Recent reviews by forgiv

Fun game overall. But definitely overpriced.

It's not insanely overpriced at $50, but I'd say it's still about 10-15 dollars more than it should've been.
The game worked well, but it's lacking.
It feels like it worked well because there was so little as far as mechanics that it would be insane if it didn't work well. You know what I mean?
Like they did so little as far as gameplay and environment goes that it would be absurd if the game was a buggy mess.

Anyway...
Characters were well written, motivations made sense, and discovering everyones secrets was pretty cool.
However, I still have more questions than answers. The writing was good, but I feel incomplete and frustrated. It was like a book without an ending.

Gameplay, as mentioned before, is simplistic:
Inventory space is tiny.
Crafting is slow and most items aren't even worth making.
Weapons are about as diverse as weapons are in that time period, but most of them are worthless and the game is very stingy with ammo. Also, the bow feels really bad to use. Big sad on that one.
Melee combat is definitely the focus here, which sucks because it feels boring.

Don't bother if you have a 32:9 display. Just like the absolute morons at Atomic Heart, this game locks the aspect ratio to your monitors native aspect ratio. So you can't play windowed mode.

tl;dr - A fun "Vampire Survivors"-like game. There's not much content yet, but what it does have is enjoyable. If it looks good to you, don't bother with any other reviews and just buy it. And if you hate it, blame me for telling you to buy it and then get a refund. If you're looking for manual aim, keep waiting and I'll update once it's out.

Update time:
Version 0.2.2 fixed a lot of bugs and directly addressed issues that the community has brought up INCLUDING AUTO AIM.

So obviously I'm gonna talk about auto aim.
Previously, the auto aim was so incredibly bad that I advised ignoring the game unless you're a hardcore "survivors" nerd.
It's not fully fixed, there's still some wonky behavior with spread attacks like the Huntress' bow and the Tanks shotgun*, but it's good enough that I don't feel like certain characters are actually a handicap.

But look, at this point I'm just nitpicking. While not perfect, the auto aim is good enough that it no longer drags this game out of recommendation status and the developers quick response in solving these issues is a very good sign.

Still no manual aim though, devs say next update will have it so I'll update my review AGAIN once it's added. Maybe I should become a game journalist... I mean.... I can't be as bad as Polygon playing Doom or that one guy playing Cuphead...

NEW RECOMMENDATIONS!
If you're looking for a lot of content or manual aim, keep waiting.
Everyone else, buy the game. It's pretty good.

* It kinda aims at the closest enemy, but then over a certain distance it seems to ignore the closest enemy and go for the attack that will hit the most enemies. Which sounds cool, but when you have explosive arrows it makes it harder to aim inside of a group of zombies instead of just at the ones in the front.
Also the character snaps between targets like the aimbot got turned 11 (which is probably exactly what happened).

---

tl;dr - Lots of potential, but poor quality auto aim really ruins the feel of the characters. I don't recommend the game to the casual player, but if you're a hardcore nerd for these "Vampire Survivor"-like games then it's cheap enough that you won't feel ripped off by what it has right now.

Pros:
- Diverse characters
- 3 man squads are novel and a cool way to add variety to a run
- Continuously spawning equipment makes runs more varied while also giving you a reason to run around
- Continuously spawning survivors is a really cool way to get levels as the exp needs increase
- Boss characters have different mechanics
- Endless & Hardcore modes
- Characters can "level up" and unlock better weapons and new skills permanently.

Cons:
- Sound design on the weapons is hit or miss. The minigun sounds great, but the sniper sounds terrible. etc...
- Permanent upgrades don't feel impactful.
- FREAKING AUTO AIM SUCKS (I'll go into more detail on this one later)
- General lack of content (it's early access so I personally don't count this one, but it's still true)

Bugs I've seen:
- Sometimes a boss will spawn without a health bar and you kill it and it's health bar will appear just somewhere on the map and never leave that spot.
- Charger boss has a line indicating where it will charge, that line is worthless because the boss will immediately change direction to charge at you once it starts the charge. Even if it would be physically impossible for it to do so.
- Swarm boss scream is often out of sync and will sometimes just go off well after the boss has died.

Overall, it's a fun game with a DESPERATE need for an auto aim toggle. I'm going to rant about auto aim now.
Certain characters (huntress especially) are just absolutely nerfed by how horrendous the auto aim is.
There's nothing quite as upsetting as maxing out your bow so it fires 4 explosive arrows at a time and then having the auto aim completely whiff 90% of the shots it takes because it doesn't understand the concept of leading your shots. You essentially have to stop moving to allow the character to shoot if you want to be sure you'll hit, and even then the auto aim accuracy only increases to about 80%.
It's bad. It's so bad that it makes certain characters feel bad to use.
If you couple that with the very low impact that the permanent upgrades have on each run the game gets very boring very quickly.

I have 2 recommendations:
1. If you're a casual player that saw a new game and came here. Don't buy it. It's not worth your time and money as it is currently. Come check again in like 2 months, if the issues have been fixed by then my review will be updated.
2. If you're a hardcore "Vampire Survivors" nerd looking for your next fix, check out "Halls of Torment" and "Soulstone Survivors" first and then come back and get this game.

Kinda weird full completing a factory game in half a day.
Honestly not worth the $20 until there's significantly more content.

Still recommending because the game is fun and there's clear areas where content can/should be added in the future.

For now, either get it on sale if you're just curios or get it off sale to support the devs.

Finally got to the 5th boss, haven't beat him yet. But I got there. Definitely not for the faint of heart, if you're the kind of person that completing games instead of playing them, this probably isn't for you.

Fun game, don't play the Sentinel though, she sucks a lot.

Combat is fun, voice acting is very good and the attention to detail in all the visuals is amazing.
My main complaint is about the room of requirement. There are only 6 potions you can make but you can make 7 potion stands and there's 8 plants you can grow but you can only make 7 planters... WHY!!!??!? It's like the person that was in charge of picking the numbers for that had no idea about anything in the game!

Definitely worth the 20 bucks.

- Only $14
- Active devs
- Good replayability
- Good horror
- Lets you play in VR with non-VR players

Disclaimer for people that played the demo: Temper your expectations for this cause it's not as fleshed out.

Now for everyone else, it's basically an hour long demo. Just play it. Personally, I really liked it and the full game is definitely on my wishlist.