Goliath

Really cool concept, terrible game play.
All three times I've tried to play this game have been a clunky mess with (KMB) unintuitive controls, dropped frame rates around fires and smoke. The world resetting HP of mobs when I turn the camera (click and hold middle-mouse button)... Not to mention getting spawn camped by boss-level creatures in the second area.

I feel constantly underpowered without a way to get stronger since the mobs also scale up with my level...
TD;LR
Save your money.

I tried to get a refund years ago and they told me no.

Small game about big mechs. It's not incredible, but it ain't bad. I like mechs, so I like the game. I might not spend much more time on it, but I like it.

Game is interesting, but performance is one of the worst. Played this game when I had Radeon 290X. Everything was okay, but then this video card died and I switched to 1060. Card was constantly on high temp with bad framerate, basically uplayable, because it's very uncomfortable to have 10fps with coolers spinning like they are trying to fly off.
Well, recently I updated to 4070ti and decided to give it a try, because it was really interesting. But, what I see is exactly the same. I can play gta 5 on ultra without lags, but can't play this game on the lowest settings.
Besides that - concept is quite interesting. Will give it a try later if I will have a chance.

A dull experience. I really wanted to like this game, great concept and graphically reminds me of Warcraft 3. However, the story is long repetitive text that npcs just blab on, most of it is a waste of time. Had a few slowdown issues while playing, in which for my PC shouldn,t exist. Over all Goliath has a killer concept, but feels like an empty lifeless shell of a game.

+ the dialogues are sometimes amusing
+ no crashes
+ music & art

- everything levels with you, so you are always weak sort of (respawns will be level adjusted)
- the unlocking of parts is either super easy or super frustrating
- while you can lots of different goliaths, dont expect to find any good combinations that arent obvious
- tedious quests, the dialogues are fun sometimes, but the rest is boring
- lots different ressources for crafting tons of things you get anyway from loot or vendors, pointless
- the overwhelming feeling that the game could have been much better
- the ending

It's clear from the first moment you hit escape and are greeted with the xbox controllers silhouette that this was designed to use a controller. It is crystallized the moment you begin trying to play with a mouse and keyboard that you chose wrong.

I like the ambition of this game, build, destroy, build kept me in the monster hunter franchise for several generations after all. But, I need more polish. The controls, regardless of peripheral of choice, are not precise enough and the give and take of combat is not enjoyable. The wealth of potential add ons that stretch out before me were indeed enticing and I did, briefly, want to unlock all the "experiments" to keep my Goliath thoroughly beastly, but I also saw the slog ahead. The wearying combat, the shoehorned dialogue, and the downright tedium of collecting crashed upon me like a wave and I closed the game.

Perhaps with a bit of work the menus and inventory might be less laborious, a more streamlined methodology of sorting, building, placing, upgrading would go a long way toward removing my hesitation at progressing. Characters that don't very mysteriously know everything and throw blatant old jokes in blatant old ways might engross me enough to over look the flaws.

I think this game would benefit from overhauling the combat and maybe changing the perspective to a tighter third person or even a first person and switching the system of teleporting between "islands" or "worlds" or "crumbs" or whatever and make it a nice large open-ish world that could really show of the speed of some of the goliaths. A nice set piece for you to dominate with your ingenuity and change with your determination.

tl;dr take a chance while it's on sale, but if you want an engaging experience this isn't it.

I want to give this game a thumbs-up.

The concept is really cool and unique, the gameplay is fun and engaging. The storyline chugs along eventually but I really love getting to a new and map and forgetting all about the storyline so I can find new parts for my Goliath and get achievements.

As you can see from my hours played, I didn't just give this game one chance, but several.

The framerate is abysmal. Inexcusably so. My PC's not a monster, but it's not a potato either. And I'm not the only one with this problem. People with better setups are having horrible stutter problems -- I mean, I was dropping down to LESS than a frame a second in really bad areas. (for reference, I'm running an Nvidia GEForce 1050 Ti)

I was so upset that I tracked down a customer service email and left them a complaint. At first, I got a copy-n-paste 'sorry, use your refund' automated response. But a couple days later, I got a real response, from a producer. I was surprised, and really pleased!! I was told that they were aware, and working on it! He said I should refund my game (too late, I'd played it too much), but here's another key to use once the update comes out.

