Recent reviews by Sceleratis

The world building, story, and soundtrack are 10/10

That said, I personally just can't get into it because the combat to me is incredibly boring and always feels like an unnecessary inconvenience that curb stomps any immersion (for me at least.) Just feels like really annoying quick time events that just get in my way more than something enjoyable, to the point that I lowered the difficulty just to make combat go faster so I can get back to the world. If you're like me and you don't like quick time events and the majority of turn based combat where you and the enemy just stand around smacking each other with minimal room for cool combat interactions and planning this probably isn't for you. This definitely isn't anything like (for example) Baldur's Gate's turn-based combat where you have a lot of freedom and can actually do some neat things and move to strategic positions and all that. Combat in this feels very on-rails and like you're just having a slapping contest with the only upside maybe being that you can dodge which people pretend wayyyy too much like that's some amazing unheard of mechanic. I feel like people going rabid defending the combat are just fanboying it, because lets be real adding a quick-time event to dodge doesn't make it anything close to real-time combat or suddenly make combat enjoyable... I've played games with turn based combat where it's enjoyable, but this isn't one of them. Purely subjective, but I feel like there's a severe lack of realism in a lot of reviews for the game where people just pretend it's the best thing ever created and should be universally liked—or in other words, basically just fanboying—which is fine because the game does deserve it when it comes to everything else about it, but I don't feel like the combat is anything even remotely special or engaging and while yeah they added some quick-time events like dodging, I don't think that just because other games haven't done something that it suddenly solves the fundamental problems I have with it. It's definitely just not for me, and maybe the combat is somehow super exciting for everyone else (dunno how), but it is what it is. Honestly it disappointed me pretty hard since I really want to enjoy the entirety of this game especially after how much everyone was hyping up the combat as "turn based but not boring." Some people clearly like the combat mechanics, but I'm definitely just not one of them and I really don't see where the hype is coming from for the combat, but maybe that's just me.

Combat aside, I think the game deserves most of the hype it gets especially given how the development team was formed which just makes it all the more impressive for the studio's first game. The world, the soundtrack, the story, all super high quality to the degree it (mostly) makes up for the lackluster combat (for me), and the game is way more interesting than most of the slop from triple-A studios I've seen or played in recent years.

Note: My number of hours played through Steam isn't totally accurate. I have played more than 0.9 hours (at the time of writing this), just originally I was playing on the PS5 and decided to recently buy and restart it on PC since my PS5 Pro was struggling with the beautiful graphics 😭.

(Also, even if this review makes the combat sound boring and overhyped, I'd say still give the game a try since you might like it just for everything else even if you're like me and don't appreciate turn-based quick-time slap contests. It's clear the majority who play it seem to be enjoying it, and you can always refund it if you don't like it so you have nothing to lose really.)

This feels like a typical MMO with all of the typical MMO things, including the incredibly boring enemies that stand around like training dummies waiting for you to hit them. Is this the VR MMO experience we've all been waiting for? Is this that Anime SAO level stuff your weeb heart desires? Nah.

The movement system is nice: I like that you can climb and stuff, but that said while climbing a mountain next to the starter area I ended up going inside of the actual mountain then walked through over to a level 15 area, so I think it's safe to say the map/bugs could maybe use some work.

Combat is the boring same old same old you get from every generic MMO RPG; but in VR. Enemies are training dummies and pretty much everything is level/numbers/grind > skill. AI is practically non-existent. I noticed sometimes enemies seem to dodge shots, but that's about the height of their abilities.... other than that they are just training dummies and nothing more, there for your grind objectives. One thing about combat I do actually like a lot is how spell casting works: with nothing in your hand you hold the grip and move your hand in a specific direction or hold the trigger to do different spells. This is infinitely more intuitive than Orbus's midair drawing nonsense that only worked half the time. I love this and hope if anyone uses this game as a learning experience for their own MMO that they take the idea for that mechanic because I feel like that's probably the best way to approach the problem of selecting spells quickly & intuitively.

