Recent reviews by Stephen

***Review Update***

This review was made, perhaps irresponsibly, with the trust to the developer that they would remain communicative and continue to pursue excellence through their game. I must admit, as a backer I was biased toward positivity as this is a multiplayer-based game and I felt that the game in a more pure state would have been one of the best asymmetrical multiplayer based games ever made. However as of 7/26/17, the developers and publishers have been radio silent regarding multiple issues with the game (such as melee being currently broken with Jason able to ignore counselor swings, dodging being glitchy, and many many glitches ruining the flow of the game) and have offered no roadmap going forward on how they are going to address these issues that we backers have brought to their attention since Beta.

I still have every belief that, if given enough attention, this game still holds the potential I had mentioned in my review if the problems marring it currently were to be addressed and we see an advent of new content including maps and items. But until then I look at my original review with embarassment thinking that I misunderstood the inexperience that the makers of this game have. This game should have been released under Early Access, and I still have hope that I will be able to delete this blurb from my review and simply return it to the original one.


*** Original Review ***

As of this review, the problems plagueing the connectivity of the game have been 99% removed.

I would like to make something very clear: this is not a competitive multiplayer game. It is an asymmetric multiplayer game in function only. At it's core, this is actually an Immersive Multiplayer Slasher Sim, or otherwise a Friday the 13th Simulator. If you are a fan of slashers, cheesy horror, the tension of being stalked (or stalking), emergent gameplay and drama through crazy situations, thrills n kills, and beating odds that are clearly stacked against you, then you will enjoy this game THOROUGHLY. There is simply nothing like this game on the market, and even its closest peers do not capture the kind of magic that this game captures.

But I want to caution some of you: if you're in it for leaderboards and metagaming, you may not like this game. This game is best played when trying to play immersively. The situations that arise when people do stupid things out of tension, or the quick witted escapes and jukes, or the Jason who perfectly stalks his prey and fools them into leaving a hiding spot, THIS is what we live for in this game. You're simply not playing for that Win screen because winning or losing in this game simply isn't important - what's important is all the craziness that happens in between.

If this sort of thing sounds appealing to you then there's no need to hesitate in buying this game. There is nothing like it and likely won't be for a long time. It is a unique labor of love created by movie veterans and unabashed horror fans who understand how to make an experience compelling. But if you're still scratching your head on this then I would implore you to atleast wait until it's on sale. This game is certainly not for everyone and I understand that.

Overall however, you will not find a more compelling slasher game.
9/10

A good start, but needs improvement. I'll start with what the game does well, and then move on to what needs work.

The Good:

This game is *FAST*. I'm sick of slow shooters and Dirty Bomb just feels great. Movement speed is nice, damage is high but not CSGO / CoD high, there's wall jumping (albeit not extremely useful)

This game's gunplay is right on point. Meaty explosions, nice powerful sounding weapons... the feedback is excellent. Splash Damage, as usual, delivers strong shooty bits.

The netcode is good. Anything below 120 feels very playable without extremely annoying hitbox problems. I've played many FPS's that were ruined in part by poor netcode. This isn't one of them.

This game is updated frequently and developers communicate frequently with the playerbase. Problems aside, they atleast listen and update us frequently on changes.

Stuff that needs work:

Firstly, you don't get all the mercs in one go. You can't even pay for a total merc unlock in any reasonable $ amount. Mercs are 30k to 50k, and be prepared to grind weeks out just to get a single merc unless you can play several hours every day. The prices need a SERIOUS adjustment. Cutting credit costs in half would do wonders.

Next, the microtransactions are a waste. Credit boosters do not mathematically make any sense. 30k mercs cost $7, while 50k mercs cost $10. The packages you can buy also are poorly thought out, as if you already have mercs in any of the packages you actually lose out on value. Example: the starter pack has Vasilli and Sawbonez in it. I have already unlocked both of these mercs, so if I buy the starter pack, I lose out on a hefty amount of value. At this point, I have atleast one merc in every single bundle - basically, I lose out no matter what bundle I'd like which ensures that there's no way I'll pay for it. You can also buy elite cases with real money which is a waste because they are overpriced and there's no garauntee you'll even get something worthwhile.