Excited for the coming update, I back-burnered this game. I gave the extra key to my gf. The key was a duplicate. It's been a month and a half and no word on optimization.

This game seemed like a good idea. It has some potential to be fun for some people I suppose. Not really a fan of how slow everything is. There are alot of balancing issues and the controls and camera are terrible.

Goliath is a crafting action rpg game that has lots of potential that hasnt been used by the dev. Despite all of its flaws, this game is still fun regardless. You are newbie pilot who are going for a test fly(drive) of your newly built plane, something goes wrong, your plane crash and you wake up on a remote strange place. Its your job to find a way to go back to Earth. You can create giant robots which called Goliath to do 90% of your things. Without the Goliath, you're going to die in less than 5 seconds against an enemy or two, cause they can kill you in 2-3 hits, some can one hit you.

Pros:
- Crafting system, is similar like crafting anywhere, but you get quite lots of things to craft, from weapons, healing items, materials, buildings and goliaths.
- Every shards (thats what the world in Goliath called) has its own biome and creatures in it, there are 4 biomes, wood/forest, swamp, desert and snow/ice.
- Goliath, your best friend and your armor. You can ride them or switch them to auto pilot, but riding them is the best option, cause the AI is not the best. If you encounter enemies while auto piloting, your goliath will got rekt pretty quick. Just ride them. There are 4 types of goliath, wood, iron, stone and crystal. Each has its own skill sets, atributes and effects. And to add complexity, each type of Goliath has its own variants (think of it as armor), example, wood goliath has coal armor, snipe armor, pirate armor, etc. And each of them has its own effects, pretty nice. You can equip melee and range weapons for each of your goliath. You can store them if you are not using them or deconstruct them to get some materials. To unlock a certain goliath variants, you have to complete the experiments associated with it on the Experiment tab.
- Factions, there are 3 factions in Goliath, Fox, Forgers and the Robots (sorry I dont remember the third one). By improving your faction points in certain faction, you can trade with them and help them solve quests. Sadly, there is nothing more than this.
- Crystals, this is one the important resources, you use this to teleport to another shards and to upgrade your equipments later in the game when you have recruited certain NPC
- As I mentioned above, you can recruit 5 NPC to work with you in the game, they have a purpose, such as a material trader and a beastmaster (to see monsters you have killed), weapon trader, heal your goliath, upgrade your equipments, bringing you random materials in a certain period of time.
- Combat is ok, each goliath can only equip weapons made from the materials associated with them, example, wood goliath can only equip wooden weapons, stone goliath with stone weapons, etc. And the main character you ask? Nah, the main character Gromov is like a pudding, soft, weak and tasty, he cant equip or even upgrade his initial revolver. Stick to your goliath.

Cons:
- Story is meh.
- Lack of enemies variation
- The worlds are pretty much copy paste
- Why I cant upgrade or equip Gromov with equip?? Its frustrating when my goliath got destroyed and I am out of warp stone in the middle of the map, and has to travel far to get back to my base, the revolver can suck bull's cock, it takes 7-9 hit to kill the chicken enemy (or dodo, i dont care). Gromov only has 1 active skill, invisibility. This is a potential you can use.
- Combat is lack of guard button, its funny that a goliath so big cant block.
- Lack of storage, I had tons of weapons on my storage which is unused because of lack of inventory slots, and I can only bring 6 weapons at a time. And I only has 3 chests to store my things, I thought I could craft more chests, oh boy I was wrong.
- Add Sprint button for the goliath. The goliath walks a little bit slowUse the crystal goliath to travel around, the crystal one can warp, before you get the crystal one, the iron one is okay.

Pick this whenever you like sale or no sale, imo, its worth the price.

Pros:
-Really, really cool overall idea
-Cool atmosphere, different environments to visit
-Nice launch screen
-Giant robots
-Interesting follow/guard mechanic for robots
-Fights can be very tense and need both skill and strategy.

