Town of Zoz

The combat is bad. Its sluggish, everything you do roots you in place for way too long, there's no consistency over whether enemies get stunlocked or not, sometimes enemy hitboxes just get turned off during attack animations so you can't take advantage of your dodge (looking at you cows), the choppy animation style while cool makes reacting to big attack animations impossible on your first try (How many frames does the swing or ground pound have? One.), bosses will regularly 2-3 shot you. Its not that the combat is complicated, its that enemies are aggressive and *everything* you do feels like a massive commitment. Also, enemies are crazy damage sponges starting at the halfway mark and there's no avatar strength upgrades besides some badges with extremely negligable effects and a daily buff tied to the first complex meal you eat. You can't stack these and the damage buff menu items aren't even noticeable. We're talking 15-20 hits on regular enemies who attack you in swarms and take about 1/4th-1/3rd of your health bar per hit. Sub weapons don't really fix the problem. Sub weapons tend to be matched to certain enemy types to get around the things that make them annoying to fight (Use the hammer to pull burrowing enemies back out from underground interrupting their 10 second invulnerability state, use the spear to attack the blobs that secrete poison which you'd need to take damage from to hit with a shorter weapon, etc) the problem is when you're fighting 4+ aggressive enemies at once, you don't have time to commit to these much longer sub weapon attack animations and are right back to brute forcing through 1-2 regular slashes followed by rolling around and chugging healing items. But you *can* brute force the combat relying on healing items, your AI partner characters, and forgiving continue placements, but eventually you get to a major boss (Nightmare Mom) that requires a prolonged enemy rush before retrying. This is about ~15 hours into the game. Up until now I thought Tower of Zoz and I had an understanding that the combat feels awful but pushing through it doesn't waste your time. Suddenly I have the impression that Tower of Zoz thinks its combat is fun or rewarding to interact with and I can't support that fundamental lie. You'll play this and instantly recognize what this combat is meant to take inspiration from. The long running Fromsoft action RPG known for punishing combat built around an invincible dodge roll. I don't have to say it, you already know what I'm taking about. The problem is, those games are full of character building and fun new gear to try out and there's just none of that here. Even if the fundamentals were anywhere near comparably enjoyable, and they're not, the way combat scales in Tower of Zoz ruins what starts as an unrefined but ok combat system. You'll play the first 10 hours or so and not really know what I'm talking about but as soon as you hit the Nightmare levels, you'll see exactly what I mean. The crazy thing is that this artstyle, premise around farming and cooking, and story that leans a TON on references to anime and better games means a huge swath of the people who play this game are going to have expectations it seems to have no interest in meeting. 90% of this game is combat, 5% is doing daily farming chores at the beginning of each day, and 5% is looking at the high quality cooking time requirements and wondering how the hell anyone could ever meet them. Very few will actually finish this game. I'll probably push through and do so but you shouldn't. Catch a lets play, enjoy the art style and any fan art it produces, Boomi is hot. Don't waste your money though. EDIT: Just beat the game. There's no post story "cozy" mode that lets the loop of growing and collecting ingredients to make food (to give to npcs in like a Hades nectar system maybe?) actually breath without the story pulling you from one crisis to the next. The point of the game is the combat and the story and once the story is over, the game totally ends so those are your selling points.

Visually this game is a 100/10, great character design, beautiful environments, interesting story, the art direction of this game is peak, the cooking if fun, great ost...but the combat feels sluggish to me and that's what ruined the game specially at the end, playing with a controller you have to press up on the Dpad to heal but if you press it too quick or for too long nothing happens and it's not my controller because i don't have a problem with other games. The other thing is that if your companion dies there is no way to resurrect them but you can still heal them but they just won't get up, that's why i just gave up on the battle with [spoiler] Nightmare Eeza [/spoiler] i was fighting them for like two hours and i just couldn't figure out what i had to do, i couldn`t change the companion, i couldn't beat the boss fast enough before they healed again, it was so frustrating, it's not that it's difficult, it's that controls don't feel responsive and i don't know if my companions not resurrecting or not changing is a bug or something. I don't regret buying it because when i played the demo it felt great and promising, you can see this game was made with a lot of love and passion, the writing is fun and there's good interaction between the characters the boss fight had good ideas but the movement makes it frustrating, feeling more like a chore than a challenge. Buy it to support the developers, it deserves the support but know that you might drop it and not finish it, maybe i play it again in the future but for now i'm done with it.

Go back to the drawing board. Poorly made. Combats atrocious. Slow character vs opponents with no 'impact' on your attacks enemy just continues attacking. Death forces you to completely redo an area. Lot's of pointless tasks. Enemies toss range while simultaneously using melee. Controls are highly unintuitive.

I don't understand the bad reviews or how this game "flopped", the combat is a bit wonky but there are many ideas that the dev/devs wanted to put into this and i get it, town of zoz is just beautiful to me

Sad to give it a bad review because I liked the first half of the game, but at the beginning of Chapter 7 the game bugged out, and now it crashes every time. It's been a month, and they still haven't patched it.

