Recent reviews by ♥ Luci ♥

Wuk Lamat is the most unlikeable character ever designed and this ENTIRE EXPANSION is just about following her around while she's doing the dumbest decisions, the most childish and awful comments and generally feels like following an adult toddler around for hours.

Combat? Barely any
Funny gimmicks? Massive downgrade
Speak to characters? 10% of the time
Speak to Wuk Lamat and listen to random yapping? 90% of the entire MSQ

After the absolute PEAK story writing of Shadowbringers/Endwalker with Emet, I expected Dawntrail could only fall short and/or lack some. But I didn't except it to be a hot stinking pile of trash.

THE ONLY good thing about this expansion is the Cyberpunk city and theme, nothing else is even worth mentioning here.

Even the after story of 7.0 (which at the time I write this is at 7.3) is absolutely awful and feels like a cringe childen story where the main villian is some edgy neet kid, nothing about this expansion has been enjoyable.

And that is written after I took a ½ year break to get a new joy for the game, and I returned to ignoring Dawntrail stuff and doing older content again. Awful, just awful.

Just kill off Wuk Lamat already, or bench her.

It's good

Let's get into this starting with the most important question
F2P aspects?

Yes, absolutely it's possible to be a F2P player and arguably this is the easiest one of them all to be one.
To put this into perspective I played the game for around a month on release, then due to lack of time dropped it, and recently returned due to the absolutely stunning area called "Inverted Tower" was it worth it? YES, keeping to only talking about the characters and F2P there is currently enough content in the game to guarantee you getting 3 characters you want from limited banners for sure if not more (your luck is the limiting factor but there is a safety net both a soft and hard cap on rolls)
When I returned I personally played and ended up getting Camellya and her weapon (I love her character) and after getting past the Black Shore in the main story I also picked up Shorekeeper and her weapon (I ended up getting Shorekeeper twice I really like her)
All the while having Calc and Verina that I got as guaranteed 5*s (Verina is E2) from the pick a character banner, free character on release etc.

Now that that's out of the way, how is the actual game?

Story:
The story as absolutely a stunning masterpiece, the first parts of the MSQ(Main Story Quest) is a bit boring for some but it heavily picks up after you reach the Black Shores, and ESPECIALLY Ragunna (The newest area at the time I write this)
You will laugh, cry, smile and feel extreme joy from the main story and companion quests (It's ironic that the one gacha game that let's you perma skip cutscenes and story, have the most amazing beautiful, immersive and joyous cutscenes so I guarantee you will never be using the skip button during main story nor companion quests)

Gameplay:
The gameplay is very fun and could in ways be compared to Devil May Cry combat, it's made by Kuro Games the devs of Punishing Gray Raven after all, so expect gameplay similar yet also unique!
There's counterstrike mechanics (yellow circle attack you can interrupt and for some enemies break their defense, mechanic, or even weapon)
Dodges and follow-up attack after dodging
And unit-swapping, if you've played ZZZ (Zenless Zone Zero) this will not be too new, it uses the same style except there the characters uses a unique Outro skill and intro skill, which is used on the character's swap out/in
The mechanics and unique playstyle is VERY different between characters, it's actually quite impressive to me how unique they make the character's playstyle with what they have to work with!

Characters:
Enjoyable? Infinitely, I cannot begin to express how lovely the characters are portrayed, you will fall in love with them.
Main character? Absolutely adorable (I personally use female Rover, but the male rover is equally unique (This is a very debated aspect of the community, but honestly just use whichever you feel more connected with))
How is the voice acting? You can decide if you want to play the game with Japanese, English or Chinese voice, I'm unsure if there's more options but all the voice acting is so good, to put it in perspective how hard they go with voice acting the English Voice actor for Carlotta is Shadowheart from Baldur's Gate 3 so they do cook with their voice actors and choose talented voices to really give life to the characters!

Music/Audio:
Stunning.. I have personally been just standing still on a hill or mountain and enjoyed the stunning view with the music playing, their music team and audio team in general absolutely cook with spices I've rarely seen anywhere else.
I can't spoil the main story but the song that plays during the 2.2 story in inverted tower during the final will leave it's mark together with the cutscene itself (For those that's played it and wonder which song I'm referring to it's "With Glory I Shall Fall")

Is it really worth my time?
Yes it is potentially, if you enjoy an amazing story, lovely characters, crazy good music and visuals then absolutely, even if you don't want to go find chests, do the mini-games and do side-quests you can play the game just for the Main Story Quest, the amount of effort upgrading characters and gearing them up is not hard nor extremely time consuming, however min/max echos are.

That being said, if you don't enjoy any of the above and solely want combat and a game you turn your brain off, then this is not the one you'd want, way more options out there for non-story enjoyers.

You won't need to spend hours and hours just to progress with the main story quest, it's providing you with "trial characters" which is usually related to the story, aka if you're helping X character, you get them in your team with a upgraded Rover

I hope this helps people decide if it's worth playing or not.

Pretty awesome gacha game, ultra unique characters, sadly I just don't have time for gacha games anymore.
Btw don't use English voices, they're pretty damn bad, go for Japanese VAs

This game taught me 2 valuable lessons.

1. I'd totally survive Russian Roulette.. For at least a round.
2. Even with my life on the line I can't stop gambling.
3. Sometimes I forget how to count.

10/10 would blow my own brains out again.

I really really really.... REALLY want to give this game a like, the game itself is so much fun and lives up to Dragon's Dogma.. BUT, currently the optimization is violent, even pushing through the bad performance there is one... Very important detail that haunts me...

Single.....Player.....Micro....Transactions.....Why.. It is so absolutely insane that this practice have made it to games. And sadly this game suffers from it too, it's insane to me that they hid that this was in the game, it was never mentioned nor talked about... Yet they just snuck it in on launch..

I will personally be playing it and finishing it to get my money's worth, but god did I wish it was what it isn't.

That was a tough Major Order to repel Sony, but as of 2024-05-06 9:17PM the major order is complete!

Great work fellow Helldivers!

Pretty cool game, the Umbral realm mechanic is so ultra cool and fun, have a nice feeling to it and the devs constantly provide updates, bug fixes, changes the community want, and new quests/spells etc.

Would recommend if you're a Dark Souls type gamer

Best Call of Duty campaign ever made, the campaign in this game easily hits top 10, it's got it all, amazing story, best characters, gameplay is great...

I often return to this to watch the ending and get emotional again, if this is on sale I'd pick it up for the campaign alone

(Which is THE ONLY good thing to say about this game, the multiplayer doesn't exist anymore.)

But pick it up for the campaign, I promise it's worth it.

They took the worst mechanic of Darkest Dungeon 1 and made it into a game.

Ignore my hours, it's just idling hours.