Recent reviews by Anrai

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with this game.
Prospective buyers be aware you need to find a patch for the ladders in chapter 15 or they'll clip your units under the map.

Overall enjoyable but be prepared for some bad-tasting gameplay moments, gameplay that rewards cheese above all else, and that most levels will punish you for starting with more than the bare minimum of units, with optimal gameplay generally being to dip into a level just enough to figure out what that minimum is, then rushing to capture points to bring in the units you want for the rest.

I'm also not sure what happens in the first Selvaria level if the side of the tank she magnetises to happens to be the last one you have left, but the possibility that's an auto-fail is horrifying to me.

Wow, you sure can't buy this anymore!
Very basic computerised Magic. AI makes some strange misplays and you can't do anything during upkeep.
I guess it's about in line with the Blood Bowl videogames in terms of teaching you the basics while being weird about it, but it doesn't matter what I rate it anymore so thumbs down it goes.

Spoilering my launch review for now while I experience patches. I'll edit again once I've had time to see what's updated.

I haven't seen everything the game has to offer yet, but from what I have seen I can't recommend this over Teamfight Manager (referred to as TFM for the rest of the review.) Here's a list of disappointing features:

- Too much focus on the base management aspect - No preview of enemy stat levels leaves you with no idea how well you're developing Apparently you can click player info boxes to toggle between their KDA and player stats. I don't think this was explained anywhere.
- AI permabans one hero. I don't even know how good Arrow is because he's always banned in 2v2s AI bans are now more dynamic, I've seen at least 4 different bans so far.
- The battles aren't dynamic. Your heroes just charge the enemy and stand there hitting each other with barely any of the kite/chase that's such a big part of TFM, despite there being heroes like Ice whose passive revolves around hitting a moving target while she can barely walk a handful of pixels between her own attacks. (Meaning she can't kite to make use of her skill.)
- Complete lack of tactics settings. (Similarly a huge element of TFM strategy.)
- Draft strategy seems quite shallow, I lost until I found a single comp that worked (which was never banned because the AI bans Arrow every game) and then I won every game because the AI wouldn't or couldn't counterpick me.
- Always blue side for some reason?


The one good thing I can say is the hero art and models are nice. I'd like to see the rest of the game improve to match, and I'll come back to re-review if it happens.

Preface: Anyone interested in this game should know it's primarily an autobattler, with secondary management elements.

I've been having a lot of fun with this game
It's a surprisingly deep pick/ban focused autobattler where you often can't always get what you want
but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.
This game isn't afraid to slap you around when you're playing wrong, but if you learn from your mistakes and persevere you can do a lot better the next time around. (Here's a freebie for singleplayer progression: Upgrade to Rising Star recruiting ASAP: Local Talent players can carry you through Semi-Pro but you'll slam facefirst into a wall once you make the Pro League without some Rising Stars.)

Multiplayer is a nice touch (there aren't a lot of seasonal-management games that run multiplayer at all) and though without friends it'll look dead, there are friendly communities tucked away in fan-operated Discord groups. (Plug for TFM Ranked: https://discord.gg/dyPcUQe3qW )
Again you'll get pushed around if you don't know what's what, so I recommend learning in singleplayer first; where there's a slow trickle of new champions to learn.

A low point is the afterthought "story."
I've seen many other reviews agree that it's poor taste to say your goal is taking the lowest-ranking team to the top when the only realistic way to do so is drop all your original players for being the trash they are.

Fails to follow appropriate order of operations.

None of the other reviews make a mention, so here it is:

As of this review, Flow:The Sliding does not feature trading cards.

I gave this game the benefit of the doubt on its claim of having trading cards, as the store page feature list for Broforce also omits cards despite their presence.
It's only relaxing until you hit an obstacle, the sound effect of which is quite jarring in contrast to the complete silence unless you have your volume turned right down.
The achievements offer no incentive to play the game.
Roll your face across your keyboard to collect them all.