Recent reviews by OtherPlayers

Now that the game has released it's probably time to update this. Most of this review will be addressing Warlord+ gameplay, I honestly haven't played the easier difficulties that much.

TL;DR:
Game is very fun and worth it even for full price in my opinion. Gameplay is more reminiscent of Fights in Tight Spaces than Slay the Spire or Into the Breach, in my opinion. The game has undergone a lot of tweaking since early access and there's still a few annoying spots, but all-in-all it's rather addictive.

Pros:

• The game has multiple valid builds that actually feel different. Most weapons can work on most classes and vice-versa, and the addition of the individual class starting decks goes a long way to making them feel unique.
  
• The hex grid is a nice twist and opens up some cool combat options.
  
• The two handed weapon system is pretty cool and puts a unique twist on combat. (Though you do have to remember to swap your weapons at times).
  
• Fun moments when an audience member says they love you and then tosses you exactly what you need to get out of a pinch.
  
• The constant input of items encourages you to use them as you get them, rather than encouraging hoarding like many card builders do.
  
• BURN THEM WITH FIRE! AHAHAHAHA!

Cons:

• Build RNG can sometimes be a little high. Notably the bandit+non-unique starters can sometimes feel like they make or break based on the Mystery Shop options by Warlord, and by Helltaker the feeling expands even more. If you don't mind restarting until you get an amazing run it probably won't bother you, but it can be aggravating as someone who wants every run to at least feel like it has a shot.
  
• While the addition of a few more movement cards has helped a lot, sometimes the enemy RNG will just screw you anyways. The two worst cases are probably when you start a match in a triangle of 2 snagging enemies+1 attacking enemy, though I've also had issues with the goblin brothers never using line attacks and just triangling you to death when the run is early enough you don't have a lot of answers to it.
  
• On top of that some of the AoE's are still a little unavoidable IMO. In most cases you can use items or the extra movement cards to weave your way through, but there's at least a couple fights where you basically *will* take hits no matter what you do.
  
• While cycling items from the crowd to use is really fun, the same doesn't really apply to weapons. The fact that (expensive) upgrades are tied to the weapon rather than your character makes it hard to switch after the first arena or so, and thrown weapons don't even really do much more than rocks (while also costing you the ability to sell them at the end of the match). It would be cool to see something added (transfer upgrades? Deal 3x throw damage? IDK) so that I could be as excited about someone throwing me a bloody spear against the final boss as I am in the random early fight.
  
• While the newer amulets are better, some of the older ones are still way too penalizing to ever be viable. Stuff like sacrificing 40% of my HP when enemies already 2-shot me due to the difficulty and I'm occasionally forced to take hits due to RNG isn't really an option, for example.
  
• A few of the harsher events could really use a "walk away" option. Notably stuff like the money betting, gold/hp conversion, or +50% damage side effect events can really hurt if you get them at the wrong time.

Again well worth the money even at full price and I definitely enjoy playing the game. But there's still a few rough edges standing between it and it's status as one of the greats of the genre IMO.

Tons of fun, and worth it to me even at full price (and doubly so if you can get it on sale).

It's really cool to have a deckbuilder that is a little more action than the normal turn-based variety usually seen. As a result the game can sometimes be a little bit of an overload to keep track of at first with so many moving parts, but you'll catch on faster than you think. Plus if you need more there are a few Doublelift cards and one character loadout that can temporarily slow or stop time to help you dodge some of the crazier ♥♥♥♥ or line up your attacks more eaisly.

Be aware that bosses scale with everything else and that they are linked to specific zones, so if you have a really hard time with one boss (damn you Selicy!) it can often be better to face them sooner rather than later. You can also avoid bosses by simply playing as that character yourself if that matches your style.

Only major con I'd throw out there is that in-game there's a few things that are kind of unclear, the main one being how to get any ending other than the normal Gate one. I think simply knowing that the other routes are called "Pacifist" and "Genocide" helps a lot, but if you struggle with Genocide in particular keep in mind that there is at least one more character besides the bosses that you meet in your journey.

