In this Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous – The Lord of Nothing DLC Impressions article, we’ll be going through our thoughts on the game’s fifth DLC. What’s new in this adventure, who do we meet, and what kind of challenges can we expect to face? Let’s find out here!

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous – Lord of Nothing DLC Impressions

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Lord of Nothing DLC is an expansion for the CRPG based on the Pathfinder tabletop game. It is also the fifth and final DLC for the game.

Lord of Nothing picks up the unfinished story of Through the Ashes DLC, where you lead a group of Kenabres survivors into the realm of Sithhud. This time, you have a higher level cap (yet still retain the vibe of a small folks’ story), more class archetypes, more powerful weapons, and a charming new companion.

Just like its predecessor, Lord of Nothing features a standalone survivalist adventure, which only connects to the main campaign after you beat it while also potentially adding an extra encounter for your commander in the main campaign. The team of Kenabres survivors (the group you controlled in the previous DLC) continues its focus on a smaller scale, mid-level range adventure compared to the main campaign. You can import your characters from the end of Through the Ashes DLC, or create a group of new ones (in that case, you can choose the ending of Through the Ashes DLC). 

The Lord of Nothing

The DLC is divided into several mini-campaigns (or areas), and you face different enemies and environments in these areas. You must conclude the story in one area in order to advance to the next.

In the Lord of Nothing DLC, there are no endless demon hordes to slaughter, but several smaller yet well-crafted battles and encounters with very limited resources. This forces you to carefully plan, strategize, and calculate your next moves. You need to make your potions, items, and spells count. You will really need to plan your moves beforehand, otherwise, the whole team is doomed. The experience is challenging and entertaining at the same time. 

However, this might require a lot of saving and reloading due to the minimal number of rests and the composition of story companions (1 bard, 1 thief, and 1 sorcerer, with no tanks). Additionally, spell-casting builds feel a bit underwhelming. It’s best to play your main character with a tank or melee-focused build or rely on hirelings. The downside is that hirelings cost gold, and the resource is far more valuable in this DLC than in the main campaign. 

A Different Approach

Another issue is that magic weapons are much rarer in the DLC. If your character or build happens to rely on certain types of equipment, or you prefer certain types of weapons but there’s no good drop, then you will likely have some tough times.

Lord of Nothing encourages you to sneak past enemies to conserve your supplies in certain areas. However, placing a six-member team in these spaces feels frustrating. Luckily, only a part of the new areas have this issue. You can mostly just choose to focus on excellent combat strategies instead. 

Three’s Company, and a Story

The DLC also introduces a lovely new companion – Penta, a charming Android who accompanies you in the realm of Sithhud. Honestly, I wasn’t aware that androids were a thing in medieval high-fantasy settings, but the writers clearly nailed it. She’s really vivid, and detailed, and the voice acting is top-notch. In the end, you wish there could be more of her even in the main campaign.

Lord of Nothing’s story is also overall quite good. The cliffhanger left in Through the Ashes is resolved with a satisfying end. Without delving too deep into spoilers, one extra thing worth mentioning is that although your characters are still capped at medium levels (Level 10-11). 

Depending on how you play the DLC, you can have up to five endings. Some of these endings lead to very satisfying and complex fights for your main game characters in Act 5.

Puzzling Powers in the Lord of Nothing

This time you gain a story-related power called Shard Powers, which adds more flexibility to your character builds, and it does have an impact on the overall narrative. They function like the mythic powers in the main campaign, but each time you pick a shard, you need to decide which team member to take it. Also, absorbing shards brings your character debuffs. The more you take, the more debuffs you get which adds a nice way to balance things if you can really afford to get new powers. 

Also, there is good news for the players who hated the puzzles in the main game. There are still secrets here and there, but only one really difficult puzzle and you can skip it if you’d prefer not to wrack your brain over it. So no more mind-boggling experiences like exploring the Enigma. And there are no game-breaking bugs I encountered in my playthrough, which is a good improvement for Owlcat studio.

The new 15 archetypes (or subclasses) also add an extra layer to the already rich combat systems of the main game. Some of these archetypes come from official Pathfinder materials, while others are homebrew but still interesting to test. Now you can have more builds to explore for the enthusiasts.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the DLC feels satisfying. It provides a good quality of 10 to 20 hours of playtime and lets you experience the fight against demons from a different perspective than the commander. You certainly don’t want to miss this DLC if you are into CRPG games, especially if you have already played Through the Ashes.

Lord of Nothing was released on November 21, 2023, for PC and consoles. It retails for $12.99, and will of course require you to already own the base game. 

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Black Myth: Wukong is an upcoming third-person action RPG with stunning combat and graphics, and is based heavily on Chinese mythology. 

Black Myth: Wukong Everything We Know About the Upcoming Action RPG

In this article, we’re going to be checking out everything we know about Black Myth: Wukong. It is a third-person action RPG that has captured the gaming world’s attention with its visually stunning graphics, intriguing setting and lore, and an exciting-looking combat system. 

The game is being developed by Game Science Studio, and is an ambitious project that draws inspiration from the classic Chinese novel “Journey to the West.” We’ll be exploring the game’s various aspects, from the story, locations, the main character, and various systems.

Story and Setting

In “Black Myth: Wukong,” players step into the shoes of Sun Wukong, the legendary Monkey King. It is set in a fantastical version of ancient China, loosely based on the 16th-century Chinese novel “Journey to the West”. The game blends traditional mythology with a dark fantasy twist. Players can expect encounters with gods, demons, and other fantastical creatures as they unravel the main character’s mythical journey. 

Our main character is the Monkey King, Sun Wukong, who has been granted immortality. However, this immortality becomes both a blessing and a curse. His longevity allows him to witness centuries pass, but it also isolates him from mortal life. He can see the rise and fall of entire civilizations as he stays alone. The emotional toll of immortality eventually drags him down, leading us to some inner turmoil that the main character will hopefully express. 

In the source material Journey to the West, Sun Wukong is known for his incredible speed and strength as well as the ability to transform into various people, animals, and objects, all of which were displayed in the initial gameplay trailers for Black Myth: Wukong. 

He wields a magical black iron staff that can grow in size or shrink based on its owner’s commands, perfect for creating a weapon that could be used up close or at a medium range at a moment’s notice. 

According to the book, Wukong possesses several other abilities. He can also clone himself, use a cloud for traversal, and even leap entire buildings in a single bound (take that, Superman!). Being an ancient mythical figure also has its mystical perks, as Wukong has some degree of magic at his disposal. He can change or at the very least manipulate the weather itself, or even control and influence minor spirits.

Gameplay (Exploration)

The game world is vast and meticulously crafted. As players, we’ll traverse diverse landscapes—lush forests, towering mountains, ancient temples, and hidden caves. If Elden Ring taught us anything, every nook and cranny holds secrets waiting to be discovered.

No specific location names were given, except for “Fright Cliff”, an area that debuted in the Gamescom 2023 coverage. Given its namesake, the Fright Cliff is a rocky and expansive mountainous region. Despite brown being the main color palette used in the location, it was able to show off the game’s impressive lighting system that could depict a great contrast between sunny and darker areas. Additionally, light sources such as torches and magical runes stood out, further accentuating how “special” they looked. 

Black Myth: Wukong also doesn’t settle for static environments. Instead, it boasts dynamic weather patterns and a realistic day-night cycle. Rainstorms obscure visibility, snowfall blankets the ground, and fog shrouds mysterious corners. The stark contrast in weather types made things look much more believable and visually stunning. 

Gameplay (Combat)

Fluid Combat System

The game’s combat is heavily influenced by the Souls genre, an inspiration that it proudly wears on its sleeve. We have an ever-present stamina bar that depletes when performing actions like attacking, dodging, or running. The game also has a healing gourd similar to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, another game that draws inspiration from Asian culture. Sun Wukong wields his iconic staff, which transforms into various forms during battle. Timing, dodging, and mastering combos are essential for survival. 

Wukong will be able to swap through various stances (or forms) to be able to highlight a particular combat style at any given time. These are called Smash Form, Pillar Form, and Thrust Form. Like Lost Ark’s Glaivier class, Wukong can switch between specializing in stabbing and poking with his staff and using wide-angle sweeps. Players will also of course be able to chain hits together, beautifully weaving light and heavy attacks in a satisfying string of combo hits. 

We don’t know what other kinds of weapons Sun Wukong can make use of, at least in his base form. Footage has shown us that the staff can extend and shorten itself, allowing us to perfectly adapt to any situation. One of the more comedic scenes shows Sun Wukong extending his staff a few dozen meters, allowing him to perch up in the air as if taunting the incoming boss.

Black Myth Wukong also looks to be sitting in the spectrum between Lies of P, Sekiro, and Bloodborne, as it places great emphasis on speed and relentless offense instead of slower and more calculating attacks like you would see in the likes of Lords of the Fallen or Dark Souls. Due to the nature of the character, making the most of his agility will be paramount to victory.

Wukong can’t even block enemy hits. Instead, you will need to rely on staying on your toes by dancing around the battlefield either by simply running around, jumping, or dodging. Evading can also be leaned onto the offensive side, as the developers have teased that there’s an unlock later on that will create a phantom copy of yourself from where you evaded that will automatically counterattack any enemy that tries to attack it. 

Three’s Plenty

Another skill that Sun Wukong generously makes use of is his ability to create clones of himself right out of thin air. This will have many practical combat applications in Black Myth: Wukong, the most obvious of which is to make distractions that can lead the enemy in a certain direction, opening them up to some well-timed back attacks.

Alternatively, it looks like the clones can even deal a small amount of damage, given that there are enough of them. Sun Wukong’s clones can swarm enemies, all the while hitting them with sticks that seem just as painful as our main character’s. 

Shapeshifting Abilities

Sun Wukong’s ability to transform into different creatures almost immediately adds tons of strategic depth and options in combat. Whether you become an agile insect, a hulking beast, or something in between, each form grants unique skills. Adaptability is key in intense battles, where switching forms at the right moment can turn the tide.

One form that was shown off is the humble Cicada. This bug form is heavily showcased in some of the earlier parts of the trailers, setting the stage for some monologue and story exposition. We don’t know just yet whether the Cicada form will be usable in combat, as it looks as if this has no practical way of dealing damage. Perhaps the one biggest use it could have is to dodge enemy attacks as an emergency button.

Wukong can also take the form of some defeated enemies, though probably not all of them. Some footage includes the character transforming into a massive grey feline who traded staff strikes for bate hand (or claw) brawling. This form lets Wukong deal massive AoE damage to everything in the nearby vicinity. The transformation also lets him jump up into the air and crash down into foes, which knocks them back giving you some much-needed breathing room. 

