My original review of the first game, Deliver us the Moon wasn't negative but I was hardly singing its praises. I ended off the review by mentioning wanting to try the sequel when it releases and saying there is potential. Well that sequel is finally here! And my expectations have been surpassed.
One of my biggest complaints about the first game was that the way it told its story was entirely holograms and text logs, which made it really difficult to get engaged even when some of the subject matter was pretty interesting. An immediately noticeable improvement in Mars is that it has actual characters and a story not told entirely by what are basically flashbacks while controlling a completely expressionless and unidentifiable character. This is by far its biggest strength. The writing in this is just great and the voice acting for basically everyone is actually fantastic. Every character feels real and it was easy to care about everything that transpired. There's still a lot of text logs and holograms but these holograms now play an important role in uncovering the past and causing reactions and changes in the characters, instead of just being the whole story. And the story is great! It's just super well put together with interesting arcs and at times its very thought provoking, especially with the ending.
But, well as strong as the characters and story are... there is a reason I can't give it higher than a 3.5. This game was made by a small studio and its unfortunately clear that this was a very ambitious project. They made the right choice on getting great voice actors (like my queen Nicole Tompkins) but I'm just not sure the rest of their budget was enough to truly match the scope they had in mind. As great as characters are, their character models range from sometimes passable to just flat out terrible. The hair textures on some of them are The Last of Us Part I PC port level quality. Moreso, the animations for nearly everything are super janky and hard to look at. Graphically the game is good most of the time but there is a huge amount of pop in and I had to wait for textures to load in frequently. I also had a few progress halting glitches but nothing too major. But gameplay wise the light platforming is decent and the puzzles are pretty well thought out, not really any complaints there.
Deliver Us Mars proves that developers KeokeN have what it takes to make a good game, and with the right budget I have no doubt they could make a great one. While it may have a lot of shortcomings, this is a game well worth playing and I will no doubt be there for whatever game they make next.
---------------
Hey y'all, sorry it keeps being so long between my reviews! I really do mean to put more out but its very difficult especially with how often I beat them and how long they take to write. I definitely want to make more but they just might be a little shorter than I usually do like this one. When I don't write a review I find I forget the game a lot quicker, and so I want to try to find a middle ground there. Anyways! Thanks for reading everyone, your support means a lot to me. Have a good day, and I'll see you next time. (hopefully in just a couple days with a Pikmin 3 review 🤫)
Trophy Completion - 100% (Platinum #246)
Time Played - 10 hours 26 minutes
Nancymeter - 75/100
Game Completion #67 of 2023
March Completion #17
One of my biggest complaints about the first game was that the way it told its story was entirely holograms and text logs, which made it really difficult to get engaged even when some of the subject matter was pretty interesting. An immediately noticeable improvement in Mars is that it has actual characters and a story not told entirely by what are basically flashbacks while controlling a completely expressionless and unidentifiable character. This is by far its biggest strength. The writing in this is just great and the voice acting for basically everyone is actually fantastic. Every character feels real and it was easy to care about everything that transpired. There's still a lot of text logs and holograms but these holograms now play an important role in uncovering the past and causing reactions and changes in the characters, instead of just being the whole story. And the story is great! It's just super well put together with interesting arcs and at times its very thought provoking, especially with the ending.
But, well as strong as the characters and story are... there is a reason I can't give it higher than a 3.5. This game was made by a small studio and its unfortunately clear that this was a very ambitious project. They made the right choice on getting great voice actors (like my queen Nicole Tompkins) but I'm just not sure the rest of their budget was enough to truly match the scope they had in mind. As great as characters are, their character models range from sometimes passable to just flat out terrible. The hair textures on some of them are The Last of Us Part I PC port level quality. Moreso, the animations for nearly everything are super janky and hard to look at. Graphically the game is good most of the time but there is a huge amount of pop in and I had to wait for textures to load in frequently. I also had a few progress halting glitches but nothing too major. But gameplay wise the light platforming is decent and the puzzles are pretty well thought out, not really any complaints there.
Deliver Us Mars proves that developers KeokeN have what it takes to make a good game, and with the right budget I have no doubt they could make a great one. While it may have a lot of shortcomings, this is a game well worth playing and I will no doubt be there for whatever game they make next.
---------------
Hey y'all, sorry it keeps being so long between my reviews! I really do mean to put more out but its very difficult especially with how often I beat them and how long they take to write. I definitely want to make more but they just might be a little shorter than I usually do like this one. When I don't write a review I find I forget the game a lot quicker, and so I want to try to find a middle ground there. Anyways! Thanks for reading everyone, your support means a lot to me. Have a good day, and I'll see you next time. (hopefully in just a couple days with a Pikmin 3 review 🤫)
Trophy Completion - 100% (Platinum #246)
Time Played - 10 hours 26 minutes
Nancymeter - 75/100
Game Completion #67 of 2023
March Completion #17
IndieEmblem
1 year ago