As the title says, this is a big enough issue that it should be put forth first. I was about 3/4 through the game, updated to v1.04, came back a few days later and found that my manual and auto saves said 'incorrect version'. I couldn't load them at all. If I hit 'continue' the game brought me back to about 1/3 through the game, losing several hours of progress. Very dissapointing and extremely frustrating. The game itself is fine. Graphics are your standard retro style pixel art. They're clean and colorful and the environments are well designed. The story and writing is ok, nothing special. A few 'roll your eye' jokes and mostly forgetable npcs (I honestly don't remember any of their names). The side scrolling combat is pretty good. You have a variety of abilities based on which element you shift to. My biggest gripe is that switching elements can be clunky and you can only cycle from A > B > C > B > A. You can't go from C > A or A > C directly. This is a problem because the double jump is in A so any time you want to change to A you have to pause for a few seconds and might miss the jump or take damage. The 'strategy' portion on the overworld map is pretty lackluster. You can build 4 structures and only two types of units. The units will auto attack anything in range so it really just comes down to filling the new area with soldiers and archers and assigning them the element that the area enemies are weak too. The effects the elements have are pointless when you just do more damage and kill them faster. After you've cleared the area you replace half the buildings with food and housing and repeat the process in the next area. There's no strategy involved.
It's not a bad game, but it relies heavily on RNG to artificially inflate the difficulty. Every map has random enemies in random positions, but your characters start with the same stats and same postions each time. All the upgrades are 'on chance' as well. You 'might' get more energy after a kill. You 'might' cause an explosion on attack. You 'might' cause an effect. It's very reminiscent of mobile games that force you to replay the same levels over and over again until you get the right string of random occurances in your favor. There's very little 'tactical' skill involved. When you choose to restart the level, the enemy positions are the same, but you don't get your items back! You also have a very low money cap which means you'll just be grinding levels over and over again to rebuy items only to get back to your starting position. The dialogue is cute, but hardly makes an effort to be funny. I cracked a smile here and there, but never laughed. The art style is simple, but cute and has a bit more flair than what you might see in a mobile game (again, the game feels very similar to a mobile game). I played for a few hours, but couldn't find myself wanting to continue.
For starters, as the name implies, this is a souls-like so it doesn't want to 'hold your hand'. That translates to explaining absolutely nothing to you, even how to purchase upgrades or skills. I had 3 runs before I realized you could purchase your skills during the run and use gold upgrade stats in the character select. You also can't pause when looking at your inventory or adding bonus points after leveling. Thankfully, you can at least pause the game proper when you go into the menu. Each floor is also on a timer before an invincible monster shows up. As the title implies there is a lot of grinding involved. Passive upgrades and equipment all cost lots of gold and materials and getting better weapons is vital to clearing floors bosses. This ibecame particularly frustrating when I quick saved after a boss with 90k gold and came back an hour later only to find the quick save didn't save and I lost ALL of my progress. I don't know if this is intentional or a bug, but if you quick save you can't start a new run and it seems you can't close the game so what's the point? After that massive lost of time I found little reason to continue.
It's free so I figured I'd give it a shot. Even free it's not worth the money. The combat completely lacks any strategy. There is no manuevering, no flanking, no pincer attacks, no kiting, nothing. Early on you discover that the only 'strategy' is to stay grouped up as all your defensive passives affect nearby allies. Any character that dares venture out will quickly be swarmed by every enemy from everywhere on the map. They seldom miss and even if they do there are so many that you are overwhelmed and destroyed. The game quickly starts to outnumber you 2:1, then 3:1 and reinforcements show up constantly. There are no AoE attacks so you have to destroy multiple enemies each turn. You can't move because moving and attacking both use the same energy. If you move you attack less, If you attack less you destroy fewer enemies. If you destroy fewer enemies you get overwhelmed faster. There have been multiple stages where my flagship gets focus fired and destroyed on turn 2. I tried lowering the difficulty, but that only worked for 1 stage and then I got ovewhelmed in the next battle. Maybe if there was an option to farm money for upgrades, but you have very few options for it and very limited funds. You are always outnumbered, outgunned and underfunded. I wish I could recommend the story, but chances are you've seen it before. To start, it's a harem game. You play as your standard plainboy protagonist that gets surrounded by girl tropes. There's the spunky energetic girl, the shy smart girl, the athletic girl, the quiet mysterious girl... they're all there. The game tries for some for some depth, but once you know the tropes you know that story. The general story is another 'war is hell' story. It's ok, but the characters are so dull it's hard to get inolved. The bland character designs don't help. Not much else to say about it.
I'm not the biggest fan of roguelikes, but I figured I'd give it a shot since it's a space shooter and how can you mess that up? Well the easiest way is to take out all the fun parts of being in a space ship. There are no maneuvers. You can't barrel roll, bank, performs 180, etc. Most of the time I was standing still or moving slowly to fire on enemies or hiding behind asteroids using them as cover. Another way is to add a stamina bar (energy bar) that drains when you boost, fire primary and secondary weapons, use abilities and is permanently reduced when equipping sub systems. It drains so fast and fills so slow that running out is a death sentence as once you run out you can't boost to safety. The game's difficulty is on par with other roguelikes. The dull movement and stamina bar not withstanding the enemies deal tons of damage and always come in squads. I read the RNG isn't as bad in this game, but it's still quite brutal. I entered a new sector and immediatelly flew into a mine which drained all my shields only to find I was also in a electronic storm that drained all my shields and the warp suppressor was on an enemy corvette (bassically a battleship). There are very few traders and they seldom have anything worthwile. The permanent upgrades are locked behind other upgrades that end up creating another roguelike grind. On the other hand, the visuals are gorgeous and the voice acting is pretty solid. I enjoyed the conversations betwen the pilot and computer and the way the lore trickled in was just right. Not too quickly, but enough at the right moments to keep me invested. In the end I just couldn't find myself commited to the RNG and grind.
