DRIFTER legutóbbi értékelései

DiVE's premise is rather simple: You (literally called PLAYER) are somehow connected to the database of Megaman game archives and recruited to clear it of corrupted data, which turns out to be our very navigator and her not-so-funny sidekick themselves. As a spinoff, it does nothing to advance the mainline plot or connect the various franchise timelines.

Does DIVE deliver an authentic MegaMan experience? Well, yes and no. Some stages are originals, but the majority are copied from mainline franchises (like the titular X, OG Megaman, .EXE transmission, ZX and Zero). There are spikes, bottomless pits, precariously placed enemies, and secrets that capture the essence of the original. The problem is that these stages are chopped into bits to fit the mobile genre. A full stage, including a sub-boss and end boss, is divided into six pieces. Each requires stamina to enter, as well as an increasingly demanding power level to deal and defend against damage.

This is where the unfavorable gatcha elements insert themselves. In order to remain viable, you need a strong character, decent armor, and strong weapons. How do you obtain them? You guessed it--RNG. It's not simply enough to roll the slot machine for a character or a weapon, you need to keep upgrading it. This means earning more copies of them, to rank them up, unlock perks, skills, and higher damage output. There are so many layers to describe, it's tiring:

• Character/Weapon Star rank (up to 5)
  
• Passive perks
  
• Active perks (skill or stat modifiers)
  
• Chips (boss data that acts like traditional copied weapons, always on. Status effects)
  
• Cards (character/enemy data that modify damage or grant skills in combination)
  
• Power, Hit, Crit, HP, and Luck stats, per weapon, capped by weapon xp
  
• Randomized, rerollable bonuses for min/maxers

And that's not all. Your damage output is tied to your total power level. This number is an aggregate of everything you own--weapons, boss chips, characters, armor pieces, glossary level, and "backup drives" (% power of slotted weapons you don't use). There are discreet resources to upgrade weapon, chip, and card levels. And your ability to upgrade all of these is capped by your account level, tied to XP which you earn for clearing stages and doing dailies. You can't grind endlessly, as stamina limits your ability to do so. The game is built to force you to play across weeks to months to progress.

If that wasn't bad enough, the game even incorporates a hit stat. You read that right: Your attacks can completely whiff and do 0 damage. Imagine playing a stage well above your power level, where few hits will kill you, only to have your connecting attacks "miss." This is infuriating, especially since it's a sidescrolling platformer.

The character inclusions are incredible. This is the one thing the game does right, because it acknowledges every bit of fan service possible: Zero's black armor, Hub Megaman.EXE, bad karma Megaman Volnutt, Starforce Megaman, Command Mission's Limit Break forms, and all of the hidden power armors from virtually every mainline title. You can be villains: Various versions of Sigma, Vile, Bass, Rogue. You can be all of the ladies: Ciel, Roll, Harp Note, Tron Bonne, Iris. Special collaborations like Ryu Dr Light, Dante X, Virgil Zero, multiple Monster Hunter variants. The list is enormous.

Features we haven't discussed:

• PVP - As expected, fall prey to gatcha powercreep, with the latest and greatest virtually dominating all others. DiVE armors can obliterate everything else, with homing + obstacle ignoring attacks, invulnerability shields, damage reduction, and debuff cleansing effects. The few who play for fun play preset matches and avoid using them.
  
• Co-op - Only a handful of stages, always the same enemies and tiles. Few rewards. Highly repetitive.
  
• Raid Bosses - Clan feature, damage-based rewards. Can be fun, requires unique builds to rank high.
  
• Orbital Elevator - Three difficulties, increasingly hard challenge mode. Not competitive, purely a singleplayer challenge. Some bosses were so tanky, it was intended for you to play through successive characters to defeat them in a single day (shared HP bar).

TL;DR - Do I recommend MMX Dive? As a gatcha? No. But I may change my opinion when it releases as a single player experience. Time will tell. As a Megaman fan, it's a very hard pill to swallow to have your progress checked, not by skill, but by whiffing attacks and OHKO's. I despised the daily chores needed to gather resources to push the power level a little bit higher each day.

