Recent reviews by feillyne

HoMM is so back. 11/10.

Falsely claims retreat was made when 1 small enemy boat was misplaced somewhere / left beyond the combat map range? 0/10.

After wasting 10-15 minutes beating one large vessel while that smaller one got bugged. 0/10. That stupid jackass who thought this funny can ♥♥♥♥ off and pay for this bug.

Turns a god into a clicker who hates his life. Even idle games are more fun than this one... at least they don't force you to make rat pies and sandwiches with thousands of clicks for little to absolutely zero reward...

Not to mention how everything else is restrictive in the beginning. This needs a sandbox mode, not an obnoxious story with 2 hens and 1 old fart chirping in your ear while you try to concentrate, or figure out what's what. (And that is even less funny than it sounds.)

Also
- can't set fps to 60 for smoother exp?
- extremely laggy
- this is a new level of awkward controls
- powers are bought with the power of the quid, funny that one

Relatively solid, polished and enjoyable, with some nuisances here and there. 7+/10.

TL;DR?

++ visuals, OST and so on (these stylised 3D graphics are not 100% eyecandy, though)

+ okayish combat, with occasional surprises, but zero real choice, weapon-wise/combat-skill-wise, only the whip

+++ cool exploration; ruins, traps, falling/rolling snowballs, and more

+/- relatively grindy, tools for instance become far too expensive to upgrade at some point

+ nice rewards for some quests

+ unique professions

--- you lose items when hit by an enemy, instead of losing hitpoints

--- you can permanently lose dropped/thrown items if they fall into water

- other sadistic mechanics such as spiders and ghosts

- some areas are awkward and confusing to navigate, such as hills/terraces outdoors

++ at least the game and your location is saved on quit, not just when going to bed

+ multiplayer mode

+ enough localisations and region pandering

+++ huge map / maps

--- like others mentioned, progression is a bit too boring, to the point that every new realm/map's resources are merely recolours

++ however, extremely lots of things to do/craft considering profession-related quests

--- no way to destroy/move the initial trailer

- no way to settle in another biome, no seasons?

+ Lumas, quasi-monster quasi-collecting

Tedium simulator. 3+/10. TL;DR below.

--- after 20 hours, still no boat speed upgrade, wth

--- very grindy, no perks or skills to alleviate this grind either

--- majority of gameplay is you watching the paint dry / the boat sail

--- your boat can be rammed by a patrolling barge and pushed many yards away (you can technically lose it since you are forced to swim to it)

--- devs didn't even think of the option to respawn the lost boat at the dock, or worse, they didn't play their own game

+ good visuals and atmosphere

- but soundtrack becomes increasingly repetitive and monotonous

+ okayish quest rewards, apart from annoying new critter items (random crap such as furniture/wallpapers/etc)

+ nice tourism income

+ enjoyable rebuilding of the town, you see it rise up back from ruins/dump heap it is/was

- but there is no much freedom building wherever you want (like in open world survival craft games) or with some limitations (like in farming sims), except for the choice of your house / the choice of villagers' house, there is zero building options here (such as to build the workshop elsewhere, or school elsewhere, etc all locations barring houses are pretty much predetermined)

- so called critter-speak, thankfully it can be disabled in the settings

+ at least there are manual (quasi, since you need to exit to save "manually") and auto saves here

- salvaging locations forcefully switches your active tool instead of just being able to temporarily use it near the harvest spot

- laggy gathering/scavenging, sometimes the main char is rooted in place for a sec or two

- awkward swimming/movement sometimes

- few translations, horrible regional pricing

- bad quest markers, some only mark the initial stage not the NPC you have to give the item to (such as The Great Plane Robbery)

--- cold depths, dying by diving too deep was never properly explained / given a proper tutorial, making aforementioned The Great Plane Robbery a bad joke when you get teleported to the surface for no reason

-- critters are not marked on the map by default, making finding them harder when you need to finish commissions / deliver anything to them

- commission/quest/recurrent delivery blues - sometimes needed to refuse critter's other requests just to give them the commissioned items

- when looking at the commission board requests/notices, they disappear after one look not giving you choice to take them later on

- only 2 boat cameras (+ zoom)

--- no fast travel

-- the main island/lighthouse should always be visible from afar, not hidden? when you are sailing back?

