BillyOcean

The Piranha Bytes Morrowind (to Risen's Oblivion and Elex's Fallout). Extreme amounts of jank and all the expected tropes of this company's games: You enter a world of a few different societies, none of which all ow you to "join" them until you do their tasks, etc. and then you have to pick one and abandon the others. Like alll their other games, you have to somehow intuit what to do with the limited guidance they provide. You can fail quests by choosing the wrong dialogue option. You can lose all your much-needed money in a barter-interface mistake. You can die against one basic enemy at any time. You can be permabanned from an entire society for reasons you might not even be aware of. It's jank - from physics to quest structure to interface and beyond. But there is something special about these games. Figuring anything out feels like an accomplishment. You struggled against the terrible design and came out on top. And once you make sense of the inscrutable nature of the game, you start having fun, making connections and progress, and might even realize the design isn't really that terrible. It just requires a TON of patience if you are new to it or any other of their games.

An absolute slog with no spirit or life. Cutscenes dragging on at literal 25% normal human conversation comprehension speed. The narrow hallways that connect these cutscenes, "the world", might look really nice, but they are absolutely dead. The extremely dated arrangement of enemies makes the whole thing feel cheap. I just barely emerged from a truly sluggish cutscene and I'm about to just walk over to the next one, and I see three enemies on the way that I could fight or not. This is the game basically leaving its pacing to me instead of curating it and making sure the whole thing has a rhythm to it - you know, a gameplay loop?! I could not be more disappointed. The fighting is good, but that's because they poached the guy who does the fighting good. The disastrous pacing wrenches you out of the world as often as it can and instead **** high fantasy adventure I'm holding off on saving the world to go serve drinks for some lazy npc. This contrast might be something we could excuse for the ps1 era, but game design and narrative design have achieved a level of grace that we have come to expect in the last DECADE. This game is like sand paper to my brain. Makes me love the absolutely weird ffxv even more when compared to this, which is maybe the most vanilla, by-the-numbers action jrpg of the decade.

Huge Far Cry fan, played em all, this one was great too. It's good to see them refine their mechanics and worlds with each new project. I thought Yara was maybe the most immersive yet. The "outposts" are all organic and unique, they fit in with the story and the setting. Every single region, neighborhood, bar on the beach, downtown alley, abandoned farm has a considered aspect to it, a tiny little story to tell. The people who laid out this world are real professionals who took the time to max out the richness of it all. Mechanically, the series tops itself each time with the level of skill and refinement. The shooting, the upgrades, the swapping, the gadgets, the always excellent platforming, the vehicles, they all work perfectly and better than they ever have I will definitely say that the characters are pretty cheesy. I rolled my eyes a LOT with the tropey guerilla dialogue. Dani is kind of a jock-type and the humor didn't really hit. But I totally bought Castillo and the reasoning behind all his operations, which made the missions to disrupt them totally buyable and easy to get behind as far as I'm concerned. Even the goofy missions like the concert were sort of allowed to make sense within the parameters the story sets up. It's that classic Far Cry gumbo of traumatic war crimes happening all around while overindulgent cartoon character personalities team up to take back the map. I think when you compare the classiness of this game (my opinion) to the wackiness of 5, it does in fact feel like a step forward, even if it might not be obvious (and given the large shoes it has to fill). I would say that overall this is a great game, a great Far Cry game, and a good example of professional reliability. Not to date this review, but after checking out redfall and then coming back to this, it was obvious: THIS is how you make an open world shooter. I consider Far Cry 6 to be a high mark for the series and the overwhelming hate for it absolutely boggles my mind.