Cons:
-Story starts strong but gets weird quick. Not the good type of weird, imo.
-Console port, and [really] bad key bindings (hold middle click moves camera, whaaaat?)
-Extremely limited customizability for robots, mix and match doesn't seem very compelling.
-Some monsters are much harder to fight with no clear indication of difficulty (only level is indicated)
-AI has pathing issues, and your giant robot can get stuck on tiny objects.

It has promise but feels like an early access game. I am unable to continue the main quest line because of bugs. That makes this a broken game. Combat is floaty and slightly delayed. Unlocking goliath parts feels like jumping through hoops, annoying, completly boring hoops. The crafting seems like an afterthought. Quests are all of the fetch or kill variety. Little explanation is given as to how the main character can make goliaths or how he got his swiss army arm. Please don't buy this game if you want to finish it. By the time I realized the game was broken, it was too late for a refund. If you like the premise and look of the game, wait until it is fixed and completed to buy it. I will change this review if and when that happens.

I'm really enjoying this game. Very simple easy playstyle. There is a lot of gameplay here for $20. That being said i do hope for more content in the future. I would recommend this game for sure.

If you are still on the fence about purchasing this game i do have a let's play up on my channel. Please check it out and leave me feedback :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoFXTFR3oXo

Goliath is an interesting game about being stranded away from home after a plane crash. In order to compete in the environments that are increasingly foreign and dangerous, in your search for a way home, you build automatons called Goliaths. Mechanoid constructs you ride around in and perform combat in. It features open concept mini-worlds where you can gather resources, help indigenous races, and generally do their bidding. All in the search of information that most claim to have, but are unwilling to just give away, expecially to someone with the skills to do them a favor, or two.

The game itself has some rough spots with polish. Not everything seems to be 100% hammered out, but the communication by the devs on the forums and responding & fixing bugs is superb and they are hammering though bugs rapidly. None of the issues I encountered were blockers, most were errors in dialog, statements out of order, certain experients to unlock new parts not being 100% clear, and generally just a feeling of not having the time/budget to do 100% of the bug testing. So I'm assuming they decided to do the last 10% with the cuminity. But none of these are anything I'd hold against the game, let alone use as justification to not get the game. It has a certain charm to it, and I find myself enjoying going through the content, trying to unlock new Goliath parts, laughing at some of the dialog, and generally just having fun.

If you do get the game and encounter any issues, I'd encourage you to let the dev's known on the forums so they can iron them out. I'd hate for anyone to miss out on what is an enjoying game because of poor feedback due to bugs that can be fixed.

Tl;Dr
This game is quite the disappointment. I do not recommend it to anyone in the current state. Bad controls for camera and movement (sometimes), very bad sound-design and even worse quest-design.

Overall
You are stranded on a shard of a world and have no memory of anything and start building a giant mech-suit. You want to get to your friend, that is stranded there, too, and have to overcome several barriers like getting to another shard via teleport and finding new mech-suits (Goliaths).

Graphics
The graphics are decent and look nice, they certainly create the world in a good looking way. Running into trees and seeing them bop away is a nice sight. The camera angle can certainly be annoying in smaller spaces like dungeons and canyons.

Sounds
This is where mediocrity strikes the first time: The punches of the goliath sound bad, there is no impact. The sounds are dull and never inspire the sense of you fighting a real fight. The explosions are nice, though.

Controls
The fighting and moving is solid except for some instances. You can hit light or heavy or shoot a projectile so there is nothing much to do wrong. Some special attacks are a hassle since the camera is a bit wonky in tight spots and in dungeons. The movement would be good if it weren't for the objects placed around the maps that can stop you totally. It was common to be stuck in front of a tree stump or within some giant skeleton from an animal.
The camera itself could need some improvement. Maybe always look into the direction the goliath looks, that would be a good start. And if you have problems reading the map: The map changes based on the camera. Move the camera and the map will change, too. Not a good idea.

