Amleida

The game, itself, is a lot of fun and provides tons of content in it's main story, as well as a great amount of side content that's largely well written, and avoids most of the fetch quest traps that a lot of open world RPGs seem incapable of escaping. The combat seems quite clunky at first, and you start off quite weak compared to your enemies, but it opens up more as you collect better equipment and get a better feel for what's on offer in this regard. If there's anything that drags this game down, it's the relatively poor optimization for it's console versions. Although, none of it has bothered me too much, I have run into a few bugs related to tooltips/info not showing up when I'm stashing or withdrawing items, and a quest that I wasn't able to hand in because I needed to deliver the head **** that I accidentally blew up on top of a bridge. I've also experienced occasional stuttering and screen tears, and across my almost 40 hours of game play now, the game has crashed 7 times. The visual issues haven't bothered me too much, and the frequent auto-saving made it so that crashing was never a big issue, but it does make the game seem quite unpolished. And that is a damn shame, considering the quality of this game. When Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon shines, it looks as good as any game of it's type. Unfortunately, it does have quite a few technical issues in it's console versions, and I imagine a lot of people aren't going to be so forgiving about those issues as I have been.

As far as rogue lites go, Warriors Abyss is a high-tier game that's thoroughly entertaining and provides a lot of replay value at a price cut. The game becomes even more enjoyable for people who are already familiar with the characters of the Dynasty Warriors series. However, I can't help but think that the game could have been significantly better with more, overall content and perhaps, the price and quality of a full-price game. People who are already fans of the rogue lite genre will enjoy this game, and yet even for those people, it's hard to ignore the lack of proper tutorials for the game's many features. The story is non-existent. A character needs help defeating someone. That's the story in a nutshell. This game is all about gameplay, and that's not everyone's cup of tea. It can be perceived as quite repetitive for people who aren't familiar with this genre of games, but what's there is very polished and very promising for a potential, future series. For me, Warriors Abyss was a positive surprise that has provided great bang for buck, but I wish it was a full-fledged franchise, and not a spin-off that seems to be testing the waters rather than carving it's name to the top of it's genre.

If I go out of my way to convince myself that there are no lectures about gender/identity politics, or any real life politics at all in this game, what's left is a very, very well crafted game. I'll avoid the negativity tied to the Qunari character and what little else there is of subtle references to progressive politics in this game. I don't appreciate it very much, but it's been incredibly overblown by online content creators and people discussing this game in online discussion boards. I do understand that this game alienates fans of Dragon Age: Origins, as there are hardly any traces left of that game, but as a standalone, action RPG, Veilguard puts the majority of the games in this genre to shame. I imagine a lot more people would recognize that if they actually played the game, rather than listen to hyperbolic discussions and misleading references to isolated scenes in the game. As for the positives, I personally enjoy the soundtrack in Veilguard. It may not be outright exceptional, but it's very atmospheric and provided a fitting theme for every scene and area in the game without feeling repetitive. I particularly enjoyed a few of the songs, but I can't remember which context they were played in, as I was distracted by other things. The level design is honestly amazing. I did a completionist run, doing every single optional quest, and exploring just about every single nook and cranny of the game's world, and it really is astounding how much thought was put into designing a world that seamlessly combines layers of traversal with intelligent design that eliminates a lot of frustration of having to backtrack. I haven't seen this being mentioned much, but I caught myself being baffled by how well put together some of the areas are. The optional content, as a whole is probably the best I've seen in an RPG game since The Witcher 3. Mind you, they are not quite as exceptional as that of The Witcher 3, but I can't think of any other game that comes this close to matching that quality of storytelling. Not all of the side quests are great, but the ones that are, are arguably better than the main story of the game. We absolutely need more of this, and less of the fetch quests that plagued DA: Inquisition and other RPGs. The combat system may not be everyone's cup of tea, and even playing on Nightmare mode, I cruised through most of the game (with the exception of some frustratingly spongy bosses) without much trouble. I did enjoy the combat for what it is, though. I wish it had been just a tad bit more fleshed out, but it is fun enough that I'm considering doing a second play-through with a different class. Building towards specific play styles by equipping your main character and companions with equipment that heavily affects how you want to play, is a really neat feature. All in all, I can't help but feel like DA: Veilguard was sabotaged by a lot of overblown references to the Qunari character that's introduced very late into the game. As much as I understand not wanting to support the increasing emphasis on progressive politics and DEI in games, it's not very substantial in Veilguard, and the game has enough objective quality otherwise, that it really is a shame for it to be written off as nothing but "woke nonsense". If the game had actually been bad, I'd be completely on board with that sentiment, but the total sum of all it's parts is good enough to warrant a lot more praise than this game has been getting. Considering all of the negativity and references to "woke" that I read about Veilguard before playing it, I can't help but feel that a lot of people decided to boycott it with dishonest reviews.

While there are some smaller QOL issues in the game that slightly frustrated me from time to time, the overall package is a pretty fun experience that will definitely be appreciated by players who are already into this type of game. Despite it's various game modes both online and offline, It is a notably repetitive game and grinding for upgrades and better gear is part of that experience, but that shouldn't come as a surprise to players who are already familiar with the series. If I had to compare SAO: Fractured Daydream to a similar game, it would be Granblue Fantasy: Relink. It's not quite as polished (a few QOL issues), but the gameplay loop is quite similar. There are 22 characters to choose from that belong to the classes of Fighter, Tank, Rogue, Ranger, Mage and Support. They all offer different approaches to battle, and their differences can be further amplified through equipping high end gear that accentuate their respective strenghts. There are cosmetic mictrotransactions in this game, and I imagine some people will have an issue with that. I don't personally mind them. Even the premium cosmetic items can be farmed for without having to spend any money, and it's definitely up for debate if it's even worth it to farm for those, let alone pay for them. There are a ton of free cosmetics that can be looted in solo/story mode, or has a set chance of dropping in the online modes, and some of them arguably look better than the premium ones. Overall, it's a fun game that's "not quite exceptional" in any way, but fans of the series will nonetheless likely appreciate the quality of what's there, and people who enjoy this type of game will definitely have a lot of fun with it. It should be mentioned that this game has more of a "live service" based approach than other games in the series, which may not be everyone's cup of tea. Edit: The amount of bots (AI team mates) in online mode been another frustrating addition to my experience with this game. It might not be a big deal for everyone, but after several games of being teamed up with bots in game modes that more or less challenge you to speed run to the boss, it's been demoralizing to continuously have to rely on unpredictable and largely unproductive bots to get you there fast enough to be able to compete with teams that consist of actual players.

