It's a fun roller coaster ride the first time, but i fear the switching between characters is both a blessing and a curse. it breaks up pacing very nicely, but is done unevenly. the latter half suffers from too many set pieces and fan service. there are too many un-skippable mandatory walking segments that will hurt replay value. that being said, I had a blast, but I'm not the usually resi hardcore fan that will wish replay value was better here. also, i'm very much not a fan of games coming out unfinished. i really wish that mercenaries and all that other stuff was already included. and where's our A & B sides for the campaign? I liked that they did this for resi 2 remake. then resi 4 dropped it again. capcom is all over the place with this series. fun story to experience, but they should really consider how the game plays for someone that skips all cutscenes on their 3rd playthough.
Bought after watching Electric Underground's YT video on it. Playing on Hard. Looking forward to Japanese Hard but man, I'm sweating already! Look, this game is meant to be played, not watched. The cutscenes are there to be serviceable, no more. Instead of always wanting to WATCH something, new players of W:D would be best served playing on Hard, learning by failing (look up how to beat second boss though, he's kinda tough) having fun PLAYING. After feeling empty after finish Death Stranding 2 (started strong but got boring at the end) and having my fill of excellent story in a turn-based with Clair Obscur's rare out-of-nowhere excellence, its nice to play more of a real-time action game. Wanted Dead is like a solid 8 but I give it a 10 because so many reviewers and baby gamers seem to want a Sony studios movie game out of this when its just trying to be once of the best 3D action games released in a long while. Give it a shot next time you see it around 30-40 bucks or less. I like it better than Bayonetta 1. Its not quite DMC5 and Ninja Gaiden 1/2 level. But certainly it is around DMC3/4, HiFi Rush and Stellar Blade level. In general I feel like Electric Underground's videos have completely changed the way I see gaming lately as well, check him out. I just got back from a big work abroad thing and after seeing a ton of his videos I bought like 7 retro and newish games. Its time for me to let go of games that just want you to sit and watch, and go back to games that expect skill from me but reward me with intense real time action and the opportunity for mastery.
Story got me thinking I need to play everything from this studio, yeeesh... and some people think the combat lacks flair but idk I like the little movies of your combat moves and sprites representing the combatants, my brain fills in the details of an intense defense against hordes of enemies well enough. Really a remarkable achievement **** that engages your brain on 3 different fronts at your own pace!
After playing SMT5:V and CO:E33, this game feels like a chore to play when you aren't fighting enemies. Lots of "ton of talking and then one fight" moments that don't feel too great. Dungeons are the best part because it feels like the game is letting you play the game again. Every character can be every class also to me does not feel great, but that might just be me because I heard some people like that. Grinding archetypes and inheriting skills feels more like a grinding chore than getting new demons in Shin Megami or just playing Clair Obscur. I remember liking Persona 5but being kinda "over it" near the end, but the game kept me going because of the characters and story. My master is in politics, and while some praised the story, I find that the game doesn't make you think too often about politics for it to feel deep enough of a dive into the subject. I love the art style, but graphics look outdated too. I'm sorry that this feels so negative. Its just that this is a good game that many of us are gonna bounce off of because it's doing too much Persona social stuff, too much job/role switching and prep for battles and while all these systems feel nice at the beginning, after a while it just feels like a game of too many systems and prepping. Fights are as easy as you prep for them, but I admit they always look cool. I really wanted to finish Metaphor, but I just don't care enough about the characters even after spending tons of time with all of them. I am randomly jumping back into 13 sentinels tho lol.
It's fun, but just okay. I completed one run one time and never felt the urge to try for more completions. Hades kept you going, but this game doesn't do as good of a job of making you want to keep figuring out what's going on with the story. The time limit thing is kinda stressful and annoying too. You get used to it, but I bet that will turn many off.
Anything 2B gets a 10 from me. And after my second playthrough, Stellar Blade is just such a visual and combat treat. I love the costumes in this game so much.
If you are an adult with a Switch you should play this. It's not a kids game, and it's just very mature given the fact that we're talking about the Switch here.
FoA is an 8 right now, even with all its performance flaws... with 10/10 potential. Just depends on how hard the devs want to work to fix the ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUS performance on consoles. Combat is so much better than Oblivion or Skyrim that its hard to go back to their combat now. Like seriously, just try it folks. Play FoA for 5 hours and then start up Oblivion Remaster or Skyrim Legendary, it's such a combat downgrade. On base PS5, FoA doesn't have as many bugs as Bethesda, but does have more performance issues and crashes a lot more which is a lot worse than bugs which can be fun sometimes. It's a shame, because FoA has the deep skill trees, deep gear customization, actual consequences and combat depth that Skyrim and Oblivion lack. The FoA devs nailed that, and that's why even with terrible performance I give this an 8! I'm really rooting for them. I'm a little bit passed the beginning of Act 2 and just could not take it anymore, I have to put this down and wait a couple months for them to fix this. I would love to jump back in but after my 30th or so crash in only about +15 hours (I swear to all the Gods I'm not being hyperbolic), I would rather just play something else in the meantime. I'm happy to give these people my money, they really got something here, I just hope they got what it takes to put FoA in the history books with the big league open world Western RPGs. This is a AA studio dealing with a Cyberpunk 2077-like release right now though. Hypothetically speaking if the game ran at a smooth 60 and no crashes we'd have to put FoA in "who will win 2nd place for GOTY 2025" discussions. Anyhow, thanks for reading, I really hope one of these days I can get back to playing my mage Lune. I really want to level up some more and build around that amazing looking Percival set, it's all I want to do in life right now but I can't T_T.
