Thread: D-Pad Community Reviews and Impressions |OT| The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

regawdless

hare-assment
 
Platforms
  1. PC
Here's the place to share your impressions and reviews of games you played. Simply say what you think of a game, how you like it. Preferably games that you finished, but reviews of games that you didn't finish because you stopped playing them are welcome as well - just like in real gaming journalism, but we are honest about it!

Please use spoiler tags for newer games and in general if you feel like people who didn't play the game yet shouldn't be spoiled.

Links to user reviews so far:

No More Heroes 3
by @ExpandKong

Horizon Zero Dawn
by @HE1NZ

Human Kind
by @ManofTwo

Tales of Arise
by @TaySan

Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania
by @Arkam

Days Gone
by @regawdless

Kena: Bridge of Spirits
by @regawdless

Guardians of the Galaxy
by @regawdless

Exo One
by @mcz117chief

Sable
by @regawdless

God of War (PC)
by @regawdless

CHORUS
by @regawdless

Elden Ring (PC)
by @regawdless

Nioh 2 (PC)
by @regawdless

The Darkness
by @TaySan

Resident Evil 3 Remake (PC)
by @regawdless

Lost Planet Extreme Condition: Colonies edition on Series X
by @TaySan

Condemned 2: Bloodshot on PS3
by @TaySan

Forgive Me Father - PC
by @regawdless

FEAR Files on Series X
by @TaySan

Quake 4 on Xbox 360
by @TaySan

Raze's Hell on Xbox
by @TaySan

Killzone HD via rpcs3
by @TaySan

Hell Pie (PC)
by @regawdless

Portal RTX
by @regawdless

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide
by @regawdless

Dead Space Remake vs The Callisto Protocol
by @regawdless

BallisticNG (PC)
by @regawdless

Dark Light (PC)
by @regawdless

Lonely Mouintains: Downhill
by @regawdless

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun (PC)
by @regawdless

Jusant (PC)
by @regawdless

Resident Evil 4 Remake (PC)
by @regawdless
 
This is a great idea. People obsessing over sites reviews is stupid. I value player feedback more than a bunch of goofs reviewing games before finishing them.

I'll be back with a couple of personal reviews after work. Cheers mate

Thanks!

I value the opinions of the people here way more than any reviewers. And I like to read various impressions from the users here, even if it's just some quick thoughts after finishing a game.
 
No More Heroes 3

If for some reason you're jumping into the franchise with this game (why?), the broad (very broad) strokes of the story here is that Travis Touchdown, the #1 ranked assassin in the world, has to now climb the Galactic rankings by defeating ten invading aliens.

As a fan of the first two games I really enjoyed this one. Being a Suda game, style takes priority over substance, but it actually felt like they really nailed the gameplay balance this time too, maybe for the first time in the franchise.

By that I mean I never really had to painfully grind between fights. A staple element of the franchise is that you have to pay a certain amount of cash to register for the next ranked battle with an assassin/alien superhero, and you raise this money by doing side missions and minigames.

In the first game it became a real slog towards the end, in the second game it was a bit better because the minigames were more fun (I felt) but it still became a drag. This time, not so much. You have to do a certain number of "Designated Matches" - arena-style battles with lesser enemies - for the next ranked battle to even become available, and the Designated Matches typically net you alllllmost enough money to pay for the ranked match on their own.

From there, you can do some minigames to raise money if you want, or if you want to keep things combat-oriented you can do Defense Missions (arena battles with waves of enemies) or giant boss battles in space.

Being a Suda game, there's still a slight bit of jank to the overall gameplay; some invisible barriers on the overworld where they don't really make sense (especially in Call of Battle), and the overworlds feel a little empty (though not as bad as the first game). But the meat and potatoes of the combat is more robust this time thanks to the Death Glove skills.

One other big change is that there aren't linear stages leading up to the boss fights anymore - you pay your registration fee, go to the trigger location for the fight, and then boom there you go. I thought I would miss the stages more, but by the end I realized I didn't.

I miss the outfit customization too, I liked changing pants and jackets in the other games. With the exception of some entire-outfit selections, you can only change t-shirts in this one. But there are a lot of t-shirts, at least.

ENDGAME SPOILERS FOLLOW

The final battle being Smash Bros was great and it just made me bummed that Travis will likely never be in Smash proper.

Overall if you like the franchise this is a no brainer and probably my favorite one yet. Also you should at least read up on the events and characters of Travis Strikes Again, if not just play it. If you're unfamiliar and $60 is too steep a gamble for you maybe check out the first game, it's available digitally on Switch for like $20 I think.

I could say more about this game but I don't want to ruin all the fun little references and presentation surprises that I liked.
 
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I take my Steam reviews very seriously.

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What's the criteria for submitting a review? Time played? Game beaten? Familiarity with a given series?
 
As stated in the OP:

Preferably games that you finished, but reviews of games that you didn't finish because you stopped playing them are welcome as well - just like in real gaming journalism
Gotchya, I just wasn't sure if this was like for just anyone who may have only played one game in a series of games.
 
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Gotchya, I just wasn't sure if this was like for just anyone who may have only played one game in a series of games.

For me it's mainly about sharing our thoughts about games that we:

- Finished
- Played extensively, like never ending online games
- Stopped playing because we didn't like them

As long as we mention how much we played those games, I don't see some strict criteria here.
 
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Horizon: Zero Dawn (2017-2020), open world game from Sony (Steam).

The Good:

Horizon plays exactly like Assassin's Creed Origins and Odyssey. I love both so I liked Horizon too. It's an open world action game with quests, leveling up, skill tree system, hunting, etc. It does all of this stuff very well. Environments are not particularly diverse, but they look great, including weather effects. I've spent hours fully immersing myself into the world and hunting rabbits to craft a new ammo sack.

Map isn't overwhelmed with tasks. You can just go look for stuff in the vicinity while doing a quest. It's not necessary to get every quest at once. Just getting one and focusing on it is fine. Quest design is pretty good in the game.

Some of the weapons are really fun, like the speargun that hooks enemies to the ground. It works as you would expect it to and super fun to use. Great for escaping too. Other weapons are variations of bows and slingshots and are quite fun to use also.

There's a learning curve to fighting monsters. At first they seems to be massive bullet sponges, but as you progress you'll get better at shooting down their weak spots and doing massive damage. There's quite a few tricks to learn. Stealth works fine too.

Basically everything that has to do with gameplay is great in Horizon, which is surprising because Killzone series was a hot mess in that regard (imo).

Even the worldbuilding is great. Main story has you figuring out how what the hell happened to the world and why are there robot dinosaurs everywhere. It's pretty interesting, not Fallout of course, but got me hooked.

The Bad:

In Horizon you can't make your own protagonist. Instead you're forced to play as Aloy. Aloy is a terrible character. She's Disney type "Mary Sue" who can do anything and beat everyone without much effort, while also being smug about it. A little girl who spent her entire life isolated in some backwater is the smartest and most moral person in Horizon. I expected the ending to reveal that she is a liquid Terminator, but apparently she isn't.

For some reason game sometimes pretends that you can choose how Aloy should respond to some characters, but it only happens 10 times or so. For the most time she is always a selfless do-gooder, except when she wants to bicker with Sylens for no reason. She's has no personality, completely asexual, kinda ugly face (cute tummy though). Her voice actor is pretty bad too.

