It's the SNES version pretty much to a T, with better graphics, better audio (you can swap the soundtrack if you disagree), and slightly easier gameplay thanks to area of effect attacks on perfect timing, and a triple move meter that is basically an ultimate. Took me 11h30m to complete the game and all post-game bosses. I did it at level 22 on all characters except Peach who was 27, and without the attack scarf or super suit since I can't get the timing for jumps down beyond 15.
I enjoy it in bursts in local multiplayer (online is dead for me and when it works it plays like ass), but after a year and a half of owning it and all the DLC I have 30 hours, most of the characters have the medal in coop classic mode. Mostly do local 2v2. Must buy if you own a Switch. Would be a 10 if story mode had coop.
Best Warriors game to date, even better than Age of Calamity (it runs a lot better too, almost 60fps lock in single player and around 30 I'd say most often in 2 player coop). Has a bug in coop where using an ocarina to travel causes the other player to change character if they can. Only bug we encountered, but deducting a point from it because it's so simple it should have been a post-launch fix, then this game would have been perfect. Spent about 40 hours so far in it and only have the campaign done on normal difficulty + the first adventure mode map mostly cleared. An insane amount of stuff to do, though it will get repetitive (which is why we stopped playing), but if you want, you could probably get a couple hundred hours out of this.
I feel an 8 is a fair score. Only got it to play in two player coop, would not have played single player. Camera causes problems in coop sometimes due to it following the player with the crown rather than zooming out more (which would reveal secrets, but they really need to figure something out here). Took about 16 hours to 100%. The invisibility badge is just a terrible addition. Two levels are like something out of Super Meat Boy, the rest of the game is mostly on the easy side. Graphics are great, I feel the length is fine, but if it were a few hours longer I wouldn't complain.
Only bought it to play with the seamless coop mod on PC for full 2 player coop. The only bugs we had were the ones that came with the mod, and those weren't many, and all got patched in an update that came out while we were still playing. Got all achievements. Would be a 10 if the game had seamless coop built in. As in that is its biggest drawback, like I said I wouldn't have bought the game if it weren't for the mod (same goes for the person I cooped with).
I played this game start to finish in coop and it's fantastic. Only downside is a bug we had right at the end: we killed the final boss, it saved (so you can reload back at the sanctuary with xp earned from the fight) and unlocked the achievement, but didn't show the final cutscene. Apparently this is a bug exclusive to coop. Easily fixed by watching a youtube video, but still deducting 1 point because of it. Much better value than Metroid Dread, as Dread was $80CDN and took me 6.5 hours to complete, this is typically $23CDN but was on sale for $6CDN and took 9 hours. But also a better Metroid game than Dread. So many indie metroidvanias make the real deal look like crap.
Awesome, except I don't know why they changed the rhythm of lyric delivery in some sections in the theme song cover. I don't care that taunt can be spammed, maybe it'll be changed maybe it won't, but if it really bothers you, play gnarly difficulty in arcade mode and get back to me. First playthrough was in 5p coop and it was a blast. Already replaying it.
This game is garbage, for three big reasons: 1. Rubberband AI. Here's how a race goes on Normal difficulty: 1st place through first lap, enemy uses ultimate on 2nd lap and passes you, you use ultimate and pass them, they pass you again sometime on lap 3, then you pass them and get 1st. 2. The steering is like a mobile game - no sensitivity for fine adjustments, just one type of left and one type of right. 3. End of race placement is determined by placement of your AI teammates as well. This means you can place 1st while your teammates place 6th and 8th, and then you get 3rd overall and have to redo that level. All you can do to try and help your AI is feed them items to get your ultimate meter up, but even getting 2 in a race isn't enough to dig them out of lower placements in later races. There is a noteam mode that you can play, but this doesn't apply to adventure mode, so you can't unlock the last set of tracks by doing this... and even then the game is still ruined by rubberband AI (which the first All-Stars had, but you could disable it). 15 character roster vs. Transformed's 31, and it's only Sonic characters, not Sega wide... same goes for the tracks, only Sonic themed, and there are only 7 themes for the courses (3 tracks per theme), so not like Transformed where every track was unique. You will see tracks that look like ones you just raced on, like wtf, so lazy, they've done better! trash game. After Transformed this is a huge disappointment.
I've unlocked all characters and tracks after 23 hours (some of that was playing online, which was lag free), so I'm done at this point. Not going to do World Tour or Grand Prix on S rank because the AI is just crazy in that mode and there is no reason to do it aside from achievement hunting. It's a lot of fun and there is a good amount of content there for a kart racer, lots of challenges to overcome in World Tour mode. Only 20 tracks, but they are longer than Mario Kart tracks (many taking more than 5 minutes to do 3 laps on) and several tracks have third laps that are totally different from the first two, plus you have boat car and plane modes so there is a good amount of variety here. Highly recommended. May need to run the launcher through the install dir to get it to open, may need to disable ambient occlusion in the launcher since at least for me the game doesn't run well with it on (my system blows the requirements out of the water). Also has crashes on some cards, but there is a workaround for that if you google it (seems to be specific to 1600 and 2000 series Nvidia cards).
