Recent reviews by BATT

Having beaten the game to its current end at this current version of early access, I can give a pretty good review for where it stands currently.

The game is absolutely spectacular, however with the nature of early access, things are often unfinished and unpolished, so there are issues, some gameplay related, some technical.

My main love for the style of the game is as strong as ever, with some famous mythical characters showing up, even nailing down their performances as if they were still alive today.

Gameplay wise its a mixed bag, there is definitely some new and unique playstyles that lets it stand on its own, with a heavier emphasis to find combination of skills rather than hard focusing on just one attack. However this also leads to the issue of some weapons being heavily outweighed with their pros and cons, especially when you can make the game a breeze with the fast hitting weapons like the Staff or Daggers, using anything else will either have no damage or no utility or synergy with the boons. For a brief example if you are unfortunate enough to run into Chaos and get a boon that makes you unable to attack without taking damage while having the axe as your weapon, you are effectively slogging through the next few fights with no damage thanks to that.

As for things outside of the combat, the gathering of resources has been more akin to something youd find in Cult of the Lamb. Growing crops, finding certain metals and plants and all while having to go into a run only able to collect one of these types of resources. In essence, you are going through multiple runs just to complete one recipe, which would be fine if done correctly, but due to the tool restriction is both tedious and boring when this can happen for an early game recipe. Outside of that one blemish, the extended systems made with Recipes and Arcana cards are fantastic, offering a much deeper choice with how you build your run before you even start it, offering more opportunities to make more builds and play styles that synergise and augment your next run.

Story wise, its... still up to debate as we only got a portion of the story. The villain is left setback but not defeated since we are still in early access. So right now the ending is inconclusive, but once we get to Version 1.0 release, I can provide a more concrete critique of its story.

To summarise, if you wanted a sequel to the fantastic Hades, this game right now delivers a worthwhile experience, but temper your expectations, it shall be short for now, but with more content, polish and refinements on the way, we can expect this game to stand alongside the original game with great acclaim.

8/10.

After several months of being patient with CDPR with this flawed game, I was under the assumption after some time they would fix the numerous bugs and make the game at a truly technical marvel and get to that vision with this game.

Sadly after all that extra time, after all the delays, after all the controversy, this game is now sadly never going to reach that vision.

CDPR have said that they will no longer focus on fixing the base game and are now focusing on DLC, on a game riddled with crashes, bugs, and so many questionable choices.

There was a chance for this game to finally make that comeback, but now I dont care at this point.

I want my money back on a broken and flawed game that made me waste half my 40+ hours starting over because of a save file softlock.

The reason why I wont elaborate any further is because what I will say is already said by many others before me.

Save your time, and please stay skeptical of something being too good to be true.

8/10

The game is absolutely fantastic in its game play, however the story is a bit flat (I've read some of the lore as well), and bugs are not frequent enough to be problematic, but are still very noticeable. (Voice acting stops randomly, Co-op partners get stuck in loading, frame rate drops, ect.)

The mechanics in the game are incredibly deep, as if you earn a certain armour set, you can go into co-op and shoot each other to proc the damage buff, making a devastating co-op combo, or you could earn another set of armour, grab a single shot weapon, grab a few crit buffing items, and destroy everything in a single shot. Its refreshing to have a system so rich in what you could build and combo items together to make a new play style.

If the bugs are ironed out and with some improvements in certain areas, this game can easily earn that 9/10, if not a perfect 10.

Im not going to claim im an expert when im talking about this game, i only have 7 hours on it so far, but what I will say is that this game does have its problems, and it has its triumphs.

But theres something that needs to be said: (I will be discussing the good and bad, and somethings people tend to forget.)


This game is a masterpiece in my eyes, and here is why.

The game takes the simple idea of dodgeball, and crank it to NO WEAK SH*T. The idea of smacking a ball with the force of a thousand nukes is by itself very entertaining, but when you add a very destinct style to it as well, with very unique and interesting characters and a soundtrack that harkens back to classic games like Jet Set Radio and SSX Tricky, you got something truly special.

So, Gameplay is self explantory in its design, you hit a ball and it goes faster everytime you do so, and thats it on a super basic level, however they took it to a whole other level of depth thanks to special hits, parries, and my current favourite, throws. This allows a much more stratergy for higher level players, but doesnt interfere with new players just trying to learn the basics.It shows some love and care was put into it, as nowadays we see EA and Activisions just throw a couple of changes and call it a game, which could be done in a patch, which is a stark contrast to what Team Reptile has done here.

The next thing that makes this game great is its highly recognizable characters, from a Vigilante Cop (who happens to look like Captain Falcon), to a sentient boombox, to a literally man with an emoji for a head. Each character has been recognizable from the start and its fantastic, but the greatness of these characters is not only in the design, but how it feels. With such a crazy cast of unique characters who could all be mascots of thier own respectful games, not once did i think something was out of place. Each character fits in the world in some way and as a result never really breaks your immersion and only enchances it. It shows yet again the work and quality Team Reptile has put in to this game.