There's a lot of soy writing in this. I thought it was hilarious that
basically Zero Dawn and all the machines were built by a diverse startup of hipsters who talk about latte, veganism, "art" and Reddit movies. In a leftist fever dream all these people of diverse backgrounds are united to rebuild the world for the better™, are able to build the all powerful AI in a year, that would reforge the world and fix every problem. Including climate change.

There's some minor visual bugs. Hair clips everywhere, cutscenes are a bit janky. I think the game still stutters when running without a sync solution. Tried forwarding the game to TV, it runs like crap without vsync (which adds input lag). Opted to keep playing on a monitor with gsync.

Final score: 8.5
 
Horizon: Zero Dawn (2017-2020), open world game from Sony (Steam).

The Good:

Horizon plays exactly like Assassin's Creed Origins and Odyssey. I love both so I liked Horizon too. It's an open world action game with quests, leveling up, skill tree system, hunting, etc. It does all of this stuff very well. Environments are not particularly diverse, but they look great, including weather effects. I've spent hours fully immersing myself into the world and hunting rabbits to craft a new ammo sack.

Map isn't overwhelmed with tasks. You can just go look for stuff in the vicinity while doing a quest. It's not necessary to get every quest at once. Just getting one and focusing on it is fine. Quest design is pretty good in the game.

Some of the weapons are really fun, like the speargun that hooks enemies to the ground. It works as you would expect it to and super fun to use. Great for escaping too. Other weapons are variations of bows and slingshots and are quite fun to use also.

There's a learning curve to fighting monsters. At first they seems to be massive bullet sponges, but as you progress you'll get better at shooting down their weak spots and doing massive damage. There's quite a few tricks to learn. Stealth works fine too.

Basically everything that has to do with gameplay is great in Horizon, which is surprising because Killzone series was a hot mess in that regard (imo).

Even the worldbuilding is great. Main story has you figuring out how what the hell happened to the world and why are there robot dinosaurs everywhere. It's pretty interesting, not Fallout of course, but got me hooked.

The Bad:

In Horizon you can't make your own protagonist. Instead you're forced to play as Aloy. Aloy is a terrible character. She's Disney type "Mary Sue" who can do anything and beat everyone without much effort, while also being smug about it. A little girl who spent her entire life isolated in some backwater is the smartest and most moral person in Horizon. I expected the ending to reveal that she is a liquid Terminator, but apparently she isn't.

For some reason game sometimes pretends that you can choose how Aloy should respond to some characters, but it only happens 10 times or so. For the most time she is always a selfless do-gooder, except when she wants to bicker with Sylens for no reason. She's has no personality, completely asexual, kinda ugly face (cute tummy though). Her voice actor is pretty bad too.

There's a lot of soy writing in this. I thought it was hilarious that
basically Zero Dawn and all the machines were built by a diverse startup of hipsters who talk about latte, veganism, "art" and Reddit movies. In a leftist fever dream all these people of diverse backgrounds are united to rebuild the world for the better™, are able to build the all powerful AI in a year, that would reforge the world and fix every problem. Including climate change.

There's some minor visual bugs. Hair clips everywhere, cutscenes are a bit janky. I think the game still stutters when running without a sync solution. Tried forwarding the game to TV, it runs like crap without vsync (which adds input lag). Opted to keep playing on a monitor with gsync.

Final score: 8.5

Good write up! I actually liked Aloy and her rather focussed approach to the tasks at hand. I thought that it was a strength that she did not engage in any romances and concentrated on saving the world. Was kinda refreshing.

Totally agree with the rest of your assessment here though!
 
HUMAN KIND

Summary

If you've ever played any Sid Meier's Civilization game then prepare yourself for dejavu. That's exactly what Human Kind is. The mechanics, strategy, characteristics, city building and progression are almost exactly like Civilization games except with a twist.

THE GOOD

Being very familiar with Civ games I grew to understand the mechanics of HumanKind fairly quickly. Basically, you start off with a population of 5 scouts. Roaming the map looking for treasures, food and other goodies that would reward you with more people and influence. In the early system and eras, Influence is how you grow.

The more influence you get, the quicker you can establish cities, and expand your borders. Influence also helps in upgrading your tech tree. Later on you can buy these things with money.

Resources are similar to CIV games, where you have to build over them to earn their rewards. Diplomacy, trade and war all works the same way. Everything is turn based.

They even have Historic wonders .


THE BAD

The game has wayyyyyyy to many mechanics to manage. So you can easily get caught up early on doing UN-necessary stuff and quickly loosing interest in the game as it requires patience.

The era to era upgrading takes FOREVER if you aren't hitting your goals or you're playing on harder difficulties. You can easily lose this game as you go on harder difficulties even before establishing a city.

Influence is everything and it is also how you beat the game however, influence makes no sense alongside a money system as one is just as good as the other.

You can play a CIV game for an equal experience for a lower price.
 
I took out my Days Gone review from the OP, post it here and will then add quick links to all reviews / impressions so far to the OP. Oh my images are gone from the review. Will add them when I find some time.

Days Gone on Steam

Story and characters:
The story
was a pretty wild ride. It went into different directions and changed it's course multiple times. It wasn't as predictable as I thought it would be. Of course it's not revolutionary, but I liked the variety here. Most of the dialogue between the main characters was well done, outside of certain cases that I will go into later.

Mission structure and progression was a weird one. Often, there was a crazy disconnect between the info the player got, compared to the in game character. Like missions popping up on the map and UI without any dialogue or indicator. So the player knew where to go, but the in game character received no info whatsoever. Just a random "Now go here!". Which left me confused on many occasions.

Same applied to some characters that just appeared without enough context. Pretty sloppy.

Still, I enjoyed the story and many of it's quests despite some shortcomings. It's also a rather long game and managed to not drag as much as most other games towards the end.

The Characters have been one of the strengths of this game, in general. With some exeptions.

I actually liked Deacon. Rough and brutal, while having glimpses of humor and sympathy. It worked for me, I could feel his inner conflicts.

His wife Sarah though. She looked like something went wrong on a genetical level. Like a hilibilly incest kid. I found her to be weird and unrelatable. With a lot of the dialogue between her and Deacon being cringe and stupid. Some scenes have been effective, but not nearly enough.
sarah.png


Now onto fucking Boozer. I was just waiting for him to die already. "BOOZMAN, are you alright?". I cringed so hard during all of his stupid story line. Dumb big baby making dumb big baby decisions. Urgh. In the last third of the game it got better though, to the point that I didn't want to him to die a horrible death.

The rest of the cast was pretty solid! The stuff surrounding Iron Mikes camp was the highlight of the game, with good character moments and engaging story beats. They even managed to have a well written lesbian that turned out to be bisexual - without feeling forced and fake. I liked her a lot.

Also, humans are the real monsters!!!!!! Mind blown.

Gameplay:
Pretty standard open world structure, with multiple story lines playing out. I have to admit that I've cheated here, with unlimited fuel and invincible bike. Did not want to engage with this time killing shit. After 15 hours, I added infinite ammo, because it was just boring to pick all this shit up and I never ran out of ammo either way.

At first, I was like all stealth and careful combat. Until I discovered that the game obviously wasn't balanced for mouse aiming. After some hours, I just started to run straight into enemy camps, taking them out inside of seconds. It was pretty ridiculous, but fun. Because the gameplay felt great at a locked 60fps, with very direct and snappy aiming. Once I got better weapons like a good sniper rifle, it got even better. This game has some very nice weapons that were a lot of fun to use.

