The game has decent gameplay but sadly the characters are not good enough for a top of the line rpg. The story while being very ambitious and having really good ideas it fails in making the world feel lived in and credible. Most of the game the storytelling is lighthearted and casual but it also has parts were the game takes itself very seriously. The serious parts contrast strongly with most of the game which is so casual that it never really tries to make you feel this is a real world. The game continously tosses credibility and realism right out the window in order to make jokes or stay lighthearted. Gameplay is okay but to be clear, the game is easy. I played the game on hard but still the game is easy and I am not good at games. Don't go into this expecting a depth to the gameplay, its fun and easy but lacks depth.
I liked the start but the game soon became too cumbersome for my liking, I love the dragons trap and this game really raises the difficulty bar compared to that game. What frustrates me is not that its actually "hard" its that it is often too tricky to figure out what to do to procceed, that in combination with doing it wrong meaning that you die and saves that frequently require you to replay short but annoying parts was to much much for me. After playing through maybe 70% of the game I noticed I was more often than not annoyed and not enjoying myself so this is it for me. The start of the game was fun but the kind of "hard" they choose to go with in this game is not for me.
This game tells amazing stories but it is the way in which it tells them that sets this game apart. It is very creative, fresh and stimulating to play through it, also it is very well designed in the way that I never got lost or went the wrong way. The designers have really succeeded in making a game that intuitively shows you were to go while also keeping the game feeling alive.
This game goes all in on the gameplay but the balance is off. When playing roguelikes the game needs to feel like there are moments of risk, since this is a turn based based game where strategy is key those moments need to feel like your choices matter. Tangledeep does not manage to live up to expectation in these areas, the game feel very grindy, most gameplay feel like a slog where winning is not based on your skills but on your tenacity to play careful and defensive when most the game can just simply be speedrun. The game doesn't really feel like it is build around being turn based strategy game, the way the abilities feel and the game flows is more like hack and slash. This makes for frustrating gameplay were most of your time will be spend mindlessly murdering critters with no need for strategy or thinking(but it will still take a long time ofc), when a particularly strong monster appear you can simply just teleport away. When those rough monsters appear and you slow down and try to think you pretty much end up doing the same think you did mindlessly, because better options simply doesn't exist. The strategic options are extremely limited and the actual playing is not enjoyable.
First and foremost the RPG and storytelling aspect in this game is absolutely faboulus, S level quality. The voice acting and writing in the game is the best part. Rarely in an a roleplaying game am I able to really roleplay and not consider factors that are out of character. I would say the writing when it comes to roleplaying and choosing decisions is the best I have ever seen. No matter which choice you choose (normally) you feel like you did a "right" choice because your character really answers cleverly, in other games you get disappointed because your character says your choice in a clumsy/bad way that you did not want. In Thronebreaker its the other way around, the phrasing is so well put together that you really get the feeling you are bastardly clever and inspirational character. The actual consequences of your choices are often a bit lackluster though, I really think the "optional" characters are one of the most interesting parts of this game. A part that really pulls you in, sadly how you get and keep the characters are not done well in my opinion. The coolest character in the game that I sadly only saw in one scene I failed to recruit because I respected him, you need to disrepect and force him against his will to get him. Big interesting part of the game that I missed out on for no good reason, it really bugged me the whole playthrough. Optional characters are fun but either you need more of them or you need to do it a bit better how to get and keep them. Some important choices in this game are made with absolutely 0 knowledge of the circumstances, you walk in on a mob beating one person, do you stop them or not? Hard to say would need to know a little bit more than that to make a decision. The gameplay in itself is good, not great but good sadly the pacing is a bit off. Early on when you want to get into how the game works you get very few ful length battles and mostly puzzles. Later on when you're a bit fatigued its the other way around. Many bugs
This game has an impressive setting and story but sadly the game is a simulator/strategy game with heavy focus on resourcemanagement and timemanagement. This focus in gameplay reduces the population of your city to "numbers", they are ants that does what needs to be done to creep closer to the next objective of the game. Because of this the "moral" choices never have any ethic/moral weight to them at all, you will pick the choice that makes the most sense to progress in the game. If that means putting the children to work in the factories or building carecenters where they will assist with research is a choice made by necessity. So that aspect of the game is basically nullified, what about they gameplay you ask? It is a drag, sadly for 60% of the time I spent playing this game I wished I was doing something else. Its busy work, a strategy game with a puase button where you need to micromanage stuff all the time. It is not fun stuff either, put on heater, shutdown heaters, add workers, take away workes most of the time playing this game you will do mundane task with little to none strategic relevance. The interesting choices you make in this game feel few and far apart due to the oceans of meaningless micromanaging that is needed to maximise the chances of the citys survival. I mean you could just let the time roll on and hope for the best and I did that multiple times. Sad when you realise you are purposefully skipping the gameplay due to boredom even though you know it lessens your success of victory in the end.
