Hello,
Let me first start out by saying I loved the first SAB world 1. I had a blast in it. Secondly I LOVE hard content. I like being challenged. Lidari was one of my favorite bosses and I spent trying to kill her and finally achieving it and being very happy (no guide either
).
So this review will kind of be directed at the makers of SAB so they know why I gave it a 6.5.
Something you must realize is that SAB is a mini game. This is most important. It doesn’t carry over and skills we learn in the “real world” into SAB and we dont take any skills we learn in SAB into the “real world”. Dodging is about the only thing.
The thing I loved about the first SAB was that is was a JP most of all. Jumping was one of the few mechanics that carried over and I had a blast. The enemies wont insanely hard, the final boss was fun to fight, there were no 1 shot kills. Most importantly it didn’t take a long time to do. So it didn’t take a huge chunk of my gaming time with gw2 away.
The problem with W2 was that you treated it as if it was a dungeon in the game, instead of a mini game. The levels took way too long, there were lots of one hit mechanics, and other mechanics (camera angles, random misses, etc) that didn’t work out with the game. It feels like you didn’t treat it as a mini game. Something that players can do on the side. I spent 1 hr + doing each zone and I found that I didn’t have a lot of time to experience the other parts of the game when I could game. The enemies were also insanely hard. Fighting 1+ assassin is not an easy feat when they have a high damage, evading, leap, knockdown attack.
Finally one hit mechanics. The arrow traps, the rapids (you could get out of them, but sometimes it was very hard). There were too many. It is important that with one hit mechanics you allow players adapt. Most of these there were no chances to adapt. This was even worse in trib mode which ill go into later. You may be thinking, lidari had a bunch of these! How is she any better? She had many many visual indicators. 1/4 of the arena is filled with red circles and big darkness balls? I should probably not get hit by those. Slow moving clones running at me? I should probably not let them hit me. The orb was the only thing that you had to be attacked by it to know what it did, and it didn’t always kill you. The arrow traps should have been high damage over time, not instant kill. The assassins should not be evading when attacked. The rapids should not knock you over, only push you back.
Now for tribulation mode. I only did w1 z1, and it gave me a good understanding on whakittens about. Trib mode is not hard. Trib mode does not represent any skill that a player has. First SAB doesn’t carry over a ton of skills needed in the real game aside from dodging/jumping. Secondly trib mode had a lot of one hit and other stupid aspects that have no visual indicators. How am I supposed to know that flowers now explode and kill me instantly without looking at a guide or dieing by one? How am I supposed to know that if I go this certain route an invisble wall of clouds would suddenly appear and stop me mid air and cause me to fall on the spikes. How am I supposed to know that these locations on the ground are actually pit falls trap without dieing to them? You dont. The game forces you to die to adapt rather than allowing you to adapt without dieing. This is a big no no for hard content. I felt like it was forcing players to buy the infinite coin if they wanted to have the least bit of fun in trib mode.
Finally forcing players to spend baubles to progress. Another big no no for me. I DO NOT want to spend time farming baubles. This is a mini game. If I’m going to farm anything, it is going to be champions since they have a much larger impact on the real world and on the game for me. I never bought the bauble upgrade before w2, so I ended up having to save up 250 baubles, buy the bag, then save up another 400 baubles. Doing this by going on “dig runs” over and over again. It is incredibly boring.
So those are the main reasons why I didn’t give it a 10/10.
It does have some good things. The new environments are really cool. Some mechanics could have been cool if not for the other aspects. The fish/squid, the rapids/jumping on crocs and turtles. The raft ride, the slippery ground. The flowers/jump pads (after you took out the weird landing/distance thing). The environments looked great. The concept of tribulation mode and how you get the weapons is really cool (just the execution of it wasn’t). The new HUB area/hidden JP was a cool addition. The way you rewarded players with the glove was great.
I really hope you correct these problems and make it feel more like a fun mini game, rather than a really hard, you have to die dungeon.