This game is in a lot of ways similar to the old standards like Fallout and Elder Scrolls, in that you are in a wide-open world, are free to develop the character any way you want, and you have plenty of moral/political choices and alliances to make with most of the quests. The peculiarities stand out, however. I went in with a Skyrim/Assassins Creed/Witcher attitude and felt the need to completely restart the game after a few hours based on my newly acquired, hard-earned knowledge. The weird thing about this game is how it forces you to play it differently than the others of the genre. Typically with games of this kind, you can expect to be directed in the beginning of the game to an area where you can handle the quests and enemies presented to you, where you can begin the gradual growth into the super-soldier world-saver you expect to become. But in Elex, the map is peppered with way-too-tough monsters among those you can actually handle if you’re careful and leverage your companion’s combat abilities to stay alive. Roads from the first town are populated by horrific monsters you have no chance of handling until much later on. So you have to do things that seem not quite to be cheating, but more “gaming” the game to get by. Like using your jetpack to parkour up a wonky awkward mountain because you have no chance agains the giant troll in the road, even though the quest you are on lies beyond this beast, and the quest is actually something you can handle. Or running from a fight you can’t handle since (as you find out through trial and error) you are a faster runner than any monster, and they do not like to deviate from their pre-determined paths and areas in order to chase **** unlike most open word games, the enemies are quite willing to let you run off as they shake their fist at you. It’s just weird and unexpected. These aspects feel off, like a band-aid to cover up their failure to curate a reasonable game world that allows for incremental progress. You have no way of knowing if a quest is too hard or doable until you try it and die in one hit or barely pull it off. When you mark a quest on the map, it will typically mark the quest-giver in orange, and the quest target in yellow. But if it’s a multi-step quest, it won’t indicate that your business with the target is concluded and it’s time to head back to the giver to wrap it up (even though you did the thing you were supposed to do). Sometimes, the quest will all-together vanish from the list, and you are expected (unless this is a bug) to go back to the quest giver by remembering where they are and bringing up the topic in conversation in order to get the rewards for your tasks. There are also strange specifics when it comes to stats and ability progression. There are all kinds of requirements for even accessing the right to pay money to gain an ability from a trainer. There are steep stat requirements for being able to wield weapons (you will see weapons for sale in the first town that you won’t even be able to use for dozens of levels). Upgrading a weapon increases the stat requirements, so that, if you aren’t careful and deliberate with hard saves, you could render your own equipment unusable for many levels to come. The game makes no effort to explain any of this to you. Overall it seems like I’m complaining and have nothing to like about this apparent nightmare ****, but the opposite is true. I find myself completely rapt by it. I’m on the edge of my seat when I venture outward because there is literally no telling what you might find around the next corder: a massive abandoned power plant, a blown-out house crawling with mutants, a giant troll in a clearing, a beautiful coastal switchback trail that leads to a shipwreck, etc. And the fact of how dangerous the world is only serves to amplify that immersion. On top of it all, once you wrestle your way through the initial barriers to entry, there is a real sense of satisfaction when you actually start figuring out how to get yourself set up with new equipment, how to be smart about stat allocation, how to survive fights and knock out quests, and how to make it around the world activating teleporters and learning new areas. Watch some beginner tips videos that really go in-depth about the best ways to play early on, they will be a huge help. Obviously, this game is for people who are really willing to “get into it.” Not to say that the other genre-definers are casual or easy, but, after playing this, they kinda are :) It’s a salty, greasy, beefy RPG-burger that will only let you play it if you really dive in and pay attention. Highly recommended, but only for like, spazzes who are into this kinda thing.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Imagine Diablo but in the Fable engine. If you were digging the RPG's that were being churned out during the 360/PS3 era, then this is your thing. I guess I never played it back in the day so that's why I like it so much? People say the remake isn't modern enough, but I don't know anything about that. It's just fun - the combat is a treat, there's all kinda loot if that's your thing, the areas are pretty, if rather simplistic (this is where the Diablo vibe comes in - the maps are all pretty much just alcoves populated by monsters), and it's easy to jump around the map knocking off all the various story, faction, and side quests. The UI could use a few updates that could have eliminated a number of excessive button-presses for certain tasks, but it's workable. Overall: I got an itch for this sort of thing, and Re-Reckoning scratched it oh, so well.

