Recent reviews by Schmoopy

im only 4 ish hours in and i can confidently say this is a really great Early access FPS RPG, which there are not that many of.

it gives hints of arx fatalis, a lil bit of DM might and magic. It holds a solid foundation, servicable combat, theres quests, there is also an open ended way to how quests are, lots of dialog options, every quest is optional, and nothing is holding your hand.

and nothing is holding your hand

However i have found a few elements so far to be a complete drag.

EXTREMELY DARK,
i mean there is no light ANY where to be found, even torches offer barely servicable light source since they just burn out after awhile, ive had numerous instances where i just turned around cause its too dark and spent a long time trying to find another torch on the wall, which most the time, you cant grab them.
i do not like the way the game handles "arrrow" economy, they're practically a delicacy in this game.

Don't bother speccing into being an archer character, as there is no specific way to craft arrows, they disappear on use, and theres an extremely FINITE amount of them as if its some sort of horror shooter.

the way magic works in this game is trying way too hard to be unique, arx fatalis was the last really good innovation in FPS rpg spellcasting, the way it works in this game is just awful. speccing into spell casting will only yield disappointment as you realize the magic system is built on the predication you've found abunch of pre- requisite pieces to make the spells work, its actually quicker to get mana and spell casting working in Outward (a game with also an inconventional mana/spellcasting system) than in this game.

Combine these 3 HUGE issues and you funnel every playthru into the same playstyle, walk around in the dark, swing the same 2 weapon types, and get lost. which reduces replayability.

and then the Early access growing pains..

The game is also set up in a metrovania like fashion where the map positions itself to have back tracking, and lots of it. Routes will bend and turn and return to the fountain ( bonfire basically) which is convienent, but the map is so expansive and dark its extremely hard to get across without getting a headache.. theres no fast travel, or really anything. you're just expected to run in the dark everywhere, and so far everything looks the EXACT same, leading you to run around aimlessly, run out of torches, and end up in the dark. theres no visual markers to really set a part anything, it just all blends together. there is a map with a marker function, but i dont see why there aren't already markers on it if theres settlements like the chapel, city etc.

With a game as big as this you should be able to fast travel to fountains, at the VERY LEAST. this game is not LINEAR, there is no reason to disrespect a players time by making them trek the same way 12 times for 9 different reasons.

another huge issue is nothing is explicitly explained?

i understand not wanting to hold your hand, but even arx fatalis made mechanics clear and concise for the player to engage with, this game just ASSUMES you'll know you need 12 parts of a pentagram to cast most spells. This game just ASSUMES you know where to go, even though everything looks the same, its dark as hell, areas are locked off either by lock, gate, or some magical barrier, which again, the game ASSUMES you'll know what to do. This game will ASSUME you'll know something is a puzzle, or that gnawed body parts are part of a quest, or that you'll know what to do with them. its honestly a crazy decision just to go "fk it, just figure it out". Again, this game just came out, theres no wiki. so EVERYTHING sucks in this "not being explained" regard. you'll end up just hitting a wall and going "fk it" yourself and doing literally anything else than getting frustrated in this game.


I do recommend supporting this game in early access, because its 1 dev, and i can see the vision, i understand where it wants to go and is trying to do, but its early access right now, so its pretty rough, so im not completely enthused by my experience so far. but it is decent in its EA state.

6/10 right now. but i am optimistic itll only get better

One of the better new market sims.

ALTHOUGH, ive ran into a few issues entirely.

first off, theres a soft cap to progression, and it becomes painfully obvious.

once you're level 8, you only need like 5-4 fruit stands, a single all side shelf, and a few freezers and you can house every item up until that point. HOWEVER, once you're at this point you'll more than likely have the 4 employees.

this is where the game becomes EFFY.

essentially, with the new employees you're able to make them do 4 tasks, take a break, clean, stock, or cashier.

but the problem with the employees, the only task they can do efficently is cashier.

