Recent reviews by vuh

Highs:
- Fun rhythm/combo-fighting game. Really brought me into the combo-fighting(?) genre as a musician.
-Controls are reeeaal tight and the rhythm element makes it easy to keep track of chaotic fights.
-Combat made sense and felt fair.
-Great music (esp. original tracks); doesn't get repetitive.
- Feels like a passion project.

Mids:
- Platforming is mostly okay; either I haven't found the 'rhythm' of it or the map size/spacing doesn't sync up. - Story is average and generic, but a fun skeleton to tie together the gameplay.
- Characters and dialogue are pleasant, depending on your tolerance for self-referential camp.
- Unique (yet nostalgic) art style.

Lows:
- None so far!

Conclusion:
- The rhythm aspect is center-stage here. I've spent as much time in the practice room mastering combos as I have on the campaign levels. For someone as lazy as me, that says a lot. The generic story/characters/dialogue are elevated by *extremely tight* gameplay and a sense of sincerity that permeates every minute of the game so far.

I enjoy this! I use this for laid-back, relaxing gaming. Good for listening to podcasts, music, etc.

Things I like:

1. Smooth and intuitive design/interface - The rules and elements make sense and the game responds well to my intentions and actions.

2. Low skill floor, high skill ceiling, smooth difficulty curve- Each round has an easy beginning and gradually becomes more complex. The outcome (win/lose) of a map felt earned because I knew what good/bad moves I made along the way. I see myself improving the more I play, which is rewarding and motivates me to continue playing.

3. I feel in control; flexibility and creativity are rewarded - Success requires constantly shifting resources and the rules provide complete flexibility despite the resource constraints.

4. Low barriers for progression - Maps unlock if you score 200-500 passengers on the previous map, which is not too demanding on Normal difficulty - I like the chance to casually explore the game's 30+ maps without needing multiple attempts for high scores. There are some maps (Hard Mode) that are locked until you perform more difficult challenges, which hopefully provides the challenge factor that other players may desire (including myself in the future!).

5. Exposure to real-world Metro lines - each map is loosely based on a major Metro line in a world city. The map topology captures the general spirit of the city and the metro Line colors match those of the city's real-life Metro, which provides a level of authenticity and good research by the game devs. As a new citizen of Boston, I appreciated recreating the MBTA using the real colors (Blue, Red, Orange, Green, Silver!) on a roughly accurate map).

Things that gave me negative impressions: [Not many yet]

1. Some challenges require restricting your resources ("Use only one bridge") but you are still free to break these rules and accidentally disqualify yourself from the challenge. I have yet to attempt/pass one of these challenges, but I foresee a scenario in which a mis-click causes me to break a rule and disqualify an entire run. Perhaps providing a "challenge" button on a map that will lock your resources accordingly, would avoid this potentially frustrating situation.

I've played this with a friend and co-op is a blast. We logged 20+ hours on XBox Arcade before I purchased the title outright on Steam, and we still have a blast every session.

Things I like:

- Interesting setting: The "backyard" is so familiar but the crafting/survival perspective gives a novel, interesting feel to the setting. Every new area feels instantly familiar while also like a remarkable discovery.

- Intuitive user interface and crafting mechanics: Every shortcut I would desire is already built in. For instance, if you are standing near your storage chests and open your crafting menu, you can automatically use resources out of the chests to craft items without having to first place them in your inventory. The crafting and building menu and mechanics flow rapidly and make building a pleasant, low-hassle experience.

- Liberal building opportunities: Crafting rules are limited and have not felt restrictive - almost every crazy idea my friend and I came up with was allowed within the crafting system. We truly felt free to implement our creativity to achieve our goals and felt rewarded by the game.

- Engaging power scaling: The game has not yet felt like a grind-a-thon, as there is always a new area or challenge to tackle. There is a tangible sense of progress as you gain power over the beginning insects and have constructed massive, elaborate bases and walkways - however, there is always a more dangerous creature nearby and always another piece of the yard to tame. The gradual unlocking of better items and exposure to new areas with new enemies and resources has kept the game fresh - we have felt free to explore our desired priorities and have never felt without purpose between the game's quests and our own building/exploration goals.

- Character development: The four main characters are pleasant and their personalities feel well-rounded through their voice lines. There is a healthy level of camp all around, but I sincerely enjoy working with each of these characters and they feel distinct and fleshed out. Their voice lines are numerous enough and played infrequently enough as to not become intrusive or irritating, in my experience.

- Only minor bugs (software, mind you) observed: Aside from the rare insect getting stuck between blades of grass or underneath a tree root, I've detected no hangups or serious bugs; everything seems to run pretty smooth!

- Progress saves between plays: Everything on your character stays with you in a particular Yard when you leave and come back, regardless of who all has played since your last session. It feels great to "hop back in" to what I was doing without any hassle.