While there are some smaller QOL issues in the game that slightly frustrated me from time to time, the overall package is a pretty fun experience that will definitely be appreciated by players who are already into this type of game. Despite it's various game modes both online and offline, It is a notably repetitive game and grinding for upgrades and better gear is part of that experience, but that shouldn't come as a surprise to players who are already familiar with the series. If I had to compare SAO: Fractured Daydream to a similar game, it would be Granblue Fantasy: Relink. It's not quite as polished (a few QOL issues), but the gameplay loop is quite similar. There are 22 characters to choose from that belong to the classes of Fighter, Tank, Rogue, Ranger, Mage and Support. They all offer different approaches to battle, and their differences can be further amplified through equipping high end gear that accentuate their respective strenghts. There are cosmetic mictrotransactions in this game, and I imagine some people will have an issue with that. I don't personally mind them. Even the premium cosmetic items can be farmed for without having to spend any money, and it's definitely up for debate if it's even worth it to farm for those, let alone pay for them. There are a ton of free cosmetics that can be looted in solo/story mode, or has a set chance of dropping in the online modes, and some of them arguably look better than the premium ones. Overall, it's a fun game that's "not quite exceptional" in any way, but fans of the series will nonetheless likely appreciate the quality of what's there, and people who enjoy this type of game will definitely have a lot of fun with it. It should be mentioned that this game has more of a "live service" based approach than other games in the series, which may not be everyone's cup of tea. Edit: The amount of bots (AI team mates) in online mode been another frustrating addition to my experience with this game. It might not be a big deal for everyone, but after several games of being teamed up with bots in game modes that more or less challenge you to speed run to the boss, it's been demoralizing to continuously have to rely on unpredictable and largely unproductive bots to get you there fast enough to be able to compete with teams that consist of actual players.

I picked up Remnant 2 when it was free on PS+. I came in with no expectations at all, and during the first hour or so of gameplay, my impression was that it was a decent looter shooter. But I was wrong. At the time of writing this, I'm approaching 300 hours of gameplay, which is the most time I've sunk into a game since I was a teenager, over a decade ago. Not only is there an incredible amount of replayability in Remnant 2 and it's DLCs, due to the way the game is designed, but the more you play the game, the more it becomes abundantly evident that the developers really poured their heart and soul into creating a game that stands out from other games with it's brilliant approach to game design that often baffled me with the amount of creativity put into even the most trivial of features. I warmly recommend Remnant 2 to players who are into non- PvP shooters. If this game appeals to you at all, you'll get a lot of bang for buck, and there are so many things that this game gets right, that most modern games get wrong. Remnant 2 has revitalized my hope in the game industry, as a whole. It's not a perfect game, but the sum of all of it's parts is an exceptional game as far as shooters go.

Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t think the length of this DLC was much of an issue. Eltariel is a bit limited in her customization options, and a lot of what she offers has already been seen in Talion, including her kill animations. That said, I had a decent time playing Blade of Galadriel. It’s bot exceptional by any means, but it’s decent enough. I do enjoy Eltariel’s unique abilities, but they are few, and she often faces enemies that are immune to her light type abilities - which reminds you that Talion has more to offer in any given situation and seems like a bit of a weird design choice to me. Speaking of design, in order to get the new legendary rank equipment in this expansion, you have to beat various enemies in what often boils down to a rock/paper/scissors situation where the elemental damage granted by your gear is the key to beating them. This system might appeal to some people, but I didn’t enjoy having to cheese some of the enemies that were resistant to almost everything I threw at them. Even with the right gear, the way those few enemies are designed to be beaten seemed to drag out the battles in a way that didn’t make much sense to me. All in all, those who like the base game will likely enjoy Blade of Galadriel as well, but they kept things very close to what the base game offers and didn’t seem to put in a ton of effort to make the experience feel unique or notably worthwhile. Like other critics, I also don’t appreciate race/gender/diversity politics that aren’t handled in an organic fashion that makes sense to the plot and lore of the game. I wasn’t particularly bothered by it in this game, but it’s a trend that, more often than not, does the developers no favors in winning over potential consumers. It can be very immersion-breaking, and it risks disrespecting the players who truly care about the integrity of the lore.

It's not a game for everyone, but that should've been largely obvious for people who know what the first game was all about. I never played Dragon's Dogma 1, but I read enough about it to have a certain degree of awareness about what I was about to jump into. The game isn't without it's flaws. The side quests are largely mediocre, the scenery looks spectacular at times, but the graphics as a whole is largely mediocre, some would even say dated by modern standards, and I can nitpick on a lot more that would benefit from an update. It's also worth mentioning that traversal is quite inconvenient and occasionally tedious for most of the game, and there's very little offered to the player in terms of directions. Those two things are an intentional part of the game's design, which again, you'd be aware of if you were familiar with the first game - yet, I imagine people who jump into this title without any prior knowledge will have issues with it. It is clearly designed for a niche audience, despite being a triple A title. As for the microtransactions, I have absolutely no issues with them, personally. None of them are necessary. You can give yourself a temporary advantage by purchasing enough of a specific currency to acquire slightly higher level pawns early on, but unless you actually want to support the game, I see no point in doing that. Higher level pawns don't even guarantee greater strength than the lower level ones, and you can acquire the same currency in good amounts by simply playing the game at your own pace. You even acquire them by having other people use your pawn when you're not playing the game. Complaining about it seems quite hysterical to me, considering the trivial impact of the things that are on offer. But the game does provide some positives, as well. It's quite a large, open world that offers a story that's more fleshed out through selected side quests. Not all of the side quests are bad. There are 8 classes (vocations) to choose from, and although some are quite a lot stronger than others, they each offer some variety, and some of the gameplay mechanics are quite unique to this game. Despite the issues I have with Dragon's Dogma 2, I quite enjoyed the experience overall. There are enough well executed ideas in it, that I settled on a relatively high rating. I realize that I may be in a relative minority in appreciating the rather grindy appeal of the game, and there are quite a few minor things in this game that frustrated me or seemed lacking, but I like a lot of the ideas that's offered, and I mostly had fun during all of those hours that I sunk into it. If there's ever a third iteration, I hope they work on some quality of life updates and make the side quests more enjoyable. I got used to the lack of direction and predictability in this game, but I don't think I'll ever enjoy side quests that makes you travel between different points for the sake of it, and they're even more tedious when traversal is as intentionally limited as it is in Dragon's Dogma 2. I don't see any reason why there shouldn't be a mount or faster travel option later in the game, when you just want to explore the areas of the relatively large world that you've ignored for the sake of advancing the story.

