Tag: Replay Value

[LEGACY] Undertale

NOTE: There will be a few spoilers in this review. Not major spoilers, but more to do with the core functioning of the game and not to do with the story.
Mentions: EXP, LV (LOVE), Training Dummy, Nature of the game’s “life lessons”, all gameplay routes, that some characters die (but not specified which do), and a brief explanation of the first 5 – 15 minutes of the story.

Undertale is a debated masterpiece by tobyfox, spanning a fandom which has been thriving for years (7 to be generally correct) which still, to this day, sparks the creative fires of its fans.

The last time I played this game was years ago, getting through the game on a pacifist run and getting really fucking stuck on the dummy level. At that point, I didn’t appreciate the music as I was too busy getting super aggravated at the bloody cheating dummy.
If I went back to it now, I’m not certain how well I would fare. I’d possibly do better or there is the possibility I’d do worse, as over the years my style of gaming has changed considerably. (From being a COD and Halo player to Skyrim, Oblivion and Indie games).

Undertale is one of those games that tries to teach you life lessons, but has trouble deciding which life lesson to teach you, as there are so many relevant ones. But also, you are changing all the time as well, and what you consider to be the best decision may not be the same as what you once thought.
It’s not the most groundbreaking game in terms of “I did a wonderful thing, why did things turn to shit?”, no, no, that award goes to the first 15 minutes of The Captain and a few other games I’ve forgotten.

You can play Undertale one of three ways, kill everything in sight (Genocide), kill every minor enemy in sight and spare every major enemy that has a personality (Neutral), or reason with everything and kill nothing (Pacifist).

What the game does, is set you up.

It gives you the basics of the game. Kill things, and it gives you XP, when you level up, you increase your HP. The point that this game makes however is that it never told you to do those things, and further on you can discover that killing people and the creatures you come across is bad (believe it or not).
How bad? Well, if you go on the Genocide Route, one of the main characters reveals to you that EXP is an acronym for “Execution Points”, a commentary on how you’ve mercilessly slaughtered everyone.
Okay, that’s pretty bad, but when you get enough EXP you increase your LV, which is short for LOVE, that can’t be bad, right? Nah, bro, you still fucked up. “LOVE, too, is an acronym.” Apparently standing for “Level Of Violence”, you’re executing of all the innocent creatures and people, levelling up just how much of a violent threat you are.

The neutral path isn’t that much to speak of, characters make remarks about your killing of the minor enemies of the world (which are classed as their citizens, no matter how ugly they are or if they attack you). The major characters will not really be pleased with these actions and will make some, but not all, friendly interactions unavailable, especially with the lawful good-type character.

The pacifist route is probably as you would expect, and while I do love grinding for EXP and advancing my levels, knowing that I can be friends with everyone instead is just so heart-warming. There are honestly a few minor characters that have my heart, one in particular is apparently always made fun of for its appearance, and is crying in its sprite (not the drink, the character sprite). You can console it and tell it that it’s good-looking, and the fight will stop because you’ve cheered it up! Just getting your first little “Awh…” moment is always great.
Especially when coming to the big bosses as well, you will feel compelled to fight as each of the bosses (which is basically every main character) throws everything at you. You almost feel like turning around, saying “This bitch…” and using ye olde Attack button. Dodging every attack and appealing to their humour or trying to calm them down. Rinsing and repeating this a good few times can have you on their good side, and if you’re lucky, you could get a date with someone really great.

The story, as spoiler-free as I can put it, goes as so. You are a human child who, one day, when frolicking in the land humans occupy, fell into a deep, deep hole, onto a very convenient bed of flowers.
Your character, who is called Frisk, apparently, wanders around until she runs into a very nice lady. The thing about this lady is that she’s a monster (but she looks super cute though, so she passes), she nurtures Frisk and looks after them until your character starts wanting to leave.
The very pleasant monster lady, Toriel, panics and informs Frisk that they can’t leave. The only way to get back to the human world, above, is to go through the land of monsters, and they will try to kill any human they see.