This small team lovingly cooked so hard. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an absolutely life-changing art-masterpiece and a tour-de-force for the entire industry. It's the kind of game that stands in stark contrast to the Call of Duty, sport game yearly re-releases, gotcha gamblers and copy-cat Soulslikes/Witcher3-likes modern corporate shareholder-centered capitalism consistently keep giving us nowadays. The visuals, music, and emotional vibes paint a picture of beauty that should inspire us to resiliently build a better, more beautiful world in the future even when our todays appear dark. The combat is highly engaging as well and I haven't had this much fun with a turn-based since Baldur's Gate 3! I don't understand why we can't just let passion like this run our industry, hell, run our world! (Are we not trying to make art, or just addict and entertain?) Why do we settle for paying more for less, when Clair Obscur's team has clearly proven that art post-capitalism is simply more beautiful? (No, that doesn't mean going backwards to other old, dead forms capitalism has triumphed over.) I'm highly engaged at work with a great long-term project at work for the past couple months and will finish up soon, but man, while I sit here plugging away I cannot help but just listen to Spring Meadows - Linen & Cotton off the E33 OST on repeat this Monday while I work eagerly anticipating my weekend to inhabit this beautiful world once more. I bought the game for $50 and after Act 1 ended up buying the cosmetics/soundtrack DLC just to give more money to the devs. If this game doesn't win GOTY, what are we even doing, humanity? What else, what more do we want from such a resounding underdog success?! Cheers to the devs, and I hope this game shines at the awards shows this year For Those Who Come After. If all games had near this quality of emotional depth, I really do feel that gamers could change the world by point to our collective artform as interactive idealism, that instead of waiting for the next Marvel movies, slowly killing ourselves on the Hub sites and watching super-mid Netflix shows we could change the world with vibes like this.
Same game you remember, just less colorful this time around. Why so grey and brown, AAA? There is a hotwheel. You can use a claymore and cast spells, which is nice after Skyrim. Oblivion leveling system fixed. Performance and enemy AI could be better though, they kinda just stand there.
We need more games like this, Nier: Automata, DMC, Hi-Fi Rush, MGR: Revengeance and other "character action" or "hack & slash" games whatever you guys call them! They are games with the best combat and best re-playability, please give us more of these and less movie games with un-skippable cutscenes. It seems like every game these days wants to go open world, Souls-like, pseudo RPG or have constant dialogue while you are playing. I just wanna play a darn game! Anyhow, NG2B is sick-nasty. Very fun. I wish you could switch weapons on the fly but hey that‘s fine. Combat is slick, fast, punishing, rewarding, engaging and visceral. I hope they add more to this game in the future, but given NG4 coming soon I doubt they will. Anyways, 新年快乐！
I am honored to be the first review for this game! Huge, and I mean HUGE, Hades series fan. It’s my fav game. This game will give you your Hades fix, and in particular I recommend if you want Chinese language game. I wish the game was more polished and I could totally see a Warm Snow 2 being absolutely amazing with a little bit of play-testing, an open beta and skill/perk/meta-currency rebalancing. There’s some jank and bs enemy attacks here, but it’s a solid game. I found it only because I searched “China” on the PS store to help me get some Chinese language in while gaming. Try it out! And once you start playing I highly recommend relic refining so old relics aren’t just lost for no reason. I love that dash is on such a short cooldown. Not a fan of how fast the enemies and their attacks are because in a game like this it makes it hard to see their attack cues for fair dodging. It often feels like you’re trying to make your character the strongest tornado of violence and HP regen possible since after a while deleting enemies takes precedent over worrying about dodging. I wish metacurrency was earned faster. But love all the voice acting. Please devs, if you make a Warm Snow 2 let me know because I’m a huge fan! PS: DPtdryste, Steam: NoRussiaChinaWarPlzThx
Already had it on PC. Obvious playing an FPS on console is a little rough, but on the bright side its another way to play Deadlink. Support the devs, one of the best FPS rogues ever made. Second time buying it. And for 20-30 bucks its way better deal than most AAA.
I bought this game because I am ideologically predisposed to be the American that wants to love Chinese culture. I think war only makes money for rich Westerners and Asian culture probably has a lot to teach stupid Americans. That being said, this game needs serious TLC on PS5. Not optimized and digital foundry already proved that performance 60 here is eating inputs through fake 60 using generated frames. This game has made headlines for being a Chinese AAA game, but guarantee you the console crowd will ruin China’s positive PR if not fixed. I hope Game Science tightens their belts, because what you all released is probably fine for high end PC users, but you all chose to release on console and its on YOU to fix issues. That being said I think the core of the game is fun. I just wish it looked and played better. I will update my review from a 6 right now in Aug depending on how they address issues. And oh, this totally feels more like a Souls game, I wanted a more DMC/old school GoW kinda game. If all issues are fixed rn I can see this game being an 8.
