22 people found this review helpful
4 people found this review funny
Not Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 237.1 hrs on record (73.9 hrs at review time)
Posted: 17 Nov, 2023 @ 7:07am
Updated: 17 Nov, 2023 @ 7:46am

Early Access Review
Now, I understand that this is a tiny indie game studio ("it's just two brothers!" from Rick and Morty ringing in my ears) but the kickstarted game was delayed over and over again. We finally get it in Early Access, and it feels like a slog to just get past a couple of missions. The game is too buggy, there are still bugs that will require you to replay entire missions because the devs refused to let us save in slots between the multi-part missions.
Now, they will claim that this is not an issue because of how granular the restart system is, but the restart system does not fix the bug that I have had happen twice where all of my loot from a mission disappears when I get back to the safe house. It does not fix bugs that happen during animations locking you out of using the menu.
The missions that can take at times hours apiece to plan out and play through due to the puzzle-like design. This is AWESOME game design when I'm going through levels and beating them. It is not great when I have to keep replaying the same mission 4 times due to bugs.
Combine this with GUI frustrations like having a combination of buttons on the screen and keyboard buttons to do things like delay characters until the next character (which must be a team character) goes vs delay -10 initiative vs just end the character's turn. I can't even count the number of times I've needed to restart my turn because I accidentally hit enter instead of space. This design scheme is not intuitive and causes me to make many mistakes. It is funny because it feels like the system was intended to AVOID accidents.
Too many little things do not get explained. I have no idea what so much stuff means and there isn't a comprehensive in game guide to the meaning of everything. I've played nearly every Trese Brothers game, and the in-game details are usually explained MUCH better with guides. Perhaps the in-game guide is simply incomplete, EVERYTHING in the game is incomplete, Early Access and all that.
If you click around too fast you might get weird stuff like characters teleporting during ability use.
The behavior of the camera can get very frustrating. The hook-and-drag when you go out of bounds can be the absolute worst when you're trying to get an angle between an object and a wall. The inability to change camera angle (which I know may be for reasons pertaining to the visuals of the levels themselves) feels a bit dated for isometric games.

In the end, in it's current state, I cannot recommend the game for $29.99. All that aside, realistically, I still have very high hopes for this game, will continue playing it in Early Access and will revise my review once some of the issues are addressed.
Once the game is closer to a complete form I expect to scrap this entire review and write a glowing one from scratch praising the game mechanics, integration of procedurally generated content into a cohesive story, etc.

Note: I was not going to upload this review.
I tried to beat this same mission I've had bug out on me 3 times, I'm almost done with the entire mission when my character model freezes walking during an overwatch animation. This is insane, I literally cannot progress in the game because the bugs happen so often that I'm unable to beat this SINGLE MISSION (I want to say it's my third or fourth of the game?) These mission levels take OVER AN HOUR EACH.

Update: I was able to close the game, reopen it, and it's actually loaded from the last point before the bug. This is definitely a big + and I will retract my last gripe in part (as there have still been bugs that have forced a restart of the mission in my experience.)
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
Developer response:
Trese Brothers  [developer] Posted: 18 Mar @ 9:47pm
Hi and thanks for the review and sorry for the bugs. We are more than 2 brothers now, growing a team and working to take on more ambitious sized projects.

The game saves every turn, so in the worst case with a bug you have lost at most a turn as you noted in your edit.

As to save slots, if you hit ESC, there are 4 save slots available for you to use at any time. Save, load whenever you want during a mission. The auto retry (turn, level, mission) is great but is not in any way a replacement for manual player controlled save slots.

The team here noticed you put in another 160 hrs of play since you reviewed the game originally. We hope you'll consider updating your review as we hit Update #62!
Comments are disabled for this review.