Spy Drops

This game wears its inspiration on its sleeve, and is jank and dated in exactly the ways it should be. It's essentially Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation but roguelike, and is precisely as good (or bad) as it sounds based on that alone. Older reviews attack it for using AI voices but those have all been replaced with real voice acting, a huge improvement not only on moral grounds; the old AI voices were [i]terrible[/i].

[h3]PS1というよりもPSPの質感。メタルギアソリッド1と初代スプリンターセルが融合したカジュアルなステルスゲーム[/h3] オービタルカメラ（俯瞰でなく後方視点）でプレイ。最初は移動速度やゲームスピードが遅いと思ったが、自分の環境で60FPS出てないだけだったのでグラフィックを調整した。操作はXbox360コントローラだとダッシュボタンと爆破ボタンが何故か同じバインドだったので、BACKボタンのメニュー画面表示を爆破ボタンに割り当てた。 　コントローラのバインドは複数機能をひとつのボタンに持たせるタイプで、通常時の操作を変えると射撃時の操作が変わってしまったりする（たとえば、通常時の主観モードボタンと射撃時のリロードボタンは同じボタンになるが、これを分けることはできない）。コントローラの種類によるかもしれないが、爆破ボタンがダッシュボタンと一緒になっていたらそれだけ分けて他はあまりいじらないほうが面倒がないかもしれない。 　自分はL3ボタンのドリームキャッチャーとRBボタンのスニーク（壁張り付き）を入れ替えたら、途端に初期のスプリンターセルとして受容可能になった。ミッションには拳銃と弾薬などを買って持ち込めるので、これで光源やカメラを破壊しながら進むと、ほとんどスプリンターセルのゲームメカニクスになる。光メーターと音メーターはスプリンターセル：カオスセオリーの形式だが、これはスプリンターセル：二重スパイ（PS2版）やPeripeteiaのようなキャラアイコンが見えるUIにしたらもっとカジュアルになるのになと思った。 　銃声は即座にアラートにならず、敵が場所を確かめに来るだけなので、銃声の扱いに関してはゆるい。まだ最初なのでサプレッサー付きの武器などが登場したらまた違ってくるかもしれない。ミッションに表示される難易度によって敵の体力や視覚・聴覚が変わるということらしいが、まだ具体的には分かっていない。 　光と影と音のメカニクスはスプリンターセル的だが、レベルデザインや二次元的なマップ構造はメタルギアソリッド1に近い。ぶら下がりやジャンプもない。しゃがみ移動もないが、アナログスティックをわずかに傾ければ腰を低くして静かに移動する。しゃがみ状態はないがホフク移動で戦車の下などに潜り込むことは出来る。敵を殺傷すると制服を奪うことが可能で、変装システムも導入されているらしい。 　ちょうどMGS1とスプリンターセルの中間くらいのシステムだと思う。自分は初代スプリンターセルやパンドラトゥモロー辺りのシステムでMGS1のシャドー・モセス島を遊びたいとずっと思っていたので、このゲームはちょうどその感じがあって楽しい。 　しかし、最初はちょっとゲームの仕組みが分かりづらいと思う。青い光のカメラやレーザーに当たるとアラートになるが、普通の光源とサーチライトの違いが最初わからなかった（前者は明るいだけだが、後者はアラートになる）。 　地雷探知器で探知される地雷や爆発するレーザーは赤く表示される。まだ空けてない扉は十字の赤で光っていて、開けたことのある扉は緑色の十字で光り、開かない扉はマップにマークされる。マップを開くと目標の位置が表示されたりもするが、オービタルカメラでなく俯瞰視点でないとマップはパンできない。これは後でカメラモードを追加したせいだろうと思う。説明書きも俯瞰視点モードのものを前提に話してる場合があって、やや混乱する。武器変更時や開かない扉のマーク時とかにSEが鳴ってくれたらいいのにとも思う。 　ドリーム・キャッチャーという仕組みで敵をスキャンすると開発レベルが上がったり、また敵を背後から拘束して尋問・気絶・殺傷することも出来る。張り付いた状態の壁際や背後からのステルス攻撃はスローモーションのキックなどで演出される。しかし最初の頃は正面から殴っても気絶だったのが、経験値から攻撃力を上げたら殺傷になったような気もする。殺害すると減給されるので、これはちょっと不便だ。（背後からのステルス攻撃や拘束からの気絶で対応しろということだとは思うが…） 　メニュー画面やUIのデザインや敵の視界の狭さや馬鹿さ加減も、なんとなくPSPくらいのステルスゲームを彷彿とさせる。ちょうどMPO+やSplinter Cell: Essentialsの感覚が近いと思う。敵を殺傷すると報酬が減るが、マップを探索してアイテムを探して持ち帰るとある程度の収入になる。この辺のやりくりの仕組みが意外と楽しいように思える。低難易度で低報酬のミッションだと、金のかかる装備品を持ち込まずさっさとミッション目標をクリアして落ちてるアイテムをかっさらって帰るのがちょっと楽しい。 　「スタンドアロン」モードでは、マップやミッション内容を指定してシード値を入力したりランダムなマップを生成して遊ぶことも出来るらしい。ただ、その場合の装備品は最低限となり他は現地調達になる。 　MGS1のような楽しさや操作感を期待すると肩透かしを食らうが、ポータブルオプスや初期のスプリンターセルが好きなら意外とハマりそうな感じがする。PS5だけでなくPS4版も出してくれないかなと思う。協力プレイもあればいいのにな。無意味に赤いスパイスーツとか、衣装・髪型変更とかもあればきっと金星蟹みたいになって可愛いのに。ともかく、PSPの時代のステルスゲームが好きだった人にオススメ。