I never played this game, website won't let me take this review down that I never put a score up for on purpose, and so just putting a 7 since that's more or less close to the mean.
Parrots Destiny 2 and Warframe which are both good games. This game is perfect for just zombie-playing something without a care in the world while listening to a podcast or audio-booking or something. The devs should do themselves a favor a make cosmetics easier to unlock randomly, that would instantly boost score up like 2 points since there's so much to customize but Nexon is literally charging for ALL OF IT. Like even Warframe and Destiny learned that giving out some premium currency every once in a while actually makes it more likely that people will pay in even just a little bit.
I bought this game close to release. GOTY 2020 for me. I never replay games. I probably beat this game once a year lol. It is April 2024 and I still play it. Played it yesterday and just wanted to review my favorite game ever. I love Supergiant for making this, it is the perfect game specifically for me lol. I just always have fun and can’t wait for Hades 2 god I hope they just do mostly the same thing and give me a new story with dialogue from characters that never repeats :)))
TLDR: Pre-ordered. Really wish it was a 10 because I love Capcom. Good but flawed. I’d wait for sale. Update, 8 APR: highly recommend unlocking Warfarer and all classes ASAP, even on first playthrough. And don’t blitz main story. I’d bump my score to a 7 or a 7.5/10 if you take your time exploring as a Warfarer with all classes unlocked since its fun being able to switch weapons on the fly, mix and match skills and progress all class trees simultaneously. Capcom, please make the Arisen a Warfarer in Dragon’s Dogma 3!!! Now onto my original review from like a week ago: Good: Combat is fun in beginning and middle when switching classes. End game boss fights are cool. Fast travel and stamina limitations actually makes you think about how and where you travel. Pawn system is unique. The true ending’s setup is actually pretty cool but by then I’m just so burnt out on the combat, buying incrementally better gear, managing inventories, etc. But yeah, ending is somewhat cool despite overall meh story. Bad: No 60 fps lock for consoles. This game should be manual save imho. Once combat gets old for you its actually the only thing holding the game up. Lack of enemy variety. Lack of mission variety, like everything devolves into run for minutes over here, talk to this guy or kill these mobs with occasional big mob fights. Inventory minutiae gets old in endgame. Story ends up being just not that cool for a $70 AAA hyped rpg from major publisher. Pawns repeating dialogue. PAWNS DYING DUE TO WATER OMFG. Microtransactions but hey I guess they gotta support the servers. My least favorite thing about DD2 I can’t stress enough is the story let me down man, endings are kinda cool but I wish I felt more connected to my npc buddies throughout the game like damn bro, can I get a cutscene of them being awesome with my main? Or can we get drunk together and do tomfoolery? Or can I get some tragic scene where my main ride or die homie dies while saving me? Not much soul in this story, but overall not a terrible game. 6/10
No story, but hey that’s not what you’re here for with HD2, and at least it nails the funny theme (America + Starship Troopers taken to the extreme). Gameplay creates a solid foundation. Like this game is so damn fun to play. Again, I’ll say it again, playing the game with friends especially is the best! You must coordinate, and the game is BEST played with mics on the hardest difficulties. The game is likely to be even better after they tinker around with some of the non-gameplay systems, how much leveling/gear/stratagems/ship upgrades cost and if they add some more skill tree/stratagems/gear/progression paths. We’re all obviously waiting for the future updates (vehicles, weapons, new enemy factions), and that’s the best sign of a brand new live service game. This game gets a 9 from me on today plus potential. It’s an 8 today. 10 would be if all the future content just blows our minds and they pull it all off in a way that makes the community happy. As one can see, reviewing HD2 *right now* is kind of a hard thing to do. If you don’t pick this up now and grab it later, I’m jealous bc your first steps into HD2 when its all chunky with released extra content will amazing. Right now those of us that are getting in on the ground floor are dealing with some bugs & crashes, sure, but we are too addicted to bringing democracy, freedom and justice to the enemy to care. Steam: NoChinaRussiaWarPlzThx
Playing on PS4, and I changed jump to be L2 because that felt better. Abilities on R2, R1, L1 & L3. Equipment on Triangle. It's REALLY fun, especially when you first buy it, but a bit too hard. Easy is normal, Normal is hard, and Monsoon is just silly & near unplayable. Here are some fixes I would recommend for longevity of people that aren't new: -A mode where you can pick ALL your items, in a shop. RNG is a B. -Less defense rating on enemies, how the hell do some people even get to double digit stages on Normal as it stands today? And Monsoon? Am I missing something? -Some of the characters that are fine on Easy **** on Normal and are unplayable on Monsoon. -All characters need more health on modes after Easy. I know this is a rogue-like, but you guys have made an unfair AWESOME game that could be better if it wasn't so scary, if you know what I mean. Even Dark Souls & Sekiro isn't this stingy on health, and they don't expect us to fight MORE enemies, with RANGED attacks, that move FASTER than the player characters. Thanks!
