Évaluations récentes de SolarSpark

SAR is a very casual Battle Royale game with cute animal characters. Matches are short and an interactive lobby before each match starts makes it an easy game to jump into for a few matches. The skill ceiling is lower than most games, but new players will probably have a frustrating time getting the basics down. There are two more casual games modes that are rotated each week: a zombie mode and a control point mode. The zombie mode is my personal favourite.

The lighthearted nature of the game has allowed it to grow a small but close-knit community. I have made plenty of online friends in-game. There are of course some toxic players but I've very few negative interactions compared to other competitive games. The game is free-to-play and and does not use any pay-to-win mechanics. You level up by playing matches and there is some grinding needed unlock some of the animal character skins like dragons and bats. There are plenty of cosmetic clothing items, but some of the more interesting cosmetics must be purchased.

This game has given me much joy over the years and I would absolutely recommend giving it a try.

A genuinely relaxing farming game that differentiates itself by giving the player an upgradable mech suit. You farm alien plants, craft materials, and trade to make a profit and buy upgrades for your suit and farm. Every aspect of the game has a feel-good aspect to it, which I appreciated.

The map is divided into biomes, each with different unique resources. Biomes are unlocked by clearing them of pollutants, which I found to be a unique mechanic that ties in well with the mech suit. There is no combat other than having to protect your farm against minor weed threats occasionally. The day-night system gives a satisfying cycle of daily tasks that does not place excessive pressure on the player. For example, you get farm bonuses for sleeping but you are not punished for not sleeping at night.

Exploration can be frustrating partly due to the restrictive mobility in a mech suit but also due to the lack of clear paths between biomes. At times I felt myself on the verge of rage-quitting with the suit being easily toppled over and rare resources being difficult to find. Exploration is easier later in game with mech suit upgrades, but there is also less need for exploration in late game.

For the above reasons, starting your farm in a central location with quick access to each biome will probably give you a must better play experience than I had, but it is unfortunate that there is no practical reason to build your farm in any more interesting locations.

A fun vehicle upgrade system wrapped in tedious exploration with a disorienting UI. The game has potential as a relaxing crafting-exploration game, but the restrictive save system denies the game this opportunity.

In short, you cannot save the game while exploring. You are forced to complete large exploration areas between saves. It is not an open world - you enter an area by driving to a "gate", and after collecting some 'quest' items, you must exit that area by collecting some more items ("collect 3 ... to leave the area"). If you do not want to risk having to replay large areas of the game, make sure you have no less than 2 uninterrupted hours to spare for every play session. Pray you don't have a game crash or power trip.

Perhaps the game is intended for players who have few real-world life obligations, but I suspect a more sinister motive - use fear of losing progress to artificially inflate the in-game hour stats and force new players to hit the 2-hour playtime mark so that they cannot refund the game.

Pacific Drive's restrictive save system does not add to the game's "tension". A save system that allows the player to take a break from mindlessly wondering through overly large, bland maps would have been this game's one saving grace. There is no justification for a save system that does not accommodate players who want the freedom to chose how long they want their play sessions to be.

I did enjoy the idea of continuously upgrading your vehicle and scavenging for materials in a strange, almost alien, wilderness. I did not enjoy the item durability system which seems to demand you waste resources to re-craft new tools repeatedly. The lack of exploration freedom and grinding were not necessarily deal breakers for me, but the punishing save system kills any desire I have to even start up the game again.

A delightful game where you play as a cat and interact with different animals in the city to find your way back home. The character interactions are fun and I deeply enjoyed the light-hearted story. The game has plenty of positive messages and feel-good moments.

You can expect three or four hours of core gameplay, although I went back to finish the achievements and play some pranks on humans around the city. The game is quite easy, although there might be a few moments when climbing where the character control gets frustrating. The cat cannot be hurt if they fall though, so you need not worry about that.

If you like cats and enjoy cosy, story-driven games, I highly recommend this one!

The game recommends using a controller, but I played with a keyboard and mouse with no issues. Be aware of two things with the keyboard: Firstly, the game does not tell you what the keyboard key for 'meow' and emotes is - Use the 'F' key for 'meow' and emotes. Secondly, for dialog choices, you must use the keyboards directional keys UP/DOWN to select dialog options. Other than that, I had no issue playing with keyboard and mouse.

I only experienced one bug: I twice encountered getting stuck mid jump. There is an "Unstick me" option from the settings menu, which will spawn you on the ground level nearby.

There will be some backtracking involved if you want to complete all the achievements. If you want to 100% complete the game, there are two tedious achievements where I feel saving and loading back into the game is justified. By saving and loading back into the game, vending machines and breakable objects reset.

What this game lacks in depth, it makes up for in charm. Palworld's hype is centred around the latter, yet you may want to hold off on picking up this game until it has addressed the former.

While there are elements of survival and base automation, the game centres around hunting creatures by either capturing or killing them to grind through a tech tree.

