I will begin stating I have been following this project since nearly its inception and announcement to be funding via Kickstarter. This is for all intents and purposes an early access prototype meant to glean feedback from people like myself. Do not buy this game at this moment, if you are expecting it to be 100% complete and ready to play. It is early access for a reason. Giving it a negative review for being incomplete after willfully purchasing it as early access content is ignorant.

I do recommend it full heartedly for those who are willing to pick through, nail down details that can be improved upon, and are willing to provide that feedback to the developers. I've played through the polished level multiple times now. I still feel like I have missed things, and each time I have played I've found something new.

Positive for the polished level:

The lighting is stunning and gorgeous. The mystical feel creates a sense of things hiding in the shadows.

I am quite fond of the footprints (even if they do get left floating in the air after walking on a seesaw-ed bridge).

The physics are doing quite well, particularly when dashing, the mouse feels light on their feet and even skitters around corners as if they are trying to get a better grip while turning. The barrels have a hefty weight to them, and feel like they are as tough as the real deal.

The foley sound design is strong, though it could be toned down in some regards. I do feel that in the situation of the polished Old Moss Creek level, due to fleeing the village being raided, the music might not be quite fitting. It may be too easy listening, and there is no sense of urgency.

The enviroment does feel more grand and larger than Sophia, your playable character, and being that you are a mouse, I feel that is more immersive. Needing to have your companions help you with moving things feels like it is a natural need when you are so small.

The character models as design for anthropomorphic mice is a nice mesh of realism and cartoonish design. Sophia's clothing is quite intricate.

Currently as of Dec 18 2017 for suggesting to the dev team for improvements, here are the notes I took:

Sophia has a gaping neck where the polygons are missing while crossing balancing points
The dash x and y sensitivity of camera needs to be linked to normal camera
The dash animation looks more like "skipping" than dashing, I may suggest bringing the PC's head down more when dashing to avoid it looking quite so uncomfortable to run on all fours.
I would like the ability to scroll the camera out from the character more.
When walking, the tail looks unnatural being held up like a crook; relaxing it to a position more for just balance would suit the movement better.
Control bindings for interact are affected when dash was moved to left shift. Went from E to Space.
Jumping animation is jerky and cuts between launch and landing spots.
Footstep sounds could be brought down in volume slightly.
Is the pit under the logs you balance on supposed to be pitch black? I might add some depth to the rocks to make it feel more like a hole and less flat.
"A" to exit dialogues/cutscenes is not working
Music does not start until about 3 minutes into playing. Is that supposed to happen?
I wish the camera was less attached to the PC where it causes massive amounts of jerking movement when running, jumping, climbing, and other such movements
I think jumping may look better if done from back legs to front then moving up to a standing position.
Make the item names in chests clickable to collect.
I cannot go through the items in my inventory. Are they supposed to be accessable once collected in this build?
There seems to be a secondary bounce after leaping across to the chest on the rock in the center of the pit that is part of the animation that is supposed to be like a skid or a slide? Perhaps it can be smoothed out so it is easier to calculate for. I keep accidentally jumping into the pit because of the animation.
For how shallow the water is, I feel there could be a reason added that it sends you back to the last load point (maybe it's super cold) adding an animation to this and providing that reason would feel less like the water is just there to be an obstacle.
The footstep decals float instead of being attached to the surface
Give Sophia a belt or rope to use for the zip line, using her paws looks like it hurts.

If I have more feedback for the devs, I will update this review as I go.

Such a nightmare... There are a few aspects that this game does well. The voice acting plays 98% of the time, and the dialogue and the characters have a true Redwall feel to them. The illustrations, while not very high resolution, have a solid Redwall feel to them. I love the characters and genuinely want to know more about them. I appreciate the effort that they took to narrate everything. The scenting mechanic is fascinating and, when it works, it works really well. Reading the forums, the scent is apparently "dynamic," which seems to be causing some problems, but after playing the game and running through the same levels over and over again (not by choice), there isn't a reason that they need to be dynamic, because everything in the world feels static.

You have a sling shot that doesn't break anything other than the random jar here and there. You can hit rats with it to get their attention, but if you hit something near them, they don't bother moving, they just say something ominous like, "I can see you," even though they don't move toward you. And if they really see you, they will move toward you. The game does its best to minimize loading time by fading you to the last checkpoint if you make a mistake. The problem is that these mistakes aren't always apparent. You could be walking the shore, and one random rock doesn't like how you stepped on it and you are automatically teleported to the checkpoint. During these teleports, things don't always reset properly, and you can have rats in the ground, rats with torches that hover inside their bodies, and their banter and paths can also be broken. This also occurs randomly if you try to jump along a wall the wrong way, or try to jump where you aren't allowed, but the collision boxes are properly keeping you from getting killed, until you just get killed anyway as you back off. There are items all over that you can climb, but if you jump off of many of them, you will hit an invisible wall that prevents you from going onto an easily accessible roof, fence, etc.

