LEMNIS GATE

Concise Review:

A fantastic and original idea held back by poor gunplay, controls, and a poor matchmaking system. When the stars align and you get a great matchup there are some fantastic moments but it doesn’t happen often enough.

This could be the start of a new genre. I hope it is.

Journal Style Review:

What an awesome and unique idea for an FPS. I see a lot of potential right off the bat. Unfortunately I immediately noticed a number of issues holding it back. The gameplay needs polish. It felt like playing on ice at first. Very hard to aim. I played around with the settings and it’s better but still feels sloppy. Next big complaint is it takes too long to find games. It seems to take 2 or 3 mins on average to find games, then with halftime and a bit more for the loading in between all that the stoppages really add up. Games are pretty quick maybe 10-15 minutes depending on the mode so like ~30% or even 40% of the time I’m not even playing with isn’t ideal. I’ve also had a few games that have glitched which is unfortunate, but not too often so far. Lastly I’ve noticed that you need to play against someone who is roughly your skill level. I played a few rounds where the guy was miles ahead of me, and I’ve also crushed opponents a few times. This game has a high skill cap and similar to a game like chess, it isn’t fun if your opponent is way worse or better than you.

The heroes are standard and nothing special but I do like the mix of them. I use pretty much all of them in different situations which is what you want. The look of the game is also generic but that’s not what sets it’s apart. It’s all about the time loop gameplay which is fantastic.

My biggest complaint is that I want to play more quality rounds. It’s take too long to find games and too often you get paired with a complete noob who doesn’t understand the game. I’ve tried playing ranked but it takes even longer to find games and the one time I did find a game it was against a level 166 or something crazy. Somebody who has logged days in LG. It wasn’t a competition. I just want to be able to find quick games against people around my skill. People who have played at least 10 rounds but not over 1000…. That shouldn’t be an unreasonable ask. When I do find a balanced matchup though I’m having so much fun. 

I think this game can be described as similar to PUBG for me. The idea is fantastic but the execution and polish has room for improvement and the next versions of this concept will be even better. I see potential for copycat games to occur and I hope they do.

By far this games biggest problem is that it’s too difficult finding games, and even more difficult finding games against similarly skilled opponents.

This game hasn’t met my expectations based off my initial impressions. I thought it would be an A- but it isn't. It doesn’t reach its potential and I hope another company copies the time loop idea and does it better. Here are the issues. First and foremost it takes way too fucking long to find and successfully join games. Second, I don’t enjoy pursuing the highly competitive side as much because it causes so much frustration due to the shitty feel of the game. Aiming and movement isn’t tight enough and if you fuck up one life because you miss easy shots, or can’t run around a corner, or the most common mistake being I miss my shield shots, it can wreck your whole game which is disheartening and it often doesn’t feel like it’s fully my fault. The game controls poorly. The problem with social play is that this game requires a similar skill level and too often I’m matched with someone who doesn’t understand the game, or someone who has 1000 hours played. It’s very noticeable when the opponents skill isn’t similar.

I’m done for now because it isn’t worth the time it takes. The fun isn’t consistent enough. I may return in the future to see if it’s improved.

Final Score: B+