Recent reviews by K41RY

A fever dream of a world run by a mysterious jester named Jimbo where card insanity of apokerlyptic proportions reign supreme. To call this game unhinged is an understatement. And it gets even more absurd once you start adding mods.

This game doesn't hold back one bit. Can be fun and challenging all at the same time while offering a ton of build variety.

Game is a nice blend of easy and challenging across all experience levels, no challenge (cinders) required.

It's gameplay is reminiscent of great games like Enter the Gungeon and Binding of Isaac but with its own unique twists and without much of the jank. No need to wander around randomly-generated floors. No useless clutter. Can it feel linear? Sure, but you can't call it a game if the design removes you from playing said game, right? Tiny Rogues keeps you in the action. After all, that's why you're playing an arcade-style bullet-hell action roguelite.

Development cycle is a bit slow (too slow for my liking) but I know the wait will be WELL worth it. Ruby and the other devs (there aren't many of them) work extremely hard to add in meaningful updates.

They delayed Into The Abyss (the next BIG early-access update following Between Heaven & Hell) something like 3 or 4 or 5 times and the update has just been getting bigger since then. Instead of the big update, they've rolled out smaller content patches and addressed some key issues players were having while revamping the UI to make it more user-friendly.

Game runs smoothly with very few hiccups despite being an RPG bullet-hell.

A mixture of roguelite, hack-and-slash, and old school "boomer shooter" DOOM.

Game keeps things fresh enough to be interesting. A little rough around the edges. Best part about the game is the pacing and the parry mechanic. If there was no parry, Mortal Sin wouldn't have a strong appeal, imo. Beating the odds while perfectly deflecting a demonic attack and exploding your enemies in a tsunami of gore is the most metal thing I've seen in a while.

Weapons are alright. The real fun is build-crafting.

This isn't your typical survivor.io-type game where the upgrades are a measly "15% crit chance" or "take 1 less damage". Every upgrade adds something unique to your build. There are some more traditional upgrades, but they are major stat boosts too so aren't just re-rolling and continuously purchasing the same "add +5 damage" every minute.

And honestly, I love that. I love that this game has the guts to actually make the player a menace.

How is this balanced, you might ask?

Simple. Every enemy deals 1 heart of damage. Everything hurts the same. This means there is zero chance you're tanking hits. And hearts can only be gained by killing a boss. That and you cant see jack in front of you.


You are veritably fighting for your life in a Lovecraftian bug-infested hell hole utterly devoid of light.

The only thing more deadly than an enemy that deals more damage, is an enemy you didn't see behind you until it was already too late.

Havn't played the game a long time, but I've beat about 90% of the game through are "backstories".

I've looked at a lot of negative reviews and the thing I see popping up most often is the physics combat system.
I 100% agree, sadly, that the combat system holds this game back a lot and sometimes just doesn't feel intuitive to participate in.

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IN-DEPTH BREAKDOWN;

STAMINA: Every piece of armor has an associated weight which slows you down. The slower you are the less your stamina recovers. This system slows the pace of combat tremendously and bottlenecks choices. On one hand, if you don't maximize your stamina, you'll feel like you just can never land a hit because dude is tired AF. On the other, if you exploit the stamina system you end up with an overly-cautious glass cannon-type character.

Basically; all you have to do is sell every last piece of armor your character starts with. EVERYTHING. Unless it's giving you crowd favor, it's trash. Don't bother buying armor, ever, until you build up the stamina to wear them and can afford buying and maintaining high-grade armor.

The higher your stamina the BETTER. Playing with low stamina just gets you killed.

ARMOR: Don't bother. You're better off being unclothed and being patient than being a giant asthmatic turtle who can't defend themselves. If you really NEED armor, make sure it's the highest tier possible, has high durability, boosts favor, and has protection from damage types. The higher quality the armor, the better it protects you and the more damage it will do to enemy weapons when deflecting.

WEAPONS: Weapons are ALWAYS most effective when you swing them in their "range". Put simply, hit the enemy with the tip/end-region of your sword, not the mid-section. For SOME reason, this makes some weapons almost guaranteed to hit. Flails for example, when used at their proper range, pretty much never miss.

CROWD: Never listen to the crowd. The crowd wants you to die. Always. The weapons they throw are almost always terrible. Survival is the only thing that matters. Live long enough and the crowd's favor will max out every match without fail.

