This is a true demo like in the old days, when you bought a magazine with a CD-ROM attached. And it was cool and you projected yourself playing a game and longed for more when you hit the hard limit set by the developers.

It feels like the whole deal, like you're starting to play a real game. Maybe I've grown too accustom to clunky demos or half-baked games but I'm extremely impressed by the amount of polish and general production value proposed here.

The character design is borderline perfect. In it's own style it reminds me of some of the best animal-based anthropomorphism I can think of. Like Blacksad if Blacksad was made on DS in the 2010's.

The writing is quite good and quite funny. Under the general "cute nintendo jrpg" aesthetic there's also darker shades of subtext creating an interesting contrast. It generates a lingering desire to know more about this world and uncover what hides beneath the surface.

Combat has all the small systems that make a game like this engaging. I wiped after an hour (mostly because I was too lazy to go back and rest, and too greedy to use my consumables), but I still had a lot of fun. I think there are a few UX details that could be added, or maybe I just missed them, like seeing the chances of applying certain status effects or knowing whether they stack. Some balancing will probably come with the full release, but based on what we have here, you can already start planning builds in different directions.

Even if I wiped I'm gonna come back and finish that first chapter. I think if you're into this type of game this one is setting itself to become a classic. There's just too much love poured into it, it oozes love and care.

Hence the review, I generally only comment when I'm thrilled, saddened or to support studios. That game is a work on pure passion. May the algorithm bless it.

Pains me to leave this review.
But I can't just say "nothing".

I'm clocking near 400 hours in Stellaris, which is a big amount of time to give to any game.
I've spent hundreds of $ buying the DLCs as they came out during the years.
Stellaris, at its core, deserves it. But the way the most recent patches have been impacting the game is too much even for me.

I'm a Paradox fan and love most of their games. I bought all Stellaris DLCs and been playing for years.
But y'all need to get your priorities straight. I bought BioGenesis and Shadows of the Shroud, I had been waiting patiently knowing that 4.0 was a deeply transforming patch and it would come with some bugs and balance problem.

We're more or less 5 months and two DLC later. And currently the experience the game is providing is in the worst state it ever was.

It's not a matter of content. Stellaris has become and incredibly fleshed out and deep game with the years.
It's just not enjoyable. At all. Because of performances, balance and bugs.

I've tried three different runs in the past two weeks. With a friend in multiplayer, which is the way I usually play this game.

1. First game we stopped because it was slowing to a crawl by the time we would reach mid game. We never had experienced it to this degree. It just seemed like the game was slowly becoming turn-based.

Ok no problem we reduced the galaxy size then.

2. Second game we had to stop for the same reason, on top of Necrophage origin being a forgotten part of the 4.0 rework and the fantasy isn't just there anymore. You have to make so many workarounds to make it work it just doesn't feel like playing anymore.

3. Third game we just quit. Because of constant desynch when reaching around the end of our first century. It's just not playable even if the resynch system works.

At this stage I'm just disgusted and incredibly disappointed. The time and money that went into this game. And now I can't really play it anymore. I don't understand why. I'm not sure I'm gonna replay Stellaris for a very long time. And I'm definitely gonna shelve the game and put it out of the cycle of games I'm playing on the regular.

I can't imagine how complex Stellaris has become to handle for the dev team. Even with the Custodian system and all. But priorities should be straigthened, because here it's not about selling DLCs anymore. You're gonna lose customers if you don't respect the product you've created and cherished yourself.

In its current state, I cannot recommend the game.

4.0 is all but a "Phoenix" update to my eyes. It's strictly the opposite. 4.0 "Heartbreak".

It's a recommendation motivated by nostalgia and faith in the future.
It's a recommendation I make in support of Grimlore Games trying to revive this franchise.

I've finished the prologue and pushed into the first chapter a little bit.
There's some good stuff there, but some problems too.

Firstly, I would say that the general pace of combat could stay close to this and it wouldn't be a problem. It's slower than Last Epoch, but less brutal and tedious than PoE 2. It has some old-school vibe to it that feels satisfying. It's actually quite close to PoE1's early game with a tad more "oomph" to the base attacks.

The game is quite pretty, and I think the art direction succeeds in modernizing the IP. The UX is not super refined yet, but is already OK, and some QoL features like inventory auto-sorting are really welcome.

The map design already feels quite cool in the prologue and is promising.

I encountered no performance issues.

I do have questions about the direction they want the game to take though, especially in the current ARPG space. Where do they aim to land? What do they want to achieve with this game?

I think there's a place to take in between PoE 2 and Last Epoch.

GGG’s design philosophy with PoE2 still has to find its exact expression, but I don't ever see them being challenged on system depth, production value, and content. PoE1 and 2 require extreme commitments though, and the friction they bring can sometimes feel discouraging. Last Epoch is a more casual answer to the extreme time investments both GGG games require. But to me, LE is also too easy, their artistic direction heavily lacks a "charm factor," and their IP is weaker than Titan Quest.

What worries me here is that LE has excellent design baselines, and their build options and skills are extremely accessible and immediately fun to toy with.

From what I'm seeing, it's Titan Quest in 2025. But that also means it has a lot of the Titan Quest and Grim Dawn defaults. It's a core design problem: the skills are not that fun or impressive to use from the get-go. And a lot of the modifiers you can put on them are actually stat modifiers like "+x% damage" or "+y% chance of this or that effect."

For a modern ARPG, this is not great. And it should be the very first thing Grimlore aims to fix. Points put in X or Y direction on your tree should be felt. And basic skills should already be generous and cool to use.

From the skills I've tested, some were already cool, like Warfare Leap doing what it should if you take the proper point. But the synergy in the modifiers should come from creating skills that feel unique to your playstyle, not from stacking passive effects. This is not 2006 anymore.