Broken Reality 2000

this game is a prime example of "death by a thousand cuts" now, I really feel the need to state that I was having a lot of fun before I refunded the game. exploring minami beach was a blast, and, while some of the bugs were annoying, everything else that came after that (for what little I played) was also good. but here's the problem. I was having fun while I was completely oblivious to this game's goals and intentions. and when I replayed the first broken reality again just to see whether or not I was losing my mind, that's when things really fell apart for me. you have no idea how much I HATE to leave a negative review on this, considering how long I waited for the game. basically years at this point, and when it was between this and endacopia releasing on the same day, I played this first, because I was genuinely more excited for this game. but that aside, there's nothing I can really say that others haven't already said way better. exploration is very lacking (except for some areas) because they traded depth for scale, there is no purpose in the game beyond "walk around" (story is basically completely absent), that sense of "oh boy, I wonder what I'll find next" is lowkey ruined by the fact that the game just does title cards for each area, some mechanics are just borderline jank & annoying, and, probably the biggest complaint of all, is the lack of identity. broken reality 1 was very uncompromising in its vision of the internet time period it was depicting, albeit with a much more stylized take, and that's what made it special to me, it was a game in which I was always eager to see what else it had on offer, and smiled at all the little details and inclusions it had. it was a very condensed, but flavorful game. this one is basically the exact opposite. not only did they trade a lot of the details and sauce for the illusion of bigger scope and more things to do and see, but it also just feels a lot more cynical than I would've liked. I tried ignoring it at first, but it really does just become super annoying after a while of trying to get immersed into this stylized depiction of the y2k era of the internet while I am getting bombarded with a whole lot of commentary on crypto, generative ai, and how much the internet sucks now. yes, thank you game, I know the modern internet sucks, but if I wanted commentary on that, I'd just watch the billions of video essays people made about those topics on youtube. it's not fun to play, and a lot of the first game's charm and wonder is just absent because of this cynicism. and it sucks, because I can't just say "oh well, at least the gameplay is good!", because that may be true, having a lot of the same tools and items and general gameplay loop, but a lot of what made broken reality what it is was thanks to those little details that either got ignored or completely dishonored by the developers. it almost feels like the two games were made by completely different people. it's really hard to say "but hey, at least the game is fun!" when the exploration IS the game, and when my reward for general exploration and just paying attention is the developers screaming into my ear "hey, did you know the internet sucks?! XDDD", I feel very cheated. if the developers are reading, I get what you were trying to do, I am very much fed up with the same things, but this was not the game or the series for it. you should've made a different game addressing the same themes, but using broken reality 2000, a game that is meant to be the successor of a stylized internet exploration game and, in many ways, a celebration and romanticized archival of said time era, was NOT the right move. this game deserved so much better, and it could've been genuinely great. I hope you guys learn from this for your next endeavor, which is why I am also leaving this review, because a lot of this game just cannot be fixed without major overhauls at which point you could just focus on making an entirely new game with those resources. like I said, death by a thousand cuts. I am seriously upset about this.