This game is actually a lot of fun. It is basically a clone of Mario Kart 8, plays exactly the same (same drift mechanics, same trick mechanics) except there is no anti-grav. Still it's 1/4 the price on PC, even less if you get it on sale like I did. Only downside is there are no graphic options, it is either forced 1080p across the board or it just uses your native res. So basically you can either run it or you can't, no fiddling with options to tailor the experience. Still worth it imo! The game has a FANTASTIC soundtrack as well. Favorite music is what plays in Air Temple Island and Dreamland.
Long load times in coop, and there is unfortunately almost as much loading screen time as playtime on final mission in coop. Explored everything thoroughly and finished after 40 hours, though we only managed to craft 3/11 artifacts and upgrade Isgrimm's armor once. There is more to the game we haven't played, like the pregame scenario, Journey mode or competitive.
Bummer is long load times, but nowhere near as bad as they were at launch. A lot of fun to play, only 16gb so you can keep it on a drive and play it whenever you get the itch. I think the graphics still hold up really well today.
When D2+LoD were new, I only ever cleared Normal before moving on to other games. With Resurrected, I walked through every act of every difficulty as a Hammerdin with a Summonmancer in coop. This game is in serious need of balancing - you will have areas with next to no enemies in them, then enter one with 15+ long-range casters who will kill you before you can react, because you get hit by so much at once. When I had my damage aura on, I was oneshotting most enemies (I followed a build), and the Summonmancer I was with (who was also following a guide) was doing next to nothing for the entirety of hell. Some builds just aren't viable for long-term and it's brutal that they didn't have a balancing patch at launch for this. I'm on a GTX 1070 and max the game out with 60fps @ 1080p, but whenever I'm in the open areas of Act V, even with no enemies on the screen, I will get around 40fps, even if I lower settings, always the same fps. Seems like a bug. My Summonmancer would have enemies in River of Flame (Act IV area) show up as black boxes rather than enemies, so played through that area with legacy graphics so they could actually see what was going on. Drop rates need to be buffed, I'm really not interested in being one of these people who farms for 20 hours without getting anything they're after, and I also don't see how it's fun that you have people who can put in 15 minutes and get godly drops just because the rates for endgame gear being absolutely abysmal and some people getting extremely lucky. I played with a controller and it feels superior to M&K (since movement is better and you have more skills available with one button press) except for a few things: One, in general it can be a bit of a pain to target specific items to pickup, so if you're trying for specific pickups before M&K players, good luck. Also sometimes I would just not be able to pick up an item because it was stuck in a wall, so I would either have to switch to mouse for it or have my Summonmancer coop buddy pick it up and trade it to me. The other issue with controller is the interact button prioritizes summons over interacting with other things for some reason, so if you have a bunch of summons on an item, merchant, stash or TP, you won't be able to use them, as hitting the interact button will just move you to the summon. I have no idea why this is the way it is, it feels like a blatant oversight and it would only get more complicated in 8 player games with multiple summon characters. Also you cannot move the map with controller, you can do this with the arrow keys on keyboard but on controller this should be bound to moving right stick. The new graphics are amazing, the gameplay is still good enough, but it's rough in a lot of areas and the only reason the game didn't get the overhaul it deserves is because of all the sticks in the mud who would whine and complain about any updates, even though they can always stick to the legacy version if that's what they prefer. Hopefully improvements come moving forward, as-is it's fun but know that you're going to have to deal with some oldschool garbage and not 100% perfect controller support - they thought of most things with controller, but not everything.
The graphics and true widescreen are great, the redone tracks are awesome, only real downside is that they made this the easiest version ever with faster leveling and gil rates, though you can still get screwed by RNG. No more peninsula of power which is odd, they took it out to force you to have a harder time, but then made the game easier? Has treasure maps in-game, but everyone uses a guide for that in these sorts of games anyway, so not a big deal to me.
I have HUGELY mixed feelings on this release. This one has widescreen, nice art, and *most* of the new tracks are good (though you can barely hear the bassline for the main battle theme, and you can barely hear the snare in the Red Wings theme), but they SIGNIFICANTLY dumbed this version down. Half xp level requirements, half the encounter rate, and a treasure map, though I guess a lot of people would play this with a guide anyway, these three changes seem like SE wanted to hand the game to people. After decades of people complaining the SNES version is too easy and people preferring harder versions, SE does this release and makes it the easiest one ever. What the hell were they thinking? They should of at least had a difficulty option, maybe mods will fix it, but frankly not having to earn your stats does not give me the same sense of attachment to the game I have for other versions.
Crashes, disconnects, freezes, lag. Enemies are more mobile than you, can attack at angles, and pretty much any time they do a jump attack, you're gonna take a hit. Game is overrated as ****.
Good DLC. Party AI still leaves much to be desired but played in 2 player coop. Takes about 3 hours to beat. Played it on Intermediate difficulty. Ultra settings, looks fantastic and runs smooth. 30 second unskippable splash intro and then about two minutes before it loads the menu. Snatchers still **** but at least it isn't like Gears 4. Xbox app and Windows Store app on PC still **** for downloading games, on 300 internet and getting capped at 7.5 download speeds, despite using all tricks and workarounds that can be found (Xbox's support on this is terrible). Has an FoV slider, goes to 100 so could use an increase but a lot better than nothing.
