Recent reviews by Doctor Gumba

Really nice, just be aware this is still REALLY early access. The devs are working well on it, and the stuff in it is fun and promising. But it IS something to keep in mind ofc
But it got personality, humor, charm
And nice gameplay concepts. I for one will happily be on the ride through early access

okay sooooo.... this is probably the angriest "Would recommend" I have ever written
Cause I still see this as a great project with great passion, and some great elements and parts. But I have some things to say as well, and I am keeping this so dramatic in the hopes somebody wil actually bother to read this sack of shet. SO:

Everything starting from level 10 is horrible. I am SORRY, but it's true. (In my experience) the levels are obnoxious, gameplay is annoying, janky, tedious, or all of it. It doesn't fit to the gameplaystyle this game is going for, and the style anton was designed for. (somebody on the dev team had a real boner for precision platformer challenges, wich was only a tad annoying at the start levels, and just plain dumb near the end. Especially in the last level. Killed the entire energy of the level at that point, having a slow and annoying bouncing challenge mid level....)
And overall, it often wasn't really sure what it wanted to be it feels like.

NOW: THE JANKYNESS (or however it is spelled)
You gave the player a lot of momentum physics to work around with. wich is good in itself. Just doesn't work if it is ALWAYS active. Like moving on ice the entire time, especially when the hammer gets involved. and it causes a LOT more problems than just in the precise platforming segments. Or sometimes I tried to duck and suddenly slid where it made no sense, on other slopes you can't slide where you should, cause the game is pretty... flexibel in deciding what counts and what doesn't. But the whole jank is the real problem, wich you really notice starting at the late levels ofc. Before that when the levels were more chill, it was maybe just a bit annoying.
And all this just shows that they didn't quite finish thinking it all through, or just... didn't playtest anymore. Last exmaple to prove that point:
When the big spiky fish chases you in the worst level in the game, the camera always moves towards him as soon as he get's somewhat close enough. Not only can that lead to... shakes, YOU CAN'T SEE THE PATH IN FRON OF YOU! AND YOU ALREADY HAD A SYMBOL IN THE GAME TO WARN YOU WHERE THE FISH IS!


****Spoiler warning, DO NOT read this if you don't want to get spoiled****
And to my last point: The bosses :)
All the bosses were great, mini or not, BESIDES THE LAST TWO
The bell and the devil.
The bell is just... a lot of projectile spam and one very difficult laser attack. The other phases are not much of anything, pretty easy, not much going on. Just REALLY annoying
ANd the devil.... his first phase COULD have been the best, but his hitboxes are janky, especially if you try to jump over him without the hammer, and if you DO choose the hammer, you can randomly take damage if he decides for a fast jump attack then, so that is a nice gamble. Even the momentum when he falls down from the sky feels inconsistent
The phases where first he, than you run away was... well at first running after him was fun, but then the run bag was kinda funny, but annoying.
The big last phases were just...... odd. Not hard, expect for anton dashing diagonally instead of straight up often. attacks repeated fast... that kind of stuff.

That's basically it. So why would I still recommend?
Cause the devs are still there! And like I said, it's a nice project still with lot's of nice things! And I can bet they can and will polish this whole thing up until it shines truly! There was lot's of amazing stuff! But for now that I have finished through the game, it might take me a while before I actually want to complete it, like I originally planned
If anybody read all this, thank you... I am exhausted now

This game made me happy, more happy than others games did in a while
You can freely choose how much you actually wanna do from the tons of sidequests, secrets etc.
You can collect MANY team members if you want even.
I did EVERYTHING, and it honestly never felt exhausting
And the story itself is already humoungousoussus, and really nice

The only critics I really have are for the ending parts of the game
1. The final chapter has some really repetetive combat (Wich is the only chapter that has that problem btw.)
2. The actual finaly is overstuffed, like the second part would have been better as it's own thing. And even the actual final scenes and fights are stretched way too much, and even felt a bit cheesy at points (like it was ripped from...certain animes lul. Wich again is the ONLY time I felt that way, tho it IS unfortunate since it is the ENDING of the game
3. Some fights near the end are just really really long dispite not that much happening. But this really just goes for the 2 longest fights (If you know, you know)


But yea, while those are important points to me, this game is still peak. Every reference was well done, never felt obnoxious or tedious, it was fun, had nice combat, lot's of stuff to collect, beautyful areas and a GODLY soundtrack. (Really it is amazing!)
And the team is still very active, even have an active discord! I recommend checking it out if ya like what you play!

