Recent reviews by Squatcher97

Had a lot of fun in Season 5. Season 6 has made me completely stop playing. The new operator "Raptor" just breaks solo game play for operations. As he can track your tracks indefinitely, tag you across the map with his drone, and just constantly harass you. Especially when he is part of a trio.

Not to mention the extreme overabundance of cheaters. I've literally watched kill cams of operators watching me walk from my spawn point behind a wall/mountain/etc. only to 1 tap me to the head as soon as I get out from behind cover, even though I was not detected.

I really do like this game a lot, but I just can't be bothered to play it anymore due to the awful experience that S6 has been.

Please add a solo queue option for operations, or follow through with what Tarkov did and add a PvE mode where it puts us up against extreme operator AI. I just don't feel like getting killed by cheaters anymore.

Potentially one of the best games I’ve ever played.

I love this game.

It is first person Dark Souls with the art style and music from Old School RuneScape

If that doesn't sell you, I am not sure what will.

Really fun

So far this has lived up to all my expectations of what a "Stalker 2" game should have been.
Huge beautiful Zone, great graphics and great performance.
The gun-play is responsive and feels good to tackle the challenges of the zone
The artifact hunting and story feels great and is interesting so far
The English voice acting is pretty OK - but I put mine into Ukrainian voice over with English text as it just sounds better in general.

I am assuming that if you're a die-hard fan like myself of the series you've already bought the game;
So that would leave casual player of the first 3 games/modded versions
If you have played the previous 3 games and enjoyed the story/gameplay - you will also enjoy this game as it feels very familiar but fresh.

If you were part of the Stalker Anomaly/Gamma crew - you might like this or not. As it is not so much a "mil-sim/hardcore survival" experience and more of a immersive sim/FPS horror.

I am loving the game so far. But it definitely will not live up to everyone's expectations if they expect it to be exactly the same as the modded versions of SoC/CS/CoP.

I've seen reports/bad reviews due to poor performance. I don't doubt this - as Stalker has always been a janky/buggy game. But I personally have had 0 issues with the game performance nor have I personally run into any bugs.

So I would absolutely suggest getting this game if you are a fan of the original 3 games/Metro series
If you are primarily a fan of the modded Anomaly/Gamma versions of the game that turns them into mil-sim/tarkov-like you may want to proceed with caution as that is not the point of this game.

So what are you waiting for? Get out of here Stalker
Good Hunting

After completing all the bosses that the DLC has to offer, exploring the whole map, and finding the legendary weapons that I was most interested in - I am prepared to write a review.

Most of the time that I spent playing this DLC, I was having a pretty good time. I really enjoyed just walking around the map and exploring every crevice, ravine, river, cave, etc.

If you enjoy exploring and checking every nook & cranny of the map. This is definitely a DLC for you.
Even the Legacy Dungeons are extremely fun. Most of the legacy dungeons brought me back to Dark Souls 3: The Ring City or Bloodborne. Which are two of my favorite games ever. It was a phenomenal time and was a pleasure exploring these areas.

So why the negative review?

The boss design.

The boss design in this DLC may very well be some of the worst that FromSoft have ever introduced.

Flashback to Dark Souls 3: Ashes of Ariandel and The Ringed City DLCs
You walk into Sister Freide's arena - and she is quick, agile, relentless. She made you play on your A game, and she made you work for that final DLC kill.
And when you finally got her down, it was a huge accomplishment.
Same situation goes for Slave Knight Gael in the Ringed City DLC.

But these two bosses did not encompass every boss of their respective DLCs
These two bosses were very rare. Some bosses were extremely agile and relentless while other bosses were a bit more strategic. Allowed you to heal & take your time.

Every boss in Shadow of the Erdtree are way above Sister Freide or Slave Knight Gael in terms of agility and relentlessness.
The reason those two bosses are so memorable and fun are because they were rare. You knew when you fought a boss as relentless as Slave Knight Gael you were going to spend a lot of time on it and emerge victorious after learning the fight.

