Recent reviews by Simun

I like the idea of the new systems, but they currently aren't implemented well.
In general this just needs a few big patches on the core systems and longer in the oven.
I like it overall, it's just not worth full price (yet).


Core issues:
These just boil down to basically: if you're going to make some physics-slidey movement then fine, brilliant, double down on it then and make it fluid, responsive and robust, not awkward and hackish.

• movement :: dash: Too short to be useful for dodging. Ends up being a sporadic move-speed increase. Just give it longer distance and longer cooldown or redesign it a bit.
  
  UPDATE: the community is already developing awkward pseudo-forward-dashing run-faster strats with this instead. It's just weird to add these into the game with no purpose so people just abuse them for slight movement speed min-maxing, so it ends up feeling tacked on and needing a redesign.
  
  
• movement :: sliding: bit random as to whether you'll get mauled whilst sliding at times. This unreliability makes people again just use it for slight move-speed gains.
  
  UPDATE: All people are doing with this is spamming slide-jump-slide inputs for a little move speed boost. Seems like a waste of what a slide could be in this context, e.g. sliding through a packed doorway, or to get out of a corner. Not just for apex-legends-ing your way around the place. The bosses move fast sometimes and these techniques do make you slightly faster, so you end up feeling compelled to do this stuff at times. It's just kinda odd, and feels unintentional for a killing floor game, like you might as well just have a double tap sprint to go faster than these instead and use the buttons for something else at this point and save you some rsi points :P

Nitpicks/content stuff:

• stealth :: i don't really understand the point of toggling flashlight and using suppressors, stealth doesn't seem functional or practical in killing floor? be interesting if it could be made practical though in a GTFO kinda way however. I assume it's suppose to maybe help not annoy gorefasts or skrakes when shooting things around them? but it doesn't seem to help.
  
• slowmo :: the way it's done with a filling resource gauge I think is worse than previous, as if it's trying to become some kind of player/team managed resource. But this ends up with it feeling "wasted" like triggering on the last enemy of a wave as you slowmo to the trader. It just needs a little thought/flexibility on it and it could eventually be instead a feature.
  
• bashing clots :: the little QTE when a clot grabs you is jarring because the camera instantly snaps to it, which is especially confusing if you're moving somewhere and weren't looking at it. KF2 had this as well, but kf2 didn't have the crazy vertical movement this has, so in kf2 it was much less jarring as you mostly still knew where you were in a room after getting grabbed.
  
• finishers :: bit awkward, probably just remove them or speed it up significantly. This is just the doomslayer fatality mechanic but doesn't really fit here because everyone just sees you in multiplayer invincible in the middle of a wave slowly doing this glory-killl stuff. maybe redesign it. The aspect of it essentially winding an elite mob for a little while is kinda nice, so maybe focus on that aspect more as well? In theory the idea of seeing your friend in the middle of a pack ripping something's head off like something out of dnd sounds cool on paper, so maybe this has a future.
  
• attachments :: add more interesting/fun stats. I actually love the idea of crafting and unlocking new attachments and stuff and tinkering with the guns between matches, it's a cool idea here, but there's not really enough interesting stuff to get yet. We don't necessarily need ARPG loot level complexity but also... maybe we do? Anyway i'm sure they'll add to this over time.

EDIT: noticed after a couple days some of these solved themselves, so I assume server lag was the cause of the following moved into this new section:
Server issues:

• fire :: fire effects on the floor and in general are confusing and randomly punishing and other times barely tickle. probably a hitbox/visual issue?
  
• enemy animations :: sometimes enemy animations will snap to significantly different frames. effectively you'll be shooting in a doorway and their limbs just snap to other positions like agent smith dodging bullets sometimes, it's odd, and might even be related to them snapping location up/down parts of rubble/debris terrain as well and swapping animations, or just straight up server lag, not sure yet.
  
