Recent reviews by Sanctuary

Been having a lot of fun, though I joined the train slightly late as far as Millennia goes. I'm decidedly NOT someone who's got a lot of actual experience playing 4X Games, though I have watched them since I was young, I never had the money to purchase until recently, and I'd fell out of the habit until I saw the game.

I think that there's something very positive at the core of this game, even if I am slightly frustrated that there is another Paradox release that doesn't feel like it's living up to the expectations upon launch. I've genuinely been having a lot of fun, though I share a lot of common criticisms others are... such as


Barbarians are a severe pain, and particularly unenjoyable when you kill a camp early game and have to help get the stragglers around your cities, only for a new Barbarian camp to spawn 3 tiles over from the previous one whilst your armies are still trying to heal.

The Early Game, despite being so captivating to me, feels very flawed, and certain starts feel downright unplayable compared to others, though I suppose that's relatively normal for a 4X game, you don't get any options to move your capitals here, that's incredibly unwelcome.

It has come to the point where I sometimes need to reset the game a few times to find a decent enough start, and maybe that's just me being overly picky, but I really don't think so. For all the depth the game has, it's surprisingly bad at making certain starts very plausible to play on in Higher Difficulties. The AI means absolute business in this game, I've gotten wars declared on me so often.

There are some National Spirits that are *wildly* unbalanced (Looking at you Raiders), and I feel almost forced into taking one of Raiders in a large number of starts to keep up with the AI, occasionally Mound Builders or Ancient Seafarers if I'm blessed with the appropriate tiles. Sometimes even Wild Hunters if there's a lot of Scrubland! Beyond that though, I feel like *especially* in the first set of Spirits, it's heavily unbalanced and really cool concepts like the Olympians, I find it being impossible to play, or even USE given how tight Local Reforms are balancing wise in the beginning of the game.

I adore the system of production chains, and I love the complexity it adds with the potential reward for good use of it, but it feels frustrating and punishing on occasion, and adds to that issue of some starts feeling unplayable. If you have no Lumber anywhere in sight or a decent number of Hills to kickstart, I almost consider it a necessary restart, especially on a higher difficulty, as you have very little time to make new cities with how slow Government XP can be at times, let alone the culture penalties with so few ways to create those, mostly dependent on RNG or the 'Meta' early game National Spirits that let you produce a ton of culture cheaply, like Mound Builders or (with an innovation event).

Crisis events... I think the system itself has a lot of potential. I think the biggest thing is that they really need to expand the pool of Crisis events that can happen, and perhaps their actual conditions to fire. Most notably would be the Rebels, and events that just spawn things at *EVERY SINGLE CITY IN THE GAME*, that is extremely wild and practically impossible to deal with in higher difficulties in the Early Game.

Beyond that, the Chaos values feel... arbitrary at times. Why am I getting overly punished for firing back in a Defensive War, and let alone where a 1 population city costs as much Chaos as the capital of an entire Empire. I think scaling the Chaos based on population for conquered cities would help with how frustrating it feels, and it would make Late Game wars actually have you bleed a little bit more, as you conquer these very developed and built up areas, but have more cash and more units to deal with these events.

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Despite all of these criticisms though, I find myself booting up the game pretty much every day to play and understand more of the game. There's a lot of positive facets alongside the negative ones that just keep me coming back, in all honesty.

The Age System, even WITH the Crisis Ages, it feels like it motivates me to act quickly and be strategic with my technologies. There are certain cases where the ages blend together poorly, such as the Age of Discover or the Age of Aether, having these automaton units that make little sense in a more grounded, I can disconnect from having much of an issue with that with a little imagination on my end.

I will say that I wish the Crisis Ages didn't feel like such a punishment. Genuinely, if I get an Age of Plague for instance I just find myself restarting. I think that particular Age is an outlier, and whilst there are a few outliers and oddities (Such as missing very crucial parts of the regular technology tree for a Variant age), it's something that I can all in all set aside and enjoy.


I actually do rather deeply enjoy the Governments, and the various styles that can come out of it. Let alone with different National Spirits, going something like Imperial Dynasty into then Republics, feels SO much different in playstyle from Kingdoms into Feudal Monarchy, and that only expands as the game goes on. I don't think I really get every government type, admittedly, but this is one of the best fleshed out parts of the game. My only gripe is that Government XP is so crucial in higher difficulties that it feels like it's impossible to actually slow down and enjoy the mechanic.


