A great game, an infinite King's Field experience, with approachability first and foremost in its vision. A treat to play for newcomers and old-timers alike. A wide array of dungeon tile-sets, weapon-types, true dual-wielding, spells, enchantments, and much more. Where it falls short is it could've used a few more tile-sets and a bit more to its few unique locations like the starting village. Otherwise, a joy to play, even if only for 40 minutes or for 4 hours straight. Check out my review if you wanna know more! https://youtu.be/yi2ZzW-FLJE?si=LD0BlAyaEhs4MmEK

Check out my YouTube review on this if you're interested! https://youtu.be/lWSSGfpyqxw?si=X2Z-erhyY1lUewnX

The best gladiator sim since Colosseum: Road to Freedom in 2005. Already a good game now in EA, excited to see what it looks like as a finalized product.

I will admit at first I wasn't a fan of the art-style. I went in believing I'd prefer a bit of a darker aesthetic, but playing the game the style surprisingly works really well and can be really pretty! I wouldn't want it changed much from what it is now aside from the refinement and additions that come with development. The variety in arenas is super nice, the before mentioned Colosseum: Road to Freedom only had 2 arenas, 3 if you count the small tutorial one that never returned. This has tons, and they range from a small pit to a fenced off fight in the streets, to a villa's hallways and courtyard, to Jigsaw trapped environments, to a huge regal arena; and everything in between! The empire is also interesting aesthetically, you would expect just a vague Rome, and while that is there, there is also some broad East-Asian aesthetics as well as Persian, African, Greek, Byzantine, and even slightly more technologically advanced Europe in the early Middle Ages with bardiches and plate armor. It makes for a nice variety of locales and armor/weapons. And that variety is much needed in a game like this.

The roguelike experience is just great too, you find yourself getting addicted to the loop and the attachment you form with randomly generated gladiators is just perfect, along the same lines as attachment to characters in say Kenshi or Crusader Kings. There is just enough events and things to do in the menu between fights that it makes it enjoyable, though I would like some more by full release. The only real change I want right now is a dual-wielding option! And while I love the dismembering system, a little bit more blood and gore to follow after the body parts would be awesome. That's it! Keep trucking on Jordy, you got a good thing here!

Game was alright, dev had a meltdown and revealed they were a piece of shit and also crazy, claiming they were told by God to hate people who are different and fighting with every person in the community section of their game. Had a further meltdown and made a final community post named "DONE" and removed the game from the store. I don't need to play the game anymore, that's alright.

Colosseum: Road to Freedom came out 12 years before Domina and is a far better gladiator simulator. And recently We Who Are About to Die came out and just took Domina's concept and did it better in every way, and that indie dev isn't a piece of shit, good job.

Imagine being homophobic and transphobic, meanwhile basing your game off of the TV show Spartacus (and don't deny it, the game is full of references to the TV show, from using the phrase Jupiter's Cock to the flayed-man's face to character designs). Spartacus was a very politically forward show with gay main characters in every season who are respected as characters, even showing explicit gay relationships and sex, and also having a trans woman appear within the first four episodes.

So, I think Battle Brothers is very good with the potential to be great. But the truth is there are alternatives that are superior. A turn-based Mount & Blade + Jagged Alliance 2 with a dark fantasy setting is very appealing and cool. But eventually the loop becomes very repetitive with only a handful of ways to progress. If you really like that loop, this game can be a 5/5 game, but for me on the fourth or fifth campaign it got stale when other games like M&B or Wartales doesn't. It may click for you though, and if it does, hell yeah.

This game is only doable if you have a lot of free time and a lot of friends who also have a lot of free time. Attempting to do this game with a single friend helping me, and only coming on now and again is just impossible. We had fun at first, but the massive clans that can't be having fun with the game anymore just cut off entire sections of the army and destroy any small buildings across the map, when asked why, their answer was just, "It's the day of the week when we wipe the map." So, a house me and my friend has spent a half month on that was small and unimposing, that we had played as friendly and nice, helping others, was destroyed by a group of max-level no-lives. No. Not fun. Sorry. I can understand how it can be appealing, but only to those who make it their only game.

As a child I loved exploring video games.

Sure I still do to this day, but as the internet has grown and information is learned and posted at an incomprehensible pace a mystique has been lost. I remember talking to friends at school about hidden areas discovered that couldn't possibly exist, a secret strange monster in the woods that only spawns in rare circumstances (like the famous Bigfoot myth in GTA), an out of bounds glitch that reveals a fully made but surreal city in limbo, and more. While many of these were just folk stories and false tales; they were fun and felt genuinely like you were a scholar decoding ancient texts or finding some forgotten mythos or world. Me and my friends would also spend ages trying to find ways to get out of bands and explore those weird purgatory feeling areas in Tony Hawk games or others. That is gone now, maybe in the first few days of a release this exists but as time goes on there is nothing hidden or new, no mystique, everything is on a wiki or a YouTube video somewhere... Well... Not everything.

Animyst feels like everything I just described. An esoteric world that has been forgotten and never fully recorded or explored. And it is begging to be discovered. I love surrealness, Zdzisław Beksiński and Hieronymus Bosch are two of my favorite artists of all time and likewise video games that have this feeling count among my favorites, Planescape Torment, Morrowind, etc. This feels like you are delving into someone's dream or a sleeping but disturbed God's mind turned into a limbo you are able to explore. It's magical. The game is not good, I'm not gonna lie to you. The enemies are glitchy and not very fun to fight (although I believe there is massive potential, the weapons/spells in this game are insanely unique, well-animated, and even fun to use!). The world is vastly empty but there is... Something. The landscape and feelings of being in a dream is a worthwhile exploration. An oddity to look at.

Honestly? Too barebones, which is a shame since DW8XL is the most complete Dynasty Warriors to date. I still boot this up and now again, I'm slowly making custom characters of historical figures to replace the generic models they have in the game, that is cool at least. But the customization and events that happen here are genuinely way too small when measured up against SW4: Empires and even the earlier DW7: Empires. The mechanics here honestly remind me of an early access game, it feels unfinished. I would recommend the beforementioned Empires games over this game, and likewise would just recommend the base DW8: XL over this one if you're considering which DW8-line game to get.