Seneste anmeldelser af 💗 𝓲𝓵𝓵𝔂 🖤

So I'm not usually the type to say "just buy X game instead" when talking about a game because most of the time, regardless of how much more fun one experience can be compared to another, games are still unique in their own ways.

But.

Forager really is the type of game that I would say, if you have the capability of skipping over it in place of one of the other myriad production/farming/combat games that have been coming out recently, feel free. Why? Well the biggest problem with this game is that it's filled with a bunch of systems that don't really work together or tie into each other that well or, in some cases, don't encourage you to do them at all.

Take building for example. In some of the last patches for the game, walls and doors were pushed to enforce the fact that monsters would now go out of their way to attack your structures. So you would think that you would have to create walls and defenses to protect your base, right? Well...no, instead it's closer to getting occasionally annoyed that one of your distant structures got bonked by a baddie that happened to be nearby, or an inconvenience when you summon a boss and they use an attack with huge range, being more of a danger to your buildings than they are to you. But overall monsters aren't a real threat for pretty much any part of the game and, as a result, this feature is basically pointless.

There are a ton of items and features that exist in this game just because and no reason to want to use them. The Talent system is cute but not knowing what talents unlock what when will be the reason you're having a painful time early on. The surprise is nice but some talents are more useful than others and the time investment involved with getting levels again because you took a leap of faith and it landed you with more mediocre unlockables is painful, just look them up or get a mod for it and save yourself some trouble. There's practically never any reason to want to have a nice base on top of that because moderation is not a word that could be used to describe this game. If you're being moderate or frugal, 99% of the time you're basically bottlenecking yourself and yes, this is a bad thing. Made worse by the fact that a good few crafts are nonsensically annoying, redundant, or both.

On top of all that there's the fact that the game is barely replayable, there's really no reason to other than if you liked the experience so much the first time. But the thing is, different talent builds don't really lead to different playstyles, it just leads to doing a lot of the same things in different orders at different speeds. On top of that, the islands are randomized (to an extent) but each save file has all of the same islands.

I could go on but what all of this amounts to is a gameplay experience that just isn't very cohesive, and honestly it's not very fun, either. If you'll notice, I've spent (at the time of writing) 100 hours in the game. Which is inaccurate. Most of those hours were spent afk (which has its benefits thanks to drones and a few other buildings). I did play a lot but if I were to describe how it felt, it'd be closer to satisfied. As in, I wasn't bored during (most of) that time, but I couldn't good and well say I was having fun. And with the stuff coming out about the cancelled multi and the gaslighting on the part of the creator...yeah, this game's a hard sell.

Props to the mod creators though. There aren't many (and I would love to see more) but they do a lot of good things for this game and Evolved, the "expansion" that was released for the game was proof of that. If you do have this game or plan on getting it, I strongly recommend you check them out because they'll inevitably be what keep the game afloat and there are some genuinely great quality of life changes and ideas on there, however few.

So yeah, there are other games out there to scratch the same itches this game seeks to, and frankly I only say this because of how the creator treats his co-workers and those he's worked with. It's not worth supporting on top of a game that can barely hold itself together.

Most people are gonna say that this game is like Getting Over it but with a sword.

Because it is. Except instead trying to get to the top of some arbitrary structures, you're traversing a cave to plow a dragon with your schlong sword.

It's a short adventure that's a lot less frustrating than its contemporaries and for one run might take maybe a half an hour out of your day. It's cute, cheeky, and a good time so you might as well download it.

Most of the songs in this game are named after Jojo and stands (artists, by extension), including but not limited to:
Empty Ocean
Death Tendency
Golden Win
Steel Boss Run
Lich is Unbreakable
The Grateful Afterlife
Killer X Chase

I mean c'mon they even acknowledge Chase, that's pretty cultured if you ask me. Helps that they're all earworms, why don't you have this?

Oh and the game's super addicting and incredibly polished, too, I guess. Details, semantics, blah blah blah

So we apparently live in this time where everything just gets lost to the timeframe it was released in and that's really ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. You could say it's a product of there just being SO many good games (and just generally games that get pretty popular, especially because of streamers and content creators) released overtime that games have a much harder time having the kind of staying power they did generations ago.

But Clustertruck is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazing and genuinely the only thing stopping me from playing more is the lack of extra levels. Hey hi this is a newish review if you're a friend you can see this buy it now I know you don't have it only nine of my friends do. That's right click right there, press that "Add to Cart" button, and get frustrated as hell because this game is a wonderful nightmare. In the best way possible.

