Recent reviews by Non Sequitur Snowman

Before I start gushing over the game, I want to apply the caveat to my thumbs-up review with the following noted:

Optimization is lacking, severely. Considering the circumstances around the release (my understanding is the community -really- wanted it released to EA despite developer intentions) If you do not have a high end graphics card, you are going to have a sub-par (Or possibly unplayable) experience. Even then, I hear you will get stutters.

I have, probably, one of the worst current set-ups to play this game on. Not only am on a NVIDIA Geforce RTX 2070 SUPER (Under the minimum specs listed), but I am ALSO running the game on Linux through Proton. (I'm planning to upgrade during Cyber Monday and will likely append my review then)

I do not expect the game to run flawless, or even well with my current setup, and acknowledge that. I don't play a lot of new, hardware pushing games, but I was able to run Cyberpunk 2077 on respectable settings when it came out. This game, in its current state, with overclocking, caps my GPU at 100% almost all the time, and I'm lucky to maintain 30 FPS on lowest settings and resolution scaling.

With that said, this game seems like it was made specifically for me. The tone, the music, the style, the concept, everything is right up my alley. Listening to the OST, viewing the concept art and playing the game has given me so much creative inspiration in my own artistic endeavors, that that alone was worth 30 dollars to me.

If you are like me and took one look at this game and said "Oh damn, I need that", then you will probably not regret buying it as is now. If not, I would recommend you pass until later down the line.

There's a lot of promise, but in its current state, I feel like if I played a lot I would likely grow bored, so I've been taking it slow. Personally, I'm really hoping there is a lot more randomness to the map generation as far as enemies spawn go, since even with my 10 hours in the game I've basically memorized all the spawns in the first zone and can pretty reliably know where enemies are going to come from.

There's definitely some jank, you'll get caught on the floor, your bullets will hit invisible collision boxes, but if you enjoy the concept and can run it, I think it's worth it. I certainly do not regret my purchase, even in the abysmal state my performance is currently.

There are only two games I ever suffered through playing at sub 30 FPS, Risen and now The Forever Winter. That should tell you how much I like it.

Edit: Appending this before I even got a new GPU. The October 30'th update improved performance a decent amount, and the update a few days after that even more so. It's pretty substantial, even with my sub-bar specs the game is much more enjoyable to play now. I can't complain.

Literally everything I ever wanted out of a spiritual successor to JSRF. The music bops, the game mechanics are expanded in a way that's engaging and the whole tone in general is spot on.

I'm not even through the real "first" area of the game and I can already tell my main grip is going to be that the game probably isn't long enough. (Since the dialogue implies there's five, I'll be happy to be surprised though) But that's a pretty good gripe to have.

It really is all the best parts of JSRF without any of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ so far. (When I got to the Tony Hawk style score attack challenge I was so relieved. I HATED the dumb crap in the original JSRF where you have to chase and tag people with the finicky controls, and this gameplay is way more engaging to me personally) There's much more of a focus on combos and the actual "skating" aspect of the game compared to JSRF.

It's like a Tony Hawk infused JSRF and I'm here for it.

The only gripe I have is that the combat seems a bit jank and I think that's mostly down to it not being properly explained. It's definitely the worst part of the game so far to me (and in JSRF it wasn't great either so I'm really not upset) I'm definitely doing it wrong and I'm not sure if that's the fault of the game or if I'm just coping. It's really not that bad though and I think once I figure it out, it will be fine. (When you can "tag" the enemy seems pretty random and I end up mashing RB so much just hoping for it to proc which really seems to not be the intended experience)

If you played the demo and loved the concept, or just watched gameplay and know this is the type of thing you'll love, then you should probably go ahead and buy the game. I fell in love after playing the demo and from what I've seen from the full game so far, it already justifies the price tag since I can see myself getting easily another 10-15 hours out of the game minimum.

That said, if the above isn't true, you should probably avoid the game for now. My rig is likely considered mid-range for most people, and the rain alone sometimes can cause it to stutter while walking in the streets. It's not unplayable, but it's not pleasant either. There are clear optimization issues that need to be addressed, as well as bug fixes. Example: On some of the larger maps (I'm not sure if that specifically was the cause) I found myself unable to zoom out on the map and navigation was painful. (It did fix after a restart).

Basically, early access is early access, you know what you're getting into. I've never been an apologist for games in EA, and unless you really like the idea of this game, as others have said, it really needed a second pass on the performance before coming into EA.

