Shoresy: Legends of the North

Not since the days of NES Ice Hockey, has a hockey game been more playable by the less educated hockey fans. Hell, im writing this review after playing it drunk. What other reviews you need to read, tit ♥♥♥♥♥♥?!

I really wanted to like this game, I really really want to like it. It's just too buggy at the moment. Games constantly stalling after an odd check with the puck causing the puck to vanish and be unplayable. Played against the first 'Boss' and I was forced to restart twice after bugs. On the third bug, I quit, refunded, and wrote this review. I hope this game gets its bugs fixed. Until then, Don't get it.

Definitely early access. Still a lot of bugs to work through, especially in the game play. I'm a huge Shoresy fan, and I've played most of the hockey video games released since the early 1990's. This has some promise, but the devs are really going to have to work on the on-rink game play to polish this up. I'm only on the first big tourney with Mario Lemoose. A few bugs/complaints of note: - The animations (snow clearing) when moving to a new zone will repeat over and over again if you do something in the original zone prior to moving into the new one. So if you unlock something new, go there immediately or else you'll be stuck watching the snow plow. - Directional passing is pretty rough. If I have a teammate to the left and one that is up and left, and I try to pass to the up-left teammate, 99 times out of 100 it'll go to the guy to the left. - If you knock someone down, there's a high likelihood that they'll get up and retrieve the puck before you can recover from performing the check and get on the puck yourself. This bug has been present in a LOT of hockey games over the years. - There are no clear instructions on how to use a power up once you grab it. - Touching the goalie causes you to play dead on the ice for 4-5 seconds. - The NPC teammates seem to stop to collect a pass instead of grabbing it on the go. I'd be interested to see if the game can work the vector math out and make sure that a full speed player can get an accurate full-speed pass. I'm still early in the game, so I don't know if skill points play into that. - I think you're meant to lose the opening tournament, so losing didn't bother me. Losing 15-12 was odd for hockey though. That's more of a football score. Maybe crank up the goalies instead? - I feel like my players get tired by the end of the game. There's no way to see it other than performance. Maybe an exhaustion meter? Timeouts? Subs from a bench? I'm not sure how deep you want the game to go or if rosters are even envisioned. - Opportunities to earn either permanent experience or 1-game buffs for things done outside of the game. Nice to haves: - When you get near gear, it would be nice to have a visual indicator of which pieces are new - There's an impossible amount of good looking girls in Sudbury. However, none are included in this game. Nat looks like a South Park character. She's a sniper, and should be animated like one. - I have no idea how the Shoresy story gets wrapped into defeating hockey gods. I'm probably not supposed to care, but "meh"? I haven't seen the other NOSHO teams involved yet, and I don't know if they will be. - There's an obvious opportunity for Shoresy to give his period break advice from inside of a bathroom stall. - The 'pigeon' debuff is funny. Turning players into actual 'puck bunnies' would be funnier. - I'm not sure what metric is being used to win faceoffs. Button press frequency? Right as the puck hits the ice? Maybe some better in-game guidance. Anyways, it's a fun play, and the ~$20 price point is right where it oughtta be. I'll probably play it through to its end just to see where it goes.

Bugs can't be ignored. Played a 5 game series against Martin the rat goalie. Sweated game 5, had to play perfect to win the series. Directly after, the game crashed and wiped all memory of playing the series. This has destroyed any interest maintained in playing the game.

