A fantastic evolution of the series. Exceptional, with a few flaws. The Good: * I didn't think I'd like the dispatch character, but she's really grown on me. Coming from SnowRunner where the world is quiet and meditative, having someone squawk to me on a radio was a bit jarring. As time went on, I grew to appreciate her Portal1/Borderlands2 energy and just the feeling that you're not all alone in the world. * The maps are just fantastic. * Being able to terraform the terrain by digging or dumping sand is awesome. * The variety of things to do. I have a sand truck, a tree harvester, a log crane truck, an electrical line laying machine, an asphalt laying machine, a steam roller, a bulldozer, and much more - it's crazy. * I love how the missions really build on each other. The quest tree (dependencies, optionals, )...it's like a World of Warcraft level of execution here. The Neutral: * Takes a few maps before the game really hits its stride. * The AI routes got on my nerves at first. I've learned to accept them because really what they are is a way to grade how well you've built roads. Don't love them, but I understand why they're in the game. But by golly, you better not be in one's way or they'll crash into you and dump all your materials. Jerks. Notable Complaints: * The mechanics of dumping sand, and just the amount of trips for sand loads. They really should have added some sort of 'tip the truck by X degrees over Y distance' option, because trying to steer a truck around a bend while maintaining a smooth dump speed on the opposite stick is murder. * Transmissions absent from trucks. I really enjoyed having that level of control in SnowRunner, with high and low gears. I can understand with the removal of vehicle damage there was no penalty for incorrect usage (say diff lock on hard surfaces), so perhaps less opportunity to tie it to other gameplay systems. * Steering of the 'bendy' vehicles, e.g. Dozer, Log truck. * Minimization of the winch. In particular it's really annoying that the crane trucks don't have a way to right themselves, given how prone they are to tipping. In general, the scout also has far less object types it can grapple to. * The button interface can be unintuitive. For example, the crane being on two separate tabs, not being able to shift out of Low Gear because you're near a garage or resource storage, finger twister scenarios like retracting a winch while reversing a truck.
A fantastic evolution of the series. Exceptional, with a few flaws. The Good:
* I didn't think I'd like the dispatch character, but she's really grown on me. Coming from SnowRunner where the world is quiet and meditative, having someone squawk to me on a radio was a bit jarring. As time went on, I grew to appreciate her Portal1/Borderlands2 energy and just the feeling that you're not all alone in the world.
* The maps are just fantastic.
* Being able to terraform the terrain by digging or dumping sand is awesome.
* The variety of things to do. I have a sand truck, a tree harvester, a log crane truck, an electrical line laying machine, an asphalt laying machine, a steam roller, a bulldozer, and much more - it's crazy.
* I love how the missions really build on each other. The quest tree (dependencies, optionals, )...it's like a World of Warcraft level of execution here. The Neutral:
* Takes a few maps before the game really hits its stride.
* The AI routes got on my nerves at first. I've learned to accept them because really what they are is a way to grade how well you've built roads. Don't love them, but I understand why they're in the game. But by golly, you better not be in one's way or they'll crash into you and dump all your materials. Jerks. Notable Complaints:
* The mechanics of dumping sand, and just the amount of trips for sand loads. They really should have added some sort of 'tip the truck by X degrees over Y distance' option, because trying to steer a truck around a bend while maintaining a smooth dump speed on the opposite stick is murder.
* Transmissions absent from trucks. I really enjoyed having that level of control in SnowRunner, with high and low gears. I can understand with the removal of vehicle damage there was no penalty for incorrect usage (say diff lock on hard surfaces), so perhaps less opportunity to tie it to other gameplay systems.
* Steering of the 'bendy' vehicles, e.g. Dozer, Log truck.
* Minimization of the winch. In particular it's really annoying that the crane trucks don't have a way to right themselves, given how prone they are to tipping. In general, the scout also has far less object types it can grapple to.
* The button interface can be unintuitive. For example, the crane being on two separate tabs, not being able to shift out of Low Gear because you're near a garage or resource storage, finger twister scenarios like retracting a winch while reversing a truck.
Masterpiece. Easily Kojima’s best game, and a triumph of art, writing, gameplay, and technical achievement. It’s rare for a new genre to be born, and with examples like Demons Souls, Monster Hunter, the trend seems to be many critics not ‘getting it’ when they do. That’s fine - just elevates the game’s cult status. If you consider yourself tired of the played out genres (first person shooter, cart racers, the list goes on), you owe it to yourself to give this game a good look. Is it without issues? No.
