Recent reviews by MolniyaTHM

Incredible game, I don't know what i can say that hasn't already been said. The new texture pack and support mod released recently is very fun and looks amazing. If you like RPGs, you should play the one that is the highest bar available for them.

This game is incredible and hands down the best MMORPG I've experienced. I have mainly played WoW since 2004, but when I finally got fed up with the terrible design choices, the very public issues with the company, and the festering community, I picked up FFXIV and I have to say that I'm more than pleasantly surprised. Coming from raiding end game content in WoW, most of my comparisons will be to that game. (Let's be honest, its the only real competition anyway.) FFXIV's job system fixes every issue you've ever had with WoW being extremely not "alt-friendly" because you have one character that can do every job and every profession. Every mount you collect, every achievement you earn, every title, every bit of currency - it's all on one character. You don't have to replay boring parts of the story over and over and over to get to experience what another DPS, Healer, or Tank feels like...but with New Game+, you totally can if you want to - and you can do it on your character without needing to start all over again.

The visuals, music, and writing are in every way to superior to other games I've played...I've you're an FF fan, you already know that Square comes correct, FFXIV is no different. The major difference for me was that the story feels much more centered around your character than in other MMOs, particularly in WoW where the story is mostly about the surrounding characters. FFXIV feels a lot more like a single player RPG when you are playing through the story of the game, which makes it a more immersive and engaging experience FOR ME and I assume for others as well.

The community in FFXIV is also great, and that didn't happen on accident. In FFXIV, newer players, affectionately referred to as Sprouts, have little sprout icons above their heads announcing to the other players that they are new and may not know all of the mechanics, rotations, and other ins and outs of a dungeon or raid. You'd think people would immediately quit content if they were queued with a bunch of sprouts, but no - because the devs decided that if you complete content with a sprout in your party (or someone who has never done the content before) you get a huge boost to currency, EXP, etc. that you earn from that content. Sprouts are treated like you would want to be treated as a new player to a game like this. This means that I don't just end up hating doing "PUG" content in FFXIV, because it's always a positive experience.

Great game, glad to drop WoW for this after 15 years, you should have zero reservations about checking it out, it's free up to level 60.

Dreamscaper is a top-down ARPG Roguelite game where you play as Cassidy, a woman who you don't really know much about at the beginning of the game. You seem to have moved into a new apartment as there are boxes everywhere, and your space is very cluttered. The "overworld", which is just Cassidy's waking life, allows you to explore an ever-expanding list of places in the city where you live. These spaces have a finite (so far) list of NPCs that you can interact with. I'll get back to that later. When you're done exploring the overworld and seeing the various things you can do there, the last thing for you to do is sleep. Sleep and dream. In her dreams, Cass is a badass. The dream is separated into layers, each one being from a memory, initially, you seem to be at your childhood home in a suburban neighborhood, when you descend a layer, it's in a city presumably near your home from your youth. Another layer is a woodsy vacation spot and so on and so forth. As you battle nightmares through the levels, you will find memories that will hint to parts of Cass' past life and give you ideas that tie into the game's crafting system. You also find that the bosses at the end of each level are named for things that Cassidy battles in her actual life such as Fear, Loss, Isolation, Negativity, etc. When you are killed in the dream, you wake up. As you advance further in the dream, waking up will cause new parts of the city to become unlocked, new items to be available for crafting, and new opportunities to strengthen Cassidy in the dream.

In terms of combat mechanics, I think this game is one of the best I've played. Each weapon plays a little bit differently, but in general, you will have a 2-4 hit combo that is more effective if you time it well. When you push your attack button, Cassidy will perform the attack and her sprite will flash to indicate when to press the button again. There are many items in the game that increase the timing window, so if you're bad at this at first (I'm still terrible at it) it does get easier. Blocking works pretty much the same, holding the block button will hold a shield out, which tapping it at the right time will parry an attack or knock a projectile back at whatever threw it at you. There is just enough timing that it's not too distracting, but also feels very rewarding when you time your combos just right or manage to parry a projectile. Cass can also dodge, an action boosted by equippable objects that can turn your dodge into a fire dash, or a ground pound, or a dozen other things that can change how you fight. Finally, there are lucid powers that you can use while dreaming. You have access to two at a time, and there are dozens of them to cover. They are basically spells - but the effects are quite literally a blast. One of them will freeze the entire room you're in, one of them will shield you with a giant static field, one of them will drop a fire bomb at your location that fires a directional blast of fire at anything near it. I haven't even seen half of them yet. Once you've delved into the dream a few times, you start to get a feel for which weapons, shields, dashes, and lucid powers you like, and then you can start mastering them, which allows you to start the dream with more and more powerful versions of them. Which brings me to crafting.

Dreamscaper doesn't have a terribly unique crafting system - in fact, it's quite simple. In the dream, you'll find ideas. These ideas translate into items that you can sketch in your sketchbook. Items sketched in your sketchbook are items that, once sketched, will be able to randomly appear in the dream. They can be any of the aforementioned weapons, shields, dodges, or lucid powers. Ideas cost a resource called Inspiration that you collect in the dream. Better ideas cost more Inspiration. In the overworld, you will also find items that are basically recipes for things you can craft in your home at your desk. Items that you craft at home can be given to NPCs as gifts to increase your relationship with them and open new dialogue and story options. The more you get to know an NPC, the stronger their influence on you has in the dream. For instance, there's an old man who, if you choose him as your influence, will increase your crit stat in the dream. The more you get to know him, the better this bonus is and the more stats bonuses you will unlock. Each NPC as a specific stat or element that they increase, so you can target the NPC that has what you want.

