Recent reviews by fry319

Game is awesome. Integration is garbage. Grab it on an abandonware website with ScummVM and you'll have a way better time that whatever happens here

I don't like this game.
I don't like it's message, i don't like the way the message is conveyed, and if after some research i am able to understand where it came from, i still find it ... unpleasant.

It sure made me think for 6 hours. But I do not feel like that money was worth spending on this. Or this think.

To keep this spoiler free for a bit, the game is about Davey Wrenden, developer of The Stanley Parable. About his feelings and conflicts on game making. Those feelings and conflicts are expressed thru "Davey Wreden" which makes this more confusing, and "Coda", which are both creations for this game. You cannot look at the details too deeply, because if you try to rationalize the actions of both these characters, you will fail.

If you look at this game while believing all of it is a metaphor to real life game developer Davey Wreden's feelings, stuff can work. I can relate. I can, when not understand, suspend my disbelief.

I would still disagree with the main takeaway I got from it but I could respect it as "it doesnt need to make logical sense when its emotions" but the framing device of it being a real story you're supposed to use to psychoanalyze the two (one) characters you see falls flat for me. It makes the experience unpleasant. Depressing. And this game is all about that experience.

SPOILERS BELOW

The big theme of this game, or at least my interpretation of them, is simple. Some things are left to interpretation, some things do not need to have deeper meanings you need to "solve". People are allowed to have heir own interpretation of a work, and some people create for other reasons than fame or success or validation.

Maybe he just really liked prisons.

You shouldn't project your feelings on other people, and especially not project your interpretation of their work on themselves. Some games have depressing themes. It doesn't mean their author are depressed. Some games are annoying, with hard to reach areas, or secrets in unfathomable places. It doesn't mean their author are trying to "cut themselves off" from the world.

And all that is fine. There may be deeper meanings that i missed, but i do not need to ask the author directly for months for a perfect definitive answer.

My problem comes on the form of the framing device, once again. Coda and Davey are two characters, by the end of the game, you come to realize the reason why Coda stopped making games, and that reason is Davey.
My problems emerge when the game then proceeds, through Davey's breakdown, to paint his actions in a terrible light, like hes a bad person for not realizing how hes pushed away his friend.

Or, more accurately, his "friend"
First of all, we of course suffer from Unreliable Narrator here, but a lot of Coda's actions, from the "playable games" anecdote, to he final floor of the tower, or some interpretation of the Lecture or Theater game come off as really insulting towards Davey. Coda doesnt want their games shared, they do not want their games modified, and they do not want their games interpreted. Those metaphor-games about Davey's overbearing nature ? The final tower meant to literally break off ? We are lead to believe that this is basically the only way Coda can imagine to convey their feelings towards "Davey", and in the end even by writing it black on white it's still not enough to get through to him. it recontexxtualizes a lot of things in a "maybe Coda TRIED to tell Davey but Davey didn't listen". made all the weirder by the fact Coda apparently has absolutely no feelings for Davey (calling them, "not my problem") yet worked for months on this final piece, where the message is entirely made and directed at Davey ?

But like, Davey first met Coda during a Game Jam ? A place where you make games to be judged ? The "playable games" anecdote reeks of malice, and the scale of Coda's efforts to somehow either spite or enlighten Davey about the "correct" way to enjoy their work feels really really out of place.

I will also take the time to include that especially knowing Coda used the Source engine for their games, a platform known for mods (y'know sorta like The Stanley Parable) and third party redistribution of assets and all that, where the community thrives of modifying and sharing each other's content, the down-right vehemence that Coda has towards redistributing or modifying their work feels ... weird.

it makes my feelings about the story of the game like two people stuck in a toxic relationship, where one is desperately trying to conform and get approval from the other and the rest and the other is an unpleasant recluse that refuses to talk to dispel the smallest misunderstanding and would rather spend months working on a big piece of unplayable game to relay the message "I dislike you and what you do to my work" to someone that, at this point, he probably knows wont get it. I find the story depressing, I felt depressed listening to Daveys interpretation of Coda's games, I felt depressed during and after the twist, and I felt depressed once the post credits rolled.

Also i feel like I am also a bit more familiar with game development than the average person which definitely doesn't help the framing device.

Of course, this is mostly me trying to get interpretations out of the games and coming up with a picture i dislike which isnt too dissimilar with ingame-Davey's role and trust me the irony is not lost on me.

But then again this game isn't a secret underground free game sent by email to a select few, it is a commercial product acclaimed by reviewers for it's deep and poignant message on art. With a price attached to it.
And you can say whatever you want I do not feel like paying money to feel depressed and not much beyond that is something id recommend.

If this game ever gets discounted to like, 50% and you have an afternoon to mull depressing subjects over, sure, go for it.

But at full price, with no warnings that the story is at best a metaphor to real life events, no disclaimers, and not the will to find your own meaning in it, yours and no one else, and to keep looking until you convince yourself that you gained something from it.

I cannot recommend this. I find it unpleasant.

