CasualGamer107

This game was absolutely deserving **** nomination. On the surface it seems like a fairly straightforward poker-meets-roguelike fusion, but one quickly realizes just how deep the game goes. Is it perfectly balanced? No, but it's close. The game is addicting because of its simple rules yet complex synergistic and strategic potential. I recommend any fan of strategy games or roguelikes immediately pick this one up.

This game is the pinnacle of artificial difficulty masking itself as "skill." Souls like fans are the actual worst because they praise bad game design in the spirit of the game being "hard" or something. Visually the game is good, but everything else is atrocious.

This series has some of the most memorable characters of any game franchise. I went into these games expecting not to like them much, but came out of it absolutely loving just about everything about the games. Sure the gameplay isn't the most action packed, but that's not the type of game it is.

Why must they use the Final Fantasy name for this game? Both 15 and 16 (and that remake I guess) have morphed the series' combat into an unrecognizable atrocity when compared to the games of the past. Thankfully Square is still putting out games like Octopath Traveler, I Am Setsuna, and Triangle Strategy for the real RPG fans. The visuals and music are stunning, and the story is epic. Best of all, though, is that Square did not fall victim to the woke nonsense that poisons every new game franchise. The Japanese are not as easy to compromise their integrity as the spineless cowards in the West. If they released this game under a different moniker, it'd be at least a 9/10 from me. This is not a Final Fantasy game, though, and as such I cannot give it a higher rating.

The music and sound design are both fantastic, but that's about where the praise ends. The gameplay is the same snoozefest that Diablo 3 was. Boring spam skills that you use to keep yourself busy while your other skills come off their insanely long cool downs. The absolute worst game design for an ARPG, yet blizzard insists on being as stubborn as ever with this approach. Path of Exile gets it right. I'm not impressed by "open world" games that are open world for the sake of being open world, and I don't think this type of game benefits from that. Sure you get things like world bosses, but ultimately the ARPG is best played with smaller groups in instanced areas, not like an MMO. I could go on for hours about why this game is a complete failure, but honestly those two reasons are enough for me to consider it one of the biggest disappointments of this year. Just wait for PoE2.

This isn't a Final Fantasy game, this is an atrocity cobbled together by the husk of a company who now focuses almost exclusively on crappy remakes and gacha games. Play 1-13 (and avoid 7) if you want a good Final Fantasy.

I'm going to be reviewing this game mostly from the perspective of a competitive player. This game was extremely ambitious, but unfortunately GF fell short in many ways. It definitely isn't all bad, but the bad outweighs the good. Let's start with the good.: + Terastal mechanic overall seems really cool for competitive play, though it does reward more offensive playstyles. Unfortunately, the mechanic as a whole doesn't impact the story mode much, as you can only use it once per Pokemon Center visit. + Raid battles are MUCH faster than in Sword/Shield. This is huge, as the Dynamax raid battles sometimes took forever. + Autobattling is a fantastic feature and a huge time saver, though sometimes the Pokemon bug out and stop moving. The targeting function doesn't always work, either. + Items used for EV training and perfecting IVs and natures are VERY easy to get; you can buy them all for pokedollars. This also goes for all held items. + TM crafting strikes the perfect balance between TMs and TRs from last generation. Now, the bad: - the battle timer in 1v1 online battles is beyond stupid. 20 minutes is NOT ENOUGH TIME for a 6v6 fight, partially because of the lag and poor animations. They need to do away with this or AT LEAST MAKE IT OPTIONAL or adjustable. - REMOVAL OF KEY FEATURES. Specifically, the Set Mode option and the endgame Battle Tower. I used these two on every single Pokemon game I've played. Set Mode specifically has been in the game since the originals, and the Battle Tower since Emerald. WHY remove them?! - Trainer battles are way too slow paced. It feels like Diamond/Pearl. I'm not sure if this is just because the game runs at 15fps or so at all times, but the battles should be twice as fast. - Too much text, both in battles and in the story. Most of the battle text can be shortened or compounded into fewer text boxes, but for some reason they refuse. - Insane power creep from the offensive side. Flutter Mane is already showing itself to be Uber-tier with no real way to check it. The defensive nerfs really don't help either (though I do like some of the nerfs, like the Scald and Knock Off nerfs). I'm hoping the meta doesn't end up being hyper offensive with no way to check threats. - This one's obvious, but the game has tons of technical issues. I've gotten stuck many times just trying to ride my mount around. The game is actually pretty good at un-stucking you though. - Graphics overall look pretty bad. Most things not in your immediate vicinity are a slideshow or look like they're N64 era. I won't go too into this because most of the other reviews talk more in detail about it. - Online play ****. This comes as no surprise to anyone who's played a Pokemon game, but I get constant disconnects and weird errors when trying to do raids. - Lack of real end game. This goes right along with the removal of the battle tower, but it's still worth noting. I wish there was more to do other than raids and fight some level 60 trainers over and over again. - Lack of options for online multiplayer battles. We should have more customizable rulesets for online fights. I really wish GF wasn't so tone deaf and would make it easier to play 6v6 with custom rules with randos. Friend codes are way too much of a pain. - The music is lame. I thought Sword and Shield had mediocre soundtracks, but some of the tracks in this game are just cringy. The Terastal music has to be by far the worst one. What's with the singing? Honestly, I'd recommend against buying the game unless you're an absolutely massive fan of the series. Competitive players are better off just playing Showdown and casual players will be turned off by the numerous bugs and graphical embarrassments.

