Broken Reality 2000

Leaving this review because I truly believe in the passion that is Broken Reality. The first game is hands down one of my favorite games of all time and has a very special place in my heart. The ending of BR1 was so impactful to me and still, I get shivers whenever I think about it. With all of that being said, BR2k is a game. For sure. But I feel like it pales in comparison to the original in every single aspect. I'm recommending this game and leaving a positive review because I KNOW what it can be and what this team is capable of, but right now in its current state, I cant say I love it. Let me start by listing some of the positives I have for this game. Positives: +Fun, beautiful, interactable environments +Fresh new UI +SKINS FOR ITEMS :D +Characters are charming +World Feels alive Now, some of the negatives. (Some of these are just a matter of opinion, but some are objective) -I experienced several game breaking skips/bugs in the game that killed my overall enjoyment and momentum of the game. One being at the VERY END as the conclusion is building, only to interact with an item and fall through the world only to have to log out and restart 15 minutes back and walk through the *not very short* ending sequence again, killing all dramatic build up. -The hyperlink in this game compared to BR1 is completely buggy and borderline broken. I think I can only count a small handful of times, out of the MANY MANY MANY times I had to use the hyperlink, that it was smooth. For the most part, movement with the hyperlink felt clunky and rigid, sometimes leading to getting stuck and having to reset -There are several places in the game where you can just accidentally fall in and get stuck and have to reset (So if you haven't saved recently, womp womp) -In the ending section, there is a specific puzzle that I was able to bypass by using a hyperlink, only to get stuck inside said puzzle area. I had to utilize more janky mechanics to even get out of the area. -Unless I missed it (Which is very likely) There are hidden hyperlink spots scattered throughout the game. But nowhere does anyone or anything ever tell you that there are. On that note, In an area later in the game, there is a hidden hyperlink that seemingly leads to nowhere, but there are the green 1's and 0's indicating you need to use your hack vision to see something. Upon using the hack vision, it reveals nothing, and there's an invisible staircase you can find just by walking around that leads to nowhere? I streamed my whole experience and have examples of all of this on VOD, I'm sure there are more positives and negatives I'm forgetting to leave here, but what I'm trying to get down to is mechanically, this game is buggy as hell right now. Besides the mechanics, the story doesn't seem as flushed out as the first game, but isn't a bad story by any stretch! I waited so long for this game and honestly kind of felt a little let down. My honest review is a 6.5/10 Maybe I was just expecting more story wise after the first game felt so existential, but one thing is for certain, this game needs to be polished to high hell. Itll take some time, but im sure itll feel good to play in due time. TL:DR - Gameplay is janky and unpolished, but its still got that Broken Reality feel. And for that, I cant hate it. If you like BR1, give this a shot but wait til it gets a few patch fixes and updates

It's... not anywhere as good as the first. It's real buggy, somehow looks worse, and just... lacking character? The world is not fun to explore, characters are pretty dry, and while I'll finish it I cannot recommend this.

While I played, I felt like I was playing a video game. A feeling that was not present while playing the original.

A [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/757480/Broken_Reality/]Broken Reality[/url] copy from Temu. Bland and shallow — just like Web 2.0 from a Real Life simulation. The game felt barebones from the start to finish. The so-called "cohesive narrative" is absent, instead the game is filled with reused assets, ads and NPCs in almost every location (once you've seen them at the beginning, you've already seen them all), and MMORPG-like fetch and killing quests until the very end. "50% less problematic memes" literally meant fewer points of interest and reusing the same jokes. Instead of the recognizable style of vaporwave and Y2K, you get Frankenstein with already stale references to the metaverse, crypto and AI. The only hard part of puzzles and game flow is the constant backtracking. "Past" ending is the biggest "♥♥♥♥ you" to the journey you've made, True ending somewhat hyperlinks to the first game, but fails to form a proper connection. What was the point of making such a sequel? It needed a further polish, but I can't imagine any further delays in the development of a game that has been in the works for 8 years. The doors of the Corpse City remain sealed. Instead you see a shiny hologram of it.

