This is a change of pace from my normal posts. Coming up, I would like to do review posts on games that I play. Big or small, obscure or well known, nothing is off limits.

I do want to say that my criticism for games may come off as rude due to my bluntness. If that is the case, I do apologize and I will current anything I might say as I go along should people point out that I'm being too unreasonable.

Starting off with Five Nights at Wario's Deluxe, a remake of the very first entry in the Five Nights at Wario's series. If you're not familiar with fnaw, I'll give a quick rundown.

It's a very old series of fnaw fan games that has been around since the very beginning of fnaf fan games. There is around 6 games and with each game, the series would get better and introduce some insanely unique mechanics as it went along.

Somewhat recently, the original creator, Andy, formed a team dedicated to making Deluxe ports of each and every game in the series, with the exception of FSAW.

Currently, there is only one Deluxe port out with a second one currently in development.

The one I'll be reviewing today is Deluxe 1.

Gameplay

Let's start with the gameplay, the part that I consider the most important when it comes to most games, fnaf or otherwise.

The first night is honestly not half bad. It feels very similar to base Fnaw 1, except the characters are faster and Wario and Waluigi go to separate doors instead of huddling up at the same one.

I will say, despite separating itself enough from Vanilla fnaf 1, there is an expectation, at least for me anyway, that more unique mechanics will pop up as the nights go on, and while this isn't a problem for night 1, it does begin to form into that later on.

Speaking of, night 2. Luigi is introduced this night and he is sadly stuck being a door character, and a pretty lukewarm one at that. He can go to both doors unlike Wario and Waluigi who can only go to the left and right.

This is where a couple of problems start to form. Sorry to compare fnaf 1 to this a lot, but, I do feel it's necessary. By night 2 in fnaf 1, you get Foxy, a simple character on paper but very tricky in practice. While cam stalling him is not a requirement in fnaf 1, especially on more hectic nights, it adds a lot to his character, especially when you consider the fact that he eats up your power with every door hit.

For Luigi, he is nowhere near that interesting. The problem is not even that he lacks a Foxy type mechanic, Toad already has that in Fnaw 2 anyways so he doesn't need it.

It's that he doesn't get to stand out enough and mix up the gameplay like Foxy does.

Sure, he does add something new, but nothing substantial enough to cause a lot of stress. He acts very similar to Wario and Waluigi, almost down to a T.

It's not even that he goes to two doors, it's that his journey to the doors isn't differentiated enough from the brothers. You could give him an interesting gimmick where you have to use the lights to see if he's there or not and he just doesn't show up on camera, or maybe you can make him noise based.

Something, anything to differentiate him from the others. That doesn't exist though and he ends up blending in.

I don't really except a totally unique mechanic for Luigi, that's foolish. At the same time though, I feel that there is a lot of missed potential when it comes to him and making him work off of the others.

He blends in, and that's the biggest problem.

Moving onto night 3, and things get worse. Peach is introduced and this is where my main problem with the game lies.

On this night, a new floor is introduced that you can switch to on the camera map, the Cellar. This is where Peach primarily resides. She will occasionally bump around in the Cellar and the player has to find where she is via audio cues before using the lamp to spook her off.

This mechanic on paper is not bad, it is when you factor it in with everything else.

Being unfair is not the exercise here, it's how poorly it merges together with the previous mechanics. As I mentioned before, the game up to night 2 was very simple, only door characters and the basic power management.

There is of course an expectation that a curve-ball will get thrown enough to mix things up. This isn't a curve-ball, it's a dungbell.

There is so many problems with this mechanic. Let's start with the most obvious, the separate floor thing. I think this is the biggest example of missed potential in the game.

For context, the Cellar has been a thing in FNAW lore for a while and it's established as this important thing. I do not understand why this entire new floor of the factory is cut off and reserved for Peach and Peach only.

It would've been so cool if on the night that the Cellar is opened up, a character like Wario could use it as a short cut to get to your Office and you'd have to keep a good eye on him.

It could not only mix things up but also add more complexity to the game. That's not what it is though, and that's a letdown.

The other problem is how complex she is compared to the others. The complexity of her mechanic doesn't even make it bad, I really like sound based mechanics and I can see the vision behind this.

It's how alien it is compared to everything else that brings it down for me. Up to this point, it has been simple door characters with very little making it unique.

Now we're here and it's just whiplash. It's such a complicated mechanic out of nowhere with an entire new floor and an entire new batch of cameras that you have to figure out.

Again, it's not even hard to get a grasp on it, it's just such a departure from the simplicity from before. If Peach needed a mechanic in the Cellar, I don't understand why it A. wasn't simplified and B. made to where other characters could utilize the Cellar instead of it just being the Peach show.

An example of how they could've done this better is Peach's mechanic in FSAW's The Factory Classic Mode. There, Peach camps the Bathroom and will get closer and closer. When she's close enough, the player must send her back.

This wouldn't need to be used as the exact same mechanic but it's an example of how you could've simplified and done something else that has more synergy with the others.

