edit after defeating the last boss on bloody whiskers: - combat still feels and plays like dark souls at 5fps - building your settlement? 3 merchants/crafting stations that you can upgrade 3 times is not building a settlement in my book. Most of the reagents you need for them, you get for free during the main quest. Like the last item for smith lvl3 is just a quest "get the smith to level 3" and you get the item. No story or side content for it, you just get the item... Boring and plain af - elemental system. Its the same annoying stuff with zero thought behind it as all the bottom of the barrel games have. -- Armor has elemental defences, weapons have elemental attack. There are way too many of the same weapon/armor type. Its mostly just fashion with some little less damage or weight. Like monster hunter gear but with even less stats and no skills on them -- Enemies have weaknesses to certain elemental attacks. So you have to change your weapon almost every second screen or so because you just encounterd a different enemy with completely different resistances. Gets annoying real fast. -- Elemental attacks apply a debuff, if the gauge fills, you or the enemy gets afflicted with a debuff/stun. Means, you can get stunned by almost every enemy in the game, sometimes even in one hit and you sit there and cant do anything. Weirdly, all debuffs applied to your character are ALWAYS stuns meanwhile your poison or fire attacks only apply a damage over time effect on the enemy... - magic "system": 4 basic magic attacks that you just spam and forget mid fight. - grinding bosses: amazing that they copied the worst system of "Salt and Sacrifice", bosses that you encounter in the wild and that will run away if their health reaches a certain threshold. Just think about how fun it is to chase these completly easy bosses around the map to get certain crafting mats to craft a specific weapon or armor. Get especially fun if you spend more time running around then fighting the boss. - progression: non-colored armor is pretty bad compared to the enemies you encounter in the early game. As soon as you reach blue (2nd tier) gear, the game becomes a cake walk (even on bloody whiskers) - flask: Its insane to me that they are still keeping this stupid system in the game (it was already in the first game annoying as hell). With 3 health upgrades you hold your flask button for almost half a minute to fill your health (a full flask only refills half!). IDK why the flask is even in the game, feels terrible to use. All in all, feels like a glorified DLC to the first game. All of the new systems are so shallow and bare bones that it feels like they never left the concept phase. review at 6 hour mark: Its like 90% the same game as the first one. Combat is still as clunky as in the first one. Story is still barely there (narrator is still not skippable, even if you heard the same line already). Hit boxes are still sometimes there and not there. If you really liked the first one, you'll have fun with this one too. If you are unsure if you like it, get the first one.

Completed on medium difficulty. Positive impressions changed to negative ones quite quickly, when you realize that this is a reskin of the first game and nothing more. It feels like the second game is smaller in content than the first. A complete lack of any innovations, both in the plot and in the gameplay. If you played the first part, then just replace the frogs with bats and you know what the game iis about. Little has changed in terms of gameplay. They replaced extra damage to races with damage from the elements. The hook that we were shown is not used in combat and moving with it is purely scripted. A lot of running from point A to point B. The bosses are reskins of small monsters with 1-2 additional attacks. The only big plus I will say is about the visuals, it is Gorgeous. Otherwise, this is a DLC for 10$, but not a full-fledged second part. If you want to take it, wait for a discount.

rat souls 2: the squeakuel

This game is trying SO HARD to be Witcher 3 that they hired Geralt's voice actor to narrate. Couple issues with that: 1) if you want anyone to take your game seriously maybe don't populate it with cartoon rats. There's a tone mismatch that doesn't work here. 2) The narration is AWFUL. It brings the game to a grinding halt every five seconds and cannot be skipped. I remember'd why I stopped playing the first game. It was this. It NEVER STOPS. It's not cute or fun, it's overwritten as hell. 3) We get it. You like Game of Thrones. The entire setting is just GoT mad libs. 4) It sells itself as Souls-like and by that they mean "there's swords and a roll button" because that's where the similarities end. Skip this and go buy Hollow Knight. It's this but better in literally every way.

Rat is short for Ratthew

man... Denis keeps getting bullied. Sad to see.

The first game is a pleasure to play. This one is way too difficult. I got stopped at the first boss in the game. I am here to have fun, not test my mettle as a gamer.

The game looks great and the combat could be solid, but everything else drags it down. It constantly feels slow and tedious: Healing is painfully slow — long drink animations after every fight. Bosses love running across the map mid-fight, making battles a slog. Tons of backtracking before fast travel unlocks. The elemental system (fire, electric, cold, poison) is simple but annoying: Constant gear swapping mid-fight to match resistances. Mixed enemy types make it worse. I just used one high-resistance Light armor the whole game. Magic exists but is weak and barely useful. Combat has gone downhill: Way too much AoE — entire arenas become dangerous. Bosses have too many invincibility frames during long animations. Some red attacks (especially jump-backs) feel undodgeable. Bosses hit way too hard — even fully upgraded, 2–3 hits and you're dead. The player dodge frames feel off and unreliable. I 100% completed it, and still wouldn’t recommend it.

