Yuri Barkov 最近的评测

UPDATE 14th September 2024:
I'm able to play this again, not because the problem was fixed (they just stopped replying to me after a while so I assume they couldn't be bothered to look into it), but because I bought a new PC. I'm happy I can play it again but I'm leaving this review as negative because I never should have encountered such a game-breaking issue for so long in the first place.

I'm also unimpressed because while multiplayer had been working up until recently, even with mods, it has now stopped working. My husband and I have identical playsets, in an identical order. We have all the DLC. We both have the same crossplay settings. Can we play with each other anymore? No. I get an internal error every time I try to join. Apparently this is quite a common issue, sometimes even when there are no mods involved.

I also want to add that after so much playtime, the victory conditions feel very unsatisfying. They're essentially all the same. They all end in being at war with the whole map, whether the NPCs were your allies at the time or not. It gets repetitive and boring, and leaves me wishing there was more variety. Or at least a couple of ways to win while still being friends with people.

UPDATE 12th May 2024:
I reinstalled this after a few months not playing it and I can't even launch it anymore. I crashes every time. I verified files. I updated my graphics drivers. I restarted my PC. I did everything they suggested in their forum thread on the known issue (which should apparently be fixed, but clearly isn't). Here was me hoping I'd come back to something better optimised and be able to have fun with all the new things they've added, but nope. Even more broken. How?

Update at ~52 hours:
(Un)fortunately the game is no longer as addictive due to a desperate need for optimisation. Total War, with hundreds of factions, manages to execute the AIs' turns in a sensible timeframe. ~9 AIs in AoW4 take 10 minutes for their turns after a hundred or so turns. This is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

The workaround suggested on Reddit and elsewhere is to turn simultaneous mode on, but this is a turn-based game. I bought it expecting to be able to play one turn after another, as you do. I don't want my enemies to be moving stuff around at the same time as me.

To complete my magic victory in the final story mission after about 180 turns, I basically had to leave the game running all day and come back to it every now and then to see if it was ready to let me hit end turn, fifteen times. Not fun.

Original review (at ~27 hours):
Send help. Game too addictive. I said 'one more turn' and suddenly several hours had passed and my eyes hurt.

Honestly, I would recommend this game just for the prologue. It may be a tutorial, but the way they've made it into its own mini narrative campaign is brilliant, and I loved the story. Even the little bits of dialogue scattered throughout made it come alive.

I have encountered no bugs whatsoever. My husband had some crashes when he first started playing, but that's just because he hadn't updated his graphics drivers, and it was fine once he did that. On my machine (but not his), the loading screens are longer than they were in TW:WH2 (I'm on a 1060 with 16 GB RAM), which is a little annoying, but I imagine they'll improve that soon. They've made up for it by making the turns blazingly fast instead (although I haven't seen it with too many factions yet).

The UI is much cleaner than before, the map doesn't swing around as much when you click on things and the chaos demon customisation looks really fun. Personally, now that I've finished the prologue, I'm heading right over to play as the dragon lady. My husband can have the demons :D

Surprisingly satisfying. Feels a bit like herding sheep, if sheep died when they bumped into each other (which they presumably do, if they bump hard enough) and wanted to eat you (which they hopefully don't).

Anyone not recommending this game on account of mechanical details clearly didn't read the disclaimer at the start of the teaser. Most of the mechanics are placeholders, and that's fine. What the teaser gives us is an indication of the narrative and themes of the eventual game.

What we have:

• An interesting story, dark in places, interspersed with a healthy amount of humour
  
• What look like meaningful decisions
  
• Relatable characters, well animated and superbly voiced
  
• Decent graphics, no doubt to be improved (and if they remain as they are, it's no big deal)
  
• Great atmosphere chosen for some of the environments (spooky woods!)
  
• An indication that in the future, there will be some form of pistol/sword combat mechanics (there have been more discussions on this in the forums)

The teaser's fun. If you don't want to try it out while the full mechanics aren't available, just go ahead and stick this on your wishlist. I reckon it's worth watching. If you do, make sure to read the notice they give at the beginning, as that will tell you what isn't implemented yet. As a recommendation, set aside an evening to play it in one go, as trying to save crashed the game for me and relying on autosaves could lose you progress if you absolutely have to quit.

You can get pretty immersed in playing Frostpunk, but given there are only finite scenarios and no opportunity to expand past a certain point, you might not stay interested forever. I've pretty much had my fill of it bad now. It's worth the price point as is, but if you're not so sure about the difficulty or replay value, you might want to wait for a sale.

As others have mentioned, Frostpunk is pretty brutal and often feels stacked against you, even on easy. Once you get used to it, it isn't too bad, but I stuck to the easier difficulties because it suited my playstyle – I found higher difficulties too frustrating for the amount of time I was willing to put into the game. And I've never been particularly good at micro-managing, if that's what's required.

Thankfully, playing on easy difficulties is quite fun and it's backed up by a great soundtrack. The visuals don't grow old and the interface is quite intuitive. What I loved the most was being able to see everyone going about their daily work, creating paths through the snow or gathering in public places.

