Recent reviews by CloudAran

This is a very interesting game, but it is COMPLETELY hostile to new players.

The game has an impressive amount of units, options, and choices in a give match, but while that creates amazing depth of play for veterans, it is an veritable WALL of complexity for new players.

There is no multiplayer mode that provides any options or longer timer than the default, which is clearly tuned for ranked play (even in casual!). This provides little opportunity to learn and will often pressure new players into panicked, poor decisions, or unfinished turns, which in a game with long-term strategy like this it can be difficult for even an experienced player to come back from. This leads to attempts to learn feeling like wasted time.

What's more, there's also no modes that reduce the complexity of options available, such as a league for learning or matches that intentionally end before escalating to high tiers.

There's also so few players on (probably because of this unhealthy new player experience) that it's difficult to match-make into a game with other low-tier players.

This game badly needs turn timer options and/or better options for on-boarding new players into multiplayer. If it had that, I'd easily give it a thumbs up.

This game has such inspired and well executed design that I guessed their design doc while trying to summarize it's vibe to a friend:

Slay the Spire x Into the Breach

Now if you're into turn-based rogue-likes or deck-builders of any kind that's gonna sound really good, or you have no idea what either of those games are and you have 3 new games to play! Seriously, if you like either of those games you'll love this one; it's that easy a called shot/recommendation. The execution is stellar, the pacing and unlocks are great, the end of any run drip-feeds you story, ala Hades, and the challenge starts gentle and ramps up to crazy heights pretty quickly if you're ready for it. It's a very well rounded and polished game, because a surprising amount of it was available for free for fans to give input during the development cycle, and yet the full game still has had a LOT more surprises in it. Great game, well worth the purchase if any of the above piqued your interest.

I put 400 hours into the first game and am blown away that the community has negotiated the rights and rebooted the game (with a legacy mode preserving its final state). This game was hands down my favorite digital CCG until Legends of Runeterra came out after it shut down (almost a decade later).

Now that Duelyst is back (with new direction and strong ties to its player community), I'm eager to see what a modern Duelyst will grow into, but it's already great to have the old game and a fresh starting point for something new!

Tl;dr: download the seamless co-op mod and enjoy.

Hot take, but while it is a good game in some respects it fails to deliver all that it claims to, especially with its terrible multiplayer experience, with frequent framerate issues and crashing. Garbage net code that is not only not fixed after an entire Dark Souls franchise, but is somehow worse in Elden Ring. Constant allied disconnects and consistent invades (especially just after your allies get DCed) make jolly cooperation anything but jolly.

It's a solid, interesting single-player game, but that's not why I bought it and I'm mad I didn't get ALL of what was on the tin.

FromSoftware, PLEASE fix the damned game!

Nothing like what's on the tin and does an EXTREMELY poor job of explaining itself or even basic tasks. Seems like a HUGE waste of time before getting to any of the fun gameplay.

This had so much potential to bring a fresh take to the battle royale genre or at least some interesting abilities and strategy, but it's just another stale hide and seek game with guns lacking personality or presence, and mobility abilities that just don't matter.

Hopefully this gamble can help their real game get funded and made finally and it doesn't go the way of Fortnite's 'Save the World' mode as well.

Star Renegades re-imagines the mechanics of turn-based combat in much the same way Chrono Trigger did when it used character-specific action meters. Careful manipulation of time and turn order have made a stale genre not just interesting to me again, but exciting!

What's more, like the classic comparison above Star Renegades' visual style is striking and memorable, and while the story is by no means as epic or ambitious, the writing and world are amusing and vibrant.

The conceit that explains in-universe how this game is a roguelite is also quite compelling, offering gameplay variety, unlockable characters, and curious developments both mechanical and story-wise in subsequent runs. The end of a run is rewarding and takes effort, but a successfully run is not the end of the story or game.

In a word: disappointing.

A largely unbalanced and uninspired game with controls like the worst combination of a Diablo game and an isometric MOBA. Too bad, because the setting, character design, and art are all gorgeous. I beat this 'roguelite's meager content in a single run as the werewolf (with plague doctor AI companion) and quit a second run with the marksman when it became apparent how awful controls for a ranged character felt, how garbage her abilities were in comparison to either the werewolf or the plague doctor, and how little another run was actually going to feel like more content in this anemic game. I didn't figure I'd regret picking this up 50% off at $10 based on what I'd seen previously, but somehow it proved me wrong...

Excellent stories, curious creatures, dry wit and more effort put into even supporting cast than most games. The combat can be a bit basic, but satisfying none the less, and the views are to die for (sometimes literally...).

Be sure to check out the wide world of available mods if you have the patience it's not even all that hard to figure out and it can somehow make this already excellent game even more enjoyable.

Island feng shui with buildings. The most meditative zen game I think I've ever played.