Prevent The Fall Reviews

This is very, very bare-bones. Advance, get run at, swing or shoot, kill, collect, repeat. It could be an interesting skeletal frame-work for a real game, but as of October 2018 it looks to be in its infancy. Worth about $2, imo.

*** UPDATE 3/20/2019 *** You can view my updated review & gameplay here: https://youtu.be/7Ng1sTxvA2M *** Original Review Below *** I am only now playing this on September 30, 2017 and my review reflects the game's current status. I paid $5.99 on steam sale for this game. I am rating the game at that price. I played this on the Oculus Rift with Touch Controllers. The only setting I changed was to enable the right controller joystick to allow for turning (I think by default it's for strafing only). [b]No teleporting for me.[/b] I played solo and normal difficulty. All I have to say is that the reviews are wrong about this game. They may have been correct before, but I did not experience any crashes or bugs at all. The interface I didn't find to be difficult at all. Could it have been better? Sure, but it didn't take much time to get used to it and didn't take away from my fun factor. The graphics are not PS2 era, please stop with the exaggerations. Could the graphics be more modern? Sure, but I don't know of a procedurally generated VR dungeon crawler that looks significantly better. Could the dungeons be more imaginative? Yes, but again then I doubt it could be done procedurally generated (maybe that amazing game we all want will come out soon, but it hasn't in VR yet). Each dungeon that I visited did have enough differences that it didn't feel like I was just visiting the same places over and over again. Each weapon gave combat a different feel. I think the game can be a little too easy on normal. I definitely suggest a higher difficulty if you have any gaming experiences with dungeon crawlers. I do agree that the combat can be a little too simple. You definitely get a huge combination of weapons and magic to fight enemies. The weapons have different attacks. However, you can mow most enemies down with normal attacks (at least on normal difficulty). The enemies are either melee and they rush towards you or ranged and they stay in one spot and shoot at you. Bosses seem to be just bigger versions with more health and more damaging attacks. Enemy types do vary widely (rats, birds, bats, orcs, etc.) More tactics are needed (maybe this happens later on or at higher difficulties). The good news is that you do level up and get new skills and abilities and access to new weapons as you do. Leveling happened at a pretty brisk rate. There is loot all over the place. That's one thing the game definitely got right. Definitely gets you motivated to go on to the next dungeon for more loot. All the weapons I played with had different gesture based attacks on top of the normal one. I definitely think this game is more fun if you go for the alternate attacks versus using the cheap normal ones. The animations of these special gesture based attacks are well done. Most of the weapons also looked very nice. The quests didn't seem varied (get X, collect X amount, Kill X). However, I liked how there was no grinding, it was basically clear this area out then [b] hold on to menu button for 3 seconds to get back to the bar for a new quest [/b]. Rinse and repeat. In the end, I had a lot of fun. This is a good VR dungeon crawler. I could definitely see improvements that could be made, but it's definitely worth the current price and even better at its sale price. Don't listen to the haters. Sale price rating: 7/10

In the games current state i would not recommend it. its annoying that the only time my game isn't blurry looking (vr) is when the tutorial pops up or i pause. controls are lackluster and could do with some heavy upgrading for vr. game mechanics are very simple and there really isn't anything motivating me to continue playing other than easy achievements at the cost of my time. audio cut out on me within the first few minutes and after restarting 3 different times i gave up on caring about it. i don't think this was a worthwhile purchase at 5$, i know that hard work was put into this game however i would not recommend it to anyone in its current state. would love to see some heavy improvements as i was looking forward to playing this type of game.

If you only read one line of this, just know that his little gem of a game is woefully underappreciated. The extent of the game is basically just get quest from taven, complete quest, find loot, level up, rinse and repeat. And for the price being asked, what more do you honestly want? This goes a long way to satisfy my needs for loot collection, dungeon crawling, and electrocuting an entire room-full of rat-men by raising a lightning staff above my head :D No, the graphics aren't absolutely stunning, but for a VR game I'd say it's pretty much on par or even slightly above average, compared to a lot of others. The in-game menus are a tiny bit clunky and could be made more quickly accessible, but they are NOT bad, and have a good amount of polish and detail. It took me a little while to figure things out at first, not knowing I had to hold the menu button or grip buttons for the inventory and game menu. Casting spells and using abilites CAN be done just by holding the trigger and pushing the corresponding direction, but what fun is that when you can physically thrust your fire staff toward an enemy and launch a big fireball at their face!? The gesture controls for weapon abilities is probably the nicest addition and most pleasant surprise I've come across yet, out of all the VR titles I've tried. Some can be quite tricky to pull off (It took me a good many tries to summon my first skeleton minion! Hint - start your pentagram from top left to bottom right) but once you've got the hang of them, they're FAR more satisfying than just presing a button combination. The variety of enemies that I've encountered so far has been better than I expected. It's not all goblins and skeletons, but also werewolves and ghouls and mini dragons and phoenixes etc etc. Very nice variety. I bought this bundled with Until None Remain, with the 70% off deal. I was juuuust curious enough about UNR to wait for it to be on offer, and bought THIS really only because of the bundle. I think I MIGHT get 5 hours play out of Until None Remain (in its current state with current player base) but I am quite certain I'll get 15+ out of this. I find it sad that the offer is what got this game to my attention, when it honestly should be getting more attention. To anyone thinking -it's cheap, but is it actually worth it/worth my time?- I ask you this; assuming you have any kind of income, you probably make more in one hour than the price, and I can guarantee we all squander far more money on things less deserving. If you have even the slightest love of fantasy rpgs. Get this.