AIMING: Never throw your weapons. Ever. You have to aim to actually throw and it's bad. You aren't guaranteed to do anything beneficial plus you lose your weapon.

You NEED to aim your attacks to block and deflect attacks. Sometimes that means body-blocking attacks with high-quality armor or a shield. I'll put it this way. If you want to consistently deal damage to a guy with a shield, hit him in the un-shielded arm. You'll likely disarm his shield and/or the weapon. If you want to DESTROY the shield (and your weapons), hit the shield.

END GAME: Every enemy is subject to the same rules you are. They have equipment load, stamina, aiming etc. A lot of the time I die dozens of weeks into my character it's almost always because the enemy just deals a ton a damage.

The only way around mitigating "death by damage" is simply not getting hit in the first place. End game is all about who hits first and how hard. Knock their shields off, break their armor, attack weak spots, aim for the head, and ONLY attack when your stamina is FULLY recharged.

Flails and spears are very very dangerous in the late game. If you miss your attack against these guys, back off and keep your distance until the enemy AI either wastes their stamina.

GLADIATOR MANAGEMENT: Sell literally everything that is holding you back. Go for an early "Spoils of Victory" match, especially if it's a pit fight as early-game matches are always against untrained pit ""slaves"". Early weapons are trash and not worth buying. If you care and have room in your inventory slots, take the Adoring Fan's gift. You can sell it if you don't need it. Otherwise call the guards and you'll get some patron favor. If you're playing Desperate Politician, always call the guards.

Always train stamina and movement first and always do the maximum amount of training possible. Yes, this will lower your maximum stamina for the next battle, but this is why we train stamina in the first place. This is also why we sold all our garbage armor.

Avoid any mechanic in the game that isn't outright beneficial or required by your backstory. Bribing patrons is useless, unless you're playing a backstory that benefits from it.
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Cheese the game as early as possible.

TLDR: 8/10

A little bit janky at times and can be a bit overwhelming to navigate, as is common, I find, with the traditional roguelike genre. Overall, the first roguelike experience I've sat down with and actually enjoyed without going cross-eyed.

Takes some time getting used to but a great game all around developed by someone who cares about their product.

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What I like is how simple enough the game is to play; loot and cannibalize robots to continue your onslaught throughout the planet. It boils down a lot of confusion that comes with the roguelike genre into a simple gameplay loop. That said, the game is by no means simple.

TLDR:
Plays like your Vampire Survivors, Soulstone Survivors, .io-type games. Interestingly it seems to deviate from the pixel art or .io-type aesthetic you see these days. It definitely has its quirks. This is the kind of game that you can play and not need to care so much about "evolutions" - that mechanic where weapons unlock super upgrades if you pair them with their associated passive item. It makes for a Survivor style game that focuses on action first and foremost. Updates and new additions seem to be quite regular so expect plenty more as time goes on. Might not feel as much as a "complete" package as some other games in the genre but that makes it in no means bad - sometimes less is better (looking at you Soulstone).
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Time Wasters is a very flashy (literally) Survivor style game. You destroy enemies, collect XP, and upgrade your stuff. There are a variety of pilots to choose from and each pilot specializes in one of the weapons in the game. I'm not really a big fan of characters having weapons from the base game, feels a bit too generic. It's almost like Binding of Isaac syndrome where every character does the exact same thing to the point any real deviation from the norm either feels powerful or way too annoying (Forgotten/Samael vs Jacob-Esau).

Time Wasters allows you to upgrade your pilots too which gives them unique quirks that only they possess. This goes beyond just having a slightly buffed version of their main weapon. Up to 4 pilots can join your crew (not multiplayer) and each pilot has 3, iirc, different types of upgrades. You can kind of start seeing how this can help with buildcrafting.

You can choose to upgrade weapons, upgrade your crew, or upgrade your defensive utilities. Priorities do exist, but you can generally achieve Wave 120 victory with just about whatever so long as you're staying on top of gold and damage. As far as weapons go there aren't a lot, sadly. So there's a bit too much repetition in-terms of buildcrafting; once you find your winning combination you start to always drift towards that build more-or-less.

