Broken Reality 2000

“Graphics settings are a big problem as well, as there is a mod that even adds the basic stuff like a frame limiter, option to remove the horrible texture filtering this game has to make it look more crisp and not clown vomit, but also actual resolution options and the ability to choose the monitor.”

“Many of the areas suffer from a really inconsistent aesthetic, where the first game really shone with very pixelated and low poly graphics in a stylish and coherent way, this game suffers from a baffling soup of aesthetics that don't feel representative of anything.”

“The graphics feel more 2005 than 1998.”

“Not a lot in the soundtrack really hooks my ear like the first game did where there were a plethora of tracks in each world, and each world feels much more condensed and has a lot less to look at when you compare it to the first game; even Grifton feels so much smaller than its equivalent in Broken Reality.”

“The problem with the music though is that the tracks are very much endless, and some of these areas you can get stuck in for a very long time, which grates on my ears after a while.”

“There's music that just silently cuts out when you move too far away from certain areas, and there's even a few that straight up don't have any music at all, so there's just deafening silence.”

“The lore felt like it was building something but ultimately delivered nothing, the gameplay was tedious when trying to go back and collect missed items, the glitches prevented me from progressing multiple times, and yet I still carried on because I wanted to believe that there was something hidden waiting to be found within.”

“The gameplay is incredibly tedious, with backtracking becoming unbearable after the 3-5 hour mark.”

“Mechanically, all of the new features are fine and fun, but they never amount to more than 'shoot a couple targets' or 'the game is such a slog that we gave you this item that lets you move 7x faster over halfway through the game.' Many of the areas suffer from a really inconsistent aesthetic, where the first game really shone with the very pixelated and low poly graphics in a stylish and coherent way. This game suffers from a baffling soup of aesthetics that don't feel representative of about anything.”

“And on top of all of that the game is so damn buggy and unpolished it's practically unplayable, the amount of times I got stuck or softlocked an area is so damn much that I'm surprised I even was able to finish the game.”

“The game is very very buggy and full of softlocks, some sequence breaks too; for example: I was able to get the true ending before getting all the medallions.”

“Overall I had fun with it but it's not nearly as polished or good as the first game and I can't recommend it considering how buggy and janky it is.”

“It's hard to believe the game is even made by the same people with how unfunny and uninteresting so much of the game is.”

“Game is just boring, ugly, unfunny.”

“The gameplay is incredibly tedious, with backtracking becoming unbearable after the 3-5 hour mark.”

“The gameplay and exploration also feel much duller, with tedious tasks that require you to travel back and forth repeatedly to solve them (looking at you, crypts).”

“Characters have no personality, the writing is worse, almost all of the areas lack identity and blend together, exploration feels more tedious, the quests and 'puzzles' are just mindless, meaningless busy work to get you from point A to point B.”

“Barely any new ads; it felt like they used the same small batch of ads throughout. In a short replay of the original, there was a much larger count than what's shown here, same for products available to buy.”

“The biggest problem - super noticeable - is that the quality and quantity of the ads you click on is way lower than the first game.”

“The so-called 'cohesive narrative' is absent; instead, the game is filled with reused assets, ads, and NPCs in almost every location. Once you've seen them at the beginning, you've already seen them all, along with MMORPG-like fetch and killing quests until the very end.”

“I don't even think the game is terrible per se, but there are so many tiny annoying things that keep piling up and the game's story, atmosphere, music, and characters just aren't good enough to save it.”

“Br's focus was on the vaporwave 'melancholy nostalgia' feeling of the old net, whereas 2000 is focusing more on both the early 2000s and the modern internet landscape, with likes becoming secondary to cold hard cash in some areas, multiple cargo cults, a few returning characters being largely bit players or lost to conspiracy and grift, and much less of a hopeful atmosphere overall.”

“The atmosphere feels like you're in an old part of Tokyo in an internet cafe on drugs.”

“Some other things are the walkspeed is painfully slow, every area is smaller than the first game likely to compensate for VR performance, which isn't out yet, and even on desktop I got performance drops anyway.”

“The game is having some stuttering issues that aren't that bad, but in Grifton it's annoying.”

“The only thing that I hated in this experience was the stuttering, and a part of me kinda hopes that I'm the only one who will suffer from this issue.”

“Overall the game is okay, but it pales in comparison to the original and I'd argue this has very little replayability compared to the first game.”