Fighting hordes was intense and chaotic. In general, there was a good variety regarding the combat. Different kinds of humans with different styles, freakers, animals, bike chases. Really enjoyed it!

The world was well designed, with different locations with a distinctive style and atmosphere. It felt believable and grounded, while being fun to traverse.

There was a levelling system where you could upgrade you abilities, which was a nice touch. I never used the focus ability though, because I didn't need it and forgot about it.

BUT there were many forced walking sections that drove me nuts. Very. Slow. Walking. Sections.

Presentation:

Visually, the game was ok. Very nice and sharp textures, amazing foggy scenes at times, very detailed vegetations and debris on the ground, good AO. After playing Metro Exodus EE with full RT lighting though, this game looked just wrong in many places. Distractingly so.

The visuals were mostly fine, but a bit inconsistent with some ugly scenes. Water and reflections looked underwhelming. Also there were barely any destruction physics, which is a shame.

Good looking:
daysgonescreenshot20itk6f.jpeg




Bad looking:
daysgonescreenshot20qrjjw.jpeg



Summary:
I really liked it! While there were many things to criticize, nothing really got in the way of my enjoyment. Good story and engaging characters, paired with great gameplay = I couldn't put it down. It's no masterpiece, but does a lot of things right.
 
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Tales of Arise- First Tales game I ever completed. Took me about 50 hours to complete the main story. I had a great time with the game especially the first half, but the second half really suffers from the huge exposition dump which is apparently common with Tales games. It dragged the game on way longer than it should.

Overall I give the game an 8/10.
 
Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania (PS5)

SO the good news. The single player game is still solid and feels good. The rest is bad news. The party games a nasty mixed bad and dont feel at all like the original game or even the single player of this version. Monkey Target is damn near unplayable, Monkey fight feels like crap. Monkey Golf (mini) was serviceable, but also felt a bit to floaty. And then there is the semi frequent frame rate dip that looks like a nasty hiccup. Kinda crazy on a PS5.... but Unity is a POS engine so I cant expect too much.

Overall a major let down for a fan of the original. New players will still find the Story Mode worthwhile, but thats about it. Havent played Billiards, racing or Bowling yet (lost enthusiasm) so they may/may not be good.
 
Kena: Bridge of Spirits on PC

kenabridgeofspiritss8bjfx.jpeg


Story and characters:
Felt like a pretty refreshing and unique setting. There's a sub plot for each larger area, with unique characters and fates. These are individual storylines that also reveal general information about what happened to this world step by step.
The storytelling was very well executed, with a mystery that got discovered more and more with each completed area. It felt significant on the grand scale and was emotional regarding the individual characters on a small scale. I enjoyed the stories a lot, from the sad fates of the characters, to the general lore.

Kena herself was heart warming, especially her face animations were very effective. Her motivation got explained, but her story didn't really get resolved. Which didn't bother me, because the story about the village was the focus of the game and it was told very well.

kenabridgeofspiritssk8j1q.jpeg


The stories of the characters were interesting, but the dialogue at the end of each encounter felt a bit too cliche and tacky. Oh, your spirit is totally traumatized because sad shit happened? Not your fault, here's the person you let down, it's all ok now, gl hf, problem solved. The devs also felt like it was their duty to include an interracial lesbo couple with a stronk womahn with buff arms. Wasn't that badly implemented and nothing against a lesbo love story, I just can't take comically strong and hyper tough fictional female characters seriously. I always roll my eyes a bit.

Still, I always felt motivated to continue to play and discover more about the story and the characters.

Gameplay:
What a surprise! I thought this was going to be a story driven artsy game with dumb button masher combat. Oh boi was I wrong! Btw shout out to the very good control customization regarding the camera movements during different situations. Turned all this shit off and it felt great.

Combat:
What starts off very simple, evolves a lot and gets rather challenging. You better master your moves and learn how to use your abilities in the right situations, or the bosses will kick your ass so hard. Normal encounters are mostly trivial with some exceptions. But there's good variety with some enemies that force you to use certain abilities. Speaking of abilities, they were fun to use and the game did a good job of constantly increasing the complexity, making mixing it up necessary. I was positively surprised at how challenging this cute little game dared to be. For me, it was one of the strong points of this game. It felt fluid, fast, but with readable attacks and patterns from the enemies. I needed some time to get the parry right, but once it clicked, it felt very good.

kena_20210929_220703_swjzd.jpg


World and exploration:
Another highlight of the game. Not much hand holding, tons of little secrets, challenges and small things to explore. It really paid off and was a lot of fun to explore the world. The game doesn't tell you a lot, you just stumble upon things and systems to use. Which made it rewarding and satisfying for me. Very well done, interesting and varied. New abilities unlocked new ways to interact with the world. I also liked the mix of large areas to explore and come back to, and linear "levels".
kena_20210929_214947_l9kzv.jpg


In general, the world was very charming, with great atmosphere, different areas with unique styles, amazing art style and a cohesiveness that made it feel just right.

kenabridgeofspiritsstfjvn.jpeg


Presentation:
Technically rather underwhelming. Textures, effects, particles, lighting, shaders, physics etc were all below average. But man, these crazy talented artists did such a good job that it was still a good looking game. It looked visually pleasing, with good vegetation and density, nice scenery, great locations and a cohesive look that was very effective. They achieved amazing results with what they used. Performance was excellent because of the rather simple visuals. On my 3080 and a i8700k, I got 80-100fps at 4k maxed, with added reshade for sharpness and clarity, as well as additional AA.

kena_20211004_233725_dmkcr.jpg


Summary:
One of my favorite games ever tbh. I LOVE how I could feel that the devs took me seriously as a player and how bold they were with the challenging difficulty (for this kind of game). You also had to find out shit on your own, be it exploration or combat. I did not expect such a "serious" and competent gameplay here. It introduced new mechanics, areas, story beats with a high frequency. It was a rather dense experience, this game respects your time and has a great pace to it. Engaging and creative story with a mystery that needed to be solved. Also, it had the perfect length for me. With exploring everything and hunting for the secrets, taking tons of screenshots, I clocked in at 15hrs.

kena_20211004_001434_ozjds.jpg
 
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Guardians of the Galaxy - Steam

marvelsguardiansofth60jvg.jpeg


There's a lot to digest here. I'll keep it as short as possible!

