Game worth buying?

[TheMasterArchitect]

Been waiting for this game to get better reviews or updates. Looking at the recent reviews that really doesn't seem the case... Keep this in the wishlist for now?

[KingOfCharge]

Game just got a major update about 15 hours ago, making the overworld area more dangerous and adding lots of new weapon options. You can still wait a bit if you want to see how the update affects reviews if you want.

[GnomeSlayer]

Originally posted by KingOfCharge:

Game just got a major update about 15 hours ago, making the overworld area more dangerous and adding lots of new weapon options. You can still wait a bit if you want to see how the update affects reviews if you want.

Is there a good review or youtube review of this game? I still don't know what this game is all about. Is this good for play sessions for someone who wants to play in short sessions but the still wants to play a game with a good story that lasts 20 hours+ ?
Thank you

[MechWarden]

It isn't hard to do a bit of basic research, if you know what to do.

For starters, scroll down the store page and you will get some useful info.

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Metacritic

Half way down you will see a Metacritic rating, which is 72 (out of 100), which isn't bad since metacritic is more harsh/critical with scoring. If you click on that, you will get a summary of summaries, (no I did not stutter). It will take the reviews from established journalists and average them out into one score (if you scroll down on that page, you will see who said what).

There are User (aka player) reviews, with its own score being averaged out, but if you know anything about statistics (which I doubt you do), 10 data points for something like this is not very useful. The posted player reviews could have some insight, but they are now old, and that's on top of being biased toward negativity since people tend to take action when something is wrong.
(Spoiler: You'll find better review data from Steam Reviews)

The posted journalist reviews are almost always a one and done, based on when the game came out, as they hardly re-review things except on rare occasions. You are more likely to get a better feel for what's going on by scanning through the posted summaries of what they said (since you have to go to the real article to literally get the full story from them) and see what things went well and what things didn't.

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Steam Reviews

Further down, you will get to the listing of Steam reviews. The first thing I go to is the small "Show graph" button to help get some context (if it has been out long enough to have that feature). As in, how was the first release, how well received were the updates, and how many or few reviews are being done now.

In this case, the vast bulk of the reviews happened between October and December of last year, with a trickle of reviews happening since. There is a spike in November, which indicates that something the devs did the players liked.

Talking about statistics again, the reviews in the last 30 days (all 47 of them at the time of writing) are 'Mixed' mostly out of pure chance, because the given sample size is small. If you looked at the last month, and the month before, the trickle of reviews were well higher than Mixed, but even then the sample size is something to consider.

So, what do the reviews say?
You scroll down (again) and read through what's there. If they are short, or the 'walls of text people' (like me) actually used proper paragraph structure, you can skim through and get a feel for what is good and bad about the game.

If you want to cut out the fandom fluff (which often there is), and just want to see the negatives, you can just filter to show those reviews by clicking Review Type. Obviously (or it should be obvious) it will be a more harsh tone but it will cut right to any problems the game has.

Also if you filter by Playtime, you can cut out reviews that hardly dug into the game and get to reviews by players that actually played the game.

Experiment with the settings, since those are some really powerful filtering tools and can cut right to the chase if done right.

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YouTub Videos an Twitch Streams

You simply just have to give the right search term on YouTube to get a list of older videos on this, which has countless hours of gameplay examples being showcased. On my search ("wizard with a gun gameplay"), it seems like Retromation and Wanderbots are the the most watched people with a series on this. And they may do another series later on, but that takes time to setup and publish.

As for Twitch, there is currently an incentive to watch WWaG streams, since there are Twitch Drops. So it is now a great time to see what the game is like right now! Currently I'm waiting to see if some of the bigger Twitch streamers I watched will play this before doing the Twitch Drops since I want to see how they will react to the changes.

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As for what I think about the game...

It has a great core game play loop that many people picked up on early on back when the short demo was out. On top of that, it has a novel theme and setting that is fun to explore. Personally, I'm amazed the devs were able to make such a complex game so well on their first go (having done nothing remotely like this before), however ideas, features, and content did have to be (temporarily) cut to make the publishing deadline. While it did finally get the game out the door, it did hurt their reviews a bit, netting an 80% positive on Steam and a 72% on Metacritic as people rightfully cite that the game feels a bit shallow or unfinished. Usually I see players be more harsh about that, so the devs getting a score that high despite the 'unfinished' nature means they did something right!

Behind the scenes, the devs are not lacking on ideas, and do want to put back in things they wanted to have in the game from the start (along with new ideas). The latest update feels like a great start on fixing the unfinished or shallow nature of the game, and if the quality of this update is any indication, the next planned updates on the Roadmap is looking good.

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TL:DR

Even after doing some research (detailed above), would you rather wait longer for the other planned updates? It is your call (the reader) on getting the game at -40% ($24.99 $14.99) as it gets a much desired free content update, loaded full of new guns and getting some game expanding features. I think it is a good time to grab it, but that's just my opinion.

[Placeholder]

Originally posted by GnomeSlayer:

Originally posted by KingOfCharge:

Game just got a major update about 15 hours ago, making the overworld area more dangerous and adding lots of new weapon options. You can still wait a bit if you want to see how the update affects reviews if you want.

Is there a good review or youtube review of this game? I still don't know what this game is all about. Is this good for play sessions for someone who wants to play in short sessions but the still wants to play a game with a good story that lasts 20 hours+ ?
Thank you

It is for now a very short game if you don't get side tracked at all. New update improves the game in many a way. Of course if you like a bit of base building and taking your time the playtime will be longer. Ultimately, it is a very charming game, but one actively being made still. Devs are passionate, but if you want the full thing now best wait.

