mindlesspuppet 最近的评测

What a fantastic game. I have no clue how I missed this when it was initially released, nor how I remained in the dark to it for years.

If you'd have told me that I would consider a deck builder among the best games I've ever played, I'd have laughed at you, but that's where we are at.

I thoroughly enjoyed every act, despite also hating each at at first, lol. I was genuinely sad upon finishing it, I just wanted the narrative to go on and on and on.

Super fun and addictive little game. It's likely only going to give you a couple hours of gameplay, but it's cheaper than a coffee, so can't complain.

I respect the little guy going against the grain and finding success as much as anyone, but this game is wildly overrated.

The story is far weaker and more predictable than the hype would have anyone believe. Perhaps this is an age thing? The game is built on one of the most despised tropes that was very prevalent decades ago and less so now. Maybe 'everything old is new again', and this is some how groundbreaking storytelling to some?

The gameplay, again, wildly overrated. Movement controls and platforming is slop, though movement isn't meant to be a focal point of gameplay here. That does, however, beg the question, why were minigames built around this jank? Does anyone have anything to good to say about Gestral Beach Volley?

The combat itself is where Expedition 33 is supposed to shine. It could have, but it doesn't. Imposing a damage cap because it's easier than balancing various interactions and builds is peak lazy game making. Yes, there's an item to remove the damage cap shoehorned in as if it's supposed to be some deep meta commentary, 4th wall break non-sense.

Love this game.

Haven't found myself so hooked since Balatro.

It's a Hades clone, but actually a pretty good one. It's most certainly better than many other Hades clones with much larger teams (and price tags).

I do find myself wishing there was more areas, increased difficulty, and that the unlocks took a bit more time. Having said that, for 8$ I got a solid ~12 hours of gameplay, that I could have stretched significantly further as I most neglected one of three playable characters.

The gameplay is shockingly deep, bringing a lot interesting mechanics I haven't necessarily seen in similar games. Most obviously, in collecting in-run resources you are forced to chose between leveling up/acquire new skills, or for purchasing items and various other upgrades. It's possible to do an entire run at lvl 1 because of the items system, likewise its possible to complete a run without a single item.

One of the things Nunholy does right, that many roguelikes miss the mark on, is that modifiers do feel significant. The difference between fire, holy, and physical damage is demonstrated well in both function and visual effects.

I'd love to see the developer stick with the game and flesh it out a bit more, but don't really expect it at this price point.

Final note: If you're turned off by the sexual content tag: don't be. If you've look at the screenshots, you've seen the extent of the "sexual content". In fact, Nunholy has less actual sexual content than Hades/Hades II which didn't receive the same user tag.

So the sequel to one of my favorite games ever, by a studio I adore, in my favorite genre... and I'm not feeling it...

Let's preface by saying I'm aware it's early access, I only have an hour in, I'll be more than happy to be wrong after more playing/patches.

Hades made me fall in love with the rogue-like genre. In addition to the 173 hours I have in Hades itself, I've hundreds of hours spread out across other rogue-likes. Furthermore, I've been absolutely charmed by Supergiant Games since I first played Bastion in 2012. I love the original Hades, I'm willing to acknowledge that could be the problem.

After only an hour of play, maybe I haven't seen enough to be fair. I will amend this as I undoubtedly play further. However, this in itself is an issue. I could not get enough of Bastion, Transistor, Pyre, and of course Hades, but after an hour of Hades II, I wanted to go play something else.

Just throwing this out there as blunt as possible: the combat is bad. I read some negative reviews calling the combat sluggish, I found myself in agreement (tedious might be a better word). I even opened the original Hades for the first time in years to see if my memory failed me. It hadn't.

Hades is still the fluid, fast moving, intense game I fell in love with. Hades II is something else.

I remember feeling like a Great White Shark in Hades, if I stop moving I die. In Hades II I feel like a turret that occasionally side steps attacks. Maybe it's the starting weapon, the enemies themselves being too static, the new casting system requiring you to stand still, or maybe enemies just have more health? I'm not sure, but it's not engaging.

In Hades I felt like a Great White Shark, always moving forward, never stopping for a moment. In Hades II I have to stop to pick the flowers (literally), mine silver, etc. Not every single game needs resource gathering. In fact, most don't. If resources are gathered just for basic unlocks, not a core mechanic of the game, ala Cult of the Lamb, just don't do it. Find another way to unlock things. *Especially* in a game like Hades, where so many people (and the game itself) challenge themselves to be faster and better each playthrough. Picking flowers is a disruption.

My lack of excitement towards the combat and pacing has made me uninterested in the story. The story is what kept me going in the original: I didn't mind the countless times I died before I improved because each death could give me more of a glimpse into the characters and the world. In Hades II find myself skipping dialogue, something I've never dreamed of in a Supergiant game before.

Perhaps I should have waited for 1.0 and I let my expectations and anticipation get the better of me.
Perhaps there's just more competition now: Ravenswatch is incredible, Meta-ghost and Lotus Lantern came out of no where, in a little over a week Realm of Ink enters early access and could out-Hades Hades II.

