Recent reviews by Ctrl-Alt-DENIED

gonna try and rebut the tide of negative reviews and common complaints

Performance
I seem to be one of the few people who gets good performance out of the game, so I can't speak much on this topic. Hard agree on the UE hair being unnecessary, though.

Physics
I think there are several contributing factors to why people are complaining so much about the physics. The first one is the muscle mechanic, which is barely even hinted at ingame (if you mouse over a specific part of the UI that looks like something it isn't). Your character starts off malnourished and feeble, and can barely swing most weapons. As you fight, you get stronger and stronger. Again, this is barely noted ingame, so you pretty much have to be told about it to figure it out.
The second factor that I think is contributing to the complaints is the framerate. There is a major issue with how the game handles framerate, in that the physics stop working properly if your framerate is above 60. This problem has existed in every demo (except maybe the itch io demo?), and as far as I know the devs aren't aware of it. You can witness it yourself: buy a flail, go into the training cellar, lock your FPS to 60 in the settings, and observe how the free end of your flail behaves as expected. Then go into your settings, remove the cap, and observe how your flail begins twitching and spasming, throwing your character around. This affects every facet of gameplay, from movement to weapon handling. If you're having issues with the physics, try locking your FPS to 60 and playing the game for a bit.
The third factor is the weapon generation. Due to most weapons being randomly generated, they tend to be horribly balanced and/or heavy, which makes them borderline unusable. I think a lot of people are scavenging a weapon off the ground, using it, observing that it handles horribly, and then attributing that to the physics itself rather than the weapon. Try using weapons with fixed models or making your own weapons with the smith.

Progression
The difficulty curve of the progression mode is insane. Easily the hardest tier is the first one, followed by the second, and it gets substantially easier once you hit T3 (where armor becomes available), and the later tiers aren't really difficult at all. Its an unfortunate wombo combo of low muscle + no armor + champions usually have an axe + everybody wants your head liberated from your shoulders. I struggled in T1 for several hours, then breezed through to T9 and beat the boss in the span of an hour, if that. The only advice I can give is to pick up a flail, insure it, and learn to use it. Flails are viable up until about ~T7 in my experience, so if you can use it well you have a skill that will be useful for a long time.
Other than that, the progression is actually very lenient (and imo much better than in the demo). You keep your inventory between characters, insured items will always return, you can loot enemies, once you unlock a new tier you can start your next character there, even death isn't necessarily the end. The abyss enemies are kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥ though. Why can they bite through my mail mittens like they aren't there, and why does my character always fall over whenever he gets bit? They're not impossible to fight, but they can be annoying.

I think the biggest problem with the game as it is right now is that it doesn't explain itself to you at all. There's a cellar with a dummy and the controls listed on screen, and the innkeep will tell you what each NPC in the tavern does, but that's about it. I get that it's probably an intentional design choice to some degree, but I think the game would benefit from something resembling an initial tutorial, or atleast a handbook that lists out mechanics or something. Also the main menu kinda looks like ass atm. A black screen with menu buttons and nothing else? The demo had a background video atleast. (unless thats a bug, in which case whoops)

Overall, I quite like the game. Try the demo, and if you *really* like it, buy the full game. Otherwise, wait for further updates as it gets refined, which I'm sure it will. If you're at all familiar with game development, you'll recognize that Half Sword represents a huge amount of work for such a small indie team, I doubt they're keen to walk away from this game.

never had any crashes or stuttering. didn't look at my framerate but it was consistently smooth, likely above 60 fps the whole time. the gunplay is *really* good, very snappy and responsive. the same can be said of movement, all it needs is a slide, wallrunning, and mantling and it'll be 80% of the way to titanfall movement. everything is very well animated and done with a lot of love & care, i adore the animation for picking up radioactive waste.

while similar to another game called Void Crew, this is a lot more streamlined & interactive, and benefits as a result. for example, no longer does someone need to sit on the helm 24/7, and even if they choose to, there are pilot weapons to keep them engaged.

my only piece of criticism at the moment is that its hard to tell if you're doing damage to a friendly or an enemy. i had a friend try to use the ship guns to destroy drones on a friendly passenger carrier, and destroy the carrier on accident. i also had another friend try to use the pilot gun as a close support weapon and kill 2 of us who were on the ground.

overall this is a genuinely fun game with a lot of quality for not very much money. i bought it for $16 USD and am very satisfied with the purchase.

Dino Sekiro. even if the core concept of "there is a dinosaur with a big sword" somehow isnt appealing to you

it's ok. i'm probably gonna refund it though.

the important thing to understand is the differences between this and stalker. this is not stalker, and doesn't really play like stalker. it is heavily inspired by stalker. the main difference is in the pacing. this is a blisteringly fast-paced game compared to what it draws inspiration from. everything has been streamlined to keep the pace fast (no item durability, no looting menu, etc.). i don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but it's where the game falls flat for me personally, as i was coming in expecting a slower game.

the difficulty is also worth noting. maybe i'm just blind, but i didn't see any difficulty options anywhere, which was a little disappointing because i've found the game to be easier than i was expecting. i have yet to find anything that can put up a serious challenge to me and my lead pipe. b-hop around, find a squad, get behind them, club the last one in line, run away, pick them off one by one as they split up to try and flank me. take everything they drop, find some new victims.

the faction rep mechanic didn't get me to care about it. it's incredibly difficult (for me, atleast) to tell apart faction members at any meaningful distance, so i quickly stopped caring and just clubbed anyone i saw.

i did like having to figure out where I am on the map, not having a player marker is a lot of fun.

the game handles really well, movement is smooth, interacting feels good, ui is responsive.

didn't encounter any bugs or have any crashes.

performance was good, didn't look at my fps but i was always above 60 (i play at 144).
nvidia 4090 GPU, ryzen 7 8700g CPU, 16gb RAM (i think those are correct, not really a hardware person)

ultimately i do think it's a good game, just not for me personally. maybe if it had co-op, but i sincerely doubt that will happen.

(also i realize it's just my autism but i get irrationally annoyed at the fact that the lever action model is a winchester m1895 russian contract rifle, a rifle specifically made to be able to fire spitzer rounds in a lever action, and yet its a .45)

Incredibly jank, incredibly fun.

Very fun mech roguelike. Kinda short (would like an endless mode) but respectable variance in possible builds

rummaging through a room to find something to build a tower with, i accidentally grabbed a barrel. i tossed it aside without much thought and accidentally detonated the 3 landmines right next to me, killing 5 other students in the blast

game rocks, esp coming from a single dev

very promising, looking forward to seeing this grow

cool but dev jumped ship