Recent reviews by Patrocian

Do you hear the people sing?
singing the song of angry men?
It is the music of the people who will not be slaves agin!

Ravenswatch is a strangely beautiful dark take on fairy tales and nursery rhymes. It's got a lot going for it currently in early access and after playing a few games of it in solo and in friend group play (duo,trio and quad) i can wholeheartedly endorse this game somewhat (i do wish steam gave it a maybe)... i'll get to that in a bit but if anything shows is that this game shows a lot of promise for me.

- The presentation of this game is second to none, i really do like the visuals evoking that of something like darkest dungeon or something like dark souls. The dark fantasy vibe they are trying to get across works and can't wait to see what characters and new areas they will be adding next.
- The game play is pretty great, granted i only played 2 characters so far (Scarlet and Aladdin) however i have experienced all characters when i played in my group and our collective response is that they all feel unique and fun to play. Each character feels like they have 2-3 different play styles although options seem a bit limited on higher difficulties. The perks are pretty great to use, when you have a good combination going although i did notice some perks seem to be a bit underwhelming or hard to use.
- I know difficulty is divisive for the community but i feel the timer gives it some urgency to plan out your routes and what choices to pick (It does remind me a lot of risk of rain or tribes of midgard). Playing in solo (with Aladdin and Scarlet) i feel that the difficulty is manageable (although i currently am at nightmare 5 take that as you will) but does feel satisfying to play. For group play, i feel it becomes much easier although coordination may be required (like not pulling enemies into an objective) to ensure success.
- The music is... excellent, seriously the second boss theme is an absolute banger. Send my props to the composer, i'll buy this soundtrack in a heartbeat! The sound effects and voice acting are pretty good, nothing wrong with that. The voice lines between characters is a really nice touch and really adds to their personalities (some even got a chuckle out of me).
- The biggest killer for me, i know that it's in early access is the multiplayer. Desync is really bad when you separate, forcing you to stick together rather than fan out and explore to find objectives. I'm not sure if it's the netcode or the game but it seems to struggle loading multiple enemies at once in different zones even with a decent pc. I think this needs to be urgently addressed otherwise the public multiplayer could be a disaster.
- The first boss is somehow more difficult than the second, The first boss is actually relatively easy if it weren't for the bullet hell portion of the fight, for the second boss the mechanics are much easier somehow than the first, i wouldn't mind if the two were swapped around.
-Content is kind of lacking currently, with only 2 zones currently content is really sparse, after a few runs the content starts to feel samey, some more different events or quests on the first and second zones can really add more replayability each run
-Some enemies are just really annoying to fight or are really spongy without certain status effects like weakness

Overall i really do enjoy this game, if the issues with desync in multiplayer are solved (funnily enough we usually do tumors to resync all our characters) then i can easily give this a good recommendation

So after managing to achieve my first ending to this game, ill sum up what i think of this game without spoilers

This is everything i wanted from a mech game, the game play is tight and satisfying with the third person camera evoking more of a action game more than anything. Where to even begin?

The Good:
- The customisation options are expansive and very complex, it's very easy to get lost in the sea of customisation options with both equipment and cosmetic to make an AC truly your own
- The game play feels amazing, controls are not terrible on mouse and keyboard, although i would like more support for the side keys to use on my mouse, so they still probably need to work on that.
- The sound design and scenery is absolutely amazing, they knocked it out of the park for this one, warning sounds are pretty clear and able to be distinguished from the barrage of gunfire and missiles.
- Game play is hard but fair, never have i said throughout the game that this boss is BullSh*T. Everything that i died to can be analysed and deconstructed and encourages you to experiment with the tools available.

The bad
- Sometimes the visual effects from the explosions or certain weapons can obscure attacks from enemies, making it really hard to see what the bosses are doing
- The difficulty spikes in the game are all over the place, there were only 4 bosses that i only considered hard (the beginning, end of act 1 , middle and 2nd final boss) that gave me the most trouble, other than that the game seemed to breeze through in between. This is especially true for the first boss where you are set with a gameplay style you may not like.
- The music is quite frankly sub-par for the a game

Overall i rate highly of this game, another great entry by From Software indeed!

