Alien Frontier

Game has a lot of potential, and I am excited to see where this goes. I love the movement and its quite fun when it clicks. The game preforms great and has very few bugs. I only encountered 2 in my play time thus far. Some feedback for the devs because there is a lot of potential here: :) My biggest gripe is that you do not get currency while doing the main objectives (the flags) it makes you have to farm in order to buy the chests at the end and feels punishing. Doing those big objectives don't feel rewarding at all, only to progress the objective that's bad game design in my opinion. I want to be rewarded for fighting off a hoard of aliens not given a chest I do not have currency for. The 3 currency's feel punishing when you keep getting more then one instead of the other.. I know there is currency exchange but that does not solve the fact that there is RNG on what chests spawn with what currency. I personally would only have one currency like risk of rain. 3 currency's is unnecessary and hurts player progression. (For example I had a run where I had 18 gold, yet all my chests were key cards... my character could not scale power wise and I lost because of that.) I get the enemy camps is how you farm but I would find it way more fun if enemy's just spawned occasionally. The world feels empty for this reason. The game is called alien frontier show me the aliens, don't just have them spawn when I get near the camps PLEASE. I want the world to feel alive and threatening. I haven't unlocked the full healing building but the little healing it provides doesn't cut it when you cannot scale well with the RNG of the currency's. Either add health potions you can carry or make the healing feel better. The radar needs to save potions as Icons if you do not pick them up. There were a couple times where I was full on life so getting a potion was useless and I tried to save it yet could not track it down when I needed it. Not sure if this is a bug or in the game yet but the npc quests do not work, and it says them are not available for the demo build, this is an early access build not a demo. Melee feels awful and needs to be reworked. I love the idea of resetting your cool downs by melee or your secondary, but it was far to punishing and not worth it. Give your player a sword and make it more snappy, maybe make there be a dash attack so you can dash in an out of combat. I think your character should have more ability's that have synergy together. (Think Risk of Rain 2) I've only unlocked one of the three playable characters but they don't feel that different, just different guns. Make the characters have much more variety either through new unique abilities, or play styles. Would love to see more perks to make more builds. You can never go wrong with adding more build variety through perks. A fun wish would be to let us use the grapple on any surface. (think of the grapple in the Just Cause games) That would make the movement and bunny hopping/wing suit so much more fun. Overall this game deserves more attention. The game is fun and the movement is the star of the show. I think if the devs listen to feedback, double down on the movement, and change the economy this game could stand out in the 3D rougelites. I am really excited to see how this game develops overtime and have enjoyed my time with it thus far and look forward to coming back as this game develops.

Before reading the rest of this review, please note that the devs were kind enough to gift me a key for the game via a Reddit giveaway. I won't spend too much time comparing Alien Frontier to Risk of Rain 2, by which it was very obviously inspired. Rather than being a one-on-one clone, the options for different traversal mechanics - gliding, hoverboarding, grappling - give a fresh element to the tested game formula, as are the ability to build shops which can help a run in the long term. The unique art style is also a strong plus. As the game is still in early access, there are bound to be some issues. Environments, although stylistically pretty to look at, feel largely empty. Short bursts of action - fighting mobs while building a mine, or stumbling upon mobs "in the wild" (which currently is unlikely to happen unless actively seeking them out) - are separated by rather long intervals of exploration and terrain traversal. Although the mechanics for this are interesting in principle and fun if executed well, many of them are janky or fully outclassed by others - gliding doesn't work properly half the time, and on flat land there is virtually no reason to run anywhere when the hoverboard is faster and nimbler. Furthermore, there is no way (or at least, not one I could intuitively discover) of selecting a point to grapple to if several are situated in close proximity to each other. Sometimes, the grappling indicator snaps to a point that isn't even on the screen, resulting in unpredictable behaviour which takes the speed out of a traversal process that could otherwise be incredibly fun to fully master - reminiscent of the grappling and gliding of the Just Cause games. Although these issues are annoying to deal with, I believe that this game shows strong potential. It needs some proper fleshing out and a lot of polish, but the basics are enough to warrant a positive review, as well as trust that this decision will pay itself off as the game gets updated.

Really neat art style and fun concept. Enemies are challenging, but there's a lot of potential to strategize and improve as you go. Enjoying it so far!

I liked the concepts and the art direction. The game has technical issues that are a hindrance to enjoying the world they've built however. edit: i forgot to mention the guitars and voice work are well done and good additions.

I played for only a few minutes, but in my short experience, I was bored out of my mind. It feels sluggish and unfinished. The grapple mechanic feels nice and the glider suit isn't terrible. But, the standard walking, combat, and ground travel hoverboard all feel lame. The combat is especially bad, the gun feels terrible and the enemies are boring. Maybe I'll give it another chance later but for now this game is not worth paying for at all.

Pretty tough, but pretty, pretty good. Risk of Rain with some bullet hell vibes.