Aesthetically I like it. I can't complain about that other than some minor map bugs like mesh tears.

I feel like the majority of the positive reviews and people heralding this as the best thing VR has ever seen are just doing that because we honestly don't have better alternatives right now. And I get it, VR is still mostly new territory... but video games themselves have been out and evolving for a long time now so I don't know why something being VR means it has to take a step back from current knowledge & lessons. There are okay MMOs that VR MMO devs can take inspiration from but instead we get what amounts to VR remakes of the same old tired gameplay mechanics that are just as boring in VR as they are outside of it. Is it more immersive than if it was a non-VR game? Definitely. Is it great? No.

I know this game is still early access, so this is entirely based on the first launch week experience I've had so far. So who knows, maybe at some point in the future this will evolve into a drastically different/better game, at which point I'll update this as appropriate (assuming I go back to it.) That said, I doubt any changes made are going to be sweeping enough to make this a truly compelling experience.

Also if you're going to fanboy this for the sake of fanboying it, don't. That's dumb. This is okay at best, bad at worse. Don't pretend it's the best thing since sliced bread because it's not. The overhype that surrounds this game is just going to make it worse when people realize it doesn't even come close to that hype.

It's pretty fun. Good stress relief. I'd say I got my money's worth enough to not feel like it's over priced or anything. Feels just about right. I just wish there was workshop/modding support.

n o s t a l g i a

i dig it

Super fun. Might be nice if more than two people could play together (4 maybe qq?) but otherwise really fun game. It's hard to believe this was made by one person. You did a really good job whoever you are.

The world is interesting, and the ability to make meaningful decisions is nice, however the combat system completely ruins this game for me.

Combat in this game is a pain and hardly enjoyable at all, even if you change the difficulty. I don't even mean it's bad because enemies are hard to kill or anything. No, movement feels slow and clunky, and trying to land a hit on the enemy you actually want to attack instead their friend is a challenge in itself, then on top of that there's an extremely annoying feature where double tapping any of the WASD keys makes you roll. The evade stuff could be nice, if it didn't trigger every 5 seconds while walking around out of combat and then never actually work when you need it in combat. Combat in this game just doesn't feel good at all, and the annoying evasion stuff that can't be disabled just adds to the annoyances. Had they made combat more enjoyable and added a way to disable the double tap to evade stuff this could have been a nice enjoyable game that I could easilly sink days worth of time into, but because of one really bad feature/system the entire game is just annoying to play for me.

And it's not even about it being a challenge or being unable to kill enemies, fighting just doesn't feel enjoyable or responsive at all even if you can two shot the enemies, and rolling off cliffs while I'm walking because evasion randomly triggered doesn't help. At the very least there needs to be a way to disable the WASD evasion.

As I said though, the world and all that is interesting. This would be worth picking up once it's on sale or drops in price, unless you like yelling at your computer, then by all means go right ahead.

Pretty good, wouldn't recommend if you have a life, otherwise nothing to lose...

I started as a kind god; making land, helping the mortals... But then they stopped believing.
Heretics dismissed my existance and persuaded the mortals into believing I was no longer real.
They had no faith.

They did not believe in me...
I needed to make them believe...

At first I attempted to crush the problem at it's source, destroying the heretics I could find. But it wasn't enough... They still didn't believe... How could I force them to believe?

Lacking in the raw power of faith I needed to give my miracles I resorted to the only option I had left: Fear.
I lifted their homes from their foundations and slammed them back down onto those who rejected me. Each and every town who lost faith in me suffered my wrath. Once I regained enough of my power I set fire to the rest who refused to fall in line.

They now believe again.
They will not forget again.

This game... Just when I thought it was over, it threw me right back into the world. This game connects with the player in a way I didn't think was possible until now. I'm not even sure what to do at this point and I feel like resetting would be wrong knowing what I know now. Absolutely would recommend this game. Despite it's fairly cheap price tag, this game made me think and feel in a way no other game ever has. Simply amazing.