Recent reviews by solaris32

This is the best CRPG I have ever played, beating out even all the Bioware/Interplay classics. This game is so good it ruins other CRPGs because it makes them look boring and simple.

+ Dialogues aren't boring text boxes with a voice over you can out-read. Instead they are over the shoulder or sometimes a little more cinematic. This brings you into the conversation much better than a text box. I actually turned off the subtitles so I don't get distracted and can stay immersed.
+ This game has the greatest amount of choice and consequence I have ever seen in any game. Virtually every quest can be completed in multiple ways. You are constantly given multiple dialogue options that usually have some kind of impact on the conversation beyond slightly changed dialogue. Say the wrong things and you can start a fight, end it amicably, or perhaps some other consequence. Karlach is so physically hot she can't be touched. What about a fire resistance potion? Surely the game wouldn't react to that... try it :). The encounter in act 1 to enter the tombs where you find a certain NPC can be approached in four, yes four, ways, each granting you unique dialogue depending on the direction you approach. Can you figure out the fourth way? And many, many more things.
+ Reactivity to your race, class, and Origin character. You sometimes get unique dialogue options and NPC responses depending on those. True though it rarely changes much (unless you're Dark Urge) but it's still fun and huge for roleplaying.
+ Environment interaction and reactivity is unprecedented. So many ways to play with the environment including for solving quests or manipulating battles. When no one is looking quickly pick up a locked chest so you can open it somewhere safe. Use Mage Hand to scout and manipulate objects safely. And much more.
+ I didn't care for Origin characters in DOS2, but here they feel much more fun, not just to play as but also as companions to talk to and adventure with. All of them are memorable to me.
+ Immensely replayable, not just thanks to the above but also with all the classes and the multiple ways to play them.
+ No predatory practices like microtransactions or content cut then sold as DLC. What you see is what you get, and what you get is one of the best deals in gaming.
+ Despite what some people try to claim the game is NOT full of wokeness. Yes the companions are player-sexual meaning they are attracted to you no matter who you are, so this means the power of who to romance is in your hands. Also unlike what some people say it's very easy to tell when a companion is hitting on you, so just say no if you don't like it. Furthermore if there's any characters that offend you, virtually everyone in the game is killable (even your companions). Have fun!

+- While the game overall is the best CRPG, the writing falls a tad short compared to the classics of old. This is due to the fact that every character line plus the narrator is voiced, so we don't get the long, eloquent descriptions and detailed conversations we got in the past. But the writing here is still good, certainly better than pretty much any AAA game nowadays. And having everything voiced with the cinematic camera makes the conversations far more immersive than a mere text box no matter how well written it is.
+- The game is fairly complex. Not as complex as say Pathfinder WotR, but for someone new to CRPGs you will still be overwhelmed very quickly, especially with the addition of the environment interaction (something WotR utterly lacks). Keep at it and you will eventually learn the systems and it will become so much fun!
+- Can only concentrate on one concentration spell at a time, and there are tons of great ones to use. This means you will find a favorite, all around concentration spell (such as bless) that works in pretty much every battle and use only it, foregoing the other awesome concentration spells. Would have been great if it were balanced around being able to concentrate on two at a time.

- A game this massive and complex expect some bugs even now. But Larian continues to patch and improve things so that there are very few game breaking bugs left. Larian is still not done updating the game so I expect the worst offenders to get fixed eventually.
- Some minor QOL complaints here and there, namely I wish we could make the text bigger and also more hotkeys for things like adding an item to wares.
-I wish we could see the full build level up guide like what Pathfinder gives us. Instead you are forced to look at wikis to see how the class and subclass will advance. Inadvisable to go in blind unless you're playing easier than Tactician.
- Lack of Tabaxi race.

If you are a fan of CRPGs this is an Absolute must buy even at full price.

Not much to say about this amazing game if you've already played EDF5. It's that game but more. A lot more enemy variety, and the new enemies are awesome. A lot more missions (with the two DLC packs you've got a little over 200 missions). And a few other QOL features/improvements like every class but fencer getting a new backpack item. If you were addicted to EDF5 then this is a must buy.

The biggest improvement is that now offline and online progress is shared. So feel free to jump back and forth as you desire, as what missions you beat on what difficult with what character is shared between both modes! I barely played multiplayer in EDF5 because it seemed pointless since my mission complete progress wasn't shared. Now it is so there's no reason not to if you want to! And of course you don't have to, the game is perfectly playable solo with all 4 classes. However you might want to get a mod for infinite pickup range so you can use it at the end of a mission to get your loot (air raider is kinda screwed in this department).

