I'm not really sure if Cute Triplets fully qualifies as an asset flip. The developer acknowledges that they took assets from other people to make the game, but they also didn't actually credit those asset creators properly. We are left to wonder who actually created the assets here. If this was done in Hollywood, assuming the developers avoided court, they'd still never be allowed to work in the industry again. Sure, the game licenses (probably) permit the use of the assets in this case, but it's still irksome that the developer did not credit the asset creators.
There's also the old axiom... those who can't create game assets properly usually aren't particularly capable of any of the other parts of game development either, which is certainly true for this game. Regardless, asset flip or not, the quality here is indistinguishable from many asset flip/cash grab scams, and that's a problem in itself.
Cute Triplets is a garbage tier, badly made platformer that looks okay-ish because of all the "borrowed" Suriyun assets. Gameplay is very weak and it's no surprise nobody took this as a serious game.
On the upside, the game does feature customisable controls and resolution, so at least some of the basic, minimum requirements have been met. Unfortunately there's a number of other technical defects and shortcomings which contribute to the game being difficult to recommend to gamers.
The game assets are fairly mediocre/low quality, in some places they appear mismatched... Ultimately the quality of these assets, and thus the overall visual quality is lower than average, and low quality always makes for a less than optimal gaming experience. Remember, we're looking for the best of the best of 100,000+ games on Steam.
These game assets, mostly from Suriyun, are low-polygon "retro" assets with cartoony, mobile app style shader effects, making this look like a barely functional mobile app from 15 years ago. This visual style is a method that lazy devs often use when they have a lack of interest/capability to create highly detailed, high poly models and instead use shader effects to disguise that shortcoming under the name of "art", or "We made it look bad on purpose", which really isn't something gamers should have to put up with. It's unclear why the developers weren't willing to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets and high resolution textures for the game. It's far below the state of the art visuals gamers expect as a result of their decisions.
This looks a lot like it was designed for consoles, but released on Steam instead by mistake. While this is on PC, it has all the hallmarks and deficiencies of a console game, from the clunkier than needed control scheme to the less than cutting edge graphics. There's 10's of thousands of PC games on Steam, and PC gamers deserve only the best. This might not appeal to many gamers due to the lack of PC-centric design. It's unclear why this never made it to the video game console appliances it seems to have been designed for.
These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.
The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the game all-time peak player count was only ONE player. That's right, only one person ever played this at a time. When I played this for the purposes of reviewing it, I equalled the peak player count for the game. OUCH. The only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam?
Cute Triplets has the almost unethical price of around $8 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam.
For comparison, the $8 asking price for this game could get you games like "Dead by Daylight", "Mass Effect Trilogy Pack" or "Lethal Company". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.
[quote][b][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/b]
Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.[/quote]