Story:
- Overall a lot of fun with twists and surprises. I had a crazy good time!
- Too long and convoluted for me. Should've been at least 5h shorter. I explored everything, took me 24h to beat the game.
- Some forced story beats and character moments.
- A wild ride with a LOT of content, stories, characters, lore, locations, dialogue etc.
- Drags towards the end with never ending climaxes. It got too much for me, as I prefer more focussed narratives.

marvelsguardiansofth25jbq.jpeg


Characters and writing:
- Absolute highlight of the game. SO MUCH DIALOGUE! And most of it is very well done. The sheer amount of characters and interactions is nuts.
- The back and forth, running jokes, character interactions, humor - generally on a very high level!
- As already mentioned above, some forced character development and decisions.
- There's so much dialogue, that the devs seemingly had issues fitting all in. Oftentimes, a conversation starts and suddenly ends, because you trigger a new one.
- Generally very well integrated dialogue bits, depending on the environment and the players actions.
- They nailed the characters, really outstanding!
- Sometimes a bit sloppy. For example when you trigger the Huddle Up mechanic, they often say totally inappropriate things.
- The writing is on the level of the movies, but the quantity is insane.
- Dialogue options are fun and you get the feeling that some of them really matter. Your decisions have consequences in some cases.

marvelsguardiansofthhkkf3.jpeg


Gameplay:
- Regarding combat, I'll use and modify my comment from the OT. To showcase that again, IT IS A LOT:
- With 4 buddies, each having four abilities with individual cool downs, yourself having four abilities with a cool down, a charging shot, four different special shots with a separate cool down, quick reload, dodging with slow mo, flying, melee combat, special combat actions for difficult enemies, QTE's, reviving teammates, the huddle up mechanic, environment interactions ... and more. It gets hectic and chaotic. A lot of fun, still, but damn.
- Great exploration with many secrets and outfits to find. But sometimes there are multiple ways to go, and if you pick the wrong one, a dialogue triggers and the game doesn't allow you to go back, even though nothing is in the way. I missed multiple secrets despite knowing where they where because of this.
- Many different mechanics and a lot to do. The game strikes a nice balance between the different elements. Combat, flying, exploration, puzzles, dialogues, jumping, QTE's, everything was fun for me.
- I got burned out towards the end. Too many long and big fights, it became white noise.
- The abilities of the team members are cool and I liked the team dynamic in combat.
- Walking sections. Dialogue makes them less bad, but still bad.

marvelsguardiansofthmvkom.jpeg


Presentation:
- Spectacular set pieces, environments and cutscenes.
- Great textures, some nice effects, very nice character models, varied environments, great atmosphere.
- Nice raytraced reflections, makes some of the interiors daaaaamn nice looking.
- A lot of rough edges. Bugs, clipping, fps tanks sometimes, events not triggering etc.
- Character faces and animations are generally amazing. But again, pretty often, totally bad. Like Drax closing his eyes for 5 seconds during normal conversations and then doing weird eye stuff.
- Some effects like explosions are pretty low res.
- POP IN IS BAD. HOLY SHIT.
- Lighting is not that good, generally flat and missing interaction. Some raytraced lighting would work wonders here.
- Overall very good looking game, especially for the bonkers amount of content.
- Sound, voice work, music - great!

marvelsguardiansofthvzkjn.jpeg


Summary:
I enjoyed it a lot, it's way better than I thought. The devs put so much shit in there, it's crazy for a linear actions game. Tons of locations, voice work, characters, story beats, set pieces etc. And like 80% of it is really outstanding. But it would've been better for them to scale that game down 20%. Make it shorter, more focussed, more polished. Then it would've been a classic in my opinion. I highly recommend it for every fan of cinematic action games. Especially the writing is way better than you see in most other games. One of the highlights of the year!

marvelsguardiansofth5sjs2.jpeg
 
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You are a ball that can turn into a pancake. You fly around and that's it. You can go really fast. My favorite game this year.

10/10

No, really, it is incredible. The music, the graphics, overall design, everything about this game is just pure enjoyment. You roll, you fly, you glide. It is just so liberating. I already went through the game twice and now I am just screwing around individual levels looking for non-existent secrets because it is just so fun to mess around in this game.
 
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You are a ball that can turn into a pancake. You fly around and that's it. You can go really fast. My favorite game this year.

10/10

No, really, it is incredible. The music, the graphics, overall design, everything about this game is just pure enjoyment. You roll, you fly, you glide. It is just so liberating. I already went through the game twice and now I am just screwing around individual levels looking for non-existent secrets because it is just so fun to mess around in this game.


Dude I just put it on my wishlist a couple days ago, was close to buying it. Looks phenomenal! How long did it take you to finish it?
 
Dude I just put it on my wishlist a couple days ago, was close to buying it. Looks phenomenal! How long did it take you to finish it?
Let me preface this with a statement that I have spent about 6 hours on the DEMO version so I knew my way around the game already really well. That said I finished my first run in less than two hours and my second was about an hour and a half. Now I am just messing around and achievement hunting. I am also eagerly awaiting level select so I can chill on my favorite levels whenever I want. You should have gotten it at release, it was at a discount.
 
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Let me preface this with a statement that I have spent about 6 hours on the DEMO version so I knew my way around the game already really well. That said I finished my first run in less than two hours and my second was about an hour and a half. Now I am just messing around and achievement hunting. I am also eagerly awaiting level select so I can chill on my favorite levels whenever I want. You should have gotten it at release, it was at a discount.

Yeah but it was like 1 buck off so it wasn't a big deal tbh.
 
Has anyone here played Sherlock Holmes Chapter One?

sherlock-holmes-deluxe-chapter-one-1920x1080-c83587171c6f.jpg

Would like to hear the D-Pad's thoughts on the game. Been reading reviews that say it's an above average game with some issues regarding performance and the substandard combat. But I'd like to hear the community's critique of the game.
 
Has anyone here played Sherlock Holmes Chapter One?

sherlock-holmes-deluxe-chapter-one-1920x1080-c83587171c6f.jpg

Would like to hear the D-Pad's thoughts on the game. Been reading reviews that say it's an above average game with some issues regarding performance and the substandard combat. But I'd like to hear the community's critique of the game.
Just started Crime And Punishment, it's a bit janky but so far I like it. Don't know how much that helps.
 
Sable - PC

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I'll do it quick:

Gameplay:
- It's an exploration game without any combat.
- You can drive your hover bike, jump, climb, glide, pick up and throw stuff.
- Platforming, exploring and solving puzzles are the gameplay.
- It was fun for me, because you have a good sense of freedom and can decide what to do and where to go.
- I love exploring on my own and finding interesting things, which this game is good at!

sablescreenshot2021.13gj1f.png


Presentation:
- Amazing art style!
- Runs like shit. Framerate fluctuates heavily on my 3080 in 4k. From well over 100fps to the mid 50s. It's a simple looking game and have to limit it to 60fps, with Gsync taking care of some drops.
- No AA implementation causing crazy fugly shimmering everywhere. Reshade AA helps a lot and is pretty much mandatory.
- Starting up the game, it locks to 30fps. I always have to press ESC and then return to the game, for the 60fps cap to activate again.
- Still, with reshade AA, it's beautiful, love the look and the animations.
- Lovely sound design, great atmosphere.

Why I quit after 4.5 hours:
It's all about identity and gender. Single persons are being called "they/them", your bike is female and it's what she always was, every character is designed gender neutral on purpose, it's just the mask that determines your identity, not biology etc. The messaging and agenda are clear.

Quote from the devs:
"I think it was important that we didn't take an archetypal, typical feminine approach to the character design. Or overtly, at least. It was an approach that was as gender neutral as possible, and we want the player to make decisions about how they approach different situations without applying gender roles from our world."

"It's much more interesting than having our standard, gender role-patriarchal society projected into this sci-fi universe."


This game could've been so good. But for these emotionally driven experiences, it's about the player identifying with the main character, to have a desire to explore this world and it's people, to have an emotional bond with the game. But I despise the ideology that is being pushed here, so I can't get lost in this beautiful world. I keep rolling my eyes so hard every time someone is being referred to as "they" and when the identity shit comes up. Which is the main theme of the game and is present in most dialogues.

Maybe I'll come back after some time to skip all the dialogue and try to enjoy exploring the world. But right now I'm a bit pissed that I supported the devs and can't refund it anymore.
 