For the MOST part, I really love the way the Innovation and Crisis systems are presented. Especially the Innovation System, it makes certain playstyles a lot more viable, and you get a lot of really fun rewards out of it that can again, help change up every single game and prevent it from feeling stale. I always find myself looking forwards to the Innovation events. It is by far the much better sibling of the Crisis and Innovation system, hahaha.


More than anything I think this game has a LOT of potential. The basis of this game, especially once we start to be allowed to mod it, is going to make it one of my most played games on Steam for sure. Is it worth purchasing at this very moment? Well I think that's ultimately going to be up to what you are looking for as a player.

For *me*, as someone who holds more interest in the Singleplayer aspect to begin with, I know this game is going to end up one of the most played things in my library in time, and I do not regret the purchase I've made, even if I think the price point is a touch steep, that's the direction most games are going insofar as cost nowadays. $40 is something I can accept the loss of for a game that's going to provide me hundreds of hours of entertainment.

I really can't wait to see what Millennia will have to offer us in the future, I think this game is one to keep your eyes on. Perhaps wait till a few of the DLCs roll out and you have time to see what new systems that come free are added before you make your purchase, as for me? I think I'm going to start another game here, honestly.

Before buying the game on Steam I'd played upwards of 1,000+ hours of this game on Consoles with my siblings and I hadn't touched it in a while, and I've got to say it lived up exactly to the hype I remembered having while playing it if not carrying more hype than before even. Across all consoles I've sunk up to nearly 3,000 hours now and I don't regret any of them.

Terraria is a fantastic sandbox-esc. game that is often compared to titles like Minecraft or Starbound, but not to take away from either of those Terraria is in my opinion better than either of them (Although Minecraft remains more iconic of a game for good reasons).

Terraria is a game that can be played by oneself or with any number of friends. You start with nothing but a couple tools and are left to your own devices from there. You can collect what you like or do whatever you'd like. It feels free and offers a good bit of replayability where you can do a lot of different things when you start, whether you want to be patient and start building something massive, whether you want to go straight into the caves and fight your way to great loot, or if you just want to take time and explore the world it offers a lot of options that only branch out the farther you go. I'd 100% recommend this to anyone who enjoys sandbox games or games that you can sink a lot of time into, while it is compared to titles like Minecraft, it surpasses expectations and gives a unique experience with amazing combat mixed with just enough replayability to make it a must have to me.

Garry's Mod, a fantastic classic of a game that I can come back to any day and have fun with.

Garry's Mod is a fantastic game that is a building block for imagination with things like Sandbox and a treasure trove of fun gamemodes and interesting communities of players. If you enjoy creating things on your own or with friends, or playing games with friends, than there are very few games that are quite like Garry's Mod at least in my book. I've sunk a lot of time into the game and while I've personally moved on I can and have come back many days just to sink more time into the game and have fun meeting new people.

It's definitely worth the buy, although it is important for anyone buying the game to note that while it does not fully require it, getting certain games like Counter-Strike: Source for the textures can drastically improve and expand upon your experience playing the game. Definitely a game I'd recommend for practically anyone who's got some time to spare and isn't afraid to try new things and meet new people.

Been a long time coming, should've written this a very long while ago.

Counter-Strike is certainly not a game for everyone, it's very competitive, requires thick skin (at times), and generally can be very challenging to play. IF you can make it through however there is content that can suit a lot of people. For those who want to be straight up competitive and play the game there is a wealth of options that one can take outside of Matchmaking to climb the ranks and seek that competitive glory. For those who want a more laid-back or community experience. Community Servers offer sometimes very large and diverse communities of people to play the game with, and a lot of fun gamemodes that can keep players who've sunk a lot of time into this game constantly feeling fresh and finding new ways to have fun.

Again, it's not for everyone, it can be and is incredibly toxic at times, but if you know you can get past that I think there are very few games as addicting to come back to, with as high of a skill ceiling, and variety of things to do, than in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Now, I recieved this game for free from the Developer, however I'd like to put a small review down for it.

At first, the game looks entirely like any normal bullethell and at FIRST that is how it is, your normal kind of food-styled bullethell. However after your first death if you are like me you unlocked a new character (That and you found out about the spice rack) and this is where things becoming more interesting and fun.

From this point on you can use a small range of characters, all of whom have different playstyles and use powerups differently. And you can make the game harder as you get better at it which provides some very fun situations and encounters for you