Dosrev legutóbbi értékelései

UPDATED REVIEW FIRST. ORIGINAL REVIEW BELOW UPDATED
________________

Well, there little better than when a game that has issues is fixed. When I first played this game a year ago, I was so dissapointed. Spending 90 minutes in the game at that time had convinced me that this game was nothing more than a cash grab, trying to suck off the success of puzzle quest. I suffered random and repeated disconnects which caused me to lose my matches. I was constantly slammed in the face with pay to win aspects of the game, and just found the game overall intolerable mostly because of this.

However recently a friend of mine tried this out and she ended up spending seven hours streaming it on twitch. I trust this friend and she said that she didn't experience any of the issues that I had in my review from a year ago. So I decided, what the heck, lets give it a second chance. That second chance went for over 3.5 hours (two hours more than my original playthrough).

I was pleasantly surprised.

Is the game still pay to win? Kind of, a little bit, yes. But bear with me on this point. It's a free to play game. You can't fault the developers for installing some sort of mechanic to recoup their costs. So of course there has to be some way to make money. So the fact that there are microtransactions don't bother me if ;
a. the game is enjoyable if you choose not to spend real life money
b. the game does not beat you over the head with prompts to spend real life money

Originally when I played this game, I hit a wall where I felt my troops were far too weak to continue, but couldn't upgrade them without buying 'gems.' I am glad to report that whatever tweaks have happened to the game in the last year have made this feeling go away. As I said, I ended up playing for three and a half hours, and at no point did I feel that I "NEEDED" to spend real life money on this game. Was the option there? Yes. Would it have helped me? Of course. But I was able to progress through quests, play solo content, and do ranked pvp all with only free cards and rewards. Some of those end of the quest line fights were tough... REALLY tough. Now at this point, someone might decide to go spend money, if they were so inclined. But I was able to get through it all without opening my wallet once.

Secondly to this, while there is always the big green plus sign next to your resources, allowing you to trade gems (the currency that you buy with RL money) and there are icons in the main game screen that take you to the special deals, AND there's a button to take you to the shop. None of these things feel very obnoxious. I never got a pop up that threw the cash shop in my face. This is in stark contrast to what I remember from a year ago. Did they actually listen to my advice and make the cash shop less obnoxious? Because if so, amazing job.

Ultimately you know that you are playing a game that has microtransactions, but you're never tricked into the shop, guilted, or made to feel like you have to spend money to continue playing. This, above all else, makes any microtransactions forgivable.

Is the game pay to win? No... more like pay to skip dozens and dozens of hours of grinding.

The other major problem with the game that I had a year ago was the random disconnects. When I played a year ago, I was disconnecting far too often. I think I DCed a total of 5 or 6 times in 90 minutes, making the game literally unplayable. Today I played for 2.5 hours and never even noticed a moment of lag. I can't say for sure, but I think they may have handled the way that the game communicates to the servers, as I got very short (fractions of a second) "loading" messages when I would level up, win or lose a battle, change my troops, etc. But never at any other time other than when essentially my game was syncing with the server.

This alone makes me have to change my review from a 'no' to a 'yes' recommend.

On all other points, this game really scratches the itch that was left in my soul from puzzle quest. Spells, skull gems, match 3, and even a little bit of story that makes you feel like there might be lore worth exploring. In addition the art, while a little bit cartoony, works well.

If I had to point out some negatives, it would be that the more common rarity a card is, the more worthless it is. It's very hard to make a troop with common cards that can even come close to competing with a troop full of rares. In addition troops leveled up with souls (which can be purchased with gems of course) are FAR stronger than their original versions. Meaning that the people who do spend money are going to have a fairly strong advantage.

Overall, if you're looking for a match 3 fantasy game, like puzzle quest. You can not beat this for the entry price (free). I am quite pleased to change my review from a no to a yess recommend, even though that wipes out all the votes it already had.

Sometimes it's great to see a bad game turn around and fix it's problems, and kudos to the devs for whatever they did to fix the mess that this game was a year ago. I'll absolutely be playing this again more in the future.




________________

ORIGINAL REVIEW BELOW THIS LINE
Original review written : Mar 12, 2016
20 of 30 people (67%) found this review helpful
2 people found this review funny
________________

I wanted to like this game so much.

I was a HUGE fan of puzzle quest, and have bought most of the solo games in the series over the years from that developer. So when I saw this I thought it was a no brainer. But after about an hour and a half in the game I'm really crushed by what I've witnessed.

1. Always connected means that if your internet drops, or their servers lag, or a mouse farts in china.... you drop connection. Now you might be saying "But Rhev, I have a good connection!" Yeah, you know what? So do I, normally. But in about an hour and a half I lost connection three different times. Once it didn't matter, but the other two times it was at the end of a match, when I'd won. Do you know what happens then? When you reconnect the game treats it as if you hadn't played that match.

THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.

That alone would give it a do not play ranking. But....

2. the microtransactions; Oh god the microtransactions. It's full on facebook mode here follks. PAY PAY PAY! BEST VALUE! BOOST YOUR GAME! LIMITED TIME!

I understand that a game that's free to play needs to monitize, and I don't fault them for it. But there's a way to do it that's obnoxious (like this game does) and a way that's subtle, and makes you feel all right about either choosing to support them with some cash, or not spending a dime ever.

You want to know what's good about this game? There are quite a bit of good aspects mind you, but you can go read any of the other positive reviews. I just wanted to give my thoughts on the problems with this game.

FIX THE LAG.


EDIT -
Played it again.... the game freezes up during a certain battle. Three times now I've tried to complete a quest battle and it always locks up around the same time when I use one of my troop's abilities.

Uninstalling now.

This is the best game I ever played in 1996. The only problem is it's not 1996, it's 2016.

Look, this game is actually pretty fun for what it is. What it is; a procedural dungeon crawler with a fun late 90s vibe. If you played and enjoyed those games, you'll like this. It's done well and the cash shop doesn't feel like it's beaten over your head. It's a free to play game, you could kill a little time with it, or not. But honestly for free, it's really not too bad.

LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE.

When I boot up my copy of the game, the mouse 'hides behind' the window and I'm giving 'controler buttons' as options, even though I have no controller plugged in. The game is literally unplayable.

I've done everything in my power to try to talk to tech support, give them specs, even recorded a video showing why the game doesn't work. Their response basically boils down to: "Well, this isn't a problem many people are having, so we don't know what to tell you."

I could understand a bug in an early access game and am very forgiving of this type of thing. What is completely unforgiveable however is the fact that every single attempt I've tried to make to get this game working or to contact them has been met with complete failure. It took them five days to respond to my original email, with what amounted to a form answer "Did you unplug your controller?" "Did you verify your steam cache?"

Of course, if they'd actually read my original email they'd know that I DIDNT HAVE a controller plugged in.

So when I replied to that form letter saying that there was no controler and the steam verification didn't help I got to wait another EIGHT DAYS for a response saying essentially that since my problem wasn't something being experienced by many people, they'd get back to me when they figured it out.

That was a month ago. Do you think I've heard a response from them in the last month?

Nope.

The company is s**t. I don't even care about the game anymore, because any company that treats a paying customer like that is f**king s**t and doesn't deserve your buisness.

There really needs to be a 'meh' option for games like this.

Look, this game is good. It's not great, but it's good. It handles everything you want in a tower defense well. I played for about an hour so far and I just came across with a great feeling of 'it's all right' at the end of it. All the classic tower tropes you'd expect are there. Starting chain gun tower (arrow tower) that can hit land or air and fires fast but weak attacks. The next upgrade is your bomb tower which has land only but does splash damage. Then you get the flak cannon, which fires fast, but can only attack air....

Gee I wonder what is coming next, maybe a slow firing single target tower? YEUP, called that one before I saw it.

Ok, so the towers are uninspired, but they work. How about the special abilities your commander can use? Lets see... acid rain in a hex for DoT damage, a bomb for AE damage, a slow, a sniper shot.... *YAWN* Again, they work for the game, but... just... meh.

Well maybe this fancy upgrade system....

Pretty underwhelming, what you'd expect, increase damage, range, or speed of towers. Upgrade your commander abilities. I feel like I've done this before.

Now the graphics... well... they aren't bad, but they just feel... very... dated. They would have been mind blowing ten years ago, and they look fine for 2016, but that's it, just fine.

Now the one thing I did have a problem with was the sound. The sound REALLY begins to grate on your nerves very quickly. The sound of my minigun towers seemed to drill into my very brain and cause my spine to itch. I couldn't turn the sound down quickly enough after only a few minutes of playing. The music is also pretty lack luster.

Look, overall, if you want a tower defense game to play, and this is on sale, go ahead and grab it. It's not BAD.... it's just not really that good either. It's a standard TD, executed well, that unfortunately feels like it's about 7-10 years too late to the party.

This game is a purrrrfect casual delight!

If you're a cat person, or enjoy strategic defense games, puzzle games, or physics based games, or even if you think this game looks mildly interesting; buy it. The definition of what this game is exactly is a little bit difficult to nail down. Part of me wants to call it akin to a tower defense game, but it isn’t, there aren’t really any ‘towers’ per say. Part of me wants to call it a casual game, but it isn’t, there’s more than enough challenging game play to satisfy. Part of me wants to call it a puzzle game, but it isn’t, it’s got a lot of ways to ‘solve’ each level.