Improving Cassidy in the dream also comes in the form of daydreaming at the bar or meditating in the park. Both of these actions are basically just a unique and creative way to imitate a store. When you meditate, you open a list of improvements that cost a resource you collect in the dream. You can increase Cassidy's HP, Lucid power, etc. Daydreaming is very much the same, except that it costs a different resource (also collected in the dream) and allows you to add things to each layer to make your runs easier and more rewarding as you progress. You can increase item drop rates, add puzzle rooms, add health or lucid power rooms, etc.
I'm going to finish here by talking about what literally forced me to keep playing Dreamscaper, the hook for me was the visuals and the music. This game is graphically gorgeous. The scenes, the characters, the abilities...it's art. It's beautifully done and I could honestly look at it all day and not get bored. Right down to each minor character animation, you can tell how much painstaking work they put into making this game LOOK amazing. Not surprisingly, the music is also incredibly done. These two elements are very integral to the immersive feeling I get when I play this game.

If you're interested in roguelite titles but never could get into one, I definitely recommend this game. I spent a lot of time trying to like this style of game until I found Dreamscaper and I highly recommend it. I spent the first three hours just ogling at the artwork and music while dying over and over again trying to figure out which items to use. If you do pick it up, do yourself a favor and play it with a controller.

Best shooter looter in the business. Hilarious game with a serious replay/end game content value. Devs are always updating and constantly supporting the game, DLC is chunky and robust.

Just the best fun.

Alright, here we go. Back in 2016, I bought Pillars of Eternity on Steam. I played it for like 2 hours and, because it was a bit slow in the beginning, I put it down and left it alone. I recently picked it back up and actually did the deep dive and I gotta say, this is one of the best RPGs I've played in years.



Pillars of Eternity (which has some DLC and a sequel already) is the spiritual successor to Icewind Dale. It was created by Obsidian after 77,000 fans supported their Kickstarter (or some form of crowd funding). It is a DND inspired RPG and it stays very true to the storytelling that is integral to any good DND (or other tabletop) campaign.

The gameplay is a top-down, click to move action role playing game where your character must recruit a team of up to six companions to complete just a metric ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of quests and tasks on the way to finding out why children are being "Hollowborn" in the Dyrwood. There are unique characters to recruit who come complete with their own stories and quest-lines, but you can also create any number of companions and shape your team in any way you choose. There are 11 classes that are all completely customizable, you could have four wizards on your team that are all completely different. You could make a team of six paladins complete with tanks, healers, damage, support, and controllers. I've spent no small amount of time just building characters to see how varied they can be. Some situations will have you wishing you had a barbarian or a rogue, and so you can literally just go make one and add her to your team.

The game eventually allows you to take control of a keep that you can rebuild with merchants, artisans, and defenders. As time passes, petitioners will come to your keep asking you for favors or attempting to sell you things, you can send your party (or out-of-party) companions on side quests which result in actual experience and items being collected. Occasionally bandits will attack and you can choose to let your defenders handle it or go fight them yourself. There is a LOT of depth here.

Each zone has it's own quest nodes, but you actually have to look around and talk to people to find out what they need and how you can help, or harm them. Your dialogue options and the factions you help or hinder all have repercussions in the game. For instance, there is a mercenary group called The Dozens who are diametrically opposed to the Justicars in the Crucible - if your reputation with one of them gets too high, the other will stop offering you quests.

The combat can be hard to get used to at first, but the game allows you to change the difficulty on the fly and even add or remove certain gameplay options that would make the game easier/harder without changing the base difficulty. For example, your character has Health and Endurance. Endurance is basically a portion of your health that you have in battle before you are knocked unconscious and your Health is your total HP. Your character may have 900 HP, but only 200 Endurance for each battle. If you lose Endurance in battle, it comes directly from your Health, and if your Health reaches zero, you die (the main character will always resurrect with 1 HP, all other characters will actually die and be lootable). By default, if you are knocked unconscious, you sustain an injury which negatively effects your stats in some way, but you can turn those injuries off in the settings if you like. You can also turn on a setting that keeps your main character from being killed outright and ending the game with that happens. You can adjust settings that will automatically force the game to pause when you start combat so that you can issue commands and then put the game in half speed while you fight (making it easier to manage the battle). You can also put the game in half or double speed on the fly, so if you're moving across a map you have already explored or cleared, you can just double time to the other side.

Like DND there are abilities that can be used X times per rest or X times per fight. Wizards have spell books with different levels of spells, you can learn them from leveling up or looting spell books from murdered spell casters in the game, allowing you to easily learn every spell without having to level up to learn them all. There is a spell mastery mechanic for all spell casters (wizards, druids, priests, ciphers, etc.) that allows for spells to be used for free a during combat a number of times. All in all, the power fantasy is real, your character goes from being sorta meh at the beginning of the game to bristling with power and options by level 5 or 6 and it just keeps getting better.

I am having a blast with this game so far, but it is not the kind of game you'll want to play while watching Netflix or listening to music, this game is like reading a book - almost literally. While there are a TON of voiced lines in the game, most of what is going on has to be read by the player. Trust me when I tell you that you don't want to miss out on the story - like most of the other aspects of the game, it is top notch fantasy story telling - if they made this game into a 20 book series, I'd buy them all. The world they built here is just awesome.

I definitely recommend this game to RPG, DND, tabletop, fantasy, and character build fanatics.