The two big things I didn't like is you can't change characters on the fly for the first half of the game, which really adds to the backtracking and these games are already backtracking heavy. And that some rooms it feels like you have no choice but to take a hit to get through it, there's this one area in particular that during my backtracking in Ruins of Ash (you will probably die a lot here, there is a long stretch without an elevator) I was always getting hit by a demon's fireball no matter what I did. But I'm sure someone will come along to do a no-hit run and prove me wrong. Not as hard as Castle in the Darkness, spikes don't kill you in one hit (they do a decent amount of damage though) and the platforming isn't hard. You're still going to die frequently, but again some of those will feel like the game making you take hits sometime, those adding up on really good runs (where you dodge most attacks) and that getting you killed. But you're always opening shortcuts each attempt (at least I was always making *some* progress), and this makes it easier to get back to where you left off. There's also an upgrade you can buy that gives you more HP when you break an orb that's placed in the room you last died in, so that gives you a boost. Right now the game doesn't have descriptions on items until you buy them, but there's a community guide for that now... I also had a bug three or four times where I would land on a moving platform, go invisible, then fall through the moving platform, usually into an enemy or pit of spikes, giving me some damage. Frustrating but didn't happen often enough to make me want to stop playing, and most of the platforming in this game is pretty easy. I also had another bug where I couldn't change characters with the bell or at the camp - this was before I got Zeek - but a game reboot fixed it and it never happened again. The soundtrack is pretty good, and it's worth checking out the Super Arrange version. Threads of Fate is my favorite track. Tips for new players: Get Orb Seeker right away, and pick a character you will play the most to focus on for upgrades. My favorite was the wizard. EDIT: They've made some adjustments to Ruins of Ash since this review, it may not be as rough anymore.
Better graphics in ME1 for sure, even compared to the original with texture mods. The lighting is just way better. However ME1 is still pretty clunky, Insanity is pretty easy aside from snipers (who will oneshot you the moment you come out of cover sometimes, real frustrating), the Mako sections are still a chore (the problem isn't the Mako, it's the terrain). The new Mako controls will make you drive towards Thresher Maws while attacking them so just turn them off. Limited graphic settings so not much scalability, your system will run the game or it won't. No FoV slider, but there is a mod now, however it caps out at 100 at the moment. ME3 will be the worst one to replay, I played it at launch, was really soured at how many corners they cut, replayed it last year, thought it was a bit better with all the DLC, but still really sloppy writing. So know what you're getting into, at least you can do it all in about a week or so of playing now rather than years of imagining all the directions they can take the game with all the potential it has, only to be let down by some shoddy workmanship in the end. But that's life - disappointment and people being people. This trilogy is really just a reminder of the limitations of escapism through art - you're reliant on people doing a good job, and with ME, those people ultimately dropped the ball. But man it sure was something looking forward to ME3 back in the day, wondering how they'd tie it all up, since the Reapers were supposed to be indestructible. As is this is a trilogy that ultimately fails to deliver on its promise of epicness and resorts to cheesy, incoherent writing to force the concepts of the finale through, and for owners of the original games, this is an $80CDN texture pack and patch for ME1 (which still has bugs that were present in the original), ME2 gets more ammo, and any changes they did to ME3 were unannounced.
I played a lot of vanilla D3 at launch (~100 hours) even though it was in a pretty rough state. The action is a lot of fun regardless. Reaper of Souls fixes the loot and gets rid of the auction house. At time of this review, patch 2.7 is out and I've done 4 or 5 seasons total during the course of the game. I spend about 30 hours gearing a character before getting bored and moving on to other games, but I do inevitably come back to do it again because it is fun. You can only trade with people who were there when loot dropped. And for some reason even on my rig, this game stutters a lot in multiplayer, and I'm taking a full point off for that. Apparently it has something to do with wizards and sound issues, but it's really obnoxious and the game used to run better.
I really liked the battle system. Game feels really slow while going from A to B sometimes. Final battle is a surprising difficulty spike, but obviously manageable. I didn't like some areas, like the Chuckola barrel room. Most of the minigames are bad, the story is awful. Music is good but is overall low quality audio due to being made for a handheld (I play with earbuds and the compression is really obvious).
Overall, it's a nice SNES RPG with modern graphics. Music is pretty good, art style is really nice. Bosses are item-spammy (unless I'm doing something wrong, but I dodge a lot of attacks and still need to item-spam bosses). Always make sure to have plenty of medicinal herbs on hand for when you get status effects. Gameplay loop is essentially cutscene -> grinding -> cutscene -> boss -> cutscene -> exploration -> repeat. Level ups don't feel very powerful one-by-one, takes several to notice a difference, which makes it difficult to overpower the game (good or bad thing depending on your take). The party AI is pretty good for the most part, but they seem to go braindead sometimes when special attacks are being used, which can open them up for a decent amount of damage in boss fights. Also do yourself a favor and turn on Auto dash in the settings. And once you get your first class change, be sure to use your new WeakWeakWeakStrong combo, it does a ton of damage in the end! There's another hidden combo that unlocks when you get your third class, which is mashing light attack a bunch and then hitting strong attack as the fourth attack, it's a different combo from the previously mentioned one and does even more damage on that final hit. Had one crash, I killed the megaboss and the game crashed on me. Still got the achievement, but if I want the in-game reward I'm going to have to do it again. Timestamp is how long it takes to 100% the game on one playthrough, so not doing NG+ to see the other three character stories. Coop would've made this a 10 for me.
