izigame.me

Im so torn on this one, but I think overall my thoughts lean slightly south of positive. I want to like this game so badly, and broadly I do, but there are certain aspects that hold it back from its full potential, IMO. But the TLDR is game is good, but not as good as id hope. I dont think youll necessarily regret your purchase, but if youre like me you might not get as many hours out of it as you'd hope given the genre. IF youre interested in my more detailed thoughts read on.
First off the things I am a fan of. Love the art style. The music (when present) is thematic and good. The voice acting is phenomenal and does a lot to characterize the different outlaws. The outlaws themselves are varied and interesting with unique playstyles, personalities and use cases that make assembling a team feel engaging.
Now on to the negatives/areas for improvement.
-The shooting feels...off to me. Its certainly not bad, but certain characters just dont feel as good to shoot with as others. For example, the dual revolver wielding spider woman has such insane bullet drop on her pistols that it feels like youre shooting nerf darts. Trying to fight at range feels like youre playing sniper elite when it really shouldnt at the ranges we're dealing with on these small encounter stages. Other characters like the sniper feel great.
-Damage feels hard to mitigate in a game where healing is often limited and expensive to come by. You have to make effective use of cover to avoid attacks from some of the enemy types. Thats okay, but at times enemies will camp behind an object and refuse to peek, forcing you to push their position and shooting you as soon as you come into view. Certain characters like the explosives expert can deal with this thru splash damage, but others cannot. Also nothing feels worse than sitting in cover listening for the enemy to shoot before popping your head up, waiting and waiting, hearing nothing, then taking damage the second you decide to peek. Or maybe youre pinned down by snipers and get rushed by critter melee enemies (thats fine btw and good you should pressure the player. I'm just saying it makes it hard to avoid damage). Overall I just found myself taking so much of what FELT like unavoidable damage, regardless of whether it actually was or not.
-That brings me to my next point which is injuries and feuds. You are often limited (at least where I am in the game) to 2-4 outlaws per mission, with 2 being able to be grouped together at a time once youre on planet. My roster currently has like 8 people. So losing an outlaw to injury can be quite punishing when you factor in that half your roster can be feuding with each other preventing you from bringing them into a mission at the same time. I have had cases where one or two injuries combined with the various feuds left me only able to take 3 out of 7 available outlaws into a mission due to all the conflicts. That feels bad. Especially when the feuds appear to be purely RNG. It reminds me of the (quite divisive among players) relationship mechanics in darkest dungeon 2 that were so annoying. But at least there you could directly manage and impact the relationships to mitigate it significantly thru smart gameplay. Here it just happens. And the resource needed to resolve it is so incredibly rare in my experience that it feels impossible to effectively keep your crew in check. In one starmap you might endure 5-6 feuds and only receive one can of beans to clear one of them. Its just not enough and I expect it will be changed in the future cuz this is insane. It would be one thing if you could still bring two feuding party members but they just couldnt be teamed up on the planet, or maybe they just got a debuff or something. But completely locking them out is super annoying.
-The strategic gameplay feels a bit shallow to me so far. Once youre on a planet you decide how to group up or split your party and can move them independently around the map nodes. There are various roadblocks, loot, roving packs of enemies, POI's etc to explore. And there is the looming threat of the arrival of a bounty hunter if you stay on the planet too long. The game presents the bounty hunter as a big threat, but the first time one caught me I killed him without even taking damage. They likely get more threatening but it was a bit anticlimactic. But yeah each level feels a bit like a puzzle trying to figure out how to maximize resource gain while managing your parties health and avoiding injury. Except often I was able to easily get everything with minimal planning/efficiency and get out before the bounty hunter arrives. Once again, likely the maps get larger and more complicated later, but I am over 6 hrs in and still feel like the strategy component is lacking. So long as you are generally proficient at shooting mechanics and skip unnecessary fights, its pretty easy to fully clear a map. It feels like there is a lack of meaningful choice/consequence.
-The upgrades have not felt super impactful so far. The "Aces" you pick up for each outlaw enhance their abilities in some way and "Mods" are equipment you wear with varying effects only active for that star system before you warp. without exception, everything I have found so far is just some variation of a stat increase (more health, more armor, lower bullet spread etc.) which, while useful, is also boring. Where is the ace that turns smokeys fireballs into a flamethrower? Where is the mod that allows me to lasso an enemy and pull them towards me or makes the lizard character invisible while sprinting and low to the ground? Something that actually changes the way the outlaw plays instead of just making them more effective at the thing they already do? Maybe it exists just later in the game. But once again im 6 hours in. Most players wont even give you that long if theyre bored. I want something to grab me and make me go "oh thats cool. How can i build around that with mods? I wonder what aces exist for X character I enjoy" etc.
Overall im just struggling to see what will make me want to play this for 20, 50 or 100 hrs like other rouge-likes I enjoy. Not every game needs 100's of hours of replayability to be good. This is a competently made game. But sometimes a decent game with unrealized potential feels worse than a subpar game with little potential beyond that if that makes sense. I love this genre so much and have logged hundreds of hours across various games, but im struggling to find the hook with this one to keep me coming back for more runs. And especially at $35 this game is a bit on the expensive side compared to its contemporaries.
Maybe with future updates/content ill be able to update this review. I sincerely hope so!