Recent reviews by Scranity

Did you know that if you're only playing the base game without the DLC, and use the recommended starting machines and follow the in-game guide, you can actually get soft-locked and be unable to continue playing?

Because I didn't. And now I do. I was only able to finish the first week of the game, before being locked out on the 8th day, and 2 of those days were me being forced to do the trash pickup "map" which is a waste of time and gave me almost nothing for it.

It doesn't matter how good the game could be with DLC if the base game sucks.

Okay, let me be clear. I actually think the game was fun, and I had a good time with it as I played. And my reasoning for why is one you could probably legit just point at and chuckle "Skill issue lol".

But I still feel it's a legit reason. And it's the freaking rising grey goop.

So I'm not too great at the game. Getting through the tutorial took me about 15 minutes, and while some of it was me messing around I was also just not very good at the climbing in general.

When I started playing the actual campaign, it was fun! I got to 450 meters on my first run, and I was feeling happy with my progress. The game had been set up as a climbing simulator in a spooky environment, with excellent sound and visual design.

And then, while standing around mapping out how I'd climb up the next area, the weird background noise that had always been hanging around got very loud and my feet were submerged in grey slime. And then I died. And then I played another game, and a bug spawned, hit me while climbing, and made me fall in the goop that I had no idea had been directly behind me the entire time.

Maybe the time-limit is part of the point in how it's set up, but the rising goop actually frustrated me, and turned what had been a fun climbing puzzle game into a time-trial that made my slow learning into a frantic confused scramble which ultimately led to my death.

I know what you're probably thinking, "That's a dumb reason to not recommend it!" But the fact is, I don't think I'm going to have fun with the game, nor could I honestly recommend it to others, simply because I feel like the only way I can actually "Get gud" is to just smash my head against the wall for hours and hours until I brute force myself to figure out the mechanics so I can get further through the Campaign...

And honestly that really doesn't sound very fun, for the same reason that I don't find spending hours and hours losing at a MOBA until I finally eke out a single win fun. It just doesn't feel like enough of a reward in "fun" for the tedium of practice and constant failure I'd need put in.

Maybe they'll have an option to turn off the goo at some point in the future, even if it disabled achievements, but until it does I honestly can't see myself continuing with it.

I'm super conflicted about this review, but I have to give it a negative.

So when I started the game I was very confused about what to do. Very little direction is given to you, and you have to puzzle nearly everything out on your own.

Now that by itself was frustrating, but I eventually got the hang of things. But this issue with the lack of tutorials isn't the big problem. The problem I found, was how much time you just have to sit there, waiting for things to happen.

The 6 day week, with different NPC's being available each week, seemed fun at the start, as I knew I'd have to plan things around them. However when put into actual practice, I soon found myself idling as an NPC on Day 3 would give me a quest to talk to someone on Day 2... Which meant waiting an entire week to do it. And then, when I'd do so, the NPC on Day 2 might give me a quest to give something back on Day 3, which is convenient! Except... The materials to make the item take time to find and put together and craft correctly and- Oops! That 30% chance of crafting a lower-quality item just triggered, the resources you've built up have been wasted and so is the time, so it's now day 4.

Especially near the end game, I had to sit in the rock garden, reading a book IRL (because minimizing the game pauses everything even in loading screens) and occasionally glance up to see if enough time passed so I could continue doing my questlines.

A game where you're forced to actively disengage from the game in order to progress is one that I was pretty much just completing out of the constant feeling of "You're almost there! The end to the questline is right around the corner! One more quest! Oh, sorry, wait another week, but the NEXT quest in this NPC's line is definitely the last one!"

Now I will say that, around mid-game, things were going incredibly smoothly. Every day felt like a challenge, I was trying to time everything perfectly, and it was all around an amazing time! But the start and end being either me fumbling around confused, or me sitting there bored, ruined that section of fun for me.

The game is fun, platforming and fighting success and failures definitely feel like they're up to you rather than random chance (though I found a few very frustrating parts) but I had to stop playing before beating the final boss.

Why? Because of the mandatory cutcenes you have to get through when getting to him. As in the MULTIPLE mandatory cutscenes, separated by small extremely simplistic arenas with enemies seen countless times up until that point.