At time of this writing, game isn't too bad. Most of the new dungeons are fun (Plaguefall is a bummer though), the raid is good, leveling dungeons are overtuned and the new Chromie Time system splits people up into their chosen xpacs when queuing in LFD which makes queue times longer than they otherwise could be. The Maw ****, I haven't done it since the first week, but it's optional. Venthyr Command Table is still broken even with the buffs. I'm still saying subbed to play with friends and family, but there is definitely room for improvement here.
Played on the Normal difficulty (Average Joe), reviewed shortly after beating the game once. Takes about 4 hours to beat, but there are multiple characters to level if you really enjoy the gameplay. Controls feel sluggish at first which is a real turnoff, but after you improve your stats at shops (leveling up only unlocks new abilities, not stats) it becomes more bearable. Shopping is really slow, which is probably a River City Ransom nod, but it's still really slow. Joystick is broken in online play, all inputs act as a dash so you can't finetune without the dpad. Sometimes there are lines on the screen from the upscaling tech used here, and sometimes there is lag on screen transitions in onlineplay. We had to restart a level once because of this. Also when client in network play, it doesn't always give you accurate info on the HUD (ie. saying 130HP when you're actually one hit from going down). The extra game modes are not supported in online play. However I never had any input lag in online. Overall it's a game with fantastic art and sound, and then mediocore to good gameplay. Fix the online issues and the occasional lines on the screen (not subspace zone glitch lines but glitch lines where they shouldn't be) and this is an 8.
Simple game that seems daunting at first due to the speed you travel at, but after a bit of play becomes very accessible due to the game actually moving a lot slower than it looks. This is not a fault, you have time to admire the scenery and enjoy the soundtrack while doing some casual drifting. No rebindable controls was a bit of a bummer, it would be nice to bind gas to "A" and brake to "X" instead of being bound to "R" and "L" (respectively). Some tips: - At the start of each race, always move to the side until the cars pass you and you get up to speed. - Don't worry about slipstreaming, it isn't as big of a deal as it seems. When it happens, let it happen, but otherwise focus on drifting and avoiding cars in your path. - Always drift wide, it gives you more time to respond to the next drift. - If you don't care about performance on Leaderboards (I didn't), when in Grand Prix Mode do 1 point into Handling for every two points spent each on Top Speed and Acceleration. This lets you get away with making a handful of mistakes on Medium while still being able to get first place. - If you aren't going to get first place during a Grand Prix race, restart the track. You can do this an unlimited amount of times, so it lets you get your muscle memory down if you're really having issues with a race. For what it's worth, I only ever had to restart the first race of a Cup a couple times - keep in mind any funds spent will be reset when restarting a track. - The hardest race in Grand Prix is always the first of each Cup, since you have no upgrades on your vehicle yet (it doesn't seem like AI vehicles get upgrades, so later tracks get easier). Overall it's a simple, enjoyable racer that lets you feel like you're going really fast while always giving you a good amount of time to respond to what's coming at you on-screen.
The AI seems to cheat, which drags on the score, but the game is still highly replayable. Music and sound effects are outstanding, they have both stood the test of time.
There's something about this entry that just doesn't feel right, but it's worth a playthrough for Mega Man fans (the only reason I stuck with it until the end).
I got Golden God in Super Meat Boy on the 360. 200/200 achievement points. This game is better than SMB. Basically SMB 2.0. Better graphics than SMB, better gameplay than SMB (thanks to even tighter controls), better level design than SMB, better sound effects than SMB. The soundtracks are so different it's hard to compare, this is upbeat yet relaxing music to listen to while getting gibbed. Still an excellent soundtrack, just neither exceeds the other as they're both high quality. SMB actually feels like garbage when playing after this one, it just feels "dated" and ancient control-and-level-wise. There is an easy mode that has checkpoints. Hard mode is your standard "die and start back at the beginning of the level" affair. There's a permadeath mode where you only get one life for the entire game - some people have actually managed this! You will die many times. You will love it. You will beat the level set and then go back to get all the coins and find the hidden item. You will hate that it expects you to no-death run each level set in order to fully complete this game. Major props to the developers for allowing players to disable screen shake and animated backgrounds if they find them too distracting and/or nauseating. There's also an option for infinite jumps, if you want to cheat a bit - I recommend leaving this disabled (obviously). This game is one of those beauties that allows double jumping. Everything about the controls feels natural and fluid. This game is outstanding. This is the peak of the genre to date.
Tight controls, great graphics and an outstanding soundtrack. I have mixed feelings about the Metroidvania twist. Yes, it feels like shameless padding at times, but it also changes the games genre from an action-platformer to more of a puzzle-platformer, which has plenty of positive moments in itself. Boss fights are well done and a lot of fun, zones are varied and interesting (especially the final one), the Picnic Panic DLC is free and great, what more can you ask for there?
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix on my PS3 is a lot better (it's also available on 360) than any title available here, though I realize there will be nostalgia value (likely shortlived) in some of these titles for some people. I wish HD Remix had been included in this collection (though the price still should've been a lot lower). I wonder if Capcom excluded it knowing how quality it was, and plan to sell it standalone later.
