A highly creative game with a beautiful aesthetic. FvF is a fun 1v1 or 2v2 casual game that mixes aim duels with deck building. As you are trying to gun down your enemy Polar Bear, you can draw a card that allows you to see them through walls, or maybe you can draw one that whips out a sniper rifle. The endless possibilities of how duels can shift is what kept me glued to this game for many hours, including the 2 open betas.

Unfortunately, the game never took off as expected and the player count is not high. The game also offers very little more than the actual duels, you can complete challenges for prizes such as skins, charms and avatars, but in the end, you will be stuck in the same loop of gameplay for however many hours you sink into it. It is a very recommended pickup however, especially given its' low price.

This is great fun even in 1v1's with friends. The deck-building allows for interesting set-ups and strategies on a round to round basis. You could technically take this quite far and safe cards, pre-plan, look for your deck synergy, but... let's be real. The entire party is a little tipsy, you're having a laugh on discord and for the 80% of the matches you just spam E and strut over these maps like you own the place.
The devs seem to be pretty damn based judging by the game's content. HIGHLY recommend this!!!

man in suit shaking head side to side gif captioned "It's Mid..."

longform, Friends vs. Friends is a game that by all accounts should be good. many people i know - including myself very early into release, and hordes of people that i don't know personally - seem to have been gaslit into thinking it's good, because like, by all means, right?

unfortunately, FvF is a gimmick shooter with a gimmick that barely matters, it never really being used in a way that's fun for either party; and its gunplay as a first person shooter is incredibly bland even taking its gimmick into account when it's utilized at its best.

the art direction is good. the intangible nature of the "vibe" is well done, and in concept "mario party shooter" SOUNDS like it should be fun, absolutely. but really, you're better off getting this experience from either Half-Life Deathmatch than trying to stockholm syndrome (yes, i know that's a falsely rooted term) yourself into thinking that the game will become good or that you will become good at it after long enough.

"the gunplay is boring, bland, and has nothing going on in it" is a tell-all statement that i'm not sure i can elaborate on. every gun feels without solid punch, and in the occasions that you do get to use any different piece of weaponry, they all feel... kind of the same. it reminds me of my issues with how Deep Rock Galactic firearms feel, wherein their "punch" in animation, sound effect, and hit registration, as well as overall numbers, don't make them "fun to shoot". every character's silhouette, movement, and animations are all homogenous (not even accounting for skins) and feel like a developer placeholder Unity asset or something, like you'd see in pre-release 3 years before the game comes out which makes you go "wow, i'm glad it became good, later."

the gimmick is intended to be the cards - "mario party FPS". issue being is that cards are somewhat of a rare resource, they take actual millenia to grind out, "grinding out" the cards is done through gacha pulls so you can't pick which ones you'd want, often making your inventory cluttered with uninteresting and usually ineffective cards that don't do anything nor are they silly, and finally, but most importantly: nothing any card does is actually interesting.

i truly want to convince myself that there's something going on with one of them, but really because the "actual game" (being, the gunplay, where you move around with WASD and shoot people by clicking on them with your mouse) is so stiff and stale, it feels like... i don't even know how to describe it, like i'm playing as a footman trash unit in an RTS or Clash of Clans or something, and my benevolent ruler just gave me a buff-boon that either makes me win or lets me contest with the opponent's buff-boon. not that it's done in any kind of an interesting way where my input on clicking on the opponent feels like, important. or fun.

all of the maps are also boring. some of them have a level of base aesthetic interest, but i, in 100% honesty, have not played a first person shooter video game, indie, AAA, or anything in between, that has had as weak of a stage roster as this game, especially on release. some are stylized well in artstyle, sure, but none are even stimulating to play on. Screencheat and Ratz Instagib are other examples of "gimmick party shooters" which have a set of (mostly) memorable and stylized stages, but they're very dynamic and fun to move around and shoot in. cannot say the same for even a single choke in FvF.

having a full cast of NB furry creatures with kinda fun designs is cool, but they're also not distinct, and their gameplay differences from eachother are incredibly minor, only being that character's signature or passive card, which is always incredibly boring. 20% more damage. start with a golden retexture of the starting glock that like shoots a little faster and has 3 more bullets in the clip. be a bit more accurate. it's so fuckin' boringggg.

i hope the art directors can improve a bit more on diversifying their silhouettes and making their personalities a bit more punchy, and then move on to better things. i also hope the victims of gaslighting who think/thought this game was fun stop leaving flowers on its' grave every weekend and can move on.