The hype is not overblown on this. It truly is one of those rare games that is amazing the whole way through. The story is incredible, the rpg mechanics and combat, also incredible, there is new game +, a ton of end game content, the music, **** amazing. It is so good, ands proof that medium sized studios can create incredible things.
The launch had some bugs on pc and this is clearly a console port, but overall this is one of the best games I have ever played. I am 98 hours in, and almost done with the game. This was my first souls game, though I have played other similar games that are less difficult. I think my favorite thing about this game is the sheer variety in how you can tackle it. There are so many viable options, and the most OP of them seem to have been, or will be nerfed to be more appropriate. My friends all use different builds and weapons, and we have all had such different experiences going into it. There is a level of freedom and exploration that Breath of the Wild started and Elden Ring expanded on substantially. It's not going to be for everyone, it's definitely hard, and unforgiving but fair most of the time. You can be a sweaty if you want, you can use summons and have friends help, you can be a mage, a 2h warrior, a stealthy rogue style build, the options and new game plus really do lend themselves to an expansive varierty. One of the best games I have ever played, truly a 10/10 game, and a breath of fresh air in a AAA environment where microtransactions and overly busy HUDs gimp what could otherwise be solid games.
Overall I am very pleased with this game, and if you like JRPGs this is a fantastic entry into the genre. Spoiler Free! Pros: + Combat system is fun and dynamic + Stat expansion - Weight, chance to be targeted and speed matter a lot + As a result of the cool stat expansion from typical jrpgs, grinding is actually kind of fun but not necessary (I bet the game and most of the optional end game stuff on Hard mode) + Easy Normal and Hard Mode, and New Game + + Decent story, felt engaged enough throughout + Square Enix Goodness + Music is really good and catchy, and there is a wide variety of it + Story that mostly hits all the marks and feels good finishing Cons - Graphically this feels like it was originally designed for 3DS, animations get a bit stale toward the latter portions of the game - A few plot points fell flat, you beat the boss, then let him get away for no logical reason other than plot, happens enough that it's like come on guys stop letting this happen. - Several scenes in game would have been much more impactful if they had a more robust animation, think cinematics from FF7 onward. Overall, this is a pretty great game, a few things stop it from being a 10/10, but none of them stop it from being a really great experience.
No spoiler review: TLDR: 10/10 game. Story: The story of FF7 is well known at this point, in this iteration, a lot of what happens is consistent with the original, with innumerable nods and winks to the original. However there are deviations, and without delving into spoilers, I will say I found them to be good for the most part. What they did is actually genius, but I can’t say why without ruining the point of playing the game and experiencing it yourself. Suffice it to say Square Enix is aware of what they’re doing by changing things, and they’re aware of what their audience thinks. Despite what angery fan boyes online are saying, they didn’t kingdom hearts this game. But, what they did do is extremely clever, and I am very much looking forward to the next game, which is coming, it says so in the credits. Navigation: Like FF13, this game can be rather linear, but unlike FF13, the combat isn’t “which autopilot will win this fight”, and there are multiple times during the story where it opens up and you can do side quests / grind on monsters to level up material, etc. FF13 didn’t give you this option until the last third of the game which imo was a huge mistake. The paths are less linear, and you are rewarded for taking your time to explore paths to find treasure. Occasionally, areas are clearly structured to pad out the time you play the game, but this only bothered me a handful of times (forcing you to walk for a period of time during a more interactive scene for example) and at it’s worst, wasn’t that bad. I appreciated SE being responsive to the fact that this game being just midgar needed to be expanded on to be worth people’s money. Combat: This might be the best part of this game. It’s a mix of action and strategy. You have enough options as each character that each battle feels good and distinct. You have to block, dodge, attack, and monitor your ATB gauge which is what allows you to use items, magic, summons, and your better abilities. Combat gets better as you get better. You can mostly **** your way through the first bombing run, but pretty soon, you need to actually learn how to do it to not get rocked, and it’s impressively fleshed out. On normal difficulty, this game isn’t easy, and requires you to use all of the tools it gives you. Beating the game unlocks chapter select and hard mode, allowing you to replay