Disclaimer note: I find it funny how one of the few reviews here that actually gave detailed feedback and criticism, the dev actually responded to and gave me passive aggression.
"well thanks for the praise I guess, your review almost feels like a positive one."
Yeah well try to polish your games and not pump out 5 versions of the same game and you'll get a different response, I guess. Anyways, here's the review:
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I review games and DLC based on whether the overall experience is worth your time and money.
Is the game good? Mediocre
Is the game worth it at full price? No
Is it better to wait for a sale? Yes, 50% sale
Beach Invasion 1944 is a fun and unique 1 hour experience, and I hope more games like this come out in the future because the concept has a lot of potential. Not many games let you play from the German side during D-Day, defending the beach with machine guns, cannons, explosives, and artillery, so I am glad this game exists. The idea is genuinely cool, and for a short arcade-style World War II shooter, it has enough charm to be entertaining for an evening.
That said, I do have to be honest about what this game is. Objectively, it is not very polished or deep. The gameplay loop is simple, the waves start to feel repetitive quick, the sounds and immersion need work, and there is not enough content here to fully justify $10 in my opinion. The game could really benefit from more polish, better sound design, more enemy variety, stronger atmosphere, and maybe two or three additional maps to give the experience more replay value.
For example, this concept could become much better with more development. More defensive positions would help a lot, such as being pushed back from the beach guns to trenches behind the fortifications as the invasion progresses. The landing itself could also feel much larger, with way more troops hitting the beach to make it feel like a real overwhelming invasion instead of smaller waves of targets. I also think the weapons should feel more effective when you are manually controlling another unit, so the rest of your defenses still feel useful while you are focused elsewhere. More beach layouts, stronger weapon feedback, improved tank interactions, and better progression would go a long way toward making the game feel more complete. The Flak 88 and MG42 positions were my favorite weapons so props to that!
A quick tweak I would suggest is adjusting the tank traps. It can be frustrating when rounds hit them so often, so shrinking their hitboxes or increasing the area-of-effect damage from explosives could make the gameplay feel less awkward.
It is a cool concept. If the game becomes cheaper as its official base price, or if it gets a major content update, I could see myself changing this review to a thumbs up. As it stands, I would recommend getting it on sale. Thoughts and feedback aside, Thank you for working on the project, developer.