He also turned into a fiery martial artist, who can set his staff ablaze. It looks like this transformation makes Wukong move even faster, while also stylishly charring enemies to a crisp. 

Another form that was shown was some sort of creature that looked as if it fell face-first into some rock and soil. There’s no easy way to describe this transformation, as it looks as odd as it sounds. Since the creature is quite literally just a mud ball with legs, it doesn’t make use of traditional attacks. Instead, it rams itself into enemies to deal damage. Alternatively, it can just fall over and break off the extra grime and dirt, letting Wukong return to his normal monkey self. 

Other forms from various gameplay demos have also shown off a firey wolf form and poisonous creature forms. 

In the book, Wukong can transform into over 70 distinct forms. This would be highly impractical (not to mention difficult) to implement in a video game, so only the best of the best of his forms will make it into Black Myth: Wukong. 

Bossing Around

Another of the most striking features of the game is the emphasis on boss fights and mini-boss fights. The trailer showcases a variety of enemies, some of them huge in size and scope, such as the dragon fight that resembles a Monster Hunter World encounter. Bosses come in all sizes as well, as you have some human-sized opponents that you will need to contend with. The game seems to focus more on these epic and challenging battles than on the level design and the enemies in between. 

Black Myth: Wukong’s Big Focus on Boss Fights is also an exciting affair, as these encounters will take place in unique “arenas” specific to each enemy. We have seen some majestic areas, such as in front of a massive bell tower, a burning courtyard, and even a frozen lake. 

Certain arenas will also help highlight the various technologies that the game uses. The Macaque Chief boss on the mountaintops is full of snow-covered terrain. This dynamically moves in respect to your and the bosses’ actions, making quite the visual spectacle, provided you can pay enough attention not to get his. Another boss called the Tiger Vanguard sits in a pool of blood that will act very much like water, creating ripples and splashes when needed. Hopefully, your blood won’t add to the already messy pool.  

Just like in the novel, Sun Wukong often faces off against these larger-than-life entities, gods, demons, and other mythical creatures. Oftentimes in extreme grandeur as well. 

Gameplay (Leveling Up, Customization, etc.)

Skill Trees and Progression

Customization plays a significant role in Sun Wukong’s journey. Skill trees will players to allocate points, enhance combat prowess, unlock new moves, and improve survivability. However there has been no coverage yet on specific skill tree unlocks, what kind of perks you may have, or even if there will be an in-depth leveling system where you can allocate points to certain attributes. Unlike Elden Ring, you aren’t a generic character in Black Myth Wukong so there is a certain assumption on what kind of fighter you may be. 

A lot of the progression will likely come from gaining and upgrading spells that you receive from certain bosses, such as The Pluck of Many (the clone summon ability), Immobilize (freeze enemies in place), Stone Solid (freeze yourself in place), and Ring of Fire (burn everything that’s not you). 

It is also said that there will be certain spell interactions that the player can learn that may not be too apparent at the start. For example, drinking a healing gourd will be more effective when you’re inside your Ring of Fire, as compared to when you take a swig outside of it. Perhaps Wukong just really likes to watch the world burn. 

Equipment and Upgrades

You’ll discover powerful artifacts, armor, and weapons throughout your adventure. Upgrading gear is essential for survival. Balancing offense, defense, and utility becomes a strategic choice. There haven’t been any specifics yet on what types of gear you’ll be able to place onto Wukong.

Players will also collect various potions and elixirs to use to help enhance certain combat capabilities, depending on whether they want to offset some of their weaknesses or lean heavily toward one stat group. 

Black Myth: Wukong Release Date and Sale Price

As of now, no official release date has been announced. However, it has been speculated that the title will be released sometime in the Summer of 2024 which may or may not coincide with Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. 

Black Myth: Wukong is expected to be a premium title that will cost $69.99, given its ambitious approach to the soulslike genre. Its visual quality, exciting combat, and different lore focus seem like they will make it worth the price of admission for action RPG fans. 

The game has already been in development for several years, following its initial announcement back in February 2020. Black Myth: Wukong’s initial interest was sparked by the title’s extremely impressive visuals and intriguing focus on a different mythology. It was originally developed using Unreal Engine 4, but later on, swapped to the newer Unreal Engine 5. This is so that the developers could leverage the advanced engine’s capabilities, and create even more visually stunning graphics. 

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In this Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2 article, we’ll be going through everything we know about the third-person shooter so far.

Space Marine 2: Everything We Know About The Upcoming Third-Person 40k Shooter

Space Marine 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to the 2011 third-person shooter of the same name, Warhammer 40k: Space Marine. This time around, the sequel is being developed by Saber Interactive and published by Focus Entertainment. The game is set in the grimdark sci-fi universe of Warhammer 40k, where humanity is beset by countless enemies, both alien and heretical. 

Story and Setting

The game follows the exploits of Lieutenant Titus, an Ultramarine and a veteran of countless battles, as he leads his squad of Space Marines against the Tyranid invasion of the planet Sedna.

For those who aren’t familiar with the lore, a Space Marine is a superhuman warrior and agent of the Imperium of Mankind. They are considered the Emperor’s greatest defenders. They are further divided into Chapters, each with their own cultures, histories, and practices. 

Space Marines are genetically enhanced and undergo rigorous conditioning to become the ultimate warriors of destruction that can be pitted against any enemy in any environment. They wield massive weapons that normal humans could never even dream of using, such as fully automatic Bolters, deadly chainswords, and plasma guns. 

The Space Marines tower over humans, with their average height being about 8 feet tall but are made even more gargantuan with their massive power armor. The presence of a Space Marine is quite rare, as evidenced by their absence in Warhammer 40k: Darktide, or the fact that there is only one of them (so far) in Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader. Usually, Space Marines are called in as a last line of defense for the Imperium of Mankind. Grey Knights, which were the main forces in Warhammer 40k: Daemonhunter, are even rarer and are reserved for apocalyptic levels of emergencies. Most citizens of the Imperium can go through their entire lives without even hearing about the Space Marines. 

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2 picks up what looks to be a few years after the first game. Titus was seen being taken away by the Inquisition, the Imperium’s branch that sniffs out heresy before it takes root, due to his exposure to the Warp at the end of Space Marine 1. It looks like he made his way out somehow, and finds himself on the planet Sedna, an Imperial world that has been besieged by the Tyranids, a race of destructive creatures that lay waste to entire galaxies in their quest to absorb any biomass that they come across.

It will be up to the Space Marines to stop this insurmountable foe from gaining even more foothold in the sector. Leaving the Tyranids unchecked will spell doom for the entire galaxy, and not just Sedna. 

Gameplay and Features

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2 is a third-person shooter that combines brutal melee combat with ranged weapons and abilities. The game will feature a solo campaign, as well as a 3-player co-op campaign, where players can team up with up to two of their friends or other online players to face off against the Tyranid hordes. 

The game will retain the core gameplay mechanics of the first game, such as the regenerating health system, the fury meter, the brutally satisfying executions, and the weapon swapping. Space Marine 2 also looks to continue the trend of not introducing a cover system at all. Puny walls aren’t needed when the Space Marines themselves are the cover. 

Speaking of which, Space Marine 2 puts a heavy emphasis on the grandeur of the Space Marines themselves. As they are literally walking tanks of fury, players will immediately feel the sheer scale and weight of the Space Marines. The ground shakes whenever Titus charges at a hapless foe, even more so when he gets into melee range and starts striking his enemies. 

Space Marine 2 is all about fulfilling the fantasy of becoming a titular Space Marine and becoming an avatar of wrath, brutality, and destruction. 

Melee Combat

Melee is as satisfying as ever, letting players engage in a cacophony of violence with every weapon swing. We see the return of fan favorites, such as the chainsword, eviscerating hapless Tyranids with ease. Those with tougher armor will require a bit more effort to take down but is made easier with more defensive options.

New to Space Marine 2 is a simple yet effective parry and blocking system. Certain foes can be parried in melee, staggering them for a brief moment and opening them up to instant kill execution moves or a quick shot to the face. Another very entertaining new move is that Titus can catch enemies mid-air, and then thrash them into the ground for massive damage. He can even cut them in half with his chainsword if he has it out. 

Titus can also gain access to a Jump Pack, presumably at set points in the game just like in the first one. This will let you become an Assault Marine that can fly into the air, only to cannonball down into a group of foes, sending everything flying and to their doom. Smashing yourself into bunched-up enemies never got old in the first game, so it’s interesting to see how frequently we’ll be able to make use of the Jump Packs here. 

Battlefields eventually become littered with corpses, body parts, and other debris, giving you a satisfying sense of pride and accomplishment after every combat encounter. 

Ranged combat

Titus and the Space Marines will have a lot of options when it comes to ranged combat. Aside from mowing down enemies with your regular Bolter gun, players can also pick up Auto Bolt Rifles, Bolt Carbines, Meltaguns, Heavy Bolters, and Plasma Incinerators. 

The interesting options here are the Meltagun, Heavy Bolter, and the Plasma Incinerator. Meltaguns shoot out a small burst of superheated energy that can tear through lesser foes while stunning some of the more elite ones. Heavy Bolters are massive weapons that can tear through enemies with their superior rate of fire coupled with explosive rounds. These are more limited, however, and cannot be reloaded so you can only use them sparingly. Last is the Plasma Incinerator, which launches a bolt of pure energy that is capable of melting armor. 

This isn’t to say that other weapons aren’t effective. Even the simple Bolter gun is capable of violently tearing apart any foe, be it large or small. 

Cooperative Play

Space Marine 2’s cooperative mode will include up to three players in a group. There are only three characters, Lieutenant Titus, Brother Chairon, and Brother Gadriel. Chairon and Gadriel will be AI-controlled in case you prefer not to engage in the multiplayer mode. 

All three of the Space Marines will fundamentally play the same in the sense that you are all hardened walking tanks. You will have the same basic moves in melee and have the same options when it comes to weapon choices.

However, each of the characters has a unique ultimate ability they can unleash when they reach maximum Fury. Titus looks like he will be retaining his defiant roar which makes him more dangerous while in melee range. Chairon can scan the area and mark enemies for everyone to see. Perhaps it will be like the Veteran in Darktide, wherein he immediately draws attention to high-priority targets, instead of just highlighting everything that moves. Lastly, Gadriel has some explosive munitions available only to him, so it looks like he might be fun if you’re into pyrotechnics.

There’s also a revive system in place in case one of you falls in battle, allowing the standing Marines to try and bring the other back into the fight. 

It hasn’t been announced just yet whether the multiplayer will have any form of cross-platform or cross-progression support. 

Space Marine 2: Enemies of the Imperium

The Tyranid Swarm

Space Marine 2’s visuals are a huge step up from the 2011 original, both in terms of the technical side as well as the artistic direction. Due to the developers’ choice of limiting the sequel to current-gen consoles and PCs only, they can create some very intimidating displays. 

