... feels partly misguided. I should mention that I'm by no means a shmup veteran. I've only played maybe 50 and 1CC'ed only 2 of them. But this also means that I'm not uptight about things that were tried in this game. Such as unlocking upgrades and increasingly getting used to the game and level layouts and characters as your going along. Innovations that were a bit misguided in my opinion are e.g. the three movement speeds while shooting that makes use of three different buttons. I believe there was a Cave game that also had three speeds but using two buttons. Which makes things much more manageable. Especially when you consider the fact that there are also two different special attacks in addition to the bomb here. This is basically what broke the game for me, as having to keep two buttons pressed while also pressing one other at times makes the controls feel inferior to any shmup I've ever played. Some might argue that it's my problem that I can't manage that many different buttons at once and - fair enough, if you don't mind, go for it. Then there's also: - Unfinished looking upgrade screens between levels that don't make it clear whether the blue balls shown are what I currently have or what I have to spend. - No music during the tutorial, not enough time to read the cards. Why on earth does it not prompt to press buttons to continue instead?! - Can't navigate the menu using the joystick. - I'm supposed to press "k" to convert spent energy to a bomb but... I'm playing with a joystick. - Sketchy controller options - the buttons configured for a joystick don't show up until you switch to another page and then back. With some of the menu items, you also have to press down to go to the right. Things that I can't find any flaws with are the gorgeous art style and potentially the score system (no interest to play long enough to figure out whether I really like it). (-2 for the controls and -1 for the lack of a working leaderboard, at least in the GOG version)
... having to switch back and forth between typing and playing a bullet hell game using the keyboard (which is something no bullet hell fan would do) simply got too annoying. Plus, those loooong fights. You're stuck at the last phase of a fight and you keep having to repeat the easy bit that takes like 10 minutes to get through over and over and over only to die within like 1 minute. I suppose it's one way to pad a game. Presentation is very nice though. And the concept sure is innovative. Also can't really complain about the controls on a theoretical level - everything feels quite responsive. Still, after playing it for about 2 hours, it was enough.
Actually, my personal enjoyment rating would probably be more like 3/5 because I had maybe 15 hours of fun with it but at some point, fighting all those enemies just became too annoying. And I'm very disappointed because it could've been so much more (from my point of view, obviously). I think the graph in the game description is misleading. Combat is easily a third. Often times, you're trying to solve a puzzle and hear those enemies respawning. My thoughts: "Oh come on, not again!" The thing is - in a few ways, this game is what I wanted The Witness to be. I find the puzzles very engaging and the degree of difficulty fair. I think it's great that you realize very early on that you can manipulate a lot of stuff in the environment and it might do something. And all those secrets... Also the stellar art style and the fact that mostly just one person created it... And so I can't really bring myself to rate it lower than 4. Even though I got so fed up with the combat that I have no interest in continuing. And I'm very disappointed to hear the developer say that combat is exactly what he wants to focus on in the sequel. IMO, there shouldn't be any combat at all. There would still be so much content... The world would maybe feel a bit empty but you could simply have higher puzzle density instead. And/or environmental hazards. But that's a different game. This is how it is and I wouldn't recommend it if you want to have your puzzle-solving interrupted by somewhat frequently respawning enemies. (If you clear an area, you do have a few minutes of times to solve something. But once you go to a neighboring area and return, they probably will have respawned. And in a game where you constantly move from area to area, it happens a lot.
A lot has already been said in other reviews on the strategic gameplay, which doesn't rely on unlockables and RNG to artificially stretch the length of the game like so many do these days. It also features a lot of content, a high level of difficulty and one can replay missions to do optional objectives and through that potentially unlock more skills. (Some optional objectives provide only gold) So that's all wonderful. But the writing. It's as if someone on the team has a cousin in high school who got involved in some shady dealings and to try and save them from a life of crime, they tried to encourage them by letting them write the dialogue for this game. Just one example: At some point, a Japanese character is introduced and what they say is written in romaji. It is so bad that I started skipping most dialogues very after about just two missions. Here and there, I get a bit curious about what's going on and always regret it. As a sidenote, the visual style is obviously lacking all over the place (low detail 3D graphics and somewhat tacky looking character portraits) but that, I find forgivable. It is really only the writing that prevents me from fully enjoying Druidstone.
... but I'm not sure about other people. In contrast to twin stick shooters such as Nex Machina or the good old Geometry Wars, it quickly becomes noticeable that instead of skill, TvL is all about the grind and RNG. The two or three times I died during the few hours I played (finished the first difficulty level and a few more levels on the next one), it was usually because of the game giving me only low-tier weapons. And to buy upgrades, you simply must play the same levels over and over and over. So it's good that there are like 20 of them. Enemy variety however isn't that great. But it's certainly charming, probably especially amusing if you play it Co-op for a bit. And so at a discounted price, I think it's alright for anyone looking to waste a bit of time. But if you want a meaningful challenge, I'd go with something else.
I think a lot of things about this game have already been said. What I can add is that I for one finished the game in not even 4 hours and to unlock the proper ending, you have to do a certain thing. Unfortunately, once you finished the game, everything resets, so you have do the certain thing AND redo all the puzzles.
