Lakeburg Legacies

I played the demo and was excited for the full release, but had read reviews to say it wasn't worth it and to wait for it to go on sale at least. So I did, and now I understand they were right. Even fully released it still feels like a demo. The RNG of villagers leaves you strained when you get above 40, and the relationships between the couples and their neighbors don't really add anything to gameplay. It feels more like a passive resource gathering game than a matchmaking one.

Such a cozy village sim! I love marriage and generations in my management sims so I found this really enjoyable. It has a beautiful storybook style with detailed animations, I like how the profiles are customizable like a picrew avatar builder. I do wish that I could see some sort of tangible interaction though, like seeing villagers interact instead of just reading a log about it. But I'm sure that would affect how the game performs, or make it harder to manage the village. I haven't done many playthroughs yet but after my first playthrough, I did wish there was more fanfare to the end of my game's timeline, like ending credits or montage. Sadly I heard there's no more dev support so I don't expect any quality of life updates or improvements made. Still, I recommend it- especially when it's on sale for 70% off (which is how much I got it for).

I just can't support a game about eugenics, no matter how cutely they package it. Really, who are we (or more specifically, the developers) to say which physical traits are "good" or "bad" or "undesirable"? This way of thinking quickly descends into ableism. Also, there isn't much to do in this game anyway. I played for about 15 hours and then I was done. I felt like there was nothing left to do that was worth my time. With so many great games out there that you could be playing, I don't see much of a reason to spend your precious time playing this one.

Normally, I don't play games like this. I have ADHD, so games that have a lot of elements to keep track of continuously are usually not easy for me. I prefer narrative adventure games. But, my wife asked me to try it, so I gave it a chance after watching her. Gotta admit, it was fun. It wasn't hard to keep track of everything. The layout is easy to navigate once you get used to it. The storylines that keep the town moving forward are fun. Matchmaking is oddly addicting. It honestly sucked me in. One of these days I'm going to try endless mode and see how far I can go with it.

I'm not sure what these people are on about with their complaints that the game is incomplete? It's a nice, easy-going game. Sure, it can be repetitive, but all games like this are. I see this as a more town management game and you actually get to build different buildings and put people where they would fit best. Something I think is cool is that you can just overthrow the king/queen at any point if you want? I dunno, this is a really interesting game and well-worth my time. I WILL SAY that I recommend getting this game on sale. It's a good game but not worth $20 in my honest opinion.

In all fairness, the art is beautiful but the gameplay becomes repetitive quite quickly...

Extremely sweet game with gorgeous art. Unfortunately, the gameplay is just not fleshed out enough and as others have said becomes extremely repetitive after about 6 hours. The management aspect is especially lackluster, where the order you build new buildings in being decided from the start. The game would probably benefit from fdropping the management more and making it more about the relationships since it is very unique. If it was worked on more I think it could have become a great game, but as it is, I can't reccommend buying it for more than 5-10 bucks as it becomes boring after some hours.

I would recommend Lakeburg Legacies for someone that likes the idea of Anno 1800, Against the Storm, or Settlements Rising, but wants less complexity and more dress up & story elements. Lakeburg has good random events between fully customizable characters, which means you can decide rather to banish or embrace Taylor Swift and Jack Black's BDSM cult, for example. If you have no desire to spend at least 1/4 of your play time designing villagers, this might not be the city builder for you. This is a game that makes me constantly wish for more features -citizen lists from literally any other game in this genre -customization options for the houses especially, but a handful of style options for the buildings would be nice too -more options to influence how citizens interact with each other, tamodachi style -a way to change life goals & traits -a way to heal a broken heart faster -access to all the pop up tips?? This is one that I feel like has to be in the game, I'm just missing it some how. It gives you all these tutorial tips but once you click out of it, you never see it again. Usually these are in an encyclopedia-type thing in the menu, but if it is there I can't find it. -Option to filter villagers by employed in a job that isn't their life goal. I usually have to assign new villagers to whatever job has an opening, but then cycling through 40 jobs trying to remember who needs reassigned is meh -Actually, a job list too. Gimmie spreadsheets.