I would rate this game somewhere between 8 and 9. It's a very, very solid game that's well polished in most areas. I did stumble upon a few minor issues and a single crash in my play-through of the game, but none of it was particularly bothersome. I can understand the ratings that are even higher than mine to some extent; you can see the love and attention that was devoted to the game by it's developers, very clearly in parts of the game's main and side quests, and I was occasionally a bit taken aback by how well executed some of these quests were. The soundtrack fits the game very well, and it changes dynamically based on the character, environment and atmosphere that the game wants to portray at any given moment. The combat is smooth and slick, and while I don't think it's a perfect combat system, I do think it trumps most games in this department - which is definitely a good thing, considering how integral it is to the overall experience of the game. This has already been mentioned by many other reviews, and I'll mention it again; the game does improve on most aspects that were present in the first game, but it also retains some of the weaknesses from it. I already mentioned that it's a good combat system, yet it does eventually get repetitive. Swinging around the city is good fun, as always, but if I were to revisit this game in the future, I'd ideally want to switch up the combat styles and I think the amount of different combat maneuvers in the game is only just restrictive enough to make it feel like you're doing the exact same things over and over again to the point where it eventually becomes very noticeable. A little bit more substance in this area would make the already very solid fighting, interesting enough to give you that carrot on a stick of wanting to try new things out towards the end of the game, as compared to repeating the same moves and gradually losing interest in it. The story is really well written, in my opinion, but as a European, I thought some of the dialogue scenes were really cliché and Hollywood-esque in a way that I'm not personally a fan of. I do know that the original Spiderman story was built on clichés to some extent, but I've just about had it with this "love and friendship conquers all" moral lessons in entertainment. It was played out during the 90s, and it hasn't become any more charming over time. But that doesn't take away from what is otherwise a really well written and executed storyline with genuinely well designed set pieces and a generally high standard of story-telling. It's one of the best games of the year, in my book, but I personally think it would take a little bit more substance added to the game, in order to describe it as a nailed down Game of the Year winner, like some are suggesting. It's a strong sequel to an already highly acclaimed game, and I feel like Insomniac could've reached a new level of accomplishment with this game if they had added just a little bit more substance to the gameplay loop. It's just my personal opinion, but I completed the game thinking that this experience came a little bit short of being so much better than it was. And that may sound harsh to some, but that's why I'm giving it a 8/10 instead of a 9-10/10.

First of all, I imagine fans of One Piece will enjoy this game, regardless of it's shortcomings. I enjoyed playing through the game with a completionist run, but I also couldn't help but notice it's many, smaller issues since I did absolutely everything there is to do in the game. One Piece Odyssey is a long game. I finished my completionist run in about 70 hours, with all optional content done, excluding the post-game content with higher difficulty bosses from the One Piece universe. The game looks great. I imagine some people might have an issue with the art style they went for, but I personally think it looks very good. The developers have paid great attention to detail, and the world looks gorgeous at times. The world building is also top notch. One of the negative reviews criticized the soundtrack for not being very good. And that's a fair opinion, but the soundtrack was composed by the guy behind the Dark Souls soundtrack, as well as the "Tales of.." series, to mention a few. If you don't enjoy the music in this game, then you have pretty high standards :P Probably my biggest issue with One Piece Odyssey is it's traversal. The traversal options in the game aren't bad at all, they're actually pretty decent. There are no mounts or anything, but there's the standard, fast travel option, and there's Luffy's iconic, arm swinging that's used a lot at certain points in the game, and there's a second fast travel alternative that I hardly ever used because it's hardly ever available. But I do have an issue with traversal, or rather, the side content in this game - which is primarily based around the age old, fetch quest design. Some of them aren't bad, but a lot of them are, in my opinion. The game in itself can start to feel quite repetitive after a while, likely due to the length of the game, and if you're a completionist like me, you'll really feel that repetitiveness in many of the fetch quests that require you to move from point A to point B, and then point C before heading back to A and then to D. You get the point. I didn't enjoy some of those side missions at all. They felt like a chore, and most of them aren't worth it. There are quite a few smaller issues in the game that bothered me quite a lot at different times, but they might not be as much of an issue to everyone else. Quite frequently in the game, during story missions and side activities, the game locks you into a corridor of sorts. If you attempt to stray from the beaten path, the game will stop and inform you that you need to turn around before pausing to load the map and turning you around 180 degrees. I didn't mind it at first, but it got pretty annoying after a while, and I don't see any point in it being there when it's not preventing you from accessing areas that you're not supposed to access. There's no sensitivity settings for the controller/camera, so be prepared for that. I felt like a snail at first, but I eventually got used to the camera being quite slow. This likely won't feel like an issue to everyone. There are several locked chests in the game that contain some of the best combat items in the game. For some reason, you won't be able to do the side mission that allows you to unlock these until really far into the game, and they don't get marked on the map when you find them - so, if you want to open these, you'll need to follow a Youtube video, like I did.. or backtrack to locate them all. This was a really odd design choice, in my opinion. And it's not the only thing that doesn't become available until very late in the game. 3 of the playable characters don't become available until you've progressed far into the story, and these characters felt like they always lagged behind everyone else. Their upgrades roll out much later, and the skill upgrade cubes that you'll randomly find, seem to prioritize those 3 characters last for some reason. Again, a really odd design choice. After finishing the game and working on the post game content, I still haven't been able to upgrade Brook's abilities, while almost everyone else have had their abilities maxed out for tens of hours. All in all, One Piece Odyssey is a solid game with some cool features and plenty to like for fans of the series. The developers clearly put a lot of love into creating the game, with lots of detail put into it's world building and character design. I appreciate that Robin has a different animation for opening chests, for example. Details like that always bring a smile to my face. It's not without it's flaws, there's are many minor ones, but I imagine most One Piece fans will love this game, nonetheless.