For how long this game took to release, it's incredible how wasted the potential was in a world where it feels half baked every environment created in this game, with its slog of boring fetch quests all the time which lead to no point in the story. The maps have less of an aesthethic compared to the previous one, forget about the music in this one that has 0 thought to it (maybe except the mines), characters filling said environments feel like only obstacles that get in your way for more exploration rather than having anything deep or meaningful to talk to. And oh boy the bugs... Some have been patched like getting stuck everywhere, including the ingame menu, but why is the hit detection so wacky when it comes to using the camera and the katana? Why do I even want to have combat this bad when all it does is warp me to the entrance of the map? Graphics settings are a big problem as well, as there is a mod that even adds the basic stuff like a frame limiter, option to remove the horrible texture filtering this game has to make it look more crisp and not clown vomit, but also actual resolution options and the ability to choose the monitor. Something the devs themselves didn't think of doing basic Unity options that are standard in every game in this same engine. I would like the simple option of having Steam Cloud for save games too as to play this on my deck but seems like that's not a priority either with their slow update fixes being released. Not even the original has that nor does it have controller support to this day btw. I got so bored of the game that the hype to play this game quickly died down as i progressed, if i didn't modify my steam controller to add a W on the keyboard to my R4 button this game would be soooooooooo slooooooooooooooooooow to move, honestly the walk speed is abysmal, and no sprint button early on makes this one of the most painful games to play for me, I couldn't be bothered to finish it yet. There is no substance to this game, its just meaningless tasks.

Wish I could give two different ratings on steam. Overall though, in its current state I can recommend this game under the assumption that the devs are going to work out a lot of the bugs. I think anyone waiting to buy this game should continue to wait until we see a long list of patches because there are a lot of problems here. Regardless, I see this as a direct downgrade to a lot of what made the original so special. Some of that probably comes down to personal preference, but that's still how I feel. I guess I'll split up my recommendation for two different camps of people that'll be playing. For new players I think that this is a game to pick up if you're into slow-paced world exploration, and you just want a game where you can walk around enjoying the "vibes" or however you want to characterize it. When I say slow-paced though I absolutely mean it. This game does in fact have a sprint, but unfortunately that sprint isn't given out until 5+ hours into the game (at least going off how long it took me), and that time spent crawling around was painful. The first wide open city you get to for example felt more like a central hub for getting to all of its branching areas rather than a place you really explore and do much in. So to have it be that size and require you to walk leisurely from branch to branch felt pretty unnecessary. This could be fixable if the devs decided to make that sprint item obtainable earlier (which they definitely could). As long as the walking speed doesn't bother you though, I do think that new players that are drawn in by the visuals alone can find a lot to enjoy here. The positive too is that if you're new and end up enjoying this game, then you absolutely should go play the original. The visuals, exploration, and music I think are all of similar or better quality in Broken Reality. Now for returning players, I find myself mixed, leaning towards not recommending this game at all. Even assuming that all of the major bugs I encountered are ironed out, I don't see my views on that changing. The biggest reasons I have being areas that I didn't enjoy, lame puzzles, as well as the visuals and sound not drawing me in like that first game. I'll go just a little into the visuals/sound as that's the most subjective aspect. Nothing here was as fantastical as being in Aquanet or Geocity for me. Grifton is essentially this games sequel to Geocity, and it was there that I realized something wasn't working quite as well for me. Geocity was head-to-toe gorgeous both with how it looked and sounded. I'm a sucker for the rain too, and the the more