FINAL REVIEW: Version 1.0

After finishing the official 1.0 release, I can definitely tell the developers invested a lot of time, money and effort into completing the game after leaving Early Access on a cliffhanger with a mountain of technical problems.

And credit where it's due:
Almost every technical issue from my previous reviews has been fixed.

Performance is significantly better. I'm now staying above 60 FPS most of the time compared to the horrible drops I experienced before. There are still some blurry textures here and there, but overall optimization is night and day compared to Early Access.

The developers also dropped 21:9 support and stuck with 16:9, which is disappointing for an ultrawide user like me, but at least I no longer have the broken UI and zooming problems I complained about before.

So technically?
Massive improvement.

Unfortunately, my biggest problem with 1.0 is no longer the bugs.
It's the second half of the game itself.

Everything before Địa Ngục Tai Ương is what I wanted from this game.

Exploring Phong Xích Lan, finding documents, investigating Huy's family, slowly discovering what happened to Huyên, and piecing together the family's past actually works as psychological horror.

The environment tells the story.
The puzzles help you uncover it.
The horror feels connected to Huy and his family.
I genuinely love this part.

Then 1.0 sends you through Địa Ngục Tai Ương and suddenly I feel like I've entered a Vietnamese horror minigame compilation.


The new content throws minigame after minigame at you, often with unclear instructions and very little indication of what you're supposed to do next.

Some ideas are visually creative, but I constantly found myself asking:
"Why am I doing this?"

The ceiling-crawling Lợi Danh monster is genuinely creepy and probably one of my favorite new sequences.

Except whenever I leave the lu, my lamp sometimes decides to turn itself on.

Monster sees light. Monster kills me.
I didn't turn on the lamp. Fantastic.
Apparently the true Tai Ương was automatic lighting all along.

There's the shooting minigame where you shoot the tongue. I finished the objective and just stood there wondering whether I had actually succeeded because the game barely communicates what happens next.

The sewing machine sequence has the same problem. I'm opening things and finding keys because the game requires it, not because the narrative has naturally given me a reason to understand why I'm doing it.

Then there is...The Snake minigame.

One minute I'm walking through a dark psychological horror story about family trauma, superstition and abuse.

The next minute I'm playing a bright, colorful minigame involving Huyên's hair.

Did I accidentally Alt+Tab into another game?

I understand that these sections represent memories, punishment, childhood experiences and the characters' trauma. There are interesting ideas underneath them.

But symbolism doesn't automatically make something fun to play.

The crocodile section is another perfect example.
Interesting concept.
Cool presentation.

But again:
Why am I playing this?


The first half had a relatively focused mystery.

Huy.
Huyên.
Their parents.
The apartment.
Their deaths.
The family's horrible past.

That was enough.

The deeper 1.0 goes into Lợi Danh, Đại Cường, cô Phương, Tai Ương, the rituals and the history behind everything, the more complicated the lore becomes while somehow making me less emotionally invested.

Eventually it barely feels like Huy's story anymore.

The second half also becomes strangely passive. Sometimes it feels less like playing a horror game and more like controlling Huy through a PowerPoint presentation.

Walk from A to B.
Nothing happens.
Walk back.
Find the thing the game wanted.
Trigger another sequence.
Play another minigame.

Repeat.

The game starts with a simple family tragedy that made me want to uncover every clue.

It ends with so many ideas thrown into the same pot that I stopped caring about finding the next one.

It feels like several half-finished gameplay concepts were combined because the developers needed to finally complete the narrative.

And knowing this story is expanding beyond the game makes the second half feel even more like the game is trying to establish a larger universe instead of simply finishing Huy's story properly.


I want to emphasize something because I've been criticizing this game since Early Access:

The developers absolutely improved it.

My old technical complaints weren't ignored.
Crashes? Fixed for me.
Four-minute startup? Fixed.
Terrible FPS drops? Massively improved.
Movement? Improved.
Subtitle problems? Improved.
Broken 21:9 UI? Avoided by removing 21:9 support entirely.

The difference between the version I originally reviewed and 1.0 is enormous, and I respect the developers for actually finishing what they started.

But fixing the technical problems exposed a bigger problem.

I liked the unfinished first half more than the finished second half tbh..

The atmosphere, Vietnamese setting, environmental design, sound and early mystery show exactly why I had such high expectations for Tai Ương.

Version 1.0 technically improved almost everything.

Narratively and mechanically, however, the new content lowered my opinion of the complete game.


Started strong. Finished weak.
A game I really wanted to love.