Update 2 (2/14/26) - Crastall mission now working, NPC's and the needed keycard are spawning. Must've been a bug. Did require a third new save, but we got there! As far as my thoughts on the game - Maybe pick it up on sale. It's not perfect, but it has promise. It's a good first playground for stealth. Nothing is too hard to get around, enemies aren't too smart, alarms aren't too punishing, and objectives and gadgets are varied enough to give you enough to do, work towards, and doesn't get stale too fast. The Standalone missions show new assets and maps which are very promising, so I no longer suspect this project was too big for a first stealth foray. No, it isn't metal gear. Not yet. It's a mix of metal gear's appeal with some fun new tools and enough put into it to make a workable, if still a little janky, stealth game. There are enough mechanics in the game to provide you a few different ways to go about missions, and if you're thorough (Hide those bodies!) you can level up your skills within a few missions to feel less hamstrung by your stamina bar or combat prowess. Basically, I'm excited to see what this studio does next. Unfortunately, it does just need more work. If this studio continues making these kinds of games, I'd love to see what they make next, as this is a pretty good first draft. So, recommendations, Game-wise: - Alarms need to be more punishing. Not allowing you to hide while an alarm is on doesn't make much sense to me - especially if it means I can run to another room and hide in a locker or dumpster, the alarm basically only locks down one room's hiding spots, if it has any to begin with. I'd recommend additional guards, gas release, or the main objective going under lockdown until the alarm clears - as it is now, it's a barely an inconvenience. - The base list of missions needs to be accessible at all times. Once I got enough intel to unlock the Crastall mission, the rest disappeared - and as stated above, it's bugged and I cannot complete the mission. - A marker for the transport drone would be very helpful - I love the flat, dark green quadcopter a few times in the terrain when going to extract. - The stamina you start with is unbelievably small. After levelling it up once, it at least didn't feel asthmatic. - I didn't see it explained in game, but you can "sprint" a little faster even when you are crawling or sneaking by pressing L1. It would be nice to see the stamina bar at these times as well. - I'm not sure why shooting a gun would cost stamina. It never became a problem for me as there were never too many guards around anyways, but the stamina cost is mentioned by the guards as a tip. - Out of the box, the L1 Button is responsible for sprinting AND detonating C4. Please have these on different buttons - maybe the trigger could be an option in the L2 Camera, like shooting or switching weapons? - A clearer prompt for when a "reaction" moment is about to happen, as far as guards coming around a corner and you getting one chance to CQC them before an alarm raises. I think enough time is given now, I just wasn't clear on which button to press to do it (Since Square is grab, circle is CQC and L2 is knock out, it took some getting used to. a button prompt and a timer bar may be helpful here). Other notes/nitpicks: - Ripley first calls the handler character "Colonel", in a later cutscene while they're discussing why'd they pick her for the mission, she calls him "General" - Some of the voicework at the start is very plastic, Ripley giving one and two word responses to get the story out of the way. It comes off as bored, rather than "about to sneak into the enemy base." - Ripley's got plenty up front but nothing out back. Odd choice for a game where you spend a lot of time crawling around. Not required, but a strange choice maybe.