If you haven't started MMXD, and you're a casual fan, you'll be disappointed by your inability to progress, and lack of means to obtain premium currency. The daily rewards are meager at best, and with purchases shut off, you'll find yourself unable to pull on some banners (that specifically require purchased, not just prem, currency). I'm doubtful you can collect all the characters, even for established accounts. However, as the game shuts down in late September, that should be sufficient time to complete the game, if you really must see how it ends. That said, the offline version is coming, and should deliver the same experience, minus online features and collab characters.

My advice? You aren't missing anything by passing on this. Keep waiting for a real Megaman sequel, while you replay the latest collection release. (MMBN is fully on steam as of April)

Achievement Hunters: Does not require story completion, only chapter 15. However, this is entirely gear dependent. Next Dive Armor X is the strongest, spare no expense to cap it. At 3 stars, he has a perk that adds 30% damage when equipped with buster and melee. You can google tier lists to find weapon recommendations to invest in. That said, I completed with 0-star S rank weapons bio buster and muramasa, neither ideal. The best is probably ultimate buster + red lotus, which can be purchased for armament tokens but is a very long grind to afford the 5k needed to unlock each via the shop. Even sub-par gear will suffice if you can boost your power level enough.

The misc achievements are easy: Co-op is populated enough that creating a room will probably find a match. Or you can ask for help in chat. Deep elements are collectables that are hard to miss, but can be video guided on youtube. Race mode is very easy to S rank.

Winning a ranked match was the only concern for some. Personally, as soon as I had Next Dive X, I entered ranking and won on the first try - it was not even a contest. If you can't find or win a match, search for the X Dive discord or ask via in-game chat. Someone is bound to help.

~50hrs+ to 100%, if geared and rushed below power level requirements

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Phantasy Star Online 2 has finally been brought West after a little under a decade, and it's been more or less preserved in its original form for fans to enjoy. If you played the Dreamcast PSO, then just about everything here will blow you away, besides the graphical upgrade: A wide range of classes, overwhelming number of cosmetics, hundreds of weapons to collect & customize, and even more quests to complete. Rest assured, it truly is free to play, with no content locked behind a paywall. However, it has a plethora of problems which keep it from being one of the best, for reasons we'll go into below.


NOTE: This is my original review posted in 2020, and I still feel it's accurate for the base game. NGS, however, is another story. Look for an update on that later.

https://steamoss.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2192966903
✅ Though dated, the graphics hold up well
✅ Fun action-based gameplay. Rewards good reflexes and planning. A dozen classes to master, ranging from easy mode (summoner) to glass cannon difficult (fighter)
✅ Easy to run even on old hardware
✅ Free to Play friendly. Tons of free items, including Star Gem currency giveaways, which can buy game-changing quality of life rental space
✅ Easy access to all content by simple quest clears
✅ Bonus quests award massive EXP to shortcut grinding. Easy to obtain with dailies
✅ Silly anime storyline, with hours of fully voiced cutscenes
✅ Surprisingly well done animations, motion captured movements. Dances remain one of the most popular cosmetic purchases.
✅ No shortage of things to do: PvP, Harvesting, Challenge Mode, Casino, Crafting, Affixing, Rare item hunting. Take friends, join strangers, or go it alone.
✅ Hundreds of cosmetics, even collabs with other franchises (Persona, NieR, Blazblue...). You can recreate some of your favorite characters

