The End of Dyeus

I don't know, man. [strike]Maybe when/if I finish the final area [spoiler]post-apocalyptic Earth[/spoiler] my opinion will change, but[/strike] [spoiler](EDIT: Just beat it, last boss was godawful even if it only took 2 tries. Literal spam fight)[/spoiler] god did this game ever fall from a solid recommend to a "I can't possibly recommend this game to anyone" at about the point where I started trying to explore the wasteland biome. Dyeus is a neat game in concept. It's basically a small-ish open world where the only power you can gain is gear, and the only gear you get is from exploring, so you need to explore everything. Combat is just LMB for attack, RMB for block, spam until the enemy dies, which is fine. If the entire game was paced and balanced like the first hour or so, just mildly increasing in difficulty over time, it would be fine. It would be great, even, though certainly too short. The issue is that it's not paced like that, it's still short, and it doesn't respect your time. Dying doesn't cost you anything unless you have a soulstone that resurrects you on the spot, you just pop back to your checkpoint and keep going. This is alright, plenty of games do this, but the…

I really liked this one, it has a great adventure feel. Wish we had more games like this.

A neat little open world game if you need a quick hit of something to scratch that 1st person fantasy exploration itch that Elder Scrolls or King's Field gives you. BUT it is also fairly frustrating and after about 5 hours of the game working perfectly it began to crash constantly to the point of unplayable. (Steam Deck) Combat is very basic but feels pretty good. I think it's a fun world to explore. However enemy placement and behavior is a big mark against it. Everything is very aggressive and will follow you for a long time and enemy locations are fairly close to each other often causing you to be chased by hoards of enemies. A game that would be really cool if they just reined it in a notch.

Surprisingly good, atmospheric, and underrated. If you like exploring and feeling clever you will like this game I believe.

Excellent game that punches well above its weight. The simplistic appearance works in its favour by removing distractions that would get in the way of you and the world you get to explore.

Provides the kind of freedom and excitement of exploration that big-budget games fail to scratch the surface of. You can probably walk from edge-to-edge of the map in about five minutes, but the world manages to feel huge with how much stuff is packed in every nook and cranny. It's not the prettiest game, but the simple and clean art style creates peace of mind that what you see is what you get. There's no meticulous puzzles to solve; no tedious side quests or mission markers; it's all non-stop bread and butter action-adventure, and I wish the industry would take notes.