I would probably give this game better score if they would honestly advertise themselves as git-gud simulator pretending to be a game. But then I wouldn't buy it. Only reason I am giving extra point score is because visuals are pretty nice. Now to the topic, I'll try to point objective flaws. 0. As I said, it is git-gud-simulator. 1. First and foremost, you die in one hit, be it shots or simply electrified floor. No place for error is good for elitism but not for recreational gaming. 2. You survive not only because of skill, but because opponents shoot rather slowly travelling projectiles. I can forgive such moments for Star Wars or any other space opera genre but for game pretending to be cyberpunk one it is ruining any mood. High tech, yeah.. Star Wars projectiles were faster btw. 3. Levels are linear except for secret places unless you count "kill everyone in this small area in order you wish" to be nonlinear. Replayability is like zero. 3.1. Yes, killing everyone is mandatory, you cannot run past or sneak, door just won't open. Linear ^ 2. 3.2. Once you get past starting visuals you will notice level design makes no sense, it is not a world where some people or even something lives, every level is just a puzzle that makes no sense from inside the box. Floating platforms, floating walls grappling wires serving no purpose except to be parts of puzzle. 4. Story is a garbage, and I mean it. I unveiled the "plot" at very second level, and I cannot say I am the brightest person in the world, it is more like protagonist is not spending any effort to think even for a moment. Not only "plot" is predictable, but also boring as well. 5. Cannot say on this one for sure, as I haven't unlocked every upgrade, but from what I saw character progression is lackluster. If game was made as first person puzzle with obvious "you will fail a lot" message I woudn't complain, but all videos and texts have little to to with actual gameplay that even have deaths counter in hud.
Played this game in Classic mode, almost completed it. Gameplay was quite entertaining, controls, story and et cetera are ok, so due to review size limit I'll just focus on moments I find to be standing between current score and perfect 10. 1. This is not a metroidvania game, it is just side-scrolling exploration game with rpg elements. After tutorial you will gain no new abilities that would allow you to traverse to previously unreachable locations. Except from Center area every area can (and need to) be explored to 100% from the moment you reach it, and new areas are unlocked simply by collecting keys. It is not a serious flaw, but I had to mention it. 2. After death you loose all your "money". Considering there are places with insta-death traps.. you just have to spend currency asap and grind it in safe spots separately from progressing the story. It is not fun and unnecessary Dark Souls design borrowed. 3. Upgrades. They are of two types Collectable items that buff your stats, they are ok. However Skill Tree is quite strange. There are skills like Double Jump (remind me, why wouldn't I take it? Why it is not some story-based upgrade to enable access to a new location?) and skill that increases your damage after standing still for some time (only useful against 1 boss). I had hard time spending my Skill points as most of abilities are lackluster.. Oh, one more point, there are no respecs, if you messed things by accidental click, like I did, then restart. 4. The only thing that makes you backtrack are "hidden souls" thing, essentially some secret in almost every area. But they are more annoying than fun, and some rather un-intuitive, I just ended Alt-Tabing to guide to not to waste my time. 5. Final Boss battle is just.. survival against mass of enemies which is closer to Tohou. Unless you use some cheesy weapons it ends to be annoying, especially since you have to quit the game to restart it properly. Overall it is rather anticlimactic experience.
Just a note: Casual gamer here. To be honest, I expected this game to be something like Settlers. Gather resources, build stuff, expand to new territories, etc. It turned out to be not that simple and relaxing as I expected. Where should I start.. First of all, resources are scarce. Some are limited straight by their amount on surface, others limited by amount of "access points" where you can get them, So called Advanced resources and buildings for them cannot be produced at all, only ordered from Earth. There are complications to that, which I will mention later. To add insult to injury these advanced resources are required to build some critical components required from very beginning, like sources of energy that don't die at night or energy reserves in case something went wrong. Second, this game is a logistical nightmare. Everything have it's range limitations. Water and air require pipes, electricity requires cables, resources require drones to bring things manually. Pipes and cables cost resources, and drones.. well, that's the sad part of the story. If you need to expand to nearest sector expect lengths of pain as your drones slowly drag hundreds of resources one by one from one drop point to another.. after you order them to do so manually as otherwise they'll find more interesting thing to do. If you built a mine - it can only operate if it is within Dome's quite negligible operations radius. Third, every building degrades. Which is annoying. Then Drone have to repair it. And it degrades quite quickly. Drones do not degrade (wow) but have battery charge, so they won't go far from your main base anyway. Fourth. Research "tree" is randomized at start of every game, say farewell to pre-planned strategy not including "restart, hope I'll get required tech next time". By the way research is super slow, someone clearly misplaced research speed and buildings degradation speed. Fifth, no Tutorial. Just list of suggested buildings. First time I built Dome in the direction of presumed expansion, I found a bit later that Rare Metal deposit is out of it's range. Wow. Great. Game advertises Tutorial made by some person, but it is a set of 5 youtube videos, first of which is about 25 minutes long. I came to play game, not to watch 2 hours tutorial while taking notes. Sixth, lots of bad design solutions, like advanced resources required from start, main energy source non-functioning half of time, drone control center requires power as well (micromanage every assigned bot manually at night, my dreams came true.. NOT). Honestly, there are lots of thing that makes game experience annoying and overcoming them is not rewarding for me at least. To be short, maps are large but mostly resource empty, expanding is a some kind of a bitter cure to not to die. Half of your infrastructure dies at night as wind energy source requires Advanced resource that you cannot manufacture from the beginning, Mostly you feel like you are fighting some game design flaws rather than anything else.
Excellent game in line with Dungeon Keeper 2 and Evil Genius. First thing to point, it is not a Dungeon Keeper clone/ripoff (which many people who gave game low grades expected). Unlike one other game (which I wouldn't mention, and it is not present in gog anyway) it is not simply "do as DK, add more rooms", game tries to have own mechanics and as for me they are good. Pros: * 3 different factions to play, each following own theme. Each faction have 12 units + worker and 7 spells (also 3 spells are shared for all factions). * Good humour and narrator. * Story is fun and worth playing. * Underground gameplay feels good, and now you can fill back empty squares, which I always missed in DK. * Overworld raid is actually funny. Now you can retaliate against surface dwellers! I don't know why so many people hate this element, as it plays nice and feels kind of natural. Cons: * Each faction have limited amount of rooms, which means your dungeon will be compact, with no need of grandeur expansion. * The only thing why you explore underground is to find a gem block, after you found it further exploration not required. * No Possess or any other option to walk your dungeon. * Too many Game of Thrones references. * Game of Winter DLC campaign sometimes have quite cheap game design moves resulting in difficulty spike. Well, at least they admit it as a Narrator says it, so I'm not sure should I count it or not... In short, the game is not ideal, I'd rate it 4 out of five stars, but since we don't have that many games of this genre, I'll add it one extra star for all good 68 hours I spent.