The world is boring, magic is boring, and all the factors that add artificial difficulty get old real quick, such as the enemies reading your inputs so they know your actions before you even take them. Not to mention the fact that the game tells you very little about its mechanics (like how spells scale and the damage of spells) or the quests (why is there not a real quest tracker). This would be acceptable for an SNES game, but we're far past that point. There are plenty of bugs, too; I have issues locking on vs certain enemies routinely. And last but certainly not least: the UI loves to get in your way. Oh sure don't tell me anything about how damage is calculated or what a spell actually does, but go ahead and lock me out of reacting in combat with a prompt that takes up a quarter of the screen and prevents me from making any meaningful actions in the middle of combat. Don't waste your time unless you enjoy getting tortured by mediocrity and artificial difficulty.

They continue to mess this game up more and more as time goes on. From the absolute atrocious "woke-friendly" artwork decisions (just look at the Amazon) to continuing server issues and now to their insanely misguided rebalancing of classes, they can't get anything right. The most recent atrocity they've decided to commit was to nerf the Druid's Shapeshifting tree so badly that it's now unplayable in any form. Shapeshift was the most versatile tree in the Druid's arsenal and led to an incredibly diverse array of possible builds. Now you basically have wind, fire, and summon as your only three options. Do yourself a favor and just play the original.

There is so much wrong with this game that I want to get the few good things out of the way first. The music is fantastic, as to be expected from a Final Fantasy title. The visuals are also very impressive. Square Enix has really mastered the art of presentation, and XV is no exception to that. That's where the good ends though. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING else about this game is pure trash. I won't mention any story spoilers, but let's just say that there's a lot of empty setup for no real payoff. The combat. I can't stand this trend they seem to be following. Final Fantasy is no longer an RPG. The combat is not RPG combat. This is closer to Devil May Cry than any Final Fantasy game. Get this **** out of Final Fantasy. I refuse to buy any more Final Fantasy titles until this garbage is stopped. To be more specific though, magic is useless. New equipment doesn't feel exciting. Strategy and planning don't play as much of a role in fights. For the sake of keeping this review short I'll just say everything else **** too. Quests, the DLC, the shallow and directionless open world... Just don't play this game.

To this day I am absolutely stunned that this game did not get much attention. I admittedly haven't finished it but I love it as far as I've gotten. If you enjoy hard Metroid inspired games this is a definite pick up. The attention to detail in the level construction and puzzles is magnificent. Fantastic artwork (if you're into pixel art), great soundtrack, and super fluid controls wrap this package up nicely.

Path of Exile is the only game worthy of the title of spiritual successor to Diablo II. The combat is fast paced (with VERY FEW SKILL COOLDOWNS THANK YOU), the visuals are great, and the game is INCREDIBLY deep... a little too deep. The skill tree isn't really that crazy once you break it down, but can be intimidating to new players. The big issue right now, though, is that the game is getting bloated with too many evergreen mechanics. Prophecies, delve, incursion, heists, etc... The list keeps growing. If you take a break from this game and come back, be prepared to get bombarded with completely unfamiliar mechanics even on a normal campaign playthrough. Other than that, though, I firmly believe this is the only good modern ARPG out there. Path of Exile is the only one to get it right because they followed in the footsteps of Diablo II.