[s3q9g6]

From a new players perspective (with 9 hours in), it`s a very simplistic and charming game, easy to pick up and doesn`t require investing half your life to progress.

I play very slowly (havent even tried the first boss yet lol), been mostly focusing on building a base before I actually start progressing in the game. I just find satisfaction in gathering materials and murdering the locals (except the cats), so if you like base building and some good lore then I highly recommend it at the current price (40% off). The full price might feel a bit spicy for the simple mechanics, but then again I dont know how much content there is as of now.

Or you could always buy it now, and play later once it matures more.

[TheMasterArchitect]

I'm really just getting tired of buying and playing half complete games. I think the keyword I see in many of the reviews is "Unfinished".

Think I'll just wait a bit longer. I don't care about the price, I care about a finished product.

[MechWarden]

Fair point.

Coming back after two or three more content updates might be the best for you. I know one update will address the 4 player multiplayer issue, while another will add in the last biome and give a much better ending to the game.

So I guess come back next year?

[akaidunkelseele]

The Timelimit sucks badly imho, way too short , at least at start where i am

[KingOfCharge]

There are ways to get more time, such as defeating chaos rifts. In general running out of time isn’t too common for me, I usually go back for other reasons by then.

[☥ Docdra ☥]

Wait, wait, wait... There's a time limit component? Ugh, was just looking at another game that uses MULTIPLE timers and saw all the complaints about that, but didn't notice anything about timers in this game - but they're there?

[KingOfCharge]

Originally posted by ☥ Docdra ☥:

Wait, wait, wait... There's a time limit component? Ugh, was just looking at another game that uses MULTIPLE timers and saw all the complaints about that, but didn't notice anything about timers in this game - but they're there?

When you exit the tower, a 5 minute timer starts. If this timer runs out, chaos creatures start spawning and the world becomes significantly more dangerous, eventually making it almost impossible to survive. This isn’t a hard timer, so you can stay out for a while afterwards, and on fact the increased number of chaos creatures make certain resources easier to obtain. You can increase the timer by destroying chaos rifts. When you return to the tower, the timer resets.

[Aidal]

Originally posted by ☥ Docdra ☥:

Wait, wait, wait... There's a time limit component? Ugh, was just looking at another game that uses MULTIPLE timers and saw all the complaints about that, but didn't notice anything about timers in this game - but they're there?

You have 5 minutes to raid the arena, however instances spawn that act as a sort of DPS check/lucky find. I was able to turn 5 minutes into 11 minutes due to some lucky placement, otherwise most of the time i get 7-8 minute runs. Its actually not bad, you don't really have to manage anything.

[MechWarden]

In all practicality, you have 7-8 minutes of time in a given "5 minute" run (more if playing with a friend) if you break the Ambush Portals (and collect the orb) that spawn during the nights. Those portals will spawn near you (as in on screen), and should be very easy to spot if looking for them. Each one gives an extra 30 seconds of time (one for each player).

On top of all that, you get even more time when breaking Dormant Portals or defeating Chaos Bosses that are dotted around the map, which gives you several minutes of extra time each (iirc three and a half minutes).

Half way into the game, if you explore enough and have enough fire power, you will have more than enough time to do what you can out there, often needing to head back because of a full inventory. I've had some runs where I had over half an hour on the timer, and that didn't include the time spent getting it that high. In my older saves, it isn't uncommon for me to still have 10 minutes left when needing to head back.

And then you have 'all the time (left) in the (dying) world' to make your escape. You can risk your run by farming for different materials, or make a hasty but moderately safe beeline back to a Door leading back to the Tower.

(And that's not including another thing to increase time!)

In short, The End of The World Timer isn't something to be overly worried about (for better or worse). Plus It can be fun or advantageous to hang around after the timer has ended.

[Cursed Hawkins]

Originally posted by MechWarden:

In all practicality, you have 7-8 minutes of time in a given "5 minute" run (more if playing with a friend) if you break the Ambush Portals (and collect the orb) that spawn during the nights. Those portals will spawn near you (as in on screen), and should be very easy to spot if looking for them. Each one gives an extra 30 seconds of time (one for each player).

On top of all that, you get even more time when breaking Dormant Portals or defeating Chaos Bosses that are dotted around the map, which gives you several minutes of extra time each (iirc three and a half minutes).

Half way into the game, if you explore enough and have enough fire power, you will have more than enough time to do what you can out there, often needing to head back because of a full inventory. I've had some runs where I had over half an hour on the timer, and that didn't include the time spent getting it that high. In my older saves, it isn't uncommon for me to still have 10 minutes left when needing to head back.

And then you have 'all the time (left) in the (dying) world' to make your escape. You can risk your run by farming for different materials, or make a hasty but moderately safe beeline back to a Door leading back to the Tower.

(And that's not including another thing to increase time!)

In short, The End of The World Timer isn't something to be overly worried about (for better or worse). Plus It can be fun or advantageous to hang around after the timer has ended.

Plus there's an achievement for surviving the end times for five minutes, something I got without even trying which makes for a good time to farm Arcana if you need some.

[☥ Docdra ☥]

Really, the REAL answer to the question should be - ONLY if they continue to make updates to the game. There are lots of QoL issues with the game, still some bugs, and some needed optimization still. If they plan to work on those things, then yes, it may be worth a purchase - if not, then pass on it, especially if it is at full price.