Bigger, better, and packed with even funnier puns—Tails of Iron 2 delivers. The first game was so good I got a Redgi tattoo. No regrats.

Dont know how this is "Mostly Positive"? Its a vast improvement of the first one and the first one didnt even need any improvements. great game, love the art style drawings, love the reference to Lords of The Fallen, Hope a 3rd comes one day. great game.

I've played the first game and I must say this game was a bit disappointing, especially the mechanics. Was looking forward to it for so long and can't even count how many times I wanted to quit because of frustrating game design. If you still want to play, get it on discount. As others have mentioned: -Elemental system-could have been fun concept if not for needing to switch equipment around all the time and there is no function to save preset outfits. Additionally, enemies, especially bosses, spam way too much elemental attacks that take up large AoE. Your debuff meter also gains really fast and essentially stun-locked if you don't press a button fast enough to get out of it. DoT like poison and fire don't seem to do much damage and duration very short. Honestly it would have been better to keep first game where you had resistances based on species. -Equipment progression - you just get equipment thrown at you and there's so many sets I got tired of comparing equipment to min/max dmg and def. There's 3 tiers of armor and I didn't even need to upgrade all the way for some armor and weapons. As long as you are patient with attacking, there's no real "need" to upgrade. Blue tier gear will get you far enough. And there's no feel of armor getting better because I'd be wearing Gold tier armor and still losing half my health in one hit. I prefer finding equipment, getting it as a quest reward or boss drop, rather than this crafting galore. -Repeatable boss quests- highly redundant that bosses run away for these and does not add to the gameplay. -Fall damage - there are some heights that really don't make sense to add that little bit of fall damage. While yes, you can slide down the wall, but why decrease variability in gameplay? -Potion drinking speed - the health regen speed is waaay too slow, especially when you're in a boss fight and the boss just spams attacks and there is no breathing room. When you do get a chance to drink your juice, it's so slow you can only get a little bit in. -Wholely depressing story even though I understand it. The ending was not surprising, felt forced, and disappointing, even if trying to seg into a DLC or 3rd installment. -Game felt way too short compared to the first one and very railroaded. There also wasn't much to do in a lot of the map sections. You'd be walking from one side of the screen to the other with nothing to explore or do. It's just main quest, side quest, straight line, go. I'll have to replay the first one again to compare. -Many controllers not supported which in this day and age is kind of ridiculous, for these types of games.

Honestly, fuck this game. Completely misses the mark. I was going to continue playing it and finish, but I just don't have neither time nor patience for this. I would refund it in an instance if I could. - Very harsh and unbalanced beginning. The first boss is just a nightmare - Monster hunting is far, far from fun - Useless loot which you also have to change all the time to be able to survive - Horrendous copy-paste side quests - Empty maps, with you just having to run from one end to another. Even your own keep has nothing to offer - AOE enemy attacks are ridiculous. No, it is not fun to have the whole arena covered in poison. It never is - Long hit animations. By the time your character finishes his punch you will get stun-locked by AOE effects anyway, with the boss likely to finish you off with his next hit - The whole game feels like a boss rush. Most of the time there is no one to fight in several areas apart from a boss at the end of the map Before playing this game I've replayed the first Tails of Iron and finished recently released Ender Magnolia - and both are way superior games. I don't know what devs were thinking.