Also for anyone wondering about the dark world/red paths, they unlock if you finish a boss battle with full HP and then pick that at the first choice.

I've never been a huge rhythm game person but this did it for me! The fact that you only have up and down rather than the full four directions makes it a lot easier to get into but don't worry, the difficulty still scales plenty high!

You can pick up the "free" track version for only a couple bucks, but the songs are good enough that I suggest grabbing the main DLC pack if you can. Plus they're still coming out with new tracks every few months,
so once you've bought that then you continue to get all of those for not a penny more!

Definite recommend!

9/21/23 Update: The Just as Planned DLC pack will only be available until October 4, 2023. After that buying the replacement Muse Plus will still unlock the majority of songs, but will no longer unlock the major packs (like the upcoming Hasune Miku one) or future packs (though it will give a discount). Still highly recommend the game though and if you're thinking about it definitely grab the DLC before then!

TL;DR: I'd buy this game even if I had to buy it at full price, and picking up the functional DLC is also an amazing addition to the game for only a couple bucks more.

So I got this through the humble monthly and wasn't expecting much, but in reality the game has been tons of fun, the atmosphere is great, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is a lover of the Lovecraftian themes and ideals.

Pros:

• My favorite win so far involved me bloating myself on corpses until the point where I murdered my lover, raised her as a crunchy corpse, and lived together forever as a pair of cannibalistic, necrophiliac, immortal blobs.
  
• The music is amazing; I've caught myself humming along multiple times.
  
• There are currently several different ways to win, and with lot of different options and content there's a fair bit of replay value in that respect. One time you might decide to murder everyone sent against you, another you might try sweet talking the public as a villain with good publicity, and both will encounter completely different things.
  
• You can play on normal speed as a bit of a fast-paced, juggling act, timer-based game, or you can play alternating between fast-forward and paused to have plenty of time to read, marvel, and think about things without needing to wait much inbetween. Both methods are rather fun, though you'll probably want to start with the second when you have no idea what you are doing.
  
• Some of the more annoying bits of the game (curses) are moddable in the steam game files if you really can't stand them.

Cons:

• Sometimes the game can drag a bit when you don't know what you are doing. This adds to the sense of mystique, but it can get a bit annoying sometimes. Similarly there isn't a tutorial to the game. Neither of these are insurmountable, but I do suggest at least reading the tips I put below; they will save you a lot of time without really removing much of the mystery.
  
• The game isn't always clear about what spots trigger "minor" victories. I've accidentally ended my runs a couple of times by putting the wrong card in the wrong place (note: most of these are related to jobs; always make sure to read through what your job is asking you after a promotion and see if it hints at "being content" or similar).
  
• It's easy to fall into the trap of grinding away at the same path to success over and over again, especially if you're more risk adverse like me. Make sure to push your comfort zone a bit; there's a lot of fun content you'll never see if you stick to the straight and narrow every run.
  
• The game can't seem to decide if putting cards in slots to stop their timers is a bug or a feature. Generally it seems a little abusive, but there's a specific character that can talk about anything and seems geared specifically to allowing you to do this.

Helpful Tips:
Here's a list of helpful tips that would have saved me several hours had I known them at the start. Most are related to UI tricks but there are a couple minor spoilers at the end.

• Double clicking a card will bounce it to a good place to put it (usually preferring open windows if possible).
  
• Shift clicking (or clicking the number) moves a whole stack of cards.
  
• Talking to your followers about your cult will do cult-y things depending on their aspect.
  
• Only followers that match your cult aspect can become maximum level, despite the semi-implication in the text that any follower could do it.
  
• You can romance named followers by taking them for walks/a night out to the right places. Taking someone for a walk in a desolate location is not a metaphor for killing them yourself (on the other hand locking them in a cupboard means exactly that).
  
• Upgrading lore is guaranteed if you get all 3 magnet draws, but still has a chance of success if you miss the later ones.

Minor spoilers from here on:

• You need to be esoteric in public to find more followers.
  