About the Epic account requirement: it's actually overblown. You don't need to make an account, as you don't have to input an email or even a username. I'm not sure what it is, but it's obviously not a real account. Still, they did neglect to mention this before the game released. Here's hoping it gets removed.

Decided to give the game a chance, and first impressions are extremely poor. To start with this isn't EA so it's supposed to be feature complete. There's a character creator but you can't even choose male gender and are forced to use female. Then you talk to some NPC with a nonsense story that identifies as a male, but has a female body just like yours. Guess the devs didn't bother to make a male body for the game.
The music is not original and they took from other artists. i assume the music is free to use, but I didn't investigate.
Died to the first enemy in a couple of hits and it took me to the main menu.
Maybe it gets better, I don't know. Not in the mood to find out right now.

If you liked Spooky Castle or Dr. Lunatic Supreme With Cheese then you will like this. Although it mixes up the formula by making it a kind of metroidvania where you have to track down abilities so you can progress, as well as using them to unlock hidden powerups. There's also a ton of unlockables and different game modes to play for lots of replayability, including a randomizer!

If you are a fan of Hamumu games then this is a must buy. Looking forward to the even better sequel coming to Steam!

Gonna keep this simple. This is a JRPG-style game with timed hits and defense. The story is very intriguing and makes me want to play to see what is going on. Characters are interesting too. Battles are fun. Only problem are the bugs. They've already fixed a bunch with the latest patch being 1.8. However there are still more bugs left, and I'm waiting for the game to be in its best position before I fully play it. A lot of effort went into this game and deserves more exposure.

So unless the story and game takes a nosedive in the later parts (in which case I will edit this review), then any fan of JRPGs should check this out.

"Update 4" Game is still the hardest Survivors game I've played. When you fail the game is designed in a way that it doesn't feel like a lack of skill on your part, but because you got bad rng. And failing because of bad rng on on the easiest difficulties is no way to design a game in this genre.

EDIT: Devs continue to censor the comment section whenever someone politely asks about the removed voice line. Don't support these devs.

Normally I wait until the game leaves Early Access before I leave a review, especially a negative one. However the recent patch showed these devs are truly out of touch with their player base and I legitimately regret investing and trusting in them at this point. https://sp.zhabite.com/steamstore/news/app/2321470/view/6636686753338579730

"Removed the Dwarf voice line "Die like your mother did" because we think it's out of place and don't want to remind some players of tragic events in their life when they want to relax with a video game. We might add a voice line filter in options down the line if enough people want it."

They are rightfully getting roasted for this absurd censorship of an iconic DRG voice line. The dwarf isn't even referring to the player's mother, but to the bug's mother. What, are we unable to insult the bug hoards now? What about people with arachnophobia who are seriously stressed out and frightened by spiders, even digital ones? Because this game has giant yellow spiders that explode. And i made this post that was swiftly removed: https://sp.zhabite.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3164976224 The mods are doing overtime with damage control. And they are removing other topics criticizing this move.

They also locked this thread giving legit criticism: https://sp.zhabite.com/app/2321470/discussions/0/6292161380826562223/
"The fact that you believe nobody even notices what they say just highlights how little this should matter to you anyone else it doesnt effect." That's not a reason to lock valid criticism.

Not just the censorship, but the game is also horribly unbalanced. it takes a long time of grinding the first difficulty of the first level before you can really start to beat the other difficulties. This is exacerbated by the fact that you must first level a weapon to 12 before you can even start using the powerful and absolutely necessary overclocks on that weapon in future runs. There's a pinned tips page that helps you play which I already did all of them, and the game is still very difficult, especially on higher difficulties where enemies will often outscale your damage if you haven't been lucky with the rng powerups. And I'm not the only one complaining here either.

So with both of these things in mind I decided I needed to leave a negative review now so other people know what's going on, and to wait until the devs fix these issues, if they fix them. If they do I will change and update this review. But for now stay away.

A very fun simplified immersive sim. It has those elements but minus the story choices. You can't play this like a boomer shooter or you'll have a bad time. You're meant to take it slow and utilize stealth, even when using guns.

