Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

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Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (PS5)

Gameplay (Exploration):

• Like it's predecessor, you'll be traversing multiple planets "Metroidvania" style, as they largely comprise of labyrinthine corridors that you'll be able to more thoroughly explore as you progress through the game unlocking new upgrades (both Force powers for Cal, and tech upgrades for your little Droid companion BD-1). Interestingly, you actually start out with most of the upgrades you obtained in the first game (like the double jump), and success requires you to master a new set of upgrades on top of them (such as a grappling hook you obtain early on).
  
• While it doesn't really offer a greater number of planets to explore than Fallen Order, the rotation here is all new, with the game largely centering around Koboh, a planet with an absolutely gargantuan map. While it still has a crapton of labyrinthine places to spelunk, it's noted for an open world-ish area surrounding "Rambler's Reach", a small settlement that has some light town building elements weaved into it (you'll run across people you can invite to live there, who'll open up shops or otherwise renovate buildings, allowing you to nab the chest or what have you stored within). Honestly, first exploring Koboh's open-ish area is a bit of a chore because there's still a bit of the "Metroidvania" puzzlish element of figuring out exactly how to get to where you want to go (which runs kinda counter to the entire idea of an open area, IMO), but once you start unlocking shortcuts and save spots (which act as fast travel points) it becomes much more bearable. Of course, the formula works fantastically once you're in one of the more labyrinthine environments that it was designed around (and make no mistake, most of the game is still designed this way).
  
• Of course, there are lots of things to collect hidden behind platforming or combat challenges & puzzles. The most elusive of these are the max number of Stim Canisters you can carry (healing items, they refill whenever you rest at a save spot), followed by Perks/Perk Slots (equips which grant passive buffs), Force Crystals (rotate between increasing your max health, max Force meter, or just give you a ton of EXP. There seem to be much more of these than you'd ever need to max out your health & Force, 'cause after awhile I'd only ever get EXP dumps from them). There are also Chests (which hold cosmetics, and you can customize everything from Cal, to BD, your Lightsaber, & Blaster) & a bunch of different knick knacks you can trade in at the various shops that open up. Most of these are again cosmetics, but you can get one Stim Canister & a few Perks this way as well). Oh, and if you see a plant swarmed by lightning bugs cut it, as you'll obtain seeds which can be planted in a garden in town.
• Lastly you have Force Echoes (Cal can sort of feel the past of an object/location) & Scans (BD-1 can well, scan stuff) everywhere as well. These are primarily lore dumps which are tucked away in the menus, but each one also nets you a tiny bit of EXP. Force Echoes are easy to spot as they appear as a bluish haze, while BD will beep and jump off you if there's a Scan (or something else he can interact with) nearby, so keep an eye on his actions.

Gameplay (Combat/Growth):

• In order to dispatch foes you'll need to master 5 different Lightsaber stances (in comparison to the 2 of the first game). You actually start out with 3 stances at the start of the game (Single Blade is the jack of all trades, Dual Blade for large groups, and new Dual Wield trades defence for superior offense. You'll also obtain Blaster, which is useful at a distance & Crossguard, which mods your Lightsaber to look like Kylo Ren's and has a slow but very powerful strikes). While enemy types can be more resistant to some styles over others, I mostly stuck with Blaster & Crossguard once I unlocked them & didn't have much of an issue (Oddly, you can only swap between two different styles on the fly, and have to switch out what those are at save spots).
• Luckily you also have a bunch of Force abilities to make use of which might be able to get you out of a pinch if your preferred Lightsaber stance finds you in a tight spot. You can shove foes (sometimes small groups) off the edge of the map, pull & throw objects (and some enemies) at foes, and can even temporarily confuse organic enemies into fighting alongside you, amongst some other tricks (not Force related, but you can also have BD reprogram enemy Droids to fight alongside you. This isn't temporary like confusion on organic life, however it's harder to pull off, and the ability to hack each different Droid type is it's own separate upgrade, some of which can only be unlocked in optional areas). Your biggest ace in the hole is the ability to temporarily slow down everything around you, allowing you the chance to get out of a tight scrape (this ability gets an upgrade late in the game, but to say more would be a spoiler).
• Of course, there are also Skill Trees aplenty in order to increase your repertoire & effectiveness of attacks/powers. They're individually not very large, but you have a Skill Tree for each of your 5 different Lightsaber stances, 3 different Force categories, and 1 Survival category for abilities that don't fall in the others (such as a couple health upgrades). Don't hoard your skill points. Outside of a few options that cost 3 points, most everything is either only 1 or 2 points & if you die you lose your unspent experience & have to defeat the enemy that killed you in order to get it back (unless it was a boss, at which point you just have to walk over the spot where you died).
• In addition to the Skill Trees, you have the aforementioned Perks, which are equips that grant you passive buffs (such as increased damage to an opponent's block meter).
  