Story
Seems to be like an interesting story but it is too drawn out. Whatever they wanted to tell, they could do it in less time and add some other story. You have lost your memory and try to find a person. Along the way you find factions you "can" (aka have to) help in order to progress. Foreseeable and uninspired. Everything is presented in textform so you better like to read text, lots and lots of uninteresting text.

Quests
Those are of poor quality again. Most of the times you run from one place to another or have to teleport several times. Every teleport requires you to load a new area. Defeat this, gather that, like a MMORPG. Several times I found myself choosing an option, that should have had a negative outcome but instead, I completed the mission and that's that. One of the final missions, to reach a certain area, is particularly bad. At that point I just wanted to see through to the end and had to run from place to place, loading area after area, because every time it was at the wrong place (as intended by the story). Than, I had to build a device but instead of showing me every bit I need, it showed me only everything from one stage: Bring the first part, see what next is needed, bring the rest. This was frustratingly bad and drawn out like they wanted to add time to the game they clearly couldn't fill otherwise. Oh and on a sidenote: I was lucky to bring enough resources, since the text for the quest stated falsely 10 bars of meteorite instead of the 30 that are needed.
BTW: Finding one quest giver in several locations is common. He is there even if the quest line is not that advanced, just standing there, waiting for you to help his twin until he is able to help you help him.

Factions
There are several factions and they seem to be at war. This is something a help text says while loading and I had time to read this one over and over again. This war is never seen. There are no incursions, no real fights, nothing. It is bland and shallow. It is advised to help the faction you like the most so they can win the war .. which is non-existent. Helping them is something like: Teleport somewhere else, do something mildly interesting and return. Most of the time you will be staring at the loading screen. You can get faction-points also by simply finding stuff and giving it to them. Easy and less annoying since you find much of it while running around anyway. And that's it about the factions. No deep system, no war, no interesting stories, no interesting factions (the smiths that don't give you any special armor or weapons, the nature-lovers who don't do anything at all and a third one. I don't want to spoiler the third).

Enemies
The enemies vary enough for my taste. There are alot of spiders running around, lizards and later on some robot animals and more. The bosses are laughably bad excluding the last one, that can kill you in seconds without you being able to hit the heal button fast enough. The worst enemy for me was the Stag. Atleast I think that's its name because I cannot see names and this makes finding the right ones to upgrade your goliaths .. annoying. The Stag can run at you and throw you back, doing lots of damage. Having two or more of them is a real threat. Most of the bosses I can stand close to, in Overdrive(damage increase) and they are dead after a short while. Your worst enemies are those that can throw you back or stun you. That's why those enemies are appearing more and more the further you progress.

Items
Since this is an ARPG there are several items for every goliath. Each goliath can use one melee weapon and one ranged weapon. Since these can break, it could be good to keep a spare with you. But since the higher tier weapons you find loose so little of their durability, it is not worth it. As always, you can find the best stuff, not buy and why you can get someone that opens up a weapon shop that late in the game is beyond me, because you don't need him nor do you need something where you can create weapons.
The ranged weapons are a joke and only worth against very small, ranged enemies but since you are a bit slow while firing, you can easily get hit.
Most of your inventory will be filled with junk or stuff you later need. The three chests you have in you basecamp are too small and everything only stacks up to 40. After several hours I had lots and lots of stacks and no use for them and it was always a hassle to sort through the inventory to see what I want to keep and what not. At the end I gave up and didn't care anymore, throwing out whatever I clicked on first.

Replayability
None. You can get new Goliaths only after doing some main plot and getting some other goliaths forms like a stone goliath made of ice, you have to do stuff and find creatures, that are far away and you have to do the plot anyway. So there is the linearity of the plot and everything unfolds around it thus making it, that there is no change whatsoever. Starting with your wood goliath, you get your stone goliath, than it's iron and lastly crystal.
Even if the terrain is random and what monster types, it is always the same way and this can work for some games, not for this.

Verdict
There are even more things to add but those can be updated away. I still hope, that they continue and improve but right now I'm only frustrated and let down. I bought it even though I knew about the bad sound-design but this game is even worse than everything I have read about it. The worst crime although is the quest-design. I can forgive too small chests or some annoying controls but that attempt at humor that totally fails and those nonsensical stories is too much.