https://steamoss.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2211058225
❌ Clunky, cluttered, and nested UI. Menus inside of menus
❌ Jaggies, sharp corners, low res textures really show on high res displays. It gets away with these due to its anime flair, but really needs an upgrade.
❌ Sloppy hitboxes. Being juggled to death is the biggest problem in actual gameplay
❌ Painfully dependent on RNG in every regard. Besides loot drops, affixing your weapons to strengthen them runs the risk of destroying your hard earned fodder if you pull the trigger without 100% guarantee.
❌ Opaque systems. Absolutely mandatory to read fanmade wikis and guides to plan what you're doing. Can't reallocate skill points without a premium item that's rarely given free. Nowhere in game clearly shows you what your weapons can be upgraded into, where they drop, or where the required items are, which is relevant to the modern 15* rares.
❌ A collector's nightmare. Constant pressure to manage inventory, and never enough space. Even when you buy premium for more, you'll still run out of space. Cosmetic outfits and skins compete for space. Why?
❌ Loot locked behind 30-minute window Urgent Quests. Most are pre-scheduled, but some are unannounced. You can use a Trigger item to play these whenever you want, but can be costly and cumbersome to organize.
❌ Market inflation. Knowledgeable JP players snipe popular cosmetics and important components to stack them at colossal prices. Some argue this is part of the fun, but playing stock market is almost impossible the sporadic casual player. Furthermore, selling on market is only available by premium purchase or 3-day passes from a free lottery, which are very rare to obtain.
❌ Repetitive. You'll soon be running all the same quests against all the same enemies for daily rewards. Farming a 0.1% drop is only fun for so long.
❌ Ship restrictions. If you start on a ship different than a friend's, you must pay premium currency to move or delete and start over.
❌ Challenge and Battle Modes have very low population. Expect long wait times and no parties unless you can bring friends.
❌ Sloppy and inconsistent translation, likely done piecemeal by different teams. You'll enjoy the story just fine, but there were unforgivable item description mistakes or entire omissions that absolutely ruin the experience. Misspellings, grammar errors, and two names for the same location are other baffling examples. Dare I say the fan translation does things better in many instances.
❌ Lootboxes. Yes, they're optional, housing mostly cosmetics. But there are a few important boosters you'll probably want to make a strong weapon for endgame, that only come from these. You can buy them, but only if players list them on the market; Expect them to be scalped to the moon

https://steamoss.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2208433782
PSO2 remains one of SEGA's strongest earners. It's the top of its F2P offerings, which generate around 1/3 the company's quarterly revenues. And indeed, the game is fun, and very accessible. Like most F2P's, you'll have a blast in the beginning messing around to test and see everything; With six chapters of content, there's a massive amount of things to do. But as it goes with these types of games, its longevity will depend on your goals and playstyle. If you're story oriented, then after you complete the full questline, you'll probably move on. If you play with friends or lean competitive, then you'll probably keep logging in for Urgent Quests, weekly rankings, or PvP. The endgame is a cycle of trying to upgrade to the strongest weapon, and then stuff as many power-boosting affixes on it to become a one-man army. And you can do this entirely for free, with careful planning and research.

The base game isn't without a host of problems, but it's not bad. Try it out for yourself and form your own opinions. As of this writing, there are already dozens of player guides and helpful resources on discord and reddit. Everything is accessible to you, if you're willing to invest the time or make new friends. And even if you don't, you can still plug away at your own pace, on your terms.

Achievement Hunters: Fairly easy. Defeat named enemies, complete NPC-specific quests, grind a weapon, use a photon blast, clear the story chapters, and level up all basic classes. If the latter doesn't pop on completion, change away from the class, exit the counter, then change back - it should work. Tip: Use bonus quest keys to level up quickly. Remember Summoner has a passive subclass EXP boost that will really speed this up.

The only problematic achievement is Trick Darts. This is a personal quarters only item, which you can buy or find in someone else's room. There is no easy way to hit the perfect score, it's pure RNG. Program a macro, leave the PC, and it should eventually pop. I got mine it in about an hour. There are some old threads on the forum and conversations on the discords where players left their IDs to visit (but you'll have to match your server, you can't visit others without paying to transfer).

NGS has its own separate achievements, which are also self-explanatory and unmissable. I'll detail them in my NGS review, to be announced later.

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This review is intended to be informational but as Steam forces a side, recommended on the basis of being bug free and at no cost.

The store description gives most of it away, so I don't consider this spoilers: The game is an analogy of "a party in your mouth" (developer's words), but the fun doesn't last when one ingredient is added. Lap the island to visit its eerily smiling inhabitants, then climb its sole volcano to "jump into when you're tired of exploring." And so begins tropical Armageddon.