+The gameplay is simple but very fun. Stealth and shooting action.
+I like that shooting is quieter than it sounds, so that you can still stay in stealth if you position right and are aware of the enemy and the surroundings.
+Headshots are mandatory and they result in a very satisfying head explosion and sound. Bodyshots do very little damage.
+3 chapters where each one is a giant map that lets you go anywhere at any time.
+Long game, took me 25 hours to beat my first time, and I didn't explore all of chapter 3 (I did for the other two chapters).
+The layouts are fun and hide many secrets.
+Good variety of enemies where all of them behave differently and are distinctive.
+Artifacts are a lot fun, giving a wide variety of unique abilities and effects. I only wish we could hold 4 instead of 3.
+A variety of viable builds. You can do the tried and true gunslinger, a bleed build where you take no damage from bleed but do more damage while under its effects (which you can extend), a drunk build which reduces the negative effects and makes you even more powerful, and a pure melee build using either of the two previous builds.
+A good variety of weapons. Pistols, long guns, bows, crossbows, shotguns, and melee weapons.

+-The curse system is a little unbalanced. Whenever you die you get a soul flaw; die 2 more times and it becomes a far more powerful curse. Some of them are inconsequential like reduced sneak or chance to bleed from enemy melee attacks. Others are very harsh like reduced exp and reduced health. If you're bad at the game the death penalties could send you in a terrible decline. But there are ways to avoid it and you can buy/find purple curse removers.
+-The game is perpetually dark given that the sun is blocked due to the curse. You can still see, but it can be a little annoying, although you do get used to it.
+-Throwing rocks to get an enemy's attention and move them around has the potential to be overpowered. But if you don't want to "cheat" then don't use it, and I rarely did.

-Ending is divisive at best. But the story is extremely simple anyway, so I wasn't really upset by it. Play for the gameplay not the story. The devs are working on an expansion now, so we will see how that goes.
-I wish we had 3 weapon slots, where one was dedicated solely to melee weapons.
-The bandage skill needs to be buffed as it's pretty useless.

1. You will want to max the bonus exp skill asap. 95% of your kills will be headshots so the bonus exp is huge. Then get the lower shop prices and greater monster loot. Eventually you will want to max inventory space. The stealth skill is useful for every build. After that get what you want, gun stuff most likely on your first playthrough. Chapter 3 gives skill point reset potions if you mess up.
2. The stash (first found next to Jim) is infinite. To place more when it is "full" you double click the item.
3. Buy the bags asap as they give you more space. Chapter 2 I found 2 more small and 2 more large bags. Then buy the traveler's bag from the priest.
4. Chapter 1 you will want to focus on melee stealth kills with the bone knife from the shaman, using guns for harder enemies or when it's easier. Hoard as much ammo and supplies as you can, because you'll need them. Chapter 2 and onwards I stopped using melee almost entirely and went pure guns. A melee build you'd obviously keep using it.

I really wanted to like this game but there's too many problems.

+I love that you can wear 4 rings at once, most rings are impactful, and this is where a lot of build variety comes from (along with amulets).
+Dungeons have a lot of secrets and cleverly hidden stuff. Some dungeons also have different layouts yielding new secrets and items.
+There's a lot of places to explore and things you can do.
+The couple bosses I beat were actually fun and challenging. They also significantly toned back the regular enemies bosses spawn compared to the first game. However it's still lazy design for almost if not all bosses to spawn regular enemies.
+The map is amazing and properly shows the terrain as well as where you haven't explored yet. Makes me think of Metroid Prime. Why don't more game do maps like this?
+No penalties for death unless you're on hardcore obviously. This takes away some of the frustration of the BS in the game.

