Комментарий
Let me start off by saying, this game is fantastic. I love it. But I just can't recommend it currently.
The GOOD:
- CLASSES: Each class feels unique and different, as well as each subclass (specialization) feeling like it drastically changes how you play each class, essentially giving you 9 classes
- LOTS OF LOOT
- RESPEC: You can respec at literally any time, if you want to respec your slorm investment it only takes 10% of the refunded amount (which can be a LOT at higher levels, but you regain it fast enough for this to not matter)
- BUILDS: There are some SERIOUSLY fun builds based on proc chance here, so if you like RNG this game will not disappoint. If you hate RNG there are plenty of ways to build for consistent damage as well.
- WEAPONS: Slorm Reapers, as they're called, are unique enough that you can completely change your build to fit a new drop you find from closing a breach (Portals that open when you step on a ritual-like circle on the ground and spawn enemies nearby). They each have their own level, which I'll talk about in it's own section, that scales different stats depending on the weapon itself, but not all slorm reapers scale up in base damage as they level. For example, one I found for the Knight class scaled with %xp gain, and as it leveled up it gave me more %xp gain, so if I had found it early enough it would have been a fantastic weapon to level with.
- ATTRIBUTES: I absolutely love the way the attributes work here, every level you get a point to spend, and while individually they might not do too much (+4 dmg here, +1% attack speed there) every 5 points spent will net you a larger bonus in the main stat and a small second stat (+10 dmg AND +5% crit dmg, or +2% attack speed AND +4% crit chance). On top of both of those, every 15 ranks will get you a cool new passive ability, more powerful than a simple bonus to a stat or two (though you will get a stat bonus too). Oh and did I mention you can take points out literally whenever you want? Found a new piece of gear that gives you mana regen so you don't need to have that stat that gives you mana regen, no problem just take the points out and put them somewhere else, easy as that!
The NEUTRAL:
- EVEN YOUR XP HAS XP: This isn't strictly a positive, or a negative, so I'm putting it here and you can decide where it goes depending on how you personally feel about it. Pretty much everything in this game has xp, the weapons level up, your character levels up, your skills level up, your equipment levels up. You get where this is going? This feels good at first, since it's easy to level things up early on, so you feel like you're getting more powerful in every conceivable way. The main issue that comes with this, however, is that you have to invest so many resources into new skills or weapons to make them come close to your current power level, since you can't really do "easy" expeditions as they scale to your character level. This is somewhat alleviated by being able to respec so easily, but you can't just transfer xp from one weapon to another, at least not that I've found so far, maybe there's an NPC for that.
- NPCs: Speaking of which, the amount of NPCs and how you find them (at least so far in EA) is awkward to say the least. As far as I know, they crop up randomly as you do expeditions, with a couple notable exceptions being freed as you do the roughly 16 mission story mode. The main issue I have with these NPCs is that they seem to give me new abilities to find loot, one in particular being a guy that lets you find the slormite? (or slormfact or slormicle or slormwhatever it is) needed to upgrade your gear to +1 and beyond. Eventually this same NPC also gives you the ability to find gems that the blacksmith can use to reforge stats on gear! Huge things, and you just can't find them until you find the NPC, talk to him back in town, find enough of the t1 slormite for him to give you the next dialogue option, and repeat these steps until after about 4 or 5 trips he lets you find the gems. Not to mention you most likely have to find the blacksmith first (I found his daughter before I found him) otherwise those gems won't actually do anything. After all that, you then have to spend gold to unlock the ability to reforge your gear at the blacksmith. So many steps to unlock a feature that is usually key in games like this. This is in neutral and not bad, simply because I was able to still play the game perfectly fine without any of these features, so they're clearly intended to be used late game.
The BAD:
- EARLY ACCESS: Simply put, after reaching the end of the story content in a mere 3 hours, I realized why this game is still very clearly in EA. As polished as the talent trees feel, as good as the combat and looting is, in the end, there's just no actual meat. This game is the most beautiful cardboard cutout of cake you've ever seen, but in the end it's still just a piece of cardboard. After you finish the small amount of story content, I hope you like grinding the same randomized levels over and over, closing breaches until your fingers break. The story content doesn't scale with character level, so the only reason to ever replay story missions is to level up a new class, slowly. You could also just do a couple expeditions instead and out-level the story content currently available almost instantly.
- ENEMIES: I've seen about 6 enemy types so far, I think that's all there is in this current build. There are 3 melee types, 2 ranged types, and 1 obnoxious AoE ghost of "♥♥♥♥ your fun". Melee #1 will never hit you, it's the most basic enemy in the game, only ever dangerous if you don't notice them. Melee #2 is basically the same as #1, except this one can sometimes dodge your attacks (not by moving though, just a %chance to dodge). Melee #3 is the most interesting, since he's a bigger target, and has an AoE line attack that can be devastating if it hits, since you get rooted in place. Ranged #1 is basic bow, he shoot. Ranged #2 is AoE caster, that puts a small circle on the ground for you to avoid, does good dmg if you stay in it and it explodes. The worst enemy though, is this ghost-like guy that just floats around, slowly building up his circle of "♥♥♥♥ your fun" until it fills the entire room. The circle does damage, slows your move and attack speed, and grows in size with the only way to avoid it being a move that temporarily removes you from the map (the knight has a jump move that does exactly this). This enemy isn't hard, but put 3 or 4 of them in a room and unless you can kill them before they get their circle started, it just slows combat down to a crawl, which is just about the worst thing you can do in a game like this. The lack of enemy variety is fine for now, as each enemy also has their own elite version that slightly changes their attack pattern, but after only 11 hours I find myself bored with seeing the same thing over and over.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
So like I said at the start of this review, I absolutely love this game, it has so many good mechanics and the gameplay just FEELS fun. I would love to be able to recommend this game, and I'm sure when the game gets more content and has an actual end-game I'll come back to this review to update it. But until then, unless you're the kind of person that can enjoy doing the same thing over and over for hours and hours on end, with very little variety, I'd wait for a couple updates first. The framework is here, I just need that framework to be filled out before I come back and sink hours and hours into it.