NEEDS MORE MAPS!

Finally, due to this game's freegame nature - cheating is absolutely rampant. Check the Steam forums / nexon forums to see why. Since this isn't a paid game, cheaters do not worry about being banned as they just re-register a new account. The game's anticheat is XIGN which is infamous at slow updates. There is also no way of reporting many cheaters who use unknown characters.

In it's present state, I'll give it a 6/10. I'll address this later as more classes, balance, and maps are added. But, as it is in Beta and is Free-To-Play, I recommend it for all you FPS fans.

buy it if you don't already have the dlc

don't if you do

10/10

***** BUYER BEWARE: DO NOT PURCHASE THIS PORT UNTIL THESE ISSUES ARE RESOLVED OR UNTIL THIS GAME IS *HEAVILY* DISCOUNTED. *****


Good news and bad news?

Good news - NRS has made another wickedly fun game to play. Combos feel satisfying, animations are brilliant, characters have cool powers, and as in MK9 NRS makes the best single player fighting game experience in the business.

The bad news? High Voltage did the PC port. They've taken a game that seems to run well for the consoles and ran it into the dirt. Crashes. FPS dips. Freezing. Constant Online disconnection. Terrible netcode (for you fg players, there seems to be between 7 to 10 frames of input delay; fairly unacceptable for anything beyond casual play).

I'll leave it up to you, the reader, to decide what you will about WB Games' DLC pricing scheme, but it's the whole "chop the game up into bits on release and sell it back to customers" kind of thing. But in any case, it doesn't matter: this port is the definition of terrible. Over 1/3rd of us PC customers have CRIPPLING issues with this port that are *still* not resolved weeks after release. A very slim minority have no issues at all.


***** BUYER BEWARE: DO NOT PURCHASE THIS PORT UNTIL THESE ISSUES ARE RESOLVED OR UNTIL THIS GAME IS *HEAVILY* DISCOUNTED. *****

Overall - Very fun Ninja Gaiden-esque side scroller. A little less limber, a little more walking apocalypse. Not as difficult as the old nail biters for us who love them... but also not easy enough to get bored.

I love speedrunning games. My main game was always Demon's Crest and Gargoyle's Quest 2, both of which I've spent thousands of hours on perfecting in order to get the times I've gotten. I feel the same pace of action in these games even if its more sword less shooty. The controls are tight and feel right. Attacking has some really cool little gimmicks behind it. Most of you from Symphony of the Night / other Metroidvanias will fondly recall the Jump slash land slash combo. But more than that, you can cancel your slashes by crouching, so that you can Slash crouch slash slash crouch slash over and over for a really cool trick. Things like this make games replayable, little skillsets that you can improve at and get better with.

That said, this game is not flawless. This game has major issues with difficulty. Now, most of you might wonder why. Enemy placement / attacks are good and difficult to get around. The problem comes from this -

1) Your health - You have too much health. By simply brute forcing your way through levels and bosses you generally have enough HP to get to the next section. Enemy attacks are not very damaging in general. If you just keep moving forward and jumping, you'll likely make it to the next section with 2 bits of HP left only to be fully healed on the next section. Combine this with the fact that you're likely to find 1 or even 2 health ups per section and you're blazing by pretty healthy.

2) Grenades - Strong enough to kill many problematic enemies in one HP as well as abundant enough to never worry about them. Some minibosses can be killed by simply spamming your grenades a few times. I like that they are not easy to land and thus grant a bit of a bonus for your effort, though I would have been more appreciative of a slightly less damaging item.

I realize as someone who's played the unholy hell out of Demon's Crest / Gargoyle's Quest II I am probably biased toward more difficult games. And don't get me wrong, this game isn't 'Easy'. If the developers wanted a 'Medium' for difficulty, they're certainly not far from it.

I'll be honest - I expected another 'Retro' game that misses the point of going back to the old days. You guys did not miss that point. You captured what was fun in these games by meticulously getting the controls and fighting right. And for that you do deserve praise. Keep up the good work and Odallus will be just as good, if not better.