Of course, the story can’t progress if you just stay, so you push on. Toriel isn’t having any of it, and this becomes your first battle. I’m sure she says something like “I can’t let you leave as they’ll kill you…” and makes reference to her doing it herself, so it’s less painful?? I’m not certain, I have a weird memory of that happening.
After you decide whether your child character kills the very nice Toriel or not, you’re out into the land of monsters.
From here you meet plenty of other monsters, minor characters, random chance enemies and major characters. Your main objective being “Escape”, but it’s so leisurely as while the monsters are struggling to survive underground… it’s such a beautiful and unique place.
You find out how the world of the monsters works and the lengths they go to pursue and catch you, their hopes and dreams, and their ambitions and morals. They see you as a morally evil being due to the stories that were told about humans and their traumatic history with humans. No wonder they’re hell-bent on killing or capturing you.

Make friends or enemies along the way, discover horrible truths about monsters in general and about others more specifically. Even the practise dummy that you were told to hit by Toriel has beef with you, and it’s super pissed. But the end of this game is not the end, as, debatably, the best feature of this game is in its replayability.

From what I could tell, this game does not encourage you to replay the game, but it has a strange tone about you from the start, almost speaking to you like an old friend.
But upon restarting the game, it’s immediately made known to you that the game knows you’ve restarted the game and will make commentary on your actions within the last run. Whether you killed everyone, killed no one or didn’t finish the game, it’s onto you.
It turns out that you’re still playing the game, the choices that you’ve made impact your next play too. Though this is a “new” playthrough with a “new” Frisk, it’s hinted at that this is the same Frisk. Time rewinds and Frisk has full recollection of what happened in the previous game, whereas only a few of the monsters do, the rest of them are reset and have no memory of what happened. Even dying if you killed them the first time around. I’m sure at one point, a character you killed in the game before said something about dying in a dream when you start a new run.
One of said characters directly calls you out on this with it’s always snarky tone, and one alludes to knowing, and depending on the route you take, will reveal to you how much they know.

This game is an expertly crafted machine.

However, the dark side of this game does not really come from within the game itself.
People can find this game unappealing if it’s not the type of game for them, they may find the game ugly, or uninteresting, which are all perfectly valid. (But how can you not enjoy the music? I listen to this on repeat unironically.)

The real problem with this game is the toxic fandom.
Real, great things come out of the fandom, going on from being completionists to lore hunters and theorists. Branching off that into discussing alternate universe versions of the characters and shipping other characters and art and… I could go on. Fandoms are wonderful.
But one thing that this fandom is the absolute worst for is toxic backseat-gaming.

We will look at the case of Markiplier (yes this is the second time I’ve mentioned him in my reviews, I used to be a gigantic fan, leave me alone) and his Undertale experience. Not the video itself, but the mass number of comments in his videos relating to the toxic fandom attacking him over his choices in the game.

Markiplier, of his own volition, heard about the popularity of Undertale and decided to see what the fuss was about. What he was about to learn is that the overwhelmingly positive feedback of the game had led to overwhelmingly expectant fanatics of the game.

“Undertale is just oozing with charm, so get ready for an adventure! Moreover, my friends would not shut up about it, so I had to see the game for myself!”

The Description of Markiplier’s Video.

Alas, he made the mistake of recording it and putting it on YouTube.


He managed to get a few playthroughs into the game before his choices enraged the overly expectant section of the fandom. Bear in mind, like in all cases, political, cultural, religious, fandom-based, the majority are usually never the “problem” when it comes to issues “created” by said group. Instead, it is usually those who shout loudest, the vocal majority that are usually the issue (as typically, the true majority of these groups want to be left to enjoy their shit in peace.)
The vocal majority of the Undertale fandom is comparable to the stereotype of ‘feminism’ used to denigrate it, or the many “Karens” used to justify why your cousin’s newborn daughter shouldn’t be called that. So, when people mention the “Undertale Fandom”, they immediately think about the vocal majority, instead of the true majority.

“Everyone was disappointed in the way I was playing it, and ordinarily I would just be like: ‘Y’know, I’m doing it my way. I’m gonna do this,’”

From a Kotaku Interview.

Markiplier only got two videos into Undertale before the pressure of the wave of toxic fans of the game had completely overrun his comment section. A combined total of almost an hour of video, and Mark reading out all the dialogue to make it entertaining, had meant he’d not reached the first town yet. Which, on a solo playthrough without an audience to entertain, would take a lot shorter of a time.
Mark did not get to really even experience the game, as something he’d done within the game, had made the toxic fandom so mad they had to harass him.

He gave a fan-favourite character… a “redneck voice”.
Oh, the humanity! How dare he give a character which has no voice, a voice that is the wrong voice! How is it the wrong voice? It just is!

