Dolls Nest Steam Charts & Stats

I've recently played a lot of Nier Automata, so this is heavily reminiscent of it, moreso than the Dark Souls vibes you may get from the game. Just note that it is much easier than most Dark Souls-like game (arguably the easiest one I've played, and even easier to cheese it). That said, it plays very much like Demon's Souls instead of Dark Souls or other Souls games (main area with major boss, introduced to hub area, then three more areas each with multiple bosses). Also, Noriko Mitose and ZIZZ STUDIO is a GODLY combination. Bought the OST album for this immediately after hearing it.

Honestly a pretty fun and enjoyable "western mecha" soulslike even if it's rough around the edges. The scenery and atmosphere are pretty top notch; they really nailed the "cold and uncaring post apocalyptic" vibes. The game is a little easy (I killed the last boss with 3 charged melee attacks) but that's not so bad. BP (ammo) management seems annoying at first but you get a lot of resources to replenish it and the campfires are pretty frequent. Really hoping for a sequel!

The game is decent. atmosphere is pretty cool overall, especially as someone who has read Blame, I appreciate the overall dystopian nature of cities building themselves, long after human civilization. the designs of the mecha are cool but I wish there was a little more added on for the mecha girls. like just add some shoulder weapons and it would be really sick. gameplay is where I would be somewhat iffy on. The game is pretty easy overall which is kind of a let down really. I'm not asking for battletoads or anything but I do like some challenge. it feels good to play through it though and build up your character. Not a big fan of the character quest system. just because dark souls does it, doesn't mean you have to. story: i'm going to leave this as mostly N/A for now, but the one thing i will say is that i don't appreciate the souls way of storytelling that souls likes try to implement. I understand vaguely but have yet to read through a lot of item descriptions. performance: Unreal engine strikes again, that's all I'll say on the matter

The game is okay. For a passion project, the first 3D game from the studio, they clearly knew what they wanted to make and how to go about it, but it lacked polish in a few areas. Would be interested in the studio making more games like this if they use the knowledge gained from this. My biggest issue is the awful optimization, the game will stutter on a capable machine even on lowest graphics. Game's worth a shot if you like Dark Souls 1-esque level design and content with an almost-Armoured Core style to combat and traversal. It is a bit easy though.

A mech action game with Souls-like elements. You take control of a nameless (and customisable) android tasked with finding her master's body in the titular Doll's Nest. Much like the Souls games, it takes the narrative approach of being very light on plot details and letting you piece together things about the world from interactions with characters here and there and descriptions on items. You have the expected sparse cast of characters but it isn't clear if the world is just largely desolate or there are other androids going about their business that just aren't seen for some reason. Or if the mechs you fight in each area are also considered citizens. Well maybe best not to overthink it. Engaging stuff if this is your style. As for the world, in terms of theme some areas can look a bit too similar to each other, with their ruined/post-apocalyptic industrial facility vibe, maybe with a different colour palette, but it does all look good and fits with the lore of the place in general. The level design also feels very Souls inspired. Each distinct area has a singular checkpoint that respawns enemies when rested at and can be used to customise your loadout or teleport. Instead of having more checkpoints within the area, you will unlock shortcuts back to the area checkpoint to quickly return to different points of the area as you advance within it. It can be a bit of an ordeal getting the next shortcut unlocked, especially early on, and the areas can feel pretty big, but it is a satisfying challenge to overcome. Exploration can feel rewarding too since it's likely to net you with more weapons and frames. The movement also enhances all this, you'll be sliding around at high speeds, hopping and gliding as you need to, which feels very fun. Customisation is also a big part of it, of both your android girl and the mech suit ("Frame") she wears. For the android, it isn't as extensive as some games, you can pick some hairstyles, faces and bodies from a small pool, also expanded by finding more options around the world, and adjust some proportions and colours to suit your tastes. For the frame you can combine 5 types of parts and also customise their colours, and as mentioned you'll be finding these parts by exploring the world. The stats can be a bit overwhelming at first, but basically you have to balance the weight of everything (which can affect the speed) with what the legs can carry (and they also affect movement speed and jump height) and also their defensive properties. You can use whatever you feel like though some setups might win over others and you may grow to have favourites. You also have rear weapons, which are up to two heavy armaments you can equip on your mech that usually reload ammo slowly over time, and 2 primary weapons that will use to attack most often, which you can switch between with a button press. You have a number of types of each, and they're generally divided into kinetic and plasma/energy weapons. A lot of options are available and some are more effective against different enemies and scenarios, but some can feel lacking too in terms of power. I was also bothered by the low rate of fire on the non-SMG types at first. You can get by with whichever you prefer in any case. More on the combat, your opponents are typically light bipedal mechs sporting a single weapon of one of the archetypes you can come across, maybe with a status effect depending on the area, and some bigger mechs with much heavier weapons or unique armaments to take down. They aren't too complicated to take out but can blow you apart if you approach them incorrectly. Bosses are a bigger ordeal but still fairly manageable so long as you don't have a bad setup (a few can be tricky to figure out however). A notable part of combat is also resource management. There's the "stamina" you can expect tied to sliding, jumping and gliding and actually quite a generous amount that you must still be careful to manage, and a pool of energy used to make rounds for your rear weapons and magazines for your main weapons upon reloading. There's also non-regenerating health beyond your regenerating barrier to manage of course. You don't get an autorefilling pool of healing items, but can carry a certain amount from a stash that refills at checkpoints. The game doesn't have much of a soundtrack, until it comes time for a boss fight, during which you'll get to enjoy one of the game's impressive tracks, it really is a shame you don't get to hear much of it outside these battles. Overall I can strongly recommend it if you like Souls-likes and mech games.