Buy at own risk. I do not recommend it!

Rackhim

Some hints for the developer:
- Make it so that when you craft something in your base, that the things in your chests are useable.
- Increase the stack number up to maybe 100 or more.
- Let the factions have some soul, make them fight in other territories, maybe a strategic map?
- Add replayability. Let me earn a different goliath through other means, by collecting 1000 wood or something.
- Rebalance ranged weapons. In fact, take out half the weapons and create a clearer difference
- Open up slot for goliath from the start

TL;DR: Goliath is a buggy, ambitious release that is great fun, and looks to improve quickly.

The biggest strike against Goliath is that it has a lot of bugs in this first week after release. The developers have freely acknowledged the problems, respond to bug reports as they're made, and have already released some fixes / small feature requests three days after release. Folks who want a thoroughly tested game should wait a month or so to skip the teething pains.

In spite of the problems, I'm still recommending Goliath for those who are less bothered by bugs, or who appreciate responsive developers. The music, art, and character styles are well developed, making me feel like I'm in an steampunk / Old West movie with attitude as soon as I launch it. The game looks like it will be huge (especially if you're an exploring type): lots of worlds/areas each with their own loot layout, multiple special attacks for each elemental robot (and specialized subtypes of those robots, too), several NPC factions, and even a dungeon sprinkled here and there. And if you like gathering until your bags burst and crafting specialized gear, you'll find everything you need.

They're not kidding about "punching monsters in the face", either. Though really, you throw boulders, do whirlwind and charge attacks, freeze or set the monsters alight, and just cause general mayhem, leveling trees and rocks as you pass. The monsters remind me a bit of of Torchlight and early Diablo: I get swarmed by fast-moving spiders, or knocked to the ground by bulls, damaged by acid or fire breath, or chased by little creatures with shaman masks throwing darts. And my robots smash them all!

What did I like? Well-designed locations, full of resources and mobs to farm. Interesting dialogues, simple and creative, goes well with the syle of the game. Addictive gameplay, quite varied and intense, that will not get bored even in the quiet moments of the game. Giant robots, which can be put as companions in battle or max all their abilities out by the player.
The idea and the successful implementation of natural elements in the game gives some interesting complexity/advantages in battles and casual walking through locations. Such small but essential details make the game interesting and unusual.
Crafting system and the RPG elements are also simple and neither bind to anything. The lack of a typical skill-tree is justified - given the dynamics of the game, it is not necessary. The game encourages the player to do stuff and to experiment, so the skill tree is called 'Experimentations" in the game.
Of course, there are downsides. Long load screens which tend to freeze at times, ending up in the crash of the game, are upsetting, but it's not that frequent. Inventory is not very handy, where at least some kind of sorting might be useful, maybe for types of things (materials, weapons, gadgets). Combat system lacks targeting, so the player always has to face the enemy at the moment of pressing the button, thus risking Gromov's or Goliath's life at times. I won't talk about minor flaws and lags as developers, I think, know about them already and are doing their best to correct them.
The game is good, the game is cool and powerful, but requires patches and polishing to be better.

After about a couple of hours, I honestly hope I am not reaching the edge of current content, that right now everything storywise is in the game, because I want to play more! That being said, it is obvious that not everything is implemented just yet; the animation and textures could be brushed up, and the music needs a bit more Oomph! For example, I would really like the music to fit what the title screen has, this thumping, bass-heavy tune of impending poundage while in combat and maybe a jolly thumping while walking through a forest (again, just for examples). I like the design of the giants, as in my let's play I noted how much I loved the way the wooden giant actually looks like the Iron Giant (my favorite mech of all time), and the design overall. The differing moves between each goliath is cool, as well as the differing attributes (the nimble wood goliath vs. the bulky stone goliath). A better differing, at least between those two I mentioned, would be having the wood goliath be more visibly swift and fast in attacks while the stone goliath can pull large and heavier swings while being a bit slow. The dialogue is witty and gave me a few chuckles (especially the rats), and while it gives little to no choices, it does seem to poke fun at current rpgs. Really, the rpg function comes from constructing and customizing the goliaths, unlocking new parts and creating awesome weapons to decimate foes! Already, the dev is pumping out bug fixes, which hopefully means that bugs people are encountering will disappear quickly and this game will then begin to look better and better by the update. :) If you want to enjoy the ride and the changes this game will come with, I suggest buying it. If you wish to wait, then follow this game and/or put it on your wishlist, cuz this game is already looking good. :D