My main issue with the campaigns is that the first has a final objective to collect a certain number of resources. This is more of a guideline and you can miss the targets as long as you survive. The second also has a final objective to collect a certain number of resources, but it is compulsory. You fail if you don't meet the criteria. I feel that the two maybe should have been more differentiated to prevent any confusion.

Still, though, it does get repetitive after a while. No doubt if I played on harder difficulties (and met with a little success), the challenge would keep me going a while longer.

The story is linear but very appealing and it's a decent length, too. I'd say it's more than worth navigating some clunky mechanics to get to the bottom of it, but see the pros and cons for yourself.

(Note: I wrote the review a little while ago and the devs seem to have addressed some of the issues I mention since).

Pros:

• The robots' personalities makes this game. Really. Just play it for the chatter
  
• Basic movement, gathering and crafting are quite intuitive. It's a simple job to keep an eye on your batteries as you go
  
• Objectives are clearly marked on the HUD
  
• ANI is easy to command and craft upgrades for. Looking after her makes gameplay more interesting (and less lonely)
  
• Interesting mechanics introduced through ION's craftable tools (the kinetic damper is my favourite)
  
• Clues about the planet are scattered around as you explore
  
• ION and ANI look adorable
  
• Good atmospheric soundtrack

Cons:

• (May no longer be the case)Can be difficult to pick out items in the HUD when clustered together
  
• Thruster tricky to use because of delays between activations, meaning a lot of failed jump attempts (save before you need to try)
  
• As with thrusters, there seems to be a delay in tool activation, which is annoying in combat
  
• Very unclear how the antigrav tool is meant to be used
  
• Areas tend to be very large with (in some cases) only one way in or out. Sometimes you have to backtrack a long way just to get somewhere
  
• Passable terrain (for ANI) is unpredicable in the mountains and she slips down paths it looks like she should go up without a problem (it happens to ION in some cases as well - slippery slopes aren't massive fun to navigate)
  
• It might just be me being terrible, but there's a steep difficulty curve past a certain point in the game

You get a good number of hours out of the game for its price, but it doesn't survive repeated playthroughs. (The first run is pretty addictive, though.) Great as a casual way to pass the time.

Pros:

• Wacky story
  
• Simple mechanics
  
• Characters have different strengths, weaknesses and personalities
  
• Character relationships change over the course of the game
  
• Two difficulty modes (recommend casual until you craft the cooking pot)
  
• Decent number of health types to keep an eye on (and not too many)
  
• The characters get together to chat every night and the chats either advance the subplots or the characters (from leaving you fuzzy inside to making you worry about cannibalism). They add a random element to your character's condition, since the chats can have an effect on that
  
• The island is interesting to explore and there's a fair amount of stuff to interact with
  
• The illustration and art style look great and it has a relaxing tune to go with it

Cons:

• Camera scroll speed is a little fast, so can feel dizzy to begin with
  
• Feels a bit odd that wood is so hard to find when the background image at base camps has plenty of trees
  
• The condition of your workstations isn't very obvious, so can detoriorate without you noticing
  
• Normal difficulty seems unbalanced at the beginning of the game - impossible to build the cooking pot before starving
  
• Cooking feels odd within the AM/PM cycle, since anything you catch in the afternoon can't be cooked in the evening
  
• The end of the main story is a bit of an anti-climax and the campfire story doesn't resolve before it happens, which sucks because there's no real reason to stay on a few extra days to get to it
  
• The final boss requires a string of perfect skill checks which, even with maxed-out skills, is a boring slog just because of RNG
  
• Very little variation on a second playthrough

This is a game with plot that lurches about all over the place, touting choice but offering little in the way of it.

Pros:

• Interesting premise
  
• Cheap, but other (better) Choice of Games titles are cheaper

Cons:

• Main character is very childish, which makes sense at the beginning when they're a child but really shouldn't have continued after the first pages. The narration really does ruin the story.
  
• Your character 'decides' to dedicate their life to joining the marinological society and finding mermaids, but gives little reason as to why and there's no explanation why you can't simply look for them yourself
  
• The patrons you can choose to impress to help you on your journey are the only available love interests and should be major NPCs, but pretty much the only thing distinguishing them is the fact they each like different things.
  
• You get very little time to interact with any of the NPCs you encounter and their characters are so underdeveloped that any decisions involving them are just confusing and you don't care about their outcome. Their actions are poorly explained and, much like the narration, often childish
  
• As soon as you leave for the island, whichever patron you chose becomes almost indistinguishable from the others, with exactly the same dialogue and minimal variation, said in the same setting. What choice is that? If they're not going to be any different, why bother making impressing them a choice?
  
• Choices that may seem very dramatic don't affect much, only changing a passage here and there. Completely different paths can lead to suspiciously similar endings. There's no ownership because every choice in this game is the illusion and destruction of choice.
  
• E.g. you have to side with one of two characters at one point, but the consequences are the same no matter which you choose. Why make that choice? It means nothing.
  