There isn't anything to do in the game, as it is a giant gag. Your achievement checklist serves as the only tangible objectives, since you can't jump, interact with objects, or speak to its inhabitants. The entire experience takes mere minutes, but succeeds in getting its biased opinion across, namely, that pineapple is an affront to all that is holy.

Install it, enjoy it, then uninstall it and forget all about it. And proceed to enjoy your pineapple pizza. Don't @ me.

Achievement Hunters: Fully video and text guided. You can escape on the first attempt, simply beeline for the boats immediately. ~10 mins to 100%

SLUDGE is quite a challenge to accurately classify, because it dabbles in so many things at the same time. Foremost, it's a first person adventure, complete with traversal tools and quirky NPCs to interrogate. There is literally no height you can't reach or room you can't access. As you progress, you'll then discover an assortment of collectibles, ranging from objects you can pocket to locations you can tag. While not specifically a puzzle game, trying to reach certain places, open certain doors, or perform certain to-do tasks require lateral thinking. Shoot hoops, smoke cigs, fly high with shrooms, fiddle with apps on your virtual laptop.

Interspersed within your exploration are a colorful cast of characters. There are no fetch quests or dialogue options, and none say more than a few repeating sets of lines, but that's fine: They provide hints, humor, or socio-economic commentary that feels uncomfortably familiar even today. As you raise your street cred you'll find fellow taggers stop giving you the cold shoulder and unlock special collaborative murals. Spread your art across the island to... well, win nothing really, but unlock a special trippy ending if you know where to go.

The real highlight for me was the puzzles. SLUDGE doesn't look like it has any business being a puzzle game, but it has its fair share of surprises. Discovery is its primary objective, and to list them all would ruin the fun, but here's a couple roundabout examples: A fully fleshed out strategic minigame you can play on your laptop, entirely optional. A deadly laser grid blocking your path. A graffiti spot you can't reach on a satellite dish. A door that slams shut as soon as you get close to it. Changing your dietary preferences(?)

For all its strengths, SLUDGE has a couple of demerits. It lacks a clearly defined plot, and its endings don't really provide any closure. Its inclusion of drugs has gotten the game an unfortunate ban in Australia (the C key is literally dedicated to using cigarettes). It's short, and it lacks replayability after you've uncovered every secret, unless you're a speedrunner.

The game's longevity will depend largely on how much you're willing to invest in it. It's possible to reach its good ending in as little as 5 minutes, provided you know exactly what to do. Experienced blind, it's about a 1-2 hour dive, and then maybe another 1-2 hours for secrets and TO-DO tasks (aka achievements). Given this, I find it tough to recommend at full price. Wait for a sale, or if you see this in time, add it now and keep it forever before 3/30/23 - presumably a limited time promo for its upcoming sequel.

Achievement Hunters: Fully text and video guided. If spoiled, <1 hr to 100%. Nothing is missable. If you mess up somehow, restarting the game will reset object placement (such as for the egg achievement). Remember that all slugs need to be found in one session, if you exit, they respawn.

Note: I do not wish to rate this game, only to write an informational summary. Unfortunately, Steam forces me to choose. As such, since the multiplayer component has been discontinued, I feel that the only real fun factor has been removed from the game, and I choose not recommended. But this is not meant to criticize the developer by any means.

JF gives you control of a lone robo caught in endless(?) enemy waves. Pick your map and fire up your trigger finger to fend off constant assaults that beeline your direction. Strategic use of stage borders and timing (you move faster when you hold your fire) allow you to outmaneuver your foes and narrowly escape. Enemies drop coins, which are used to fund upgrades like mines, armor, or health recovery.

And that's really all there is to it. Waves increase in enemy number and a few extra types, like faster moving golden enemies, or enemies that spawn drones. Until today, the game featured a multiplayer mode that you could host or join a friend, allowing the two of you to watch each others' backs and coordinate attacks.