I haven't finished this game nor do I intend to. I played the first 2 (somehow), but this one is the end for me. My literal goodbye to Deponia. Rufus is easily the worst protagonist in any point and click game I've played. He's cruel, misogynist, racist, abusive, egomaniacal, arrogant and just plain unfunny. All of his jokes involve humilating his friends and destroying their lives. He hasn't changed at all in any of the games. The last straw for me was when he tricked an old 'friend' in splitting with said friend's girfriend and then tricked her, a black girl into playing, no joke, a monkey... Wow. Over the course of the 2 1/2 games he's done the following to his own 'girlfriend': Knocked her off a plane, dropped her from a crane, fed her espresso with battery acid, split her personality into 3, used a remote to switch her personalities at will, used her as a lightning rod, dropped her from a second plane, stripped her to her underwear, lied to her frequently, insulted her, and ultimately killed her with an overdose. All of these events are supposed to played for laughs, but only the first one can ever be funny. Afterwards it's just pathetic and poor character writing. The writers don't know how to grow a character, so they just didn't bother. Yeah, I guess the world design is still nice and the puzzles are all right... you know, when Rufus isn't ruining the lives of everyone around him.
A good point and click adventure game lives or dies on 3 apsects: World, puzzles and protagonist. This one gets 2/3 right. I have only played through half of Deponia 3 (I'm not finishing it). The world is more of the same as D1, but with larger locations and more characters. About on par with D1 so if you like D1's world you'll like this. The puzzles felt a bit more straight forward in D2, but sometimes it felt like like there were too many steps. (Why, after I hatch the platypus eggs do I then need to take them to the nest?) The protagonist is worse than he was before, which is problematic. There is a dialogue at the beginning that he's grown and changed, but while this discussion is occuring he's busy killing a bird and burning a house down. He doesn't get better. He just gets meaner. The entire plot of the game is jump started because he trades in high quality parts for a lollipop... That sounds funny the parts are to help heal his love interest. Once again he's just being a selfish asshole. The game attempts to address this with some backstory, but quickly forgets about that in order to let him be abusive some more (abuse is funny I guess?). He frequently tricks his 'friends' and then gets angry when they call him on it. He uses his girlfriend as a lightning rod. He controls her with a literral remote control. Does he have a mental illness? Does the game think that's funny? I sure don't. I'm not even sure how I managed to finish D2. As with the first game Rufus get's a little empathy, but only in the last 5 minutes as he's dangling from a ledge (basically the ending cinematic). But just like the last game that's completely forgotten at the start of the next game. (Remember, abuse is funny). Also like the last game, the love interest inexplicably forgives him for everything.
Point and click adventure games live or die based on 3 primary aspects: World, puzzles and protagonist. This game (series) gets 2/3 of those mostly right. I haven't finished the 3rd game (nor do I intend to). The world of Depnonia is basically a giant garbage heap. This gives the artists the freedom to draw lots of bizzare locations cluttered with all sorts of wonderful junk and eccentric people. The art is gorgeous and the personality of the world comes to life with each new screen and interaction with the populace. I found myself staring at various locales just taking in the sights. The puzzles are mostly ok. Some of them can be rather obtuse, but that's true of all point and clicks. I don't feel they ever got as bad as some of the worst in Discworld. There are some that involve minigames, but the game lets you skip those entirely if you get too frustrated, which is a good option to have (never needed to use that feature). There is, however, a game breaking bug in one of the puzzles. The player character completely dissapears and the game locks up. The developer's claim to have fixed it, but ultimately the solution was to go to their website and download a new save file. Hmm. Not ideal. The protagonist is where the game falters. Rufus is completely unlikable. He's a total egotistical asshole. He frequently lies, steals, cheats and abuses everyone including his friends and the girl he (supposedly) fell in love with. He physically and mentally abuses her. He drops her, he lies to her, he tricks her, he actively chooses sub par medical supplies when trying to help her. He's just a jerk. I think he was designed intentionally annoying, but intentionally annoying is still annoying. I couldn't get behind him at all which is an issue because as the protagonist you spend the most time with him and every object you interact with he comments on and, eventually, he stopped being even kind of funny. (hint: he doesn't get better in the sequels)
I played D: OS 1 and loved it all the way through. I was looking forward to OS 2, but upon playing found much of what made me love the original has been removed. I made it to act 3, but I still have no idea what's going on. The story feels far more fragmented and unlike the homestead of OS 1 there's no point of reference. I'm looking for...someone to do... something, but I dont have any idea who or what. The banter of the co-protagonists in OS 1 was fun and involving, but all the character interactions in OS 2 seem superfulous. Which brings me to the frustrating part... the combat. I know alot of people enjoy the difficulty of these games, but I feel like all of the strategy from OS 1 has been stripped away. There's a big emphasis on elevation, but it doesnt matter because nearly every enemy has a teleport and LoS is such that they can always use it. I try prepping my characters by putting my archer and mage up high, but on turn 1, half of the enemies Teleport, Phoenix Dive, Fly, Blitz and whatever right up to them. There are simply too many options for teleporting. There have been many times when my elevated archer would get hit by a mage only to then not be able to shoot the caster on their turn due to LoS. The other emphasis is on physical and magic armor, but its entirely dependend on gear which means if you got bad drops or lack of drops you'll have no defense. When your stategies do work it's very satisfying, but most of the time I'm left frustrated because most attempts to outwit the enemies is negated by sheer brute force. The world is nice and big and there's plenty to explore with lots of quests. I love traveling and finding new caves and civlians in peril. I just wish the amount of persuasion checks or at leas the difficulty was reduced.
