Recent reviews by Vexivian

Similar to It Takes Two but perhaps more for "gamers" than cosy couch co-op. The platforming is a bit tighter and you have to be a bit better at things which is very cool. The environment is fantastic. The last bits blew me away how the heck did they do that?! I'm so curious. Unreal Engine is such a good engine to use. Some mechanics feel a bit clunky and buggy but overcome-able. I'm sure I'll have some more words for this game once I've played it again. Really great game and I love everything about how it's played with only one needing to own it. There's a vibe in that that I think isn't very common anymore in the industry. So much creativity in this game, holy hell.

So.. I come from a modded Frostfall Skyrim. I tried playing Morrowind and because I wasn't used to gameplay from that time I got myself "stuck" hitting a ghost with my regular sword. I've learned, obviously, but this is context.

The graphics are great- I can only run it on Medium with a semi-consistent framerate of like 40 💀 but sometimes pick Ultra because it's just so beautiful. Good job on that. The music, too, but from what I've gathered it's the original so.

For the rest.. It feels kinda... clunky? Bad?.. The world feels so.. dead.. I try to wander and not fast travel. I like to be immersed in my game and try to play as a character rather than a player playing game mechanics. Whenever I meet any NPC on the road it's always a bandit who will just run and attack me. Every time. No hunters, no fishermen, no traveling merchants, nothing. Just bandits. The occasional guard around the main city. Wolves- and apparently as I level these will change into minotaurs, I guess.

In many parts of the game it sort of motivates you to be immersed and RP but then it throws you around and pretty much pulls the RP-rug out from under you and expects you to be just playing a game and abusing mechanics.. It confuses me.

Quests sometimes hit me with the same thing. Sometimes the tracker is great, sometimes the instructions and summaries are great and they excite me- other times they seem extremely lacking or pop up before you even got to read the new information that the pop-up summarizes..

Also leveling pop-ups during combat feel really bad; I'm mid swing and just HEY YOUR LIGHT ARMOUR IS BETTER NOW- OKAY BUT I NEED TO DEFEND MYSELF- Can we not have me need to press that button right now?
There's a delay for every combat action that feels bad. It's something one can learn and get used to/take into account but the feel of it is not good.

Some clunky control options, likely to do with console support. Isn't that always the case..? For example when lockpicking you can use the keyboard to control the lockpick BUT you can also do it via mouse. Sometimes those overlap as I'm not just gonna let go of my mouse for a locked door.. And I think it would be better if you could toggle which you'd like to use so that the inputs don't overlap.

It also seems like there may be a memory leak or something like that- I'm not a tech genius or anything but the experience is that frames start to suffer over time and reset back to how they were before after a restart. Sometimes the game is so gracious it restarts on its own without warning- aka crashes. I've played a couple of hours on this day of writing this review and I must've crashed at least 7 times. I know it's a meme at this point that Bethesda releases buggy games but that shouldn't be an excuse or a "ah we expected this so it's fine".

A pet-peeve of mine might be the way equipping weapons and their shortcuts work. If I have my bow on 1 and I switch to nr2 where my sword is. It switches just fine and will un-sheath it so it is ready to swing with. However if I have my bow on nr1 already selected and sheathed away- if I press 1 it will un-equip the bow. And if I then press F to bring out my weapon it will instead bring out just my fists. Why did anyone think that was a good idea? It means that pressing a shortcut will result in two different results very inconsistently. I think sheath/un-sheath should be one single keybind, and pressing any of the shortcuts should bring out the desired weapon. If I press 1 I want my bow to come out. If I press 2 I want my sword and so on. I will never want it to unequip either of them.

Entering any area with NPCs has them play their queued lines all at once very loudly into my ear. Sometimes they all spawn in the same place and then gradually spread out over the cell you're currently in. Sometimes NPCs don't do their quest stuff till you bump into them or go back through a door so that they can go through that door it's just... <_>

I think it sorta plays like the old game but with a new coat of paint and perhaps that's what they intended, and what players expected, but it just feels sad. Everything looks the same so you can't even really navigate by landmarks or little things within a cave. I feel like I've been in all of the caves and ruins already after only being in a few of them.

I don't know.. I have been yearning for something that would give me similar feelings to Skyrim.. The freedom, exploration and wonder. I got some of that initially from Re:Oblivion but gradually as I traversed through the world it just felt less and less exciting.. Less lust for exploration.. This confusing mix of motivating/rewarding RP and motivating game mechanic abuse.. I wanted to love it here but instead I just feel incredibly sad because it COULD be so good.. and yet the world is dead.

Very wholesome. Easy to pick up and forget that you're trying to get reception and instead you just explore.
Would like to have more camera control here for better navigation and steering of character but I understand it's likely an atmospheric choice and for the same of some puzzles. Still doesn't work super great for gliding when the camera decides to change out of nowhere because it thinks you want to look at the mountain wall when in reality you'd like to enjoy the view *away* from the mountain just a lil bit. So all in all camera feels a bit wonky but I generally really enjoyed the game. It made me smile and chuckle and giggle. Reminds me of "Here Comes Niko", "Smushi Come Home", "Lil Gator Game". All of which were great.

