Recent reviews by All Flarus

Good fun, scratches the same itch as Melvor Idle did but with some quality of life. Feels quite polished compared to other idle games - though this has released as complete, which is a nice change to the perpetual sea of early access titles.

Good fun holdover whilst waiting for any news on Melvor Idle 2, cheers.

Slow start - but the game really opens up in Chapter 3.
It feels like they added the first couple of main story chapters late because they realised dumping all the mechanics at once on you would be overwhelming - and they're right. It makes it feel like a very long tutorial... But as you get more and learn the way things work, it really comes to life.

It's quite marmite - but it really comes alive after 6-8 hours.
With updated graphics drivers it looks amazing as well - it was a bit rough on launch but updated drivers made a huge difference.

I was hoping to recapture the magic of EU4 release and its earlier versions, but I feel the vision Paradox has for games now has moved on from what I used to enjoy...

Also, as I am busier these days, I found that during release they released patches that broke my saves faster than I could play the game which really put me off. I've ended up not touching the game following several frustrating experiences, and have no real temptation to return.

Victoria 3 did something similar... So I think I am just not in the target market for Paradox GSGs anymore, which is a shame - I really enjoyed CK2, EU4 and HoI4 but have bounced off CK3, EU5 and Victoria 3 now.

Impressive, has a lot of QoL unlockable just when it feels needed.
It also feels great discovering and experimenting with combinations and orders of doing things. The tutorials are (for the genre) very useful, much nicer than needing to read wiki articles.

Early impression:
There feels to be a lot of layers of complexity I am still unlocking, but it's not overwhelming and whilst there are some optimal combinations, it doesn't feel bad to be inefficient to a degree.

Looking forward to how this develops, already a lot more complete than a lot of early access titles within the incremental genre - the demo hooked me and I bought it fairly quickly!

Didn't get far in, but it played like a less interesting Melvor Idle (and F2P with cash shop rather than buy to play)

A bit of a slow start, but it gets going - especially once you have the full party they start having more interactions that are fun. The story as you move from 'complete mystery' to 'mysterious, but it's coming together' gripped me as well.

There are a few mechanics that are a bit wobbly, especially as it's a departure from the usual series style, but there's promise there that hopefully they build on for future titles in this arc.

I'd been put off by some of the comments on the alchemy being simple - it sort of is, but it doesn't seem too bad. Rebuilding items is pointless. The changes to the traits and boosting items is fine, different but fine.
Again it might be a thing where early game there really isn't much going on, and without unlocking stuff in the skill tree it's really easy to hit the cap on effect complexity and quality. Some of the node types are quite simplistic compared to the older games, but it comes together as the game slowly adds things and you expand down the skill tree and unlock new things. I'm still spending plenty of time, though I do avoid auto-crafting so maybe I am missing how brainless that makes it all.

Recommend - but it's a slow start, even by the series standards.

Difficult to review - Steam reviews are too simple, more a... "Yes but no?" I'm leaving this review because some friends have asked me 'you used to play this any good' after its recent advertising blitz on Reddit.
Recommend early game? Yes (For an idler early game lasts ages! Definitely worth playing if you're not concerned about settling down with a long-term idle game)
Recommend late game? No (I've found other idlers that scratch the long-term itch better, and there's plenty of idlers that are deliberately shorter games.)

This game sits for me in a weird "Feels great as a medium-term game" which is a weird place for an idler.

As an idle game though the long term feels the more important part. I really enjoyed having multiple characters to do work as a group, a sort of adventuring team - but in World 4 (particularly with Lab) it feels like the emphasis shifted onto 'putting characters away' rather than having a growing complex web of activities.

I'm sure some players prefer that, and fair enough, but to me I just lost interest slowly and lost a bit of the feel for different characters I had made.
I'll leave as a "Recommend" - but if you're looking for a forever game, or idler you can make your primary game for the genre, I would look elsewhere.

This idler really captured me - once you get up and running, the variety it has really sets it apart from other idlers to me.

It's VERY slow and focussed on gradual tiny progression, but they all sum up nicely and you get a nice feeling of progress over time. The challenges do have some sort of "optimal" order as in the reviews, and it can be useful to look up and do forward planning. That said, even amongst the community, there are many points where there are a host of options of what Challenge or thing to push next. Could you follow a specific guide for optimal play? Sure - but i've made good progress tailoring what I am doing to how busy I am.
Some challenges can be left almost entirely idle for several days - perfect for when life is busy.
Others you can smash out in 2-3 hours, or if you don't want to play so actively an evening.

If you like the idea of planning ahead and making slow incremental gains over time that multiply up to change your strategies - this is the game for you.
If you'd like an idler to play 100% blind without looking up anything (or reading lots of options in game, if you want to avoid docs and discord) this probably isn't a good match.

There are a few QoL things that I can imagine would frustrate if not aware of them - the Rebirth Bacon for example takes pet dungeons from frustrating to fun. If you're not aware to get pet blacksmiths and alchemists early that can really add to how slow the start feels too.
Once you're rolling this turns into part of the strategy though which is nice - what to aim for next, which will affect how you move forward.

The game seems generous enough with its events giving big boosts, and it hands out a few pet Class Change tokens free. Events you can get a solid amount of progress free to play, and grind out the rest of rewards at your own pace with pet stones, whilst paying skips that grind (but a lot of the rewards are small increments so really not needed).
Nothing missable either - previous years event rewards become purchasable for free currency (though again very slow!), but you don't feel like you're missing them with a couple of exceptions like the Pet Growth Pendant.

Picked this up in the idler sale, and it was interesting. Once a good few loops in and met some NPCs it really hooked me.

The interface really clicked once I had set up a few loops and saved them. It is an idler so expect to let some patterns run - but there's thought and decisions to make in setting up loops, so it's not a mindless grind, it rewards thought and planning ahead.

Can recommend, for the sale price, 100% recommend.

I've flip flopped on rating this game - if Steam had an "eh" middle option i'd use that.

The highs are high in this game, really fun - when it works.
But every patch... they break something different.
Depending on the planet you're on or how the map generates, you can clip out the world because the geometry is broken, or the enemies ignore terrain, or they act like there's terrain there and just stand still whilst you shoot them. The ragdoll physics sometimes you get punted across half the map by something and survive, sometimes you get knocked over and die because you touched a pebble.

The difficulty is weird as well. Some difficulty 7 missions are a walk in the park. Some difficulty 5 missions are absolute nonsense with spawns. I have no idea why, but there's no real control over "I want to have a relaxed session" and "I want to try hard" because there's so much variance within the difficulty settings as to what the experience is going to be like.

Now after the latest update, they've brought back the blue-screens and crashes I had at launch that they'd fixed. Can't be bothered anymore. Hopefully coming back in a year this will be good. It feels like Early Access currently.