Gizmo's Workshop - True Storms Review

Hello, fellow Patrons! My name is Leon, and today I bring you all a review of the Fallout 4 mod, True Storms. This mod is available for PC users, and can be downloaded from the Nexus modding community.

One of the most downloaded Skyrim mods, True Storms has also been ported to Fallout 4 with even more options than seen before. This mod completely overhauls the storm systems in Fallout 4, including: heavy rains, dust storms, and even radioactive rains.

Upon downloading, you will also receive a holotape that allows you to change the mod options to your specifications, making this a very diverse and custom-tailored experience.

1. This mod really changes up the atmospheric dynamic of the game, making it feel more consistently and vibrantly alive as you travel through the Commonwealth and its DLCs.
2. This mod does make the game darker, which I personally like all on its own, but also provides the benefit of making it much harder for most enemies to detect you as you sneak around at night, or inside of buildings.

1. As cool as the radioactive storms are, a lot of times I simply end up going out of my way to use the wait feature to bypass them. A cool feature, but one that I ever hardly have the patience to push through with, at times even just outright disabling it.
2. This mod is very intensive at times, so make sure you have a good enough of a rig to run it. Especially during storms, you can easily see massive lag spikes that can easily get you killed in the middle of a firefight.

1. This mod heavily conflicts with a lot of other mods, and because of these incompatibilities, it's hard to set up a properly functioning modded save-file with this mod active. The good news is that most of the bigger mods have compatibility packs available, but a good number of the smaller mods end up conflicting, and breaking the game in a bad way.

Easily one of my favourite mods for the simple fact that it makes the game feel more alive. It's an amazing feeling silently exterminating every super mutant as you sneak through their encampment during an active storm, or being chased by a feral ghoul pack through the fog as the lasers from your laser rifle are reflected all around you.

I highly recommend this mod to anyone looking to improve their gaming experience, and I'd have to give this mod a 5/5.

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Hello, fellow Patrons! My name is Leon, and today I bring you all a review of the game Salt and Sanctuary, a 2D action role-playing game developed and published by Ska Studios. The game was released on March 15th, 2016, for the PlayStation 4, with later releases for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch.

Ship-bound on a fateful journey across the thundering seas, to fulfill a political wedding that will bring a uneasy peace to your homeland, the ship is boarded by marauders and a malevolent creature of the deep sea, bringing the ship to destruction regardless of your actions.

Awakening on the beach, you meet an old man who leads you to Sanctuary, the start to a journey across the mysterious island, composed of various entities from faraway lands. There they must fight the largely undead population known as saltborn, as well as the Kraeken and their dark lord known as the Nameless God, as well as the Lovecraftian creatures they have unleashed.

This game is hard. Really hard. Until you get a hang of the steep difficulty curve utilized throughout the game, it's going to be an uphill battle learning how to progress through each area of the map, and the various bosses that block your passage to the Nameless God.

That being said, this game is incredibly fun, and it wasn't often that I would have to put the game down due to overly-frustrating sections. Like other Souls-like games, dying doesn't necessarily mean that you lose everything; you must pay a small portion of your collected gold while being revived, but your salt, which is acquired by defeating enemies and is used to level up both yourself and your equipment, can be recovered by defeating either the enemy that killed you, or the phantom that appears should you die to traps, or by falling to your death.

The first playthrough is rather simple, as the game does a fairly good job at prodding you in the right direction, and keeping you away from shortcuts, which are usually protected by difficult enemies and bosses not meant to be fought by newer players. The enemies and locations will become exponentially more dark and creepy as you progress through the island, with items you collect explaining where you are, and what you're facing in your perilous journey, which is a welcome change compared to other similar RPGs.

Veteran players, however, have many more opportunities available to them, as the island is wholly accessible to those that know the hidden shortcuts scattered all over, providing even further challenges to those looking for em.

As you continue to conquer the island, you will come across many Sanctuaries, each of which houses a Creed that worships certain deities. Only one Creed can be vowed to at a time, but once you have found the one that suits you the most, other Sanctuaries can then be purged of their followers, allowing you to spread your devotion. Each of these Sanctuaries can house NPCs that will make your journey easier, which will already be present, or can be acquired by offering certain stone talismans to the Sanctuary's shrine. As you improve your devotion, your Creed will progressively offer more and more unique perks, making your choice a very important one. Choose wisely.

The bosses are typically unique, and you must fight them with caution if you are going to succeed against them. The weapons and magic you collect are very useful in changing up your playstyle, and if you decide to stick to just one or two different styles of fighting, chances are, you're not going to have a very successful time getting past most bosses, as they will require you to adapt.

1. Hard, yet incredibly fun. S&S employs many different forms of weapons and magic, utilizing weapon skills that can easily change how you play the game and tackle different enemies.
2. The amount of enemies is massive, and it's guaranteed to run into something new and exciting in every level. Learning their patterns is a fun challenge, and not many are what I would consider overly-broken.
3. Bosses are vicious, and going in unprepared will be a harrowing experience. That being said, most bosses, which relentless, allow for many opportunities to stay alive long enough to learn their patterns and effectively fight them. These fights are just challenging, and just forgiving enough to be fun and not rage-inducing.
4. Similar to other Souls-like games, S&S tells its story through item-descriptions, and it is very easy to miss the story should you rush through the game, or neglect to talk to the various NPCs. This leaves the world a mysterious and cryptic one, leaving you to wonder where you are, what happened to you, and the consequences of your presence in this Lovecraftian setting.
5. The NPCs are typically an interesting and varied lot, providing quite a bit of insight and intrigue should you take the time to seek them out and unlock their different endings. Well worth the effort, although very easy to miss should you skip certain areas and bosses.

1. The Sanctuary mechanic is a fairly simple one, yet, it is very difficult to utilize them to their fullest potential. There are many important and unique items that can only be obtained by ranking up through a Creed, yet only one Creed can be joined at a time, coming at a rather hefty cost.
   1. This is exasperated further, since the only way to add NPCs to a given sanctuary is by using the very limited stone consumables that summon them, making a full Sanctuary playthrough only entirely plausible by saving up these items until at least New Game ++.
2. Enemies spike in difficulty... frequently, and drastically. It is very common to have little to no trouble fighting enemies on one screen, and then having an enemy two-shot you the next screen.

1. Ranged weapons... suck. There are many sections of the game where ranged weaponry is the best way of handling an obstacle, yet it is so incredibly slow to aim and shoot, and so many enemies can be ontop of you in less than a second, there are very few scenarios where a ranged weapon can be properly utilized without becoming compromised by doing so.
2. There are quite a few parts in the game where parkour is necessary. The problem, however, is that parkour is not very fleshed out in the game, consisting of only rather limited jumps. Add this onto obnoxious enemy placements, and precise jumps, parkour can get very frustrating, very fast, with non-forgiving fall-damage.

The ending itself, while not much of a surprise, was still a satisfying one, while leaving quite a bit of the background story still up to your imagination, and leading straight into New Game + for those looking to unlock different endings. All in all, S&S has easily become one of my favourite Souls-like games, and I'd have to score it a 9.5 out of 10.

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• Hollow Knight
• Salt & Sanctuary

• Sim Settlements