John_II

Let me start by saying I love Journey I think it' s masterpiece. It's artistic, contemplative, and soothing. Even when the difficulty ramps in the last levels, I still find it a mostly relaxing experience. That's why I played Sky. It's not Journey. It's the art of Journey with MMO-style BS, like seasons, quests, etc. Play Journey, skip Sky. In Sky the music and art are beautiful. It really is art. You're venturing through the remains of an old civilization repairing it and learning what happened. That's where it stops being like Journey. From the get go, you're inundated with props for seasons, the cash shop, the latest cosmetics, etc. Ruins the immersion completely. It's funny because despite the multiple banners clogging up my screen, I'm missing basic controls and tutorials. It's just ruins the experience for me. But I pushed through all the way to last level when I realized this game hates you. First, it's stressful to have to collect all the things (wings, spirits, etc.) as you go. In Journey finding power-ups helped you, but you can finish the game without them. It's more about the journey, not finding all the things. In Sky, you need to collect 20 things before you can even go to the last level. So, not only is the story broken up with stupid seasonal prompts, now it's broken up with "go back and find 4 more things" to advance. Pure garbage. Second, playing with other people ruined it for me. Like I just want to quietly solve puzzles at my own pace. Starting in the second level, not only are there like 5-6 other jabrone's here (I'm sure they're all nice people in real life), they're solving all the puzzles for me and there's nothing to do in any level... except go try to find some of the 20 things... Another strike. Third, and the final nail, I have played this game on iOS and Switch. I rage quit at the same spot both times - the last level while climbing that tower. It's just not good design. There's difficulty and there's BS. This is BS. I keep getting knocked off the tower because my guy thinks that instead of doing a little hop from one platform to another, that this tower is where he'll do a 10ft jump into the air, directly, into the path of an incoming enemy, which knocks you off the tower and you lose your wings. And the longer it takes to get your wings back (wherever they landed), the more you lose. Like I said BS because the controls literally don't let you make the type of jump you want when you want. Hey, maybe there was a tutorial on that, and was over-shadowed by all those prompts telling me it was season of nesting! I digress. This is a beautiful game that if it was like Journey, would be a 10/10 too. But it's Journey with seasonal content, MMO-like crap, and an unforgiving ending to the game that nullifies all your progress based on BS mechanics. They f**ked it up. Skip this game, go play Journey. It's by the same company.

This is the review in progress of a Diablo III veteran. I’m 38 years old, have 5-month old daughter and run my own small company. So, take my comments as the comments of someone who loved Diablo III and doesn’t have much patience for more work/slogging in a video game. I have now put 15 hours into Diablo IV, and I think Diablo III was just more accessible and more fun. I even think Diablo III's simplified levelling/character building was better or at least easier to grasp. I thought Diablo III made me feel powerful as I levelled while Diablo IV makes sure I never do, and I frankly don't care for this open world thing. I don't think Diablo IV is a bad game, it's just that my first Diablo game (and therefore my benchmark) is Diablo III, which was faster paced, more lively, and felt like you played as an unstoppable force. Diablo IV feels like a dreary slog through a dreary world where you're not powerful, and every fight is a fight for your life. Maybe that's what Blizzard wanted and if so, they nailed it. But I don't enjoy it as much. 1. The open world "choose your own adventure" is not real choice. In Diablo IV, it looks like I can go anywhere, but I really can't because the story happens where it happens. I liked Diablo III's linear model better. It felt more curated so you got the appropriate challenge for the level you had as it took you through the story. 2. Side quests are the most time-wasting and boring thing ever. I don’t know why I’m killing 25 skeletons in the woods for some small XP and a little gold. Where are my drops? They’re literally just padding quests that add nothing to the game. If levelling mattered, they might serve more of a purpose. 3. Diablo IV nails the atmosphere/look of the game, but I cannot hear the darn music. I had to YouTube Diablo IV’s soundtrack just to hear it. 4. I find that levelling is basically meaningless in Diablo IV because everything scales to your level. As you level your skills get more potent but so do your enemies. I'm yet to get to a point where I feel powerful even though I unlocked all the skills by level 33. 4.A. I remember in Diablo III when my Wizard got what I call the "Doom Laser" at some point and it was so satisfying to just level a room full of enemies. Not a single skill in Diablo IV does that. None of the skills feel powerful. Even my ultimate only feels good because all my other spells feel so weak. Instead of giving me a genuinely good spell for levelling up, I got spell 1.0, which I now have to upgrade to 5.0 for it to be "good". 5. Why have level scaling and World tiers? I'm playing solo on WT I and I'm just barely **** by some strongholds (down to my last health bar with no potions). I find it stressful, not fun. I cannot imagine WT II, III and IV are any fun. 6. Unfun enemies: not only are there hordes of trash mobs, the bosses just spam **** attacks. The last stronghold had a boss that froze me all the time. It's not fun to be frozen all the time so the boss can wail on you. It's not "hard" content that I need to overcome. It's just to throttle you by playing punch-for-punch until the boss falls down or I die. 7. The inventory… In Diablo III you could carry like 100 things - gems were their own slot - and I could play for like 1-2 hours before I had to go back to town to dump loot. In Diablo IV, I cannot make it through one dungeon without having to go back to town to empty my inventory, which holds 30 things including my gems, which is 12 slots, and then go back. It's annoying, it’s just padding. 8. In Diablo IV, I'm on my first character, Sorcerer, at level 33, still mostly in the Fractured Peaks, and I'm still in Act I of the story, and it's been like 15 hours. It feels like a slog to get anywhere on the map. All I want to do is loot this dungeon and it feels like 20 minutes of walking / slaying un-fun enemies that drop trash loot, or little XP and gold. It feels like padding, like an artificial extension of the game. I don't want to spend 20 minutes walking from place to place - I want the game to get me there naturally like in Diablo III and be rewarded with a cool boss fight or new enemy types or new scenery and then I get a cool story reveal that drives me forward. I think I can summarize Diablo IV like the quest where I finally met Inarius (the angel): I climbed a whole mountain, in a distant corner of the map, through a blizzard and hundreds of enemies who dropped no good loot and weren’t fun to fight, all the way to Kor Valar just to so Inarius could tell me to f**k off. It’s not worth the 15 minutes of grind to do that, and that is the whole game so far. Slog, slog, slog, loading screen, some story tidbit. Rinse. Repeat. Don’t feel powerful just keep fighting for your life, just keep grinding. Diablo III was faster, more fun, with better loot drops and better music and a real power fantasy. Not this drudgery we got in Diablo IV. I'm going back to Diablo III.

