A Front Too Far: Normandy Review Summary

Enjoyable Gameplay & Great Value: The game is widely enjoyed by players, described as fun, engaging, and often humorous, providing good replayability and several hours of entertainment. Many reviewers emphasized its excellent value for the price, noting its passionate development and refreshing qualities.

Unique WWII Open-World Concept: Players highly appreciate the game's unique concept of an open-world RPG set during World War II, offering a fresh take on the genre. The blend of sandbox freedom, story, and survival elements within this setting is seen as creative and captivating, especially for an indie title.

Competent Gunplay and Weapon Variety: Players generally find the gunplay to be competent and enjoyable, with realistic weapon handling and good combat animations. The game offers a high quantity of diverse, customizable WWII weapons that contribute to the immersive war atmosphere.

Decent Story and Mission Progression: The game features a good storyline and enjoyable mission progression, providing a positive narrative experience. These elements are accompanied by a great soundtrack, enhancing the overall immersion.

Technical & Localization Details: Players noted workarounds for playability, like slowing mouse speed on Windows, and appreciated the game's compatibility with Linux and lower-performance systems. The game also provides multi-language support, including native Chinese and Spanish subtitles for English cinematics.

Game Lacks Polish and Quality: Players widely report the game feels unpolished, janky, and unfinished, citing poor optimization, clunky elements, and mediocre graphics. Many foundational aspects, from visuals to overall execution, seem early-stage and not up to modern standards.

Unplayable Vehicle Physics: Vehicle handling is horrendous due to weird physics, causing cars to bounce erratically, flip over easily, and become nigh impossible to control off-road. This also leads to game-breaking bugs where exiting a flipped vehicle can cause the player to fall infinitely through the map.

Unadjustable Mouse Sensitivity Hampers Aim: A critical flaw is the lack of a mouse sensitivity option, forcing players to contend with an excessively high default sensitivity. This makes precise aiming extremely difficult, especially when moving or targeting distant enemies, severely impacting core gameplay.

Frustrating Combat and AI: Combat is often described as finicky, with small hitboxes, inconsistent damage registration, and uncomfortably centered weapons. Enemy AI is criticized for being absurdly aggressive or predictable, while strange spawning and visibility issues further detract from gunfights.

Critical Save System Flaws: The save system is severely broken, often failing to save progress or creating permanent soft locks, forcing players to restart entire missions or even the game. There is no option to save mid-mission, leading to significant frustration and lost playtime.

Ambiguous Survival Elements: The game features survival mechanics such as managing health, hunger, and sickness using food and medical items. While present, players note that the benefit or impact of these elements (e.g., eating tuna) can be unclear, giving it a basic survival action game feel, reminiscent of Far Cry 2.

WWII RPG/FPS Setting: Players assume the role of OSS Lieutenant Jasper Fox, an American soldier parachuted into WWII France to aid the French Resistance in rescuing a comrade and liberating the country from Nazi occupation. The game combines RPG and FPS elements within this historical context.

Essential Looting for Gear: Players heavily rely on looting fallen allied and enemy soldiers for weapons, money, and ammunition, often finding it more effective than trading. Some specific enemy weapons like the MP40 and KAR98K cannot be bought, emphasizing the importance of combat looting.

Open World Mission Structure: The game features a semi-open world where players receive various missions from their camp, often involving shootouts, resource collection, or vehicle transport. Players are encouraged to engage in side activities and exploration alongside the main plot.

Travel & Vehicle Mechanics: The game includes vehicles, with players receiving one after the initial mission, but many choose to run everywhere due to long travel times, necessitating grinding for fast travel points. Vehicle physics allow for manual or automatic righting of overturned cars.

Mixed Performance Experience: Player feedback indicates a varied performance experience. While some users report smooth gameplay on both high-end and 'potato' PCs, others encounter poor performance, necessitating reduced graphic settings. Additionally, distant enemies may lack animation, possibly as a performance optimization.

Car Sinking Bug Workaround: Players have encountered a bug where cars can sink into the environment. A user-discovered workaround involves opening the map screen and utilizing automatic movement to key locations to bypass this issue.

Mixed Value, Expectation Management: Many players offer mixed recommendations, advising to buy only if willing to overlook 'jank' or if the game is on sale. Others outright tell players to avoid it, while some suggest it's a worthwhile budget experience, especially considering the low price. Players are cautioned not to expect AAA quality given the cost.

Appeals to Niche Audiences: The game strongly resonates with fans of World War II games, particularly those who enjoyed older FPS titles like Call of Duty or Medal of Honor, or RPGs set in the era. It's also recommended for indie game enthusiasts and history buffs who appreciate the historical context.

Alternative Games Recommended: Many players suggest alternative games, including 'Easy Red 2' (from the same developer) or other titles like Far Cry and The Saboteur. Some advise against expecting the fidelity of 'Post Scriptum' or 'Red Orchestra,' indicating a gap in quality or gameplay style.

Future Updates & Developer: Players express a desire for continued updates and content additions, indicating hope for improvement. However, there's also a suggestion to avoid the developer until their reputation improves, highlighting concerns about their track record or current game state.

Minor Specific Suggestions: One player suggested un-voicing the character Jasper to allow for more role-playing. Another player simply stated their intention to continue playing the game, which is personal sentiment rather than actionable feedback, reflecting sparse, low-quality feedback for this specific point.

Promising concept, needs significant polish: Players see great potential and a promising game idea, often comparing it to anticipated 'Fallout meets WW2' experiences. However, the game currently lacks polish, has minor issues and bugs, and many hope for continued development, more content like levels, stories, and the addition of mod support to fully realize its promise.

Compares to Easy Red, developer focus: Players frequently reference the developer's previous game, Easy Red, expressing enjoyment of it. There's concern that the developer might be abandoning older projects or that this new game, being of a different genre, indicates a shift in focus or even a change in the development team. Some wish the developer had continued work on Easy Red instead of pursuing this new title.

Game developed by a solo developer: Many players acknowledge that the game was created by a very small or even solo development team. This context often influences their expectations and perceptions of the game's scope, polish, and development challenges.

Inconsistent visuals, performance needs: While screenshots are praised and the game is believed to look beautiful on powerful PCs, some players experienced low-poly elements (e.g., towns) and performance issues, such as inability to run on high settings on a Mac. This indicates a varied visual experience depending on hardware and potentially inconsistent asset quality.

Appears development has ceased: There is a concern among players that the game's author may have stopped further development on the title. This directly impacts hopes for future patches, content additions, and polish, despite the game's perceived potential.