TLDR : Stay away FOR NOW. When they have fixed the UI, the tutorials, the bugs, the mobile client, the vertical difficulty spike so common to other project moon games, and when theres actually stuff to pull for most of the cast, then consider coming back. Only thing you'd be missing are the early banners and given the jump in powerlevel between the first and the second honestly i don't feel like you're missing much.


Game has to decide if its a free 2 play gacha with an interesting story where i have to play every day or a live service game where i need to literally skewer every single one of my fingers with some horrible nails and hammers called people fights and RNG continuously and grind with a single unique ultra-repetitive way with no way to automate properly. I can tolerate pain, i played both previous games from the studio, but i like my pain in big injections on the weekends, not in perpetual medium injections thru all the week.

Currently i want to enjoy the cool characters, the story, the art, the music
But for that id need to be able to clear chapter 3 without having to be stuck on massive difficulty walls every three stages.

Its trying to do something different, and i really want to like this game.

But currently, being stuck with base identities cause everything is tuned for you to bring out the base guys you have that you pulled absolutely nothing for just cause they happen to be the one with blunt damage and blunt resist, on fights that you have to try once to even now whats coming and with so many, SO MANY UI problems and really anti-player decisions (for example, you can wipe on the final wave of a fight after seeing everything, but since you didnt clear the stage you wont get any enemy information. because im gonna need to check what enemies are here AFTER i cleared the stge, yes, makes sense.)

Last week, another problem was you could bring a 6th sinner when you set a friends character as support.
Did you know you could bring a friends character as support ? Cause i certainly had to scour internet forums to find it. It was a bug that got fixed but you can still borrow a friends sinner (AKA their identity and their level.)

Given how overtuned everything already feels, identities that you didnt uptie at least once are worthless, end of chapter 3 maps are already level 27 (when the "max stats" characters are shown at level 30) and how much new identities are better than old ones (Meursault nail and Hammer is a better tank than anything weve seen before, and its literally the second banner ever...), game feels like a cliff with no end in sight, esp if were at chapter three and there is like 13 sinners in the bus.

Structure of the game so far also favors heavily defense oriented characters, in people/horde fights, a stagger is a death sentence and killing an enemy fast is good, but being able to farm a small group of enemies for resources and more actions is waaaaay better. This is less true on abnormality fights but being able to leave them alone and not enrage them too fast is often a valid choice still.

Dungeons are paradoxically the easiest part of the game, the fact your cast doesnt reset between fights is mostly a buff, cause it means you can keep using your high-sanity sinners and not fear the reaper of this game, bad RNG early on.

Abnormalities are simply waaaay easier to fight than people, cause you can redirect attacks and have a way better idea of how the fight will happen.

But even then, currently, the game is suuuper grindy, you already need identities around level 25 fully unbound if you want them to win any clash, when a run of a mirror dungeon can maybe give you two levels from 23 to 25 in about 30 minutes.

it has been announced that the xp grind will be split to make it easier to access soon, but thats just another reason to wait for them to add it then.

I dont hate the game, but im definitely frustrated by it to no end, so many characters dont have enough identities or EGO yet some (like meursault) already have 2 tier 3. Its really skewed in a lot of ways and I was hoping for this game to bridge a bit from Library of Ruina where sometimes you HAD to sack your favorite deck against a particular enemy, but actually its EVEN WORSE. at least Ruina had the decency to be nice to you for like the first 10 hours, this game removes the kids gloves by the end of chapter 2 and grabs some brass knuckles literally one dungeon and one fight later.

My real advice to you all
Wait.
Dont get the game now, dont lose sanity over it, dont try to work around the bugs.
Wait. Wait for them to fix the bugs, to fix the mobile client, to fix the UI and tutorials, to fix the power distribution, to fix the difficulty curve, to add what they feel the need to add to make the experience more enjoyable, and to fix eveything else they may want to fix.

Theres definitely something in there, but honestly, youll have all the fun you can have there by watching some pro gamer "I soloed 3-4 its fine no changes needed" play through it on youtube.
Come back for season 2 in two months, Im gonna have to keep myself away from this game cause every time i play it i get out feeling like a vctim of an abusive relationship.

Core gameplay could be really great ... but there are a lot of small things that absolutely ruin my enjoyment of the game.
No way to turn off specific notifications, bugs, frozen citizens...

For example, the "your manor was robbed" notifications
I had a run where they dropped every 10-30 seconds, after putting my house in a "green" crime area

Can you imagine how terrible it would have been without one tribunal and 3 police stations next to my house ?
All that for about 20 denars at a time !

And so, for 20 denars at a time, i really cant stand getting a notification that stops everything in its track. PLEASE for the love of god add a hoitkey to close notifications. Or even better, a "dont show me again" checkbox.

Also, if your coffers ever get near empty and you start getting around 0 a lot, hope you like seeing a picture of yoou being in DEBT !

Both together sure make the game feel frustrating. Please fix the bugs and PLEASE make those notifications more user friendly.