Love the game so far! The style is very unique, and the art is beautiful. I’m still at the beginning so far so I don’t know much about the story yet but it looks promising from what I’ve played so far. The game art and design kind of reminds me as if I’m living in the Maya civilisation if that makes any sense so the game’s definitely got style and unique charm to it! Though I’m kinda stuck on a quest where I’m supposed to head north the forest and destroy monster nests, I feel like I’ve gone down every path possible and I just don’t know what to do to progress. Like, there’s this puzzle where you have to bring a stone block on top of a pressure plate to open a door but the stone block is on a platform which I can’t figure out how to reach, and worst of all there aren’t any walkthroughs online because the game just released 😭😭 yall better pray for me!!!

Love this game from the moment I put my eyes on it! The level of detail and care that is given to each nook and cranny is simply outstanding. You can really see how well crafted this game is by the painterly techniques they used fore the textures. Overall did not have any issues with the gameplay. It felt super smooth with super nice animations that make you feel like you are really hitting those enemies hard. Town of Zoz' gameplay brings me back to my favorite childhood games, yet feels like it gives such a refreshing way of playing. On of the things i love about this game is the strong inspiration to Latino culture and the way that the characters are written. Characters feel so real and not bland nor annoying. Their designs are also very iconic and and pleasing to the eye.| Overall, would totally recommend play this game. It's a perfect example of human craftsmanship in every sense of the word and it deserves so much more love and support.

I am in chapter 2, but this game has such incredible visuals and story thus far. You can tell the devs put so much love into crafting this experience.

I really liked Town of Zoz a lot. I did run into a few crashes, but I’m pretty sure that was my fault—messing around with the settings, tweaking stuff like my monitor’s refresh rate, and just mashing buttons. Once I left the settings alone, the game ran solid on all options, and I never had any performance issues after that. One thing I genuinely appreciate is how much content got packed into less than 5 GB on my entire PC. That’s practically a forgotten art at this point. It feels like a throwback to how games used to be made—tight, efficient, and not bloated. On top of that, the art style is just lovely. I love the bright colors and the warm vibes from the little details. I really like how the plates and silverware clatter whenever the Family is sitting down to a meal. It’s an audio thing that plays in the background, and it adds so much warmth and life to the scene. That little detail makes the whole world feel cozier and more lived‑in. Sani just chilling out in her little chair also speaks directly to my own mental image of what I’d want to look like when I get that old—calm, cozy, and undisturbed. On a more serious note, the jokes are hilarious. The way Zee and Ito constantly compliment each other’s character dynamic is killer. I had to hold my breath more than once, because Zee would straight up start ripping into a side character or guard NPC, and it felt like pure cinema. My guys, Town of Zoz is not just a pretty face and funny jokes, though, so don’t get it twisted. There’s real gameplay substance here. At one point, I’d foolishly forgotten to reequip one of the pins you earn that helps supplement your health. Each time you consume a healing item, that pin multiplies the amount of health you gain. That might not sound like a big deal—but when you’re facing a nightmare boss later in the game and turning around to cook more food or re‑equip the pin isn’t an option, it becomes everything. I actually had to laugh at my own bad luck as I ran in circles for ages until I finally pulled off the win. And when I did, it felt amazing. That moment really reminded me of the games I grew up playing: super challenging but still fun, and part of what I fell in love with in the first place. A lot of modern titles miss the mark when they try to do something like this, but Town of Zoz just gets it. It’s not complicated, but it’s not boring. It’s not a constant sweat‑fest, but you can absolutely make it tougher by playing with the different pins and buffs from the recipes you cook. On top of all that, it does a great job of wrapping everything up in an awesome, wholesome story about the importance of family and being there for each other. I’d give it a solid 8/10.

I enjoyed my time playing Zoz. While I'm not the best at combat - I am very stubborn in my button mashing ways - this is easily combatted with the food buff system. I cannot stress this enough, don't be lazy! Cook a meal that gives you extra health and a buff! Speaking of, I found the cooking to be a lot of fun. I really wish there were more easy recipes, especially salsa! A lot of recipes call for salsa and yet you can't make it, you have to buy it. And you'll have to buy meat, eggs, and milk for the first half (hell, beef and milk didn't drop until 3/4ths of the way through, at least, as far as my playthrough went) The farming is a bit meh, and not really necessary by the half way point unless you are doing the side quests. Or want gold star foods to scarf down during combat (gold stars heal you the most) I love the art style; the 3d models, the portraits, the environments, the animations, and the creature designs. It's unique yet familiar at the same time. Chef's kiss! The game needs a bit more polish in some places - some glitches/bugs, some audio/music errors - but overall, completely playable and any complaints I have are minor. I wish there was more voice acting, even if it was something as simple as the characters making a noise per speech bubble (there are some times where characters don't make a sound for three speech bubbles) So, in summary: Cooking, fun. Art style, pretty. Animations, a joy. Combat, serviceable (eat your veggies!) Music, lovely. Story, an interesting slowburn (hard to follow at first, you're kinda just dropped into the world and its lore) Farming, meh. Voice acting, left me wanting more. Bugs/glitches, minimal. 7 outta 10.