MythForce Reviews

Overview:

A 4-player co-op fps fantasy game that captures the spirit of 80s cartoons. Presentation is incredibly detailed and clearly a ton of love and passion went into the making of this game. Fun if somewhat standard gameplay mechanics make for a fun time with friends, but the progression and bugs will eventually grind down the experience.

Presentation:

I generally don't talk about presentation too often in my reviews, as gameplay and story generally speak more to me as a gamer, and what appears impressive today can quickly become dated tomorrow. However, with Mythforce I feel presentation deserves a special mention, as it aims to capture a very particular look and feel. Specifically, they aim for (and successfully hit) the feel of 1980s cartoons, particularly He-Man, She-Ra, and Dungeons and Dragons.

This starts with a glorious intro cinematic that sweeps through the player characters as well as the three main villians you'll be up against. This includes a toe-bopping theme song that's equal parts amazing and glorious cheese. This song returns in small snippets in the main game, including when a player activates an ultimate. It's tone-perfect.

Presentation continues into the main game, where a very pretty pass of cell shading makes everything look like an 80s cartoon. It's honestly a great effect and the game's biggest achievement. As someone who grew up in this era, I'm very much in the target demographic and I can't deny the big, nerdy smile I had exploring this world.

The game also features some fun voice performances from the cast (both heroes and villians), and will feature the threats and minor speeches common from the era. Sound effects sound incredibly close (if legally distinct) from the 80s cartoons. I felt like a sleeper trigger had been activated hearing the "magical pop" of some effects.

The Gameplay:

Unfortunately, the game's incredible presentation doesn't carry over quite as strongly into gameplay. That's not to say it's bad or unfun, it's...fine. My initial expectation looking at the preview was something akin to borderlands, but combat is definitely more slow and deliberate than that. The specifics of how you play will be determined by your character. These fit into a few archtypes: warrior, mage, archer, and thief.

Each character gets their own pre-set powers, a mix of three different abilities, plus a very slowly charging "ultimate". For example, the mage gets a teleport, a magic animal "turret", and a stationary magical shield. The ultimate will provide a number of buffs. As you progress, you can find upgrades that will (for the current level) provide a choice of modifications that change these powers. The mage's shield can freeze melee enemies who come close at the expense of not providing ballistic defense, for instance.

Each level is made of a set of randomly selected "rooms", and each is gated by a door that provides a chance to revive fallen teammates and select another upgrade. The levels are usually met with a few waves of enemies, and some treasure chests or small breakable containers. Some secrets and traps also populate the levels. Finding gear and gold for upgrades is a strong motivator to poke into all the corners, but it also starts to reveal some of the games shortcomings.

You've VERY quickly come to realize that the set of "rooms" that make up a level is extremely limited. You'll often run into the same room two or three times in a single level, often one immediately after the other. This is kind of a huge letdown, as even before the end of my first level I'd memorized all the corners and hidden areas in a particular room.

This is directly at odds with the game's overall structure. The game is CLEARLY built to encourage multiple playthroughs, yet there just isn't enough "game" to support that many runs. There is a set of permanent upgrades to be purchased, using a variety of in-game resources gathered in your runs. But upgrading is a painfully slow process, on my first full completion I'd managed to upgrade one building once and another 2 times, and provide a few minor power boosts. There are also voices, cosmetics, power-ups, etc that all are available for purchase, and even dipping your toes into all these would require many, many full playthroughs. Further, progression doesn't carry over between characters, so you better pick one you like early and stick with them.

Co-op:

I played this game with a couple close friends and the occasional random player. Like most games, it's better in a group and the game opens up a bit more with dialog between characters fleshing them out even more. Powers can be stacked and many upgrades benefit other players as much as yourself. I would certainly recommend trying this game in a group, but also this is where the game almost completely falls apart mechanically.

Once players join in coop, no matter who was hosting, things just...didn't work. Some characters abilities would lock. There's no end to things like "I can't swing my weapon", "I can't move", or "I got disconnected". Players attempting to choose power-ups at the end of each room would just get one randomly instead of the one they selected. Attacks would fly through enemies or those enemies would be seen as floating towards the ceiling. Hitting buttons just didn't result in any corresponding action, it was maddening.

Often we were unable to invite others into the game, or the game would crash if you went into a rewards menu. Or crash for no apparent reason at all. While players were usually able to get back into the game later, it wouldn't be stable and the above problems would be happening more and more frequently. Towards the end of the game we were able to finish as things seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

That's not to say the game was broken each time all the time, but we didn't have a single bug-free session as we played through the campaign either. The game is better in coop, but you WILL experience bugs big and small.

The Achievements:

You can get about 2/3 of the list pretty easily just by playing through and going out of your way for a couple. There are cheevos for dying a number of times, killing a certain number of enemies (and these seem to count as your co-op buddies get kills, which is a nice touch), hitting story milestones, and spending a certain amount of money, among others.

Unfortunately, there are also a number for defeating levels at a particularly high difficulty, and these will be functionally impossible unless you grind away at permanent level ups. Since those upgrades are so slow, you'd need to grind and grind to reach the point you can complete these. At the time of this writing almost no one has managed the hardest ones (literally just 9, 14, and 15 legends managed this in the world for the hardest three). As such, if you're a completionist be aware that you're really going to need to lock in.

Summary:

I don't want to be too hard on this game, as there's CLEARLY a lot of love and effort put into this. The style is incredible and the gameplay was fun enough to spend time on in a group. For me, it was worth the headaches to play through with friends, but I can't see going back to it without a major content drop and a vast array of bug fixes.