Recent reviews by tetra-byte

Queued inputs, uncancelable actions, laggy framerate, constant aggro'd FARM ANIMALS and hunts from goblins (including at your base!), and if you lower you bow too fast you'll shoot your arrow into the floor, because god forbid you release the arrow when you let go of your mouse button instead of like a full half second afterwards.

Gear scaling feels absolutely brutal, spells take so long to cast inside of combat that you might as well just buff up before you turn a corner. Want to isolate an enemy? Sorry, no stealth mechanics. Can't shoot a bow without everybody in the vicinity knowing-- including the fact that you can't crouch while charging your bow at the same time (you know, you can just have an additive layer for crouching instead of making it it's whole own animation right?).

As for video settings? We have no video settings. Just 'low, medium, high, epic'. By the way, it set me to High on my 3070 and 5800X3D but I had to switch to low with DLSS and ultra performance to squeeze out a framerate that wasn't making my eyes bleed. The fact that I needed to have DLSS on at all is a slap to the face. Please, please, just let me tweak my settings instead of using your weird ass presets. I'm begging you.

Now, for the building. The building is amazing. If there's one thing they nailed in this game, it's the building. Eye of Oculus being a starting spell for only a 5 rune cost makes my life SUPER easy, but I actually found myself... not needing to use it like I thought I would? The snapping can be a little frustrating but overall it's actually relatively nice. I would like to see a 'straight snap' feature where I click a keybind and it straightens the piece based on my view (or current object it's snapping to) so I don't have to rotate pieces back and forth 180 degrees to get the angles I want.

Maybe even just let me change my scrollwheel snap-rate.

Inventory is a struggle. Opening any Goblin Pack is a bad idea, because despite it's measly 10 stack size you actually save space with it. Inside of each bag is 1-3 items that weigh... 1.5lb each? My 1lb pack contains 4.5lb of items. I was full before one Vault trip was even finished, because each of the cores weigh 50 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ POUNDS? At least runes weigh nothing!

That, and chest loot is just laughably bad. You'll get the same 5 plans for "barrel" that you have to dismantle, a couple of runes and essence and if you're lucky? A xp buff potion. No chest has loot inside of it that you actually WANT to get, and just leaves chests as more of a "if I have room" instead of a "I need to see what's in that" which is what I'd want it to be. Not even like, an upgraded shield, armor piece, melee weapon, or anything you can craft. No getting lucky for an upgrade, you have to make it all yourself. I might just be too early in the game to find good loot in chests, but it's not a good outlook if I'm this jaded from the 10 chests I've found already.

Overall, for a game that apparently already had an alpha, this feels like an early alpha build. I can't recommend it in it's current state unless you're either a HUGE Runescape fan or enjoyed Enshrouded or Valheim enough to want something new in the same category.

Crashing consistently, black screen when trying to launch and play that has to be fixed (which apparently happens to everybody their first go), terrible optimization, and worst of all... open mic by default with no indication that you're talking at all, so you'll broadcast your entire side of a discord chat without knowing your first game because the mic settings are hidden down at the bottom of the audio. :)

Oh. My. God.
The mechanics, the screen splitting, the boss fights? Everything about this game is amazing.
If you have time, sit down and play this with literally anybody, it's peak game design.

Insanely fun gameplay without dice-based RNG damage. Combat feels great, lots to toy around with, upgrades are amazing. Unlocking monsters to start with letting you set yourself up with a pretty damn good dream team off rip incentivises build diversity, letting you hone in on a very specific style of run type which could lead to fun challenges. Letting you stockpile rerolls is a neat touch as well.

Essentially, a no-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rogue-lite that lets you use what you want, when you want, with very minimal restrictions.

I've crashed not once, twice, but three times in about ~10 matches.
A crash rate of 30%, leaving my team without a healer for for like 3-5 minutes while the game restarts.

Until the game has fixed it's insane crashing problem, I cannot in good faith recommend this despite how the MTX system works in a very positive way.

my mouse character can stand still and auto parry attacks for 6 seconds while i swing a lance bigger than my entire body twice over and still hit things outside of the actual physical model range despite it's size already

literally the best RPG in the last 10 years

Pulled Linux support (which includes the Steam Deck) to "curb cheating" because their third party anti-cheat doesn't support Linux in a way that actually... stops cheating?

What?

This feels like a mobile game, in every sense. I got three popups, and then one after every game to buy a microtransaction pack. Movement feels extremely floaty and snappy at the same time, which is an insane accomplishment.

A minimalist, beautiful, non-euclidean world with a gravity-warping non-euclidean puzzles littered for you to solve. Manifold Garden kept my full attention for the three hours of rushing through the puzzles without stopping to see the sights. I'd really recommend you take a long look around you as you solve these puzzles. Take your time to explore the architecture around you and appreciate the art of the world, the ending will pay off a lot better!

Manifold Garden left me stumped because I was over-engineering several puzzles-- which is crazy to think you can do that with a non-euclidean puzzle game! Puzzle solutions are a lot easier to figure out as you learn the rules of the world, how gravity manipulates the environments.

TL;DR A great puzzle game which deserves your devoted attention to the detail and love of the world.

Worth full price off-sale for puzzle game enthusiasts, a must buy for anybody on sale.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ they nerfed defibs