Recent reviews by February

The combat was immaculate, the atmosphere phenomenal, control over the character great, end-game difficulty ranging from acceptable to demanding, the world jaw-dropping. The original Korean devs were praised and glorified - we were lied to, wanted to believe. And no matter how great a South Korean developer might be, unfortunately they are irreformable in their philosophy of pay2win and bloated design, just like the Japanese developers are. They are AMAZING at pretty much everything else, but being so stuck in their ways in those two aspects, unfortunately, trumps whatever amazingness they did, do and will deliver in the future.

People blame Amazon but the outcome was set from the start; they were merely a handler, unable to alter the most vital decisions of the South Koreans. It. Was. Inevitable.

Now it's a dream long dead...

Much fun, very good soundtrack, fun characters and ball fusions, there's ng+, city-builder progression, has autofire if needed.

Gameplay is king and the king is here.

Very much recommended!

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, to me, was the first "Survivors-like" since Vampire Survivors that actually tried to innovate the genre, being the Mining mechanic, where pathing not only matters but also directly influences your survival and overall gameplay performance effectiveness, which is what sets it apart.

If you liked Vampire Survivors and wouldn't mind or would just like a bit more of an involved gameplay - which is super fun - then this game is, I would say, on par with Vampire Survivors.

Plus, it has Dwarves. the legendary bearded folk breathed into our world by the also legendary J.R.R. Tolkien himself.

Pros:
- Great gameplay
- Good progression
- Fun gameplay area (map) activity
- Additional expression & control via the mining mechanic compared to other "Survivor-likes"
- A variety of weapons, artifacts and builds, now also Gear that's been added in 1.0 (basically wearable items)
- Dwarves & Beards

Cons:
- Optimization suffers a bit in the "end-game"

To elabore on the con: overall, the game runs well, if not very well, however even on top-notch PC and while running the game on the highest settings, when there's a plethora of enemies on the screen, the frames can dip - not always to stuttery, unplayable levels, but enough to notice and be annoying.

The devs, last I've heard, are in the middle of rewriting the code to eventually deal with this problem. In fact, if you read the update notes on Steam, they were already working on it, but at the time it turned out to be taking too much time and hurting the overall development of new features of the game, so the devs did not abandon this project, but put it to the side, decidding to focus on adding new things to the game ahead of the then-upcoming 1.0 release date, which all in all, was the right choice.

Now that 1.0 has come out, if you intend to buy this game and this optimization issue is potentially bothersome to you, know that it is coming sooner or later, though I believe a date has not exactly been specified. However, seeing FunDay's track record so far, the fact that they have been constantly working on improving the game since its Early Access release date (we've been getting decent-sized updates every few months while the game was in EA), I've no reason not to have faith in them - they will deliver this in time.

In sum, this is one of the best Indie games out available right now. If titles like Hollow Knight are in your personal top 3 of Indies, then DRG:S is in my personal top 5 and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who likes Roguelikes, "Survivor-likes" and Stumpy Alcoholics.

Honestly, my most anticipated game right now.

One could say it's "simple" in its premise but the execution is pure Chef's kiss and that's what keeps you coming back.

It is downright torturous that there's no release date.

Veri Gud

You've issued a cease & desist to OpenIV? We issue you a cease & desist to further exist.

♥♥♥♥ you sincerely.

Pros:

• Rich in detail, as per usual.
  
• Distinct units and towers.
  
• Beautifully crafted visual experience.
  
• New mechanics compared to the first game - new enemy paths opening mid-stage and stage-related objectives, which can prove to be helpful during the run.
  
• A few more interactive, map-specific units compared to the initial game.
  
• Great music and SFX.
  
• Lots of hidden achievements throughout the stages.

Cons:

• Worse hero progression approach compared to the first game. Results in quite a bit of unnecessary grind to get all the heroes maxed, where - in the end - you will stick to only a select few anyway, due to their specific abilities. Do note that this hinders the overall experience in no way, really, as it is a post-game issue; one can easily finish the game with the starting hero, not having tried the others at all.
  
• Sudden difficulty spikes in a couple of stages (like 2 or so) that can throw you off.
  
• No real incentive to play at any difficulty higher than Casual (Normal or Veteran), as there are no achievements related to it. It is now worth playing the game on Veteran difficulty, due to the addition of an Achievement related to doing just that, yay!
  
• Game suffers from the same issue as the first one, being that once you get to doing Heroic and Iron difficulties, you end up with an absurd amount of additional Stars that cannot be used on anything, as the upgrades available in the game only utilize so many of those.
  
• Some issues with Cloud saving (people mentioning those issuse are in huge minority, though)

As you can tell by the score, the cons listed didn't really affect it much and should be treated as "I wish this was in the game" complaints of a die-hard fan, more than anything else.