izigame.me

I've waited. A good long while for this game to come out. Played the beta in 2020. Immediately fell in love with the style and a new game to the party brawlers. Waited patiently for 3 more years. Missed the first playtest. Played the next 2, and let me tell you. This game is a mixed bag. I like the game at its core, but everything else is muddied and I dont know how to feel about it. Let me explain.
What I liked

The gameplay. Its fun! It's a TON of fun. Its Gang Beasts meets Fall Guys. Its fun and easy to get into. Theres a lot of powerful items and moves, but the randomness in the physics and the large amount of players. Means theres still a pretty low skill ceiling and approachable to everyone.
The style! Its so cute. Its a very pretty game and the fluffy animals beating the absolute piss out of each others is a fun spectacle.
The maps! While I havent played much of the new maps. The maps that were in the beta. Were fun, unique, had a neat gimmick to them. Theyre well designed and fun to fight in.

Unfortunately that's where my positives end and my gripes begin.
What I don't Like.

No offline. Yep a game claiming that it has singleplayer and had offline local coop. It in fact. Doesnt. I would say I'm hurt by a company lying. If it werent so ****ing common nowadays. So no local coop unless you got a connection. What a joke. Gang Beasts had that sorted and that game is almost 10 years old now.
Microtransactions. Now I get it. A company has to cover its costs somehow. It still feels grimy that a paid indie game has paid cosmetics and a full fledged shop. When problems exist in the game and they lie about offline coop. I know offline isnt in the game because they worry about you cheating past their store. Thankfully. Its not an entirely bad shop. Currency is earned in game for free by leveling up, and the free currency you earn can be used to unlock decent skins as well. As well as unlocking skins completing challenges. Still tho. With a game like this. Saying "skins for animals" just is weird to me. IMO tho.
Lootboxes.......****ing really? Pay 120 of your party animal fun bucks or whatever and get a randomized skin. Why? You already have a fortnite item shop. Did you really have to finish it off with that? We left that shit with Battlefront 2.
The gamemodes. Look. I want to beat the piss out of my fellow animal. Thats it. The other gamemodes are a complete waste on me because, like fall guys. I dont want to team up with strangers that wont do the objective. They want to beat the piss out of their fellow man too. Not play bootleg FIFA or Lucio Ball. They tend to either last 10 seconds as the team stomps the other. Or drags on all the way to the end timer and just isnt fun at all.
The quit penalty. This game isn't Valorant or CSGO. Why is there a leave penalty when people can join mid match if someone leaves? If someone (like me) doesnt want to play buzzball or soccer for the 2rd or 3th time in a row and want to play the elimination style modes instead.

My suggestions

Make the Team game modes separate. Fall guys did it so you can queue into those modes. So friends wanting to work with each other. Can. The gamemodes are fun, just not when playing all the time. Separate the game modes and adjust the XP gains to incentives team modes. Or if you dont want to do any of that. Just make it a best of 5. First team to 3 wins. Its that easy. Shortens the length. If you are getting stomped it ends sooner, and close match games can happen much more frequent. I would actually stick around to play them out.
Remove the quit penalty. Theres no reason for it. There is no rank system at all. We aint competing for the world cup. It'll be of no issue to get rid of it.
Work on offline ASAP. You told us it would be here on launch. It isn't. That doesn't sit well with anyone.
Make sure you maintain the currency gained so that people who do put in the time with this game dont feel cheated and the need to buy skins (tho thats exactly what you want isnt it?) I dont think the microtransactions are inherently scummy, but I still hate them in any game.

Closing thoughts
Funnily enough. I enjoy the game. Its fun! Its Fall Guys meets Gang Beasts. The beat em up style gameplay is just fun and chaotic. I will be playing the shit out of this game and I would recommend off the gameplay alone, but with the current issues. I wont at the moment. If you got this far and still decide to get it. All I ask is that you dont support them in their shop. Not until the game is in a better spot and the issues everyone has are addressed.
Thanks for reading!