The Tyranid Swarm is constantly on full display in Space Marine 2, be it up close or at a distance. There are some moments when you can see that this is truly a war because of the scale of everything. Some scenes even contain hundreds of Tyranids flying around the battlefield, creating chaos in their wake. The aliens are so many that they become a literal sea of horrors, ever-flowing closer to you and your allies. The technology being used here is impressive, as each of these are individual entities in the game world that you can shoot at. 

As the Tyranids are on a full-scale assault here, we can see a wide variety of strains here. Everything from the cannon fodder Termagants to the iconic Tyranid Warriors who wield bone swords, to even psychic Zoanthropes are represented in the game. As expected, each type of Tyranid will have its own unique behavior. 

Termagants and Hormagaunts will try to swarm and overwhelm the player, as they are weak individually. The bigger Tyaranid Warriors will face Titus head-on, either in direct melee or with venom cannons that can penetrate even a Space Marine’s hardened power armor. 

There are also airborne horrors that you will need to attend to. Spore Mines are floating sacs of explosive poison that launch themselves at their enemies. 

The Forces of Chaos

Also introduced in one of the latter trailers for Space Marine 2 was the return of the forces of Chaos. Specifically, we see that the Thousand Suns traitor Legion being represented here, who are devout followers of the Chaos God of Change and Sorcery, Tzeentch. This is further confirmed in the trailer footage by the presence of a Silver Tower, a demonic engine that is often used by the Thousand Suns as a mobile fortress that can transport troops over great distances, or even act as an energy battery to help supply magic users with unholy powers. 

Chaos Space Marines will prove to be a different challenge entirely to the Tyranids and will require a different approach to take them out effectively. For one, they will not swarm you with numbers and try to kill you in a battle of attrition. Instead, Chaos Space Marines are also formidable in their own right, being Space Marines themselves. They have been trained and equipped similarly to Titus and his Battle-Brothers, but have the bonus of being touched by Chaos.

Essentially this means they have demonic powers under their belt, which often take the form of dangerous Warp powers from their Sorcerors or mutations that greatly enhance their speed and strength. Oftentimes, the forces of Chaos would summon lesser demons to do their bidding and act as cannon fodder to spread disarray in their enemies’ ranks. 

What sets the Thousand Suns apart from other Chaos Space Marines is their affinity to magic and their “thrall” soldiers. The Thousand Suns have suffered from a curse known as the “Rubric of Ahriman” that was supposed to cleanse them of their imperfections. Instead, the bodies of the non-psychic turned to ash. The ranks of the Thousand Suns became, and still is, a mass of animated armor devoid of any free will. 

Only two specific types of Chaos foes were shown off, the Scarab Occult Terminators and the Exalted Sorcerers. The first are powerful Terminator armors that have been animated by the essence of former soldiers. Exalted Sorcerers are just that – extremely powerful magic users. 

Release Date and Platforms

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2 is expected to launch this “Winter”, although no specific date has been announced yet. This could mean any time from now up until the early months of 2024. The game will be available for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam. The game is a current-gen exclusive, which means it will not be released for PS4 or Xbox One. This decision is highly likely due to the way they are presenting the grandeur of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. As alluded to earlier, making use of current-gen hardware lets the developers run wild with their imaginations, specifically with the huge number of enemies that can appear on screen at once.

The game also called for a beta test, where eager players could get early access to a preview build of the game, and provide feedback to the developers. It looks like the beta test is available for all platforms, and will feature a smaller portion of the solo campaign. 

Space Marine 2: Final Thoughts

As it stands from all of the trailer footage, Saber Interactive and Focus Home Entertainment are set on capturing lightning in a bottle. They have extremely large shoes to fill, as the first game was a cult classic that could be considered one of the best Warhammer 40,000 games of all time. However, it looks like they have all the ingredients they need to make this second entry a success. They have an amazing look and feel nailed down, alongside a new apocalyptic-level threat looming over the horizon. The essence of the first’s gameplay looks to also have been preserved quite well but enhanced tenfold. Also, the addition of a co-op mode is sure to bring in even more fans. 

It looks like fans of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise will eat well this Winter Season as they will have Space Marine 2 and Rogue Trader to look forward to. 

If you enjoyed this preview, be sure to check out Everything We Know on Darktide and Rogue Trader. 

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The Starbites: Taste of Desert is the turn-based RPG equivalent of Borderlands with big guns and explosions. But this time, players will make use of mechanical robots or Mecca. 

The Starbites: Taste of Desert Is A Turn-Based RPG That Is Reminiscent of Borderlands

Set in the desert planet known as Bitter, The Starbites: Taste of Desert will have you explore the once serene landscape, which antagonistic groups of AI have overrun. Unfortunately, space wars could not be avoided, especially with the limited technology known to humanity. 

These AI roaming Bitter became increasingly aggressive, and so it is up to you and your companions to build the best Meccas there are to fight back.

Exploration At Its Core

Bitter isn’t the only planet on the horizon. You will be making your way to more of these while discovering the inner areas like in the Borderlands games. With the cel-shaded art style, it will remind players of the planet of Pandora. One of the goals of exploration is to gather as many materials to upgrade your weapons and of course, improve your Meccas. And the further you go, the more friends you will meet along the way who will fight alongside you. 

In a trailer they released a year ago, players can see an orange-haired girl named Lukida who goes around Delight City and passes different districts along the way. There is a repair shop, information hub, as well as a store containing several clothes to choose from. This could be hinting at your ability to swap clothes and shoes to further customize your character. 

On top of this, there is also a central hub that goes by the name of Delight City. Sounds delightful, doesn’t it? This is where major characters interact with each other to conduct transactions and trade the materials that they need. Delight City claims to have a special hidden area consisting of unique NPCs and items but they will leave much to be desired. IKINAGAMES did not provide any hints as to what these are.

Lastly, the end of every chapter contains a boss that you will need to defeat before moving forward in the story. So unless you have the necessary skills and improved Mecca by your side, then grinding for materials is the way to go.

Upgrading Meccas

As mentioned previously, upgrading your Meccas is done by collecting essential materials scattered throughout the planets. But there is an alternative to this. In combat, as long as you are capable of destroying your foes and knocking them down, then you will receive valuable rewards to improve Meccas. 

However, according to the Steam page, not much customization information has been released. Based on the trailers though, it does not seem to be as deep as the systems we have seen in Armored Core. 

A Look At Turn-Based Combat

Unlike the first-person shooter gameplay of Borderlands, The Starbites: Taste of Desert is turn-based. This means that players must come up with ideal party compositions to bring on the battlefield to defeat the big baddies. The synergy between them is of utmost importance like in Honkai: Star Rail where a party should be comprised of at least 2 members with different elements. Otherwise, it will be challenging to defeat one round of enemies after another.

As expected though, battles in the game are exhilarating and flashy. Initially, you see Lukida controlling her mechanical robot and blazing through a desert path using its thrusters. This is then followed by fast-paced combat where the Mecca whips through the AI enemy using its left electronic forearm followed by plasma blasts and a burst ball of energy redirected against the same target. There is even a scene where a skill similar to a rain of arrows has managed to render the opposing robot stunned. 

Next, you can see a companion by the name of Gwen-dol who decides to use her Mecca as a shield and decides to shoot enemies from behind. She can also use it as a maneuvering pad to jump up in the air and blast targets from this distance to catch them by surprise and make it challenging for them. When it is the AI’s turn though, preparing for the worst is the best available option because of how painful the damage is, especially when they incinerate a bunch of homing missiles at your party. 

Take a Bite with the Starbites

The combat looks snappy and exciting so if you are searching for a fast-paced turn-based RPG, then you may want to add The Starbites: Taste of Desert to your wishlist! The game is developed and published by IKINAGAMES and it will be released sometime in 2024 via PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. 

In other news, check out Leak: Dragon’s Dogma 2 Release Date?; Capcom Announces 15 Minute Showcase Nov 28th and Unicorn Overlord Gets New Details on the Tactical RPG. 

The post The Starbites: Taste of Desert Is A Turn-Based RPG That Is Reminiscent of Borderlands appeared first on Fextralife.

In this Warhammer Age of Sigmar Realms of Ruin Review, I want to talk about my first impressions of the game. I’ve been playing it on and off for the last week or so. I want to tell you what I like about the game, what I don’t like about the game, and whether I think you should spend money to buy this game or wait for a sale. If you’re a Warhammer fan, this is probably a game that you’ve been keeping an eye on.

Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin Review

What is Age of Sigma Realms of Ruin?

So first, let’s talk a bit about what Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin is. This is a Warhammer RTS and it plays a bit like an RTS but it plays a bit like a MOBA. When I first thought of Age of Sigmar Realms of Ruin, when I first saw the gameplay and I heard of a Warhammer RTS, immediately my thoughts went to Dawn of War. Now obviously, Dawn of War is in the 40K Universe, it’s a bit different, but in terms of tactical real-time strategy, that’s sort of what I was expecting from this game.

I love the Dawn of War series. Obviously, Dawn of War 1 is my favorite. Dawn of War 2 was not quite as good, while Dawn of War 3 we don’t talk about. I will say for the faults that I find with Age of Sigmar Realms of Ruin, I really like the tactical nature of combat. Characters move slowly, they have abilities that you can use, and fights aren’t over immediately so there is room for maneuvering. Elevation plays a big role, the direction your troops are facing plays a big role, and the way they’re positioned is important. So there is a big tactical nature to combat.

Resources and Currency

So first, let’s talk about one of the things that I really loved about the tactical nature of Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin. The abilities of units are tied to two resources in the game that you use to generate units with. You have to decide, do you want to spend your currency to win this fight that’s in front of you, or do you want to spend your currency to create more units? So maybe you spend your currency and you win that fight, but then you can’t create any more units and then you lose the next fight. If you don’t spend the currency and your units die, but then you generate new units to replace them you’d really win.

Making tough decisions in combat about when to spend your currency to gamble it on winning that fight, is it better than creating new units or upgrading the units that you have? I think it’s a really, really cool concept and I really enjoyed how that played out throughout the game.

Audio, Sounds and Voice Acting

I also really, really enjoy the sound effects of the game. The voice acting is top-notch, and the sound effects of the game are top-notch. It really immerses you into that Warhammer Age of Sigmar Universe where you feel like you’re inside the game and you’re part of the campaign. I wouldn’t go out all the way to say that this is a triple-A production because it really doesn’t feel like a AAA production, but it’s somewhere between AA and AAA when it comes to the sound quality of the game.

