Recent reviews by Limestone Rick

I really like the concept of helping different reptiles recover and finding them a new home etc. It's a cute and simple game.

There's some fundamental problems with this game though.

1) The game gets a lot wrong about reptiles. Food is one example, not all reptiles eat Watermelon and radishes. There's a ton of different reptiles you can adopt in this game and no variety in what you can feed them. Reptiles also have varying care requirements. (Temperatures, special lighting, vitamins, humidity, space, places to hide and climb, etc.) If the game took these into account it would provide a lot more gameplay value. You could do research on the computer in the office before adopting a new reptile species, and set up the tank in advance. each reptile would be a little different.

2) The gameplay loop consists of adopting a reptile, providing it with food, medicine, and a clean tank, and then releasing it right outside your front door. The game should have some sort of system for adopting out the animals or returning them to their natural habitat at least. You can't just ask me to toss exotic animals on the doorstep and hope for the best after you make me do the work of rehabilitating them. The camera should be used to post an ad about the animal up for adoption perhaps.

3) What are the reptiles rehabilitating from? It's not clear. Reptiles can suffer from a lot of health issues, show me whats wrong with them and how best to treat it! Did this gecko have a bad shed? Let's mist him with some warm water and possibly some shed aid. Does this snake have scale rot? Make me soak him in some diluted iodine. Give us something to do with the medical supplies instead of just ticking a box please.


There's a couple other goofy issues like camera running away from the player when you're trying to walk outside or the game crashing on going back to the menu but I don't think tose are the biggest issues. Right now I don't think there's enough gameplay to make this worthwhile, but it has a very cute artstyle and a wholesome and fun concept. With a bit more work this could be an excellent game.

Most of the issues people are having are due to this game being optimized for the unified memory in the consoles. Even with a GTX 760 with 2gbs of GDDR5, I had quite a few performance issues with the game. This isn't due to graphics quality settings either, because even at medium settings this game is still really erratic. However, setting physx to CPU and enabling safety mode on launch fixed most of the crashing. I can run the game max well above 60fps most of the time now, but sometimes, especially in outdoor areas, the game gets pretty choppy.

The game itself is really fun, it has clever tricks and a good feel to it. Dificulty is not quite as high as say, Dark Souls or Demon's Souls, but the game still punishes you for making mistakes while still feeling fair. Attacks and movements in general are heavy and have a satisfying power behind them, unlike the quick light movements you usually see in a souls game. Heavy armor really does slow you down, and different weapons classes have very different applications.

The game also has class based magic, which I don't really like. In the souls games magic is free form, you can spec into pyromancy, sorcery, faith, dark magic, whatever you want. You can even skip magic and focus on your physical stats. Here, your class dictates your magic school, and this dictates your playstyle to some degree. You don't really have to spend exp to level up your magic but you realistically will want to because your only ranged method of attacking is a sub weapon, which is a gauntlet type of thing that has 3 modes. If you want the option of ranged attacks, you're gonna have to level up magic stats in order to keep it effective as enemies become tougher. In most other games, you could pick up a bow or crossbow weapon that would rely on physical stats, but here you depend on the sub weapon.

In summary, this is an interesting game that borrows from Souls mechanics while introducing new ideas, a heavier feel, and a story that feels more "in your face", whereas dark souls has a deeper plot that you discover along the way through dialougue and item descriptions. Difficult and rewarding, but feels limited as far as magic options and class restrictions. I'd recommend it at $30 in it's current state, minus the bugs and optimization problems. If you can get around those, I'd say that's a fair price.

Otherwise, I'd skip it and go back to Demon's souls or something. Ps3s are pretty cheap on ebay and amazon now. In fact, if you've just heard of this game because you've played one or two of the souls series games, you should definetly complete your experience.

I am loving this game, and I hate MOBAs!