Recent reviews by A Suspicious Crayon

Snoys capability to do business must be the most brain dead strategy to ever exist, personally i am done with anything published by soy and studios aligned with sny, they are dead to me.

ony has restricted 3 more countries : https://steamdb.info/sub/137730/history/

Also, those restriction come from Sy, not steam.

Scorched earth but forgot to not burn themselves down in the process.

Snowbreak is an odd one, so much wasted potential.

Unlike most of the recently released gacha games, snowbreak does not offer an open world, a lot less RNG mechanics, and far less content, considering the nature of Gacha Games that problem can be countered the longer the game goes on.

What cannot be countered so quickly is the wasted potential, as mentioned, the game does not have an Open world, everything is arena/level based, you pikc a mission you do mission and get back to the main screen, the game could gain far more traction if it was what people expected, a soprt of the Division Gacha game.
It already is a third person shooter, has a cover system, so the thought isn't too far fetched.

The missions are extremely repetetive and get boring really fast, there are variations in between like bossfights, however only a couple really show anything new, the event Story line on the other hand is actually really good, a full 180 compared to the usual missions, the event has variety and a fairly well shown story.

The Gameplay/gunplay feels nice, the further you get the stronger you get and you can feel that, which is nice.

Which brings me to the biggest problem, you can only get stronger if you play and level up, the leveling is however the problem at hand, after lvl 35-40 the progression comes to an absolute crawl, almost standstill, that crawl is aided by the stamina system in place, you run out of stamina and suddenly 3/4 of the game is inaccessable, the Stamina regenerates 1 point every about 5 minutes(correct me on that if i am wrong).

Without leveling to milestones like 10/20/30/40/50/60 and so on you cannot increase the level of your character, weapons and such, which leads to the game becoming a chore, you log in, get your daily stuff, do things to get the daily missions done, which are the best method to level in that moment, because you get 375 exp or so from those alone, you are now on 0 stamina and log out to return the next day, rince and repeat.

Which is really a shame, the game could be more than just a daily login grind simulator, it is still a fun experience, you might like it, i am willing to see where the game is heading.

My Game of the Year, i usually dislike Games with the same sort of Gameplay style like the souls games, i find those atrocious to say the least, majorly because if i press the dodge button then i want to dodge, not do a slow roll.

AC6 is fast paced, you dodge instantly, sad they nerfed the bosses, which makes me happy to hyaave beaten the game 3 times before said nerf.

God of War really is a ride.

The story isn't exactly outstanding like some might Claim, mostly predictable from a mile away, but it does the twists really well, but ultimately for an RPG/adventure it feels cut off and short.

The Gameplay also nothing to boast about, i like that Atreus is not just some dumb NPC but actually helpful in combat and exploration, however that is the best Gameplay part, Kratos plays like almost any other hack n slash character with slightly more fluent move sets. Antiquated Quicktime events that overstayed their welcome ever since Fahrenheit.

Rest of the game is outstanding, the world, the voice acting, the character.

Just after finishing the story there isn't much else to do.

Don't bother if you have a job and you are on EU servers. Otherwise, go for it.

Let me give you a bit of a better Review by actually telling you what is wrong and what is actually good, and not go "♥♥♥♥ game fix plox".

Let's start with what is good, and i mean really.
- Graphics
-- You can't say the game doesn't look good, for a free 2 play game it looks great, while still looking great it allows you to basically crank the graphics down that even 7 year old iGPU's could run the game(i tried).

- Sound
-- This one is something that some just won't get right, WarGaming managed to make Sounds so distinctive that you can tell which gun that is but more importantly almost every gun sound quite punchy, the higher the caliber the more punchy it sounds, which gives a good idea what hurts and what doesn't. A 650/ 750 alpha gun will deafen smaller calibers, the best sound comes from the Double Barrel tanks tho, the reverb is not dynamic but still part of the sound file.

