Lehuan
Bio
Retro/low spec indie gamer.
I love going on message boards and complaining about games I've never played.
Retro/low spec indie gamer.
I love going on message boards and complaining about games I've never played.
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GOTY '23
Participated in the 2023 Game of the Year Event
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Mentioned by another user
Loved
Gained 100+ total review likes
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Received 5+ likes on a review while featured on the front page
N00b
Played 100+ games
Shreked
Found the secret ogre page
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Created 10+ public lists
3 Years of Service
Being part of the Backloggd community for 3 years
Popular
Gained 15+ followers
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Liked 50+ reviews / lists
Well Written
Gained 10+ likes on a single review
Best Friends
Become mutual friends with at least 3 others
Liked
Gained 10+ total review likes
Noticed
Gained 3+ followers
Favorite Games
160
Total Games Played
008
Played in 2024
121
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The Party Game genre on PC is a dire one, filled with low-effort streamerbait with meme ragdoll physics, battle passes for no reason, social deduction and some basic brawlers, a far cry from what developers usually offer on consoles, even those not from Nintendo. Enter Microworks, one that actually tries a little.
What you've got here is essentially 16-player online WarioWare. If you've ever played the Team Fortress 2 mod TF2Ware, by the same developers, this is basically what it is. You play many rounds of microgames in an FPS or TPS perspective and then a boss stage that's a more complex minigame, could be racing, an FPS match, or even a quiz game (sadly unlocalized, in Spanish, at least)
This game has almost everything it needed to succeed and become a classic for Discord calls with friends all over, in a similar vein to Duck Game; a gameplay premise no one else had tried to capitalize on in this way, it became free last year, added mod support with Steam Workshop this year and still has enough of a playerbase to play with randoms, even in non-first world countries.
The problem is that while people play it, it's still not popular enough, people just don't know this game, and the developers were kind of quick to give up on it, never really adding new microgames and declaring that the mod update would be the final one, basically leaving the community that decided to purchase the premium pass to do it themselves, as you can't even play the mods without buying that pass, and the developers only made the new content as Workshop mods.
After a few hours of play, you see most of the microgames, not necessarily all the boss stages, and can't help but get a little bored.
TF2Ware actually had a larger number of microgames with some that didn't make it to this game, those that used TF2's mechanics like rocket jumping or swimming. Although those aren't here, there are lots of brand new stuff possible now that this game has been made from scratch, but the potential lies untapped. There's an extra screen you use for a stacking microgame that could easily be used for more microgames closer to actual WarioWare stuff, which would've been an easy solution to adding more content without incorporating whole new mechanics that then have to be taught in the tutorial, but I think it really is only used for just the stacking microgame and the larger quiz minigame.
Next time you wanna play something simple and silly to laugh with your friends, give this a try instead of another soulless game about untextured little guys ragdolling on each other with one single gamemode, you might be surprised. You won't be playing this forever or anything, but if at least some of my followers find out that there are developers actually trying to make something with substance on PC and check out whatever Agiriko have cooking next, I'll be satisfied.
What you've got here is essentially 16-player online WarioWare. If you've ever played the Team Fortress 2 mod TF2Ware, by the same developers, this is basically what it is. You play many rounds of microgames in an FPS or TPS perspective and then a boss stage that's a more complex minigame, could be racing, an FPS match, or even a quiz game (sadly unlocalized, in Spanish, at least)
This game has almost everything it needed to succeed and become a classic for Discord calls with friends all over, in a similar vein to Duck Game; a gameplay premise no one else had tried to capitalize on in this way, it became free last year, added mod support with Steam Workshop this year and still has enough of a playerbase to play with randoms, even in non-first world countries.
The problem is that while people play it, it's still not popular enough, people just don't know this game, and the developers were kind of quick to give up on it, never really adding new microgames and declaring that the mod update would be the final one, basically leaving the community that decided to purchase the premium pass to do it themselves, as you can't even play the mods without buying that pass, and the developers only made the new content as Workshop mods.
After a few hours of play, you see most of the microgames, not necessarily all the boss stages, and can't help but get a little bored.
TF2Ware actually had a larger number of microgames with some that didn't make it to this game, those that used TF2's mechanics like rocket jumping or swimming. Although those aren't here, there are lots of brand new stuff possible now that this game has been made from scratch, but the potential lies untapped. There's an extra screen you use for a stacking microgame that could easily be used for more microgames closer to actual WarioWare stuff, which would've been an easy solution to adding more content without incorporating whole new mechanics that then have to be taught in the tutorial, but I think it really is only used for just the stacking microgame and the larger quiz minigame.
Next time you wanna play something simple and silly to laugh with your friends, give this a try instead of another soulless game about untextured little guys ragdolling on each other with one single gamemode, you might be surprised. You won't be playing this forever or anything, but if at least some of my followers find out that there are developers actually trying to make something with substance on PC and check out whatever Agiriko have cooking next, I'll be satisfied.
A game by absolute freaks, for absolute freaks. If you don't lab kart racers everyday like they're fighting games and try your hardest to complete EVERYTHING in those games, this game is NOT for you.
