Recent reviews by Chaireem Abdul-Jabbar

I have some notes for negatives, but let me talk about the BEAUTY of this game before that.
Visuals, sound, artstyle, music, it's all so fantastic!! This game feels like what The Last Night has been teasing for YEARS, some areas were clearly more visually distinct than others, the mid-game sewer and underground areas weren't anything special or dynamic. However, the moments where your journey takes you through neon skyscrapers, buzzing busy streets, or abandoned farmland, it takes your breath away. Flanked by an enjoyable cast of characters, each written into their own niche with some depth to explore, and some very well-done world building with character comments, visual storytelling, and notes you can find in the world. Even if you don't want to read EVERY journal entry, the game does a fine job of giving you what you need from interactions! Of course, the MUSIC, it's immaculate, sublime, GORGEOUS. The energetic side of the score gets you amped, while the somber moments lean into the beauty that synths can provide, it was truly such a delightful experience for audiophiles!!

In the "Mid" category, I think the story is serviceable! The twists are never groundbreaking, but still grabbed me enough to feel impactful, the character motivations were believable and interactions felt natural for whom we meet in our journey as Warren/Reach. The ending is delightful, but doesn't say too much. Spoilers for the ending: The ending has our character do a heroic self sacrifice to destroy an evil machine that has been destroying lives person-by-person, and his sacrifice inspires others to continue the fight. It's very hope-filled! But it doesn't say anything deeper than that, which is a shame, since earlier parts of the game have A LOT more to speak on. Not bad! Not great! . Aside from that, the story is enjoyable, easy to digest, and the characters that sprinkle throughout your journey have fantastic designs and stories!

The bad is purely two things. I played the game on "Hard" so I suppose grain of salt? The combat is unbearable at times, overwhelming, and exhausting. Towards the end of the game you will have; A light attack (which can take you across the room, FAST), a heavy attack (EXTREMELY short range and only for destroying armor on large enemies), a parry, a dodge, a ranged-only parry, a shockwave special once per fight, a gun blast that charges the more you fight, and an overcharge mode that instakills most enemies.
The problems with all of these tools is, on paper they're fine, but towards the last 3 chapters of the game, EVERY mechanic is used ALL THE TIME. Large enemies are armored, so you can't hit them until you armor shred, but its short range so you need to wait for a good time so you need to avoid them, meanwhile you need to either parry or dodge ranged enemies, but if you parry/deflect melee enemies can still attack you, or secondary ranged enemies can still shoot you. Some enemies cannot be attacked outside of parrying, some enemies have to have armor shredded, and its all on a 2D plane so they are either left or right of you. It can be OVERWHELMING and it becomes exhaustive.
The other awful thing is, the autosaves in this game are ATROCIOUS. Some platforming areas are VERY easy to die in, and they will reset you SO FAR BACK in the platforming puzzle. Alike with bosses, bosses will have a big cutscene (thankfully skippable) and then start their multi-phase fight. If you die, its all started again, and it can be way too much, even worse than some Soulslike fights.

Those two negatives REALLY bogged down the best parts of the game, they never ruined the game for me, but if you're a homie who gets easily frustrated, be mindful. I don't mean that the game is UNFAIR or anything, just can be generally annoying if youre already having a bad day, or if a fight takes the wind out of you!

Overall, this game is a beautiful experience, I adored it so much and I'd recommend it to anyone, with quick notes on the goods and bads! If you want a beautiful visual buffet, with incredible story and sound, you will LOVE this game. Look into it, read some of that juicy lore, and kick some corpo ass

In the old beta client I have over 600hours, so don't use my steam playtime as a baseline. This game has a special place in my heart, when I was battling cancer, this is all my trash laptop could run. It got me through hard days when I couldn't move out of my bed. Which pains me greatly when I cannot recommend it.

The developers KNOW this game is good, and that is to their benefit and detriment. This is a phenomenal autobattler, with wonderful non-verbal storytelling in its cards. Fun design with its characters, each playing extremely diverse from the others. The sound design, music, boards, replayability, rewards, it all flows so well. But because of this knowledge of the game they have they've made so many poor decisions. I can't continue supporting everything they do, which... sucks lmao. To put it bluntly, this game has struggled with high-horse developers and horrible monetization. Pre-release is its own nightmare, but Steam release was originally 40$ (USD) and got so much immediate backlash, they lowered it to 20, which meant they had to mass refund that 20$ via Steam. To follow suit, every character is 20 MORE dollars, meaning to get the full experience of this game as of posting this review, you need to spend 100$.

