Nanotale - Typing Chronicles

[h1] Nanotale delivers a fun time that doesn't quite follow up the predecessor Epistory, it just needed a more solid foundation in order to even match. It's still a fun game, but it does warrant the "warning." [/h1] I did like 'Nanotale,' it continues what 'Epistory' does, not the story itself as it's more of an anthology here, but the game design itself. It's interesting and cool to see, however and I mean a big [b] HOWEVER [/b] this does almost everything worse than the previous title. It just fumbles the bag in a lot of areas, but it still is a fun time and if you liked the previous game you'll probably enjoy this too. Below I will list pros and cons as I think it'll be easier to list and to read as well. Probably more cons as the game is significantly worse than the previous game. I am not categorizing since it's still comparing 'Nanotale' to 'Epistory' for the most part so even though you'll understand, this is how I'm doing it. [h3] + = Good and - = Bad. [/h3] +The game itself feels much smoother to control than Epistory. The animations are smoother so it doesn't feel clunky, you get to navigate faster right from the get-go, etc. -Navigating the maps can be a chore especially when removing fast travel, while it was minimal in Epistory it at least allowed you to go to the start of certain sections, which here it would've been more than appreciated when dealing with convoluted levels. + This is going to be more than subjective, but the aesthetic the game goes with is still more than gorgeous. It really does immerse you here, I don't think I would say it's better than 'Epistory's' as it goes really well with putting you in the story book there, but I wouldn't say this is terrible or worse by any means. - Optimization in this game is absolute garbage. I have no clue what they did here as 'Epistory' ran absolutely fine, this game while it doesn't struggle for the most part, you will have more than noticeable issues. I saw no performance gain going from 'Ultra' to 'Very Low' neither did I see any graphical changes other than shadows being eliminated or just being present. Cutscene audio is not in sync in the beginning of the game and the framerate was terrible until I got into the game itself in which everything ran absolutely fine. The game does stutter during certain boss sections, not in the main game itself, but especially when fighting the guardians during the last level of the game. It's just bonkers here. While I didn't experience any glitches or anything, the performance wasn't exactly great. -/+ For me this is a negative, but it may be a plus considering who you are especially if you might be younger or aren't the average typist or are just looking for something to chill with, but the difficulty in combat is much easier this time around. The first game made the pacing feel natural as you had to learn things in order to slay hordes of enemies while this game you feel like an absolute god right from the beginning. This doesn't feel bad, but if you wanted it to build up like I was expecting, it's just not here. - The pacing is pretty bad here, I'm just gonna be honest. This game places intentional blockades without the ability of interacting directly with things like electrical poles, 'Epistory' let you learn the zap ability specifically to power poles up to open gates, 'Nanotales' makes it to where you have to interact with something else in the environment whether it be an enemy or plants, but you still have to then hit said item directly just causing issues at times being unable to hit it directly even with the ray, large, or spread abilities for the spells. It makes you run around in circles intentionally causing artificial length in gameplay, it just makes you go "What the f**k?" It's just bad when you can see it going on is all. +Achievements are much easier than 'Epistory' if you are an achievement hunter. Literally just play the game through making sure to collect everything and do some side missions. I don't mean to sound overly negative because the game for the most part is good, but it feels like 'Fishing Cactus' took every idea that made 'Epistory' good, but then threw that s**t out the window and made a lot of the game mechanics worse. It just ends up feeling like a title that isn't a "sequel," but feels like a title that was the first, I know it's not technically a sequel, but I hope you know what I mean. It's a good game, but if you were like me and played 'Epistory' first you are more than likely going to go "Oh why didn't they bring fast travel back?" "Oh this doesn't work nearly as good as it did in Epistory!" etc, etc. It just draws comparison for obvious reasons. This ends up feeling like either a sequel the developers just didn't understand what made the first great or it ends up feeling like a sequel that just feels like the first title instead because of how poorly it can be structured. I got both games for $3 altogether so obviously I would recommend. I would recommend regardless, definitely not at $20, but certainly at sale price. It's good but severely flawed, if you are in a pickle of wanted to choose 1, either choose this first because of how poor it is or choose 'Epistory' first for how much better that feels.