Recent reviews by WiseWarrior

Villagers are the worst. They should be making my life easier, not harder. I can't leave the village without someone starving, dying of thirst, having no tool to do the job, or getting stuck in the warehouse. I manually made 20 meals for 5 villagers, left to harvest fibres and 2 died. One of hunger, one of thirst. I come back and there is still water in the 17 rain collectors and 8 meals. This might be a good game someday. That day is not today.

No. Just no.

Its clunky. Has a UI designed by an engineer (and that's not a compliment). Most of the systems make little sense. Difficulty spikes unreasonably randomly up and down. Too easy to suddenly becoming nightmare. I've no idea what the thinking was with the infection rates and bone breaks were.

There's so much more I could mention, but I'll settle by just saying this game is just plain awful.

It's too restrictive. Farming, mining, etc etc. Nothing is quite what you want it to be or far from it. I don't mind working towards goals through upgrades. Like to have a farm the size I want or the storage my hording self desires. Problem is, there's a hard limit on everything and is unbelievable low. Everything has a capped off point where no further upgrades are available.

There are plenty of better options out there to play instead.

This is one of those games I wish I could put a neutral vote for. Ultimately, its meh, and I wouldn't recommend it to a friend. Honestly, it just isn't my cup of tea. The good is outweighed by the bad.

The game itself is sound. No bugs, or issues of a technical nature. Runs smooth as a whistle.

Music and voice acting is horrendous.

Gameplay. Well, while it was initially fun and gave a good sense you were working towards something with each level, the unlocked traps were just... underwhelming. Don't get me wrong, they were a nice change of pace and allow you to mix up your strategy for each map. Problem is, they well, suck. Take the chain bolter, for example. 200% damage to shielded targets is great. Until you read the fine print where it inflicts between 1 and max damage. Eh? Honestly, I stopped using it immediately after I got it in favour of the cheaper beam emitters. Another example? The final thing you unlock at level 18 is a quantum farm which increases creds received at the end of each wave. Upgrade it, get more creds. Sounds good on paper, buts its extortionate to upgrade to the point its just pointless. By time you can afford to upgrade it to make use of it, the kills net you far more than the farm ever would, plus the amount you've put into it would've been better spent in trap upgrades to rush the wave. There's possibly an argument to be made that you could build all 10 cap of them, upkeep be damned and rely on it for income but you'd have to do the maths on that. Personally don't see it working out, but I've been wrong before. You can probably go through them all and only find 5 or 6 useful ones. Chrono ray and Ranger turret could be useful if you could limit their firing angle... Ground Pounder needs a massive dps boost or range doubled. Lag field needs to have a 1 title variant. Laser Fence, see chain bolter. I think you get my point.

My biggest gripe with the game is the fact your traps can be damaged. Sure, your second power unlock is a repair tool that relies on Pow to use but it's not enough. Not even close. As soon as boss monsters begin spawning, and even with health upgrades on your traps, you are constantly with destroyed towers you can do nothing about. Its not until level 16 (I think?) you get the medic hub to alleviate this issue and its another upkeep tax hog with drones that are easily destroyed even with max health upgrades. I've tried everything I could think of to combat around this issue but line of sight prevents getting around it. Your traps need it, these creatures don't. They are walking artillery platforms that explode on death damaging everything around them. If there's a way to mitigate their destructive potential on your death maze, I've not found it. My partial solution is to split my death zones into three parts so the damage is more spread out. It's not a solution though. Yes I'm playing on hard which likely explains all of this, but everything needs a counter and the counter cannot be 200 medic hubs.

I'm also not a fan of more than two thirds of the maps I've played. This is less to do with the layout, but the creep limit and the subsequent mutation mechanic that kicks in. Solving the puzzle of the layout is more of a chore than the fun I had in say, defense grid. I suspect my dislike of the levels though is more coloured by my dislike of the tools.

I've more to say but this review is looking a little long in the tooth so I stop it here.

It's alright. It does a lot of things and does them in an alright manner, but every feature feels somewhat incomplete. Some examples:

Building:
- Snapping is infatuating. If there is a set piece above the piece you want to place, it simply won't place in the correct location without removing it first.
- Wallpaper, 60% of the time it works every time - As long as you don't need to rotate it.
- Foundation pieces randomly not wanting to place with no visible or invisible reason why.
- Walls that refuse to face the correct direction no matter what you do.
- There's like 30 more things I could list, but this is a shortlist.

Combat:
- Over-the-top auto-aim. I'm a good shot, but I'm not that good.
- AI seems limited to "Oh, there you are" and "Huh?". Once they hit the former, its just "Charge at while firing" or "Get close and strike". They do sometimes use cover but I've seem them LITERALLY take cover beside me.
- Boss mechanics, such as kill the spider eggs, that you complete and the game ignores it leaving them immune.
- Player nonsensical hit-boxes. I include this because I'm only partially convinced its due to the lag incidents we've been having.

Exploration:
- Reused buildings and interiors. Every motel is the same motel. Done one, you've done them all. This is an exaggeration, but I'm not far off with my statement.
- You have to wait for phase two to go past a certain point leaving you with nothing but boss farming or Eternalland.

I have more I could add, but I'm sure y'all get the point I'm trying to make. It has a lot it can improve on.

Be warned. You will continually get stuck at security doors having to kick your AI companions to be able to progress. Further more, the game is just bad. I don't say this lightly. It is BAD. This game has probably the worst game play loop I've ever seen and level design is shockingly poor. There is zero rewarding experience for completing a mission. You'll maybe get one or two mutagens, which are boring and last for one to a few missions before they're gone. Maybe a cosmetic apparel item as well that looks pretty much identical to what you are already wearing. Given how 'hard work' this game is, it's all the more disheartening. That's assuming, of course, you actually manage to complete a mission. Which is another gripe I have with it. 90% of the difficulty to this game is piss more level design (security doors, R7C1, Class S FOR EXAMPLE) or terrible AI team mates. My friend and I have played a good number of missions now and they just plain suck. R1 all the way through to R7. There was two missions I found alright. Just two. There maybe more, we didn't play them all, but I am so done with this trash.

