Rotwood

I came back after a 1+ year break and the game feels a lot fuller and more fun. I don't know why it's sitting at mixed right now, because it does deserve a strong rating.

First off, let's just start off saying I love this game. It did a lot right. Beautiful music (sometimes even dynamic which is cool), animated cutscenes are top-notch (even if the protagonist framing is a bit awkward, it's excusable), and aesthetics are really up there. They really sold each area of the game in a riveting way. Unfortunately, that's where my full-on compliments start to cease. [h3]Core gameplay (otherwise, The Hunts)[/h3] Don't get me wrong, the gameplay is beautifully animated and VFX'd but it's still missing that impact factor if that makes sense. Killing every enemy doesn't really feel like a proper struggle, more like either too easy or a slog. It felt kind of OK in the beginning, but the issues start to show more as the difficulty ramps up. Getting items doesn't feel entirely satisfying because most items are obtained in more limited or passive way. You don't really do anything special for most of them, and between the different biomes/areas most if not all materials are functionally reskins. While there is plenty of to experience with the power-ups and some of them are even invigorating, others miss the mark. Either not doing enough on their own or they don't put enough impact on your run at all (even when you completely hone in on a sub-type of a power-up.) The map layouts for the first few areas are excusable since the player may be still trying to learn how everything works, but then everything feels samey, especially after the the second boss or so. I was hoping to navigate something more intricate eventually but it was just the same four-way dungeon style the whole way through with the same room types since the beginning. Not many wrenches were thrown. The enemy variety is decent all things considered but they aren't all that gimmicky enough, so to say. You can more or less approach all of them the same way and defeat them without much trouble. Though this may be a problem with being able to insta-down and easily dodge many of them. Things only become dicey when you have to deal with hoards of enemies, but you can zone them, especially when you are able to move faster. [h3]Power-ups[/h3] Some power-ups are really "meh," some hinge too much on other power-ups, and others are you know for certain you're not failing when you get them. The way I see it, power-ups need to all be somewhere between "meh" and "non-failing" in quality for the whole "progressive skill-obtaining" to feel good. Power-ups could also shape how you play more than they currently do, though I can see an attempt was made for some of them. Make me feel like I need the power-ups or make them more relevant to the area. Power-ups of the same type could be more tempting rather than more common. As it is now, the most desirable ones are ones that speed up gameplay (often ones that simply give more flat damage and speed) because they're the most consistent. There are a handful of unorthodox power-up builds but they rely too much on getting the right RNG. It also can't hurt to make power-ups that are really good to be more rare. There are special rooms for power-ups but they feel hardly different from the regular ones, as you can often get skills in those special skill rooms outside of that room. Maybe it could do some good to only let the player have skills exclusively from that room so it feels more special? [spoiler]The risk-reward power-ups lean too much on the reward side. For example, Body of Light is a power-up that makes you do 3x damage with the drawback of only having 1HP. But there's not much drawback to dying once in a multiplayer setting in exchange for who knows however much damage you'll deal with it. 3x damage lets you one-shot a lot of enemies, which matters a lot because you can kill enemies before they can even pose a threat to you.) In fact, the best strat I've found seems to be prioritizing quickly killing enemies before they can attack. Even so, having an ability with that much risk and reward feels odd. It changes the trajectory of the run a lot. Then you have Cornered Coyote, which is a flat +50-100% damage while being under 500HP. Considering the default HP is 700 and there's not much incentive to making it higher when you can just instead invest in HP regeneration (potions), this isn't much under max health and you can probably steadily maintain that HP amount.[/spoiler] [h3]Gear[/h3] The way they reworked potions is a bit confusing. I was given the impression there would be different potion types but there's nothing besides healing so far. Also, it is now way too easy to heal from them now (and decidedly quantity over quality is better because it gives more HP per teffra). There's not much incentive to go to the regular shop over the potion master now because it's a gamble. But when you don't need healing, you have the problem of the potion master being useless. It feels like there's no winning when it comes to that. I think the balancing between the different weapon types are fine but the weapons within a weapon type probably need more work. Some feel a bit underwhelming lacking a strong gimmick. (In fact, many of the boss weapons are just copies of other weapons with the same abilities.) Some weapons stand out a lot compared to others and it doesn't leave much question which you use if you want to play a certain way. Armor types was an interesting proposition but light armor is still overwhelmingly better than the other types from the mobility factor and being able to do attacks faster with them. There's not much benefit from the heavier types, even when they try to offer more protection and damage, you're still simply being outclassed by light armor. If you care about efficiency, you can move to the next areas much faster with light armor and dodge speed bonuses (which is also better for your damage-preventing potency), so all the heavier armors seem to do is slow you down. Many of the weapons/armor feel more or less pointless and that you're simply collecting a lot of things as many of the effects are only good for maybe the current point of the game you obtain them, if that. [h3]Misc. Gameplay Features[/h3] I do love the character designs and their dialogue a lot but there's not enough involving the characters for me to properly care for them as they are in-game. Even with the gifting system it feels half-baked. Cooking and farming doesn't feel rewarding enough considering you can play through the entire game without it with no trouble, so that's two characters that are decidedly not that important to gameplay. The NPCs I hoped to interact to more were the ones you met in Hunts, but there's really no way to correspond at all. [h3]Final Words[/h3] Missed potential is an understatement. I will try to still be keeping an eye on this game in case anything changes (but don't hold me to my word, it's been a long time). It doesn't feel like a $30 game in its current state, more like $10-15, which is really hard to say but I want to be honest. For that reason, I am going to have to leave it as a can't recommend.