I genuinely don't understand the low user scores. Biomutant isn't for everyone. There are areas of the game that could use some improvements, and while the fetch- type side quests aren't all that bad for what they are, the fact they're fetch quests will likely throw a lot of people off. But the total sum of Biomutant is a very solid and fun game in it's genre. It definitely lends ideas from a lot of other games, and I'm not sure if that's the reason behind why so many people are rating this game unreasonably low, but it also provides a few really creative and fun ideas in it's own right. I already hope and look forward to a sequel to this game, as I had a lot of fun exploring the vast and gorgeous world of Biomutant. It goes against my own principles to do this, but I'm rating this a 10 to offset the negative reviews, as I can't even imagine how this game could be perceived as outright bad from an objective standpoint. My honest rating would be somewhere between 7-8. With a few improvements to what's already there, I can easily see this game at the very least providing an experience that's comparable to that of the Far Cry and Borderlands games. The closest comparison that comes to mind is probably the latter.

DQ Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below is a decently entertaining, hack and slash game that left me mildly unimpressed after playing through it. Beyond it's quite basic and unspectacular combat mechanics, charming character and world design that we've come to expect from the developer, the game is absolutely riddled with clichés and an uninspired story. Maybe I have high standards when it comes to writing and story, but the writers really let me down with the story and dialogue in this game. It's some of the worst, most predictable writing I've seen anywhere over the past decade, and I think I can safely sum it up as "light vs dark, good vs evil, the power of friendship conquers all". without being afraid of spoiling anything, while actually spoiling the entire story. DQ Heroes isn't bad, but I can't imagine someone who's not already a massive fan of the Dragon Quest series would thoroughly enjoy this game, and based on how shallow the story and characters are in their presentation, I can't imagine the developer had high ambitions for it either. The game is simple and effective in what it does, but I can't help but suspect that they cut corners in the process of getting the game out on the shelves, as the final product is, in my opinion, quite embarrassing for a DQ title. I wouldn't personally recommend this game to a Musou/Dynasty Warriors fan, as the combat in this game is more slow paced and limited overall, compared to other Musou titles, but if you're desperate for a very basic version of that type of game - then this might not be the worst alternative out there.

It’s not an absolutely perfect, flawless game, and I have some issues with the game’s general pacing, but Final Fantasy 7R as a whole is a great experience. I especially appreciate how they’ve modified the weapon and materia systems. Even typically assumed weaker weapons can be useful now, as it’s all a matter of play style, and weapons you may have left to collect dust sometimes become useful again as your character levels up and all weapons receive new «weapon spheres» that sometimes add unique bonuses depending on the weapon it’s for. Good examples of this are one of Cloud’s later weapons and Tifa’s early weapon, Iron Fist, which has insane physical damage at any point in the game, but at the expense of magic damage. Cloud’s late game weapon, on the other hand, has low physical damage, but higher magic damage that somewhat allows him to overcome his general lack of magical proficiency - especially, considering it comes with an attached ability that I won’t spoil. Feom what I recall, the Materia system in the original game wasn’t this complex, as it sometimes matters whether you place them in the weapon or armor slots, and there are tons of combinations that allow for more strategy. Final Fantasy 7R is an excellent game that I didn’t accept imnediately. It doesn’t always quite capture the essence of the original game, in my opinion - not to the extent that I would’ve desired from a more purist point of view anyway, but it doesn’t seem like that was Nomura’s intention. It’s a re-imagination of the original game, and for what it is, they’ve done certain things well above expectations, and other things not so well. It does have a fair share of minor flaws, and I found the pacing a bit frustrating at times, but it also surprised me how polished the game feels. It’s definitely an ambitious game, and I’m really excited to find out what happens next, because when FF7R doesn’t beat around the bush with it’s often slow pacing and mostly underwhelming side-quests, it tells a story that becomes drastically more epic and immersive towards the last few hours of the experience.

I find it difficult to rate this game, as it provides most things that were entertaining in the other iterations in the series and even improves on them in certain areas, but at the same time, the game feels quite short, somewhat lacking in inspiration, and I can't help but feel that the overall execution is a bit lackluster. They took their sweet time creating this game since the last one was released, but it seems like they may have juggled their developers between different projects, and so the final product is "fun, but not quite as good, overall, as I would have hoped it would be". Pirate Warriors 3 was inferior in certain aspects, but provided more variety and replay-ability. This may be a subjective opinion, but I find myself hesitant to try out new characters in this game, because their initial lack of strength make the "fun levels" a tedious grind or race against the clock, and the lower levels just aren't that fun to play over again - at least, not purely for the sake of getting a new character up to scratch.

Unlike, the opinions of the majority of reviews on here, I really don't think FIFA 20 is an outright bad game. It's very much similar to FIFA 19, but with new features that don't particularly appeal to me, hardly any substantial changes being made from it's predecessor, and little reason to upgrade, to be honest. They naturally put some effort into improving Ultimate Team, but that is clearly their main priority nowadays. The game is okay. You might even like it if you're an Ultimate Team player or the new Futsal mode is your kind of thing. Personally, I'm just glad I didn't spend my own money on this game, and lent it from a friend who didn't enjoy it instead. The FIFA franchise has become very stale, and I personally don't enjoy the changes they've made to it's gameplay over the past couple of years, but at least every new release in the series is largely predictable in it's content and presentation. It's basically FIFA 19.1 with a VOLTA DLC, minus Juventus' official licenses. I rate it a 5 for it's mediocrity and lack of substantial improvements. +1 point for adding a new game mode that's basically a poor man's FIFA Street.