- Content
-- This is a good and bad, there are constant events, they keep on releasing tanks, maps and features, so there is always something to do. They constantly give you free boosters, components, tanks, camos.
There is also Clanwars, Frontline, Steel Hunters, ranked, clash as special modes, Clanwars is as the name says a Clan mode, Frontline is a large scale battle more like the rush mode from battlefield, Steel Hunters is a BR, ranked is, well, Ranked, clash another special mode that reduces the match size to 7v7.

- Gameplay
-- The Gameplay just like warthunder is easy to get into, but hard to master, the learning curve is quite steep, unlike warthunder, world of tanks is Arcade, sometimes it is frustrating and sometimes it isn't. The tutorial gives you the basics, it won't tell you how to angle armour, it won't tell you where to go hull down, where each and every weakspot is, but that is why the learning curve is quite high.

- Anticheat
-- The chances of you actually finding a cheater is as low as it gets in an online game, everything is server side calculated so chances of someone being able to cheat is roughly 0.00001%, the only thing that existed was an auto aim mod that would adjust aim depending on if the target is moving or not. There are also Hitzone skins but they are more of a morale question since they are technically allowed. Unfair advantages are mostly forbidden rather quickly. Also Wargaming is Quite good at finding anyone that is cheating.

Let's get on with the bad, because it overshadows everything.

- Content
-- All of the content requires you to do the same thing over and over, all you ever do is grind random matches, every event is a grind, it feels like a grind and will eventually feel like a chore, last year they stuffed so much in 2 months that a large portion became burned out and just didn't want to anymore. While there is always something to accomplish, it will start feeling like a chore.

-Maps
-- All Maps they release are almost all awful, they look good but from a balancing standpoint maybe 2 or 3 of the 25-30 maps are plain awful and new maps follow that trend.

- Tanks
-- Tanks released are also horribly unbalanced, and they stay unbalanced for a long time. Some Tech trees are completely and beyond broken, unless you feel like having fun, stay in the russian Tech Tree, it's broken, overpowered and is never changed to make them more in line with other tanks, nah, they buff them because they are not broken enough.

- Gameplay
-- The Gameplay get's stale the better you get at the game, you know your tank, pick hill or corner and shoot people, not much variation, the only thing that gives you variation is if you play light tanks, and there only some, otherwise you sit in a bush for the entire match. Every game mode aside from steel hunters is just another random battle.

- Optimization
-- While the game can run on almost anything, especially on higher end PC's you will lose your mind that the game runs on DX11, no DX12 and not even Vulcan which at this point is just down to being lazy, Vulcan is the future, but also the Garage runs at 59fps locked no matter what you do. Some maps will eat performance and some don't, on some maps you lose 20-30 fps, for roughly no reason. And Wargaming already confirmed they want to add RTX, which will absolutely break the engine in half and suck it dry.

- Community
-- I hope you hate yourself enough, because otherwise stay away from the community, it is one of the most toxic communities you can find, everyone hates the game they play, they call everything and everyone a cheater, scammer, more profanities than actual words and that at least on the EU Server in dozens of languages at the same time in every match. You can turn that off tho. And stay the furthest away from the General chat, neither the mods nor the participants of that can speak or understand English, Mods will chat ban you for words they don't understand, they cannot answer gameplay question because they have no idea how to play the game.

The only somewhat usable community place is found on Discord, find a clan that looks interesting and try to be with them all the time.

- Patches, Features and the future
-- WarGaming constantly patches the game, usually they don't reintroduce new or old bugs and exploits, but the additional features will leave you with more question than answers, some of the changes they have planed for the future are completely tone deaf, Crew 2.0 already pissed people off, the HE changes are tone deaf, and generally the community that actually cares for the game is completely ignored, which is understandable sometimes considering the tone the community takes to bring their concerns up. But content creators that play the game every day, some even competitively in tournaments for years are completely ignored. So features like Crew 2.0 and the HE rework are pushed out and especially Crew 2.0 is a huge middle finger to veteran players.