Spy Drops is a nice spin-off of MGS1, and I do really like the concept and the design of it all, it is very funny and uses many of the tropes that are used basically throughout the entirety of MGS, not that it reaches the potential storytelling that MGS does, but I didn't ever expect it to in the first place, that's a non-issue. I very much enjoy this game mostly because I am an MGS fanboy, but also because this game gives itself a unique enough identity to not be called a carbon copy, though it isn't without it's own problems. The good of the game is that: The controls are fine, likely refined through updates as I've seen people complaining about it earlier in the year. There are lots of options from the get-go to be able to properly play the game, somehow this game has more audio options than MGSV ever did (lol). The protagonist, although a little bait-y in her design, is pretty caggy and looks cool in her animations as well. The graphics are not anything ground-breaking but you do not have to stick with the PS1 style completely, you can have cleaner graphics or more choppy and blocky graphics in the game as you wish which is a big plus for me. The game, as opposed to many newer games these days, runs completely fine, and has no performance issues whatsoever, and can probably run on an Intel Celeron or worse. The story is very cheesy and not in-depth, while this may seem like a negative, it doesn't have to take itself very seriously to be a competent game, and is good enough to encourage you for gameplay and setup the whole market system about buying and researching new stuff. The item variety in the game is decent and experimental (in a good way), there are stuff like drones, gas masks, bugging devices (to track vehicles) etc. The negatives of this game are, honestly, not that plentiful, but do not expect a highly-polished, bug-free experience akin to something like a main-line MGS entry, this game certainly has it's fair share of bugs and the experience is not entirely the same tier as MGS, however as far as I know, one dude is making this game, and that honestly deserves a lot of credit. The ambience, to put it lightly, is literally non-existent. If you turn off the music in this game you will hear absolutely nothing except your footsteps, gunshots, dragging bodies around, and the voice lines of enemy guards and overwatch. That's it. There's no ambience, no droning sound in the facility, no windy noises or nature sounds outside, no reverb inside of the facility and the list goes on. This is extremely, extremely negative to the point where it is kind of just weird. If the dev ever reads this, please add ambience to your game. It would tremendously help with the general setting and feeling of the game whilst keeping music-free gamers happy as well. Procedurally generated missions can sometimes feel same-y and make you think "I've seen this area before...", because you probably already have and it generates very similar if not identical structures sometimes. The music can be turned off in the settings however some cutscenes will still be playing music even with it turned off, the cutscenes are also extremely quiet and a little awkward without any noise from anything happening in them, it would probably not be very hard to add some appropriate noises, like jet engines for the magnet propelled plane or some kind of droning noise for it, a propeller sound in the background coming from the transport plane C-130 looking thing. The game has several bugs, I do not really know if the bad ai of the guards sometimes can be classified as one, however sometimes when putting a soldier down in a corner your camera will glitch out and you will be stuck until you pick him up and drag him again. There are likely other bugs too, the camera clips inside of the character a lot and generally feels awkward whilst hiding inside of dumpsters or lockers. None of these are particularly horrendous or affect gameplay that much, but it's certainly something that should be ironed out over time. Overall, the game does require a lot of polish, however it definitely has a ton of potential, it even has multiplayer. If the game over time can become more responsive and the quality steadily improves it can certainly be a competent MGS spin-off for any stealth-hungry gamers that are a little upset with recent releases and generally dwindling market for stealth games and the genre in general. The dev is very active and is continually supporting the game and isn't like some modern devs that release their game, make a hotfix or a patch or two after their game blows up and leave it for dead. Overall, I enjoyed it, and I will definitely come back to play some more.

Spy Drops is a very cool Metal Gear style stealth game. You play randomly generated missions in between story missions and boss fights, and there's lots of variety with many different objectives and locations. It's a gameplay loop that feels a little strange at first, but once you get into it and start trying out new weapons and items it's really fun. It looks great, superb art design, and every time you play you will notice something different. The game squeezes in every Metal Gear thing you could want, you can feel the devs had a lot of fun, I hope they make 100 sequels.

Normally I wait a few hours or longer to leave reviews, but I decided I might as well to tip the balance of reviews to "positive". What is Spy Drops? Spy Drops, essentially, is a sendoff to classic infiltration stealth games of the 90s (basically, Meal Gear Solid) with the addition of two major modern systems - procedural generation (as far as I am aware, all levels barring story critical ones are randomly generated) and a trader system that lets you equip weapons before each mission. After a tutorial you pick a mission from the mission select menu, whose objective and difficulty vary from mission to mission, and sally forth. Each mission rewards you money to develop and equip specific gear, experience to upgrade on of Ripley's (our heroine and playable character) stats, and intel to unlock the next story mission. You do this by using the Dreamcatcher, an item with unlockable skills that basically scrapes the info of nearby guards' brain. Handy! After hitting certain tresholds, you unlock the next premade history mission, and the plot moves along. That's essentially the gameplay loop so far. It's very simple, but if you approach it for what it is, it's a very enjoyable little game. It might be worth noting that the controls can be a bit finnicky if you're not used to top-down stealth games (you're going to have a bad time if you don't use a controller, no two ways about it. The dev really commited to the homage bit and I cannot but respect it) a-la PSX, and the graphics can be a bit disorienting; I greatly recommend going to visual settings and disabling VHS filter if you are feeling a bit dizzy, and taking the camera a bit farther so you see a bit more of the screen. Kudos to the dev for making these options. Some not-as-important points I would like to add: - The dev removed AI voice acting in a patch a few months back. The VAs are all actual humans, and the game is so much better for it. - The gear you use (rubber boots, gas masks, visors, NVGs) actually appear on Ripley's character model, and you can actually see her if you fly a drone. Neat little details all around that were not that necessary but add a lot of charm. - The game is translated to Spanish. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, which I cannot appreciate enough in a world where a lot of devs forget we exist. 10/10 - The OST is very good. I really dig it. - A few days ago from when this review was posted, a standalone mission mode (as in, missions without the story connective tissue) was added. Haven't tried it yet, but it might interest you. - It has a PvP mode. Haven't tried it yet, but it does.

