- Highly unique and original game experience.
- Captivating story and immersive world.
- Sublime art style and strong atmosphere.
- Core open-world tower defense action.
- Engaging movement and exploration mechanics.
- Suffers from general lack of polish.
Emotions
Emotion: satisfaction
Emotion: excitement
Emotion: appreciation
Emotion: admiration
Emotion: enjoyment
Verdict
Mostly positive
Summary
Positive 97% · Negative 3%. Score: 3 / 100
Positives:
- Reviewers consistently praise the game for its exceptional originality and unique approach, setting it apart from other titles. Many describe it as one of the most unique indie games they've ever played, highlighting its distinct mechanics, world, and overall experience.
- The game is praised for its deeply engaging and unique narrative, rich world-building, and intriguing lore. Reviewers highlight the quiet, evocative storytelling and the profound, strange, and beautiful world that feels purposeful and connected.
- The game's art direction is consistently lauded as sublime, contributing to a unique and immersive atmosphere. Reviewers find the world design, environments, and overall visual style to be captivating and beautiful, enhancing the player's experience.
- Players highly enjoy the game's movement mechanics, which are described as fun and fluid, allowing for comfortable and rewarding exploration. The ability to chain movement and attack spells to reach difficult areas and gain combat advantages contributes to a strong sense of accomplishment.
- The game frequently evokes strong nostalgia for classic PlayStation 2 era titles, particularly action-RPGs and adventure games like Nier, Shadow of the Colossus, and Drakengard. Reviewers appreciate its unique art style, atmosphere, and structural similarities to these beloved "hidden gems."
Negatives:
- The game suffers from a pervasive lack of polish, often described as 'janky' or 'rough around the edges.' This impacts various aspects, including overall feel, combat, and technical performance.
- The game's graphics are described as technically on the lower end, graphically dated, and featuring 'eye-sore modeling,' indicating a generally low quality or outdated visual presentation.
- Reviewers found boss encounters, particularly the final and secret bosses, to be mechanically frustrating or poorly designed. There's a desire for more unique mechanics to defeat larger enemies.
- The open world is perceived as largely empty with little to do beyond resource grinding and finding points of interest. The 'open world' tag is considered unfitting, and exploration is hindered by poor AI pathfinding of the companion.
- The user interface is not intuitive and takes time to learn. Key information, such as upgrade details or a monster encyclopedia, is lacking or poorly presented, and map access is cumbersome.
Gameplay:
- The game primarily features a unique blend of open-world exploration and real-time strategy tower defense. Players build and defend towers from waves of enemies, with combat segments often optional during exploration. The main objective revolves around constructing increasingly tall towers.
- Players command a walking fortress called Burggeist, which serves as a mobile tower defense platform. This unit can be extensively customized with various armaments and skills, and its unique control mechanism (via a 'daughter's hand') adds a distinct lore element.
- The player character, Ignace, possesses high mobility skills like fast running, double jumps, and flight, making traversal comfortable and engaging. These movement abilities, combined with various magic spells (including Gyromantia skills), are crucial for both exploration and combat.
- A key strategic element is the height mechanic, where attacking enemies from higher ground significantly increases damage. This encourages players to consider positioning and utilize movement abilities for tactical advantage.
- If a tower defense segment fails, players are encouraged to re-challenge after gathering more resources, upgrading their character, Burggeist, or the tower itself. This iterative loop of exploration, strengthening, and re-attempting drives progression.
Performance:
- Players frequently report significant performance issues, including low frame rates, especially when many objects are on screen, and problems with vsync on certain displays. This indicates a need for optimization to improve the overall gameplay experience.
- Users face difficulties configuring display settings like 1440p resolution and 144hz refresh rates, often requiring manual edits to launch options or configuration files. This suggests a lack of proper in-game settings for common display configurations.
- Players reported that the camera controls and platforming mechanics felt somewhat unpolished or awkward. This suggests areas for improvement in player movement and perspective to enhance gameplay fluidity.
Recommendations:
- Reviewers overwhelmingly recommend this game, citing its unique gameplay, fun mechanics (movement, tower defense), and good value. Many urge players to try it, emphasizing they won't regret it and it deserves more attention.
- The game strongly appeals to players seeking unique, "out of the ordinary" experiences, particularly those reminiscent of PS1/PS2 era titles like Suda51 or Shin Megami Tensei. It features a scenic fantasy world and customizable walking fortresses, though it may require some initial effort to understand.
- Reviewers offer practical advice, such as buying the game to avoid spoilers, considering a purchase during a sale, and watching developer-made guide videos for assistance. They also suggest not judging the game solely by its videos and aiming for the true ending.
Miscellaneous:
- The game features full voice acting in a unique fictional language, a design choice that, combined with its graphics and overall atmosphere, strongly reminds players of Fumito Ueda's works like Shadow of the Colossus and Nier/Drakengard.
- The game's setting and character descriptions are frequently compared to anime, manga, and Dungeons & Dragons. This creates a distinct visual and narrative style, described as a "serialized fantasy road trip horror manga" or featuring "anime ninja wizards."
- The game incorporates highly specific and strange elements into its world, such as "white spiral objects that distort space" and "natural disasters that turn people into flesh blobs," contributing to its overall bizarre and unique atmosphere.
- The game presents unique and strange landscapes within the desolate Aliskan region. This environment fosters a sense of mystery, being largely abandoned except for monsters that appear during specific activities like tower building.
- The game is described as demanding, presenting challenges to players. However, it also provides sufficient tools and mechanics for players to overcome these difficulties and gain an advantage.