The recent update decommissioned the 2P mode, so a lot of the fun is lost. While perfectly playable in single player, I personally found it difficult to find motivation to continue. Even switching maps, the spawns are the same, which kind of ruins the fun.

It's free, so I feel guilty to downvote something you pay nothing for, but if you ask my honest opinion on if it's worth playing, I must honestly say no. But don't let that stop you from trying it if you are curious.

Achievement Hunters: Destroy one enemy. Unfortunately, the game has broken this achievement in the latest update. You have to roll back your depot to get it. Here's how:

1. windows key + R shortcut, run 2. in the steam client console box, paste the following: 3. move the files to the installation folder, while swapping the current files out
4. rename the data folder to match the executable (popup should tell you what it is looking for)
5. run the game directly from the folder, don't go to steam or it will try to overwrite it

~1 min to 100%

Stranded in the middle of an island archipelago, our nameless main character can't remember how he got there, only that he's got a friend to find. Making your way to the central island, you're surprised to find the inhabitants are all skeletons. Most are hostile, save for two, who give you quests and barter for goods. From there you've got to work your way around the territory to procure resources and figure out a way to move on.

A good majority of objects around you can be interacted with. Stones, fiber, flowers, seafood, and other critters can be snatched for cooking and crafting, and from these you'll build your usual tools to increase your foraging range and work your way up to bigger and better things. The game allows you to brew potions, distill drinks, research writings for EXP boosts, process and refrigerate food, feed livestock, and upgrade all of your gear. Construction comes in many forms, such as ramps, platforms, fences, decorations, doors with locks, chests... and while limited in type (all wooden), if you spend the time, you can make a reasonably impressive little residence.

Weaponry comes in unexpected variety as well. Besides multiple kinds of swords and clubs, you can construct multiple ranged items (bow, crossbow, pistols, and rifles). Missed shots can be retrieved to conserve ammo, but the better the weapon, the more arduous the crafting requirements to make enough ammunition that will last a while. How good is the combat? Adequate, to say the least, but enemy AI is not too intelligent, easily falling prey to basic kiting or stunlocking with melee feints. On the flip side, you'll find archers annoyingly accurate and able to stun you unintentionally, resulting in a potentially cheap death if you aren't careful. Enemies respawn pretty quickly, so you may be taken off guard by a previously dispatched foe.

Not to be overlooked is the character customization. Level ups award status points which are shared between basic attributes (strength, intelligence, stamina, etc) and skills; Skills improve your damage, resource gathering, and unlock something completely out of place in a pirate game, magic. Yes, magic: Turn your swashbuckling rogue into a Hogwarts graduate, calling down meteors to level foe and fauna alike. Your hocus pocus is completely game breaking: Hungry? Spawn food out of thin air. Thirsty? Materialize water bottles. Fireballs remove the need of crafting any weapons at all. As immersion breaking as it may be, it's still a lot of fun.

As an Early Access type work, there are bugs to be expected. Fighting hostiles near NPCs can turn said NPCs against you (I didn't test what happens if you kill them). The crafting questline can accidentally reset, depending on whether or not you've reached the second island and reloaded a save, but thankfully, it's optional anyway. You can fall to your death or clip through terrain when messing around with the teleport magic. Nothing game breaking, but annoying if you have to backtrack and lose previously equipped gear.

The game was already delisted before and apparently planning to be again, soon. If you see this in time, make sure to add it to your library just in case. It'll entertain for at least a couple hours, or more if you decide to go crazy and erect an island fortress.

Achievement Hunters: Straightforward collectable achievements. The only exceptions are open the map 20 times, level 10 (bugged, you'll get it way earlier), and devastator. Devastator is a hidden weapon that's extremely OP. To locate it, reach the second island, and learn teleport magic (intelligence 6, magic 3, so 9 skill points needed). Teleport your way up the tallest landmass in the area. At its peak, is the glowing blunderbuss in a circle of bananas. Now lay waste to your enemies!