crunchy visual design of the first game made that such a standout area. Comparing to 2000, Grifton has that same futuristic cityscape, but it was here that I took notice that this game looks much more smoothed out in its textures. The backing track has a DnB sound with synths/beeps that had me a little confused. I thought maybe I was walking between areas because it sounded like two different songs mashed together. I could go on about the music and visuals but its hard for me to articulate, just give this game a quick look and then go back to the original and maybe you'll see what I mean. What I really want to get into are the areas, which this game has many more of. Credit where its due I found a couple of them to be great. The Crypt was a good time and felt fun to explore, and the Museum especially stood out to me (even if a lot of the time there was just spent reading signs lol). However quite a few of the areas either felt too much like retreading old ground from the first game, or outright bad level design. Grifton (the cyberpunk-like city), rips a ton straight from Geocity. There's even the same missions where you are avoiding drone spotlights, as well as destroying a store. I think the point was to be referential going off of the story that this game builds, but I would've still liked to see new ideas here. Like I mentioned before, the first big city area Natem is a sprawling place with many branching paths. It acts more as a hub to its branches as there isn't a whole lot to actually do there, and that's fine. It didn't need to be nearly as large as it is though. That isn't a big deal once you get the sprint, but even then the size of it isn't necessary. I would've preferred a much smaller hub, or even just a subway station where you can select the place you want to travel to. Some of the sub areas from Natem felt like fodder to me. eWorld didn't have much of anything. You get an item there, toss some food at robots, and get to the mall. I think the mall should've just been another branch off of Natem rather than having to go through eWorld. It's small things like that made eventually going back to figure out where all of the artifacts were more annoying than it otherwise should've been. Stuff like this is more nitpicky though, because the bulk of my problems stemmed from the endgame area. I wasn't at all a fan of the Cloud. Visually speaking I like it. Aside from that though, this place as it stands is loaded with visual hiccups, and lots of "puzzles" that I disliked. Many times here you have to move around these gray blocks to fill in small holes. Why do the gaps need to be there? There isn't anything puzzling about moving these around foot by foot, they just get annoying after having to deal with several times. Jumping between game versions to complete the robot fetch quest was fine, but I was really hoping for some more substance beyond that. It's also very hard for me to talk about this area without talking about the bugs that I encountered, because it got BAD here for me. One of the structures (I think in version 3.0 or 2.0) just started flickering and phasing out of existence while I looked at it. Multiple times I managed to just fall through the ground Roblox-style waiting to get respawned. There is a hyperlink section where you are shooting onto floating objects, and one of them drops you onto a set of stairs that you can't even walk up. So I backtracked to the first hyperlink shot so that I could somehow reach one that was very far away. I doubt that was the intended method of progression. And in the case of the "True End" of the game, multiple times upon picking up an item did I get spawned in only to start free-falling to my death. That ♥♥♥♥ sucked, especially because to get there you have to spend several minutes just walking on this winding tight rope thing. Besides that I also found the True End to the story to be laughable, but I don't put much weight on that for what these games are. With some time I would hope at least the bugs get fixed, but even then I find this game to be lacking a lot of the charm and design that the first had. TL;DR - No sprint for the first several hours becomes very noticeable after the first area - Visual style and music didn't click with me as much as the 1st game - The bugs in this current state can get really bad. Especially by the end - Levels are fun to explore sometimes, and other times feel half-baked - The entire ending level, including the "True Ends" actual story were a big let down for me - Still a lot to like in this game, and I think new players especially can enjoy it

