ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH

I wanted to like this game. Saw it covered by a YouTuber I follow, figured 3.50 (well, almost) wouldn't hurt much when it's on sale, but I just can't recommend it, honestly. It's a meme game. It uses one of the coolest sci-fi settings out there, War of the Worlds, but does NOTHING with it. Once those tripods come online you think "oh yeah", but then everything else happens and you go "oh no". The game is a super hectic version of other "survivors" type games. It tries to trick you into having fun by flooding your brain with cheap dopamine: flashy explosions, lots of things going on at the same time, numbers go brrrr (or not), lots of pickups that make a somewhat satisfying, but ultimately irritating clinking sound, and the prospect of just endlessly moving forward. And that COULD even work IF the game had any legs to stand on. My first run I failed at level 9/10, then I unlocked the rocket troops and made it to the boss, killed said boss, and just went straight to "loop 2", i.e. the exact same game and levels, only with higher HP multipliers. And those HP multipliers are BS if I've ever seen them. It starts in the first loop already, come level 5 or so your damage just seems to grind to a halt, no matter the composition and upgrades, at least the ones I have right now. From then on it just becomes a tedious "dodge the purple MMO circles and lines on the ground". Once you have beaten the boss, there is NOTHING more to do here, other than "challenge" yourself, but it's not even really a challenge, because your guys sometimes just seem to randomly die, other times the entire screen is filled with unavoidable damage. It's just a soul-draining eye sore. There are certainly units and upgrades you can unlock, as well as new biomes, but those biomes aren't any different to the rest of the game. Maybe you get one more enemy type, that's it. The enemies also just devolve into faceless, and frankly quite absurd things ... giant poles that slam into the ground? Metal dragons going on fly by missions, instantly roasting your guys? And once you actually complete a run, you barely get enough currency to unlock more than 1 cheap unit or upgrade. If you decide to go on loop 2 your payout seems to be a bit higher, but it's in no way, shape or form worth the time commitment. I've played 2.7 hours. I've beaten the first loop, I've beaten the 2nd loop, I've beaten the 1st loop again. And then there was that almost successful first attempt, so all in all ... 5-ish runs. It FELT like twice the amount of time, to be honest. I don't "regret" this purchase, it's certainly a sort of unique and interesting experience, but it just gets tiring very quickly.

great educational insight into the alien invasion that everybody seems to have forgotten about stay strong finns

Reminds me of the time I went to Finland

SUOMI NR.1 PERKELE!!!

奇奇怪怪的游戏，算塔防还是算挂机都不好说，每天刷一局感觉耶还行。

Тряска экрана не отключается, иногда залипают подсказки на экране… Тематика забавная, но геймплей унылый: прокачка не радует и доступна только когда врагов нет, а их всегда много и они толстые, так что просто бегаешь кругами, пока не кончатся… В других играх хотя бы в процессе прокачиваешься, тут просто ждёшь.

Quite an interesting roguelike that plays somewhat similarly to Brotato. It offers roguelike elements where players can unlock new units (weapon types) and items between runs, but this doesn't provide much variety in gameplay because all in-game collectable items are just pure stat bonuses. None of them enhance your weapons to change their behavior. That's why all runs feel mostly the same and become repetitive quite quickly. If you are not interested in achievements, there's probably only an hour of content to be found here. The gameplay itself is simple: collect weapons and items from shops, avoid purple circles, and destroy random robots. There is only one boss. All enemies feel mostly the same. If you do a loop or two in one run, the game becomes extremely chaotic, producing hundreds of projectiles, and the FPS can drop below 60 easily. And still, I had fun. It's just sad that there is very little content variety.

Not enough unit variety. Once you understand Speed and Fire Rate are the only stats that matter, you'll only pick units that boost those stats. The smaller your squad, the less likely they'll collide into a wall, and the less likely they'll stop onto a projectile to kill themselves. It's an okay game, though. There are games that do it better, so it's a bit of a waste of cash unless you want it for the memes.

Arrival: zero earth is a rogelite arena shooter, and was the first game of such genre for me. While being dynamic with constant moving and pressure to avoid enemy fire, i found it rather be boring and grindy, with balance issues, lack of content and same enemies. Positives: + you can quit at any given moment and the game will remember your progress + you can unlock some stuff to add those to the same run, exiting to the main menu if gathered enough unlocking points + the game has a lot of units, those units have their strengths and weaknesses + nice statistics of damage per unit, dps, peak dps, etc, i really appreciate the graphs Meh: ~ saying that units have differences, but kinetic rods are just outmatch everything, if using correctly (making stops so they can aim) and other units just support them with xp, speed and firing rate buffs Negatives: - some units are just too broken, and some are just barely usefull. Comparing Mine unit, that gives exp bonus, to Physics wizards, or Bazooka Unit - they are 3x worse on the 10 lvl depth (the mine triggering logic, small aoe and i almost sure enemies dont get hit by more than one explosion at once means they are trash level - difficulty scaling only affects quantity and hp bars of enemies - levels are plain, with little to no obstacles, and even then - they dont play much role in tactics - bioms are effectively different skins, with slightly different enemies and obstacles, they lack the identity. I would like to see smth like every biom has a special effect or debuff (like snowing slows both you and enemies) or Lava is not just obstacle, but a damaging puddle, that hurts you (and possibly some non-levitating aliens). Also make some/all obstacles as obstacles for sniper units, that are deployed out of the map, so it would be more tactical to draw enemies from buildings to snipers in open space, or hiding from possible enemy snipers yourself. - balance is ... interesting. At some point you can reach such speed levels for your unit, that it will be faster than DASHING - all enemies have the same pattern - they move to you (in some way) and shoot or hit the ground, so you need to avoid "danger" zones, so they all do the same thing. Yes, those areas are differ in form, and time to react, but moving around and keep doing so is the only thing you will learn to survive. I would like to see more other patterns (like hitting through the whole map, hitting the whole map, leaving a special "safe" zone, enemies that will kite and run FROM you, not at you. - minor UI bugs, when sometimes tooltips are stuck and dont disappear after howering off the unit, same goes for unlocking score and coffins - at some point, if coffins count is big, it will overlap with other elements - THE ONLY ONE ACTIVE KEY TO USE ALL YOUR ACTIVE ABILITIES - this is criminal. sometimes i need to use one and save the other, use all, or several of the same type (like damage/firing rate or defensive related) - but in the end using everything you have what is not on cooldown at the moment - frustrating, rigid and too simple. So in conclusion, its kinda ok-ish, but I guess this genre is not for me. For me, the lack of complexity was critical, but if you want to turn off you brain and see aliens go boom you might try it out.

[i]Dies ist eine subjektive Meinungsäußerung[/i] [h1]Stimmung gut - kann man spielen[/h1] Ich hatte etwas anderes erwartet. Ich dachte mehr an ein Horde-Survivors-Game. Dies ist nah dran, aber ist es nicht genau. Vogelperspektive / Twinstick - Shooter. Nicht lang genug gespielt um es wirklich zu beurteilen - bis dahin war es aber verdammt leicht (Run abgebrochen, da ich gerade keine Zeit hatte) und stimmungsvoll. Wenn ich mal Zeit habe, dann versuche ich es vielleicht wieder.