I always thought that the original Broken Reality was a cult classic. I played that in 2023 and it really stuck with me, especially that game's ending. I've had this title wishlisted ever since and I feel like it was worth the wait for the most part. Firstly, I'm really glad the sequel came out at all and that I got to play it. Hypnospace Outlaw was aesthetically and culturally pretty close to Broken Reality, and when that game's sequel (Dreamsettler) was canceled, I was prepared to accept that Broken Reality 2000 might not be coming out either, since there were a lot of delays, uncertainties regarding the release date and long radio silence from the devs. I think this game could have used a few more weeks or months to polish some areas and issues, but post-launch support from the devs has been great and I didn't encounter anything game-breaking, just some minor bugs. Generally, this game feels like an improvement to the first in *nearly* every way, especially when it comes to gameplay, looks and the general feel. Whereas the first game leaned more into 80/90s aesthetics, this leans more into the Dreamcast/Y2K era. It's been a while since I played the original, so I can't 100% remember, but I'm pretty sure Broken Reality only featured stationary "fake players" (to clarify, both games have quest-giver or named NPCs and then a large amount of player-like NPCs to populate the worlds), the ones in this game walk around, have a lot more dialogue (it takes ages to exhaust their lines in some areas) and feel a lot more alive (they'll react depending how you interact with them). They're kinda like the NPCs in the .hack// games, if you've played those. The humor in this game is a lot more in line with the current times and feels like it'll age less poorly. I still appreciate the very old internet references, but the crypto bro and NFT yacht club stuff was a good callback to things that sprang up in the last couple of years. The rise of influencers and annoying IRL streamers is touched on too, and since this game was in development for so long, I feel like it might've even predicted some things depending on how recently they were added? (There's a segment in the cinema where the entire audience is just watching instagram reels on the big screen, which might've been a joke initially, but is a completely normal thing people just do IRL now because it's stupid and funny?) And while I personally did like these more "modern" references, I feel like it's kind of at odds with the game itself? This wouldn't be an issue if only the aesthetics were Y2K, but this *is* canonically set in the year 1999, no? The game and the characters within it say as much, so how come there's so many things that reference the current times? Is the player character actually someone living in 2026 and NATEM is just a community of larpers that pretend it's actually 1999? I always thought Broken Reality was supposed to be set in an *alternate* interpretation of the internet of that time, kinda like how Serial Experiments Lain does it. Additionally, there were some aspects that really felt like a letdown, even if they don't necessarily outweigh the positives. For starters, the soundtrack for the original Broken Reality was AMAZING (I still have "Domo Paradisso" in my playlist), but in this game the OST and even the sound design in general felt like an afterthought? There's music that just silently cuts out when you move too far away from certain areas, and there's even a few that straight up don't have any music at all, so there's just deafening silence. There's quite a few interactables that don't play the sounds they're supposed to, like a few of the save vending machines. Another thing that bothered me was the entire cloud/ending area. I liked the idea of reverting to previous versions and the "Blender" puzzles, but the part of the true ending where you just slowly walk for like 5 minutes is just a slog for no reason. Maybe it's just my zoomer brain being impatient, but there was a similar part in Broken Reality's ending and it felt a lot more engaging. The original game's ending felt more substantial as a whole, especially the sequence with the "Shutdown" track felt really mesmerizing and is what has stuck with me for so long. I don't hate the ending here and I do appreciate the message it wants to go with, but it feels like there could've been something more grandiose there. I will still definitely be replaying this one, if only to 100% it (still stuck on the pyramid achievement), and if this game eventually gets trading cards and such I'll probably get the badges for it aswell. I think Steam Points Shop items especially would do this game a lot of good and give it some exposure (animated vaporwave/Y2K backgrounds pretty much always end up on the forefront of the Points Shop and at least some players do check out the games they're from), since for now it seems like the release went under the radar for some, and the aesthetic this series has nailed so well is wasted on the generic vaporwave asset flips Steam is saturated with. All in all, this still feels like a good sequel to the original. I'm not sure if Dynamic Media Triad will feel like a third game is worth their time depending on how well this does, but I would still 100% play that or really anything similar they put out next. You guys have a knack for this genre, even if it goes unappreciated

I really wanted to like this game, as I enjoyed the original, but theres a lot of issues that make this game feel much weaker than the predecessor +Music is just as good +Areas still look pretty decent +New tools are very useful, especially the hoverboard to help with movement, and having the bookmarker also function as a radar to help with collectibles +at least double the locations compared to the original -Some areas are much weaker than the original, Minami is much less memorable than Domo Paradiso from the original IMO, Plus some areas look worse, such asMinami having awkward unity terrain hills with no detail and crypts just looking flat out ugly. -Many areas just feel like long quests with backtracking now. the original game had these issues too, but felt not as tedious due to the fact that many locations had multiple objectives that could be done in any order. -Story just felt worse. It wasn't too strong in the original, but barely mattered in this 2nd game. -Theres way too much reuse, obviously yes you can reuse assets, but it was much more egregious here, with several NPCS used in the original, and the only new NPCS being the same human asset. They were less terrible in the original due to the lower poly models, especially with them matching the already PS1 style, but with the new style being Y2K-Dreamcast like, they stick out like a sore thumb alongside the reused ps1 models. Besides that, theres barely any new unique NPCS, with the humans and robots being reused a comedic amount of times. Also the background/non-interactible NPCS look just ugly, compared to just having the nude low poly models of humans wandering around, even worse when comparing to original's Geocity doing something unique and having them all be emissions. -Barely any new ads, it felt like they used the same small batch of ads throughout, when doing a short replay of the original, there was a much larger count then whats shown, same for products available to buy. in this game, it felt like the same 6 designs were just taken and then thrown on random models that didnt feel like they even matched at all, so using the credit card felt worse. -Camera is much more annoying now. The original had some kind of free-form allowing you to see how many icons you could cram in your view to get the most amount of likes, here it feels like you have to move around just to get the right angle just to match the 4 corners. At some point, just standing relatively close and spamming clicks until I got the image taken ended up being the way I did the photos -Outdated memes kinda didn't fit the vibe at all. With the whole vibe being Y2K, instead it just felt like reusing jokes, and using way too new things like NFTS and crypto throughout. If you want to play this, i'd suggest just playing the original instead.

