Videogame EDIT: Still flawed, but better now (V1.1)
Five Nights at Freddy's World V1.1 is now out, and I've now had time to play it, so I figured I'd go and rewrite this review to include the new things added.
The first, and possibly biggest thing the new update adds is a fully 3D overworld, like what was shown in the first trailer. I see some people saying it looks like crap, but I think it looks really good. Sure, it may look flat at some places, but it's definitely an improvement over the Atari-like visuals from the original version.
The second change is the addition of move descriptions. The lack of move descriptions was probably one of the biggest problems I had with the original version, and one I'm glad to see fixed here. Combat feels less difficult and stressful now that you actually know what your moves do. This is especially helpful since some of the attacks have names that barely relate to what they do (seriously, who'd have guessed Waterhose kills enemies with less than 30% health?), so this change makes combat far more intuitive and simple than before.
I see some people saying a lot of bugs were also fixed in this version, though I didn't really notice all that many bugs in the original version to begin with. I dunno, maybe I just didn't explore enough to find them (I got lost at Lilygear Lake the first time). It also seems like some of the animations are slower now than before, but I haven't compared them side-by-side yet, so I don't know for sure.
All in all, FNAF World is better now than before, even if it still has a few flaws. If you like RPGs and FNAF, definitely go give it a look.
Videogame Review of the initial 21.01.2016 release (some details may not be accurate anymore due to updates)
I must say, I was really looking forward to being able to play as the animatronics. But at the same time I was rather worried, because when I looked back at Scott's previous attempts at the RPG genre, I feared that this game would suffer from plethora of really poor design decisions... and alas, my fears have proven to be real. Very, very real.
The biggest problem this game suffers from is that it doesn't bother to explain to you almost any of its mechanics. There is no tutorial, no help messages... absolutely nothing to ease you into the game and give you some idea on how to progress. Worse still, many of the VITAL elements of the gameplay are outright hidden from you, like your characters' levels and skills. You have no ability to discern what skills these characters have and how they work until you are already fighting some enemies, at which point all you can do is just use these skills and try to figure out what each one of them does.
And speaking of fighting, this is some of the most poorly designed combat I've ever seen in a video game. You see, Scott apparently wanted to include a turn-based battle system like the ones seen in many jRPG games, but apparently he deemed it a bit too slow. Therefore, he designed it in such a way that your characters still behave as if it was a normal turn-based battle... but the enemies don't have to wait until you finish your turn before they attack.
This means that you cannot stop even for a second, and you have to be constantly using attacks and healing spells if you want to survive. Combine this with not knowing what the skills even do, and you get a complete and utter chaos, with everything boiling down to the frantic "BASH IT UNTIL IT'S DEAD". Oh, and did I mention that when a random encounter occurs, you are IMMEDIATELY brought to the combat screen, with no jingle playing or any warning at all? Seriously, 400 words aren't nearly enough to list all the problems this game has.
While this game does kinda intrigue me and I really wish I could continue it, since I really want to know what lies at the end of it, unfortunately the difficulty of the battles ramps up pretty damn fast and after just an hour of playing, I already reached the point where I just end up being promptly slaughtered shortly after entering a battle...
Oh, Scott. *sigh*