• At some pre-determined points you'll be joined by Nightsister Merrin (the "Force Whicraft" user from the first game) or Bode Akuna (a jetpack clad gunslinger) as AI helpers (not unlike Atreus & Freya from the modern GOW games. You don't have to worry about kitting them out & they don't have their own skill trees though). They'll fight by your side and sometimes can be instructed to attack enemies or help you with an environmental puzzle. They'll only ever stay within the bounds of the area they're supposed to help you though, so you'll have to spelunk optional areas by yourself.
• In terms of optional combat/challenges, you'll run optional bosses (some of which are labelled as "Legendary Enemies") which grant you with a ton of EXP once defeated (I didn't have much trouble with these outside of a giant frog that took me forever to beat because it has a OHKO move), as well as Rift Challenges that also grant you a ton of EXP (these will take you to a broken reality, where you'll either have to take on waves of enemies under a certain condition, such as using a specific stance, or are balls to the wall hard platforming challenges that require you to master a medley of your traversal abilities). I think the only Rift Challenge I noped out on was one that wanted me to fight TWO of the aforementioned frog at the same time.

Graphics/Performance:

• I'll get things out of the way and say this can absolutely be a rough experience, and across my 40+ hour playtime I had about 10 crashes (not enough to be debilitating, but enough to be an issue to worry about). First time it happened was while taking a screenshot of all things at the beginning (though this was pre-patch), while all the other times were during times where it had to load up a lot of environmental data at once. Fast travel or riding an elevator were the main culprits, but once I even got a crash after returning to the main map after completing one of the platforming Rift Challenges (it took me at least 20 tries to clear & of course it went unrecorded due to the crash so I had to do it again. I was livid, lol). Also got a few random glitches that kept me from progressing until going back to the main menu & reloading. One was right after you learn to lift & slam objects with the Force, and for whatever reason it wouldn't let me to slam down the platform I needed to in order to progress (though it'd let me do it to other near by objects/platforms). Another time it wouldn't go into "BD Mode" when I needed to (where you can do stuff like use the little guy like binoculars & use some of his puzzle solving abilities). Lastly, there was a time when it wouldn't let me charge up my Blaster shots (this wasn't necessary to progress, but annoying nonetheless).
• Otherwise it was minor stuff like asset/texture pop in (especially when fast traveling or otherwise loading an area), though it wasn't nearly as bad as Fallen Order on PS4 in that respect, and a few framerate issues. Most prominently being near the river at the side of town would cause it to tank, but this was fixed in an early patch. Otherwise I only noticed drops if I was standing directly under a waterfall or during certain cutscenes (and one brief absolute tankage during a segment when a character sets off an explosion in order to distract enemy forces). For reference, I played on graphics mode.
• Otherwise it's obviously a game with AAA production values, with some absolutely beautiful scenery at times, whether you're traversing a verdant forest, desert ruins, foggy mountain pass, military instillations, & more. I'm generally not a fan of the western AAA industry's insistence on making their (human) characters a near 1 to 1 scan of their mocap actors though. I'm of the opinion that, male or female, it's kinda an uncanny & ugly approach all around (and emblematic of their desire to be seen as Hollywood adjacent, "look, gaming's all grown up & we have honest to goodness actors"). IDK, this is gonna sound terrible, but Bode had these little dark specs all over his face that I found to be distracting, lol (that I can't help but think probably would have been covered up with makeup if he was actually in a movie/TV show).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Story:

• Looking for a place to lie low after helping the resistance irritate the Empire in the few intervening years since the last game, Cal ends up on Koboh, a world on the Outer Rim of the Galaxy without much Imperial presence where Greeze (the little four armed alien pilot from the first game) has set up a Saloon. It's not all peaceful though, as a criminal syndicate known as the Bedlam Raiders rules the planet with an iron grip thanks to raiding the military supplies of a crashed Clone Wars era battleship (and repairing the droid army it housed). Soon it's learned that Koboh might hold the answers to finding a route to a nigh impossible to reach planet (a perfect place to hide from the Empire), but it's a race as the Bedlam Raiders want to find it for their own purposes & of course the growing threat of the Empire ever looms in the distance.
• It's not as thrill a minute as Fallen Order (and I'm probably in the minority when I say I preferred the former game's brisker runtime), but it definitely has it's moments. It wasn't that bloated either, despite being longer (I completed every world at 100% other than Koboh & Jedha, and even those are at over 97%, so I did most notable content, optional included & still only hit about 45 hours). Back to the main story though, & THAT moment on Jedha (you'll know what I'm talking about if you've played it) was absolutely exhilarating and the game never quite reaches those heights again (I almost don't know what they were thinking, there's no way the final boss could have ever lived up to what came before, lol).
• I also liked checking in on the residents of Rambler's Reach (most of which congregate inside of Greeze's "Pyloon Saloon") from time to time as you can hear more of their backstories as you progress & revitalize the town. Sometimes they'll give you "Rumors" to check out as well (these are sort of like side quests, but you don't need to speak to anyone to access them, they're just a helpful reminder that "hey, you can check out this area you couldn't before" from the game. Cal will usually even have a different response if you've already checked things out by the time someone gives you the rumor). By far the best side character is Skoova Stev though, a crusty old little alien fisherman who you'll often find by bodies of water who'll nab new fish for the Saloon's fish tank if you talk to him when you see him (plus get more of his wild fish tale backstory). Unfortunately his tale is left unfinished as I never figured out where the last fish is.

Conclusion:

• It still has some technical issues to work out (if they'll ever be fully rectified I don't know), but otherwise it's a worthy followup to the previous game with a lot of nods that'll please long standing fans of the franchise.
  

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Redfall (Series X) - Impressions

I just finished Redfall after roughly 18 hours of playtime. It was overall a fairly enjoyable experience, but there definitely were aspects that brought down the experience by a lot. The reviews have mostly focused on the technical issues the game had at launch. But if you play the game today, you won't notice many issues like that. During my entire playthrough, I had some consistent issues like not being able to set a waypoint by clicking once but instead twice, the amount of ammo shown was constantly off and frames would drop whenever I'd kill a special type of enemy to just name a few. I also had a few crashes. But throughout the 18 hours I played, I didn't encounter any major technical issues. In fact, that aspect isn't even the primary issue with the game. There are more major flaws with the game, which are:

• The gameplay loop is repetitive and limited
• The progression system is poor and unrewarding
• The game is relentless in terms of difficulty with no noticeable changes if you lower it

So I'd like to go through these three points one by one. For starters, the gameplay loop is really repetitive. Granted, they do a good job of introducing a lot of new stuff in the beginning. You start off with your standard handgun, then find your typical weapons like assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles and even flare guns. Then the game introduces two unique weapon types, which are stake guns and UV beams. The former is effective against the vampires in the game, while the latter is mostly used for killing the stationary enemies that spew a red poison mist across certain areas. The problem is that these weapons are introduced immediately and you don't unlock any new weapons for the remainder of your playthrough.

Moreover, you can only hold and switch between three weapons at once. I mostly used a shotgun, assault rifle and sniper rifle throughout the game. But I wanted to use the stake guns and UV beams fairly often as well. So I had to constantly go into the menu and switch out my loadout, which was such a pain. Considering the developer wanted to copy Far Cry, they completely omitted the series' weapon wheel.

