlier, don't let the game shame you into upping your world level as time goes on. It will murder you and laugh at you.

I don't recommend simply because this just felt like a Gears of War wannabe, only somehow even less intelligent. The story is mid, but it sure looks nice at points, I guess.

I wasn't on board with the MMO version, but really got in when they dropped it and made it basically a co-op game with single player.

I played for 50+ hours, jumping between Wayfinders to find a good play style. And then I hit the level cap of just 30. And all progress stopped.

This...is not for me. Look, I get the concept. But this isn't the way to do this.

I'm not playing anymore. There's no reason to progress. There's nothing to do but grind the same missions over and over, with a couple of mutators, and maybe progress the story a little until the next boss that decides you aren't allowed to touch the floor any more and you need to juggle your echoes to make it less annoying to fight.

5/10

Another one that doesn't really fall into a Yes or No recommendation.
The opening couple of hours are cringe, as is a section of the middle. The map is too big, but rather than shrink it down they gave us a single button traversal that just feels anaemic. As does combat, where the spells and skills you use feel like they were taken from the live action Last Airbender movie. Even when maxed out, not a single spell feels powerful. Even at the end, during the finale, it still felt weak and lacking in impact.

The story is interesting, but at its heart is a very typical chosen one heroes journey deal, The Tantas are intriguing and I would have liked to spend more time knowing about them. But for a large part of the game, they are very one note and while it's explained why, it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth once you have all the pieces of the puzzle.

End of the day, it overstayed its welcome without really feeling like it earned the right. It's not horrible, but it's not a must play by any means. This game oozes style over substance, with lots of pretty sights and interesting environments, but the gameplay is all over the place and doesn't ever really settle.

Hard to recommend, hard to discount entirely. But for me, the negatives outweighed the positives, so I have to go No. YMMV.

It's so much worse than I thought. It's mechanically threadbare, it's cheap difficulty (relying way too much on unavoidable head traps), characterisation is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, writing is banal and ham-fisted, and it's just so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boring. The guns lack impact, the upgrades are meh, the combat requires no skill or tactics at all you can get away with button mashing, it pulls a hard 180 on one character out of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nowhere in an attempt at unearned pathos. The story beats are so telegraphed if you've played any sci-fi game, read any sci-fi book, or watched any ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ episode of The X-Files. It's just horrendous.

The ONLY positives are that it looks pretty decent, and is decently optimised. As a horror game though, it ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fails. There's maybe one good jump-scare in it, but it barely even clears that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bar and even that one is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ telegraphed you have to be thick to miss it.

What a garbage experience. Only recommend if you want a legit turn-your-brain-off experience that does absolutely nothing of worth.

Urgh. I want to like *temtem* but the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ design choices are utter garbage

The grind for everything is obnoxious. Clothing is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ horribly expensive (why does a bikini top, TWO PIECES OF FABRIC CONNECTED WITH STRING, why does ii cost SIX THOUSAND ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ DOLLARS?!!), you get screwed on XP so you have to grind to level up your tems, there's a massive jump in average levels between zones forcing you into that grind, and it relies so heavily on synergies that if you don't spend hours catching and levelling up every tem of type in an area until you get them to the same level in order to take advantage of thos synergies, you are always on the back foot.

Not to mention the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ battle pass system for a paid game that forces you online because they wanted to give people that Pokemon MMO. No option to be single player offline, or just invite/co-op only. Keep the ♥♥♥♥ in a F2P model, keep it the ♥♥♥♥ out of paid games, you greedy ♥♥♥♥♥. And what happens to this game when you decide not to keep the servers on anymore? We gonna be out our ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ money with a dead unplayable game? ♥♥♥♥ you.

It's such a mess, and I hate that they could have been on to a winner but just ♥♥♥♥♥♥ it up so badly.

My god. I knew this was gonna be bad, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
- Bland quests including the amazing "Just get to level 20 stupid" quest.
- Horrendous lag that causes not only ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hit detection, but also time based quests to be infuriating.
- Quests that require ingredients, but those ingredients spoil, and if you harvest too early, you're screwed
- The grind. The absolute grind. For materials just to repair your weapons and armor. All to push you to the Atoms store.
- A friggin Snallygaster during a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ point to point running quest that just up and one shots you.

