I feel like the art and ambience of the new areas in act 5 are a vast improvement over the base game.
Definitely gave me a somber, eerie vibe, which is what I look for in games. I’d be thrilled with a “night only” option, but I still had many moments of atmospheric satisfaction. Some of the new mobs were also right up my alley (Wendigo’s, Spirit Satyre things).
I found the skeleton summoning mechanics weird at first, but it didn’t end up as a big deal.
I found it odd Skeletons couldn’t be commanded, nor did they have healthbars, but after some critical thought, both had reasons. After maxing the skill out, I found the RNG aspect of conjuring interesting, since it gives a reason to cast the skill a bit more often, BUT found the ARMORLESS SKELETON to just look uninspired. I couldn’t really even see him to be honest, he’d get lost inside all the FX and lighting. The method of making the conjuring more hands on, so you arent just running in circles like an imbecile to stay alive, isn’t lost on me. “Roll an armorless Skeleton? Looks like it’s a good idea to recast, isn’t it?”. It’s perfectly fine, other than one small issue.
The Skeletal Mage’s aren’t very dungeon savvy. They will try to cast skills through walls, and generally just cast too slow to make a real impact. Xbow Skeletons however, are a deadly firesquad. They shoot quickly, and generally outperform the mages in every way.
I would prefer To see a sort of fire chain/ tendril attack, even if it didn’t jump to other targets. That way, it shouldn’t activate til they are within sight, and it’d be more reliable. With that qol, damage could be nerfed accordingly. I would also like to see them cast Fire/ Cold/ and Lightning skills over just one element. There may be a skill modifier item which does this. In that case, this argument isn’t as valid.
The Xbow men also suffer from this, though not as terribly. If instead they used an invisible chain template, which released their bolt, it would also remove the whole wall hostility thing they have. It might be a form of balance to make them less effective in certain areas, but I feel like that would be the wrong way to balance them. I’d rather have smarter, less effective minions, for immersion experience.
I noticed a few things that I won’t go into detail But I will vaguely express how satisfying droprates were. I felt like I was constantly improving, and that’s what ARPG experience should be. I never felt enemies were too strong, nor too weak. It’s a very good level of balancing from a Cabalyst perspective, and it was easy to enjoy the game all the way through.
The new cutscene seemed stereotypical at first But even if the “ancient language magic” trope was cheesy at first, the voice actor accented the emotional resonance of the situation really well, and definitely saved the video.
Some particular features i’d like to see later; (though aren’t necessary)
- Night only/ Time Cycle disable option
- Bigger damage number text option for my terrible eyesight
- Quest arrows
- Channel while moving skills
- More and more expansions!
I feel like I definitely got what I paid for in the long run, and it’s definitely one of the best ARPG’s at the moment. It didn’t nab everything I was hoping for (though i’m sure it did for some others), but it does do well where it counts most.