Almost avant-garde in how little it cares for the casual kart racer audience, forcing you to complete an excruciating tutorial that can take between 30 minutes and 1 hour. To complete one grand prix before you can unlock multiplayer (or use a cheat code). To complete FIVE grand prixes before you can unlock the ability to use old SRB2kart MODS! (or use a cheat code). To stay with one color for your character unless you collect the others, and collect all 82 to unlock time trials. Never has there been a game so obsessed with making players master its mechanics before letting them play with others, as if they were preparing you for real-life war or something.
The game even opens slowly walking you through every option, unlocking each thing in the menu, everything contextualized with Tails and Eggman speaking to you, as Metal Sonic. Clearly, the devs tried to defeat Sonic Robo Blast 2's unnecessarily long intro cutscene, and in their quest for Genesis nostalgiawanking, they made the awful choice of only having the button prompts of the Genesis controller in menus and tutorials, not a huge issue in controller, it is on keyboard, especially because this game just has way too many mechanics and when you finally have to use an obscure one, you gotta press every key or go to the menu to check what key you assigned as the Y Genesis button.
Back to the tutorial, what did they think they were making here, Final Fantasy XVII?? It doesn't even explain things that clearly and there's so much dialogue, no option to reread, just once and trial and error.
It'd be one thing to make a kart racer with a lot of complex mechanics if they all feel cohesive and the races really push you to your limits, like Sonic Riders or even Bomberman Fantasy Race, but I don't think this is it when the mechanics are like 8 different types of boosts, one for each hazard, a charged melee attack? A parry? Two different types of roulettes that by default you have to stop manually???
A lot of this doesn't even come up in the races, it's for the single-player challenges, if it is in the race, you can also probably brute force it and use boost mechanic #54 instead of boost mechanic #301 as originally intended.
There's potential here, but it doesn't feel as good as SRB2kart to be honest. I gave up at the drift section in the tutorial cuz I just couldn't get it to work and the only drift you HAVE to do to proceed is the ultra charged one that gives you max boost #302! If the kart stops moving while you try to drift you instead initiate, you guessed it, another boost mechanic, one that has its own separate dedicated button so why make the drift worse by putting it on that button as well?
I usually don't rank games if I know that they're just not for me or if I played that little, but I don't see how the things I complain about would really do any good to any game in any genre, and even if all players use a save file with everything unlocked, I'll have to stand my ground unless they rework everything.
They tried to make a kart racer with more complex mechanics than Sonic Riders, and thought they had to have THE MOST mechanics to do that. They saw that some Riders players missed mechanics because of the lack of a tutorial and thought they had to overtutorialize EVERYTHING and demanded they mastered the game before even letting them race.
Don't think this will ever catch on and most will probably continue to just play SRB2kart.
Almost avant-garde in how little it cares for the casual kart racer audience, forcing you to complete an excruciating tutorial that can take between 30 minutes and 1 hour. To complete one grand prix before you can unlock multiplayer (or use a cheat code). To complete FIVE grand prixes before you can unlock the ability to use old SRB2kart MODS! (or use a cheat code). To stay with one color for your character unless you collect the others, and collect all 82 to unlock time trials. Never has there been a game so obsessed with making players master its mechanics before letting them play with others, as if they were preparing you for real-life war or something.
The game even opens slowly walking you through every option, unlocking each thing in the menu, everything contextualized with Tails and Eggman speaking to you, as Metal Sonic. Clearly, the devs tried to defeat Sonic Robo Blast 2's unnecessarily long intro cutscene, and in their quest for Genesis nostalgiawanking, they made the awful choice of only having the button prompts of the Genesis controller in menus and tutorials, not a huge issue in controller, it is on keyboard, especially because this game just has way too many mechanics and when you finally have to use an obscure one, you gotta press every key or go to the menu to check what key you assigned as the Y Genesis button.
Back to the tutorial, what did they think they were making here, Final Fantasy XVII?? It doesn't even explain things that clearly and there's so much dialogue, no option to reread, just once and trial and error.
It'd be one thing to make a kart racer with a lot of complex mechanics if they all feel cohesive and the races really push you to your limits, like Sonic Riders or even Bomberman Fantasy Race, but I don't think this is it when the mechanics are like 8 different types of boosts, one for each hazard, a charged melee attack? A parry? Two different types of roulettes that by default you have to stop manually???
A lot of this doesn't even come up in the races, it's for the single-player challenges, if it is in the race, you can also probably brute force it and use boost mechanic #54 instead of boost mechanic #301 as originally intended.
There's potential here, but it doesn't feel as good as SRB2kart to be honest. I gave up at the drift section in the tutorial cuz I just couldn't get it to work and the only drift you HAVE to do to proceed is the ultra charged one that gives you max boost #302! If the kart stops moving while you try to drift you instead initiate, you guessed it, another boost mechanic, one that has its own separate dedicated button so why make the drift worse by putting it on that button as well?
I usually don't rank games if I know that they're just not for me or if I played that little, but I don't see how the things I complain about would really do any good to any game in any genre, and even if all players use a save file with everything unlocked, I'll have to stand my ground unless they rework everything.
They tried to make a kart racer with more complex mechanics than Sonic Riders, and thought they had to have THE MOST mechanics to do that. They saw that some Riders players missed mechanics because of the lack of a tutorial and thought they had to overtutorialize EVERYTHING and demanded they mastered the game before even letting them race.
Don't think this will ever catch on and most will probably continue to just play SRB2kart.