Spy Drops is a stealth game that's heavily influenced by the Metal Gear Solid series (mainly the first two) but mixes it up with a mission-based structure and some procedural generation. This is a great example of an indie game that is *very* rough and lacking in polish, but enjoyable anyway. It's a testament to how well some aspects work that I persisted to the end despite some very glaring (and easily fixed, though they haven't been) issues. First, let me clarify how it works. Gameplay within a mission will be familiar to anyone who's played an MGS game. It even has an overhead camera option for that classic MGS feel, though I'd recommend using the 'orbital' camera instead - I found it just played better that way. You sneak, you knock guards out, you dodge cameras, you hide in lockers (though I rarely found that useful). Generally you'll be completing generated missions - so rather than being hand-designed as a whole, mission locations will be random-ish-ly assembled from a selection of available 'blocks', and the precise locations of objectives, enemies, etc, will vary. Story missions, though, seem to be hand-designed. The generation can result in some odd mission composition, such as all objectives being near the entrance, but it mostly works well enough. This brings us to the problems. First off, the game is pretty buggy. In most missions I saw at least one enemy soldier either walking endlessly into a wall or some other goofy behaviour. More annoyingly, sometimes a mission will spawn an objective that can't be accomplished - such as using an indestructible bit of scenery as a target you need to destroy, or failing to spawn an NPC you have to interact with). The AI (not that kind of AI) of the enemies isn't great either, with them following noises to exactly the spot where they occurred and no further. That didn't really bother me, but I can see how it might annoy some players. Some other issues come from weird design choices (or maybe lack of technical knowhow to do things in a better way). Things like grenades having to be thrown from inside the inventory menu, which is extremely cumbersome and makes no design sense at all. The biggest problem, though, is the camera. Here's the thing. The orbital gameplay camera (which you can freely move around your character in the way that's standard for third-person games) and the aiming camera (over the shoulder, for use of weapons) always have opposite configurations. What I mean by that is: if the gameplay camera has non-inverted X and Y, then the aiming camera will invert both. If you invert one or both, then the opposite will happen with aiming. There's no way to configure the two cameras independently, so you *always* have one or the other that's borderline unusable. I chose to keep the right configuration for general gameplay and put up with the nightmare of an inverted X axis for combat, since you can mostly avoid actual fights, but it made the occasional mandatory combat section *unbearable*. What I don't understand about that issue is that it should be pretty easy to fix, and yet it's still there despite it having already been reported by others (and now me too). That leaves a bad taste in my mouth, like the developer just can't be bothered. I'm someone who has no hesitation in dropping a game I'm not enjoying, so the fact that I gritted my teeth through all of that to get to the end of the game is a testament to how fun Spy Drops is when it works. When you're hiding round a corner and waiting for a guard to approach, or setting mines on a patrol route, or quickly darting past a camera and diving into cover, Spy Drops scratches that MGS itch at least partially. Despite using largely proc gen content for the missions, it does have a story and tries to get you invested. It occasionally throws something a bit novel your way - a slightly different task or a restriction. It's a decent little stealth game with a look that will evoke some nostalgia for anyone who played MGS1, in particular - just be aware that it's also very wonky in some very conspicuous ways.

Im posting a review mainly cause a bunch of clowns were bombing the game and crying in the discussions cause of ai voice acting, not holding their end of the bargain ''No real voice acting, no buy''. Bout the game itself, if youre expecting MGSV then youll be disappointed, dunno bout how it compares to MGS1, since I was poor growing up and not being able to afford a PS then. As a stand alone game, yeah, it not bad, and c'mon its a 15$ game by what a single guy/small team its not fair to expect a Kojima game, dont you think?