u/Tutejszy1

I've been hearing about this game ever since it came out and I had a strong idea about what it was and how it worked. While it sounded interesting, those pre-conceptions kept me from giving it a shot - but when I finally did, they turned out to be almost entirely wrong.

I usually enjoy narrative games (though they are rarely my first choice), what made me not pick up Citizen Sleeper earlier what I thought the gameplay would be like. After hearing many comparison to board games and that the rounds are called "cycles", I imagined a very rigid, formulaic structure, with narrative elements woven around it.

In reality, the gameplay is quite freeform, where you can explore a big map and find various activities. The core gameplay loop is basicially resource management. Every day ("cycle") you get a number of dice to roll. High rolls will yield better results, so you want to use them for higher risk/reward actions, while also trying to aim to resolve various quests. This is not very complex, but honestly fun, at least until the late game, when you will have everything optimized.

The meat of Citizen Sleeper is, of course, its narrative, about which I had another misconception - I thought it would be yet another anti-capitalist dystopia. I like the genre, but there is just so much of it out there these days (for a reason...) and it feels unoriginal.

As it turns out, yes, there are strong anti-capitalist themes running throughout the game (big corporations are basically the source of all evil), they are not that central - in my opinion, the narrative is more interested in questions about identity and sentience. The nature of our character, who is basically an imprint of someone's mind put into a robot to create a legal slave (corporate loophole, since creating sentient AI is otherwise forbidden to prevent just that) provides and excellent framing for those topics.

Crucially, though, the game is very distinctly not a dystopia. Yes, the world and especially the space station we are at is decaying, but the overall tone is very optimistic. This is because of the very humanitarian messaging you will find all over the game. Almost every character you meet is compassionate and, well, good in one way or another. My choice was to simply trust everyone and that trust was very rarely betrayed. I believe that the most important thing the authors wanted to convey is that even in the most dire setting, human spirit and compassion will perservere against all odds. This may sound a bit banal, but it is convey in a way that I can only call beautiful.

My overall reception of the narrative was very positive, I havent encountered one this good since Disco Elysium (and that's the highest praise there can be). However, I do have a couple of issues with the game that keep it from being a truly timeless classic.

The first one is pacing. The game starts with a lot of tension and time pressure, that is then suddenly resolved quite early (around 1/3rd of the game I think?) and you are left with... pretty much nothing, apart from occasional timed questa. I do believe that this was intentional choice by the devs - they convey your character settling in the world this way - but it still makes the experience less consistent.

My second issue is more serious. Typically, I'm not a kind of person who obsseses about choices in games, in fact, I tend to prefer more linear, hand crafted plots. That being said, Citizen Sleeper is an exact type of game that SHOULD be based around deep, meaningful choices, but there are way too few of them. There are many factions and conflicting interests throughout the game and over and over again, whenever you feel like you are building up to having to side with one of them, the conflcting sides magically reconcile and you don't have to choose anything.

The last time the game does this, near the finale of the DLC, it is so blatant that it actually made me think that this was also intentional, maybe some sort of commentary about free will/social determinism. If it is, that was not the right call, as it makes the game less interesting by greatly decreasing the stakes.

Despite the above, I still had a great time playing Citizen Sleeper. In a vacuum, Id give it 8/10, but given it's very cheap even for and indie game, I'd say it's a must-buy for anyone who enjoys narrative games.

I am by no means an amazing player - never made it to d5, my peak was 5600 and the bulk of my playtime is struggling in d4. I am also not the type who sees both teammates at 3 bars halfway through a Nightlord fight and decides "fuck it" and soloes the rest. However, I regularly de-rank all the way to 0 to experience lower depths and I never have any trouble getting back to d4 - it usually only takes me a few losses in d1-2 and a few more in d3.

After seeing many posts about "d2 hell" in here, I realized that I dont share many of those experiences, mainly because my approach to lower depths is different - so I decided to share that, maybe it will help some players.

The most common complaint about d2 is leavers - abd rigthtfully so, as players often leave as soon as things dont go their way. Instead of complaining about, it is more productive to analyze why they leave and focus on making the experience as pleasant for them as possible.

In general, I see in this sub 2 most common mistakes when approaching d1-2 matches: pushing for high-level strategies/routes and going for high risk/high reward plays - these 2 can often be the same, but dont have to. My advice focuses on avoiding those mistakes to make sure that things dont go wrong enough for players to leave.

Now, onto more concrete advice:

1. ALWAYS STAY TOGETHER. I know that this is repeated ad naseum, but I still see people posting things like "my teammates were doing dumb thing x, so I went alone do do tho correct thing y and they got mad". Doing a bad route as a trio is always better than doing a good one solo. And you know what happens when you leave your team to do their 3rd gaol without you? They die and they leave. D1-2 Nightlords dont have much health or dmg, you can easily beat them with lvl12 and mediocre build, you just need to get there

2. Routing. As per above, dont try to push high level, correct routing on people who are not able to execute it - they will die and leave. Some common cases:

A) early invaders - not a good idea with people who dont know how to lure invaders out. If your teammates ping it, you should go there, but dont be the one pinging it yourself, even if it's an easy camp

B) early castle - beginner players will often not be comfortable with castle basement at lvl3. After the first poi, if they ping something else, go with them, they clearly need more lvls to be comfortable there. If nobodys pinging, you can try pinging it yourself, but be ready to quickly change your mind if they ping something else, same logic

C) day 2 routing - you want as many formidables as possible, that does not change. What does change is your efficiency and how comfortable your teammates are under preassure. Dont push for a route that involves close calls, dont ping one more boss when the final circle is closing - it is crucial that you all have full heals and no bars going into N2 boss. Low risk/low reward.