• There aren't very many choices, despite plenty of opportunities for more
  
• Your stats do affect outcomes but their accumulation doesn't make much sense within the text
  
• Injuries are an interesting mechanic but are poorly executed and more of a nusiance than an interesting addition, especially since they're not mentioned at all after you receive them until they have an effect
  
• The plot jumps from place to place and point to point before it can fully develop. The passage of time is abysmally conveyed
  
• The story has two beginnings and a middle. The ending isn't worth the name. Even the achievement calls it anticlimatic
  
• Writing style lacks polish, overuses exclamation marks and has some dubious grammar
  
• Look at this example. You can tell where the dialogue affected by choice is. It's a broken record. It doesn't work and it hasn't been thought through:
  

  Lucy rolls her eyes and turns away. "I really don't have time for this," she says. "Make them walk the plank."
  
  Lucy's jaw sets in determination. "I think that's about enough. Let's get on with the plank walking part of today!"

• Absolute waste of time

Edited to tone down some of the original vitriol.

Conclave is a great game to play at a relaxed pace with friends you don't have time to play D&D with normally.

Pros:

• Can create multiple characters
  
• Five classes, five species and six character portraits (for each species) to choose from
  
• The classes are varied and interesting
  
• Each species gives you a unique ability, which makes for a nice touch when choosing your character
  
• Bought items can be returned for their full values, so equipping your character and keeping them current is less of a pain-in-the-neck
  
• Good item drops during quests
  
• No penalty for respeccing your character, so you have freedom to experiment
  
• Story choices taken via voting system and some options are only available if you have someone of a certain class/with a certain skill
  
• Combat is split well into minor and major actions, with some abilities only available x times per encounter or per quest. Useable items fall into these minor/major categories too
  
• Responsive dev team (last I checked) working on improvements
  
• Story is interesting and easy to follow, with just the right amount of text
  
• Illustration is very good and fits in well with the setting. The birds-eye-view painted combat boards are particularly pleasant

Cons:

• In parties with fewer than four members (the maximum), combat can seem unbalanced, with a distinct advantage going to ranged attackers
  
• Interface is clunky and designed for a browser
  
• Target selection guides sometimes disappear, forcing you to deselect and try again
  
• Because of the 'dip in and out' nature of multiplayer, there's no initiative order, so other players can interrupt your action with their own, meaning you have to navigate through all the clunky menus again (the devs said they were working on this last time I looked, so this may no longer be the case)
  
• Animations showing enemy and ally movement, status effects and combat is quite slow, which is annoying for quick readers. If you skip through the text too fast it takes a while for the board to catch up and you have an outdated combat image
  
• If one player dies, you all fail the quest. This is frustrating in small parties where one more turn would have seen you victorious
  
• If you play with random people online — or anyone who doesn't log in for ages — the most you'll be able to do is one action per day, when the computer chooses for them automatically (this can be turned off if you're on holiday or anything), so you won't go anywhere fast with them
  
• Not massively replayable because it's relatively linear, but there are musings of player-made quests, so if they pop at any point, that'll be great

If I could give this title an ambivalent rating, I would, but its better aspects just edge it onto the 'recommended' end of the spectrum. If you're considering buying the game, please read through the list of pros and cons.

Pros:

• Well-built world and lore
  
• Each NPC has a distinct personality, with dialogue giving an insight into their world
  
• Semi-open world
  
• Decent moral choices within the story
  
• Combat in its basic form is straighforward
  
• Encounters are scripted, which makes combat much more interesting than in some other games
  
• Classes have a unique feel to them
  
• Teeny, tiny filesize
  
• The story does improve as you go on

Cons:

• 'Infodump' at the beginning of the game (possibly negated if you've played others in the series). The conversations drag on a bit and the beginning takes on the feeling of the dreaded Tarisian Crawl.
  
• Dialogue can be long-winded for no good reason
  
• It feels odd that there's no option to customise your character's backstory, considering the number of nations that make up the Pact and the additional level of involvement this could have created.
  
• You can 'record' pieces of conversation but that shouldn't be an excuse to have quest objectives that don't update. If you load a save and can't remember if you've finished a quest, you'll have to go all the way back to the quest-giver to find out.
  
• The hotkeys don't make much sense. Both 'i' and 'g' open the inventory. Pressing 'a' opens abilities but pressing it again auto-selects your first ability rather than closing the menu again, wasting your turn.
  
• Combat can seem unbalanced, with one early fight in particular able to kill your characters before they even get a move in
  
• Some combat dialogue triggers before you've caught sight of an enemy
  
• Tinkermages are interesting to play but turrets have no directional control when you place them and no range indicator
  
• The inventory system is awful. To transfer items between characters, you have to drop items on the ground, select the other character and pick them up. 'Junk' items aren't marked as such and quest items aren't either, so you have no idea what to keep or bin. If you want to sell a lot of junk at once you have to transfer it to a junk inventory. All in all, it's a pointless exercise in micro-management and my least favourite aspect of the game.
  
• Graphics aren't anything to write home about and that's intentional, but the tilesets feel like they could use improvement
  
• One of the fonts is awful to read
  
• Character walk animation out of sync with the speed at which they walk, giving them the appearence of hovering
  
• No ambient music. Zilch. Nada. The main menu music is pretty good but that's all you're going to get. There are sound effects, but they're nothing special.