JARS

If you're like me and hoping this is Plants Vs Zombies with a Tim Burton coat of paint... Well, you won't be entirely wrong, but you'll be disappointed. It definitely delivers the spooky-cute aesthetic. But levels play very fast, with lots of snap reactions (or having to pause every other second in order to react). Too fast for my liking - but that's what I get for hoping it would have PvZ style pacing. I also personally did not enjoy the fact you can't see what's in the jars ahead of time. So there's not much strategy and instead it's pure reacting to what is thrown at you. Which isn't bad, per se, just not to my tastes. And again, that's all on me. I guess I'm just not a fan of the gameplay style Jars has to offer. Two things I'm subtracting points for: 1) I couldn't get the game to run on one of my gaming computers. It would launch as a white window with the game's cursor and nothing else. The issue has been reported elsewhere since late 2021, with no response from the devs all this time. Thankfully, the game ran fine on another gaming rig, but I don't agree with treating your customers like that. 2) The game has ads for other games on the main menu. Gross.

Just finished the game and they do have some good stuff going on. Nice art, fun journal with entries about the various enemies etc, nice concept. Has some interesting less is more storytelling going for it. Otherwise 1/5. Problems: Many stages later in the game are very RNG-dependent. You may have to reset a few times to get a good setup. It can differ extremely. Getting 1 creature and 2 extra enemies or getting 3 creatures and 0 extra enemies. It does not make sense. Luck based and stupid. Little to do with strategy. Menu system. Extremely tedious having to add the stats to the creatures every time you switch e.g. the frog for the hedgehog and then want to use the frog again. Would be better to not use "equipment" but instead just level up creatures. It would make a big difference. The equipment system is the worst I have encountered in any game. Extremely bad music. Just some crappy stuff on a loop. Would prefer something ambient. You have to grind a bit to be able to afford stuff from the shop. Most of the stuff is completely useless and will just clutter up your menu. At times some relatively expensive stuff appears that you have to buy in order to progress. Buggy. Often I had to restart levels as they would not register that they were completed. Usually levels are 40-120 seconds so it is not as bad as it sounds. Just annoying. If you are a completionist, some of the stuff can not be gathered due to bugs. Certain documents, entries etc mostly connected to the story (its told through journal entries unlocked by these documents but many of them can not be gathered. Usually the stage end not registered bug showed up when trying to gather documents.)

A game about breaking jars and panicking when everything goes bananas, because some contain enemies, some minions and some items, and you have to achieve certain objectives to complete each level, like defending a chest from all the baddies, activating all the switches or escorting an NPC, the game never gets boring since it randomizes the jar contents each time. Additionally you can unlock a roguelite mode as you progress through the game, in this mode you control a buffed up minion with cumulative and randomized buffs and debuffs, and basically serves as a currency grind, but is not tedious or time consuming. If that is not enough in some stages there are secret switches that spawn more enemies, and if you beat them all you get a scroll that serves to unlock part of the lore of the game. All this wrapped in charming graphics and catchy tunes. There are a few minor bugs, but nothing game breaking. Honestly, I didn't expect it to be this good, great game, lots of fun.

The game is billed as a tower defense-puzzle game. The idea is interesting. However, there are three majors problem: the randomness of it, the fact that your units behave like idiots and the need for money to progress. Opening jars in the game is random. Hence, on each playthrough you will get different units, items and emeies. There are some levels, especially later on, that will make the level unbeatable unless you get right things in the jars. The AI of your units is also frustrating. Weak units will valliantly charge right into a strong enemy and get immediately killed. Some (very) slow moving units will crawl towards the enemy and right before they start attacking, decide to turn around and see what's the other side of the screen. Flies that would work great as an attack group decide to just hang around and check out different things. The final problem is the money system. Each level earns a decent amount of money and the perks are not all necessary and there are many duplicates, so if that's all money was used for it would be fine. However, there are some parts that you need to purchase a new unit type to progress. The new unit types are really expensive and if you don't have the money, you have to go back and keep replaying the old levels until you get enough cash to move on.