A delightful little nightmare, and also the exact kind of difficulty spike I needed from Rimworld.

Dragon's Dogma 2 being a bit shit admittedly took a bit of the wind from my sails, giving me a hefty case of Gamer Block™ that's inhibited any attempts I make to start something new. Which is a shame, because I really want to play Library of Ruina.

Fortunately, for whatever reason, the games industry has collectively decided that April is update/DLC season, so every game I play on the side is shoveling new stuff down my throat. Between Dwarf Fortress, Ultrakill, Big Ambitions, CK3, an upcoming Total Warhammer 3 DLC and other stuff I'm probably forgetting, I'm hardly lacking in games to revisit.

But it's Rimworld's Anomaly expansion that's grabbed my attention the most.

I really like Rimworld. No matter what, I always come back and roll a new colony eventually. Compared to most colony sims, Rimworld manages to be an enjoyable experience even with very few colonists, and I'm eternally surprised at just how differently a lot of my colonies play out based on a combination of the colonists/map/terrain/storyteller.

But, sad as I am to say, once you've adjusted to Rimworld's particular eccentricities, it becomes rather easy. Each DLC can alleviate this in some way, but they don't offer much challenge beyond "mood debuffs" or "alternative humanoids to fight" on the difficulty front - even if their other offerings still make them worthwhile.

Anomaly, then, was much needed.

Somewhat uniquely for a Rimworld DLC, Anomaly does not initially fire when enabled. Besides an odd Monolith on the starting cell, some of the DLC gear appearing at vendors and the odd single Shambler (zombie), there are no real signs Anomaly has even enabled itself.
It's not until your curiosity gets the better of you, and the investigation of the Monolith starts, that Anomaly kicks in.

Anomaly's primary offering is in both difficulty and difficulty variety.

A single enemy stalking your base doesn't seem threatening, but it's invisible. Even a proximity detector only tells you it's hanging around, it won't show itself until it decloaks. It's smart, too! If you have pawns that work in separate areas away from one another it will absolutely wait until they're alone before decloaking and feasting.
Even then, there's a similar monster - the Revenant - that only comes out at night and snatches pawns away without picking a fight. For once, building separate bedrooms is no longer the safest option.

And sure, Rimworld has had events that boil down to "lots of things come to kill you" before, but Shamblers are uniquely terrifying in their volume. They also don't feel pain or suffer from organ damage, and while fire is effective against them it's also risky - wildfires are a very real threat, and if they breach your defensive lines it could be parts of the whole colony that go up in smoke.

There are lots of horrors in Anomaly, I won't go through all of them because some are best experienced blind, but my favourite is the Metalhorror which is... The Thing. Yes, that Thing. It slips into one of your pawns and goes out of its way to spread, and it is horrifically clever. If it infects a pawn on kitchen duty it'll slip food into the colony's meals. Infected doctors/surgeons will lie about examination results. Did you build a communal barracks to deal with the Revenant? Congratulationss! That's an infection vector!

Most basegame threats in Rimworld are easily subdued by catch-all solutions, which is was a huge contributing factor in the game being relatively easy even on naked brutality starts. Anomaly's threats not only require more specific countermeasures, but the threats you even receive are entirely randomized. There are no pre-prepare easy tactics, my friend.

Your reward for engaging with this threats is the ability to play Lobotomy Corporation, or Diet SCP. Unlike human prisoners, extradimensional horrors require much more intense containment measures in exchange for much grander rewards. Bioferrite is plucked from said horrors and makes for an excellent crafting material, and archeotech shards help turn pesky uncooperative prisoners into mindless Ghouls that regenerate all ailments/wounds absurdly fast and have no needs beyond raw meat - give them a Nuclear Stomach, and even that one need is moot. Take part in some dark rituals, and you can make colonists immortal by sapping the lifespan from an unwilling victim, or even warp a random person through the void to your colony for whatever nefarious reasons.

