izigame.me

Nobody reads these reviews anyway, so I'll just leave here that I like the game.


Haha, okay, seriously. I like the game. I'm gonna tell you about the game, and then I'm gonna talk about a couple things I see people don't like. It's my opinion, leave a clown or something or just scream in the comments, I'm cool either way.
What it is is a first-person melee game. That's like a first person shooting game, except the ranges are really low. Like, y'know, melee. Short range hack-and-slash. It's a whole lot less of "put reticule on bad guy and click" and a whole lot more "get close enough to do that reticule thing."
There's a couple characters that do more ranged stuff. Couldn't tell you much, I've been playing the swashbuckler-guy exclusively. My wife's been using the paladork lady, because being a big meatwall with a shield is her jam. It's cool.
We've been streaming it on alternate accounts, so I've got more time on this game than you think.
The playstyle is more methodical, rewarding good positioning and being aware of the enemies. And flailing away with attacks can get punished, so you need to keep your attacks measured and even. Getting hit in the back does a lot more damage, and with no radar you really need to keep looking around. There's a brief "you are about to get hit from this direction" symbol, which is your only clue you're going to get walloped. The game will end you quickly if you're inattentive or impatient. I rather like this.
It's got "roguelike" elements, where progressive playthroughs let you unlock benefits which permanently upgrade your character. If you enjoy a bit of snark, you can replace skill with persistence.
What it looks like is cel-shaded. It's trying to be "Saturday-morning cartoons" and I can believe it, except Saturday-morning cartoons never had a framerate this smooth, or for that matter, looked this nice. When I was a child and watching cartoons, they were flat-out rubbish. I watched them anyway.
Another thing that makes it suitably Saturday-morning cartoon is the plot, and the voice-acting. It's one thing to be a mediocre voice talent doing a cartoon (writes the guy who is a mediocre, *at best*, voice talent) but it's another to ape that style convincingly. It's very, very difficult to be a believably so-so actor on purpose. Which means they're great.
There's also a plot, revealed in tiny dribs and drabs, about some guy named "Deadalus" (this name is brilliant, seriously) who has an army of undead and other things that... I'm not sure, villainy no doubt. But a plucky band of heroes will foil their plan every Saturday morning, I'm sure.
Okay, finally, coop. Right? If you've read my reviews, you know I love this stuff. Parties came together smoothly, gameplay was had. Excellent.
A couple sticking points: The game kind of throws you right in there with just a couple static screens of tutorial to explain the works. Truth be told, it doesn't really need it, except maybe to explain what the super-powerup-MythForce attack does. You stab (or shoot) bad guys. You try to avoid getting hit.
Arrows kind of come from out of nowhere, and exposure to spellcasters doesn't come 'til mostly through the first dungeon sequence. The solution for all of the above is to keep moving, pretty much, but my first encounter was unpleasant to say the least.
Areas in the first mission have been a bit samey. There's perhaps six or eight rooms, though they'll arrange them so you come in from different doors. But you soon realize where the hidden loot is. So a little variety mightn't go amiss.
Some people have moaned about "EOS", confusing "Epic Online Services" with the Epic Game Store (which is abbreviated EGS but come on, people). It's an Unreal Engine Game. It's going to have EOS. It doesn't make you buy games from their store, it installs itself once, and it lets you play with people pretty smoothly. I'm no fan of their game store at all, and have snubbed it so hard the only game I bought there I bought again on Steam, but let's get our facts together here, eh?
Anyway, a game that rewards patience and positioning, runs great, and is a bit cheesy? It's my kind of game. MythForce is a great coop adventure. I don't know how many legs it has, but I expect the missus and I may go through the whole campaign at least once, and I'll probably try to headlock a few friends into getting copies so we can run a full team. It'll be a good number of streaming episodes, if anything. It's got my swashbuckling thumb up.