I have played through all the available content so far (well over half the game) and, while I didn't regret my time spent overall, the game so far is shallow and I can't see it getting much better at release. Simply put, you'll be spending 90% of your time just whacking stuff in order to get resources. The game loop boils down to destroying anything you can so you can get materials, so you can create or upgrade tools, so you can whack more things, so you can get materials, etc... The game also promises an entirely destructible world and, while I'm pretty sure that will be true at some point, so far you can't get tools that can destroy things like walls, leading to the experience so far feeling constricted and rather linear. The enemies aren't all that special. Their patterns are pretty simple and fighting them consists of basic dodging and attacking for the most part. I'm particularly disappointed by the lack of variety in enemy models. Each enemy type only has one model, leading to you beating the same female zombie with a pink shirt throughout the entire game. I imagine this could change as the game gets developed, but it felt misleading looking at promo art. Something I also want to point out, and so have other reviewers, is the nature of the game. This isn't a rougelike or generated experience. Project Zomboid, this is not. There is a defined world with a defined story and a defined protagonist and a pretty fixed order of things to do. It plays like a Souls game of sorts, and the sandbox aspect isn't really there since you mostly just destroy, not build. This is not a bad thing by any means, but I imagine people could get the wrong idea by looking at the game, like I did. Something I also wasn't a fan of is the storytelling. All voice acting is text-to-speech, and the protagonist's monologue is decorated with plenty of emojis. The story isn't very gripping, but it's sufficient I guess. Overall, it has potential, but I'm not holding my breath either.
I had expectations for this game. Being a WWII era shooter, you might hold a preconception on how a game in this category would play out. However, the game absolutely blew my expectations. For starters, the setting is refreshing and eye-catching. It mostly takes place in a Nazi-occupied France, and with that comes many incredible locations, such as famous monuments and a beautiful country side. While the city and country side can be somewhat repetitive, I never got bored of it, as I sometimes do with similarly scoped games. The visual style is also incredible, with areas turning monochrome with specific color highlights when they're "occupied" or emotionally charged. The story is also nice. It's about revenge and war and all the good stuff. I don't want to spoil it too much so I won't say much other than I enjoyed it. The ending did feel somewhat underwhelming, though. The gameplay is really fun! The shooting feels good, though the cover mechanics can be a bit janky. The sabotaging, the namesake of the game, is also really fun; making life awful for Nazis is really enjoyable! The variety of the sabotaging you can do is limited, however, and there's a lot of sabotage opportunities, so it can feel repetitive. The driving is satisfactory, though it's nothing particularly special. You also do a fair bit of climbing and parkour, which feels good but can also be janky at times. 100% completion can take some time (about 36 hours for me). From a technical standpoint, its alright. I did experience a fair number of both gameplay and graphic bugs/glitches and I did crash once. The game runs well at full HD, though the lack of graphics options is disappointing. You're pretty much stuck with the settings the developers intended. All in all, it's an incredible game. It has a fair number of flaws, sure, but it's one of those titles you might not have heard of before but that you don't want to miss out on.
This game has quite a charm. It starts off a bit cheesy, maybe too self-aware, but it gets better as it goes. While the game alludes to Paper Mario, I find it more similar to the Mario & Luigi series, at least when it comes to evasion in the battle system. The battles can be a bit drawn out, but the amount of enemies is actually pretty low, all things considered. Things like enemies and coins never respawn, giving a strong sense of permanence to the world. I think the battle system could have been more varied, being limited to the same 3 attacks in a "turn"-based system, but I still appreciate the unique mechanics it introduces. I liked being able to talk to enemies before taking action! While the game isn't really designed with replayability in mind, I can see people doing "bribe" runs, sparing as many enemies as possible, specially since this offers additional dialog. It took me about 14 hours to 100%, a few of those which were spent hunting down a few missed collectibles. The game is designed so you can do everything on a single playthrough, which I like. Sadly, the game's achievements bugged on me, leaving quite a few achievements locked and the unlock order nonsensical. Speaking of bugs, I encountered a few during my playthrough, mostly related to moving platforms and one in-battle, but the overall experience is pretty smooth. (I did not face any controller bugs some reviews mention.) *SPOILER-ISH*: While the ending is a bit predictable, having only a handful of primary characters to connect the dots with, I still enjoyed the story! It has some genuinely great moments, and the comedy hits well. Since I didn't immediately see a rating or warning I feel compelled to say that the game has a few mature moments; it looks generally kid-friendly but I would probably give it a "T" rating.
In all seriousness, the game is way too short and somewhat shallow. I finished my playthrough in an hour and spent about another hour to get every achievement. The style is nice, but the 'LOL omg' humor fell really flat for me (subjective, of course). The mechanics introduced are never really explored in-depth, which makes them pretty much gimmicks. It seems clear that the focus went into making levels unique, rather than gameplay-focused; that's a miss to me.
