Found it through and decided to give the game a go myself directly due to the Curious Archive's YT video "The Most Complex Ecosystem in any Game" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMx8OsTDHfM but the controls are abysmal and absolutely insufferable in my personal experience, it's a refund for me, I want to have fun, a brief to the point tutorial and time to familiarize yourself with the mechanics, controls and whatnot, but they're beyond unnatural and confusing, even with my tolerance and ability to adapt going between games like Elite Dangerous or No Man's Sky for example, or Wrath of the Righteous and Baldur's Gate 3, but Rain World just frustrates me beyond compare and I'd rather have fun, frankly.
It's a glorified kinetic novel at this point, frankly and although the game's pay to play, which is fair enough if it's worth it, honestly, it feels worse, much much worse, somehow the story manages to be shallow, character development... who are some of these characters? Cheap twists that haven't been earned, I'm just confused when not pissed at how badly it's performing on top of the story falling off a cliff, Mask of Arcadius was a far better experience, and free to play, I feel screwed two-fold, lost time earning money to pay for this and lost time actually playing this, and wasted some of my copium supply, waiting for it never get better, I can't even write coherently, it's a fucking mess.
If the content is unquestionably extra of the core game and adds (at the very least) another 40% worth of the core game's content to it, depending on the price, that's fine, I like supporting and investing in promising projects, but actual mechanics present in this DLC belong in the core game and to every player regardless whether they paid for the DLC or not, it's a DLC, not DLM, this is a step out of line.
Launching and playing via GoG Galaxy still doesn't give any achievements, so that's a bummer.
Certainly the one hour I gave it the chance for there's little of interest, at the point arguably most critical, for the game to tell if it's worth your time and money for that matter, and the answer I got is: NO. Cute as the simplicity was at first blush, the problem is that it's too simple, and feels like a DEMO glued together in RPG Maker rather than comprehensive product worthwhile any appreciable dedication and immersion, and I am gravely worried about mind-numbing grind and waste of time just walking around doing nothing interesting, getting from A to B, and vice-versa that it's certain to be included and the core gameplay, as opposed to, ACTUAL gameplay, that is - fun that's sorely lacking.
If it wasn't for the stellar price, actually, it's even worse given the sky-high inflation and generally dead-low disposable income these days, it has a A LOT to live up to, but so far, I'm enjoying the story that isn't just a slap-on, I love a good plot, humor and comedic relief and whanot are so far well placed, but again, so far.
It's offensively for what it is, a simple cute and very short game with a town-building-management twist to keep you occupied and busy through brute-force, so to speak, it can't decide if it wants to be either; dungeon crawler or town-building-management game. Interesting concept, but not taken anywhere, shallow-- a brief absolute minimum for the maximum price that's going to make sense for as many streamers as possible, whose gameplay will influence as intended their viewers to buy it too, but it's a whole different experience, based on a gameplay loop as opposed to proper gameplay. Hunt -> Feed/Manage Town -> Hunt ( . . . ) with a simple and predictable plot, and optional distractions along the way to take away your time, but not reward you for it, e.g. collecting for the sake of collecting, without actual gameplay enrichment.
"Out of the box" the controls both on keyboard/mouse and controller are very uncomfortable, and I am not going to spend time tweaking something that should have been perfected and what the standards are for the movement present. Other than that annoyance, TOO MANY loading screens/transitions between levels without doing absolutely anything, my screen going black again, again, again and again-- and when you finally encounter enemies, in the reverse horror controlling a mass of flesh and tentacles, it takes the NPCs a handgun to deplete your biomass, requiring an absurd degree of dexterity and caution in what should be a more relaxing, immersive experience, which was made that much worse by the awkward controls on both the controller, and the controller in particular, as well as keyboard/mouse. I didn't and I just don't see myself enjoying the title, already, ten minutes in, and I'm not giving it a second chance, or any game for that matter, not since Cyberpunk 2077, going against my own judgement and people's advise to steer clear of it like fire.
An hour or two of added gameplay, depending on your pace and progression at the time, but nothing that exciting or worth mentioning. The "finale" was a complete let-down and cemented the fact that it's utterly inconsequential to the game and gameplay, a new, completely useless liquid, turret and power generator, few personal weapons, of which only the "laser" sword's interesting, but everything else is-- again, completely useless by the time you get to explore the DLC, unless you're rushing it. The story could have-- should have been allowed to branch out, affected by the events made possible by the DLC, but it wasn't, and I returned to the HQ disappointed, having ultimately only wasted resources off-site, for nothing beyond maybe an hour's worth of dialogue and running around in a proof of concept experimental DLC. I hope the future content updates and DLC's do better than . . . whatever the hell this was.
It's the half the reason that I buy games on GOG rather than anywhere else, respect for privacy i.e. NO glorified data collecting tools and bullshit alike, but not in this case as "user analytics" setting was enabled by DEFAULT. Like, this isn't a Free to Play game to even remotely justify half a monetization method like that or the developer to have any right to want ANYTHING more from the user once they're paid for their work, period.
