The hardest part of any live service game is to make a great first impression. Players need to be hooked, and companies can’t afford to lose the momentum. It becomes more manageable overtime, though even experiences like Fortnite require a lot to keep the wheels turning. Given I actually enjoyed Foamstars I was curious what the second season would be like.
The idea of having a new season every five weeks seemed excessive, and would likely create apathy due to the demanding nature. Still, I wanted to approach it with an open mind as a lot can change, especially with so much being added. That is ultimately what happened with Destiny, and to an extent Fortnite, but will it hold true for Foamstars?
As you might’ve guessed, the main highlight of this season are the new Foamstar missions. Each of the five base cast were given three additional missions that conclude with a boss battle. Unfortunately, The Baristador, Mel T, and the newly added Coiff Guy were not given any story content.
While this update effectively doubles the campaign, adding about 40 minutes of content per character, it remains incredibly weak. Not only is it the same easy mode I described as a glorified tutorial at launch, the newly added story is much closer to Mad Libs.
Instead of expanding on the world, they center on Dark Ramzey being angry about something a Foamstar did. They vary, like Agito suggested a boring game, Jet Justice had the audacity to give him a free pizza, and you get the point. These could some charm, though they ultimately just reuse the same dialogue/concepts to justify a final boss battle.
Dark Ramzey is the first traditional boss in Foamstars, complete with three phases, but it’s such a slog of a fight. Not only does he have health gates, the fight plays out the exact same way for each character. It’s honestly a joke to no damage, outside of last stand, and that is more due to how long the fight takes than it being hard.
Unfortunately, just looking at the roadmap there doesn’t seem to be any additional Foamstar missions planned. Even if I am not overly fond of them, it’s odd to see come season six more characters won’t have single player content than those that do.
In addition to new Foamstar missions, this season adds “over 20 new skins.” This sounds a lot nicer than it actually is. First and foremost, the vast majority of these are paid additions. It goes without saying this was expected, though the approach to micro transactions remain rather poor.
Unique Look
Instead of giving each character a radically different design, Foamstars opted for palette swaps. I’m admittedly being somewhat facetious about this, but it can easily be seen with The Baristador. His Mr. Vegas costume, which looks like and suggests he is the silhouetted man at the end of each story, is red with pinstripes. This season’s limited version is white with black pinstripes. And those who splurged last season get the same costume, just with gold flourishes. Each costume should be different like his vampire skin, especially since I doubt many people will be rushing out to get the same costume next season in, what, blue?
How Paid Costumes Should Be
Another odd choice is Foamstars‘ approach to promotions. When I loaded the game I was told to go to the site for patch notes, and if you scour through them you might notice there is a free weekly item. The “official news” section on PlayStation also mentions this, though it requires clicking on the news. The official press release, and “everything to know” posts lacked it though. A simple pop up saying “check the store for free weekly items” would go so much further, as I almost missed it myself.
Informative?
The only reason why I happened to find out about it was due to the update breaking the season pass characters. Initially, all players were given access to Coiff Guy, and I believe the same applied to Mel T as well. This was corrected, though in doing so I lost access to Mel T because it created a second glitch where those who unlocked her no longer had access. Since then an emergency update went out that corrected the issue.
Finally, I was able to attend the latest Happy Friyay Party, and see the next Foamstar will be Chloe Noir. She has a bat aesthetic, uses an umbrella with a charged attack, with a strong emphasis on aerial combat. She looks to be a potential great addition, though we will have to see how well she is balanced.
In the end, I don’t think Foamstars second season makes a compelling reason to return, or for that matter stick around. Coiff Guy is fun, though far from a game changing character. Outside of him, everything else feels rather lazy. It isn’t a good look when most of the new content, some of which is paid, feels like cut/paste. I want to say this might change with season three, but given it’s said to include even less it really comes down to how much of a difference Chloe Noir brings to the game. That might be enough, it just depends how many people stick around long enough to buy/unlock her.