If you want to treat your Pals kindly, you will have a hard time enjoying this game, since it is exclusively cruelty that is rewarded.*

*UPDATE: 21/02/2024 An update has been released that adds new a new base management option to have Pals relax more (previously you could only work them harder or brutally), so Pocketpair are listening to players' feedback.

Nonetheless, the community on the official Discord is also requesting Slaughter Houses, a "giant pal grinder", a "Lobotomy Station", and Pal Skinning. The devs are fully pushing this agenda on their socials, so if a game completely centred around this does not appeal to you, do NOT buy this game.

The start of the game has you capturing Pals and building a base, and I found a lot of enjoyment in getting set up. Despite being a survival game of sorts, I had no struggle with inventory management and picking up early resources, the biggest frustration being unable to move buildings and workbenches. Pals help out around your base with delightful mannerisms, giving you a sense of their character. You are also given plenty of time to learn and experiment with the basic mechanics of combat and base building, which I appreciated.

Pals assigned to your base can become stressed, and they might "slack off" and stress eat through your food supplies, but there are no early game mechanisms for the player to address this issue other than 'storing' the Pal away and replacing them with another Pal. More experienced players seem to opt to "butcher" the offending Pal before replacing them. Pals get stuck regularly, many buildings require manual feeding of resources, and your base visits will always be a micromanagement chore.

I played fully solo on normal mode. You can adjust grind settings, but I found doing so was a band-aid solution where grind is still unavoidable to craft mid-game items.

I wanted to feel my character was struggling to survive on an island of magical beasts. I would have loved some early game structures and better variety of options to address Pal's needs.

Rather, the game is content with having you grind to collect as many Pals as possible and gives you no reason to form an attachment to any of them. Why give the creatures so much personality and then treat them as disposable in the game mechanics?

In fact, Palworld seems to nudge you to believe that that Pals are to be treated with disdain. I can only assume such disdain is used to justify repetitively capturing Pals to grind experience points. For an open world survival game, Palworld's has an over-dependence on extrinsic reward. Why is the game telling me I need to collect 30 Pals as my first objective? Why do I need 10 of each species to get bonus experience? Surely the player should be the judge of how many Pals they need to manage their base and accompany them on journeys?

Instead, grinding is used to compensate for lacklustre world building. Minor adjustments to the tech tree could make it more balanced. The NPCs scattered around do little to help enrich the world building, and their shallow dialog detracts from it if anything. I would have loved if Palworld did not feed exposition in the form of dialog and on-the-nose shock value, but rather introduced implicit storytelling.

Building a community of creatures and collecting new species, especially of a more challenging variety, is where my enjoyment was rooted. The real-time battles are certainly fun and the game might be worth it for that alone. One frustration I had with combat was the risk of accidentally killing Pals before you can capture them with a 'sphere' (the probability of capturing is partly based on an enemy's health). I did not find having to repeatedly throw away expensive spheres fun, but those who enjoy a "gambling" aspect might find this addicting.

Palworld seems to try to appeal to audiences of creature capture and monster hunter games who were looking for something slightly different, but not too different. Palworld is low-commitment and easy to pick up where you left off. I like the idea of creature capture games, but I was never able to get into the series of games Palworld tries to imitate, and I suspect this is why Palworld falls short for me. I do not like grinding without meaning.

The addition of a story, or more focus on the role-playing aspect of the game would have certainly sold me on the concept. Or at least better base building & management mechanics beyond butchering misbehaving Pals. Palworld explores dark elements like slavery, but offers no moral contrast - shock value without meaning.

I would love to be given choices that would allow for me to form meaningful connections with my Pals or with the world itself, but alas, I must capture yet another dozen Pals to grind through the tech tree.

• The treatment of Pals gets worse as the game progresses. If you want to treat you Pals kindly, you will have a hard time enjoying this game. Its difficult to ignore that Palworld prioritises being edgy over making its game mechanics enjoyable. Take the Butcher Pal command - few players enjoy sitting through the butcher animation to get those bonus resources. Why not add a "release Pal" command alternative, or NOT give bonus rewards for butchering? In Palworld you play as Evil or Very Evil, there is no in between. I would just prefer if I had more options.
  
  
• I am coming from survival games like Sons of the Forest and Enshrouded, where survival, exploration, and base building/management are the focal points, and where the grind is more immersive and intrinsically rewarded, allowing the player to measure their own progress and do things in their own way. Palworld is very restrictive in how you play, effectively giving rewards for completing a checklist of tasks.
  
  
• I have high expectations around bugs and content in early access games. I've played too many EA survival games with known bugs that persist years after release out of EA. Pocket Pair does not have the best reputation maintaining updates for their EA games.

Every aspect of this game is beautiful. The visuals, music, story, and mechanics all work seamlessly together to give a truly wonderful and well-polished experience. I generally find platformers too challenging (or frustrating) for me, and although this game does have some more challenging moments, you are provided with a sufficient toolset of abilities to get by once you've figured out which skill to use a new obstacle. At the very least, the game maintains your interest enough to motivate you to keep trying. This is definitely a must-play if you enjoy imaginative and otherworldly settings in games.