• melee :: hit-boxes and animations feel out of sync with each other, and weird in general
  
• grenades :: seemed a little underpowered against bosses and things, and in general feels sluggish to throw. if you're firing sometimes you have to just spam the grenade button until it eventually comes out like 1-2 seconds later, it's probably just waiting for animations to finish, but it needs to be snappier in my opinion.

EDIT: things they seem to be addressing based on developer comments

• enemies :: more enemies needed. i pretty much saw them all within a couple matches, bosses included. The enemy mutation stuff is nice but needs a little clarity maybe.

There are obviously other contentious design choices like removing the welder and all this, but I think they're going the class-archetype route more with this one anyway.

I like the game overall, and would honestly still get it on sale.
I also like that it's only 17GB.

As of today this thing has almost nothing in it; And I already expected it to not have much in it from the price, reviews, etc... Yet it somehow has even less than I expected. I played just a few minutes of it after wondering where all the settings are, and had basically seen everything it has to offer at that point. As someone who recently played all of "pools" to exhaustion, you get an idea about how low that bar is for me.

Perhaps if it gave you more things to mess with, more doodads and ways to modify things, some entities living in the world doing things.
However currently you literally just place random buildings with a vague brush, and can like drag them taller, and spray paint a masking layer for preset lights and toggle rain (for those wondering). I couldn't even find a way to change sign light colours beyond a couple you can right click and swap wholesale instead.

I like the idea though, and chill-out games in general, but right now I had to bat this straight back to the developer to cook for a few more months. If this game ever becomes something I'll happily change the review and pick it up again because I love having a backlog of relaxing nothingness games to lower my stress throughout the week.

What a ride...

Down-vote is a not-recommend for this at full-price, but at ~30-50% discounted it's maybe a fun 20 hour something.

# PROS
- Crafting is wonderful, incites you to stop in random scenic locations to tinker with stuff
- Visually vibrant with creative creature designs
- Builds are kinda fun the first time if you find skills that affect other skills...

# CONS
- Completely un-engaging narrative/world, if that's something you care about in an ARPG, delivered as text+sometimes-voice where you have to stand and watch scrolling dialog, instead of things occurring in-game bar 1 or 2 exceptions.. and even if you stand listening to these clowns it's uhm... yeah
- Aesthetic very ostentatiously-anime-ish, and lacked... levity? lacked something... reminiscent of early 2000s fantasy kingdom sims in how it's a bit gaudy and takes itself a bit too seriously despite this, see for yourself
- Endgame: you're funnelled into monoliths, these are just a gear grind without much to grind said gear FOR beyond the joy of... having gear for a build for... reasons. There is an arena-survival thing and a dungeon too but... eh, they could look at some warcraft 3 custom maps for inspiration of what more interesting endgame activities could look like
- Lacks longer-term hooks (e.g. PoE's open-ended complexity, diablo4's open worldiness), a very is-what-it-is situation, which may simply be enough for many anyway
- Some of the combat felt a little not-fluid, ended up picking skills that felt better to compensate which is maybe a worry if your desired build-stuff happens to feel jank
- Game's central loop is very samey as a result of all prior "cons", but is you know.. in typical ARPG fashion, kinda relaxing to zone out to and do other things meanwhile, so, hard to criticise it too hard really

# OVERALL
If, for you, the price is worth a single romp through a campaign where you ignore the story, make a crazy build and explode some things, crescendo-ing into a pretty fun little boss fight at the end where resistances matter, with some cool crafting downtime, go for it.
Personally, to get my attention back after that initial play-through, this would need more endgame, social hooks, better-feeling combat, replace the narrative... so I don't expect any of that to happen considering the cost, BUT the space areas are wonderful to chill in, they had some serious atmosphere, so there's that... and I can absolutely see myself randomly playing this for a day or 2 in a few years time on a whim, so... if there was a thumb-sideways, i'd have selected that

No spoilers but... we honked the cold off a carpet shark and rode it together through the night... *sniff*

Extremely OK

Spelunky so goooood

I will one day beat this game...

Exceptionally excellent... just saying.

I'd never seen heads exploding in quite so much slow motion... strangely satisfying.