"Memory Hunters" is a badly made "I can't believe it's not RPG Maker" JRPG pixelcrapfest with a focus on puzzles and another focus on looking bad. The puzzles aren't great, the graphics are awful, it's no wonder gamers largely ignored this.
This features really godawful, lazy pixelcrap "art" instead of real graphics. It's hard to say if this was because the developer didn't have the skill to do the job of creating 3D visuals, or couldn't afford to hire someone who does, but it also doesn't matter. What matters is that this looks bad because of that decision, and that's a major deterrent to gamers. Games like Terraria and Stardew Valley succeeded [i]despite[/i] the bad graphics, not because of them.
This is only free in a rudimentary sense... the developer has their hand out for a $4 "donation" for this as you're expected to buy some extra DLC from Steam... digital panhandling. Like the homeless guys who splash dirty water on your windscreen at the traffic lights. No thanks.
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]
The first thing the developer wants everyone to know is that they are THE MAIN CHARACTER. You, as a gamer, don't matter. It's evident from their attitude that they never created this product with gamers in mind. They did so to stroke their own ego.
When developers, especially failed ones who would never be able to get a professional job in the industry, put themselves before gamers, we end up with garbage products like this. That explains how this trash ended up on Steam, but it doesn't excuse it. At least we finally got to meet THE MAIN CHARACTER.
The developer admits they didn't hire a team of talented staff to produce the game and tried to do the whole thing on their own, instead, as a "hobby". At no point was any consideration made towards what gamers might actually want, but again, this is the main character and he's so much more important than you guys, the gamers. I have a different opinion, I believe that gamers are more important that failed game developers who can't get a real job in the industry.
The developer delivers some amazing mental contortion and coping mechanisms, apparently, according to the main character in the entire universe, his game only failed because, well, uh, players only count towards Steam player statistics if the game is multiplayer (obviously not, and this weird assertion from the developer comes across as delusional, but then he also thinks he's the main character). Also the game only failed because of advertising, not because it was utter crap.
The main character deliberately put donationware/panhandling DLC on his game without expecting anyone would throw money at him... what utter intellectual dishonesty. Nobody scrawls "please donate" on a dirty cardboard sign unless they expect someone will. But the developer wants to lie about that, too.
Absolute delusion.
We can see from the developers bizarre copes and dishonesty in his breach of guidelines why this game was an utter failure.
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.