I originally reviewed this game and gave it a 2/10. For April 2021, I stand by that review. it was buggy, had too many cheap deaths, the endgame had little point, and I just put it down shortly after finishing the campaign because I couldn't stand to keep playing it. This is the November/December 2021 update along with some things I have learned. This game does more right (now) than I gave it credit for. Gone are the cheap deaths, gone are most of the bugs and gone is the frustration I felt the first time. How to enjoy this game: 1. If you want to just enjoy the story, and cruise through the campaign - keep it on World Tier 1 (maybe 2). That's it. Anything World Tier 3 and higher is actually pretty hard. 2. I would get to level 20 at least, and have some good gear before I bumped up the world tier. 3. Just play how you want. The healing mechanic for technomancer is forgiving that you can play however you want. For Devastator and Trickster, you can focus on close range builds. Pyromancer - I have no idea yet. 4. Sniper rifles and single shot guns have no place in this game. Use a light machine gun, auto rifle, or double gun. If you're playing up close, an auto shotgun. No other weapons are useful. 5. The story is just meh - but there are some funny moments. Don't take it any more seriously than a plot point to get you to the next area. 6. Transmog your gear - no point walking around looking like a smoldering skeleton glued onto some hot garbage. Just look how you want. 7. In the campaign, don't travel too much. Let completed quests pile up before going back to Trench Town to turn in bounties. The load times are still so slow, that it will add hours to your game if you're not efficient. Unlike 6-7 months ago, I'm having fun with the above methods. I play on World Tier 1, I'm levelling up and never in any serious danger. This is a fun looter. I like Expeditions, because it's co-op and no mic is needed. The powers are cool. I think the game does not get more than a 7/10 because: 1. It was launched broken/unfinished - credit for fixing it now, but it's not cool to charge $80 CAD for something you're 6 months away from finishing. 2. You cannot jump in this, like Diablo III (only with guns), and I still hate having to find a ramp to kill enemies that are high up. 3. The graphics look like 2014-2015. 4. The premise is good, but the story is not. In closing: I don't think this game is as bad as my first rating, and after New Horizon, I gave it a second chance. I am glad I did because I am having a lot of fun now. I believe in second chances and Outriders got one. They finally delivered on the promises at launch and I like to say "better late than never"/

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I like the art style and music. The game play is easy when it's easy. But I tried doing this game single player. It's NOT a single player game. Some things I simply could not accomplish because the AI is finicky and I really just needed a person to jump/move when I need them to. I have to give credit to the developers who tried hard to make it work single player, but it's just too finicky. LEGO Star Wars handles AI way better, because your second player (the AI) knows all the puzzle solutions and will do their part. So, while they tried, the AI in this game is no match for another person. So, if you have a friend - give it a try. Single players move along.

The music, the combat, the graphics, Aerith Gainsbourough as portrayed by Breanna White, the world... I mean just go check out this masterpiece for yourself. That's the whole review. If you don't like action games, RPGs or any game in the Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy series... well, then skip this one because it's not for you. For anyone on the fence: try the demo. It's free and takes about an hour. If you don't like the demo, you won't like the rest of the game because although the gameplay is varied and there is more story, I cannot honestly say it's all that different. How to play: - Do it on easy first; meaning finish the game on Easy. - Then come back on Chapter select and do the whole game on normal and you'll be geared up and at level 50 by this point. - If you have any end-game grind - like getting summons, getting weapon skills, or tomes - do it on easy. - Then (and only then) you should try hard mode. Hard more is quite challenging and requires some expertise/mastery of the game's systems and mechanics. It is NOT for casual players.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

