Recent reviews by uggron

I see a lot of negative reviews, and few of them being entirely fair. Pretty much everything they're saying comes down to this game being new still, which there isn't much they could have done about (except put the game in early access I suppose, but that's superficial).

"There are bugs and crashes" - that sucks, but hardly rare for a new release. I didn't get any bugs in my testing, so at least the problems aren't universal. I sure couldn't say that about 4th edition at launch! It took *years* before the 4th edition engine got as good as it did and never got as good as this 5th edition, which is fast and smooth (if you aren't crashing).

"The game is less random" - true, the game has more tools for managing luck and generally feels like you have more agency... trust me when I say that the game still has the capacity to be cruel. It only took me 20 minutes for me to run out of fate points and starting face-plaming at the unbelievably unlikely bad luck I was getting. But if you still feel like it's too easy, there's already house rules to bring back some of the old difficulty, and I have little doubt there will be more such house rules.

"The art sucks/is AI generated" - I seriously doubt the art is AI. It just doesn't look like that at all. I was personally quite impressed how well the art matches that of the older version. You can still tell the difference, but if this had been a physical release for the original 4th edition I think people would have just been saying "wow, the art's really detailed this time!".

"There's hardly any content" - This one's objectively true, at least if you're comparing it to 4th edition. But also basically inevitable? Hopefully you didn't actually think they'd roll all the DLC from 4th edition into the base game of this for free. Actually, they *are* in the process of porting some of those into 5th (starting with the Grim Reaper) and people who own it for 4th are in fact getting it free. That's plenty, if you ask me - but it's true that they aren't in the game *yet*, and I wouldn't blame anyone for wanting to wait until more content was here. Honestly, the base game Talisman experience just feels a bit bland, especially if you're used to having a half dozen expansions enabled...

That last point is probably the only reason for a negative review imo. I wasn't expecting the game to have as much content as 4th (not by miles!) but it does still feel a bit bare. Still, 4th started out with a much worse engine and they still managed to make something pretty decent out of it, so I'm excited to see what they can do with a solid foundation this time.

TL;DR game is fine and has potential, but lacking in content currently.

I wouldn't say it's bad - the moment to moment gameplay is no less exciting than that of Vampire Survivors. Which is to say, you walk around and things die. The problem is that VS backs that up with a lot of clever game design: level ups that feel impactful, lots of new things to unlock, very distinct environments and a sense of discovery that repeatedly surprises you. With Gallowspires Survivors, much of that could be added in as the game is currently just in early access and there's much more content to come, I'm sure. But the current level up system might need to revisited completely. Bonuses like "-0.02 cooldown" are soul-crushingly unexciting. Instead of giving me that 100 times, I'd rather have a bonus I can feel even just a handful of times. Sometimes upgrading a weapon in VS adds entirely new functionality to it, like a finisher move. There's nothing comparable here.

Really wanted to like this. The core gameplay is fun, as you'd expect from Platinum Games. The visuals are... mixed, I'd say. The painterly filter can result in some pretty views, but more often just makes things muddy instead. The story, the premise and the dialogue (both in terms of writing and voice acting) are all fine, or at least that was my impression during my time with it.

The problem this game has is nothing to do with any of those things. The problem is Platinum Games' stated goal to move towards games as a service, which can be seen in full effect here: this fully priced AAA title contains enough microtransactions to make a gacha game blush, though at the very least it all seems to be cosmetic, early game help or time savers - nothing quite pay to win. It has a battle pass 100 tiers deep, with both a free and a paid track of course. From what I could understand, you can unlock a tier by accumulating 1000 BP... my first mission gave me 50. Perhaps later on you get it faster. You can, naturally, simply pay your way, with real money, to the final tier. This would cost you well over $100 if you did it from the first tier. My assumption is that you're expected to grind and get your wallet out if you want everything - the battle pass is only around for 90 days. And that's not the only thing to spend money on. There's also a separate shop which contains similar cosmetics in case you have yet more money - some of these might also be limited time, although I didn't spot a countdown.

Honestly, all that doesn't bother me too much... but this mentality clearly dictates the pacing of the game as well. Getting to "end game", a concept I wish this game didn't have in the first place, is clearly quite an ordeal... even some of the positive reviews I've read aren't happy about it. They really want you to commit to this game.

TL;DR, a potentially fun PlatinumGames title was stretched into a massive time and money sink that is really hard to justify. It's Square Enix's Avengers game all over again.

Edit: I wanted to add, because apparently a handful of people are reading this and one or two of you took issue with my review, that you should really look at my playtime, or near-lack thereof. I stopped playing at an hour or so, which bring me to two points: first, that I'm not an expert in this game and nothing I say should be taken as gospel; and secondly, I stopped playing so quickly because I looked at just how much of the content was either battle pass or some other form of MTX, and all the motivation just bled out of me. I felt like I was at a crossroads: I could either commit to this game and its treadmill, or I could stop and get my guaranteed refund before I played more than 2 hours. I'm sure you can guess which path I took from the rest of this review. And I still think I made the right choice: I just can't imagine what would be waiting at the end of this game that would be worth what I paid, if their focus is on tempting me to pay more.

As pretty as it is boring. It has most of the problems that a typical Diablo-like/ARPG has, plus most of the problems a free to play Korean MMO has, without anything on offer to counter-balance it... except being pretty. Combat is decent though hampered by its strange controls (likely born of necessity for touch screen support). Build depth exists, but is a pale shadow next to that of PoE. The story? Bland as can be. No one who's playing this is playing it for the story.

A shiny lump of fool's gold that will be forgotten in... oh, Elden Ring's out? Forgotten yesterday, then.

If you're just craving a new ARPG, might I suggest Last Epoch? It's not free and it's not even finished yet (multiplayer is on it's way) but its classes and progression systems are way more interesting. Story is slightly better too, although that's a really low bar to clear.