Recent reviews by Jswars

Do not even bother with this scam. The devs are releasing this game over and over under a different name every time in order to trick new players in.
Instead of updating the current game, they simply close the servers and/or completely stop support once the game doesn't make enough money anymore. Don't expect any compensation or something to move onto the next release because "it's a new game". So if you decide to play this game and spend some cash, just know that there is an expiration date.
-Swords & Potions in 2013 on Kongregate and Armor Games.
-Shop Heroes in 2015 then on Steam in 2016 (now removed
but you can still find on Steam via Google, app/506140)
-Shop Heroes Legends: Idle RPG
-Shop Titan
-And now Shop Legends under a new dev name "Cloudcade" so people can't see their past games.

Also the customer service is a joke, they will literally use sarcasm in their replies to make fun of you. When you're the customer/victim of a bug and lost in-game content, and there is money involved, this is simply unacceptable.

Garbage studio that do not respect their players, you've been warned.
There are better shop/management games out there on Steam that are worth it.

Edit January 2025:
Still impossible to play the game. Check the Steam forums and you'll see that more people are also unable to play.

DO NOT BUY THE GAME as there is 0 guarantee that you'll be able to play it. Meanwhile, the dev is working hard in releasing paid DLC.


Original review:
I really wanted to try this game but sadly it is so buggy that it won't even start.

There is a bug that has been reported since Q1 2024 on the Steam forums where the game will not start at all for some users with multiple monitors. There are some temporary workaround but I've tried all of them and none worked.
It seems that this game runs on Unity, I've played many games running on Unity in the past year and none of them had this issue.

I opened a ticket and have had no response and it's almost been a week. I appreciate that it's likely an indie dev, I won't refund the game because I'm still interested in trying it out but I can't recommend it at the moment as it is literally unplayable.

I WAS THERE

tl;dr: Good game plagued with technical / ethical issues. Wait for fixes.

Pros:
- It's new
- Fun to play
- World / exploration / character progression feel great

Cons:
- Denuvo
- Worst optimization I've ever seen
- Only 1 save alllowed and cannot restart a new game
- Microtransactions in single-player game
- Need to pay to edit your character appearance.

Too bad there isn't a middle way between yes & no, so I've settled with "no" until the game gets more polished & optimized.
This is review is purely subjective, if you disagree with it, just give me some Steam award and go write your own review you whiteknight smp.

*If you're new to ARPG or you're a dad, go for D4.
*If you're jobless / poor, go for POE which is F2P and you have enough free time to read hundreds of guides on how to start enjoying the game.
*If you got bored of D4, go for LE.

D4 (least complex) < LE < POE (most complex)
LE has more gameplay depth than D4 and is more accessible than POE. Unfortunately that doesn't automatically make it a good game.
LE is easy to get into and to understand mechanics, however some passives/skills are really badly explained and you'll still end up Googling some skills synergy.

POE = LE < D4
There's no contest here, POE and LE are ugly AF (idc if it's smaller dev teams, it's still ugly AF).

LE < POE < D4
LE just released so it's normal it's the least optimized but it's really bad in some zones / situations. It also has serious memory leak issues.
Game runs at constant 120+ FPS with a 4070, then after couple hours it will suddenly drop to 15 FPS when there's too much stuff on screen and until your restart the game.
There are still server issues but not as bad as during the week following the launch.

POE < LE < D4
The campaign is basic, plain and uneventful. Don't expect some next level story line there. The only innovative concept was that you could revisit zones in different timelines and each timeline has different mobs and lore.
But in the end, nothing beats Blizzard's storytelling / lore in general.

POE < LE < D4
Respeccing in LE sucks. You have to level your skills to level 20 to unlock their full potential but if you want to try another skill, you'll have to reset your skills back to the start and level up the new skill. It's fast to re-level once you reached the end game, but it's still an useless mechanic.

D4 < POE < LE
The crafting in LE is better than other games but it's all about RNG and if you fail one click, the item becomes completely useless.

D4 < LE = POE
Hoarders rejoice, you can buy as many stash tabs as you want with in-game gold. POE's stash management is better but the tabs can only be bought with real money.

LE < D4 < POE
LE has an auction house tied to the Merchants faction only. If you pick another faction, you cannot trade with other players. It's just dumb. And don't worry, there are goldsellers spamming chat in LE too.

D4 (lol) < LE < POE
The built-in loot filter is good but it could use some improvements.

It was fun while it lasted, but the game is now filled with bots, RMT, p2w features, paid boosts, gatekeeping community, etc. Some open-world group content aren't achievable anymore due to lack of real players.

Lost Ark is like a happy marriage that ended with a nasty divorce.

It's not bad, bought it 20 minutes ago and already played 7 hours.

Pretty sure the reviews praising the AI are just people trying to bait you into buying this game and make you feel miserable like they did.

It's not a bad game, it has some nice features like the ability to build floors and basements, but on the other hand it is missing QoL stuff that Rimworld spoiled us with.
if you're looking for a Rimworld experience, I would hold back and wait to see the direction the game is taking. While it plays like Rimworld the first few hours, it turns into The Sims where you have to grind opinions with NPCs by fast-forwarding through dialogs.

It all comes down to the Mood mechanic: villagers' mood varies way too much, too fast, and from one extreme to another.

The AI will make your villager do stuff that they don't like, then they will threaten to leave your settlement, taking all the gear you gave them.
Either you try to mend the relation and spend 10min in dialogs to raise back their mood temporarily until the next time the AI screws it up, or you just let them leave because you're sick of this ♥♥♥♥.

Obviously, losing a villager will severely impact your development and ability to defend yourself against timed enemy raids, which will increase in difficulty each wave. So you end up fast-grinding opinions with other NPCs in order to try to recruit them. While you do this, your other villagers' mood went down and they're now considering leaving as well.

It's in EA, wait & see...

Buy it only if you wish to support the development.

Do not buy it if you're expecting a game close to completion.

Some games release in EA with 80% "close-to-completion" state, and some games release in EA with 20%.
Considering the content currently available and that it has been in EA for almost 3 years, Flotsam is definitely in the category of games releasing in a very, very early state. I'm fine with that, some dev need funding while developping their game, but please don't expect a review based on what the game could be in X years. It does have potential however.

As of version 0.6.3, I can't recommend it.

After 4-5h your colony is completely self-sufficient and there's nothing left to do but gathering resources for no purpose. Of course you can rack up a higher playtime just by roaming around but there won't be any progression involved as you'll have researched and built everything and will have too much of every resources.

I'll review it again fairly when it will leave EA.

Not perfect, in EA, but already highly addictive if you're into stuff like Factorio, Dyson Sphere Program, Satisfactory, or any other supply chain games.

High playability & replayability and seems like there's more content to come according to the dev.