In the first level, you can keep triggering quest events as many times as you want, which shouldn't be needed if this game ran properly. Since it doesn't, I was thankful that I could. I made the mistake of trying to redo challenges to get a better score, and had to go through so many hoops to get characters to trigger properly so that I could redo the challenges in a way that would count at the end.

Instead of using the environment to your advantage, you have to avoid the enviroment at all costs, especially if water is involved. The water in the first level is very shallow and narrow, and yet if you dip one claw into it, dead. This makes sense in the second level where the rats have to swim because the water is deeper, but in the first level, it feels sloppy and uncontrolled. If this game was still in early access or beta, fine, but it's advertised as not. If you want to experience Redwall, you're better off playing the non-Redwall Ghost of a Tale. It has castles, rats (and they aren't all one-dimensional evil), you play a mouse, and the game is beautiful and it works.

I'll keep this game installed for a few more months and change this review if things get better, but for now, don't bother with this game if it's any more than $5. It's likely you will not even get past the second level due to game breaking glitches years after this game's development first started. It should still be considered early access, so if you are into that kind of risk, go for it. You will probably like what you are able to accomplish. For everyone else, this game does have a lot of charming elements, there are just too many things that keep getting in the way.

Okay, have to say straight out that if you want a game then don't bother with this.
If you want to help a game based in the world of Mossflower then please, buy this and provide feedback.
I've read comments that say "this is nothing like Redwall" but at this point it is impossible to make that claim; similarly it is too easy to say the opposite. I do however really like what I have seen. Yes the controls are clunky and the camera acts like it's on speed, and yes there is a lot of polish to be done, but if I am to be honest then the worst part of this is that the feedback asks too specific questions. Yes, I'm giving feedback on giving feedback.
Maybe they are only asking specific questions right now for a reason but there are a number of comments that I would have liked to have given and I have done my best to do so with what they provided.
At this point in time, buying this game isn't about getting a gameplay experience for your money, it is about helping the developer to create a game based around a world that we loved as children and, even at 24 and playing in university accomodation, that I still love.

I've been a huge fan of Redwall since I was kid. Grew up with the books (all 20 something of them), so they we're a good aprt of my childhood. Excited to have a game (and future games) that finally is set in that universe. Overall the game is enjoyable so far and I'm happy with the purchase. They've got a good foundation to build upon.

PROS:
- Voiceacting and writing: given that this was based off books, I was expecting the writing to be solid. The game certainly delivers on that. Each voice is pretty distguishable and adds a good amount of value to game. The writing captures the spirit of the series well.

- Art design: Love the look of the forest and the woodland creatures. They seemed to have used the illustrations from the books as source material and thats a good thing. The textures need a little work but they seem to be gradually being upgraded when the game is patched.

- Plot: fans of Redwall will know the mouse vs. vermin storyline well, so I think using that as the foundation of theplot was a safe bet.

-Episodic Format: Big fan of the walking dead and the wolf among us, and I think that short-form episodes are a good format for this game. If they can get the content out in a reasonable pace.

CONS
-Controls: the controls are a bit unintuitive at first, takes some time getting used to. Given the plaforming elements its a frustrating combo. Eventually you get the skills but there is definitely a learning curve.

-Animations: some of the animations are a little stuttering, I think these can be patched out but it breaks immersion occasionally.

