This review contains spoilers
The original Rain World was made as a sandbox with lots of creatures interacting with each other in an ecosystem. It has light story elements and lore that are SECRETS and INSIGNIFICANT to the core experience. Downpour unfortunately doubles down on the story and lore, so if you play the DLC first, which some might do, since you can activate a cheat to unlock all the campaigns, you're both playing a worse version of vanilla and getting dumb lore and drama dumped on you that you have no context for.
For example, let's say a a new player unlocks all the campaigns with a cheat and decides to play as Rivulet, not knowing some crucial paths and region layouts from the base game. They are going to get lost and have no idea where to go.
Artificer's campaign is extremely linear and is a pain in the ass to go to other regions because Artificer needs the karma from killed Scavengers to go anywhere. The intended route has only 2 gates that use this mechanic. Every other gate you can simply pass through. It's such a waste of a weird mechanic that does nothing but waste your time and gives you less freedom to explore the sandbox.
Out of all the campaigns, Gourmand is probably my favorite. It's not as lore heavy, adds the big tree from Survivor and Monk's intro as a playable region, and even adds slugpups, which were cut content, into the game if you finish the optional food quest.
The rest of the other campaigns are either too different from the base game's feel, has bad balancing issues, has awkward writing and confusing progression points, and makes the gameplay worse just to tell a "story". This is why you shouldn't mix modded content with official content.
It's still Rain World. It's still good content. Just with an extra coat of sparkledog OC donut steel vomit.
EDIT: Apparently there is a secret Nightcat campaign and it's a joke playthrough filled with memes. When you talk to Five Pebbles he talks about "five pebbsi" and that is somehow comedic. What the hell? Modders literally cannot resist the urge to add cringy jokes in whatever they make. Even more embarrassing since Rain World is suppose to be taken pretty seriously.
For example, let's say a a new player unlocks all the campaigns with a cheat and decides to play as Rivulet, not knowing some crucial paths and region layouts from the base game. They are going to get lost and have no idea where to go.
Artificer's campaign is extremely linear and is a pain in the ass to go to other regions because Artificer needs the karma from killed Scavengers to go anywhere. The intended route has only 2 gates that use this mechanic. Every other gate you can simply pass through. It's such a waste of a weird mechanic that does nothing but waste your time and gives you less freedom to explore the sandbox.
Out of all the campaigns, Gourmand is probably my favorite. It's not as lore heavy, adds the big tree from Survivor and Monk's intro as a playable region, and even adds slugpups, which were cut content, into the game if you finish the optional food quest.
The rest of the other campaigns are either too different from the base game's feel, has bad balancing issues, has awkward writing and confusing progression points, and makes the gameplay worse just to tell a "story". This is why you shouldn't mix modded content with official content.
It's still Rain World. It's still good content. Just with an extra coat of sparkledog OC donut steel vomit.
EDIT: Apparently there is a secret Nightcat campaign and it's a joke playthrough filled with memes. When you talk to Five Pebbles he talks about "five pebbsi" and that is somehow comedic. What the hell? Modders literally cannot resist the urge to add cringy jokes in whatever they make. Even more embarrassing since Rain World is suppose to be taken pretty seriously.
Xantha_Page
1 year ago
This is unfair and obviously untrue--if only one of several new campaigns, and a hidden one at that, has jokes and memes, it's clear that the impulse was resisted elsewhere by other people who worked on the various mods that were incorporated into Downpour. I agree it shouldn't be in an official release, though.
No comment on the rest of your criticisms as I haven't played Downpour myself, but I'm worried you may be right.