It remains to be seen how much content this idea can provide when it's largely all procedural generation and RNG. Done right I think it could be fantastic and provide obscene amounts of playtime. Done wrong, you might "see" the whole game in a couple hours and everything else is just re-hashing things you've done before.

If this game didn't update ever again, I'd be fine parting with my 18 dollars which is the only reason I don't give it a temporary thumbs down like most EA games with similar issues.

Edit: A few hours of gameplay later I'm going to have to rescind my thumbs up for now. Ran into a LOT more bugs, some gamebreaking. Infinite loading (possibly corrupt?) saves, mission objectives not completing, mission steps not triggering. I'm personally having a great time, but you have to meet the game more than half way and I don't feel right recommending it in that state.

Hopefully in the upcoming weeks these can be addressed, since I really vibe with the general game feel and loop it seems to be going for.

Update: Game has been patched and while still buggy is at a point I can recommend if you're really into the premise. Bugs are pretty minor or seldom, with gamebreaking ones rarely occurring. Save early, save often, and you should be pretty good.

cloning isn't cheap, kids.

To address the elephant in the room, it seems like a lot of the reviews I see on this game are detractors of Genshin Impact, saying TOF is just it but better, and Genshin Impact stans, who say this is a pile of hot garbage. To state my biases right off the bat, I play Genshin Impact. I sometimes even like it. A year ago I was one of those people who hated all things Gacha, and Genshin for all its faults showed me you could still have a fun game behind it all. Genshin scratches the grinding urge in my monkey brain, and playing it casually I think it's great. I say all of this because in my opinion, TOF can entirely be described as "Genshin but..." In no particular order:

It's Genshin, but it inexplicably takes 3 seconds to open a chest or interact with anything. Something you do a lot and that gets grating over time.

It's Genshin, but while in Genshin to collect a dandelion you use an anemo skill and then collect it, here you have to hit the dandelion, then hit and collect another three things that burst off from it. Every. Single. Time.

It's Genshin, but the pulling animation is extra long and annoying.

It's Genshin, but we've added vehicles because...Well because it's Genshin, but we made the world extra big, empty and tiresome to travel around.

It's Genshin but we added boring turret segments and...vehicle driving minigames where you dodge obstacles? Like, why? Who decided that was what would improve the experience? It's total scatterbrained game design.

It's Genshin, but the combat is even more reliant on dodge spam because doing so lets you use your more powerful moves. I've seen a lot of people saying the combat is "better" than Genshin and while I don't think Genshin is very deep or complex, this ain't it either, chief. You group and juggle people to avoid taking damage, and when you're not doing that, you're dodging so you can spam your weapon swap specials. Maybe it gets better in the late game, but if you're asking me to grind through an unfun combat experience to get there in a gacha game, you've got another thing coming. The movement and attacks in general also just feel a bit stilted, like a worse version of PSO2's combat.

It's Genshin, but it's even stingier with rolls and doesn't even seem to subscribe to the mindset of "The First Hit's free". Mostly you just get the currency to roll on the weapon banners which give you barely anything and a few on the limited banners. I don't even think I got 10 gold whatever rolls in 6 hours of playing. Maybe I wasn't playing optimally, but if I can't find the slot machines because you hid them in the back of the casino, that's on you.

It's Genshin, but super buggy and unpolished. I've had chests disappear from in front of me. I've gotten stuck in looping teleport animations and screen filters. I've fallen off cliffs because the game decided that particular bit of cliff is ethereal. I set the game to Japanese and some of the cutscenes are still in English. When I went to set the game to Japanese, the confirmation dialogue box has the "confirm" button in another language entirely. How does this get past testing? It's so insubstantial but it really demonstrates a lack of care.

It's Genshin but the performance is abysmal. I do not have the best PC, but I could play Cyberpunk 2077 on high settings and a steady 60FPS. This game on anything above "Fine" should not be making my frames dip into the single digits while using dlss.

If you didn't like Genshin, you will hate this game because it's too much like Genshin. If you love Genshin, you'll also hate this game because you could just be playing Genshin instead.

All I can really praise is everything but the gameplay. I love the design of the world and characters, the music is great and atmospheric. The instant I stepped into Mirroria I was gobsmacked at how great it looked. I suddenly wished I was exploring these locations in a better game.

If you like this game that's cool, I'm going to keep playing until I unlock another what I assume is the equivalent of a Genshin 4 star to see if it magically spices up the game, but I'm not holding my breath.