Yu Gi Oh may not be the game it once was but if you can get through the sheer absurdity of what you can do with card combos then it can be pretty fun at times. Although the problem is that there is a massive divide between the playerbase as most people getting into MasterDuel are mainly newbies who have never played the TCG or OCG, thus meta decks run rampant around leaving casual players a bit stumped with sub optimal decks that they probably adapted from the anime or their youth. With such a high skill ceiling and with a pretty much non existent ban list currently (it does exist but some cards should stay banned for a reason) it can turn away quite a few people. Thus the problem about the Master Duel from a few players i know that got into the game are due to the actual card game itself.

Back on track to the actual game
The game is actually pretty decent as simulators go. It's definitely prettier than the "unofficial" simulators (e.g ygopro/edopro) with very good animations and visual effects to boot. The music in this game actually surprisingly slaps hard and i found myself enjoying the soundtrack quite a bit. Overall this game is actually pretty good but it's held down by some crippling flaws.

The main issue i have with the game is the front heavy load of gems. As you keep playing you are mainly rewarded less to play and doesn't give too much incentive to do so. The battlepass and mission system you burn through so fast that after a few hours you are committed to the decks you have made from the card packs you drew. For new players could get overwhelmed by the sudden surge of gems only to make some questionable purchases to make a deck that is well... less than desirable and find themselves locked into it. Granted there is a dust system so you could make another one but thats one less deck you get to play and part of the amazing thing about yu-gi-oh is the variety of archetypes that you can play.

With only the ranked queue that only gives mission rewards (solo missions are quite limited so far but give a nice boost) people are inclined to make the most relevant decks and thus not a lot of variety can be found* (granted this is probably more of a problem with the actual card game itself).

*Konami addressed this in a post and has made plans to increase the variety of tournaments, how they will distribute rewards and deck variety will remain unknown for now.

The last complaint is one i have shared with most of the players and is probably ingrained forever within yu-gi-oh. Games can last from 1-5 turns.... how? Well you simply have turns that take 10-15 minutes long, Yu-Gi-Oh is awfully notorious for having long winded combos, however those combos are very slow in simulators (speaking from experience in edopro) and the turn timers are extended for every card you play so you can have turns that take a while. (Although for the increased turn timers actually might be a blessing in disguise as cards usually have about a paragraph of text to read, and part of the skill is understanding what each archetype excels at, e,g Sky Striker being a spell heavy deck).

Other than that it is still quite a good game if you can get over the massive ingrained flaws, there is a reason why this card game is still around today. However, it is not the game that you might remember if you are a returning/ new player.

Overall i do give it a good review as most of these issues can be fixed with maybe tournaments that host certain restrictions for decks and might turn into a fun casual game. Konami has surprisingly been addressing the community about their concerns and it will be interesting on where they will go from here. I wish this game the best of the best as Yu-Gi-Oh is something that defined my childhood and i wish it the best success!

Overall for the game itself: 7/10 (would give it a 8 but the game of Yu-Gi-Oh itself is kinda holding it down)

A wonderful game that encourage coop with other people to achieve victory in a shared war. The experience is something to truly behold as you experience war that is depicted as it is, bloody, despairing and death. Take part whether as:
Logistics: to ferry supplies to the front, the lifeblood ensuring that the front does not fall
Infantry: Holding the lines against other players through a variety of small arms, from bolt action rifles to machine guns all manufactured at factories.
Builders: Crafting intricated layered defences powered by AI and players, building the trenches and bunkers ensure the first line of defence.
Tankers: Riding in armoured behemoths becoming the spearheads of centralised pushes.

The war follows a path of progression through tech as it progresses from trench warfare of world war 1 to eventually the more mobile and armoured warfare of world war 2.
Each war is about 2-3 weeks and the game usually gets major updates every 3 months, so do your self a favour and try and enlist today!

I really don't know how they did it but they managed to surpass the masterpiece that is Ori and the Blind Forest.
After 4 years since i last played the first instalment of the series they have managed to completely blow my expectations away and then some. They somehow made me cry... again.

Gameplay: Ori and the Will of the wisps is a Metroidvania game. Expect heavy amounts of platforming and combat. Speaking of which the combat since Ori and the Blind Forest has massively improved. Instead of using a wisp to attack enemies for you now you take matters into your own hands and use an array of skills, abilities and environments to your advantage.

