Against the Storm Review (JohanS)
The replayability of Against the Storm is higher than anything else I've played. Overall the game is very polished and thoughtfully designed, with a beautiful world and no noticeable bugs to kill the mood.
You start on low difficulty, every round of the game is different and typically lasts a couple of hours, and there's time for a limited number of games between each great reset of the world. The gameplay is varied with different map types, playable races, choices between randomized building blueprints, orders and modifiers that affect the balance of each game. Time elapses through years with cyclical seasons where you're regularly challenged by the ever growing hostility of the forest during the storm season interleaved with calm seasons for expansion and harvest. You learn to work with what you're given and there's many different approaches to win a game.
Each game advances you towards higher level goals of unlocking more time to reach further on the world map before it's time for a big storm where the whole world resets. Only your character level and some resources persist. At first it felt demoralizing that my whole world would be reset, but it quite soon became apparent that it's part of what makes the game so great. Any strategic mistakes you've made or consequences from extra punishing modifiers are only relevant for each playthrough and then you're given a clean slate where you start at the higher character level you've reached.
There's a clear progression through difficulty levels that you need to face in order to complete the higher level goals and you can play hundreds of hours without running out of challenges.
When you've struggled through the most punishing highest difficulty games and want some slack, you can choose to relax with games on a lower difficulty and complete some interesting achievements. As there's the regular great reset, you're free to choose between chill playthroughs and trying to reach the most difficult challenges.
I gladly paid for the expansion when that came out, as this game has given me much more value for my money than anything else I've picked up in years.