"Awakening of Legend" is a failed attempt to use Ren'Py and PyGame to make a real game instead of a garbage high school anime club dropout fan-fiction about the author and his imaginary girlfriend. Sure, it should be acknowledged that this really is a game, it's not yet another tiresome fan-fiction.
Instead, we have an attempt to make what turns out to be a very, very shallow classical RPG without any of the more interesting aspects of those RPGs... think Ultima, or TSR/SSI Gold Box games like Pool of Radiance, but without any good storytelling, open world exploration, and a shallower and much less interesting RPG system.
Using Ren'Py to try to make a real game is a lot like using a screwdriver to make a sandwich. It's not intended for that purpose. Trying to do so anyway is a stupid idea, and it's going to end up in a disaster nobody in their right mind would consume. Which is exactly how this played out... it was a disaster on Steam Direct, nobody wanted it.
For gameplay purposes, because the user interface for this game is mostly just 2D static text/images... it might as well be a web page/Flash game. It's functionally no different from a browser game. And we all know, Steam isn't here to compete with Chrome and Firefox. If the game can be done in a web browser, it's just not rich or compelling enough to appeal to serious gamers on PC.
This features really godawful pixelcrap "art" instead of real graphics. It's hard to say if this was because the developer didn't have the skill to do the job of creating 3D visuals, or couldn't afford to hire someone who does, but it also doesn't matter. What matters is that this looks much worse than most other games because of that decision, and that's a major deterrent to gamers. Games like Terraria and Stardew Valley succeeded [i]despite[/i] the bad graphics, not because of them.
The developer chose not to do the job of a real game developer and create meaningful bespoke levels, narrative based gameplay progression and so on. Instead, they decided that "Procgen IS content!" and lazily tried to use procgen algorithms to create infinite, samey, repetitive, soulless levels, because that's a lot less work.
As a result of this poor decision, the game gets tired and repetitive almost immediately. Developers must learn that procgen is a terrible substitute for creating real content. It should not be used as "ez-mode" for content creation, as the developer tried to do here.
On the important matter of pricing and value for gamers, there's a lot going on here with monetisation, so this really shouldn't be considered a truly free product because of that.
They have their hand out for a $2 USD "donation" for this as you're expected to give them money from buying empty DLC from Steam... digital panhandling. Like the homeless guys who splash dirty water on your windscreen at the traffic lights. No thanks.
Even as a free game, this couldn't find an audience. With a peak of [b]only 6 players[/b], it's clear the Steam community took one look and walked away. They literally couldn't pay people to spend time playing this.
Bearing in mind that free games don't add +1 to your game collector count, should you bother adding this to your library and downloading it?
Definitely not. This isn't worth it. I'm paraphrasing another reviewer here, but this should be a paid product... they'd have to pay people to download it.
[quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Response![/url][/quote]The developer has weighed in to inform everyone they didn't read the [url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Usage Rules[/url] for Steam "partners", or they deliberately ignored the part where Valve says:
[quote]Though it may be tempting, not every review needs to be responded to. A developer response will frequently draw more attention than the original statement, potentially turning a small issue into a much larger community discussion. It's also not a good idea to use this feature to refute customer opinions. Your direct attention can be seen as validation or a defensive attempt to silence your customers.[/quote]
Insultingly, the "developer" delivers an [b]outright lie[/b], claiming, completely without basis in fact, that my review is written using generative AI. This is completely untrue. The developer attacks this review as a coping mechanism to attempt to avoid facing the facts about their failure... but this insulting dishonesty and blatant lying shows us all we need to know about this person. I challenge anyone to put my review through an AI text checker.
You can see how irate and unhinged the developer is... making blatantly false accusations and lies to try make this review about me instead of accepting his failure because he dumped Ren'Py garbage on Steam and now he's angry that nobody wanted this crap. And crap it is... with a peak player count of just 6 out of the 130,000,000+ monthly visitors to Steam, that's overwhelming rejection.
The developer has the gall to whine that my review should explain the defects in the game, clearly the developer didn't even read it before quickly rushing to breach Valve developer guidelines and attack a review with the insulting claim that it's AI generated. Hell, I've played better AI generated games than the garbage this guy puked onto Steam Direct.
My review clearly states the "roguelike" use of randomness at the core of the game design is a defect, static imagery, poor presentation, the pathetically incompetent pixelcrap "art" crutch (because the developer is unable to create contemporary video game graphics so chose instead to insult gamers with pixelcrap, because publishing any crap at all is vital to this guy so he can tell his imaginary girlfriend that he's a game developer).
These are all completely accurate descriptions of the defective nature of this garbage, and gamers have a right to know why a game is so badly made... and the answer as always is an incompetent and unqualified amateur who could never get a real software development job with delusions of grandeur.
The developers arrogance clearly demonstrates the cause for such a completely crap, failed game to pollute Steam, but it doesn't excuse it.
Nothing in the developers pointless breach of Valve guidelines changes any of the objective facts of my review. My review stands unaltered. I cannot recommend this crap to anyone.