- Artillery
-- Remove it, that is the only option they have, artillery makes more people stop playing the game than everything else, the majority of the community hates them, and that with a passion, so do i, they shouldn't exist and should be removed entirely. They sit on the edge of the map and haul their load across the map, and if anyone ever tells you to play arty safe, there is no such thing as arty safe, if you get hit on the move for a 1000+ damage, that is your fault for not playing arty safe, arties are not an anti camping measure, they promote camping. Hilarious is that arties are usually the loudest to cry and will drown themselves more often than not, which is a behavior forbidden by the rules but promoted by WarGaming every year.

- Wargaming
-- The developer/publisher itself is a huge problem, tone deaf, sometimes unqualified personal, i think the least tone deaf developer work on World of Warplanes, yes that game still has people working on it for some reason.
If you are playing on the NA, EU or Asian servers, forget about voicing you complains, even if you write them in a non toxic way, your opinion is worthless, and immediately ignored, only the Russian servers Opinion is taken into consideration, Russian tanks as mentioned are broken, and WarGamings balancing department refuses to do the steps necessary to make them less broken in fear of upsetting the Russian players, they however nerf everything else into the ground, the German Tech tree is a dead meme, French tree is a dead meme aside from the EBR, other trees are just a gimmick showcase. It took them years to give the American heavies the buff it needed, nobody played the American heavies because they were plain awful. But instead of buffing some tanks they simply remove them from the tech tree and call them collector vehicles like the 30B, a good tank that simply needs some small buffs.
Even veterans and content creators will be ignored immediately, and employees even publicly state they don't care about them.
- Also, i reached the maximum of ♥♥♥♥ i can write here, you either like it or not,

The game is not Free 2 Play, it is a Free Trial, to enjoy the entire game it'll cost you a couple hundred bucks.
It is also a Microtransaction hell.

Nostalgia pure, but use this video to fix some issues before playing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WW6NHHWQQM

Okay, let's get down to this hot mess, after 24 Hours i have a fair idea about just how bad the game is and what it actually does well.

LEt's start with the Good shall we?
-The combat Style is Fantastic, it's combo based and can be chained with skills, pulling off a combo chain feels pretty good.
-Items do little change to stats, hence most of the combat comes down to skill and not entirely build based as it would be in other games.
-Customization Options are Vast for the most part, some are hidden behind lootboxes that seem to be available either by grinding your ass off or slam your wallet at the screen. But a lot is also hidden behind the grind gate, it takes you days to get those, weeks to get it all, i think that's decent for a grind based Game.
-Graphics for a Cellshady inspired game are definitely good, it's not a Black desert but the models are all quite high resolution, Optimization is IMO okay, the HUB are could need a bit of love but it is understandable to see lower frames in an area with 30 or so people in it.

Now let's get to the bad, buckle up.
-PvE is an Afterthought, it isn't even anywhere near close to mediocre, it's borderline boring.
-PvP has mediocre if not dumb Gamemodes like CTF which you can get in ranked, the entire match is decided by how long you hold the damn flag. It's only gets up to mediocre thanks to the Combat system.
-Combat is inconsistant beyond believe, sometimes skills disappear into nothingness, when knocked down you are technically invulnerable, okay, just that it is as well not always the case, sometimes you get knocked down, lay flat for a second, you can't even stand up but the enemies can hit you full force, enemies for whatever reason can absolutely ignore any and all CC, you can chain the Fist combos to a point where you cannot even move for 30 seconds while the enemy depletes more then half your HP bar, some skills cannot be avoided, like blackhole, and that does about 8-10k Damage fully charged, so 2 and you are dead. AoE Areas are either bugged or someone aint doing his Job, the indicator is smaller then the actual area of effect.
-The Affinity grind is absolutely beyond me, on one side the system is decent, until you realize even that is heavily RNG based, you have two option to get the character you need to appear, PVE and if you run out of PVE you HAVE to do Ranked matches, and even then the chance of them appearing is not exactly high, to gain Affinity (at least more then 5-15 affinity is to shoot some questions their way, sounds easy, yea, about that, if the Questions are answered correctly is also subject to RNG, the wikipedia for Kurtzpel even has a question guide for them but for a huge part they won't even give sou the answer you need.
-People that don't understand how to use Ice Wall
-P2P based?
-A Huge ton of either idiots or bots AFK Farming Ranked.
-Content is barely existant, if you take other MMO's into account you probably get like 1% of content of even Soul Workers starter Area.
-Chat makes you want to jump out of the Window, i was prepared for some Anime talk but the community takes it so many steps further it will hurt.