As of 12-28-18 and after playing through this whole game, this doesn't feel like a proper full fledged game or even like an episodic one but an overpriced demo that this company is trying to push. After 5 years of waiting and we're left with this? This is just terrible. After playing this 2 times in a row, I cannot understand why there are so many people praising and giving instant positive reviews for this game. This game is a broken mess of a tech demo and NOBODY here will even explain WHY they think it's good asides from "It has the Redwall name slapped on so it must be good". I love the Redwall series, I really do. I've read each book around 7-8 times each by now and even reluctantly say the animated series is decent for what it does. But i'm sorry but blindly priasing this game is NOT going to help improve the turth behind how flawed this whole thing is, especially since they are charging $15 for this "episode" that you can beat in under 2 hours. The game is so unpolished and lacking in every department that i'm genuinely suprised that this even got past quality control. Did they even test the game fully before pushing this out? The game runs so poorly that you will average less then 30fps the entire time that running ARMA 3 on high grpahics will yield higher framerates. The game itself is more buggy and more broken then an EA Battlefield game or Bethesda game at launch day. Missions bug out constantly forcing you to restart the entire level again due to key items missing, objects not functioning properly so things are stuck and unmovable, moments where objects are just not allowing them to be used, or even just falling straight out of the map for who know's what reason. I have even fallen out of the map so many times in pretty much every single mission that in order to continue I would have to then re-fall back into the map by jumping at random walls and no-clip back in. And you'll be doing this a lot since it's easy to break the game by pure mistake and isn't a case of looking for ways to cheat the system. Or you may simply just have restart the entire level since checkpoints don't work half the time either and will even spawn you back out of the map as you endlessly fall or can't get back into the map. This is great i'm sure if you want each playthrough to play differently, which it will, but that's because the game keeps breaking and certain things won't trigger or preform properly each time. The graphics look terrible and cheap like somebody's first Unity project where the animation is so terrible that everything is literally ice skating across the ground when it moves. Movement is a train wreck since it feels stiff in all the ways as you will get stuck on literally anything that goes against your character's body. When climbing you'll be wondering if your character will actually climb the ladder or hover in front of it to get up something. Not to mention that sometimes after climbing all the way up your character will just randoml decided to start climbing down the second your reach the top for no reason. I should also mention that jumping around is faster then the running in this game. The ONLY other game I have seen that has jumping being faster then running is Devil May Cry 2 and you have to fail pretty badly if you can't even get the basic movement down in your game. The story itself is pointless and feels like it doesn't even know what it fully wants to do with characters it is trying to establish. Everybody shows up to spout exposition and then disappear leaving you confused and not really invested in what's happening. If you want to get REALLY literal with the story, you're essentially the equivalent of an Eagle Scout who needs to warn their town that it's under attack. But it was already attacked making the whole purpose of what you need to do pointless. To further add on how pointless everything is, the "attacking" rats don't even pose a threat that you need to run from or be worried about since the game is almost directing you to speedrun the game in a way as you are constantly being pressured to keep moving forward and never look around. They don't serve any purpose in the game and don't even deter you from doing whatever mission you're on. The stealth and scent sniffing mechanics they constantly promote and talk about in-game is useless. You can just run past everybody and there's no point in sniffing anything since it feels tacked on and all the constant Dead Space style waving lines flying across the screen serve no real point except providing screen clutter and making you wonder if there's graphical errors popping up on you. If you're a Redwall fan you will notice how nothing is consitent in this universe and the game fully acknowledges it and ♥♥♥♥♥ with it even more. Characters will run on all fours like feral creatures but then you'll have other creatures run normally on two legs as if they're human. There was a reason why after the first book this flip-flopping movement was scrapped and everybody ran on two legs like humans asides from the feral\beast-like creatures who had gone insane. (Examples being The Gloomer or Urgan Nagru's "pet" Ermines who had been tortured to insanity). At least the animated series made sure everybody moved on two legs and followed a consistent set of rules so i'm not sure why the devs can't do the same here since it looks REALLY out of place and awkward to be running on all fours like a dog or zombie. Overall, this game lacks any sort of direction and meaning behind what it wants to accomplish. There's nothing to make you care about the characters or want to keep going since it's too short to establish anything worthwhile to hold onto. The music itself is still unfitting as ever since I commented about it over a year ago so you're still stuck with slow dance country music that feels like it should be in Far Cry 5 or a Civil War game. Where's the medieval music?!?! It's sad to say that Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes or Gran Truismo 5 Prologue has more depth to them and they were blatant demos being sold for full price....kinda like this game. Do not buy this, DO NOT!!! Go spend your money on something better like "Ghost Of A Tale" since that at least has effort put into it and feels more of a Redwall game then this ever will be.


But it was nice to see the small shrine dedicated to the author Brian Jaques. That was a nice detail I can give definite props to.




Older "Early Acess" Review down below if you wish to see what the review used to be about before it became a full product.

This has got to be the most cheeriest and worst representation of the Redwall universe I have ever seen. I know people give the animated series a lot of crap for what they were, but this resembles nothing close to the Redwall universe. This current demo resembles more of a random animal fantasy game then a Redwall IP. I hate giving this a negative review but this is just the worst possible way to represent the Redwall name by making it feel so alienated and disconnected from that universe. I love the book series and may even reluctantly say that the animated series was alright at times, but good lord this is not looking good. The demo is buggy right now, yes that's to be expected. Movement is still needing to be worked on, yes that's expected as well. But who honestly thought that creatures in the Redwall universe run on all fours like feral creatures? They didn't do that in the book, they didn't do that in the shows, so why the hell is it being done here? And what the **** is with the music? Why does this sound like slow country music from Indiana? It is so unfitting and distracting that I was laughing at how bad it was. I do hope they change the whole musical genre and a lot of this game later down the road since this is just awful all over for a demo showcasing what they want to do.

