Death and Taxes Review (❄ FrostyHoneyJuicy ❄)
If you are a person who likes to complete the game once, then sure, the game will be awesome. I guarantee you! However, if you're a person who is a completionist/likes to unlock everything (every achievement, ending, secrets), then oh boy, this game will not be fun.
Dear developers. Are you out of your mind? If you want the player to continue replaying the game, then why did you make it so hard for us to do it? Things in your game become repetitive fast. Since this is a game about paperwork, it becomes very boring to do the same stuff over and over again. At the same time, you made multiple endings there, but the choices we have to make to unlock them are not always clear and often daunting.
Typically, multiple developers create end-game items to allow their players to do certain things easier and/or faster. But this game offers nothing. This is the main reason why it feels boring and draining to replay the game, and especially hunt for the achievements. Sure, the game gives you the option to start a new game with all previously bought items, but most of them don't help that much, except for a globe, which tells you the state of the world. And sure, there is an eraser, but that can be only used once. If a player makes a mistake, they must return to the shop to repurchase the eraser, which is not cheap. Not to mention that it can only be done after the work. This is a very punishing game design. It's completely alright if the player plays the game for the first time and uses it early-game. But for the completists who have to replay the game countless times? Hell no. The "consequence" lamp is also a somewhat helpful tool for beginners, but it's also not good enough for completionists because it only helps after you make a choice. I wish it could be somehow upgraded, but still fun to use for the end-game.
Sometimes, each document contains information that can be extremely vague. I might understand that you want us to use our critical thinking, but some documents are missing the context, tend to be contradictory, or just be plain neutral - not explaining how one particular human can be useful or destructive to society. As an example, I was tasked to kill all people who work in the food industry. On that day, I was given people who work as cooks, baristas and tavern keepers - theoretically, they all can serve food. I was also given other people with different professions; keep this in mind. But here is a catch. I was also given other conditions, such as "kill X amount of people," so I couldn't kill all of the people who could potentially serve food. In these situations, I had to make uncomfortable decisions, like letting baristas and tavern keepers live. It turns out that in this game, baristas and tavern keepers have nothing to do with food. Blimey, I wish I knew.
At the same time, I tried to pick different dialogue options in each conversation to see if anything changed. Sometimes things may seem different, the other times - not so much, which isn't helping at all. That forces the player to remember which options are neutral and which are not. That makes no sense because if I behave like a goof in front of the boss, he should change his behavior immediately, not in some cases.
All in all, yeah-yeah, the game is pretty; The music's nice (but quite repetitive for the completionists); The story and character customization are also remarkable.
But for real. Developers, if you want your game to be replayed, then make it so it's enjoyable. Just because you played the game during the game's development countless times, hunting all those boring bugs, it doesn't mean that players will enjoy repetition too. That's pathetic to design games like that.
In games such as "Papers, Please", players can choose which days they want to replay. If this game had such a feature, I wouldn't have complained about anything mentioned above. That's the end of it.