Edit: Future me here, I got another 4 star (SR? I think in this game). Through some quest or event completion. I think my main issue with the system here is that getting a new character in this game does not feel as game-changing as getting a new character in Genshin

If I whale away 90 (Or 180) of my wishes in Genshin, it hurts, but at the end I have some really dope character like Raiden Shogun where I can dish out huge DPS with my Q,and an E that is benefited from all my other characters. In TOF, I get a new character and...I equip their new weapon to my wanderer MC and have ONE, count it, ONE new ability (which is shared between weapons of its type, and I guess the weapon swap special).

It's ironic that letting you design your own MC is a detriment. I love that they let you do that, but it means that I don't see any reason to actually use Simulacrum. I honestly do not even know if there's some benefit to using it, but I'd rather use my custom OC donut steel MC than any of the characters you roll for, since you can access their weapons and abilities anyhow and keep your unique look.

I think Genshin stomps out TOF in regards to reasons to whale for characters. In Genshin, I have four characters with two abilities each. That's eight abilities with (potentially) four different auto attack sets. In TOF, I have one character with potentially three different weapons, and the resonances seem to encourage you to use two of a single weapon. We're going to ignore that and pretend you're using three weapons. That's 12 variations for Genshin and only 9 for TOF.

For Vets reading this I may sound like a total moron right now, but as a new person who has looked up nothing on the game, this is the impression it gives me. This is how it's encouraged me to play, and this is what I take away from it.

Update: For for those in the year of our lord 2024. Game is dead. Barely any players. Most left are toxic. Don't bother. First game I get (unranked) my two teammates leave 2 minutes in. The other team proceeds to not score so I just alt+f4 to not waste my time since strangely, you can't surrender a game in the first few rounds even if both your teammates have left. (Unless I missed an option to)

Second game, (ranked) is very close, but only because my teammate is playing for the other team and defends their goal / scores on our own team. Slow and painful loss as I play 2v4.

Total waste of time. Stay away. I'm sure it's not worth policing anymore when there's barely 600 players concurrent, but I'm confident the only people still playing are stacking with friends, so if you don't have any friends who play, tough luck and enjoy your trash matches which take way too long to get into.

Sucks cause the game is great really and was the first game I ever got into playing "seriously" outside of fighting games, but the community now seems like a total cesspool. Oh well.

Not even the gameplay could save this one.

Below is my original review:

As someone who has never played more than 5 ranked games in games like LoL, Eternal Return, Battlerite, DOTA and really any online competitive game, I'm currently about 80 games in at high silver in ranked and enjoying myself immensely. The game has depth, but is largely accessible compared to other competitive online games where you're require to invest lots of time into builds and long match durations.

As a caveat this may all change once I get past gold and start playing against better players, but we'll come to that when it happens.

It's a new game, there's obviously balance issues, but if you just don't sweat too hard and focus on enjoying yourself, it's a great time. While some strategies and characters are definitely strong, I've never had a game where I felt like I had no counterplay, and feel the same sort of skill progress I've always loved in 2d Fighter games. Almost every match I play, even when I lose, I manage to discover something new about the game and improve my play based on what other players are doing.

The game is super low investment, so you might as well give it a try. I've already unlocked nearly every character and most trainings I could ever want, and I've only played for a little under 30 hours.

Having no chat is an interesting choice, but I think it's the wrong one since people will always read more negatively into emotes than they should, and you can always just mute chat if you want. Some people even take the "<3" emote negatively. Emotes are only as toxic as you make them, and even in ranked games, I've given plenty of thumbs up when someone does a good score on me and have just as often received them back.

Wish I could give it a better recommendation, but I don't feel as if I can. The art and music is great, as well as the general atmosphere. (When I saw the game at first I kind of got Outward / Caves of Qud vibes for whatever reason) But...that's about all the praise I can give it.

The game systems feel...incongruous? I'm not sure what the best way to describe it is. Others have said similar, but my biggest gripe is combat. I don't even mean the feel of it, though it's not great. It's how much combat I've run into despite the game very clearly trying to steer you away from it. (There is completely no benefit to getting in a fight ever) There's even pop-ups which blatantly tell you that there is barely any benefit to combat, which is a bit concerning because running into enemies has been most of my experience so far.