Final verdict: Avoid and wait another 1-2 years for it to be finished and heavily altered.

It's taken me a while to get around to writing this review, and for that I apologise. But I have been busy of late, and consequently rather more than a little time poor. With that being said, I believe it would be unfair of me to delay this well deserved review any longer.
The Scout is just the first of six episodes in a series of games developed by a group known for their commitment to providing quality games, but more importantly, quality customer service. I have been testing The Scout since it first came out on early access, and have put over 100 hours into playing and replaying levels. I made a lot of recommendations and bug reports, and I am happy to say that they were all addressed very quickly, and in the meantime I managed to chat quite a lot with the Devs, who have always been more than happy to discuss different aspects of the game.
As I have already stated, I've played this game for over 100 hours, and I intend to continue playing as often as I can due to the beautiful storytelling and graphics, as well as the somewhat addictive gameplay.
I can't make up your minds for you, but if I could, you would definitely be playing this game by now. Try it. You won't be disappointed.

It's been 2.5 years since the game's release, and Soma have really turned things around from the undoubted frustration of a game what was its release build. Their latest patch on April 9, 2021 brought with it everything that Soma could do right for both the game and its fans.

The tutorial level is vastly improved and, by far, less confusing, What was once a pit for new players to get lost in and give up on after 2 hours is no more, replaced by an easy-to-follow way point system, that still leaves room for the player to figure out puzzles.

The characters have more life to them, with new voice lines and banter from the baddies, as well as more dialogue from the protagonists that deepen the lore.

If you love the world of Redwall, and the puzzle platform games of old, this game will be worth your time.

I'm happy to update my review and say that the major issues that kept me from recommending it previously have been mostly cleaned up; the tutorial sections seem to work correctly now, and the autosave points in the open starting area are much less sparse.

It still bears mentioning that unfortunately, this is still a VERY glitchy game—but at least with the show-stopping bugs removed, I can say that I think it's worth wrestling with the remaining bugs in order to enjoy the charm of the characters and world. It calls for some patience, but a Redwall fan hoping for a short adventure in that world should have a good time.

Don't bother buying this yet. I'm a huge Redwall fan and this game feels like a prototype. Amidst the spelling mistakes, extremely poor performance and terrible controls, there is an underlying feeling that this game needs an additional 3-6 months before it's even remotely playable.

Wait another month at the very least. I'll probably check back in February.

7/18/19 Edit:

It's been almost two years, and I haven't checked the game since I wrote this review. I will update this review eventually, but anyone reading this review should disregard it until I've updated it. Read the more recent reviews, as this one is no longer accurate.

Review: An Epic Tale of Redwall : The Scout for the PC.

Soma Games has been working on their Redwall video game for a couple of years now, and anticpation is running high for fans of the series. Let's take a look at the final version of their take on the first official video game in the Redwall series.

It's tough to develop a great video game based on a book series, and games like The Scout are a good example of why.

I gotta say, I liked the setting of this game

The Redwall fantasy settings are rendered with glorious lighting effects decorating the terrain that is full of detail and hidden items. The creatures that you encounter are full of life, and I really enjoyed scouting the way and directing the Refugees to the abbey. The huge 3D areas are fun to explore, and you get to step into the feet (or paws?) of a mouse that lives in the Redwall Universe. Something I'm sure every fan of the series has wanted to do.

The story of the game is pretty good too, I mean, I couldn't get the full story effect with the available act but I feel like it that what I saw was a solid story with good characters that fit right into Brian Jacques book series. I'm really interested to see how the story progresses.

All that said, the Scout still feels like a sterotypical Adventure game with a Redwall theme. Which isn't quite a bad thing.
Sometimes it feels good to escape the rush and hustle of our daily lives and escape to the land of a fantasy land we have read so much about. I feel like the Scout does a great job encoprating the same feel I had when I first read the Redwall series.

Graphically speaking, this game has pretty good animations of the creatures, all of which is decently detailed and brings the characters to life effortlessly. I was able to put the character models to the test in the included Motions Lab, and I must say the animation did a pretty good job holding up.

This 3D world of Redwall comes to life in a cartoony-realisticy way, which is nice if you're a fan of the series.The visuals represent the objects they represent well.

All that being said, the game is still in Early Early Early access and has a lot of work to go. They will really need to improve generally every aspect of the game but that will all come in time.

In the end, if you're a fan of the Redwall Series I'd recommend this game. As long as you know what you're buying. It's not a AAA blockbuster video game, it's not a fully polished indie game that's blowing up steam, but it is a very interactive version of the Redwall universe, with a good story, that fans of the series will enjoy. If you're on the fence about this game I'd say go for it! It's a solid start from Soma Games that will improve over time.


Overall Score: 6.5 / 10
Reviewed by Logos