So lot's of love from me, at least 8.5 crows out of 10
XOXO

A long time Lost castle fan now played 2 hours of Lost castle 2:
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT
Not even saying it's a perfect game or anything, I like being reasonable, but I didn't have this much fun in a while. And I didn't even get to play with a friend yet!

The game looks amazing to me, with a nice style and great animations. You can feel very strong when batting through enemies, but you can still get hit a lot if you don't keep an eye on key enemies, or if you aren't quick enough. But it's not unfair! Everything can be dodged. You either time it correctly, or get out of the way
And even heavy attacks, yes they hurt a lot of course. But no absolute insta-kill etc.

Progression is also nice, with each new boss/chapter beaten you unlock something, and you get a good ammount of rescources, pretty smooth

And the BOSSES.
Big part of the game, also completely fair, even if hard. Great rythm, great feeling
Literally called this "better dark souls" during a boss. And again, this was only playing single-player. THIS HAS ONLINE COOP!

There are really just 2 lil balancing things I can think off so far.
1. Throwing is a lil op, especially against normal enemies. I would remove area dmg from throws. Only the thing you throw and the thing you hit takes dmg. And only if you hit something, the thing you throw should take real dmg. Except explosive stuff of course. Maybe even reduce throw dmg a lil bit.
2. Normal enemies should have a LIL more stun-armor, so they aren't just decorative fodder. Just so that light hits need 2 hits to stun the enemy enough to cancel his attacks. Cause you can just run in and stunlock everything very easely

But honestly, i am so happy how great this is. A HUUUUGE step up from the first game, and this is only early access. The devs are already working hard to improving the problems people are having.

So thumbs up to the team, I rarely wrote such a positiv review

YOU CAN DO THIS! YOU CAN BRING THIS GAME BACK! YOU HAVE STRONG FANS LOVING THIS GAME! WE WANT THIS GAME TO CONTINUE! BEST MOBA EVER!

THIS GAME IS REALLY EARLY ACCESS, EVEN IF IT DOESN'T SAY SO

I really want to like this game, but there are some REALLY fundemental problems.
The main Problem being, this game is SLUGGISH as hell.
You get 1 unlock after each run, wich works for other games, but the runs in this game are SLOW. Wich feels even worse, because the music is dramaticly fast, especially in the first area. But the game isn't. You move pretty slow, the enemies move slow, bullets are slow, you get the point.

Bosses have a lot of health but only 2 or 3 attacks total, so that feels bad.
You basically have no guns or Items unlocked at the start, and once you unlock the shops for both, it takes a while to unlock much. After a good run, you can unlock maybe one gun OR item.
The lobby feels more like gameplay than the runs.

You don't have many interactions in the runs. You can't even swim. AS AN AXOLOTL

There are many bugs, game not saving your controls completely for example

Enemies can spawn inside you, cause it is only a seed, not smart spawns.

There are not many enemies in the game, and they are slow and simple

And my last point:
This game is not really... violent.
It also falls in the "game to slow" point, cause you just chill there with some rolls while slowly making the 5 enemies per wave drop. But also... all the friendly npc's are just casualy helping you, dispite you supposedly being a murderous psycho

It's a good game.
Sure, you notice it's not a super fancy deluxe 4k ultra game, but it has pretty fine gameplay, a LOT of content/replayability and it even has coop!
The designs are cool, the gameplay is simple but can feel pretty nice and rewarding.

Some bosses might feel drawn out and might take ages, many weapons are pretty much useless, but overall, still a nice experience. Learning what weapons are good and what weapons are not also feels pretty interesting

Not one hundred percent flushed out and people who want to complete everything will be frustrated at some mission because you have no clue why something did not count. But for the most part and the main gameplay, this is just gorgeus. plays nice and funny. long and hard at the later fights until you know what you are doing

Gooseworx did great on this

The game is a bit expensive if you want to have much choice, you have to grind a lot if you want to have much choice and it STILL can be a bit repetetive. But that mostly it I think with downsides now. The developers actually make a lot of changes to make the game better, it can be tons of fun with friends and random people. You will be frustrated at points, but you probably will have bunch of fun. The start is a little rough maybe to learn, even more so because you WILL be paired with higher leveled people. But learn the game a bit and you MIGHT have a lot of fun