Oh, and he’s doing the genocide route instead of being a pacifist and completely missing all the friendships that he could’ve made, and that’s not how the story is supposed to be canonically… Wrong! You HAVE to play it pacifist first so that you can feel the PAIN of killing everyone and tugging at your heartstrings, oh my goodness, it’s just so wrong.

There are more threatening comments than this. This one was the more “on the fence one” before it got nasty.

The wave initially overflowed his chat with a wave of insults towards the voice and the fact that he was killing things because it’s not the way that they believe the game was intended to be played.
There were then people trying to “reason with Mark” by pointing out why he should do the pacifist run instead. These explanations were overly detailed and spoiled a lot of the game for him.

“I’m not having fun making these videos because I know that no matter what I do, everyone will think I’m wrong.”

From a Kotaku Interview.

“I feel like I missed out on [Undertale] because people ruined it for me… Even though this game is wonderful, I feel like I missed out on it because people tried to control it too hard. And that’s a lesson to learn about something that you care for very deeply. Allow other people to experience it in the way that it should be because that’s what the game is about. That’s a lesson to learn for both the community that facilitates around Undertale and life in general in anything that’s not Undertale. Let it have room, to breathe…trust the people that you care about to find their own way, and make their own mistakes, and discover new things you may have never seen. It’s about trust, you know?”

~Markiplier at the second attempt of playing through it on a livestream.

It wasn’t only Mark who was affected by this onslaught of negativity, it had hit the entire side of YouTube that was playing the game the way they wanted to.
People who had newly started the game, knew nothing of what they were “supposed to do” and were going into it blindly, as you should with games.
Attacks were being felt on all fronts.
And you can tell how bad a fandom is when it garners the response of the creator.

There is more than this from TobyFox on the whole “bad fandom” thing, but I could only find the one where people were spoiling the game. Which is bad enough in itself, but not as bad as harassment.

I won’t go on for much longer about the fandom, as it’s honestly not something that’s wrong with the game itself.
It’s actually a sign as to how, when something is so good, that it brings together everyone to be so passionate about the game. It’s just unfortunate that they turn into mindless drones of “You’re wrong, this is the right way to do it.”
Tobyfox was probably one of the people who were most affected by it, seeing their creation as an instrument used to excuse why people are turning so sour against people who are only trying to enjoy the game.

At one point, I’m confident that TobyFox even reached out, on Twitter, to condemn this behaviour. If not, there was something said, as I remember the massive uproar from both sides of the community.

However…
In conclusion, this game is a subjective masterpiece. Not everyone will like the game, and not everyone will like certain parts of the game, be it pacifist or genocide. But this game, single-handedly, made such a significant dent that the impact of it will be felt until the next considerable upset.
A game with a core that powerful that it drove people to be toxic (who were probably already just as vain/toxic and needed something to latch onto) to passionate levels and seek those who were in the wrong. All that mattered to me was the tricky boss fights, the freedom to choose and the epic music (which I listen to unironically).

Zest Rating
9.5 Out Of 10. Golden Lemon, super Zesty.
This game is a look into the masterpieces that TobyFox can achieve. I’ve still not played deltarune and need to. Powerful enough of a story to give toxic fans a backbone to aggressively backseat regular players. The outstanding soundtrack and plot-loop is genius. I would stream the game, but we all know why I don’t.

Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented.  Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.
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[LEGACY] Berserker’s Descent

Keymailer strikes once again with a lovely looking indie game for me to have a look at, and this time, when a game says it’s “hand-drawn” you can just about smell it through the screen.

Berserker’s Descent is a 2D sidescrolling, zone arena-type game. In each instance of the game the map and what you face will be randomly generated as you make your way through, the amount of enemies and the enemies you face will be generated via RNG as well. You make your way through small segments of the level, parkouring and smiting enemies in your way using the variety of attacks you possess, until you reach a combat zone.

Just before this combat zone, the souls you will have picked up along the way and earned via slaughtering your enemies can be used to buy abilities or to heal your character. It’s up to you to spend them wisely before you enter the place of your possible, imminent demise.

From here, you will be limited to the one area while enemies spawn and crawl on from offscreen, multiple attacking you at one time.
Here, you can see where the game really picks up. Using different combos of your varied attacks and keeping the kill combo going, you can rack up lots of souls in a single wave. After going through a number of these arena zones, you’ll eventually be confronted with one of these zones having a boss.
Each zone gets progressively harder with damage modifiers, you get offered more power-ups and things become more expensive.
This game is a roguelike game, however, so your progress does not save, and when you die you are returned to the very start of the game. Your progress is stored on a leaderboard though, which is a nice feature, making the game more repayable with the added competitiveness.

