Goliath

Day 1 Review ~ 4h of gameplay tldr; While in need of some polish, a well concerted effort from a small, indie dev who are clearly trying to shoot for the moon. The long review: Where the game falls short: audio. Mechs don't sound heavy. Not enough thunks, and booms. The rest of the audio is a bit more than atmospheric, and while not terrible, doesn't add much either. Where the game succeeds: Core mechanic. A fun crafting system that doesn't feel like work. A nice balance of action and exploration where mechs are a tool and not a means for unending material grind. Combat system could use a little work in terms of creating "impact" which you hit an enemy... but this also isn't a fighting game. It plays a lot more like an isometric ARPG, which isn't a bad thing. Finally, the dev team is EXTREMELY responsive on the forums. They are currently answering every single question and concern that pops up, which shows a lot of promise for future development. I have confidence that Whalebox will continue to shape this game into a well polished gem. All in all, it's hard not to recommend this title, despite its flaws. It has so much ambition and heart, I can forgive its first day fuzzies. If you like the concept of this game at all, I'd say it's worth showing your support.

Not really that impressed. It feels like it could have the impact of something like like a more complex Bastion type game, but it just falls through. The graphics seem well stylized, but the music and animations are very lack luster. Many of the actions in the game don't seem to really have feel of being a big robot. Also the dialog interace is just so boring and feels tacked on. The K+M controls feel clunky with the locked camera angle. The default keybinds are also unconfigurable and feel akward. Having to spam E and then other times hold E are totally inconsistent. The game has potential, but it feels much more like an Early Access game. I would wait until we see if the developer puts in the required polish to make this better.

Goliath is one of those games it’s hard to compartmentalize, it’s a survival game while also being and RPG and brawler too. There’s no shame in this, many great game straddle the genres making something new and goliath want desperately to be the next. You are placed in the role of a 1930’s fighter pilot landed on a strange world, who must make behemoth type mechanical automations to survive the hostile indigenous creatures that inhabit this strange environment. Pretty cool idea but things are never that clear cut. The story is the first place things start to fall apart, you know who you are kind of and you are taught about the world by a voice on your radio claiming to be you co-pilot. I’m not going to give away spoilers but things get odd very quickly. As you start to discover the world around you things get stranger more still, with fox like creatures and rat like creatures becoming friendly towards you depending on the choices you make, it’s a great idea but through the entirety of it all the game explains very little and this makes it hard to invest in the world. Your character just gains the ability to make these technological marvels that are goliaths, he just knows how to use teleporters and fix them with no explanation why. The cardinal sin though is that the game offers you conversational options but you’re never sure if you’re moving the story the way you want. This might seem odd but your character is such a douche that it’s sometimes hard to tell if the choice you make is the good or bad one. He really is a bit of a prick that way, for a hero this isn’t a good thing. But hey what does story mater when you can drive giant robots around and that’s true, apart from they really aren’t as giant as your lead to believe. The reality is your character is a little shorter than most of the creatures you encounter and your goliath is a little taller, it’s almost like you strapped on body armour and a pair of stilts. Not exactly the “Shadow of Colossus” idea the Goliath title might suggest. There’s just no feeling of power about them and they take damage so easily, it’s more glass cannon than raging hulk. The mechanics also take a big hit too with the keyboard and mouse being virtually unusable and it only being when you use a controller that the game really works. For a PC game to make such a bad job of the K&M controls is shameful it’s just a mess. Even when you switch to a controller there are still issue, attacking and moving around become far more natural, but the game lacks the ability to move the camera lower than its almost top down view giving you no peripheral vision what so ever. This combined with overly complex to navigate menus and an overly difficult upgrade system make it a turn off. Difficulty is an issue to, as the game doesn’t so much ramp as you tend to just avoid creature for the most part as you will lose. That’s really it, you avoid and the AI is dumb enough to let you. It again comes back to the fact you never get a sense of power with a goliath, it’s more a case of extending your health bar long enough to reach the next goal. Oh those goals too! Go here, go there, go everywhere and achieve very little with very little in the way of plot development. You could spend your life going back and forward in this game just talking to the next person before they tell you to talk to someone else. Occasionally they will chuck in something to defeat before you can talk to someone and then you’re back to it again and god it’s tiresome. If there is one area though it’s the visuals, the style is something a kin to if you crossed the looney toons with anime and strangely it works stunningly. But still even cranked up to max settings it doesn’t look as good as the screen shots and trailers do, not far off but noticeable all the same. It’s a good looker all the same but with the art style not really pushing my system I wonder why it couldn’t have looked as good as they show it could, why the down grade? I suspect it’s to do with the engines performance, I think this because even though my GPU doesn’t break a sweat and my CPU even less so the game still stutters and lags horrendously. There’s no real reason for this I can see as there is plenty of power left in my system for it to use, it just doesn’t. On top of this the loading times are some of the longest I’ve come across in ages and while I’m not running it off an SSD it really shouldn’t take as long as it does. Thankfully after the initial load things speed up a little, but I honestly believe the reason we don’t get peripheral vision and micro stutters is all related to the engine having major issues they have tried to hide. When I asked for this game I asked because I looked great and I really wanted to play it, it really caught my eye and imagination. But now after spending some time with it and experiencing its gameplay or lack thereof I just feel a little cheated. For an indie game it’s not cheap and just because it carries the indie title doesn’t mean it should be treated any less harsh than the games of equal price. Goliath is a game I want to recommend but it makes it impossible with it being subpar in almost all areas.

