STERN Reviews

Good evening. I played not as much as developer wants, and probably miss something. But from my point of perspective I understood everything, that game can give me, and I desided to summarize my expirience. This is 2D-platformer with too many mechanics, that sometimes fits, but mostly doesn't. Action mechanics. There are multiple ways to damage enemies. You have close-combat weapon, range weapon, droid and consumables (Granades and turrets). Melee is bad, because most of enemies use pistols and rifles, some has shields, one type of enemies can explodes. Besides of ineffectiveness, close combat is boring, you don't have interesing comboes. You just press one button. Even melee upgrade is b oring, you just can stun enemies and that's all (Only 2,5 hours, I repeat, maybe it will change).Shooting is really good, because your character is really mobile, and you can easily dodge everything with your game skill. Instead of ammo, player use energy, and it can be easily upgraded, so effectiveness of shooting increasing. Droid looks out of way. I probably don't achieve deep of this mechanic, but for me it just another gun. About turrets and grenades, they are great, because of their usability in close space. Enemies are different, explosived ones, rocket shooters, animals, robots, peaple, zombies, design isn't unique but fighting with them not so boring. Also a lot of traps, but jumping in this game is really good, so I don't have problem with them. World and exploring. World is really huge and diverse, but there are too much caves, sewers and dungeons. It is cyberpunk future, why are you put it under the ground? I just don't get it. But the MAIN problem of game is keys. Why are you put pay-wall into game? Why I should grind, not resourses, not levels, but special blue currency? And by the way, why is game need three types of currency (green, blue and yellow) plus souls mechanic? It is too complicated, maybe it's somehow explained in future, but it's real problem, when you play game, but can't move forward because I couldn,t buy some sewer key. One for fast-travel (and it's expensive, because spend 500 dollars instead of two real-life minutes incomparably) and automatic machines, another one for shopkeepers, chest keys (really valuable, I just bought key, open chest, sold everything and that's was really profitable) and talking (some guy ask me for 1000 credits). And blue one only for keys. Also there are souls, thta can be use for upgrades, those upgrades really heplful. About fishing, maybe there are some subplot because of that mini-game, but stiil why it's here? Plot...I don't see that much. Just couple of dialogs, and that's all. So verdict. For one person, that's really good. But there should be limit. Just too many unprocessed mechanics for first game, maybe something more stright-forward and less complicated. You can keep my money, I think you deserved it, but only for this time. If you EVER released STERN 2, I hope it will be better than this one. Solid 6/10.

Wow, this was an unexpected pleasure. In my 30+ years of gaming, I have a total of two solo/indie devs that I watch. The developer of this game makes #3. Thank you for this gem :)

From what I played this game looks a lot of fun. Let me review it with pros and cons up until this point. Pros: The game is really smooth in terms of movement. The economy in-game seems balenced. Graphics are great. Major Flaw: It lacks a interative tutorial in the beggining and the "How to" guide dosen't say much about what each bar supposed to mean and what certain type of gunshots do what... The game is a bit complex and seems like you're lost in all this information at first so a tutorial would be a nice addiction.