Before moving onto the pros and the cons of this game, I’d like to address the game’s art style.
This game is not the best looking game ever, and in terms of visuals it’s very simple.
A lot of reviews for this game on steam regard this game as ugly or looking unpolished, the latter I can agree somewhat. To say this game is ugly, I think is a bit of a fetch, while this game doesn’t have the most detailed visuals or the nicest artwork, it still serves its purpose in a clear and concise way. It’s overall, a very decent attempt at game artwork and is nothing short of acceptable. If you want an ugly game then might I refer you to Spherecraft, there is absolutely no reason why Spherecraft should exist.

Spherecraft – Minecraft worked because with cubes you don’t have gaps.

Pros:

  • The game fully works, no audio or graphical glitches/errors/bugs.
  • The game has mechanics for both attack and defence, both have many different combos and with the added power-ups and special attack move styles make for really addictive gameplay. Not only do you have to use different keys for different attacks, but also need to use specific keys for directional attacks as well. An addicting challenge to master.
  • The added power-ups pre-zone creates for so many styles of gameplay, leading to character types. While the RNG prevents you from being able to get exactly what you want, you can create similar character builds most of the time, making it really fun to test different methods of approaching bosses.
  • The game has online co-op, I’ve not seen it played nor did I find anyone online that wanted to play it with me, but imagining tackling these bosses and levels together with someone else is definitely interesting, and I would love to feel just how powerful we are with two people.

Cons:

  • The platforming rooms are the weakest part of this game, the character is quite heavy and can land quite quickly after having a floaty jump. Enemies in this area are hard to dodge too, or are just placed in difficult areas for you to hit them from. These resulting rooms feel slow to the rest of the game and contribute to you getting a lower score due to it killing your combo.
  • The hitboxes on some creatures are way off, on others it’s slightly off, while on most it’s fine. It’s one thing that you feel as if you get used to, up until you come across a new enemy type, but there are a lot of times in the game you’re swinging and missing despite the character’s sword visibly swing through the enemy.
  • The early game bosses are punishingly hard. I will admit that if I wasn’t so interested in the game, I may have given up in my first playthrough due to the first boss’ difficulty. It is a learning curve, and it does beat you down, and as much as I can say that it’s part of the game, and it’s to make you step up your game a little in regard to skill, it can be really off-putting to come up again something that hard that soon.
  • I do not consider this a con, but as it’s a con for a lot of others in the steam review section, I’ll pop it here. The game doesn’t look the best. It looks like a game that you wouldn’t look at a second time if you had a quick glance. This is largely to do with the dark, grim and bland colour palette that’s displayed in at least 65% of the game. (I feel as though the colour choice is apt, and the grim, scruffiness of the artwork is charming and fits) The artwork is heavily under-polished, and regarded to as ugly a lot of the time.

Price: £7.19
Time To Complete: N/A
Achievements: 27
Cards: No
Worth The Money: Not quite. With a decent discount, yes.

Overall, this is a neat little game. While not having a lot to do entirely and everything being down to RNG, it’s set up in a way where it gives a lot of replay-ability due to the permadeath nature of the game, leaderboards and the addicting difficulty of “Maybe if I’d just taken that power-up instead”. The dark theme and design, coupled with the almost bedraggled state of the artwork, create for a dire looking game with the bleakness of your chance at victory with your huge, dull sword.

Zesty Rating
4.5 Out Of 10
A small roguelike game where you run and slice everything in site, referred to as an “ugly” game, but instead in its roughness I see character. Difficult and unforgiving, challenging to it’s core. Could do with some refining in animation and cleaner hitboxes. 

Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented.  Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.
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[LEGACY] Alchemy Garden

I am completely in love with this game, and the game is still in Alpha. How is this possible? Oh yeah, a combination of things I’ve always loved, a concept that’s always worked and the fact that the dev/devs are seriously putting in a lot of effort into the game. This game certainly enters my top 10 of games that I’ve received from Keymailer, and it’s not every halfway finished yet due to it being in Alpha stage of all things, not even Beta!