I want to like this game. I really REALLY want to like this game. The original was one of my favorites when it came out. But this game feels like Diet Broken Reality. It feels like the stuff that made the first game feel special has been overshadowed by a large amount of bugs, which I find really disheartening, especially since this game has been in development for about eight years. While I appreciate the patches that have been coming out since launch, it doesn't change the fact that this game fails to hit the same sweet spot as the original.

It breaks my heart to say this, but I don't enjoy this sequel at all. Seems to completely undermine what made the first one such a special experience to the point that I booted it up just to make sure I wasn't looking at it through rose colored glasses. Movement speed is all over the place, you're either way too slow on foot or way too fast on the hoverboard and the questline to get the hoverboard in the first place is too unclear at times due to the various paths and backtrackings needed. If I hadn't accidentally gotten it early via the game glitching, I probably would have just given up on the game because walking from place to place to find out where you need to go next is such an unnecessary slog due to how vast the main hub area is. A lot of reviews seem to appreciate the katana being added for occasional combat, but I really didn't dig the addition of having to fight off a few generic masks every now and then. The story, music, and characters aren't memorable at all this time around. Returning characters are just kind of around and lack any personality they had in the first game, and new characters just exist to give fetch quests and nothing more. The story is so non-existent that you're only doing fetch quests to unlock more fetch quests without the motivation of learning more of the mystery about the world. Lastly, the game came out way too buggy. I can forgive this to an extent, but there are so many soft blocks, areas where you can fall through the map or clip through sections, and inventory issues that its currently a major detraction. My inventory went from giving me all items early, to taking away all my items later, to currently being fixed and where it's supposed to be. They've already released several hot fixes, so hopefully this won't be a further issue. If this is some kind of meta-commentary about how soulless the internet has become in this day and age, it hit the nail on the head, but that doesn't make for an enjoyable experience to play. The first game is such an incredible work of art that I'd probably still buy a third game if it came out, but I really can't recommend this one.

Did not like it very much at all. The OG Broken Reality isn't one of my favourite games ever or anything, but it is one i remember fondly, even convincing a few of my friends to play it. Needless to say i was excited for this followup. BR2000 i found to be profoundly forgettable and largely unfun to play. I don't even think the game is terrible per se, but there are soooo many tiny annoying things that keep piling up and the game's story, atmosphere, music and characters just aren't good enough to save it. I'm in the minority on this one, so if this game appeals to you i definitely recommend playing the original Broken Reality first and then if you're desperate for more maybe checking 2000 out. By then they might have added some much needed bug fixes and QoL improvements.

This game is a love letter to the one art movement that ever resonated with me. Going to the Millenium Exposition Museum Experience gives me goosebumps, felt like being back in the days when vaporwave was at its peak. At this point, I'm more nostalgic for vaporwave itself than the era it's supposed to give you nostalgia for. Takes me back to a happier, simpler time. If you were there, you know. If you played the first Broken Reality back when it came out, you should be able to relate even more so. The game itself, it's a walking sim with a heavy Y2K feeling essentially. Mix of vaporwave, frutiger aero and specific game nostalgia. The graphics feel more 2005 than 1998. I love the story, there are a lot of niche references as well as touching on subjects that are highly debated today such as surveillance. Not much has changed from the first game, it's more of the same clunky niche that's perfection to those of us who appreciate its nuances and the way it stands out in the endless flood of neckbeard asset flip synthwave "retro" games now. Looking at you, RewindApp. Ain't got nothing on Broken Reality! Both Broken Reality titles are also a critique on things like the endless clout chasing in the modern world, hunting for likes, selling out, that sort of thing. Something about it just really speaks to me, the the futility of taking part in the post-internet world.