The game gives you the option of two difficulties: Veteran, which is supposedly designed for people who are used to these sorts of games, and Casual, which is for people that aren't used to the NES-era Castlevania difficulty. Veteran is still unbelievably easy. You unlock a new mode called Nightmare after beating the game (which also unlocks an additional stage and the "true" ending, but it's 10 more minutes of gameplay and the story is a generic throwaway affair so who cares), but it only makes the game slightly more difficult by giving the bosses more health and attacks. There's also an Ultimate mode you can unlock but it's basically the superpowered steamroll mode for the game. Hence Veteran is the highest difficulty, you can make it a bit harder by going Solo Zangetsu (which is how you unlock the said Ultimate mode), but no matter how you cut it, this game is very, very easy. Veteran mode feels like it should be called Casual, simply due to the game's design, Veteran is nowhere near an NES-era action-platformer in difficulty... Basically an easier Castlevania III (NOT a Metroidvania) with no slowdown and flicker that only occurs when your character is in water. You also have branching paths within stages instead of having the option to choose different stages as the game progresses. You can have up to four playable characters and switch between them on the fly, you can ignore them or sacrifice them as well for different endings. Soundtrack is decent but not nearly as inspired as the classic Castlevania tracks, I can't remember any of the music and I just completed the game, they really dropped the ball here. Worth playing if you want a classic Castlevania game but are sick of the official classic Castlevania games because you've played them too many times, but otherwise this is "same old" with next to nothing to set it apart and honestly I wouldn't put this higher than a 4/10, yeah I said "worth playing if you want a classic Castlevania game but are sick of official classic Castlevania games" but that doesn't mean this is a passable game, just the only one on Steam I can think of that might remotely scratch that itch. It does end up feeling like "No Name Brand Castlevania III". It takes advantage of modern tech for higher resolutions and no slowdown (but again there is flicker when in water), but otherwise the overall quality (especially in the music department) is a dive. There's also a boss rush mode you can unlock. Also seems to be more than a little overpriced, but I'm comparing it to something like "Castle in the Darkness" which cost me $6.50CDN on launch and is a better game (despite being derivative in its gameplay and some of its art, the music and level design were clearly labors of love). Too much of a "been there, done that" with not much else put into this to really wow. When I beat it I was dumbfounded by how easy it was.
Includes the original three episodes, the fourth "The Birth" episode that started being included with Duke3D releases starting with Atomic, and an all new fifth episode exclusive to this package that was made by the original developers. This new episode also includes new music by the original composer, a new enemy and a new weapon. What's missing compared to previous packages are the three licensed expansions: Duke it Out in D.C., Life's A Beach, and Nuclear Winter. It also doesn't include the N64 or PS1 versions of Duke Nukem 3D, but no bundled release has done this yet (though the since cancelled Android collection was planned to include these and be the first truly definitive version - with the major downside of it only being available on Android). This collection is also missing the shovelware unofficial and unlicensed map pack collections, but those were extremely low quality and I only bring it up to mention they aren't here. This release also includes a developer commentary mode which, when enabled, puts hovering interactive voice files all over the game that can be used to get more insight into the history of Duke Nukem, as well as some insights into the development of this release. There is also a "Playback" mode that can be enabled or disabled. When enabled, this allows you to rewind to any earlier section in your playthrough on that mission, so if you don't want to need to spam saves throughout every mission, or routinely forget to save and end up losing progress, you'll want to leave this on. It's worth noting this game doesn't autosave, not even when starting a new mission, so you will still want to make hardsaves. Has some pretty brutal input lag which is caused by vsync, which can't be disabled in-game. You can however disable vsync by forcing vsync off through your GPU's control panel. Once you fix the input lag issues, this version controls the best as far as official releases are concerned, however the mouse control still doesn't feel as tight as what can be experienced playing the original in eduke32. It isn't reading the input as well for some reason. The Megaton version that has since been pulled from Steam had worse mouse input issues of its own that never got resolved. It also used an OpenGL renderer, as opposed to putting the game in a new true 3D engine, which is what this version does. You can turn on SSAO, and you can also switch between the classic and new engine with the press of the "C" key. The immediate difference is that the FoV has been corrected, and there are more light sources in addition to an improved lighting engine to make the game world look less flat. The improved lighting is nice visually, but also has the side effect of removing some of the game's tension, since a few areas that were once dark are now clearly lit. I didn't play this version at launch, but have read that this release used to use different sounds than the original. That must have been addressed, because ever since I've been playing this, it sounds the same as the original. The sound effects and music don't seem to have as much depth as they could though. Duke's lines have been re-recorded with the same voice actor to get more audio depth to the old recordings - as well as having some new lines - but if you don't like the way the new lines sound, you can turn on the "Legacy Duke Talk" option, which lets you use the original tracks. Some of the sound effects (mainly the alien noises) still have a lot of distortion to them, it was this way in the original as well so it's hard to tell if this was intentional for an effect or audio clipping that occurred and they never went back to fix it. Either way it's really obnoxious and should have been fixed for this release, although it would have required re-recording those sound effects to be properly addressed. Has an integrated game browser for coop and deathmatch multiplayer support, up to 8 players in both cases. I've never been able to find a game, so can't comment on multiplayer beyond the mention. It does allow for you to do offline vs bots (no coop with a bot however), but that gets boring fast. I recommend this because despite missing the three licensed (but unofficial) expansions, the mouse input not being as good as has been seen in Duke ports in unofficial engines (though still very playable once vsync is forced off), and several sound effects still having distortion/audio clipping issues, this is the best official collection that has ever been available. If all these issues were fixed, this would easily be a 9/10. If they had done all this and also included bug-free, hi-res, multiplayer supported versions of the N64 and PS1 takes on Duke3D, making this the truly definitive all inclusive "World Tour" version of Duke Nukem 3D, this would be a perfect 10. As it is, it's an 8.