Desired improvements:

- Maintain player connection to multiplayer maps when experiencing unstable internet: My internet is unstable - every hour or so the router kicks me off for ~30 seconds. This is usually tolerable, but Grounded immediately disconnects me from the server. If possible, I would appreciate a feature that allows a delay or keeps the player connected or "on standby" when events like this happen for short periods of time. I envision such a feature (perhaps an option?) would smooth out connection issues and reduce the inconvenience of having to reconnect from the main menu. This is especially egregious because of the following concern:

- Fix voice chat not being restore when a player reconnects to an active multiplayer server: My friend hosts our co-op Yard and we use voice chat through the game as it is more convenient to his rig setup than to use alternatives such as Discord. However, once we'e launched the map I will eventually get disconnected due to my internet, and when I rejoin him, voice chat no longer works (we checked the settings to confirm it was still enabled). However, if he disconnects after I'm kicked and he then restarts the map and re-invites me, voice chat works again. This is a minor inconvenience in our case but if this is a standard issue, fixing it would be a huge quality-of-life improvement.



Overall I've greatly enjoyed this game and I look forward to playing it a lot more! It has been a rewarding and memorable experience!

I am greatly enjoying this game. I heard it was a classic but it has a ton of soul to it!

Things I liked:

1) Excellent world-building - The main story is cliche (fight the Big Bad) but the dialogue and story arcs flesh out the characters, makes the creative and fantastic world seem real, and give each of the party members a unique personality, strengths/weaknesses, and manner of speech that makes them feel real. The entire world is very memorable.

2) Good navigation - The story was clear about where to go next, so I didn't get lost like I did in Final Fantasy I. It felt only slightly hand-holding, but the nudges kept the pace up and let me progress to the next part of the engaging story.

3) Engaging combat system - The "Techniques" mechanic gives each character unique contributions and pairings in combat, which pairs nicely with combat's focus on spatial arrangement of enemies and the "charge-up" timer that has to fill before characters can take actions. Any team of three (of the six) party members will likely succeed in battle, some combinations and strategies are much better (for each given situation) and a lot more fun to rollout!


Things I would change:

1) Combat can degenerate - Many times, using auto-battle would work, as standard attacks could clear out basic enemies with little trouble. I also got over-leveled early on, which made most battles (even mini-bosses) feel trivial as I didn't need to develop strategic battle plans.

2) The port crashes when entering/exiting buildings - This port is moderately stable. Only when changing between world screens does it crash, although auto-saves usually occur within a few minutes of these events. This was a minor inconvenience for me. My save files have always worked, thankfully, so no corruption/loss yet!

Overall: This is a mostly-stable port of a fantastic, memorable, and engaging classic RPG. Entertaining writing builds a strong main cast adventuring through a fantastic world on an engaging quest, gaining strength through teamwork in combat and benefiting the people they come across, all leading up to defeating world-threatening evil.

I really, really like this game.

This game feels repetitive and endless. I would only recommend it for playing with friends as a party game. My friends play raids together all the time and enjoy it! I've only played alone and it just didn't hold my attention. I never bought campaigns or season passes - perhaps that's where the real entertainment is located.

The game feels smooth and encounters "feel" good with detailed graphics, clear visual response when hitting targets, and very clean user interfaces.

However, every encounter feels soulless and I got no tangible sense of progress. Every area respawns infinitely and your equipment scales gradually and infinitely.

Seems like a good choice for a party game, though!

This is the first time I've played an FF game. The port seems to work well.

Things I like:
1) An old classic - good to see a foundational title in a now well-established series.
2) Tangible power scaling - character and enemy power-scaling feels tangible yet scaled well.

Things I'd change:
1) Better signposting/directions: Several times I didn't understand what the next objective was and where I needed to go. Very frustrating with random encounters and slow walking speeds.
2) Can't avoid random encounters - (that I know of). Auto-battle helps, but still a waste of time with little benefit.

Overall, I recommend this port; it works well and it's a classic game!

Entertaining and unique rogue-like.

Things I liked:

1) Story/concept
2) User interface during combat - systems and crew were easy to manage
3) Easy to learn, difficult to master - you know your final goal is a big space battle, so you can manage upgrades and survival accordingly.

Things I would like to change:

1) Random difficulty curve - the inherent randomness in rogue-likes makes it possible for some runs to be extremely easy (until the final battle) or impossibly difficult; some things just aren't meant to be.
2) Limited variability - Unlocking new ships or variations requires getting achievements that I found difficult, especially those involving random encounters or ship upgrades/crew that are all dependent upon good dice rolls during each playthrough. This reduced the novelty of replay for me.
3) Lengthy run-through - Each playthrough is pretty long (up to 1 hour) just to die to a bad roll in the last sectors and walk away empty-handed and with no unlocks (see above)

Overall, definitely a recommend!

This game felt dated when I played it in 2015, until I realized this was the game that invented all of the standard FPS elements I found to be "dated" in this game.

A significant cornerstone in gaming history.

Good stuff. My go-to resource for playing Halo online with the boys. Still getting heavy attention and updates from the developers, so this product will likely continue to improve over time.

If you want access to anything Halo, I recommend this vesion.

Even MORE pills here.