RTS or MOBA

Let’s talk about some of the things that I think players should be concerned with if they are RTS fans, Dawn of War fans. This might not be an issue for some of those players, but the game plays more like a MOBA than it does a real-time strategy. What I mean by that is there’s no real base-building element in Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin.

Unlike Dawn of War where you would create your buildings and create your units from those buildings and create defenses, etc., and build resource generators, there is not a lot of building in this game. You generally have a headquarters that populates on a map at a certain point and then you can create towers on top of certain areas of the map that are either defensive or generate resources. Forces are coming at you and you’re sending forces out and it’s kind of this seesaw tug-of-war battle pretty much through any map you’re doing.

Even campaigns feel like they are dictated by this mechanic and it seems like they built the campaign around MOBA mechanics rather than created a separate mode of game mode for multiplayer and created the campaign separately. They’re sort of weaved together in the Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin campaign. I’m not a huge fan of MOBAs in general and if you played Dawn of War 3 then you know that that’s kind of the direction Dawn of War 3 went.

This game doesn’t feel exactly like Dawn of War I in my opinion, but it does kind of have that MOBA concept mixed into it that I’m not really a fan of. I prefer the base building, I prefer that sort of element of the game. But if you’re someone who doesn’t mind not having base building and your sole focus is tactical combat, then that won’t be an issue for you.

Factions and Units

Another issue that I found that I had problems with was that there’s only four factions available in this game at launch and there is not a ton of units per faction. I found myself, you know, six seven missions into the campaign like already starting to feel like, ‘Is this it? Like, when are the cool things going to happen?’ and it felt like I’d already unlocked most of the stuff that I would be using throughout the campaign.

I just thought Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin doesn’t feel like it was fully done. It feels like it needs another four factions or so, or three, you know, somewhere to have a good seven or eight factions, especially since there’s a huge multiplayer element of this game where they’re really encouraging people to play one-on-one or 2v2 in terms of multiplayer modes to have more selection of units and more variety of gameplay.

I know they are planning to add more factions to this game in the future and I don’t know whether those will be paid or not. I highly suspect they will if you’re familiar with any of Warhammer business models. They typically have factions added as an expansion of some kind that then cost you money. I’d expect that to be the case here as well, so it’ll probably cost you more money than the $54 or whatever it is right now on Steam for this game. Probably what should have been charged $54. I don’t think that playing, paying $54 or $59.99 or whatever it is locally for you is a good value for what you’re getting from this game unless you plan to play multiplayer a lot.

I would personally recommend waiting for those factions to get added to the game and then buying like a Gold Edition or sort of bundle that comes at a similar price it is now to really get that value out of it. And again, that’s only if you’re probably going to play a lot of multiplayer and you like MOBA gameplay. If you’re someone who really likes Dawn of War or you like RTSs in general and you like that sort of base building and then fighting mix, this doesn’t really have that in this game.

Realms of Ruin is Challenging

One thing that I will add is that Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin is quite challenging, even on like normal game mode. There’s four difficulties, even on like normal I was getting my butt whooped pretty good at the beginning. Admittedly, I’m a little bit rusty at RTSs. You know, there are not a lot of RTSs out these days, there’s not a lot to choose from and that’s one of the reasons I was very interested in this game.

I love, love RTSs. They’ve kind of gone by the wayside in the last decade or two and every time a new RTS comes out I get excited because I’m like, ‘Oo, I love Starcraft, I love Warcraft, I love some of these games, Age of Empires.’ I love these sort of real-time strategy games and I really wanted to see how this one was. I’m a huge fan of Warhammer and frankly, it’s fun but it’s just not quite right up my alley.

I definitely finished the campaign of this game because I like Warhammer so much but I don’t think if I had to buy this game, which I got the code for free, I don’t think I would have paid full price for it and would have been happy with the price for one playthrough because I probably won’t play multiplayer. But if you plan to play multiplayer and you’re like a big PVP Warhammer person, you might really appreciate this game a lot more.

So that kind of wraps up my first impressions of the game. What do you guys think so far? For those of you who played, there was like a demo or a beta I think back in July of this year. For those of you who played it then or who played the game, what do you guys think? Let me know in the comments.

Want more Reviews? Be sure to not miss out on Remnant II The Awakened King DLC Review and Lords of The Fallen Review 2023.

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It’s been almost three months since Remnant II was released and Gunfire Games has been working tirelessly to provide an even better experience to their player base. Not only have they pushed a couple of balance patches and improvements over the past few months, but they also put together a brand new DLC.

The Awakened King is the highly anticipated DLC and serves as the first of three DLCs that Gunfire Games has promised to their fans, with the later two coming out sometime next year. In this in-depth review, we will be covering The Awakened King’s story and setting, the latest additions, and more. Most importantly, is it worth picking up? Let’s find out.

Remnant II The Awakened King DLC Review

Story and Setting

The Awakened King DLC builds upon the existing lore of the biome of Losomn where the worlds of the Fae and Dran merged, throwing both sides into an ever-growing disastrous conflict. In the past, the Dran were peaceful creatures. However, they have now evolved into group-minded creatures that can be easily provoked into madness and they are willing to do anything to protect their kind.

On the other hand, The Fae, once an organized and highly respected race, have lost their sense of direction. They are now tormented by an insatiable craving for the life force of the Dran, which has made them hostile towards them, seeing them as inferior beings.

In the base game, the Traveler was involved in the Fae’s internal conflict where the One True King had been forced into a long slumber by traitors. He has now been awakened, angry and violent, and threatens to bring chaos and destruction to the already ravaged world.

You as the Traveler will return to Losomn to determine the situations of both sides and unravel the deeper mysteries revolving around the One True King’s purpose and rampage of revenge. As a player who loves the world of Losomn in general, my curiosity about how the events would unfold was extremely high.

The moment I set foot into the new area, I found myself eagerly wanting to explore my surroundings and determine the situation of the land. Right off the bat, I met new NPCs who provided me with useful information about what was happening or how to progress. Eventually, I met returning NPCs as well.

My first few hours in the DLC were filled with excitement, as I was eager to know the answers to my questions regarding the story. As I dived deeper and ultimately reached the ending of the DLC, I found the conclusions a little bit underwhelming, even after exploring both outcomes.

Gameplay

One of the highlights of Remnant II: The Awakened King is the introduction of new items, Weapons, Armor, Mutators, and Trinkets. Players can expect to find powerful new weapons and gear that will aid them in their fight against The Awakened King. Each of these newly added items is worth checking as they offer unique effects that can further bolster existing builds.

Not only do we have a lot of new toys to play with, but the greatest addition that the DLC provided is a new archetype, the Ritualist, offering a new playstyle and abilities to experiment and tinker with. A DPS Archetype that mainly relies on status effects infliction, I can already see the potential of it just by looking at its kit.

Additionally, the DLC raises the Trait cap to 85, allowing players to further customize their builds that strengthen their overall prowess. This adds another layer of progression and depth to the game, giving players more reasons to continue playing and exploring.

Players can now expect a static overworld or general area that is full of secrets. During the player’s first playthrough, the DLC will set itself to a One Shot Mode. This mode will let players undergo a pre-determined layout and set of dungeons, intended for a first playthrough. The caveat is, that it can only be accessed once. Hence the name.

The developers were clear about this as they wanted to experiment and effectively convey the story through having a static-level design. I for one love this feature, as they can freely give their efforts and focus on improving certain levels in a much more detailed way. Also, I love the fact that I can remember the locations of the available dungeon openings in the overworld. Looking for an unexplored dungeon in a randomized space felt like a chore in the base game.

On the flip side of things, players who love to have a randomized experience can still enjoy the DLC. After clearing the first playthrough, the overworld will remain the same however, the contents of the optional dungeons will be randomized. After the One Shot Mode, expect to have previously explored optional dungeons in Losomn appear in the DLC area.

Along with new areas, a new set of enemies and bosses has been introduced in the DLC. Although there are only a handful of new enemies added to Remnant II, each of them is distinct and they should not be taken lightly. Each new enemy type has its own strengths and weaknesses for you to figure out and during my time, every enemy kept me on my toes, and letting my guard down in most cases resulted in my imminent death, especially when playing on Apocalypse.

As expected, I found the major Bosses interesting and well thought out. I was given the opportunity to fight two of them and they rewarded me with shiny items and a satisfying experience. There were lots of exciting mechanics for me to figure out which led to engaging and fun encounters.

Design, Audio, and Visual

Let’s talk about Design, Audio, and Visuals. As with the base game, The Awakened King features great visuals and atmospheric-level design. Although I did not notice any improvements in its overall graphic fidelity, one can clearly see that Gunfire Games put a lot of effort into level design and progression. Especially on the DLC’s overworld or main area.

As Bloodborne fans, we all know that Losomn was somewhat inspired by it, so we can’t help but want to see more of this world. And the DLC did a great job of granting this desire, expanding my favorite biome.

Each section is distinct and intricately crafted, making exploration satisfying and immersive. I can clearly picture the sections I’ve been through during my first playthroughs. From the perilous docks of Forlorn Coast with an ominous lighthouse on it, newly designed sewers, and inner slums where danger lurks on every corner, to the city street’s plaza that will offer anyone a nice view of the towering castle.

The overall level design offers a mix of the staggering amount of open environments which I appreciate with tight corridors and spaces that keep players on their toes. Coupled with strong and immersive ambient sounds and OSTS that will set anyone’s mood to the right tone.

Voice acting on the other hand is no slouch. A high quality of voice acting can still be expected which adds life and defines the characters of the newly added NPCs in the DLC.

The developers did a great job of presenting their new world and I can’t help but think about what the next areas of the upcoming DLC look like.

Performance-wise, I have not encountered any game-breaking bugs that halted my progress or ruined my immersion. Although I experienced some stutters even with the latest drivers installed, though these subsided after a couple of game restarts, and generally the performance was pretty smooth. I played the game with the following specs, RTX 3060, 32 GB RAM, and a Ryzen 9 7950x, the game’s performance is averaging between 80 to 100 FPS at 2k resolution.

Replayability & Pricepoint

The Awakened King offers more hours of loot hunting and satisfying areas to explore which are full of secrets. Expect three to five hours on each playthrough according to the developers. But be reminded that you need to play with subsequent playthroughs to get everything that the DLC can offer.

One can easily get more than 10 hours of game time depending on your RNG. Your mileage may vary greatly because of this. Personally, my first playthrough took 6 hours and the second one took 4 hours. Having two subsequent playthroughs done, I felt that I had barely scratched the surface and wanted to dig further.

Having a price tag of $9.99, I believe players who will get the DLC will get their money’s worth if they decide to seek out everything that The Awakened King has to offer. However, players who want just buy this DLC for the story or play it as a one-time thing are encouraged to wait for a sale.

