Recent reviews by saint7515

After 5 hours of ShAkY CaM I couldn't take it anymore and uninstalled. Glad I bought on sale, still not worth it.

TLDR: It's beautiful, it's way more stable than I expected, and despite the flaws it's super fun.

Beat the main story in ~80 hours while taking my time. Going back and completing more side gigs is still enjoyable, and there is definitely replay value.

Artistically, a masterpeice: somewhat predictable story but enjoyable despite it; flavorful characters; awe-inspiring settings; and well rendered imagery throughout.

Mechanically, a bit of a ♥♥♥♥-show. Waaay too much information is hidden (0 armor, dies in 2 hits; 1200 armor, dies in four...), some perks clearly not working, or only working intermittently, some cyberwear doesn't work as advertised at all, and 'tiers' of gear are made worthless by level determined stats (i.e. a common item found at level 25 will have better stats than a Legendary item found when you were level 20). That said, the hacking layer is surprisingly elegant, and combat is still hella fun despite the flaws and being kind-of two dimensional.

Never felt like a grind while I was leveling (except for athletics). Never felt super rich or dirt poor.

Some minor glitches, but surprisingly stable for an open-world RPG of its size. Only CTD twice in 100 hours (driver conflict), and every other glitch was solved by saving, quitting, and reloading.

By far the most fun I've had playing a turn based strategy game in a long time. Re-playability still being tested.
--The Good
- The gameplay was intuitive and (with a handful of exceptions because Trolls are tall) fluid.
- Soundtrack was always on point with the 'feel' of the gameplay.
- Despite being 2D the game's graphics grabbed me; sprites and backgrounds were bright without falling prey to being cartoony, or dark without being drab. Most of the time it didn't even register with me that the game wasn't 3D.
- Both micro (battlefield) and macro (character-building and story based decision making) decisiosns felt like they influinced the other in a variety of ways.
- Storytelling was top-notch from the over-arching tale down to several NPC's stories.

--The bad
- Unable to re-size fonts, and high reolution with a ton of reading made me need to walk away a few times.
- Game-play challenges do not come from AI, but from volume of opponents - this frustration is not unique to this game, and it does not suffer from it as badly as many others, but it is still present.
- While Karma was balanced (Never felt like 'super-man'), money was never in short supply. I frequently used combat drugs, always updated my gear, and yet I always felt like I was in the black... even though one of the main points in the game involves scrambling for money.

--The Ugly
- The only major frustration I had was mis-clicks that resulted from trying to move my team to squares immediatly above other actors. For about 1/3rd of a second it shows movement to that square, then it highlights the (again, drecking Trolls) sprite in the square beneath my real selection.

Nether is fantastic... but not for everybody.

TL, DR = If you like a challenge, thrive on competition, and don't mind a scare, this game could one day result in perfection. If you arn't willing to figure things out for yourself, think hackers are everywhere, or can't stand a cancerous-demon thing chasing your toon, look elsewhere.

Most common lies debunked: As of the 6/14 summer sale loot is regular (plentiful once you know how to look), 'golden chests' only seem to drop cosmetic stuff (and the occasional rifle frame), and you can buy keys to open golden boxes with money made from completing missions. Further, even with 'coins' (purchased with real $) you can't buy anything BUT cosmetic, save for a few unique items (flashlight, hanglider, etc.) and need loot just like everyone else in order to build a gun. Also no noticable hacking - some players glitch around a bit from lag, but they are the least of your worries, since the Nether will mug them long before those players can bother you.

The Good: Stealth is useful early and late, melee is efficient but cannot handle groups, run-and-gun is powerful but has some major drawbacks (cost of ammo and other players can find you easily), leveling up is painless, levels can be powerful but are not required to have an impact, and the freakin' demons (the Nether) are beatable, but still dangerous even after recognizing ai patterns. Most exciting? You are never perfectly safe (safezones fail but have built-in missions to bring them back up, and will recover on their own eventually), and the challenge and accomplishment from simply surviving long enough to make discoveries feels very rewarding.

The bad: Total types of weapons are limited for a game this crafting focused, the UI is limited and sometimes non-intuitive, dying can be more than a little frustrating, there are also some simple exploits left to be worked out, and some parts of the map are practically barren, resulting in a long walk on the beach rather than a daring courrior drop in a post-apoc world. Camping PC's are not the issue most claim, BUT groups of PC's ANYWHERE, especially near the safe-zones in the boonies, make many missions near impossible without the help of your own group. Also, when a safe-zone falls, if no-one fixed it within the first hour, you get no further warning that the 'walls are down,' and may wander into a warzone filled with gankers and demons during the 10/30/60min reset period. Most promenent mistake? Despite the teaser trailor filling your head with the hope for plentiful story, there simply is none. Living in Chicago helps since the streat names mean something (even if they are rubix-cubed up) but there is simply zero story - interest in playing Nether is from challenge and personal accomplishments alone.

The ugly: The nether are freaky... for the first 12 hours or so. After that it's less like running from demons and more like picking out game on a safari - you know the attack patterns, and seeing the same skin over and over makes them almost mundane. That is not to say they arn't dangerous; simply running into a group of them means you need to pull out a gun, which in turn means players will come-runnin. However, the more dangerous the Nether, or the more there are in one spot, the more easily they are avoided. Also, losing so much on death is terrifying incentive... yet after the 6th time dying and losing guns, it became kind-of zen like. You learn to not fear losing stuff and just get back in the game, since leveling happens so fast and global inventories exist to store loot you bring to a safe-zone. It's certainly more complicated then just popping up in a typical FPS, but dying no longer persuades me to not try crazy things, and the survival feel is heavily dampened.

Total: once the glitches are fixed, the nether get more than one skin a peice, the map is completely populated, some dialogue is added to missions, and another sub-way is added (the red-line crosses the river underground!), I can see myself easily putting more that 100 hours into surviving the sandbox that is Nether.