KurtzPel is a hard one, you ca have fun it if it works correctly, but unfortunately that is rarely the case, but the Game is Free to play, you got nothing but time to lose. unless you throw a Wallet at your screen. But for me the game is an absolute yikes, the mostly inconsistant Combat and AFK bots combined with that horrible CTF mode are just Yikes.

After a couple of matches it is quite obvious that the Developer needs to get some work done, however, don't write the game off.

Naval Battle Royal, relatively unique idea, someone probably had that idea long ago but dismissed it, in this game it kind of works, it's not outstanding but it kinda works, the game is basically World of Warships meets *insert Battle Royal*, currently i would say it is extremely barebones

You got items with different rarity and level, you can upgrade your Main Armament, secondary Armament and Passive Armament with enhanced versions or different load outs, the Passive armament can be a Automatic battery array or smoke launchers or something along those lines, on top, every ship can equip a Torpedo launcher, don't know if there are other things you can equip there.

That gets you to airdrops, yes you as the player can call in airdrops, just one but you can and so far they all had a full array of highest rarity and level equipment like Armor, Main Battery, Automatic Batteries, Armor and recovery system.

Next Equipment row is things like Cargo compartment, Radar and so, so basic stuff. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

That brings us to the Gameplay, the Gameplay is as you might expect rather slow and sluggish since those are Ships, not a person or anything so it all feels rather dragged out if it wasn't for the miniscule map, First match i picked my location and had none around me, really none but i went a couple 100m and suddenly had half the match next to me. The equipable items dont't really feel powerful at first until you suddenly catch an airdrop and get a gun that makes scapmetal out of any destroyer within a minute. Torpedos are so over the top they basically send a cruiser or even warship back to the Port screen when all of them hit, sure they should be powerful but that's a bit excessive. The Golden Recovery item Instantly repairs 50% of your ship health, if you are at half health within a second you are back at 100% which i think is rather overpowered it should be over time as well or at least a couple seconds till it has an effect, the lower ones are over time and aborted if you get damaged which is fair.

Pros and Cons

Pro
- Ship Designs are rather detailed considering they are fictional
- Graphics are okay, nothing outstanding but not ugly
- During my playtime i did not had the expression that it is badly optimised, maximum Settings with v-sync yielded max fps all the time.
- Short matches 15-20 minutes
- Shop and Battlepass items look pretty cool, Shark Torpedo, bloody Shark Torpedo.
- some neat effects like shockwaves when firing

Cons
- Balancing needs work
- Map size is too small tho it contributes to shorter matches
- Some items Overpowered
- Torpedos way to powerful with 1 hit potential
- Rather dull and slow for anyone that hasn't played WoWs before
- Early access and already a fully functional shop with battlepass
- Shop prices are Ridiculous
- Map looks boring


Okay, the game has some potential, not Apex Legends Potential but there is fun for those who played WoWs before and already liked it, even the aiming is a 1 to 1 copy. IT needs a lot of work, the map looks absolutely boring, the balancing especially for higher tier weapons/items is off the chart. But overall i would say if you like ships, give it a try, it's free and certainly worth a couple of matches a week or so.

And to address some of the Reviews, i don't know if those things were fixed between release and today but the game has okay Performance, Circles are announced early enough, you can outrun the Circle, bombing zones are indicated. Needs work but is worth at least a try.