Recent reviews by Saris

This game is one of those that deserves the mixed rating, it's not a good game, but it's also not a bad game, it really is a meh game.
Im writing this after nearly 80 hours of playtime, I'll go though the positives and the negatives and later sum it all up.
These are my personal opinions.

Here are my specs on the computer Im running this game on:
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
16GB RAM and windows 10

TLDR: Get it on sale

The positives:

Setting: I personally love the setting, I've always loved traveling to warmer climates, so the vibe feels like vacation to me. Driving between the small towns at night, dropping people on and off is just cozy. It's a change from other bus simulators, which usually stays in bigger cities.

Gameplay: You own the bus company and need to manage it as such. You're responsible for everything, which I like. It's more than just driving a bus from A to B, or a bus route.
You start off with having to buy a Bus, after that you take on contracts to earn some money. Once you've played for a bit and the game really opens up, you can do so much more. You're able to employ new drivers, mechanics, guides. Buy new buses, take on permanent contracts, shuttle servicec etc. There's alot to do and that makes it worth playing even after reaching "end game" (there's no real end, but once you've earned enough money so there's nothing to grind for, you might get bored if there's nothing else to do but driving)
You're also able to explore the island on foot and by car. And since there are hundereds of things to find, such as apartments for employees, resturants, gyms, hotels etc, you're encouraged to do so.
Basically, this game is more than just driving a bus, and I really enjoy that.
You can also buy your own homes and decorate them, so your main office doesn't have to be your main base.

Details: The buses are very detailed, you can press most buttons on the dashboard and interact with the bus. You can also walk around inside the buses. The sounds are also quite realistic, if you leave the engine on and walk outside, the engine sounds very realistic. Generally, you can see they spent alot of time on the details of the buses. They also handles like what I think a bus would handle like. (I never drove a bus so idk)

DLCs: I can't confirm this since I dont own Fernbus, but apparently from what I've heard, if you own the DLCs for Fernbus, they carry over to this game, so you dont have to buy them twice.

The negatives:

Graphics: The graphics on everything else other than the buses are quite meh.
The towns look fine from the bus, but once you start exploring on foot, you'll notice it's not very good. You'll find items clipping through buildings, road details clipping and flickering, items randomly falling through the ground.
Some areas need to be better optmized, I sometimes get 30-40 fps.
The AI cars are very low effort too, they look like PS2 models with as little details as possible to make them passable.
There's a total of like 10 or so different passenger models, and they're very low effort aswell. You'll pick up several duplicates every time you do a job. They're also completely expressionless and just sit and stare straight forward.

General details: Apart from the graphics, the general attention to detail is meh.
There are no pedestrians anywhere except for the airport, some beaches and gardens, and the ones you pick up or drop off.
There are no other buses driving around, there's a few parked at the airport but that's it.
The roads sometimes make no sense at all, there are curves that doesn't need to exist, bus stops in the middle of nowhere, roundabouts that could've been a normal intersection etc. Then there are several places where there are parts of the road where you need to literally go from 90kmh to like 20 to not damage your bus, and there's no warning beforehand.
As previously mentioned, you can buy houses for yourself, as much as I love this feature, unfortunatley the only positives are that you can buy them and that you can decorate them. That's it. There's nothing to do with them after, you can't interact with anything. They just exist. They're also quite buggy when decorating, some walls can't be changed, some lights wont work etc. I really hoped there would be more to them.

The AI: The AI cars are...there, and that's it. They have no sense of awerness at all, they'll block intersections, try to yeild for you in tight spaces by literally waiting for all eternity, even thou you're standing there waiting for them to move because they're in the way. If you ram them they'll disappear after a while, which is a bit funny, ngl.
They will be in the way in tight spaces and often just block you. Luckily you can lower the traffic density, because with high density it's nearly impossible to do a perfect drive.

Your employees: I got 4 drivers in total, all driving a permanent route each. For some reason they're never fully happy.
They work normal hours, have a good salary, yet they will start getting less happy after a while until you increas their salary, again. Idk if it is supposed to be like that or not, but I find this a bit annoying. As much as it adds a bit more to your managing, it just feels like it'll never end.

