Recent reviews by Funky Fred

□ Boring slog combat
□ Classic moon logic styled Silent Hill puzzles
□ Paper thin story and characters
□ Game runs like total hot garbage and lags constantly
□ Day 1 DLC outfits that should have just been unlockable cosmetics

Frankly the whole experience was a soulless waste of time. Maybe the dev team will make a better game next chance they get, but this project doesn't inspire confidence. Especially since the remake for SH2 is out as well and blows this crap out of the water. Go play that instead. And if you have already? Play it again. And avoid this boring, tedious slop.

XOXOXOXO
Funky Fred, F-ing out.

Okay. Having officially finished this ex pack.
Erm...

So like the issue, right? This is following two back to back S tier expansions. HIGH EXPECTATIONS.

I think maybe they wanted to reduce the stakes and not make you the literal center of the universe.
And also they want to have you visit the other planets since there's several yet to be explored. They want to do a lot, and there's a lot of expectation out of the people who played all the way through Endwalker.

But they gave the spotlight to one of weakest characters they could have possibly managed.

Wuk Lamat? The elephant in the room? She's... boring.

She's not the worst thing ever, but they did not write a character. They made some sparkle dog, wish fulfillment, nothing. She has no real motivation beyond; wanting peace....

And that's it? She has no interests. No hobbies. No friends besides her dad and surrogate mom (and her cat boy brother which is a much more interesting character despite not even having nearly a fraction of her screen time) She has no real negative traits or problems to make her stand out. Nor does she really develop over the course of her thousands of lines of dialogue. She has a tragic past and because she believes in herself she can power up. And that's her peak (which she reaches in the first few hours of playtime.)

What's crazy to me too? I feel like some people might consider the hatred for Wuk to be sexist. And maybe some of it is? But Square knows how to write really good female characters. Half the Scions are women (at least at one point) And plenty of the female supporting cast have fairly decent side stories.

One of the best written characters (IMO) happens to be a woman. Yotsuyu (Dommy mommy) from the Stormblood expansion is so kino. They manage to give her a whole arc. Explain visually why she acts the way she does. And even show that she could have not been evil given the opportunity. And you get a really satisfying boss fight with her as well. And she's just side piece in that story.

Meanwhile, Wuk Lamat? What's she got going on? She's not even really a foil to any other character nor does she contrast against anyone. They try a little bit in the story to compare her with Sphene, but they are not similar in any way. They both love their people. Except Sphinctor is literally ready to holocaust worlds for her people and literally deletes memories of their dead loved ones to spare them the pain of loss.

Wuk doesn't have to reflect on this, because peace is easy for her. And she, like the Dali Lama, doesn't have any desire or whatever. (because they didn't write her to have any interest beyond a child's understanding of peace) What's this weak sauce slop? This is the same game series with ZENOS and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ EMMET SELCH.

And what else? Wuk steals all the spotlight from the MC. (main character)

This is a cardinal sin for me in MMOs. WOW lets all their way COOLER and waaaay more EPICER OCs take all the spotlight from you at nearly every opportunity.

Me? I am playing as the guy. The main character. Me. I don't give a hot, wet, fart about the king of some land I don't even own a home in. I am playing as MY SELF INSERT. Why am I here? To stop some impending war? Like I'd lose. I killed god already. Multiple times even. What's my motivation for helping this boring loser? All she needs to do is believe in herself and she can limit break anyone to death.

And if I wanted to play as Wuk Lamat so bad? I'd play the Wuk Lamat video game instead. Why the hell am I even here? Might as well just TF me into her with a Fantasia and make me suckle on her toes in between scenes. Not like she's doing any of the real work anyway. When I do all the work fighting a boss and some boring loser pops into to KILL STEAL? Booooo! BOOOOO!

The first half of this ex pack also kinda sucks because it feels like a major step back to Realm Reborn. You're just some loser diddling around in a stinky jungle and hanging around other losers. Doing some crap tier fetch quests. And it isn't until about the halfway mark, when the story get a little more interesting.

But most of my complaints come down to the story content being subpar. There's a lot of pieces that I like about this ex pac. The music in pretty much every area is pretty good. They have some cool set pieces and visuals. The new gear is fun to mog and make outfits with. I'm a sucker for futuristic/rave wear. And even some of the new characters were cool (like king cat boy and also the previous king).

But what really bogs the experience down is being chained to this really lame character. And being forced to not only give up the spotlight, but to follow her around like a lost puppy for hours and hours. If they want to an adventure with less stakes, that's perfectly fine. But it shouldn't come at the cost of making me backseat some lame loser. The hook of going to the Golden City on its own would have been perfectly cool.

In fact? They literally did all of this but better with the pre-patch stuff with Zero. She's an edgy OC donut steel, but I thought she was kinda charming. And I enjoyed getting to visit the void planet. The stake were high, but not killing god high. (until like closer to the end I guess.) I am mystified how Wuk Lamat even happened, as they have never written something so totally boring since a Realm Reborn. (And also the one blonde skank from Stormblood but I have done my best to forget about her entirely.)

Verdict? It's meh. Just sucks you gotta babysit someone's OC for way too long. Also? Can the dungeons stop having so many baby walls? I want to do insane pulls and test my limits. I am tired of being in the cuck chair of only two packs and a door. Inversely, the bosses for every trial and dungeon were exceptional.

Anyway, Funky Fred signing out and looking for nasty hoes on the party finder!
XOXOXOXOXOXO

Hey everyone!

Given the size of this patch and the previous major patch, we are generally content with the game as it currently stands.

Ray McCaffery
Executive Producer

I came, I saw, I YIIKed.

Thank you boys from ACKK Studios.

I appreciate the new story elements don't hold my hand too much and let me thonk.