2 employees CANNOT keep 6 shelves stocked at any given point. This is awful design.

they move way too slow, and each action they take has too long of a delay to be efficient, it feels like they're ultimately there to simply pad the gameplay loop you're unable to automate with employees.

self checkout; self check outs are supposed to allow customers to cash themselves out, unfortunately, its just as useless as stocking on employees because you still need to manually over ride the self check out sometimes, thus making it a.. manual check out?

progression; once you reach lvl 8 you've done everything this game has to offer, each level gives you aceess to a few items to buy and sell (not enough for the buy in to level up) and you end up hittin a soft wall when you need 3500 to lvl up, since you dont have enough unique products to fill peoples grocery haul with, they'll ultimately only grab the same 10 items your selling, thus artificially increasing how long you need to wait/play for the next tier, and so forth.

overall this is a solid game for under 9 dollars, but theres just certain balancing issues that plague the overall enjoyment of the game.

current state is a solid 7/10, painfully average, but not bad or terrible, you can definitely get your moneys worth here, its just not finished yet.

I like this game, yes, i recommend, yes, but being early access theres a lot of things about this game that throw me off.

Specifically the way pricing works, you'll buy bread for 160 and sell it for 240 making a profit of 80. but that 80 dollars is actually 30 dollars because for some reason the maintenance of running a candle with a rug in your store was 40 gold even tho you work by yourself. so you end up always in this weird state of buying stuff and selling it for a little more, but never breaking the difference due to the way maintenance and taxes work.

Another thing is the tutorial, it never goes away on new play thrus and most of the time if you follow it you'll lose money, specifically when it asks you buy useless things like the horse for 1200 plus daily maintenance. should be able to turn it off

Brooms break... why? the hoe i can understand, but a broom??

Farming takes FAR too long, there needs to be some kinda fertilizer or bone meal to make the process faster, you'll buy a bag of seeds for 800 and wait like 5 in game days for it to grow, and youll go bankrupt early game before you yield.

The lack of information and stats when relating to the overall game, cant check the calendar in your store, cant check taxes, rates, fees from your store without sleeping, its not clear what any of the ♥♥♥♥ at the top of the screen is UI wise, etc.

Very good idea and executed decently so far.

Red dead Japan. A story of the last samurai of the sakai clan.

I could draw parallels between red dead redemption 2 and GoT all day, but the biggest draw is the ambition and care for both of these games is immense.

A game that does the 3 elements almost perfectly; gameplay, story, graphics.

Every part of this game feels polished with such care. Beautiful, stunning, atmospheric, immersive.

The best game you can buy for 60$ on steam right now.

Better than lethal company. Period, no more moving scrap for money like sea of thieves, here you can be creative, theres more (and better) monsters to encounter, crazier level designs, wonderful art direction, and the theme and cam coder edge makes this have a lot of replayability, i just wish the videos exported a lil better quality.

Play button didnt work for me.

Whew, this game has gotten worse with every update, to the point loading into a server takes almost an hour if not more.

Rust is the only game thousands of nerds will wait an hour long loading screen just to be primlocked all saturday.

2/10, would not recommend.

Honestly great game so far for me.

Biggest issues are Performance, and certain quests are fragile in terms of bricking them or just ruining the chance to do them.

Performance is so awful, it feels like im playing on a ps3 even tho i can play much better looking games at higher rates.

The Micro transaction claims, yeah sure, its lame, but its not something to get riled up when all the items you can get are EASILY attainable in game just by playing the game normally.

9/10 for DD1 fans, perhaps 7/10 for people new to the franchise, especially given the performance issues here.

Buggy, unoptimized, and derivative. Ugly character models (why???) buggy respawn mechanic that falls you thru the floor, absolutely 0 way to defend yourself early game if you waste your one free mag.


I wont recommend for now but i wont refund. just wish they waited longer before releasing.

So far, i dont see why people are saying this game is hard, let alone solo.

2 big take aways from my gameplay so far.

1, great concept, funny, decent executed for early access, decent combat, great gameplay loop.
2, bare hands are the best weapon in the game.

My biggest complaint is the missions are kinda buggy right now and that leads to me just straight up not wanting to sink time into it.

i was doing an extract perp solo and i straight up bare knuckle subdued over 15 perps with about 3 minutes left i lead them to extract and i don't surpass 9 extracted perps. i had well over 15 on their knees in extraction circle and yet it didnt count it. i ended up being handed a new case file and lost.

Do i recommend ? Yes because i love these kinds of games, unique, silly, engaging. But right now the missions are prone to just unrewarding you.