There aren't a lot of speedrun-style games that offer as much freedom in exactly how you approach each level as Clustertruck, and part of that comes from the randomness of the stages. Granted, they're all set, designed stages, but the trucks won't always move the exact same way each time. And this is what makes this game so fun. There's this really disorienting feeling to being suspended in air, knowing that the truck that was below you last time in that situation isn't now, and still, in the end, being saved by a stray truck that happened to get bumped into position by another truck (probably flipped over). And then you'll probably slip off of the side because who could expect that kinda thing?

It's this beautiful chaotic mess that doesn't really feel as cheap as it definitely could, and there are ways to customize how you play, some really neat levels purely in terms of aesthetic, etc- look alright I'm gay and trying to sell you on a truck game that doesn't involve pick-ups, that's how you know it's genuine.

This game is genuine insanity and ironically one of the most obvious examples of choices mattering any sort of convoluted consequences. Even if the way situations play out can be, it's usually just for the sake of humor and setting up an immediately obvious challenge or boon.

The game's 3 bucks and worth it at that price or more, honestly I'm a bit sad this game's just kinda been forgotten because of when it was released but it's a fun little Oregon Trail-inspired Shmup that'll probably make you laugh and keep you interested a decent amount of time.

Birds.

You ever have a game that you really liked at a time- let's say when you were a kid- but as time went on you noticed flaws and realized things about it that made you realize it probably wasn't as good as you remember, only to replay it for laughs and get immediately sucked in and just realize you were just being cynical and wrong?

I've gone through that four times with this game. I even did a review of this years back that I hope to god no one tries to find because it's probably cringe as hell.

When it comes to CC2, they don't make great games. They make alright games whose strengths are anything other than their gameplay. In most cases, it's their visual storytelling and incredible cutscene direction. Asura's Wrath is a much better movie than it is a game, the Naruto games tell the story better than the original series does in various cases, and Dot Hack (particularly the G.U. entries) are...special games.

See, the thing about Dot Hack is that it's already a mixed media project, which is essentially a series of products that exist across different platforms. Think Pokemon with it's show, game, and manga. But with Dot Hack, all of it materials are related and relevant. There are games, movies, manga, anime, DVDs included /with/ the games and all of it ties together to create this large, kind of confusing web that would be hard to follow if so many entries actually punished the viewer for not consuming everything. But they don't.

You can go into G.U. without watching the anime prequel, Roots, or playing the original .Hack games before it. And that goes for most pieces of .Hack material. The reason I mention this though is because .Hack has this obsession with, specifically in its games, creating these larger than life worlds that aren't even fully believable but also are to some extent, and it's what makes me adore this game in particular so much.

I like the combat in this game. While it's less strategic than it was in the original quadrilogy, it's fun and simple. I think it could be a lot better, especially as far as Action RPGs go, but it's not even my favorite aspect of the game. My favorite part is instead talking to the NPCs and hearing their opinions about what's going on in their lives, what they think of the game or what's going on at a given moment. My favorite part is going to the forums (BBS, sorry) and seeing these very believable posts from people that flesh out who they are without them ever being relevant, going to the News and seeing all of this stuff that has nothing to do with the game's MMO or anyone in it just for the sake of fleshing out the real world we'll never see.

And there's so much of this. When you e-mail your friends it does work kind of like a social link but what you get back is just details about their life, their feelings, etc. etc. and it just does all it can to sell you on the fact that even though you're playing a single player game, you're in an MMO. And that's something that I've only appreciated more as I've gotten older, paired with the fact that as long as new core .Hack games aren't being made anymore, there won't ever be another game that does this.

I don't think this is a game for everyone. There's a lot of talking and cutscenes, the action doesn't carry the game (though weapon changing feels fantastic), the areas can be really repetitive, etc. etc. It's flawed and I think I probably would've preferred a high concept remake more than what we got, but what we got was a miracle in itself that almost no one asked for but a surprising number of people wanted.

This is a special gem of a game and if it looks remotely interesting to you, experience it somehow. Buy it, watch a friend play it, watch a Let's Play, movie all the cutscenes- something, but all I'll stress is that this is an experience with a lot of strong qualities that really work best when you're the one behind the controller. Missing out isn't something you want to do here.

It's better Spelunky, everyone's grown up and it's cute and wholesome as hell and the female damsel from the first game is badass and gay. Don't wait for a sale, buy it full price you cowards.

