The Signal From Tölva

A nice little sci-fi indie game that won't take long to finish but you will find yourself annoyed at the various oddball mechanics and the story line that is quite hard to follow.

There is a lot of complains for this game about "not enough gameplay", "too many walking", "not enough variety" and so on. And while they all is correct, to certain point, i think its like requesting Mario Kart to be fair racing game. If you have played 3079 or 3089 by Phr00t you know that to expect. There is enemy and friendly bases, there is wast heaths to cross, there is various old and very old derelicts to discover and ogle and signals to scan and there is some creepy mystery on this haunted rock. And this is base of whole gameplay. You go and raid enemy bases, collect resources to purchase new weaponry, blast your way or stealthy crawl into signal locations (unfortunately you much more often shoot then crawl) to scan it, slowly getting more far and revealing more and more strange things on planet surface. At some point your superiors decides they had enough and commands you to start little Armageddon to put end to this mystery and its up to you to do so or not. In whole i liked this game. I like these tranquil and sometimes serene grass fields, these cyclopic stone monuments and old rusty derelicts. I like that mystery, albeit it never really uncovered and almost no answers given. I like exploration parts and searching for hidden stuff. But there is things i dont like too : Performance is bad, since its Unity. Enemies is unfair, with 100% aim and always coming in packs, only in end of game you get effective enough weapons. Little variety of weapons, almost copy pasted bunkers. Two endings and both is...kinda WTF. Especially of you not read enough lore in game. A lot of questions, almost no real answers, just some thin hints. Randomness - sometimes to get to your target you need to fight hordes of enemies, sometimes you just walk peacefully with nobody around. But. still, if you know that its fine to you - go get it.

First the good, the art style, environment, lore and sound engineering are great! This game has such as distinct style, I really got immersed in the world. I seriously hope this universe gets a sequel to expand on the ideas laid out here. Unfortunately, once you get into this impressive world you realize there really isn't much in it. You've seen the loop before: explore the world, capture the point, collect loot, upgrade character repeat. The combat isn't bad at all, but the gameplay is seriously lacking. That being said, my favorite parts are actually the quiet moments when it's just you exploring some spooked out ruins. I knew going into this that this game was kinda shallow in the gameplay department. That being said, I seriously love the world here and hope Big Robot knocks it out next time!

A kind of repetetive and bare bones game, especially in the beginning. While the scenerey is nice, many assets are repeated over and over again. There are only four types of enemies and effetivly only four different weapons - of which one is your default. You task is to find data and signal fragments, collect scrap and take bunkers form enemy forces. You seem to play some kind of AI and can transfer yourself to a random robot chassis at checkpoints after you die or as a method of fast traveling. At first, that's kind of easy and you repeat your same tactics over and over again. Then, after about two thirds of the map are conquered, it suddenly gets all tough. Suddenly you can't go in solo, guns blazing, anymore. You have to use a recruitment tool, which takes one of your two weapon slots and take fellow robots along. As much in the game squad management is extremely basic. I haven't even found a command to kick a robot from your squad and the only command, rallying at a selected point, usually doesn't work. While the AI of your allies is braindead, they work as extra fire power and usually do the job. Except if there is a turrent, then they get killed every single time. So the best tactics is to go in solo, destroy all turrents, go back to base and come back with a squad. Tedious, but effective. Still, I think combat is pretty fun in this game. You have to manage raising and lowering your shield and your AOE, while trying not to get surrounded and looking for cover to recharge constantly. The guns feel nie and sound great, especially over long distances.  The exploration aspect is kind of so-so. While most objects you discover all look the same and just give you a piece of story you can read through (no voiceovers), there are one or two small highlights among them. The music could be more present, in my opinion, it's generally hardly noticeable. To sum it up: Very basic game with not much variety but interesting, tactical combat and a nice feel and atmosphere.

Objective Review 6 of 5 must play. 5 of 5 great story great gameplay. 4 of 5 great story average gameplay. 3 of 5 average story great gameplay. 2 of 5 play only if it's your favorite genre. 1 of 5 play if you have nothing better to do. 0 of 5 play if you're a masochist -1 of 5 avoid The Signal From Tolva Score is 3 of 5 Subjective Review This was fun. I never felt it was repetitive as each mission, though similar, the way to achievement is always varied. Lots of upgrades for weapons and shields (and other things) to earn, which you are able to get as you achieve missions. Night and day evolves, the lighting and mechanics of your robot at night are great, and each otherworldly location is done very well. Never relied much on my other "team robots" but now and then they did appear like the calvary. Played it through to the ending, which I felt wasn't very rewarding for all the work you do, but I had a good time getting there.