Most complete idler I've played in years. multiple routes, saveable personal blueprints between 'resets' which are personally activated, NOT a "clicker-style" that'll break fingers or your mouse, includes some pay-for-time-advance monetization without a requirement or paywall (literally paid nothing and earned everything in ~60 hours, let it run ~20 more cause it was fun to play with efficiencies)... highly recommended if you're into these types of games.

Dev(s) delete bug reports before resolving.
Lag, screen freeze, and (for some people) Crash to Desktop had become worse / more common.
With the constant rebalancing, difficulty has been raised to the point of 'random chance' for the possibility to complete upper tier content - no longer skill based at all.

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Aug 2025 update slowed the progression by a lot (which was needed heavily) and gave some roguelike additions (black market upgrades between games). It has the teeth it needed before.

Current issues (beta):
• Upgrades are quickly fully purchased, meaning after ~7 hours there's nothing left to do beyond unlocking rank levels (completing maps) and nothing at all to progress after that. IMO this would be better with slightly higher base (core, non-upgraded) starting values and infinite (diminishing returns) level-ups for the different purchases.
• 30-minute challenges over-spawn in the last 7 minutes; not only are they spawning the highest level "boss" units every 2-3 seconds but there's so much mass spawn the game can will lag. I can run a 500 population Dwarf Fortress with literal thousands of pets without issue... but this slows my PC to about 3 15 seconds for every second passing in game. It's beatable, but only because the black market + level upgrades make you nearly invincible if you stay on the move in areas they generally aren't swarming and you have 2 hours to waste watching the screen glitch out. If you're looking for a good experience avoid the 30 minute challenges this game until this is resolved.

Random stuff:
• Audio is still work in progress, so I have no qualms with the variety of sounds... there's enough variety it isn't grating.
• Visually it can get pretty crazy if you're spawning everything from yourself; mass friendly projectiles spawned from enemies at least take on a 'ghost' form making it more usable. May be better with some level of transparency based on count of personal objects (projectiles, AoEs) but it's on par, not worse, than most similar game styles... so no real issue here
• Balance: node costs are fine overall, Aug 2025 update appears to have removed some really terrible node options (yay, no wasted slots / noob traps) and fixed the chance-to-appear for some of the better nodes making upgrading your trees far more manageable the useless nodes are back. node damages I feel should have some level of adjustment for later-mission gameplay or the later enemies need less health. It's annoying, not fun, to be getting chased by 20 units spamming ranged attacks at you while everything on screen is showing 20k+ damage every few seconds...might be related to the lag issue mentioned earlier though / really only applies to the 30-minute stuff as regular missions are quickly resolved before they have a chance to pile up like this which is now everpresent after 10 minutes into the 30-minute missions and appears in normal missions on the 6th or 7th floor (of 7) for the rest of the run.

Overall game shows promise. it's already a great algorithmic game, but there are some things that could be improved (also see roadmap, new characters planned in future, etc).

Dragons Dogma 1 was in my top 3 games of all time, only one in it's genre. This feels like a continuation of that.
RPG elements are all here, world feels large (fast travel makes it feel small, there's lots to do between points so fast travel isn't advised anyway), personalized builds, slow progression through weapons / armors so there are multiple with similar stats (fashion gaming), boss monsters FEEL like bosses rather than damage sponges, seemingly emergent combat, excellent audio track, continuation of the best AI I've ever seen in any game (it's never perfect, but your pawn actually learns), many ways to complete most quests (play how you want).

The only bad thing: CAPCOM shoehorned in some microtransaction stuff that are effectively noob traps. it's not game breaking, "P2W", required, or the only way to get those things (most of them you'll have plenty of for free in the first hour of play) but putting noob trap sales just feels cheap. It's not pushed on us though, just a list of them in Steam and a single menu item (that i didn't even see until i noticed tanking in the reviews).

I'm here for the game, not the politics either way - it's the best RPG game release in at least 5 years.

Let's gooo GotY!

TL;DR: Excellent throwback, bringing modern language to a worthy parody of older fantasy army management /tactics games (gameplay is basically the exact same as the Ogre Battle series).

Pros:
○ Replayable if you want to experience variations on the story (relationship building) or try different army/tech builds.
○ Most achievements actually feel like achievements. These can be obtained in under 100 hours played (guides say 60-80) but i spent 110 because i'm a masochistic perfectionist who has to play on the hardest difficulty. If you aren't me you'll probably like this even more.