Recent reviews by niam

It's a good game. Try it, rage at your inability to press buttons fast enough, get better, get dopamine, unlock free stuff, climb the ladder, launch a twitch stream, get big, get married, go to tournaments, quit your dayjob, forget your roots, sell out, take sponsor deals from horrible companies, drill for oil, go to space, leave everything behind, take Rivals with you, notice that even on the moon, netcode in Rivals is better than it was in Smash Ultimate.

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Second review, since other reviewers are annoying me.

Legitimate complaints:

* Lack of story mode (planned)
* Lack of tutorial mode (planned; currently, there's tutorial videos and a training mode but no in-game mode for training you on a character)
* Players new to the genre will have a difficult time in Casual mode unless you have really thick skin and are willing to keep losing until you see yourself improve. Counterintuitively: ranked mode is better for new players because it pits you against other new players after your first few losses.

Nonsense complaints:

* 'I have to play or pay to unlock skins? Ridiculous!'. All transactions in this game are forever cosmetic; no new characters, modes, maps, etc. are paywalled--this is how it *should* be.
* Aesthetic judgements. The incessant whining about the number of fire characters (aesthetic) or lack of pixel art (aesthetic, *mostly*) make me want to throw Steam out a window. Technically it may be easier to communicate hitbox sizes in pixel art, but literally nobody is complaining that e.g Smash Bros isn't pixel art on this basis.

they should make an instrument like the one in this game so that the time I spend in it isn't a complete waste of time can be used at parties.

wonderwall?

Good game. Actually an amazing game, with bad parts:

* No training mode (HUGE miss) edit: they added a practice VS AI
* UI is really bad
* Dodging before a game doesn't boot everyone back to the main menu

But all these issues are easily patchable. When I evaluate a game I'm looking more for things that would be hard to fix:

* Is it FUN? Yes. Some of the most fun I've had in a competitive game
* Is it REPLAYABLE? Yes. Very.
* Is it PAY TO WIN? No. The game is monetized by cosmetics.
* Is there SKILL EXPRESSION? Yes. A really high ceiling, actually.
* Do the devs SUCK? No—they seem pretty compassionate and responsive on Discord.

And then there's the other stuff I like:

* MUSIC: Great.
* MAPS: Great.
* ART: Great.
* BALANCE: Great.
* DUBU: Dubu.

Easily the most fun game in its genre: solo and multiplayer. The gameplay loop is amazing. All that's missing is more variety, better tooltips, and maybe a way to noclip through stuff in the setup phase (all of which can easily come with future patches).

Solo is a *smidge* more difficult than multiplayer, but the people saying it isn't fun or possible need to get a grip. Completing a run is incredibly consistent in single-player if you're actually planning your kitchen layouts and automating what you can. THOUGH, there are some non-essential tips which will nonetheless improve your run:

1. Buy tables. A TON of them. Prefer coffee tables when possible. Some of my friends get nervous because they think more tables translates to 'more work'. It basically never does. The more butts you sit in chairs: the fewer people will have to wait outside. People waiting in the rain is the easiest run-killer.
2. Any time a single customer is taking a table that could seat 2+ people: prioritize their order to get them out the door.
3. Walking is the biggest timesink in the game. The more you optimize your kitchen to eliminate walking: the better. Prioritize creating 'cubbies' for you to work in, where you don't need to walk around to do a single activity, but only need to rotate. (This is the tip that solo players need to hear the most: since multi-player people have staff working multiple jobs.)
4. In a solo game, it's very often that you'll either have to move your kitchen equipment into the 'dining room' to quickly serve and bus. Walking through the doors to the kitchen is a pain.
5. The game has a set of items it classifies as "essential" (tables, counters, etc). These items spawn with greater frequency at the start of your planning phase because they're... essential. Rerolled items ignore weighted frequencies, so if you're looking for a non-essential item (floor mats, conveyors, etc): rerolling is your best bet. Don't just keep waiting day after day.
6. Don't build the first research desk you see. Save it in the blueprint cabinet until you get a second one, then buy the second one and upgrade the first. (Desks are considered "essential" items until you've already built one; saving it lets you preserve its essential status and gives you a greater chance of finding the second one)

Currently broken.

A *fun* kind of broken, but still broken. If you don't care: it's worth the pickup because the fundamental gameplay is there and will only get better once bugs are squashed. The game is everything I wanted Civ 6 to be.

I went into this game blind not knowing anything about it until yesterday when I booted it up.

It's good. The acting is great, the optimization is great, the art is great, the music is great. You can play through it without really needing a walkthrough--which helped my immersion a lot. It's got all the components you need for a point-and-click puzzle. The writing may be hit-or-miss with some folks, but I personally liked it.

As-of the time of this review: the game *does* get repetitive towards the later parts of the game while you're going through the steps required to reach each new 'branch' of the twelve minutes you're afforded. A lot of the paths overlap and the game tries to alleviate some of the tedium by making the protagonist skip dialogue that's already been done--but the game really could use a rudimentary "undo" or "rewind" function even despite this. If you've got the patience for that kind of thing, then you're golden. If they ever add a rewind feature: even better.

There's only one part of the game I feel is truly sinful in its poor implementation. The game up to a certain point teaches you to leave certain items in-place where they are (the new year's photo), until all of a sudden the game punishes you for not having picked something up (the watch). But even this "sin" is relatively tame and just makes you roll your eyes for one loop.

The game is worth playing for sure. I hope they can churn out similar games in the future.

It's a good game. Matches could be shorter but the game has a surprising amount of potential.

You'll want a controller, and perhaps a hint of patience to deal with multiplayer. The game is excellent beyond that.