Recent reviews by OrangeGarage

I really want to like this game, I really do.

I bought this game with the expectation it would be a RTS/Deckbuilder.

The pixel graphics are great, the music is nice, the design of the builings and the units are absolutely beautiful. The support for custom maps right off the get-go is a great choice, even if I never enjoyed that aspect of the game. (but it's a great choice)
And that's where the pros end for me.


The game isn't really an RTS game as advertised, it's more of a Tower Defense + Deckbuilder game. I don't feel like I make much macro decisions, and I don't make any micro decisions (aside from a 2x2 grid smite, which considering the scale of the battles, is like nothing). You don't ever get Unit vs. Unit fights, it's a 'TD vs TD' fight. And that makes it so that your units are just 'good vs Walls or good vs Towers', compared to the traditional Armored->Light->AOE rock paper scissors with Air/Ground mixed in. And I think this misleading 'RTS' label is the root cause of most problems.

You don't really feel anything about individual units as a single card played will summon around 1000 of them. The battle is very large scale with no control options, you are basically just sending waves of enemies into towers that have big AOE damage.

The towers have no control aspect either. You place them down, they attack in their range, that's it. The key aspect here is good wall design that will eliminate your blind spots and funnels the horde to a killzone so that you don't have to invest as much into towers. The excess money can then go into your barracks which then you will slowly build up your unit cards and eventually your end goal is to trim off most tower cards because you have infinite defense, have T3 unit cards and just go for it. But the UI for placing buildings isn't super clear, and the wall placement can get really clunky, which sucks because wall placement is basically the only engagement the game is offering to the user.

As far as deckbuilding goes I don't think it's bad, the card art is great and the basic loop is there, but because you're using the card for everything including teching up, your discard pile will eventually fill up with pretty useless cards and you need to focus on cutting the fat off. I think trimming the fat is a necessary aspect of all deckbuilders, but to get a really optimized thing going in this game I feel like you need to trim a lot of it, and if you don't, the whole deck just starts feeling clunky and slow.

So the game is heavily encouraging you to zoom in and watch the battle unfold, except the battlefield is split into 2 distinct areas so it's really annoying to zoom in on one side then you want to watch your units battle so you have to tab over to the other side. It breaks up the immersiveness for me and makes the whole thing feel disjointed.

The sound effects also feel pretty lackluster, there is a major battle going on at all times but you just feel like it's a pixelated slap fight.

Lastly, the single player mode doesn't have much story. You aren't aligned to a faction, you aren't making any chunky choices, I have no clue why we're fighting these other people and why are we progressing through a map at this point? I have some advisor and our goals are clearly aligned, but I don't really know what that goal is. It really takes the wind out of my sails.

Overall, I think this game may be a decent game if you are interested in horde defense, but if you are looking for a RTS you will be disappointed. Even if you are interested in horde defense, there are pretty significant negatives like the SFX and the clunky UI.

Corestrike: https://corestrike.gg/lookup/PadoMeansWave?region=Global

Positives
1. The emotes in this game were the best emotes I have seen in any other game.
2. The characters are all very well designed, in-game interactions via dialogue is great, and concepts are well executed. Really makes you want to check out and play new characters.
3. Base gameplay is really fun. Dodging opponent skillshots while trying to get core control is very addicting. Lots of room for strategy, skill expression, and satisfying set up plays. It is very fast paced, and it is possible for all positions to "carry" the team to victory.
4. The way you get items in this game is nice, allows for midgame strategy and comeback setups, I think it was a great implementation so far, but I do wonder if it can get snowbally in higher level gameplay where scaling characters can get choked out.
5. Striker abilities and cooldowns create a low skill floor and a high skill ceiling, making the game very deep if you start learning some mechanics.
6. You can try all characters in the practice mode (this is really nice)
7. There are themes for all characters and if you get MVP your theme plays for next set

Negatives
1. High skill ceiling with stagnant/loyal player pool creates steep learning curve for newer players because they will have trouble finding the buffer of players of similar skill level to them. I think this is exacerbated by the lack of tutorial found inside the game created, not sure how many community created tutorials there were either. (**positive note**: the character trailers showed cool mechanics I could use and broke them down well and are great references)
2. Fast paced, competitive gameplay amplifies a feel of helplessness (especially in goalie position), leading to frustration and toxicity. This is something I feel very similar to fighting games like Tekken, where you can be losing one round after another and it's hard to get your mental back under control. Unlike Tekken though, Omega Strikers has 2 other teammates to blame, and there are certain emotes you can definitely use to BM
3. Lack of a fleshed out practice mode. I think many people look at Omega Strikers initially as a 'casual' kind of game. But because it's such a fast paced PvP, things get very sweaty and you get BM'ed on and then you discover that there is no practice mode? Thankfully when I actually joined there was a rudimentary practice mode, but I think Omega Strikers really needed a practice mode at launch with how deep the game was.
4. Not many cosmetics, and on top of that you don't really feel the need to buy them because they just look alright, and there were no cosmetics for my characters. It didn't feel like the devs didn't want skins in the game, it felt more like the devs did not know which characters to make skins for, and what kinds of skins to make, and when to make skins (manpower/planning issue?)
5. UI feels very... not good? E.g.) I press 'Escape' to customize my profile, but there is a separate button if I want to customize my strikers, and I have to specifically go to the store to unlock strikers? I still don't really know what my rank is until I get placed in a match, I don't know how to report/block toxic people I encounter, etc.

