Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap Review (Hubrs)
I've played every OMD game in series (including 337 hours on OMD: Unchained), and have some opinions on this one from the perspective of a solo player. Number one - if this is your first Orcs Must Die! game - choose any other one in the series as your introduction. There are many types of enemies, types of damage, enemies resistant to certain types of damage, and enemies you absolutely need to take out before they reach your killboxes (Cyclop Shamans and the drum guys) or barricades (Kobold Sappers, Fire Ogres) - it is a lot of complexity, that is introduced perfectly over the campaign in every one of the previous games by gradually adding them in, instead of dropping you right in with some short video tutorials from Max.
This game does not have a "campaign", just "runs", each of which ends with an unique boss. And each of these runs happen on the biggest maps in series ever (in my memory, not even the full castle map from OMD:U was as big as Dry Docks/Patio Gardens), all of which have 4 doors or more - fine for someone already familiar with the game's mechanics, but I can't imagine I'd have the patience to learn this game if this was the first one I played. So let this part of the review be a message to those of you, who have never played an OMD game - choose any other one, 5 skull all the maps on the highest difficulty, then come back here.
Alright, let's start with the design choices for this game. The biggest one (in my opinion) is the new map design philosophy, so let's start there.
These new maps are Gigantic. Each one of them has at least 4 doors (boss areanas sometimes have more), and is about as big as War Scenarios from OMD3. The developers also put a lot of effort into making each playthrough of these maps unique - some of them have several places, where the rift can open. Also, Rift Corruption can disable parts of the map where you'd usually put your comfy killbox in. This philosophy, when followed, makes this game incredibly unenjoyable to play.
The idea, I think, is to avoid the "issue" of previous games, where each map had the "optimal" killbox spot, and the rest of the map became irrelevant after discovering it. Well, here's the deal - ALL the new maps have "optimal" killbox spots, where all orcs can (and should) be funneled towards. Of course they do - higher difficulties would be impossible without them! This means that you are going to spend 5-10 minutes just watching red spots on the minimap slowly walk 10 kilometers to your killbox.
This is something that could also happen in previous games - sometimes, the price of funneling all the orcs to a single killbox would mean that each wave would take a long time. But the maps there were way more contained, and if you chased a good par time, you'd create less optimal spots closer to the gates anyways - I could always manage even 3-4 separate killboxes and just go after the leaks. Here it is impossible, since the barricades and player mobility are limited, and orcs can run around a map so gigantic, that chasing a leak requires a 60 seconds shlep back - in that time, a flier will spawn and run straight into the rift easily. So you just sit there, and then run through the map to finish off the orcs that randomly chose to walk to China before entering the rift. I'd rather do my dishes.
There some maps that are suddenly short - Order Arboretum is a cool, 2 killbox design, in Mansion Hedge Maze you can actually pull off 3 killboxes with not that many barricades, and Castle Courtyards is also relatively consistent with 2 killboxes, although one of them is pretty weak.
All other maps are a nightmare though. Dry Docks are actually 4 maps stitched together, each with a separate rift and optimal killbox, the only difference being that orcs have to walk for 30 minutes before they reach it. The other castle map with the rift crystal - each killbox design I came up always left some orcs walking the ENTIRE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE MAP (and I tried). The Back Alleys... Please delete The Back Alleys - all killbox spots are bad, and all of them make the orcs walk for hours. Even waiting for the little ghosts that tell you which path the orcs are gonna take takes soooo long.
This is combined with making your character feel heavy and slow. This is something I have the highest hope that the developers will fix. Using a meelee attack locks you in place, then snaps you towards your nearest enemy. This is bad - the best utility of using meelee is to also be tough enough to hold the enemy line in place. Now you physically can't - swinging your mace twice will snap you to the back of the line, while the ogres you were engaged with just run to the rift.
The attack animations start so disgustingly slow - Max lifts his bladestaff for a full second before swinging, swings it, then recovers for a full second while unable to move. This makes chasing kobolds physically impossible, and meelee in general just painful and useless. The range at which your character snaps towards an enemy is also hard to judge - I had several situations, where I tried to kill a flier, attacked, missed, then with fully stopped momentum tried to pick it back up, walk forwards, jump and attack, only to be AGAIN stopped in mid-air completely, locked for 2 seconds until the animation completes and trying again. Torture.
You can't use your abilities while jumping or reloading. All abilities lock you in place for at least a full second. In addition, you don't outrun the orcs, which makes most abilities just straight up useless. If you try to use Vaan's RMB in the middle of your killbox to boost it, orcs get to you and kill you. Harlow's Q is a short ranged knockback that only works on small enemies (not even the hunters!) and locks you in long enough that it is pointless to use. The only abilities that escape this curse somewhat are Max's and Vaan's Q, since they can be spammed from the back of the line.
Maps are so maze-like and convoluted, that not playing as Max with his double jump is just painful. There is even a maze map - it has maybe 1-2 spots, where you can climb the fence, and once you fall, it will take you minutes to get out of and reach back to the rift.
The devs stated that they want to support this project for a long time. Some of the issues mentioned in this review could be fixed by just flipping a switch; boom - you can now cast abilities in mid-air, boom - you are not locked in place while in meelee anymore, boom - everybody can double jump now. I've got no idea how to easily fix the map design, other than actually going in and changing them, but who knows? I care a lot about this series, so here's to hoping that the lovely devs of this game will make me eat my words at some point. For now - a negative review, sadly.