This game has a cool premise and looks really good on paper. however there isnt a tutorial to speak of, and the game difficulty ramps up very quickly without explaining good combat techniques or even the existence of many of the moves that you get. On top of all of this the camera can zoom in and out a small bit but locks at a maximum zoom out that is woefully too small. A single dash/roll will put all of your enemies right off the side of the screen or very close to it and you can barely see the endpoint of your roll when you start it, and this leads to the problem of dashing into something you didnt want to.

Overall cool concept and it could be a fantastic game if polished up but until some of the major issues i listed above are addressed I would strongly suggest not purchasing this game.

I'm not sure wether to like or dislike the game yet... it looks like it could be a lot of fun, but on the down side this game was obviously designed to be played with a controler. To play it with a mouse is PAINFUL, just to change the way my character is looking I either have to take my hand off the mouse to use the < > keys, or jam my middle mouse button down, and no you cannot reassign any of the controls. There is also an issue right now with framerate regardless of the quality setting that I am playing it on. (and for reference I have 16G of ram with a video card that has 2G dedicated ram)

In the forams there is a page on how to adjust key bindings through a text file. This made the game much more enjoyable!

Day 1 Review ~ 4h of gameplay

tldr;

While in need of some polish, a well concerted effort from a small, indie dev who are clearly trying to shoot for the moon.

The long review:

Where the game falls short: audio.

Mechs don't sound heavy. Not enough thunks, and booms. The rest of the audio is a bit more than atmospheric, and while not terrible, doesn't add much either.

Where the game succeeds: Core mechanic.

A fun crafting system that doesn't feel like work. A nice balance of action and exploration where mechs are a tool and not a means for unending material grind.

Combat system could use a little work in terms of creating "impact" which you hit an enemy... but this also isn't a fighting game. It plays a lot more like an isometric ARPG, which isn't a bad thing.

Finally, the dev team is EXTREMELY responsive on the forums. They are currently answering every single question and concern that pops up, which shows a lot of promise for future development. I have confidence that Whalebox will continue to shape this game into a well polished gem.

All in all, it's hard not to recommend this title, despite its flaws. It has so much ambition and heart, I can forgive its first day fuzzies. If you like the concept of this game at all, I'd say it's worth showing your support.

Not really that impressed. It feels like it could have the impact of something like like a more complex Bastion type game, but it just falls through. The graphics seem well stylized, but the music and animations are very lack luster. Many of the actions in the game don't seem to really have feel of being a big robot. Also the dialog interace is just so boring and feels tacked on. The K+M controls feel clunky with the locked camera angle. The default keybinds are also unconfigurable and feel akward. Having to spam E and then other times hold E are totally inconsistent.

The game has potential, but it feels much more like an Early Access game. I would wait until we see if the developer puts in the required polish to make this better.

I'm having a hard time deciding if I should hit the thumbs up or down. The art style and aesthetic of the game are A1 and right up my alley and the crafting system is intriguing. But It all depends on if the devs support this game. It definitely feels like this game is a work in progress. The framerate is laggy, the music cuts out abruptly with no segue and the combat feels weak. My biggest gripe is the combat, it feels like its missing sound assets that and theirs no weight behind it. IE When I smash a giant spider it feels like I'm just hitting thin air.
I think this game came out wayyyy too early and needs a whole lot of polish before it's worthy of a $15 price tag. These are all things I noticed in the first 20 minutes.
Also there is a whole bunch of games here on steam that are released as half finsished products and then abandoned by devs. I hope this gem doesn't end up being one of those.

Thanks Fatkitty for responding. If issues with the game are fixed will try it out again and change review.