Spy Drops

UPD: Issues with bodies not hiding is fixed. Thank you. It is a solid original MGS clone with procedurally generated missions between a few story missions. Not a fan of Rogue Games, but Spy Drops pulled me in, so a big plus, although I preferred linear story missions. The story is heavily inspired by the first and third installments and is brief but right to the point without any unnecessary strayaways. Great cinematic-ish cutscenes and music. After experiencing the gameplay, I would say I got quite eager to experience the original MGS if I had the possibility to play comfortably and not have a god awful Master Collection as the only legit way to play it. Controls are great, so no issues anymore, although I wouldn't know what to compare to. As for the situation around this game. Sadly, it is a great example of how marketing campaigns own the popularity. I clearly remember how everybody was praising the MG clone - Unmetal, and seeing how Spy Drops was immediately dropped (sorry for the pun), begs the question, do true indies really stand a chance in modern industry? To developers, if they read it, as your previous projects have shown, the PS1 stylistic is the best way to go on, and I hope you will stick to it, because it looks and feels really great and more unique than Mario-esque style. And the last point about the so-called "scandal". I would say only that it is very easy to pick on small indie devs and not the multi-billion dollar corps like NVIDIA, Microsoft, Apple, or Google, who are the true promoters of AI and potential culprits behind the firing of hundreds of thousands of people and further mass unemployment. But the puny, feeble, and intellectually weak people feel like the single-person (or a small team) game developer is the one who should be blamed and persecuted. It is easier that way. To finish the topic, I would be the devil's advocate in this sentence, and remind some people that Salvador Dali, or Bob Ross (for a more modern audience) haven't lost their jobs because of the creation of photography, opera singers and troubadours didn't lose their actuality because of the creation of sound recording, and so the game industry or art industry, as Kojima himself said, won't disappear due to usage of AI. Talented people will always be needed, but that cannot be said for mediocre artists or copy-pasters. This is absolutely valid. My point, dear dev or devs, please don't take it personally and keep making your projects the best way you can. You did a great spy game and should be proud of it, you deserved it.

I find this game's development to be a good object lesson. The developer released the game with AI voice, and got a number of negative reviews, with that supposedly as one of the major reasons for it. They changed it (I don't know what it cost them to do that), and basically nobody changed their review to positive who had put it to negative, they simply changed what they were complaining about. Personally, I felt the AI voice was a quirk you got used to in 5 minutes (I played this when it came out and beat it), nobody who actually liked the game was really going to be that put off by it. The lesson is that you really shouldn't listen to your detractors; I'm sure if the developer made more changes, the detractors would just find something else to be upset about. Still, it's a fun game, and if you like the idea of a roguelike MGS retro type game, you'll enjoy it. I got what I wanted from it, and I think it deserves a positive review.

Beautiful PS1 'inspired' graphic style that still holds up today and doesn't look like crap! (Ultrakill TransNalis, Gapewashing) Great voice acting that doesn't sound like they got AI to do it. Responsive controls and spine tingling intense music.... Yep I'm thinking this is a TRUE LGBTQ+ transcore indie game that I'm going to NOT refund! This is truly a standard razor for the indie game market. If you LOVED Signalis you'll love this game!

I see that you're trying to go for the MGS1 vibe. I feel like the dialogue and the general story need to be worked on. Seems like a high schooler wrote a rough draft and decided that was enough. Some of the animations in cutscene, like the backpack drone movement, are down right hilarious. They're skit tier. I've only played a bit but this feels like a proof of concept. Needs more time in the oven.

The bar is set high with MGS, but the game doesn't even try to jump. The dialogue are very bland, every time i hear colonels voice i want him to shut up immediately. He has next to nothing interesting to say. The introduction is also weird. Throwing around non-militaristic words around and treating it as militaristic is just odd. The gameplay is something i fell like is the biggest issue. It doesn't even come close to MGS. MGS level design is superb, flawlessly mixing enemy movement in a environment that feels realistic, but also is designed around gameplay. None of these things have been done here and you feel it immediately. The game feels like a very bad summary of MGS's gameplay and story, that has been developed into a game.

I was lured by the charm of MGS1, but this game is not even close to its quality. Watching enemies get confused by doorways is funny though. First impressions were terrible, game doesn't play right at all.