This review is long on purpose, spoiler free and meant to convey my deepest thanks to everyone that was a part of making this game possible. That includes the KickStarter backers. I was not a part of you guys, but I think this game shows something amazing that is possible in gaming. Imagine if the same amount of people that backed this game each gave MORE money, what could we fund?! Anyways... I get it. You value your money and you're now considering whether to buy another 2D game. Maybe you bought Dead Cells or Salt & Sanctuary some time ago and didn't get into those too much, and maybe you never played SotN or any of the other Castlevanias (like myself), so the hype from the fans feels distant and perhaps irrelevant to your tastes. This review is here to assuage your fears: go ahead and buy the game, my friend. About the game: fighting is serviceable by itself, but when put in tandem with sheer amount of abilities, both active and passive, you will be playing this game over and over and over. No one is really here for the story, but the characters are surprisingly likeable and deep when you consider how little we interact with the story. The music... omg, the music... lovely, beautiful and rocks pretty hard all in the same game (check out Dominique's Theme, it makes me hate when I'm done shopping because I have to leave the room with beautiful music). You WILL love the art style by the middle of your playthrough, guaranteed, idc how you feel about it at the beginning. You can't play as a male (at least not that I'm aware of rn, maybe in the future, or maybe cheat codes), but Miriam is a convincing badass. Every enemy drops a move that you can potentially add to your arsenal. With hats, armor, 2 ring slots, and a cape + picking 5 magic/shard types (each with their own category) + the surprising unique passives some items you can equip give you + the fun parts of grinding with little of the downsides (you don't have to do it) + map traversal moves you procedurally get in metroidvanias + on-the-fly loadout swapping and item use... with all this you have a game that you can play ANY way YOU want. Wanna spam Teps Oceus and Igar Storaema, filling the screen with lighting and fire while your passive decreases the rate in which you us MP? You can do that. Wanna exploit the fact that the game just came out and some weapons are just completely lolbroken, and way better than some other weapons? You can do that. Wanna walk around in armor that damages things you touch, so you just have to double jump into the torch/fire things from all the Castlevania games that give you mana, while your pet follows you around casting holy spells at your enemies? You can do that, too. Wanna do all these things at once? The above examples practically describes my character that I beat the game with! And I'm leaving some stuff out! Think about the unique character YOU could create! I ran a Luck and DMG build, but you can go ultra-tanky, high-speed, more wizardly than myself or go full melee and save your mana for the techniques you can perform with weapons. Honestly, I never bought a crowdfunded game, but GOTDAYUM this game is good. I have like 2000 characters left, so to be fair, bad parts: (1.) the economy is not balanced and can be broken, but I would suggest not breaking the economy on your first playthrough on purpose, don't read any guides or tips, just go in blind! (2.) some mid-to-late game main story objectives are really hard to figure out. I can see 2-4 points in the game people maybe saying "Lol, I would have NEVER figured that out myself." (3.) The drop rates for things should be higher, and monsters should drop more than one thing more often. I don't say thing because the grinding is boring, NO, actually it's fun, I say this because the current system makes you grind more and longer than you would if things dropped more often, making it easy to overlevel without trying, just because you want some more copies of a spell to make it stronger, or you want to farm the alchemy materials to make certain things stronger. To be fair, one doesn't have to grind at all to beat the game, but idk if I'm that hardcore yet. To conclude... I was pleasantly surprised by Bloodstained. I can't think of my Top 20 video games of all time all right now, but I'm pretty sure Bloodstained's gonna be there and stay there. I LOVE this game, and I thank everyone that was a part of it for making this for longtime fans and new fans (like myself). I can't believe that in the same year as DMC5 I get THIS too. I'm gonna be swapping between Bloodstained and DMC5 until the first price drop for next-gen consoles lol, and as someone in the military I want to say that these gaming experiences are much appreciated for emotional moral, insane fun and to get away from the real world of hard work every once in a while. Using my final ~60 or so characters to say thank you: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
Just here to pile on. I'm the kind of guy that would write a long review about games, but I just wanted to say how much I appreciate how dope this game is. Great action and character customization, balanced combat, great sound and visuals... etc... just a great experience.
Absolutely fantastic, and what a Q1 for Sony with these exclusives. I have played Nioh, Horizon Zero Dawn and Nier Automata (in this order) and I have to say that this is my favorite of the three. I have review Nioh and Horizon both as 9's and I have to give this one a 10. It's an achievement... especially in the genre that it is in, which is effective and open-world, mission based hack-and-slash. It adds to its likeability by also throwing in some dual-stick shooter action, RPG elements and collectibles and great artistic quality in its storytelling. The game does what a lot of games would be scared to do, and it works to great effect. Again, played all three of Sony's Q1 amazing exclusives and loves them all. I like this one the best by a slim margin, but for anyone that doesn't care about comparisons: Play Nier Automata because it feels like a 2017 game. If you have a siiiiick PC that can make the graphics better, buy it on that "console," but yeah, enjoy the ride. It's like watching a fun/good/poignant anime and playing Devil May Cry at the same time, except ROBOTS/ANDROIDS. Hurray?