The store part of this game is a chore, it is easy and basic with zero challenge or depth that only consumes your free time in exchange for in game gold. The dungeon part is decently enjoyable but your strength is vastly dependant on your gear. The balance in this game feels like a free to play mobile game, without upgrades you are going to have a really hard time, at some points I basically got one shot by enemies. What this means is that the game is all about grind instead of being about skill, this is especially bad when the dungeon part gets boring really fast. After 3-4 runs you start yearning for progression, for something new. That "something new" is a whole lot of grinding and farming away though, first grind the dungeon and then grind the store so you can upgrade yourself sufficently to defeat the next boss and unlock the next stage. Also, remember that fighting the boss and dying means you lose almost all the loot you found in the dungeon. This incentivies safe boring play since the best way of moving forward is boring grind the whole dungeon but do NOT enter the boss room. Use money to upgrade gear and rinse repeat until you have upgraded enough gear to defeat it. The only enjoyable thing in this game is the upgrades, but to upgrade you need to grind. What does this sound like? Free to play mobile game. It is sad, I wanted to like this game so badly.
The game is really great and is a lot of depth and replayability, however after you have played it for say 10-15 hours intensively you kind of "get it". At that point I felt done with the game, I had already beaten it with a few different squads and even thougn the squads playstyles differ greatly it didn't feel fresh enough to keep playing. I came back to the game again after 3 month or so and absolutely loved it, I remembered the gist of the game but it took a little bit of time to wrap my head around it and still took another 10 hours or so until I felt that I was done with the game. For me at least its not the kind of game that has endless of playtime potential inteisvely, rather it feels like a comfort game you can always come back to when you don't know what else to play. If you take a break from it and come back later it will always feel like a great experience to play it again.
This game has 4 areas, each area contains 4 levels. As long as you are trying to let by one level it works pretty great but as soon as the game tasks you with completing multiple areas in a row(with other limitations added as well) it goes from a good game to merely frustrating. This game is very punishing, one mistake could be your death at any time BUT often times you play with limited information and on a time constraint. My first two runs in this game I died to a ghost that came and killed me, and yeah thats a timed enemy that is unbeatable and spawns if you take too long and are playing carefully. So the game is super punishing and hard but also hands you a timer where if you play too slowly you will also die, this forces you to make hard decisions between risk-reward. As I previously stated that works fine for one area, trying to string togther 4 levels cleared, but anything beyond that and its enjoyment really drops. After you've gotten to the point that you've entered the last area a few times, if you start the game from the beginning you will be bored. You will not feel tension since its pretty easy, but its still super punishing one mistake and you're dead. So what do you do? Play a little bit rushingly which will get you killed or buckle yourself in for boredom over and over? You uninstall the game thats what you do. The challenge to unlock the last shortcut in this game is crazy, it is a lot about luck and I would not call it fun.
I enjoyed my time with Night in the Woods, especially its dialogue, characters and art. The story in itself is lacking though and so is any meaningful gameplay mechanics, it is basically a walking simulator where the writing and setting is very engaging.