Literally exactly what it says it is.

mimimimimi..... lalalalalala...... doremifaso..... mimimimimi..... mimimimimi.... lalalala... !

Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. Drink your own tears.

Have to toggle my VPN for this game to even let me log in. Can't select vsync on because it wont save that setting and then just doesn't let me pick anything till I restart the game rinse repeat. I've almost racked up 2 hours of game-time but none of that time was actually spent playing the game, but instead wasted on waiting for the game to start and load into the old road. I can't actually comment on gameplay yet because frankly I've not gotten to experience any of it.

I miss when games weren't stuck in early access for years, and released as a complete product. I'd love if companies weren't able to rely on the "we'll just patch it later" mantra anymore.

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After an update I seem to be able to play it. I don't know why I can't toggle on vsync while also limiting its frames to 60.

Gameplay feels very much akin to Diablo rather than PoE. Let's not beat around the bush; we all know this game is competing with at least those two titles. I reference PoE more so than Diablo because I've got nearly 6000 hours played in it so..... Anyways- LE seems fun so far. Its animations and stuff are very nice. The walking is a bit iffy, still. Sometimes the character, or minions, get stuck walking in place. Turning around looks iffy. Not as responsive as PoE, but I don't know why that is. Overall fun. Lots of stuff to- uhm- wrap my head around but it doesn't seem as bloated as PoE for now. I like it. Hope the launch issues get dealt with soon. Really a shame that happened. Also hope the Autumnal Wrap gets distributed soon.

Getting to play this whole thing offline for like £40 - you can't fault that.

Thank you, Smushi devs. What a wonderful experience this was. 💕

I really thought I'd like the game because I love Abzû and Journey, and was generally curious about the developers. Picked it up super cheap on some 90% sale or something and gave it a go. It didn't work right so I had to look up why and fiddle with OS settings relating to what visual processor the game was using, which I don't think regular users would so it's probably not for anyone who isn't a superuser (also not generally an issue with other games).

Anyways, I fixed that and started playing it with keyboard & mouse, but quickly found I should switch to a controller. Using an xBox controller it was alright, but it still controlled really weirdly. You essentially have to go fast which is okay, but it gives you no real opportunity to make sharper turns. When you do want to do that, you have to slow down and attempt to turn in a really awkward way and barely move. It felt awful. Otherwise if when you do go fast, your view tilts up as you continue.. which is pretty bad considering all the flowers you need are on the ground. So you constantly have to adjust the camera slightly and it doesn't feel good to do that. If it's not present on its original release I believe this may be a case of a bad port. Based on many other people's feedback and coverage online I believe it truly is suffering from a terrible port.. which is really sad.

The levels themselves were pretty. I don't know if the intention is to make music or not but it was kinda nice. I found the piano/background music to be far too overwhelming and loud to be relaxing or calming, thought. Not to mention the in-between little cinematic shots of a loud and busy city; they completely ruined the calmer bits. I really didn't enjoy them. Is this game supposed to help me relax or not? I get that you may want to show a contrast between the busy, grey and bad city life vs a nice open and natural environment. But what is the point here.. really? Those bits were absolutely unbearable.

The levels, again, beautiful. A little short? Easy, very casual. I ended up not playing very far into the game as I couldn't continue with the controls and dealing with the animations. Think I did three flowers- now having looked up how many levels there are that is halfway through the game..so I guess I did get pretty far. Nothing was truly calming about this Title, but if it's not a game to calm you then what is it? I haven't found any evidence of story either so yeah, I really have no idea. I'd guess they wanted to convey a feeling and a mood, which is what I enjoyed so much with Abzû and Journey.. I guess it makes sense this was the game they made before that. The feel is similar, this one just isn't as polished.

All in all I found myself repeatedly asking me "why am I doing this?" I ended up refunding the game because I wasn't going to enjoy playing through it. I'm sure people could enjoy it. The loudness of it just wasn't for me. I'd rather play this game without the loud and gross animations in-between levels, and with a significant lack in technical issues.

This looks like a cute game. I haven't played a ton yet; I think I'm on day 5. It started out super linear.. I couldn't do anything other than just do what the game wanted me to do; no exploring, nothing. Just follow. Press A when it tells you to, etc. So far I've only been able to essentially explore in a circle. My house, town, a beach and a tiny forest area. Things respawn, there's tasks in town. Things seem to progress sloooowly...

It's fun but I'm often wondering why I'm playing the game. I continue because it's cute and I don't have anything else to do right now. I guess it works very well as a game you can play while only semi-focused. When you don't want it to take up 100% of your focus but you have some attention to spare and need your hands busy.

The graphics are cute, the art is lovely. Lighting effects and everything; it looks calm and cozy. Also love that I'm a grape. Not sure what to make of it. Try it out. I got it on sale. So far I don't regret it.