88 reviews liked by MaiaCustom


this is such a cute yet clunky game. running for my life as the hulking minotaur was relentlessly chasing me was a thrill. the feeling of finally slaying the minotaur was so gratifying. the game is a lil bare bones, but it's well worth it for the price of this bite sized wonder

don’t ever serially experiment on lain!! worst mistake of my frigging life !!!!

double featured this w we’re all going to the worlds fair which like pair together rlly well,, touching on same themes and ideas,, even repeating some of the same dialogue which was like unexpected

prob one of the coolest and most interesting games architecturally speaking,, like how almost all of the clips/images in game are either of rotted half abandoned buildings or visual clutter and overpopulation like the cramped subway or wires connecting everything and everyone. idk idk makes sense why ppl try to find some solace online but also why the rot seeps through there too. sad game lmfao

way more streamlined than the first game and gives an appropriate amount of resources for a survival horror game. the dialogue is funny teen B-horror angst and the surprising deaths was a wig snatch. this game is kinda a cult classic to me

It's been a couple years since I last played this and I still stand by my original thoughts: this game would be better if it wasn't a roguelike. Bad RNG can make it easy to never get the specific cards you want, metaprogression is basically nonexistent, and there's almost no variety between runs because the areas and enemies themselves barely change.

Fun as fuck while in the middle of a single encounter, but everything around that is just kinda peepee poopoo and makes me wish it weren't a roguelike. Like, I mean, metaprogression isn't even mandatory for a roguelike but when you combine the poor metaprogression with samey runs it just feels... pointless?

Oh hey this is in 1.0 so I can complain about it now.

I am a survivalcraft sicko, I've played so many of these games that it's probably a DSM-V diagnostic, so believe me when I say this one isn't too great.
Once the novelty of this being a top-down survivalcraft game wears off you're stuck with what's definitely one of the weaker entries to this genre.

Progression is a very boring and binary upwards climb where you do an endless cycle of kill boss > yoink blueprints > craft upwards > hit wall > kill boss > ad nauseaum. If you want variety well, too bad. It's hold melee and cast spells on cooldown forever. This game is somehow rinsed in the variety front by Terraria, a 13 year old game also centered around crafting and bossing.

Despite offering the option for PvE, V Rising is a PvP game at its core so the combat is incredibly simple and feels very MOBA-esque to facilitate it. Fine for PvP if that's yer thing, but for PvE it makes the game feel miserable and repetitive since bosses don't bring much to the table.
Perhaps more egregiously, the topdown angle brings with it the same issue that lots of Diablo-likes/CRPGs with it also have: There's not much impact to combat, and with the heavy health bars everything feels weightless and tedious.

There are a few mechanics that I hoped would get fixed up for 1.0 but haven't at all.
Sun damage is as boring as it sounds; if you're in the light too long your health PLUMMETS even with mist braziers around, as there's more sun than shadow.
Blood type seems cool at first but only having access to one at a time and needing to constantly scout out refills or better blood leaves the entire mechanic feeling like a sanguine game of cat and mouse.

And crafting timers... Eesh. So, this review has a lot of cuts in it because many potential gripes are somewhat mitigated by how customizable the difficulty is. It's pointless of me to whinge about some resources not being teleportable when there's an option to disable that mechanic, right? Of course!
But crafting timers are an annoying one because they're very deeply tied to the gameplay loop. By default they are far too long, ostensibly as a motivator for you to leave your base and go do some of the myriad tedious busywork the game expects you to do.
The option is there to shorten them, but this presents its own problem: Go too fast and you're basically cheating, try to meet the game halfway and you'll end up doing even more busywork. Lower them, and the game becomes an AFK simulator.

Not helping matters is that a lot of things, mist braziers especially, need fuel. Fuel that will eventually run out unless you keep it topped up. Again, busywork.

I saw a meme in the middle of last month that jokingly separated every single game into one of two categories: Menus (wherein engagement is defined as clicking through a UI) or parkour (wherein engagement is defined by movement or action).

I sort of agree with the underlying theory, but I'd suggest a third category: Tasks - games where the method engagement is irrelevant because what you're chasing is a daisy chain of unlocks and Get X of Y.

V Rising is tasks, and unlike similar games in its category the tasks are very linear. The cycle up above has little room for deviation, and given that bosses are automatically tracked for you there's not even much room for exploration.

There are way better games in this genre, even after VR hit 1.0 it's still a mess. Project Zomboid is in early access and it runs rings upon rings around it while still hitting many of the same notes. Hell, even Palworld is a better choice.

wtff anime girl AND she smoke joint okiee this iz awesum :3

My second favorite Wizardry game (the third being the PS3 one and the first being Wizardry 8). I wish more dungeon crawlers were like this.

pico is like the “you can’t be talking like that white baby” post to me

one of the ghosts sounded like nathan fielder and that honestly made this game for me