-I don't feel in control of the combat flow or how things unfold. When you're getting swarmed dodging doesn't do anything except let them get closer because you're not shooting. And your backwards pace is slow, nor can you sprint backwards with the camera facing forward. This means elite melee enemies combined with other enemies spamming ranged shots at you equals an unfun time. So try to sprint away and put distance between you, but then they hit you with their own ranged attack. No I don't want to be forced to use the neutral backstep dodge, that is awful gameplay design forcing that on people.
-The above is exacerbated by the fact that enemies can and will spawn behind you. Lazy design, and clearly meant for co-op.
-Melee elite enemies are cancer and should not exist in a game where you shoot 99% of the time and have limited escape options. There's only 1 archetype that is melee focused. The rest of the time you're shooting, and as previously discussed your options for disengaging melee combat are extremely limited.
-The AI is dumb and doesn't seem capable of acquiring new targets. I cheesed a melee boss because my handler dog was blocking the doorway and the boss was completely ignoring it and trying to get to me but failing. So I let my dog chew on him for a minute getting his health almost gone then I finished him off. Why did the boss not start attacking the minion? You see this other times when a melee elite is chasing you as several of your minions are slowly whittling away its health and it completely ignores them.
-Archetypes aka classes are boring. You can level them up and get some minor bonuses but once they are leveled to 10 there's nothing else to do with them. Each archetype has 3 active skills you can alternate between at any time, but that's it. no skill trees or anything to make this stuff unique, nor is there any kind of real end goal. It's very basic and shallow.
-The overall gameplay loop is also boring. There's not much to it besides hoping you find rings/amulets that fit with your playstyle. You find them... and now what? There's not really anything else to do. You're killing the same enemies over and over to get resources to upgrade your weapons so you don't fall behind the level scaling, but otherwise your gameplay and how you do encounters remains the exact same. 10 hours I played the game and absolutely nothing changed with how I did combat.
-Armor is super boring and has no special effects; just damage reduction and status resistances.
-The puzzles are dumb and boring. Most of them seem to come down to figuring out the correct symbols and then inputting them. Riveting. I was far more impressed with the secret passages cleverly hidden behind pots and things like that. Also there's secret walls, but to give them credit they make a distinctive sound and when you get close you can see the texture moving. You can then simply pass through them. No Dark Souls 1 BS here. But there's other puzzles like traps that instakill you, and invisible walkways. All this stuff slows down the game and draws you out.
-Encounters are formulaic and dumb. People in the forums are telling the truth when they say each encounter feels the same, because it does.
-That girl you start the game with is extraordinarily annoying, but it's obvious the devs expect you to think she's cool and strong. She's not, she's rude and a capital B. Thank goodness she's gone from the story after the tutorial and becomes an unimportant merchant.
-Speaking of I don't really care for any of the characters actually. They're all generic and boring. Although those aliens are kind of interesting.
-Going off that the story is boring and uninteresting, but at least more effort was put into presenting it than your usual Souls-like, although I hear the payoff and reveals are disappointing or plain bad.
-Weapons aren't all that interesting and the mods you get for them which add a special ability are ok, but not enough to hold interest. There is a shooting range to test your weapons and see the dps, something the vast majority of Souls-likes bafflingly don't do.

Ultimately I don't feel that sense of player skill progression that I do in melee-focused Souls-likes such as Lords of the Fallen (2023). In those the melee never gets boring because you are constantly improving your tactics against the various enemies. In Remnant 2 there's not much more to do than stand and shoot at things. We needed skill trees and real build variety like an ARPG.

So if you're still interested, it's not an awful game, it just may not hold your interest for long especially if you're a solo player. Wait for a heavy sale if you must get this.

The best Souls-like I've played. More fun and enjoyable than Elden Ring or the other From Software games. I even tried ER again after playing this and just didn't like how combat felt there. It feels so much better and more fair here. This game is totally worth it if you enjoy these kinds of games.

+The lamp mechanic and alternate umbral world is a much needed addition to the Souls-like formula and sets this game apart. Umbral gives you more vigor (souls) but it's harder to heal and if you die it's real death (if you die in the normal world you go to umbral). Once you've gotten real good a trick you can do is stay in umbral until it hits 3x vigor multiplier then immediately go into the boss arena. If you manage to win you get 3x the vigor from the boss!
+Excellent and enjoyable combat.
+Enemies and bosses are fair and you feel accomplished beating them. Enemies and bosses don't spam attacks, cheat, or constantly use AOE attacks cougheldenringcough.
+A cool new game plus that's only going to get better soon with an update allowing you to customize it.
+At first I thought all the shortcuts you unlock were pointless. What's the point when you can warp between vestiges (bonfires)? But then I learned new game plus steadily removes the number of vestiges you have access to, making those shortcuts actually have a point as you realize just how interconnected the whole world is. You can create a mini-vestige at flowerbeds all over the place, but only 1 at a time. The upcoming new game plus enhancement will allow you to customize how many vestiges you have on a new game plus cycle, if the extra running around sounds tedious.
+The puzzles in umbral are simple but fun. I would have liked much more complicated puzzles. For example there's only a single place where you need to shine the lamp to create a temporary floor, then holster the lamp to fall onto a ledge when the floor disappears. Cool idea, why was it only used once? There's so much potential for the lamp to be expanded upon in the sequel I hope they make.
+The art style is great, especially the umbral realm. Only downside is you're on a ticking clock in the umbral realm so I don't have time to truly take in the awesome views!