Borderlands 3 is, by no means, a bad game. It's alright. The most die-hard loot-shooter fans might even tell you it's a great game. It's basically Borderlands 2, but with some really minor changes - more akin to a DLC than what you'd expect in a sequel. It doesn't seem to try to compete with anyone, or show that the developers have made progress since the last game. And that would normally be fine. We see games like that being released every year in form of EA's sports games and the Call of Duty franchise before they added Sledgehammer to their list of developers and turned it into a 3-year development cycle. However, Borderlands was developed over a period of ridiculous 7 years, and not a single year. The blatant lack of progress is absolutely amazing, but for the wrong reasons. I don't know how they managed to add so incredibly little in such a vast amount of time. That's about the average time of a console's life cycle, before the next generation of consoles roll out. It's about the same amount of time it took Rockstar to turn the original Red Dead Redemption into a vastly different, upgraded and far more expansive game in Red Dead Redemption 2. It's baffling what little work they've done in those 7 years. These inflated, "professional critics reviews" don't make any sense when you take all of this into account. I would have expected a game with such an underwhelming degree of progress over its predecessor to have been made in 2-3 years. If you think the game is great, then that's fine, good for you. However, Borderlands 3 is, objectively speaking, an incredibly underdeveloped game that belongs far more fittingly in the PS3 era. And that's despite its generous 7 years in development. If you liked Borderlands 2 and you're not in a hurry to get this one, I recommend waiting until they put it on sale, because they're basically charging the price of a full game for a last-gen game that they likely didn't put much effort into producing.

This last piece of DLC fills you in and wraps up some of the plotholes left in the story for each character in the main game. It adds two more battle styles, a time trial "fighting Colosseum" with rewards that either add to your battle style skill points (the two, new ones) or unlocks powerful, "golden" weapons, armor and equipment in your stores. The enemies and battles themselves, are pretty straightforward. They've added a couple of new enemy types, but other than that, I wasn't all that excited by the maze-like areas that lead up to each boss battle. I feel like I've spent enough time doing that in this game. That said, I enjoyed Timeless Tome overall, and completionists/people who like to grind for rewards are going to love it. If you enjoyed the story if Ni No Kuni 2, you'll definitely want to play this to get a better understanding of it's overall context. "The Solosseum" arena becomes genuinely difficult as you progress in levels, and that was particularly enjoyable for me, since I have some of the very best gear in the game, at this point. I just wish they'd explain which stat I need to increase, or what I can do to up the damage of the new "higgledy-based" fighting style. Is it ranged? Is it magic? No clue, but it's good, cheesy, fun.

It's not an outright bad expansion, but incredibly grindy, and definitely not for everyone. It basically adds a dungeon similar to the Dreamer's Maze, which is already in the game, but with a little twist - for every 10 stages, you get a chest that rewards you based on how many orbs you've collected. There's also a new, additional, orb reward system in place, where you complete checkboxes with tasks that multiply your orb rewards for every stage. There's a little bit of story thrown into all of it, but I didn't particularly care for it, myself. Basically, there's an evil that threatens the world. You have to go and defeat it for the sake of everyone. The most positive thing about this DLC is that it introduces new weapons, armor and equipment that are substantially better than the existing ones. It also allows you to up the difficulty of the game, with loot quality scaling accordingly. My personal issue with this new dungeon, is that it only allows you to save your dungeon progress after every 20 stages. I saw someone online mention that this was the perfect amount of stages between each save, but I personally think it's way too long. It takes a lot of time to play through 20 stages, and I had to leave my console in rest mode overnight a few times, so as to not lose my progress. When I was progressing through stage 80 through 100 (final stage+boss), I got lucky and collected two incredibly overpowered weapons. I'd already played for a few hours at this point, was getting tired, and I just wanted to save. There were only 2 stages left until the final boss. I just wanted to get it over with, save and call it a day. The boss is a massive meatshield. It took a long time to get him down to 5-ish % health, and I had to spend all of my restorative items because he killed me in one hit, and my team mates fell like flies. Perhaps predictably, I messed up, just as he was about to go down, and wiped out my entire team in one fell swoop. I lost the super rare items I had collected, and I now have absolutely no motivation to play through the grindy 20 stages that lead up to his fight. So, I haven't actually completed this DLC, but I assume I've seen about 95% of it. Unless, you're really into grinding for weapons and gear, you'll probably want to steer away from this one.

I'll write a proper review, once I've completed the game. It's a shame that so many people are hating on it. purely because it runs on Denuvo. I don't think that's a very fair thing to criticize a game for.

I'll reserve my full review until after I've actually finished the game. I would like to point out that fast travel exists in the game, you just have to unlock it from the camp first, you kneejerk hobos that are freaking out over it.

I think my biggest gripe with FIFA 19, lack of invention aside, is their "half-assed" attempt at making the game feel more realistic, yet again. I would appreciate more realistic collision physics, if it was actually realistic - In FIFA 19, it's nothing but a gimmick that makes the game unnecessarily frustrating, at times. You can often get away with rugby fouling players in this game, just because. This new emphasis on "more realistic" take downs and first touches also feels really flawed and lacking in it's execution. I, for one, rarely see professional players insist on taking two, three touches on the ball when they receive it in stressing situations where they need to release it quickly, and even the most skillful of players are prone to awkwardly receiving the ball in such a way that it bounces away and gets intercepted by an opponent player that's not burdened by ironically unrealistic animations that you get locked to, as the player receiving the ball. Another thing is player switching when you're playing co-op. This feature should have been improved years ago, if not a decade ago. Not only have they not improved on it, but it seems to be worse in FIFA 19 compared to past iterations in the franchise. Surely, it's possible to create a different algorithm that makes this feature more intuitive and effective? This version of The Journey has had a few small improvements added to it, but it's probably exactly what you expected it to be like. If you like it in past games, you'll enjoy this one as well. Nothing revolutionary here, except for allowing the player to pick and play through the careers of Alex Hunter, his sister, Kim, and Danny Williams. Overall, it's a typical, new FIFA release, with largely insignificant updates outside of Ultimate Team. In terms of gameplay, my personal impression is that FIFA 19 is slightly more slow paced than FIFA 18, and slightly more frustrating to play, due to these new features that emphasize "realism", but adds little more than a larger margin for error that occurs much more frequently in the game, than it does in real life - this seems to be a trend in their realism features. As usual, the menus look slick and stylish, and the soundtrack has a few of those classic, bangers that stick to your mind after you've logged out of the game.

