This game has the best level design I have seen. Watch for the details, especially while exploring 1F. Every area has a closed door through which you can later progress. Instead of progressing through 1F in a way that feels controlled, in the first area inside you are forced to go up, exploring spot-wise, from the inside out so to speak, working to make the connections. Metroidvania or Souls & -likes are nothing compared to this beauty. There are a lot of aspects beyond this example to unearth. The dinosaurs are your stress, but the facility is your problem. Also remember that Dino Crisis is a 3D game, but still essentially "pixel art". It is a product of its time. It looks best with the 256×224 PlayStation resolution, with the "hardware anti-aliasing" that contemporary CRTs were effectively providing. That means, if you want to experience its true optical beauty (which it had, back then) you need a proper shader and a low resolution. It will look considerably worse with a 480p resolution or above, if optics are important to you.
This is the first title in this genre that really works for me. I might use this to define what "sense of wonder" is. And I find the story inspiring. It gave me the message that there is as much love in computers as we transfer into them.
When I dreamed of my perfect RPG, I imagined it to definitely have a more creative progression system than increasing HP and damage values. I assumed I would never play a game with those traits that still feels like an RPG. So thanks to the developer for creating this. A skillful mix of RPG and adventure elements is rare. By that I mean that both exploration and combat feel like a puzzle-solving activity. And in that regard, this game offers good systems for gameplay and world building. I am giving this 4 of 5 stars though. It has a lot of good aspects and is hence enjoyable to play. But it is not one of those games that are, for their chosen way, overall perfected. For example, I prefer writing that creates a lot of perceived depth with very few words. The writing here is mostly exposition, presented a bit too verbosely for my taste. Furthermore, I do not like the item system. I prefer a system like in Gothic over randomly generated drops and attributes. Finding items does not excite me at all here. And finally, some small aspects showed me that it lacks a bit of polish via playtesting. I hope the developer will continue the support and create patches. In summary, the good systems in their detailed design seem very innovative to me and make the game worth a playthrough. I hope this game will be inspiring to many more people and also other developers.
Best multitasking-RTS so far. A game with strategic depth similar to Starcraft based on the TA-Engine. It's worth buying TA just to play this mod. TA Zero is a total conversion for TA with focus on smaller, micro-oriented battles (whilst still allowing the big scale). And since there is a streaming-resource system, you can queue up production, which enables you to actually do all this micromanagement, without being a god in this game. This makes it very appealing for occasional play. It's more of a "multitasking-RTS", in contrast to the "planning focused-RTS" like SupCom. Even the original TA was for me in the latter category. The handling of my stuff like it's partially an action game, is about the basic enjoyment I get from playing such games. The strategy makes it interesting in the long term. The unit-handling with the TA-engine feels really good. E.g. direction of units and acceleration matters. It actually makes a huge difference whether you direct your aircraft manually, so that enemy bombers are in coverage of your fighters weapons. Also, a moving army always recieves less damage since enemy shots will miss, so you should't just plan where to park your army, but also where and how to move it during confrontations. You don't find this in other RTS like SC2. But the original TA was never able to match with games like SC with regard to competitive/online play. Now here comes TA Zero with a completely new design, taking the good aspects of the TA-engine and integrates them into gameplay which leads to faster matches with multitasking instead of unit-massing. Check out the Total Annihilation Zero Youtube channel by TaShadan to get an impression of the gameplay. :) If you are a not a casual player, but you only play occasionally (compared to people that want to become a pro), you like Blizzards RTS, but SC/SC2 requires too much routine concerning macro, this game is an interesting alternative.
