Recent reviews by SnArCAsTiC #FixTF2

Eh, I guess it's ok.









Lol, nah. I love this game with all my heart, but I think the fact that I haven't always loved it so much has helped to strengthen that. I've taken breaks and played other games, not even touching TF2 for months, and then coming back... to the same old hoovies, tryhard soldiers and clueless snipers. There's always something new to try out, and especially over the past 2 years, more and more weapons have become "viable" in casual play at least, with some clearly overpowered or overused weapons getting nerfs or reworks, while some underpowered or underused weapons getting buffs or reworks. The fact that I have neary 1000 hours at the time of writing this and still consider myself fairly new to this game is amazing to me, and the fact that those 1000 hours haven't all been spent playing one or two classes shows just the variety of playstyles this game offers. Although honestly... I've only actually PLAYED a little over 500 of those 1000 hours, with the rest being spent messing with my backpack, being idle on the menu screen, trying to get into a friend's game, or fixing my settings.

Lazy Purple, a TF2 YouTuber who at the time of this review had been gone from the TF2 community for aboutt 4 years, recently came back and posted a video "TF2 is a Timeless Masterpiece," and I think he's right. He talks a lot about fair movement mechanics, single-shot weapons, and varied playstyles as elements in why TF2 is so popular, and I think he's absolutely right, so instead of reading me rehash what he said... look up his video. It's well done, and you won't be disappointed.

And of course, the obligatory "WAR-THEMED HAT SIMULATOR 2007!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111"

(May 18, 2016) They recently introduced the ability to pick from 5 slightly different stats for each hero, which allows you to further customize your playstyle, which is great! Seriously, this is a good game; it's free, it's fun, it's a pretty good and sizeable community, and the devs are constantly updating it too (weekly updates with bug fixes, new skins, characters and game balance changes) -- it's definitely worth the $0.00 that it costs. Although I'm sure the devs want you to buy weapon and hero skins, you certainly don't have to (although if you want to support them and give them funding to continue improving the game... it all depends on your view and the size of your wallet I suppose). There's casual and competitive, 1v1s and all-vs-alls, currently 23 heroes... GET IT!

(March 24, 2016) OK, so literally 2 days after I complain about the serious lag, the devs release a new update with servers localized to your geographical area (I'm US West, for example). And that severely reduced lag. I'm happy to once again say I can fully recommend this game!


TL;DR: Game is SUPER laggy in its current state (March 22, 2016), to the point of being nearly unplayable sometimes. And no, it's not my computer; this game is not graphically intensive and I always get 60 FPS even when it's lag-hopping my character off of cliffs for me.


Below this is my old review. Honestly, this is an awesome game. It's one of my favorite. It has casual brawler fighting, and competitive fighting, which is awesome for the reasons I outlined below in my original review. However, recently the lag has become unbearable. Like, I lose matches most of the time because the game changes where I am due to lag. One second I'll be on a platform, and then the next second I'm falling off the stage to my death... and losing the match. It's not such a big deal in casual; stuff like that happens. But in competitive, it's KIND OF A BIG DEAL to lose more than 50% of my matches because of lag! This game is highly popular; I've recommended it to all my friends in the past, and most of them play it, some more regularly than me. I know it's free to play, and I know it's beta, and I love the game, but... it's unplayable in its current, ultra-laggy state. The devs need to invest in more servers or software updates that will fix this problem. If they do (and I'll be checking every week or so), then I'll gladly change my review to recommend the game, but... de-ranking in competitive because of lag-related complications? It's unacceptable.









I'm still relatively new to this game, but I love it already. I used to play Super Smash Bros Brawl with my brother on our Wii, and this very much reminds me of that.

Since I know my own writing style, here's a TL;DR version: It's a good game. Get it, get your friends to get it, tell them to get their friends to get it, etc. After all, it's free. There are some problems; spammers, lag, and not much of an intro to the game, but all in all, it's a REALLY strong game. And it's still in Beta! Support it and it'll no doubt become even better!