I really wanted to like this game. It has a few original ideas, and the overall game clearly had a lot of potential, but it's somewhat ruined by gameplay mechanics that leave a lot to be desired, coupled with highly unpredictable AI (not in a good sense), and an almost constant need to replenish food/water/sleep, that seemed intriguing at first, but quickly starts feeling like a chore. Speaking of chores, a good amount of the optional quests are fetch-quests, and they're the old-school type of fetch quests that will likely bore you to death, whether you're a completionist or not. I did enjoy some of the optional quests in We Happy Few. Especially the ones that encouraged exploration that weren't all about picking things up and bringing them back to the quest-giver. Certain optional quest were actually refreshingly original and interesting. However, like with many other things, the overall quality in this respect was unfortunately sub-par to what I had expected from this game. Again, I really wanted to like We Happy Few, but it has a bit too many fundamental shortcomings and clearly wasn't play-tested or polished enough to iron out the many kinks that drag it down. Another minor annoyance was that I ran into quite a few graphical bugs that made NPCs get stuck to the ground, or buildings disappear completely for brief periods of time. They didn't bother me too much, but they can be quite frustrating in certain situations. A well-designed stealth mechanic punishes you when you make mistakes, but the stealth detection of the NPCs in this game is simply too inconsistent, and it's definitely not a good feeling when it seems like you've been detected because the game had a sudden "hiccup" for no apparent reason. Stealthing around can be fun at times, but the occasional frustration of being spotted for something that's completely out of your power, can ruin one's entire experience of the game. And don't get me started on the clustered inventory and crafting feature that they clearly forgot about while they were adding a thousand useless things for you to meaninglessly fill up your inventory with. Inventory management of this level is not fun. It's not my idea of fun, at least. We Happy Few is not an outright bad game by any means, but it lacks the polish necessary to qualify as a truly good game, in my book. I feel a bit bad for criticizing a game that a crew of indie developers clearly put a lot of love and effort into making with their attention to the finer details that triple A devs tend to not care much about. I appreciate that "little bit extra". I do wish they'd spent more time polishing the more substantial mechanics, though. The world of We Happy Few would have been so much more memorable if the world wasn't quite as large and barren, but felt more cohesive and motivating towards progress from start till finish. It's really unfortunate that the main issue of the game often feeling like a chore, overshadows an interesting story and concept that could have been so much more. Even a blind person can see that it has tons of potential. Don't get me wrong, I had a good time during certain points in this game. The voice acting is very good, and I found the story and premise interesting, although it's hampered by awful pacing and a pretty massive, charming world that sadly doesn't quite compensate for the vast amounts of barren land and and unnecessarily frustrating trips to the nearest wells. The final, overall impression left quite a lot to be desired, and I genuinely wish they had polished the game a bit more before releasing it. At least, I learned not to mindlessly spend another £60 on an overly ambitious, crowd-funded game. That's not intended as an insult towards the developer, but rather my mistake of having too high expectations towards their product.

Every character's skills and special abilities can be viewed here: ****/dffnt/event_command/english/ To start with, I think it's necessary to point out that a substantial amount of the exclusively negative user reviews for this game suggest that the reviewer didn't actually give the game a chance. I do wish there'd been more single player content and a proper, more streamlined story mode that didn't involve grinding through 3v3 battles for tokens., that in turn unlock videos and battles in story mode, which in turn unlock additional game modes outside of story mode. It's an odd design, and I've noticed that many of these 0 score reviewers didn't even play through this part of the game. I think this site would've been far more credible if one actually had to play a game for a set period of time before being allowed to review it. That would likely result in more accurate user scores. Anyways, the gameplay itself is unique and I personally find it very enjoyable, although it didn't appeal to me initially. The battle system may seem simple at first, but it has a steep learning curve, and it won't appeal to everyone. My main gripe with this game would be that I wish it had offered more variety in game modes. It does have a few different features, but the core gameplay doesn't have a lot of diversity beyond It's deceptively deep combat system, that offers a high skill roof and a wide roster of different characters to master. If you don't like the combat and you're not willing to learn how it works, then chances are slim that you'll find any enjoyment in the rest of the game. It's hit or miss, in that respect. Personally, I'm not a fan of the boss battles in story mode, which basically have you dodging projectiles and AoE attacks while sequentially attacking a meat tank "summon". I can see how some people would enjoy these battles, but the lack of intelligence in the AI bots made this particular part of the game slightly frustrating for me, as they would ignore the fragile lightning nodes that empowered a certain boss, and at times they would simply be useless as team mates. Then again, I suppose the purpose of that challenge would've been lost if the bots would've actually helped get rid of them. Both friendly and enemy bots can be quite frustrating with their irrational actions sometimes, but if you enjoy the combat in this game, chances are you'll probably spend most of your time testing your ability against other players online. I imagine the gap between skilled players and the not so skilled players will fend off interest from more casual players, as players get more accustomed to the battle system. If you put in the time and effort to get good with some of the more complex characters in Dissidia NT, you'll hardly face any resistance from the vast majority of players online. It just doesn't have that Call of Duty, FIFA-esque casual appeal and it won't hold your hand if you're unable to improve. The combinations of skills in the game are fairly simple and easy to remember, but when to use them and the general timing of your actions is key to winning. Like I mentioned before, the combat system is deceptively deep and even if you master a character's move set, you'll struggle against more experienced players if you don't know how and when to use specific abilities. I refuse to believe that anyone who's bashing the combat system actually took the time and effort to figure out how it works. I was originally going to rate Dissidia NT with an 8, which I think is a fair score despite it's flaws. However, I'm giving it a 10 to offset the army of people who think the game is awful because it simply isn't similar enough to it's PSP counterparts. If you cannot rate a game objectively, don't rate it at all. If you still insist on rating it, at least play the game long enough to warrant a fair review.