Better than Mega Man Legacy Collection 1 for many reasons: - didn't launch with input lag issues - no CTDs - all games run smooth, unlike the untouched NES ports found in MMLC1 - if they had removed the slowdown, those games would've been phenomenal - includes Mega Man 9, the best Mega Man game ever made (it's Capcom's "Stairway to Heaven") Mega Man 7 and 8 are very good games, they catch some flak because 1 they aren't 8-bit, and in the case of Mega Man 8, they present as pretty childish compared to the rest of them. I wouldn't call 8 "childish" as in "made for kids" though, it's childish in the sense that it looks like a 90s cartoon, or like a Disney game from the 90s. It's still definitely made for people with proper motor function and reflexes. I enjoyed it. The VA was pretty bad, but at the time it was a trend to get VA into anything wherever possible. At least it doesn't detract from the game. Would be a 10/10 if the mouse pointer wasn't visible. Also it would be nice to have game manual scans worked into the menus and a boss order and collectible guide (for Mega Man 7) as well, just because. MMLC1 physical had a boss order guide in the packaging, 2 doesn't, but it would have been nice to have it worked into the game somehow to save some Google time.
Have 666% the game at this point, which takes longer if you own the DLC than if you don't (go figure). ~20 hours total. Overall pretty good. Has Workshop support for usermade levels, but let's be honest, these tend to **** when games allow this, and Seum is no exception. Wish it had more music tracks, unfortunately the DLC only brings one new one with it.
I like this game more than kuso, but with one major caveat: It's 30fps. While this is fine for the regular modes where you have a lot of lives, it becomes a real pain in the butt when doing the YOLO mode (only one life). Precision input becomes necessity, and the delay that is natural with sub-60fps titles is very noticeable in this mode. I also kept it, despite beating it within Steam's refund window, because despite its shortcomings, this is good. Unlike kuso.
I gave this an honest shot. I really wanted to enjoy it, as friends wanted me to play it, and I wanted to play it with them. Tech first - at max settings, this game only uses 2.7gb of my GTX 1070's VRAM. While it runs at a locked frame rate most of the time, it does dive inexplicably (I'm running an i7-7700k with 16gb of DDR4 ram, the game is also installed on an SSD - the engine is coded to streamload extreme poorly). While it does look better than its console counterpart (which PC versions always should), its low quality visuals even when maxed, and random frame drops are dead giveaways of a pretty mediocore console port. The game itself is extremely repetitive, with dry, boring voice acting and dialogue to boot. The FPS elements aren't as tight as pure FPS games, and the RPG elements aren't as deep as RPG games. It tries to cover a lot of ground but doesn't make a very good effort at making how it covers that ground interesting. It plays like a Korean F2P title with a Western skin. Every time I booted it up, I felt like someone had injected me with a tranquilizer. There is nothing remotely redeeming about this game. Not even coop with friends could save it.
Abridged version of my Steam review. I've wasted enough time in my life on games with crappy difficulty curves due to improper testing and poor design vision being touted as intentional old-school difficulty. There are some issues with point blank shots with a ranged weapon when the reticle target has changed to "targetted" failing to register as a hit but still alerting enemy/enemies to your presence. I know it isn't registering at all because when it hits armor and does no damage there's an indicator of that. Sometimes the game just seems to forget that something got shot at a guy. The boss fights in this are obviously going to be the 3D Gaiden style where they can turn on dimes so you need to dodge within the .5s window or eat huge damage. In ways this is more fluid than Souls in other ways it carries over a lot of overdrawn animation garbage that is really frustrating, I prefer tight responsive controls in games like this, I keep hoping a developer will take the Souls formula and evolve on it by making it more twitch instead of those slow swampy trudge kind of feeling. Even with low weight ratings. This isn't a title that aimed to achieve that. You can customize controller inputs, but some of these buttons are multibinds that aren't shown on the button mapping screen, so when you change that button some of the multibind goes to the new button and some of it sticks on the old one. To boot sometimes the custom control scheme randomly reverts back to the original you editted, while playing, then can switch back. So it's best not editting and just sticking with an existing one. The game is definitely more demanding than it needs to be. I'm currently running an i7-7700k with a GTX1070 and 16gb of DDR4 RAM. At max settings this game is more taxing than DOOM 2016 at max settings, it isn't nearly as impressive in any facet, the tech requirements for a good experience are nothing but the result of lousy optimization. The lack of proper K&M support (you can do things with the keyboard such as navigate menus, move, ready bow, probably more but I didn't check all of it, was accidental while trying to alt-tab and the like), but mouse doesn't seem to work, at least for me) didn't bother me since I play these sorts of games with a controller anyway. It's going to be a sore spot for some PC gamers which is totally justified, this is now a PC game after all. Borderless window option is great but randomly locked frame rate at 37 to me for some reason. Would have to go back to settings and flick it back to full screen then borderless window to get it to lock back at 60 until it locked at 37 again. Has options for frame caps of 30 or 60. Games these days should just have sliders for this due to all the possibilities. I prefer 75 lately since that's what my monitor's refresh rate is OC'd to, without the option to flat out decap the frame rate in-game and then cap it at 75 through an external program (what I do with 90% of PC games on the market because most allow decapping with a very simple VSYNC OFF option) I'm having a handicapped experience compared to what I'm used to. I have to wonder how crippled 144hz users must feel. The sound has some weird mixing to it, I'm not talking about volume levels but