Estimated ~2-3hr to 100% if you already know what to do.
Note: Exit the game for achievements to register, they do not unlock "live"

FPS games are a dime a dozen in the mobile arena, and many are virtual reskins of one another since there isn't a whole lot to the formula. MilkChoco aimed for younger audiences in mind, giving cutesy chibi soldiers tutus and bunny ears to defuse the stigma that usually comes with these games, and at an entry price that's hard to argue with: Free. You can support the game via optional RMT cosmetics, but there's no pressure to do so. All content is accessible save for a few weapons which aren't much stronger than their free counterparts (it's more about short-cutting the grind).

Matches award you with coins to buy new classes and firearms, and special events would allow you to farm currency for unique versions, primarily reskins, of existing types. Cosmetics were supported by premium currency, and the game's cash shop was never invasive at forcing you to purchase that ballerina costume you've had your eye on from the start.

There are nearly 22 classes today, each with a specific special power. Things like invisibility, teleportation, shields, healing, speed up, drones, homing, or paralysis. Abilities require charge time, to prevent overuse. In truth, they don't really matter as much as your firearm. Every class has access to a grenade and a backup pistol, and every weapons purchase is per class. That's right, you can't unlock one gun for everyone, you've got to unlock it over and over for every class, which is this game's attempt at player retention.

Weapons come in a few types: Grenades, melee, pistols, crossbows, sniper, shotgun, and semi-autos. Each of these have up to 8 characteristics that distinguish them from one another, with the usual things like base damage, range, recoil, accuracy, rate of fire. Some have scopes, some don't. Trying to decide which to by is a fairly tough task, if not for cost - newer weapons are stronger, and cost a lot more, outclassing the older ones to incentivize purchase.

What about the actual gameplay? There are four primary game modes that are chosen on a random basis, including assault (king of the hill, filling up a milk jug to 10), death match to 20, escort (capture the flag) to 4, and a competitive target practice to 20 (pop-up cardboard cutouts). There are a few more in custom games, but they don't allow progress, so don't see much use outside of clan coordinated events. Matches are very quick, usually 5 minutes or less. This leads to a lot of repetition and you're likely to see all of the maps in play after just one session.

Verdict?: Honestly, underwhelming. While you can certainly see why it's populated on mobile, being extremely easy to pick up and play, the classes, weapons, and game modes are limited and repetitive. It doesn't help that the lowpoly graphics are stapled together by extremely low-res textures, which look worse on PC than any other platform. Sprinkle in high ping from what seems to be an Asia specific server, and you're in for some fun getting hit by shots you didn't see and/or tanks that absorb your shots (which in fact never landed). The cosmetics don't carry enough appeal to spend, and there isn't enough things to do to keep you coming back on a regular basis.

In about a year and a half since its PC debut, MilkChoco will be sunsetting around May. This is your last chance to fire it up, if you're curious. But if you ask me, you're not missing much.

Achievement Hunters: WARNING. There is a devilish achievement that's absolutely impossible to obtain outside of a fully prepared group, namely, Perfect Victory. The requirement is that your team wins with no deaths on either side. In a PvP game. Huh?? You'll have to get 10 people together, create two teams, and scum matchmaking until you get each other to even have a shot at this. Bots always kill each other, and randoms are far less understanding (if they even understand english in chat).

Other than that nonsense, everything is obtainable solo. Kills, headshots, consecutive MVP and streaks, nothing too bad, but somewhat luck based as the scoring doesn't always register correctly. Grind kills on missions tied to score, since deathmatches end way too soon (at exactly 20, which you need). In the best case, maybe ~2 hrs to 100%

BABYLON'S development began back in 2017 around Automata's release, with Platinum's desire to try its hand at online gaming. Partnering with SE for its success in this arena and convenient use of FFXIV's assets, it certainly seemed like a recipe for success. So what happened? A pandemic, a lackluster beta test, and marketing that didn't communicate well with its intended audience (anticipating a Nier-like single player action adventure), culminated in one of the biggest flops of our modern era.

Putting aside the marketing and development concerns, let's focus on the player experience--the paying customer. What was BABYLON like?