Suggestions
1. Have a more in depth practice mode (Let you place core where you want, make enemy AI do repeated actions)
2. MMR based rank system that takes in casual match performance into rough account, instead of everyone starting from rookie
3. Let users be in practice mode while queuing up for a match (queue times can get long, this is a deep game, let us practice and keep our hands warm)
4. Replay system with adjustable speed
5. Setting to mute emotes/expressions - you can implement text chat too, since it can be muted
6. Feature to block/report users, or make the feature accessible and clear
7. Have a alternative skin (even if it's a recolor) with character release for purchase.
8. Encourage/Incentivize full party play somehow (this game feels like night and day with random players vs. a full communicating squad)
9. Highlight community made tutorials and new player onboarding efforts in-game (UI to access community tutorials maybe?)

Ultimately I think the main problem lay in how people approached the game initially (casual/fast) and ended up getting burnt by how difficult it could be and how helpless the skill gap makes them feel. Then they start giving up and thinking it's not something they want to commit hours getting good at as they get teabagged on and get spammed the 'FREE' emote. No tutorials and a lackluster practice mode are a big problem in Tekken as well, but Tekken is not a team game, offers a story mode, and also does not market itself as a casual, chill game. I wonder if it's the open beta that threw devs off and made people think a practice mode wasn't necessary for full release, but I remember I was really thrown off when I tried to play in May that there was no single player mode anywhere so I could try to troubleshoot my technical issues. Then there was Co-op vs. AI instead of custom/practice mode?

I think among fighting games, Tekken had one of the easier combo systems (usually 10~11hits for your bread and butter) to understand, and the system itself feels less confusing. This includes (with some exceptions):
1. No Ki bars/Guard gauges to keep up with, no stun gauge
2. No super high jumping over other characters, no midair fights necessary to think about, no jockeying for cross-up mindgames
3. No special 'guard' button, no guardbreak, and you guard by just holding back, very easy to be patient and defensive.
4. 3D makes the game feel more realistic with sidesteps
5. 'Screw' system gives you a consistent break between all your combos to gather yourself.
6. Grabs are easy to tech since you can just press 1 or 2 for normal grabs. Still good to get the habit of looking at which shoulder is up because you still need to press specific ones for command grabs.
7. Very satisfying movement based on Korean backdash and sidestep guards. Low risk with high reward.
8. If you are Korean, this is THE fighting game in Korea, and the access to supplementary resources you have in Korean to start off the game are unparalleled.

The biggest pros of this game come from Multiplayer and are as follows:

1. Great netcode (thanks Season 4) that enables decent ping with East Coast to West Coast U.S., and if you are in East coast, you can get playable ping with some EU countries. If you are in West coast, I think you may get playable ping with JP and Kr, not too sure on that though.

2. Rewarding progression from ranking up and getting things to work in rank/offline that you have spent time on in practice mode. For context, my highest multiplayer rank is Divine Ruler, which I think is around top 10~15%. I have around 600 hours into this game at the time of review. Granted, I hopped around 5~6 characters before finding the one that I really clicked with, but I think most people can get to this point in the same/less amount of time spent on this game - still, there is a lot of playability in this game.

3. Diverse character cast that probably will have at least 1~2 characters you want to play. Check out Fergus's character guide[docs.google.com] or if you want something more succinct, try the Tekken Character Quiz[tekken-character-quiz.netlify.app]

4. Healthy offline scene, depending on your area.

5. Satisfying hit effects and damage animations.

6. Easy to get into, hard to master game that gives back however many hours you invest learning it - there is always a higher peak to climb, better players than you, new niche combos for your character that you will think that you may never touch but wiill eventually, naturally find uses for. <- I think this is the major reason I can recommend Tekken to a stranger who is looking for a multiplayer game, especially with the winter sale going on currently - see if there are any characters you want to play and buy them on sale!

However, if you are looking for a whole singleplayer experience or not into competitive multiplayer, or if the following affects you more than it does me, I don't recommend you this game:

1. Your rank is saved locally, with little penalty for ragequitting the game before it is over. That means people back up saves with their highest rank and just reset their savefile if they derank. Or, they just ragequit if they think they will lose, and have no punishment except for a 'disconnection rate' increase, which is saved locally anyway.

2. Hacks exist in this game. I play from U.S. east and have only encountered one, but there are auto low parry/block hacks with auto throwbreak hacks. Essentially, there is no way to win against them if they really want.

3. There are certain characters that 'break' the traditional Tekken system with no counter against them. Akuma, Geese, and Eliza have Ki bars and EX moves, and super high jumps. Because Tekken characters are not designed to counter this system, we don't have a 'against air' move that we would have in SFV or KOF, so if the opponent is good, you really feel like you're playing a different game entirely.

4. When you lose, its your fault. Even if you are playing against Akuma/Geese and yes, they ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ suck to play against, at the end of the day it's your fault that you lost. There are no teammates who are dragging you down, there is no 'I played good enough', it's you played good enough, or you didn't and you lost. It gets frustrating and demoralizing, but its part of the game that you come to love amongst all the hours played, or the main reason you will probably quit the game. I knew I tilted in other games, I've played many competitive games like Starcraft, League, PUBG, R6S, but I never thought I would stoop to the point where I would curse loudly irl and slam my stick/keyboard/desk because I was losing at a game. This game gets your blood pressure up, in the course of 3 minutes, you will be winning 3 times or losing 3 times, and boy the losses that come in quick succession are very hard to take.

5. The single player is weak. It's short, you don't really get much character exposition unless you followed the game since their debut, and its just there for the sake of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ story that every fighting games always have. This guy needs money, this gal is looking for her famiily, this thingy wants revenge on that thingy who did this thingy... a mess of the story that I only enjoy because I enjoy the game's multiplayer.


TL:DR
1. If you like fighting games/idea of fighting games, this is a great game to start with
2. If you like singleplayer games, this is probably not the game for you
3. If you want competitive multiplayer with a learning curve, this game is a great game to play
4. What character should I play? Take a Quiz[tekken-character-quiz.netlify.app] / Look at some docs[docs.google.com]