And the new battle system was actually pretty decent. Excited to see whatever game you guys make next.

Despite being a basic breeder sim game, this is oddly entertaining. The physics certainly carry the experience, as throwing dogs around will always be entertaining. I will pick this back up again when its got more content. As of now, a good little distraction with decent music. I feel like it has the potential to be really cool, and rival Sonic Adventure in terms of complexity in a pet sim.

Also, not really a focus for now, as I just want more content (I got almost every badge in a couple hours) But mod support would be cool as hell. Sandbox games like this almost need mods to keep people invested.

XOXOXOXO Funky Fred, signing out.

The art in this game is the best part. Very creative visuals, neat character designs, and the music was pretty interesting too.
The story itself is okay, simple indie horror content. Meeting missing peoples' ghosts, serial killer on the loose, you know the drill if you've played one of these types of games before. I did enjoy the meta aspect, though. (Hint; the title.)

But wow, this game feels really one note. Or should I say one key? While I have 600+ hours in Dead by Daylight, this somehow made holding W boring to me. I hope the next game decides to have mechanics, because this seems like it would have been better as a comic or something. The puzzles are Skyrim tier for the most part. And it can get very grating having to do trial and error during a chase scene. More than once.

I give this a 4/10,. The visuals do very much to carry the experience. I'd say the game was like a very light 6, if most of the maps didn't feel nearly indentical, and there wasn't a long loading screen between them. Kind of kills the flow quite a bit to stare at a black screen between every single area. You might be better served watching a longplay of this, and supporting the creator by buying merch or something. This game makes me want to take a nap when I play it. But, I hope the creator keeps on the grindset. Because I think they have the potential to make something super cool. A 10 outta 10 lies within you babe.

XOXOXO Funky Fred signing off

This game is horrible. I think they really wanted to make a sort of GTA clone mixed with PUBG, and instead they made some weird poop fetish video game instead. The poop is more detailed than the awful combat. This mechanic also includes eating food, digesting it, and eventually you get to do a fun animation where a ragdoll turd falls out of your butt. Fitting that this was the thing the focused on. Dear god, do everyone a favor and take this game out back behind the shed. XOXO Funky Fred Smeg-ing again.

I don't want to delete my original review of this game, since below was my feelings when the game launched. Coming back to Balder's Gate 3 now, I can proudly say that it's really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good. It took a while, but the thing is now finished.

The story was a little slow going at first, because almost every NPC you interact with is really standoffish. And sometimes when you try to be the moral paragon, they hit you with the D&D classic; "Erm, nobody appreciates your effort, idiot." You save a woman's daughter from getting vored and she berates you for helping. But the mystery of where the story was going kept me invested enough to see the people in my party and the world around me develop. Also the wizard man eating my clothes was really funny.

My only actual complaint is the poor optimization the game has. The studio really packed a lot of detail and assets in the playable areas. But good lord, they forget to set some flags to deload stuff you haven't visited in hours. So you can end up having ten billion things all loaded in at the same time, and my ancient graphics card was murdered. But also I was using an HDD, so joke's on me I guess. So in a roundabout way; I blame Larian for making me experience the seven stages of grief while assembling a new PC.

TL;DR game is good now. Everything desperately wants to rizz and commit pleasure acts to you, and I accept. The world deserves all the love I can give it. And as a wise man once said; "I wish aliens were real, so I could have more things to ♥♥♥♥."

P.S. Thank you for fixing the netcode XOXOXOXOXO Funky Fred barding out.

(Original review below)

TLDR; company probably needed money when it came out, game came out way too early, waiting for the content to be finished. But, you may have a good experience regardless!

This game is like, really close to being a real game. When I first played this mess, it was in "Early Access." Several months later, it still is. Surprised I only encountered bugs every few minutes instead of every few seconds at launch. I understood I was buying Early Access at the time, but this has to be the most early I have ever been to something. Last time I was near this early, they had to put me in the incubator.

I forgot exactly how much I paid for Mr. BG3, but hot damn. They should have paid me to play it instead. Surprised that it didn't come with a dev kit, a work station, and an application to work at Larian Studios. Paying like any amount of money to be someone's QA team is wild. This is basically the Devolver Digital skit where a dev has an idea and the computer screen sucks up your money. But, in real life.

Honestly, feel like the game was spoiled for me playing it as early as I did too. Came back to fumble around with it after my initial purchase much later. And it was, alright. The game functioned better. They added, changed, and or fixed some of the cutscenes. Overall, it did actually improve. However, with a game that is so story focused, I kinda feel like I read the manga for an anime. Because I got impatient waiting for new episodes. And the manga sucks. And I also had to pay for the manga.

But, all that said. The game may be worth your time as of now. Even in the buggy state it was in at launch, me and my friends had a good time playing it together. And, I understand the industry is a mess. And with COVID, things probably got crazy at the company and stayed crazy for quite some time. So, this was possibly a necessary evil for a good game to be made. So, here's hoping when this thing exits Early Access, we have a masterpiece. Then, uh. I might re-review. For now, a cautious and regrettable thumbs down.

P.S. Fix your netcoding so me and my New Zealand friend can play without him suffering as much. Thanks! XOXOXO
Funky Fred signing out.

Give thanks this day after Thanksgiving for a game that will sit open on your desktop forever and ever.

Fairly interesting and the magic system was fun. Shame I had to refund it though, because this game is super buggy. Can't alt tab during multiplayer missions, even if you are dead or not in the game. User interface has crippling annoying issues, can't select options during character creation while someone is also doing so. Sometimes picking something during creation applies it to another character or messes with the other person's sliders. Just huge blatant levels of polish missing from a game that might as well be in Early Access. Might buy it again once it's gone through a few updates and becomes functional.