RPG Maker strikes again!
LONER is one of hundreds of low effort retro-pixel RPG Maker asset/construction kit flips spamming the Steam catalog, made with the RPG Maker video game construction kit... in their own words, "Our easy to use tools are simple enough for a child." Like all RPG Maker "games", this is essentially a bunch of low quality/canned assets from RPG Maker coupled with a cringeworthy high school anime club fan fiction. There's no English translation for the game, but that's ok. It turns out, the language of bad games is universal.
As with all RPG Maker games, the poor quality engine displays badly in fullscreen and doesn't have full HD support or any graphics tweaking options, making this unacceptable for any dedicated modern PC gamer. The point can be made that the intention of RPG Maker is to make demos and small games to pass around friends, and shouldn't be used for "professional" game development.
Notably the developer here couldn't work out how to use RPG Maker to make an RPG... and that's the only thing RPG Maker can do properly... except it's not even very good for making RPGs. Instead, we have a very basic asset flipped 2D top down retro pixel adventure game with some bizarre, nonsensical plot... but then this was never a seriously made game. LTZinc and Big Black Bear are notorious criminal asset flippers and scammers.
LTZinc/Big Black Bear have a known history of trying to scam people into paying them money for someone else's work. One example of LTZinc/Big Black Bear doing this is [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/817150]Factory Pirates[/url], which is really the "[url=https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/historic/polygon-pirates-low-poly-3d-art-by-synty-92579]Polygon Pirates Low Poly 3D asset pack[/url]" asset, written by the actual developers, Synty Games.
It's also important to note the "developer" here has connections to a number of shady Russian asset flippers and review manipulators (WhackAKey, ImperiumGame to name a couple) who show an organised pattern to scam and defraud gamers with fake reviews and asset flipping the work of others for profit. While reviews are about the games, gamers should be informed when developers act unethically. Whether these connections are the same developer using multiple accounts, or just working closely with other unethical developers, gamers should be warned about the harm to gamers by this developer and their associates. Buying games from unethical developers puts your money at risk.
[quote][url=https://mmofallout.com/valve-bans-titles-for-review-manipulation/]Warning: Review Manipulation![/url][/quote]
This game features a number of fake positive reviews from accounts known to be in the business of review manipulation/paid reviews. They're all written in either Russian or broken English, appear at almost exactly the same time, very shortly after the game launched on Steam, all have a direct Steam purchase of the game, and the accounts are used consistently to write fake reviews for asset flips and other cash grabs/scams. The "Positive" review score on this game should be disregarded due to this blatant, unethical review manipulation. This is done to deceive and scam gamers into paying for a bad product.
LONER is relatively cheap at $1 USD, but it's not worth it. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, and the questionable ethical nature of the developer and/or their associates (as outlined above), this is impossible to recommend.