i was really looking forward to playing this game for a few months, and it's pretty disappointing unfortunately. i will still be following updates tho because i do think it has a lot of potential even though it feels like an early access title that's marked as fully released. the good: art direction, animation, premise, setting, controls/camera so everything about this stylistically always stood out to me, and kept me engaged while playing. the cutscenes and character animations also feel good. i also like that the setting for this seemingly follows in mgs' anti-capital footsteps (i don't actually know if this game has a story tbh, only was able to see the intro cutscene). i also think the game controls well and feels responsive. the camera is maybe a bit too generous with how much you can see around the bad: voice acting/dialogue, tutorials/guide, minimap, level generation, combat, alert system i don't think the VA is bad, just kinda fine. it doesn't detract but it doesn't add a lot either and probably could've been text based and left it to the imagination. the character writing is kinda bad, it's a little too meta/just bland. doesn't feel great when it wears its visual inspiration so boldy on its sleeve. you only ever get 1 popup for tutorials per save file, so you have to remember everything perfectly. with how niche of a game this is you also can't find any info online. there should be a dedicated menu with these tips. the minimap is very barebones, and special mission markers don't seem to actually appear on it. i mainly played a mission where you had to target specific soldiers and none were marked like the tutorial said they would be. i didn't get to play a wide variety of levels but the few i did didn't feel consistent. occasional dead ends and sometimes sparse soldier placement/quantity made them a non-issue. lethal combat feels too fleshed out in comparison to non-lethal. upgrading your combat stat makes fists super lethal, and leaves you with only sneak attacks as a reliable combat option if you don't want to lose all of your mission reward money. i get that in mgs it's way easier to go lethal, and that's the point. but it feels weird to open the game with your boss telling you to avoid killing, but the one reliable non-lethal staple of mgs can be accidentally permanently changed to lethal. guards also don't care about bodies, and if they wake up from being knocked out they don't care either. they should probably just stay asleep longer like in mgs if they're gonna forget about you anyway. the alert system also is completely undermined by a few different factors. you can just hide in a dumpster and they'll eventually forget, or under cover and they can't do anything about it. they won't shoot or kick you unless you're standing or sticking out respectively. there also doesn't seem to be any penalty for alerts despite the heavy lethal penalty, so if there are cameras/tripwires but no guards around there's not much of a reason to hide from them because new guards don't spawn. tl;dr/final thoughts i really, really, really want to love this game. i don't normally click a ton with roguelikes but the existence of an mgs style one sounds amazing on paper. it couldn't replace those games but it's not trying to either, it's going for its own take on the formula. i'll keep following this game and hopefully return to it in the future if it keeps receiving updates

(Please ignore the playtime and lack of achievements. I played on a different account.) I'm gonna say a lot of mean things about this game. So it's important to clarify that I really like it, first of all. Spy Drops is what you get when a group of developers who have no idea how to make a Metal Gear game try to make a Metal Gear game. Overall the game is like a 4/10, but occasionally it shows you something fascinating that makes you go "Damn, I really wish this game was good." If it were good it'd be like an 8/10. Alas. Let's start with the soundscape. The music is good! Pretty unmemorable, but good! The rest of the sounds range from bad to acceptable. It's got pretty good locational audio, which is nice for a stealth game, but god help you if you try to take anyone hostage by pointing your gun at their back. Because my god. Your ears will explode. The graphics are also pretty nice! It's clear that more work went on the MC than anything else. But it's a good looking game! The final boss in particular, from a visual standpoint, was quite fun. They could be better, but overall I do like the look of the game. Let's talk gameplay. The gameplay tries to combine traits from the entire MG series into one game, obviously it inherits the most from MGS1, but there's traces of every single game's DNA in it. And the idea of randomly generated missions with prebought and OSP items is a solid idea. The execution is lacking, but I think it COULD work if executed well. The major weakness is enemy variety. There's basically only one type of enemy and about...3 kinds of obstacles. There's technically a bit more than that, but they show up so rarely they might as well not exist. A singular enemy type simply DOES NOT work with randomly generated missions. You NEED to handcraft those levels to make rooms, obstacles and encounters feel unique in that case. It ends up making every single mission feel nearly identical even with the differing objectives. If there were a greater variety of enemies it would spice up the game MASSIVELY. Could easily take the game from a 4/10 to a 6/10 just changing that and nothing else. The game also just feels...unrefined. You never feel comfortable when the camera changes. Whether that be from sidling on walls, or going first person. It's always a disorientating experience. It's hard to describe, but you'll feel it. Yes, even if you use Orbital Camera. Which DOES feel better in the 2nd and 3rd sections of the game. I prefer the overhead camera for the first section though personally. Also, just a recommendation to the devs. Next time, PLEASE copy MGS's minimap system. With the enemies and their lines of sight being on the minimap rather than spread all across the entire godforsaken screen. PLEASE. I get what you were going for. But it's BAD. Lastly, the story. The story is mostly very badly written. But, occasionally, it pulls some ♥♥♥♥ that made me so incredibly excited, only to be disappointed when we went back to being poorly written. I dunno. There's some good ideas, but I think it's hampered by being written by someone who isn't very good at writing. Like, not even fanfic level good. Sorry to the writer if they end up reading this. The VAs are...well, they're just not being given a lot to work with. And their direction is nonexistent. They all feel like they've been asked to read the lines, and that's ALL they've been asked to do. A competent voice director would have improved the game by at least a full point. Alas. Despite all that. I DO like the game though. It's very ambitious, and it fails to meet those ambitions 90% of the time, but occasionally it DOES and you can see the game they WANTED to make. And I WANT them to make it. So I have to encourage people to support it, and for the devs to keep trying. I believe in you, please don't let me down.