Recent reviews by Pell

First off, want to say, I see some people having issues with people getting the game to run, or getting crashes, and I haven't experienced these issues. I can't say they're not happening, but they're not happening to me specifically.

Freedom Wars is a great game. The gameplay's janky, the story's whack, but where the game really shines is in its setting and how it rewards you for good decisionmaking over mechanical ability. The TTS voices are frustrating but they're robots, and that's kinda how talking to robots is. It's one of my favorites from the Vita, and it's a direct upgrade from that in nearly every way.

My only issues are:
A) I just don't think Easy Anticheat is great. It doesn't prevent cheating, and just makes performance worse. Hopefully Bamco and Dimps see the people saying that and make a better solution.
B) Sometimes, if you move too quickly after spawning into your cell, and try to open the Window on Liberty, the game will not open the menu and will lock you in place as if you were in a menu, softlocking you. It's only happened to me 3 times in 20 hours, and one of those was myself intentionally trying to make it happen.
C) Mouse controls are analog stick emulation, and that ♥♥♥♥ sucks, I hope they replace that with actual mouse controls, but I doubt it.

Either way, I've enjoyed a run through the game again. I beat the game at ~15 hours, and postgame is just as hellish as in the original. Crafting changes are much better, the balance on the Paths postgame is great.

Overall, great game, do recommend if you can get it to run. Hopefully they address the issues people are having and fix them quickly!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ this game rules man
some dude wanted me to deliver vomit to his wife's new home up north to celebrate her housewarming
i drowned by loading into a zone and was late to deliver it
lost karma
but free food :)

i am the greediest goblin

this game rewards me for being the greediest goblin

i love you balatro

This is absolutely one of the best point-and-click games I've ever played. Everything about it was incredible, and at no point did I understand even a single thing. The stats+thoughts system was a great TTRPG-esque way to do things, and even the characters I didn't like were well-made.

Play it.

After playing for 10 hours (12 Steam hours because I stream and sometimes leave games on to set up), I've completed the True Ending, so here's my review.

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The Good:
- Music is incredible. Wow.
- Art and visuals? All great. Made me really feel like sitting down at a table, and that comes from a DM of nearly two decades.
- English narration was very good, really brought out the "just sitting at a table with your DM" feel.
- Gameplay is solid and simple; at no point was I really confused as to how the game worked.
- The Yoko Taro twist was good.

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The Medium:
- The story was kind of average, a very run-of-the-mill fantasy romp like you've seen before. Again, there's more to it, but the real story is mostly just in the character cards: side text is not my favorite way to get lore.
- Game is pretty short. If you're looking for an RPG because RPGs go for length? This is not that. 10 hours to get the true ending. Would be another 4 to finish all the remaining achievements, if I wanted to.
- The two non-starting party members get basically no character development after their hometown. Nothing. I forgot Ridis was there at multiple points. It doesn't help that their kits are fundementally less powerful than the starting trio. The worst part of this is even if we get a sequel, there's basically no chance we get any development for them. Their stories are done, they've returned home with their problems solved, not having changed as people at all.

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The Bad:
- Menuing controls in this game are absolutely abysmal on mouse and keyboard. The overworld? Fine. Most of combat? Also fine. You try to use an item in battle? Now you have to, unprompted, use the arrow keys to shuffle through all of your inevitably full inventory because there's no way to scroll through items with the mouse. The pause menu was similar; at times felt very clunky and frustrating, I kept closing out of the menu entirely on accident because the keyboard is only necessary for menuing, and even then only for certain commands.

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Despite the scathing criticisms I have, I hope we get a sequel. I hope we get something, because this game was great despite its flaws, and it could be so much more -- more stories could be told with this system and I would be absolutely fine with that. Here's hoping. Thanks, Yoko Taro.

I've dumped more than my fair share of hours into this, so here's a nice early access review.

Pros:
BEAUTIFUL visuals
Probably the second-best game soundtrack ever
Great action-based gameplay
Imaginitive bosses
Casual or competitive, at your hands

Cons:
You will get zero sleep