"Catharsis" looks a lot like it's a bunch of Unity assets dumped on a lazy "Eye of the Beholder" style first person dungeon crawler template (something like Grid Controller from the asset store, maybe)... and it certainly has all the same qualities as a godawful asset flip, from barely working mechanics, zero cohesiveness in the design, and well, just plain awful production values.
The game graphics look better than you might expect, but that's just because it looks like some or all of them are "borrowed" from asset stores or wherever. Gamers can tell... and it comes across as insincere.
There's also the old adage that those who lack the budget and talent to make their own game assets usually lack the budget and talent to do the rest of the job of game development properly, too.
Not every "free" game really is. There's often MTX, or content locked behind DLC, or donations being requested, or any other number of things that could mislead gamers, but in this case I'm glad to say this really does appear to be a fully free game.
Nothing demonstrates a developers belief in themselves and their work than giving it away without any remuneration. This is a service to themselves, and the gaming industry, and should be applauded. Of course, just because something is free, doesn't necessarily mean it's valuable.
Even though this is "free", it failed to appeal to the 120 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the game peaked at only 4 concurrent players... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away.
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?
Not this time. This isn't worth downloading. While this won't cost you any money, you get what you pay for, and sometimes, even when the game is free, it's still not enough.
[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]
First we must take this appalling, insulting breach of Valve guidelines within the context of the developers utter failure. SteamDB does not lie, a peak player count of only 4 disappointed people, [i]who did not return to play the game again[/i], speaks for itself, where the enraged developer attacks this reviewer in a desperate attempt to deny the facts.
The developer response is an arrogant, ignorant insult to gamers everywhere, indicates a severe case of megalomania. Let's break it down.
The developer tacitly admits this is an asset flip, the artists only made "what they could", which, based on the woeful quality of this garbage, was little to nothing. Leaving the rest to whatever assets they could get their hands on, validating my warning to gamers.
The developer complains that while this review closely addresses serious problems with this product, it resembles other reviews I have written for other products that share the exact same problems and deficiencies. There's over 120,000 games on Steam. Hundreds, in some cases thousands of these games share the same defects which gamers should know about before wasting any time on those products.
However, the "developer" of this failed product arrogantly [b]DEMANDS[/b] that I find completely unique ways to describe [i]the exact same defects[/i]. What a completely ignorant, arrogant demand from a demonstrably failed developer. The developer demonstrates thier appalling attitude here. It's a sheer insult to gamers everywhere.
If I used completely different language to describe the same defects, [i]this product would still suffer from the same defects[/i]. Changing the wording of my review would not make this product better.
The developer takes an appalling approach by DEMANDING that I enable comments on this review. This is a disgusting position to take. My review is a statement of opinion backed by unassailable fact, but because the developer is inacapable of emotionally coping with their utter failure (as supported by the SteamDB data he's enraged about that proves gamers shunned this garbage product), he demands that it should be publicly debated! This is not a "court of public opinion", it's a review, it's a direct article that describes the product, the significant defects, provides hard fact, and explains why it was garbage nobody wanted. The developer simply can't handle his failure and insists then that he should be able to argue with the hard facts... unhealthy psychological denial. This is galling, arrogant, and an insult to gamers and to the truth he can't handle.
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 game to anyone.