3. Characters - always wait to be the last to lock your character, beginner players are rarely concerned with composition and it will be on you to ensure some synergy. Prioritize meele characters - they are much harder to play and if you can keep aggro on you, it will make your teammates' lifes much easier. However, you also need to able to deal some damage in case your team is not doing well. Characters like Wylder, Undertaker and Raider are perfect for that - I wouldnt recommend Birb, but you can try if you know him well. Executor should also be decent, but I just suck as him lol. If you must pick a dps character, make sure that it is good at reviving (sorry Recluse)

4. Builds - crucially, do not go for builds that are hyper focused on getting a specific drop. With the above advice, you will be getting way less purple drops and if you go for, say, Rivers, you might simply not get it. Same with builds that require very specific passives - dont count on your teammates dropping you stuff, they might now even know what is good for you. You would think that this makes Raider bad, but he's actually fine as you only need 1/3 negation passives on him to be super tanky in those depths. In general, all-rounder builds (like single-balancer Wylder) are best if you can pull them off. Of course, check your teammates relics asap, not just to know what to drop them, but also to see if someone has extremely bad relics, indicating that they will need extra care

And that's all the advice I have. You may notice how I never said anythibg about Nighlords - that's because I dont have anything special to say. If you can make it to them with a full team and ok-ish lvl, they really arent that hard, especially since the ED chance is very low.

And that's it, I hope it helps some people climb :) Remember - dont look for your teammates' faults, instead, focus on how you can make them have the best experience

disclaimer: I am aware that the devs are from Israel and I did consider not buying the game because of that, however, I am also not aware of them showing any support towards their government and decided to go through with it

First Grime game is one of my favourite games of all time, so I was very excited for the sequel. I was also a bit wary, remembering Blasphemous 2 - another sequel that came out quite quickly and, while mechanically excellent, it lost some of the original's magic. Happy to report that this is definitely not the case with Grime 2. It is just as weird and enchanting, while maintaining an overall high quality and improving on some aspects of the first game.

The first aspect of the game I'd like to discuss is exploration. No way around it, it is just very, very good. The map is sprawling and filled with secrets and abilities used to traverse it are very fun and often unique. While the overall structure of the game is a bit linear (at least compared to behemots like Hollow Knight), there are many different ways to get from one point of interest to another. Almost every area has multiple way of getting in and leaving, meaning that there can be many different routes throughout the game, even if you end up doing roughly the same things in a similar order.

Secrets are also really satisfying to discover, they are telegraphed by tiny green hands sticking out of breakable walls and floors. Their visibility feels well balanced, they are easy to miss if you are just rushing forward, but easily spotted when actively looking. The only thing that is missing are whole hidden areas, but I can see why the devs did not want to include them - there are, however, big parts of many levels that are well hidden and completely optional.

Let's talk about the combat - it builds up on a foundation created by Grime 1, still being heavily parry-focused, but not as much. There is an entire character stat dedicated to perfect dodging and you can build around it, although parries will be required to deal with at least some attacks. There are a lot of mechanics surrounding the combat, allowing for much more robust player skill expression in combat. This, however, means that the combat does not feel as tight as in the first game, with all those options you can't really create and encounter like Shapely Fidus, where every attack required a very specific, perfectly executed response.

Speaking of bosses, they are extremely fun. I've seen some comments online saying that they are easier and therefore less memorable. I initially felt this way, but after examining them closer, I would say that their difficulty is very similar to the first game - but it's been a few years and I think that the soulsvania audience simply got better at such games, myself included. I'm glad that they didn't go the Silksong route and decided against ramping up the difficulty, after that game I wasn't really looking for another marathon of bashing my head against the wall. Once you forget about the difficulty, it is easy to appreciate unique mechanics and amazing spectacle that the bosses provide.

Another common complaint I've seen online is that there is too much platforming. This had me very worried, as I generally suck at platforming and don't enjoy that kinf of gameplay at all. While it's true that Grime 2 has way more platforming than the original, somehow, I found it extremely fun. The developers found a way to make the platforming quite easy, but at the same time it feels like you are achieving something amazing, weaving between all the different abilities. Many times I managed to go through a long section on my first or second try and just be stunned by the fact that I pulled it off. While I did get stuck a few times, it was never for longer than 15-20 mins and all of these sections were optional.

Regarding the artistic design, well... I'm sure you've seen at least some screenshots. The game looks just as beautifully weird as the first, with awesome music to illustrate that. The story is a bit more straightforward, giving some context and world building to the events of the original. There is sort of a twist to it, where the game feeds you breadcrumbs from the beginning and once you finally understand what's going on, it feels great (and terrifying).

So, final verdict, how does Grime 2 compare to 1? It's hard to say, not only has this been some years, but I have in my head the final version of the original, with all the DLCs and, crucially, fixes to much of the jank to the release state of the sequel. Despite that, I am confident to say that it is at least as good as Grime 1 and I'm happy to recommend it to anyone and give it **9/10**.