Breakwaters – Spotlight

A new take on the survival-crafting genre, Breakwaters, has been developed. By exploring ruins and battling giant bosses on islands, the game challenges you to uncover the mysteries of the world. At some point in the game, players will face off against a variety of titans in an exhilarating boss battle.

Before these battles, however, players must first locate relics and bases. Players will also have to hunt and gather resources, as well as take on smaller monsters, in order to progress through the game.

Breakwaters’ gameplay is made more interesting by these gameplay loops, on the whole. However, the experience is still in its infancy and is hampered by a few flaws that detract from the overall enjoyment.

Breakwater’s bosses come in three distinct varieties. There are two primary types of early-game enemies: a giant turtle and a swarm of fliers.

The Serpent and Crab variants will be encountered as the player progresses. While the Serpent prefers to hide in stormy areas and attack with whirlpools, the Crab prefers to roam around nearby bases attacking other players. While both have special attacks and roam around specific areas, the more common Turtle boss will be the one you’ll encounter most often.

The player should have faced more danger in the game’s early stages. With the threat of death as a motivating factor, the team would be compelled to quickly locate and destroy all of the titans. Bosses are stunning to look at, and they provide excellent goals for the game as a whole.

I love Breakwaters because of the simple crafting system that doesn’t require a lot of work for new players. Everything you could possibly need to build a base on one of the many islands in the game can be found in this location.

Breakwaters also has a number of systems that feel unique to the genre. With a summoned ferry for example, players can visit islands in the game. With this system, players can travel to different islands without a boat in the early stages of the game.

A ferry merchant can also be used to buy valuable resources by the players. A merchant can be summoned at any time, as long as the player has enough resources.

Additionally, a ruin puzzle game requires players to make crystal bottles in order to either transport or store water. To progress in the game, players will need to use both types of crystal bottles. They will eventually be able to face off against bosses after exploring ruins for a long time. As a result, the puzzle system is fun to play with, but it can also be frustrating at times.

There can be ambiguity in the description of how to solve the puzzle if the game’s hint provided is too vague. As a result, some puzzles in the game may be impossible for players to solve.

When you need to make a blue crystal bottle, you’ll have to use blue crystal shards that spawn far too infrequently when you chop or mine from trees or nodes. Farming for blue crystal shards becomes tedious due to the low spawn rate, which makes solving the puzzle feel like a chore.

Other than the time-consuming task of gathering resources to solve ambiguous puzzles, the resources in-game have different names from their inventory counterparts. On the ground, for example, yellow crystals are known as sea crystals. Some players may not be able to connect the two different names because of this inconsistency. There are a few items where this is the case, but for the most part there are correct names for all of the items in the game.

Other creatures appear out of nowhere, such as hordes of spiders that spring up after a large monster attacks the player. For a game about islands and sailing, spiders were an odd choice, but in the long run, they don’t really detract from the experience.

That being said, the lack of variety in the NPCs is a drawback, as they look too much like player models and thus give the game an early access, dated feel. While the majority of the game appears stunning on its own, the quality of the NPC models stands out as a stark contrast.

Aside from the visuals, the combat system also has a dated vibe to it due to the inconsistency in how the player swings and stops their weapon animation. In a nutshell, it looks and feels clunky, which makes combat feel like a spammy left-clickfest.

The mouse cursor wouldn’t show up on the main menu, preventing us from loading our game, which is a common problem. For some reason, we were plagued by the bug nearly every time we started the game.