something that went wrong with EQ or something like that when doing the recording and/or mixing in the studio. I don't know what they were thinking, it definitely isn't heavily compressed (though not uncompressed audio which I initially figured it would be given the final install size of 73.9gb - perhaps it's just a bunch of language options bloating an otherwise 40-50gb title?). There are also two coop options for this game. One is similar - not identical - to the Souls mechanic, where you summon someone to your world. In Nioh you have to spend an item (a cup that you get mostly from rare drops from Revenants - Revenants being enemies you summon from the blood marks of players who died) to summon a player who has already cleared that stage. So in this mode you cannot play coop with a friend unless they have already completed it. There's also another coop mode that is really hard to find information on. My best understanding of it from what I've seen is, after you beat the first actual mission (not the prologue or tutorial, the beach mission), you get access to a Torii Gate which allows you to be summoned to the worlds of players for the sake of coop as explained in the previous paragraph. But you can also use it to do straight up coop on any mission with anyone who selects that same coop option from that same Torii Gate menu. Convoluted way of providing a means of traditional coop. I have no idea how this became as popular as it did, though that seems to be a common theme with a lot of games these days. The peak for a lot of genres has come and gone, all that's left often is recycling for money, recycling to hone, the latter rarely happens. Nioh is a disaster.
Beat it in 30 minutes. It was OK. Soundtrack is decent but nothing memorable. Ended up getting a refund. Got me to try Love - its prequel - for the first time though.
The only aspect this game really nails as far as the Ys formula goes is the music. The combat is more like Dynasty Warriors and the deeper crafting aspect kind of bungles things. What's also interesting is the game can't maintain a constant 60fps, not even on my PS4 Pro, which is extremely disheartening when it's clear this version is nothing but a dump of the PSVita release with a resolution bump. It isn't that demanding, they just did a bad job optimizing it (if they did any effort at all beyond dumping it on PS4 and letting its hardware brute force the Vita engine to meet - not maintain - their framerate goal). There's a decent amount of noise being made about the translation. I don't see the issue with most of it, there are some incorrect item descriptions but that isn't poor localization so much as it is just pure ineptitude when it comes to labeling. People are complaining about things like "My name is Alison, please just call me Alison" like it's the worst thing they've ever read in what's essentially an imported JRPG with a translation slapped on. Castlevania 2 is bad localization. This is that humorous Engrish that comes from adequate translations and to me is part of the charm of these games. Making it perfect English is going to ruin even more of the charm of Ys, I don't know why people are picking a bone over this when 1) the story **** anyway (the shoebill is the best character in the game) and 2) the technical issues are genuine issues. The intent with the translation here was clearly "Ys Meets Kung Pow". There is also some enemy scaling involved - as you get stronger, enemies do more damage as well, to a certain point. Just like Oblivion. Enemies still maintain that traditional Ys format of giving less XP as your level gap grows, so despite becoming more threatening (again to a point) as you level, enemies give you less and less for exterminating them. If this combination isn't a cardinal sin in RPGs, I don't know what is. Giving it a 7 regardless because the generally outstanding soundtrack and gameplay is enjoyable enough anyway. It's no Oath and while some of the pieces of a Ys experience are still here, it certainly doesn't feel like Ys anymore, which has been the case for me ever since they adapted a party system.
In its time, had a clunky engine that provided significant performance issues even on (again for the time) beast rigs. Shouldn't be an issue for pretty much any machine made recently these days. Highly suggested you utilize a workaround to disable the Spirit Eater mechanic as it is a huge flaw in the game design. Otherwise if you can deal with the DnD rules, dated visuals, occasionally cumbersome pathing (mainly with AI), and a serious letdown with one of your party members side quests (anyone who's played the game in its entirety knows exactly what I'm talking about), this is the greatest story ever told in a CRPG. Not next to Planescape Torment. This is above it.
An enjoyable platformer that is unfortunately hampered by a cap of 30fps. Very strange. Beautiful art and music, loved the stage design as well, but unfortunately capping it at 30fps does hurt the experience quite a bit. One major downside to the beautiful art is that often hazards - both moving and stationary - can blend in with the backgrounds, so you will often die to pieces you don't know are there until you look very, very closely. The story is nice. The idea is that Mr. Bree (a pig) is trying to be reunited with his family and also recollecting abilities along the way. You don't start with anything but the ability to move left and right, but eventually you gather the platformer basics and then you're off to the races. The levels themselves aren't that challenging if just played to complete, but if going for all the puzzle pieces and clearing all the Slaughterhouse levels, you're in for some fun. There are only a few boss fights, but they are quite grueling, perhaps a little overtuned but oh well. I did re-install this before making this review to revitalize my memory of it, and found myself getting addicted to it all over again. Shut it off after 15 minutes because other things to do, already have this one cleared, but just evidence that this title does hold up despite its few shortcomings, mainly the framerate cap of 30fps. The developer of the game, Lucas Jock, had apparently planned more development for the title (there is a "Game Mode" feature that's labeled as "Available Soon"), but unfortunately he was murdered during an armed robbery in April of 2015, so that won't be happening. I own this on GoG not Steam and completed it 100% a while ago, so cannot say how long it takes to beat.