I think people reacting annoyed to the monetization are half-right, the alternatives are plenty worse and they tried them in the pre-Steam release, it was a nasty time, look up info if you'd like but the TLDR is; They tried to monetize in-game currency, a battlepass, a subscription service (that was separate from the battle pass), and chests for animated cards. After backpedaling, they fell back on a paid launch, paid characters and paid gems. Nobody pays for gems, because you can earn them by playing. So in reality, it's paid base game and paid characters.

I think this is fine, because that'd be the only way they can make money without slipping down the mtx slope. However, those characters need to be 10$ per, MAXIMUM. It would be a 100$ price tag vs 60$, still a good amount, but when you love a game you'll WANT to support it. As of right now, a lot of us really love this game, but are wincing at every character being the cost of an indie video game. It's not worth the money unless you ONLY play the Bazaar.

I'll wrap up my thoughts since I'm getting circular. This game is lovely, the people who love it are amazing. The community has so many amazing running bits, inside jokes, and ridiculous memes. The community and game itself, hold it aloft, which is a GREAT spot to be. But if they keep releasing 20$ characters, it will sink until its just the die-hards left and that won't keep the game afloat.

A love letter to voice actors, that's all the reason I needed.
The entire reason most of us remember any video game we've played is either the music or the VA performance. This game is a nonstop love letter to writers and actors who make games come to life.

Just because they let me flirt with a sexy bed has NOTHING to do with this okay?

Criminally underrated game!
Half-Life and SCP had a survival crafting baby with proximity voice, fun animations, and an amazing co-op experience.

It may run on Unreal, but it has a Direct x11 launch for lower spec PCs, which has allowed me to play this game without worry, in an era where anything below the best feels like you don't have enough.

Every contained entity in Cascade Labs, has a fun story to explore. Every portal you open leads to a new gameplay experience. Every upgrade you get feels like you open up so much more of the game. Genuinely one of the best gaming experiences I've had in a very long time, PLEASE check it out! And if you can't play it with your friends, it's still an incredible solo adventure!

As of early access this game has a mountain to climb. I tried really hard to enjoy this game, and it's completely possible it's just not for me, but I have some notes.

The art style, sound design and character design are all wonderful. That is where my positive notes end. The style of the game is nice, the cracked foundation has a really pretty coat of paint.

On both controller and mouse + keyboard, the combat is clunky. Lock-on targeting does not benefit this game in a 3D space with how instant you need to react to attacks that deal 1/5 of your health from almost every enemy. Parrying is too little of reward for the risk, you might get 7 of your 90 hp back, but you're stuck in place and get no follow up. Staggering (poise break) gives you an animation locked attack that takes so long and does so little, you're better off attacking other enemies in the mean time as you'll get more damage. Ranged builds rely on RNG so heavily that attempting to play as a ranged character is pointless, despite the fact that 2 characters are built around their ranged weapons.

The movement is atrocious, in a day and age where so many games are copying the stamina climbing systems of Breath of the Wild, HLB somehow does the impressive job of making a worse system. The glider lowers your altitude extremely fast so its not good for long distance gliding, but also you take so little fall damage that I'm surprised there's even a glider anyway. The hoverboard is fun until you want to turn at a decent rate and then collide with a pebble and can't move. There IS a "vaulting" mechanic, but it's only when you use your dodge at a wall or surface to run up it.

The loot extraction is a fun mechanic, until you realize how little most materials matter because you only want weapon upgrades and the main items to unlock bosses, so everything else is pointless even though you're supposed to be upgrading the HUB area.

I really hope they expand on all these features and make this combat even somewhat clean. This feels like a game I would be trying in 2012 on Steam Greenlight. I don't mean to be overly negative, but using the Hyperlight Drifter IP, yet doing almost nothing with it, begs the question of how this game will turn out. I really enjoy these types of game, but exploration and combat being the focus mean they have to feel buttery smooth, and I keep finding chunks and lumps and it's getting gross.

Wait it's HOW early in the morning?

German lesbian Robot lovers with existential dread and cosmic horror game that crushed my soul, leaving me sobbing all night (this game is a masterpiece)

I made a horse my captain
Captain Horse never lets down their men
Captain Horse always keeps the food stocks high
Captain Horse also stared a war.
We always follow Captain Horse

One more run...

I've played too much of this game, early access and release. I love this game to death, I have 160 hours as of posting this short review, and I still haven't found everything in the game, there's still stories and lore I haven't unlocked and of course several achievements.

Don't even get me started about the D&D mode.