Sarlic91

It's great! It's only weighed down by the slog sections where you feel the Hitman inspiration (Sandbox areas where you have to eavesdrop and get certain things). I put the game down whenever I had to do one of those, but I was thrilled again, once they were over. I do get why they were there, it was just a bit overused in my opinion and did drag the experience down a bit. Loose a bit of the Hitman roots and an eventual follow up could be one of the best games I have ever played. I've seen glimpses of that game in here, but it needs a bit of more polish. The combat system is awesome, the actors are great, stealth is smooth, there is a lot of good in here! Edit: Also I think it's more of a 50€ game, not 70€.

Is it perfect? Hell nah, but it captures what made Gothic special back then and gives it a fresh coat of paint! For 50 bucks that **** is reasonable as hell! Needs a few patches tho, but wouldn't be Gothic otherwise.

Updates and balancing gets a little annoying at times but the gameplay is so damn on point it's hard not to like it

I really, really wanted to like this game. I have no connection to the whole gender-thing, I didn't even get to the character the whole **** was about, I gave up on the game before and I am now a bit pissed I have wasted my money. I thougt the combat would be the hardest thing to adjust to, in the end the combat turned out to be the biggest selling point, but even that could not mask how bad the writing in this game was. Honestly, it's attrocious, unbelievably boring, bland and empty... I want my money back, THIS is fraud!

Ooof... So, upfront: I really wanted to like this game, as I am a big fan of Final Fantasy ever since FF9 (and playing some older ones after that). This is just no Final Fantasy anymore. First up, what makes a Final Fantasy exactly that for me, followed by what I think about with this game: 1. A good, deep story with some crystal nonesense: Well, I mean, there is the crystal nonsense. That being said, the story falls flat. At least one very big twist is so foreseeable, that it robbed the moment of any relevance, the first of some reunions goes without much words. And a lot of what the story entails is just void of anything interesting and the short dialogues (albeit nicely voiced ones) don´t really help getting in touch with the characters. A lot of whats there feels unnecessary bloated and cinematic instead of grounded and relatable. Earlier FFs did much better jobs showing me some real motivations and facettes even beyond those motivations. This game is a very narrow experience, but yeah, voice acting is expensive. 2. A group of characters I care about: I mean, there are some that follow you around, but since they didn´t exactly feel like contributing to combat and the story exposition to them was - as mentioned - short, I didn´t care much for them. They come, they go, whatever, Cottoneye Joe. There was no Vivi or the likes. 3. Tactical combat that makes me plan my moves and gives me a real choice about how to utilize what my cast brings me: It´s Final Fantasy May Cry... Cool and all, but to me the direction of combat FF should be going is the one FF7R is pointing to. Faster, but with a good layer of tactics. There is also room for improvement, but THIS is just wrong. Much bang, no substance 4. Relevant leveling and equipment choices: Combat gets you ability points that you can allocate to very predefined new combat effects. All very flashy, yes, yes. But there are no real choices about how to build my character. It´s not as that was relevant tho, as the battles are void of meaningful tactics, you just have to evade and smash at the right times. Teammates (if you could call em that) are completely without player control. 5. Quirky moments and minigames: There are none. If you would interprete awkwardly stiff as quirky, that one might be a banger to you. It does not, however, compare to what so many FFs before have done. Yes, I do understand the motivation about trying to be more adult. It just isn´t done consequently enough to be convincing. It just lacks spirit and fun. 6. An interesting, open world that opens up gradually and gives me freedom to explore: Yeah it does open gradually and gives me freedom to explore (it even warns me about points of no return that close of some exploration). The freedom ultimately amounts to nothing, because the world itself is not very interesting to look around in. Beautiful, but... 7. Interesting rewards for exploration und collecting secrets: That´s the reason exploration is not very interesting. I remember finding Daguerro in FF9 back on PS1, a whole city, hidden away, completely optional and with very interesting stuff to find and do. Here you find Sword +1 at most, yay, new graphic for smashy backstick. Or some other random Live-Service Material Trash you can use to upgrade your smashstick. Nothing that has substance, meaning. 8. Some other nonsense, Gil, Potions, Chocobos, Summons, cool Moments n all that: Oh yeah, that´s all there. There is just to much emphasize on stuff like summons and big flashy moments. Yeah, they also belong to FFs DNA: Aeriths death, Alexanders awaking, the flying gardens. But they should be there to support something that is already great. Here all the other stuff is just build around those big, flashy moments and lacks a lot of substance. I do give 2 points because what is there is actually kinda fun (DmC was never a bad game). It just feels wrong all the way through. Like they were looking at Strangers of Paradise: Final Fantasy and thought "You know, this is much better than what made us millions of loyal fans"... Boy oh boy, that was the last of my money Square has seen for a while. Edit: A lot of the twist are very foreseeable, the "episodic features" hurt the "grand tale" feeling, the devs were aware sidequests are stupid and bland so relevant ones are marked, item management is very, very limited and stuff like "Progress will be lost upon leaving the area" while leaving the area of a main quest is just really out of place... To me, CBU3 does not get Final Fantasy. Sorry, I really tried liking it.