Russian Fishing 4 Review

After a bit more than 400 hours, I suppose I can finally feel confident I know enough to review this game. I'll focus on the questions you might have when you see a free fishing game and the tags it has, or at least the questions I had when I first saw it. So without any more delay, here's my thoughts on Russian Fishing 4.

 

The big one- "Free". How free is it? I have not paid for over 400 hours now and I've enjoyed my time fishing. So I would say it is very viable to play for free. The price for premium is roughly on par with a normal MMO's subscription at 12 euro/month. You get a few perks out of it, but mostly it's just extra exp so you get to level up faster and get to unlock other areas and skills easier. 

 

As for the multiplayer aspect, I find this one just straight up weird. Only a few parts of this game appear to have any multiplayer to it. Aside from those parts it is essentially a single player game. These parts are a leaderboard and chat function. That one explains itself and makes sense. A competition system, but one that I've never found a use for since all the contests are in Chinese or Russian so I have no idea what they're asking, and they seem to be limited to higher level players anyway so for about 300 hours I never qualified to get in even if I could read it. The ability to send items to other players only if you have paid for premium, and lastly the shop inventory can be sold out if other players buy a lot of it in a short time period. 

You do not get to sit next to a friend when fishing, see others fishing, or even really see what other people. Your only interaction with others is through the chat window, and the occasional message in chat when someone catches a sizable fish. 

 

The gameplay- It's fishing. You cast lines and reel in fish. You can fish with bait both by float fishing and bottom fishing, and with lures both from the shore and by trolling. The way you fish seems to have an effect on how well you catch things, while time, temperature and weather matter as well. The detail is better than any I've seen before, and it feels like you can actually control what you catch and whether you're successful by paying attention to the circumstances. The gameplay itself is good. You sell fish you've caught for money or can release them for bonus experience, but that's not really an option. You need the money. 

 

The progression however is less good. I've spent a lot of time on it and I still use some of the beginner gear, and I've still not unlocked most of the areas. You never get enough money to buy anything, and I know you're thinking they want you to buy the premium currency for it to skip the grind, but they don't really support that. If you buy premium currency to get gear you will need to spend around the price of an actual physical fishing rod to get early to mid level gear. And that gear will deteriorate very quickly, requiring that you pay even more to get it repaired. It is honestly cheaper to just buy a fishing rod and go do actual fishing than it is to try to spend money on gear in this game. 

Your progression is limited mostly by money. You can unlock new places by leveling up, but what use do you have for a place known for fishing large carp if they'll destroy your gear with ease and then just swim away? Progression is very rough and there is no way to get around it. You will always be struggling for money and be limited by your gear. 

 

 In conclusion, while I find it very strange how they handled balancing just about anything I have enjoyed my time playing Russian Fishing 4 and would recommend giving it a try. If you enjoy the gameplay and just want to sit down and fish, you might enjoy it too. But don't expect to reel in huge fish, or even just somewhat big fish. You're going to be fishing in the same waters with your small rods for a very long time before you can unlock anything else.

Loop Hero Review

 Loop Hero blends a few gameplay ideas to create something that is almost an idle game, but still interactive enough that you have choices to make and things to do.

The game has you going in loops of increasing difficulty while you gradually fill out the world around your hero's path to give him challenges and enemies to fight, starting with an empty expanse until you have to retreat from the enemies, or encounter the boss. It is a nice, satisfying gameplay loop to build up the world in a way that it gives you the bonuses you need to take out the boss.

Once you retreat or have been defeated you can upgrade your campsite to unlock other tiles, classes, and bonuses for your hero. You get to optionally read up on parts of the forgotten world and have small bits of interaction between the hero and those at the camp to help motivate you on your quest. While simple, the progression has a good pace and does not become overpowered or overly grindy.

The combat is entirely automatic. You have no influence over ongoing combat aside from the preparations you've made- Gear equipped and environment set. Your hero will fight all on his own, leaving you perhaps wondering what there is for you to do. After a few hours even the increased speed setting ends up feeling slow, and the constant stopping and starting as you place new tiles after combat and then have nothing to do when combat starts again shortly after can be frustrating.

Even then it remains a good game. The progression does not take too long to make you lose interest in the simple gameplay and it is pleasant on the eyes and ears. Every part of the game shows that the creators loved what they were doing, and so as long you are okay with the unique gameplay loop you will find Loop Hero to be entertainment at great value.

Mr Prepper Review

 Mr Prepper combines resource management and building your bunker with old style adventure game questing where you need one specific item to continue the plot, and it does so very well.

Although the tutorial doesn't explain much, the game can be trusted to not screw you over- You can experiment and you won't paint yourself into a corner unless you ignore all warnings, and you have plenty of chance to come back from failures. This does make the game a little easy at times.

You have a bunker you expand and build while keeping it hidden from the government inspections, letting you spend however long you want building your underground farms, kitchen, storage, and many other rooms. It is easy to find something to do, and you will always be able to find more things to change or expand upon in your underground lair. I've spend four months ingame building out a bunker capable of surviving for possibly years, just because I enjoyed building it and gathering resources.

The adventure-quest portion is mostly item hunting. Finding specific items to continue plotlines by earning the trust of NPCs. They're not difficult to find, you just need to look closely at certain locations. It isn't always clear what you can click to inspect or ask about, but you are not under time pressure to get these items so you can take your time and come back later if you can't find something, or check for hints at the journal.

Mr Prepper is certainly worth the price and can keep you entertained for a long time. It has a few flaws, but those won't get in the way of your enjoyment. You'll want to just do just one more thing and then hours later you're wondering where your time went.
It went into prepping. And it's time well spent

Until the Last Plane Review

Until the Last Plane is a casual minigame-game about running an airfield in ww2. Alongside the minigames you have an overall management phase where you do airplane maintenance, start the missions, and balance resources to keep everything operational.

The minigames are simple, but every campaign has special missions that change things up enough to keep things interesting. Sadly, many of the minigames are too simple or otherwise flawed- The opponent/AI in dogfighting seems to have only two pre-set scripts it follows and if you've found the solution to those you will always win. On the other hand, you will be hit by unavoidable damage that can lead to your pilots dying(On their second damage that mission) just from trying the bombing minigame, making the minigames very simple things you just get through rather than anything you need to think about.

The management aspect is interesting, showing much less flaws than the minigames. Managing pilot stress and fatigue along with airplane damage and spare parts can be a challenge in the harder campaigns, and every nation has mechanics just slightly different to make them feel fresh for just long enough to get through their campaign. There are events for each nation that give them enough character to feel interesting. The overall difficulty in my experience has been easy outside of the first day of any campaign.
The graphics are pleasant to look at for a longer time, both in the minigames and in the airbase. This is probably one of the strongest points for this game.

In the end, Until the Last Plane is a very short, and somewhat repetitive game. It doesn't take long to pick up and play a day or two out of the campaigns. And although the minigames are flawed, they are still good enough to entertain for a while after the novelty wears off.
The price is accurate- You are not going to get a large game if you buy this. But you are going to get something that will be worth your money if you're just looking for something nice to play every now and then.