Another aspect that turns this game into something amazing is its music. Do I even need to talk to you about the music? I can safely say that it lands in my top 5 list of OST's (preferably in 3rd) as not one song is put in just to be filler. From the off putting feeling of the song "Ordinary days" with its somewhat distorted vocals in the rather calm music really works into the world. Another great example would be "Ain't Nothin' Like A Funky Beat", composed by the legendary Hideki Naganuma, which captures the craziness of Lethal League and is regarded as the best song of the OST, and I can see why.

Now, to discuss some point about the game that do lack in quality.

Online can be quite inconsistent to say the least, and sometimes it takes forever to find a match. It also doesnt help that many of the modes listed in Local Multiplayer or Solo dont even make an appearance online. Why in the world would you make modes practically untouchable online?

There isnt much new content, only 4 characters were added, a few new stages and a story mode were added. Whilst I can understand why considering the massive leap to 3D can be daunting, it still doesnt excuse some of these thing can be done if given the right about of time, and if you needed to delay the game to do so, then do it. Spyro is a example as it would have only a 3rd of the trilogy ready at its orginal launch, but they stuck more time on and people regard it as a really good remaster (from what ive hear at the place im currently working at). SO TAKE YOUR TIME TO MAKE A GOOD GAME INTO A GREAT ONE.

Now for some things that people have negative opinions on that can be debunked about.

Online can be an absolute mess at times, but this is something a lot of other games deal with constantly, and I hear is complaining sometimes, rather than the thing I do constantly to deal with it. ADAPT. If the lag is getting to you, stop playing risky and pace yourself. It helps out a ton more.

Veterans are complaining that too many things have changed, granted that is somewhat true, but how you cope with it ultimately changes how you view it. Many things were changed for the better than for worse in my opinion, as certains things can be described more easily to new players and the like. Its still the same game you love, just with added flair and stratergy involved. (I mean, it makes 1 million balls super rare now, but they are a special occasion anyway.)

The Tutorial Sucks. Ok I understand where people are coming from with this. But heres my response. If you are a veteran, you are good at the moment, as this shouldnt worry you at the time, because youve learnt everything anyway. For new players though, they need to start off somewhere, and teaching them how to do juggle chainsaws before how to throw is kind of silly. So learning the absolute basics is okay, and thats all they need. (Also in the middle of writing this, they allowed the Advanced Tutorial to be unlocked on default, so hooray for that.)

Now I could go into the all the other things, but right now its 2 AM right now and i need sleep.

So, tl;dr. This game is a masterpiece in my eyes and is deserving of 2018s game of the year award.

10/10

If you have anything you want to add as feedback, do it in the comments. I'd like to see what you have to say.

Now to go and sleep.

I wish I can praise this game for its creativity, but it falls to one of the worst things in puzzle games:


What I mean is following cues and design in similiar scenarios, like a sphere button can only be interacted with a sphere.
The problem comes into chamber 6 . This puzzle racked my brain for 4 years . And it never occured to me that the button was magnetic. This behaviour wasnt present in the base game of Portal 2, so how was anyone supposed to figure that out? It breaks the standard ruleset of Portal 2 and therefore, a bad puzzle. Even after figuring that out on a YouTube walkthrough, I was more infuriated at this than actually being happy from finally solving it.

This is bad game design, to not follow a ruleset and create an unpredictable solution. There are a lot of problems to this mod, but this is the most apparent for me, so if the mod creator could fix this issue with some the other problems, than I will give this a positive review in the future.

Even though its basically a 4 minute gimmick, its a 4 minute gimmick that stands out and can define what apps can do and how early access can be not only be entertaining, but as a learning experience in general.

Whilst it takes a good knowledge and skill in certain programs to create such incredible works, the sheer simplitic nature of it all shows on the surface as its just a nifty app that changes backgrounds.

But under what seems to be a generic app, shows that there is bright future for computers and technology in general. I hope that this app turn out to be number one in the charts, cause its worth its $3.5 price tag.

9/10 (only due to some blemishes, buts thats normal in early access.)

This game has literally no logic, intresting concept, but overall it is incredibly short, stupid, not fun, and a waste of time.

2/10 - Needs serious Improvement

Sorry mate, the concept you had was interesting, if not polished. Make the game longer, and make sure there is a way to win by actaully remembering which one is good; not by complete random guesses. My advice, look at what you are trying to make, and put yourself in the eyes on the user. Hope that helps you out on your next game.

2 (by the power of 3) /10 (8/10) its a fun software, definetly useful for animators. (MUST SEE TUTORIALS)

This game has a lot of creativity. I enjoy this game because it never is the same. the oppenents are different, the skills needed in fighting them maybe a noob or to a pro. a real challenge thats still fun, yet get you to work with different moves. Wonderful.

9.5/10