Recent reviews by OreoSpeedruns

Actually W game, was skeptical at first and now I'm questioning myself for that

Score: 97/100

Hey, if you're looking for a serious review of this game, you should scroll no further, as I've got you covered.

Alright, Muck. Where do I even begin? This game is an absolute masterpiece. It does so many things right, but it also has some faults. I'll be going through all of these points and giving my thoughts, as well as going in-depth with what I like or dislike.

- Combat System
Oh boy, I LOVE the combat system. It has a lot more depth than one might realize. How it works is that all the melee weapons have individual base damages and individual attack speeds. Both of these stats can let someone thrive with a playstyle they like. Bows are a lot more simple to understand; the bows have individual base damage and projectile speed. This system unfortunately doesn't have much depth at all, as the Ancient Bow is objectively the best bow as it has the highest damage and projectile speed of any bow. Arrows have a little bit more depth to their game. The elemental arrows have the highest damage of all arrows, but they're rare, so Adamantite Arrows are more practical. However, the depth of the combat system is taken further with the weakness system. Some weapons and arrows, when used to attack certain enemies, would always land a critical hit, dealing double damage. I love this system, as it encourages trying different tools against certain enemies.

The combat system is pretty great. It's easy to learn the basics and has a pretty high skill ceiling.


- Difficulty
This is my biggest problem with the game. Muck is brutally difficult and sometimes can be unfair, even on easy difficulty. This is for a number of reasons. For one, days are a bit too short. Given that the only time you're truly safe from monsters is during the day, you don't have all the time you need to be ready for the night. Another contributor is ironically the combat system. I praised the combat system, but it's pretty rough early in the game when you don't have strong weapons. This makes it common for you to get overwhelmed by many monsters early-game since you typically won't have the strength required to fend all of them off.

Despite these problems, there is still an aspect about the difficulty that I like. The bosses are well designed in terms of difficulty, no matter what day you're on. Their attacks are decently easy to learn, have very clear tells, and are, for the most part, not hard to counteract. (with the exception of the Guardians’ laser attack)

Overall, the difficulty could be a lot better and suffers from pretty big flaws.


- Content
By virtue of this game partially being a roguelike game, there’s quite a lot of content. The game itself is indeed brutally difficult and will take quite a while to actually beat the first time. There are three difficulty settings that noticeably make the game increasingly harder, and it’s super satisfying when you’re eventually able to clear a difficulty. That brings me to an aspect of the game that made me sink many, many hours into the game: the achievements. The 49 achievements in the game mostly test your skill in several areas of the game, from beating all three difficulties, to beating the game fast, to beating it without any power-ups, and so on. These achievements are always extremely satisfying to obtain, and that’s because most of them are really hard to get. Great addition, love this. Next thing. There’s also a Versus mode, which is pretty difficult to set up when you’re like me and don’t have a lot of friends, let alone friends that play Muck, but is a blast to play nonetheless. In Versus mode, you and the other players traverse the island as normal, but unlike in Survival Mode, your objective here is to kill all the other players with the loot and power-ups you get around the island. Think of it like the Hunger Games.

There’s just one thing about the content that I REALLY do not like: the “Creative Mode.” If you’re like me and have played Minecraft, and you probably have, you’d think when going into Creative Mode that it has a lot more to offer than it actually does. You’d expect Creative Mode to give you unlimited access to every material, weapon, tool, etc. while also allowing you to fly and create whatever you want, anytime you want, and even explore the map without regard for health or stamina. Unfortunately, this is not at all the case, as Creative Mode is functionally the same as Survival Mode, except it locks the day loop. While you don’t have to worry about health as much, as enemies don’t spawn unless you do it yourself via battle shrines, you still always have to worry about stamina making you unable to go to places as fast as you’d like, plus you actually have to gather all the materials needed to get the resources for whatever you might wanna build. This completely defeats the purpose of Creative Mode, to the point where someone literally had to make a mod that puts an actual Creative Mode into the game. I have no idea why Dani went through the trouble to make this Creative Mode, but removed basically everything that makes Creative Modes in other games great.

Overall, the amount of content present in Muck is quite plentiful, and even though Creative Mode is a complete bust, the rest of the content that Muck has to offer is great.


- Summary and Score

The main foundation for Muck is great. Its combat system has a lot of depth and gives enough room for experimentation and for players with different playstyles to thrive. It’s a system that is easy to learn, but difficult to master. The difficulty is way higher than it should be but the bosses are of the perfect difficulty, and the rest of the game could really learn from them in terms of difficulty. There’s a lot of content, and while a part of the content is not good, the rest of the content is more than good and plentiful enough to make up for it.

Muck is honestly an absolute masterpiece, and I would absolutely encourage anyone to play it. It might be hard to learn at first, but the reward for clearing the steep learning curve is an extremely enjoyable game that’s also a great time with friends.

Score: 93/100