Welcome to Farsiders, a game that was funded on Kickstarter in 24 hours and developed by Thai developer Gambit Ghost Studio. It’s got great art, pleasant music and slick marketing including a snazzy website. Despite all that work they failed to actually finish the game and the whole shewtin match should still be in Beta test. Anyway Farsiders is a traditional hack and slash affair where your character wins a spot in an elite fighting unit on a TV game-show before traveling in time to a mystical realm of magic. Yes, you read that correctly. No, I didn’t just have a stroke, thanks for asking. Just sit down, pass the Jameson, and let's talk about Farsiders.

Developer: Gambit Ghost Studio

Publisher: Gambit Ghost Studio

Platform: Windows Steam(reviewed)

Release date: July 19th 2023

Price: $14.99

Your POV character is Cassandra aka Cassie, who has just become the newest member of an elite fighting unit called The Spectralons. Which sounds like a social disease but is in real life actually a special coating used in laboratory equipment .

She earned membership in this elite group because she was a winner on a TV show called “The Search.” Because that is exactly how we all picture recruiting for Special Ops. Some Barker-esque game-show host calling “Cassandra! Come on down… you’re the next member of the SEAL Team Six!”

Predictably you immediately set off for Spectralon headquarters, and are set upon en-route by a bunch of goons, who you just beat to death in the street, surrounded by police who don’t seem to care. Sounds kind of Like Portland, but I digress. So anyway, Cassie is wearing a locket which she won’t shut up about. This becomes relevant during her first mission where she’s sent back in time to a land called Tellune that is supposedly based on Arthurian legend, but it seems more like the author heard it described by someone in a bar a never read a single line of Tennyson themselves.

I get the developers aren’t native English speakers, but the localization is so bad I feel like they just used Google Translate. The text is full of errors, mixed tenses, terrible, half understood cliches, and the dialogue is as cringeworthy as a sociology lecture. Why didn’t they hire an editor? Why is there a demonic voice dropping F-bombs during the opening cut scene? Why is there a Babu Frik reference from Star Wars. Why did Erik drink the last of the Jamison? See! it’s exactly like Sociology class.

The combat is also a soup sandwich, with a needlessly complicated card system granting the ability to apply mods to Cassie’s sword and pistol. Sword and pistol? What are we defending the British Empire? There are some decent abilities, though, such as ricochet bullets and a few useful attacks. But the movement is slow and cumbersome, and Cassie’s lone combo move gets old quick. Ranged enemies have a superhuman ability to hit you, while melee enemies will always, without fail, just run directly at you. There’s a parry that’s too easy, and a dodge that works too well. There is a bit of variety as a smattering of bosses bar Cassie’s path. These aren’t bad but no great shakes either. They telegraph every attack with red lines on the floor, and apart from tanking impressive levels of damage are pretty simple to deal with.

It’s clear that the developer had a vision when making Farsiders, but just couldn’t quite make it happen. There is a good game in there, but it's going to take a hound dog, night vision goggles and a lensatic compass to find it in the wreckage. The graphics are fine but the controls are marginal; the combat is unfinished, the level design is inexpert and the localization is so bad I can’t even really parody it. Bottom line, this has some potential but needs a significant rework to realize its potential.

The Good:

Decent concept
Good art and music
Reasonable Price

The Bad:

Unfinished combat system
Inadequate localization
Implausible story

Farsiders Review (PC)