Arima_

It’s a typical Assassin’s Creed game – neither here nor there – with a few necessary updates compared to the original. Unfortunately, the parkour suffers from the same issues as previous instalments, with Edward often performing unwanted actions and jumps, whilst failing to carry out other actions that should be extremely simple to execute. The combat system is decent, though kill streaks are sometimes interrupted for no apparent reason and, in some cases, aren’t even indicated, making combat feel far too repetitive after just a few hours given the sheer volume of fights. Naval battles are where the game really shines, though some of the ship’s interactions with the sea are far from realistic. As for the presentation, in 2026, facial animations remain mediocre, and the new quests introduced – which lack motion capture – are cringeworthy in terms of facial animations and lacklustre in terms of voice acting. Finally, the game seems to lack any sort of polishing, given that many errors and bugs could have been avoided simply through more thorough beta.

This is a typical Bandai Namco production: a solid IP in an extremely mediocre game. In terms of gameplay, the game presents itself as a ‘soulslike’, centred on exploring open maps that are almost entirely empty, anonymous and extremely similar, save for a few scattered chests offering no significant reward, as well as on fighting the same types of enemies – some of which are identical to those scattered across the map but, for some reason, have a longer health bar – right up to the actual boss fights, many of which are simply reskins of previous bosses. The combat system, on the other hand, whilst it might seem interesting on paper, lacks substance, with spongy enemies and a complete lack of any feedback on hits. On top of that, the hitboxes are almost never clear, and you often find yourself taking damage without understanding why, unless you check your HP bar. The side quests are, more often than not, simple fetch quests with few meaningful rewards that add absolutely nothing to the game’s lore. From a narrative perspective, the plot is barely adequate, but it is diluted by repetitive and tedious gameplay, with the player’s character playing no significant role in the story and having no lines of dialogue. The voice acting is decent but, at least in the Japanese version, the lip-syncing almost never matches the dialogue and the facial expressions come across as flat. The game covers only the first two floors of Aincrad; however, the quests are set in a number of open maps with clearly defined boundaries. The game world looks as though it’s taken from a tech demo of the graphics engine, and you’re practically forced to fight almost every enemy you encounter, as their aggro range is far too extensive. Finally, even on higher difficulty settings, enemies go down with just a few hits and are more of a nuisance than a real challenge.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Having not played the original game, I am unaware of any narrative cuts that have been made; however, judging the game on its own merits, the plot flows smoothly. The game’s short length means it doesn’t lose momentum too much – a common issue with the various Resident Evil titles in the second half of the game – and it offers sufficient variety in enemies and situations. The limited presence of Nemesis is a major plus, since I don’t enjoy having to hide and flee from unbeatable enemies whose sole purpose is simply to annoy the player. Technically, it is on a par with Resident Evil 2 Remake and offers high replay value. It’s worth buying at a significant discount, as the short playtime (around 5 hours) doesn’t justify a full-price purchase.

It’s the same old Yakuza formula which, after so many titles, I think really needed a revamp. The game offers the same visual quality as previous instalments (after all, the graphics engine, which was already outdated at the time, has simply been re-rendered) with the same strengths and weaknesses. Having not played the original title, I cannot assess the changes to the plot; however, the number of side quests and their quality leave much to be desired, and the new mini-games and combat style seem uninspired and overly diluted. As I am not particularly fond of the side content and found the main quest far too slow even by Yakuza standards, the game, despite its promising start, bored me from a narrative perspective.

The weapon feedback isn’t bad, the main story seems quite interesting, and the game world is packed with activities though, unfortunately, these are often repetitive and feel like side quests, in true Ubisoft style. The quality of the textures and animations is a bit hit-and-miss, and the characters’ expressions often leave something to be desired; however, in simulation mode, I find it fun and light.

