Rock, Paper, Shotgun's john Walker posted his thoughts on playing Lords of Xulima. He isn't ready to post a full review so here is just his early impression.
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Lords of Xulima - Early Impression @ RPS
- Thread starter Couchpotato
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IMO not excellent game, definetly more than 60 hours long.
Comparing to DAI is… Not rational.
DAI is consolegame ported on PC. Xulima is definetly PC game with a certain phonegames UI choice (a small one, not really important), but it supports m/k properly unlike DA3.
Also, DA3 doesn't have deep skills system and attributes in it are pure decoration, in Xulima your specializations matter. It's still not unforgiving like Blackguards, you can take a wrong character developing path but will still be able to correct it.
Etc.
I'd actually compare it to MM10, it's similar to it although MM10 is basically a dungeon crawler on steroids.
And compared to MM10, it's not as good. MM10 doesn't annoy the player anywhere. There are no areas that hurt your party over and over, and there are no Final Fantasy invisible hostiles in MM10. Masochistic types who adore a stone in their shoe will also adore Xulima's design of annoying the player just about everywhere, and I… Hate certain design choices.
While not excellent, it's definetly not a disaster either. Xulima starts highly challenging and it's fun. You get a feel you accomplished something every here and there. But it quickly turns into a chore of nailing mobs over and over without no other reason but gathering XP. Unlike early start, midgame feels like a festival of mediocrity. Eventually, if you don't ragequit, you'll stumble upon the final quarter of the game which, unlike the rest of it, is definetly excellent and I'm unsure why devs didn't keep the midgame on the level at least close to it.
Is it worth your cash? It definetly is. But not every penny. While for MM10 I say buy now no matter the price, for Xulima, just as for DA3, I suggest get some 20-25% discount.
Comparing to DAI is… Not rational.
DAI is consolegame ported on PC. Xulima is definetly PC game with a certain phonegames UI choice (a small one, not really important), but it supports m/k properly unlike DA3.
Also, DA3 doesn't have deep skills system and attributes in it are pure decoration, in Xulima your specializations matter. It's still not unforgiving like Blackguards, you can take a wrong character developing path but will still be able to correct it.
Etc.
I'd actually compare it to MM10, it's similar to it although MM10 is basically a dungeon crawler on steroids.
And compared to MM10, it's not as good. MM10 doesn't annoy the player anywhere. There are no areas that hurt your party over and over, and there are no Final Fantasy invisible hostiles in MM10. Masochistic types who adore a stone in their shoe will also adore Xulima's design of annoying the player just about everywhere, and I… Hate certain design choices.
While not excellent, it's definetly not a disaster either. Xulima starts highly challenging and it's fun. You get a feel you accomplished something every here and there. But it quickly turns into a chore of nailing mobs over and over without no other reason but gathering XP. Unlike early start, midgame feels like a festival of mediocrity. Eventually, if you don't ragequit, you'll stumble upon the final quarter of the game which, unlike the rest of it, is definetly excellent and I'm unsure why devs didn't keep the midgame on the level at least close to it.
Is it worth your cash? It definetly is. But not every penny. While for MM10 I say buy now no matter the price, for Xulima, just as for DA3, I suggest get some 20-25% discount.
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Wow, I just don't agree with you again...which is shocking.
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I sort of agree, it's a good RPG, it's just not my type of RPG. Combat is challenging and tactical, that's not my problem. What I don't like is the having to go back and forth through the different maps. Constantly you have to go through half a map to trigger something and you can't continue, and remember in which other map you couldn't continue before, then go there, continue a bit more until you trigger something else, and go now to the other map so you can continue, all this while going through random encounters.
that's not to say the game is not enjoyable, but not goty material for me.
that's not to say the game is not enjoyable, but not goty material for me.
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Dunno why, but somehow I'm glad to hear that.
Exactly that. An encounter here and there, okay. 5-10 per area would be sufficient. But the amount of them is abnormal, there are more invisible mobs than all other ingame content combined (chests, traps, visible mobs, locked doors, secret swirtches, etc).