The pinnacle of RTS games. The infinitely high skill ceiling helps cement this game as one of the greatest competitive games of all time, if not THE greatest. Competitive Starcraft is still played in Korea, where it's much more popular even than it's younger sibling Starcraft 2. This game isn't perfect, but I have a feeling it's as close as we'll ever get.

You can't reassign left click. That is insanity and on its face is an instant failure for an ARPG in my book. But let's keep going, because the game honestly isn't all bad. Almost every skill has a cooldown. This is incredibly lazy design and extremely boring to play ESPECIALLY considering that this game has a unique resource system that could have been used to balance these skills instead. Why do game devs keep putting cooldowns on every skill? Learn to balance your games in more meaningful and creative ways. Gameplay is overall slow, partially thanks to everything having cooldowns. Don't play this if you like Diablo 2 or POE. Let's talk good though. Character customization is great, the skill tree is really cool, and the game definitely looks good and sounds good overall. But realistically the cons outweigh the pros. There are a LOT of cons I didn't cover but I think those are covered well enough by other reviews. Skip this unless you're looking for a casual game to play with friends.

For starters, there's a LOT of content in here. For the price per hour of gameplay it's hard to beat this trilogy. The games themselves are not bad; the stories of each are a little dry at times and some of the dialogue is corny but it's overall not horrible. The gameplay is a pretty standard SRPG with some cool character customization options later on. There's also a magic item "crafting" system that isn't too complex but helps to make use of less powerful items you find. There isn't a ton of variety in the gameplay though, and there's the necessity for a lot of grinding at the higher difficulties (not necessarily a good or bad thing, since some people play these games for the grind). The camera can be a bit frustrating at times since it's at an angle and you can't change your view. This can lead to some longer than necessary turns just trying to navigate your units around the camera angle. I can't bring myself to give it an 8 or higher but I'd say it's worth a purchase. It's just kind of... average in all areas. Nothing really stands out enough to make this game "great." If you're looking for a cheap game(s) you can sink tons of time into though, this is definitely the pick.

A very well crafted roguelike game that is made even better by multiplayer. Lots of replayability (thanks to procedurally generated levels), great music and graphics, and even a bit of humor. Game is hard but not unfairly so. A must-have for any fan of roguelikes or dungeon crawlers.

I am a big fan of RPGs and strategy games, so of course this game is right up my alley. I like all the different squads and whatnot, but the game is a little shy on content. After a while I just couldn’t be bothered to beat the same few levels over and over with different ship combos just to grind for points. If the game had more content to make the experience of unlocking everything less tedious I would me inclined to give it a higher score. The gameplay itself is fantastic, though. If you like SRPGs this is a great pickup, just expect a lot of grinding if you are a completionist.

I really wanted to love this game. I wanted to be able to give it a perfect ten score. But try as I did, I could not ever get **** into the game. Most of the time I just wished I was playing Skyrim instead. The two biggest bummers by far are the lack over music throughout the game and the fact that breakable weapons follow you all the way to the endgame. The former is what keeps me from really being **** in, and the latter just wastes so much of my time that I lose motivation to play,

Ah, Starbound. Before I begin this review let me say that I've put in around 500 hours since the game's initial early access release on Steam. This is by far my favorite sandbox game. The music, the art, the different races, and the overall theme are all things I love. The story quests are a little weak in my opinion; I love the idea but playing them more than once is such a drudgery. My other complaint is that character builds aren't very customizable as there are only a few gear slots that determine everything about your character. Not even the race of the character makes a difference, which is a bit of a downer. Also, don't forget to save planets; it's nearly impossible to relocate a planet you've been to if you don't save the coordinates (which is thankfully easy to do). I haven't given the new endgame bounty stuff much of a shot but it looks great. Starbound is absolutely worth picking up, even after all these years, if you enjoy sandbox games. You will never run out of places to explore.

If this game had more endgame content it would be great. A sandbox type game with RPG-like character build depth and controls that are actually pretty good? Sign me up. The art style can be hit-or-miss but I like it because things are easily discernible within the game. The crafting is cool, the different environments are all great, and the difficulty is just right for a casual sandbox game. There's just nothing to really do after you hit a certain point in the game, which is a big bummer.