Controls: Im not entierly happy with the controls in this game. First of all the driving itself is meh, the steering isn't very precise and some mechanics feel unresponsive. For example, I bound the blinkers to LB and RB, and sometimes I have to press them twice to activate them, sometiems they just disengage even thou I've not turned my wheel the other direction, sometimes they dont disengage and I have to press it again. It a bit confusing and annoying.
I also found mapping my controller a bit annoying and confusing, but the worst part of this is that you have to remap the controls for each and every bus, they dont carry over.

Bugs: Yes, they exsits, I've briefly mentioned the graphical bugs already, but there's more than just that.
Here are some things I've encountered myself, these are not all bugs in the game.
First of all, something that you'll often notice when doing shuttle services from the airport is that not all passengers are waiting by the bus. Sometimes 1 or 2 will be inside the airport and you have to go find them. Several times they have just not exsisted at all. I've tried talking to everyone, both inside and outside, yet they're nowhere to be found. So I just ignore them and go anyway.
Sometimes when passengers go to grab their bag, they will just grab nothing and walk away acting as if they're carrying a bag.
Cars sometimes just disappear into thin air.
I've seen items disappear just fall through the ground.
Trying to enter the Neoplan Skyliner is tricky sometimes, you'll get stuck in the door unless you sprint.
Some stops wont work, I've only had this happen when creating my own tours later on in the game. There are two beaches I've added to my tour that just wont work, there's no place to stop and let out the passengers.
Sometimes when driving at night, it gets super dark out of nowhere only to go back to having some light again, idk if this is area specific but I've seen it happen several times in different areas.

Support for the game: It feels like the game is forgotten about, there have been no significant update for this game in a long time, I've not seen any updates from the devs about any future fixes or additions to the game. Last I heard they were working on a console port and to update the game to UE5. Other than that it seems quite done, which is a shame.

Summary: Despite the longer list of negatives, I have enjoyed the game, it's more than just driving a bus and I appreciate that. But it's not a great game, it's okii at best and if you're looking to buy it, get it on sale and see if you like it.

I loved HF1 and I have hundereds of hours on that game and I own all DLCs
I was very excited when they announced this game, and I thought I'd love it just as much as the first game, but unfortunatley I can't say I do
This game is not bad, but in my opinion it's not as good as the first game

This game has now been out for nearly a year, and since release we've gotten a few updates, but not too many
I have 50 hours played, I've done all jobs and now Im just trying to renovate the available houses, but after 50 hours and everything done, it just feels repetetive
There's not enough content to keep me playing and that's a shame
In HF1 you had the workshop where you could download mods and cool new items and that got me hooked for so many more hours. But with HF2, they decided to go with mods.io instead, and so far it's only community houses on there
I've personally not even managed to get it working with my game, that's on me, but I think the workshop option should return for us PC players.

HF2 has more creative freedom than HF1 does, where you can build houses literally from the ground up, you can color almost anything in any color you want etc, but that's the only advantage HF2 has over HF1

So I'd stick to HF1 if I were you, and get this game on sale

This game could be so much better if it weren't for all the bugs, unfortunatley it seems to be abandoned by the devs
Get it on sale or skip it, it's meh at best

Used to love this game, but unfortunatley due to a bug that's been around for years it seems, you can't progress and finish the game

they somehow managed to make fallout 4 look worse and play worse with this vr port

Used to love this game, but I can't really recommend it as it is. It has left EA but it's more broken now than it was when I last played it.
If they fix the issues, it's a solid and fun game, but right now I'd look at something else.

After 2 years and many updates I think it's only fair I change and update this review from a negative to a positive!

While writing this I've currently racked up nearly 260 hours, and Im about to explain the good parts and bad parts of this game

I love creative games, if I can build and/or decorate, Im probably going to spend hours and hours doing just that, there's a reason I've got close to 4000 hours on sims 4 (I swear I have a real life too) and when I first saw this game I was VERY excited to say the least

So, whats good, and what's bad?

