WOW what a great challenge

This game has been on my mind constantly since I found out about it late last year and wanted to try it out for the longest time (shout outs to the developer of Peeb's Adventure for retweeting the original tweet i saw). I thought I would play it for a bit and admire the 64 bit graphics and move on, after 30 hours played and still wanting to play more and refine my skills that was NOT the case.

This game is the most fun ive had with an indie game for a long ass time, and is defiantly my fave rage/faudian game that ive played (other examples are Getting Over It, Jump King, Pogostuck). The graphics are on point, the jumping feels great, every gimmick added just adds to the chaotic fun. I also always had a sense of being able to do better / a drive to get better at the game. HELL im still playing this game but only beat the main mode, gonna try to beat the harder difficulty now. Visually and audio wise this game captures that N64/PS1 feeling TOO DAMN WELL, so well that they actually thought I was playing an obscure ass N64 game. Also shoutout to the dev for adding Clair De Lune and Gymnopedie No. 1, my two favorite piano compositions.

Im also dedicating a paragraph to the BUILT IN MIDI PLAYER, WHICH IS SUCH A COOL FEATURE!!! Honestly one of my favorite parts of my whole time with this game was going through the old websites that I used to troll for midis all the time and coming back to do the same thing once more. The Midi player itself is also really good, loved the instruments they went with. One thing that I hope indie devs who make N64/PS1 inspired games continue to add this feature to more of their games!!

This game gets a perfect score for me, because it was a perfect storm of what I wanted from this game and more. I'm really happy with how this game came out and I cant wait to see what the dev has next :) Please give this game a chance, its on Steam and Itch.io

after 8 years of trying and trying and trying. I've finally FULLY beaten this game (golden freddy challenge can suck me left nut). Because of all of this time spent, I can easily say this is just straight up the FNAF game when it comes to gameplay loop. Enough RNG throughout the first 6 Nights to keep you on your toes, then theres Night 7 where you just have these amazing challenges to really test your game knowledge. Then finally, the BIG KAHUNA of RNG Hell, Golden Freddy mode. Without a guide youll be stuck here for HOURS, but with some guidance you can do it, because my dumb ass did it LOL. Not to mention the lore dropped throughout the game, and some of the sickest designs ive seen throughout this franchise. Love this game to death and will prob revisit and play it all over again sometime next year, but until then im happily satisfied

The game's creator, Scott Cawthon, will forever be known as the FNAF guy. And thats for a good reason, the FNAF games were fine tuned horror games that shook up the genre (for good or worse). But even though I am a big fan of that series, there is no denying that The Desolate Hope is most likely Scotts best work artistically if you were to ask me.

I swear Scott was destined to make robots because the designs in this game are LEGENDARY, from the main cast to the viruses you fight every character is recognizable and has an interesting look to them. I love the worlds as well, they all have a great sense of atmosphere on how each deralict decided to go with their mission.

Their are plenty of things to do in the actual gameplay, during the day you are doing these little platforming sessions upgrading little coffee and his squad, then you are going out and engaging with what is possibly one of my favorite RPGs ive ever played. Then at night you have the weirdest level up system ive seen. This gameplay loop keept me interested and engaged the whole way through.

The Story itself is short and sweet with interesting twists and turns. Not something where its trying to shove story into every nook and cranny, its there for those interested but you can gloss over it. This world is filled with funny yet sad robots that you grow closer and closer as you try to stop the virus takeover.

Now the meat and potatoes, that fucking combat. GOOD LORD their is so much going on which at first seems really convoluted, but if you tinker around with the practice mode and read what all the moves do, youll soon become cracked at it. I love this combat, it keeps your attention with each and every battle, and accompanied by the banging OST it just feels so good destroying those viruses!! Its just so video gamey, I wanted so much more!!! I hope some one replicates this style of combat or scott comes back to make another game like this cause this combat is goated.

Overall TDH is a wonderful charming weird as fuck JRPG that has one of the greatest combat systems ive ever played. It really is a shame that Scott omega focused on FNAF and didnt try making a third Desolate game. also THE GAME IS FREE, so there is no reason to hold back, just give it a go!!!!

EDIT: Thought about it for a bit but im bringing down the rating to 4 stars cause that ending really was kinda meh and I really wanted it to be something else. Still really love the game but ending soured what was truly a kino "junk food" video game