I'm stuck playing this and other "anhedonia games" for the time being. I played Toontown Online as a kid.
Review in progress:
A better version of Toontown Online/Rewritten. Still feels like a 2003 budget MMORPG aimed at children with all of the limitations that entails. The combat has more depth and the game is modestly more challenging than vanilla. The manager boss fights and OCLO are solid additions that will challenge veteran players. Unfortunately, the game is still far too grindy, shallow, and repetitive. Even though the grind is toned down compared to TTO/R in a lot of respects, you're still expected to repeat the same uninteresting content for dozens of hours to get to the "good" parts mentioned earlier.
The changes to the combat system allow for more strategy and build variety than vanilla Toontown while still keeping things simple enough for casual players to understand. Unfortunately, only the new/challenge content really takes advantage of this. Most encounters still involve cogs patiently waiting to get destroyed by gags without any chance to retaliate outside of the occasional miss. They are essentially damage fodder for the player and don't pose any threat whatsoever unless you get really unlucky.
Most of the progression through the main taskline feels repetitive and padded out outside of the new bosses. All of the neighborhoods look and feel the same from a visual and gameplay perspective. The numbers keep going up, but not the challenge or depth. The streets are all basically reskins of each other. I don't expect them to be able to address the area repetition given the circumstances, but it's still noticeable when compared to other games.
Karting, fishing, mini golfing and the trolley are a bit better than vanilla TTO/R due to the decreased grind, but still aren't something most people will revisit once they've maxed out.
The staff are very unprofessional. I was suspended for breaking a rule that wasn't listed in the terms of service. They didn't apologize when I explained the situation or when I asked for clarification on the rules. They still blamed me for the infraction. Now I have a permanent infraction on my account for breaking an unlisted rule. They updated the terms of service later on to add the missing rule, but the infraction still remains on my account. Good times. Very fair.
The community is also generally pretty toxic when doing manager/challenging content. They expect everyone to have the strategy memorized to a tee so that they can grind for their silly cosmetics as quickly as possible. This takes away the fun that comes from going into a boss blind and discovering the strategy for yourself. You'll probably need to find three other newcomers to avoid getting cranky people. That's not an easy thing to do with such a small player base.
Considering the game is being worked on by unpaid volunteers, you can only expect so much in terms of content updates and efforts to modernize the experience. It's not the Clash team's fault that they have an ancient game and engine to work with, but that still doesn't excuse the grind. The grind feels like a holdover from the subscription era where Disney was trying to keep people paying despite the painfully slow trickle of new content. There's no reason for it to be present now that the game can't be monetized. I don't want to beat each cog boss 84 times or take down 200 cog buildings with essentially no variation between each instance. For people who only play Toontown, this probably won't bother them. For everyone else, it's a huge time sink with very little payoff.
Review in progress:
A better version of Toontown Online/Rewritten. Still feels like a 2003 budget MMORPG aimed at children with all of the limitations that entails. The combat has more depth and the game is modestly more challenging than vanilla. The manager boss fights and OCLO are solid additions that will challenge veteran players. Unfortunately, the game is still far too grindy, shallow, and repetitive. Even though the grind is toned down compared to TTO/R in a lot of respects, you're still expected to repeat the same uninteresting content for dozens of hours to get to the "good" parts mentioned earlier.
The changes to the combat system allow for more strategy and build variety than vanilla Toontown while still keeping things simple enough for casual players to understand. Unfortunately, only the new/challenge content really takes advantage of this. Most encounters still involve cogs patiently waiting to get destroyed by gags without any chance to retaliate outside of the occasional miss. They are essentially damage fodder for the player and don't pose any threat whatsoever unless you get really unlucky.
Most of the progression through the main taskline feels repetitive and padded out outside of the new bosses. All of the neighborhoods look and feel the same from a visual and gameplay perspective. The numbers keep going up, but not the challenge or depth. The streets are all basically reskins of each other. I don't expect them to be able to address the area repetition given the circumstances, but it's still noticeable when compared to other games.
Karting, fishing, mini golfing and the trolley are a bit better than vanilla TTO/R due to the decreased grind, but still aren't something most people will revisit once they've maxed out.
The staff are very unprofessional. I was suspended for breaking a rule that wasn't listed in the terms of service. They didn't apologize when I explained the situation or when I asked for clarification on the rules. They still blamed me for the infraction. Now I have a permanent infraction on my account for breaking an unlisted rule. They updated the terms of service later on to add the missing rule, but the infraction still remains on my account. Good times. Very fair.
The community is also generally pretty toxic when doing manager/challenging content. They expect everyone to have the strategy memorized to a tee so that they can grind for their silly cosmetics as quickly as possible. This takes away the fun that comes from going into a boss blind and discovering the strategy for yourself. You'll probably need to find three other newcomers to avoid getting cranky people. That's not an easy thing to do with such a small player base.
Considering the game is being worked on by unpaid volunteers, you can only expect so much in terms of content updates and efforts to modernize the experience. It's not the Clash team's fault that they have an ancient game and engine to work with, but that still doesn't excuse the grind. The grind feels like a holdover from the subscription era where Disney was trying to keep people paying despite the painfully slow trickle of new content. There's no reason for it to be present now that the game can't be monetized. I don't want to beat each cog boss 84 times or take down 200 cog buildings with essentially no variation between each instance. For people who only play Toontown, this probably won't bother them. For everyone else, it's a huge time sink with very little payoff.
goatcanon
1 year ago