Last edited:
Sable - PC

sablescreenshot2021.1jgjzr.png


I'll do it quick:

Gameplay:
- It's an exploration game without any combat.
- You can drive your hover bike, jump, climb, glide, pick up and throw stuff.
- Platforming, exploring and solving puzzles are the gameplay.
- It was fun for me, because you have a good sense of freedom and can decide what to do and where to go.
- I love exploring on my own and finding interesting things, which this game is good at!

sablescreenshot2021.13gj1f.png


Presentation:
- Amazing art style!
- Runs like shit. Framerate fluctuates heavily on my 3080 in 4k. From well over 100fps to the mid 50s. It's a simple looking game and have to limit it to 60fps, with Gsync taking care of some drops.
- No AA implementation causing crazy fugly shimmering everywhere. Reshade AA helps a lot and is pretty much mandatory.
- Starting up the game, it locks to 30fps. I always have to press ESC and then return to the game, for the 60fps cap to activate again.
- Still, with reshade AA, it's beautiful, love the look and the animations.
- Lovely sound design, great atmosphere.

Why I quit after 4.5 hours:
It's all about identity and gender. Single persons are being called "they/them", your bike is female and it's what she always was, every character is designed gender neutral on purpose, it's just the mask that determines your identity, not biology etc. The messaging and agenda are clear.

Quote from the devs:
"I think it was important that we didn't take an archetypal, typical feminine approach to the character design. Or overtly, at least. It was an approach that was as gender neutral as possible, and we want the player to make decisions about how they approach different situations without applying gender roles from our world."

"It's much more interesting than having our standard, gender role-patriarchal society projected into this sci-fi universe."


This game could've been so good. But for these emotionally driven experiences, it's about the player identifying with the main character, to have a desire to explore this world and it's people, to have an emotional bond with the game. But I despise the ideology that is being pushed here, so I can't get lost in this beautiful world. I keep rolling my eyes so hard every time someone is being referred to as "they" and when the identity shit comes up. Which is the main theme of the game and is present in most dialogues.

Maybe I'll come back after some time to skip all the dialogue and try to enjoy exploring the world. But right now I'm a bit pissed that I supported the devs and can't refund it anymore.

images
 
God of War - PC

godofwarscreenshot20v0ki8.jpeg


This is a weird game in some respect. I'll start off with the weird part.

Level Design and World
The world was FULL of secrets to discover, puzzles to solve, treasures to find, paths to unlock. Which was great fun and absolutely addicting. Even in short bursts, there was always something to achieve and to do. Rewards around every corner, imaginative, creative, challenging, really great tbh. Every area was like a new little sandbox with content, which brings me to the weird part. The game has this beautiful and visually coherent world to explore, full of lore, atmosphere and adventure. But it's so extremely gamey with chests literally everywhere. The world and level design make absolutely no sense whatsoever in the context of the game, PACKED with puzzles, ledges and chests. For example, the changing water levels in the main hub area perfectly aligning with docks, perfectly unlocking new areas and paths is ridiculous. Some chests are being blocked by roots that are only around these few chest in the whole area, so you can come back with an unlocked ability later to open it. Like an area where only one chest has these roots around it and the roots being nowhere else to find. They make no sense.

Speaking of not making any sense. Most of the obstacles in your way are lazy and idiotic. Kratos is a god, strong as shit and so on. But man. I won't describe it, I'll show examples:

godofwarscreenshot2014ki3.jpeg

godofwarscreenshot20n9kbu.jpeg


There was even a section where I had to throw boy up to a ledge, then push a big stone thing towards it, so boy could jump from the ledge over to the stone thing, to then jump to another ledge to open something..... But everything had the same height. I could've just thrown boy up the final ledge. It was even so low that Kratos could easily pull himself up there. But nope, game has its own incredibly stupid rules. In general, the game does a terrible job with his powers, it's totally inconsistent.

BUT they still pull it off that the world feels coherent, they make it work somehow. Maybe because of the high quality of the visual design and the sense of progression, it still felt somewhat believable to me while playing it.

You visit most places multiple times, with new abilities to unlock shit. There are even optional worlds with arcade like challenges and trials. Everything is pretty damn atmospheric and well designed. I didn't like the backtracking that much because I don't like getting teased all the time with content that will be unlocked later and having to revisit it every time you get a new ability. Yes, it's not mandatory, but I always push to have the best gear at any time, so that may be partly on me. Even though I didn't like the backtracking, I have to admit that the design of the levels was damn smart, multi layered and interesting.

Gameplay
Thank God for the FoV slider and 80+ fps. Combat and exploration felt claustrophobic in the vanilla version. +25% FoV was the sweet spot for me.
As mentioned above, the exploration aspect was sublime. Smart puzzles, interesting areas and endless stuff to find. Loved it.
Combat was very good, the axe is a fun weapon that feels satisfying to use. The combination with bare handed combat, the BOY bow, magical attacks, blades and the shield was really entertaining. The parry was responsive, felt good. Combat design itself was done right. With the enemy attacks being easy enough to read but fast and varied enough to be challenging.
The Valkyrie fight were a great example of this. All attacks had a certan wind up and good clues, these fights were challenging but never unfair.

But I had some issues with it as well. GoW went in the Assassin's Creed direction with toooooooons of STUFF. There was so much to unlock, upgrade, craft, so many different materials and resources, currencies, so many attacks, abilities, buffs, equipment options etc. Which by itself, yeah it's cool and fun. It motivated me. The possibility of having different builds for different fights provided depth. But halfway through the game, I realized that most of it was just unnecessary filler. Didn't need most of it. Many of the attacks, items, abilities didn't enhance the game but we're just there to be CONTENT. Should've been more streamlined in my opinion, it was too much.

Combat was unnecessarily cluttered as well. Spamming the square button every few seconds for the arrow attacks was tiresome and dumb. Special abilities with individual cool downs:
2x L1+R1 (for two separate weapons)
2x L1+R2 see above
2x L1+Circle see above
Pushing both sticks for Dad Rage
Holding square for BOY special ability

And of course countless attacks and combos to unlock, each again with different tiers, buffs, then runes and pieces of equipment with different effects. It was a lot.

Overall though, gameplay and combat were great and I enjoyed playing it a lot. Very motivating, well designed, deep, responsive, action packed.

Presentation
This is very clearly a last gen game, but made by extremely talented artists and devs.

Pros:
- Overall very good looking!
- Character models looked great.
- Very good and natural animations.
- Faces were able to convey emotions well.
- In general, texture detail was very good.
- Good looking effects, a lot of action of the screen.
- Beautiful environments. So well designed and atmospheric.
- Amazing sound design!

godofwarscreenshot20wkki4.jpeg

godofwarscreenshot20tqkq6.jpeg

godofwarscreenshot20anjyw.jpeg


Cons:
- The vanilla colors were too green/yellowish. Thankfully, I found a reshade that neutralized it. Comparison below.
- Lighting in general was bad in most scenes. Some have been hand crafted and look good, most are just wrong. After some RT titles, the totally unnatural gamey presentation stuck out to me.
- Many objects look floaty, with bad AO, and look way too bright while being in the shadows.
- Effects and particles don't light up the environment. There is a blue magic effect for example that does nothing to the surroundings.
- Bad reflections. Often reflecting colors that just aren't there.
- Basically no physics for particles and effects.
- Overdone DoF. Everything in the distance is blurred.

godofwarscreenshot20v2jss.jpeg

godofwarscreenshot20f3jyg.jpeg

godofwarscreenshot20rijqc.jpeg

ezgif-7-6e49f50db07sktp.gif



Story and Characters
I was surprised by the rather small scale of the story, with Baldur being the main villain here and no active involvement of the other better known gods. But they did a good build up for the next game, especially with Thor, but with Odin as well. I liked the character development of basically all the characters. The little shit wasn't as annoying as I expected. As a father, the story and relationship worked well for me. Well written with interesting turns, enjoyed it a lot! LOVED the setting and the stories from Mimir.