[This is an Early Access VR review and may not apply to the flat game] https://youtu.be/kskRxAs0ILc The idea was great but the execution was pretty poor. The game just lacked quality. The concept was great. The music was good. The rest of the game fell flat on its face. I didn't mention the startup issues in the video but attempting to launch the game from the Steam Desktop app results in a pop up that appears only in the HMD. You get no indication on your desktop that anything has happened. You get a notice that the game natively supports VR but you're launching it as a flat game. I haven't had this issue with any other titles. Most are smart enough to launch into VR if Steam VR is up and running. I do this so I can set up OBS to record before putting on the HMD. It's much easier than putting everything on then trying to spin up OBS and point it at the appropriate window. Once in game, the text is very difficult to read. Even while reviewing the footage on a flat screen the text is blurry and painful to look at. That's not to mention the inventory system that's placed barely in view. I wish that the screens hadn't been tied to the HMD and had appeared as static objects in the world that I could lean into or look around. On the gameplay itself, the models and animations were pretty bad but I was going to try and overlook them because they seemed to actually want to make the AI smart enough to flank you and attack from behind instead of stand there and trade blows. This with an equipment/ability system that looked pretty interesting had my hopes up that the gameplay would make up for the lack of eye candy. Sadly I was wrong. The game never explains the ability system and I wasn't smart enough to figure it out on my own. The biggest nail in the coffin was the fact that you can Waggle to Win even against things much higher level than you. I was fighting lvl 6 mobs as a lvl 1 in a game where 20 is the max level and winning due to waggling. The world also felt very dead due to the fact that I couldn't interact with it. The sculls and bones littering the floor seemed like they were begging to be picked up and thrown at something but they were super glued in place... Let's not talk about the graphical glitch in the very first dungeon. The games got enough issues to deal with. Ultimately it just felt like there was no care taken with this game whatsoever. No pride, no passion, no effort. It felt like it was slapped together and pushed out the door.

The developer is very active and responds quickly to bugs and suggestions, which in my opion puts him several steps ahead of other developers. The game is fun, though a bit buggy. As mentioned above however those bugs are getting ironed out as fast as you can report them. I see a real good game in the making and recommend this game to anyone with a VR system. Definitely worth the low price tag.

The UI is not designed for VR at all, it's very hard and annoying to use. You can get stuck or lost under the map in the tavern/ menu. The graphics are very bad, PS2 era. The abilities are pointless to use since you can just insta kill anything by swinging 2 weapons at once. The AI is very basic, just walk towards you and attack. The missions get boring quick and are mostly all the same. The gear system is relatively well done but the rest of the gameplay lets it down. If the graphics, AI, UI and combat is improved this could be a good game but I currently don't recommend playing it.