It's the same issue with the enemy variety: the majority of the enemy types are introduced way too soon. They should've spread them out a bit more throughout the playthrough to make things more interesting. But yes, there are plenty of different enemies. They just become uninteresting to face off against during the second half of the game.

Moving on to the progression system, it's absolutely the worst I've seen in a game in a long time. There is a skill tree but you can't even collect enough skill points to unlock most of the stuff by playing through the game naturally. Furthermore, the stuff you do unlock don't even feel that rewarding. It doesn't feel like my character has been improved at all whenever I unlock something new.

Consequently, the abilities themselves are so unsatisfying to use. You have four characters with different skills and mine has an umbrella that acts like a shield that then explodes when it disappears, a "psychic lift" that propels you upwards and her special ability lets her call her ex-boyfriend to come in and do some damage. The umbrella is fine, but the other two feel so useless and unsatisfying. I mean, I want my abilities to pack a punch. But in my case two of my three abilities aren't even (direct) attacks and the third feels very weak to use.

This brings me to my last point, which is the difficulty level. I started on Normal and it felt pretty good at first but then I started dying over and over again. So I lowered the difficulty to Easy and there weren't any noticeable changes at all. The enemies were just as relentless as before. I probably died 40-50 times during my 18 hour playthrough. I died more in this game than I did in Returnal, which is known to be a difficult game!

So what's the issue with the difficulty? Well, the enemies deal way too much damage. On top of this, you can easily find yourself surrounded by enemies that will absolutely wreck you. Even if you upgrade your health, you can easily die in just a couple of seconds if you're unlucky. The difficulty level is just very unbalanced and for a game like this that's supposed to be fun and a good time, it completely ruins the experience.

There are so many other issues with the game, such as a bad checkpoint system and a bad waypoint system to name some more.

There are some good aspects of this game obviously, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered playing it to the end. Even if the gameplay loop is repetitive, it's still a relatively fun looter shooter and unique gameplay mechanics like needing to use a stake in order to finish off a vampire (which is the only way to kill them) makes the gameplay more varied. The story is pretty good as well. Even if the game doesn't have cutscenes where characters move, the narrative is rather captivating and there's a lot of backstory to the characters. Not to mention that there's plenty of lore to read, in a typical Arkane fashion.

So to summarise, the technical issues that Redfall is infamous for is the furthest from its problems. Repetitive gameplay loop, unrewarding progression system and relentless difficulty level brings down the experience a lot. There's still some fun to be had here, but if you're looking for an open world shooter, you'd do better with many other titles, including Far Cry. If I had to give the game a score, which I rarely do but in this case I want to just so that I can convert my thoughts into a numeric value, I'd give it a 5/10.

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Final Fantasy XVI (PS5)

I began playing Final Fantasy back in 2016 when my interest for JRPGs started blooming. I decided to play through the games in order and since then, I've played through the first seven Final Fantasy games. At first the games felt like your bog-standard JRPGs but when I arrived at Final Fantasy IV, I began to understand why this series is so special. It's the world, the feeling of being immersed in a fantasy universe where anything's possible. This is what defines Final Fantasy, at least to me.

Unfortunately, my interest for the series started dwindling after Final Fantasy IV. I was no longer playing the games back-to-back but with a year, sometimes longer, in between each game. The series was getting progressively better but I was still not a huge fan of the franchise. Not even Final Fantasy VII, arguably the most significant title in the series, managed to sway me.

Then Final Fantasy XVI came along and I decided to break my approach of playing through the entries in order. It looked so promising and I've been dying to play something new on my recently acquired PS5. So I just had to get it.

It took me roughly two weeks and 70 hours of playtime until I beat the game. I rarely play a single game that much in such a short period these days. I get so easily burned out otherwise. But FFXVI managed to captivate me from beginning to end and that's thanks to its engaging plot as well as intense combat.

I won't get into details regarding the story as that would be too much to cover. But in short, the game takes place on a continent with a multitude of kingdoms that seek to conquer. You play as a prince who is out for revenge for what another kingdom has done to yours. It sounds like your standard medieval storyline but what makes the plot so engaging is the integration of Final Fantasy lore along with a high level of world-building.