- overcrowding / too many tourist or local critters may cause a smaller or bigger lag

A chill farming sim with life sim characteristics such as generations and aging families. 8+/10. Most annoyances such as tool durability or taxes can be disabled in the Options.

TL;DR below:

+++ overall (visuals, OST, etc)

++ the option to toggle some mechanics/features on and off

+ can lock tools/hot bars

+ emotes, acts, faces - yes you can do them all here

+ easy to learn

+ items are relatively cheap, and on the other hand, some basic mats such as wood are expensive enough to make good coin on them

+ all the basics such as seasons and festivals/comps covered

+ lots of freedom, you can even off/kill/poison some of the NPCs

+++ a nice manual + auto save system, not that trashy unnecessary farming sim save system where you have to go to bed to save (it is not a survival game, it does not need "extra" immersion)

- uneven progression, crafting often requires nails that you can't craft easily, which is a bad joke

- resource gathering is hard since locations to e.g. mine them or cut them are easy to run out of (after you cleaned up the initial mess on your farm, stone and wood are harder to come by)

- and availability of important resources such as iron is severely limited

- other basic crafting mats may be lacking as well

- visitors/guests don't have anything to trade and they could have random bits and odds to sell

- lantern and lantern oil mechanics can't be disabled, oil is slightly expensive

- plus some quests / areas are so dark and you can be stuck doing a quest for it while having no lantern oil at all (such as Lost Locket, in the witch's hut)

- could use far more NPC/generational/familial variety

- many items don't have descriptions

- can't seem to be able to rotate already placed items like chests (can only rotate them when placing them, not after)

- not sure if there is farming automation here...

--- they won't let you choose a close family member instead they force you to choose somebody who already left / was first after you pass away (if you had a big family)

- dyeing clothes is counter-intuitive

Sandbox? Totally fun.

Campaign mode? A total disaster. Battles can be either gruesome and restrictive, or easily cheesed (with e.g. a Tempest Lich or Void Monarch). Not to mention samey repetitive maps and no worthwhile rewards for the completion of said campaign encounters...

Literally TL;DR:
- no character stats or menu, no perks, no skills, almost no nothing except craftables to soften the grind, just mining/farming/etc class exp & recipes

- horrible handling of tools, especially watering can and fishing rod (fishing in general is extremely slow and clumsy)

--- that shootout minigame / bandit encounter is terrible and unnecessarily forced, and in the surface world you can't just aim at bandits like you can shoot at wild game or 'monsters' in the mines

- spawned rocks/trees/objects may block you on your own farm while your path-making/clearing tool (such as pickaxe) is at blacksmith's

-- elevators only cover a very short distance, not 300+ blocks down, no point in building/crafting them (silver and gold ore are too time-consuming to obtain)

- can't freely shoot while climbing ladders

- mines are actually boring, no extreme or dangerous mobs there

- no cosmetics such as pure red hair

--- save system that doesn't let you save manually, or save on exit, or auto-save during transitions/moving to new areas, also seems like there is no backup save in the saves folder either

- progression seems broken or far too conditional, no town projects for a long while now, for instance, while at the same time almost got to the deepest reaches of the mine w/o any probs (around 500+ floor) right after the start / (2nd season / summer)

- no accurate relationship points gains or stats

- can't customise pets (cat/dog)?

- far too few inventory slots (esp for deep mining), 3 rows/36 slots is nothing

- useless mats dropping in the mines like the regular wood which can be obtained everywhere, just to take a slot for the 100th time for no reason at all

- no way to lock some slots/the toolbar for tools only

- some resources are lost after falling into water, no biggie

- moving and placing have different tiles available, like on the Rivers map (the northwesternmost corner)

- buying items 1 by 1 is a bad joke when you just want to buy 100 bullets in bulk for 1100 gold quickly

- bad regional pricing

- few localisations/translations

- no key rebinds

- and more annoyances...

+ (mines) platforming that changes the view, for a breath of fresh air

+++ mood, visuals, soundtrack

+ money-wise/earnings-wise, balanced enough

+ nice rewards for quests

Verdict: 4+/10.

Easy to learn, hard to master? This high-octane survival gem is quite an all-rounder. Custom content and mods make it even more convenient, as vanilla/original balance favours your enemies/threats, not you, even on easier difficulty levels. 10-/10.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy, in a nutshell. One of the easiest crafting games to learn and play.