Othercide - Reviews

Some reviews for Othercide.

Dualshockers 6/10

Enemy damage can be pretty high, so you're encouraged to avoid taking it. Unless you're going to take more damage than it would cost to use a reaction to negate it, there's very little point to actually doing this. All the intricate combos you can perform hinge on these conditional triggers, so instead of doing anything interesting? I just found myself playing safe and utilising basic AP consuming attacks. And this got immensely dull and grindy very quickly.

Othercide's systems have so much potential in them, but they fall so short because of these few design oversights. It'd be really fun to set up intricate combos and manipulate the timeline, but the reward is not worth the risk and cost. Instead, the best way to get ahead is just to play safe, delay opponents, and use your most basic abilities. Playing things interestingly just doesn't do enough extra damage or effects to warrant the effort. Nothing kills the desire to experiment with interesting combos when just "move and attack twice" is easier and more effective by a good margin.

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GameWatcher 6/10

Furthermore, the lack of variety in mission design or even mission maps will lead you to start feeling less than excited to keep going time and time again. After the fourth or fifth loss, I knew exactly where enemies would be on the maps that I'd already seen three or four times. A game of this nature simply needs more variety.

However, the juice is mostly worth the squeeze in Othercide and if you can stick with it long enough to develop a good sense of the mechanics and variety of ways you can use the skill combinations, you're likely going to find some enjoyment here. But good god, does it punish you often and sometimes without warning. Not cool.

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GamingonPC 9/10

All of these mechanics I've described in the previous paragraph come together during battles in the most ingenious ways, and more often than not (especially during boss fights), the solution to a fight is not to just dump damage on our foes, but to try and combo our Daughters' attacks and powers so they can maximize their uptime and minimize their enemies' Initiative as much as possible. In my opinion, here is the genius of Othercide, as the different parts of the game, on their own, are interesting but not enough to carry an adventure that can last upwards of thirty hours. When you start comboing your way through battles though, that's when everything "clicks" and generates that all too familiar feeling of "just one more run!" that so many roguelikes sadly lack.

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Thanks Farflame!

More information.

I wonder if these people actually get paid to play and review games or it's just their hobby.

Dualshockers said:

All the intricate combos you can perform hinge on these conditional triggers, so instead of doing anything interesting? I just found myself playing safe and utilising basic AP consuming attacks. And this got immensely dull and grindy very quickly.

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Then you, my friend, are a poor player, which in itself is not a bad thing, but in this case it derives from lack of good judgement, pattern recognition and anticipation. But then again, you are writing for "Dualshockers". Hint hint.

Dualshockers said:

Playing things interestingly just doesn't do enough extra damage or effects to warrant the effort. Nothing kills the desire to experiment with interesting combos when just "move and attack twice" is easier and more effective by a good margin.

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Now it's clear - this person hasn't actually played the game, just spent about 30 minutes with it to fool anyone into thinking they've played the game, probably including their boss, if they have one. You won't get past chapter 2 doing this. Just too many and too powerful enemies start spawning for you to individually attack them and delay a single one of their actions, because six other enemies will eat your heart. You need to set up combos and situations with AoE/cleave damage that allow you to win the usual "your AP vs their HP" race that in the end, is what tactical combat games come down to, and moreso in Othercide that doesn't hold your hand with it and will murder your party if you just try to duck and cover safely killing enemies one by one.

GameWatcher said:

As a fan of those aforementioned FromSoftware games, I can honestly say that difficult games don’t turn me off. However, Othercide’s difficulty is beyond that of many other games that I’ve played, to the point of feeling a bit unfair. Some mission types, particularly the missions that you “just” have to survive for a period of time, feel not only extremely troublesome but also tiresome and frustrating.

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If you find Othercide's difficulty turning down, you're not a fan of Dark Soul games, you're a wannabe. Especially as the "Survival" mission type is only the second type of mission you find, and also not close to the most difficult. Mission types like "Rescue" or "Ritual" are far more difficult. But those are unlocked in later chapters and then again, why would you, as a reviewer, actually bother to play the game that you took as a duty to review for the world (or at least the part of it that will bother reading your crap). Just put 30 minutes into it, and vomit some nonsense about it that makes it seem you know what you're talking about.

GameWatcher said:

TOP Game moment:
Finally taking down the first boss, The Surgeon, after so many attempts.

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Jesus. "So many attempts". I beat it on my second run. One would think a reviewer is good at playing games. Either way, that's your top moment? Oh boy, if you had kept playing to write a proper review, you'd have been mind blown.

GameWatcher said:

Cons: The Difficulty can be unfair

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Complaining about difficulty in a roguelike game and listing it as a negative. I'm out.

Gamingonpc said:

In my opinion, here is the genius of Othercide, as the different parts of the game, on their own, are interesting but not enough to carry an adventure that can last upwards of thirty hours. When you start comboing your way through battles though, that’s when everything “clicks” and generates that all too familiar feeling of “just one more run!” that so many roguelikes sadly lack.

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While I don't agree with everything the third reviewer says, they've put 30+ hours into the game, and so I respect anything they can say about it, including this.

Nereida said:

One would think a reviewer is good at playing games.

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Are you new to the gaming "journalism" scene?
Especially sites that focus on more casual and console games like Dualshockers are notorious for simply not being very good players - or, let's be honest, absolutely terrible players - and not finishing the games they are paid to review.
There's a reason gaming "journalism", especially from mainstream sites, has become a running gag amongst gamers.

Stuff like how happy they felt after requiring "many, many attempts" at beating the first boss of a game is unfortunately not a rarity amongst "professionals"…

Unfortunately, I guess that matches their target audience and, honestly, would you recommend Othercide to casual players?

I wouldn't recommend Othercide to any gamer friends I know.

Just had to add my $5 cents which amounts to nothing good day.

Couchpotato said:

I wouldn't recommend Othercide to any gamer friends I know.

Just had to add my $5 cents which amounts to nothing good day.

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It's not a game you would like, if I know anything about you. But the game is really good at what it does.

Same logic as I wouldn't recommend GTA or FIFA to any of my friends, but at what they do, for their target audience, they're 9/10. Tastes and stuff, they exist, and they are valid. Poor journalism isn't.

"Pro reviewers" nowadays:
- too easy: bad
- too difficult: bad
- too short: bad
- too long: bad
- "old" graphics: bad
- top notch graphics: 333/10 would buy again

TheSHEEEP said:

Unfortunately, I guess that matches their target audience and, honestly, would you recommend Othercide to casual players?

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I wouldn't, but it's a roguelike game that sells itself on being unforgiving. The game never lied to anyone. You have a point though.

Nereida said:

It's not a game you would like, if I know anything about you. But the game is really good at what it does.

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Guilty as charged as I prefer ARPGs and open world RPGs.

Glad to see you enjoy it though that's all that matters.

Nereida said:

Poor journalism isn't.

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I don't put much faith in game journalism myself nowadays. It's hard not to find objective articles not infused with politics and other crap. They don't write for us anymore.

This ex-IGN editor put it in perspective.

Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D_9HnZHpnQ
Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgg7_0rBUOA

Seems like other people are missing the colors too and find this blood-soaked black & white ghastly look hideous.

I'm just going to chime in this is a really good game, and game reviewers are idiots.