Lost Sphear is a charming JRPG that offers a fairly linear, open world and gameplay similar to that of the Final Fantasy games on the original Playstation system. It has a turn-based battle system, but with an added strategic element that makes things slightly more interesting. I like Lost Sphear. The music is mellow and relaxing, and I really appreciate how the game was, obviously, inspired by JRPGs from the 90s. That said, the game falls short in terms of character development and narrative quality. Overall, it's a good, retro-styled JRPG that will make you feel nostalgic if you've enjoyed this type of game in the past. I wouldn't say that it's an exceptional game, it's too lacking in the story and character departments to make such a bold claim, but I think it's a pretty good game that I wish had been a little bit more. In terms of character development, the game redeems itself to some extent by fleshing out each character's backstory through side-quests that become available towards the end of the game. These side-quests can be easily missed, and I find it incredibly odd that this is the only way to find out more about the characters that the game is based on. It would've added so much more overall quality to the game, if it had been part of the game's natural character development, rather than late game, optional quests that require some back-tracking to trigger. Once you've played through the entire game, you'll realize that the developers put a lot of love and effort into creating what seems like a very simple and generic, retro JRPG at first glance. However, the way the characters and story of Lost Sphear unfolds is structured in such a flawed way that I highly doubt it will ever be recognized for the love and effort that was put into making it.

Different scenarios where you fight against the most powerful enemies in the game, with the difficulty setting locked at "Mastermind"- level. The training levels in this DLC are very 'barebones', but they're certainly challenging enough and they have a certain amount of appeal to those of you who thought the base game was too easy. Personally, I wasn't particularly excited when I realized that the entire DLC is just some really hard training battles where the odds are stacked against you. I'm sure there are people out there who love this type of challenge, though. Danger Deck isn't bad, but it's not exactly what I'd call great either. If you loved the battle system in this game, but wanted more of a challenge from it, then Danger Deck is right up your alley. If not, then this is going to either frustrate or bore the hell out of you. The difficulty level in this DLC cannot be changed, so if you find yourself unable to beat the three stages required for a reward item, then be prepared to not be able to make any progress in it. My rating for this "expansion" may seem a bit harsh, but the quality of the content reflects that **** update that would typically be added into a game for free, thus I brutally have to declare that Danger Deck provides relatively little and appeals only to people who wanted more difficult battles, and nothing more. For reference, the Morgan Freeman battle in the base game is nothing but a bullet sponge in comparison to some of these battles.

If the base game had content of similar quality and entertainment value, it would've actually been a memorable iteration in the franchise's history. While episode Ignis isn't entirely flawless, it's fun, polished and adds a refreshing amount of variety in both offensive and defensive combat features that are dynamic and fairly easy to get into. The episode itself provides fast paced action, and briefly allows you to move around Altissia as if you were a dagger wielding Spiderman. Purely in terms of entertainment value, the content of Episode Ignis is arguably the best thing that Final Fantasy XV has to offer.

FIFA 18 has improved marginally in areas where you'd expect it to, but in my opinion, regressed in other areas through EA's decision to put in a half-assed effort at making the game seem more true to life, while at the same time go out of their way to favor attack over defence and making other changes that does the game no favors in making it seem like the real thing. I've noticed that some people genuinely love these changes, and that's fair enough, but I strongly disagree when people say that FIFA 18 has taken the franchise in a more realistic direction. It hasn't. If slowing everything down is all it takes to make a game seem more realistic, then EA have an easy job ahead of them. Unfortunately, I don't think we're anywhere close to getting a convincingly realistic FIFA game. Do people really want that, though? PES has been a substantially more realistic football simulator for some time now, bar their lack of licenses for player names and whatnot. Yet, the majority of people still seem to prefer the gameplay-wise more arcadey, FIFA franchise.

Why are people boycotting this game? Classic example of why ratings without written reviews should have less weight towards the final score of the product. I'm a few hours into the game now, and I'm having a lot of fun with Agents of Mayhem. It's by no means a flawless game, and I've already run into 1 or two glitches that were mildly frustrating, but the current user score just doesn't seem fair at all. I'll add to this review, once I've completed the game.

I really don't understand how this game has such a relatively high user score. I like the One Piece franchise, and I've enjoyed the past iterations in the series, despite their grindy and repetitive nature. However, this game never really managed to hook me in. It doesn't offer much in the story department, or overall content for that matter, the one-on-one combat grew stale and repetitive very quickly (and definitely not in a good way), and I simply just didn't enjoy this game as much as I enjoyed the older games in the series. Not even close. If this is the new direction that they're taking the One Piece game series in, then I've bought my last game of theirs. There are tons of characters from the One Piece universe to choose from in this game, but that's pretty much the only positive thing I can say about this game. If you're a hardcore fan, trying out the different characters may be enough to keep you entertained, but otherwise the game doesn't offer anything particularly interesting. In my opinion, Burning Blood can best be described as Pirate Warriors, but with less features, less upgrades, no free roaming and massive mobs, a frustratingly boring and unresponsive combat system, and very little effort put into anything else but an upgrade on the graphics from the previous iteration. Then again, you can't really blame them for milking the fans with franchise bias, when a substantial amount of people are actually content with half-assed products like this, that offer far less content than the older games in the same series.

After completing the first play-through of this game, I was left very disappointed. The game seemed to end abruptly, without answering any of the questions I had regarding the plot and the various characters you encounter throughout it. The story seemed very cliché, and my overall impression wasn't particularly good. Although, the music was pretty good, the game had several minor annoyances, like the, at times gimmicky gameplay, stuttering frame rates and a storyline that seemed quite half-assed at the time. I figured the game had been hyped up by fans of the Drakengard series and the original Nier game, none of which I've played myself. How wrong I was. The overwhelmingly positive reviews I'd read, convinced me to give the game another chance and complete the "A,B,C and D routes", AKA the different endings or play-throughs of the game. And that's when I finally realized how fantastically unique the story really is. I can't believe I initially wrote it off as cliché and half-assed. Despite it's many flaws and shortcomings, Nier: Automata is easily one of the most original games I've ever played, and it's also one of the best games I've played in recent time. It's just a shame that the game forces you to play through it twice, under almost identical circumstances, before it offers the content that drastically changes the overall quality of the game, and more than compensates for the poor impression (most people) will be left with after completing the initial play-through. It's also worth mentioning that the battle system allows for quite a lot more intuitive and advanced moves than simple button-mashing, but the majority of consumers will probably button-mash anyway. Said techniques require a lot of timing and coordination, and there aren't any in-game tutorials for advanced techniques, after all - which is strange.