Simply excellent. The combat feels great and the story is good. The story contains commentary very timely for where the species currently is today, with comments on how humans treat the environment, technology, artificial intelligence, religion and war. I would give this game 4 & 1/2 stars, the only bad things I can say about this game is it is annoying that you can't climb everything, health regen works in a confusing/time-consuming way and that some great quests are actually "hidden" by seemingly sounding boring/too simple, meaning that players may skip the coolest parts of the game because the "sell" of a particular quest may not have been great. The skill tree in this game also feels very average, but that's more a personal gripe; I know how much I like well-constructed skill trees, so whenever one isn't amazing I dislike that a little. Good things: fighting feels unique for a game of this genre, robot enemies are great, Aloy is a great character, story is just about as good as Last of Us (although would have loved to exist in this world for even longer, such a good setting), and graphics are so good that they really help with immersion into this world. Play it mindfully and you can really see the care GG took, and how profound what they want us to think about is. This is a great PS4 exclusive that PS4 owners (especially those with a 4k TV and and PS4 Pro) NEED in their lives. If you are avoiding this game until the price goes down, definitely play this eventually, don't miss it.
These types of games are always pretty fun for your first run through them, so if you aren't short on cash and want that awesome feeling of going through the gauntlet for the first time, I'd pick this up. Nioh keeps enough of the good stuff from the Soulsborne series while adding its own unique cultural flair and tweaks to the genre to make it a game worth your time. I mean this to be a short review for fans of the genre who are on the fence about purchasing. There's a lot of good and only a little bad here: The game uses Amrita (souls) AND Gold (money). One common currency would have sufficed, as players experienced in this genre might quickly find themselves highly-leveled and pockets stuffed with dough, which is not a bad thing, but a higher sense of scarcity could have been added to the game. Other than leveling your character, there's no way to bank souls/Amrita. Conversely, money/Gold is a resource I do not worry about at all because the features tied to the game's economy seem either optional/unnecessary OR too "weedsy" and complicated. I would rather play through the whole game with random drops, than custom-smash the game a la the Skyrim blacksmithing/enchanting route. That being said, I like that you can make any armor in the game look like any other armor in the game, that you can hide your helmet and redo your hair and facial hair. The last bad thing I will say is that fans of this genre, like me, would probably appreciate a challenge mode (think skulls from Halo, such as disabling blocking for the entire game or making drops more rare) and a difficulty adjust (think NG+) from starting our first playthrough. This isn't Team Ninja's or From Soft's fault, but if for some reason someone working for those companies is reading this, I want you all to know that we understand you have to make these games accessible, but that these are not just tweaks for veterans of the genre, they would lengthen the life of your games as well. Combat is fun. Faster than Dark Souls and even normal enemies can murder your face if you slack. The game sometimes wants you to be aggressive and sometimes wants you to be extremely defensive, and I like that. It doesn't feel like DS or Bloodborne, it feels distinctly Nioh, and that's good. 5 types of weapons with 3 stances, heavy and light attacks and trees tied to learning new abilities/moves for each weapon type. There are also trees for Magic and Ninjustu. It's pretty good stuff, not perfect, but it feels nice and makes your character feel like yours. The game isn't one huge connected world. I was skeptical about this at first, but quickly stopped caring and enjoyed Nioh's mission structure for its uniqueness. Besides, the levels feel well designed. I would actually love to see Team Ninja and From Software trade some team members, both could learn a lot from each other. My personal preference would be smashing the first two-thirds of level design of DS1 with Nioh's attention to details, and making the game as fun as fighting is in Bloodborne and Nioh. In case anyone out there cares. Anyways... Some bosses and encounters feel unfair and are open to complaints that they force cheesing enemies with tactics like high-stancing them with the chain or other stun-locking tactics that I haven't learned yet, but oh well. "Git gud" and "be patient" and "keep whittling away" apply here, annoying pieces of advice but effective nonetheless. You can't fault the game for not getting every combat encounter perfect, especially when 80-90% of it is done very well, so keep at it folks: memorize those patterns and wait for your openings. The game has cutscenes, which are fun and help break the pace and add some character to the game. The supporting poems, stories, lore and other visual flairs the game has are nice extras. They don't feel very coherent to me, but I'm not Japanese and don't know much about the period. Regardless, Team Ninja definitely cared about what they have done here, and it shows. Items have their own descriptions, characters have lore about them that unlocks as you play, character model views and zoom-ins and more... This review is starting to run a bit long so I will end it here. If you are a fan of the series I would consider Nioh a "sorta kinda must play." We were worried about Bloodborne maybe not being fun for being too close to Dark Souls and we ended up liking it. Same applies here. I left out some cool parts about the game like how revenants and online play works and other details, so check the game out for the good stuff Team Ninja added. It's not a Dark Souls copy, it is its own inspired piece from the "Soulsborne genre," much like what a good FPS can be to FPS fans or a good RPG can be to RPG fans. Thanks for reading folks.