So this is a game that I am enjoying playing- I've recently reached the third zone and I believe I've beaten all the scattered Hockey Teams in the area, and all I have left to do is challenge and beat the Hockey God. However despite my enjoyment, the game in it's current state I would not recommend purchasing, even to a big fan of Shoresy. A combination of bugs and clunky design make it clear the game needs more time in the oven. As I've played I've been taking note of noticeable bugs as well as other things of note that struck me as odd choices or which personally bothered me and made the game harder to enjoy- design decisions and gameplay issues, mostly. Bugs: - Noticeable lag in the second area and beyond. - Practice area sometimes just doesn't load and I have to manually shut the game down. - Dressing Room maintains the red notification exclamation even after you've looked at all the gear and upgraded all of your teammates. - Dialogue Text moves at a snails pace. Sometimes dialogue boxes in cutscenes will skip to the next before finishing. - When fighting in story mode, oftentimes the shown value of the Goons Fighting stat will be swapped with the other fighter. - Whatever was done in the last update seems to have rendered it so fighting cannot be done at all. Previously, it working was spotty- but now in six fights across two games, I have not been able to connect a single punch as Shoresy does not throw down his gloves or stick and punches do not connect. - When hitting Quit on the pause menu, if you decide not to quit, you suddenly can't do anything more with the pause menu and lose the ability to back out of it. Soft lock, leading to me being forced to shut down the whole game anyway. - The Quit option on the main menu does not actually close the game, just freezes it. In order to actually quit, I need to go to Steam and press the Stop button. - The 
Stats are called different things in the gear and Stat menus for some reason. - Not a priority but there are animation errors when the puck drops- on occasion one of the players will be immobile, and with the guys in the sled-looking thing will occasionally sit at the wrong angle and contort their bodies horribly. Other Notes: - Stats need some kind of explanation as to what they do. A tooltip of some kind. While for some what they do is obvious, for others [like Hockey IQ/Puck IQ] I have no idea what they're meant to do or what they do mechanically. - The CAC has vastly lower base stats when compared to the rest of their teammates, which makes them feel a bit like dead weight at times. Having slightly higher base stats would help with that- to put them more in line with what the other characters would be at level 1. - 90% of the appeal of the base franchise [Shoresy and Letterkenny] is the writing and performances. Voice Acting would go a long way towards making a more fun experience- I'm mostly thinking voiced cutscenes, but having characters chirp on the ice would also add a lot. - There seems to be no or minimal control over what teammate you pass the puck to, whether you're the goalie moving the puck or during normal gameplay. This has resulted in numerous instances of me losing control of the puck due to it being passed to the absolute wrong guy on the opposite side of the map. If there is a way to control it, the game does not communicate how to do so. - The ice driving sections are just. Not pleasant to play. I get what you were going for aesthetically but good lord it is just annoying, especially with the Third Area being a literal ice maze that is just not good to drive around. - As far as I can tell, characters seem to get bonus XP based on their performance in the game- with goals [and blocked shots for the goalies, I think] being the thing that gives a major bonus. This is fun in theory, but in practice it means it means that characters who either A) Aren't built for shooting but for other things [like puck control or checking] or B) Are just unlucky and not in the position to get goals end up lagging behind the others experience wise. - Let me challenge the teams in story mode I already beat. C'mon. Even if it gives reduced or no experience, it would be fun and useful to be able to train my skills on them between proper games. I really like this game. I'll probably try and beat all the Hockey Godz [as soon as that fighting Bug is patched]. But despite that enjoyment, the game just has too many issues at this moment in time to genuinely recommend buying. If you like Hockey in general or Shoresy in specific, I'd keep an eye on it- wishlist and either wait for a sale, or for the bugs to be ironed out[it is only 20 dollars after all]. It has a lot of potential to be very fun, it just needs more time.

So far the game feels like it's programmed by a beer league dusty who ate a few too many biscuits on the bench. Got through the first part of the story just fine, but hit so many bugs during the second part. Equipped gear that improved fighting and became untouchable, but also couldn't damage my opponent so I just had to sit there for 30 seconds and let it time out. Then there was the time where the puck just ceased to exist at the blue line and I had to wait out the period. You'd think I could just build up the fight meter and have a fight, but again, no damage taken or dealt. Then I had something similar happen at puck drop so I had to burn out the period while looking at nothing other than center ice. It's got the bones there for a solid game to last you two hours of fun, but as of right now those bones are wood, termite infested, and lacking any sensible meat.

I say this with all the love in my heart. 0/10 hot dumpster fire don't even bother. Your first match is against the Jims and the ai is so busted they just get free reign of the goal. They scored 7 goals in 30 seconds cuz no matter how much you spam the button they win the puck drop and then they drive it in and your goalie just watches it.

Il s'agit d'un super jeux de hockey d'arcade. Le mode histoire est anecdotique mais il permet de débloquer des terrains, joueurs et cosmétique, car oui on peut customizer tous les joueurs de son équipe créée pour le mode histoire, ainsi qu'améliorer nos joueurs dans diverses compétences. Les matchs sont agrémentés de power up à récupérer sur le terrain, ce qui rajoute du piments. La ou le jeu brille de milles feux c'est en multi-local avec des potes. Il excelle dans ce domaine. En bref je le recommande fortement.

I really enjoyed the TV series, so when I found out there was a game, I had to try it. The arcade-style gameplay is excellent and perfectly captures the spirit of the show, including the characters, crude humor, and overall vibe. It feels like a mix of Hit the Ice (SNES), Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey (N64), NHL Rock the Rink (PS1), and NHL Hitz 2003, especially with the player customization. I would have liked the option to play as a right-handed shooter, which is missing. The music during matches could also be improved. Overall, this is an easy 8/10 for me. 👍

Go Hockey! For a game only a few weeks into EA this game has a lot of promise -- particularly if they tune the controls, and really lean into making sure customization matters.