Quasimorph

Great concept. Terrible balance. Even if you select the game on the EASIEST DIFFICULTY good luck figuring out why you are constantly dying. Ohh you died a bunch and fell behind? Good luck all the factions are now Tech Level 6 and will 1 shot you the second you enter the map. Ohh you started figuring out the mechanics well screw you buddy that Quasimorph is immune to Shotgun damage you should have brought a Lead Pipe instead (yes an enemy can be immune to Shotguns cause screw you). Fun concept ruined on the Developers refusing to even have a semblance of balancing (I played on the easiest difficulty). Put 25 hours in and I'm giving up, if you should have to pull a Wikipedia article to understand the game (I played on the EASIEST difficulty) it’s not a good game. It’s the 1.0 release, no excuse.

This game is not v1.0. It's a very nice foundation, but it needs a year of patches to become decent.

50 траев чтобы добежать до сраного шаттла на сюжетной мисси АнКом... 50... Заранее поясню, что на миссии такая роскошь как бег мне был недоступен (а кто ж знал что он блин нужен будет) из-за импланта. В конце на голову начинает сыпаться просто тонна тротила, надо добежать до шаттла, казалось бы ну не сложно, НО, но разраб посчитал, что карту надо от тебя закрыть - вспоминай на ощупь, хотя на уровне ты уже был, он буквально стартовый. Ботам же абсолютно ♥♥♥♥♥, что на них падают бомбы, они уже облюбовали попку твоего наемника и ждут за углом. Кап у морфов достиг 999, что казалось чизингом на момент прохождения подземки... ох, как же я ошибался. В итоге получается, что абсолютно из каждого болванчика вылупляется квазиморф - разной степени паршивости, что казалось бы класс, часть врагов будет отвлекаться на них, но это не работает КОГДА НА ТЕБЯ СВЕРХУ ЛЕТЯТ БОМБЫ и ты можешь успеть сделать ровно 2 ХОДА (4 шага для меня, вместо 6) перед тем как эти две подружки разберут тебя на атомы. Убежать не получиться. И вот сидишь, молишься Богу рандома, на последнем трае, пройдя ад и слезы (больше слезы. чем ад), шаттл где-то рядом, еще один пролет и все - мишн комплит, альт+ф4 с чувством выполненного долга, но нет, игра посылает тебе одновременно, подчеркиваю, ОДНОВРЕМЕННО 4 боеголовки на пути, и ни назад, ни вперед, ни в бок, ни вверх, ни вниз, только в пыль. Игра чистый рандом, "стратегии" тут нет вообще,.. Поберегите нервы, оно вам не надо.

There is a good game under the hood, but I don't think it was ready for 1.0 The setting & what the game is trying to do is great, but the communication to player is not straightforward. Systems need to be introduced one at a time and explained so that I understand how to use each one. This includes crafting, trading, missions (optional vs story), switching mission sides, classes and upgrades, experience, gear, faction tech, how in game time effects power levels, etc. I only played a few hours but I feel like most of that time was spent poking around the (not use friendly) UI, and trying to read and understand the systems. I did a few of the main story missions and then flew to Venus where I encountered a steep difficulty spike resulting in a few failed mission attempts. If I did something wrong or escalated too quickly, the game should telegraph that to me ahead of time.

I agree with another negative review that said the systems don't meaningfully affect the gameplay much. The best part of the game is the music, vibe, graphics, progression. The biggest motivation I had was to gear up, create some unstoppable character, max out a class, fully upgrade the ship, etc. Unfortunately, I just dont see how it's going to change the gameplay, which I'm already tired of. You still creep around, and shoot things from behind cover, which generally triggers the whole map or at least a large portion to walk straight towards you. You are either geared up enough or you aren't. If that changes later, I don't want to stick it out any longer to find out. Everything is about increasing your own power slowly just so you can solve the same conga line problem more efficiently. Also the menus are a bit of a pain to navigate. You need to hold a lot in your head just to link that one thing you want for that one ship upgrade and what system it may be in. Ah, but is it worth traveling and increasing the enemy tech level? At the end of the day, you end up just taking another mission wherever is nearest. The game invites you to solve problems which don't really matter. If you like the sound of all that, then it may not be a negative for you.

Умираешь рандомно, при открытии двери на 1 сложности миссии от ваншота, после 30 минут тупого лутания мусора. В такое мы не играем. Это какой-то казик, а не стратегия. Тебя наказывают просто так по приколу рандомно, а не потому что ты ошибся.