Genuinely unsure how this game isn't more popular, it's incredibly fun with friends. It's frantic as hell and there's legitimately nothing out there like it because it's just cleaning a space ship. In space. With friends. But the thing that makes it so fun is that the way it does things is so engaging. The ship is a level as much as it feels like...well, a house, so you end up with this situation where you can buy things like TVs, microwaves, rugs, etc etc, all of which have actual function but can also be used to just make a nice looking place, all the while keeping in mind that space is as much a resource as money is. People are constantly getting hungry and tired and the dirt wants to spread and keeping all of these factors in mind as well as just the multiple avenues for choosing to deal with certain layouts of the ship, there really isn't any other game that I could compare Out of Space to and won't really try to. It's esoteric, panic-inducing, chill (???), and honestly just some of the more unexpectedly enjoyable experiences I've had in 2020

Reason number 256 for why you don't buy your clothes from the soup store

You know, the scariest thing about mobile games is that they both have the strength of making a watered down version of a genre that isn't seeing much investment in the industry (and benefiting as a result) and using satisfying sounds and visuals to keep you dripfed and addicted. I've got a good number of hours in this game. Because it's easy to keep on in the background and check in on and, probably worse, it's easy to fully focus on just play by itself. Is it fun? Not really, it's satisfying definitely. Fun? Nah.

If I were to make a Pros and Cons list.

Pros:
+ It's very pretty, definitely avoids the uncanny character designs a lot of F2Ps have and just looks nice.
+ It's well adapted for PC
+ It could definitely be fun for the right people
+ In the technical sense, there's almost no pay gatekeeping. Technically. Most things can be bought with gems and won't break the bank or even your wallet early on. When you start wanting more than the minimum tho...

Cons:
- The Scholar costs 20 dollars and the Engineer costs 30. 50 dollars for two supplemental classes that unlock crafts. Mind you, the crafts in question can be bought from the market without premium currencies, so the prospect by itself is somewhat mindboggling. Also 50 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dollars.
- There's a monthly service in game that seems harmless in the predatory F2P kinda way. How it works is that you pay 10 dollars a month for some perks. Simple enough, right?

Well

Thing about that is that you'll quickly start to realize that you aren't getting perks for opting in, you're getting restricted for opting out. Dungeons drop several pieces of loot, but the one that's often the most useful or expensive is only able to be collected if you have the sub. But they still show you what it is so you'll know it's what you're missing out on.

Let me say that again.

They show you the drop you're not paying for so you'll feel worse for not buying into the service, or worse, it'll make you
feel obligated to do so.

Continuing on this train, if you have a very expensive piece of armor and it breaks after a dungeon you have the option of
fixing it with gold or using a repair kit. Repair kits are rare and can't be obtained manually, so naturally the obvious thing
would be to fix your gear with gold.

Except you can't.

Because you aren't subscribed. So just say goodbye to that piece of gear that you payed so much for or spent all that time
trying to get to that rarity. Or used your gems to make that rarity, in the worse cases.

And since this con list officially blew itself up, just rapid firing off some other issues:

• The fatigue system is where this really feels like a mobile game, and because you can't level up without actively selling items but you can't send out for missions without waiting usually upwards of 20 minutes (followed by the heroes healing themselves), the game game feels a bit at odds with whether it wants to be played in short sessions or long ones and punishes both.
  
• This guide[drive.google.com] is basically manditory because for all the game tells you there's a hell of a lot that it doesn't, and wasting is the last thing you can afford in a game like this. Save your wallet, save yourself.
  
• Flashing limited time deals on new players after introducing all of the systems is a supremely scummy way to earn some dosh through putting on pressure. There's nothing wrong with starter packs and the like, but this isn't that.

---

Point is, I'm not recommending this game. I think it can be enjoyable, engaging, and honestly its marketing practices really aren't the worst, especially compared to its contemporaries. I'm not gonna say you shouldn't play this game, because it's free and it can be a good time (hell, I'm playing it right now). But I definitely think there are better uses of time. Check out Moonlighter or Recettear if you want a good Shop Management Sim. A personal favorite of mine is Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King. It's Wiiware but was hella concept, and had a lot of similar ideas but was also a lot bigger of an experience. It's hard to come by but if you can manage to play it and you like Shop/Town Building Sims it's definitely worth the look.

tl;dr wear a mask, beware this game, play MLaaK.