Despite writing 'reviews', I actually don't ever go out of my way to formally recommend things. I'm a glorified blogger yelling to myself, not a buyer's guide, I don't know your history or preferenes or exact mechanical icks or tolerance for girl guro.
That said, I don't recommend Anomaly as anyone's first Rimworld expansion. Not because of it's quality, no, but because it synergizes so well with Biotech (Sanguophages especially) and Ideology that it should come with a warning on the store page. Anomaly is phenomenal for 'evil' or unscrupulous colonies, and it adds so much to vampiric runs that I can't imagine one without all it adds.
Also, as a little post-gdocs addendum: Mechanitors feel infinitely more useful in Anomaly, in part due to robots lacking consciousness which makes them immune to the very concept of horror - and very resistant to Shamblers!

Lastly, if you're a prospective Rimworld buyer: Don't get Anomaly immediately. Or, if you do, don't fuck with monoliths. This is a hard DLC even for experienced Rimworld players, and it can feel 'unfair' at times. It's best bought once you're familiar with how Rimworld works, what makes a good colony, and how to handle disaster.

Ultimately, my only gripe with Anomaly isn't even a dealbreaker. Without touching the Monolith, Anomaly just doesn't activate. I would've liked to see toned-down versions of the various horrors appear as random events, but I can understand why given the ease with which they'd decimate newer players.

I don't really have a cool sendoff for this. You guys play uh, Balatro?

EDIT: Literally as soon as I posted this, Ludeon announced they were changing how Anomaly integrates. Amazing.

Crusader Kings 2 was shat out into the world about 12 years ago. By the time its successor came out it'd developed a reputation as a game that was barebones without any DLC but was a gripping and indepth time-abyss if you had most/all of it.

Crusader Kings 3 decides to iterate on its predecessor by being a game that's barebones without any DLC, and still barebones even with all the extortionately overpriced DLC.

It is an inevitability in first-party Paradox titles that the player will eventually stumble into a period of empty space where all they're doing is advancing time at 5x speed until some events pop up and let you do something. Even Stellaris, the game that most often has you actively doing things, tends to fall into it at some point.

CK3 is sadly the worst for it, in part due to numerous under-the-hood changes that at first seem beneficial but in reality seem drab. Paradox's approach this time round involves dissuading players from attempting to colour the map as in past games and instead focus on a small corner of the world - whether it be a kingdom or an Empire, they don't want you playing with adult colouring books this time.

Instead the focus this time is on roleplay and/or kingdom management, with hefty penalties to expansion and harsh limits on how much you as an individual can control directly before needing to shove things onto your vassals. The game, including its tutorials, not-so-subtly nudge you into grabbing hold of a title and clinging to it. New and reworked mechanics like culture/religion/councils/language and more with DLCs all add to this; the focus of this game is in finding a place and staying there.

Unfortunately this focus results in a lot of waiting, as almost all of the mechanics up above boil down to clicking a button and waiting for a scheme to resolve. The much-praised Tours & Tournaments and Royal Court DLCs are much the same despite their praise, simply offering you more buttons before the wait begins rather than just one. It's all rather at odds with the intent to make you more actively partake in your realm's management, because in practice it's all very passive.
Further dulling matters is that many events often boil down to very static, very predictable stat checks. Oh, someone's trying to murder your son - who is 9th in line to the throne and has more defects than limbs? It's just a passive intrigue and scheme power check. Duelling? Martial and Prowess stats.
Much of these additional stats like Prowess were added to make the game less binary, but given how they scale it's relatively easy to stack the deck in your favour unless you gimp yourself...