Verdict
Fucking great game. While I have my nit picks and didn't love some aspects of it, they nailed the feeling and minute to minute gameplay. Everything was fun for me. I put a good 60hrs into it.

Strong GOTY contender for this year!
godofwarscreenshot20axkn3.jpeg
 
God of War - PC

godofwarscreenshot20v0ki8.jpeg


This is a weird game in some respect. I'll start off with the weird part.

Level Design and World
The world was FULL of secrets to discover, puzzles to solve, treasures to find, paths to unlock. Which was great fun and absolutely addicting. Even in short bursts, there was always something to achieve and to do. Rewards around every corner, imaginative, creative, challenging, really great tbh. Every area was like a new little sandbox with content, which brings me to the weird part. The game has this beautiful and visually coherent world to explore, full of lore, atmosphere and adventure. But it's so extremely gamey with chests literally everywhere. The world and level design make absolutely no sense whatsoever in the context of the game, PACKED with puzzles, ledges and chests. For example, the changing water levels in the main hub area perfectly aligning with docks, perfectly unlocking new areas and paths is ridiculous. Some chests are being blocked by roots that are only around these few chest in the whole area, so you can come back with an unlocked ability later to open it. Like an area where only one chest has these roots around it and the roots being nowhere else to find. They make no sense.

Speaking of not making any sense. Most of the obstacles in your way are lazy and idiotic. Kratos is a god, strong as shit and so on. But man. I won't describe it, I'll show examples:

godofwarscreenshot2014ki3.jpeg

godofwarscreenshot20n9kbu.jpeg


There was even a section where I had to throw boy up to a ledge, then push a big stone thing towards it, so boy could jump from the ledge over to the stone thing, to then jump to another ledge to open something..... But everything had the same height. I could've just thrown boy up the final ledge. It was even so low that Kratos could easily pull himself up there. But nope, game has its own incredibly stupid rules. In general, the game does a terrible job with his powers, it's totally inconsistent.

BUT they still pull it off that the world feels coherent, they make it work somehow. Maybe because of the high quality of the visual design and the sense of progression, it still felt somewhat believable to me while playing it.

You visit most places multiple times, with new abilities to unlock shit. There are even optional worlds with arcade like challenges and trials. Everything is pretty damn atmospheric and well designed. I didn't like the backtracking that much because I don't like getting teased all the time with content that will be unlocked later and having to revisit it every time you get a new ability. Yes, it's not mandatory, but I always push to have the best gear at any time, so that may be partly on me. Even though I didn't like the backtracking, I have to admit that the design of the levels was damn smart, multi layered and interesting.

Gameplay
Thank God for the FoV slider and 80+ fps. Combat and exploration felt claustrophobic in the vanilla version. +25% FoV was the sweet spot for me.
As mentioned above, the exploration aspect was sublime. Smart puzzles, interesting areas and endless stuff to find. Loved it.
Combat was very good, the axe is a fun weapon that feels satisfying to use. The combination with bare handed combat, the BOY bow, magical attacks, blades and the shield was really entertaining. The parry was responsive, felt good. Combat design itself was done right. With the enemy attacks being easy enough to read but fast and varied enough to be challenging.
The Valkyrie fight were a great example of this. All attacks had a certan wind up and good clues, these fights were challenging but never unfair.

But I had some issues with it as well. GoW went in the Assassin's Creed direction with toooooooons of STUFF. There was so much to unlock, upgrade, craft, so many different materials and resources, currencies, so many attacks, abilities, buffs, equipment options etc. Which by itself, yeah it's cool and fun. It motivated me. The possibility of having different builds for different fights provided depth. But halfway through the game, I realized that most of it was just unnecessary filler. Didn't need most of it. Many of the attacks, items, abilities didn't enhance the game but we're just there to be CONTENT. Should've been more streamlined in my opinion, it was too much.

Combat was unnecessarily cluttered as well. Spamming the square button every few seconds for the arrow attacks was tiresome and dumb. Special abilities with individual cool downs:
2x L1+R1 (for two separate weapons)
2x L1+R2 see above
2x L1+Circle see above
Pushing both sticks for Dad Rage
Holding square for BOY special ability

And of course countless attacks and combos to unlock, each again with different tiers, buffs, then runes and pieces of equipment with different effects. It was a lot.

Overall though, gameplay and combat were great and I enjoyed playing it a lot. Very motivating, well designed, deep, responsive, action packed.

Presentation
This is very clearly a last gen game, but made by extremely talented artists and devs.

Pros:
- Overall very good looking!
- Character models looked great.
- Very good and natural animations.
- Faces were able to convey emotions well.
- In general, texture detail was very good.
- Good looking effects, a lot of action of the screen.
- Beautiful environments. So well designed and atmospheric.
- Amazing sound design!

godofwarscreenshot20wkki4.jpeg

godofwarscreenshot20tqkq6.jpeg

godofwarscreenshot20anjyw.jpeg


Cons:
- The vanilla colors were too green/yellowish. Thankfully, I found a reshade that neutralized it. Comparison below.
- Lighting in general was bad in most scenes. Some have been hand crafted and look good, most are just wrong. After some RT titles, the totally unnatural gamey presentation stuck out to me.
- Many objects look floaty, with bad AO, and look way too bright while being in the shadows.
- Effects and particles don't light up the environment. There is a blue magic effect for example that does nothing to the surroundings.
- Bad reflections. Often reflecting colors that just aren't there.
- Basically no physics for particles and effects.
- Overdone DoF. Everything in the distance is blurred.

godofwarscreenshot20v2jss.jpeg

godofwarscreenshot20f3jyg.jpeg

godofwarscreenshot20rijqc.jpeg

ezgif-7-6e49f50db07sktp.gif



Story and Characters
I was surprised by the rather small scale of the story, with Baldur being the main villain here and no active involvement of the other better known gods. But they did a good build up for the next game, especially with Thor, but with Odin as well. I liked the character development of basically all the characters. The little shit wasn't as annoying as I expected. As a father, the story and relationship worked well for me. Well written with interesting turns, enjoyed it a lot! LOVED the setting and the stories from Mimir.

Verdict
Fucking great game. While I have my nit picks and didn't love some aspects of it, they nailed the feeling and minute to minute gameplay. Everything was fun for me. I put a good 60hrs into it.

Strong GOTY contender for this year!
godofwarscreenshot20axkn3.jpeg
Good review. My only real issues with it were the overabundance of ogre/troll battles and the repetitive kill animations. Could've used more variety in both departments, imo.
 
  • 100%
Reactions: regawdless
Good review. My only real issues with it were the overabundance of ogre/troll battles and the repetitive kill animations. Could've used more variety in both departments, imo.

Oh yeah totally forgot to mention it. Thanks for reminding me! There was a lack of meaningful boss battles in my opinion. At important points in the levels, they just threw ogres or trolls at you. Like, nearly every time.

