izigame.me

An overall positive and welcome addition to an already enjoyable and unique game. It is, unfortunately, fairly short and there is just a little cryptic bulls♥♥♥. Namely, if you wish to obtain the Invoker archetype, you should look it up. There's no shame here; the mystery is not fun or interesting. Spare yourself the pain.
I don't usually write reviews, but I feel the need to write this one because, at time of writing, this expansion sits at what I would consider to be an unjustly low 44% rating on Steam. Having poked through the negative reviews, a number of them are fair in their criticisms and quite a few of them are bitter. Criticisms of the expansion's length are fair; it's pretty short. Criticisms of the performance are warranted; it's bad in some areas. Criticisms of the cryptic bulls♥♥♥ are (sometimes) fair, as there's no clue or indication how you obtain a few of these things. However, I wish to address the most scathing of the criticisms, who are simply bitter about the update which accompanied the expansion's release.
For posterity's sake, know that this expansion was released in tandem with a major update that brought many changes to existing weapons, relics, and trinkets. I will outline some major changes below so you understand where I'm coming from:
Noteworthy Buffs/Changes
- They looked at all of the firearms that players tended to avoid and thoughtfully buffed them in ways that make them easier or more interesting to use, only outright increasing the power of them in cases where it was needed.
- They looked at many of the trinkets that players tended to avoid and gave slight buffs to very many things.
- They significantly reduced the Mod Power ("MP") generation of the Archon archetype and the Burden of the Follower ring while also boosting most other sources of MP generation. They also added a massive 50 MP/s to Archon's bubble for some reason.
- They made the (already overpowered) Slow ailment one of the "main" ailments (alongside Bleed and the three elemental ones) so that it can trigger/scale with effects that rely on the enemy having ailments.
- They merged the Wayfarer trait into the Swiftness trait and the Resonance trait into the Amplitude trait, adding two new traits to acquire in their stead. A welcome improvement, as what was considered an "aura" versus what was an "AoE" was confusing and arbitrary, and I enjoyed Wayfarer already.
- They added the "melee" tag to the mods on both versions of Deceit and the Ring of Swords mod so these attacks can additionally scale with melee damage boosts. They are very strong now.
- They looked at many of the rings/effects which trigger "on kill" and either changed their triggering condition or removed the condition altogether. (These effects were avoided by players because "on kill" is difficult/annoying to trigger consistently in a boss fight.)
- They significantly increased the base projectile speed of Merciless, Nightfall, and all the bows/crossbows/whatever.
Noteworthy Nerfs
- Reduced Nightfall's base damage from 31 to 28.
- Reduced base damage of the Ritualist's Miasma skill from 500 to 300. (I suspect it's still a "press to win fight" button.)
- They nerfed the absurdly high stagger and base damage of World's Edge and also reduced the sword's critical chance slightly. (You know, that weapon that outclasses all other melee weapons because it has a wide and long-reaching ranged attack that ignores geometry?)
- Removed the critical bonus from the Hunter's skill, Hunter's Focus.
- Reduced the critical chance bonus on the Hunter's "Mark" status effect from 15% to 10%.
- Reduced the critical chance bonus on Atonement Fold, Momentum, Nightweaver's Grudge, and Akari War Band.
- Reduced the critical damage bonus on Probability Cord, Burden of the Gambler, Abrasive Whetstone, and Akari War Band.
- Burden of the Divine's damage output malus was increased from 10% to 15%, while its healshare percentage was reduced from 50% to 30%. (I use this ring the vast majority of the time and I say this change was fair and needed. It's still good.)
- Reduced damage bonus on Whispering Marble from 3% to 2% per stack of Bulwark.
- Reduced damage bonus on Dried Clay Ring from 65% to 50% of Bulwark bonus. (Dried Clay Ring and Whispering Marble are an obvious and easy pairing which grants a ton of damage resistance and unconditional, global damage bonus. Post-nerf, they are still really strong.)

Basically, it was a huge update that thoughtfully combed through all of the game's creative build options (weapons, trinkets, relics, etc.) and slightly nerfed things that were overpowered (which many people used because they were overpowered), while buffing many of the other toys that would serve as alternatives; note that less than 20% of the changes were nerfs. Remnant 1 and 2 are games that excel in granting tremendous build variety to the players and having most of those options be not only fun, but worthwhile. This is no small feat in games as complex is they are, and I think the relatively small team at Gunfire Games deserves recognition for their thoughtful balancing and game design.
To be concise, my impression and opinion of the most scathing negative criticisms is that they are lodged by the type of player who whines that Apocalypse difficulty enemies one-shot them because they wear exclusively damage-boosting items, rock exclusively the strongest weapons, and only know how to play the Hunter class.
Also, don't complain about how "this is the third time we've seen Yaesha." Bulogna! You never played Chronos and you know it! No one bloody played Chronos! You're just copying what someone else typed in their review. It's the same vapid, incestuous carelessness you see in a YouTube comment section, where people regurgitate what another person next to them said in a conceited attempt to filter to the top and be seen. Do your own thinking, you dog! D:<
Comments are enabled on this review because I'm no baby-man, and discussion is a good thing.