I could go on. A lot of this is bad luck sure, but it's still an indictment on the game and they clearly didn't give a ♥♥♥♥. It's a janky, unfun garbage game that bring shame on the franchise.

Give it back to Obsidian. because clearly Bethesda wants to drive this franchise into the ground and remove any and all of the things that made it amazing.

0/10. This game is a travesty.

Free Weekend Player

This was fun...right up until I realised what the game was doing.
Also, the monetisation BS.

Okay so I tested this extensively and unless my luck is just impossibly bad, I'm confident that I am correct.
This game pre-rolls all "RNG" and turns every encounter into a puzzle to be solved instead of a challenging prayer to RNGesus like X-COM. Some people might like this, but I personally am not a fan.

Let me explain.

I restarted a single encounter over 50 times in a row. I got the same hand of cards every time. Every. Single. Time. Strike one.

I did the same opening move every single time which was this: Team was Strange, Hunter, and Ghost Rider. Place Rider's Hellhole ability. Use Hunter's Whip with Forceful Knockback to push an enemy with 80% into the hole. 50 times in a row, this was my opening move. And NOT ONCE did the enemy go into the hole. Ever. With any RNG system, at least ONCE that would have worked, more likely more than once. But not for me. Strike two.

Finally, the egregious monetisation. In a single player, non-server game. Strikes 3 through infinity.

If it was F2P maybe. If it was multiplayer AND F2P, sure. But then I wouldn't have played it. But this game not only asks for AUD$90 without a sale, but then has the temerity to add MTX's? For skins AND characters? Get stuffed 2K and Firaxis. That's just disgusting.

Do not recommend. The pre-rolled stuff bothered me (and again, I could just have the worst luck but I seriously doubt it) but might not bother anyone else. But the monetisation and absolute gall to charge so frigging much and expect us to pay in more is just reprehensible.

After getting this on Humble Choice, and playing through the entire campaign, I have to admit my opinion has changed significantly.

While it does pre-roll a lot of things, they aren't as static as I implied. As enemies take damage, their chances to Drop do increase, so it's not as bad as I made it out to be.

The MTX's are still garbage though. Locking a handful of stories behind $25 character packs is egregious and should not be rewarded in any fashion.

Overall, I'm sticking to Not Recommended because of the MTX, but the gameplay is actually solid and decently fun.

Urgh. Where to start.
I love you Spiders, but sheesh. This one is rough.
Okay, the good bits: it looks pretty okay for what it is. The art direction os wonderful, the period-esque costumes and stuff, and yes even the attempts at examining colonialism and the impact of it on the place being colonised is laudable. Some hitches here and there with the nuts and bolts but overall, I enjoyed the world and setting.

The bad:
First of all, this game is too damn long. It's padded out in a lot of places especially with the need to go back and forth, and the placement of some camps that function as fast travel spots are very inconvenient, especially when you need to craft things. The lack of being able to use your companions skills means either spreading your skills very thin and never being to max any of them, or leaning into a very specific build that leaves you lacking in combat versatlity.
Fights get very grindy indeed, and that's with the games biggest crutch, Stasis. Some boss fights take forever and there's not much you can do. They do say you can prepare, but this isn't The Witcher and it shows. Movement in fights is beyond janky, and honestly you'll be spamming the spacebar every few seconds to quaff a damn potion, the game might as well have had turn based combat. Might have worked better honestly. |

I recommend this one only on the basis that I am a lamentable Spiders fan. Much like every game they make (alongside another perennial fave of mine Cyanide Studios) you can see what they wanted to do; they have so much ambition and drive, but lack the ability to pull it off to the level they want/need to. I can forgive a lot simply for these reasons. It's not gonna blow your socks off by any means, and in fact you might get very tired of this game very quickly, but I stil recommend it.

But please, Spiders...if/when you do Greedfall 2, please for the love of everything, work on balance and pacing. Because that last stretch of this game was a slog, and it felt more like a waste of my time rather than a way to tie up all the loose threads. It was not fun at all.