My favorite game is TLOU, but my favorite game of this gen is W3. This game comes to a close second to my favorite game. It is worth it just for Blood and Wine. But Hearts of Stone is great too. Also, vanilla Witcher 3 is great. Really, this is a next gen title all the way. You might be reading this in 2017, 2018 or 2019... but let's be honest: Witcher 3 brought next gen. Projekt Red is something special and we should all experiences their work in this game. Thanks. Can't believe it's this good and not specifically made for this console, so Xbox1 players can experience it too wow...
Beat the game in 27 hours over the course of 2-3 days with the intention of straight-shooting the story as much as possible and am now again 20 hours in over the course of 2-3 more days in trying for a mostly-full completion. I'll start with 1. what most people will see as bad, then speak a little bit about 2. what I personally don't like, and then 3. a quick run through of everything FF15 does correctly and excellent in my opinion: 1. The game makes you "watch" sometimes, putting you in a situation where you are meant to soak in the atmosphere. If you are impatient and just genuinely want pure action from video games, I'd stay away from FF15. I thought the "watching" parts of the game really made me feel like the world was real and that Noctis and his guardians were real dedicated to each other. Frankly, it's one of the reasons why I like the game so much, but again, if you aren't this kind of gamer it is probably the main reason I would say to stay away from FF15. The combat isn't Devil May Cry, Dark Souls, Darksiders or any kind of action/adventure-style. It is also not completely turn-based. I say that because some people literally don't know about this until they start playing. It may seem nit-picky to even mention it in a review, but you would be surprised for the reasons people don't like games. There are parts of this game that are not story, heroes-saving-the-day oriented (think GTA5's golf or tennis or skydiving or racing). Some FF fans may think that this detracts from the focus you could have if the game was just based on story elements, but as a repeat player the non-story critical elements keep me engaged and fill out the world. The game expects you to know a little bit about the world of FF15 before playing. Seriously, if you want to play watch the short movies and TV episodes associated with FF15. You can find them on YouTube. I wouldn't have minded doing this, but I found out during my playthrough and I could see other people hating that the game doesn't start on "Square One." 2. A lot of FF15's functions and controls very unintuitive. The game has a way of "interrupting itself" at times too, and this is annoying. Perhaps because I blew straight through the story and am now doing a patient replay and doing everything, my second playthrough just feels so much better than the first as it relates to understanding all the mechanics and how the world in FF15 works. To spin this positively though, I feel great that I learned the full controls and setup of the game on my own after sometime, but I wonder if there was an easier way of doing this. Noctis feels extremely squishy. This can get annoying when fighting foes that are higher levels than you, and more so when, as mentioned before, you haven't worked out all the kinks of playing through the game. As a plus, this game is definitely harder than most FF games I have played when attempting a straight-shot full complete, but in a way that doesn't feel extremely cheap. An example is FF10, an amazing game, but a game that you can just tell had some sections where you were meant to be repeatedly smashed by a boss until you realized that it was time to murder giant turtles until you could prevent being smashed by said boss. If you die in this game it is because you are genuinely not fighting correctly or the stuff you are fighting is way too hard. The difficulty and the awkward controls can frustrate non-veterans at points though. The story is serviceable, but has a few points I REALLY don't like about it. I won't spoil anything, but I really don't like when a game expects you to already be emotionally invested in or be intuitive against characters too early into their introductions. Things will happen to someone or you'll see someone and it's like the game is telling you "you should be feeling sad right now" and "this guy is your enemy." As someone that plays games without sound a lot (my thought process is that BGM doesn't play in real life), you can really see some of the game's silliness when playing without sound. 3. The game looks great, is definitely something that wasn't possible on last-gen consoles, the combat feels nice and new, I really like how packed with details and features the game is (the team gets dirty after fighting too long, the mini games are surprisingly well done, chocobo riding is dope, etc.), and in general just feels like a solid $60ish well-spent. The game isn't a perfect 10 for me, at certain times where it is forcing me to do things I don't want to do or isn't fleshing out characters more than I would like it's a 6.0-7.0, but as a package it's more of a 9.0 to 9.5. I try to think about games in the sense of what the developers and art team were trying to convey, and it feels like the team cared about what they were making with FF15. I like that they gave me a little "thank you" note in my game box, and the disc inside the game case feels like a good gift to put this card with.
