izigame.me

I am genuinely sad to write this review.
I loved the first turnip boy game, but I cannot give this game a positive review.
Where do I start?
*This is a mostly spoiler free review, any spoilers will be marked as such*
Main Gameplay
I don't think the gameplay is bad neither because it's different from TBCTE, nor because I don't like topdown shooters. I think the gameplay is bad because there is just way too much going on.
A lot of the main ideas feel like they were added really early in development and never expanded upon. There are many examples for this, such as: The timer. The timer just feels like an annoyance, you never feel any sense of urgency to get back to the car up until you reach the max star rating and *very minor mechanics spoiler* start taking forced damage , which is honestly just a very lazy way to make the player stop their current heist rather than introducing a more fun risk/reward mechanic to the game.
There are some other minor gameplay issues this game has, such as melee attacks from enemies being borderline undodgeable and copious amounts of screenshake when firing certain weapons, but also another big issue: bosses.
Bosses are just DPS races and bullet sponges, all (except for one) spend half of their fight being completely invincible (which makes half of the fight incredibly boring) and the amount of enemies they spawn during that time makes it more or less impossible to dodge everything. Every boss (apart from *mid-endgame spoiler* the burger guy, which wasn't that bad honestly) feels very same-y. Apart from their sprites, dialogue and some attacks there's nothing that makes them unique. The final "boss" is a whole different can of worms, I'll talk about that in the part of the review discussing the ending.
Another big problem this game has is the money system. This part of the review is probably better as its own section:
Progression
Progression doesn't feel satisfying. Doing the things integral to a fun and engaging gameplay loop like killing enemies rewards you with not nearly enough money. Instead, 95% of the money I got during my playthrough were from these "pedestal items". This would be fine if I got them just from vaults (dungeons) as a reward, but they are also just laying around in a random area. To make matters even worse, getting into a new area gives better items, which makes sense in providing a sense of progression. However, this makes all previously collected money completely useless, as the values of the items in the next area are multiplied by ten. This once again results in the gameplay being affected (you just run past any and all enemies and pick up pedestal items, any time spent killing enemies feels like a waste of time) and in progression not feeling meaningful, since upgrades feel expensive in one area with worse items and extremely cheap in the next area with much better items. On the topic of upgrades, they just aren't interesting. Upgrades just boil down to "More Health" and "More Damage". The other progression mechanic is an exchange of the money mechanic for story progression which as mentioned above just doesn't work, and the third one is just a way to slap more time on this very short game, more on that later. With this last upgrade mechanic, you can unlock new weapons by bringing the NPC weapons you found in the bank from enemy drops. The problem is that half of the weapons you unlock are complete and utter garbage DPS-wise, not making it worth to invest time in the system.
Alright, next section.
Main Quest/Story
If you've played TBCTE the story is pretty much what you'd expect. Nothing much I can elaborate on here. It's pretty much "Go to area A, kill boss, unlock progression item, go to next area". There's a bunch of goofy lore sprinkled in here and there and the jokes are pretty funny, but that's about it. The ending however...
Ending
*obviously spoilers* The ending just feels so incredibly random, even accounting for the whacky ahh story the first game had... And don't get me started on the final boss/ending sequence. The sequence is just so unnecessarily punishing and difficult. The ending sequence forces you to redo every boss again, which could be a fun way to show how much stronger/better you've gotten, but you have to do it every. single. time. you die in the final sequence. The ending sequence is a chase sequence through the entire map but in space. (This highlights another issue I'll pick up after I write down everything about the ending.) The chase sequence is way too difficult for the game. I'm no stranger to hard games, but this is not what turnip boy is meant to be. All attacks from the boss do way too much damage and you can't really do anything against the boss other that running away from them. When I completed this section after like 7 attempts, it just felt like complete luck.
Side Quests and Grinding
Why did I put these two things into the same section? Well, some of the quests *NPCs that give you side quests spoiler* the mushroom cultists and DJ sizzle just end up as very grindy and annoying. You have to *spoiler for quests* literally kill 200 enemies of one type for multiple quests and kill 200 enemies with a specific weapon for another one what I would get if these were accessible from the earlygame, providing another sense of progression by slowly completing the requirements for these quests, but they are deliberately locked behind a lategame area, which just makes them feel like filler for this very short game. I completed the main story after three hours while completing some of the shorter and easier side quests along the way, but I spent the other two hours completing the side quests mentioned above and the starting weapon arsenal which is once again just a complete grindfest.
The *very minor mechanics spoiler* randomized elevator doors just make it all the more annoying to find one specific quest NPC.
The other things I don't have a specific section for
Why is the game so short? I don't mind short games at all, but come on! 15€ for 5 Hours, almost half of which I spent grinding for 100%?
The game is trying too hard to be a sequel in some areas of the story *ending spoiler* oh look the final section is in space, it's just like the first game oh wow
Why can't I change the aspect ratio?
The music still slaps, but why aren't there any specific boss/area themes anymore?
TL;DR:
If you liked TBCTE for its humor, you might like this game, but it's still watered down by a mediocre at best, somehow both grindy and short playing experience. It fails to establish a proper gameplay loop and somehow actively punishes players for interacting with its mechanics.
Thanks for reading this absolute wall of text by the way, dear devs, if you read this, please keep this in mind if you ever make TB3