Final Thoughts

Remnant II: The Awakened King offers a substantial amount of new content and enhancements to the base game, and the new areas, items, and NPCs provide a fresh and exciting experience for players to enjoy. The increased trait cap and new archetype add reasonable depth to character progression and offer new playstyles to explore that can be enjoyed for dozens of hours. For the fans of the series, this is a slam dunk.

If you enjoyed this review be sure to check out more of our Reviews in Lords of The Fallen Review 2023 and Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Review. You can also check out our Remnant 2 guides.

The post Remnant II The Awakened King DLC Review appeared first on Fextralife.

Granblue Fantasy Relink is a beautiful-looking upcoming Action-RPG with an anime aesthetic. But does this fast-paced combat title have enough to stand out in a crowd of JRPGs? We take a look at everything we know about the upcoming title including party combat, co-op, story, gameplay and more.

Granblue Fantasy Relink: What We Know So Far About the Action-RPG

Features

• Fast-paced Action-RPG combat with solo/AI co-op party gameplay
• Online co-op with up to four players
• Linear world with wide open spaces
• Roughly 20 hours of main quest gameplay with further hours with endgame content
• Over 100 hours in the hardest difficulty mode
• Recruitable crewmates to assist you in battle
• Fill the Link gauge to stun enemies
• Use Skybound Arts to chain damage with party members causing a Chain Burst, and emitting an aftershock.
• Each characters has unique abilities and can learn new talents with customisable weapons and sigils

Story, Setting, and the Sky Realm

Granblue Fantasy Relink is actually a spinoff of the series. Even if you haven’t played a Granblue game before you can dive right into this one as it features a brand-new story. Unlike the Granblue Fantasy mobile game, this isn’t a gacha game. It’s also different from Granblue Fantasy Versus as all characters in Relink are unlockable within the game without additional DLCs and it features a vibrant 3D world.

It takes place in the Sky realm or Skydom. These floating islands exist in the sea of clouds. This dreamy-like world hasn’t always been at peace though, as the Astrals tried to seize control of it roughly 500 years ago, but the citizens fought them back. For now, the world is tranquil, but you get a sense of “not for long”.

The Sky Realm is also home to a number of different races and civilisations. These include your usual humans but also more fantasy races such as the Erunes who have large animal-like ears. Then there are the Harvins who are smaller folk, and if you’ve played Final Fantasy XIV, they’re somewhat similar to the Lalafells. Harvins excel at business and seem to possess a lot of wisdom. Lastly, the Draphs who tower above all others, are great at labour-intensive skills such as construction and blacksmithing.

Players will start their adventure by finding a letter left behind by their father, which speaks of a legendary island. This seems to inspire the character to captain a crew and set off for this mysterious island. However, before getting the chance to do so, they meet a girl called Lyria. This meeting causes all kinds of events to unfold which is hinted to be fated. Along the way, players will meet a colourful cast of characters who can become crewmates. There are kings, misfits and more, so expect a real motley crew to join your party.

Now as I mentioned all isn’t well in this world because you have greater beings called Astral. They created the Primal Beasts, these creatures possess some extraordinary god-like powers. After the war they lay dormant, slumbering somewhere in the skies but have greatly impacted the world around them. No one else can control these mighty beings except the Astral. While awake their natural instinct seems to be to inflict destruction, and some say that this is just nature taking its path, bringing on a calamity.

From the get-go the story sounds rather sinister, hopefully there will be some lighter moments in between especially being a party-driven game. The gameplay shown shows a rather bright and airy world with floating airships and colourful picturesque backdrops. But of course, there will be some more darker areas as you encounter beasts looming in the shadows.

Gameplay

Developer Cygames has said it could take roughly 20 to 25 hours to complete the main questline. But of course, there are many side quests and further content to complete even after getting through the main story. There are over 100 quests and hours of post-endgame content. Quests don’t have different difficulty levels but rather they are organised by their difficulty mode.

According to a recent interview with Wccftech, the devs expect players to spend around 100 hours playing on the hardest difficulty. It’s not an open-world experience but rather features large areas to explore. While it does have online co-op the game is centered around its single-player experience when it comes to its main story. There won’t be any daily or focus on live service or battlepass in that sense. So if you want to play offline, you can.

It’s not that each quest has its own difficulty level but rather quests are split up by their difficulty levels. That 100-hour figure that I gave you earlier includes if you play through all of the hardest quests.

Interview with Cygames via Wcctech

Character Recruitment

This is a party-driven game so while you do play as the main character, there are additional characters that can be selected to join your party. There looks to be 17 different allies which range from more magical abilities to melee hack-and-slash combat. Bringing a different character to battle means a different approach can be taken to keep combat varied. According to an interview with RPG site and the general director Tetsuya Fukuhara, these characters can be recruited by completing quests and receiving items that will unlock characters from the main base in any order you wish.

 Actually, it’s not progressing the story that unlocks the character. By progressing the story, you’ll receive items throughout the story that will allow you to unlock a character from a facility in the base area. That’s what we meant by unlocking characters in whatever order you’d like. You’ll receive an item and then you use the item to unlock your preferred character. You’ll just get items – that same item – to do that multiple times throughout the story.

General director Tetsuya Fukuhara – via RPG site interview

Power Level

Power Level indicates the combination of the character’s level and levelled equipment. Each quest will have a recommended Power Level, of course, you can always take them on earlier for a further challenge. The devs do expect it would be quite difficult to tackle the game this way as the game is balanced with Power Level in mind.

Characters also have separate Power Levels but also have Sigil accessories which are interchangeable between characters and factor into the level. Upgrading is not just limited to levels as weapons have unique stats and traits which can be upgraded by the local blacksmith. This reminds me of how weapons are upgraded in titles such as Monster Hunter Rise, but instead in Granblue Fantasy Relink you have a party of characters.

Co-op

In Granblue Fantasty Relink you can take on the game solo, with no AI characters, or party up with characters. You can also group up with a max of four players in online mode.

How quests are handled when playing online, is that if members in your group complete the quest with you, they too will clear the quest. However, they will have needed to have unlocked the quest also. Interestingly, players can still join to help you complete a quest, even if they haven’t unlocked it themselves, but they won’t be able to progress in their quest log but you will still get rewards.

Assist Modes

If you’re not a fan of controlling every aspect of combat, or just want to concentrate on the story, there is an Assist Mode. This mode auto attacks for you, making for a less challenging experience, however, you should note that not all content can be tackled in this mode. Post main story content there are further tiers of quests, the last tier is not playable in this mode.

If you’ve played such games as Final Fantasy 7‘s Classic Mode, you may have experienced a similar mode which helps take over some of the combat. The characters will auto-attack but you can take over use abilities which is optional. Full Assist will have all actions taken on automatically. This includes healing, dashing and guarding.

Combat

The gameplay uses real-time combat with a mix of melee and special powers depending on your party members. Teaming up can also inflict further damage. Stunning enemies require filling a stun gauge which fills up as you attack them.

Once the gauge is full you can use a Link Attack which applies a full party attack for some real damage. Getting that link level to 100% and successfully pulling off a Link Attack triggers Link Time. This causes time to slow down for a short period.

Skills are unique to each character which can range from damage, to healing in more of a support role. As you’d expected, each character has their own skills and can have up to four skills at the ready. In a party you can access each talent tree to learn new abilities by unlocking mastery nodes, making numerous build options. Characters will also have certain sigils or weapons they can equip. The attacks are bright and flashy, looking very satisfying to build enough of the gauge to pull off some awesome killer moves. Attacks aren’t limited to the ground, as characters can jump high and even dive from above.

The mage character Io uses a staff to perform long-range magical attacks and can even set off an AOE to hit large groups of enemies. While Lancelot as the name suggests wields a sword, effortlessly slicing and dicing in fast succession. Siegfried on the other hand uses a great sword which relies on precision timed attacks. Getting the perfect timing means not only gaining a better combo but also granting a unique finisher for some meaty damage. You won’t be able to switch characters on the fly, but rather choose a character to main before heading into a battle. You can also prepare for battles by switching up party compositions.

Enemies are mythical-looking beasts which can come at you from all sides. While bosses are larger-than-life behemoths. There could be some really fun fights ahead not only in your own party of characters but in co-op too.

Final Thoughts

The game kind of reminds me of Tales of Arise with its soft, anime style. However, its combat gets some more dimension, especially with the option of online co-op and more open spaces. This will surely provide more fun ways to play, especially if you would rather take on quests with friends. While single-player RPGs are always great for story, sometimes it’s great to have co-op content to join in with friends or other online players especially once you’ve finished main quests like in Monster Hunter Rise.

The game is a feast for the eyes, taking the hand-drawn artstyle of the Granblue series and adding a 3D world which looks fantastic as an Action-RPG. The sheer amount of characters that can join your party and ways to customise them means there are many playstyles to adopt. You can also opt to play completely solo without AI characters if you really want to up the challenge. Having further challenging quests for endgame content will also provide some extra hours for those who want to 100% everything.

There’s a wide roster of characters in the Granblue franchise so it is a wonder if they will add further characters in the future through DLCs or later updates. Whether an expansion will later come to the game is also unknown but maybe we’ll get an answer a little closer to the game’s release next year. Adding further co-op activities or a new region could make for further hours into the game as optional additional content.

What do you think of Granblue Fantasy Relink? What do you think about the combat party system? Are you excited for its launch? Let us know in the comments below.

Granblue Fantasy Relink will be coming to PS4, PS5 and PC on February 1st 2024 with the standard edition starting at $59.99.

If you enjoyed this preview be sure to check out more in Remnant 2: The Awakened King DLC Preview.

The post Granblue Fantasy Relink: What We Know So Far About the Action-RPG appeared first on Fextralife.

In this Lords of the Fallen Review, we take a deep look at the Lords of the Fallen 2023 release, that resets the stage for the IP and aims to put Hexworks and CI Games on the radar of souls fans. How does the game compare to Lies of P? How long is LOTF? What can you expect from story, performance and gameplay? Read on to find out.

Lords of the Fallen 2023 Review

Genre: RPG
Developed by: Hexworks
Published by: CI Games
Release date: October 13th, 2023
Platforms: PC (Reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, Playstation 5
Price at time of review: $59.99-69.99

LOTF Review – Story and Setting

The story of Lords of the Fallen is set in the same universe as the original game, and takes place about 1000 years after the events of the 2014 release. Adyr, the God of the Rhogar, or “demons” by human perception, has been imprisoned and sealed away to protect humanity by the followers of the God Orius. But no prison can hold off a God forever, and the wards are weakening.

Preaching their righteous ways, the Hallowed Sentinels aim to restore the corrupted beacons that lock away the demon god. As a lampbearer, gifted with the unique capacity to step into the world of the dead and return, you are called to assist them in this task.