previous sections with your current weapons material and gear. Weapons: Each weapon has it’s own special Triangle attack, and if you use it enough you can learn it permanently (think ff9) and then use it with other weapons, expanding your abilities as time goes on. Even cooler, each weapon has it’s own skill tree. You get SP as you level up, and can upgrade the number of material slots, damage you do with physical or magic attacks, defense, as well as other cool effects. You can reset the weapon skill trees to change how you play as you get more SP as much as you want. This gives combat and character development a lot of extra wiggle room. You can test out a build, and if it ****, go reset it for a trivial amount of gil, and try again. Materia: The material options are pretty robust, most of what you expect to be there is there, and there are tons of new material, which you earn by doing intel missions. e.g. use the sense material on X number of enemies, perform Action Y, Z number of times. It rewards you for exploring the battle system to the fullest, which is just good game design. Music: The music is incredible, a lot of expansion on the original tracks but most of them are so good. The music is dynamic as **** boss battles will have music amp up or slow down based on the action and as you get closer to killing the boss it gets increasingly amped up. I got goose bumps so much I lost count of how often it happened. Final thoughts: I think Square Enix intends for this to be supplemental to, but not replacing the original. It’s clear they plan to make significant changes to the arcs of many characters moving forward, and they reference things that happened in the original to an extent that makes me think we’re in for a similar but different story for this series. TBH, I’m ok with that. Sephiroth is still trying to destroy humanity, Shinra is still Shinra, all the characters are still themselves, it’s still FF7. But it’s not a shot for shot remake, and the next games in this series will likely deviate from the original story and plot in ways that some will take issue with. I’ve beaten FF7 original probably over a dozen times now. It’s my favorite game, I’m as a big a fanboy as they come, and I am onboard the remake train. It’s so good. My final playtime before doing Hard mode / chapter select stuff was 40 hours, I did most of the optional stuff before finishing it, but I think there is more than enough content to warrant getting this game. It really is very good.
This is my first foray into a Fire Emblem game. Played FE Awakening for a couple hours and just didn’t like it. I’m 25 hours into this game and it has completely **** me in. It’s quite approachable without knowing much about previous games. I really enjoy the battle system, but what keeps me so engaged is the diversity in gameplay. There are battles of course, but you also spend time leveling up your professor level which helps you accomplish more each week. The relationships between you and your students are actually engaging, I feel like you get what you put into it in terms of character arcs. So far, I feel the diverse game play, compelling stories, and enjoyable battling and leveling system make this a wonderful entry point for newcomers. I also look forward to newgame plus to see other stories / houses. The renown you earn is similar to GRADE in the tales series which makes me look forward to the next playthrough even more!
So far this game is great. It reminds me of the PS1 era Chocobo's Dungeon games. I am playing it on hard and am not too far in yet. My one complaint so far is that as you level up your various jobs, the game does not do a good job of telling you that you have new abilities. These new abilities are pretty much necessary to complete some of the early challenge dungeons which unlock important content early game. This is a minor gripe. The only other thing I dislike is it has a pretty child focused lens for story telling, I'm almost 30, I wouldn't mind them toning that down a bit. All things considered, it scratches the dungeon crawler rogue like itch for me, and the music is fantastic. It's definitely pulled from lots of different games in the series and so far I am loving it. It will definitely hit you right in the nostalgia, and I think that fans of the series will appreciate the numerous nods to other games. I think that this game will continue to be enjoyable, and the Switch version allows for mobility which is great.
This game pays a lot of respect to the previous Mario games, it's fun, it's easy to jump in and jump out of and it really does make for a great Mario game. Without spoiling anything, the main story took me about 12-14 hours to complete, but there is a lot of end game stuff to do which extends the playtime. Unlike previous games, there are hundreds of Moons to collect (think stars from Super Mario 64). I think this game is really fun, a bit on the easy side but after you beat it, there are challenges that will be sufficient for people who want them. If you have a switch, definitely get this, if you don't have one, this game makes a decent case as to why you might want to pick one up.