Alchemy garden is a game where you, a budding alchemist, move into a shack outside of town and do it up enough to where not only can you live in it but sell from it too. Like Potion Craft, you go through the day picking your plants and herbs, create potions to your heart’s whim and proceed to sell them to the random members of the public that wander in.
Unlike Potion Craft, however, doing everything by hand, picking every flower and mushroom, and running around the entire outside area. It’s so… tranquil. Not only this, but you can also head into town and interact with the townspeople, not that they have much to say yet. There are two shops within the town, one is a seed vendor who sells 3 different types of seeds with varying rarities every day, and a carpenter who sells tools and furniture.

This game is currently in Alpha stage as I mentioned before, so there are a few things I could pick up on that would make the game better, but nothing too game-breaking.
The recipe book that you note all the potions you made in is not very user-friendly, putting the potions that you make in the book in the order that you found them. This makes looking for the recipe for potions really tedious, as you have to flip through every other potion before/after it to find it again for a customer.
Another thing is that when I was placing furniture outside (I’m not sure if it’s after I slept, or after I saved, quit and played the game a day later) on returning to where the furniture should’ve been, it’d vanished!

There’s another few things with objects like flowers spawning on top of each other, the inside of the cave taking half of your stamina to traverse because you have to jump all the time, and the general finickiness of putting ingredients in the cauldron… but aside from that, this game has the makings of something great, and I genuinely can’t wait until the full release.

Price: £7.99 (Update 10.99 now)
Time To Complete: N/A. However, with the limited potions right now, it took me around 2 hours to get all the plants to create every potion craftable.
Achievements: N/A (Yet) (update 44)
Cards: N/A (Yet)
Worth The Money: For most games in Alpha, I’d usually tell you to steer clear of any that cost money, as you’re “paying to test the game”. In Alchemy Garden’s case, I see this as an investment into what the game can become. So definitely, yes.

I can’t write much more about Alchemy Garden, because there’s not that much more to the game. It still has taken 5 hours out of my life and will continue to do so when I feel I need a little of that cutesy, free will, potion maker and sell ’em game.
With that 5 hours, I did the same thing over and over again, reminiscent of my very much enjoyed 400+ hours of Stardew Valley, and not one time was I bored.
If you’re a person who likes the potion making and selling aspect of Potion Craft, the free will and no clear direction of Minecraft and the endless, enjoyable farming routines of Stardew, then £7.99 shouldn’t be too much for you.
Even so, this game goes on sale more often than I stream. So if you’re still not too sure, you can always pick it up for a steal at some point.

Zesty Rating
4 Out Of 5. That first little pip of pomegranate that’s so full of flavour. And because it tastes so good, you know the rest of its insides will taste the same.
A richly colourful and cute game. Harness nature and pick up countless flowers and herbs to make a vast array of potions. Despite being in Alpha, it shows great promise for a full and addicting shopkeeping game which allows you to go at your own pace.

Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented.  Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.

NOTE: This game is flagged as “Retry”.
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[LEGACY] Gedonia

Another game from Keymailer, this time one that I had high hopes for. Promising classic open-world RPG elements and fun adventures, Gedonia looked like it was a bit of a break from the burden of AAA adventure games without being an indie MMO. Allowing almost full control of doing whatever the fuck you wanted and building yourself from there.
And while the promise was fulfilled, I feel like it was fulfilled in the more lacklustre way.

Panning opening scenes and great panoramic views, all done with a low poly, but still nice enough looking design. A great deal of time spent on the opening of the game, making the player lean on the edge of their seats, drawn in and ready for an experience.
You exclaim to your dad, who is not your dad, that you had DREAMS! And those dreams make you absolutely sure that if you go to the cave that’s at the top of the mountain… The TRUTH would be REVEALED!!!
Cut to your character clipping through the rocks as they climb the mountain and find a cave. You gain control of the character to walk a few metres to find a shrine of some sort when the “ooga-booga” happens, you see some visions and then nothing.
That’s it, come back out the other side and make your way back and your character hints to knowing things but never says it.