It was frustrating to the point that I had to stop after heading up after only the first death. I'm fine with fighting a boss dozens of times in a row if I need to, but not if I have to spend ten minutes between every attempt, with half that time spent just trying to speed through dialogue.

So... Nice game, shame I'll never want to finish it.

The game isn't that long, easy to run in the background while you do other things, and while I'll absolutely agree with others that the beginning is VERY clunky as you have basically no idea what's going on, and that the menus never really becomes intuitive to use, it's still amusing enough for what it's stated goal is to be.

If I had any recommendations, it'd be some sort of auto-buy or buy-all button. Once you finish your first column, you'll be spending more time switching between plants and clicking the refresh costs button than anything else.

I did not have fun playing this game.

The entire thing felt artificially long and combat was always frustrating, and because of this the story's pacing, and my investment in it, was completely destroyed.

Difficulty wasn't an increase in the complexity of the enemies, but rather simply an increase in enemy numbers, both with how many are thrown at me between checkpoints and how much HP and Damage they have. Even when they introduced enemies with special abilities, they were quickly spammed to the point where they just became a slog to get through.

Ranged enemies felt unfair for the entire game, as you can only dodge their shots which requires the stamina you need to conserve to parry enemies, turning every fight one is in into a mad dash to try and kill them as soon as possible, cutting your health in half (if not less!) before you can properly engage the rest of the fight.

Environments look pretty, yes, but with how things keep dragging they feel repetitive even within the level they're introduced in, and sometimes the attempts to have objects appear in the foreground can actively get in the way of your fighting.

Exploration is also quite frustrating. Whenever I'd face a possible branching path I'd have to pause and figure out which way is the way forwards, and which is the side path, because you ALWAYS want to take the side path. Not only is it safer, and you don't get anything from killing enemies anway, but those side paths can be the only place to find your much needed health or stamina upgrades. Or, more importantly, those side paths can lead to your actual checkpoints which for some reason aren't directly on your main path.

I luckily didn't encounter any bugs that ruined my game, but if there were any that happened to me, I missed them amongst the number of intended game mechanics that were frustrating me instead.

As for the story, it might have been interesting if I could bear to pay attention to the small spurts of it between long stretches of repetitive gameplay. As it was, it simply exists, and that's all I can say about it.

3/10, quality over quantity next time please.

Me and some friends wandered lost in a forest for five minutes, then wandered around lost in a maze of a facility, and then got lost on the way back.

Also I got jumped by a facehugger 2 feet from the way to get it off of me, and instead of helping me they stood around and laughed until I died.

4/5, too much water

Maybe it's because I don't have the nostalgia that other people are feeling, but despite having tried it out I just didn't have any fun with the game. Everything felt like a chore, and even during the tutorial I felt like I was just sitting around waiting for progress bars to fill up, rather than actually doing anything or making a difference to the gameplay.

Didn't really have fun with the game.

Combat was super simplistic and there were only like 6 or 7 enemy types which were just spammed all over the game maps, the majority of the people on the island felt evil, the Native groups tried to kill me multiple times during quests but the game didn't even let me verbally respond, let alone physically, quests had me spend more time running back and forth like a courier than actually having me doing things, and dramatic moments would have their seriousness be stripped away when NPC's in the background would get stuck on each other and start vibrating in place as their pathfinding screwed up.

And no, it doesn't get extra sympathy points for being a 'double A' game instead of a 'triple A' game. A lack of money can explain a lack of quality, but it doesn't excuse it.

3/10, would choose the evil ending again.

I'd like to like this game, and there were fun moments here and there, but the many bugs I encountered ruined that fun.

Graphical glitches, enemies and allies teleporting or falling through floor and walls, game stutters, the terrain seeming to vibrate sometimes (which could be folded into graphical glitches), AI helpers standing still as enemies wail on them, AI automatically aiming at targets outside of your view distance or through walls (which even if helpful sometimes can still make them shoot at kelp out of your view distance instead of the shark right in front of you), and finally the occasional freeze that breaks the game for you.

Also, if the host leaves or the game freezes while you're playing, other players do not get experience.

I did have fun with it, yes, but the bugs were consistent enough that I had to bear with them the entire time, taking me out of the experience and making every additional bug take me out of it that much more.

Honestly, this game doesn't feel like a full release. It feels like it's still in early access, and is missing some features while others which have been implemented still haven't had the edges smoothed out.