If I had known this was just third person Far Cry I would have sprung for it a long time ago - but at least it was cheaper and jammed with dlc by the time I got it. To be fair to the negative reviews, I happen to love the one game Ubisoft makes, and this is trés Ubisoft

A gem! I'm not sure what I was expecting going in, but I was thrilled to find what I did. This belongs among the ranks of the most lovingly crafted retro-tribute games (despite being different genres) like **** Valley, Tangledeep, CrossCode, etc. This is a true JRPG with smooth combat and balanced stat progression, beautiful environments, and (get this) an actual story that actually pulls you along with a relative sense of urgency! I don't know where jrpg's lost their way in terms of how to keep a story interesting and motivating (like ff6 and chrono trigger did), but here we see a return to form. Full controller support and recent updates have eliminated interface issues that people were struggling with. Bravo!

If this was a phone game, I think it would have been met with a slightly better reception. Reviews piqued my interest, and they are true: this is a simplistic but lovingly crafted venture into Skyrim territory. Not very deep or complex but there is an undeniable charm to it all and dangit it’s just plain fun to play. The familiar open-world quest rhythm is definitely there, so if that’s what you’re looking for (like me) then you’ll have it here. It reminds me of the mid 90s PC forays into fully 3D rpg’s (except now I have a machine that can run them!).

Technical problems ruin the experience. Every thirty seconds the game freezes for five seconds as it announces to me that yet another level has been generated (?). No matter how seemingly interesting the mechanics of the dungeon appear to be, it’s just too frustrating to not get an input response because it’s chugging over some kind of background process. Shame, because the brutality of the game itself reminds me of the OG rogue games.

This game turned out to be a lot more polished than I anticipated (only because of the stick figure aesthetic, which turned out to be positively charming and well thought out one I started actually playing). There are a lot of clever situations that presented themselves with a few choices for how to go about them. If you have enough Mysticality, you can fix broken machines, if you have chosen to be honorable, you can reason with foes, if you have learned the golblin tongue, you can speak to them instead of fighting them. You still get the same amount of XP for these alternatives to combat, which is nice. Speaking of combat, this area shines as well. The grid allows for some strategy, and there are a lot of creative moves available (I played as the magic class, "beancaster"). I do wish the "pardner" you choose towards the beginning would get more abilities with XP, as opposed to just doing more damage as they level up, but I can't really complain (I chose the doctor, and she can automatically disassemble any skeleton in one turn which turns out to be super convenient and got me out of quite a few skeleton-related pickles). The overall point is this: The reviews are spot-on. This is a well-made, clever game with good pacing, lots of variety (the ghost town bureaucratic scavenger hunt, lol) and neat riddles and puzzles, and snappy smart writing. A very solid RPG, plays excellently on the Switch and I'm very pleased I took the plunge.

This game is an excellent example of the richness of the roguelike genre. An FPS roguelike is hard to find, much less one that is done this well. Even though the graphics are blocky and pixelated (an aesthetic I happen to love), I still often find myself scared silly. That's because there is no telling what is around the next corner. Nothing is sacred, nothing is safe, which is exactly what makes for a good roguelike. I love the environments, the variety of enemies, the random potion effects, the quick interface, and the difficulty curve with each deeper level. If you're into roguelikes, then you owe it to yourself to check this one out.

Can't believe the user scores here. I don't know what was expected of this game before most people played it, maybe it's a communication error on the dev's part. This game is a ROGUELIKE. That means it's meant for quick play-throughs and makes the user subject to luck and chance. That's the appeal of a roguelike. And for those who are turned off by the art, I find it perfectly charming. I think it actually shows good sense to use the open source sprites (that many other games use) at **** rather than make his own. Overall this kind of reminded me of a looser version of Desktop Dungeons. The art is charming and the interface is streamlined. All-around well-done. If you are into roguelikes, and like to see the genre spawn different variations, then this is for you. It's certainly for me.