Recent reviews by Tman

This is such a beautiful game with great movement mechanics. Unfortunately it is completely and unequivocally ruined by having to play 1 hour long campaign steps where if you quit you have to start all over from the beginning of said campaign step.

I ran out of ammo and no idea how to reload / get more ammo and I just don't have the patience to even post on the forums.

It's funny. You play TD games and when you reach the end of a level, you wish it had endless mode, but then you get this game which is all endless all the time, and my brain has a hard time coming to grips with this. So you get as far as you can, do some upgrades and rinse/ repeat?

No end? ever?

I just can't play like this.

I like the gameplay mechanics but It's just too hard.

I either can just run things at Hazard 2 and be happy or quit.

I choose quit.

It's got a good idea, I like the music, but this is strictly a "one and done" where you don't accrue anything for subsequent runs.

The game has some real issues - the dev has been fairly responsive, but they are also getting burned out. The primary issue is the space availability and how if things don't fit, they destroy something next to it. Without any kind of "ruler" or ability to see the spaces, it makes things very difficult.

Well, I got to a point with No Creeps were harmed that I threw in the towel. There is so much here to like - the story is weird, dark and self-aware. I wish I could have struggled through to the end to hear how it ends.

The 3d aspect of pathing and platforms has some very creative maps. Much of the time the map is littered with “junk” or “scaffolds” that you have to clear / rebuild to make the tile available. So you have this huge canvas that needs a bit of work to get to a path you want.

What I thought was a plus - so many towers, is actually a hard negative. For one, it’s nearly impossible to see any affect any tower is having on any one creep, so you have to rely on the descriptions that the towers are actually doing what they say they are going to do, but with so many creeps, so many guns, and ammunition flowing, it’s nigh impossible to see if a tower is doing any good or not.

Also the creeps nearly disappear with very little contrast between them & the background.

And that’s kind of what brought the game down for me. It’s a difficult game - I was playing on medium, with the intent to unlock everything and then come back on hard, but one of the primary items for tower defense - leaking, is and I quote the developer who answered me on their forums:

The “kill every creep” objective is going to be the hardest thing to get on every map. I suggest maybe going after these last, and just get yourself a good set of artifacts that work with your play style before trying to get 100% on all the maps.

And I just could not mentally handle the hundreds of creeps leaking. It just doesn’t feel like progress at all. This was on a later map - somewhere along 7 or 8 I think when i threw in the towel. Earlier maps, I had little issue in getting this achievement, and it wasn’t until map 6 (Relay) where I had a leak and 5 or so tries wasn’t working and I went to the forums and go the above answer.

It may be me, but I use leaks as an indicator whether what I’m doing is working, and to get the “3 stars” you need to stop the leak, but on the last map where I gave up, it was just too many and the number of towers you have unlocked (15-20 I think?) is just too many for me to play whack-a-mole with so threw in the towel.

It’s early access, but I have little faith the dev is going to change their ways.

I'm becoming too jaded in my old age. I'm just not up to the stupid mechanics of city builders that decide it's time your citizens are unhappy for *waves hands in all directions* for whatever reason. It's just too jarring and tbh I was having a decent time with exploring and finding the map. (oh, you need a church now! when I have like 16 people)

The compounded with the stupid tilt mechanic and no way to really measure it except for trial and error (if you don't build a balanced city, it tilts, and is a part of unhappiness) and I just wasn't up for this anymore.

I really was hoping to like this game.

I like both City Builders and TD games and thought "oh yeah baby!!!".

Unfortunately it has a few things that keep me from playing it:

1) Games take a LONG time to figure out whether you're on a winning track or not. We're talking 4-5 hours minimum and you're only 1/3 of the way there. I just don't like to iterate on those long tries.

2) They city just doesn't grow to the size you need it. Just as you're getting new babies, the old ones die off and it seems you can't build momentum to cross a threshold where you actually are decently growing to support the new buildings you need.

3) The mechanic that the longer you go without a leak, the game gets progressively harder, and in discussions on the forums with the dev, you actually want to have a leak and get attacked. But then the buildings they go after just kill the game and your attempt. No way to funnel them to a front-line garbage building, they will beelline it to your warehouse where all your food is stored.

I don't think this game is going to change and the dev has a vision they are sticking to. Unfortunately just not for me.

Too many enemies have homing missiles that are impossible to dodge
You spend too much time on the ground and Aloy takes FOREVER to stand back up
Cauldrons suck and you'll be doing way too many sections 4-5 times to "learn" all the jumps and hidden grates you need to time perfectly

It's a shame because I love the rest of the game and had replayed HZD in preparation for this game because I was really looking forward to it. But for this game, seriously, just ♥♥♥♥ it.

This sucks. Avoid at all costs.

The base game is so awesome, but this one, this one bites.