While the Iron’s Hot Review (Borsund)
I was hesitant with "Not recommended" and only changed to it due to some points I did not like. Game itself isn't bad.
While the Iron's Hot is a game filled with crafting routine, exploration and some puzzles/challenges.
Good
* Music and sounds overall are selected well
* Visuals, while maybe not for everyone, are also pleasant. The only drawback is that steel/damascus colors are sometimes too similar in some UIs
* Core gameplay keeps you invested. It's not 24/7 crafting of the same item list as you get lots of recipes as you progress through the story. You also upgrade various aspects that allow you easier control over crafting mini-games or skip them completely if you want to
* While the map isn't that big, exploration lets you gradually increase your reach, visit new regions, get new resources and recipes
Neutral
* There is a story in the game but it's neither bad nor good. Game has two endings (requires two playthroughs) as well as a couple of minor decisions that don't have that big of an impact
* Several UI choices aren't great
* World movement is meh
* You have the ability to gradually expand your village through new buildings with added functionality, which is great. But buildings end up stretching far and it's a lot of running sideways to find required NPC or building
* Game has stamina. It's not as bad as some other titles but it's also gradually depleting over time which is bad when you consider some other points
Bad
* Controls are bad when it comes to bulk crafting. If you want to craft something 20 times you will have to click 20 times to select such quantity. There's no "hold to select more" or even "hold to craft all" similar to how you can add either one item or full stack of items
* There is no option to split stacks of items
* Game does not run if it loses focus and sleeping does not progress time
* Game length, without rush and completing all the upgrades, main quests and side quests, is probably 6-10 hours. Extra 3 for additional "main quests only" playthrough for the second ending. About 8-10 hours were spent to grind unnecessarily prolonged progression for achievements
* There is a way to get unlimited ingots and therefore unlimited money. I don't know if that's intended or not but that removes the need to gather resources or trade for them
* There are several scenarios where you can lock yourself out of completion and if you didn't realize it immediately (game is saved every time you sleep, so you can reset last day) you are screwed
The ugly aka what made me switch to "Not recommended"
After you finish the main game, complete all the side quests, build every building and are otherwise fully upgraded as well as have hunted all of the main achievements you are left with "Get to X renown stage" achievements. Those are practically your levels that give you a choice of perks every time you level up. But you will be missing over 10 stages until the final one. Perks aren't required anymore, just crafting isn't fun and quite pointless at that moment. And you are left with the best way to do it - smelt iron, craft iron strips, smelt them into iron, repeat. You leave the game running without ability to use your PC (no focus = pause), no ability to speed things up (sleeping = pause) and you are forced to use autoclicker as you can't realistically craft thousands of iron strips without it as there's no option to craft all available. And a cherry on top - if you afk for too long, you will passively drain out of energy and you will end with a pause screen.
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Summary
While the Iron's Hot is a decent game with several major flaws. It's enjoyable to play it as a game but exploity mechanics kinda ruin that fun and make it much easier. For achievement hunters the game is an utter pain in the lower back as it's unnecessarily prolonged in the worst possible way.
I think I enjoyed the demo more, impression of the full game ruined due to achievement hunt.