But even then, this game's biggest problem is that it's easy. Metagaming is no longer required to stack ridiculous bonuses in your court, especially given the relative prominence of random lowborn courtiers with insane stat spreads. CK3 tries its damndest to have consequences for this, but what use is a hit to your legitimacy when you can pump out children that're functionally immune to rebellion, assassination, or the perils of inbreeding?
The DLCs just make this worse, as most of them are nearly consequence-free. Tours & Tournaments is a series of easy resource/stat boosts for relatively low risk, Royal Court is the same and both of them make socializing so much easier. Northern Lords supercharges a lot of the northern factions, and-

You know, CK2 had a bit of a problem with Eurocentrism, to the point where most non-European factions needed a paid DLC to be playable. Even then, it was almost always the titular Crusader King nations/cultures that got all of the updates and boosts.

CK3 seemingly averts this by having everyone on the map be playable, but it doesn't take a genius to notice that the non-European factions feel distinctly undercooked. Muslims can't even observe Ramadan. As expected from a CK title, Paradox sell the fixes back to you via Fate of Iberia and Legacy of Persia, but even these feel half-hearted and empty compared to equivalent CK2 packs. Go even further East and it's like wading into unfinished content.

I think what really broke this game for me is the lack of impact anything has. The first time a council member blackmails you with your own incest/kinslaying, it seems like a grand obstacle to be surmounted, but oftentimes it's a total non-issue. In my most recent game, everyone and their mum tried to expose me for pulling a Habsburg on my bloodline, but the end result was a few minor opinion penalties that were easily swept away by holding a Grand Wedding. It feels a lot like playing a mod for CK2 that's perpetually in beta; wowed by all the options available until they fire and you realize that you've functionally just skipped a stone across bathwater.

...Also I realized halfway into my conquest of Britannia as the Irish that the devs had forced a Legitimacy mechanic on me and that I couldn't meaningfully engage with it without forking out money for the recent Legends Of The Dead pack. Hurray!

The best way to experience this game is to read people's (probably made up) campaign stories on Reddit, for much of this game's remaining appeal is in doing stupid shit like banging the pope, and for once that's attainable without touching the game.

It's been four years and CK3 still feels as hollow and unfulfilling as it did when it came out.

Just gonna use this entry to review all three packs contained within, both to save on space/time and because Backloggd still doesn't have the 6th DLC listed.

The Battle of Onigashima Pack is... Honestly? Probably the worst one.

Despite what the marketing said, and what OP knowledge might have you believe, the star of the show is my beautiful he/her transmasc husband Yamato. He's an incredibly strong Power type with high-damaging, high-range specials and an extra damage multiplier in FFB mode on top of the existing one.
Where he really shines is with his unique transformation, which turns him into a gorgeous wolf man with digitigrade legs- er, and also makes him a lightning-fast Speed type with crazy range and damage compared to other Speed types. The transformed specials stand out; despite being relatively boring to look at they hit like trucks and recharge scary fast. Overall, best character of the pack.

Onigashima Luffy is somewhat of a disappointment. His base form is a reskin of the post-timeskip Luffy that comes with the basgame - but with a coat. He can transform into Gear 5 which is... It's a fun transform, very strong, has some of Omega Force's most gorgeous animations, but as a transform it's very rigid and can't be customized. You can prolong it indefinitely by maintaining a combo, but as a Sky type it functionally only has one combo set which makes it a bore.

Hybrid Kaido is an odd character. The basegame Kaido was very obviously made years before Wano hit its peak and this DLC version is essentially a rebuild. He now has many of his late Wano moves which is great, but he's rather unwieldy as a Speed-type Giant, not to mention his air combos force him into his Dragon state and are equally unwieldy. Really, the real gripe I have with him is that he's just all around worse than the Kaido you can play as without buying DLC.

Anyway, onto the Film Red Pack which hilariously used to be the worst.

The reasoning for this is that Uta, the pack's flagship character, sucked. Like, god she sucked. She had worse damage than the other shitters like Chopper, Bege or Bartolomeo along with an underwhelming transformation, awful range and wimpy specials.
Mercifully we live in a world of patches and she was fixed when the next DLC came out.
Uta, nowadays, is one of the better Technique types - on par with Kin'emon and only second to Rayleigh. Her damage is exceptional for her typing and the various changes they've made to her effects, spawnable traps and specials mean she's now got enough power behind her to actually carry her through the harder stuff released in the other DLC pass.