With prior experience of the series, I'm aware of the so called "summons", i.e. mythological creatures you summon to aid you in battles. However, this is the first time I've seen them actually integrated into the story of a Final Fantasy title. This is what makes the game so spectacular and engaging, it's absolutely thrilling watching these massive beings duke it out. It's like a dream come true for a Final Fantasy fan. Watching Titan fight Shiva or Bahamut fight Odin is so awe-inspiring. And it's not like these battles are few. There are tons of them, including ones you partake in. It's one of the reasons why this is the most "Final Fantasy" game I've ever played. It doesn't get more Final Fantasy than this, because this is iconic stuff the series is known for.

Naturally, the game also has many other aspects that makes it a "Final Fantasy experience". For instance, crystals play a huge part in the plot. People are in need of them in order to survive. Fire, water, they cannot live without the crystals providing these elements to them. I found this part of the lore very interesting because it paints the inhabitants of this world as heavily reliant on a finite fuel. Sounds familiar? That's because you can draw the same comparison to our world and our need for fossil fuel. Just like it, the crystals are destroying the environment the more they are used. Which is why the protagonist and his gang seek out to destroy them so that people can become free.

That's one of the themes of this game: freedom. Freedom from materials, freedom from having your fate be predetermined but also freedom in a more grounded way: freedom from slavery. In this universe, some humans are born with the ability to cast magic. These people are shunned and regarded as lowly individuals to be used as slaves. The history behind this is that humans were afraid of people having more power than them. So after years of war between magic-users and humans, the former lost and all kingdoms agreed that all people born with magic abilities henceforth would become slaves. They are only seen as tools, nothing more. The more magic they use, the more they're killing themselves. After having used up so much magic, they'll eventually become petrified and disposed of.

It's a heavy theme, which is the case with a lot of things in this game. It's a more dark and mature Final Fantasy game than we're used to seeing. Killings, profanities, nudity, it's all here. But all those things pave way for a more realistic experience because that's how our world is. It makes this entry more refreshing and interesting than previous ones. In spite of this, the game never loses its focus of being first and foremost a Final Fantasy experience.

I briefly touched upon the world-building aspect but do know that there's much more you can learn about this world and the game does a fantastic job of providing information about it. For instance, you can pause cutscenes and read about the characters or areas in those specific cutscenes. In other words, if you see a character on the screen, you can pause the cutscene and read more about them. You don't need sit in a menu and spend hours reading. You can just read from time to time. I absolutely adored this more streamlined approach to lore reading, especially when considering that the game doesn't explain most of the stuff during the story. But that's for the better in my opinion as that would've only ruined the pacing.

Speaking of the pacing, I found it to be very good and refreshing. First of all, the story goes full-throttle with epic story moments right from the start and continues like this for ten hours. Then the game introduces a lot of side activities, which are negligible if you only want to focus on the story. I did all the side quests and felt a bit overpowered by the end, so it shouldn't be any issues to go through the game without doing much of the side content. Regardless, the epic story moments don't let up even after the first ten hours. In fact, they keep getting better and better, which is absolutely incredible. However, this can lead to some fatigue from all the action and that's where doing side quests in order to relax is a good idea.

The part about the pacing that I found refreshing is the strong start. Naturally, it's not uncommon for games to have strong starts. But for it to go on for around ten hours is very impressive and something I haven't seen in many titles. I think it's great that a game respects your time and gives you a phenomenal experience right from the beginning because it helps draw you in and keeps you hooked. I can't think of no better time than the start of a game where it should put in the effort to keep you engaged. If the game manages to grab you from the start, then you're more likely to keep playing it. After all, I don't want to sit through hours of story expositions and side quests at the start of a game. I want to potentially do that once I'm invested in the game and want to experience more of its world. That's why I find the pacing of Final Fantasy XVI to be great and suitable to me.

