Phoenix Hope
- December 14, 2021
- Honorable Pixel
Get on SteamIn Phoenix Hope, players navigate a post-apocalyptic world as a young survivor named Phoenix. The game features a mix of exploration, puzzle-solving, and combat, as Phoenix searches for her missing family. With a striking pixel art style and an emphasis on story, Phoenix Hope explores themes of hope, resilience, and the human spirit in the face of adversity.
PC
Windows
Reviews
- Beautiful pixel art and engaging atmosphere enhance the overall experience.
- The game offers a lot of potential with complex mechanics and a unique resource management system.
- Active development and responsiveness from the developers show promise for future updates and improvements.
- The game appears to be abandoned, with no updates or communication from the developers for an extended period.
- Gameplay can feel tedious and slow, with a steep learning curve and unclear mechanics that frustrate players.
- Many players report game-breaking bugs and a lack of essential features, making it difficult to recommend in its current state.
- gameplay38 mentions
- 24 % positive mentions
- 63 % neutral mentions
- 13 % negative mentions
Gameplay in this title presents a mix of engaging mechanics and frustrating elements. While players appreciate the depth and strategic components, particularly with resource gathering and the unique "hope bubble" mechanic, many find the initial learning curve steep due to unclear UI and a lackluster tutorial. Overall, the game shows potential for improvement but currently suffers from pacing issues and repetitive gameplay, leaving some players feeling that it is still in an alpha stage.
“Engaging gameplay: the game's depth keeps players entertained with diverse tasks and unfolding challenges.”
“Resource gathering: the mining element brings in another layer to the gameplay, enhancing the strategic components.”
“The gameplay is very interesting, exciting, and entertaining.”
“The so-called easy mode does not disable the campaign and its bosses, for example, and even if the enemies are objectively weaker, you still find yourself running out of resources one way or another. Maybe that's part of the difficulty balance, but it just got annoying for someone trying to see the full breadth of the different mechanics at play.”
“They try to iterate on the Kingdom's gameplay mechanics to add depth and complexity, but their results are tedious, snail-paced, and grindingly boring.”
“The issues I have with it so far are three-fold: pacing, tutorial, and mechanics. The tutorial is, frankly, useless.”
- music11 mentions
- 55 % positive mentions
- 18 % neutral mentions
- 27 % negative mentions
The music in the game is widely praised for its soothing and atmospheric qualities, enhancing the overall experience alongside the beautiful pixel art. Many players highlight the ambient tracks, particularly the night music, as standout features, although there are suggestions for more variety, including tense music for combat scenarios. Overall, the combination of music and art significantly contributes to the game's immersive environment.
“I find the music wonderfully atmospheric and very well done.”
“Very soothing and calming music!”
“The world looks, feels, and sounds incredible - Phoenix Hope has gorgeous pixel art with a nice dynamic weather system and great sound design with some awesome background music.”
“The ambient music is also very calming; I hope they add more music as well as tense music when enemies appear.”
“The ambient music is also very calming; I hope they add more music as well as tense music when enemies appear.”
“The ambient music is also very calming; I hope they add more music as well as tense music when enemies appear.”
- story9 mentions
- 22 % positive mentions
- 44 % neutral mentions
- 33 % negative mentions
The story aspect of the game is perceived as having potential but currently suffers from issues related to mission design, particularly with scouting missions that often feel unbalanced and unrewarding. Players express a desire for improvements, such as the ability to send units more efficiently and the introduction of a trading post to enhance resource management. Overall, while the narrative framework is intriguing, it requires further development and refinement to fully engage players.
“Great game with a lot of potential. I think the difficulty is balanced really well. I'm at around day 50 and it's been getting a bit stale. I have about 13.8 hours into the game.”
“Scouting missions - another unique and great concept.”
“I would play it more, but I'm content to wait until release or until more of the game story is in place.”
“Rebalance the scouting missions - the 'trapped' and 'village under siege' scouting missions are not worth the unit/resource commitment.”
“Great game with a lot of potential, but I feel like the rewards for some of the missions to send your people on are not worth the effort given the rewards they provide.”
- graphics6 mentions
- 67 % positive mentions
- 33 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The game's graphics, characterized by attractive pixel art, are widely praised for their appealing design and execution, enhancing the overall experience. Reviewers highlight the beautiful art style and note improvements in gameplay, with many rating the art style highly, around 9/10.
“Attractive aesthetics: while the game employs pixel art rather than high-end graphics, its design and execution are appealing, contributing significantly to the overall experience.”
“Beautiful pixel graphics.”
“Love the art style.”
- grinding4 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be tedious and monotonous, particularly during boss fights and the healing process, which detracts from the overall experience. Many hope for improvements to the current grind system to make it less repetitive and more engaging.
“They try to iterate on the kingdom's gameplay mechanics to add depth and complexity, but their results are tedious, snail-paced, grindingly boring.”
“Monotonous boss fight: the boss encounter can be somewhat tedious and could use an injection of excitement.”
“Healing - the banner system is a bit tedious, specifically when you are trying to split wounded units from the group to heal them.”
- replayability3 mentions
- 33 % positive mentions
- 33 % neutral mentions
- 33 % negative mentions
The game has limited replayability, as players quickly exhaust available tasks and strategies, leading to diminished value in replaying. While the gameplay is enjoyable, the lack of diverse strategies and challenges reduces the incentive to revisit the game once completed.
“Gameplay-wise, this is a very good game. I had fun, but for replay value, there's not much to explore yet. If you just place spearmen behind walls (in groups of 2) and some archer towers, you can beat the current state of the game in a short time.”
“Limited replayability: once you've exhausted all tasks, the replay value diminishes significantly.”
- atmosphere2 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The atmosphere of the game is highly praised, with users highlighting the exceptional quality of the music and its ability to enhance engagement during gameplay.
“I find the music wonderfully atmospheric and very well done.”
“Engaging atmosphere and gameplay.”
- stability2 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The game exhibits notable stability issues, particularly with swordsmen, who often fail to engage effectively in combat and have low health, leading to quick defeats. While these bugs can detract from the experience, players still recommend the game with the caveat of its instability.
“Mainly the swordsmen are very buggy; they don't attack behind walls, and if confronted, they die within seconds. Their HP is so low that it should be balanced at least twice or thrice that of spearmen.”
“I'd definitely recommend the game, just keep in mind that it can be buggy.”