Every 20 waves you fight a big boss. They are honestly pretty ok as far as bosses go. I'd like to see some wider variation so you aren't fighting the same line-up. Some champion variations of bosses could be cool to see as well.

Personally I feel the biggest thing to improve on is the upgrade and enemy diversity. That and maybe give us a slider that reduces weapon effects? Soulstone Survivors lets you change the opacity of your attacks. Endgame Time Wasters just overwhelms you with bright explosions and flashing lights. It's a bit too much. Devs need to put an epilepsy warning on their loading screen and give a weapon effect opacity slider.

It's like a modern day flash game from Armour Games. Take a bit of Storm the House and wpnFire and bake it with the action roguelike sub-genre.

I think generally speaking the game is good. If you're a fan of the third-person shooter style seen in The Division or Gears of War then you'll probably enjoy this one as well. The game is best played with friends in the late game and should be bought at discount. I don't think the game really needs to cost 52.99$ CAD in 2023, especially given the current state of the game.

The game is playable and enjoyable but I really do feel the game was tugged in different directions during development.

1 - The game feels very linear:

The game is pretty much the story and single encounter side-quests to reach a high enough level to do Expeditions. The story areas are linear and give an overall claustrophobic feeling to them. Every area is a camp with the same people from the previous camp, a main story quest, a historian side quest, and maybe 2 or 3 other side quests. The map is segmented so each quest has it's own specific location. You can't revisit these areas unless you're doing the mission again and as far as main story missions and historian stuff goes you can't seem to do those over again unless you dial back the Timeline in the main menu. What Im trying to say is the replay system is either too bland or a bit convoluted for what it is.

2 - Narrative pacing is all over the place:

Playing through the prologue it becomes clear the story isn't the game's strong suite. There is little pacing between the main story and side quests. Expeditions are unlocked after the story is completed. My issue is that due to the pacing everything interesting about the story and the quests doesn't come naturally. You don't explore the cruel world of Enoch and help people or research weapon schematics. You don't have a proper impact on the game, and thus it feels like there is little reward for when you complete a section. You get some more powerful loot sure, but then you're on your way to a new map and you might as well be back to square one. There's no trial and error of walking into a part of the map with a high level or with enemies with special elemental abilities you can't contest; just do some side quests and you'll get the gear you need essentially. At this point the game has devolved into just being an errand boy with superpowers.

3 - Bland World Design:

Beyond the story and combat the main interest for many people is the brutal atmosphere present on Enoch. The issue is a lot of these set pieces feel devoid of content. They look cool and have character, don't get me wrong, but there is a pervading feel of emptiness plaguing the map. I really think the open world concept of the game needed to be heavily expanded upon, especially given the price tag. It's insulting how games like Destiny and Anthem have better open-world systems, in their own unique ways, compared to Outriders. I just don't feel like the environments you're playing through properly fit the world being described. Everything is war, sure, but the encounters feel far too scripted and repetitive and predictable.

4 - Bugs:

Shouldn't come as a surprise. This game still has bugs. There's some weird audio glitchiness present during cutscenes where people will stutter their words and the audio will desync from the animations. Not sure if it's because I have the cutscene FPS set to 90 or if the game just doesn't play well with my RTX.

I havn't played online yet and probably don't plan on doing so. As far as I can tell this is a game that is best played at discount and whenever you really have the urge to turn someone into a pile of gibs using space magic. Think of it as you getting the urge to commit war crimes against aliens just you're killing humans and being way more brutal.

It plays similar to your Survivor.io or Vampire Survivor-type games but instead of navigating an open map you're dodging enemies Galaga style. Enemies can drop XP gems that you can collect to level up weapons and gear or get new stuff. Also present is weapon fusion - called Symbionics in this game. If you collect a weapon and match it with it's synergistic utility upgrade you can evolve the weapon.

Overall it's a good game. If I had to criticize anything it would be how cluttered the game can feel. I think the in-game UI could use some de-cluttering as I think the play area is a bit too claustrophobic. Maybe in the future the developers can overhaul the UI and let us change UI appearance?

Game is a bit repetitive sure but it's instant action at a good price, doesn't have micro-transactions or loot boxes, and isn't pay-to-win. Personally I'd say only buy the DLCs if you're a big fan of the game. The DLCs add a bunch of stuff sure, but I think the base game needs some more content through free updates as well.