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I just skipped most of the random encounters with the camo skill so they didn't bother me. Between teleport crystals and portals I don't remember backtracking being a huge problem either. But I did find that some of the fights could start to get a little tedious towards the end, enemies often had a lot of hit points and could take a long time to wear down. Even when the fight was massively in your favor it could seem like it took forever. I especially hated necromancer types who summoned more enemies and ran behind them.
Overall though I still really enjoyed the game. It had it's flaws, but it still somehow just worked for me. I'd be very interested in seeing a sequel with a few refinements.
Overall though I still really enjoyed the game. It had it's flaws, but it still somehow just worked for me. I'd be very interested in seeing a sequel with a few refinements.
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yeah pretty much how I looked at it...I actually like the necromancers it allow me to a) kill more bad guys getting more experience b) use my summoner to bring up golon and get some cool items.
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Why one earth wouldn't you write reviews just because you don't share Joxers views? In this case I think most of us agree LoX is a good game and a great effort from a small team. No one is bashing the game, we just have different opinions on HOW good it is, ranging from decent to great. And your opinions are just as valid as anyone elses, isn't that one thing this forum is for, discussing our opinions? It would kind of boring if we all felt the same way all the time...
S
Sacred_Path
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I call bullshit on joxer's claim that the amount of wandering encounters outnumbers the amount of other events on the map, and I seriously doubt that anyone claiming that has actually played the game in its current version.
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Since when reviews here must share my views? Sorry, but... That's rediculous statement.
Since when summoned creatures give XP? On normal setting, I get zero XP on killing summons.
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I haven't played it since beta, but I got to level 20-ish with a bunch of parties and the game is a lot of fun. Like many here, the invisible random encounters didn't bother me most of the time because clearing a map of them was satisfying. My favorite low level area was the mushrooms that you have to maneuver past. Once you can beat those guys, it gives a lot of satisfaction. In my opinion, two mages is almost easy mode. I even did 3 mages one time, but that wasn't as effective. You can do two mages and a summoner, if you're patient. It takes awhile for the summons to be really useful.
I can understand where Joxer gets frustrated though. On some of the maps, the RE's are a bit too much. Mainly the soldier battles where you fight 8-10 troops.
I can understand where Joxer gets frustrated though. On some of the maps, the RE's are a bit too much. Mainly the soldier battles where you fight 8-10 troops.
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Not *that* frustrated though, if I was I'd quit. But I grew some gray hair on those invisibe mobs. 
Just finished it, a minute ago:
Normal setting, Steam says it took me 77 hours.
Ending was nice, but… I won't replay this game for sure.
Will go check if anyone made norespawn mod for DA3… If not, will finally sit my sorry arse onto Wasteland 2.
Won't go post into finished thread. The game from me gets strong 6/10, if they didn't insist on those invisible mobs that are antifun, it'd be 7.
Just finished it, a minute ago:
Normal setting, Steam says it took me 77 hours.
Ending was nice, but… I won't replay this game for sure.
Will go check if anyone made norespawn mod for DA3… If not, will finally sit my sorry arse onto Wasteland 2.
Won't go post into finished thread. The game from me gets strong 6/10, if they didn't insist on those invisible mobs that are antifun, it'd be 7.
Call it what you want. I call it exactly what I've written. There are more invisible mobs than other content in the game summed up. And, I'm saying: "I seriously doubt that anyone claiming" differently "has actually played the game in its current version."
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You're kidding right? It felt to me like there were alot more random fights than set ones in most maps.
What I would've liked is an option to force encounters. I like that you're able to clear the maps, but it takes such a long time and consumes alot of food when you have to run around waiting for an encounter to show up. I reallt liked the approach they took with the random battles otherwise, that it's actually doable to completely clear areas and get bonus XP, but the amounts of fights needed to do so feels a bit high on most maps, at least to me.