Broken Reality 2000: Style Over Substance I just finished playing the first game earlier this week in anticipation of the release of Broken Reality 2000, and I felt pretty mixed about it. I was really hoping I’d get more out of Broken Reality 2000, but unfortunately I feel pretty much the same way. Broken Reality 2000 suffers from a lot of the same issues that the first game does, even down to sharing some of the same bugs. However, it's odd, because Broken Reality 2000 does improve upon a couple aspects from the first game, but it also somehow manages to make certain aspects worse? I’ll start off with the overall aesthetic, which is something the first game really nailed down. While the first game focused on 90s internet and Vaporwave, Broken Reality 2000 tries to go for a more Retrofuturism 2000s internet kind of style. However, I feel like they could have gone harder with the theming, as there aren’t too many areas here that are visually striking. In the first game, pretty much every area had some sort of unique design to them. Here, the only standout for me was the Nexus. Everything else is pretty much bog-standard, just skirting the line of the theme. I think in terms of aesthetic, if Broken Reality 2000 decided to go all in on Retrofuturism or give some areas a bit more unique designs, it would have been something special. I don’t hate what they did here, it just feels very meh and could’ve been more cohesive. Also, the music is fine. Really, the only standout tracks for me are maybe the ones in the Crypt and there's a piano track in the Cloud that's pretty good too. Other than that, it's whatever. I feel like the first game had a lot of more standout tracks, but my major issue is that the music seems to just cut out in certain areas, with a lot of fading in and out. I think semi-dynamic music like that is fine, but it could have been handled better and just feels awkward. In terms of gameplay though, I feel like they definitely improved upon it over the first game, but I still have some complaints. The equipment changes overall are great. I like the new uses for the Katana, the credit card mini-game has a nice change to it, changing the lens and filter for the camera is a nice touch, and the bookmarker being utilized as a GPS is really cool. Even the new additions to the load out are decent as well. I don’t have too much to say about the Bow and Arrow, but the Hoverboard was a much-needed addition to improve the overall pacing of the game. The thing is though, even with all of these changes, none of it really gets utilized as much as it could have, and it feels like it would have benefited from an additional refinement process. As for the gameplay that utilizes these new equipment changes, it feels lackluster and could have been rethought. The first game had sort of a Metroid-Vania-esque element to it. Domo Paradisso, the first level, was very well-designed as the progression for unlocking new items was tied to unlocking new areas of the level. It was a very streamlined and well-thought-out way of designing the level. Once all the equipment has been unlocked, you could also then return to previous areas, but it was mostly just for side/optional stuff. Broken Reality 2000 tries to do this as well, but only does it half-heartedly, causing it to fail miserably. The game would have been much better if it just stuck to one or the other. I think a game in a style like this going full-blown into that Metroid-Vania gameplay could be great, but that isn’t what this game is or is trying to do. Which is why I honestly would have preferred if the game was just a linear story game, with the player never having to backtrack to previous areas. The first game handled backtracking pretty well, but here it just falls short. Story was never the main focus of either of these games, but after playing the first one, I had really hoped they would focus a bit more on story or at least something more about the lore of NATEM and the ADMINS who originally created it. Broken Reality 2000, does have some more characters who will offhandedly mention something and there are QR codes that you can scan for lore tidbits, but other than that, and it hurts to say this, I think the first game handled the story a little better. This one is kinda just whatever. At least the first game had that interesting hook of you wondering who the ADMINS were and who created/bought NATEM. In Broken Reality 2000, you get some answers, but its very vague, which is fine, but you also don’t get any more interesting questions to think about either. Both endings of the game are also kind of whatever, they sort of just happen. They have the player walk around very slowly with nothing really happening, and then it just ends. The True ending at least had a decent ending cutscene, but that's about it. I guess I should also talk about the comedy, as that's also the main selling point aside from the aesthetics. I never really cared for it in the first game, and the same goes for this one. There were a couple of decent jokes that got a good chuckle out of me, but other than that, it's kinda whatever. Not for me, but comedy is subjective, and I’m sure someone else would get a lot more out of it than I did. Okay, now it's time to talk about the bugs and progression issues in the game, and oh boy, there is a LOT to talk about. I just want to start off by saying, I have seen the devs push some updates and be very responsive to feedback, while I was playing the game and writing this review, which is great, but I can’t say for certain which bugs did and didn’t get fixed with 100% certainty. Here is a list of bugs I’ve experienced while playing the game: • Inputs traveling when using and switching between equipment • Too many spots with collision and boundary issues to individually list, all causing soft locks due to being stuck or falling through terrain • Compass icons being shared when multiple object types are in the same area, i.e. in the crypts with dynamite, bugs, and Robochies, instead of each having their own personalized icons they all share the same one, causing confusion as to what's what when looking for something • Robochi destroy the targets quest in Minami Beach not actually spawning in the prize • Multiple sequence breaks caused by either hyperlinking or hoverboarding over terrain • Likes will sometimes just not get sucked/magnetized in, with some having really weird collisions • One of the endings has invisible items that you can switch to and still use when they should be removed • Rendering and occulusion culling issues, most apparent in the Cloud section of the game but appears in several other areas too It's an indie team making this, so I don’t blame them for not having the same amount of budget a AAA studio would have for things like QA, but this game could have seriously benefited from some more time in the oven just to iron out all the bugs before release. It really hinders the game in a way that just makes it unfun to play. There were multiple times when I had to reset and lost like 20–30 minutes of progress because of a soft lock issue. A respawn button would be great temporarily, but I think in a fully finished polished game there really should be no need for one. I didn’t expect myself to go this much into detail about this game, because there really isn’t anything too special about this game, but it just feels like a lot of missed potential which really gets me the most. Maybe I was hyping myself up over nothing. I don’t know, it's just when I saw that first trailer, I was fascinated by it. I thought that this would be something I would have really liked, but I don’t know, maybe that's causing me to dislike it more than I should. There is definitely an audience for this type of game, and I think, with most of the bugs and some progression issues fixed, this would be a much better game. Even then, there was nothing that hooked me.

I am very disappointed since im a huge fan of the first game, however I feel like there is no reason for this sequel to exist. There is basically nothing new here story-wise, gameplay-wise or visual-wise that the original didnt already do, but better.