Serious Sam: Shatterverse

7 minutes, 9 crashes... Game won't even open, Unreal is a joke of an engine.

tl;dr - 5/10 game for me, the quality of the game is just not consistent. details: I recommend this game as an introduction to roguelikes, to the genre itself, especially if you enjoy grinding which I also do sometimes. However as a serious sam game, it is a pass for me. I reached the last phase of the last boss after grinding two times and called it a day - I checked on videos what to do there and yeah Oprhan Sam's ultimate ability..I just didn't see it worth grinding it any further. Here are my thoughts: Music/OST is actually excellent. If the rest of the game was up to this quality, it would be no complaints from my side. This OST could be put in any of the mainline serious sam games, and they would sound great. At least this game has a kickass soundtrack. Some people did not like it, but I think the composer did an excellent job imho. Audio design: The weapons don't sound memorable, including the ultimates. Actually some audio pieces or effects were too loud. I can see what kind of tone, and "feeling" the game tried to go for, it is just that the developer couldn't keep the quality up, because of the deadline probably. Graphics - I am not sure why fortnite stylish graphics were chosen for this game. There are some levels and worlds which look really great, but some worlds (Biomes / location) just look blank, like Egypt. It feels like some textures/shadows were not finished. The Rogue Netrisca planet, SS Infinite, Lumina or whatever their names are especially look great. There are great looking UE5 titles out there, so the engine is not an excuse. Jokes - Repetitive, all over the top to the point where you want to turn off the audio for speech lol. When Inverse Sam started talking and things got a little bit more "serious", that is when it was interesting for a couple of minutes. I am not against one liners, but there is just too much of it. Bosses: The Kleer God, Rogue Netrisca, Shard of Mental are great, Inverse Sam is also not bad. The Lava Golem, Highlander Reptiloid bossfights should need a revamp, as they seem generic. Enemies: Decent, but again the variety of the enemies is not what I think Serious Sam fans will be looking for. Number of enemies - Sometimes, you get that Serious Sam feeling, that funny chaos, and a few moments are enjoyable. Difficulty: Because it is a roguelike game it is very difficult at first as you need to upgrade your characters, but still I think this would still require difficulty settings to be more more accessible to serious sam fans, or newer players. Sometimes you have to use a pistol to fight against entire hordes, especially in like act 3. I understand the randomness, but this should have been balanced, if you start with a specific lower tier weapon. Story: Servicable, at the end it feels like you don't achieve anything though. Levels: They are just too repetitive. There aren't so many worlds. I understand the levels need to be short, but instead make it less about grinding less and have more levels, worlds. Sometimes some parts of the levels are available to the player in Act 2 and 3 but they quickly became boring. This is about multiple universes!? The "challenge rooms" also become repetitive. Anomalies: Some are fun, challenging, but some can be way too annoying. The third person one should be an option in the game as it makes playing it much easier. Some are definitely funny though. Weapons: That cooldown and reload mechanic, oh my god. I do not understand the choice there of making them underpowered that way. Apart from that the weapons are not that bad to use. Ultimates: Decent. Characters: They aren't that bad, but there is only a few of them, and they aren't that unique or interesting. Plus Orphan Sam appears to be the meta. Alien Sam is cool. Performance: There were some lags when entering the hub place, but apart from that I think it runs well. Perks, Intel, Trinkets, crystal orbs - It takes way too long to get into them and everything is way too expensive. Lowering the costs would already make the game much better imho. The health system is weird. This shouldn't be a game where you have to use melee combat to acquire health. Or at least make it more integrated, by acquiring more health back. Bugs: There are several of them, that can be encountered, can be patched in the future. Secrets: I didn't actively search for all the easter eggs, secrets, there aren't so many though. I think a linear/traditional single player campaign with very similar level design and concept would have been really great. I see the fun and goal of Roguelites and Roguelikes, It was a nice intro to me to the Roguelie genre. However a game designed like this actually makes you want to play the traditional single player campaigns instead, that was the feeling that I got. And it is not nostalgia speaking, as I liked TFE (Legend of the beast as well), TSE, SS2, SS3 (Jewel of the nile as well), SS4 (Yes it was buggy upon release, but now it is definitely an SS game worth playing), Siberian Mayhem (S tier) and the Next Encounter as well, to give a spin off example. It is not just the randomness that extends the the life of a game.There are many older games that their main campaigns are still played even to this day.