Recent reviews by Minus

Sony plan to force logins. When the remaster launches. Even if you dont upgrade to the remaster.
Im fine with logins being required if they were required from release.
Retroactively adding them as a requirement? No.

Game is dead. And thats difficult to do for a singleplayer game with ghosts of other players.

Initially runs in each room would have 1,2 or 3 trap types (ranged, melee, environment) and eventually a guardian chasing you down to force movement. A run that finished at a deeper end point or past your previous best; got you a trophy which would unlock a new whip or blessing. Your previous best was determined by a rank, each success increased your rank a little, a failure reduced it by a lot. You had to be in a certain rank to get certain trophies and whips.

Now theyve undone all that. Trap rooms are unfair and unfun. Most have all FOUR trap types in them straight from the go, and each trap type needs a different player mechanic to counter (for example melee ones generally need you to pause and wait, ranged ones require you to keep moving, environment requires you to follow a pattern.), as you can see those mechanics dont mesh well when you add ALL of them.

Rank system is gone and is replaced with a "roguelike" and I use that loosely, GrindTax to unlock improved player abilities that are outright "Im better than you" like increasing whip length, jump height, run speed. Those abilities are essential for later gameplay, but the tokens used to pay for them are also a ridiculous grind to get.

Its grind behaviour mechanics being put into a paid for single player game for no reason other than.. to artificially extend the games life and ironically... killed the game.

They lost the small player base they had post 1.0 launch.

It all honestly feels like theyve made these changes in preparation to move it to free to play and start charging for the upgrade tokens.

Right now? No.

Its following the classic Bethesda problems. All signs of a dying engine. Frame drops and frame rate issues, memory leaks, no standard graphical settings (you have to change your desktop resolution to change the game resolution!, No brightness settings and they rely on shadows to darken so places can be overbright even with Bloom off.).

Control schema is all over the place.

Will re-review in a month, but like Fallout 4 and priors, I expect it will be atleast 9 months before it becomes anywhere near what SHOULD have been a release state.

If you have a very good system you can probably just ignore most of these issues, but even those will notice significant improvement when fixed.

60Hrs On:

They want GOTY.. and they still have WORLD pop ins. Floating trees. Clipping through the floors of buildings, ships, AI stuck in doors, Doors that wont open, missing doors, Spaceships leaving without you, spaceships leaving with a dead pilot, spaceships leaving with you on board.

The longer I play the more I still find wrong with it. Absolute S-Show from a supposed AAA dev.

Abandonware

Has issues with multi screen set ups.

Will not allow or even acknowledge screen selection (despite it being a menu option)

Does not register mice.

Limited resolution options.

I was going to refund this, but for the sakes of a couple of quid, I'm not, I'm just going to leave this negative review here.

While playing on the british board, it will still reference the american locations.

Overall its not "bad" but it is lacklustre. Might as well just play a hard copy in person with people rather than just having frustration imparted on only just yourself.

One benefit is, the AI atleast follows the proper rules for monopoly, but even those can be overridden with all the common "House Rules" every wants but then inevitably complains about.

I wrote about this on the other Skyrim Review; turns out bethesda are gluttons for punishment.

Paid Mods v2 is arriving. Sure theyre dressing it up and putting on make up, sure theyre throwing a coin out to the modders who make the content (which is a big improvement I guess over outright stealing them), but its still paid mods.

It still has all the grey area problems, the only difference now, is they can ignore reports of stolen content being uploaded and sold.

Also they KNOW this is a big middle finger to their fanbase https://youtu.be/XRkrascT_iM?t=33 33seconds into their video, theres an item entry listed HORSE ARMOR.

THEY KNOW WHAT THEYRE DOING.

Edited: 16-12-2023

They tried to introduce paid mods. AGAIN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16taB7VNwxU

Only gotten past the first Boss. But I am loving this game. The theme, the metroid style combat/platforming.
I'm wishing I bought it now.

For those who havent yet though; its free and well worth it eitherway.

Okay. So where to start. With one word; No.

Gameplay: 4/10
It plays like Catan. Its luck, hand management and risk mitigation. You can go entire games getting rubbish rolls unable to do anything, or if you figure out certain placements (especially on the Freeboard), win every time.
Trading is simplistic; theres no counter offers, theres no choosing which person you trade with. You throw out an offer (3:1 or w/e) and the first to click yes, gets it. Even if that person is someone you DONT want to trade with, as it may give the victory. The Timer forces you to play Blitz style, and if you have a good hand of cards and need a long turn (talking multiple trades, multiple roads, settlements, cities or Developments), you'll be ♥♥♥♥ out of luck with 90seconds. Especially when other players can wait out YOUR timer, during trades.

Graphics: 7/10
Nothing to scoff at, but simple enough, could do with more intuitive "obviousness", you can highlight a segment to build off board or you can highlight a space. The latter isn't made clearly possible until you spot it by chance.
Trade window takes up too much room on the board and hides things like unbuilt pieces, but you can click off and return to the trade if need be.

Sound: 4/10
Repetetive music. Mute it after an hour and stick your own on. Piece soundsare as you expect.

Cost: 5/10
The cost to buy the game out right WOULD be considered respectable, especially in comparison to the actual board game (£15 vs £50) IF it included all the necessities you get from the board game. But a lot of it is cut down and limited (see Gameplay;Trading).

Monetisation/DLC: 2/10
On the F2P side, its bad. Mostly because of one thing; ONE UNCHANGING BOARD.
Because theres one singular board, there IS a few preset ways to win everytime. Notably, sheep abuse. 3/5/8 + sheep port breaks the freeboard and it becomes a mad rush for a player to nab one this spot. Its bad because its sheep on 3/8 and grain on 5. This gives you almost everything you need to 2:1 trade at the port for ANYTHING and if anyone robs from you theyre liable to get nothing but worthless sheep. It removes any need to trade and opens up the ability to solo any build requirement, Developments, Roads, Settlements and cities become trifling. There are a few other similar spots, but this is the biggest offender especially when paired with any other 6/8. (6/stone/wood or 8/brick).

Thats just how its affected gameplay. Money wise on the Scrolls and cosmetics, scrolls are the only way for Freebies to play with friends Free Match is with random people only.

Totals: 4,7,4,5,2.

GRAND SCORE: 4.4 BELOW AVERAGE - Would Not Recommend.

How to Improve:
1 of these: Give Free 2 Play the option to play with friends who are also F2P or Give PAID players the option to invite Free Players (meaning only one person in a group has to pay) but maintain the Free limitations.

This for certain: Randomised Board.

Reccomended: Tentative Yes.

Don't get me wrong, Ultimate Chicken Horse is a great game, but there are still some bugs floating around it (invisible players that cannot do anything, crashing on level load). Its also a tentative yes because ideally you need a controller to play well and its one of those games where youre best off playing in private sessions with friends.

Public sessions can and do often work fine, but you'll also have to occassionally sift through AFK Hosts and Troll Players who join.