In a bold move, the devs saw fit to emulate classical European paintings to capture the "antiquity" feel. This was done with an animated overlay (translucent brush textures) + peripheral blur filter that made edges jagged and grainy. To be fair to the artists, they really nailed it. There are moments that you can screenshot the game and swear you're looking at actual concept art. But it's not without issues.

For one, the game struggles with weather effects. Most stages have a rain variant, and in these, it's a smeared mess. There's also the issue of the color palette. While admirably faithful to its origin, do muted colors, bleached whites, murky greys, and mustard yellows evoke high octane action? The color range is narrower and the potential is there to pose some difficulty for colorblind individuals.

Not to be glossed over is the animation. In game is fine. Cutscenes, however, are wildly inconsistent. Some are rendered live, with smooth gestures. Others are told through stop motion vignettes. Characters move like mannequins. If there's action, it's with a heavy motion blur, further dulled by drab colors and thick shadows. It's the type of quality you'd expect from a mobile game, not a AAA console release.

It's not fair to demand a Game of Thrones epic out of a video game, but the plot is bad. Like, anime filler bad. Your ragtag team of you, fellow slave, bossy princess, crazy old man, proud knight, and somehow tech genius orphan are enough to overcome every challenge and do what no one has done before. It's episodic, claustrophobic, and does nothing to flesh out its bizarre sci-fi twist. To add insult to injury, the seasonal questline post game is a literal recreation of the first, so they could recycle virtually everything.

You'd expect the creators of Bayonetta to give us a sleek, stylish, and combo-heavy battle system to sink our teeth into, right? Well forget that and imagine that they played Dark Souls first. Weapons are slow, even fast weapons are slow, and ranged weapons feel utterly useless without charging. The twist is that you can dodge at almost any time, if you have the SP for it. Simply tap the button right as you're about to get hit for free iframes and maybe gear bonuses. You equip 4 weapons, one light, one heavy, and two spectral, but only the first two have smooth combo potential as spectral are SP limited.

Bizarrely, the game removes important features until you progress far enough into the story, like accessory slots or core customization. But for the purposes of combat, there are 3 stances, which aren't given to you until much later. This forces you to re-learn combat mid game, why? The technical stance is marketed as for players who like combos, but lacks any kind of tutorial to teach you the proper timings or move variety. Up to you to read move lists and figure it all out.

Stages are divided into 3 or 4 combat zones, with the last being a miniboss of sorts, and each of these score you. Try as you might, your perfect dodging, uninterrupted combos, and weapon switching mean almost nothing next to how fast you win. Time is king, so even if you get KO'd and revive, there's no penalty to pure platinum on the bosses. Tanking is rewarded over finesse.

In case you're wondering, I found the best combo to be bows. All bows, maybe one sword for variety. Charge your spectral bows at all times, and paired with a heavy bow charge, can melt almost everything sans the trickier boss fights.

Run quests to grab everything shiny, then return to base to break it all down. Using those materials, you can enhance, reroll an ability slot, or craft something new. BABYLON's crafting solution is: RNG. You can only modify one slot, the rest you're stuck with. So forget about making your dream gear - you'll have to re-craft new till you get close. Enhancing doesn't really help an old gear become better, unless min/maxing. Divine gear have unique passives that can't be obtained any other way, but that means 1% drop grinding.

My experience was to equip the highest level drop after every mission. Never needed to craft anything to clear the game or beat the 2nd final boss. Maybe, attention to elemental resistance could be important to improve damage and resist being downed. I never bothered, though.

This one is probably the most egregious. Once you create your account, you're locked to it forever. BABYLON is not worldwide, matchmaking is limited per region. You can't transfer without creating a new account and losing all progress. What a brilliant way to kill your multiplayer online only game.

Not just enemies, but quests also got the reskin treatment. Higher difficulty variants unlocked as you progressed, cluttering your options with 3 or 4 versions of the same thing. While it's nice variety to revisit old stages for new loot, think about the matchmaking problems of having 50 missions to choose from and nobody who joins your party.