Bethesda seems stuck in the Fallout 4 era, given that Starfield’s gameplay setup is exactly the same. A stripped-back RPG with few worthwhile side quests and a rather dull main storyline. Technically speaking, it’s unthinkable nowadays to have a loading screen every time you enter a building or go through any door, and the game suffers from numerous bugs and frame rate drops, particularly in built-up areas with high polygon density.

Pure millennial writing combined with themes that have never really been explored, albeit interesting on paper. The game is technically substandard, with frequent bugs, dialogue without audio, mini-games lacking any explanation, and an excessive price tag for a product that could at best be described as early access.

Honestly, there shouldn't have ever been a direct sequel to the first game. Reunion tries to solve some plot holes and answer questions from Double Exposure, but it only serves to create forced explanations. The themes and lessons learned from the first game are, like the previous game, nullified. It looks like pure fanservice with very few ideas. Also, it is tecnically and artistically worse than the previous game, in particular as regard facial expressions and characters' animations.

The game has an exceptional first half with good pacing, albeit with far too many slow sections involving a heavily scripted stalker enemy; however, it falls apart in the second half, where the character switching breaks down, the art direction and variety of enemies leave much to be desired, there are some uninspired gameplay choices—some of which resemble a multiplayer game’s reward system—as well as glaring gaps in the script and presentation, which are far too absurd even for a Resident Evil game. Furthermore, replay value is reduced to the bare minimum, as many sections impose a slow pace and others (in the second half) are watered down.

Good gameplay additions and excellent art direction, but it suffers from the same flaws as previous FromSoftware titles: a terrible camera, poor game balance, and a non-existent narrative – despite a solid lore – as well as a rather uninspired second half

It improves what the previous game offered and adds depth to the combat system. The only issue is that, sometimes, there's so much on the screen that it becomes hard to understand what's happening.

• The game lacks any artistic direction, despite some members of the community comparing it to Zelda, as it feels like a mere collection of assets taken from the graphics engine’s library. There are macro-biomes, but within each of these, everything is extremely monotonous; • On consoles, the game has not been optimised at all. In Performance mode on PS5, with depth of field and motion blur disabled, without advanced ray tracing and with particle quality reduced to the minimum, the game suffers from frequent frame drops in the open world and drops below 30 fps in towns. This is unacceptable, especially given that, from a purely technical standpoint, the game is mediocre at best, falling short of RDR2 and Horizon Forbidden West, which were released several years ago; • The narrative, in both the main and side quests, is non-existent. In the main quest, most events unfold without any cause-and-effect connection, and all the side quests merely repeat the fetch-quest formula; • The playable characters lack any depth of writing, personality or development, serving merely as pawns through which the player explores the utterly flat game world; • Exploration is limited to finding loot, fast-travel points (which are difficult to spot even using the sword-reflection mechanic) and puzzles so nonsensical that they require almost constant consultation of online guides; • The combat system offers a huge variety of moves, yet is hampered by the control scheme and input lag, as well as the constant presence of archers and such a high number of ‘cannon fodder’ that it is reminiscent of Musou games; • The game attempts to offer a myriad of minigames and activities, none of which excel, due to a cumbersome and counterintuitive control system; • The game explains nothing. This wouldn’t be a problem in itself, were it not for the fact that it is crammed with mechanics and elements so counterintuitive and devoid of logical sense that they force the player to consult online guides and forums, and the developers to introduce explanations for puzzles and activities (many of which still leave plenty of questions unanswered); • The game suffers from input lag comparable to RDR2, with the sole difference being that Crimson Desert’s distinctly action-oriented nature cannot justify this choice; • There are obvious issues with contrast and gamma within the game, with mornings that are far too bright and nights that are far too dark; In essence, whilst offering a plethora of activities and mechanics, the game falls short in almost all of them and comes with an unacceptable number of issues – both technical and otherwise – at launch. The product is clearly still in the process of being refined and tested, unfortunately at the expense of paying players, who have been given access to a rudimentary version of the game that will eventually become playable, albeit with all the coding issues, etc. which will remain for months, if not years.