Using this to replace my original review due to dev reply, original review is gone due to character limit
[h1]Menus[/h1]
They suck, and I'm going to try to describe it and actually explain why it's bad primarily through the lack of guidance.
So, lets say you want to play an actual round. What's the first thing you do? You want to play a simple unranked game right? So you would ordinarily look for a play/muliplayer button. This does not exist. What does exist is:
Leaderboard
Settings
"Ascension Handbook: VitalZ" [Some sort of general life tip collection?]
Premium Membership
And finally... Ranked Playlist. There is no unranked. This is a bit confusing as you would probably just want to jump into a stress-free game to practice maybe, get used to the game. But this just doesn't exist. So, the play button is your "Ranked Playlist" button, and that's the only way to get into the game instead of a "play" button or another option.
The Ranked Playlist menu has more issues though, because for some reason it's more than just gameplay related things in here. There's also the "Valkyria Records" button here for their lore. Why their lore is in the play menu I have no clue.
[h1]Settings[/h1]
This also is a response to the developers, but I will reiterate this slightly at the end.
The graphical settings menu makes little sense. Some parts are fine, actually standard like "FPS Limit" and "FPS Counter." Others are not. Please tell me what "Bloom Dream Vision" means, and especially what the options "Crystal," "Supernatural," and "Awakened" mean, because this doesn't tell me anything. Under "Performance Mode" it's even worse because there is exactly zero explanation to any idea what this could ever be (unlike the last option, which likely is for the bloom in the game). There is 2 toggle boxes in this, the "Elysium" and "Mystical Elysium" options which do god knows what. There is no explanation at all for what these do. Generally the rest of the settings menu is okay, generally usable.
[h1]In-Game GUI[/h1]
To sum up my feelings, too much of the screen is taken up by garbage. Only going to mention criticisms, if I don't mention it I don't see an issue in it.
2 of the elements in the bottom right don't look so well, expecially the character portrait taking up a ton of screen space in the bottom left. While it doesn't stop you from playing the game, it doesn't need to exist nor does it need to be as big as it is. Screen visibility in a competitive shooter matters.
Your crosshair is very usable, but simultaneously hideous and a mess. It's 3 seperate circles, one of which is animated spinning and huge and surrounded by 9 blue circles which represent some resource I don't understand. Sometimes it goes down, and I have no idea why.
Also, you can't quit midmatch. Pressing Escape midmatch leaves the following message below the Settings button:
"Please wait until matchmaking round is over before leaving"
[h1]Weapons[/h1]
Cyberlink: Hit-scanning pistol with what seems like a "homing" function that makes it hit as long as you shoot near your target. Also the only weapon with any type of knockback.
Sun&Moon: A shotgun? that's absolutely broken. The gun either does its max dmg, or doesn't hit at all. It seems to hit enemies in a cone with extraordinary range, hitting well into the beginning of long-range combat, making it the go to weapon for almost all encounters.
Firecaster: Projectile based automatic weapon, does less dmg than the Cyberlink at a slightly faster fire rate, honestly it kind of sucks.
CosmicAlce: A rocket launcher that, no matter what I do, does 0 dmg. It clearly has an explosion, hitting enemies far out of where it initially hit, but it does 0 dmg whether or not I directly hit the enemy.
LPA: A railgun type weapon with a slow firerate doing about 1.5x that of the Cyberlink, but due to the low firerate it might honestly be better to just use the Cyberlink instead.
DMG: The actual rocket launcher of the game. It looks like a grenade launcher but it doesn't seem to have any projectile gravity and actually does damage.
In summary, the only 3 guns you should actually be using are the Cyberlink, Sun&Moon, and DMG. The other weapons are useless because they are either outclassed by the other weapons or just don't do anything.
Divine Shield: Not really a weapon, but a shield with limited energy (displayed beneath the HP bar) that makes you completely invincible for a short period. During this period you also can't shoot. Not sure why you would use it. Very situationally useful.
[h1]Addressing The Dev.[/h1]
[u]"This reviewer is clearly here just to attempt creating a bad reputation for the game: (I wouldn't be surprised if this is from a competitor)"[/u]
I'm just trying to stop people from wasting their damn time, this game sucks compared to your best competitors, Quake, Unreal Tournament, and other free Arena shooters.
[u]"The reviewer goes in great lengths to talk about how bad our menus are, but they are literally like any other videogame menu out there."[/u]
The play button still isn't very obvious, it should be fairly obvious and require literally no thinking. Every other game I have ever played didn't require me to think about where the play button was.
[u]"I suppose the reviewer doesn't know what the terms 'anti-aliasing', 'texture quality', and 'shadows' mean." (in response to me criticizing the settings menu)[/u]
I was mostly talking about the performance settings, which I admit I wasn't being fair to generalizing to the entire menu. Despite this, as said above the settings menu has lots of ambiguity.
[u]"We wanted to create a new art experience" (in response to my criticism of the use of terms like "Script" for kills)[/u]
This is total bull-crap, the immersion comment could have been used if this was a story-based game, but this is not that. This is a multiplayer pvp based game. "immersion" doesn't exist really here. Some of the reasons I mentioned this originally though have been remedied.
[u]"In our first time tutorial, where all weapons are explained, it clearly says that this is a Locator/X-ray type gun..."[/u]
First of all, the tutorial didn't properly explain the guns. Second of all, what does this mean? Is it just meant to do 0 dmg to help you find people? Why not just have it outline the players for a second instead of making it do 0 dmg. A locator gun on first thought made me think it was homing... which it isn't.
[u]"Actually there is ZERO bloom by default."[/u]
You're right, there isn't, but there is in the options and it's so, so, excessive.
[u]"If you can't find how this is practically overpowered..." (talking about the shield)[/u]
This is the entirety of what they said. They didn't explain. I have no idea why it would ever be "practically overpowered" considering the fact you can't even shoot during it. It's a purely defensive maneuver that I can't figure out the practicality of.
[u]"Killstreak only names"[/u]
This point I admit I either completely missed or they updated (in the case of the update, I applaud them).
[Part about shotgun, too long for character limit]
Never in the original review did I ever say to "default to the shotgun" or anything along those lines. I said to use the pistol, the shotgun, and rarely the other weapons. Besides, the shotgun has a huge range.
[u]"This is absolutely false" (in me saying enabling performance modew creates lower frames)[/u]
My original statement was implied speculation, and I have honestly no clue nor care to want to properly test if it does because I still have no idea what the performance options do.
I admit, a couple parts were me being wrong, but this response only made me want to improve my review and actually refute everything they say or clarify everything. I hope they either take this as a solid criticism or people stop playing this garbage and play the other free alternatives (there's other free arena shooters out there with dedicated communities, if you want an arena shooter just search!)