The same can not be said for the Shadow of the Erdtree bosses. All of them are this relentless, unforgiving, extremely long combos and input reading. You barely have any time to take a breather while fighting for your life. I don't remember hardly as many bosses in Dark Souls 1-3 or Bloodborne that truly just consistently pushed the boundaries of fun & challenging versus just challenging & unfun.

But most of the bosses in Shadow of the Erdtree are just unfun. Especially the final boss. I have never been less enthusiastic about beating a final boss than this DLC.

Most of the bosses just feel like they are from Bloodborne or Sekiro but your playable character is firmly set within the Dark Souls movement restriction. Leading to less fun challenge and more tiresome and unfun challenge.

The DLC itself is a beautiful piece that FromSoft have made and I know a lot of time went into crafting the world. But it just feels like they should have shown the boss designs a bit more love.

Unless you're a die-hard Soulsborne fan like me, just wait for a sale.

After completing the game, and getting all the achievements, I think I am finally able to give an objective review.

FromSoft does great things with their open world. There are tons of places to explore and things to do everywhere. Unlike other modern open world games (IE any Ubisoft game) it is not copy and pasted objectives in different parts of the map. Each encounter is different - there are slight similarities in caves/dungeons/etc. but each one feels different so that you know it is not a direct copy paste.

Secondly, the progression. If you want to - you can definitely play this like a Soulborne game. Boss rush - kill all the main bosses and beat the game. But it definitely excels when you take your time and explore the areas. Find the secrets, find the optional bosses, find the hidden dungeons and everything that it has to offer. And when I say hidden - I do mean it. Unless you have discovered something, it does not give a map marker (think of the ? marks in assassin's creed or far cry). You must find it naturally before you can see it on the map (same goes for the map itself. You must find the fragments but those do have small indicators on the map of where to find them).

Overall, the build variety and weapon variety is the highest it has ever been. You can do pure melee/ magic/etc. if you want - or you can combine and experiment such as spellblades/paladins/etc. to really make your character unique.

The bosses are mostly good. During the midgame, some of the boss quality goes down but then by the end it goes back up. The early game bosses and end game bosses are memorable - with the mid game being alright but nothing fantastic.

I think this is a really good installment, that has all the usual fromsoft soulslike issues. Such as the camera being the worst boss.

Overall, great game.

Really wanted to love this game. Beautiful world, seemingly fun game-play.
But I can't and here is why:

Being a solo player is ridiculous, everything is scaled so highly that being solo is basically not playable. I played the first prospect, learned the basics, and followed the mission objectives. Finishing it

Started the second prospect to scan some geo locations - and upon starting the scan the game threw 4 enemies at me. 2 bears and 2 wolves - which I obviously would not be able to face at level 5. Causing me to die, lose all my items, accrue an XP debt, and have to restart. Why? I understand it is a survival crafting game - but really? The second mission you throw enemies at me, with no indicator that this would happen fully knowing I would not be able to fight them. As I only have a wooden bow and stone arrows.

Just not worth it sadly.

Re-invigorated my love for Halo multiplayer. The actual progression/EXP is absolutely awful. I actually hate it.

Getting 50exp per match is ridiculous, and having to chase challenges really puts a damper on trying to play the game. I wish they would grant EXP based on match performance too.

Overall, great game. With very shoddy design choices.

EDIT: They changed it. Awesome game

I really love this game. Imagine putting Classic WoW and Old School Runescape together. That is what this game is in essence. All the trade skills are present and fun to level. Combat is solid, but a bit janky at times. World is beautiful and open, and the PvP is pretty awesome. Especially Wars.

If you like Classic WoW and OSRS. I would buy this game. There's so much fun to be had here.

Sadly I cannot recommend this. Game has lots of potential but it just isn't fun. So much micromanagement of each dwarf between their equipment/stats/needs/etc. and then the actual base building and progression is too slow. Getting mountain lore takes too long, and trade lore even longer still. Especially when you get spawned next to a human settlement that gives no quests/items to buy.

Lots of potential. But not worth buying at this time. I would say wait for a 50% - 75% sale on this one. Maybe it opens up in mid-late game. But I wouldn't know. I couldn't get past early game because I kept running out of resources/trade partners to get the resources.

It's not a fun time.