A setting like this is not unusual for RPGs, however, I found the overall world-building to be extremely interesting and well thought-out. In Lords of the Fallen, there is a massive, complex and intriguing world to discover, which appealed to the fantasy reader in me. Additionally, I appreciate that the Hexworks committed to the Dark Fantasy theme and crafted their world and stories to create a consistent atmosphere that carries throughout the game and motivates you to explore and investigate.

The story is told by means of some short cutscenes, dialogue with NPCs, item descriptions and the player-activated “Stigmas” that let the player relive moments in time. Combining all these elements, you will find a convoluted but interesting story with some exposition flaws. It is not difficult to piece together what has happened, and the events that have led to the situation of each NPC can be quite moving, but there are some unfortunately clumsy moments that take away from the intrigue and make it feel more “like a video game”.

There are choices to be made in how to approach some NPC questlines, and ultimately several endings to discover, each with its own roleplay consequence. This element brings the story on par with other souls-likes and ties the exploration and gameplay into a meaningful experience, though the endings of the game leave a lot to be desired.

Gameplay in Lords of the Fallen

Gameplay is the most important part of any souls-like, and Lords of the Fallen brings a good amount of genre-fitting innovations that help it deliver a great experience.

Lords of the Fallen Exploration

Exploration is one of my favorite parts of most games, as I really enjoy discovering what is around each corner, gathering all equipment and items, figuring out NPC progression Quests and ultimately uncovering how the developers tie everything together in their game world.

In this regard, Lords of the Fallen delivered, for me, a truly phenomenal experience. The world inter-connectivity is amazing, and the use of verticality is so exceptional that it puts similar non-Fromsoftware titles that have attempted it to shame. Not only can you find multiple shortcuts, turnabouts and surprise secret pathways in almost every corner, but the size of the world is quite mind-boggling. For comparison’s sake, I loved the world design of Dark Souls. This game has a similar flow, but it is probably two or three times the map size of Dark Souls. And you can see this entire world as you explore, which adds a wonderful feeling of immersion.

On top of this, the whole world was designed twice, as there’s the Umbral realm that can also be explored, has its own set of enemies, its own set of unique pathways, and is layered on top of everything. You spend less time in Umbral, as there are too many enemies and you only need Umbral for specific portions of progress, but the fact that it’s always there and ready for your visit is impressive.

Tying up the size and exploration are of course the NPC questlines and treasure pickups. In this regard, I felt that there was a very good progression of unlockable trainers, storylines and loot to reward me for actually checking every edge of the screen.

LotF Combat

The combat of Lords of the Fallen is unfortunately somewhere the game should have shined, but does not. This is not to say the combat is bad, but it lacks a degree of polish that other developers have mastered, and Lords of the Fallen lags behind a bit in this regard.

There are intriguing ideas like Wither Damage when you block, which is similar to Bloodborne’s Rally mechanic, or dodges in and out of range of enemies replacing a roll. The damage mechanics are simple and easy to understand, and the weapon movesets have good combinations with their R2 attacks into the combos.

However, for the entire game I could not shake the feeling of “floatyness” that you get when you overstep forward as you’re swinging, which eventually puts you behind an enemy and forces an awkward 180 turn to continue attacking. There’s also a horrible issue with the lock-on camera, that will prioritize things that are in the middle of the screen rather than your closest enemy. This means that if you’re fighting several enemies in melee range, your aim may suddenly switch to a distant archer, and you’ll start swinging at nothing and become wide open to attacks from the mobs surrounding you.

Another disappointing aspect of combat was the lack of enemy variety. This is something that may not be a deal-breaker for most people, but it does eat into the long-term enjoyment of the game. There are somewhere around 40 enemy types, which is a bit above what Demon’s Souls had at launch. The difference is that you meet most of these early on, and then they are used in most areas of the game, whereas in the FromSoft game you only encountered each type in a certain area, giving you distance from them as you teleport back and forth. Lords of the Fallen is also a much larger game than Demon’s Souls, so you really feel the lack of enemy variety by the end.

There are things that the combat does well, however, and they should be noted. Magic and throwable item management is actually well implemented, with powerful spells and items that give buffs to yourself and allies or deal damage, etc. The treasure distribution means you can use these frequently and almost with abandon, but still have to keep an eye on your usage in order to replenish between fights. Additionally, the combat style with different weapon types does change how you approach the game, so you can look forward to changing your character’s focus and redoing your builds.

Classes, Builds & Itemization

Lords of the Fallen launches with 9 default Classes, and players are rewarded with an extra 4 classes for completing game objectives. The extra classes can only be used in a new playthrough, but their equipment can be found in-game as well. Classes work like they do in the Souls games, in that their only role is starting equipment and initial stat distribution, but players will find that the game is rather big and their wanted loot may be many hours from the start, so the choice can be important to match your gameplay and not have you wasting all your Vigor buying armor.

Itemization for Lords of the Fallen follows a simplified Souls formula, with stat requirements and scaling that apply to weapon categories, armor weight classes and items to deal with damage types and buildup status effects. The game has 15 Weapon categories featuring 180 unique weapons, 3 different Spell types with 60 unique spells, and I think I have counted 90 Armor sets with really awesome fashion opportunities. This is without including the multitude of throwable Items and Consumables that can be used to enhance your combat experience.

All of this together means that the game gives a decent amount of options to create unique and interesting Builds, however there may be some shallowness to these due to Enemy weaknesses and resistances, which are sort of a rock, paper, scissors format.

Coupled with this is the absence of infusions or skills on weapons, as upgrades are a linear progression that simply improves the attack power and scaling of your weapon. Thus, you’ll find yourself using consumable items to buff into different damage types to compensate, which may get in the way of your dedicated cosplay, as your paladin may have to use Fire rather than holy to take on many enemies.

To balance the above, weapons and shields do have Runes that can be slotted and change several aspects from scaling to grievous strike damage or even mana or health regen on kills. These effects play into a build by doubling down with other effects you gain from Rings, Amulets and consumables, but it may take players a while to get into them as runes are slottable only with upgrades and players must find them in game.

Lords of the Fallen Review – Design, Audio and Visual

Lords of the Fallen is an absolutely gorgeous game that makes excellent use of Unreal Engine 5 and a very talented design team that has given the world a unique and appropriately grim look and feel. This is probably the best-looking souls game to date in terms of fidelity, if you don’t include the Demon’s Souls remake, and it is infused with distinct personality. As I climbed to high peaks and towers, I truly enjoyed taking a moment to look back and see the entire world I had explored in beautiful detail.

LOTF Bugs & Performance Review

Unfortunately though, Lords of the Fallen suffers from a couple of performance issues and several bugs that might detract from the experience of players. While the start of the game was rather smooth and I could sustain over 60 FPS at 1440p on a 2080ti, late game zones had some drops into the 40 FPS realm that were quite annoying in combat. Devastatingly, the issues in these areas were doubled in multiplayer, and I had to face many challenging fights against groups of mobs with a blighttown-level 20 FPS.

However, there have been continuous patches during the review period, and these things have only gotten better since then. A patch pushed just yesterday addressed many performance issues, and these later zones now perform much better, though still have some FPS dips here and there, though not to the same degree.

There are also some minor but annoying bugs that popped up during the preview period, including menu clicks not working, an item popping in and out of existence at the hub, umbral enemies becoming invisible but able to attack, and a random teleport back to a lamp while in the middle of a level. None of these were game-breaking, but they did give the feel that the game was not as polished as it should be, and perhaps could have used a bit more time in development.

Audio & Soundtrack

Lords of the Fallen has a fitting and impactful music score that I very much enjoyed. Idling in areas did not live up to the magic of some other RPG tunes, but the boss themes were powerful and delivered that intense crescendo that I crave during these difficult fights.

I have seen a lot of commentary regarding the sound effects and sound cues of the game, but I personally found them good enough, with nothing out of place and nothing outstanding. There was, however, one thing that I did find annoying and that was the “buzz” of Umbral, a high-pitched sound that made me want to get out of there as soon as I could every time. I do know the devs have announced they will be working on this aspect, so we’ll see what they do with it.

Voice acting is truly a mixed bag, with some incredibly good deliveries by several outstanding actors, and some truly bad miscastings that unfortunately ruined some NPCs for me. There’s not really much more to say about it.

Pricepoint, Game Length & Replayability

My first Lords of the Fallen playthrough took about 50 hours, and I didn’t find or do everything that was available in game. There are still zones I haven’t visited, Bosses I haven’t fought and NPC questlines I need to further explore. This is before you factor in NG+, that lets you continue playing with your existing character.

Replayability

The replayability of these games comes in several forms: different Builds, continuation into new game plus to unlock different endings, and multiplayer. There’s a serviceable variety of builds to work with and those who like to tinker and re-roll will probably find a happy space here. New Game plus will also give completionists a progression path to keep challenging themselves.

Multiplayer is something that I actually love, and it is something I extremely enjoyed, even through performance and technical issues that were being worked on daily. The implementation of coop play in Lords of the Fallen is absolutely fantastic. You can summon random players, use passwords, or simply use your friends list, and you will find very few barriers and can pair a starting character with an endgame one.

Your summoned companion will stay in your world until they choose to leave or you kick them, meaning you can actually continuously play the entire game with your friends without the need to keep resummoning them. They will get enemy drops and Vigor, they can use all your services including the blacksmith and upgrades for the lamp and healing. But they won’t get any treasures or boss remembrances and thus will be locked out of some gear progression, unless you opt to drop them items they may wish to use.

Something I particularly liked about coop is that, while enemies are harder and can become more challenging, if your summoned partner dies you can simply bring them back from a ghost right where they fell, or from the checkpoint without resetting the level. I very much appreciated this as it felt like we were in it together. Of course, if the host dies…well that’s that.

All in all, I’m not sure how multiplayer performance will pan out. We had good days and bad days with no FPS issues sometimes, and other days where we had terrible FPS drops and rubberbanding. With the recent patch I can say performance is much better, but because we have not had as much time to test it, it’s really hard to say what sort of multiplayer experience each player will get…

Pricing

And this brings us to the ever-contentious pricing. When considering a game’s pricepoint, we take into account the amount of content available, the experience impact, and the value of purchasing a game right away versus waiting for patches or a sale. Lords of the Fallen is a content-complete game with some very well-done aspects, and a mild lack of polish in others.

For me, even with its issues, I had a great time with the game, and even though I have completed the game on PC, I have purchased a Playstation 5 copy for myself and intend to play again with the community. This is because LOTF delivered in exploration and atmosphere, and because I have seen the developers patch the game quickly and effectively based on feedback, so I think they will continue along that line and end up with an excellent product.

