Recent reviews by Drenduh Tyrof

5 dollar for dead body

The "secret" final boss, which you unlock by going into by setting your difficulty to hard before getting the last Emerald, is the worst decision Sonic Team has ever made, and it is only the worst because the rest of the game is really really good, and therefore that boss is the most colossal letdown in the history of the franchise.

So, good game, definitely get it if you're a Sonic fan, just don't go into the final boss on hard mode unless you really like Touhou and other 2D Space Shooter bullet hells.

This game is fun. It's quite different from the games that came prior, and will take some adjusting to, but it still pays homage to all that came before and is faithful to the franchise. Tough but satisfying combat loop, decent story with some good optional-to-read lore, some of the best scenery and character-designs in the series and a brilliant soundtrack. Give it a rip and a tear, if it seems up your alley.
And hey, it's my game of the year. That probably won't sell you, but it's gotta be decent if I'm giving it such high praise.

Firstly, I should say what was passable in my time playing. I don't hate the concept of this. It has potential, I'll give it that, and this puts an interesting spin on the Battle Royale formula. Instead of people finding guns, you play as a mech hopping into other mechs, like a little cyber ghost. I love the idea, and I wish more BR games had these little interesting ideas, because the two most popular ones (PUBG and Fortnite) just seem uninspired. I do hope this game goes somewhere good down the line. The game also looks and sounds really good.

And that's where my praise stops. This is certainly unlike other BR games, because instead of lacking in the graphical and some of the imaginative sections, it falls flat on its face in its execution and the rest of its potential quirkiness. We start up the game, and the title screen is bland and boring. There's about three buttons on the main screen, and it's literally just a still image. You click the button to start matchmaking, and it takes a while. Alright, I can live with this. Once it's done, it takes us to another loading screen. Okay, this seems standard for a BR game.

Finally, the game starts with the ship. You're all in this ship, as it's flying to an island. It certainly looks way cooler than a flying bus and the building bays in the original Robocraft, so that's good. Then we get to actually be able to jump out, and the ship decides to jump itself. Back and forth, impeding your progress. When this gets too much, I decide to jump out no matter where we are.

I much prefer the idea of falling in pods instead of simply jumping out of the flying vehicle. It reminds me of the ODSTs from the Halo franchise, and that aspect was always something I found interesting. However, the pod seems to have little to no control. This wasn't particularly bad, but it did restrict some player freedom. Because I couldn't jump out where i wanted, I fall with pretty much every other player. Welp, there goes my chance of surviving more than ten seconds. I land, and I pop out as a little buggy with one of those laser cutters from the original game. Understandable, so I go and ram into an already half dead player, stealing a kill and allowing no glory to the main agressor.

I pick up a blue thing, find a mech, get in it, and try to shoot an opposing player. I waste all my ammo faster than in any other game I've ever played, including the ones without guns. I press 'R' to reload, and noticed it uses up the blue thing I picked up. With the rediculously fast depletion of your weapons, this already ticks me off. I try firing again, and hit a few shots on the enemy. I've now ran out of ammo. The opponent, a smaller vehicle, has enough ammo to tear me to shreds. I die, and it's back to the bland main menu.

I've played three matches, and all of them go like this. With long queue times, poor optimisation, poor pod controls, one of the worst ammo systems I've ever seen, mediocre balance, and no chance of a beginner being able to actually enjoy the game, as everything done in the match until their death amounts to nothing, I think this negative review is waranted. And the annoying thing is that some of these could be easy fixes.

Remove the limited ammo system, and instead have the weapons overheat and require a cooldown. Allow us to spectate the rest of the game once we die. Add a ranking system, in which you gain points through kills, surviving and grabbing mechs. Perhaps add a gamemode in which the ship stays stationary in the air, and you can respawn and drop down again. And for gods sake, add some customisation. It was one of the interesting things about Robocraft, and although it may be hard to implement into this style of game, you could atleast give us the ability to choose a color scheme that the machines we take change to. I can't talk much about optimisation, but that should've been something you sorted out in the alpha.

All in all, I'm glad this game is in early access, but it still feels rushed. I know Freejam wants to hop on the BR bandwagon, but they still could've given it more time, and certainly not have made it payed on launch. The problems I've mentioned could be solved with some changes, but maybe it's just a problem with this genre in general. In my opinion, it would be better to mesh aspects of Minecraft Hunger Games and Fortnite with Robocraft rather than try to shove Robocraft into a genre it doesn't just slot in to.

This has potential, Freejam. I really liked the original Robocraft, so don't let me down, or any of your other fans.





On a lighter note, I appreciate the dino mask for Robocraft.

The funny thing about the full version is that:

1. It changed drastically with no warning. Heck, it seems as if 99% of content they could've tested or atleast shown off in the early access was kept locked at TT Games HQ. If your going to change a game this drastically, and the game's in early access, then slowly add things as they're finished into the early access. If the game started changing gradually into its finished format through updates in early access, then I would probably be fine with it, but they decided to flip the game on it's head and shake the things that made it unique and more interesting to play than other LEGO games out of it's pockets, like how a bully shakes out the dinner money of a child's pockets.

2. It runs worse than in early access. I'm no stranger to having games run like a one legged dog on my computer, but if the game runs better incomplete, then you have either added so much stuff to the point where it weighs the game's performance down or you done goofed. The full version should be a less buggier and better running game, not the opposite.


I know licensed games aren't always fantastic, but unlike other LEGO games, this one was unique and different from those ones and it seemed as though it could be the most diverse LEGO game (gameplaywise) yet. Unfortunately, they thought that the one thing that made this seem like a true video game embodiment of LEGO wasn't needed. Freedom to create. Of all the games I've played that others thing had "lost potential", this is the only one that I agree with on that.