Prevent The Fall is a traditional and incredibly limited dungeon crawler. You play as a nameless, noncustomizable character who kills things in dungeons. There is no story or lore beyond that. Quests are given to you by a tavern keeper who is also nameless and voiceless. Each quest in the game involves either killing a certain enemy in a dungeon or collecting a certain number of items, at least after 2 hours of play. The dungeons themselves are basic both from a design and visual standpoint. They are linear and simplistic, with no mazes and only a few easily avoidable traps. There are also no puzzles or true boss battles either. As such every run through a dungeon is identical. You kill all the enemies, loot the one or two chests and then repeat. The leveling and combat systems are both functional but barebones. Each weapon type (of which there are about a dozen) comes with its own skillset and most can be used in either hand. Hence you can mix and match skillsets based on both your playstyle and the needs of a specific dungeon. An earlier review mentioned that the game does not have damage type immunities or weaknesses and that is actually not true. While most enemies will fall to any type of damage, using a holy sword against a zombie is more effective than using a regular one, while blasting a phoenix with a flame staff does little if anything to harm it. That said, at least in the first couple hours, enemies that require such tactics are far more the exception than the rule. The combat itself could best be described as clunky, floaty, and unrewarding. It works but it isn't a ton of fun, which considering it is all you do in the game is a major problem. Enemies simply charge at you and attack, making them both easy and boring to fight. The leveling system is similarly uninspired. There are three skill trees, once each for melee attacks, elemental attacks, and defense. These trees are just basic buffs unfortunately. You might get more health, mana, stamina, or crit chance for example. You do not gain new abilities making leveling a fairly boring affair as enemies will likewise level as the game progresses, making the challange remain flat throughout. From a presentational standpoint Prevent the Fall is amatuerish at best. Simplistic visuals that would not look out of place in a 15 year old dungeon crawler, barely tolerable audio samples, and UI and interface ugliness abound. I did appreciate the support for numerous different formats of control. VR users can select from both Vive and Rift motion control options or opt to use an XInput controller. Monitor users can also make use of standard mouse and keyboard controls complete with hotbar. Also worth noting that as far as I could tell VR mode must be played in first person while monitor mode must be played in third. All told, while there is some interesting ambition in making support as wide as possible, Prevent the Fall is a boring and simplistic dungeon crawler that is barely worth $2 on sale and certainly not worth $10 full price.

EDIT: "VR Dev [developer] 27 minutes ago Thanks for the review and feedback. We added control layout support a couple of updates ago. If you hit Escape or hold Select to open the Ingame Menu there is an option which I think reads Show Controls. That will display a control layout that is based on whatever control type you are currently using." I feel like this game is underrated, I dont have much play time but I have really enjoyed it so far. I see one review that simply states : DONT buy if you dont have VR. well I dont have VR and I enjoy it, however: pros (w/o VR): 1. You can play with your friends who DO have VR, which is pretty awesome. 2. It is actually a pretty solid looking rpg with a decent progression system. 3. The gameplay, while it has issues Ill discuss later, is challenging and enjoyable. 4. You can play however you want, this game has no "classes" its all based on what weapons you are holding. 5. simple and easy to navagate menus. 6. Large variety of weapons to choose from each with its own perks. 7. The game looks to have a decent amount of different quests to do in different environments and I imagine it will only get more of both. 8. Maps are randomly generated each time you play. 9. Easy to use progression system. When you gain a level put a point into dex, int, str, or end/stam, its that easy. Oh and obviously getting higer quality gear to use. 10. No network issues, that I have seen yet. That in it self is amazing for an Early Access game. Cons(w/o VR) 1. Stuck in third person(may be a con to some) 2. Combat is...sluggish and at times very challenging as you dont have much control over where you swing other than infront of you. 3. People who are playing in VR with you only show up as floating weapons, not sure if that will change but I hope it does. 4. No control layout so you have to figure out what button is for what on your own, I accidentally found out that < changes weapons in your left hand and > changes them in your right. 5. Weird control layout that you cant change, hopfully this changes. 6. Personally I find it difficult to kill things that have sheild equiped, mostly because of the fact I already stated about not being able to control where/how you swing. Overall I do reccommend this game to anyone who enjoys an RPG. I would also reccomend playing with a friend as I find it more enjoyable with company. Considering all the flaws this game has, which imo are not many, I would give it a 7.5/10 in its current state. The developers are pumping out updates, I think they have put 2 out in the last week, so we know they are working on it and making it better.

Prevent The Fall while it has its early quirks is actually pretty enjoyable, alot of potential with it being a hybrid game.. unfortunately ive yet to find or have someone join a public match. So far lots of items and dungeon crawling, ai is simple but still has some dynamics, gesture based attacks are fun although i cant figure them all out(oculus rift).Quite a few items so far.. armor, rings, staffs, swords, shields, ect with +stats to this or that. Long story short this is a rough foundation for a co-op rpg vr game alot of people have been waiting for. *Pro's -So far large amount of items -game runs smoothly (fps) -procedural dungeons give you replay-ability -Combat is fairly solid no classes just pick your weapon -Cross compatible with your flat panel friends! (untested) *things to watch out for (at least on rift) -Locomotion is not working (touch controls) -Uncareful Teleports can land you outside the map (and you fall forever making you force restart) -Enemies have no physics (so they often appear inside you if they get too close) -Exiting a dungeon back to menu require keyboard -Menu selection is quirky (twist wrist to make text turn clickable)