From here on, I’m a little lost.
I feel like the story has just been dropped and there’s nothing, just tumbleweeds.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s apparently lots to do, and there are lots that I can find, but usually these games have some sort of overarching bigger quest. While I know that there is a bigger quest, after all the hype and the “exploration” and the big overwhelming seeming “ooga-booga” stuff, it’s just dropped. It’s almost as if it weren’t relevant or never existed in the first place, or like it never really mattered.
What I loved about The Elder Scrolls games is that while you have this overarching quest that you knew that you needed to do, and it was very prominent, you could go out and do anything. While you can still very much do the same here, the importance of this quest isn’t gripping enough to give me a pull to the game, and that’s the whole difficulty of balancing aspects of a game like this.
In The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, the threat was there and it was very real. Within the first 10 minutes of playthrough you’re already introduced to the characters and the types of characters you meet along the way, not only that, but the enemies and the overarching threats are also shown as well. The gravity of the situation hits you as the emperor is killed right in front of you, as the cultists also try to kill you as well. You’re given the royal heirloom that will save the day as a constant reminder of your task and escape the sewers into this free world where you can do anything.
This is what Gedonia is missing, this overarching weight and threat. While I feel that it was trying to do that at the start, which is so crucial, it fell flat, which meant the rest of the game as well followed suit.

Pros:

  • The game works, no game-breaking graphical errors or audio glitches.
  • The game, while low poly, which is not to everyone’s tastes, looks great for what it is. Bright colour palettes for the first zone which is bright and cheery which contrasts lovely with other areas such as the swamp and the dead-lands.
  • The focus on exploration is great for an indie game. It has such a vast and open world with lots to discover. Off-stream, I played a bit more of the game and delved a lot further than I had on-stream, and found that the developer puts a lot of great detail into the places of interest.
  • This game has the start of a great character developer. With a different build for different types of characters and playthroughs, it really allows for some ‘re-specing’ or replayability.
  • While still a bit clunky and not polished, the crafting system is simple and is tailored to the level or level range of your character. The things you need to craft are not outrageous in comparison to the time and effort needed to find the resources, in tie with how hard it would be to obtain such resources at your level. It’s well-thought-out.
  • There appears to be an array of puzzles within the quests available. I’ve only came across one puzzle so far, but it was simple enough to solve but just as good. A good balance of being simple yet challenging is hard to find within indie games.

Cons:

  • This game is in early access, everything is unpolished and unfinished, it is not a finished product. This is more of a disclaimer than a con, but is probably the reason a lot of the cons I have so far exist.
  • There is a lot of character clipping in the cutscenes (and a little in the game itself) which is a minor flaw, but when watching it took me out of the game a bit.
  • The “main quest” of this game almost has no weight, which when starting a game like this you need some sort of momentum to propel the player forward, a little push or shove to get the ball rolling. For me, the quick intro and cutscene just didn’t hammer the nail in enough, and more or less hammered it into the coffin for the game. It left me with no motivation to explore or actually see the quest through as I had no urgency, and no sense of wonder as to what the character meant in all this.
  • The other quests in the game don’t really hit home either. The only quest so far I vaguely had any interest in was the person being constantly hit by lightening, but just like the main quest, something fell flat within the quest that just made me uninterested again.
  • The environment of the game, while being nice looking and scenic for the art style that it has, it’s very dead, there’s nothing else to it but what it is. Seeming to be full of life, but lifeless all at the same time. The NPCs, as well, also lifeless. While of course, we can’t all have wandering A.I. that have their jobs and schedules, but their animations are also rather flat and dead as well.
  • The combat for the game is very clunky, stiff, and slow. The dodging is more of a roll or sidestep, and when you’re a low level, it’s REALLY tricky for you to level up when suddenly ambushed by a bear or group of bandits. It’s difficult to tell where I’m supposed to level up because I don’t see any levels above the bar and always feel a bit overwhelmed being a new character.

Price: £9.29
Time To Complete: N/A
Achievements: 16
Cards: None
Worth The Money: Yes, when it’s a finished game. Not right now, however.

Overall, this game is in Early Access, there’s not much else to say. Gedonia has been in development for some time and from what I can see in the other reviews and the community for this game, it just keeps getting better and better. It also seems to be another lone dev game, which is something I love. It’s still in Early Access, for good reason, but doesn’t claim to be anywhere near finished.
I can wholeheartedly recommend this game to people who want something to follow and love as time goes on, a work in progress and hopefully not a project that may get abandoned at some point.
I cannot recommend this to people who want a full game, who long for an experience without pause, who require a robust adventure to fill their soul. I believe that there will be a time that I can recommend this game for that, but that time is not now.

Zesty Rating
4.5 Out Of 10
A work in progress by a lone dev, a promising outlook. Adventure and endless possibilities promised and a great journey to be had when finished. The unfinished part is the only negative, and it’s a little empty, but it’s acceptable by Early Access standards.

Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changed to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented. 
Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred.
I look forward to writing for you all again.
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