I’m surprised Смута’s even been released unlike hundreds of such projects, but instead of dunking on this half-cooked product that can thank UE5 for it’s looks - the only thing reviewers mention in a positive light - one thought captures me more. That this game for some reason took the weirdest period possible for a hyperpatriotic game. I urge you to read about it, it has so much potential for the opposite. In my mind, a set of white subtitles flashes over black:
The mad king is dead.
Moscow is weak.
Would you be dare to take it?
After a stroke of psychotic and delusionary policies of Ivan IV, that country took a nosedive into a violent disorder when a lot of parties, including poles, several fake sons of a dead emperor and nobles taking their turn of establishing their rule, and the new dynasty of Romanovs who won in the end weren’t any better.
That makes an insanely good ground for a macchiavellian powergrab simulator as well as a sim of administrating a rogue land that’s fed up with that bullshit. A medieval New Vegas, if you will. With no laws but the ones you can establish.
That’s the least fitting setting for their imperialistic masturbation.
It’s pretty fun so far, and rage inducing lol. You can see the inspirations drawn from Hollow Knight, Ori and such. Though, I find it way harder and unforgiving than Hollow Knight. The game really wants you to parry every single enemy attack, and will punish you quite hard you if you fail to do so. Just holding the block button does not work, it will block one attack but not the next. You need to press block (or ideally parry with the right timing) on every attack to avoid getting stun locked, which means fighting multiple enemies could be quite challenging, and enemies with quick attack combos are guaranteed to be a pain in the ass.
I’m looking forward to what they do with this little gem. I bought it knowing I would at least get a run through the story, but it ended up being my favorite arpg in a while.
Note: this is copy/pasted from my comment on the Nebula version. Time codes might be slightly off.
The stock clip used at 3:20 involving a driver unabashedly on their phone is brilliant.
The 5:45 clip of a dude in a bigfoot costume cycling through Tokyo was unexpected.
6:00 the self-shout-out had me laugh out loud.
The idea of lowering local street speed limits not actually making your trip take much longer is so true. Brisbane-based cycling safety advocate Chris Cox has a video where he gives a demonstration. He drives the same route twice, once sticking to 30 km/h on the local streets, and once trying his best to get up to the speed limit of 50 km/h on those streets. (Driving to the predominantly 60 km/h speed limit on arterial roads.) The video on the whole is actually incredibly similar to this one, down to the safety/speed curve, the FOV comparisons, and the dismissal of the ridiculous arguments against 30 km/h. Because yeah, Jason’s words in the conclusion to this video are so right: the data is really, really, really clear here; at some point we have to realise that anybody fighting against lower speed limits within cities is either wilfully ignorant or they’re a selfish arsehole who values their convenience more than other people’s safety. But here’s a timestamped link to the bit of Chris’s video where he starts his experiment. It took a whopping 9 extra seconds. 9 seconds, on a 10 minute journey.
TL;DR: This is the final update in their roadmap and adds gameplay modifiers on starting the game or NG+. You can choose things like randomizing loot, randomizing enemies, ironman mode, and other gameplay changers. Some make the game easier, most are purely for people that enjoy challenge runs. Pretty neat.
I like the idea, but the execution looks cheap. I’m more open to middle earth games without fighting than with though so I won’t lament the IP yet. It often feels hamfisted to force it into the slashy-casty box.
It sucks that I don’t trust this game to be playable offline. I’m also not a fan of hitstun decay, but at least there were a few points in this video where there appeared to be tech traps; if you’re going to have hitstun decay, it needs to keep the other player engaged too, rather than just holding a button and waiting for your opponent to maybe screw up.
youtube.com
Ważne