+-A bit more enemy variety would be nice. I don't mind minor bosses being recycled as minibosses, it's just the enemy variety is rather limited. But that gives you more practice to git gud I suppose.
+-Although there is a large amount of weapons and armor, most of them you will never use. ER had this problem too, but at least ER had a much greater variety of move sets and special attacks.
+-The first real boss, Pieta, will absolutely kick your butt. You fight her so early in the game when you have almost no upgrades, making her in my opinion one of if not the hardest boss in the game. Took me over 20 tries to beat her my very first time, but now I can reliably beat her on my 2nd try (I still die the first time sadly). But you feel accomplished and skillful when you beat her! So don't despair! Keep at it and you will eventually win, and the game gets easier once you can start upgrading your weapons and have better gear.

-The story in true Souls-like fashion is disjointed and poorly implemented. Basically a god wants to return to the world and so you have to cleanse 5 beacons to stop him. Or don't cleanse them to help him come back. There's also a secret umbral ending that is totally convoluted and you aren't likely to easily figure it out without a guide. That's it. Everything else is meaningless fluff. On the other hand no story means the gameplay never needs to stop. There's a lot of lore with every item having something, but it doesn't matter when you have no real reason to care about the story.
-Quests are even more obtuse than From Soft's games if you can believe it. The Tortured Prisoner questline is a nightmare where she moves to locations you can't predict, and you must visit her and give her certain items to progress. At one point you must equip a certain set of clothes yet the game never tells you this, and if you sell any piece of it you can't progress the quest. Who thought quests like this was a good idea? Absolutely use a quest guide even for your first playthrough.
-It gets better, a certain quest will automatically fail if you take the elevator after defeating the Skinstealer boss. An elevator literally feet from the boss and is only natural for people to take, with no warning it breaks the quest. Instead take the key and go backwards and down. Or else you miss out on a merchant.
-The game doesn't have the best performance. I have a powerful rig so it's tolerable with only the rare, brief stutter when it's loading a new area. The culprit seems to be Easy Anti Cheat, as people who disable it report significantly improved performance. However disabling it disables any online features including the gathering of multiplayer-based items like plucked eyeballs. However these are used to purchase mostly inconsequential items so you can really ignore them.
-There are still a few bugs, though nothing game breaking for me. No crashes at all after over 80 hours, however I did one time have the game get stuck on a loading screen when attempting to join a friend's game. Some people also report corrupted saves however I haven't been able to figure out what causes it, possibly crashing when the game is autosaving. I've never had that problem, but I still backup my saves after every session just in case.

To put it simply this game is worth it, especially on sale. Don't bother buying the dark crusader class as it's not that good and you can unlock it in game anyway by doing the Paladin's Request quest.

One of the best Survivor games, no doubt top 3. The gameplay loop is very fun and the meta progression and incentive to keep playing is outstanding.

As of 11-23-23 here's what we have so far as meta progression to keep you doing runs and coming back for more:

Edit 10-24-24: There's even more meta upgrades and incentives to keep playing. Artifacts when you beat it on agony, a particular artifact that when enabled lets you acquire uncommon equipment. Shards when you beat the boss that can be used on every character for an infinitely increasing stat boosts. And a challenging vault map that's a money sink so gold remains useful after you've bought all blessings. Not to mention currently 500 achievements to hunt!

1. Coins used for your typical meta upgrades like increased damage, but also for buying equipment.

2. Potion bottles found from gray chests dropped by elites. These are your reroll, banish, and other options. The more you find and retrieve through the well the more uses you have of them, up to a certain limit. Must obtain potion ingredients first.

3. Equipment obtained from chests. These can add flat bonuses or interesting effects. Retrieved through the well (only 1 per run and afterwards it disables the well, so put the potion bottles in first). Only retrieved and bought equipment can be used on any character for any run. Also uncommon variants that are more powerful but can't be retrieved.

4. Character, stage, and weapon specific achievements that will either unlock new items, abilities, or give gold. All achievements give a small boost to earned experience for everyone so it's always worth it to go for the achievements.

Another thing I really like about this game is that it goes into great detail about pretty much all your stats, including the stats and damage of your weapons even in the middle of a run, and also the stats and damage of any equipment you have that does damage. Hovering over any stat even tells you what modifiers are affecting it. I've never seen a Survivors game give this much detail and it really should be standard for all these games.

I also like that each of the characters has a starting weapon that is unique to them, and then you draw from a pool of common abilities. Other Survivor games usually make the starting weapon not unique and that detracts from the uniqueness of the characters.

At $5 this game is a steal, just buy it if you're at all a fan of Survivor games.