6/10 This sequel is, in many ways, a near carbon copy of the original Tails of Iron, with the same flaws intact. My biggest gripe remains unchanged: I desperately want to love this game - given my affinity for Souls-likes, indie studios, and animal protagonists, it should, by all logic, be a slam dunk. Yet just like its predecessor, the aspects it excels at are overshadowed by persistent shortcomings, leaving me feeling more let down than enthralled. From the outset, the game repeats large portions of the original’s storyline. Once again, you’re the newly crowned rat monarch, your kingdom has been razed, and you must rebuild by rescuing various vendors and forging alliances across the land - eventually gathering enough might to confront the antagonist clan. This time, your allies and enemies include a bat clan (alongside the returning frogs and moles), as well as a few newcomers like mermaids and vultures. The narrative is serviceable but lacks the novelty that made the first game charming - visiting the underground mole kingdom in the original was far more engaging than anything this sequel offers. Fortunately, the writing still shines with clever rat puns, amusing dialogue, and an overall wit that elevates it above similar titles. Combat, too, mostly echoes the original but introduces a few tweaks - some welcome, others frustrating. The moment-to-moment gameplay remains slow and somewhat clunky, yet now there are rudimentary magical abilities that at least provide some variety, and elemental weapon enchantments that play out like rock-paper-scissors against enemy weaknesses. Unfortunately, enemies also wield these elements, which translates to irritating area-of-effect attacks that stun you if you stand in them for more than a second or two. Every element - fire, ice, poison, electric - causes the same stun effect, and it’s both thematically dull and aggravating in tougher fights. It’s a decent idea in theory, but its execution is the opposite of fun. This segues into my biggest complaint: the difficulty curve is relentless in a way that doesn’t feel satisfying. You begin with so little health that nearly every enemy can one- or two-shot you. Coupled with the oppressive stun mechanic, you’ll often die before you can recover. The painfully slow healing mechanic exacerbates the issue. Healing from near-death can take 15 seconds or more, and at maximum health, your “Estus flask” equivalent won’t even restore you fully once. In the meantime, bosses frequently spam leaps across the screen with awkward hitboxes, so half the challenge feels more about coping with design quirks than honing your skills. Even outside of boss fights, constantly having to run back to the nearest healing dispenser - because benches inexplicably don’t restore your health - further breaks the flow and feels like clumsy design. That said, sprinting is a welcome addition for general traversal. While fast travel is improved with more signposts, it still isn’t enough to remedy the abundance of backtracking. A direct fast-travel option from the map would have been a huge help, since manually crisscrossing the world wears thin far too quickly. A grappling hook appears here and there, adding the occasional spark of excitement, but it’s entirely scripted with no room for experimentation or creativity. Side content doesn’t fare much better, often boiling down to rehashed boss fights - sometimes just reskinned versions of what you’ve already faced. Typically, you chip away at a boss’s health, watch it flee to another location on the map, chase it, and repeat. The rewards rarely feel worth the hassle, and I quickly lost interest. All that said, the game still offers a stunning visual experience. The art style is easily one of the most impressive I’ve seen in a 2D platformer lately. Character designs are meticulous, and the backdrop art exudes so much craft and care. The developers clearly poured their hearts into the project, and that passion is evident. Sadly, as was the case with Tails of Iron, I can’t bring myself to truly love it. While Tails of Iron 2 represents a slight improvement overall, the clunky combat and unsatisfying gameplay sap most of the joy from what otherwise could have been an audiovisual triumph. I wish the team had taken more creative risks, rather than delivering what often feels like a reskinned expansion. I’ll still root for its success - this talented studio deserves recognition - but ultimately, it just isn’t for me. On a side note, I encountered a softlock early on: I was farming a bug for healing right as a cutscene triggered, causing my character to loop indefinitely in the farming animation until I force-closed the game. It was the only major bug I ran into, but it speaks to some remaining polish issues.

hampter

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Had to refund for now No sound at all, windows doesn't even show the game in volume mixer, so it's not even detecting that there IS sound. Controller also isn't working properly, can't navigate menu because the directional buttons and analog sticks aren't working, only the face buttons. Loved the first game, hoping we get some quick patches to correct these issues so I can play.

A beautiful successor! New mechanics, so many new clans, less backtracking via teleporting. I liked the bosses and the story, it has simply more of what you loved of the first game with more abilities and resistances to take care of (yours and the enemies). It did also run smoothly without problems on my PC, had no issues at all. If I would be nitpicking just for giving ideas to further improve on the next titles: I liked the achievement of the first game more, it gave you more of a completeness feeling. To kill little birds just to have 25 kills for them, felt meaningless. On the other hand, a lot of progress and kills or upgrades gave you no achievement, which is weird. Also I missed to see the full collection of my armors, they all look so cool. One real downside was hunting+day/night circle. I like the overall idea of different creatures showing up depending on the time of the day, but it was very annoying to have the monster run away from you, just to "disappear", because of the day circle change. So you got to go somewhere to sleep now and then search it again. Also when you make some monster later, with "overpowered" gear, running after them after three hits is maybe unnecessary anyway, at times I ended up just running zig zag around all maps. But those hunts are mainly bonus content, so please enjoy this overall perfect title. Thank you so much for this wonderful game, I loved it.

Rat Viking Simulator 2.0 Lets Gooo! Satisfying combat, Great story, Art and Animations. Looking forward to what Oddbug cooks up next yes-yes

I really wanted to like Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter. It looks pretty good in a cutesy way, it has what seems to be an interesting story, and having not played the previous game, it was all fresh to me. But, alas... the combat. Unfortunately, I found it to be terrible. They do recommend a gamepad, and I played on mouse and keyboard, but I don't think that's any excuse. It seems it wants to be a Darksouls-like, which is fine (then even have an "easy" mode), but the combat still feels slow and sluggish. I felt like I was moving though quicksand. It made combat feel tedious, rather than actually hard. With so many other games to play, I couldn't be bothered to try and force my way through it. Perhaps with a "content tourist" mode I could be coaxed back to play and see it through, but I can't recommend it to anyone at this time.