Lazy developers. If you are making an arcade experience, then make an arcade experience. Don't 'tact on' resource collection unless you plan on doing it properly. Just add those to the rewards section of missions. Running over/shooting mining deposits? Really...?

Honestly, this seems like a petty thing to complain about, I know, but its honestly the straw that broke the camels back for me. There are plenty of things this game does well (fluid combat for example) and bad, but the bad seriously outnumber the good and most of the bad are tiny annoyances in design that build to make the game pants.

What can I say about this game? Well, it's got character, charm, and novelty in spades, but not much else...

There's fun to be had here, assuming you are not looking for something complete and/or gilded. Solace Crafting aims to do a lot and, to be fair to it, does it... Just without any polish or finesse. For example:

There's a GUI -- Utterly horrendous.
There's AI -- Though it appears limited to wander in area, locate, charge at, attack. It'd be called advanced for the eve of the millennium.
There's a good variety of creature types -- Though they all seem to be in cahoots against you... "Hello minster crocodile, adorable lil' goblin, hippo and stony rock golem... Oh, y'all are friends? Cool. Cool. Just chillin? Silly me, I shouldn't have intruded. My bad."
There's a GUI -- Utterly horrendous.
There's base building -- With one of the worst implementations I've seen to date and yes, I included '<-insert game here->' in that list.
There's crafting -- Craft a piece of armour... wait-- Can I even use this? Nope, wrong level. Alright... Now? Still can't... Oh, my actual level is too low, not my skill level. I see... Okay, well crud.
There's skills -- Mostly implemented...
There's combat -- That mostly works...
There's EXP points -- Just don't ask me where its listed.
There's resource gathering -- Hold F for gather. Or Ctrl+f. Just, don't look away... Sure. Why not.
There's a GUI -- Utterly horrendous, seriously...
There's a spell system spells -- Most of the time the enemies register the hits...
There's archery -- Most of the time the enemies register the hits...
There's a GUI -- Utterly horrendous...
There's textures -- Some of which are quite nice... Makes me wonder what happened to the rest.
There's vehicles -- Well, there's a boat which sorta works. Just roll with it.
There's multiple biomes -- And the stitching is only marginally janky.
There's a GUI -- Utterly horrendous... I will keep driving this one home.

I could go on but I'm pretty sure you get my point. The developer also believes this is in a "Release" state... Sure, if you are trying to emulate Fallout 76, NoMansSky, and the many others... Sure. But if they're being honest with themselves, it clearly has at least two years left in development. Having come out of EA in this state is a concerning sign, can't deny that.

Despite all the above, the game is worth the current £10.99 price point, though only just. I've so far found it fun and with character. I'll likely play it between games. If it was just £2 more though, I'd have swung the other way on it.

The short version: It's pretty much a full game as is, and is enjoyable/borderline addictive. Worth the price.

I agree with the overall "Most Helpful" review that there is a lot of concepts shoved into the game with no real mesh to truly bind them together and this does need future polish and improvement to make this game a true gem. Early game was a little "meh...", but the further I got into it, the more addictive the game became as tedious stuff became easier and more interesting. By time I found the 100% punch through bow and explosive arrows, I was hooked.

Combat is interesting with multiple ways to approach fighting. Gene Editing (the games passive skill system) skills are not locked in, allowing you to switch up and try new things all the time without penalty and there's a good variation of enemy types, though some are over-used.

Base building is full-fledged and might as well be a built-in map editor. I've had some real fun with this and take my hat off to the developer/s. Your character/s have their own tiny personal island/s which you can expand by mining rocks and dirt and turning it into rock-fill. Then take a shovel and dig up the tiles you want to place on top of it (green grass for example) and vary it with other shades before then placing down your usual walls and workbenches and farms and such.

I spent wayy to long building my base, and at first, it really annoyed me how small the personal island was as rock-fill isn't cheap and mining rocks and dirt with a pickaxe (any variant) is seriously a pain in the back end. But then. Then I got the aforementioned bow and arrows, XD.

If building your own island up doesn't appeal, you can just pick a spot somewhere on the map and build in the main world. It's left to you.

The weakest part of the game is NPC's and trading. It's honestly just a tack on from my point of view and needs a lot of improvement. Quests are just "Give X of Y to this NPC, and here's some penny's for them".

Anyway, there's a full game here already and its engaging. Definitely worth the current price and with work would be a serious gem. I've not played multiplayer yet, so can't comment on it here at this time.

P.s. If the developers taking requests; Instancing weapons and armours to have bit of random stats would give further enjoyment to combat. Plating equipment is great, but once you have the "be-all-end-all" weapon/s for a set of floors, all you're doing is farming the materials for genes.

If it wasn't on sale, I wouldn't have bought the title so take my review with that in mind.

A 3 hour, nonsensical story campaign that's main challenge is wall running. If you think for even a second, your immersion will be broken as the games complete premise is that you go with the flow of rushing events happening around you; however ridiculous and barely plotted out those events maybe. The term "on-rails" is put to perfect use here and I honestly don't know why the game's campaign isn't just a QTE visual short story. It's pretty clear the single player is a tact on for multiplayer - which goes to show why I don't buy FPS games any more. They just aren't worth the money unless you're into the competitive multiplayer scene. *Sigh*

Positive note, mech combat was... Enjoyable.