Story: I can't really talk much about this but the gist of it is that Ori and Ku ( the owlette ) has flown to a new region, Niwen and encounters a dying island. It's up to Ori to save the land once again and stem the flow of corruption. Whilst a simple premise the journey along the way is really what makes this a strong point for this game. (There are some wonderful references to the first game if you look hard enough).

Music: Again a wonderfully composed orchestral soundtrack by Gareth Coker. Seriously take a listen to it, one of the best video game soundtracks i've heard in a while.

Graphics and Design: Ori and the Blind Forest was known for it's stunning visuals even today they hold up pretty well as they did about 4-5 years ago. With the new updated Unity engine the visuals have been pushed even further with lots more animation and stunning scenery which will leave you in awe.

Unfortunately the game stutters quite a bit and is very noticeable when moving quickly between zones which leads me into a few bugs that i have spotted but none of them have been game breaking so far so it gets a pass.

Overall 10/10
Just do yourself a favour and buy this masterpiece

This is my personal review of this game, i know i might piss a few(many) people off for disliking this game but i came to write my own personal thoughts on this game. You are entirely entitled to your own opinion and suggestions are always welcome.

First off I must say that these types of games live and die by their community, YOU CANNOT HAVE A WORKING BATTLE ROYALE IF YOU CAN'T KEEP THE PLAYERS ENTERTAINED. As with the situation currently with the OCE servers have little or no players in them, i recommend a buyers beware for people that are planning to buy and play this game if you are in Australia or New Zealand. That being said, i came back to this game after a few months to see how it was doing and what the fuss was about topping the steam stats for quite a while now. Turns out my expectations of vast improvement and major change have turned into a massive dissapointment.

First off let me say that i'm not a big fan of the battle royale genre (as most of my games mostly centre around competitive fps and the like) however through my experience of what was left of this game on OCE servers (don't really want to go to another server to experience 300+ ping) was a trainwreck of a game with very little change that i could notice from the early access version. With the long que times of up to 10 minutes long to get a single game with 4 - 10 players into it.

The changes i noticed:
- more guns (yay i guess)
- sound improvement? (stills sounds terrible)
- climbing seems smoother
- A "testing island" (not single player though)
- Better main menu screen? (now infested with buy menus for cosmetic items)
- New maps? (too bad i can't stand the 10 min que timers)

Despite changes to the game i still find it quite buggy:
- vehicles will sometime phase through bridges and explode
- vehicles will sometimes fly... and explode
- character will do some weird glitches in the terrain

And now the section where i would rant but no one will probably be bothered reading entire paragraphs so here are some dot points:
- more loot boxes that require keys to open!
- DID I MENTION NO ONE PLAYS THIS ON OCE ANYMORE?
- Sound is still garbage
- Fix PUBG seems like a joke (even Operation Health for seige was even more proffesional than this)
- Still a glitchy mess
- Focus on the cosmetics rather than the gameplay i see?
- Servers still kinda laggy

in summary i cannot recommend this game currently in this state for players in OCE. A major buyers beware, if you want a good battle royale experience, this is not the game you are looking for.

ICEY, damn where to start? Upon seeing the game recommended by TB (Total biscuit) i scoffed "pfft a meta narrative action game?" how on earth can that happen and unexpectedly ICEY delivers just that. Soooooo what exactly do you get from this game? Well... Do you like action games? Do you like exploring? Do you like achievement hunting (more on this later)? Well ICEY is probably the game for you!

In short my experience with ICEY is often being wrestling with the narrator and my inner conscience so i can find the next achievement do dat and ever. I feel if you really want to explore this game's full potential is not reading the achievement list because it can give spoilers [Re edit Actually scratch that read the achievement list to actually find out there is an "ending" so to speak]. Also WRESTLE WITH THE NARRATOR ALL THE WAY It's likely to give you the full experience of this game [and in the case to get the real ending you have to -_-]

Game time: 4 hours for me to do extra sides and finish the actual ending


You are ICEY/ UCEY/ (You).. can't really explain it. a strange female protagonist in a "game" with an external player playing her "you" Some ♥♥♥♥ goes down with the program and now thats where the game starts. The narrator begins to tell what ICEY has to do, the player then has the choice to progress to the intended ending or rather "explore" secrets and areas to reveal hidden "endings" and the "true ending". Your main objective is to kill Judas, a cyborg/ humanoid hybrid that for whatever reason kinda put people's sentience in robots (thats how i interpreted anyway). The Narrator has some unknown agenda and ushers to kill Judas as the utmost priority and you do just that. And for the final ending given by an achievement requires a guide... I know I know but in order to really experience the "final" ending requires you to do alot of things to earn it


