Recent reviews by coldash

Good grief, does this guy know how to design playable games. It's just brilliant game design. A game that costs less than a tenner shouldn't be this good, but here we are.

I think this game hates me, and I think the feeling is mutual.

The word that was stuck in my head for the last couple of hours was 'awful', awful dialogue, awful story, awful gameplay. However, awful, isn't enough to describe the controls. For the controls, they're possibly the worst controls I can recall in a game. It's like the game was created by a talented group of RPG enthusiats, who sat down and threw every rpg element they ever wanted into a game but then didn't bother to play it, or work out how to make it work together. They then thought having created the most confusing interface ever, lets give the bare minimum of instructions, and for giggles lets give the wrong instructions.

Who knows, maybe I'll be back in a couple of months having punished myself for another 10 hours and all of the insane elements will come together and I'll be back updating this review. I doubt it though.

Update: Wow, 27hrs of playing later and three patches from the developer. This might be 'Stockholm Syndrome', but I think I need to change this to a thumbs up. The controls are still poor, but you can make them work, cursing them throughout. The writing is still awful and the tutorials are still the bare minimum or completely lacking. But ... the world is very well done and the game delivers on giving you the freedom to do what you want when you want to. The world and visuals might be the best I've ever seen in an RPG. Oh and still so many bugs, Bethesda would be proud. The weirdest bug for me that was incredibly frustrating was that I couldn't reel in my fishing line if my Xbox Controller was connected wirelessly. When I attached a USB cable it worked fine, remove the cable and it reverts to ignoring any attempts to reel in the line.

A good start.

If you enjoyed Dysmantle, you'll like this as well. Shares several of the game mechanics while introducing new gameplay.

Ok, that was impressive. Can't wait for the full release.

StarRupture is a very good game. My initial impression wasn't great, but this was on me. I started out expecting a Satisfactory clone, which this isn't. It has it's own gameplay ideas and once I realised that the game was much more enjoyable. One mechanic it shares with Satisfactory is that anything you build can be torn down with all of the resources returned. This is great as you can experiment and learn without any penalty.

For the initial release of an Early Access Game, it's surprisingly polished. Everything that is in this release works as expected, at least so far after 27 hrs of playing.

Graphics are excellent, along with the sound and gameplay. The combat is pretty good and adds to the overall experience.

To finish off, the price of the game should make it an easy and essential purchase. This would be great value at £30, at just under £15, (at time or writing), it's one of the best value games I can recall buying. Buy it even if it's not your thing, encourage this studio and others that you can make a quality game at a low price and make a good return. If nothing else it should annoy EA and Ubisoft.

My game of the year. The game play is very good but not the highlight. The things that make this game stand out are the visual design, overall story telling and audio. It is the best turn based RPG I've played in a long time. The fact that it's priced at almost half the price of lesser Triple A titles adds to how great this release was. Hopefully the release of this game leads to many more great games at lower prices. I can't wait to see what Sandfall do next.

Update (6/1/2026): Played until 'Inside the Monolith', then encountered a bug that means I cannot proceed or complete the game. It's covered by other people in the discussion thread: https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/app/1903340/discussions/0/687492779657567745/

On this basis it has to be a thumbs down for the game, don't waste your time with this until the issue is resolved.

A huge disappointment. This game should be ignored and left to wither and disappear.

I'm posting the review after playing for 6hrs, things might get better but I doubt it.

Lets start with the technical issues, while it true I don't have a 5090, my 4070ti, shouldn't struggle the way it does. This is the worst game technically I've played in years. It stutters a lot, when it's not stuttering then texture pop in is a regular occurence. The most comical is when you change weapons and then wait a second or two before the textures to update. It is possible to play and ignore the issues, but you shouldn't have to. Anyway you look at it you'll find yourself fighting the enemies and the stutter that disrupts aiming.

The next issue is the game itself. The story is incredibly dull, I actually stopped paying attention about an hour ago as I was simply bored, the story is just some sort of generic sci fi junk. As for the Borderlands humour, I've not smiled let alone laughed at anything so far, it's that boring. I have a horrible feeling that if this had been an AI generated script it might actually be better.

So, buggy, boring and generic shooter. The only real reminder that this is a Borderlands game is the never ending stream of loot. Sadly that's not enough anymore and if that's what's required I think I'll go back to Borderlands 2.

Ergh, avoid, avoid, avoid. Don't wait for the sale, it's as waste of money at any cost.

I wish more developers took this approach with sequels.

Take all the best elements from your previous game and then improve them.

They've taken a brilliant game and made it better in so many ways.

If you enjoyed Monster Train, I've no idea why you're reading any reviews, just get it already.

Reasons to buy:
1) You played and enjoyed Crashlands, this is very much the same game with improvements. But since the last game was so good this is exactly the right way to go.
2) You enjoy good action RPG's.
3) You enjoy excellent games that can make you laugh.

Basically, the game is a bargain, it's well made and as far as I can tell pretty huge.

Wow, it's like they hired great designers and artists but had no one who knew what at game actually is. Looks and sounds good, game play is the worst in years. With decades of walk forward mapped to 'W', this game wants 'Z'. Then there are some of the worst Quick Time events since the 90's.

This is a terrible game, that should be avoided.