Recent reviews by DiamondSTFU

The game offers fairly fantastic story mode in which through you venture through three different acts which works as three separate card games, Each with their own balance and fair challenge.

After beating the game, Or even at the beginning with certain key buttons you can unlock "Kaycee's mod" which turns act 1 of the game into "legit" game, As in it drops away majority of the story aspect and focuses on pure gameplay and don't get me wrong, Act 1 was easily the best and most atmospheric portion of the main story so this should be absolute dream right?

RIGHT?!

Think again, You're about to enter most scripted mode that completely takes away all the enjoyable things from act 1 main game.

Certain cards? reworked due "balance"
Certain player oriented buffs? Reworked or removed due "balance"
BUT WAIT There's whole new challenges, I wonder how they will challenge me to use THE SKILLS I'VE LEARNED DURING THE GAME.

Why ofc, By removing those skills entirely. 1 life, Things cost more, Your starting deck has annoying sigils on them, The opponent starts with buffs, And then you realize, The difficulty of this mode is purely artificial which thinks that by REMOVING things you create "fun challenge" But how am i supposed to use the skills i've learned if you don't allow me to use those skills in the first place?

It's like being told to play with one hand only on the controller, Sure i could do that.. But why? I have two hands, And that, Is the "difficulty" of this mode, Artificial to the core.

And when you finally learn to play around this scripted difficulty it barely feels fun at all, Let me explain, One of the main mechanics in the game is "fair hand" mechanic, Which means you'l always draw at least 1 blood cost card on your starting hand, Meaning you have something to play, Seems fair right? Well this thing is to be abused to it's core, Never pick any other 1 cost card than the main one you need, Most likely black goat / Mantis god for cheating out big cards / big damage. Now if you accidentally pick up other 1 blood card by bad luck or the game just LITERALLY NOT GIVING YOU CARDS OTHER THAN 1 BLOOD CARDS you're basically done for, The scripted hand draw mechanic will punish you and you will certainly only draw that worse 1 blood card than the one you actually need. And yes i know there exist ways to remove a card but even that is bound to RNG and you may as well to run another part where you're forced to pick 1 blood card AGAIN.

And here comes MY MAIN ISSUES, The game promotes deck building, But in Kaycee's mod, This concept is non existent, You have to rely on the "fair hand" mechanic to limit your deck building on purpose, This isn't "fair hand" mechanic, It's "Scripted forced linear path" mechanic, The game tricks you with it's cool visuals into thinking you have freedoms but nah, The difficulty is artificial.

DESPITE everything i do wish steam had neutral reviews, Because the main story itself is fine and balanced. Kaycee's mod which should had been just act 1 unchanged (with MORE stuff, NOT LESS AND LIMITING) is simply scripted artificial difficulty mode banking on the nostalgia you had for act 1 during your main playthrough.

I always liked aesthetic of haunted dolls and it's almost saddening how little this genre has expanded into video games.

I love the Gothic visuals and storytelling. Soundtrack is extremely top notch and eerie, Adding up to the atmosphere which is easily the main strength of the game.

The only thing i could give slight minus on is the heavy reliance on pass code/math puzzles, Most players are not prepared to start counting, Keeping up with numbers, It's also bit immersion breaking when character literally has to spell out "This puzzle requires understanding of HEX codes", It shows that devs probably didn't plan/write ahead with the puzzles in mind and were more of just filler that came along the way.

I do not feel shame for saying i did look up guide for most of the endgame puzzles, As i was simply more interests in the story and wanted to move on, Overall the puzzles while bit annoying didn't ruin my experience, The super atmosphere and usage of haunted doll/Gothic theme carries the game almost by itself.

Not to mention the soundtrack once more. The main Menu theme instantly sends chills with it's hauntingly beautiful music box like theme in conjunction with the beautiful art full of artistic personality.

If only the puzzles were better designed to fit the narrative, It would be 9/10, Possibly even 10/10 for what it is.

There's also minor complaint on lack of collectible items from drawers, The game gives you option to check on EVERY drawer yet they're always empty (Maybe random change for healing item , about 10% would encourage players to actually check them often)

But it's still solid 8/10 RPG Horror game. Anyone who loves haunted dolls should play it, It's for niche audience but it works for us who love this type of stuff.

By first glance, The game may look too simple or boring. But this absolutely shines if you use your imagination and roleplay certain scenarios, Give yourself limits like: Restore German empire during modern day, Puppet rest of the Europe, Or something absolutely crazy like: Puppet soviet union as Finland.

Not only that, It is very easy to create your own scenarios and download mods. The base game may be boring. But download mods like Addon+ and use your imagination to create fun scenarios. Without frustration that the Paradox games would give to you.

it amazes me how many people gives negative review because "bad graphics".

the graphics are absolutely fine, nice and pixelated. reminds me of some of old 2d games i used to play.


the facility in game is randomly generated. so each time you play its different.

it's really fun to explore the place around and find scp's, there's many small info windows about them

only real minus i would give is unresponsive W key, expecially when trying to open doors

if you are going to buy this you should pick up DLC too, it add some nice stuff


otherwise i would give it 7/10, its ok game, doesn't deserve all hate it gets

alot people keeps bashing the PC version because pig AI and music, but i think pc version is almost good as ps1, you can easily get past the fact that pigs doesnt move after playing some time.

pc version has alot sharper textures and models.

it might not be good as ps1 version, but still its awesome


+
pork tastes gud

"it was worth the weight"


well in all seriousness its pretty nice rpg maker game, enemy encounter rate is maybe bit too high but otherwise its ok.
also its pretty short, you can complete it in 1 hour.

my first steam game ^_^


+ cool enviroment
+ sniper rifles
+ atmosphere
+ multiplayer

- some levels feels really tiny
- hackers in multiplayer
- some annoying bugs/glitches

i would give 7/10

nice game but slow building times make it really boring