It's a pretty fun roguelite. Game is a bit too easy even on the hardest difficulty. There's no map variance but there is a lot of paths you can take to get to the final boss so nothing gets too stale. Each run takes about 25-40 minutes. There's also a good amount of hidden stuff if you enjoy looking around for collectibles. The build variety is fairly low within each class and 30% of guns aren't worth using. There's technically grind rails but you basically never use them. A fun but short experience.

I'm a sinner for early access survival games. I had fun in Ark but that's something I couldn't recommend to anyone in good conscience. This game is equally time wasting but at least twice as good. There are legitimate criticisms you could have about the "Pal" designs in this game where's it pretty clear they were too close to pokemon. I swear to god I saw a meganium and gyrados in this game. However, anyone calling them an asset flip doesn't understand what an asset flip is, and Nintendo, one of the most litigious game companies out there still hasn't sued really does say a lot. The idea of using your pokemon as base workers instead of just as tools like ark does is a considerable upgrade. There's also a lot more pokemon than there are dinosaurs. The map design is pretty generic. The combat though can be a bit fucked. Whether thats due to lag or to dumbass decisions is unknown. For example, many moves are piercing which means they'll also pierce the pokemon you're riding and hit you. Armor in this game is also fake. It breaks basically instantly and barely gives you the HP to compensate. You are still in high danger if you ever want to be an active participant and you will be because the aggro will randomly switch from your mon to your player character. You also can't control the mon unless you're riding it. The pokemon will just randomly use one of 3 moves you assign it based on cooldown. So the combat isn't particularly fun, I mostly played to get stronger pokemon and expand my base. It's a very good game to turn your brain off to though.

TLDR Good brain off survival game. If you liked Ark this is much better, play this instead.

The Mask games are easily my favorite story ever. While Mask of Deception was mostly slice of life, it really gave me a chance to get invested and understand the main cast. They’re all either funny, good, or both. And even among that cast there were a few that stood out among the rest. It was also the coziest reading experience I’ve ever had. The major plotline starts to pick up in the second half, but it never gets so serious that you lose heart. You’ll even get to see some familiar faces again. The world building goes crazy both for the world it is now and the world prior to it. But the ending to it is what swept me off my feet and put its hooks into me for Mask of Truth.

Mask of Truth on the other hand is the most emotionally packed story I’ve read. It hasn’t ditched its SoL heart entirely and frankly, it also has some of the best SoL I’ve ever read. What it has done is taken that cast that I loved from Deception and put them through the crucible. Not only does a civil war rage on, they’ve been dealt a crushing hand from Deception’s end. Everyone’s story either comes out just as good or much better than it was in the last game. The four people that ended up being my goats were Haku, Kuon, Nekone, and Anju with Haku being by far the best character in the games. Watching him go from that lazy, helpless, but caring bastard lost in this new land to a legend to be sung about was the best character journey I’ve ever been on. That laidback slow life he craved, he threw it all away to carry out the job left to him. The other 3 people I listed have some crazy struggles of their own with Kuon probably being the most interesting. The most emotional damage I’ve ever experienced from one character though goes to Nekone and her own relationship with Haku. It’s not even just her either. Everyone in her family has taken my kneecaps. All of the emotional catharsis in this game is fantastic and there’s just so much of it. All their tragedies, struggles, and triumphs have me broken by the end of it.

If there’s any real critique I can give the story is that it stumbles a bit near the end. Just a messy and rushed act as we approach the finish line. I almost lost faith that this would be a fumbled end. But the very ending portions of the game are done so well and everything preceding that act was so good I can let that go.

The music is competent with two real nice exceptions. There are 2 inserts in the game I really enjoy and one in particular that is the song I hear when I think about these games.

While I have basically no complaints about the story, I think the gameplay is very mediocre. It’s far too simple for me. The BP system is a pretty interesting idea for how to customize but it ended up just being like pumping attack and speed when I could afford it. There’s basically no reason to use tanks in this game. The passives you can equip also aren’t particularly interesting. It wasn’t bad, just not really the reason I played the game. One map was offensive though but the final map more than made up for it. I didn’t do the post game arenas at all though since the gameplay wasn’t for me.

Despite those problems, I’d still give this a 10/10. The story was just that strong. If you thought Uta 1 was decent, these should be right up your alley. If you didn’t play Uta 1, just expect a solid experience from Uta 1, but these 2 games are why I’m so thoroughly in love with the series.

Short but pretty good. Wish the long range weapons were better. Also it might be a kbm or skill diff but it felt that the hard lock on was pretty sensitive for mouse. Made it impossible to focus a boss sometimes since the adds would get in the way and a slight move would change your direction. Could also use a mode where you fight the boss directly instead of walking through a stage you've cleared already. Also wish there was more differences between the 3 different endings. Didn't check precisely but it feels like 90% or more of each route is the same. Just a small change at the end of some missions and very few new missions. This isn't the biggest issue though since you can try new builds through each of your playthroughs but there were only so many that I enjoyed doing which was close range or energy weapons. It also didn't help that many of the missions you could fall asleep in up until a boss if the mission even had that. And the usual wish there were more bosses/content. Some of the bigger set pieces were really cool too and I wish there were more of like the destroy strider mission. If 3.75 was an option that's what I would give it.

TLDR Short, balance of weapons feels a bit off, a bit repetitive sometimes, but otherwise really fun game.