Ember

THE MOST UNSATISFYING GAME I HAVE EVER PLAYED

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Shades: Shadow Fight Roguelike

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Ember

GameplayGraphics & Music

As the title says, this is the most unsatisfying game I have ever played.

No other game has EVER made me feel so terrible after a session.

Let me talk about the part of the game I HATE the most:

The AI - This game's AI is just way too perfect to make it fun to fight against.

Every time you make a move, it does a split second calculation to make sure that it perfectly counters your move.

Unless you corner it so that it has to make a wrong move, you really can't do anything against it.

And another complaint is that the AI absolutely loves to use throwing, which to me, is what singlehandedly worsened every Shadow Fight game I have played.

They're hard to do for humans and the AI can do it with incredible ease.

In the older games, which this game reuses almost all it's assets from, the throws have a long animation and do an unnecessary amount of damage, which means it's both incredibly unsatisfying and also just a cheap way for the AI to do free damage.

Speaking of throwing, the AI's that can use throwing weapons CAN and WILL spam the ever loving **** out of them, while the player can usually only use one at a time after a long cooldown.

They could've used a system where the AI would still be really skilled, but not as tough as the current ones, and they would make occasional but often enough whiffs to the point that they're still fair to fight.

And to also make them way less likely to use throws and spam throwing weapons, as they're just a way too cheap option to increase difficulty. (Or just reanimate the throwing animation so that it's faster)

Another point would be it's bad progression system.

Let me explain:

The way the game progresses is very similar to a roguelike, where you play the game and with every level you complete, you get a random buff and when you eventually die, you get put back at the start with what you started with.

This would've been all fine and dandy if it weren't for the upgrade and merging system they added to the game.

In a roguelike, your progress is based on luck and skill.

ADDING A LEVELING SYSTEM RUINS THIS.

I may seem hypocritical, since roguelikes like this exist, but hear me out:

Roguelikes with a leveling system, like Soul Knight, implement a leveling system in a good way, since you don't need to make your characters maximum level in order to beat the game.

The major pillars of a Roguelike, skill and luck, are still upheld.

You can be lucky and get extremely good buffs, you can be skilled and dodge every attack that comes your way.

As long as you at least either of those, you can win.

Your character's level mostly doesn't matter.

While in Shadow Fight: Shades, leveling up and merging items is literally the only way you can majorly progress in a fair way.

The aspect of luck is ruined, since you can just power through with your leveled up equipment.

And also because the enemies just get way too strong at a certain point, forcing you to just lose in a situation where you have no control because you can't damage them and their attacks take away your whole health bar, which is extremely unsatisfying.

And the skill aspect is just amplified way too much by the overly skilled AI.

All of that combined just makes it so unsatisfying.

It uses a gameplay archetype that requires skill and luck, yet you can't win with luck or skill, since your just gonna get stuck on a guy you can never kill and can instantly kill you, no matter how good or lucky you are.

I am absolutely shocked that the game somehow has a 4.6/5 rating on Play Store.

Posted on 09/19/20232.2K Views