• I highly suggest having the Rituals wiki page[cultistsimulator.gamepedia.com] open because having to manually memorize or writing things down is annoying, and trying to guess what a "Martensite paste" is when you might go multiple games without ever seeing one is also annoying.
  
• The riddle takes a level 6 lore.

Like any card game you'll have fun for about the first 30 minutes, then lose repetitively in constructed to chinese-named players willing to drop $200 on an overpowered deck, then lose repetitively in draft mode to players who somehow drew top-tier meta decks while you draw yet another pair of common "change target" spells to put in your forced four-color deck. I don't know why I thought buying this game was a good idea, so spare yourself my problems and buy a couple drinks instead, at least that way you'll get one evening's worth of fun out of your money.

I highly recommend this game, even more so if it's on sale. It's a very nice dungeon crawler and currently I am pushing 100 hours and still haven't finished the main game story, let alone any of the post game content. As it stands it's definitely something that you can get through with a bit of grinding if you chose, though there are plenty of options to make things harder for a bit more of a challenge and, like most NIS games, there are min/maxing options out the yinyang. The story itself is also amazing and it had many cases where it made me feel like a terrible person for accidentally or on purpose doing terrible things for personal gain (shoutout to the optional boss who didn't want to fight and was so afraid they started shaking, crying, and passing their turns near the end of that fight... still wiped my whole party twice first though).

In regards to people claiming they are having crashes I only had one single one before the stability patch happened and absolutely none since then despite many many hours of gameplay.

PROS:
* Amazing story with plenty of unforseen twists.
* Amazing dub work, to the point I'm actually playing the game with english voice actors.
* Fairly challenging gameplay.
* Tons of character customization and min/maxing options.
* Large scale battles; you can have up to 15 active attackers and a few dozen defenders at any single point, which gives a lot of options.

CONS:
* This game is M for a reason. If you are sensitive to sexual violence, graphic descriptions of normal violence, oversexualized costumes/enemies, and watching way too many lovable characters die while you desparately try to save them then please give this game a pass.
* Normal battles can sometimes get a bit monotonous as you tell your tank squad to guard and everyone else to attack. The large party sizes can make for some intense boss battles, but sometimes can be a bit dragging on just normal enemies.
* Like many NIS games it's fully possible to min/max to the point a single character can solo the entire game by battering everything down under the weight of sheer stat values. Whether that is a CON or PRO is up to you.
* A few small but important skill mistranslations. I highly suggest checking out the google doc spreadsheet to set you straight on those.
* Price. $50 is a little expensive, and I highly suggest picking up at least the two "pact" DLC's. The game is definitely still worth it even at full price, but sales are definitely something worth keeping an eye out for.

All that said I've definitely enjoyed the game so far, and it's in the running to take my current top slot for my favorite game.

Amazing game, and it's free, so you don't really have any excuse to not give it a go. First full playthrough maybe only took me a few hours, and then another playthrough later for the "good" ending. Don't be put off by the game's appearance if you're not the cutesy-VN type, since there's a reason that the game opens with a warning; not all is as it appears. (And if you are the type well then you'll probably enjoy it just the same).

All-in-all though this is really just the kind of game that is best played blind, so stop reading reviews and just go play the damn thing, it'll be a fun handful of hours at the worst.

Considering that I've spent over 21 hours in this game and still haven't found all the various endings (and that I spent over half of that before even finding *one* non-death ending), the game has tons of replayability with tons of fun. You *will* die, and then on the next time around you'll die before you even get there because you skilled to overcome that particular death and now failed to stop your ex-lover from poisoning your horse in the night. A princess training simulator that I'd definitely recommend to anyone, even at full price (and if it's on sale then even better!).

It's Dota, but better. Still has a few nitpicks that can be very annoying to deal with (I'm looking at you, ability range indicators), but still very decent. Definite recommend.

Amazing game and an amazing story. Would have been worth the money even if I had bought it at full price. I definitely recomend this to anyone. 10/10