Sapper – Defuse The Bomb Simulator is a stressful but enjoyable bomb squad simulator. This game is in EA and will get more missions, atm it takes around 3h for completion and has 1 missable achievement (don’t die during the campaign).
This review is written around the start of early access (Version 1.0.2). The game has 3 areas and 19 achievements when I write this. There will be added more later during EA and so the achievement information might be out of date by that time.
Approximate amount of time to 100%: ~3h
Estimated achievement difficulty: 4/10
Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1
Is there a good guide available: No, but you don’t need a guide. I made a guide for those that struggle with the parkour achievement. You can find it here
Multiplayer achievements: No
Missable achievements: Yes, there is an achievement for completing the game without dying and if you only do what is strictly needed you might miss out on experience lvl 6th, but this is almost not missable.
Grinding Achievements: No
DLC-Only achievements: No
Time-gated achievements: No
RNG-achievements: No
Does difficulty affect achievements: No difficulty option at this time
Unobtainable/glitched achievements: No
In Sapper – Defuse The Bomb Simulator, you’re part of a bomb squad. As the steam store page list, you don’t do this job to relax, getting fame, or earn money, you are here to save lives! Most of the missions have a timed element which can feel very stressful. You will walk around and finding elements that you can open up to check if there are bombs inside or other important information. You will also have to dismantle mines, break open locks and hack into systems. The story is short at this moment but has surprised me, especially at the second location.
There were 2 small things I didn’t like in the game.. first was the timed missions, but to be true.. it is what helps to feel the pressure and works very well with the theme, so they shouldn’t change this, it just feels so stressful. (I always had time over when finishing a mission, it mostly is the feeling of stress). The second thing is the dismantling of Mines. There are 4 screws that you have to remove a little by little to not get one screw too far out. I really disliked this, also because the screws are quite long and at a specific spot you have to dismantle quite a lot of mines one after the other didn’t help either to like this mechanic.
This game is in Early Access and has some flaws but the developers are active on the forums and discord. For example, the game wasn’t playable for color-blind people and they fixed that within a few days. My own experience was that they listen to feedback and work on it. I’m curious to see how the story will continue and which quality of life improvements and the new system they will implement, but I have high hopes.
For the achievements, there are 2 achievements that don’t work together. One is to die 5 times in one save and one is never die during the campaign. I did the die 5 times in a new save file on the first mission by just waiting every time till the bomb goes off and then restart. For the not dying, if you own this game during Early Access I would play it as soon as possible because with less mission this achievement is easier. The trick I used to get this is going back to the office from time to time during a mission to save the mission progress (This is not the best idea when you’re on a timer since you will be back at the start of the location when going back) and when I died I didn’t choose any option from the menu that popped up but did Alt+F4 to quit the game and restart it.
All the other achievements are easy to get, most of them are story-related. There is an achievement for reaching experience level 6, but this is almost not missable if it is even missable. When I finished the campaign I was a little over 50% on level 6 and if I wanted I could have got a lot more experience during the third location.
An enjoyable game that will let you feel stressed, I like all these kinds of simulator games like House Flipper, Train Station Renovation, Thief simulator, Barn Finders. It is nice to see other themes than the standard themes as war and fighting enemies and stuff like that.
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This review for Sapper – Defuse The Bomb Simulator was written on 26 March 2021, based on the current Steam version of the game which has 19 achievements at the time of writing this review. This information can be outdated, for example, when the developer adds or removes achievements or releases (new) DLC.
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