izigame.me

Disclaimer:
I have seen too many reviews for this game already where people don't have enough time played or experience, which leads to misinformation and incorrect judgement. Therefore I feel the need to say that I have played through the entirety of this game content wise. I have used all cards that I understand to be in the game, and have completed every mission barring the final mission where I lost in the final fight. I have also played the original demo AND prologue versions of this game in their entirety. The total gameplay hours throughout all versions can be estimated at roughly 25 hours. This being said, I believe myself to be in the utmost position someone can be to make a review for this game.
Also, this review is not focussed on describing the gameplay. It is more to point out what I think this game can be, what I think is wrong with it right now, and as a message to the developers on what kind of love this game deserves.
Overarching opinions (mostly good things):
In simple terms, I love this game. Fights in Tight Spaces is extremely fun and addicting. I can't help but praise the idea and so far, execution (given circumstances) of the developers. I will 100% be playing much more in the future. The potential this game has is astonishing to me. What can be done with this formula is great. For me it's one of those games that in a finished state, could have 100+ hours played in a week. Which means that if I had an entire week of free time, and slept 9 hours a day, I could see myself playing this for every waking hour I have. This is obviously not sustainable or realistic, but this scenario can portray what level of potential I think this game has. The only other games in this category that I have played are:
Mount & Blade, Skyrim, XCOM 2, and Minecraft
Considering that this game literally came out in Early Access less than a week ago, keep in mind I said "finished state", which represents the ideal state that I think and wish this game can achieve eventually. To compete with the Triple A - like juggernauts and personal favorites I listed, this game would obviously require an absurd amount of content and polishing. However, if there was any game that I could preemptively guess to have a chance at reaching that level of game quality, its Fights in Tight Spaces.
Criticisms:
So now that i'm done talking like this game is the next coming of christ, I can point out some of its very apparent flaws. Because like I said earlier, this game is nowhere near what I think it could be. But I understand that an Early Access game doesn't need to be perfect by any means.
-Players locked into Ironman mode-
This one is something that most people seem to be asking for, and rightfully so. Most people won't be ready for the debatably brutal consequences in place at the moment where you have to restart from the beginning if you fail. With this game demanding near perfection in its gameplay to grant success. Playing perfectly, especially when you don't have the desire to, can be extremely frustrating. I am, like I said at the beginning of the review, as experienced as someone can be at this game. But it still took me a multitude of attempts to make it to the end of the game. Even worse, this game has no tutorial, which would explain the most basic of game mechanics to brand new players. The game also constantly introduces new card abilities which all have nuances which are never explained and must be figured out through trial and error (all while in a forced ironman). I very often draw a line between this game and XCOM 2. Which was a game that I started out very inexperienced at. I almost quit playing that game in the first 10-15 hours due to its brutal difficulty and permadeath mechanics. The only reason I didn't quit and ended up loving the game, was because the game allowed me to work around the difficult mechanics to learn how to overcome them. #1 it did not force its ironman mode, and #2 it allowed for manual saves with which many players (including myself) used to retry segments and learn the game. XCOM 2’s ironman mode still offered what this game already has to whoever desired the challenge. Simply, the function of a forced ironman mode with no workarounds in a challenging strategy gameplay system (that also is not DIRECTLY explained) is almost never a good thing.
-Some levels become impossible to complete at times-
What I mean by this is that there are cases where the player cannot prevent a death regardless of preparation or gameplay performance. The limited deck modification mechanics in the game, and what I assume is random generation of enemy spawns contribute to this problem. This is one that could be overlooked or forgiven in some cases in a game that does not force an ironman mode. But, in a game that does (at the moment) such as Fights in Tight Spaces, it can in essence prevent someone from playing the game. Allowing the game to be played should be the first priority of any game development. So I would assume that this should be near the top of the priority list for fixes/changes. Obviously in a card game that relies on chance of getting the cards you need for any given gameplay situation, these problems are bound to happen. But reducing the likelihood of such instances is very important. I think the dev team has already mentioned their understanding of wanting to work on this issue, so this problem could be short lived.
-Lacks replayability once the game has been beaten-
This game strives to be a good game mostly through its difficulty and journey to learn and get better at the game to take on harder and harder missions. Which lends a game like this to simply just add more content (with more missions AND card mechanics). While such an approach will obviously lead to a longer, more fulfilling game. It does not bring out the full potential of the game. This game could have features such as community made missions/enemies/cards. Or higher levels of more nuanced difficulty almost like a pokemon nuzlocke which changes how the game is played at a very core level and what parts of the game are valued in each playthrough/gameplay session. I know these ideas can create a slippery slope for developers to find out where the line needs to be drawn in respect to what they need to do versus what the players can do on their own. Mostly because both of the features I mentioned could in some capacity be done without direct developer influence. I also don't know in what way or how hard it would be to implement features like this into the game. I am not making the game after all. But if Fights in Tight Spaces is to truly meet the high bar of potential it has set for itself, moves such as these would need to be considered.
Conclusion:
For anyone who read this whole thing, I would say that the price is justified for the game you would be receiving. Especially due to the high likelihood of more content and polishing in the future. My opinion of this game is already high, and most likely it will improve further the more this game is updated and worked on. I can only hope that this review is read by the developers as well, because most of this review was unintentionally designed as a message to them. I wish the best of luck to the development of this game and I would recommend this game to anyone I come across.