Crookhaven

I’ve played fire maple games since I was a kid and always found such enjoyment from the clever puzzles, storytelling, and ESPECIALLY the art style. I’d been meaning to getting around to playing this latest release and wow I was disappointed. It was not hard to catch on that this was AI generated, as the textures were so muddy and uncanny looking. in older games it had a charm to the spliced in graphic style, but this was just a computer trying to replicate it. I literally got through maybe ten minutes of gameplay before exiting the app, with almost all of it being meeting characters needing something you’d have to get from a different character, like ten times. I loved how previous games made you feel like a collector, and how cool it’d feel to put the pieces together yourself, exploring on your own. but all of these generated npc’s just kinda telling you stuff to look for, over and over again, without really being able to do much else, was a really pathetic amount of interactivity from a company who’s kind of known for it. There felt like any plot was lost in the mindless AI writing and graphics, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. I won’t attempt to finish this game, and if Fire Maple continues to utilize generative AI in their games, I will not purchase them. I hope the development team sees the poor reviews and uses them as a well needed wake up call to go back to the authenticity of the old style of these games, which is what made them so compelling and charming in the first place.

I have to agree with what a lot of other reviewers are saying, this latest fire Maple game is a huge disappointment compared to the previous games. Too much interaction with AI generated characters, and the location artwork is extremely poor compared to previous ones. Please revert. To the old style with your next game. I don’t usually pay for games, but I did for this one based on your previous excellent product. However, it turned out to be four dollars wasted.