Overhyped and overrated game. Not terrible, but not good either. Feels like the From Software put their B team (Dark Souls 2) on this project. To provide context, I think it important to start by saying I've been a huge fan of the SoulsBorne series since the day Demons Souls was released. I've loved the twisted worlds they've created, the way they reward a combination of creativity, observation and reaction. So here are the FromSoft Games I've finished, and my rough grade: - Bloodborne (A+) - Dark Souls (A) - Demon's Souls (A-) - Sekiro (A-) - Dark Souls 3 (B+) - Dark Souls 2 (B-) With that out of the way, let's talk Elden Ring. From early gameplay video I can tell you I was not excited. The new world and GRRM writing seemed interesting, but I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop: what was this game adding to the formula that made it worth developing? That moment never came, but that not stop the world from reaching maximum hype level about it. A minority raised concerns and complaints with these early videos - about the animations looking reused from DS3, the graphics looking subpar, etc - these people were shouted down. I've also noticed some in the community railing against the game, because their favorite cult series suddenly went mainstream and Twitch trash are turning it into the flavor of the month. That is not me. I will admit I have my biases, and count myself in the group that complained about the reused animations and last gen graphics - however neither of those were dealbreakers for me. Pros: - Bite-sized chalice dungeons that reward exploration. - Huge set of weapons and spells. - The mount is cute and controls well. Cons: - Framerate **** on PS5 w/ performance mode - XP feels super grindy. - Mounted combat is not fun. - So many reused bosses. You'll see the exact same boss multiple times during the game, and they didn't even bother making it look different. (Think the Smelter Demon x4) - Bosses push further down the trend that DS3 set, being more about twitch reaction and DPS checks, rather than rewarding smart play. - Bosses and many enemies seem to have endless combos. This makes ranged combat like archery and magic relatively unbalanced. You're almost guaranteed to trade hits with a boss to get any damage in, bucking the 'call-and-response'/observe-punish gameplay that made the series great. - AI feels really cheap. There seems to be 3 levels of AI awareness: Oblivious, aggroed, road raged. Enemies often stand around doing nothing. A lot of enemies have cheap AOE abilities that come out quicker than is possible to react and move out of damage range. These usually are ground stomps, earthquakes caused by weapon slams, etc. The area affected is not well indicated, and feel really cheap. The only way to avoid them is to get lucky with I-frames on your roll. - The world feels really boring. Much of it is empty. Geometry and decorations seem randomly strewn about. Outdoor dungeons make no sense, like in a Dark Souls 2 way. Things will link together in ways that don't make sense. There is even a castle with a big gate and a draw bridge, and when you get inside... you go up an elevator... like wtf... - Most of the NPCs are really generic and boring. Their dialogue writing and voice acting is poor, and they carry on with exposition about meaningless things. - The opening cinematic is a huge step back from other Soulsborne games. - The non-weapon item designs are dumb, and don't seem to fit any sort of cohesive theme like the other games. - UI screens, especially the inventory screens are really poorly designed. They lack the character of previous games. They give you way too much information and not enough at the same time, and navigating them is a real chore of contextual toggle buttons. The font and backgrounds are very generic and lack that FromSoft character. - The item descriptions are now only a single byline sentence, where before they provided so much lore and character to the world, now I don't feel any reason to read them. - The color grading is ugly. - Summoning spells are passive and lame, and really don't fit with the gameplay. - So many encounter and enemy designs have been reused. It honestly feels like a FromSoft greatest hits compilation than any sort of original design. If you're a fan of the series, you'll find yourself saying 'oh hey, that's X from Y game. Only it has been reskinned.' - Some boss fights are a huge chore. Running around the enemy in circles while locked on (a'la Sekiro), getting a single hit in for 1% damage, waiting 30 secs, getting another hit. It's a real slog - even with good upgraded weapons and gear. - The crafting system ****. Costs way too many souls for key ingredients from shopkeepers. Adds nothing of value, and requires you to pick up respawning ingredients on the map - one of my least favorite mechanics in modern games (Elder Scrolls).
Some seriously questionable mechanics. Like for example, in order to play online so your friends can visit your island, you have to enter the airport, sit through the same dialog text, tell the NPC at the counter to open your island for visitors, wait while the game saves and shows a 'Connecting to internet' screen for 10 secs. Then the island will be open for visitors. The problem is, if you want to do practically anything in the game (send a letter, turn in the daily ghost quest, etc), you have to go back to that NPC, turn off online play (sitting through the same text and screens), just to do that action. Then you have to travel back once you've done your thing, and re-enable the island. It's just annoying, tedious, frustrating, and seemingly unnecessary - considering you're always online - case in point, friends can text you on your in-game phone... they just cannot visit you. Super dumb. Now lets say you want to have multiple people in the house play the game, and each person wants their own playthrough - cannot happen. The game will literally only let you have one playthrough per Switch, and everyone has to share the same island. That means a family member can clean the whole island out (smash all the rocks, dig up all the fossils, etc), and when you decide to play later, the island is picked clean. Not to mention someone can advance the story, and you miss it. Seriously not cool. We have 3 people in our family that play the Switch, and only 1 can play Animal Crossing. There are also gameplay mechanics that were badly implemented. For example, if you want to sell items (which is the only real way to make money), you have two choices: walk up to the store mailbox and sell the items -or- enter the store, wait for the load screen, talk to the store keeper and go through his dialogue, sell your items, leave the store, watch the loading screen again. The problem is you get 100% of the sell price of your items if you talk to the storekeep, but only like 60% of the price if you use the box on the outside of the store. They explain the outside box as a way to sell items whenever the store is closed (they are open 9am to 10pm daily), but at the penalty of changing you a heavy fee. I get why the outside-hours-box charges a fee (even if I think it's a stupid mechanic), but why are they charging me the fee when the store is still open? Why must I sit through two loading screens and a dialogue tree just to vend my items at full price? It's mechanics like this that really **** the fun out of the game, and turn it into a downright chore. The novelty of the cute load screens, or crafting animations, or lengthy repetitive dialogue really gets in the way of fun. Also it loses 4 points outright for the dumb single island mechanic. Bad job, Nintendo.