[b]Goliath is a fantastic RPG that focuses on building and customizing your own Goliaths for combat whilst you navigate a world you find yourself crash landed on.[/b] [b]Story[/b] In Goliath you’ll find yourself playing a young pilot who crashes on a mysterious island. With limited survival gear and a radio to contact your now lost co-pilot you’ll get to explore the lands meeting new factions, enemies and most importantly you’ll get to craft some of the awesome Goliaths in the game. With limited information fed to you from your co-pilot you’ll need to find out where you are and just how to get back home [b]General Gameplay[/b] At first Goliath seems pretty similar to many survival games as you’ll quickly find yourself gathering some wood and other resources around you to survive your first night in this strange land. But you’ll very soon find yourself embroiled in much deeper affairs. Once completing a few quick starter quests you’ll find yourself ready with your own base which you can upgrade and most likely enough materials to craft your first Goliath. Goliaths are essentially large robots you can control directly as though they are a suit of armour, or order to follow you around as slaves/pets. Goliaths are big and very strong and will be the only protection you have in this world, but fear not, there are many types of Goliaths and each has it’s own perks. Though you only start with one Goliath you can craft, as you continue on you’ll be able to learn how to make new types, often stronger in some form than the last. Goliaths can also be upgraded and equipped with one of the many weapons you’re able to craft at your base and each can have both a ranged and melee weapon at the same time. Not only do Goliaths have different ability types they also react differently with your environment which can turn the tide of battle in your favour if you utilize this properly. For example stone Goliaths are faster in hot environments whereas wooden ones can heal in water. There are main quests for you to follow as well as some side quests but mostly the story is linear and it’s not easy to get lost or fall off your chosen path which is appreciated because many RPGs have far too much filler now just to bulk the gameplay hours. Most of the quests you receive will be from the various factions you encounter BUT you may only do quests for factions you are on good terms with so you may want to think twice about who you attack and who you befriend. [b]Graphics and Audio[/b] The graphics are nice and run smoothly most of the time but sometimes I feel like there is a little hiccup/stutter when i’m moving on occasion. The soundtrack that plays in the background is very awesome and adds a little something extra, especially to combat as it seems to fit the mood perfectly. Something about smashing mobs in with my giant fists just feels better with great background music. [b]Cons[/b] Though I am loving Goliath I do have to mention some of the things that bother me, the first being a lack of explanation. Maybe I missed something but I’m learning everything from the tips when I teleport without finding too much information anywhere else. Things like how to have your Goliaths follow you and where to find the objectives for upgrading your Goliaths should be clearly explained to you as I don’t tend to pay attention to the loading screens. There are also things you are told to find and not given any indication at all of where to find them or even what they look like. This is freaking annoying on your first timed quest and just had me running around like a maniac killing everything. Another small issue is objects floating off of the ground slightly and enemy mobs getting caught in them but this is a superficial one and didn’t really affect my gameplay, it was just very noticeable. Lastly I find things can be a tad ‘grindy’ because some of the enemies are just so damn hard to kill that I find myself needing to level first. I don’t see any difficulty settings either so it seems it's grind or nothing. [b]Summary[/b] Overall Goliath is a fantastic light RPG with a story i’m enjoying and many hours of gameplay. The addition of a great story and chuckleworthy dialogue makes for a brilliant combination and is well worth the price tag. For those of you on the fence, check out some YouTube gameplay videos, I don’t think the store page does this game justice at all.