While it's lacking in polish, and clearly owes a lot to Armored Core and Dark Souls, this certainly has enough of its own identity, and is finished enough to be worth the price. The verticality of the areas is something that I don't think many other games can really offer alongside this sense of scale. Maybe the areas could have a bit more attention to detail as sometimes they felt difficult to navigate because many of the level elements felt samey, but there was always rewards for exploration, and there weren't any truly repetitious areas, and it sold the huge sense of scale well in different ways in each one. Weapon variety was good enough, but the upgrade system and the length of areas and ammunition cost didn't really encourage straying too far from basic rifles and middle launchers. Enemy variety also wasn't fantastic, but it did enough to keep the game moving. Character customisation was a strong point, with many options for building your own mecha-musume. Overall, while not perfect, this offers an experience you can't really get anywhere else.

Actually a good but hard game. Armored Core meets Dark Souls (more DS) with a twist of God Eater OST for boss battles, and your cute Doll will get chased by teh Cataphract as one boss out of many. Cute characters, nice JP voiceovers, several parts to arm your girl with and you find more along the way even with additional outfits. Don't forget to rescue friends along the way too, it will pay off later! ...and then there's that "Achievement Get" insult for losing like an idiot which burns one's pride and patience, yes the one troll-tag telling the world that a player just sucks at a game because they died, again. "This person is Expendable because she died!" Rude. Phfft... How this happens by chance? Why pissed off? Normally losing angers anyone but for this case, there's one other... Big problem as why: massive Melee Weapon cooldown. Yeah you won't be swinging that badass blade around like in Armored Core or Dark Souls, but only one swipe of sword and you absolutely better not miss your mark, you have been warned, you will pay dearly if you whiff a melee attack. Unless there may be some kind of weapon in the late game that allows Melee Combo like Armored Core/DS, you will be punished for even the smallest mistakes of Melee Incomptience, especially when outnumbered. So for record of fight: Cute Characters, Fair to Good customization, Good Game, Lack of Music (Boss Fights, cutscene, title only), Data does NOT carry over to devices via Cloud (Different Device? You're starting over), Dark Souls Difficulty, Bad Achievement mockery, Very Bad Melee skills (the killer) that will cost you on whiffing a move. -Steam Deck check incoming later Alright. This started disliked until beaten completely, which I did. Just because of this does not mean I will stop playing. There's so many Armored Core references here one would be fooled into their Raven habits & tactics kicking in. Watch out for familiar cameos like the Cataphract MK2.0, and even a Brat-Stigro. So, after the result: Certain areas will enrage players, and the Melee Cooldown and no melee combos are all a pain in the exhaust port to keep in mind. This game actually is good, but it will make you angry!

Got my copy of this game on release day and just finished my 5th playthrough to 100% everything the game has to offer and I have to say... This is easily one of my all time favorite soulslike experiences... I mean, it's still a far cry from a true souls thing, but the variety of builds and approach to every bit of content is absurd! Plenty of unique ways to focus and hone your character abilities, and massive rich and unique environments! There's very little I personally had any issue with, some of the weapons being such under-performers was extremely disheartening at the first bit of the game, almost feeling like collecting extra gear beyond the starting build was a fruitless endeavor, however there are a ton of utilities to mess with and perfect almost any gear approach. I have played 75 hours since it's release, and it's a title that will stay installed on my PC and I will be playing even more as I find myself in an aimless boredom... It's a very niche experience, but if you enjoy mech combat games from the late 90s and early oughts, where you could statistically overhaul everything from damage output to how high you can jump your mechs, this is a stunning experience rich with lore!

Armored Core combat/gear tweaking meets Dark Souls world/level design with cyberpunk aesthetics of Nihei and cyber/Doll fashion, what's there not to like? Single playthrough will take you 20~30 hours depending on how enthusiastic you're about knocking walls and roofs when looking for paths, items, and secrets. Gear variety is massive and you should pay attention to never cripple your build with: [list] [*] Super low Handling as then you can't turn to aim fast enough in CQC. [*] Low jump as then you have hard time reaching items or hitting some bosses in melee. [*] Low sensor range as you can't lock onto enemies that stay in air and away. [*] Melee has horrendous downtime so dump your Humanoid points to it and pair with a frame that has high melee efficiency. [/list] And with the base price being 20e it's a really solid product [i]but[/i] this also means there are some minor nitpicks: [list] [*] Horrendous UE5 TAA ghosting at times on your armored doll. [*] Water Treatment Level needs optimization, even 4080 Super stutters and drops to sub-60fps at times. [*] Fantastic OST but >95% of the play time you only have wind howling as ambience/background noise. [*] Enemy types could have used more variety to force you to experiment with weapon categories more. [*] Some of the primary arms are more or less horrible UX as either they have low damage, long downtime or short range yet are not counter-balanced e.g. low damage paired with low cost and high rate of fire. [*] Similarly the rear arms have high ammo cost and hardly noticeable damage increase over primary arms, probably because they wanted players to conserve ammo. [*] The weapons you find later in playthrough barely feel like upgrades and sometimes the early weapons are most balanced of their category. [/list] But even then 20e is more than fair asking price, but better match your expectations accordingly.

I really, really want to like this game. The visual design, part variety, item descriptions, and depth of stats for builds are all fantastic. But it's just so hard to enjoy with the weapon balance being so abysmal. Thanks to the absurdly poorly balanced ammo mechanic, using almost any back weapon feels like the tactical equivalent of chopping off my own arm because I got hungry. Ammo aside, many weapons also just take forever to deal any significant damage. Just like Daemon X Machina, there are dozens of weapons, but you will feel shoehorned into using a tiny fraction of them because the rest have no DPS or will run you out of ammo before the halfway point of a stage.