Recent reviews by HaaYaargh

For what it costs and the scope, this is a fine little space shooter. I wouldn't spend more than 5 hours to max it otherwise. BUT! I see reasons why people complain. It's very grindy, and, especially at the beginning, rather slow.

And t looks like I'm the first to beat the game (based on achievements)!

On one hand, I like the casualness of this Anno clone. You can play at a slower pace, sail your ships almost like in a mini-action game, and face no real dangers. The game rarely throws challenges at you. On the other hand, there are almost no original ideas; everything feels copied or gutted. You could argue that sea battles are somewhat fresh, but they exist in Anno 1800 as well, and this feature severely lacks polish in terms of animations, steering, firing, and pathfinding.

I can't shake the feeling that the whole "pirate" city builder layer was an afterthought, added after they decided not to go for another type of Anno reskin. How come the most basic need building for a pirate society is a Marketplace? The second item, after Fish, that they need to advance in Pirate society standing is Rope. They also can't advance further if they don't have access to a Prison! Prisons make them feel safe. Pirates.

Some other design decisions are also surprising, such as the total lack of any production and consumption values. You heard that right: in a game about building production chains, you don't know how much your people consume. You have to build your production based on gut feeling or wait five minutes to see if the resource number drops, considering transportation as well.

If you really want it, get it at least at a 50% sale. Otherwise, if you want a similar but proper and serious city builder, go play Anno. If you want a piratey vibe and want to build a city, go play Tropico 2.

Very much 10/10 game in its niche.

I was blown away by the atmosphere of hanging around Internet communities. The game replicates that perfectly, the good: chatting with friends and getting excited about games, oversharing personal life, jokes, and laughs, and the bad; trolls, haters, and drama.

I love how, despite it being a Visual Novel game, it has a lot of gameplay elements like voting, posting, checking the desk, and deciding with whom we speak first. I discovered a lot of references and some hidden stuff (typing codes into the status panel!), but I'm sure I still missed plenty, so a second playthrough is definitely planned.

The Visual Novel part; dialogues, characters, choices and consequences, as well as 2D art and animations, are very well done.

Although one thing troubled me: WHY DIDN'T THEY EXCHANGE EMAILS?!

The replayability is off the charts here.
I played 120 hours and crave for more, there is still so many do discover, so many challenges to face, so many difficulties to conquer. And it rarely feels unfair, even when I lose, because the game gives you so many tools to achieve your goals.

Currently one of my favourite games ever.

Numbers go up and my eyes bleed out.

For a game this cheap, Gnorp has surprisingly a lot of depth to explore. I completed the game and all achievements at 32h, but haven't yet tried all the builds and synergies.

A big thumb up recommendation to all incremental a̵d̵d̵i̵c̵t̵s̵ connoisseurs.

I realised that I won't be able to enjoy this game casually.

Without trying to get really good at it, I won't be able to have fun. I'm a bad FPS player; I won't deny that. In other games, there is something like matchmaking, where I would be paired with other awfully bad people, and we would fumble and bask in our awfulness together. But it doesn't exist here in SoT. As a casual player, you will have to, at some point, fight against 360 no-scoping, sword-dashing, cannon-jumping solo players who can easily outmanoeuvre your team of four, even on a smaller ship. It is impressive, but I'd rather watch YT highlights of that happening than have it happen to me because I won't even know what was going on. And that sucks.

I like pirates, I like sailing. I truly hoped to fall in love with this game. I hoped for cooperation with other players (which this game rarely needs, everything can be done solo), perhaps less cheesy gameplay, and some level of progression. To fight skellies with the boys, dig the treasures, chart the maps, and scurry away from Krakens. Some of it is possible, but with the ever-hanging threat of other, better players to ruin your day.

The game offers a lot of opportunities for creative, PvP-driven players who love competition.
I'm just not one of them.

Very cool little game with unique visuals and experience. One of those titles to invite a non-gamer to play with. Looking forward to future updates. Currently, the game is short, I maxed it (100% achievements and levels) in around 3h, but it was time well spent. Support small developers people!

I wish there was a mixed review option, but given a binary choice I must give Greed Fall a Thumb Down.