TLDR: This is a decent RPG. it's sci-fi and contains a lot of content to shoot through. it has puzzles, a good story, romance, and of course lots of aliens to go shoot. That's a good game. I actually think this game gets 10/10 but for the lack of polish. Long version: This is my favorite mass effect game. It has the character customization and exploration of ME and ME3, the tight levels of ME 2 and ME3, the multiplayer of ME3 and it's Mass Effect through and through. You get to make choices that impact the game and the narrative. I found it lack some polish. I don't like falling through the ground in the Tempest or on planets, I don't think the facial animations are great, and the game is a bit on the long side - over 80 hours for me trying to do everything. But in the end, I have fun. It's a good RPG customization of weapons and builds. You can level up all your squad mates to the max and you can make yourself into an unstoppable killing machine. The puzzles are fun if you like Sudoku - I do. If you don't, you can buy key fragments to get around them. The multiplayer is fast-paced and fun and there is no "team deathmatch" or "battle royale" mode - thank God! In the end, I recommend this game to any Mass Effect fan. it is the best of the series by far. I actually cannot believe this game gets 3/10 or 0/10 by some people. It's not a perfect game, but it does so much right that I think 8/10 is fair. I picked this game up in 2021 and I really enjoyed it. Come to Andromeda and explore, adventure awaits.

TLDR: This game is just a giant list of chores, where the tedium of doing the same unfun activities over and over again gets in the way of what apparently is a beautiful story. Review: Not being a fan in general of farm-sims or inventory-management games, I gave this gave a shot because of all the positive reviews. If you like farm-sims and inventory-management games, then I would say this game is for you because there is so much stuff to build and do and manage that you will be busy for hours. Why am I giving this game 3/10? This game is literally the most tedious game I have ever played. I oscillates between doing chores that are not fun to being too hard to figure out and some touching story moments. There is far too much of the former and not enough of the latter. I'm giving the game 2 points are for the art style and the music. I loved them. But I can listen to the soundtrack on YouTube and I can look at the art any time I want without buying the game. The other point is for the goodbyes to the characters, which are emotional and tug at the heart-strings. The one with Alice was particularly touching for me. What's wrong with this game? - There is no tutorial on how to make any of the high-end stuff. Yes, there are guides out there online, but having a community does not make up for this unforgivable shortcoming. So when you get later on in the game, you don't know how to craft anything. It's maddening. - The same thing that plagues the lack of crafting tutorials also holds up the game. I got about 30 hours in and wasn't even close to being done because I could not figure out how to make e.g. glass sheet, or copper sheet. - Another issue is that you do not know where to find things. After 30 hours and watching two guides, I still have no idea how I am ever going to get e.g. ectoplasm. - While I like some of the exploration, it's maddening that you're constantly being told to go to places you can't get to because you don't e.g. the lantern for the fog, or the rock breaker. - The amount of tedious BS that you need to do to advance the plot is simply unacceptable in a "relaxing" game. - I was able to catch lots of old boots in the early stages of the game, but later in the game fishing was so tedious and so hard that I gave it up all together. - The minigames are fun once or twice, but after the third or fourth time I just wanted it to be over. Instead I farmed resources where I could, but some minigames are unavoidable, which is just a silly design choice. - I was able to catch lots of old boots and small fish in the early stages of the game, but later in the game fishing was so tedious and so hard that I gave it up all together. - This game is supposed to be about optimization, and yet you are continuously throttled in what can be optimized. - There is one quest where you need to pay a guy 450,000 Glims (money) for something. After grinding and harvesting for like 15 hours, I had 350,000 Glims. Then when I looked up online how to do this quest more efficiently, I found out you can just talk this guy's girlfriend and you don't have to pay anything. What a colossal waste of time. - There is no payoff for anything you do - excepting the goodbyes to the characters. You get new abilities so you can explore new areas, which contain chests that give you... wait for it... just more dumb stuff for your ship that you won't use or that's completely uninteresting. - The tedium even shows up in the dialogue of the characters that you cannot skip. Sometimes I would accidentally talk to a character and then be stuck for a minute just skipping their inane dialogue, which is a shame because you're supposed to connect with these characters. - In that way Spiritfarer managed to ruin it's own best feature - love, life and death and how it brings us all together. The stories and hugs we share. Spiritfarer made me hate the best part of it. - 30 hours in - I could not tell when it would end. So I uninstalled the game. When are grinding or chores fun? I have put like 4 weeks of my life into e.g. Destiny (and Destiny 2). I don't mind some good old-fashioned grind. I don't mind it because it's FUN. I did about 150 hours of Diablo III - that's a fun and dynamic grind (if you like that kind of looter / dungeon crawler). I even put about 150-200 hours into Anthem which has it's own brand of fun - at least it's such a pretty game to look at. Spiritfarer is the grind without the fun. That's what ruins this game for me. I think that's the worst thing I could say about the game is that I find actual chores like cooking, cleaning, getting groceries and doing dishes, to be more fun than playing Spiritfarer. I might have persevered through the throttling of progression, the lack of direction, the lack of tutorials, the lack of being able to make progress when you want, if this game's core gameplay loop was FUN. But it's not.