I know my opinion is bound to be an unpopular one, but what is early access for if not voicing feedback? I will gladly eat my own words after a few more hours or a patch or two (I recently did with No Rest of the Wicked). However, right now, I wouldn't recommend it (not that it matters, everyone and their mother already bought it xD), and hold off til further patches or 1.0.

*** Update after 25h ***
I stick by my initial impressions. Nothing in Hades II is as good as anything in the original.

EDIT: Entirely changed my review from would not to would recommend.

So, I didn't leave the best initial review. However, the dev responses to many of the issues I mentioned and just in general is beyond attentive. There's already been numerous, tweaking QoL, gameplay, etc, and for the most part each one has made the game feel better.

I had nearly quit playing in the early game, but a friend advised me to keep going, that the "game doesn't really get started until you can buy a house". Since then, I've sunk a ton of hours in, and obviously ended up enjoying the game quite a bit.

It's not without issues, but most of which can easily be explained by it being early access. Most importantly, it's not one of the Early Access games where you wait months for a basic patch that never comes and question if the game will ever have a full release. This is the best type of early access, where devs listen to feedback, are quick to make changes, and communicate future plans.

I really wanted to like this game, and I suppose I do. I love the world, the graphics style, the concept. The execution however leaves something to be desired.

One of the first things you learn is to parry, I assumed this would set the pace for the rest of the game, instead you'll end up at a point where you practically never actually parry. Instead you'll find yourself, constantly dodging, running around the arena, and throwing every object you can get your hands on.

Which brings me to the real enemy in En Garde!, the controls. You automatically target the nearest enemies, this at times makes the camera do wonky things. Moreover, you'll quickly find that methodically targeting individual enemies isn't really a great approach, so you find yourself more often than not holding (or toggling) L2 to free run as you scramble around the arena. The controls work great during the tutorial missions and earlier low density areas, but not throughout. It would make far more sense for free run to be the default and instead hold L2 to target.

Picking up objects, which you do a ton, doesn't feel great. You have to create a significant amount of separation from enemies, usually by kicking stuff at them, to run right up to an object and pick it up, often requiring a minor pause. It just doesn't flow well or *feel* great.

I'm recommending it because it has the makings of a game that could be great with some minor tweaks, and it's easy to buy for cheap.

Great value for 8$. Fun game. Cringe translation.

The game is set up so you have to beat it a few times to get the "real ending", so my only minor complaint is that I was expecting a "true" final boss fight when reaching it. As is, the final boss is probably the easiest in the game and pretty unsatisfying, which would make sense if there were an unlocked boss only accessible in the true ending.

UPDATE>> I've updated my review after playing substantially more. I've not removed anything, only added new insights.

I never played the original Nier, was introduced to the series with Automata, which is one of my favorite games of all time.

I know this takes multiple playthroughs to experience fully, I know it's meant to be slow going... but I just can't... I really can't. This is by far this most boring dredge of a game I've ever experienced.

>> At the time of writing my initial review, I had no clue how close I was to 'freedom', nor did I realize that you don't have to replay the first 'half' of the game on subsequent playthroughs. I will reiterate, the first half is boring, painfully so. It does this to establish common RPG tropes, so that later on it can shatter them.

>> The issue being NieR Automata does the same thing, however it does so with more elegance and entertainment. Here lays why I was so miserable with N:R; in N:A every run-of-the-mill RPG quest has subtext. Each quest distorts and takes on different meaning over the course of the game and multiple runs. When I began N:R I had a compulsion to read every bit of text and complete every quest, and that is a bad idea, because this is a different game and it presents differently.

12 hours in, the story is still rudimentary, the combat is practically nonexistent beyond killing the occasional goat or sheep for the 1000th time, the side quests just keep stacking up with endless streams of "fetch this and fetch that".

>>The story remains basic until almost the very end, however, there are some subtleties that you'll pick up on before that (actually aren't that subtle if you played N:A). There are 70(!) quests in the first half, and they all suck. They aren't fun, they don't take on new meaning, they exist to say "Hey, we tricked you into thinking this is a normal fantasy RPG... WRONG!" and little else.

This feels like torture and is truly awful, I don't care how brilliant the game might be after three playthroughs.

>>The first half of this game feels like torture if you approach it like I did. Best I can recommend is do not try to be a completionist here: burn through the first half of the game, there's really nothing of value to take-in.

>>The biggest issue, and the hardest to reconcile, is that N:R was made before N:A. Sure, we all know that, but it doesn't change the fact that we are playing this today, and many (possibly most) of us are doing so after playing N:A. And N:A does quite literally everything better than N:R.

>>I changed my recommendation to would from wouldn't, if only to help the game's rating on Steam and do what little I can to support the developer. Truth is, I wouldn't really recommend it. If you played NieR Automata, you've played a vastly superior game and this doesn't compare. If you haven't played NieR Automata, skip this and just play that instead.