This game is very enjoyable and well done for the most part. Pros: Feels like the original Zelda in sense of adventure, after a pretty open for an intro "intro" you're free to basically go anywhere you want. The freedom to explore, and the rewarding way they designed exploration makes for a very fun experience. The Story is good so far, but minimal in a good way. The combat is fun and varied, and the cooking system is really fun to mess around with, but also crucial to being able to take on harder fights. The weapon system is good too, took a little getting used to, but it's fun using different weapons so frequently, and they are varied enough to provide a lot of different styles of combat. Cons: The frame rate does dip frequently, for a game running at 720p you would think they could hold that down better, but I understand the hardware of the wii u isn't amazing by 2017's standards, and the fact that it seems to run so consistently playable across the Wii U and the Switch is a testament to Nintendo giving us Wii U owners one last gem for our console before fading into obscurity. The Menu interface is also a bit tedious at times, as you will open a chest with a weapon in it, only to be told you don't have enough room so the chest closes, you have to open the menu, drop one of the weapons you have, reopen the chest, including the open animation, and then get the item. Those are my two legitimate complaints, this game is very enjoyable, and if you have a Wii U, this is a must own, even if you wait to get it. It runs about as well on the switch. It's too soon to say it's the best game ever, or one of the best games ever, it hasn't proven it has the staying power "best game ever" needs, (imo) but I can see months or years from now, having that conversation because this is Skyrim done right, in the world of Hyrule and I think most people who like open worlds and Zelda games, and everything in between will find much to enjoy here, while finding few things to really take them out of the experience.
After completing the game and putting about 40 hours into it, I would say this game is a solid 8 out of 10. Pros: + Amazing soundtrack, with tons of previous FF music available as you progress, with the mp3 key item you can listen to music from previous Final Fantasy games while you run around the over world. Thematically, it is incredible. + Gorgeous visuals, I played on lite mode on a PS4 Pro and it looks really good with mostly decent fps. It stutters a bit but it's not going to hurt the experience that much. I usually game at 60fps on my pc and didn't have much of an issue. + Fun albeit somewhat boring at times combat. It's action packed and not like FF13 which I like, but it does sort of boil down to holding down O or Square while pushing a direction on the Left stick. I never got too bored of it, but by 40 hours in, I was hoping for a bit more variety. + Fun overworld with plenty to do. The sidequests are good, not great much of the time, and compared to the Witcher 3, leave a bit to be desired. However the rewards and variety are enough to keep it fun for quite some time. + The relationship between the four protagonists. At first, I felt a bit luke warm toward the characters, but as the story went on, it was awesome seeing them all interact. It feels like you're along on the journey with them, and while the story telling isn't always perfect, the relationship between the four is mostly enjoyable and fun. Cons + The story isn't terrible, in fact I enjoyed it quite a bit more of the time than not, but there are some missing pieces that make following it difficult. I love Final Fantasy games, so esoteric, difficult to understand stories are something I don't mind, but without watching outside content or reading up on the lore outside of the game is required for a fuller understanding, and that's a shame because while I may be willing to do a bit of that, most people would prefer that to be all "in house" and I can't blame them. + Glitches. They're not super frequent but they appear every now and then, and sometimes require you to save and reload to fix them. For a game of this size and scope, they're forgivable but they do exist. Final Thoughts: I think this is a solid game if you have, or haven't played a final fantasy game. At the time of writing this, the developers claim to be releasing some free dlc as well as paid, and the free dlc is supposed to address some of the story telling issues, though it may be too little too late for those of us who have already purchased it and played through it. If you like rpgs, and the FF series, I would say this game is absolutely worth the full price of $60 if you can't find a sale, especially if the free dlc does even just a little bit more in terms of making the game better.
This game is fantastic, my only real gripe is how easy it is! I've been playing the pokémon games since Red version, so I may be expecting a harder experience. This game is great, if you haven't played it yet and like the series, grab it. It's great for beginners, and with access to basically every pokémon you can have any team you want! Seriously, grab this game if you own a 3DS, it is one of the best ones out there!