The setting is new, unique, and interesting, not your classic elven kingdoms, and raging orcs. Sure there are some archetypes and some parallels to existing stories that can be drawn, but at least they tried, and that's a big plus. The story, characters, and visuals are the strong side of this game, but to unlock the story I feel like I had to go to a second job because playing it is a chore.

The main problem with the game is that it just severely lacks content.

The world is vast and disappointingly empty, you spend so much time walking from A to B to C with nothing interesting between them save for a few combat encounters. The combat is very MMO-like with button mashing and gets repetitive very quickly, especially when monsters respawn regularly and do not provide a challenge or a reward. The type of monsters you encounter in the first 2 hours of gameplay will be the same monsters for the rest of the game (except a handful of bosses). Quest backtracking devoids me of life. If by any chance you find a hidden chest in a forest nook, it has 5 gold and a redberry, the same type you could gather in dozens on the way there, with no feeling of discovery or accomplishment of any sort. Large cities with few NPC that all say the same regardless of gender, profession, or class. I thought that at least companions could say a bit more, but after you complete a quest for them, they have nothing more to say for the rest of the game. The arena is shared between all cities, there are no different enemies there, and you don't even have to start from scratch. Regions are hard-locked, as well as some quests. The world and its missions are heavily scripted to the point of absurdity. If you did everything against a faction or a companion for a whole game, it still allows you to ask them for help and they will tell you how much they value your friendship.

It could be a great game, but in the end, it was just a long streak of failed expectations and disappointments.

If you have a game from a bundle or bought it on sale with a heavy discount then I guess you could play it for the story. Otherwise, I don't recommend it.

Get Bear & Breakfast if you are looking for some visually adorable, stress-free, no hurry cosy hotel building game with bears and other humorous & memorable animal (and some human) companions.

The game allows you to build resorts in different areas (desert, lakes, snowy mountains), each a bit more different to manage. There is a lot of focus on room planning, furniture or decoration choice and placement, cooking, and material gathering. New characters in each new area give you a bit of lore and their own story, but in general, this isn't story-driven game.

The game peaks around mid-game (say 16-20 hours), later due to various reasons the gameplay turns into a bit of a chore, but that's only when you don't find decorating and redecorating rooms for its own sake fun. I managed to get 100% achievements in around 33 hours, but that I think was fast.

The game is definitely not for those who are looking for a management sim, as there is not so much of a challenge in this area, and a majority of management aspects are simplified or streamlined.

I'm on the fence on this game, I'll give it a Thumb Up because it is a unique experience that only this game (series) can offer, but moments of accomplishment were often overshadowed by frustration and disappointment.

Visually VC4 is pleasing, not state-of-the-art but perfectly cohesive and clear. I enjoyed a variety of maps, especially when different biomes were introduced (fields, cities, snow).
The story is a bit stretched with all the high-schoolers going to war etc. but there are some likable characters and some qt waifus and husbandos and that's all I needed.

There were moments when it felt good to snipe pesky Imperials™ from the high tower, while some Shocktroopers were valiantly holding the line crouched behind the sandbags against encroaching waves of enemies, while at the same time a small group was sneaking behind the enemy lines to blow up their tanks. Until I realised it was all in my head and the game doesn't really support this kind of gameplay

There is very little "tactics" in this tactical war game. The majority of later levels are more like a puzzle to solve, than a battle to strategise. There is often a sudden scripted twist, a gimmick during the mission that you can't reasonably prepare for, for example; an enemy squad spawns in front of you out of thin air even if you cleared that area before, and enemies keep doing the same thing after every restart so you know what type of units to deploy and how to proceed. The game falls short on the level of information it gives you; you never know if you will be able to reach your destination, whether you will squeeze between a tank and the wall, whether the enemy is in the interception range or not etc.

The game recognises and rewards only the mission's completion time, so if you want good equipment, exp and scores you end up doing some cheesy moves like rushing a scout group hoping that the last one will jump over their comrade's bodies and reach an end flag with all enemies still up. Playing slow, carefully, without any casualties or even damage received scores you D. It just feels bad.

What was also a large source of frustration for me was something that is perhaps unique to Japanese games and that is absolutely unnecessary long, unskippable animation/transition between menus. It seems that everything has to have its own animation, a short dialogue. The game is from 2019 but the UX/UI is like a decade old.