I really wanted to like this game, and I do like the concept a lot, but the execution is horrible. No pun intended. The micro-transactions provide exclusive gear that only changes your aesthetics, but it also allows you to speed up your progress - which in turn grants gear that enables "revenge mode" constantly and pretty much compensates for any lack of skill by allowing you to become super strong and resilient for extended periods of time. I hate to use the expression "game-breaking", but really.. why would they introduce such a feature in a game that's supposedly based on skill, precision and tactics? You may argue that these items may be obtained for free, over time, but like in most micro-transaction based games, the amount of currency you get by being a non-paying player is frustratingly slow, and I personally think it kills the joy to try and rank up "the hard way" while some people below my rank are constantly in God mode. Like in most Ubisoft games, it's clear that the team that developed For Honor have tons of talent and creativity, but the end product is shamefully ruined by the capitalistic nature of this company. I know I have been disappointed by Ubisoft for the last time. At this point in time, there's no doubt, whatsoever, that they're all about quantity over quality. It is very possible to do well in For Honor, if you're an exceptionally skilful player who don't mind investing a lot of time in a game that's designed to frustrate you into spending money beyond the asking price of the base game. I would not feel sad at all, if Ubisoft suddenly went bankrupt. They deserve worse. The talent of their developers are being tragically wasted.

Considering the amount of detail and effort put into making this massive game, I find it hard to believe that someone can rate it lower than 6.0 without the influence of heavy bias. I've never played any of the previous Fallout games, and I was positively surprised by Fallout 4. It's not without it's faults, glitches and occasional frustrations, but overall it's a very solid game and if you look closely, you'll notice the incredible amount of detail the developers put into it. I know a lot of people were frustrated that the game was dumbed down in order to become more appealing to casual gamers, and although that is a shame, it's no reason to downrate the game into the negatives, purely based on being let down according to your expectactions. I see some people claim that Fallout 4 is "mediocre", and that is definitely an exaggeration.

The game has incredible graphics, sound effects and an atmosphere that stays true to the Star Wars universe. I had a lot of fun playing the game for about 3 days in a row, but that's when it's shortcomings started becoming very apparent. It's really a shame, because the game had a lot of potential. It doesn't help that the free DLC they included, might as well have been part of the original game and no one would've batted an eye. Star Wars: Battlefront follows the trend of modern games that don't include a story campaign, and allows for consumers to unlock certain things sooner, for a fee. I think Dice is an awesome game developer, but it matters little who the game developer is, as long as a publisher like EA, Activison or Ubisoft dictates the amount of, and what kind of content they're allowed to make.

I decided to purchase and play Transistor as a result of all the good things I'd been hearing about it from people on the internet. Initially, I wasn't overly impressed by what I'd seen and heard about the game from game critics and review sites. However, it didn't take long before I fell in love with the art and visual aspect of the game, in addition to it's mystical main character and the immerse story and atmosphere that pulls you right in from the start. The combat system is definitely an experimental one and it's far from flawless, but I didn't mind it much. I enjoyed the many options it gives you in terms of customization of your abilities, and being able to make use of many of your abilities, either as active ones, or simply to add bonuses to your active abilities. I sometimes found myself wishing it would be more simple, but like I said, it didn't bother me much. I thoroughly enjoyed playing Transistor, and I hope Supergiant Games continue to develop these atmospheric, audio-visually appealing games at an indie-level. They're well on track to becoming a reputable gaming company, and I'd hate to see a game like this become shackled by the restraints of the demands and expectations people have towards commercial games these days. Bottom line, it's one of the best games I've played in recent time. My only complaint is that I wish the game had offered some kind of mini-games, or something that adds more diversity to what occasionally felt like a long, tedious grind of hacking down enemies. On a sidenote: I'm sure many disagree with me, but I'd absolutely love to see a Final Fantasy 7 game, based on the world and atmosphere of Cloudbank.

Advanced Warfare is the first Call of Duty game in a long time, that tries to take the franchise in a new direction, with added mobility, new weapon types and gadgets, and a relatively faster and new way of moving around the maps. Graphics-wise, it's pretty much what we've come to expect from a Call of Duty game; it's quite good, but nothing spectacular. The single player campaign is very predictable, and the term "on-rails experience" certainly applies to this game, just as much as any previous installment in the franchise. With that being said, the campaign is still a fairly enjoyable experience, as long as you don't mind staying within the mission perimeter/following the squad leader at all times. Personally, I found it to be quite frustrating that the mission would end and automatically restart every time I moved slightly outside the mission area. The multiplayer experience felt quite refreshing, to me, but it certainly doesn't appeal to everyone. Advanced Warfare is based around the use of the boost mechanism and "exo-abilities", and it takes a little while to get used to. How well you'll perform online, is directly affected by how well you've mastered the use of these new features, and that's something that's likely to put a lot of people off this game. This new way of moving about the online maps, has allowed the developer to add more layers to the maps. You can now easily get on top of balconies and obstacles in a flash, and moving from point A to point B is easier and faster than ever. The downside to this is that, since the maps now have more layers added to them, and since they now have a diagonal, rather than the popular, linear design, you'll often find yourself in situations where you'll get crowded and fired at from several angles, at the same time. Some people won't mind this, but it certainly makes playing online feel more chaotic and unpredictable, compared to previous Call of Duty games. All in all, Advanced Warfare is a pretty good FPS game that does a few things that haven't been done in this particular franchise before, but the new features will most definitely alienate some veteran players and fans of the retro-style Call of Duty games. Sledgehammer games have taken one step in a direction that's completely new to the Call of Duty franchise, and I suspect that whether people will enjoy Advanced Warfare or not, is a direct result of whether they think too much was added to the game, or maybe too little? Only time will tell if it was a good call by Sledghammer to "sit on the fence" with this game, rather than going in a completely new direction, or simply sticking to a successful formula.