This game is fun and more accessible than Fallout 3 in some ways, but it isn't without it's flaws. Pros: The game is more action oriented, fps shooting is more enjoyable. The game is fun and expansive, you will spend hours exploring Customization options for weapons armor and power armor are excellent additions! Cons: While the base building is a fun addition it seems pointless in most cases and doesn't offer much more than the illusion of comfort / world building. I did a lot of this and felt like it wasn't really that useful without really trying to immerse myself into it. The story and dialogue options are watered down from the previous games. This might be ok for casual, newcomers but for fans of the series, you will inevitably be disappointed both in the dialogue options and the story arcs. Ultimately, this game is fun and I got my money's worth out of it, but it isn't the game I hoped it would be in several key areas, particularly in dialogue options. The different character builds offer a lot of interesting ways to play, making subsequent playthroughs worthwhile, but it falls short of the hype and expectations. I'd say this is worth getting if you're even somewhat interested in the series, I put in 40 hours before feeling worn out on it. Perhaps one day I will return to it for more.
This game is alright, and if you have an Xbox One it is worth grabbing. 343 is improving the game each month but it's still lacking in a lot of ways. Most maps are very similar, only after 3 patches/updates are there a good number of diverse maps, and while warzone is fun, but it quickly devolves into wanting to spend money on req packs to get the items you want to be able to spawn in. I have 4 days of play time across arena and warzone. This game is fun but its rough around the edges. The number of gamemodes, particularly social playlists are lacking, still no oddball! This game will most likely improve as time goes on, but it's a just above average Halo, nowhere near the level of Halo 2, 3 or Reach in my opinion. Hopefully 343 buckles down and continues to provide updates for this game because as it stands, it is a 60 dollar experience, but the req packs will leave you needing to spend a lot more if you aren't intending on playing tons to unlock them normally. However, it's a catch 22 because if you're playing a lot, particularly warzone, you will want more req packs. The req pack system isn't awful, but it's clearly designed in a way to get you to spend a **** load of money to get the stuff you want, and as somebody who has been playing halo since the first one, it is an unwelcome change. Final Thoughts: If you own an xbox one, grab it it is a solid game. If you bought an xbox one for it like I did, reconsider unless you know you have multiple friends who plan to do the same. Teammates will make or break your experience.
This game is solid, it's a bit of a single player MMO in that it's grindy and a lot of quests feel uninspired. But the tactical/action mix of combat is fun and kept me playing for around 50 hours. I still haven't completed the game, I got a bit burnt out on it and to be honest, the Witcher 3 is in many ways a superior game in a similar genre(s). This game is still fun, and it's more tactical than Witcher 3, so if you like tactical action combat, setting up a team of four to take on various enemies, you will enjoy this game. It's good, not amazing, but it runs well and is worth it if you can find it on sale for around $30 bucks.
Best Halo since Halo 2. This game is so much fun, it's well balanced and is, in my opinion the pinnacle of Bungie Halo in every way. It's amazing, if you haven't played it and own a 360, get this game. It has great split screen multiplayer, something Halo 5 doesn't offer, and the amount of unlocks you can obtain over the course of playing will keep you coming back. This game is amazing, seriously get it if you have an xbox 360.
This game is a solid pc port, I play with a 360 controller and it's fun as hell. The 60 fps looks gorgeous and the graphics are accessible for a wide range of hardware. The voice acting isn't bad, the story is a cool series of twists that isn't just a rehashing of the past million games. The worst of it is, I wish that the environments were more destructible. This is DBZ, 45% of a fight usually involves destroying mountains, bodies of water and slamming fighters into the ground. There is some basic destruction, and I understand resources are limited, but it doesn't stop the game from being fun. I have put in around 30 hours leveling up my female saiyan, and it's been a lot of fun. The side quests to unlock abilities are a bit grindy, but it adds incentive to keep playing. Over all, it's one of the best dbz games I have ever played and while it's a bit rough around the edges, it's worth it, as this game is routinely on sale for around 30 bucks. Online coop with friends is a lot of fun too.
Never played Witcher 1 or 2, loving this game at 50 hours in. I can see why people say it will be GOTY, and I agree. It's polished, fun, varied, and runs amazing. I run it on Ultra with everything except hairworks on and pull around 60-80 fps. This game is so good I'm not even half way through it at 50 hours. If you never played the previous ones, you will miss references and nuances from past games, but this is a minor issue and comes up rarely. They did a great job and the studio behind the game deserves the commendation. I hope this game really puts them on the map because they did a damn fine job. 10/10 would witcher again.