Extremely overrated, definitely the worst game out of the entire series. "Muh evil corporations ruining the environment" is such a tired and overplayed trope even by 1997. The big bad villain is an autistic manchild with a big sword. The main character is an autistic manchild with a big sword. The rest of the characters are boring or just poorly designed; the best in the cast by far is Cait Sith. Minigames can't safe this dumpster fire ****. Let's talk about some redeeming qualities. The music is phenomenal, as to be expected. The materia system is also pretty good and is overall a better system than most of the games preceding it. That's... about it though. The only reason people still fawn over this game is nostalgia. If, say, FF8 or FF9 were released during the time that FF7 were released it would no doubt be receiving the same amount of praise from midwits who barely play JRPGs. If you want a better JRPG experience, here are my recommendations: Final Fantasy VI Chrono Trigger Final Fantasy IX The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky trilogy The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel series Radiant Historia Earthbound Golden Sun Super Mario RPG Octopath Traveler

The good is that the game is constantly being updated with new DLC and even balance changes. There's also some okay-ish single player content if that's your thing. The game falls flat on its biggest draw, however: online play. The servers are so bad that the game is virtually unplayable in the majority of matches you'll manage to get into. Sometimes you'll even be temp banned because the game thinks you left even though the server just dropped both you and your opponent. Now let's talk about the gameplay itself. They STILL haven't removed the buffer, which is the worst thing added to the game since tripping. The buffer makes this game unbearable to play coming from Melee. While the gameplay has been improved overall since smash4, it's still nowhere near the level that melee is. The devs have done everything in their power to limit certain styles of gameplay by making things like throws and edgeguarding far less effective than in past installments. Wavedashing was finally put back into the game but was made so useless it may as well be left out. The ignorance of the developers is pretty astonishing, honestly; Melee continues to be insanely popular with competitive crowds yet they push this floaty campy garbage gameplay in every game following it. And I don't even mind floaties or camping within the game itself, but when every matchup devolves into a snoozefest (and/or a lagfest) you know you have a turd **** on your hands. If you're just a casual who likes seeing your favorite game characters duke it out with items and whatever else, sure this game is a decent buy. Don't waste your time with Ultimate if you're looking for a good competitive experience, however. Play Melee or even Rivals of Aether.

One of the better zombie shooters. Content is still being added to the game, which is impressive considering its age. Perk system is cool and there's tons of weapon variety even before the paid DLC (which isn't that expensive). Sure the gameplay gets a bit repetitive but with how many different modes the games has it's enough to keep it fresh for long periods of time. KF2 is the perfect game to pick up with friends on occasion.

They really did it. They found every way possible to ruin Diablo II. No more skill trees, no more stat points, no more creative builds, and cooldowns on EVERYTHING. Oh god the cooldowns. ARPGs should not have minute+ long cooldowns on essential skills. They should also not have cooldowns on movement skills. And finally, cooldown reduction as a built in game mechanic is the absolute worst way to work around the insane design flaw that is the skill cooldown. The resource (mana) system is supposed to be the way you work around spell spamming. Cooldowns are just a way to say that their experimentation with different resources for different classes was a colossal failure. The entire game revolves around grinding for the best stat sticks to deal what is now comically stupid damage numbers, rather than using interesting items to fuel creativity. All the cool things that sparked weird and creative builds are gone. Wacky and crazy yet powerful things like Beast, Voice of Reason, Ribcracker, all the aura runewords... Nothing like this exists in D3. Path of Exile does everything better than this dung heap.

One of the most fun co-op platformers I've played in a long time. Playing alone is fine, but playing Door Kickers: Action Squad with a friend is some of the most hilarious fun I've ever had in a game. The music is great, the humor within the game is very funny, and the art style is great too. Only bummer for me is that it only supports 2 players; a 3 or 4 player mode would be that much better.

This game could have been great. The art style is cute, the music is great, and the characters are memorable. This entire game is ruined by the horrid combat system. ARPGs really need good mechanics to stick out, and this game does not have them. Your companions are controlled by one of the dumbest AIs in video game history, and do almost nothing to help you in battle. The normal encounters are really nothing special; just spam attack and win. The boss fights are when things go down the drain. Many boss fights you are forced to run in circles while your AI hopefully does something to help you. That is, of course, if they don't die early in the fight because they never defend or evade. Sometimes the games with the most potential are ruined by one or two glaring flaws, and this is one of those games. I'd really like to give it a better score, but I can't justify it purely because of the combat. You wouldn't give a meatball sub a very high score if the meatballs were replaced with horse turds, regardless of how good the sauce or the bread was. Ni No Kuni is a meatball sub with horse turds for meatballs.

