SULFUR: difficulty appears 2.4 times as often in Japanese-language reviews
Difficulty appears 2.4 times as often in Japanese-language reviews of SULFUR. The counted sample covers 414 Japanese-language reviews from 2024-10-28 to 2026-11-02.
Own research by 648 News. Every figure in this article was counted by us from 414 Steam reviews written in Japanese, collected between 2024-10-28 and 2026-11-02.
Collected count matches Steam's whole-history total
414 Japanese-language reviews were collected for SULFUR. Of these, 366 recommend the game and 48 do not. The share of collected reviews recommending it is 88.4%, with a 95% confidence interval from 85.0% to 91.1%. All 414 collected reviews were sorted into topics, and 368 were sorted by the model. The mean sentiment score is 70.9. The collected reviews were written between 2024-10-28 and 2026-11-02. The sample was collected on 2026-11-05. Steam's own whole-history figure, read on 2026-11-05, also lists 414 reviews, 366 positive, 48 negative, and 88.4%. Its score description is Very Positive. The collected and Steam totals match.
The numbers
Difficulty, content and combat stand out
Against 166 other followed games, SULFUR's Japanese-language reviews raise difficulty and balance more than usual. They appear in 22.2% of classified reviews, compared with a typical 9.3%, a ratio of 2.4 and a gap of 12.9 percentage points. Amount of content, length and replayability appear in 40.8%, compared with 24.4%, a ratio of 1.7 and a gap of 16.4 percentage points. Gameplay, combat and core mechanics appear in 79.2%, compared with 51.8%, a ratio of 1.5 and a gap of 27.4 percentage points. No topic falls below usual. These topics also lead the classified counts. In reviews that recommend the game, gameplay appears in 79.8%, content in 41.3%, and difficulty in 20.8%. Reviewers praise weapon customization, build synergy, and cooking recipes, while noting that death can remove carried gear. Some say the game feels hard but manageable. One recommends it for players who accept that risk.
難易度はやや高めで歯ごたえのあるゲームで
The difficulty is somewhat high and the game has bite.
Performance splits reviewers
Performance, optimization, bugs and crashes split reviewers. In reviews that recommend SULFUR, it appears in 14.8%. In reviews that do not recommend it, it appears in 37.5%. The gap is 22.7 percentage points. Reviewers who do not recommend it raise performance far more than reviewers who recommend it. Complaints above usual include difficulty and balance, which appears in 33.3% of negative reviews against a typical 15.6%, a ratio of 2.1 and a gap of 17.7 percentage points. Amount of content, length and replayability appears in 37.5% of negative reviews against a typical 21.9%, a ratio of 1.7 and a gap of 15.6 percentage points. In recommending reviews, difficulty appears in 20.8%, while content appears in 41.3%. Negative reviews mention long sessions, save problems, and bugs that affect shooting.
1セッションが結構長いので人によっては疲れるかも。
A session is quite long, so some people may find it tiring.
弾当たらなくなるバグが酷いんで
A bug where bullets stop hitting is terrible.
Longer play time aligns with more recommendations
The sample's median play time is 32.5 hours. The least-played quarter, up to 14.1 hours, has 103 reviews and 79.6% recommend the game. Its top topics are gameplay at 71.8%, amount of content at 23.3%, and performance at 20.4%. The most-played quarter, from 68.0 hours, also has 103 reviews and 89.3% recommend the game. Its top topics are gameplay at 82.5%, amount of content at 55.3%, and difficulty at 26.2%. The difference in recommendation share is 9.7 percentage points, with p = 0.054. The quarter boundaries are 14.1 hours and 68.0 hours. The median lies between them. Each group is counted from the same sample.
Methodology and sources
Data
Steam user reviews, retrieved with Steam's public review listing between 2024-10-28 and 2026-11-02: 414 written in Japanese. Steam's own all-time totals for SULFUR were read on 2026-11-05.
How the reviews were classified
Every review was read by a language model, which rated how positive it is, how much concrete detail it gives, and which of 15 fixed topics it talks about. The counts and percentages in this article were then computed from those labels in ordinary code, not by the model. Automatic classification makes mistakes, so single percentages should be read as approximate. Reviews of fewer than 15 characters were not sent to the model; they count as positive or negative from the reviewer's own recommendation and carry no topic.
Limits
People who write a Steam review in Japanese are not a representative sample of everyone who plays in Japan, and the language of a review does not establish where its author lives. Steam's default filter for off-topic review activity was left on, so periods Steam marked as review bombing are excluded from the counts in this article. Reviews that arrived after the retrieval date are not included.
Links
Data from Steam. Steam and the Steam logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Valve Corporation.