Recent reviews by kasha

Tabletop Simulator is a jack of all trades and a master of none. But it's also not really good at anything either - more or less every game it supports is better played in a more dedicated client. TTS is just kind of a bad experience:
- Connecting to friends is a bit of a crapshoot whether it will work smoothly or whether you'll be there for 30 minutes with everyone restarting the game repeatedly, trying different hosts, until it finally works. Even then, don't assume you'll stay connected.
- The "physicality" of the game is supposed to be a selling point but important game objects will just physics glitch into the abyss or fall through the board or explode through each other.
- It's hit or miss whether the game you want to play has scripts, and if it does, it's hit or miss whether they'll actually work, and furthermore hit or miss whether you'll even be able to understood how to use the script.

Even for games without scripts where all you need to do is deal cards and move them around (which is supposed to be core TTS functionality), the controls for this are incredibly fiddly and unintuitive. Sometimes cards will merge together neatly, and sometimes they won't. If they don't, then drawing from it later is a pain. Sometimes, you'll draw a card from a deck, and other times, you'll pick up the entire deck. If you go to place the deck again, it's a roll of the dice whether the deck will place neatly or whether you're about to scatter 50 cards across the table.

I think what really bothers me is that TTS has been around for so long and seems to be so popular and yet I cannot understand why. I would rather pay more money for dedicated clients for all the games I want to play (bearing in mind most of the games are actually *free*), than deal with this mess just to save a few bucks.

Don't expect anything as dramatic or deep as the TV show, but what is here is filled with cute moments and good characterisation, a nice general story and fitting ends for the stage girls. I particularly liked Amemiya and Masai's development.

This game has pretty unique controls, and when you first start playing it makes the game feel real clunky. But stick with it for a few levels, and start having a go at keeping combos going, aiming for higher scores and smoothly moving through the levels without slowing down, and the game starts to get real fun. I pretty much couldn't put it down from the third level onwards.

I didn't really encounter any bugs except quite frequently getting stuck in walls - this was annoying but never ruined the game during a casual playthrough. Would be frustrating for speedruns I'm sure though.

The control schemes are a bit odd, to be honest I had 'pro' active but mostly used the 'simple' controls (A jump X yo-yo) because it was far easier to execute a dash with a double tap of X. Generally choosing where to aim the yo-yo wasn't that useful. But I kept the pro controls on to use the spinning of right stick for the whirly move thing or to occasionally hit something without specifically moving Penny into place. Generally it homed onto what I wanted very well with just X anyway though.

The audio and visuals are pretty good, if there's anything to complain about it's that they're very samey throughout the game. But it's hard to knock it, for the first game in a hopeful series! The level design suits the movement very well, it's clearly more Sonic-esque than Mario-esque.

Overall it's a really good first entry, not the best game ever but with some choice improvements to movement and a more varied aesthetic, a sequel certainly could be stellar.

it's fun, it's tough, it's got good music and good girls and good vibes

I really like the art, animation, and music. However, the story feels only like a thin justification for the art and gameplay, and that gameplay isn't great. The knight is the most dynamic but their sections are short and far too repetitive and easy. The girl is extremely slow and tedious. The wanderer had some decent puzzles but controlled a little awkwardly, but ultimately it wasn't anything to write home about. The end of the game is an extended cutscene explaining the weak story, and it all falls a bit flat.

It's a very good game that harks back to the classic games in a way that moves the series forwards rather than standing in their shadow. Exactly what I've been waiting for, personally, for 16 years.

great