The worst hit boxes and I frames. So terrible. Other then that is is a great game

hate to say it, but you've learnt nothing from the first game

It's a fun game.

First off, I WANT to like this game. I'm a furry, I LIKE the art, I LIKE the concept. The narration and Story is good. But damn the game play is just SO damn bad. For a game the focuses on combat so heavily. I wish the combat made more sense. your going to die. A LOT. Your going to die for the stupidest reasons. like TRYING to follow the rules that they set out. Block. Dodge. Parry. Simple enough... or so it seemed. Blocking is easy enough, unless you mess it up then expect to lose a huge chunk of health. The window to dodge and parry however is so f'n awful. Then whoever decided to add ground based status effect zones after enemy attacks. There is a special circle in hell for that guy. It's the most annoying mechanic I've ever seen added to a souls like/metroidvania. It turns an already hectic battle into a one sided slaughter as you now cannot pass through large portions of the battle field without being punished badly for it. I played the first game, I beat the first game, I loved the first game. This game feels like garbage compared to it. And frankly that saddens me cause I REALLY wanted to like this game. I just don't have to patience anymore to throw myself at a stupidly one sided battle system anymore. 100 tries at 1 boss is enough. Do not recommend. Save your sanity for a better game.

Good rats kill bad bats

First of all, the art in this game is beautiful. The characters, the backgrounds, the immersive sounds... it's audiovisually absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately, where as this game shines with art design, it lacks in storytelling, quest design, crafting, combat and more. I was hoping for a similar yet improved experience, compared to the first game, which I absolutely loved. But as soon as you look past the art, you realize that this game is a downgrade from the first game in almost every single way. The story is rather shallow, where you're much less invested in Arlo and his story, than you were with Redgie from the previous game. Things just seem to happen because the rest of the plot can't happen otherwise. It feels very straightforward without any twists or interesting variations. My biggest gripe with the game though is the combat. It feels clunky and doesn't flow. Adding new features and trying to make combat more varied, is a great idea in theory. The new elemental system in this game is a bad idea. By the end of the game I was either not using the elemental skills at all or using them all at once. These skills don't really have a big impact on combat, and between parrying, dodging, and attacking there's just too much to do. It didn't feel like an addition, it felt more like a annoyance. Enemies using their elemental powers just got frustrating after a while. No matter what type of element was used, the result was always the same ... being stunned for a long time. Combined with the huge AoE elemental effects that cover a large portion of the battlefield, this is not enjoyable. Having different enemy types with different weaknesses, where you "have" to adjust your equipment, is also a great idea in theory. But having to go into your inventory and change out your equipment before every fight is ridiculous. Enemy weaknesses should be confined to one area, so that you need a specific set of gear for that area, and you don't have to change gear before every fight. Healing takes much, much longer in this game than in its predecessor. I was killed more often trying to heal myself, than if concentrating to dodge attacks. Even if you manage to heal a little between attacks, it is not enough to take another hit and you die anyway. The fights feel repetitive after a while as the bosses movesets are reused all the time. Once you learn the handful of movesets in the early game, the late game is just more of the same. Another issue I have is that almost every quest or action is unnecessarily drawn out or designed to waste time. It feels like this was done on purpose to stretch out the game. Every monster in every hunt quest runs away at some point, after losing a certain amount of health. There is no benefit to this. The only effect it has is that you have to run all over the map chasing the boss until you defeat it. Filling up your healing flask at a barrel, doesn't fill up your health bar at the same time. This means you have to refill your flask, heal with it, refill the flask up again, heal again until full and then refill the flask again. It is just unnecessary steps and wastes time. A lot of side quests are like "How about you go to x and fetch me y?". Just running from a to b, pressing two buttons. No short little story or varied quests. This also feels repetitive after the 3rd quest. The crafting system is sadly a complete mess. There are just too many items, the items are not well organised, and it is hard to track stats between them. Having to switch between menus to craft a helmet from the same set as a cuirass is not pleasant. All the items should be collected in one set that you can craft or upgrade from. Wanting to compare a sword, axe and lance from the same set, before crafting them, is almost impossible. You have to switch between 3 different menus and then find the item in each menu. Why do I need 30+ different pieces of armor and weapons each? The inventory is flooded with items that are tedious to compare to each other and have only slight differences. Every item has an elemental class, in which it is strong, except for two pieces of armor that have two elemental classes?! Why not all combinations of two classes?! It's a very strange choice. In the end, I finished the game with 100% completion. I enjoyed myself at times, but was also very frustrated at other times. It's not a bad game, but it's a downgrade compared to the first game and that's very disappointing. I don't recommend buying this game, especially at this price. Maybe give it a try, when its on sale.