Recent reviews by real fish hours

Cute, fun puzzle game with high replayability potential (speedrun medals and just trying to set best possible times, etc).

Looking forward to the full release!

I would like to preface this with the fact I've been playing rhythm games for what feels like forever (nearly two decades at this point i'm sure) so I probably wouldn't recommend this for someone whose only rhythm game experience is Osu! or ADOFAI and especially not to someone who has zero rhythm game experience.

However, after having played the heck out of this game for the past few months I can confidently recommend it to those who have a decent amount of experience with rhythm games outside what I've mentioned above.

The overall gameplay feels very "easy to learn, hard to master", but once you do start to master it it feels so damn good. I went from barely passing some songs on beginner to only having two songs left to clear on extreme within a month or so.
I play with keyboard and autodrift on most of the time, and I would recommend such play until manual keyboard drifting is available.

The racing theme baked into the game seems to be setting the tone for a story in the future? It at least feels that way to me. The idea of the timer showing how quickly you reached the "finish line" set EX score is actually pretty neat.


The good:

-Immaculate song selection menu, some really great design work there.

-Incredible song choices as-is and likely more to come (not including the custom tracks available in the community Discord)

-Reasonable difficulty ramp-up, with *most* of the set difficulty values (the numbers on each song in the selection menu) making sense.

-High replayability, as you can always improve your scores up to the point of perfection. (1,000,000 points and all X-Limit hits (maximum EX score))

-The tutorial song (SPEED LIMIT [BG-1]) explains the controls and how "Gear Shifts" work quite well. Sure, design misses a bit with having them look really similar to holds but the tutorial clearly states that they aren't.


The bad:

-Very basic main menu, likely still a work-in-progress but it does kinda detract from the overall look.

-Gyro controls are a bit hit-and-miss especially if you're using any controller that isn't a DualSense, but this is partially due to many controllers with gyros lacking any sort of drift reduction that Steam recognizes (my own controller's gyro constantly spins in one direction and i've calibrated it multiple times through Steam Input). Keyboard players are also currently forced to use auto-drift, but I've heard this may change soon.

-Difficulty numbers for some of the harder songs (mostly within [EX] difficulty) could use some tweaking. One 13 feels easier than the hardest 12 while another feels harder than the easiest 14 (though that may be due to my own skill issues, lmao)

-The Energy system in Arcade mode could be explained better within the game. From what I understand it's basically "All songs cost 1 energy as long as you pass, 2 if you fail. Long songs require a minimum of 2 energy to be played, while short/flash songs (jittter is the only example currently) only require 1. Energy costs are waived when the EX Stage meter is filled"


Overall, pretty damn good for an early access title. Needs work in some places for sure but nothing the developers can't fix in future updates. Looking forward to future updates!

I am by no means an Armored Core veteran (i only played the first game last year in anticipation of this release, lol), but this is probably the best release in the series. A real culmination of what From Software has learned from past releases of this series as well as their other series.

The difficulty absolutely spikes in places, but once you've developed the skills to defeat Balteus you should be able to handle the rest of the game. As for anyone stuck on intro boss? Sure, it'll take a few tries, but play aggressively and don't be afraid to use your assault boost to get up close and slash away!

I'll update this further when I've got all the endings done. The story is pretty good if you actually pay attention to the little details. Coral is some interesting stuff.

Been one hell of a wait, but it's finally here. System Shock Remake.
EDIT-June 9, 2023: Nice bugfix patch. Fixed the most glaring issues. :3

A list of the good:

• Faithful recreations of most enemies and good redesigns of others. Altered enemy placement also offers a challenge to players of the original.
  
• Good rendition of the elevator music (It's a nice break from the action!)
  
• Weapons are either redesigns of the originals or new introductions to replace others, all pretty good. The Railgun is sooooo much better than the classic's slow explosive projectile.
  
• No major issues with performance that would impact overall enjoyment, though YMMV here.
  
• Cyberspace feels MUCH better than in the original, though can be disorienting for first-time players.
  
• Map layout changes are present that may be disorienting to players of the original at first, but they are less significant than I originally felt.

Now, a list of the bad:

• Combat experience is all over the place. Melee combat feels like it was an afterthought despite it being a major part of early game. The laser rapier has gone from being one of the most powerful weapons in the game to barely usable. Ranged combat is alright, though the Minipistol feels extremely lacking compared to its classic counterpart (especially now that it uses the same ammunition as the Scorpion). The shotgun and rifles found later in the game definitely feel nice and powerful, but still feel lacking at points. The LG-XX Plasma Rifle is just as useless as it was in the original.
  
• Game has a much slower pace than the original. While this is compensated for in the changes to Mission Difficulty 3 (10 hour limit instead of 7), the game feels painfully slow at times. This might have been exacerbated by the slightly disorienting map changes.
  
• The decision to make it so any of the cyborg conversion/restoration units on each floor can revive the player from any deck (so, cancel cyborg conversion on deck 1, die on deck 2 before flipping the switch there, get sent back to deck 1) except if you die in Beta Grove, Security, or the Bridge (matching the original, of course) on Mission Difficulty 2 is likely intended as a QoL change but it makes it so Mission 3 is the only way to experience the classic game's death mechanics (die on a deck where cyborg conversion isn't cancelled, game over!). This one's more of a personal gripe than anything though.
  
• Let me turn off autosave please, ESPECIALLY autosaves on death. That's probably the most annoying thing out of everything here.

Since the worst of the bugs have been fixed as of today, I feel comfortable recommending this for purchase again. Now that replayability is back in place, you're looking at a lot of replay value if you want to try beating it even faster or go for a higher difficulty after your first run.

To new players: Definitely give the original a try if you enjoy this, whether that be through Enhanced Edition or playing Classic through DOSBox.

To those who played the original but are hesitant to buy: Keep an eye out for a sale for sure. I don't regret paying full price, but you might if you were expecting a rigidly faithful remake. (I still miss the AM-27 Flechette... Shotgun's a nice combination of it and the otherwise useless Riot Gun though!)

I bought this game expecting a fun little rhythm game. I was immediately met with one of the best rhythm games i've ever played with some of the most intuitive gameplay design i've seen in a while. The vague references to a particular game franchise and the baboons are also a fun addition!

My only real gripe is some particularly fast songs (mostly the final one) have notes that are a bit too tightly packed for me to tap and release in accurate timing. (Still able to get S ranks though!)

Whether you're a fan of rhythm games or just wanna try something new, this is definitely a great choice!

Still a very good game to play with a group, even though there hasn't been an update in a while

Totally worth $9.99.