Recent reviews by Shah Stag

I own every single pack of Jackbox and host weekly nights for my community. Over the years I get a feel of whats great and what's... Not so great. This pack is not so great. Putting aside the bug issues I'm just gonna break down game by game just the issues of it.

Fixty Text:

This game from the initial trailer left me confused on what exact was the concept for this game. Once I finally figured it out the concept eats away at what Jackbox is suppose to be. The whole goal of Jackbox is to play with a large amount of people but having 4 people tackle a prompt at the same time is so chaotic. It feels like a weaker version of job job that just takes the mad lib part and goes no where with it. Having more people hurts how the game flows. The only time me and my group enjoyed it when it was 4-6 people but even then got a little too much.


Tee K.O. 2

The first game was a great note but the real question is do we need a sequel? What does it add? New avatars, 3 different types of clothing, and a new 2nd/3rd round. The new addition of the 2nd round was great and I loved the idea of remixing one of the old drawings. The final round however is just terrible. I understand they didn't want to have a simple vote and wanted to spice things up but bringing back spam tapping from bracketeering was not the right option. If you make a sequel of a previous jackbox game then there needs to be something new to be done or built upon. We get less shirts in the final since they removed the streak system which yeah that gameplay element was not the best but maybe add a feature allowing the audience or players to vote for their personal favorite at the end of a round for a 2nd contender.

TimeJinx

Probably the least egregious game in the pack. I personally love trivia but everyone else doesn't enjoy it that much. I find it interesting when a game can balance that to make everything enjoyable. Comparing to all the other trivia games it doesn't really stand out that much. Sure I still enjoy it but I rather go play Trivia Murder 2 party or Fibbage 3/4 for a more engaging experience. I really don't have anything to say about this one which that in itself is an issue.

Hypnotorious

This game was probably the most controversial when testing it out. Some people liked it but the most just despised it. People couldn't get the concept, fully understand how to answer the questions, or enjoy themselves. It feels half baked like the game is relying on player engagement to do all the work. That isn't a bad thing but if the layout isn't clear and there isn't anything engaging in the process it all falls flat. Between the bugs involving the outlier no one really knew if they were winning or losing even if they paired up in the correct group. Since there is no final game leaderboard everyone is left clueless how one of the random players won including them. Out of everything in this pack this game needs the most reworking and is not fully fleshed out.

Dodo Re Mi

I wanted to leave game for last because it's probably the best game in the pack. Sure it's just guitar hero but it takes that simple idea and brings the best with it. While it got some push back from my group a majority enjoyed the game and the only real discontent was bugs or how some of the sound charts are made. The only drawback besides the bugs/some chart placement? I want more songs, I want custom songs, I want more from this game cause that's how fun it is! I will state again this is probably the best game out of the pack.


Despite liking one of the games I cannot recommend anyone buy this pack. On top of they raised the price for a pack that is worse overall then a majority of packs. Maybe on par with the first part packs which says alot. I hope the team take this with a grain of salt and maybe rework some of the games in this pack but I highly doubt it. Please add murder trivia 3 next year

As aspiring game developer who just got my degree I'm greatly disappointed looking back to see devs going backwards in thought process. While I might not be the most avid fan but I still bought the dlcs and the new pass. I followed news, look forward to new content because of the passion/love put into it. After 10 years to only start walking back in order to "update for modern audiences" is ridiculous. I could care less for the sexual censors but at the same time one of the devs literally made porn of the censored character and the dev is featured as a background NPC. You can't have it both ways hypocrites. Give me back my soviet announcer pack and stop censoring needless things.

Just grinded the hell of out it and I must say there was some great points and some... really sour moments.

I'll add a spoiler section to go into it specifically but firstly props to the art style and details cause no matter where you are in the game it's always apparent along with the lore.

That being said both story wise and gameplay there are some issues between chunky enemies, not properly explained mechanics (I'll get into that in spoilers), and constant story points that just... Have so many loose ends.

First two chapters were great with a good pace, puzzles were good nothing too frustrating, and the story really was setting up to something exciting. My main gripes are with chapter 3 among some story stuff that just really makes me confused why it was set up like that.






To start Frank and Sally I have no issues with character writing wise. Sure some dialogue being reused to examine things makes the trio feel a little generic but my main issue is Gavin.

The video tape showing him going nuts was a great set up that made me think. Was the contact using him as a tool? Is there something more to Gavin? What triggered it besides "the knife"? Instead it's just a limp end of "The voices" and some small snippets from composure events during end turns. Even that topic was brought up decent bit between chapters 1 and 2 but then poof. It was just "the voices" and that was it. Unfortunately the trend of bringing up or setting up really interesting plot points to only just completely drop it.

Other main issue was chapter 3. Between alot of the puzzles being going through the entire mansion to find this one specific clickable all while going through a chance between 1 to (what I got) 4 enemies in a end turn alert. That's when my mood started to sour on this game. Final boss fight happens going great so far then part 2 with Sunday Gold and his master. Probably the most frustrating fight in the game that gives no real ques to what's going on or what you have to do besides the status effect of Sunday Gold being controlled. I went through that fight for 25 minutes and had Sunday gold revive himself about 4-5 times along with Hogan revive himself twice. At that point it was an agonizing slog until I somehow triggered the win condition for the fight.

Lastly the ending just made me feeling really unfulfilled. It was a nice touch seeing Sunday Gold bond to Sally who has a background in taking care of rescue dogs. Ok we find his daughter still alive but is she sentient or just a mindless machine? The only contender was Hogan but he wasn't brought back from the dead. What happened to his wife? In the extra notes both of them were going to be brought back. Did she just burn down in the mansion at the end? What happened to Frank's debt? He didn't get any money just Sunday Gold and the daughter. No real resolution with Ruth either. She was set up to be out for vengeance against the group and at the end she just what? Cusses then drops everything and just lets the group go. I know I keep going on and on about all these small points but it just adds up to a big nothing ending.

I genuinely think a way to solve all this was a simple epilogue chapter celebrating in the bar with the people throughout the game or heck even a cut scene would do the job to show what was the fruits of their journey. Show everyone partying, Frank pays off his debt, King's league is shutdown to finally evidence showing the inhuman process to the public turning them off from the sport, Gavin and his group gets the recognition they deserve, Sally opens a new rescue for now King's league dogs Hogan industries collapses, the news covering the huge scandal that ties into government involvement, and even just a fraction of this would give a satisfying conclusion.

7.5/10
- Great art
- Good dialogue/story with holes in it
- Spongy/slow combat
- Chapter 1/2 a total blast, 3 really kills the momentum

Get the game on sale

I played this game due to really being a fan of renowned explorer another rpg game mixed with chose your own adventure. I was extremely hyped until I played a couple hours of it to only be extremely bored not to mention it gets repetitive fast. Just xcom gameplay slapped with a polish of an interesting idea. Shame they didn't actually put any effort into this was really interested by the idea.

When i tried to download this dlc it instantly opened the game instead

best game ever