I'm rating this game as a high 7. 3 things: -My review is for the single player experience only. -I only recommend this game to fans of Naruto. -I didn't play multiplayer, local or online. So the thing I like most about the Ninja Storm games is that I can experience the story, rather than reading the comics and watching the episodes. I don't have the time to be doing all that, so this was great. Although I would say I maybe missed some cool stuff by doing so, I like skipping the fillers and all the talking. I rate the story of this game as okay-to-occasionally-great. I was happy to see how a series that I was emotionally invested in as a high schooler ended, and it was nice. Occasionally some of the sappier moments made me roll my eyes, since I'm 25 years old now, but the story really has its moments! Also, something I found funny which is probably in most anime shows, everyone that always seems defeated always seems to have more power left over. It's all very funny. Also, the scale of some of the battles is cool. The narrative isn't top notch by any means, but if you already care about the Naruto series, that will make it better. Combat is fun-ish. Some of the more frustrating elements of the story mode is that you can't adjust the difficulty, so you are kinda wrecking everyone until maybe the last one or two fights. I beat NS3 on Hard and I occasionally had intense fights in the story mode that took more than just a few tries. I probably died maybe twice at most before succeeding in the hardest of fights here. One of the things I will say are AWESOME though are the quicktime events, special moves, grabs and the ninjutsu endings of some combos. They end in stunning visuals, and this is definitely the best part of the game. After I beat the story I pretty much just went to training and tried out most characters special moves. Adventure mode, probably the most disappointing aspect. I really felt no urge to continue to this mode because of all the menu filler and running around and stuff. Maybe I'm just impatient, but if you're going to have a story mode and multiplayer, and you want to fill in a third mode, maybe make the third mode flow faster? This is a fighting game, ain't nobody got time to be running around skipping everyone's dialogue with post-main-story-ending filler. I will probably come back to this mode and see if I was wrong about it, but yeah, I didn't really feel compelled to complete tasks in the post-conflict world of Naruto after the stakes seemed so high in Story mode. Menus + loading: probably small gripes, but the menus and loading screens are slightly longer than I would like. No one interaction with the User Interface and waiting for the screen to load takes up much time, but after a while with the game I started wondering how much of my time was spent not playing or watching cool cutscenes PLUS how much time was spent running around and in the menus in Adventure mode. Was it 5%? 10%? 15%? Idk, but it was enough to make me think about it. Conclusion: You're coming here for the cutscenes, and to finish the story. That's the best part of the game. I don't have an opinion on multiplayer because I don't play online, and my friends don't really play video games, so if you like the combat this game got better for you than me! I enjoyed the combat sometimes, but was really pissed I couldn't change the difficulty during story mode. I gotta come back to Adventure mode. But yeah, if you have already played the really great games your respective console has to offer and need something to play while something you are waiting for comes out AND you are already a Naruto fan AND you don't mind paying the $45-50 this sorta new game still costs, I'd recommend it. If you are short on cash and/or are deciding on this game and some other AND ESPECIALLY IF YOU ALREADY FINISHED THE SERIES/STORY, I'd take a look at something else. Again, my favorite parts were the scenes and visuals, but if I already knew what awesome jutsus our heroes and villains used in the last arc of the series I don't know if I would enjoy the game the way that I did, as a vector to finishing the series. Thanks for reading, guys and gals.
THIS IS A PS3 REVIEW. IF YOU WANT A PS4 REVIEW, THIS AIN'T IT. This review may be longer than most people who review this game, and that is done on purpose. Does Bungie's latest project ****? Or is it amazing? The answer is somewhere in the middle, more so leaning towards it being worth playing... Oh, and I want to preface this review by saying that I mostly prefer single-player games with good stories. I kinda don't like FPS multiplayers because they feel too fast, hectic, and strategy-less at times, but I thought the first CoD4 was great as a single and multi-player game. I was surprisingly really into Last Of Us online though, because it required strategy and skill, not just fast-twitch reactions and learning the maps/spawn points. I don't have good friends to play Destiny with, but I know two people who have it for X1 and PS4 and they like it. As such, I'm less-biased in the sense that I don't just like a game because my friends play it, because really as a human being you are prone to like activities that you do with friends. But enough with the sociology lessons... I'd like to say something I think is pretty important towards understanding this game and how you will like it in the long run... You WILL initially be wowed by this game. There's just a bunch to like initially, really. But if you are one of those gamers that define how good a game is by how many DAYS you are playing it, just remember that this is a shooting game and most people that aren't into multiplayers don't stick too long to shooting games after seeing all the content. YOU WILL BEAT DESTINY WITHIN ONE WEEK, and it will be a great ride, but remember that this is a first-person shooter with lots of MMO elements, a forgettable story, and a pretty nice presentation. Pros: tight shooting, CLASS SYSTEM HURRAY, good sense of progression via item and character development, your character always looks pretty cool, really polished feel to examining your gear and class stats, co-op can at times feel very chummy in a good way, nice animations and graphics, Destiny's world feels like a solar system alive with other players at times Cons: BLAND STORY, lack of attachment to NPCs and characters, game has different races but fails to make this interesting like how Mass Effect did, feels too multiplayer-centered, MORE CLASS ABILITIES WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE, online-only game Extra-con: Oh and simply WTF Bungie at the limited character customization. You can't rotate your character