Besides combat, there really only seems to be three major things I found to do: Talk to NPCs. Perform skill checks through an RNG mini-game and finally, what seems to be the brunt of the content, sneaking through dungeons and avoiding enemies/traps, as well as solving puzzles. For me, the problem is sneaking around and solving those puzzles isn't fun in the slightest. The stealth system is not engaging at all, and most of the puzzles (at least at the start) seem to revolve around finding levers and getting keys. Considering the procedural nature of the game, I can see where this is going 5+ hours in and I'm noping out now.

I won't act like I'm an authority or speaking gospel, but it feels as if there may have been some troubled development. Why have all these weapons, armor, enemies and isometric movement akin to Diablo to make a game that doesn't take advantage of the combat it has in place? I could see this style of game being amazing as a text-based game, but as is, it just doesn't vibe with me.

Maybe there was a change in vision half-way through, or maybe it was a pivot due to the inability to make appealing combat, I don't know, but the game's foundation feels at odds with how I'm being told to play it. I'm fine with bad combat, or even no combat, but with the way things are designed it turns into a mediocre stealth game with what appears to be boilerplate puzzles from procgen. Maybe I would enjoy it more if I just turned it down to the easiest difficulty, but If the "intended" difficulty wasn't something I found fun, I doubt it being "easier" would help.

If a pop-up box is required to prompt players how to play your game, that should be an indication that you need to re-asses your design. I could only recommend you try the game if you REALLY like exploration and crank the combat frequency down. As for myself, the exploration elements aren't enough to prop up the game.

It's a bit late, but I hope this review can be helpful to someone even though it took me so long to finally write it, in spite of buying the game on release. As a long time fan of Guilty Gear, I never wanted to write something like this, but at this point it's become clear that my grievances are not merely originating from that of growing paints of a series moving on to its new iteration.

I've always considered GG my game. Some people have Tekken, many have KOF, others have SF, but GG was mine. I never took to the others in the same way. I never spent hours in training mode, I never spent hours playing on Netplay. I'd learn them on a basic level and play at locals, but when it came to playing a game I wanted to play, it was always GG. I went out of my way to learn, study and stress the systems and mechanics, some which weren't even readily available on dustloop. It's what I loved about fighting games, and what I loved about GG.

Every character was unique, and even if I thought I might have perfected a character for a time (which was never actually the case), there was always a new one to go to and dissect. I lived for this, I loved discovering new things and improving. Hearing someone say, 'How the F*** did you do that?" or "That's the first time I've ever seen X" always provided a dose of dopamine that kept me going. The appeal of fighting games for me was learning and mastering systems, and implementing them in the context of mind games in a 1v1 match.

I won't say Strive doesn't have this, but it's greatly diminished. Things feel homogenized to a detrimental degree and the sheer variety in the characters feels like it's taken a nosedive from AC/Xrd to Strive in a similar way it had from SFIV to SFV. I don't have the drive anymore. The drive to experiment, the drive to improve. I don't feel like Strive provides me enough interesting avenues to progress in my play to drive me forward.

I am by no means the best player, I am not even claiming to be a good player. What I am claiming to be is a player who wanted the room to experiment, learn and improve, which Strive does not appear to offer me. The sheer variety of options AC/Xrd offered you are not to be found here, and the move away from frequent Okizeme to neutral marks a deep, tonal shift away from classic GG which I can't reconcile. I don't want to get into the weeds of mechanics and deviations, since it's all largely preference, but as a GG player for many, many years, I can't seem to meet the game half-way to enjoy it. I've really tried, and I'll continue to try, but as every character releases and I hope one vibes with me (after being alienated by my prior 3 main characters (Sol/I-No/Baiken), I've come to realize that no character is going to magically reconcile the issues I have with the game.

Will some like it? Probably. It's a competent game. But it's not GG. It's not my game.

If someone told you that you should try ER even if you don't like DS because it's different enough, they lied.

If you like DS, you will probably like ER.

If you hate DS, you will hate ER.

I've given these series so many chances and I can't even anymore. I feel like these games should for me, but for whatever reason they just aren't. I've given basically every one on PC a shake and every time it ends in disappointment at myself because I can't manage to engage with them and have fun. All they wind up being is an exercise in frustration and tedium.

It also doesn't run great.

Just no.

Saw all the reviews and figured I'd try anyways for 4 bucks. Ended up telling myself I'd spend 30 minutes tops TSing to see if I could get it to work, no dice. Changed install locations, limited cores, manually installed GFWL, ran in compatibility modes, DX9, DX11, no dice.

Unless you're really desperate to play, don't waste your time.