Goliath is a crafting action rpg game that has lots of potential that hasnt been used by the dev. Despite all of its flaws, this game is still fun regardless. You are newbie pilot who are going for a test fly(drive) of your newly built plane, something goes wrong, your plane crash and you wake up on a remote strange place. Its your job to find a way to go back to Earth. You can create giant robots which called Goliath to do 90% of your things. Without the Goliath, you're going to die in less than 5 seconds against an enemy or two, cause they can kill you in 2-3 hits, some can one hit you. Pros: - Crafting system, is similar like crafting anywhere, but you get quite lots of things to craft, from weapons, healing items, materials, buildings and goliaths. - Every shards (thats what the world in Goliath called) has its own biome and creatures in it, there are 4 biomes, wood/forest, swamp, desert and snow/ice. - Goliath, your best friend and your armor. You can ride them or switch them to auto pilot, but riding them is the best option, cause the AI is not the best. If you encounter enemies while auto piloting, your goliath will got rekt pretty quick. Just ride them. There are 4 types of goliath, wood, iron, stone and crystal. Each has its own skill sets, atributes and effects. And to add complexity, each type of Goliath has its own variants (think of it as armor), example, wood goliath has coal armor, snipe armor, pirate armor, etc. And each of them has its own effects, pretty nice. You can equip melee and range weapons for each of your goliath. You can store them if you are not using them or deconstruct them to get some materials. To unlock a certain goliath variants, you have to complete the experiments associated with it on the Experiment tab. - Factions, there are 3 factions in Goliath, Fox, Forgers and the Robots (sorry I dont remember the third one). By improving your faction points in certain faction, you can trade with them and help them solve quests. Sadly, there is nothing more than this. - Crystals, this is one the important resources, you use this to teleport to another shards and to upgrade your equipments later in the game when you have recruited certain NPC - As I mentioned above, you can recruit 5 NPC to work with you in the game, they have a purpose, such as a material trader and a beastmaster (to see monsters you have killed), weapon trader, heal your goliath, upgrade your equipments, bringing you random materials in a certain period of time. - Combat is ok, each goliath can only equip weapons made from the materials associated with them, example, wood goliath can only equip wooden weapons, stone goliath with stone weapons, etc. And the main character you ask? Nah, the main character Gromov is like a pudding, soft, weak and tasty, he cant equip or even upgrade his initial revolver. Stick to your goliath. Cons: - Story is meh. - Lack of enemies variation - The worlds are pretty much copy paste - Why I cant upgrade or equip Gromov with equip?? Its frustrating when my goliath got destroyed and I am out of warp stone in the middle of the map, and has to travel far to get back to my base, the revolver can suck bull's ♥♥♥♥, it takes 7-9 hit to kill the chicken enemy (or dodo, i dont care). Gromov only has 1 active skill, invisibility. This is a potential you can use. - Combat is lack of guard button, its funny that a goliath so big cant block. - Lack of storage, I had tons of weapons on my storage which is unused because of lack of inventory slots, and I can only bring 6 weapons at a time. And I only has 3 chests to store my things, I thought I could craft more chests, oh boy I was wrong. - Add Sprint button for the goliath. The goliath walks a little bit slowUse the crystal goliath to travel around, the crystal one can warp, before you get the crystal one, the iron one is okay. Pick this whenever you like sale or no sale, imo, its worth the price.

Edit: Only a day after I posted this a lot of the issues have already been fixed. Music no longer stops suddenly and polish on just general mechanics have already gone out The game as a whole isn't bad. I'm enjoying the different types of Goliaths and they feel different to fit different situations. You won't be simply abandoning one goliath just because the next one unlocks. The game, however, still needs a lot of polish. The music abruptly stops when combat ends, and some interactions are very picky and simply won't work unless you shuffle around trying to adjust where you stand, despite the prompt showing up. I've also just simply died with no way of really knowing what just happened. (I literally blew up when picking up my stuff from a previous death, no reason for it at all, just... boom. Done. The only thing I can think of is the mines in my pocket activated when they dropped.) I would still recommend the game because you're looking at a pretty fun, and rather extensive, game for the price. The release of the game still needs work and bugs are all over the place, but if you can overlook it, or if it's updated and fixed, it's fun to play, action rewards reflexes and adjusting to your surroundings, and the elements play well in this game.