Need to ask for help? Hope you have the emote for that, since you can't type anything. You can't see a list of open parties queuing for quests, you only have the option to be randomly matched by type. Wanted to coordinate builds or ask if others needed certain resources? Impossible. Discord is your only hope, assuming those players even use it.

This speaks to the Live Service problem. You pay AAA price for admission, only to be saddled with reminders to spend to unlock premium battle pass, fashion, or certain grind shortcuts. There's no offline content whatsoever, so you can't play if your internet is down. Now that the servers are going offline, purchasers have nothing to show for it, even though the game is perfectly playable solo.

In conclusion... BABYLON was too ambitious for its own good. As an action game, it needed to reassess its visuals, combat, and multiplayer experience. I think this title was better suited to be single player. And on that note, as I lament on every live service shutdown, Devs: Plan for shutdown. Think about repackaging your game in an offline mode. Consumers win, and you may win, with a product you can still sell with some changes.

Achievement Hunters: ~30 hrs to 100%. Complete the main campaign. After that, title-linked achievements, like drops, 1 million currency, and crafting. Quite possible solo.

Crafting is trivial thanks to sieges (marked with flashing white dot on quest menu), the only issue being grinding to Lv210 to be able to deal enough damage. Each run nets 10 tickets, 40 are needed for Divine Oil, 8 for Legend. These are the bottlenecks to crafting armor and accessories to cap. Use a Legendary item (purple) to do these, since the resources are cheaper than divine.

1 Screen Platformer is a tough-as-nails platforming challenge, comprised of a giant stage broken into a series of checkpoints. Remarkably, you'd expect a demo to be a piece of the real game, but this is actually an original stage not seen in the paid product. I didn't even know it existed until today, having already cleared the full version a long time ago. The title is misleading, it's not a prologue to the first game, but a "minisode" in between the upcoming sequel. (It should have been called 1.5)

If you're curious about the full game, you can read my full review here.

The demo lets you use the titular speedrunning character to race to the finish line, and a lot of the pros and cons are the same as the main game. Nadia is fast--sometimes too fast--tending to slide if given a chance, and can create some havoc with mistimed jumps; If you can, use a controller. The stage gives you a number of surprise elements to master, like retractable spikes, timed lasers, homing cannons, low gravity, and switches (to disable barriers).

What's great is that after you finish the game, if so inclined, you can stay a while and try to compete for the built in leaderboard. It took me around 25 minutes my first run, thanks to a number of hilarious deaths. In contrast, madlads have cleared it sub-5. Can you?

Out of all the free offerings on steam, you're getting basically a free game. What's not to like? Give it a spin, it'll entertain at minimum for the length of your first clear.

Achievement Hunters: Touch every checkpoint once. Hard to miss, but theoretically possible if you bypass any(?) I didn't have the patience to try. ~30 mins or less to 100%, based on skill

This review is intended to be strictly informational, but since steam forces a rating, choosing not recommended on the basis of replay and fun factor.

There are no shortage of cheap games with achievements on steam, of which this developer has many. The main issue with 3DGR is that it doesn't try to do anything new with an already tired formula.

Left and right rotate your bot's head, while spacebar fires the thrusters. To decelerate, you need to aim the opposite direction of where you want to go and accelerate just enough to negate your momentum. The game is less about smooth flight than it is about patience. The key to victory is tapping the space bar repeatedly, rather than holding it. Hovering in place buys you time to make tiny directional changes, and using the thrusters as little as possible enables you to keep velocity to a minimum.

Stages vary only by the number of bolts and size. There are no visual changes nor additional mechanics to encounter as the game progresses. Thus, 3DGR feels a lot less like a full fledged game and more like a minigame carve-out. It's challenging, sure, but you'd be hard pressed to call it fun.

It's cheap, it's bug free, and it counts for profile achievements. If you are one such collector, you'll be happy to discover that with the press of the G key, you can instantly skip each stage, granting every achievement without effort. Then promptly uninstall and never touch it again.

Achievement Hunters: 1 min to 100% via level skip. If done the hard way, 1-2hrs.