Overall this is not a bad game, but I think there are a few key points it really misses on that keep it from being either a good competitor or successor to Melee. Input buffer is a big one. A buffer NEVER feels right or good, no matter how long you spend trying to get used to it. I understand there are some hurdles to get around when making a game like this that's meant to be played online, but Melee online even with some lag spikes feels far better than the 6 frame buffer in this game. The characters. While I don't think that direct ports of characters would necessarily benefit the game, I do think that if characters ARE ported over, they should remain faithful to the original(s). Zetterburn... is an example of how not to do this. The character is mostly melee Fox with a pinch of PM Wolf thrown in, but with half the control scheme tossed in a blender and spilled back out onto the ground. Why is the "shine" equivalent neutral B? Why is the projectile side B? Why would you bother essentially copying a character but mixing up the moves? For the sake of originality? Please. The devs think they're being creative I guess but in essence are just giving the snobs that play this game an excuse to shout, "go play Melee if you don't like Rivals." Many of the other characters in this game are also clones or mashups of other Melee favorites (the goat is Mewtwo/Zelda, the sword guy is Marth with a little Roy, etc), with a few other semi-creative originals thrown in. The cast isn't disappointing (aside from Zetterburn), but it doesn't feel exciting either. The fact that they're mostly weird furries is a little... disconcerting, though. Not really my thing. The single player story and gameplay are completely awful. I have no idea why this was even put into the game. Just don't even bother with it. I do really enjoy the stage variation in this game as well as the customizability of character colors. There are lots of cool personal touches you can add to the gameplay. Still, though, I can't get over that most of the characters are approaching "furry" territory. Something about that still irks me. Rivals has more good than bad, but I honestly can't see a reason to play this game over Melee. Everything Rivals does Melee does better, even online.

Darkest Dungeon is the pinnacle of artificial difficulty in a video game. This game is meant to do one thing and one thing only: test your patience. There is a heavy RNG element in this game at every single turn, but the vast majority of the outcomes work AGAINST you. If you like missing all your attacks, receiving numerous critical hits on your back row character that stresses out your entire party, or just plain random events that ruin your run, give Darkest Dungeon a try. There's no story, very little strategy that matters (since everything can go out the window at the whims of the dice), and very little teambuilding that matters since they're all destined to become turds eventually. Speaking of party, you are not meant to keep party members around for very long. The game is built in such a way that forces you to continuously recruit new members as your old ones die to the extreme randomness of the dungeons. And if all your party members die on a run and you're only left with low levels? Guess it's game over for you. If you like playing games like Russian roulette or if you like to see how much pain you can endure from self-torture before you pass out, this game might just be for you. Otherwise, I'd avoid it like the plague.

What happens when you take Smash Bros and remove all the aspects that make it a good, competitive game? You get Brawlhalla. Items spawning at random, advanced techs missing (the devs actually REMOVED DI from the game!), clunky movement, and an emphasis on teams make this an absolutely terrible experience. Even Rivals of Aether and Icons are better than this garbage fire.

This is a MOBA. There is nothing "RTS" about this game. Advertising it as an RTS in any way is extremely disingenuous. Compare this to a real RTS like StarCraft and you'll see that the games are absolutely nothing like each other. Oh, and the game's terrible too. Boring MOBA gameplay (aren't they all?) with long queue times and mostly bots when you do finally get into a match. Play StarCraft or even LWG if you want a real RTS experience.

This is one of my favorite games of all time, and I think the PC version has the best experience. Let me just begin by saying that I think FFXIII has the best soundtrack of any game I've ever played. Masashi Hamauzu's works are pure genius and fit so well within their contexts. The combat system is also one of my all time favorites. The story gets pretty convoluted (what jrpg doesn't?) but I loved it once I really dove into it. The game is absolutely beautiful, even to this day. My ONLY complaint is that there's no real endgame content; if the Seventh Ark (or other content) is ever added back into the game in a future remaster this game will get a perfect 10 from me.