TL;DR: Goliath is a buggy, ambitious release that is great fun, and looks to improve quickly. The biggest strike against Goliath is that it has a lot of bugs in this first week after release. The developers have freely acknowledged the problems, respond to bug reports as they're made, and have already released some fixes / small feature requests three days after release. Folks who want a thoroughly tested game should wait a month or so to skip the teething pains. In spite of the problems, I'm still recommending Goliath for those who are less bothered by bugs, or who appreciate responsive developers. The music, art, and character styles are well developed, making me feel like I'm in an steampunk / Old West movie with attitude as soon as I launch it. The game looks like it will be huge (especially if you're an exploring type): lots of worlds/areas each with their own loot layout, multiple special attacks for each elemental robot (and specialized subtypes of those robots, too), several NPC factions, and even a dungeon sprinkled here and there. And if you like gathering until your bags burst and crafting specialized gear, you'll find everything you need. They're not kidding about "punching monsters in the face", either. Though really, you throw boulders, do whirlwind and charge attacks, freeze or set the monsters alight, and just cause general mayhem, leveling trees and rocks as you pass. The monsters remind me a bit of of Torchlight and early Diablo: I get swarmed by fast-moving spiders, or knocked to the ground by bulls, damaged by acid or fire breath, or chased by little creatures with shaman masks throwing darts. And my robots smash them all!

It has promise but feels like an early access game. I am unable to continue the main quest line because of bugs. That makes this a broken game. Combat is floaty and slightly delayed. Unlocking goliath parts feels like jumping through hoops, annoying, completly boring hoops. The crafting seems like an afterthought. Quests are all of the fetch or kill variety. Little explanation is given as to how the main character can make goliaths or how he got his swiss army arm. Please don't buy this game if you want to finish it. By the time I realized the game was broken, it was too late for a refund. If you like the premise and look of the game, wait until it is fixed and completed to buy it. I will change this review if and when that happens.

+ the dialogues are sometimes amusing + no crashes + music & art - everything levels with you, so you are always weak sort of (respawns will be level adjusted) - the unlocking of parts is either super easy or super frustrating - while you can lots of different goliaths, dont expect to find any good combinations that arent obvious - tedious quests, the dialogues are fun sometimes, but the rest is boring - lots different ressources for crafting tons of things you get anyway from loot or vendors, pointless - the overwhelming feeling that the game could have been much better - the ending

While I generally enjoy survival-crafting genre of games and I did somewhat enjoyed playing Goliath, I cannot recommend it for what it offers. The fundamental core of survival-crafting style games is the crafting itself. It has to be polished and extensive to enhance and aid your survival in the world. The crafting in Goliath leaves much to be desired and needs more polishing. With crafting comes the need to gather resources, and with the need to gather resources comes the need to build storage units to store all your resources. For some strange reason, you cannot construct any storage units and are just limited to the 3 chests that come with the homeplate you are given. But then the second problem arise is that there are a wide variety of resources to collect in the game but only a few are very useful and constantly in demand. In a way, this fixes the problem with the first is that you can just drop those that are not particularly needed to save space in your limited chests. Aside from that. the crafting progression is more or less linear and with only a small handful of structures, it's not particularly difficult to look for what you need. Gameplay itself also requires polish. For some reason, I cannot rotate the camera view so it's always a third-person view facing north. Quite disorienting for map awareness, since you essentially cannot see what is behind your character aside from checking it out physically. Your character is very weak and easily killed by the hostile fauna and sometimes environmental traps. Levelling does not help except to improve your health and give you gold for bartering. You cannot increase your movespeed or abilities, so the main focus on survival comes from building mech suits to give you an edge against enemies. Yet, the robots still feel lackluster and weak. The game makes enemies scale with your player level and occasionally spawns skulled enemies which are 2x your level. Even with your robot, it is particularly easy to get mobbed to death with just a couple of scaled common enemies. You can craft weapons which you can use, but their durability is so dismal that you have to craft multiple for long journeys away from your homeplate. There is a trading system in place where you use gold from levelling up or from killing enemies to barter with NPCs, except the wares they offer are things you can craft or collect from the environment or looted from slain enemies. They sell no unique loot, which kinda makes the trading system essentially a white elephant feature. The graphics and music are alright, but the overall polish of the game feel underwhelming. There isn't an incentive for me to collect resources, craft, explore and slay enemies for loot since it always feels that you are simply weaker than the enemies because of the scaling. And it doesn't seem that any of these will be addressed since it looks like development has stopped for the game. No updates mean this is the final form of the game, which is quite tragic, since the concept itself is interesting and has potential, just poorly executed in certain areas. Unfortunate.