I know that this might be a bigger problem for some rather than others, but for me personally. I really do not like when games rely on one character to pitch up their entire game.

If Peach was not in this game, then it would collapse because of how basic it is. But if she's in the game in her current state, then the whole thing feels more disconnected as a result of how complex she is when compared to the others.

I don't even think that this ruins the game or makes it horrible, it's just kind of a letdown and you can see a lot of the missed potential from it.

Night 4 brings in Mario, not much to talk about with him. He acts very similar to how he does in the original, he'll crawl out of the camera monitor and when he pops up in your Office, you have to quickly flip up your monitor.

I like this, it's very simple but it works well, especially with how fast you need to be. He gives you only a second to react and I honestly like that, more Golden Freddy type characters need that, especially if they're a mainstay with the cast.

I don't think his mechanic really wipes away any of my complaints from earlier but it does at least give more to do without further muddling things.

Nothing really of note on night 5, just harder as expected.

This brings me to the Final Night which I have the least to say on. It's straight to the point, chaotic, and fun to play. It's a good conclusion to the game and the ambience is honestly kick ass.

Seeing the factory crumble around you as the score swells was mind blowing first time and still is now, good shit.

Alrighty, with all of that addressed, lets move onto the visuals

Visuals

I'll be blunt, I can't say I'm a fan. While the graphics are not downright bad, they aren't really that good either. The main problem is how over-lighten everything is.

The game is trying to heavily improve on the outdated editing of the first game, and while it is certainly better than the first, it also has a lot of problems. Because of everything being smothered in lighting and gradients, it almost makes the characters stand out more than it makes them blend in.

When editing your characters into scenes, especially png settings, it's not really that hard to make them fit in, especially if the rooms you have picked have heavy shadow and can mask a lot of weird spots.

I would say most of the fnaw 1 cameras do this and I think that they could've taken a different approach. Instead however, everything just feels overly bright and caked in gradients that it kinda takes away from the style.

Again, it's not even that it's horrible, it's just not the best direction to take the style in. I'm not even gonna claim that I could do better because I probably couldn't, I'm not on the same editing level as the folks who made this game.

I just think that it could've pulled a different direction, instead of smothering almost everything in light to the point where it looks like oil or vaseline.

This part isn't super important, especially since the game's looks are not it's main problem but regardless, I feel it was worth pointing out, even if a lot of it is my personal opinion on the matter.

I do want to end off with some positives though, because there are a few. A lot of the subtle visual touches like the office light shaking and the doors rumbling are really good and add a lot of weight to your actions.

In general, a lot of the subtle details of this game really help build it up, especially in sections like the Final Night, oh my god.

Phone Calls

This part is really minor, but I feel it's worth mentioning. I know that I'm probably the last gal who can be calling out meandering phone calls, especially considering how bad my script writing can be, but like.

Man, the phone calls in this are bad. It's not even that the phone guy is dragging out the length and detail of what you need to do, it's that half of the time he's rambling on and on about unrelated stuff like being a game developer or the factories history.

I will say, that last part is very important, but I feel like you could condense it in a way where it doesn't take up most of your time. You could stretch it across all of the phone calls and make it short and sweet. It's not even that you NEED to listen to the calls, aside from Peach, everything is pretty straight forward.

You don't know that though and you listen to the calls to the end, only to figure out that a lot of time was wasted. The good news is that the night doesn't start until the call is over but still, the calls are just super drawn out.

They almost feel like they don't even need to be in the game to be honest.

Storytelling

Let's end off with the thing I liked the most, the storytelling. It's very simple in this game, but it's super effective. With things like the future games in mind, this game takes a wise route and builds up things to come without spoiling too much.

Things like Richard and Lucas's relationship, why Richard is at the factory, the curse, etc. It's not a lot but that's why it works. It's enough to keep you intrigued and still wanting more.

Overall, there is a lot of potential with this and I look forward to seeing how it's all written in future games, especially with the new lore from the videos in mind.

Conclusion

Overall, while Deluxe is not an atrocious game or anything that bad, I think that it's a very poor start to this series and not a very good remake of FNAW 1.

It is absolutley better than FNAW 1 in everyway, however, I don't think making a game better than FNAW 1 is all that hard. There feels like a lot of missed potential here and while the game did undeniably improve on the first game, I feel like it could've done way more and made the gameplay a lot more intuitive.

I do have hope that the later games will be better though and I don't think this bad start is enough to crumble everything. Regardless, it is still a sloppy start and I feel like they could've done so much more in the end.

4/10 for me, I'm hoping that the future games will be better.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

This probably goes without saying, but please do not treat any of what I say as gospel. My opinion by no means is the definitive one, and I highly HIGHLY suggest you play games before giving your full and honest thoughts on them.

https://gamejolt.com/games/fnaw1deluxe/792159

Be sure to give Deluxe and any game for that matter a try and especially make sure that what you say is constructive. Even if a game is flawed or outright bad, do not tear down the creators and be sure to support them.

That's all, thanks for reading and goodnight