Axel 最近的评测

I Kickstarted this game, and was very excited for its eventual release.

Let me run over some basics.

Positives:
1. Character creation is deep and involved, and multiclassing is just as cool and fun as it is in the TTRPG. Lots of options are here, and I would love it if they added even more through DLC.
2. The story is pretty well told, with some good voice acting, writing, and worldbuilding. Overall, the narrative is pretty good, with some good twists and interesting moments.
3. Building your kingdom has some satisfying moments and a great deal of choice throughout.

Negatives:
1. A month after launch and many hotfixes later, this game is an absolute buggy mess. Crashes, missing item/location names, unusable NPCs, quest bugs, spells and items not working correctly, and even more. This game is absolutely ridiculous.
2. At some point a few hotfixes in, the game's performance absolutely tanked. If more than 10 or so NPCs are on screen (a common occurrence), the game absolutely chugs.
3. This game's difficulty is absurd. I was only able to finally finish the game after I downloaded mods to cheat in the final dungeon. I played the entire game on the easiest difficulty settings and it was absolutely brutal at many points (while being very easy in others). I am familiar with Pathfinder but chose to focus on story and play on Easy. I was rewarded with a game where when the combat was starting to get manageable, the Kingdom management would self destruct and be impossible. I would love to play this game without any cheats and not on Easy mode someday when they have figured things out and balanced the game.
4. Many events in the game require waiting for trigger points, which is annoying. This is a minor point, but I was looking forward to a resolution in my character's romantic relationship, and I am pretty sure that for whatever reason, the events to progress it beyond "sexy times available" never occurred, and so in my ending, it had no mention, despite promise that some of them could end in a marriage. In a game about kingdom building and being a monarch, knowing who my character would marry after getting to know a companion and liking them was something I was looking forward to.
5. Many important game mechanics lacked a notable tutorial, so I didn't engage with them until much later than I should've. This was not ideal for a game with in-depth management that can literally end a game.

Overall, I hope that this review could be revised a year from now. I would love it if the bugs, the difficulty, and the overall structure of the game was fixed. Hopefully the support they seem to have received funds the game being fixed. I would love for the game to turn around.

Cibele is an intensely emotional and personal experience. Nina Freeman invites us to remember what it's like to forge relationships online and in-person, experience love and heartbreak, and deal with the awkwardness of intertwining a real-world life and a virtual one. If you've been through a difficult and complex relationship of any kind, the game will strike a meaningful chord with you. It doesn't try to sugar-coat or even provide hope for the often harsh realities of relationships, while also not being so bleak so as to push you to not want relationships at all. It encourages you to go out and experience all the positive and negative emotions the world has to offer, and legitimizes that experiencing it through an online game is no less valid than experiencing it in person. This valuable experience is wrapped up in some wonderful art and music, and a clever and well-thought out interface. If you grew up on the internet in the early 2000's, you will find yourself in Cibele.