The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu

The experience varies depending on the type of gamer you are. I'm also primarily a solo player. A fun co-op game. A Bad solo game. If you have friends the game is great (for a time) otherwise you are rolling the dice to get into a lobby with other players that make the game fun. A lot of the games' fun moments (sanity mechanic) can only be really experienced with co-op and even then only when you get into a good lobby. (good as in meaning you kind of have to hope the people you play with interact with you in some shape or form or actually try to play like a team) If you play solo the game gives you 1 AI partner IF you opt into it in the settings. I think it's kind of weird why they don't just give you 3 but that's just my opinion. Also kind of weird that the AI is some random dude and not part of the selectable playable characters. The AI partner is borderline useless to me because the AI is pretty bad. They attempt to follow you but their pathing is horrendous. Really only good as a meat shield and even then they actually have to be able to keep up with you to preform the meat shield role. The gameplay loop is fun for like the first 4-5 hours and personally that's if your smooth braining through the game and not trying to learn it (solo experience). It's simple really, You pick Contract, then pick Map Tile you want to play, then you do objective, then you leave and BAM that's the game. There is no real meaningful progression in the game. When you level up you either get a passive perk or you get a knife skin (btw YOU HAVE TO SWITCH THE SKIN OF THE KNIFE YOU WANT TO USE EVERY CONTRACT EVERY SINGLE TIME AND ONLY IF YOU HAVE THE KNIFE IN YOUR INVENTORY really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying honestly). There are relics (shop items) and Saint statues (cart items that grant you a passive) that if you successfully extract with you get them permanently (shop and changeable cart item that you have to re-buy after every contract if you want to use them). There are deer that you can hunt that after hitting certain milestones (how many you hunt) it upgrades your food rations (a specific item not food in general) meaning your food rations heal more. The games currency is called Tokens. You gain tokens by completing contracts. The Tokens allow you to buy shop items or upgrade/Trade your "primary" weapons (the sailor knife you get skins for cannot be upgraded with tokens) basically making them a little stronger and more durable (yes your weapons can break) or if your able to trade you get a better variant of the weapon. I like Tokens, Tokens are my friend. The combat mechanics are simple, personally i like it, I lame brain and go swish swish stab. If your looking for deep in-depth combat mechanics and crazy "techs" your not getting it. The game looks great ( I Play with max graphics yadda yadda), Level design is alright, some map tiles have a lot of hidden paths which make exploring really fun (until you memorize map tiles). Codex Lore is fun to read and hear and discover. Overall Im enjoying the game, I found it fun to learn the maps and how to deal with the enemies (mostly swish swish stab or running for my life). Pacing my exploration and learning how to minimize the amount of noise i make (the amount of noise you make during a contract is important). Learning little tricks some items can do and how they benefit you. Personally the overall game design is alright. There is a lot to be wished for honestly and the full potential of the games sanity mechanic and exploration and atmosphere isn't fully realized Imo. Plenty of quality of life changes to be made (inventory is simple which is good and clunky all at the same time and ffs plz make it where i don't have to change my knife skin every single time) Personally would like it if there was more character interaction (like more dialogue) reaction to the environment, hallucinations, the monsters. Y'know just giving more life to the characters we play. I wish we weren't at the mercy of what items we start with (limited but customizable loadout) but its not bad as it is.