Another thing that contributes to the game's pacing is the linearity of the levels. There are minor distractions along the way and the levels themselves are short. Long gone are dungeons that take hours to get through. You can get through most levels and arrive at the boss after maybe 15-20 minutes. Like I said, the game respects your time. That's not to say though that all levels are like this. One thing I like about the game is that all areas of a kingdom are on the same map. You just don't get access to everything the first time you visit it. But there are most certainly vast open areas with branching paths if you want to explore. The primary reason to do so is to find the so called "hunts" in this game, which are mini-bosses you battle against in order to gain great rewards. You can also find some good gear if you go off the beaten path.

While it's not the most explorative game, it's still on par with previous Final Fantasy games. The older entries were just as linear as this game, they just gave off the illusion that you were exploring an open world when you were on the world map. But you were still following a set path each time, with very little exploration on the side. This structure is honestly for the best because it lets the developers focus on more important aspects, such as the story, the characters, the quests and so on. I prefer a more focused approach like this instead of constant distractions.

Just like with the level design, I adore the simplicity of the combat system in this game. After all, Final Fantasy has never been about complex battle systems. In the older titles, you just picked either "Attack", "Magic", "Items" or "Flee". It's simple and it works. Even though the combat is simple, there is a level of depth to it. You have some combos you can perform as well as abilities that you gain throughout the story. You can have up to six different abilities available at a given time and each set also has its own special move, such as teleporting to the enemy or grabbing them towards you. You can upgrade your abilities and you can also "master" an ability, which lets you assign it to a different set. In other words, there's a good amount of flexibility in terms of customising your abilities.

The combat gets more in-depth as there's also precision dodges, parries and stagger. You can stagger an enemy halfway through and all the way. Different abilities have different stats in terms of actual damage and stagger damage. So some are more useful for inflicting a lot of damage, while others are better for staggering enemies. Figuring out what works best for you is a lot of fun and I'd always look forward to acquiring my next set of abilities. In short, I absolutely loved the combat and it's one of the reasons why I'd always search for enemies to fight. It's just too much fun.

The game isn't that difficult even if you play on action-focused. The difficulty is actually just about right, even if you do improve your character outside of the main story. You'll receive plenty of potions throughout the story levels and if you lose, you'll get to retry with more potions in your inventory. The point is that you won't have your experience ruined by challenging moments. The game wants you to have a good time and you will. If you're still looking for more challenge, there's always the aforementioned hunts as well as new game plus.

I can't forget to mention the side quests in this game. They start off very simple, e.g. collect flowers and deliver them to the recipient. But they eventually become more involving and plot-heavy, especially the ones that focus on key characters. Unfortunately, these ones aren't differentiated from the rest of the side quests. Regardless, I found myself absolutely enthralled by most of the side quests in this game. One aspect of them that I really like is that you're constantly revisiting previous areas and the people there. It's not like you're just passing through these places once, you'll actually go back and spend a lot of time with these characters. Getting to know them, their history, their struggles, it's just so well done. This is something you'll do with the main cast as well, so there's plenty of side content for getting to know the characters in this game, which are all so well-written.

There are also quests where you'll get very useful rewards, such as more slots to carry potions and even a chocobo to use in the world. You'll also get recipes for the best weapons in the game from some of these quests. So overall, I found the side quests to be well worth my time.

Before I round off, I have to mention just how phenomenal the soundtrack is. The tracks in this game truly elevate the experience to much greater heights. If the story moments alone weren't epic enough, they become even more epic from the music. Just to give you an example of this, I'd like to show one of my favourite fights in this game along with the track that plays during it (caution: spoilers, don't look at the video if you don't want anything spoiled at all).

Absolutely incredible stuff! And there's more where that came from.

In conclusion, Final Fantasy XVI is an absolute masterpiece. I haven't been this invested in a game in a very long time. The story is engaging and epic, the characters are memorable, the combat is fast-paced and intense, and the soundtrack is absolutely exceptional. It's not often we get a game of this caliber. The last ones that I've played that are similar to FFXVI are God of War (2018) and NieR: Automata. If you like games like these, you'll absolutely love Final Fantasy XVI, regardless if you're a Final Fantasy fan or not. This is just an incredible game all on its own and should not be missed out.