during customization. Hair-types are either Caucasian-centered or just look plain weird. Color palettes are extremely limited. C'mon man... Super-con: game already has a US$35 "expansion pass" for 2 DLCs which makes me think that long-time Destiny players are just gonna keep shelling out cash for content. Feels unsettlingly WoW-like. This game is a mix of a bunch of games. Like Warframe, you and other players are running through levels getting XP and shooting stuff. Like WoW, there are items with detailed stats, which for the most part impress the RPG crowd but sort of complicate the shooting experience for FPS fans. Like CoD and Halo, there are those multiplayer modes which you either love or hate: first-person shooting and everyone running around guns blazing. Personally, I think Last Of Us has better multiplayer, but that's just me... I think this game has a lot going for it, especially since its from Bungie, so its already guaranteed to make millions of dollars. It is arguable whether this game is made for such a purpose, but I personally think that Bungie was trying to make a decent MMO-shooter with an extreme focus on multiplayer. What is unfortunate is that the story in this game is so damn bland. I really do wish that the single-player aspects of this game were more emphasized. If Last Of Us can give us a great story and a great online multiplayer, no one should get a pass of producing bad video game stories. ESPECIALLY BUNGIE, who's has a seemingly pious following for their good-to-great games which have always had tight shooting and at least a followable story that you at least cared a little bit about. Dear game industry, please do not slack off on the single player aspect of your games. Shooting multiplayers and MMOs are the big money-makers and keep the developer's name in the conversation, but good stories can make your game legendary. Destiny does a lot correct, but go ahead, read other reviews... the general gist of what everyone is saying is that Destiny is good, but it could have be OMFG 10/10 GOTMFY if it just did a few things differently. It gets an 8/10 from me because of such missed opportunities from a big name developer. It isn't like Ubisoft giving us that terrible PS3 Watchdogs, which felt shallow and unlikable, but this is Bungie. If the people who made Borderlands made this, I'd give it a 9 or a 9.5 or something, but this is Bungie. They could have made something legendary here with Destiny, but hey, its still great.
Gonna first talk about the things I don't like about Telltale games: 1. You can't skip the "next time on The Wolf Among Us" parts after you finish an episode. If you are like me and surprise is a big part of your enjoyment in games, these unskippable previews feel like spoilers. 2. If you're not playing on PC, there's intermitent lagging. 3. There are some choices, but gameplay can feel linear, a lot of choices lead to the same results, and game hold your hand in terms of find clues and stuff via showing delectables targets over items you can interact around. It might be better if game gave you a reasonable time limit when finding clues/searching for evidence and your lack of finding everything created different results. But maybe as a developer that might be too complex a thing to do, idk. Gonna close by saying TWAU was awesome. I liked it better than Walking Dead because it introduced a new universe that you couldn't find on TV (lord knows how many zombie themed shows/movies we've seen recently). The big choices DO feel like big choices when you are making them, and the experience is like being part in an episodic shows ala Game of Thrones, True Detective, etc. I loved the universe, the art is beautiful, and the scripting gives every character some depth. I think Telltale is making some good interactive viewing for us video gamers, but they still have lots of room to grow. If Chrono Trigger on SNES can do 13 endings, they can do multiple endings too! Oh and I seriously suggest waiting for an entire season to come out before playing, I did so and playing through the entire season with some drinks nearby was nice :D
Definitely not worth the ~$60 a new game costs. I just returned this game earlier today back to Gamestop, losing money in the process because Gamestop doesn't let you return things based on customer satisfaction. This review is based only on my PS3 Watch Dogs experience: Pros: Shooting and stealth mechanics are solid. Hacking and Observer features with Aiden are nice, but don't stay "WOW COOL" for too long. Character animations are cool. Feels like a lot of content for one game, which is nice I guess. Cons: Cars drive pretty badly. Enemy driving AI is super unrealistic. Game looks like butt on PS3, with screen tearing and low textures everywhere and things rendering right in front of you (in the near distance) as you move throughout the world. Main character is raspy-voice, unlikable, and frankly a bit contrived. This is feels like one of those games that would be a good choice if you could only buy one game with your new next-gen console, since it has a lot of content and probably looks WAY better on next-gen consoles. It is not nice playing this on a PS3 after watching footage of the game being played on PC and next-gen consoles and just KNOWING that it looks way better on other platforms. The game is ugly, and even if you aren't a graphics queen you will notice. The story felt weak and I didn't like that my character always had to wear a trench coat. Also, my biggest gripe with the game: DRIVING DOESN'T FEEL GOOD. I'm not even that big **** fan, but one thing I liked about GTA5 is that the driving is fun. Steering your car in this game feels more like you are pushing the front and back end of your car in opposite directions, as if the steering mechanism was located in the middle of every car like a swivel. The first time I started driving I notice how much I hated it. Bad driving mechanics in an open-world game is just plain sin. This game (for PS3) is the first time I bought something just off the hype surrounding it, without waiting for reviews or looking at Metacritic scores. Needless to say, I have learned my lesson...
Pros: Freaking beautiful piece of art that gamers should not miss. Cons: $15 and you can beat it in about 2 hours. My advice is to beat the whole game in one sitting. This is one of those kind of games that you can probably replay at different points in your life when you just want something beautiful for about 2 hours, and you may interpret it spiritually in one way or another. The only people I wouldn't recommend this to are people that have the artistic temperament of pig's anus. Hope that helps!