I only gave it one playthrough, didn't 100% it, not due to lack of enjoyment, but because for me, it was one of those experiences where it's best to consume it once and then enjoy the fumes of it for the rest of life. An interesting, one-of-a-kind title. Took about 4 hours to complete according to my Steam time - this was back in 2014, though I haven't revisited it since, I did want to give this a quick nod since it was a memorable title.
This review is based on 10 hours of playtime. While I would consider myself a fan of Atlus - at least a fan of their quality works - I'm so tired of this entry and the extremely low quality of its PS4 release that I felt this was a good place to give an adequate summation. If I ever get around to finishing it, I will update the review to reflect that, but as is, this release has left me feeling very bored and soured by Atlus in general. Seen enough to make a good call. Overwhelming sense of "been here, done that", but I've also been playing SMT games since the 90s. Tons of recycled assets and concepts, while the soundtrack is new in general, I've heard repeats of tracks and/or segments of tracks I've already heard many times before. I get it makes sense, it's like how Zelda has recurring music, but it's the same reason that brand has more or less become dead to me now as well. Treading the same ground over and over and over again. Gets old! The low score is largely based on the extremely low quality of this port, since this is clearly a lousy port of a PS3 title, which is another huge sore spot with this release. This was clearly a PS3-centric title in development that got a PS4 release with nothing to differentiate it but a resolution bump to 1080p and 30fps lock, which is quite easy. And while it is locked 30fps on PS4 vs the PS3 version's spiky performance (proven in videos) with a ceiling of 30fps, they could have made this 60fps which would have made it pop far more on the PS4, which could have easily handled this framerate - the textures are low quality, the LoD is low, the effects are low quality. It's all clearly a last-gen title with a resolution increase. They even kept in the lousy PS3 joystick deadzone size - massive, which plagued the entirety of the PS3s lifespan. Sony backed out of this error with the PS4, but Atlus couldn't even be bothered to polish up the port by making the deadzone tighter to reflect the newer control scheme. Again, it's a straight dump of the PS3 version minus the resolution bump and 30fps lock (both of which are really easy to do, the latter especially so since it's just the PS4 brute forcing the PS3-designed engine with better hardware) and they couldn't even take the extra 10 - 15 minutes to make the stick controls tighter. Sure, it's a JRPG, but you still have a character to steer and are still turning the camera plenty, while only about 10% of the joystick space is actually recognized. It matters and is very frustrating that they couldn't even be bothered to take that very small time requirement to brush this up. Regardless how good the story may or may not be (there's a *ton* of dialogue bloat here however - again a symptom of the "bigger not better" development mentality), this is a PS4 release at a (at the time of this writing) AAA pricepoint. At that level, far more is to be expected, and at that level, it falls flat on all technical fronts. As far as gameplay is concerned, it's really just a watered-down old-school SMT - *severely* watered down, might I add - with a *ton* of story added on to try and cover up those flaws due to people becoming attached to characters, but all the typical anime-archetypes are here. In a nutshell, this is just another run-of-the-mill dark anime, but then it has JRPG elements to it and the Atlus flair to spice it up. Except it doesn't, because it's all so bland now. All they can do is go bigger, but going bigger with something bland isn't a good idea. It's spreading something tasteless over more space for people to chew and feel less of anything because that already tasteless spread is being spread over so much space, what is it anymore? Would love to see a SMT Nocturne Remaster. 1080p with the PS2 motion-blur mask removed and HD font with nothing else changed. $20USD. Peak of this corner of the genre Atlus has carved out and it's clear all they can do is repeat themselves and go bigger. Not better. It's very telling how little they care about this property when they can't even take advantage of the modern hardware it *should* have been designed for with the simultaneous multi-plat release. Or delayed this release to give it a proper PS4 upgrade that could then get an ultimate release as an "Extended" edition (like P3 has FES and P4 has Golden). This PS4 release has "fine, here" written all over it, and nothing more. If it wasn't worth their time to do properly, it isn't worth giving them your money for something they didn't do properly to have your time wasted with something that's sub-par compared to their prior works anyway.
Loved it so much on PC I bought it as an excuse to replay it on my PS4 Pro. 1 point lower than my score for the PC version because controller doesn't perform as well as M&K for true shooters, which DOOM 2016 is. Still love the game though!
Tried it when it first came out and got a Steam refund due to technical issues. Rebought it when the 6.66 update came out and it went on sale on Steam for $20, and boy am I glad I did. Now that all the kinks are worked out, just get to enjoy a phenomenal game. Smooth 75fps on my rig (where I Vsync it on my PC) with max settings, great shooting, there are some forced cutscenes that break up the flow and are blasphemy as far as Classic Doom style is concerned. This is the sole reason it has a 9 instead of a perfect 10. They absolutely should not be trying to shoehorn this style of storytelling into this series. It's all about the go-go-go. Massive maps and an outrageous soundtrack. Best shooter since Doom 1 and Doom 2. No hyperbole.