And you're right with the animations. As with some other games, my gripe is: This game was 60hrs for me. They could've easily cut 20hrs, but made those 40hrs more impactful and special. With more enemy variety, more animations, less bloat, more meaningful progression etc.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Allnamestakenlol
chorus_dsbanner.jpg

- PC

This is an "AA" space game with B-Movie charme. You're the most deadly badass pilot in the galaxy, Nara. With superpowers, weird magic writing on your face AND short hair!!!!!! I like her whispering. By your side, your sentient ship Forsa joins you to kick the shit out of an interstellar cult and their prophet. On your ass kicking journey, you find your inner strength as well as super cool enemy murdering abilities.

Gameplay:
- Slow start. It gets way more fun after getting more abilities and other upgrades.
- There's a handful of areas/systems for you to freely explore. With main missions, side missions and spontaneous encounters.
- The game does a good job of keeping you busy and giving you stuff to explore or side missions on you flights to main objectives.
- Good variety of tasks. Combat, racing, exploring, defending, escorting, simple support activities etc.
- Gameplay is simply fun, with fast and exciting combat, cool environments and much stuff to find.
- The game has a good number of side missions and activities, but not too many, They strike a very good balance in my opinion.
- Some of the smaller mission repeat themselves, like collecting scrap and then a trader appears, always the same dude and the same dialogue.
- There are issues with the way the game communicates what to do next. It's sometimes not clear at all, while mayhem breaks out all around you. I died multiple times because I didn't know what to do - because the game just gave me a short time to do it.
- I did everything and explored a lot, took me 25hrs to beat it.
- You find new abilities, weapons, gear, upgrades etc. to upgrade your ship
- I love how they only have a handful of special loadout sets to collect. With each of them being unique and very different regarding buffs and perks. Your loadout changes your combat style significantly. Very little filler shit. Thanks, devs!
- The economy isn't well balanced. I did all side missions and collected a lot of credits in the world and had WAY more money than I could spend. Like, it made no sense to collect all those hidden credits.
- There are only three ships: Your starting dumbster fire, your main ship Forsa, and a small battleship with crazy firepower that you can control in some missions.

chorusscreenshot2022lljng.jpeg


Story, characters, world:
- Very atmospheric design and world. Really liked it!
- Story is interesting and engaging, but it falls off in the last third because it all goes cliche and cringey hard towards FINDING YOUR INNER STRENGTH OMG DEALING WITH MY PAST WOW I AM WHO I AM NOW!!!!
- Nara is cool for the first half of the game and has her badass moments. Then she starts going into a cringe pathetic self finding frenzy. Still ok overall.
- Your ship Forsa is interesting and the interactions are generally pretty good.
- The rest of the cast is diverse with strong women of color (important) and pretty standard. None stood out for me.

desktopscreenshot202jrku7.jpeg


Presentation:
- Beautiful vistas! Varied environments, very visually appealing.
- The animations and physics of your ship don't make any sense because they have a certain weight and dynamic to them - but feels and looks good man.
- The strong art design makes this game look pretty good in general.
- Nice photo mode, big plus for me! :D
- Weak ass textures and material shaders.
- Weak lighting. Dynamic lighting system with weapons and explosions actually lighting up the environment would be great - but nothing here.
- Artistically nice effects, but rather primitive. No physics, no good particle effects, no volumetric lighting, no reflections etc.
- For their limited resources and rather simple tech - they did a great job!

chorusscreenshot2022hljsu.jpeg


Combat:
- Not that good in the first few hours. But once more abilities unlock and the story progresses - it gets really good.
- Three different weapon categories: Gatling Gun, Laser, Rockets that deal normal damage, damage to shields and damage to armor.
- Different enemy types with different abilities / defenses need individual approaches, which makes the combat a lot of fun.
- There are also bigger battleships that you need to destroy step by step.
- Vastly different loadouts available.
- You have a great set of abilities that give you amazing mobility.

chorusscreenshot2022n8jjz.jpeg


Verdict:
Really enjoyed it! The great combat and the very good art style are the highlights of the game. Playing it is just fun. It has its share of jank, the writing falls off a cliff in the last third, the characters are kinda meh. But if you're searching for some spectacular space action, it's very well worth a try!
 
Last edited:
Elden Ring
PC

Where to start. I could write a book about that game. For me, it's the greatest achievement in gaming history so far. It's incredible.

Game Design
FROM really thought about the Souls formula and improved it in many aspects. They understand so well what makes their games good. What is the one thing that makes the game special and so much better than other open world games?

Everything matters and the more you are willing to put into the game, the more you get rewarded.

There are many different, very fun and smart mechanics and systems. But no skill trees or clear builds. It is totally up to you to find ways and builds to conquer the game. This great freedom is accompanied by many, many items that can be very important. And those items can be anywhere. Literally. Maybe on a corpse, laying around in the middle of the road, or as a reward for defeating a boss in a hidden area. Teleporters, caves, enemies, whole new areas, everything can be anywhere. Whole areas, important NPCs, items etc. can be in the most abstract and hidden places, sometimes you need to go down a lot of tiny little ledges, thinking that this might be not an intended way by the devs - just to find that this was very well intended. I found my favorite skill by defeating an enemy that only appears in one location - only at night. Hidden walls, cryptic riddles, strange items, closed doors - there is so much to discover and thanks to the online functionality, there are many useful hints to help you.

And this is why the difficulty matters so much. The game has to be difficult, for things to matter. You desperately want to find things that make your life easier, give you new abilities, open up new ways to overcome the challenge. It is crazy how many important items there are, how many optional areas, characters, bosses, stories, lore etc. are in the game. You won't find any idiotic fetch quests or unimportant check list side quests.

The world is there for you to explore on your own, with very well designed visual clues, a map that shows you a lot of locations already. It is addicting as hell, because there is so much to explore and find at any time.
Most of the content is actually optional, with hidden areas hidden in hidden areas. Sure, the dungeons and caves do have some recycled elements, but every dungeon has it's own twist and challenge.

Shout out to some of the puzzles btw.

The World
It's unbelievable. Huge, very varied, imaginative, connected, smartly designed, visually stunning, atmospheric, unique. Can't say more about it. The sheer amount of environments is incredible.
My only gripe: Some ridiculous enemy designs that were a bit too "out there" for me. Like fucking jar people for example or those ridiculous Albinauric. I don't like a good number of enemy designs, including the final boss.

Combat
Second best in all SoulsBorneKiros, behind Bloodborne. Very dynamic encounters, cool different enemies, challenging bosses, many different approaches are feasible. I like the increased variety overall, as well as the improved mobility with the dedicated jump button, new special moves, different summons, different weapon arts, consumables, magic, status effects etc. It is a lot and it's fun to find the best play style for you.
Regarding the dificulty - it's the easiest "one of those" by FROM by far. If you use everything at your disposal and put a bit of effort into your build, that is. You have to engage with the different systems and mechanics.

Personally, I like Bloodbornes combat more, because I find the dodge roll kinda dumb, while the dash in Bloodborne was amazing. The focus on an offensive play style was also great. Still, combat in ER is a ton of fun, I dual wield the biggest weapons and use a skill to dash, so it's damn cool.
Note: I didn't engage in PvP at all. So can't comment on that.

Unfortunately, there's some recycling going on with the enemies and bosses. But it's not a big deal for me, because the quantity and quality of the enemies is still amazing.

