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RPG Maker XP's Undertale.

Wait, you want a detailed review? Well, prepare for a wall of text.


You will never find any user interface elements from RPG Maker engine. No, it's not an role-playing game at all. The game could be perfectly translated in the form of a visual novel. Would you call a visual novel a game?

If the answer is no, you will be dissatisfied with OneShot. The game is incredibly linear: you progress from area to area collecting items, combining them and/or using them on objects or NPCs.

Find a tool, use it on an item in your inventory, attach one item to another, use it on an object or an NPC, door opens. There are 3 main areas, and each of them contains a couple of these puzzles. Almost every time it's obvious what you are trying to achieve.

Game designers tried their best to add a little more variety. You will find simple puzzles, some of them are actually quite interesting, one of them requires a bit of thinking.

At the same time you are constantly reminded about imminent danger, you are literally told “you have only one shot.” Yet this is just a simple puzzle game. Player agency? You can only further the linear plot, nothing more.

You will get nearly the same experience from watching a detailed walkthrough video.


Let's address the main gimmick of the game.

It pretends that you are interacting with a real world through your feline protagonist. You are told that you are a god, and Niko is your messiah.

It doesn't end with writing. Gameplay mechanics rely on the game being a piece of software on your computer. For example, at certain points in the game you will be asked to look for a file in your Documents folder. If you open it in a text editor, you will see a sequence of letters you have to enter in the game as a password.

I did encounter some issues though:

• First of all, that's not 4th wall breaking. You've never even established it. This is simply an intrusive attempt to talk to the player.
  
  
• If you, like me, are using a Microsoft account on your Windows machine, prepare to be addressed with your first name for the rest of the game. I think there was an option early in the game to change how Niko calls you, but I missed it. I don't like being called by my first name in videogames.
  
  
• There is no variety: it's almost always about the filesystem. The first time you have to look for a text file, it's fun. The next puzzle changes your desktop background. Another one is about moving game window around. The rest of the game you have to look for files in your Documents folder, and that was tiresome.
  
  
• By the way, do you like when things mess up with your machine without a warning?
  
  
• The game has to be in windowed mode sometimes. It shows up notification dialogs with messages addressing you by your name, other times there are gameplay mechanics which need the game to stay windowed. In fact, the game guide explicitly states fullscreen mode is not recommended. The window however is too tiny to be playable in windowed mode on a modern high-resolution display.
  
  
• If you play in fullscreen, it enters windowed mode when gameplay requires it. This takes a lot from 4th wall breaking moments: there is no unexpectedness anymore.
  
  
• Finally, there are software bugs with some puzzles. At one point you will be required to run a separate executable file, but due to the way Windows processes interact with each other, for me, it didn't work the way it was supposed to. It took me some time in Google search, and I had to restart a few things. Looking through the forums, I was not alone at this.

If you are trying to pretend the game world is a real thing running on my computer, you have to execute it perfectly. Otherwise the illusion is simply not there even with my willing suspension of disbelief.

And even if I don't have to debug the game for 20 minutes to progress forward, there's really nothing that much new to say in metanarrative anymore. It has been done before.


They are forgettable.

Even the main character you are supposed to care about. In OneShot, you are controlling actions of a naïve and curious child with as little backstory as humanly possible.

Niko likes hazelnut pancakes, his mother, and walking through wheat fields.

Who doesn't like tasty food, their most important relative, and scenic outdoors?

Even Niko's gender is intentionally ambiguous, although I tend to think about him as a boy. He is innocent, likeable, and has no character flaws. Niko feels intentionally undeveloped so you would associate yourself with him. When it comes to character design, I can clearly see how someone is trying to trick my lizard brain into liking the character: Niko is a tiny fragile cat child.

So, we like the protagonist because we don't have a choice. In general, this game does not give any.

The most interesting part about the characters are visuals. But can you remember anything about the bird child with blue feathers aside from the fact she is a bird and acts like a child?


You, the player, clearly have to save this world. Otherwise everything will be lost, fall apart, and decay. Cue sad music. Here is a lightbulb- I mean, the Sun, which is your MacGuffin, the plot device which is supposed to push everything forward. Everyone likes you and helps you on your way. Now go, the world is counting on you.

For a game relying on metanarrative that much this type of plot feels too cliché.

Why are you trying to guilt trip the player into being responsible for a collapsing world you've just introduced? Frankly I cared more about an innocent child who didn't belong to it. Even though Niko isn't written properly, I saved the cat on the first run without even knowing it's a requirement for Solstice run.


Prepare for the most basic, literal, and unsatisfying explanation “this world is actually a simulated videogame, and you control it” you could possibly imagine. You are literally told the game is a virtual world created by someone who left messages for you.

Personally I'm too tired of the simulated world trope. There is nothing wrong with pretending that a player is in a fantasy location which exists somewhere. Your audience does not need convoluted explanations, you can always employ some magical plot device.

Finally, the main villain is defeated by simply saying something along the lines “I don't hate you, I like you now” as if you tell a bully you like them, they will become your friend. I can't even bring up myself to take this lame message seriously.

Things were done, words were said, but what's the ultimate moral of the whole story presented?

I did not encounter a single original thought in it.

Niko did not change through the game in any way. “Yup, I'm still afraid of ladders,” the cat mentions.

There is barely any emotional conflict because ultimately Niko is not responsible for anything happening — you are.

If Niko were real, he would remember events of the game as some weird adventure which inflicted no change to his personality.


After you complete it, OneShot leaves a warm and fuzzy feeling, and you are supposed to be a little sad, too. You will never see Niko again, you are told.

You will never see a protagonist with the most basic mission ever: get back home in one piece to gorge on pancakes.

You will never revisit other poorly written characters, you will never see again their 10 lines of dialogue.

You will never launch the game again because there were only 6 hours worth of content in it.

Isn't that a little sad? Well, not really. It feels like you are being manipulated into feeling sad about leaving something you didn't even have to care about.

15 minutes worth of content. You will complete this thing exactly once and remove it. But hey, nothing beats that sweet price of $0.

This is one of those games you should reward yourself with after setting up your Vive for the first time.

Beware of Justin Roiland-esque humor.

tl;dr: The game was abandoned. You may still play it but don't spend any cash on it.

I bought Steam Launch Starter Pack in June 2014. I played the game a bit and I loved it but I removed it shortly after that. So a few days ago I decided to give it a try again. I bought Blutes and XP boosts and I tried to play the game again. I thought people still play Loadout. Boy, was I wrong.

Turns out the game was almost completely abandoned. It used to have about 30 000 people playing it at the same time, now this number is closer to 500. I have a feeling most of them randomly found Loadout on Steam Store, saw it's free and decided to play it a bit. Casual matchmaking is still possible — just select European or American servers depending on time of a day.

Moreover the game was abandoned by its developers. It used to get updates almost every week. Now they won't even add PvE mode (PS4 received it almost right after launch in January 2015). After PS4 launch Loadout's creative director left the development team. Shortly after that 12 people working on Loadout were fired and the game does not receive any more content.

So don't do the same mistake as I did: do not invest money in this game, it's dead. Feel free to try it. It's sad actually, the game itself is pretty decent. I have a feeling Edge of Reality is going to keep servers running until they can cover expenses. They already shut down Australian servers.