- Fun, hilarious cooperative experience with friends.
- Satisfying and engaging climbing mechanics.
- High replayability due to daily randomization.
- Unforgiving difficulty leads to frequent deaths.
- Frequent game crashes and lost progress.
- Multiplayer connectivity and voice chat issues.
Verdict
Mostly positive
Summary
Positive 85% Ā· Negative 15%. Score: 15 / 100
Positives:
- The game is consistently praised for being enjoyable and hilarious, especially when played with friends. Cooperative gameplay enhances the experience through teamwork, shared challenges, and comedic moments. Many reviewers specifically highlight the fun of helping or watching friends navigate the treacherous climbs.
- The climbing mechanics are well-designed, satisfying, and easy to learn but hard to master. Players find the act of climbing walls and trees intensely rewarding, especially as they become more confident with the mechanics and items. The game effectively simulates the feeling of climbing a mountain, creating a fun and immersive experience.
- These clusters contain general positive sentiments, subjective opinions, and comparisons to other games/developers without specific details. They lack constructiveness and specificity, so their importance is significantly reduced.
- The game features a daily map rotation and random loot, which adds a compelling element to the game and encourages replayability. This system prevents the gameplay from becoming repetitive and provides a fresh challenge each day. The variety of paths to explore and the emergent gameplay moments further enhance the game's replay value.
- The game has a great atmosphere, with smooth and responsive movement and controls. The tactile and analogue feel of the game enhances immersion, and the music and ambience are majestic. The game mechanics are intuitive and easy to understand, and each part of the game feels distinct and well-designed.
Negatives:
- Players are experiencing frequent crashes, often leading to lost progress and items. These crashes occur across different areas and scenarios, including level transitions, completing objectives, and even launching the game. This is a major issue that severely impacts the gameplay experience.
- The game's high difficulty stems from limited stamina, environmental hazards, lack of checkpoints/saves, and unforgiving mechanics like slipping. Players frequently fall to their deaths, and stamina management is crucial. The game is very punishing and requires patience.
- Multiplayer is plagued with issues, including non-functional voice chat, random disconnects, and problems joining friends' games. These issues disrupt communication and teamwork, hindering the co-op experience. Network instability and connection errors are common.
- The game lacks essential features such as key remapping, save options, and matchmaking. The absence of these features impacts accessibility, convenience, and replayability. The lack of a save system is a recurring concern.
- The game suffers from accessibility issues and lacks clear explanations of mechanics. Some players find it confusing initially, and there are concerns about long-term replayability. The game may be too difficult for some players to play solo.
Gameplay:
- The core gameplay revolves around challenging mountain climbing, incorporating resource management and strategic path planning. Players must master the mechanics to overcome the steep learning curve and rogue-like elements. The game emphasizes precision and focus.
- To enhance replayability, the game features a system where the mountain map changes daily. This procedural generation ensures a fresh experience each play session, encouraging players to adapt to new layouts and challenges.
- The game allows for cooperative or competitive interactions among players as they climb together. Cooperation is needed to climb and store food. Players can assist each other, or even sabotage progress.
- The stamina bar is a crucial element, serving as both health and hunger. Managing stamina effectively is essential for survival and progression, adding a layer of difficulty to the climbing experience.
- The island environment contains wreckage with resources like food and tools, including coconuts. These resources are essential for aiding the player's climb.
Performance:
- The game runs well on lower-end PCs and Steam Deck with some configuration. Some players have reported smooth online play and good performance on Steam Deck after enabling forced compatibility mode or using DirectX12.
- The volcano area causes significant performance drops due to heavy shadows. Players reported frame rates plummeting from 300 to 45 in this specific location.
- Players are experiencing server connection issues and disconnects. Some players have reported needing a VPN for a stable connection, while others are getting kicked out of the game with Photon errors.
- Terrain visibility issues are present. Players are reporting that terrain is only visible behind the player or at specific viewing angles.
- The game causes high GPU temperatures. One player reported that the GPU temperature exceeds the frame rate.
Recommendations:
- Many reviewers recommend the game and find it enjoyable, often highlighting its low price and replayability. Some reviewers even describe the game as 'peak'. However, a few negative reviews are also present, indicating mixed experiences.
- A significant number of reviews mention technical issues such as crashing, server problems, and poor optimization. Some reviewers withhold recommendations until these issues are resolved, while others acknowledge active bug fixes from the developers. The presence of these issues significantly impacts the game's playability and overall experience.
- Reviewers express hope for future content updates, including new environments, items, and features. Some reviewers feel the game needs more content to maintain player engagement and prevent a decline in popularity, while others are confident in the game's potential for further development and popularity.
- The game is recommended for players who enjoy challenging and silly experiences. This suggests a niche appeal for those who appreciate difficult gameplay and lighthearted humor, particularly fans of games like Getting Over It or R.E.P.O.
- Reviewers familiar with Landfall and Aggro Crab recognize the game as another enjoyable title from these developers. This suggests a level of trust and expectation based on the developers' previous works, making it a selling point for fans of their games.
Miscellaneous:
- The game is new, and the reviewer anticipates future discoveries and content updates. This acknowledges the game's live service nature and suggests potential for growth.
- The game features diverse regions with unique environmental elements like terrain, food, weather, and hazards. Players are encouraged to manage their character's diet by eating various fruits found in the game. One reviewer expressed a strong desire to consume many of these random fruits.
- The game's setting is praised for its beauty and mystery, contributing to an immersive atmosphere. Climbing is a key mechanic, with environments designed to offer both danger and opportunities for traversal.
- The game incorporates roguelike elements with daily randomization to ensure unique runs. Resource management, including item packing, is an important aspect of gameplay.
- The reviewer specifically advises against using the Skull item, implying it has a detrimental effect on gameplay. This is a specific piece of advice for players.
