Faerie Solitaire Remastered

Really sucks to have to give a thumbs-down to, like, what I for years considered the best casual solitaire game on this platform. There's like so many things you could have done other than come back out of nowhere and release a half baked DLC full of AI-generated visual assets. Like, I get you've been busy and your artist had to quit but like, brother. You had like, 8 years or some ♥♥♥♥ to figure this out. Crowdfund it. Put out a $5 "support the devs" DLC like a lot of other games do. Hell, even do like Slay the Spire did and whip up some funny programmer art assets yourself as placeholders and put that ♥♥♥♥ out in early access or whatever. Like, the list goes on, this is just what I've come up with while writing this. Hate to see the dev of an otherwise excellent game just completely shoot themselves in the foot for no reason and deny themselves the chance to display some real human creativity and get some actual art to show off. Like I'd be more than happy to throw a couple bucks at basically anything other than this AI garbage and help hire a real human artist. The base game is amazing and under basically any other circumstances I'd be overjoyed to learn that Faerie Solitaire was receiving attention again, and that there was hope that Dire might actually get finished. I'm so bummed, dude. We coulda had it all but instead we got this.

After not having played for a long time I re-downloaded to discover they have added generative a.i. Nope. Deleting from my library entirely.

I generally love playing solitaire games, and really enjoyed playing this in its original version, having completed 100% of the achievements. The developer, however, after many years, decided to add a bunch of new levels with AI-generated 'art' only accessible through a paid DLC and that was a very low move that's unjustifiable for me. Had they released a new game (with real, original art made by an artist) instead of doing this, I would've gladly paid for it. Very disappointing.

Why make a new game when you can just add more grind onto an 8-year old game and add DLC-only achievements to try to blackmail people into buying it... Others complained about this too but it looks like the dev deleted those comments from the discussions. Dev is lazy and can't take criticism. The game is designed to be a slow grindfest. Don't bother.

I have put a ton of hours into both the original Faerie Solitaire, this remaster, and the Harvest spin-off, 100%ing them, and have recommended it to everyone I possibly could. That said, with the DLC's open embrace of AI generated assets, I can not in good conscience recommend this game. I am extremely disappointed in the developer and will no longer be supporting their future work.

This game came out in 2017. So why am I just now reviewing it in 2025, 8 years later? For one, because a DLC was recently released for this game with a ton of new achievements. I already 100% completed this game years ago but will now be forced to buy the DLC if I want to avoid having this be an incomplete game. I know what some of you will say - "lots of other games have added new achievements tied to paid DLCs!" Yes that's true, and I've happily purchased some of them myself. But this game is already 8 YEARS OLD and they want to charge $8.99 for it. The developer claims that the DLC adds enough content to be considered a new game. So I'm wondering why they didn't just release it as such? Why not make it a sequel or retelling if you want to reuse the story/themes/assets? This remastered version is already a remake of the very first original one released way back in 2010. Like, please just make a new game? As annoyed as I am from everything I've already mentioned above, what I really find unforgivable is the blatant unashamed stance Subsoap has taken regarding the use of generative AI in this latest DLC. I won't go into detail on all of the reasons why I am adamantly against this, but at the top of the list is the very real disrespect towards hard working artists. They did face some backlash and have started to try to replace some of the Ai slop but their stance has been clear from the start. This DLC is a slap in the face to past supporters who have purchased the original game as well as a giant F YOU to the entire creative community. I will not be supporting this developer in this new release or any future titles.

Added new achievements that are behind a paywall for 8,79€ is insane.

Since the last time I played the original, I actually learnt how to play solitaire. So now this will get a positive review.

Added new achievements that are behind a paywall and the new content uses AI

I enjoyed the original a lot, but the Remastered version falls far short. It's feels like a commercial for the DLC, with buttons everywhere and the grimoire that does nothing in the base game. Pet collection has become a grind. In the original, you could collect all pets in Adventure mode and evolve most of them. Challenge Mode was enough to let you finish the set. Here, Adventure mode got me 1/3 of the pets and I could only evolve 8. I'm maybe 20% of the way towards completing the set. It would probably take another 100 hours to complete. The "shortcut" is a hidden shop they don't tell you about. Challenge mode is simply not fun. There are no rules and it just feels like Calvinball. One level has cards that aren't explained. One has a completion message that doesn't follow the listed rules. One level I had five Aces showing at once. One level was probably bugged; I had a 4 showing but couldn't put 3s or 5s on it, but could put the covered-up Queen from halfway down the stack on top. The whole Challenge mode is just a mess. The original I'd rate 8/10. Remastered, 4/10.