But here, let's start off with an in-depth analysis of the game that I've experienced so far. I say it like that because I've only played casual so far; I have no experience with how comp works.


The cons (so I can finish with the pros):

-I've read a bunch of the other reviews here, and I have to agree with a few points they make. The player base seems to be split into 3 groups.
-Skilled players. They're generally pretty good sports, but they're good; they will rek you, but they won't (for the most part) tell you how much you suck, or call you a noob. I want to belong to this group; I think I'm generally not a jerk, but I'm probably not that skilled (yet, heh).
-Poor-sport spammers. They're kind of the opposite of the above; they're NOT good sports, but if they manage to beat you by spamming the same heavy charge-up attacks (over, and over, and OVER again), they will be jerks about it afterward in the chat.
-And the noobs. Brawlhalla has a rapidly growing player base, so this is to be expected; I probably am still somewhat of a noob myself, to be honest. But I don't have a problem with noobs, really; sure, they don't really know much about the game, but they're learning! Treat them with some patience and respect, and soon (hopefully; after all, some never learn) they'll become suitable opponents.

-Something I hinted at above, spamming. It's quite an epidemic, particularly among less experienced players, but that's to be expected. It's when it's more experienced players who are doing it that it bugs me. However, it can be countered; dodging through a spammer's attacks and then quickly attacking them from the other side or throwing your weapon at them can often break a spamming streak.

-Lag. From what I have read, there are not that many servers, and so that contributes to the lag, since there are players all over the world. But, for me at least, it's not that bad; it's just frustrating to think you've hit an opponent and then have them shoot you off the map because you thought you were clear of them. Oh well; with time, this will hopefully improve.

-The "thrown into the deep end" nature of the game when you first start. It would be nice if there were a little tutorial that showed you the game mechanics and all the moves of one of the characters, maybe Bodvar for instance, since he's the flagship Legend. But if you've played fighting games before, you'll probably catch onto it fairly quickly, even just practicing in the single-player version, against bots.


Now, the pros:

-Creative ideas. I LOVE the design of the Legends; I love that they're different from the typical characters in fighting games. I mean, sure, Bodvar and Teros (aka the brave half-bear viking king, and the minotaur) are kind of cliches, but Asuri, Orion, Ada, Gnash, even Ember, they're all very creative. I like what the devs have done there. And they're not all stereotypical either! I mean, sure, Teros is strong, but one of the strongest characters is Scarlet, a female steampunk inventor, who uses a hammer and a rocket lance! Also, the rocket lance is a neat idea; I've never seen anything like that in any other game.

-The Lore. I really like how each character has a neat background, and while I get that the devs are busy making new characters and balancing the game and all that good stuff, but I would REALLY like to see more stuff with the lore! I want to know more about the characters! DEVS, PLEASE, MORE LORE! Thank you.

-An expanding cast of dynamic characters. I know I kind of said it before, but... I love the character list! They're all unusual and neat; there's no bland character, even among the more stereotypical ones.

-A (mostly) friendly community. In the most recent update, they added a thing that allows you to say "gg" just by pressing X, but even before that, most people would say "gg" at the end of a round, and if someone fought well, they generally will say as much. Or at least, I do, and many of the people I've played with do.

-It's simple, but that doesn't mean it's boring. You have 2 weapons, which means that you can really vary your fighting style. And that's another thing: I love the weapon dynamic. I have never seen it in another fighting game: each character has 2 (for the most part, depending on how you play) EQUAL weapons (not a main and a sidearm). Each weapon has standard moves that are mostly the same no matter which character you're using (you'll usually have at least 1 weapon in common with at least one person in any 1v1v1v1 match, such as a spear, sword, axe, guns, etc.), but then they also have moves unique to each character, which gives the characters more uniqueness from each other, besides just stats and looks.


In conclusion, it's just a good game, and you should get it, since it's FREE! What are you doing still reading? Download the game and play it already!