Final Thoughts

Lords of the Fallen is the first soulslike to deliver a truly enormous and intricately interconnected world with addicting exploration and a significant variety of discoverable loot that makes you want to find every secret the game has to offer.

While lacking in combat polish and struggling with framerate and netcode in a couple of areas, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game, I’m ready to play again, and I feel like any Souls fan looking for their fix is going to get something out of the game.

Whether you buy it now or wait for further patches, if you enjoy the Souls genre, Lords of the Fallen is a game that I would fully recommend. No other Souls-like to date has so thoroughly mimicked the Souls formula, and I mean that in the best possible way.

The post Lords of The Fallen Review 2023 appeared first on Fextralife.

In this Lords of the Fallen Full Game Impressions, I’m going to be talking about our gameplay impressions of the game as well as give you guys some updates on the way certain mechanics work. If you want more details on how Lords of the Fallen plays, meaning, how different it is from Soulslike games, then this article is for you! 

Lords of the Fallen Full Game Impressions

So I’ve played about 30 hours or so of the game up to the fourth boss. Note that we weren’t allowed to go past this for our Preview Impressions so I won’t talk about anything past it. I imagine it would take a normal person about 10-12 hours to do 1 blind playthrough up to this point of the game. 

We did play with different playstyles like the Dual Wield, Sword and Shield, magic and non-magic. And so I want to talk about these as well as how the game plays for the first chunk. 

Blocking, Dodging, Posture, and Parrying

What you’ll immediately notice while you’re playing Lords of the Fallen is that it has much less of a reliance on blocking than Souls games do. Shields, at the beginning, don’t have a lot of physical protection, usually somewhere between 30 to 40% when you block, which means you’re going to still take some damage. But the developers have made it a little bit more forgiving because essentially what happens when you block now is that you have a Wither Mechanic. 

This Wither Mechanic makes your health grayed out and then if you hit enemies, you can regain that before they hit you again, kind of like in Lies of P if you’re familiar with that. Here, when you block and then attack afterward without getting hit, you’ll be able to regain some of your health. So unless you’re very good at getting your health back without being hit, you won’t be blocking as much, and instead, rely on dodge rolling and parrying.

The game has two different dodges – a dodge and a dodge roll. Tapping dodge once does kind of like a sidestep whereas tapping it twice does a dodge roll if you need to roll further or to extend your dodge. 

Meanwhile, parrying works similar to the Souls games where if you tap it at the right time, you do some posture damage to the enemy. It doesn’t always guard break them like it would in Dark Souls but the damage you deal lets you kill enemies if you can parry them a couple of times. You can usually stagger them. Targets have a Posture Mechanic not unlike in Sekiro where if you deal enough damage to them or if you parry enough of their attacks, they get staggered when you execute a kick or heavy attack. You can then do a devastating attack on them.

Moveset

Another thing I want to mention is that weapon movesets seem extremely varied in Lords of the Fallen. You have tons of different inputs, you can hit different buttons at the same time to do various attacks such as spinning, running, and rolling with each weapon type. This is incredible, in my opinion. 

I wasn’t expecting so many of these and I think it’s something players are going to be impressed with immediately coming from games like Elden Ring and Dark Souls. There are even more inputs they can do here to get more attacks out of their weapon types.

Magic Types

Next are the three different types of magic in Lords of the Fallen. You have Umbral, Inferno and Radiant. Radiant are similar to your miracles. Inferno is like your pyromancy sorceries and then Umbral is like your dark magic. Umbral requires a catalyst that uses both Inferno and Radiant stats. Inferno requires Inferno and Radiant requires Radiant. 

These spells can be mapped to different buttons so unlike in Souls where you have to cycle through them as you’re fighting, in this game, you can have up to three or four of these slotted into your catalyst. You’ll then hold the left trigger and press whatever button to cast a particular spell. 

Additionally, similar to Souls games, there are different catalysts that are better or worse and are available for each type of magic. You’ll find them throughout your playthrough and upgrade them to have better scaling. 

Character Progression and Equipment

Character progression works very similarly to the way it does in Souls games where you gain currency called Vigor by defeating enemies and then use that to buy items. Or you can use it to increase your attributes at vestiges, which are the bonfires version of Lords of the Fallen. You can also upgrade your weapons and armor at the blacksmith in order to make them stronger for your catalyst. You’ll find rings and amulets that go with these. There are two ring slots and an amulet slot in the game to make your character more powerful.

Next is an equip load so your rolling is going to be based on whether you’re light, medium, or heavy. Heavy is obviously fat rolling whereas light has better dodges so you’re going to manage your equipment through this. There’s a little bar on the screen that shows you what that looks like. Also, there aren’t separate weapon sets in the game so you don’t have multiple weapons equipped at the same time. This with your catalyst will be your weight.

Gameplay Loop

The general gameplay loop is very similar to Souls in that you have a world area to explore and there are different ways to go within it. They’re also all interconnected to other areas that connects to sections but at some point, they might come back together in an entirely new part of the map. This is fantastic and exploration in Lords of the Fallen is easily my favorite part because there are always hidden stuff everywhere you go.

The level design is incredible, the shortcuts are very well done. They have a mechanic in the game that I talked a little bit about in a previous video that allows you to jump back and forth between the Umbral Realm and your realm. 

Umbral Realm

So what happens is as you’re exploring, you’ll eventually need to shift into the Umbral Realm because you’ll come to a dead end. And then everything will change and you’ll find ways to go that you couldn’t afford to before. You’ll find new loot hidden in different places, etc.

The Umbral Realm is much more unforgiving than the regular realm. As you’re in there, more and more enemies will start coming after you and eventually, if you’re in there for too long, some very, very powerful enemies will attack you so you’ll probably die. You can only stay in there for a limited time and you’re going to be shifting back and forth to keep exploring and finding things you might have missed like weapons and armor.

When I first played the game, I wasn’t sure how much of an impact this would have whether it’s just a gimmick or not, and I can confidently say at this point, it’s absolutely phenomenal. The ways it’s designed is incredible because it makes exploration even more interesting due to the added layer of dimension. It’s ingenious how the developers have come up with this because they basically stacked the world on top of another world, both of which are very well done.

Zones, Areas, and Locations

The different zones of the game are exception because of the different environments you get to discover. You have villages, castles, caves, and platforms and each area and enemy feel very distinct. So it helps add to the aspect of exploration that I think is arguably the best part of Lords of the Fallen. 

Vestiges and Umbral Flowerbed

While you’re out exploring, you’re going to find vestiges, which as I mentioned earlier, work like bonfires. Each one of these is a remnant of a previous lamp bearer that’s what you are in the game. You’re basically using the lamp to bridge the gap between worlds and each one of these lamp bearers has their own lore and history so you’re following in their footsteps as you progress, which is a nice touch.

You can rest at these vestiges to get your health back and you can upgrade your character if you want to spend your Vigor to make them stronger. You can also fast travel between these points. One really cool thing they’ve done is your ability to use a vestige seed to create a vestige to rest at. But remember that these seeds are only limited initially but you can get some of them from co-op play if you’re helping people out. You’ll then need to decide where you want to put these rest points and how far apart they will be from one another. These are incredibly tough decisions and it adds a little bit of tension that I really like.

Boss Fights

The boss fights of Lords of the Fallen have, so far, been interesting. They’re all different, have unique mechanics, and are a bit challenging. But I think most veterans would say that they’re probably not as difficult as Souls games. Although the difficulty of each boss varies a bit, some are easier while others are harder, it’s going to be tough to say whether it all pans out to be on the same level as Souls games. 

As always, if you do have trouble with these, you can summon NPCs to help you. These are characters in the game and you’ll find more and more of them as you progress. Or, you can summon another player as well. If you’re co-oping already, they can just come into the boss area. 

NPCs and Skyrest Bridge

NPCs of Lords of the Fallen have their own stories and quests and many of these are very cryptic so you don’t know what’s going to happen. Sometimes, they ask you to give them an item you don’t know what you get in exchange for it. If you don’t receive one on the spot, you’ll eventually get it later on. 

There’s a place called Skyrest Bridge, which is similar to Souls game’s Firelink Shrine, where all NPCs usually gather as long as you find, rescue, or help them. Their corresponding voice acting is really good but I feel like some of the voices just don’t match the characters they’re playing or even the theme of the game. For the most part though, they’re very well done and they help to create the setting of Lords of the Fallen to pull you in. 

Enemies

If it wasn’t obvious from the gameplay footage, the main enemy is the Rhogar, which makes a return from the previous Lords of the Fallen game. There are also other enemies you’ll fight and they’re not all Rhogar. There are also factions you’ll run into that are bullying each other and have different philosophies so you’ll see all of these a lot throughout the course of the game. 

Performance and Bugs

Next is the performance of Lords of the Fallen. I know a lot of people are interested in how games are playing particularly the ones that look as good as this one. I’ve been playing on a 3080 Ti at 1440p on High settings with a pretty good system. This game seems to perform much better in Full Screen than Windowed or Borderless for some reason so if you’re playing it on the upcoming launch, make sure to put it on Full Screen display. I’m also getting somewhere around 100 to 150 FPS, which fluctuates within that range. 

I did have a few stutters at the beginning but nothing seriously major, mostly pretty smooth performance across the board. There are a couple of places where it dips but I will say that the further you get into the game, it seems like the performance issues start to ramp up. And one of the things that’s kind of strange is if you play it for a long session and then restart, you get better performance so I’m not sure if there’s a memory leak or what’s going on. 

When it comes to crashes, I’ve had one in 30-40 hours of playing. But other than this, the game is very stable. And then in terms of bugs, most of them are minor such as getting summoned yet not with all my health or mana. Another example is clicking on a menu option but it doesn’t do anything, and then the next time I click on the same thing, it’ll simply work. Or you know something’s not working right and you reload the game as if nothing happened. I didn’t experience anything game breaking that was jarring but just a couple of things that usually warrants a restart. 

So I do think Lords of the Fallen will have some bugs and performance issues at launch. However, they’ve been releasing patches as we’ve been playing so every day, the build is a bit different. I’m just hoping that these will be fixed at launch. At the moment, it’s not in a very bad state and most people will find it acceptable but not ideal. 

Final Thoughts

All in all, I’m even more excited after having played even more since I have a much better understanding of its systems. Seeing the world and the development, I cannot wait to play more of Lords of the Fallen, which we’ll be playing in the next week or so to get ready for launch with guides and the Lords of the Fallen Wiki. 

If you’re a Souls fan, you’re going to want to play this new game. It provides you with a feeling of discovery, it has great combat and customization, and all the things we’ve come to know and love from Souls games. Unless there are some drastic departures later on, I think this is going to become a big hit.