I love the vibe of this game, but the in-game explanations for things are totally absent. Tutorial was okay, but then the game just opens up and there's no tooltips or guidance or anything. After playing for 1 hour, I was already on the internet looking for information on how to play. That's not a great sign. In-game FAQ doesn't answer nearly enough questions. I don't even know how to sell items or how "currency" works without having to look it up online. There's really no excuse for that level of obscurity for game mechanics. This doesn't make the game difficult, it makes it annoying to enjoy. This is a common complaint across other negative reviews, and this game was in EA for a while so the devs had plenty of time to fix this before 1.0. I'm on the fence about refunding this because this is such an easy problem to solve, but they've already had so much time to solve it already. Will this ever get fixed? I don't want to have to read guides after 1 hour of game time just to understand how your game decided to handle currency in a super unintuitive way for no reason. This issue extends to a lot of other game systems as well. Navigation, quests, faction relationships, "faction tech level" (whatever that means)... nothing is explained in game. Having to understand how things work on my own, like exploring and mission types, difficulty, combat, etc I can understand. But navigating the game systems and menus, and learning how to even interact with the gameplay, that type of stuff shouldn't be hidden from the player. It's like trying to learn how to play a boardgame after hiding the rulebook. Not fun, just wastes my time.

There is a lot to like within Quasimorph. The soundtrack is amazing, there is a large variety of enemies, weapons, classes, etc. that feel unique and viable, and the setting and atmosphere are stellar. With that being said, I cannot recommend the game in its current state for several reasons, but my main gripe is that the after a time, the gameplay loop becomes both repetitive and unrewarding. You fly around in your ship, taking missions for your preferred faction(s), gaining reputation and rewards as you succeed, or dying in the process. At the beginning of the game, all factions, including yourself, have basic weapons and armor and the effect of your characters' skills and other features on combat is minimal. As time progresses, the tech levels of all factions generally increase based on their relative powers, increasing the amount and variety of gear available. The issues come from how this system manifests itself in combat. In the beginning, there is a good balance between the enemies and your characters. Enemies have poor gear and can usually only take one action per turn while your character has slightly better gear and can take multiple actions per turn, allowing you to absorb damage and outmaneuver enemies when necessary. However, as the tech and power of the factions increase, this balance is turned on its head. Enemies become more numerous, get gear equal to or better than your own, and can take as many if not more actions per turn than your character. This results in many situations where if you find a group of enemies and are not able to kill/disable all of them in your opening salvo, you simply die. When you fail a mission you lose all of the gear, skill progress, and rank progress associated with that character, making it a very frustrating experience. To prevent this, most missions boil down to sitting at the end of a hallway and shooting to gain the attention of enemies, gunning them down as they waste their actions approaching you, and then waiting for the rest of the floor to be attracted by the noise. Repeat the process until the floor is cleared or you are run down by a squad of up-armored, up-gunned super soldiers that manage to make it through your hail of bullets. The game encourages you to specialize against certain damage types and resistances that each faction generally leans into, but in the early game, factions don't have access to many specialized pieces of gear, and in the late game, they ditch specialization entirely. For example, in missions against the faction Daydream Chemicals, which specializes in poison damage/resistance, there will be squads consisting entirely of energy weapons and piercing resist armor, meaning that character I just specced into poison resist and piercing damage just got vaporized. This lack of predictability in enemy loadouts means that there is no reliable way to tank damage or bypass enemy durability. Which again results in stocking up on ridiculous quantities of ammo and sitting at the end of a hallway spraying bullets until the floor is clear. Finally, the Quasimorphosis meter, the titular mechanic of the game. As more time is spent in a mission and more enemies are killed, this meter increases, summoning Quasimorphs from living enemies and increasing the strength of the Quasimorphs. The Quasimorphic factions are also affected by the tech/power system, meaning in the late game, they become very powerful. When this meter maxes out, every remaining enemy in the map turns Quasimorph and a boss is summoned. You usually die here. To stop the meter from going too high, there are consumables you can use to keep it down. Unfortunately, in the late game, missions become very long and enemies plentiful, both of which contribute to the meter increasing. There are only so many consumables you can bring, and eventually you are left with the unenviable choice of pushing into the throngs of overtuned enemies to try and complete the mission before the meter fills, or playing it safe in the hallway until the swarm of demons comes and kills you anyways. Again, frustrating. That's not to say the game is all doom and gloom. There are genuinely fun moments in the early and mid game where I feel the balance is *just right* and you can engage enemy squads in a variety of manners and succeed, and it will be enjoyable for that time, but the game just becomes unnecessarily punishing and bottlenecks you into a single strategy after a while. So, overall, I do not recommend it,