izigame.me

As someone have said already: I wanted to like this game, but I just can't.
The core idea behind the game is good - a co-op adventure, made to feel like it's just an another episode of the 80's cartoon show. Visuals are great and it does indeed look like an 80's cartoon. NGL - that distinct look was exactly the thing that sold this game to me.
Unfortunately, behind a cute picture hides a "not so cute" gameplay. At the 2 hour mark I already knew that the game wasn't good and I was deliberating if I should refund it or not. In the end I've decided to give it a bit more time and explore it more thoroughly and 42 hours later I think that I should have refunded it back than after all. Now I will explain the game's problems, so that you can avoid my mistake.
1. Playerbase and connectivity issues. This game was designed as a co-op game first and foremost. But unless you have a few friends from the same town willing to play the game together with you - you better forget about the "co-op" part alltogether. First - the playerbase is low and you will be quite lucky if the game matches you with someone else at all. Second - even if it does, there are no dedicated servers, the game is hosted on a player's PC and the netcode is terribad. Every, EVERY SINGLE FKIN TIME that I was connected to someone else, or someone else was connected to me - the ping suddenly decided that using Mars as a reroute point is an excellent idea. And I'm not talking about a 0,3 second delay that is enough to drive crazy most modern gamers. The games goes a full on unresponsive mode with teleporting mobs, 5-10 second delays, invulnerability issues and so on and so forth. Every single fkkin time. It's literally unplayable. After trying for about 20 times at different time with different people - I've just gave up on the "co-op" idea and simply played solo. And just one more thing - there is no host browser window. You can't choose your region or a game's map that you want to play. Thre is only a "join a game" button and the will of the RNGesus.
2. Basic gameplay. Many players complain that the game is too slow and easy. And indeed beating the maps on the Normal/Hard difficulty is not too hard at all. Mobs are slow, they don't hit too hard and are generally easy to beat. The real game starts at the Mythic 1-2-3 levels. But the thing is - most players will never even see them. There are 9 maps in total and every 3rd one has a major (episode) boss and the steam stats say that the first boss was beaten by 31% of players, second by 13% and the last one only by 8%. Is it because they are progressively harder? Not at all - it is because players loose interest in the game that fast, thinking that there is no point in playing it if it's this slow and easy. But the thing is that going from hard to mythic bumps the difficulty by A LOT. Monsters suddenly 2-shot you, they become stronger and their number increases, you need to pray for the good DPS perks and in general be constantly on alert. This is an entirely different game. Personally I think that the Mythic difficulty should have been unlocked right from the start, instead of requiring beating the hard difficulty first - just to show that the game could be a lot more brutal before ppl decide that it's too easy and lose interest in it.
3. Maps and animations. This is a "roguelite" type of a game where levels "change" each run. The thing is - there are simply not enough assets to make levels feel any different. Every single run feels absolutely the same. It gets dull very, VERY quickly. Also the game lacks "funny distractions" like some silly critters running around, moving mechanisms, mysterious spirits floating around, etc, etc. For a good roguelite this is a must to take off players eyes away from the repeating assets. If you constantly bump into the same walls, stairs and 2 coffin models all the time - you get tired of it quick. Another issue that breaks the immersion - poor animations. Some of them are ok, skills are mostly well done, but others... For example there are plenty of chests in game. They literally have 2 frames on em - "closed chest" and "open chest" there is no "opening" animation it just unlocks instantly in 1 frame. When you attack jars with melee weapon, weapon just stops for a second and then jumps to the next frame. It doesn't feel smooth at all. Some people might defend this by saying "it's mimicing an 80's animation style with abrupt cuts" but this is no 80's animation it's 2020's game and to enjoy it players want smooth animations that flow well.
4. Perks, progression, grind. Every single one defencive perk (aside from vampirism or health restoration) is utterly useless. Especially if you play solo. If you stack up all the defencive perks they will barely reduce the incoming damage, but with inadequate offencive capabilities mobs will steamroll you easy AF. On the other hand if you manage to stack only the best damage-related perks you can critshot even a mythic-level boss with a few good hits and oneshot most other mobs. This is a poor balancing. Next is the progression issue - whatever character you pick up in the beginning - you better stick with it, because the only thing that transfers between characters - it's the castle (shops) upgrades. But gold and constellation crystals - are separate. And you will need A TON of gold to max up even a single weapon. And without a maxed weapon good luck trying to beat mythic-lvls (not entirely impossible, but way harder than it should be). Most people will drop the game waaaay before they get even a single weapon to the max lvl. Default gold drop amount should definitely be increased by at least x1,5-2 and both gold and crystals should be an account-based asset, not a character-locked.
5. Hitboxes. They are one more issue that makes me enraged. I've lost count how many time did my character got hit and died by a monster swinging a sword like 5 meter away from me. Seriously, lizardmen swings at empty air not even close to your character and boom - you take damage from it. Fkk this. Also this works the other way around too, especially with arrows - many times when you shoot right at the enemy - the arrow just go through it without inflicting any damage. Especially if it's a sceleton.
6. This may be my personal issue - but WTF are those lightning acolytes, devs? The most brutal, unforgiving and cheating enemy of all. They AOE hit waay out of the hit zone (there is no such issue with fire or cold acolytes, only lightning), their direct lightning strikes are instant, unavoidable and hit harder than any other enemy or attack in the whole game. On mythic 2-3 it gets so bad, that i really afraid of them more than any boss, and instantly dump all CD's on 'em if i see one. Don't tell me this BS is by design >_>
So all in all - decent idea, that i would love to support, but poor execution with disfunctional co-op, poor balance, excessive grind, boring level layout, technical hiccups and many other things that may not be critical on their own, but together they snowball into one unpleasant mass - all this make this game an expirience, that i would recommend to avoid.

PS: I think that there is a chance to save this game, but I don't think that the devs are brave enough to take the required drastic measures to actually do that. The game needs to be closed for approx 1,5-2 years and in that time a total rebalance of the gameplay and progression should be done, levels impruved and made fancier, dedicated region-based servers for co-op implemented, etc. But it's a lot of work, that require time and money and with the amount of interest (or to be precise with the complete lack of it) that gamers gave the Mythforce... I think that this game is on a straight path to mists of oblivion atm, so no one will actually try to resque it.