So here’s what I can say it is for sure;

This game is a unique twist on strategic ‘base defense’. The attacks come in the form of cats that want to sit on your lap and cuddle with you while you’re trying to read. That’s right, if you ‘lose’ you have the pleasure of being treated to a kitty on your lap and a purring sound. It completely negates the sting of any loss instantly. There is a bit of a challenge in trying to get your base, which by the way is akin to a child’s pillow fort, set up exactly the way you want it before feline nemesis come and knock it down.

The music is great and fits the game very well. The graphics are cute and well done, mildly akin to scribblenauts, without actually looking like them. The gameplay is simple and at no point was I ever confused about what to do.

Also, for those who really want to push their skill, there are a multitude of ‘power ups’ that are actually quite tricky to use at the right moment. But I’ve done the whole game so far without using one, focusing on building my pillow fort to exact details. In fact if I have any complaint, it’s that the cats come a little too fast to use many of the power ups with confidence.

I am blown away how much I, as a middle aged man, have enjoyed this obviously child’s game. But I can tell I’m going to be putting quite a few hours in on this one.

I may change this review with a little more play time... but as it stands... VERY underwhelming. The music is nice, and I like the concept, but it just doesn't "flow" the way you'd expect a game too. It's a little hard to figure out what the tennants want, and combat feels very uncontrollable. Sometimes you get attacked and there's no one there. I understand the tennants have to go out to do jobs, but lets be honest shall we? This is essentially a tower defense game where sometimes your towers just aren't there.

--EARLY ACCESS REVIEW--
beta 0.248

There is a soft, almost zen like, wonderful quality to this game. That isn't to say that this is an overly easy game or one lacking in challenge. Far from it, figuring out what to spend money on, upgrades versus stocks, loans versus skipping a desired plot, there's a lot of depth and challenge to this game. There were more than a few times when I left a round having lost money, and cursing choices I'd made. But through it all, there's this sense of calm peacefulness as you play that puts you in a relaxed spot.

The music is a perfect fit for the setting. Western themed, yet, again a bit soft and relaxing, save maybe the last month of each round where it takes on a slightly more frentic tone, reminding you to move that oil, even if it is at a loss.

The graphics are somewhat cartoonish and a bit simplified, but it works, and works well.

There are a few things I'd like to see, like maybe game settings, more or less opponents, a difficulty slider, etc. Also some of the upgrades get ridiculously expensive. FAR too expensive for how late in the game they appear, when you're trying to save money for stock auctions.

But over all, I'm amazed how much I enjoyed this game. I ran through my first entire playthrough in a little over twelve hours, but I don't doubt I'll be giving it at least one more go-through before un-installing it. I would recommend this game to anyone on the fence about buying it.

I'm a fan of tower defense games, and this one does it well. While the graphics are fairly simple, you don't play TDs for graphics. You play them for strategy, you play them for replayability, you play them for massive npc killing. This one delivers all of that, and a lot of additional bonus fun. The addition of talismans, shadow cores, runes, etc, all make this a great TD experience.

=early access review= (beta 9)

This game was a sleeper surprise for me. I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I have been for the last eight hours. The concept is pretty interesting, take your average RTS and remove 'combat' from it, replacing it with rampant capitalism. You find this shift greatly changes the nature of the game. It's not quite like those economic space trader games, and it's not like a RTS. Instead it's a game that really seems to sit in it's own unique subgenre.

I enjoyed it quite a bit, and reminded myself that the game is still in beta whenever I found a flaw I didn't like, but honestly they weren't that big. There were two notable cons to this game in my opinion. The first is that the computer's voice is basically all of those crappy text to speach voices that you hear in different Operating Systems. Some minimal voice acting to replace it would go a very very long way.

The second problem I had with this game was it's price point. $40 is a bit on the high side, and I grabbed it for $20 on a steam sale. But even then the depth of the game feels a tiny bit shallow and repetitive for a $40 price tag. Still if bought on sale, or if the game is expanded further during beta, I'd absolutely recommend this game for anyone who is intrigued by the concept.

I look forwards to playing the game more when it is finished.

Yes recommend, but the game does has its faults.

Let me say for the price especially this is quite a fun little run and gun style game. It feels almost nostalgic in a way and the gunning components are tight enough. The flaws are fairly minor but are noticiable.

- There is some serious graphic pixilization when you play at higher resolution.
- The english translations are a little flawed, nothing major, but you'll see them.
- the one boss fight I found in my time playing resorted to some very 'cheap' tactics. (he somehow was able to do an almost 45 degree turn while 'charging' and pinned me even though I should have dodged him.

All in all, and especially for the price this game isn't a bad way to kill an hour or two. But don't expect a whole lot going in, and you might be pleased.


NOTE - I was given a free copy of this game in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.