- Jobs
(Pros)
Your goal in this game is renovating houses and apartments, and this is your source of money, this is how you earn cash
Every job is different and there's quite many of them, especially if you got the DLCs!
After you complete a job you unlock that house to be able to buy it and renovate it to your liking, this is where you'll literally have endless gameplay, and cash.
You can renovate each and every house as many times as you want, and with the DLCs installed I think we're closing in on 100 different houses and apartments!
I love how with each DLC released the devs get more and more innovative! The basegame houses just gives you a few tasks to complete, kinda fun in the beginning but gets meh after a while, but in the DLCs they've introduced us to choices, and in some instances give us a bit more freedom, so Im curious to see how upcoming DLCs will be, and also HF2!

(Cons)
Well, as I mentioned earlier, the jobs to get a bit boring after a while before you reach the DLC missions, but if that doesn't bother you, this will: There's a limited amount of jobs in the game! Yes, you can do them again, but who wants to do that?
Small tip for the devs: Im sure you've already heard this, and Im sure that you've already discussed this, but I think I speak for the majority of the players when I say: Infinate amount of randomly generated jobs!
Some jobs are hard to complete. It feels like they weren't completely tested before released, you can be given "too many" items (they fit in the room, but can't really arrange them to look good) and it messes with my OCD, I want to be able to arrange them to look good instead of it looking like a storage unit with a bunch of furniture in it just laying around.
Im also personally not a fan of the strict rules, I love how we get more choices in the DLCs, especially the rooms where we use inspiration pictures and a set of colors and furniture we can freely chose from rather than "buy this place here"

- Gameplay
(Pros)
The gameplay itself is smooth enough, Im running the game easily on my computer, with minor stutters (note that my PC is quite good, but even on my old PC at ran fune)
Using the sledgehammer to bring down walls is really satisfying! And if you're creative like me, it's a very fun game! You've got endless of posibilities! You can bring down all walls inside the house and rearrange the rooms to your liking, and now you can sell doors and windows too and place new ones, something that wasn't possible when I wrote my previous review
Only thing you can't change is the outer walls, the house will be whatever shape it comes as, and there's nothing you can do about it!

(Cons)
As I said, you can't change the house shape, something that imho is to be expected in a renovation game. I heard somewhere that it was due to how the game was built from scratch, so why the devs didn't think about this from the start I dont know
It stutters sometimes, even on my computer, but it's minor so I dont often think about it. However when the game automatically saves it will freeze for a couple of seconds.
Some controlls are a bit wonky and slow/unresponsive

- Content
(Pros)
With the basegame and all DLCs installed to date, you've got nearly 100 different houses and apartments, which is more than enough to keep you occupied for many, many hours
Since my last review they've also added steam workshop, which is my favourite implementation to this game! With it you've got thousands of items and it's constantly updated with more to decorate your homes with!

(Cons)
The game, without modifications, has lots of content, yes, but alot of it is just...boring, it's not a dealbreaker, you got enough furniture and decorations to satisfy most of you, but after a while you've gotten through all of the items and want something different.
Even thou there are alot of houses, most of them are kinda small and similar to each other. They're all supposed to be unique but some feels like they were just copied and pasted and then changed a tiiiiiny bit. And there aren't that many apartments (yet)

- Bugs
Yes, they exist. Both actual bugs crawling around on the floor (unless you changed it to glass) But also bugs within the game, and unfortunatley they are quite many
I've seen everything from "99% clean dirt" to furniture randomly disappearing. Even had a house I renovated ages ago randomly pop up in my "Owned houses" list (now this was a bug I didn't mind since I could resell it for profit again, but....how?)
So do expect to see them in this game


So to end this review, I just want to say that I can recommend this game! You'll have so much fun renovating houses, and if you can get it on sale with all DLCs, buy it!

Wont even start

I meet the recommended specs yet Im not getting more than 35 fps at best, usually stays at 20 or under

Used to play JC1 alot on PS2, loved it to bits
But, seems they're getting worse for each new installment.

If you're looking for a story, this one does not have it (well it has a story but it's not good)
Sandbox is okii but lots of improvments to be made for it to be fun, for example the vehicle handling is really bad, and dont even get me started on the bikes, those are a nightmare to drive

Get JC3, it's alot better than this, trust me