------------------------------End of Spoilers---------------------------------


Now to give some good points and bad points about this game

Good points:
- Action feels just right, great mix between fluid action and "story segments"
- Narrator does commentate
- Achievements are pretty easy to come by
- For a price of 10 dollars pretty good deal
- The music, (especially clock tower) is pretty good
- Narrator can be amusing depending on the situation
- Want to explore? This game is pretty much that
- Alot of abilities
- Unique
- humorous in some areas
- getting all the achievements in this game is very easy (done it in 4 hours)

Bad points:
- There is keyboard but no mouse support, meaning that you have to play the entire game ON YOUR KEYBOARD
- The narrator can be especially pretentious at times, even unbearable
- The game really kinda doesn't want you to "explore" it's kinda too much
- Most of the time i am looking down at my keyboard trying to work out where the action buttons are re-edit: actually its not that bad after i got used to it


Overall rating 9.5 / 10

*recommended that to experience the full game you must try to do every single achievement

A game which breaks the fourth wall multiple times and art that still never gets old. Combined with excellent music and a story which can touch your heart gives you a beautiful game

Ahhh Ori and the blind forest... where to begin?

My life story: Going to my local game store in December 2016 i walked around the Pc section only to see 4 copies of this game on the shelf priced at 19 AUD (Australian Dollars). My first instinct was to scoff at the realatively low price tag but if any game has taught me anything, it can be full of surprises (looks at undertale). Anyway picking it up and inserting the disc into the Pc then activated it through a code, waited for a quick download and the game was ready to play. What hit me next was a journey into the wonderful world of nibel. The menu screen already introduced me into a trance that so little games managed to accomplish, the combination between the sorrowful music and the beautiful background instantly destroyed the essence of my being. The adventure i underwent through next completely took me away from this world.

Gameplay: As most platformers go, Ori and the blind forest brings a few things to the table. The gameplay flows very well, combining quick thinking, timing, interesting puzzles and a decent combat system. The feel of the game is very smooth on my end (you don't really need a good Pc to run it), and i have not encountered a single bug or gamebreaking glitch so far. However do not think this game is simple, it is possibly (especially on one life) one of the most hardest platforming challenges you might face. However with a multitude of abilities that Ori has is able to fight of most of the denizens and dark dwellers within the forest.


//////////// The Story section can contain spoilers READ AT YOUR OWN RISK \\\\\\\\\



Story: As story goes it is relatively simple, an orphan (Ori) is lost to a storm and is picked up by a creature (Naru) who becomes a mother to Ori. A series of unfortunate events (which is revealed later) wracks the forest with death and famine. Ori now Orphaned again now must venture on a journey to restore the forest back to the way it was.

Despite being a very simple story, it is the way it is told that makes it special, full of plot twists, moments of pure joy and moments of utter devastation really plays on your feelings.



\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ End of Spoilers ///////////


I suppose this is the section about the pros and cons of the game yes?
Well here it is

Pros:
-excellent soundtrack
-Gameplay flows very well
-excellent art style
-Story is well told
-game is challenging
-characters are well fleshed out
-a feel trip all the way
- incentives to explore every nook and cranny
-puzzles are sometimes hard but fair
-Ori is cute <3

Cons
-combat can be a bit tedious and repetative at times (especially if you're dying over and over because of a bad save)
-sometimes you wont be able to remember all your abilities
-sometimes the challenge is so hard it makes other people quit (not me personally but comments seem to be less than happy about certain sections of the game being too overly hard or tedious)
-sometimes you are forced to look online (which can put you into some major spoilers) to seek out answers you aren't too familiar with (i havent had much trouble with the puzzles in my experience)


Overall judgement: I love this game, apart from the sometimes repetative combat the game is excellent. It isn't as widely as popular undertale and the hard gameplay aspect might drive people away but it is well worth the money spent for this game.

rating: 10/10

Small re-edit: Nominated this game for Steam 2017 awards