So what do you guys thing from seeing all the footage that has been released today? I know a lot of other content creators got to publish some videos as well. What do you think of the game so far? Are you more excited? Are you fairly confident that it’s going to be good? Let me know in the comments!

The post Lords of the Fallen Full Game Impressions appeared first on Fextralife.

In this Dragon’s Dogma 2 Hands-On Gameplay Impressions article, we’ll be discussing our thoughts after having played the game just a few days ago. Thanks to Capcom, we had the opportunity to travel and participate in an hour-long hands-on preview, and while Dragon’s Dogma 2 is still aways away from release, we did play long enough to learn quite a bit about the much anticipated sequel. If you’re interested in learning more about the game, and what we think of it so far, read on to find out.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 Hands-On Gameplay Impressions

It’s been 11 long years since its predecessor was first released, with both an extraordinary dungeon crawl DLC (Bitterblack Isle) and a remaster since, and no one could be more happy that Dragon’s Dogma 2 is fast approaching. Dragon’s Dogma 2 is in some ways a small miracle, as you don’t often hear of sequels being made to games that are over 10 years old, especially ones that aren’t as well known, like Dragon’s Dogma. Although it does seem to becoming a trend in the industry as of late with titles such as: Baldur’s Gate 3, Jagged Alliance 3, and Titan Quest 2 to name a few.

Whether you’ve never heard of Dragon’s Dogma before, or you’re a veteran of the franchise, Dragon’s Dogma 2 should be on your wishlist for next year (hopefully), and we’re going to show you why in this article. Let’s begin with Vocations, since this is the first thing that you will select.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 – Vocations (Classes)

Vocations are making a return in Dragon’s Dogma 2, which are essentially the game’s Classes that come paired with their own set of abilities, equipment and sometimes spells. For example, fighters will raise their shield against enemy attacks, and use it offensively as well. Thieves don’t have shields, you’ll be able to dodge quickly with “Swift Step”, avoiding damage, before counter attacking. Archers can aim with ease with “Steady Shot,” and they can also shoot freely without aiming at all. Mages can heal and help enhance the other Pawns’ abilities, making the team more powerful, as well as providing a visual indicators that help with the flow of combat.

There are the basic Vocations mention above, and then there are more advanced Vocations, of which two were revealed by Capcom earlier this week: Magick Archer and Mystic Spearhand. Magick Archer makes a return from the previous game, and the Mystic Spearhand seems to be a spinoff of the Mystic Knight, with more of a focus on aggressive spear-based combat. And while we don’t currently know how many Vocations there will be at launch, from all indications it would appear there will be more than the first title.

Changing Your Vocation

You can also decide to change your Vocation as you are playing, but you will have to spend your in game currency (similar to the first game). As players level up and gain experience, they can take on new Skills, some of which increase their damage with certain moves, while others are new moves entirely. We didn’t have much time to look over the Augments or play around with as many of the skills as we would have liked during our time, but from what we can tell, players should have more to choose from than before as well.

What’s also interesting is that while you’re still unable to lock on in general, new options will be available to you that you didn’t have before, which is all based on the Vocation you choose. As mentioned before, each Vocation will have its own unique way of dodging as well, which just adds a different approach to the first game.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 – Combat

The combat in Dragon’s Dogma is arguably its most entertaining aspect, and Dragon’s Dogma 2 takes the foundation laid by the previous title and builds upon it without making drastic changes. Just like the first game, you have your basic and strong attacks, plus 4 more powerful and unique moves to take your foes down. The 4 special moves will drain your stamina more quickly, and you have to pay attention not to run out of stamina or you will be extremely vulnerable. It’s important to call your Mage over to you should you run out of stamina, because you’ll be completely defenseless for a time, and Mages can help you get back into battle much more quickly.

We first took on the Fighter Vocation, which was due to the fact that we loved his lion-like appearance. However, we could have chosen to be a Thief, a Mage, or an Archer, but we chose to go with a tankier build, which also has really solid shield-bashing moves along with a solid defense against weapons.

Environmental Surroundings 

Just like the first game, you can use the environment of Dragon’s Dogma 2 to your advantage while in combat. But this time around, you can throw enemies against a wall, shield bash them into a wall (if you’re a Fighter), and get creative with ways to employ the environment to your advantage. We enjoyed throwing enemies over cliffs, into water, and even into each other. Throwing boulders and explosive containers at enemies was also quite fruitful.

We were in a cave filled with goblins and we saw two big boulders just waiting to roll down the hill in the cave. Blake from Capcom recommended that we cut the ropes that were holding them in place and unleash the big boulders on the goblins rather than having to fight them at all, which we did to satisfying results.

Cutting down bridges was also very satisfying, especially when you’re being chased by a bunch of enemies. A few swings at the posts, and the bridge will collapse quickly, dropping them all to their death at once. These sort of interactions only further exemplifies that Dragon’s Dogma 2 has more combat depth than the previous title.

Executions

Executions are new to Dragon’s Dogma 2, which is a welcome addition. It simply adds to the brutality in the game and gives you that power fantasy feeling when finishing off a creature or enemy. Once the enemy’s health gets low, your basic strong attack will execute them once pressed. You can do different executions too, which are all about positioning: if the enemy is on the ground, if you’re in front of the enemy, behind the enemy, etc. You’ll do different executions based on your Vocation and playstyle as well, adding further variety to gameplay. Chaining light and heavy attacks will bring along new combos, which can easily take down basic enemies to very low health, making it easy to trigger these Executions.

Enemies

When it comes to enemies in Dragon’s Dogma 2, many will be making a return from the previous game, with some new additions as well. During our time with the demo we fought a Cyclops or two, Saurians, orc-like creatures, and trolls. Staggering a Cyclops was a lot of fun, because when it hits the ground, you can stab it right in the eye, doing a lot of critical damage. We were also humbled a time or two by Trolls sitting on us, and knocking us back with their big clubs.

We also faced a few Griffins, and after facing one for a bit, it went to fly away and we were lucky enough to grab onto it and go for a ride. A companion was also onboard with us and together we staggered the Griffin out of the air, right into the water, and if you know anything about Dragon’s Dogma, there’s no swimming in the game, but there are monsters in the water who will kill you very quickly. The whole thing played out like a scene in a movie, and it was just one of those moments that make the game special.

Enemies will also have parts of their body highlighted, which will reveal their weak points while in combat. Unfortunately, I didn’t run into any new enemies, but I was assured that there are new ones to be found at full release, and I cannot wait to see what they are. Deducing enemy strengths and weaknesses is a huge part of Dragon’s Dogma in general, and I’m sure fans will enjoy figuring out what those are for new enemies, and whether or not there are changes to old ones.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 – Pawns

Another huge aspect to Dragon’s Dogma, is of course the Pawn system, and it also makes a return in Dragon’s Dogma 2. Pawns are for all intents and purposes AI companions that assist you in your journey, and fill out your party, much like you might find in a traditional RPG. However, there are many more nuances to them then you may be aware, which is one of the reasons they were so popular in the first game, though we won’t go into all their details here.

Commanding Your Pawns

Pawns will work very similarly though, meaning you will have a main Pawn to work with, along with 2 other AI companions. Through the use of 4 commands executed via the D-Pad, these companions will help aid in exploration, discovery, and combat. For example, looking over at Max, who was our main pawn, if we used the “help command” she would come over and heal us (and anyone else who was in the green bubble area). She would also set our sword and shield on fire, providing extra damage to our attacks for a period of time, similar to the first game.

Furthermore, it’s important to pay attention to what your Pawns have to say, especially when you’re fighting bigger and more challenging enemies. They’ll point out where an enemy’s weakspot is and they can also let you know if an enemy has become more vulnerable after part of an enemy’s armor has broken off. We were also saved by our Archer Pawn (George) when we accidentally went to jump off a bridge; he immediately grabbed us and saved our life, so it was quite clear that Pawns are smarter and more versatile, and they felt more like a team than in Dragon’s Dogma, which I know could be sore point for many players.

Pawns in Combat

Beyond the combat, Pawns will give you other verbal cues as well. They can notify you of secret areas nearby, treasure, or important items you may have left behind. Max mentioned that there was a valuable item we could find on the map, which was highlighted with an exclamation point. This was only for a brief period of time though, as the exclamation went away, so it’s important to pay attention to your Pawns at all times.

Each Pawn comes with different skills and personalities, just like the first game. Our Thief Pawn was Sara. She was incredible in combat, but she was also incredibly selfish. She wouldn’t help aid us when we were staggered, down, etc, and she would just keep on fighting ignoring us, while we were saved multiple times by other Pawns. Max also lashed out at us when we would give the command to take the lead, but then we would sometimes run ahead of her. It’s a give-and-take with each Pawn, and you will have the opportunity to find and recruit many of them. And just like the first game, selecting the right Pawn for your team is crucial.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 – Exploration

The game world in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is huge, so exploration is obviously a key element to the game. Whether you’re in a city, the wild, hilly areas, or caves, Dragon’s Dogma 2 surely looks quite beautiful as you traverse the landscape and it will remind players immediately of its predecessor, which is both nostalgic and comforting. I’m glad Capcom did not stray too far from Dragon’s Dogma’s original design and art style, as it has a certain charm that fans of the series have come to appreciate.

An addition to exploration this time around though, is the Oxcart, which is a new fast-travel feature that will take you to and from different locations within the game. Use it at your own risk though, as enemies can attack you while you are traveling, and you may find yourself in combat anyway, and maybe with something worse than if you had just run on foot!

And as mentioned before, while you are exploring use your Pawns wisely to find secrets and hidden areas. Take note of anything that blocks doors or secret-looking places, as some of these blockades can simply be destroyed without doing anything fancy. Others, you might have to get a bit more creative.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 – Final Thoughts

Dragon’s Dogma is legendary in the eyes of many ARPG fans, and is easily one of our personal favorite RPGs coming in at number 6 of our Top RPGs of the last decade. In fact, some still think it’s the best ARPG ever made and that there still isn’t anything like the Pawn system or the combat that it is now somewhat famous for.

And though I would have liked to see more new features, Vocations, and enemies in the demo, fans of the first game can also take comfort in knowing that Capcom is making Dragon’s Dogma 2 in a similar fashion to the original. And that while improvements have been made to the game in terms of graphics, Pawn AI, and just more of the same features the first title had, Dragon’s Dogma 2 still retains the “feeling”, and doesn’t overdue it with changes to make the game “more accessible”.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is still a ways off, likely releasing sometime in 2024, with no confirmed release date as of yet. But it’s definitely one to keep an eye on, especially since you’ll hopefully have made it through the backlog of games that have come out so far this year, and some that haven’t yet.

If you want more DD2 drop by our wiki for all the latest on Vocations, Armor, Weapons and more.

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