Story and lore
More pronounced than in previous games of the "series". Very deep, layered and interesting. With a ton of information around every corner. Even the jellyfish summon has a sad backstory lol. It's grand and dark, with very cool NPCs and bosses.
Speaking of NPCs:
Their quest lines are very interesting and imaginative... and very cryptic and easy to miss if you don't invest a lot of time and focus. Even then, some stuff is so strange, that you'll most likely screw it up or don't understand it. Prepare to miss a lot of it or to use the wiki.

Visuals (beware, graphics whore nit pick edition)
It's so epic. Their design is the best. The vistas, the art, the atmosphere, everything blends together so well. Oftentimes, I was standing there, just taking it in. Wow.

That said, it has many technical flaws and can be pretty ugly at times. The unbelievable art and design make the game shine, but the wasted potential here is a bit frustrating. There are some crazy stutters that freeze the action for a second, performance in general isn't great for what's on screen, the game is limited to 60fps max. Textures are very low res on closer inspection, lighting is primitive, no good AO, making everything look flat and floaty, no physics based particles, no magic effects that light up the environment or cast shadows, pop in and LoD transitions, especially on shadows etc.
Thanks to reshade, I was able to improve some of the texture work with better contrasts and infuse some AO.

Some examples:

Vanilla vs reshade infused AO
ezgif-1-fe943d0842cqjo4.gif

ezgif-1-b157d4a41fx8k92.gif


Bad textures:
This is from a cutscene
eldenringscreenshot282ksw.jpeg

desktopscreenshot202dzj5k.jpeg


This is in game
eldenringscreenshot2p4koo.jpeg


Flat lighting, missing AO, shadows, bland looking:
eldenringscreenshot2dyjj5.jpeg


Fucked up reflections:
eldenringscreenshot2l1jx1.jpeg


Look under the sword:


Other open world games do those things way better and the game could look even more epic and impressive. Textures, AO and lighting being the biggest weaknesses here.

That said, then again the game looks like this in places, making my jaw drop and applauding the devs for their incredible art and design:
(note: this is with my reshade, so it looks better than vanilla)

eldenringscreenshot2nlkg4.jpeg

eldenringscreenshot20ojag.jpeg

eldenringscreenshot20pkt5.jpeg


Verdict
GOAT. It grabbed me like no other game in recent history. The only one that came close to this experience was the OG Dark Souls back then. And this game here is so much better. FROM managed to make it significantly more accessible than previous games, while keeping the core experience intact and still having a great balance of challenge/risk/reward. The whole package is masterful. And there is an insane amount of content, without anything feeling like dumb filler content. They made it all matter and unique. There are so many high quality ideas and concepts, I've never experienced a game like this.

Technical issues and significant short comings are there, but the design is so good that it still makes the game shine. It looks very impressive more often than not.

After finishing it, I don't have any desire to play anything else because it all feels so..... trivial and without any importance.

This game is so, so special. I have no idea how they want to continue after this. They could all retire and go down in history as the greatest dev ever in my book.
 
Last edited:
@regawdless bang on. Absolute fucking GOAT. I'll write down some more detailed thoughts when I'm further in but no other game has grabbed me by the balls like this for sheer gameplay mechanics. Kingdom Come Deliverance got close but that was also about the story and characters, but for pure fucking gameplay, ER is the fucking GOAT. Can't wait to dive into the rest of the From catalog once I'm done.
 
Nioh 2 - PC

After putting a huge amount of hours into Else Ring, I jumped into the next one of those. Loved Nioh 1 for the most part, so I had high hopes for the sequel!

Combat
- Best combat system ever. Hard as fuck, fast, deep, customizable, satisfying. It's the star of the show.
- You have different weapons, each with three stances and individual skills for those stances.
- Experimenting is a lot of fun and the weapons feel good.
- So much to unlock and play around with. Status effects, special attributes from your equipment, different yokai spirits, soul cores, ninja skills, magic skills etc. it's insane - but rewarding.
- There's a big amount of repetition regarding the enemies - which isn't as bad as it sounds, because it's necessary to learn their movesets and to improve your skill. Enemies that posed a big challenge at first will get laughably easy, simply by you getting better at the game. Still, some more variety would've been nice.
- I mostly played with the dual swords in low stance, quickly slashing along with status effects.
- If you are careless, even smaller enemies can very quickly kill you with one combo - at least in my case, because I went with light armor and mobility.
- You can summon mimics from other players and also fight mimics of players that died in the levels.

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Gameplay
- The combat IS the game.
- Tons of loot you have to check, which can get annoying.
- In general, there's just... A LOT OF STUFF. Way too much mechanics and things to improve. It's system on system on system, unlocking stuff everywhere.
- You'll spend a good amount of time in menus.
- It's fun because the game is so hard that you need every advantage you can get, and the deeper you dive, the more rewards you get.
- It can also be kinda tiring.
- Everything is combat oriented and most side missions are just "All right, just fight!" I quickly stopped reading what all those missions were even about.
- Widely inconsistent design, quality wise. Some bosses and parts are fun, some neat ideas in here, and then a lot of absolutely horrible stuff.

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Level Design
- Competent but kinda boring for the most part, and fugly. No real highlights.
- At least they often provide interesting encounters and offer different routes, things to discover, with good verticality and different levels.
- You can unlock shortcuts, but most of the time, they make no sense and it's the same stuff again and again. It feels like they felt the need to copy the Souls games in this regard, but did it poorly and without the game actually needing it.
- The level recycling is insane. I'm traumatized by that dumb forrest level. You play it over and over and over again.
- Main missions are unique, all the side missions are just recycled and slightly changed main mission levels.
- Totally idiotic limitations. Your crazy ass demon slaying super power ninja can't overcome a small fence.
Examples:
Nope, you can't reach that!

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Getting over this fence? Impossibru!
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Presentation
- Pretty fucking terrible.
- Low res textures, bad effects, low quality geomentry.
- The most insane pop in and LoD transitions I've ever seen in any game. Absolutely distracting and unacceptable.
- Generally bland and boring.
- Enemy designs are pretty good in many cases, but the environments totally suck monkey balls.
- Some cool looking weapons and armors.


World and Story
- Mostly, I couldn't remember who did what and who was on which side.
- Like three interesting characters, the rest is totally forgettable.
- The story is about some stupid magic stones and Japanese politics who give a shit.
- Nobody gives a shit, it's bad.

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Verdict:
FUGLY visuals, boring design, a "story", mostly forgettable characters - and I still played it for over 100h. Because the combat is that good and I felt motivated to unlock stuff to get better and better. Pretty addicting loop. Coming from Elden Ring though, it was a pretty baffling experience in many aspects because ER isn't even in the same universe as Nioh 2 - outside of the combat.

I didn't finish it, am very close to the end though but stopped playing because I got tired of it. The game is crazy anti-climactic and badly paced towards the end.
 
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Just about wrapped with The Darkness. I was playing on rpcs3 but it was crashing too much so i'm finishing on Series X.

The Darkness -

I loved walking through the streets of NYC with the grafiti-filled subways. They nailed the atmosphere and Kirk M. Acevedo's New York tough guy accent and Mike Patton's darkness/demon voice is some of the best in voice performances. Not everything is rosy as the WW1 levels haven't aged well. Those levels looked bland and it was easy to get lost if you venture off the path. And while The Darkness weapons were cool some of them made Jackie OP.

Overall the positives outweight the negatives and i think it's worth a look if you're into that era of video games. Fear 1, Condemned 1, Prey. etc.