As for Film Red Shanks, you can honestly just consult the Hybrid Kaido section because the same complaints apply. It seems as though he's made for people who can't get a handle on the original Shanks' gimmick (wherein finishing a light string with him empowers his next finisher), seeing as going FFB gives him haki empowerment for its duration. He also has that infuriating issue so many Speed types have wherein his attacks can overshoot his position, meaning followups will miss if you're attacking an armored enemy.

Fortunately the pack is worth it for one character: Koby. I was excited for him more than the other two because he's one of my favourite characters in the source material, but that excitement turned to apprehension when I found out he was a summon character like Bege or Cracker.
Good news, though, is that he's fantastic. I always wanted the Six Powers to get another rep besides Lucci and he delivers. He's fast, impactful and very fun to play - plus his summons don't feel intrusive. FFB just makes them even better, and his Film Red outfit has a button dedicated to a dramatic Yakuza-esque coat toss. Hey, he even comes with his non-movie outfit! Surprising.
Nothing fancy to say here, he's just *good.

Now onto the last pack, where much of the Sauce was saved: The Legend Dawn Pack is... Cheats! Hurray!

Gol D. Roger is as you'd expect from a character with so much in-story mythos as him. Kinda reminds me of my Xenoverse 2 modding days, where so many custom characters had obscene guard breaks and stamina drain on their normals. Though he's not a Giant type, he still shreds the armor gauge like crazy and possesses ludicrous range. His charge attacks can be... well, charged [Isn't it annoying that they're called that despite most characters not being able to charge them up?] but FFB removes the need to do this.
When I say "Legend Dawn is cheats", I mostly mean Roger. He's easily the second best character in the game, behind Whitebeard. Also his taunt lets you put his hat on which is ADORABLE.

Rayleigh is my personal favourite of the three, though. Once again he's one of my favs from the manga, for despite being a lesbian I am NOT immune to a fruity old man.
You know that thing annoying Shonen powerscalers do where they look at an old/injured/retired character and go "Yooooo imagine him in his prime though"? Yeah well Rayleigh in this game is that to a T.
He's a Technique type yes, but in function he plays like a Power type. His entire shtick as an old man is his obscenely powerful and refined use of haki, and his younger self in this game shows it off by doing what I can only describe as some Vergil-tier shit.
It's really telling that, while other characters with Conqueror's Haki have access to a special known only as "Conqueror's Haki", Rayleigh's is so fucking powerful that his special has its own name.

Garp, meanwhile, is something of a disappointment. He's a weird hybrid of his PW3 grappler moveset and a newer brawler moveset with some annoying mechanics. Namely, grapples bounce off of armored characters, and he has a sword buff mechanic like Shanks/FR Shanks/Oden/Mihawk/Smoothie but unlike those characters, it's given based on hit count - which is a problem for a character with low range and relatively few multi-hist.
Honestly, his real issue is that Power as a type is super crowded in terms of good characters, and compared to them he's far down the ladder. Don't get me wrong, he still clears half the roster, but when that half has characters like Tashigi/Bege/Chopper/Sanji/Bartolomeo in it, it's not much of an accomplishment.
Also this is petty but his younger look is kinda goofy, where's my GILF skin Koei.

To summarise: Do I like this pass more than the first one? Mostly yeah. Land of Wano (CP1's last pack) is my favourite of the DLCs, but the 2nd/3rd/4th place slots are occupied entirely by CP2. The rise in quality is just absurd, in part because these characters are less obviously cut from the base roster to be sold later.

I would say "here's to more DLC", but I think this game is finished. It's been a great run all things considered, so here's to a PW5 that hopefully BRINGS BACK KUMA WHY DID YOU CUT HIM YOU MANIACS-

[Writer was dragged off stage.]